SGC, Earth.
"Ok, now please…work."
Bzzzttt.
"Ouch! Curiosistas ac ad inventio!"
"Harry?" said Sam in confusion as she stood at the door to their lab. It was early morning and her scientific colleague was on his knees and had most of himself under one of the desks fiddling with something beyond her sight. Her eyes seemed to automatically drift to the rather shapely and straining buttocks encased in the semi-fluidic suit he was wearing. She blinked and hurriedly focused on something else as he crawled out and stood up to face her.
"Good morning, Sam," said Harry, brushing a lock of thick black hair out of his eyes. "You're here rather early."
"Yeah," she nodded, "got a call three hours ago that woke me up. I think we have an emergency situation developing and I have to prepare briefing materials on it."
"I will restrain my curiosity until then," said Harry absently.
"How's the family?"
"Apollonia sends her regards, she and Aiyana are doing the female bonding thing and the twins are wondering when their Aunty Sammy is going to visit again," said Harry, a fond smile growing on his face as he thought about them.
"They can speak properly already?" said Sam in astonishment. "They're barely over fifteen months old."
"They're Alterans," said Harry as if that should've explained everything. "Their pronunciation is atrocious and vocab limited, but we can also communicate through shared feelings and thoughts as well."
Sam shook her head in bemusement and changed the subject, "What's the problem?" she gestured to where he had been kneeling.
"Oh, I've finally finished the prototype quantum computer – got it hooked up to the plasma and keyboard here," he gestured to the desk, "but there are some voltage issues for the internal components that have to be fine tuned, I had to jury rig it to work." He tapped a button on the keyboard and instantly the plasma lit up and showed the main graphic interface for the custom Linux OS that had been developed for the Prometheus.
"Wow," said Sam, her mouth curving into an excited smile. "What boot up time was that? I mean I could hardly see the BIOS or any components being enabled."
"The bootup time registers in the nanoseconds, 0.6 nanoseconds to be precise," he said with a grin.
"Amazing," said Sam, walking over to the quantum computer and after a moment's consideration began typing, "let's see how fast we can compute a hyperspace course for a starship like Prometheus…normally it would take six seconds, and that's using multiple networked computers." Her hands finished typing, the navigation program was up and she pressed the enter button. Her jaw dropped. "Three point two seconds! And that's only using a single computer!"
"Cool, isn't it?" said Harry with a manic grin. "I must say we have to get the guy who thought this up and make sure he gets the Nobel Prize or something."
"Absolutely," said Sam, "this will totally revolutionize everything we do in the Starship program, even the SGC. I mean with computing speeds like this…the defense and scientific applications are incalculable. We could overcome the obstacles we've had in designing an Interceptor system and run accurate simulations of astrophysical phenomena within hours instead of weeks, and it can be done aboard ship, without having to wait to send tons of data back to the supercomputers on Earth."
"Well then, why I don't I arrange for this thing's trip to Area 51 and you can get started on that briefing…."
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SGC Briefing Room 1, Earth
On the wallscreen was a large blown up picture showing a photo of a balding middle-aged man, dressed as an almost stereotypical academic…tweed, elbow pads, glasses. Sam walked around handing out her prepared briefing folders to General Hammond, SG1 and Harry.
"His name is Doctor Richard Flemming. He's a biologist, formerly a professor of advanced genetics at Stanford."
"Sure. He's famous for developing hybrid strains of disease resistant corn and cotton..." said Jonas. Everyone besides Harry looked at him in curiosity at how he could know this. "I read an article about him in the American Journal for Evolutionary Science..." He went further as their looks continued, Jack was especially potent in his stare, "The base library has a subscription..."
"Anyway, this morning I got a call from him…he sounded extremely weak over the phone…he gave me the impression that he thought he was dying and he knew all about the 'Big Picture' so to speak, even though he's most assuredly not amongst the civilian scientists on the Disclosure list," said Sam darkly.
"So we've got a security breach," concluded Jack.
"Not only that," said Sam, "Flemming works for a company called Immunitech Research, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zetatron Industries, the owner of which is a Adrian Conrad." She changed the wallscreen to show a picture of the man in question. "Flemming mentioned when he called me that 'Conrad knows' as well. Now Zetatron was contracted to develop a number of advanced technologies that Area 51 slated for release into the public market. Conrad himself was suffering from a debilitating immune disorder, which would've killed him by now, but an immune booster drug developed out of Area 51 has kept him alive."
"You think Conrad may have put two and two together about the actual origins of the technologies?" said Harry with a raised eyebrow.
"It's possible," admitted Sam. "But I think there's a lot more going on here that we can't see, Flemming mentioned that the project he was working on had gone out of control…"
They were interrupted when Walter rushed up the spiral staircase from the control room, "General, there's a situation developing that I think you need to be aware of…"
"What is it, Walter?" demanded Hammond.
"Reports are coming in that an entire town of people just inexplicably dropped dead," said Walter, thumbing the remote control and changing it to a news feed, which showed an overhead helicopter camera view of bodies in the streets lying sprawled in various poses. "The Army and CDC are mobilizing as fast as they can to seal the town off."
"Sir, we have to go there," said Sam, her face completely white.
"Why? We don't have jurisdiction in something like this."
"Sir, Dr Flemming and Immunitech Research are located in Steveston, Oregon," she said pointing to the wallscreen where the news report showed clearly the identity of the town where everyone had just died.
Hammond's eyes widened. "Ambassador, get the MEV ready, get Dr Frasier to come with, SG1 you have a go, I'll speak to the President. Get moving!"
The MEV rose invisibly out of Cheyenne Moutain and blasted off into the distance, leaving a sonic boom in its wake.
"Easy, easy," winced Jack from the co-pilots chair, his hands also on the control surfaces, "we don't have to go supersonic. We've probably just startled half of Colorado Springs."
"I have a bad feeling about this," grumbled Harry darkly.
"An entire town is dead," said Jack evenly, "of course it will give you a bad feeling."
"Its more that I'm worried about the causes behind it and time is of essence if we want to get the truth."
"How long till we get there?" asked Sam from the seat behind Harry.
"Current speed is Mach 3, we'll get there in seventeen minutes."
"Why are you worried about not getting there in time?" asked Jonas curiously, from the seat behind Jack.
"I didn't have time to check," explained Harry, "but I'm pretty sure I remember from the NID database that Conrad had unofficial ties to them."
"Oh no," groaned Jack. "I thought we had them over a barrel with that database."
"It seems they are trying to slip their leash," said Harry dryly. "If we don't get there before them, all the evidence is going to disappear."
"A town full of dead people isn't going anywhere," pointed out Jonas. Harry merely stared with wide eyes at the Kelownan.
"Jack explain to Jonas the last resort option if any contaminant or disease goes unchecked in small population such as this town," said Harry darkly.
"A three thousand pound Fuel Air Bomb is dropped in the center of the contaminated area, basically wiping out the entire town, the disease or contaminant and any evidence that goes with it," said Jack blandly. Jonas blanched.
"And if it really is the NID behind this, you can bet they will be pushing for that option," said Sam. "If they don't get it, who knows what they will do."
"Ambassador, you can't believe that they would do something intentionally that caused the deaths of an entire town full of people?" said Janet in horror from the rear compartment.
"I don't know," said Harry with a shrug, "do you think they would take their 'by any necessary means' approach that far?"
No one really had an answer to that. Fifteen minutes passed and soon they could see the coastal town of Steveston, Oregon slowly creeping toward them through the forward viewer, as the nearby scenery streaked past in a blur.
"Scanning the town," said Harry, and a holographic overlay appeared to show a wide area overhead view. "No human lifesigns…except for the National Guard and Army units at the far outskirts. Scanners are also picking up no airborne biological diseases or contaminants, so we can forego the Biohaz suits."
"I managed to trace Flemming's call from Immunitech Research itself," said Sam, tapping on her TabletPC and showing it to him, "here are the coordinates." Harry glanced at them and immediately the MEV responded to his thoughts and changed course.
The Immunitech building soon came into view, it was a rather large flat three-floor building and had a campus around it that occupied a rather large footprint.
"Land on the roof," instructed Jack. Harry nodded and the MEV smoothly descended onto the tarred roof of Immunitech. "Ok, Ambassador, continue to run scans of the town, I want to know the instant anything comes our way."
"Got it," nodded Harry and everyone else got their gear together and exited out the rear hatch.
He minimized the lifesign screen and brought the subspace communications online…moments later he was connected to the Achilles AI in orbit around Mars and asked it to do a search the NID database for anything on Steveston, Conrad, and Immunitech Research and send him any relevant data it could find. It acknowledged and now Harry turned the scans to search the town for anything out of the ordinary.
"Ambassador, we still clear up there?" came Jack's voice over the team radio.
"Skies and ground are clear," reported Harry.
"We've found something here, stand by."
"That's odd."
"What is?" asked Sam.
"I've detected a subspace energy signature from the shipyards," said Harry, staring at the hologram screen and scrutinizing the data.
"Those shipyards were closed down a while ago, there shouldn't be anything active there, let alone a subspace signal," said Sam.
"Well, there is definitely something there."
"We've got Dr Flemmings computer and laptop," said Jack, "we're also bringing his body and what looks to be his assistant. So make room up there."
"Copy that," said Harry and headed into the rear compartment to move the team gear off the seats. Five minutes later, Jack and Teal'C entered with two filled black body bags slung over their shoulders and placed them on both benches in the rear compartment. Sam raised the hatch after Janet entered, whereupon the Doctor immediately zipped open a bag and hovered the MEVs handheld medical scanner over the body.
"I managed to access the NID database from here," said Harry taking the pilot's seat. "They did have an op going on in this town. Its not a complete file as it was only in the planning stages when I snatched the database. But it seems they were using Immunitech for stem cell research."
"There's no record of Immunitech doing that area of research," said Jonas.
"Why would they keep that a secret?" asked Teal'C with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, stem cells can be used to create skin grafts or replacement organs, but theoretically, they can also be used to create human clones," explained Janet, looking up from the scanner.
"Which is illegal," said Jonas.
"But I don't think human clones was the idea," disagreed Harry, "the plan indicates that they wanted to use the research while working on an 'organism', the file is deliberately worded vaguely."
"Oh my goodness," said Janet, staring at the scanner as if she had seen a ghost and tapping at it again.
"What?" asked Jack urgently.
"This can't be right," mumbled Janet and hovered the scanner of the dead body of Flemming again. She shook her head and opened the other bag, hovering it over the assistant. "Ambassador, get over here, I want to be sure I'm using this thing right." Hearing the urgency in her tone, Harry jumped out of his seat and took the scanner from her, tapped a few buttons and waved it over the bodies again.
"Bloody hell," he said, "you worked it correctly Doctor, and those are the results."
"Hello? Earth to Doctor Frasier and Ambassador Harry," said Jack sarcastically. "Can you please explain what has your underwear in a bunch?"
"Colonel, both these bodies have trace amounts of the characteristic poison left behind when a Goa'uld dies within its host," said Janet. "I'm also picking up foreign biological matter around the spinal chord, most likely the symbiote itself."
"Tell me you're not implying, what I think you're implying," said Jack sternly, waving a raised finger. Harry rushed back forward and after placing a hand on the control surface, the holograph changed and focused on individual bodies lying in the streets in sequence.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you, Jack, every single body in the building below us and within a hundred meters are showing traces of residual Goa'uld poison."
"What on earth did the NID do? Clone snakes and stick them into these people! And for what?"
"We'll need to decrypt the computer to know more," said Sam grimly.
"Then do it," said Jack snappily. "Get us to the shipyard, Ambassador."
Harry nodded and the MEV powered up and lifted off the roof and made the relatively quick journey to the shipyard.
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Oval Office, White House, Earth.
"They did WHAT?" bellowed the President in anger, as he stood behind his desk, with his fists propped on the smooth wooden surface, where a thick file was opened.
Harry in his Alteran robes, General Hammond and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; General Francis Maynard stood formally in front of the President.
"Using recent advances in stem cell research, and stolen tissue samples from the Goa'uld Tannith that we still have in custody at Area 51, Immunitech cloned numerous symbiotes, Mr President," said General Hammond. "The NID officer we captured at the shipyard, under questioning said that there was an accident with one of the symbiotes and Flemming was the first to be infected. Luckily the symbiotes were still immature and could only exert control for limited periods of time, especially when townspeople fell asleep. From there Flemming infected another, whom in turn infected more and pretty soon the whole town had Tannith symbiotes within their bodies."
"The NID was aware of these events, and did nothing to stop it," continued Hammond. "They did this when it became apparent that the symbiotes were building a spacecraft in an attempt to leave Earth."
"Why would they want a Goa'uld built spacecraft, we've had our own captured Goa'uld mothership for a few years now, we have our own ships now, for crying out loud," said the President in agitation.
"The NID and their unofficial backers wants their own spaceflight capability, Mr President," said Harry, "outside of the purview of the STO. The NID agent was rather…rude and vocal about how America should have kept the Gate to itself and all the technologies gained as a result."
"I also believe that there is more than just misguided patriotism at work here, Mr President," said General Maynard. "They could want FTL spaceflight to restart their thieving ways with regards to offworld technology. In short, they want to make money off selling the technologies on Earth."
"But why did everyone in the town die?"
Harry sighed sadly and shook his head; he had hardly wanted to believe it when the test results came through…but it was all there in black and white, and now he was partially to blame for this mess as well. "It was the Great Leap, Mr President."
"We've determined," said General Hammond, "that our newly enhanced physiologies can fight a Goa'uld blending. It takes a few weeks but eventually the symbiotes within the townspeople died under the onslaught from their newly advanced immune systems…this caused the natural toxin that a Goa'uld releases in death to spread into their body."
"Talk about a double-edged sword," said the President grimly and started to pace behind his desk. "The fallout from this is going to be huge, but we can't let that stand in our way. Generals, Ambassador, I want you to get in touch with certain key members of the FBI we can trust and that are in the loop, my secretary will give you the list, I'll go directly to the Attorney-General with this, I think its high time she was on the Disclosure list anyway."
"What do you wish us to do, Mr President?" said Hammond.
"I want a plan on my desk in a week to rid us of the cancer that has become the NID and find their private backers, this blundering cannot continue, I want them all in SGC custody, understood? I'll have decided by then what to do with them."
"Yes, sir," nodded both Generals. Harry bowed his assent.
"Now excuse me while I try to explain this mess to the STO."
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Two weeks went by and for him it was spent getting the Gate room technicians up to speed on the Quantum Computers. Area 51 had jumped on the prototype like a salivating dog on a juicy piece of meat and the printers over there couldn't reproduce the tech manual Harry had written fast enough. He had in the meantime built another Qomputer (pronounced kwomputer…a tech had jokingly rewritten the title of Harry's manual to save space and the new name was born) to replace the current Dailling Computer used for the Stargate. Meaning, that now accelerated Stargate dialing was the norm, rather than the exception.
As he stared through at Gate from his position at secondary controls, he was immediately reminded of the sheer amount of teams currently offworld. Most of them were the SpecOps boys, and all were engaged in another bout of playing the Goa'uld off against each other by imitating Jaffa and engaging in offensive surgical operations.
This was prompted by the Tok'ra reports that the first round of such attacks had produced limited results, yes, the Goa'uld were shouting at each other, but the solid presence and threat of Anubis still kept them in line. It made Harry believe that there had to be something else out there that would firmly pull the System Lords out of Anubis' corner once and for all, something…
"Incoming wormhole!" announced Walter, in another precognitive flash no doubt, and rushed towards the new Stargate controls. Scientists and techs scattered to their positions. General Hammond rushed down the stairs just as the Stargate flared to life and immediately the Shield and Iris was raised. "SG1 – code red."
"Defense teams to the Gate room," snapped Hammond into the microphone. Two squads of SFs came in and raised PR7 and P-90 towards the Stargate; the latter was borne from the eventuality that like the Replicators, there might be foes out there immune to energy weapons but not standard kinetic weaponry. And the two scaled down Railgun turrets on either side of the gate were manned as well.
"Raising Shield, opening Iris," reported Walter. Both defense systems went off line and through the event horizon a harried Sam burst through, aiming her weapon backwards. Orange staff blasts followed and she did a roll down the ramp to avoid the lethal energy, which smacked into the perimeter shields. Jonas came next, less gracefully and tumbled down. Teal'C was next and he rolled through the event horizon as staff blasts continued to surge through… it was then as soon as Teal'C recovered that he gave a command that surprised everyone…
"Raise the shield!"
Gate protocol dictated that Walter and even Hammond had to follow it, since a team member would have better knowledge of the tactical situation on the other side of the Gate. The shield went up and immediately it flared brightly three times…the shape of the flare clearly showed that three persons had just been vaporized, and finally numerous more staff blasts before the wormhole flared out.
"Bury the Stargate," ordered Hammond grimly. Another recent protocol was that immediately following an attack that flared through into the Base was over that the Gate was to be disabled for fifteen minutes, in case the enemy on the other side tried to keep Earth's Stargate busy by constantly dialing in. The motors on the rails keeping the Gate in place revved up and immediately the Gate moved backwards and slotted into the concrete slab in the back of the room.
Harry and Hammond entered the Gate room just as the perimeter shields were lowered and medics were already attending to the various scrapes, cuts and bruises on SG1…minus one.
"Major Carter," said Hammond, "where is the Colonel?"
Sam looked deeply worried and she shrugged off the medic's attentions and stood to address the General, "we were overwhelmed by Jaffa, sir."
"There was no indication of Goa'uld presence on that planet before," said Hammond.
"Yes, sir," agreed Sam, "it was a routine exploration op, when a squadron of Alkesh loaded with Jaffa appeared in the skies. The first thing they did was secure the Gate and cut off our escape, we'd been playing cat and mouse with them for two days until we made our bid to retake the Stargate. The Colonel…he…created a massive diversion for us…it's the only reason we're here…the last we saw his position was being overrun. He ordered us to…" she couldn't finish and struggled to stop tears.
"Very well," said Hammond with a troubled yet strong voice nevertheless, "report to the infirmary, I want a debrief as soon as humanly possible."
SGC Briefing Room 1, Earth
Teal'C looked like he was ready to snap the conference table in half, Jonas looked fatigued beyond measure, and Sam was standing and delivered the debriefing to Harry and General Hammond and Colonel Reynolds of SG3.
"I can only conclude, sir," said Sam, "that the Goa'uld were intentionally there to capture us. We were barely six hours away from the Gate on foot when the ships descended on the area. They deployed Jaffa from the Alkesh in an enveloping pattern to box us in an ever-decreasing space. It's only thanks to the AW systems on our armor and Teal'C's knowledge of the technique that we avoided them for so long."
"No sign of a mothership?" asked Harry.
"No, if that was the case then we would all most assuredly have been in enemy hands now, as they never seemed to receive reinforcements from the Rings near the Stargate, they only descended by Ringing down from the Alkesh."
"Did you see whom the Jaffa belonged to?" asked Hammond, turning to Teal'C.
"Ba'al," said Teal'C stoically, but his gaze showed that he was ready to tear apart the Galaxy to find Jack, assuming he was still alive.
"Then how did he know that there would be an SG team there?" asked Reynolds.
"That's the big issue that I haven't figured out yet," said Sam, shaking her head.
"Get on it people, we need to know if we've somehow been compromised, dismissed."
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Starship Achilles, High Earth Orbit
Later that day, Harry, Sam, Teal'C, Jonas and Reynolds stood in the main hexagonal holographic lab on board the Achilles. He had brought them here on the rationalization that if the SGC was somehow compromised that it would be best if they did the work of trying to un-compromise it somewhere else.
"Ok," started Harry, "just to rule it out right off the bat, none of us have a Goa'uld within us." He placed a hand on the control pedestal and immediately the matter transmission logs began scrolling in mid-air. "This is the transporter data…it would've detected a symbiote during the rematerialization process…Sam, can you confirm to prove that I'm not infected or have manipulated this data in any way?"
She walked up to the data displayed in mid-air and eventually nodded. "You're clean."
"Good, because I can categorically state that there is no blended human/symbiote lifesign in the SGC or in the US, nor on the planet," said Harry, and brought up a scan of Cheyenne Mountain, which showed the heavy concentration of lifesigns moving about the base, which zoomed out constantly as he spoke to the point that the globe of Earth was shown. "Nor has there ever been since the last Tok'ra visited the base two weeks ago."
"So how then did the Goa'uld know SG1 would be going to P6X-321, if they didn't have an infiltrator relaying intelligence via subspace?" asked Reynolds.
"They can't be doing it though subspace," disagreed Sam, "the Asgard would detect it immediately as they monitor all subspace activity around Protected Worlds."
An idea occurred to Harry at that moment and after sending a mental instruction to the AI, a specialized hand held scanner flashed into existence on the pedestal. It was like the Medical Scanner he had taught Dr Frasier to use but instead was designed to detect nano-implants and any similar technology.
"There is a technique the Alteran's developed long ago to track the movement of certain…individuals through the Gate network," he began to explain, he waved the scanner up and down in front of Jonas, who looked uncomfortable at the beeping the device was giving off, "It involved surreptitiously introducing nanites into the subject, that would immediately go dormant so as to remain undetected, but the moment the subject went through a Stargate, they would go active and relay the location and destination of the subject into subspace and go dormant again." He waved it up and down Sam and then Teal'C.
"Fascinating," said Sam, looking impressed, "and damn sneaky."
"Yes, well, the Alteran's used it to keep an eye on select individuals who they determined could pose a threat to their endeavors," said Harry, looking at the results. "Well, aside from the Naquadah in your blood there's no nanites…there goes that theory." He threw the scanner up into the air and it immediately vanished in a flash of white light.
"Perhaps not entirely," said Sam thoughtfully, "I remember reading a declassified intelligence gathering technique that the CIA used very successfully in the recent past. They would try to find a wireless access point for the computer network they wanted to penetrate, they would then hack in through the firewall, and to avoid tripping bandwidth usage alarms they would only wirelessly connect for milliseconds at a time and snapping up bits of data over a long period of time."
"You think the Goa'uld could figure out to do that?" asked Jonas.
"Baal? No way," said Harry, "now Thoth on the other hand would be clever enough. So you think the Goa'uld are doing this but instead of using wireless radio, they are using microsecond subspace bandwidth connections to…the…array in the SGC control room? Grabbing bits of mission profiles as they go, and only now did they get lucky and snatch your future time and location."
"It's plausible," said Sam with a shrug.
"If that's the case then they'd need proximity to the transmitter," said Jonas, "the signal degradation of such small bursts of data would increase the further away you are."
"Yeah," nodded Sam with a grin, "they'd have to at least be in low orbit, maybe even in geo-synchronous right over Cheyenne Mountain."
"But then they'd have to be using a Cloak," said Reynolds obviously. "We'd have to best guess where they are and saturate the area with particle cannon fire from the Prometheus."
"They would most certainly evade once they see Prometheus approaching their general area," said Teal'C.
"We can't let them get away," said Sam. "They've had ample time to do scans of the Solar System and disposition of forces."
"Wouldn't they have relayed that already?"
"No," said Harry shaking his head, "they can only use similar small bursts of transmissions to communicate outside of Sol. They perhaps have another cloaked ship acting as a relay somewhere outside Sol, unless they're using tightbeam line of sight, but that's too problematic to arrange reliably in the long run."
"Ok, we've outlined a plausible theory, now how do we prove it?" said Sam.
"We'd need to run a very detailed analysis of prior subspace activity in the control room array," said Harry.
"How detailed?" asked Sam.
"Too detailed, I'm talking about cataloguing the individual muons in the array and its interactions with subspace itself," said Harry with a sigh, "its beyond Terran science at the moment, we'd need the Asgard's help."
And help they got. Thor was back in Sol and beamed himself into the holo-lab; after hearing their theory and summation, his only comment was, "Intriguing," and promptly beamed himself down into the SGC.
"Was that normal?" asked Jonas.
"For an Asgard, that's the closest you can get to getting one to admit that they're impressed," grinned Harry. Ten minutes passed in silence as they awaited Thor's return for word on whether their idea had merit. When the musical chime and white flash of a transporter deposited Thor immediately next to Harry everyone turned expectant eyes to the small gray being.
"It is as you surmised," said Thor with a nod of his head, and handed Harry a jewel device. He concentrated and established a link with it and in turn placed his hand on the control pedestal. A new hologram appeared showing a detailed atomic analysis of the subspace initiator within the array. "There are small periodic coherent bursts of subspace activity occurring once every standard day, which has a definite signal modulation pattern to it…I managed to even trace the location of the receiver…"
The hologram changed to show a 3D blowup of Earth and a point flashed in space directly over the SGC at an altitude of four hundred kilometers.
"So we can assume that a cloaked ship is there," said Jonas.
"At the very least a Cargo ship," said Sam.
"Ok, how about we do some counter-intel then?" asked Reynolds.
"You're suggesting we capture it without letting the Goa'uld know and use it to feed disinformation down the chain of communication?" asked Sam.
"Yeah," nodded Reynolds, "I think it's about time we started to depend less on the Tok'ra for our Intelligence Ops. I mean haven't we got the pick from CIA, MI6, FSB and MOSSAD now?"
"In theory, yes," said Harry. "But those agents who know the score are still undergoing familiarization training on the situation in the Galaxy out there. It'll be a stretch for them to do this successfully now. I recently made acquaintance with folks from the FBI Counter-Intel division, this is more up their alley."
"Now that we know where the ship is, can we beam onto it?" asked Jonas.
"We do not have sufficiently accurate coordinates for a remote transport lock," said Thor shaking his head.
"Rings," said Harry suddenly. "I can program the Rings on the Achilles to automatically lock on to the nearest set in range. The subspace link formed between connected Ring sets should be sufficiently powerful to overwhelm even the distortion effect created by a Cloak. Thus getting us onto the cloaked ship."
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Ter'ak sat stiffly at the controls of the Teltak, his jaw gritting in silent and introspective anger. How had it all come down to this? He had been a great and powerful First Prime for his army, and led it into battle in the name of Ba'al for sixteen years. He had won battle after battle, skirmish upon skirmish, and now to be reduced to be an eavesdropper on the homeworld of the Tau'ri below him…it was beyond humiliating and a stain on his honor.
There were times when he considered taking his blade to end this life. But such a death would mean that that He'shak had won. That coward S'mak who had engineered his defeat at the hands of Lord Yu…Baal's forces had been forced to withdraw and he had been stripped of his First Prime rank and delegated to this…duty.
He turned around in his seat and looked upon the corpse of the scientist that had accompanied him on this mission. Ter'ak had not even bothered to remember the name of the Goa'uld, but the 'god' had seen fit to constantly hint and belittle him for his defeat. After a week here Ter'ak couldn't take it anymore and had surprised the 'god' with a vicious and surprise attack to the back of the throat…driving his blade straight through so blood exploded outward and onto him…he had kept his honor and faced the 'god' as it died.
Ter'ak had learned of this technique when he had captured a member of the Rebel Jaffa. During the torture the rebel had rather impassionedly tried to get Ter'ak to defect. It hadn't worked, not enough to save the life of the rebel, but it did get Ter'ak to open his eyes somewhat…as to the true nature of the 'gods' and even how to kill them.
No Ter'ak wouldn't join the rebels, he kept his promise to serve, and he could only imagine the conditions the rebels were forced to live in, but this did not make him at all truly devout.
A chime interrupted his musings and he walked over to the console installed in the Teltak especially for this mission…he did not know how it worked…just that it penetrated the Tau'ri information system and gathered intelligence that he relayed to the cloaked Alkesh just beyond the edge of the System. The 'god' had showed him how to do it, in case he was busy during the update cycle.
Ter'ak had just finished sending the data and was walking back towards the controls when he heard the screaming hiss of the Rings activating. He grabbed his Staff from where it leaned against the wall and aimed just as the thick obsidian rings burst out of the floor…they lined up…there was a flash, they fell back into the floor revealing…nothing?
His mind raced furiously as he looked back and forth…he knew someone was there…the flash would not have been there if the Rings had activated due to malfunction. He knew that Ashrak had the ability to become invisible…but the Tau'ri…it was impossible…it was the last thing he thought as he briefly saw a flash of red energy out of the corner of his eye and then the world went dark.
Harry willed himself visible and stared curiously at the dead Goa'uld on the floor. The Jaffa, a First Prime of all things, was sprawled to one side from where his slightly overcharged Stunner had picked the Jaffa up slightly. If there was one thing Harry had learned in fighting against Jaffa was that their constitutions were formidable and standard Stun would have them awake again in ten minutes.
He walked over the custom terminal that was hacking the SGC, and glanced at the screen.
"I'm clear," he said over the radio to the group waiting in the Achilles Ring room.
"How many?" asked Sam
"Just a Jaffa and one snake, Teal'C, I think you better come over as well, it looks like the Jaffa took out the Goa'uld for some reason."
"Indeed."
The Rings activated again and Sam, Jonas and Teal'C were left behind when they descended. She immediately headed over to the hacking terminal and began tapping on the controls.
"Ah, good," she said, "they've got a complete record here of everything they've managed to download." She took a TabletPC from her pack and interfaced it directly with a control crystal inside the terminal after opening it up. "Once we have that we can get our people on composing and feeding disinformation through the line."
"See if there's anything on where the final destination of the data is?" said Jonas. Sam nodded and her hands danced on the touchscreen of the Tablet. Clearly they were hoping on a lead for the search in locating Jack.
"Damn," said Sam viciously, "they've compartmentalized that. It only states that they're sending it to a cloaked Alkesh. Look at the navigational computer." Harry nodded and strode around Teal'C who was propping up the unconscious Jaffa against the bulkhead.
"Nothing here Sam," said Harry, shaking his head, "it looks like the snake was paranoid enough to delete all navigation logs."
"Okay, I've got everything I need," she said, unplugging the Tablet. "Ok, we've got 24 hours before we have to send the data burst to maintain the ruse. Teal'C, you up to carrying him?"
"I will manage, Major Carter," said Teal'C before easily hefting the large Jaffa in a fireman carry.
8888888888888888888888888888
SGC Briefing Room 1, Earth.
With all other options exhausted the call was put to the Tok'ra for any intelligence on where Jack might have been taken. In the meantime, Harry had to brief and arrange for the transport of the temporary Counter-Intel team that was being sent up into the Cargo ship. The group of five men, 3 from the SAS, one from Marine Force Recon, and the last from Navy Seals, all had intelligence ops in their background but was the closest thing to a Counter-Intel team that could be gathered on such short notice. The word was it would at least take another day to get an 'in-the-loop' FBI team gathered.
Finally though, after two days a Tok'ra IDC was received and a short-statured but formidable faced dark skinned Tok'ra arrived. His name was Councilor Thoran, and his presence rather surprised Harry. He was the Tok'ra's equivalent of CIA Director of Operations; in essence, he had been Harry's boss during his own years as a Tok'ra infiltrator.
"Councilor Thoran, it is good to see you," said Harry, bowing to the Tok'ra. Thoran was a being Harry respected for an ability to make the damn tough calls, which affected the life and death of the Tok'ra under his command, and for his many intelligence and sabotage coups against the Goa'uld.
"Ambassador Potter," said Thoran with a stiff nod. "Jamilla sends her regards."
"She is faring well?"
"She was wounded in the evacuation of Revana, but is now fully recovered and on duty again," said Thoran.
"That's good to hear," said Harry. "Thoran, this is Jonas Quinn, he replaced Daniel Jackson as part of SG1."
"Pleasure," nodded Jonas with a smile. Thoran bowed his head slightly in return.
"I will be briefing you, as things are a little crazy around here at the moment," said Harry dryly.
"I can somewhat imagine," said Thoran. "The pace of the Tau'ri operations against the Goa'uld is somewhat…astonishing. We estimate that you have at least twenty five teams out there, carrying out simultaneous offensives."
"Can't confirm or deny, Thoran, come now, stop probing me for reactions."
"I'm a Tok'ra, its what I do," said Thoran dryly. "And you can't blame me, we've got operatives who are in harms way because of these offensives."
"True, so what do you have on Ba'al?"
"If O'Neill is indeed captured by Ba'al, then we have a problem helping you," said Thoran stoically.
"Oh?"
"Our operative working in Baal's ranks, his host was mortally wounded while escaping with the latest intelligence, it's beyond the symbiote's capacity to heal and the Tok'ra is now in dire need of a new host," said Thoran.
"Who is it?" asked Harry curiously.
"Kanan."
"Ah, pleasant enough fellow, if a bit dramatic," he said thoughtfully. "So the long and short of it is, to get the intel we need to find O'Neill, we need to find a host on extremely short notice."
"Ummm, isn't there a list of terminally ill people…" began Jonas.
"Not enough time to organize, it would take at least a few days to get the next person on the list transferred here and organized…and that's already pushing it," said Harry shaking his head, "Jack has already been in enemy hands for going on three days, if they are torturing him the way I think they are, then we only have another two days at the most before Jack breaks."
"Then I'll do it." Harry blinked in surprise. "I mean, our time constraints being what they are…"
"Blending is not something done lightly young man," said Thoran severely, his eyes flashing.
"I can somewhat imagine that," said Jonas with a frown, "I mean, I'll be sharing every thought and memory of my mind with another being, who will do the same with me. It's not something that can be undone easily. But if it will allow us to save Colonel O'Neill and protect the interests of our shared cause…then it is something I'm willing to do."
Thoran narrowed his eyes severely at Jonas in an assessing stare. "You realize that you will in essence be under my command for the duration of your blending?"
"Oh," said Jonas, biting his lip. "Well, in that case, of course I prefer to keep working here on SG1, but there is no SG1 without the Colonel so…"
Thoran raised an eyebrow and smirked at Harry. "It doesn't matter, Kanan deserves a chance to rest somewhat from his duties. A change in pace is in order I think. I also think it long overdue that the Tok'ra have an active liaison here."
"Jonas…are you sure about this?" The Kelownan nodded resolutely. "Very well, I'll get Hammond to bump it up to the STO on the liaison issue. But he can approve your blending himself, as this is an emergency situation."
8888888888888888888888
The process of convincing Hammond, Thoran going back to get Kanan and bring him back in a portable stasis pod took another few precious hours. The blending was rather anti-climatic when it happened. They had gone down into the sterile Infirmary, and Thoran had unsealed the stasis pod and simply directed Jonas to dunk his face into the ionizing solution within the pod that kept the snake-like Tok'ra alive and open his mouth.
Jonas took a deep fortifying breath and did as instructed. Kanan must have sensed the opening and immediately the Tok'ra leapt into Jonas' mouth with great speed, enough to send the Kelownan reeling backwards and briefly gasping and gurgling as the symbiote made its way through his body. Harry caught Jonas before he could crash against a nearby bed and the Kelownan's body shuddered for a brief moment.
"Jonas? Can you hear me? Kanan?" said Harry.
The young man blinked, his eyes crossing and then managed to straighten himself.
"I'm here," said Jonas, spitting some blood into a sterile cup, and wiping his face. "Wow, this is weird…oh yeah…" The Kelownan's head bowed and when it came back up his eyes flashed. "Thoran?" said Kanan in the distorted voice of a symbiote openly speaking.
"I'm here my friend," said Thoran.
"Ah good," said Kanan, who chuckled heartily, "giving me a new assignment are you?"
"It might only be temporary," said Thoran.
"Ah, nonsense," said Kanan with a thin smile, "I've heard much of the Tau'ri, and being with them in action is just too good an opportunity to miss. I can tell from Jonas that I will experience interesting times in the future. Not to mention he is an excellent host…oh my, his memory recall is simply amazing…fascinating."
"Don't get carried away Kanan," said Harry with a chuckle. "You know our situation?"
"I do indeed," said Kanan, folding his hands in front of him, "if Colonel O'Neill is indeed being held by Ba'al, then he is most likely being held and interrogated at a facility that the System Lord has been keeping a close secret from the others."
"Indeed?" asked Harry.
"Yes," said Kanan, "let's proceed to the Briefing room and I can elucidate."
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Kanan typed in the six-symbol gate address into the Briefing room computer and immediately the wallscreen showing the map of the Galaxy zoomed in to highlight the location of the planet in question.
"Here," said Kanan, pointing. "This world houses a research facility, where Ba'al and his underlings are doing research on developing new weapons and gravity fields."
"The Goa'uld already possess artificial gravity," pointed out Harry.
"Yes, but Ba'al is experimenting with increasing the degree of the gravity field by many times and project that accurately from a Ha'tak, such a field could theoretically have many military applications; from distorting subspace emissions to easily capturing ships."
"Damn," sighed Harry. "What defenses does it have?"
"It's a veritable fortress," said Kanan, shaking his head. "A ground assault via Stargate is out of the question. However…because of the fact that he has to keep it hidden from the System Lords, it means that Ba'al cannot afford to station a Ha'tak there. It does have ground-to-space weaponry…but I believe a Tau'ri Destroyer, if my hosts' memories are accurate, would have more than enough firepower to take on those defenses. All that would be required for O'Neill to escape, if he is in condition to do it, is for you to disrupt the power systems…the holding cells in the base tilts the gravity inside the cell, so that, from the occupants point of view, they are standing in a pit…"
"A disruption in power would disable that," nodded Harry. "And O'Neill should still have a subspace implant in him…that would allow for a remote beam out once the base's shields are down."
"How obtrusive is this implant?" asked Thoran.
"It's inactive unless I send a specific coded recognition signal, it's about the size of a very small insect."
"Then it should still be there," said Kanan.
"Well, thank you, Kanan," said Harry, "I better get this to Hammond, I look forward to work with you."
Kanan bowed his head and abruptly Jonas reemerged, "Wow, what a headrush."
"You'll get used to it," said Harry patting the Kelownan on the shoulder and heading towards the General's office.
TSS Prometheus
"Twenty seconds to reversion," reported the Helm Officer.
"Very well," nodded Ronson, "Weapons officer, bring all Particle weapons online, and charge the main cannon."
"Yes, sir."
"Science, begin your scans on the frequency the Ambassador gave us, as soon you get a lock get O'Neill out of there."
"Reversion to real space in five…four…three…two…one…"
The four hundred and fifty meter delta shaped vessel darted out of the Hyperspace window, which abruptly closed behind it. It engaged its sublight pulse drives to maximum military thrust towards the upper hemisphere of the planet. Prometheus now maneuvered to point her sharp bow directly towards her target; a collection of seven clustered together pyramids that was hidden in a valley of a large mountain range. The shields over the facility were normally set to Cloak it, but even if they had managed to get it online, thanks to Kanan, Prometheus had all the co-ordinates it needed for a targeting solution, they could even target Ba'al's bathroom if they were so inclined.
All energy from the ship's secondary fusion core was now funneled into the buffers for the main cannon, and when it reached the desired charge, a thick blue line of particle energy burst from the main forward collector and reached down towards the planet.
It smashed upon the shield and flared it into the visible spectrum…at first the shield held firm, but now a critical design flaw in Goa'uld shield technology was exploited by Earth for the first time; the shield would hold indefinitely against a brief sphere or bolt of energy flung against it…it would lose strength but would recharge in the time it took the next bolt to reach it. But now it was not being given that chance at all…the beam continued to pound into the shield and it was losing strength on a continuous basis.
"How long until capacitors run dry?" asked Ronson.
"Ten seconds," reported the Weapons Officer.
"Shield strength?"
"Approaching forty percent, and falling…"
When particle beam ran its course, the secondary reactor now funneled its energy to the banks of Particle Beam Cannons.
"Fire all forward PBCs."
Now smaller and more intermittent beams lashed out in long lines towards the weapons facility, but now the element of surprise was gone and counter-fire was being shot up into space. Thick bolts of plasma bashed against the shields of the Prometheus.
"How long will we hold against that?" asked Ronson, as his ship started to vibrate with each hit absorbed.
"That first salvo dropped our shields to ninety percent, at current rate, two minutes, Sir."
"Keep PBCs firing, enemy shield status?"
"Down to twenty percent, I'm beginning to get sensor penetration of the facility and reading internal damage."
"Science, do you have O'Neill?"
"I had a brief signal but it seems to be moving, looks like he is out of the cell."
"Then we've at least given him a fighting chance, should we have to retreat," declared Ronson.
Blue beams continued to stab into the planet below and orange bolts flung back up, until finally the facility's shields collapsed. Ronson had planned for this moment and didn't hesitate.
"Get O'Neill, initiate Fire Program Alpha."
"Initiating transport," said the Science officer. "He's in Sickbay, sir…plus one extra that he was holding onto when transport occurred."
"Alert Security until we can clarify the situation."
"Alpha commencing," reported the Weapons Officer.
The PBCs each received a specific target to destroy in the facility…most especially important were the labs where the gravity generators and weapons prototypes were being developed. The blue beams lanced down with renewed vigor and pummeled into the unprotected facility…and exactly what Ronson and his command staff had hoped and planned for occurred.
A massive flash visible from space announced that the destruction of the gravity generators had cascaded through the power distribution and directly into the other systems of the base.
"Scratch one weapons facility," said the Weapons Officer with a satisfied grin.
"Well done, everyone," said Ronson. "Helm, get us on a course for Earth, as soon as possible. CIC to Sickbay, what's O'Neill's status?"
"He'z in good condition on ze survaze sir," reported the Major Doctor from Germany who was in charge of Ronson's sickbay. "But his cloze tell a different ztory. Hiz mozt likely bveen in sarcophagus afzer eech torture session. Ze woman with him iz human…also a prizoner I guess from her condition. "
"Damn," murmured Ronson, knowing the long-term effects of that. "Keep them both in full isolation and decon procedures, until we're certain the Goa'uld didn't leave anything nasty in them gift-wrapped for us."
"Yez, Colonel."
SGC Infirmary, Earth.
Harry glanced at the sleeping form of Jack as medical personnel bustled around him and other patients in the ward.
"Dr Frasier says he will probably suffer from withdrawal symptoms from so much time in a sarcophagus, but otherwise she expects a full recovery," said a much-relieved Sam as she smiled at Jack.
"It's amazing that he rescued Shallan as well," said Jonas, his head lowering and shoulders shaking with emotion, "Kanan had believed Ba'al had simply killed her for betrayal."
"So Shallan, Ba'al's Lotar, is how Kanan accessed all the intel he gathered on the weapons facility?" asked Harry.
"Yes," nodded Jonas, wiping away a tear. "He initially seduced her for that purpose, but falling in love was hardly my…I mean…his plan. It just…happened."
"What will you do now, with regards to her?" asked Sam.
"She's decided to stay with Tok'ra and eventually blend with a symbiote when one becomes available," said Jonas. "And I'll ask for leave every few weeks or so to see her."
"Hey…I'm trying to sleep here," said Jack weakly.
"Sorry, sir…glad to see you're okay."
"You…" he pointed at Jonas, "actually agreed to let them stick a snake in you…to save me?"
"Umm, yeah," said Jonas uncomfortably, aware of Jack's feelings about the Tok'ra.
"…Thanks, and tell the snake 'Thanks a million'," said Jack with a wry grin.
"Kanan says 'You're welcome'," said Jonas with a smile. "And thank you for saving Shallan, from both of us."
"Pffft, no biggie," said Jack, waving his hands. "No get out of here…wanna sleep…" he fell back on his pillow and closed his eyes.
Harry pulled Jonas aside as they left the Infirmary. "I just wanted to let you know, that the Magnetic Ribbon computer banks and the SA-1 S.A.M.s systems will be ready for delivery to Kelowna by tomorrow."
Jonas left out a heavy sigh of relief, "That's amazing…thank you, Ambassador. On behalf of my people…"
"Don't thank me yet," said Harry, raising a cautionary hand. "The STO is sending along an observer with the military techs who will brief your people on the operation of the systems. As long as Kelowna continues to play ball, there'll be no problems. Unofficially, I can say that the STO does not like the idea of Kelowna being forced to detonate a Naquadria bomb…if a passing Goa'uld ship picks up on it…then the secret of Naquadria it out of the bag, so to speak. And both Earth and Kelowna has a vested interest in maintaining that status quo."
"I understand," nodded Jonas. "These missile systems will go a long way to keeping the balance of power in the skies on my planet."
"I just hope your country understands that weapons are like money; no one knows the meaning of enough," said Harry solemnly. "It's also something that is unfortunately universal, even the Ancients fell prey to this."
"A sobering thought."
"Indeed."