Briefing Room 1, SGC, Earth
For the millionth time Harry reminded himself that he should look into getting himself an official office at the SGC. Yes, he shared laboratory space with Sam when they were working on the science of anything related to a new technology or galactic crisis, but lately he'd been asked to do more Ambassadorial work for Earth than in the past. Around him on the conference table was a mass of papers, files and folders, all which was relevant to Pangara, and he'd been asked to draft a report for the STO on the possibility of bringing the Pangarans into the Terran-Tok'ra-Asgard alliance against the Goa'uld.
It was looking mildly promising.
The Pangaran society reminded him somewhat of the U.K. They had their historical royal class, which was still accorded some favor and still held numerous deeds and titles, and had a limited say in local government, but their executive leadership was selected by popular vote. Councilor Dorren held that role at the moment, and there was an election due in a year. In that respect Harry could see no cultural clashes with Earth.
Militarily speaking they were roughly on a level the United States was just after World War 2. They had the beginnings of easy hand held automatic projectile weaponry like the venerable Thompson Machine gun on Earth. They had little in terms of air power except for their airships, as they really had no necessity to develop heavier than air flight…they were a singular planetary government with no other countries in competition.
Their level of computer technology was also along WW2 lines, with big heavy transistor machines that filled entire rooms. It had been quite nostalgic to walk through those rooms for Harry and Sam.
The only real scientific field in which they stood out was Chemistry. The ability to make Tretonin from the physiology of a symbiote was something of note, as it was even beyond current Terran standards, even the Tok'ra Malek had been impressed by it. On that note, distribution of the Tretonin antidote had begun to the Pangarans, after Egeria had instructed Malek on the key to the genetic fault she had introduced into her offspring. The Pangarans had even begun to refine the antidote themselves after attaining a large enough working sample.
He concluded that beyond their abilities to supply advanced Chemistry and more military boots on the ground through a Stargate (who still needed technical training and support from Earth before it could happen) that Pangara had little else to offer the alliance.
Do not dismiss the value of either, Harry, said Egeria in his mind. Any help, no matter how small or large, could make all the difference in the end.
True, he admitted to her.
At this point, Sam entered the room and she appeared in a big hurry to get to the General's office, a very worried expression on her face.
"Hey, Ambassador," she said, "come along, you need to hear this too."
He nodded and walked with her as she knocked on Hammond's office door. The big man himself was on the phone at the moment and gestured through the window to them that they could enter.
"Yes," said Hammond into the phone, "I understand, make sure it's delivered. Good." He put the phone down. "Major, Ambassador, what can I do for you?"
"Sir, I'm afraid we have another security breach," said Sam with a sigh.
"Another?" said Harry in astonishment, "what is it with you and discovering breaches lately?"
"Fate I guess," said Sam, shaking her head. "This morning as I was doing shopping at the mall, I was approached by Julia Donovan in the parking lot."
"The reporter from Inside Access?" asked Hammond in confirmation.
"Yes sir," nodded Sam. "She stated that my name has been linked to a secret government project called 'Prometheus'. That she also had the money trail towards it and that it was appropriated without the usual congressional oversight. She was clearly hitting me for a reaction."
"Which you didn't give," said Harry confidently, knowing that Sam, who had faced down System Lords wouldn't quake in the face of a somewhat clueless reporter. She nodded and went on.
"To go even further, she waved a small solid cylinder of what distinctly looked like Trinium in my face," said Sam incredulously. "She apparently even had private experts analyze it…"
"Oh great," said Harry sarcastically. "That's just what we need at the moment."
"She caught me off-guard though with regards to the Trinium," admitted Sam, "I mean, that's the most tightly controlled and secret element on Earth and off it…and she just casually waves it in front of me in a public parking lot. I didn't know how to react to that."
"You did the right thing, Major," reassured Hammond. "Our official policy is to deny everything."
"Unfortunately, in this case, I don't think it's gonna be good enough," said Sam, wincing.
"The sample of Trinium and her source of info?" queried Harry.
"It's hard to say for sure, Ambassador, but just the fact that she knew the name indicates we've had a serious breach of security,"
"I'll inform the Pentagon and the STO, have a full investigation started," said Hammond with a nod. "In the meantime I think Major Davis should pay her a visit."
"Did Donovan give any indication when she was ready to file her report?" asked Harry.
"In four days."
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"It seems to me the initial expenditure on Prometheus was too large to hide," said Sam a day later, walking into the Briefing Room with Harry.
"Well, at least the STO has solved that problem in the medium-term," said Harry.
Major Davis was there still dressed in his formal Air Force blues talking to Hammond, no doubt about his visit to Ms Donovan.
"She's stubborn, sir," said Davis. "And her mind was rather disorientating, if I could paint a picture of it, I would say its like Dr Jackson's lab on it's worst days. Just filled with reports, facts, figures in a jumble…I don't know how she makes sense of it. But then again, it's her mind…and I'm rather new to this whole telepath thing."
"It's Legilimency, Major Davis," said Harry in greeting, meeting the eyes of the man unflinchingly. At least this explained why Hammond was staring at the floor while addressing his subordinate.
"Ah," said Davis frowning as he stared at Harry. "I'm getting nothing but a void from you."
"That's as it should be, I'm defending against your probe."
"Be that as it may," said Hammond getting back on track, "has traditional investigation revealed anything yet?"
"We're working on it, but so far we've got nothing," said Davis. "It could be anything from a technician working on the project who thinks the world should know…or Senator Kinsey."
Harry inwardly scowled at the mention of the Senator that had long been a thorn in the side of the SGC and its efforts to protect the planet. The NID database had a nice fat file on the sleazy politician and his association with them. He had also been the biggest hurdle for the President to get over with regards to getting the STO off the ground. In fact, it had taken the President holding the figurative Sword of Damocles (the NID database) over the Senator's head to get the man to back down.
"How much does she actually know?" asked Hammond.
"She thinks Prometheus is some kind of fusion reactor," said Davis.
"Then maybe we don't have a problem."
"With the money trail and Trinium, I think she can get a lot more, sir," disagreed the Major.
"I'm calling the President," said Hammond, and looked at Harry with a significant glance, who nodded before the General walked into his office.
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Inside Access Offices, Washington D.C, Earth
Sam and Major Davis had both dressed in their formal Air force blues for the occasion, seated at the main conference room of Inside Access offices, while Harry took on the feared disguise of a ubiquitous and ominous Man in Black. Black business suit framing his strong body, perfectly white shirt, black tie, dark glasses and a mask of neutrality on his face with no expression. He even completed the effect by exuding an aura of intimidation and power that would affect the minds of everyone who saw him.
'You are having too much fun doing this,' accused Egeria.
"Hey, it's fun getting to play a stereotype,' grinned Harry back.
His aura was effecting Alvin, Julia Donovan's producer, rather acutely as the balding man (who looked like he spent way too much time in the sun, he wasn't burnt but looked quite tanned) couldn't sit still and had taken to pacing back and forth, nervously glancing at Harry and then at the door of the room, waiting for his best news journalist/anchor to arrive.
Just then the woman of the hour entered. Julia Donovan had rather similar hair to Sam, though it was longer and more styled, she was taller than Sam and her face was nowhere near as attractive, but it was tough to beat Sam on that score. She wore a light blue suit and dress combination that made her appear the epitome of the working female executive.
"Al, we need to talk about this production schedule…" she said immediately, clearly not expecting there to be company, when she did see who she was actually meeting, she immediately got defensive, "what the hell is this?" she demanded.
"Take it easy, Julia," said Al placatingly.
"No," she said angrily, "if you think you can kill my story by going over my head to my producer, then you're dead wrong."
"Just sit down please," implored Al, she glanced at Harry flinched slightly and sat down, "the Head office has decided that, for the time being, it is in their best interest not to run the story."
"You mean they caved," stated Donovan in disgust.
"It was a personal request from the President to the Chairman of the corporation that owns this network," explained Davis.
"I don't believe this," said Donovan shaking her head.
"We're going to need all the material you have on this story. Tapes, notes, interviews…"
"You can't force me to give you anything…what are you gonna do, have your MIB 'disappear me' if I don't?" she asked sarcastically.
"Oh no, he won't do that," said Davis with a mysterious smirk, "he's here merely to facilitate the transfer of the material. So you see, we can…force you…since the materials were obtained in violation of numerous federal laws, we'd just hoped that you would cooperate as a law-abiding member of our society…and given the fact that now your story is dead."
"You see, that's where you're wrong," retorted Donovan, "all I have to do is make a couple of phone calls to some foreign broadcasters. I'm sure they'd be very interested."
"I'd advise against that," said Davis coldly, "and I think you'll find that they would also get orders from up top to stop the story."
"You're kidding," said Donovan with narrowed eyes, "this is international as well?"
Harry realized it had been a calculated fold on Davis's part, to imply that Prometheus had international scope, which would definitely put a crimp on any aspirations Donovan had to go International with the story.
"Okay, Okay...look, maybe there's a compromise here. Whatever this thing is...I figure it's too big to stay secret forever, especially if it involves multiple countries. Am I right? Eventually, you're gonna go public. You let Julia take a camera crew to document Prometheus, top to bottom. When the time is right, we get a world exclusive," proving that Alvin had some experience getting irreconcilable parties to agree to compromise…which was probably what a News Producer had to do.
"I don't think so," said Sam, narrowing her eyes at the Producer.
"Everyone will sign a non-disclosure agreement, including me. The video tape will be the property of the United States Air Force…you'll be in complete control."
Harry laughed inwardly.
'There's nothing like a good conspiracy,' mused Egeria in satisfaction within his mind. 'I missed this.'
"Forget it!" declared Donovan indignantly, "they're gonna sit on this for fifty years."
"Julia," said Al, his own temper flaring, "when the President of the United States kills your story, that's it. Game over. You can't publish here, or International, you try any other method they could charge you with treason."
"The game is afoot," thought Harry.
SGC Briefing Room 1
SG1 had gathered in full for the brief on what was to be done now. Jack had given Harry pointed looks of amusement at his MIB outfit, which he had yet to remove as they had only just got off the plane from Washington.
"Do you really think she would go through with publishing anyway?" asked Jonas.
"We have no way of knowing and the fact is, we can't take the chance," said Hammond gravely.
"There's also the question of where she's getting her information. If we kill the story without plugging the leak, there's no guarantee this won't happen all over again," explained Major Davis.
"What are you suggesting?" asked Jonas curiously.
"Once Ms Donovan left the meeting, her producer agreed to reveal the source in exchange for a tour of the facility," said Davis.
"The Pentagon and the STO feels that this is the best way to contain the situation. Once we've confirmed we have the source, we destroy all video tape and related materials," explained the General.
"So, essentially, we're just double-crossing her," said Jonas with a slight disapproving tone.
"We've no other choice," sighed Hammond.
"With no hard evidence, she'd only be able to run the story in the tabloids," said Davis.
"This…is an insanely bad idea," said Jack and turned to face Harry, "don't you agree…Ambassador?" If Jack was looking for backup, he was sorely disappointed.
"It's necessary that we find the source," said Harry with a raised eyebrow. "Overtly violating the minds of Ms Donovan and her producer, will be required if we wanted to do this the easy way. Which I and Major Davis refuse to do…as such is the beginning of a very slippery ethical and moral slope."
"The decision's been made," said Hammond with finality. "Major, I want you and Jonas to take care of this."
"Yes, sir," said Sam reluctantly.
"Dismissed."
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TSS Deadalus, Area 51 Shipyards
Harry stood, invisible and out of phase, in a corner of the CIC of the newest Terran Destroyer that just had to get a few supplementary systems installed before she would be deemed ready. The Deadalus was like her sister ship in every way, except that she had been built with onboard Qomputers operating the various systems of the ship. Prometheus was scheduled to come in soon for a refit that would also do the same overhaul of her IT systems.
The ship had been emptied for the occasion, and the crew training on Deadalus and especially her Captain was rather irked, as Jack would say.
His ears perked as it picked up Sam, Jonas and the TV crew coming closer and finally emerging through the main bulkhead door and into CIC.
"It doesn't look very alien to me," said Julia Donovan, staring around at all the blinking control stations.
"The controls are all standard design, some of the key systems use crystal technology rather than wires and chips, the hard part is making them compatible," said Sam; an awful summation but she was probably being so vague because it wasn't necessary to elaborate to a civilian who didn't have a science education and everything was going to be censored.
"All right," said Donovan eventually, "let's set up in here," the three men and one-woman camera crew nodded and started to set up the video equipment. "I'd like to see more."
Sam and Jonas nodded and escorted Donovan and her producer out of the CIC, while the two guards remained to watch over the camera crew. The woman with dark red hair took out a laptop over to the Helm station and put in on top of it. Harry grinned in triumph when he saw that the male cameraman with the spiky blonde hair and ice-cold eyes opened his camera's tape compartment to pull out a Zatnickatel. The red head pried open a panel on the side of the Helm. But the guards had finally caught sight of it.
"What are you doing?" asked the SFs moving closer. The spike haired guy abruptly popped up and discharged once into each guard, causing them to lose consciousness immediately.
The other two guys dragged away the guards while the red head started to interface her laptop with the Helm station…clearly trying to take control. With the quantum hardware and similarly based encryption it would've taken her laptop decades to break the command codes, but it seemed the NID had done their homework before trying this as she entered the codes and gained control.
"I think I've got it," said the woman triumphantly, "we're in business."
The spike haired cameraman handed pistols and handheld radios to the other two and simply said, "Let's go get the others." They nodded and walked out of CIC. Harry glanced at the nearest ship status display and saw that she was locking it down…preventing anyone gaining access from outside.
"Jones, come in," came the voice of the others over the radio.
Jones picked up her radio. "Go ahead."
"I need you to seal a room for me, Charlie, Charlie 4107."
Jones typed frantically on her laptop and a few moments later she said, "Done." Harry could only surmise that either Sam or Jonas had found out that the crew weren't who they appeared to be and managed to put up a fight and had gotten locked up for their trouble.
The next obstacle the NID hijackers had was rather amusing.
"Full diagnostic?" said Jones, staring in horror at her screen. "No, no, no." And began typing frantically. The only place to do that from would've been the engine room and after a brief glance at the Security station, he saw that Jonas had used his own command code to initiate it. That was just like the wily Jonas and his own Tok'ra Kanan to do.
"Smith, come in," said Jones.
"Yeah, go ahead."
"We've got a problem, the Qomputer's been tied down with a diagnostic program, I need you to shut it down."
"The controls are frozen," reported another hijacker.
"If you don't close that problem, I'm not going to be able to establish a lockdown and we're gonna be overrun by security, not to mention being able to bring Simmons aboard," said Jones.
There were a few tense moments as Harry heard that Alvin the producer had finally seen fit to reveal himself in complicity with the hijackers. The problem being that he had seen what Jonas had done, and told Smith and the other hijacker. The results were that Jones regained full control.
"There we go," she said in satisfaction. She walked over to the Science station. She tapped on a few controls and finally…there was a ringing sound of a transporter and with a flash of white light a tall man appeared in the CIC. He was wearing a sharp business suit and had slightly long curly brown hair; his hazel eyes were sharp and calculating as he looked around.
"Ah good, Jones, almost right on time," said Simmons. Harry scowled as it became obvious who the leak was…Simmons was a man who had a bloody office in the Pentagon itself and was deep in the NID hierarchy. He had been the one who's refusal to listen to Orlin and Sam that using the superweapon on Velona had nearly would result in Earth's annihilation by the Ascended Ancients. He had also been pushing for Sam to be relieved of duty due to her apparent 'possession' and 'alien influence' by Orlin.
"Boss is here," said Jones into her radio.
"Good," was all Smith said.
"Now, I think it's time we make our play," said Simmons and arrogantly sat in the Captain's chair. "Jones, contact A51 Air control, deliver our threat of overloading the hyperdrive and then we wait."
"Yes, sir."
Harry returned to his corner of the CIC and willed a Silence Sphere around him and pressed a hand to the communicator in his ear. "Potter to Hammond."
"What's your status?"
"Safely aboard, no one the wiser," reported Harry. "They have Deadalus under lockdown and are in control. We were right, it was the NID, Colonel Frank Simmons specifically."
"Understood, continue as discussed."
"Very well, Potter out."
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The wait was rather boring. It took a few hours for the SGC to mobilize, and Harry spent it by doing high-level dimensional math in his head all the while looking at Simmons in all his NID-smugness as he sat on the Captain's chair.
"Sir, sensors detect a large number of lifesigns have gathered at the surface," said Jones.
"Ah, the SGC, well let's not disappoint, Smith," said Simmons into his radio, "send a transmission stating our demands."
"Sir," confirmed Smith. It took a few moments but a channel was established with the mobile SGC command post.
"This is Major Davis, go ahead."
"I assume, by now, you've confirmed the status of the hyperdrive. So you know we're not bluffing about blowing this ship."
"What do you want?"
"We want the roof to be retracted and you'll allow us to leave Sol, no interference from Prometheus or your little gray friends either, we see one Asgard Cruiser come within beaming range…we kill hostages. I'll be generous and give you ten minutes to comply."
'They want to leave the Terran system? I wonder why?' mused Egeria.
'Probably the same reason they let a town full of people be infected with cloned Goa'uld just to get a Hyperspace capable ship…they want something out there.'
'They must be desperate for it, if this is lengths they will go to.'
Harry's communicator mentally warned him of an incoming transmission, so he put up another Silence Sphere.
"Potter."
"Hammond here, be advised, Major Carter has been locked inside storage room Charlie 4107 Deck 7, she has made contact on another frequency with the command post, she is being directed to sabotage the sublight control relay on deck 8. You must prevent her from doing that."
"Understood."
Harry walked carefully around the CIC stations and slipped through the slightly ajar bulkhead door and headed into the interior decks of the large ship. He had to keep his invisibility despite the fact that the ship was virtually empty in the other areas, but there was still cameras and visual sensors everywhere that the hijackers could be monitoring, he also couldn't use the elevators as the ship's systems would register them moving, thus he had to use the emergency crawlspaces and ladders. So it took far longer than normal to reach Storage Room Charlie 1407.
The ten-minute deadline was close to lapsing when he arrived at the locked room; the ship started to rumble and whine as he sublight engines and AG drives came on-line. The inertial dampeners kicked but despite this he could feel the slight upwards acceleration that lasted for too long…the roof had obviously been retracted…the AG drives went off line and the sublight kicked in sending the sleek ship knifing through the air.
At this moment, a trail of sparks appeared through at the base of the solid thick Trinium alloy door, Sam was cutting her way out with a plasma torch that was probably stored in there. He raised his arm and with a thought to his Chromesuit it materialized a little gift from Narim on the said arm.
He pressed the Phaseshift gauntlet and it lit up. The door's structure suddenly wobbled as its phase with the normal matter in the rest of the Universe was effected and he simply stepped through, dissipating his invisibility as he experienced that inside out sensation when phasing through something.
Sam was rather severely startled to see him.
"Harry? What the…"
"Hey Sam, explanations will be forthcoming," assured Harry, "but you can't go through with your plan of sabotaging the sublight drive."
"What? Why not?"
"General Hammond and I guessed after you told us of the security breach, that it was the NID behind it, the Trinium Donovan had made it obvious…at least to us…so we decided to let the NID go forward with whatever plan they had devised…we needed confirmation so I journeyed with you when you and Major Davis confronted Donovan, but her producer was rather ill-disciplined with his thoughts and as we spoke about Prometheus he was all but shouting to me that the NID had paid him a lot of money to get him to play along."
"So you infiltrated this ship yourself to stop them?"
"On the contrary, I don't want to stop them, not yet anyway…General Hammond also wanted to score an intelligence coup, not just arrest rogue NID operatives that would clam up as soon as we had them in holding. So not only do we know who is the leak…it's Simmons by the way…but we also find out why they are so eager to get a Hyperspace capable ship."
"By letting them go to their destination and then stopping them," said Sam in understanding.
"Exactly," said Harry with a grin. "And speak of the devil…"
They heard the whine of the Hyperspace engines powering up and it peaked to settle down to a dull rumbling in the background noise of the ship.
"We're on our way."
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Of course, when things are going right and according to plan, it was common wisdom that then you've overlooking something. This was usually something critical. In this case, it was the fact that Harry had made the assumption that the NID hijackers would be content to leave Sam in the storage room. This was not the case.
The vertically rising door abruptly sprang to life and rose into the ceiling. There was no time to turn himself invisible again, and despite the fact that he had been surprised by it, the two hijackers carrying Zats were doubly surprised to see two people in the storage room where there only supposed to be one.
Harry surged forward with all the speed he could muster and delivered an elbow strike directly into a surprised Smith's right temple; whom promptly dropped like a puppet who had his strings cut. The other nameless NID hijacker, who had brown hair and was few inches shorter than Harry, fired his Zat, only for it to be harmlessly dissipated by the chromesuit.
Seeing it had no effect the hijacker turned tail and ran. He managed to get away by virtue of the fact that he had been standing further away from the door and had clearly been covering his partner.
"Watch him!" snapped Harry at Sam as she relived Smith of his Zat. She nodded and Harry tore down the corridor after the other hijacker. With a head start, the hijacker made some serious ground before Harry got his own stride in. They clambered down and up ladders between decks, ducked around bulkheads, the guy occasionally shot Zat blasts in the hope of causing him to slow down and duck them instinctually, but he never fell for it and it allowed him to close the gap.
Finally Harry got a good idea of where the hijacker was attempting to go, back to the Engineering deck, where the hostages were. But as pursuer and pursued sprinted down a narrow corridor a few sections away from main engineering, the gap was less than two meters. The guy had a turn of speed far in excess of human norms, but for a newly evolved Terran it was normal stuff. The hijacker then decided to turn tables on Harry.
He slid smoothly to the floor to suddenly bleed off his momentum, while Harry was forced to rocket past the guy. The hijacker tried to trip Harry up from the floor in the process but the Alteran's reflexes were up to the task and he deftly avoided the groping hands. Harry pulled in his arms to aid his turn in mid-air and came to a skidding stop to face the heavily breathing hijacker.
Harry could feel it before the actual event. A gathering of energy. A focus of will. And with a grunt of effort the hijacker flung his hand forward to release a telekinetic wave. In the exact moment it was released, Harry flung his own wave to counter it.
'That idiot!' railed Egeria in anger.
Harry would've joined her in ranting if his focus weren't completely on countering the energy that the hijacker was flinging at him. The air between the two was starting to crackle and the smell of ozone pervaded the area.
"You fool!" shouted Harry, gritting his teeth. The hijacker didn't respond but to increase the energy in the wave. Harry had no choice but to do the same, all the while his mind racing in a way to get out of this mess, preferably without blowing up the ship around them.
He was saved from doing so by the bolt of a Zat that was shot from around the corner. It hit the surprised hijacker square in the back and flung him forward. However, the balance of the competing telekinetic waves was thrown off completely and Harry's wave overpowered the other and shot off down the corridor and impacted against a wall at the turn. It buckled and twisted, sparks shot out of the corners and the lights flickered ominously before coming back on.
Sam poked her head around the corner and eyed the damaged section with wide eyes.
"You okay?" she asked, walking over to the unconscious hijacker and producing ziplock plastic tie and cuffing the man. It wouldn't hold him the long run but it was a temporary solution at least depending on the level of control the man had over his telekinesis, though any attempt to forcibly pull them apart would cause them to cut into skin very quickly.
"Fine," answered Harry shortly. "I thought I told you to stay with the other prisoner."
"He's secured in a nice cozy cleaning closet, unconscious, with the door lock scrambled," said Sam lightly. He relieved the telekinetic hijacker of his Zat and began to unceremoniously pull him along towards main engineering control.
"We need to get to engineering, see what damage our little scuffle caused," said Harry grimly.
"Umm, except for the wall over there…" said Sam trailing off uncertainly at the look on his face.
"Sam, remember this well, the metaphysical and physical does not like each other, unless specifically channeled in certain ways, they'll cancel each other out completely," said Harry with a sigh.
"So that wave just caused every system within its dissipation radius to…shut down?" she said in alarm.
"Essentially," confirmed Harry.
They entered Engineering to find that Al the Producer had been shot and was dead on the floor and Jonas and Donovan had been rather securely tied up together in a rather…compromising position facing each other, looking mightily uncomfortable. Harry couldn't decide whether Jonas was horrified or relieved at seeing him and Sam armed with Zats, coming to the rescue or be embarrassed by the situation.
Harry could imagine Jack's comments at this moment but kept them to himself. Sam proceeded to untie them as he dumped the telekinetic guy against the wall, and headed over to the C-shaped control console and began a diagnostic. It wasn't good.
"What happened?" asked Jonas, pulling his legs out from underneath an indignant Julia Donovan and got up.
"Well," said Harry wryly, and pointed to the hijacker, "Telly the Telekinetic here, decided to pick a fight with me in corridor outside using his powers, the aforementioned powers depolarized one of the main control conduits leading to the Hyperdrive."
"Oh great," said Jonas, his shoulders sagging.
"That's bad, I take it?" asked Donovan.
"It's like we're in a car that's accelerator is stuck to the floor and wont let go," explained Harry.
"Can it be fixed?"
"It could," said Sam with a frown, "but it would take hours considering that the ship is in space and moving at full speed in hyperspace. We also have the problem of Simmons and Jones in the CIC, it won't be long before they demand a check in from either of their associates over the radio."
"Then I suggest you get to them before that," said Harry, frowning at the console, "but make sure to keep Jones conscious, she's the only one who knows our course and destination…without that it would make getting home extremely tricky."
"Come on, Jonas, take the Ambassador's Zat," said Sam, gesturing for the Kelownan to follow. Harry handed the weapon over and the two left, leaving Donovan alone with Harry. He enjoyed a minute of undistracted peace is he continued gathering the diagnostic data he would need to make repairs when Donovan sat down on the other chair near the other console.
"So you're not really an MIB?" she asked innocently.
"Nothing exactly like the MIB exists," answered Harry distractedly. "I was in your offices to add a visibly mysterious threatening presence that would encourage your cooperation."
"So are you an alien too?" she probed next. Harry turned sharply his eyes narrowing. "One of those hijacker thugs said Jonas was one."
"Whatever I tell you, you won't be able to substantiate or report," said Harry turning back to the screen. "So why are you bothering?"
"Alvin may have turned out to be a lying backstabbing friend, but he was right about one thing, this secret is way too big to keep secret for long…sooner or later, the truth will out. But I will admit that I have selfish reasons, and being one of the first reporters that will tell the world about this is one of them."
Harry sighed and his shoulders slumped. "We realize that it will get out eventually…and we are steering social and cultural policy to ease into the reality of the Galaxy and Universe out there…but believe me when I tell you Ms Donovan, it will still be a shock, no matter what we do in preparation and it will take the resources of every government on the planet to prevent civilization from turning itself inside out."
"I take it that there are serious bad guys out there then," said Donovan thoughtfully, Harry didn't react at all, in fact, his silence was more of an answer than if he had opened his mouth. "I saw outside that this ship is absolutely overflowing with armament and weapons, I know the military likes their toys but even they would never invest the money and effort if there wasn't a major threat…Ambassador, dare I ask why you are called by that title?"
"I can tell you that S.E.T.I. will be out of business in the future, and that not everyone out there are bad guys."
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An hour later, Sam and Jonas returned and reported that Simmons, Jones, and the other two NID creeps were in the ship's brig and were all unconscious, all under the watchful eyes of the two revived SFs that had initially come on board. She had the laptop Jones had been controlling the ship with her and showed him the course they were on.
"Well the good news is I've repaired the control conduit of the Hyperdrive, much faster than the original estimate because I didn't know exactly what was wrong," said Harry after looking at the course data. "So we can drop back into real space."
"Then why haven't you done so?" asked Jonas worriedly.
"That would be the bad news I have to give," said Harry grimly, "we were in hyperspace for forty odd minutes while the conduit was out, essentially for that time we were out of control…and in that time I'm sure our course has drifted off the original baseline quite considerably."
"I thought you said it only was like our foot was stuck on the gas," said Donovan.
"Traveling through Hyperspace is infinitely more complex than just driving down the highway," he explained. "Anyway, the moment we go out of Hyperspace we will most assuredly end up a considerable distance from whatever destination the NID had in mind. And I'm not just talking about a few million kilometers off, I talking about hundreds of Lightyears off."
"And with no point of origin we couldn't plot a course anywhere, we'd be lost, hell we're already lost," said Sam her voice sounding slightly despondent.
"Why?" asked Donovan faintly. "Couldn't you just use your fancy sensors or something to determine what our position is?"
"Navigating through Hyperspace is inertial," explained Harry. "You have a point of origin, then you have the coordinates of your destination and you basically punch a hole into fabric of space-time and tunnel your way through to your destination. Imagine you're on a wide-open stretch of land in a car and have to get to a specific point…but someone closed your eyes and forced you hands off the steering wheel while and you kept going forward…you have no idea in which direction the steering wheel turned and the moment you get out…"
"I get it, thanks," said Donovan raising her hands. "What about known star locations, cant you plot our location that way?"
"You're still thinking too terrestrial," said Sam, shaking her head. "Navigating by the stars is fine on Earth but…"
"The stars have changed wherever we end up," nodded Donovan.
"But this ship has Qomputers doesn't it? And astronomical facilities," said Jonas thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Sam frowning at the Kelownan.
"One of our allies," said Jonas delicately, "has star mapping technology that can plot a position merely based on the starfield seen from a planet." He looked significantly at Harry.
'Egeria?'
'Very well, tell Kanan he can proceed, but the program is to be deleted after we've used it to get back.'
'Understood.'
"Do it, but put failsafe in place," nodded Harry. Jonas nodded and headed out of Engineering towards the Astonomy lab on Deck 1. The planners of the DC ships believed that they should at least have some minor science capability so that they had a role beyond the war with the Goa'uld and could stay in service after it had ended. And more often that not, it was science that had saved the day on numerous occasions for the SGC, and not strength of arms.
"What was all that about?" asked Donovan.
"We might get out of this after all," said Sam hopefully.
"By the way, does that laptop say why the NID wanted the Deadalus?" asked Harry.
"No it doesn't but I talked to Jones and…persuaded her to tell me," said Sam delicately, implying that there was more to that than simple persuasion. "Apparently when the NID was still running their illegal offworld op under our favorite rogue Colonel…" referring to Harry Mayborne, "they found a tablet written in an ancient language"…Alteran… "detailing a large cache of advanced weapons and artifacts. Simmons wanted it badly."
"Indeed," said Harry, looking intrigued.
"Wait, you're saying that all this has been some wackos idea of a treasure hunt?" said Donovan.
"Yes," said Sam dryly. "Now I think we better get your late Producer into the cold room, luckily there's no food there for it to be spoiled by his body. Then off to CIC and wait for the Hyperdrive to run its programmed course."
In CIC, Sam assigned herself to Helm, while Harry settled himself in the forward Weapon Console. Donovan couldn't decide what to do with herself and Sam pointed her to the Communications station.
"I'm a news anchor," said Donovan, and gestured to all the buttons and screens around the station, "Not a com officer…or whatever you call it."
"You make a good point there," said Harry, "but I doubt we'll be in need of one. You just occupy yourself by playing Solitaire on the computer over there for the next few hours. The Major will do the flying, and I will do the shooting…if it comes down to that."
"What?" yelped Donovan.
"In…two hours, when the Hyperdrive finishes its programmed course we will be pulled into real space, there's no telling who's backyard we'd be accidentally intruding upon. It could be bad guys we know…which would be bad, or it could be unknown guys, and this ship isn't fit to make proper First Contact at the moment."
"Jonas to Harry."
"Go ahead."
"I've got a good start on programming the Astronomical Qomputer with what we'd need, but it'll take a while."
"Define a while."
"Working non stop…twenty hours," reported Jonas.
"That must be one bloody complex program," said Sam, sounding impressed and awed. "Then again, if it must calculate coordinates using the positions of thousands of millions visible stars, it's not surprising."
The time passed slowly until the Hyperdrive would shut down. Harry busied himself with readying the particle cannons and rail guns and doing inventory of what ordnance was ready in the launch tubes. There were only 18 AHM-1As on board and in the tubes, Colonel Pendergast and his crew had trained on them before the hijack occurred but the ship's full missile loadout hadn't been filled as yet. Not that it would matter, since there was no crew to reload the launchers anyway. Luckily the rail guns had full ammo loads.
It wasn't great, but it was something.
"Ok, dropping out of Hyperspace in ten seconds," reported Sam, putting on the interface helmet for the Helm and readying her hands on the controls.
"Shield and weapons such as they are, ready," said Harry.
Daedalus burst out of an outgoing Hyperspace window into a rather lopsided starfield with minor nebulae close by and no stars were close by…they were in interstellar space and not in a star system. Her long-range scanners swept out in every direction.
"Okay, no ships within twenty Light Years radius of us," he let out a breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding.
"I think we're on the outer arm of the Milky Way," said Sam, her head turning as she was 'looking' around the ship.
"That would mean we've traveled at least nine thousand odd Light Years," said Harry. "Simmons original course was rimward, so at least we haven't deviated too much."
"Carter to Jonas, how's it coming?"
"Steadily," replied the Kelownan from the Astronomy Lab. "I've finished the base code of the program, now its just a matter of compiling and cross-referencing the astronomical database into the program. Twelve hours until it finishes."
"Can't it go faster," complained Donovan.
"Hey, be thankful its this fast already, if this ship hadn't had Qomputers it would've taken two weeks to do the compiling. We wouldn't survive that long…since there's no food provision on the Deadalus."
"Hyperspace event!" shouted Harry in alarm, staring at his console. "One million kilometers off the port bow."
"Shit!" said Sam, settling her helmet back on and staring in that direction. "I see it. It's not Goa'uld. It's an unknown alien vessel. Looks rather mean too."
Harry brought up the visual sensors to show the ship on the main viewscreen and directed every subspace sensor they had towards it. The alien vessel was six hundred meters in general size, it was made up of a thick C-shape that formed the aft of the ship, while a forward hull jutted out of it smoothly whilst still conveying a predatory aspect. It was painted a purple/blue giving it an exotic, mysterious look.
"Raise shields, tactical analysis, Ambassador," said Sam, as she turned the Deadalus to point the sharp bow towards the leisurely closing alien vessel.
"No obvious missile tubes or launchers, I am seeing energy weapon emitters along the interior flanks, it's hard to see through their EMCON but before it went up I got a good read, their main armament is a pulsed delta particle weapon. Rather potent and it will collapse our shields given enough hits."
"Can we do damage to them if it came down to it?" asked Sam.
"Their shields are less advanced than ours, comparable to standard Goa'uld Ha'tak. Judging from the energy readings I'm reading their power readings as double, no triple our own, so we would have to pound extremely long on those shields to breach them."
"That makes for rather even odds," said Sam hopefully. "OK, lets start diplomacy, Ambassador, send First Contact package, append a text only message, 'Alien Vessel, this is the Terran Starship Deadalus, if we have intruded on your space, we apologize, we are heaving to for repairs to our navigation system. We will be leaving in twelve hours.' Got that?"
"Rerouting Com controls…sending package and message…done," reported Harry, his hands dancing extremely fast over his console. Anxious moments passed as the alien vessel continued to close, eventually it reached half a million kilometers distance…and then when it reached three hundred thousand, it stopped advancing.
"Did they respond?" asked Donovan nervously.
"No, but they have stopped," said Sam obviously, "which is a good sign. They weren't closing on an attack vector so it means we must've gotten through to them."
"What is in a First Contact package anyway?" asked the reporter curiously, as this was somewhat her field.
"Basically, our alphabet, English language database, and a picture of 'clothed' man and woman waving hello, a sampling of classical music, and mathematical constants," said Sam with a grin. "Theoretically, it should allow an alien species to respond to us given enough time."
Twenty nervous minutes passed where the alien ship was just keeping station and not making any provocative moves.
"Getting a response, text only," said Harry, jumping at the sound of the beeping from his console.
"That was quick," said Sam, not liking it.
"They say 'Terran vessel, we understand your…predicament, you have…infringed on our coreward border. Do not engage further active scans. Do you wish assistance in your navigation problem?'"
"Rather friendly," commented Donovan hopefully.
"What do you think Sam?" asked Harry cautiously. "They could provide us with accurate PO coordinates."
"The chance that they use the same coordinate system as ours are extremely remote," disagreed Sam. "Tell them, thank you, but no. We have things well in hand. We will not scan further and they can monitor us to their own satisfaction until we leave. If they wish to pursue diplomatic relations with us, ask them for Stargate coordinates to a neutral location of their choosing or their homeworld."
Harry nodded and encoded the message and sent it off. The reply came five minutes later.
"Shit…" said Harry, "it seems they know of the Stargates and use them but are surprised that there are any outside of their space."
"Well they obviously only had their own explored space to use as reference, and no Abydos Cartouche map data, so they would be pretty much stuck within their borders," mused Sam. "Anything else?"
"They'll be leaving a probe to monitor us as we make repairs, they apparently don't want to waste time sitting here watching us," said Harry. And as if the alien ship had been waiting for his words, it launched a small ten meter long spidery looking device that just hovered beneath the ship. The vessel abruptly turned and sped away at .4 Light Speed and entered a Hyperspace window.
"Did they identify themselves?"
"Yes," nodded Harry, "they sent a small data package about themselves, including a Stargate address. They're a Confederation of worlds that make up eight hundred LY of this spiral arm we're in. They call themselves the Aschen."
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