This is my first try at writing anything Stargate related, and I am not certain where it will take me. But as you can see, I have taken a different approach then writing the upteemth story about SG-1 and the Ta'uri. If the story is met with interest and continues, I will add a glossary for alien names and places.
Prologue
Constable Tarvon Comalla placed the telephone reciever back on the telephone and slumped back into the high Ruufa leather armchair of his office. Telephone calls like this were nothing special, especially not during these turbulent times, but he had hoped he could spend more of his scarce time with his family this week. Well, he would have to manage, as he had always done.
Outside, the third change of the guard
was underway, that was, at least for the security forces of the base.
The air crews would change guard at different intervalls. Too great
was the risk that an enemy would use a complete change of guards as a
staging point for a surprise attack, and in the age of atomics that
was a risk nobody wanted to take. In the distance, far behind the
administrative buildings, barracks and bunkers of the central complex
of the base he could see the runways, hangars and radar dishes.
A
wing of bombers was just making its way to the runways, one of six of
the base, the huge silver tail fins marking the machines as the
older, six propellor-driven strategic bombers. They were slowly being
phased out of service and replaced by the newer, jet powered ones.
Too slowly for most in the military, especially after the Appox
Shock, and too fast for most of the New
Way.
Surya was already sinking lower towards the horizon, it's deep orange glow sending late summer warmth through the closed windows of his office. He watched his own reflection in the glass. Tall, muscular, with distinctive cheek bones, grey hair and grey eyes and the pale skin typical of most Kallarans. But it was days like this that he felt his age of being in his late forties. Tarvon Comalla was a veteran of the last war, the Great War that had ravaged Maquinna twentyfive years ago, and he had been a soldier for all his adult life.
His
view fell on the map that covered most of the northern wall of his
office. It was a world map, as detailed as there ever had been one,
immaculate in its depiction of oceans, continents, mountains, forest
and the political entities that claimed ownership of most of what was
shown - and more.
The northeast of the map was covered by the
continent of Kallar, a large and temperate landmass divided by long
rivers, half a dozen mountain ranges and fertile plains accompanied
by coastal island chains that were all ruled by Raeva, the nation he
had served for the past twenty five years and still did serve today.
Many hundred miles to its south lay Lythragon and Kyce, nations
ruling over large islands (or small continents, as they preferred to
call it) of their own.
In the southwest, there was the
Cooperative.
The main part of Riveca, the continent reigned by the Cooperative's,
was south of the aequatorial area, with large parts of it in regions
as temperate as those of Raeva. Only towards the east did the land
make a bent swerve to the northeast, getting gradually thinner and
less mountaineous until it was almost reaching into the polar
regions. And on the map its furthest point was no more than a
spitting distance away from Raeva's western coast. The Gap of
Mundaneere it was called, after the part of the Rivecan continent
north of the aequator.
In between the two of them lay Niemas.
The long, serpent-shaped continent was a thin landmass with a two
thousand mile long mountain grate at its center. Around it, literally
thousands of islands and archipelagos of every size and geographic
make-up huddled, making it look like a much bigger land mass from
afar.
Niemas was the birthplace of civilization. Some of its
cities could trace back their history more than threethousand years,
and all other peoples could trace their origin to Niemas at one point
or another in their histories. It had been there that many of the
first great discoveries had been made, and where the arts and crafts
had first flourished. But its cities had never achieved the degree of
unity that Raeva, the Cooperative or the smaller nations of
Lythragon, Kyce or Troaves had reached. The loose confederation of
ever squabbling city states had been desired by many a conqueror,
actually conquered by only a few, and kept by none of them. The
oligarchic cliques that ruled the individual cities where a lot
better at economics than at politics, a dysfunctionaility that had
not changed greatly over the centuries. As a result, many of the
cities individually did fine on the economic front most the time,
with those who failed to do so coming under the influence of one of
its more successful neighbours, but the lack of political clout
seriously and inter-neighboiur rivalries seriously limited the effect
of their solid economies, and usually ended it with the coming of the
next war. It was a small miracle largely owed to their industrious
and ressourceful people that the continent and its many arichepelagos
and islands had not fallen into complete poverty.
There was an old proverb that said that Niemas had a bean-counter's fortune for getting wealthy, and a squanderer's hand in keeping said wealth. And nowadays it were the Cooperative and his own nation, Raeva, that were vying for Niemas' wealth: for ressources, markets, port rights.
The map on his office wall was a lot more detailed than any civilian map that was available to the public. The features were more topographically exact, and there was a lot more information on them than one would find on ordinary maps. Like a sea of red stars a hundred military bases of the Cooperative shone in an angry crimson, their number increasing rapidly the closer they got to the Gap of Murkandeere. There was the city of Hreap, a heavy industry multi-million people metropolis in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by red, horizantal "L"'s that stood for tarmacs. A hundred and fifty miles to its southeast, situated in a natural bay area sheltering it from the harsh winter storms of the Neverending Sea, lay Kelen, the largest eastern military port of the Cooperative with its dozens of berths and drydocks for destroyers, missile cruisers and submarines. There were smaller cities on that map, too, and like the two he had just named in his mind, they all came accompanied by red-framed white boxes in which all the data about them was listed that Raeva's military considered necessary: population, strategic industries, military presence in terms of numbers and equipment - and necessary total megatonnage.
He sat alone in his compartment, watching the countryside pass by the windows in a blur as the train reached its maximum speed of just below 150 mph. The conductors ignored him upon seeing his uniform. Military personnel were granted free rides on railway connections, one of a number of special facilities soldiers received and that a number of public figures and their assorted political clubs did not tire to condemn them for. Most other passengers also avoided him. The military had a bad public reputation since the botched intervention in the Troavian succession struggle the year before had resulted in the public humiliation of the Republic and the loss of almost a thousand lifes.
Outside the countryside changed from fields and rolling hills and small towns to the wide, flat plains of Ishkar. Here the railroad ran on concrete pillars twenty feet above the marshland that formed a green belt around the nation's political and economic centre. Beneath him the lights of tractors in the early evening dusk passed by while not far away a motorway paralleled the dual train tracks on an elevated dyke, its traffic running out of the city towards the suburban settlements on the eastern side of the plains. The amount of traffic, just like the size of Ishkar - the city, not the plains - had increased considerably during the past two decades, ever since the mass production of automobiles had become industrially and financially viable. Now most families owned one of them, and Raeva's automobile manufacturers did well enough to be able to export large quantities to Niemas and the smaller countries. His family also had one, a decent upper middle class automobile primarily used by his wife to do all the things a homemaker and mother of three had to do. His wife did not want to live on the base, a fact he could hardly blame her for when it would have meant to abandon the urban society of Ishkar. Relationships were a matter of give-and-take, and with his constant absence he had already taken enough from her and the children.
In the sky the Appox, the smaller of Manquinna's two moons, had risen over the horizon, a pale white crescent against the dark blue of the evening sky. Soon it would turn to purple, then to black, and the moon would shine in a weak, milky yellow until its larger brother Uhres appeared in the middle of the night. The landscape outside had already changed again, having left behind the plains and its greenhouses and agricultural villages. Now the hundreds of chimneys of Ishkar's industrial districts raced past him, and with them hundreds of factories, refineries and steel mills bathed in electric light. Behind them he could see the skyline of the city with its towers and the three great geodesic domes which occupied an area the size of a city block. Even from afar he could see the flood lights illuminating the half done skeletons, covered in metal frames, building cranes poking outward like giant, crooked finger. They were still being worked on. Ishkar never slept.
The view from behind the windows of the high speed train now showed the typical city quarters: shops in brick buildings, appartment blocks, small factories edged between old neighbourhoods, urban railways rattling by on metal pylons. The train was slowing down by now, even though nobody could feel that. The heavy machinery ran as smooth as a well-tuned clock. For ten more minutes the train cautiously became slower until it finally entered Ishkar Central Station, an imposing building from the early days of industrialization resembling a step pyramid from the old ages, complete with stone pillars within the station and bordering it. Over the years the building had been renovated and changed several times, and besides the lower levels nothing had remained the same in the architects' never ending task of adapting it to an ever growing number of travellers and trains.
Today was like every other day. The platforms were full of commuters and ordinary travellers, with employees of the state-run railway company here and there making their way through the crowds. In between them he could see several of the red-uniformed policemen doing their rounds, but like most of Ishkar, Central Station was a save place. It was business as usual, with people hasting from counters to platforms, families welcoming family members that had travelled through the country, customers buying the daily newspapers or magazines or tobacco at the local kiosks. Groups of youths stood together, listening music from the small transistor radios one could buy in every household appliances store nowadays. While he could tolerate the music, the fashion that was "in" right now was like being poked in the eyes. Almost all of them wore kneelong silk coats in the most ugly and bright colour combinations he could imagine, and the standard haicut seemed to include shaving down your hair to less than an inch but let the back of it grow so you could put it into a pony-tail. He just hoped his son did not aspire to look like this.
Like the policemen, his welcoming comittee also
stood out from the crowd, but not because of its clothes' colours but
rather because the crowd voluntarily formed a bubble around it, not
coming too close as if some kind of invisible barreer held it back.
Men-at-arms Anaru Aqissiaq's and Tama Piripi's dress uniforms
mirrored his own with its grey tunic, dark brown trousers and black
polished combat boots. But where their caps, cuffs and collars and
shoulder straps were of the same brown as their trousers, his were
black and showed his rank insignias in gold: three six-sided stars on
each shoulder, one on each cuff, and a shoulder cord of the same
colour.
Both men saluted snappishly when he approached, their
right closed fists touching their chests just above the heart. He
repeated the military formality and did not linger, continuing down
towards the parking lot where his automobile and his driver would be
waiting. Aqissiaq and Piripi fell in besides him, one taking his
briefcase while the other kept watching his surroundings, always one
hand on his open holster.
High Command attached an escort like
this to every high ranking officer in the capital area, and Tarvon
knew that some of them also travelled on the high speed train in
civilian attire. Political terrorism had started to skyrocket once
the postwar period of rebuilding had ended and the new, still cold
conflict had begun, but members of the military command had never
been attacked so far. Besides, he doubted that Aqissiaq's or Piripi's
reflexes would do them any good if some K-Group freak decided to blow
himself and everybody else in a twohundred feet radius around him to
kingdom come.
"How was your trip, Constable?" Piripi
asked, as he did every day.
"Fine, but uneventful," he
responded, as he
did every day. It was a way of a code they had developed over the
years as a means to communicate safely. Not so much to evade
Cooperative
spies, but to make sure he and the circle of High Command he belonged
to remained in the know of all that was going on. Through Aqissiaq
and Piripi, any kind of news he might come to know of would find its
way to the others. The system, of course, also worked the other way
around. It was not truly a matter of national security - although
some
most certainly would stress it was - but one of political necessity.
Ever since the New
Way
had ousted the Legislaturist
government from power two election cycles ago, political intrigue and
infighting had taken a hold of High Command, a situation the leaders
of the Cooperative
and their military most certainly watched with amusement and
satisfaction. Tarvon Comalla had no great love for the New
Way
and its pie-in-the-sky projects and ideas of politics and its disdain
for all matters military, but he grudgingly acknowledged that the new
government had played a good hand in spreading its influence into the
upper ranks of the military. Right now there were three groups
fighting for power in High Command: the opportunists who supported
the New
Way
more or less unconditionally; those like Tarvon himself who primarily
wanted to keep the military going as a viable force without New
Way-
influence; and those who considered the New
Way
enough of a danger to national security by now that they were
plotting to "put things back into order".
The last
group was a secret, one the New
Way
could never find out about, or the resulting purge would throw Raeva
directly into the hands of the Cooperative.
Tarvon only knew of the group because he had shortly played with the
thought himself. Played with it, remebered his oath, and discarded
it. He did not like what was going on, but treason had never been a
real option. Still, playing a three-sided game was not a bit easier.
That was what made the whole situation so tricky.
In the
parking lot the third man of his little escort already waited,
leaning on the grey automobile whose driver he was. Here the smell of
petrol and tar was heavy in the cooling evening air. People were
roaming around the asphalted area but kept a safe distance to the
clearly identifiable grey military automobile.
Chief Kaneo Wiremu
was older than the other two men-at-arms by a good decade, almost as
old as Tarvon himself. He had still seen some combat during the final
battles of the last war as a machine gunner on the Wasillian front.
When the war was over he had found his bethrothed in another man's
bed, and having had the choice of either killing them both or moving
on to the next chapter of his life, he had chosen to stay with the
military. Others might claim he had not made much of a carreer there,
but as member of the High Command's greater staff he was indeed part
of a rather privileged group. Tarvon liked the man for his calm
manners and his jovial, down-to-earth humor.
„We are not going
home, Chief."
„I know, Constable. Got the order via telephone
late in the afternoon." He opened the backdoor for Tarvon and
waited till he had settled down before starting the petrol
engine.
The drive to the Ministry's building took them another
twenty minutes through downtown Ishkar, past the feet of the
skyscrapers and the bustling construction sites of the geodesic
domes.
"What a waste," Wiremu muttered not for the
first time as the car passed by the semi-completed concrete husks.
"I
think they'll be a sign of our progress to the world," Aqissiaq
objected against that, looking upwards along the sides of the domes.
"Just think about how they'll dwarf everything else at the World
Fair."
"Yeah," Piripi added laconically. "If they
ever finish the graggin'
things," he added more sourly.
„At one billion galesh per
piece they damn well better finish'em," Wiremu barked.
They
passed a row of police vans coming back from the government district.
Tarvon raised an eyebrow at Piripi who sat besides
him.
„Trouble?"
The man-at-arms grimaced.
„There was a
big anti-military demonstration in front of the Ministry today.
Police had them well under control, and everything remained peaceful,
as far as I know."
That such a fact had to be stressed was an
irony most likely lost on most of those protestors. Far too often
protests for peace and disarmament had the tendency to turn into
street riots.
„What did they want this time?" he inquired as
the car passed a military checkpoint before entering the wide
courtyard in front of the Ministry's grey concrete building.
Dustmen
with six-wheeled automobiles where still cleaning the place of thrown
away placards and all the garbage several thousand people produced
over a long day of agitated protesting. A military honour guard in
full grey and red dress uniforms, carrying polished rifles with long
bayonets, was doing its solemn goose step around the courtyard in two
groups of three, one walking the eastern egde, the other the western
in a troubling display of synchronicity. At the outer edges of their
paths they would turn inwards to the great war memorial where they
would present their weapons, shout a salute to the fallen, saulte the
flag of the Republic, then walk back.
„What they always want,
Sir: peace on Maquinna, that we stop bombing babies, hugs for the
Cooperative,
sunny weather in winter."
Aqissiaq and Wiremu snorted almost
simultaneously. Piripi had meant it as a joke, but from the eyes of a
military man his words were a pretty good description of those
people's ideas.
Involuntarily, Tarvon had to smile, a smile that
vanished almost instantly again when he thought about the purpose of
his visit. These days, gatherings of High Command usually involved
bad news and far too much politicking for his taste.
He took
the lift to the sixth floor. This was where High Command communed
during peace time. But the conference room was virtually empty this
time. A Staff Chief setting up a film projector jumped to attention
when the guard in front of the door let Tarvon enter, but besides the
man there were only two more people in the large, oval hall: High
Constable Unqas Citali, the chairman of High Command, and a man in
civilian attire he did not know.
Upon seeing him, the two men
broke off their conversation.
„Ah, Comalla, good that you could
make it," Citali shook his hand.
Tarvon produced a placid, empty
smile and simply nodded.
„I see I am the first one," he added
jokingly.
The High Constable's mouth twichted for a second.
„Yes,
and the last one." He left it at that. „This is Professor Zech
Wapasha of the University of Onosha."
The man adjusted his round
glasses before shaking Tarvon's hand. Tarvon used the delay to study
him closer. He was younger than he himself, no older than maybe
forty, still with full, dark hair which only showed patches of gray
few and far between. His skin was of a weather-beaten copper tone,
his hands were much rougher than Tarvon had imagined of an academic,
and steel gray whiskers enframed his lean face.
„Pleased to make
your aquaintance, Constable," he greeted him in a pleasant
baritone.
„Likewise, Professor ...Wapasha?"
The civilian
shrugged, obviously not unfamiliar with that kind of reaction.
„My
father was Nieman, from the Principality of Jinktar," he explained
patiently. „Shall we start?"
„Absolutely," Cicali
insisted. „Comalla, make yourself comfortable," he pointed at no
chair in particular and took a seat himself. „Staff Chief, start
the projector when you are ready."
The lights went out, and
a film started to roll, showing the professor, only younger, and an
excavation team of scientists and helping hand working at a site.
Wapasha started to narrate while the film showed all the basic work
that was done at an archeologic dig.
„This was made at temple
site in Breshna, in Niemas," he explained. „That was six years
ago, still with my mentor, Cassa Tane. We had stumbled upon the site
by mere chance, doing some excavation work on a system of drains from
the classic era, but as you can imagine – well, you probably cannot
– finding something that old is like a jackpot for an
archeologist." He cleared his throat as the film continued.
„Anyway, it turned out that these ruins were older than everything
we had uncovered before, and as you can see here, they were in a
great condition, too." The film now depicted colourful mosaics and
intricate wall paintings that indeed had taken the test of time well
in the dry Nieman soil. „All in all, we were able to date the
complex to an age of almost fivethousand
years!"
Tarvon had to whistle at that. Even a layman like he
knew that finding anything older than three, maybe three and a half
thousand years was an extremely seldom occasion. The lack of
archeologic evidence going further past than that was a troubling
fact for scholars of all nations. If this graggin'
site really was as old as the professor claimed, it truly was, as he
had said, a jackpot.
Zech Wapasha smiled at Tarvon's
reaction.
„Indeed, Constable, indeed. That is so old it is more
in the realm of myth and fairy tale then archeology, some might say.
Anyway," he realized the movie was running ahead of him, „to make
this brief, as you can see we excavated quite a multitude of
artifacts which alone would have made this a rather spectacular find.
But the centre of the complex had been destroyed by some kind of
catastrophe. While at other places we found intact walls, and even
intact pieces of tools and pottery, this part had been thoroughly
trashed. Whether in a natural disaster of through human influence, we
cannot know," he shrugged.
There was a leap in time in the
film, and Wapasha went on with his narration.
„We could not
continue during the rainy season. Unfortunately, it was during that
time that my colleague and good friend, Professor Tane, caught the
swamp fever. His death was a great loss for our team, and it was all
the more tragic that we made our greatest find without him. Five
years ago, on the twelfth day of the third month, we found this,"
he pointed to the screen.
The film showed a team of six
archeologist and easily ten times that many helping hands carefully
uncovering a large, grey ring. It looked strangely out of place,
Tarvon thought.
„It was burried in a chamber beneath the ground
in the destroyed part of the complex," the archeologist explained.
„We tried to move it cautiously, but it's completely made of metal
and weighs more than thirty
tons;"
he emphasized the enormous weight.
Despite himself, Tarvon was
impressed. Raeva had tanks in its arsenal which weighed less. Wapasha
waited a few moments before driving his point home.
„And it's
made from metal, Constable," he repeated himself. „An alloy
non-existant on Maquinna."
„I am certain this is all very
exiting, and no doubt it's a groundbreaking archeologic find, but
would you please mind telling what all this has to do with me, or the
armed forces in general?"
He had sounded more aggressive then he
had wanted to, but after a twelve hour workday at the base the last
thing he was in any mood for was getting deeper into what looked like
a plump political ploy by Cicali to do, well, something
obviously.
Professor Wapasha took off his glasses, his eyes
shining with surprise as his view switched between Tarvon Comalla and
Unqas Citali.
„I thought he knew!?" It sounded more offended
than surprised to Tarvon.
The High Constable shook his
head.
„There was no time." He looked at Tarvon. „I'll try to
make this brief, Constable. Ever since the Coops
placed that graggin'
probe on Appox four months ago, Strategic Command has been as jumpy
as a Ruufa during mating season, and to be honest, the Council has
been quite anxious, too. That rocket was a leap in missile
technology, and it will be almost half a year till we can send our
own stuff to the moon. The Council knows that, and finds itself
confronted with an agitated public and a Cooperative
unwilling to meet its diplomatic initiatives," he grimaced hardly
noticeably.
The High Constable's sympathies for the New Way were no secret, given the fact that it had been their patronage that had gotten him the position in the first place. Every failure of their politics also threatened his standing.
„Be that as it
may, ever since the Appox mission Strategic Command has had its boys
looking at everything that even only touched
the topic of space. That's how we came to the professor's project in
the first place. Some banner bearer in photo recon analysis
interested in archeology read the article about the relic in some
periodical and had the idea to compare the symbols to star
constellations. And guess what he found?" He mad a sweeping gesture
and nodded towards the Chief operating the projector. The lights went
out again, and the film continued, pitting symbols and constellations
against each other. There was definately a resemblence in some,
Tarvon had to agree.
„There are thirty-nine symbols on the
relic, Constable Comalla," Citali adressed him directly. „We have
figured out twenty-two of them so far. And the wall paintings and
mosaics, basically the whole findings from Breshna have become a
fountain of speculations and possibilities."
Tarvon answered the
High Constable with his placid, empty smile. He knew a Ruufa salesman
when he saw one.
„So it is a really interesting
archeologic find," he stated laconically. „And what does that
have to do with me, or," he gave Cicali a penetrating look, „the
military? What is
it? What do you want me for, with that thing? Shall I guard it?" he
snorted. „At thirty tons, it's not prime material for burglars, I
can assure you of that."
The
High Constable and Wapasha exchanged a series of looks that seemed
like a silent conversation to him before the professor turned his
attention to Comalla again.
„As the High Constable said just a
moment ago, there are, well, possibilities. Things I would have
never, we would have never thought about." He gathered his thoughts
and took a deep breath before continuing. „Constable, we believe
this object may hold the key to the dark spots of our distant path.
Indeed, I believe it isn't simply an artifact, but a piece of
technology, and a very advanced
technology at that."
Tarvon gave him a confused look.
„You
mean 'advanced' as in 'advanced for the era you dated it back to',
right?"
Wapasha shook his head emphatically.
„No,
constable, no. I mean advanced as in 'we couldn't build such a
graggin'
thing in a thousand years from now! That's what I mean!" He took
another deep breath. „I believe it is a gateway."
„A
gateway? What gateway? And where to?" Comalla turned to Cicali with
an angry glimmer in his eyes. „With all due respect, Sir, but am I
in an episode of „The Unbelievable Nightime Stories"?"
The
High Constable's smug smile would have been worthy of being smashed
in.
„You are a clever man, Comalla. Put two and two together,"
he demanded.
Wapasha could see the thoughts working behind
Comalla's face. A gateway. Thirty-nine star constellations. No, not
star constellations. Coordinates. Coordinates fixing a point in
space. Comalla shook his head, moaning.
„You have got to be
graggin'
kidding me!" he bursted out. „A gateway to other worlds?"
Cicali
held his hands up in a defensive gesture, but Wapasha rattled
on.
„Constable, I am not claiming that's what it definately has
to be. But all the evidence we have points to that conclusion.
Indeed, the more we analyze the archeologic data, the more solid our
picture does become."
„And that's where you come into play,
Comalla," the High Constable interjected. „We'll establish this
research programme on the 22nd Airmobile Brigade's new base at
Rikara, whose commanding officer you will become after this meeting
is concluded."
And that concluded their meeting. Soon
thereafter, Zech Wapasha left, and when only the two high ranking
military officers where alone in the conference room, Cicali handed
Comalla a sealed briefcase.
„Papers, authorizations, all data on
the project and your new position. Your transfer to the base has
already been approved." He hesitated. „I am sorry. I know this
will be hard for your family.
„Oh, don't patronize me!"
Comalla snapped, then pressed his lips together until they were
bloodless lines. I would not be hard if you did not send me, but
getting rid of one opponent in High Command just was too convinient,
was it not? „So you are throwing me out of High Command?" It was
not a question but a statement.
„I'm doing you a favour here,
Constable," Citali looked down on him coldly. „After your support
for the Troavian intervention you and your friends have become a
burden to this government. It is hard enough as it is. Neither the
Council nor I have any great need for members of the armed forces who
incite and antagonize the very population they have sworn to protect.
You should thank me. I am taking you out of the line of fire."
Tarvon
smiled sadly - and remained silent. What could he have answered to
such a charge that would not
have cost him his job? The fears harboured had been confirmed. It was
a clever move. Not only did it effectively banish him from High
Command and send him to the northwest in pursuit of some fool's
errand, but when it ultimately would fail, the blame would be evenly
placed on Tarvon's shoulders, and his shoulders alone.
He left
the building, wondering how his carreer, and more importantly, his
marriage, would survive this fiasco. Wimeru and his escort were still
waiting, but seeing his expression both the Chief and his guards
remained a dignified silence as he stepped into his automobile. Only
when they were well underway did he finally open the sealed briefcase
he had been given. The top folder was itself sealed again, a brown
map closed with red wax. Red angry letters read 'T O P S E C R E T',
but it was the line beneath them that caught - and held - his eyes.
Codename:
Project Heaven's Gate.
