Power Play (2), pt. 2

"Damn it."

Sam's whisper was meant only for herself, but colonel Davidson's seat was close enough that he heard it. The man turned to give her a questioning glance.

"The speed upgrades on those cargo ships left behind a gamma-band particle trail," she told him, "and I've reconfigured our sensors to detect it and reconstruct the ship's course. But I've been tracking the particle decay rate over the past few hours, and the sensors just registered another abrupt shift in the amount of active particles. The trail could disperse completely within minutes." Sam looked up from the computer screen, the same pleading look in her eyes. "We need to go after those ships now, or we might not be able to find them again."

Davidson shook his head, his expression conflicted. "I already contacted the President's office, Colonel Carter, and explained the new circumstances. You know as well as I that we're not going anywhere until he reaches a decision."

"That was two hours ago!" Her frustration had only increased with every minute that the Odyssey was forced to wait idly. "We can't afford to wait while the President and the IOA debate this. If the particle field disperses, we won't be able to track the cargo ships."

"Please don't take this the wrong way," Marcus Johnson said calmly, "but perhaps that would be for the best. Once we have no way of tracking the ships, there will be no more incentive to blatantly disobey orders." He gave her an almost sympathetic glance. "The IOA won't give their permission to risk the Odyssey for your insubordinate team mates, Colonel Carter, I'm sorry. And this time," he predicted, "the President will agree with them. I was in the room when this mission was discussed the first time, and I can tell you that Mr. Hayes went about as far as he was willing to go just by allowing you to come this far for some ill-advised humanitarian effort."

"This kind of 'ill-advised humanitarian effort' is exactly why the Asgard gave us their technology in the first place," Sam replied with an angry look. "And if you weren't more interested in having your way than in helping those people, we could've defeated those ships hours ago and found out how to retrieve the kidnapped Argonians!"

"It's not my way, Colonel Carter. The IOA knew that if your team flew this ship all the way here, you'd want to use it in battle, and the Odyssey is just too important to risk. That's why they tried to prevent this in the first place."

Sam started to reply, but an alert sound on her screen drew her attention. Her eyes widened.

"The gamma-band trace is disintegrating! Ian –" She trailed off and stared at the computer screen in dismay. "It's too late. The particle levels have fallen below the detectable threshold." She took a deep breath, and met Davidson's eyes as she spoke the next words: "Our sensors won't be able to reconstruct the ships' course." Her gaze held an unspoken accusation. "We've lost them."

The Odyssey commander gritted his teeth, his expression tormented.

Johnson let out a long sigh. "I'm sorry, but like I said, it's probably for the best that…"

"No we haven't." Vala stood up from the station she had been sitting at, and marched over to the pilot's station. "We don't need to know their course," she looked over her shoulder to Sam, "we just need to know where they went." She turned to Marks. "Somewhere in your advanced Asgard computers, there's a map of this quaint little corner of the galaxy, isn't there?"

"Uhm…yes Ma'am," the major replied, a little flustered.

Johnson walked up to her. "What are you doing?"

Vala took a step back. "I'm trying to help." She faced Davidson and spoke quickly, before the IOA representative could say anything else. "Arsalan said that the ships have been coming every few days, which means that they're travelling far enough that they can't just go back and forth continuously, but close enough that there isn't another vulnerable system on the way that they could raid instead."

"I don't see how that's relevant –"

"My guess is," she continued over Johnson, though she did spare the man an anxious glance, "their destination is anywhere between eight and fifteen hours away, give or take. Any longer, and it wouldn't be worth to come all the way here. Any shorter, and they'd come more often." She turned back to Major Marks. "If I give you an estimate of how fast those cargo ships can go, can you make this map show us a range of possible destinations?"

"I think so," the pilot nodded.

Within a minute he had projected a map on one of the larger screens. Several sections of the map were highlighted. "There are…twenty-seven candidate systems."

"Eighteen of them have no habitable planets, so we can rule those out." Sam's voice sounded animated again, as she checked the Asgard databases for further information. "Three of them have planets with stargates…we've visited two in the past, and the Asgard have intel on the third…none of them really fit the profile." With a few taps on her keyboard, she changed the map on the screen so that it now highlighted only a few systems. "That leaves six options."

Vala walked closer to the screen and studied the map and the system names for a long moment, frowning in concentration. Then she tapped three of the systems with her finger.

"It's one of these." She turned to face them again. "They're all close to the outer edges of Lucian Alliance territories. That's where all up-and-coming hotshots and wannabe leaders get their start. Try to expand business, make some easy money, impress the Lucian higher-ups… then once they've made enough money running some shady enterprise on the outskirts of Alliance territories, they can move on to bigger projects in better locations."

"This is ridiculous." Johnson took another step in her direction, and Vala instinctively leaned back and away from him. "I don't know what your game is, but you can't actually think we'd be foolish enough to deliver our most important ship straight to the Lucian Alliance!"

"No, I think Vala's right." Sam was still reading from the screen. "The Asgard have almost no information on those systems, because they seem to be mostly uninhabited and were too far out of the way to be seriously threatened by the Goa'uld. So out of the way, in fact, that they'd be ideal locations for running any sort of fishy get-rich-quick scheme that involves kidnapping innocent people."

Davidson nodded. "I agree." There were silent nods from the others on the bridge, as well.

The IOA rep, however, did not agree in the least.

"This ship, with its advanced upgrades, carries the future of our entire planet! It's a prize everyone in this galaxy would kill for, and you'd trust her to tell you where to take it? Not too long ago she tried to steal the Prometheus!"

"Tried?" Vala sounded offended.

"She has no standing to advise you on anything! I don't know why she's still around now that the Ori are gone, but for all we know, she could be trying to lead us into a trap and serve the Odyssey to the Lucians on a silver platter!"

Vala crossed her arms and gave the IOA representative a dark glare.

Mitchell flattened himself against the stone wall and held his breath as a pair of armed men walked right past his improvised hiding place. Luckily, his face and his clothes were so grimy from his hours in the mine that they blended right into the background, and he escaped unnoticed. As soon as the men were gone, he quickly made his way to the next rocky outcrop that looked like it could hide him.

From there, he had a clear view of the Tel'tak and the large cargo ship next to it. There were some markings etched onto the side of the ships; he had not seen them from a distance, but close up they looked familiar. After a second, he realized why – he had seen similar markings on Netan's ship.

"Lucians," he muttered. "Great." He and Jackson had probably stumbled right into one of their operations. The Lucian Alliance wasn't above kidnapping peaceful people and forcing them to mine naquadah.

Luckily, it seemed like it was a small operation, so hopefully there weren't any more ships out there ready to back up the Lucians on the planet. Cam continued to eye the Tel'tak, noticing that there were only two men guarding it, and they looked completely relaxed. For good reason, too – the Argonians were hardly the type to hijack their captors' ship.

For the tenth time, he pulled out his radio. "Odyssey, this is Mitchell, do you copy?" He waited for a second, then tried again. "Hello? Can anyone read me?"

There was no response, and he put the radio away with a sigh. He had not really been hoping for a reply, but it couldn't hurt to try…

He used the next few minutes to take in more of his surroundings. The rundown wooden shacks they had seen when they had first landed seemed to be where the workers slept – probably dozens of them crowded together, as there were only three shacks, and he had counted almost one hundred and fifty Argonians. There were also a few tents scattered around the rocky field, most of them away from the noisy, dusty mine entrances, which led Cam to believe that was where the guards ate and slept. Camp fires burnt in front of some of the tents, and next to almost each of them were barrels of what he assumed must have been some alcoholic beverage.

Overall, the operation did not seem too secure or well-organized. The Lucians he had met before had been heartless bandits and profiteers, yes, but they had had some semblance of discipline or training. These men, however, with the exception of one or two leaders, seemed to be common thugs. Mitchell assumed they must be the lowest tier that the Alliance employed, and probably only used for the less important operations.

Which suited him great. It was usually easier to get the upper hand on brawny, untrained goons. And trouble with a small operation would hopefully draw less attention from the better trained, better armed higher-ups. Although, knowing who those higher-ups were would probably be useful in the future... Cam recalled that one of the guards had mentioned a name, but much as he tried he could not remember what the name was. Jackson probably remembered it.

He filed the question away for later and turned his attention back to the Tel'tak. It sat a good few hundred yards from the mine, in an open field, which made it difficult to get to unseen. They would have to try it at night. But other than the obstacle of reaching the vessel undetected, Mitchell did not anticipate any problems with overpowering the two guards and making it on board. Then he could fire on the tents, which were conveniently placed a good distance away from the prisoner's wooden shacks, lowering the risk that he would accidentally hit any Argonians.

Of course, there were still Lucians roaming the field away from the tents, and the ones who guarded the workers in the mine. He would have to come up with a way to keep the Argonians safe from the remaining guards… but even with that obstacle, the plan still seemed feasible. The Tel'tak made a good weapon, and it was so poorly watched that it would be easy to get it. For the first time, he began to see some hope. Maybe he and Jackson could pull this off after all.

"Just a walk in the park…" he muttered to himself. "Only the park's crawling with armed Lucians."

Carefully, Mitchell retreated back toward the base of the rock wall. About halfway there, however, he noticed a small group of Lucians heading away from the main camp. As they walked around the rocky outcrops and out of his field of vision, he hesitated for a moment. Then he changed his path and followed them, trying to stay low and as out of sight as possible.

A couple of minutes later, he turned the last corner that they had, and was greeted with a surprising sight. About a quarter of a mile away from the main camp was another structure, this one far larger, more well-built and sturdy looking. Judging by the numerous empty mining carts outside it, Cam concluded it must have been some sort of processing facility, where the naquadah was presumably turned into the ingots that the Lucian Alliance seemed to favour as common currency in their financial dealings. He should have imagined that a mining operation would have that component, as well.

What concerned him, however, was the large structure next to the processing facility, connected to the latter via a series of large pipes.

Mitchell may not have been a space pirate, or a brilliant scientist like Sam, but he could tell a weapon when he saw one. And the large, cylindrical metal structure with a diameter that narrowed from base to tip, and with an array of moving parts that allowed it to shift along several axes and at any angle…looked very much like a weapon.

"It's never easy..." he muttered.

Alright, so the Lucians had some sort of fancy weapon…that did not have to change the plan of action. As far as Cam could tell, the weapon had no direct angle on the main camp, so he could still take the Tel'tak and blow up the guards' tents, and maybe once he did that, he could take a quick tour behind the rock wall and blow up this weapon, too…

He was just deciding to do that, when the moving parts near the tip began to spin, aligned and fell into place, and with a build-up of bright-blue energy that started at the base of the cylinder and made its way to the top, the weapon fired a concentrated energy blast into the cloudy sky.

The deafening boom that followed sent Cam to his knees, but the Lucians near the weapon cheered. Within seconds, they released another blast, that followed the first. All the clouds in the surrounding area had dispersed after the impact.

His hands pressed against his ears, Mitchell watched the weapon fire a third time, and this time he could almost follow the immensely powerful blast as it made its way into the sky…and probably out of the atmosphere.

"Oh crap." This was worse than he had thought. The Lucians had some sort of surface-to-space naquadah weapon.

" –don't plan to spend the rest of this trip repeating myself. The orders are clear, we're not going into enemy territory." Johnson had chosen a seat at one of the unmanned consoles, and was now facing the rest of the Odyssey bridge crew with a stony expression. "The President hasn't sent a message back yet, which can only mean that he has not approved your request to charge after Colonel Mitchell and Dr. Jackson. So our orders stand, we're to avoid any hostile confrontation at all costs."

"Things are different now! Two of our people are missing!" The anxiety over what had happened to her friends made even the usually calm Sam sound incensed. "We have the resources to go after them, we even have a good idea of where they are, and we don't leave our own behind!"

"They went against my recommendations, knowing full well that we wouldn't be able to follow. We're not leaving them behind, they left us behind!"

"They didn't leave us, we were supposed to beam them back to the Odyssey after they took over the ship! Something must've gone wrong since we lost the emergency beacon signals within minutes!"

"As far as I know, Colonel, this could all be some scheme you and Colonel Mitchell orchestrated to force our hand and have the Odyssey go after them."

"What? That's crazy!" While it did take a lot for Sam to get angry, once she crossed that threshold, she was not pulling any punches. "I don't care what your authority is or what your orders say, two of SGC's best people are out there and we're going after them!"

Johnson arched his eyebrows with a condescending expression. "If I may remind you, Colonel Carter, you're not in command of this ship."

Davidson silently tapped his steepled fingers, his expression forbidding. "I'm inclined to agree with the Colonel. The parameters of the mission have changed. We're not just on some humanitarian quest anymore, the lives of two of our own people are at stake."

"The most important asset of our fleet is at stake," the IOA rep countered. "And at the end of the day, commander, this is a non-issue. You have your orders, signed by the President. He's your supreme commander, and when you were placed in command of this vessel, you agreed to follow those orders." He crossed his arms and gave Davidson a challenging look. "And now you're trying to negotiate with me how to best weasel your way out of doing so. Orders are orders, Colonel Davidson, isn't that what you always say in the military?"

"You're overstepping your boundaries, Mr. Johnson," the colonel warned, his voice deceptively calm. "When I took you on board this ship, I trusted that your intentions were straightforward, but nearly every single word out of you has, in my opinion as commander, been against the best interest of this ship and its crew."

The man seemed unfazed by the ever so subtle accusation. "On the contrary, the safety of this ship, and by extension its crew, are my number one priority. I question what your priority is, given how much you seem to want to take our most valued asset straight into Lucian Alliance territory on the advice of a...questionable source."

Vala tapped her foot angrily against the metal floor. The rest of the people on the bridge followed the exchange tensely, their eyes moving from the colonel to the IOA rep as the dialogue became more and more loaded.

"Careful, Mr. Johnson. As you pointed out earlier, I am in command of this ship, and I don't like your tone."

"I agree with Marcus Johnson."

Teal'c's sudden statement left most of the bridge crew slack-jawed. Even the IOA rep had a hard time believing what he had just heard, although he tried his best to hide it behind a self-important cough.

"Erm –thank you, Teal'c."

The Jaffa inclined his head with a gracious smile. "I do believe that Colonel Davidson's priorities truly do not serve the best interests of this vessel."

Johnson crossed his arms and gave the Odyssey's commander a satisfied look. "Perhaps you will reconsider your standpoint now, Colonel. Even Teal'c thinks you should."

"I certainly question Colonel Davidson's command decisions," the Jaffa confirmed openly. "In fact, I agree with your earlier statement."

The IOA rep nodded smugly.

"You are correct, I am indeed more experienced and more knowledgeable about the Odyssey," Teal'c continued.

Johnson's superior expression wavered slightly, as the man became confused.

"I would therefore like to accept your offer to assume command of this vessel, immediately," the Jaffa finished.

Johnson's face fell. "Wha –" He met Davidson's smouldering glare. "I don't –"

"Did you offer command of this vessel to Teal'c, Mr. Johnson?"

"No!"

The Jaffa tilted his head, in apparent surprise. "Did you not inform me several hours ago that the final senior crew has not yet been selected, and that should I wish it, I would receive command of the Odyssey?"

"I – I didn't mean – I meant hypothetically!" The man's earlier composure was gone, as he found himself flustered under the sharp gazes of everyone on the bridge.

"And I believe you did say that I was the most qualified person to command this vessel," Teal'c informed him pleasantly. "A most valid observation."

"I – just because he spent fifty years on it, I just meant he had the most knowledge about it!" Marcus Johnson gestured wildly, trying to explain. "I wasn't offering…"

Davidson crossed his arms and leaned forward in his seat. "Did you say to Teal'c that he was better suited for command and should be in charge of this ship?"

"No – I – not that way –" He took a deep breath, and seemed to regain his composure. "This is all a misunderstanding."

"Did you tell Teal'c that he could, and should, take command of the Odyssey?"

Johnson's composure dissolved again. "No! I didn't…" he saw the Jaffa's calm expression. "It's not what I meant, it was all a hypothetical discussion…"

Davidson stood up from the command seat.

"Gentlemen." He nodded to the two security men standing by the door. "Please escort Mr. Johnson to his quarters."

The IOA rep also jumped to his feet. "You can't do this, I have the President's –"

"Another word from you, Mr. Johnson, and you'll spend the rest of this trip in the brig for attempted mutiny."

"Attemp –what?"

"Mutiny," Davidson enunciated slowly, as he walked toward the man. "I believe that's what we say in the military when someone proposes an unauthorized change of command on a military ship during an ongoing mission."

The IOA rep opened his mouth, but was unable to find words.

With an utterly humourless grin, Davidson nodded again to the two airmen. "His quarters it is, then. Make sure he stays there."

As soon as the bridge door hissed shut behind the three men, the colonel sat back down in his command seat. "Alright Major Marks, plot a course for the nearest of those three systems, and let's get our men back. And if we're attacked, be ready for some serious evasive manoeuvres, people…because if a single shot hits this ship, our careers are going down with it."

As always, many thanks to the rest of the VS team: Myosotis, SC and Tel nok shock, who are awesome and supportive and wonderful. And thanks to everyone reading and reviewing this story - we love hearing from you!