General Hammond sat at the head of the SGC's long mahogany conference table. Besides the General, and a sea of currently out-of-use television trolleys and flip cards, only Colonel O'Neil and Teal'c occupied the room.
"And that's the situation Colonel." The General had just finished explaining the story, from SG-14's failure to check it at the pre-arranged time, to the SGC receiving the transmission asking for ransom.
The Colonel remained quiet for a moment, his head was down and he seemed to be reading over the brief in front of him.
"Can I start of by saying," O'Neil begun, looking up, "And I don't think I'm wrong here," he looked over at Teal'c as if he was after his agreement, "That this would NEVER ever would've happened if you'd sent my team in."
O'Neil smiled, but continued to a more serious note before the General could intervene. "But," he said raising his index finger to make a point, "this isn't exactly normal behaviour for Goa'uld."
"I must agree with Colonel O'Neil," Teal'c said in his normal calm manor. "I do not believe the system lords would be interested in Earth's mineral wealth."
The General nodded absorbing the information put forth by his two trusted advisors. "Do you recognize the markings on the Jaffa we saw on the video"
Hammond turned around in his seat, and pulled one of the Television trolleys closer, and pressed the play button on the VCR. A playback began, which Hammond fast forwarded through the most part... it was the black room where SG-14 were being held, they were just talking about the demands their captors were making. Hammond suddenly hit the play button, toward the end of the footage, just as that small Jaffa stepped across the video to slap Allison across the face and drag her toward the camera, before uttering something in Goa'uld to those watching, which Carter had said translated roughly as 'I bet you'd hate for anything to happen to this female'. The video stopped there.
"I do indeed," Teal'c said, "Although I have never seen them on a Jaffa in my lifetime. He bears the markings of a Goa'uld system lord called Kiira who's armies were defeated many millennia ago."
"It is possible some of his Jaffa survived the war that saw the death of their master?" Hammond asked.
"It is," Teal'c said, "But they would not be alive today. We Jaffa have long lives, but not that of thousands of years."
"Do you think he just woke up that morning and put the round armour on then?" O'Neill suggested.
"Either that, or these Jaffa are not who they claim to be," Teal'c determined.
Hammond paused for a moment, assessing the information he had, and the information he'd been offered by Teal'c and O'Neil. "I agree with Teal'c, this isn't common Goa'uld behaviour. They would have more likely killed SG-14 straight away, rather than risking prisoners."
"So what do we do General?" O'Neill asked, his legs longed for some movement and his trigger finger was starting to itch. He was an old wardog, that's for certain.
"They gave us a gate address where we could drop of whatever resources we were to trade for our people, and a seperate one we could dial in order to communicate with them. It was suggest they are spread across more than one world."
"Yes but," came a fourth voice, it was Daniel Jackson, he had been requested at the meeting, but was off-base at the time, "the two gates addresses are very similar... indicating, usually, that the two planets are in close proximity... maybe the next star over."
Daniel was still in his civies, and was reading the same print out the other three had as he walked in. He took a seat next to Teal'c and finally looked up at the others, who were all starring at him.
"Oh right, yeah... sorry. Got the last flight home."
"Well, nice to see you," O'Neill said, not really sure if he was being sarcastic or not.
"We'll dial the first address and send a MALP through, see what happens," Hammond decided.
"If we can make contact with this... what are we calling them at the minute? Fake Goa'uld? If we can arrange a meeting to exchange our people for the resources they're asking for then maybe we can get our team back in somesort of... you know..." Daniel trailed off, he really didn't know how to word military terms.
"... death, shooting, tactical thingy."
"You mean a Strategically planned Tactical rescue operation?" O'Neill offered, he nodded his head in Jackson's direction and shook his head, much to Hammond's amusement.
"Okay people. It's a plan. Let's get our people home." Hammond rose from the table, satisfied work had been done and progress had been made.