Close Encounters

Lt. Karen Astor

They don't trust me, but then again I don't trust me either. After that whole Zatarc thing in my head I don't know when I'll go wacko or not. I find I not only don't mind they put the first Re'tu to join the SGC on my team, but I welcome him.

Yes, my team. Not a Colonel, not a Major, not a Captain but a Lieutenant leading this SG team. Why? Of course I wasn't told, but I have my suspicions. I'm the only one who lived from the first SG-15.

Though after the Zatarc, maybe I didn't really survive after all.

I don't know if this is a matter of trust, punishment or someone's idea of a very bad joke. I wouldn't have even thought the latter except Abe pointed it out to me as a possibility.

Oh yes, Abe. If the fact my low rank put me in charge as maybe sole survivor status, getting Abe on my team really cinched matters. Not that Abe is a bad guy or whatever he is. Abraham "Abe" Sapien is a fish guy found on good old Earth, though for reasons beyond me, I'm not why or where. Something about clearance and need to know.

For crying out loud, he's on MY team, why shouldn't I know?

Anyway, he's got this Creature from the Black Lagoon look going. He's very smart, and apparently worth the trouble of making some kind of underwater tank for him at the SGC.

At first I just thought, he's my token weird guy. SG-1 has Teal'c, a Jaffa, SG-2 has Robby, a robot, SG-7 has Vin-ko-taneck-o-pentay, SG-11 has a Mondoshawan and SG-13 has whatever the heck Dr. Johann Kraus is.

So I thought maybe Abe's mine. However the powers-that-be didn't stop at Abe. In fact, I'm the only human on this rather large SG team.

It has to be a kind of punishment. True I'm the team leader and while Lieutenants can command a team, it just isn't the rule of thumb here at the SGC it seems. But then most SG teams are made up of other humans. You'd think this sort of job would rate something higher, just not for me. Not a whisper of this leading to a promotion.

I just hate being the first.

It -might- be because someone thinks I'm capable. I handled the meeting with the Re'tu alright. SG-9 was there with Dr. Jackson acting as the mediator, but I didn't freak out when I saw the Re'tu in all their buggy glory. True it went well opening back up talks with the Chip-chap-tiqulk. Xe-ls was actually pleasant and T'akaya not so openly hostile as before from what the reports had in them.

Tonane was friendly, and I think his speaking up for me maybe part of the reason I'm here now. He drew the Chip-chap-tiqulk's attention to me, which drew Xe-ls and then T'akaya's.

Come to think of it, T'akaya did mention something about if the SGC were really for all beings then they should have a team to represent that.

I wonder did SGC, or worse the people back in Washington really think she was serious? Is that why I have a Re'tu and whatever Abe is on my team? Did SG-9's report have something to do with this? Then there is the fact that T'akaya is on the team.

Did I mention I'm also getting two Jaffa? Women yet, like Drey'auc and Shaun'auc. The latter brought them with her and said another faction of Jaffa wishes to contribute to the Tau'ri fight. Yeah, us Tau'ri, leading the way. Hoorah.

So on my shoulders is the team of good-will that is unlikely to be sent on any 'real' mission, but is ultra important that we all get along and show to the galaxy at large that the SGC is an equal opportunity employer. It's like being the flagship team of SG-1, rolled up with the diplomacy team of SG-9 with a dash of the odd balls in SG-13. And -I- have to make it work.

One little redheaded lieutenant who didn't make it out of a Goa'uld ambush like she thought she had. Who had been a weapon programmed to do who knows what to the SGC and they aren't sure something way down deep may still exist. Oh they say they're sure I'm not a Zatarc anymore, but if they trusted me wouldn't they have given me a good NCO at least? Put another human in this mix to watch my back?

No, instead they give me all these aliens as my teams replacement, make me the team CO and say make it work, it might generate more allies or at least goodwill. Something after the NID pulled their stunts...twice, that we are in need of out there.

No pressure now.

I just hope the rumor that I'm getting a Mondoshawan on the team is just a rumor.

T'akaya

Xe-ls has not heard the last of this. I blame myself for this exile imposed upon me. I suggested that the SGC show friendship and cooperation with a team that shows they are not just out for themselves as we found they had been when we first met. I did not expect to be volunteered to represent our people, to be as Xe-ls put it, our eyes and ears to the affairs of the Tau'ri.

Still they are showing they are not just saying one thing and doing another. They really are letting non-humans be apart of their SGC.

The Re'tu are an...unusual race, one impossible to see. I understand one of their number had come to our world and returned with the SG teams along with us to Earth. None of us saw this Re'tu nor sensed their presence. It is not that we are distrusting of them, that is the way of the Tau'ri, but we would like to know when they are about. Perhaps we, I, do not trust them after all.

Mala

I do not like this, but Ishta is right, we must -know-. We cannot afford to trust yet, nor can we afford to ignore what is going on here. Every since word of a Jaffa woman fighting alongside her husband, and encouraging others to do so for their freedom reached our ears we knew we had to find out more. Ishta has met this woman, Drey'auc and found her words convincing enough to send me here to verify the truth of the Tau'ri. To see if they truly fight for our freedom, and if Drey'auc's words were but her husbands used as another method to control us or from her own heart as rumor says.

I am a spy and I do not like it.

They cannot know of the Hak'tyl yet. That is a secret both Emta and I will take to our deaths if it comes to it. They will not now of what we are apart of yet. If Drey'auc's words prove true, if the Tau'ri show they will not be worse than Moloc, or a replacement for the Goa'uld, then perhaps then they will know the name of the Hak'tyl.

Emta

My orders are simple, I am to guard Mala's back. She knows it, I know it. We will present the front to the Tau'ri that we are here due to Drey'auc's words and in part that is true. More than in part for I would not be here save Ishta wishes to know and has sent Mala and I am here because Ishta wants Mala to one day return to our sisterhood. I will not fail her, I will not fail Mala.

In some ways I envy Mala. Her work here is simple, to verify the truth of the words we heard from the women of Chulak of the Jaffa rebel Teal'c and his wife Drey'auc. My allegiances are layered and many. I serve Ishta's will, I protect Mala's back, I will honor the Hak'tyl, I will look to Drey'auc and will fight for the Tau'ri under Lieutenant Astor.

I cannot fail, I will not fail. Not Ishta, not Mala, not Drey'auc, not Lieutenant Astor.

Gothothulot

I just tell the humans to call me Gotho and leave it at that. We shouldn't waste time on trying to get my name right when there are Goa'uld to kill. In the scant years since the Tau'ri came onto the galactic scene they have wiped out more of them than any one else had in centuries, if not millennia. This is the winning side, the ones who will succeed unlike Kalakek and his impossible plan that I was foolish enough to want to follow. I was going to be next, part of the team of five to give our lives to destroy yet another population of potential host.

Foolishness.

We could expend the remains of our entire race and still not wipe out every possible host. Yet until the Tau'ri this was the only plan that sounded viable. While unseable or hearable by Goa'uld eyes and ears, their symbiotes could sense us and so a direct assault was not possible.

Finally with the inventiveness of the Tau'ri and how they pulled in the Tok'ra and even Tollan to help, we can walk among the symbiotes unsensed. We can now strike back for the near genocide the Goa'uld perpetrated upon my people.

We can take the war directly to them.

Abe Sapien

Goodness me this is amazing event. An artifact that will allow transport to other worlds. So much has been written about this, and now I am going to actually to do it. Off to another world. It is everything Dr. Krauss mentioned and more.

Just visiting Dr. Jackson's office is a wonder in itself. His artifacts tell so many interesting stories, and both Drs. Jacksons want to hear so much from me about them. At least Dr. Carter is not so skeptical about my abilities as she initially was, but apparently she has seen quite a few things off-world to convince her that what I do is scientifically possible.

And then there are the Jaffa.

I do wonder about the sense of humor of the ones assigning SG teams. After all it can't have been an accident that all of us were assigned SG-15, with the numbers reversed it is 51. All of us really would have been in Area 51 had not the SGC come into existence.

Author's note: For those who don't know Abe is a cross over character from the movieverse version of Abe Sapien of Hellboy franchise. There will likely be other cross over aliens to cycle through the team in future chapters.