OK, here's the latest chapter. It's been a long month, I've been applying for something that might give me more money but less free time, we looked after my sisters two kittens the other week, and now we have a new kitten, called Toffee, who is playing with my shirt cuffs and batting at the keyboard even as I type this. Anyway here it is. The fun begins!
The guy's name was Sergeant Siler. He had greying hair, glasses, and had the biggest wrench that Xander had ever seen in his left hand. To his right was a slightly shifty looking guy called Corporal Monetti. And to his left was Corporal Penhaligon, a man who was so bulky that he looked like a larger version of Gimli from the Lord of the Rings. Without the braided hair, beard and axes, obviously. All of them were looking at him quizzically. Behind them stood another five members of the US Air Force, two men and three women. They too were looking at him quizzically. It was fair to say that 'quizzically' was the word of the day.
Xander looked at the X-302, the prototype of the F-302, which was off to one side and then smiled. "Ok, people," he said firmly. "I've been asked by Colonel O'Neill and General Hammond to do some serious tinkering with this thing. By which I mean to strip it down to the airframe, cut bits of it off, weld bits on and generally turn it into something that can fly rings around anything else you have here. There is a huge amount to do and I mean to do it as fast as I can. Major Carter tagged you as being the best at what you do. That's exactly what I need right now, and I'm honoured to work with you all.
"Ok, first thing's first. I need the engines pulled out of this thing. All three of them. Dump them to one side. I have the full schematics for them, and I might cannibalise bits of them, depending on what I need and what fits. I also need the hyperspace generator pulled – and I want it brought to me, as I have a very good idea what it needs to have done to it. Oh, and pull the inertial dampener as it's a hunk of junk.
"I also want the cockpit removed and the power system pulled out. That's a hunk of junk as well. Strip the skin off the wings off. Bits of the wings, like I said, are going to be cut off. I have some schematics sketched out for what I'm going to need in terms of electronic systems – so I won't need what's on this thing. Oh and I need some parts to build some new weapons on this thing. I'll be working on that to one side. Before anyone asks, they're going to be energy weapons of the type that Major Carter thinks can't be built right now, so I'd appreciate it if you kept quiet about that bit, as I want to surprise her. Any questions?"
Siler raised a slightly uncertain hand. "Excuse me, sir, but who are you again?"
"Xander Harris. I'm… well you can call me a specialist. Full authorisation has been provided, so if you have any questions about me, ask Colonel O'Neill or General Hammond. Any other questions? No? Good, then let's get to work."
The first hint that something was wrong in the room came when Giles went absolutely silent. Buffy, who was balancing on one hand on a slender piece of wood, had other things on her mind at the time, but after a minute or two of this silence she frowned and looked over at her watcher.
Giles was sitting at the desk, a copy of the Scroll of Albania, or whatever the hell it was called, in front of him. His eyes were twitching backwards and forwards, the way that they did when he was thinking very hard about something, running through all the options and then coming to a conclusion that fitted all the facts while at the same time blowing his little tweed Watcher's socks clean off his feet.
"Giles?" she asked carefully. "Are you ok?"
There was more silence for a second or two and then her Watcher's fist came down on the table in front of him so hard that the pens that had been laid out to one side jumped more than slightly and then skittered off the surface and fell to the floor. "By god, that's it!" he yelped in triumphant but highly surprised tones. "How could I have been so, so stupid! The inflection, the interpretation was all wrong! It's older than I thought! It's proto-Bantu! Bugger it!"
Buffy wobbled slightly and then stared at Giles, who was sitting there looking as if he had been poleaxed. Strange term. She needed to look up what a poleaxe was some day. "Giles, you're worrying me," she barked. "What's wrong?"
"Shanshu!" He said, and then sobered in a flash. "It's the word that's been baffling us. In the Prophecy I mean. My initial translation was 'Death' but as Wesley pointed out, it's far more complex than that. It means…" He paled. "I need to call Wesley at once. I must get this checked out. I don't want to get your hopes up."
"Hopes up?" she asked quizzically and then she flexed her arm, sprang up off the piece of wood and then landed gracefully on both feet. "Giles, what the hell is it?"
Her Watcher stood, staring down at the copy of the scroll in front of him and then looked up at her. "Buffy, if I'm right, Angel might become human again." And then he strode out of the room, leaving her gaping at the door.
The iris sighed as it fully opened, revealing the shimmering blue surface that made up the event horizon of the wormhole within the Stargate. After a moment two figures, both dressed in robes with their cowls thrown back and holding upright staff weapons, walked through into the SGC, and down the ramp, where they both bowed slightly before the waiting General Hammond and Jack.
"Welcome back," said Hammond with a nod. "How did it go?"
"The proposed alliance between two of the medium-ranking System Lords has failed to materialise," stated Teal'c with a small smile.
"Oh?" asked Jack, "Any particular reason why?"
"To arrange an alliance one must first have a head," replied Bra'tac with what amounted to a smirk for him. "Sadly there was a ring malfunction and the main emissary for Tiamat, a Goa'uld of somewhat questionable morals even for their kind, failed to appear for the negotiations… intact."
"What a terrible tragedy," Jack said with what he had to admit was a certain lack of sincerity. Then he paused. "We had a development here by the way. There's someone looking at things that you might approve of."
The two Jaffa looked at Jack for a moment and then exchanged a uniquely Jaffa glance that contained what might have been an entire conversation in a few lifts of the odd eyebrow. "That we might approve of?" repeated Teal'c, with a slight frown, and then he straightened up a little further, as if that was possible and smiled slightly. "Is Jedi Harris on the base?"
"He rang me two days ago to say that he'd like to know what we were up to. So I invited him on a tour of the facilities. With the General's permission of course."
"Jedi Master Alexander Harris is truly on the base, Hammond of Texas?" Bra'tac asked with an intent look on his face.
"He is," the General confirmed. "At the moment he's taking a long hard look at our fighter defences. Or rather he's stripping the X-302 prototype down to its airframe and rebuilding it into something."
"Yes," said Jack, "He pointed out a few problems with the existing setup, and in the process I think that he got up Carter's right nostril. I take it that you two would like to meet him again after he's done rebuilding what used to be Earth's most advanced fighter?"
Another bout of eyebrow waggling seemed to flicker between the two Jaffa and then Bra'Tac stepped forwards. "We would be honoured to meet him. There is much for us to discuss. He would be a great asset to this planet, Hammond of Texas. He would be a great ally against the Goa'uld."
Hammond looked at the old Jaffa and then nodded slowly. "I'm starting to suspect that too," he said slowly. "In the meantime let's get you settled in the guest quarters."
He looked down at the list of places in his hand and swore softly. The Slayer seemed to have a very active life at the moment, and this was something that confused him. Traditionally Slayers tended to lead the kind of life where they were trained by their Watchers, they slew vampires and fought the forces of evil, and that was about it. This Slayer seemed to be buzzing about the place with a lot of freedom of movement and what appeared to be a lot of friends. He was pretty sure that Buffy Summers was not a traditional sort of Slayer.
That was both good and bad. On the one hand she was so far already one of the more long-lived Slayers. That was good – she had found her core of stability and the strength that lay within.
On the other hand it made it bloody hard to catch her and explain a few things about her 'sister'. Who had to be kept safe from the Beast as much as possible.
He looked away from the list and then down at the sphere. When he held it in a certain way a fuzzy red light appeared. That was bad, very bad. It meant that the Beast was getting closer and closer. Not very close, yet, but any kind of even vague proximity made him break out into a cold sweat. The first time that he'd seen that light, his stomach had clenched so hard that he'd run to the nearest toilet and emptied his guts.
Thrusting that thought away from him he looked down at the list again. He needed to find a place to talk to her, and he needed to do it as soon as possible. There was too much riding on this.
Xander scratched the back of his head thoughtfully and then looked back down at the hyperdrive. The thing was a pile of crap, he thought morosely. It was not well designed, it was far too large and crude and it was just… crap. What Anakin would have thought about it could have been boiled down to a number of four-letter words.
Looking away from the thing that was offending his eyesight, but which had to be fixed at some point, he glanced at the ravaged shape of what had once been Earth's leading fighter craft. Right now the only place it could have led to was straight down, if someone removed the undercarriage and allowed gravity to take its toll. Actually, if someone removed the supports, because the undercarriage was in the process of being removed. Wheels were not required. Hydraulics were, but the process of making something to land the thing on was going to be one of the easier parts of the entire build.
The skin to the X-302 was long gone, the wings had been cut back, the life support system was next to be removed and the power plant had been exposed. They had done a lot of work and that was just the start of the whole thing. As for the rest… well, it was time for the second team to start work. The first team, led by Siler had worked themselves into the ground today. Actually he'd had to order Siler home when he realised that the sergeant had pulled an 18-hour shift. Being enthusiastic about a job was one thing, but ignoring your body when it was screaming at you for rest was another.
Speaking of which he needed some rest himself. There was an office set up to one side with a sleeping cot and a shower, and that sounded quite good to him at the moment. A shower, a change of clothes – even a set of BDUs sounded good at the moment, and then a Jedi healing trance until he had restored the old tissues. Maybe an hour or three and then he'd be back at it.
He had a hell of a lot to do. And he had a nasty feeling that he was fighting the clock on this one.
The demon was tall – about ten foot tall at first glance. It might have been the horns that gave it that added bit of apparent height. The fangs were long and pointed, while the bone prongs that stood up through the shoulders of the steel cuirass were frankly overkill, as was the massive sword and the shield with a flaming black eye painted on it.
The screamed challenge was merely the icing on the metaphorical cake of over-the-topness that labelled the thing as a complete poseur.
As a result the follow-up was more than a bit, well, pathetic. One slash of the blue lightsabre blade removed most of the sword and the top half of the shield. The demon stopped its long and possibly convoluted screaming, which might have been a rant about which of Lindsey's organs he was going to eat and in which order, and blinked audibly. It sounded like castanets clicking in the background. After a long moment, in which he could almost hear the cogs grinding in the head of the demon, the creature then dropped the remains of the sword, directed a smile that was probably supposed to look genial at him (instead it made the creature look as if it had gas) and then looked rather surprised at the fact that it was holding a shield. Then it sidled away, trying to whistle.
Lindsey shut his lightsabre off, clipped it to his belt and then walked on, shaking his head slightly as he did. New demons were always attracted to the Hellmouth. They liked a 'challenge'. The problem was that such challenges tended to mean that at some point they either met Buffy, or any of the Jedi, or Giles, or Spike when he was in a very bad mood, or Willow, or Amy and Tara… Well. Such dark demon dreams tended to end rather quickly.
He smiled and looked around as he strolled through the streets of Sunnydale. It was a lovely night, with the moon hanging over the hills to one side and a breeze rustling the bushes and trees gently. As he walked around a corner and down a slight hill, he caught something with the Force and then frowned. He could feel something to one side… and whatever it was, it was best labelled as dangerous malevolence or worse. Typical Sunnydale. There was always something…
She was not in a good mood when she left the bar. She'd had two beers that had somehow lasted an hour. There was just too much stuffed in her head to process properly. Instead she'd just sat there in her favourite seat, with her boots on the table, whilst her thoughts had paraded around her brain in circles. It had not been a pleasant feeling. She knew that things could not go on the way that they had been, but taking that first step out of the circle was proving to be harder than she had thought. Far harder.
After a few minutes she suddenly realised that her sixth sense was screaming in her ear that she was suddenly not alone. Reaching out with the Power a little she soon found them. Three vampires and one demon. Yuck, a Ter'Ghar demon. They liked to play with their food. As in rape it, chew parts off and then kill it and eat the rest. She smiled slightly. Well, at least she could take her frustrations out on something.
They came for her at the next intersection, the three demons running out straight at her while the demon, who had to be paying them or something, hung back. Well, more fool him.
She waited until the first demon was almost on her and then she flung her weight on to her left foot, leaned backwards slightly and then kicked with her right foot. Hard. It connected with his crotch with a force that should have sent his balls up into his brainpan. The vampire screamed like a falsetto stuck pig and dropped out of the fight and into his own personal world of pain.
The other two vampires faltered slightly, which was a mistake, because it gave her the time to pull a knife from a sleeve and throw it so that the blade slammed into his head. His eyes crossed as he screamed and reached up to pull it out, but by then the blessing in Tibetan or some such shit, was doing its work, because he burst into flames and then dissolved into a fading mist of incandescent particles.
Vampire three was by now having a serious attack of second thoughts, because he skidded to a halt and then twitched slightly in several directions as he considered and then discarded a number of different plans of attack. Hesitation in battle meant death, as one of her fellow assassins had once said, and so it proved now. She lashed out with the Power, forcing him to stumble back several paces while staring at his chest and frowning. A second later the stake that she had pulled out of her other sleeve thumped into his heart, and he followed his fellow vampire.
Pausing only to pull the Tibetan dagger (that had been a hell of a bargain!) from the pile of ashes to one side and then jam it into the back of the remaining, whimpering, vampire's neck, she walked up to the Ter'Ghar, whose look of gloating anticipation had shattered into horrified disbelief. She smiled at him. "I'm not an easy piece of meat," she pointed out.
The demon swallowed noisily and nervously, uncertainly hefted the ceremonial gutting knife it had been holding, and then turned and ran for it. She sighed for a moment and was about to run after him to point out the error of his ways, when all of a sudden her sixth sense screamed in her other ear, even louder this time, telling her that there was someone else out there. She picked up the knife again and then darted back over the road, to stand in the shadows.
Over by where the demon had run to a sudden familiar snap-hiss cleaved the air as a blue blade appeared out of nowhere. The demon had just enough time to exclaim in shock, before the blade came around and severed his head from his neck. The body collapsed bonelessly while the head bounced a few times as it rolled down the road.
She stared into at the blade and then dragged her eyes reluctantly up to the face of the man who was holding it. And then she blinked. It wasn't Harris. This guy was shorter, and older, with floppy hair and a look of intense concentration. He was staring back at her, before he deactivated the lightsabre and then straightened up. He seemed to be studying her.
"You must be one of the Jedi that Harris talked about," she said after a long moment of silent inspection.
"Yup," replied Lindsey as he clipped his lightsabre back onto his belt and then crossed his arms and looked right back at her. "And you must be the assassin from the Order of Teraka. Xander said that you've been staying in the area. I wouldn't recommend Sunnydale as being much of a vacation spot."
"No kidding," she sneered in response. Then she paused. "Is he around anywhere?"
"Out of town. Doing some research," said Lindsey. "He ought to be back in a week or so. Is it urgent?"
She looked away and gazed at the road as it stretched away to the north. "No, I just… wanted to talk to him." Her gaze fell onto the concrete of the road for a moment and then back at him. "So you know about the Order of Teraka. If you've heard of it why didn't you react more? I mean, I'm an assassin. I've done things that should make anyone shudder."
He looked at her for a long moment, calmly and dispassionately, picking up on the mixture of anger and fear and self-disgust that she was putting out. Mixed in with that was a brighter thread, if an ill-defined one – a yearning for… something. He couldn't say what. It was like she knew that there was a part missing somewhere in her.
"I heard about the Order from my old job. The one I had before I became a Jedi," he replied eventually.
"So what did you do?" she asked with another sneer. "Teacher? Boy scout? Altar boy?"
"I was a lawyer," he replied dryly, "At Wolfram & Hart."
She went pale as she just looked at him for a long moment. "Wolfram & Hart?" she repeated after a while.
"Yeah," he sighed, "Law firm to most of the demon lords and half the hell dimensions there are. I did things that I'm not proud of, until I couldn't take it there any longer. Believe me, I'm going to be scrubbing stains off my soul for some time to come. At least I got out in time."
"Wolfram & Hart," she repeated softly, almost in a daze. She seemed to be thinking very hard and fast. "Wow. You're guy Harris mentioned? He really was telling the truth about that? I thought that he was just spinning the wind a bit."
He smiled briefly. "You don't know Xander that well. He does not lie. He's a Jedi Master." Pausing, Lindsey looked at her carefully and then sat down by the side of the road opposite her. Still in a pseudo-daze she copied his movements.
"You ok?" he asked after a few minutes.
"You got out of Wolfram & freaking Hart," she said softly. "How the hell did you do that? They kill people who try to leave."
"They had a place here," he answered. "It was run by a lunatic who fortunately didn't notice the fact that I hated the place. When I resigned I sent them a resignation letter that ticked all the boxes on my contract. I was quite a good lawyer, you see. Then I started my training – to be a Jedi, you see. Oh, they came after me. Kidnapped my mom and my sisters. But I was a Jedi by then. We went to LA and rescued my family and I didn't turn my old and very evil boss into so much chopped liver. That's how I got out."
Pondering this she looked up again. "You didn't kill your old boss?"
"He was defenceless. I had a sword and he didn't have anything. He masterminded the kidnapping, but I wasn't there for revenge. I was there for my mom and my sisters. What would killing him have got me?"
Her face twisted a little in response to his words, as if she didn't quite get what he was saying. Opening her mouth for a moment, she looked as if she was starting to say something, before she reconsidered and then closed it again.
"Mind if I ask you a question now?" he asked. She looked at him briefly and then nodded slightly. "How did you learn to use the Force?"
"The Force," she said with a slight smirk. "Weird to hear it called that. I… grew up calling it the Power. My dad taught me. Not much, just bits and pieces. Enough to control it. He… I think he was good at it, but he didn't use it much." Her face crumpled slightly for a moment. "Can't remember my mom much at all. She died when I was a small kid. Don't remember what she died off. We did a lot of travelling after that. Lots of different places. I think… I think there was something always behind us. Something we were runnin' from. Something to do with my grandpa. Only ever met him once, when I was very small. After my mom died but before we started runnin'. He scared me, I remember that much. Dad was scared of him too."
Another silence fell, and this time it was Lindsey who shivered. There had been something in her voice that had indeed spoken of fear. "Who was your father? What happened to him?"
"He… his name was Thomas Clayton. He took his mom's name. Part of the bit about running from his father. He died when I was about 15. Heart attack. His dad's name was Dansey. He was a Judge from somewhere in L.A. That's about all I know about him."
Lindsey felt his skin crawl. "Judge Dansey? The one who died the other week?"
"That was him. Dad was afraid of him. Never talked about him much." She went silent again. "So when does Harris get back again? Which day next week?"
"I'm not sure," he said softly. "Like I said, there's something he needs to do. I'll let you know when he comes back. In the meantime, if you need to talk, about anything, talk to me. I'm a good listener. I've even been known to give out the odd nugget of good advice. Anyway, I have to patrol. See you around. If you need to talk to me, leave a message with Rupert Giles at the college library." He stood slowly and then walked away. As he looked over his shoulder she was still sitting there. She looked as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. He knew that look. "She's wondering what the hell to do," he muttered as he walked off into the darkness and towards the lights of Sunnydale.
She was very tempted to smirk whenever she got the books out. Well, one of the books anyway. She'd found them all in a safe in Dansey's house. It hadn't taken long to open it – using the Force made it quite easy to pick the tumblers on the lock and then open it. She'd been tempted to lightsabre it open, but that might have set fire to whatever was inside.
Like the books.
The largest was also the oldest – and had been Dansey's most prized possession. It was the journal of the French Templar who had turned against the Order (or the spineless bunch of old women, as he had described them) and masterminded their destruction. It mentioned what he had learned, how he had trained, what he wanted to do, and above all how he had crushed his enemies. The repetition seemed to be a bad attack of gloating.
The last few days of his life, when he had been besieged in his castle by the last of the Templars, was understandably a bit less gleeful. The last entry by the original owner had been written hurriedly, saying that the vermin outside were trying to burn them out and that he had to fight. He was going to give the journal to the younger of his two acolytes and tell him to get the book to safety, even at the cost of his own life.
The next entry was presumably by the acolyte, in very different handwriting, saying that his master and all the others had been killed, and that he had escaped – although he had lost an arm in the process and was very weak, and that he needed to find a place to hide. There was nothing more after that.
Lilah ran her hand over the front of the book. She had been right, it had been burned at one point – it looked as if something very hot had brushed hard against it, and she found herself wondering what had happened to it.
Shrugging she put it to one side and then picked up the one that really amused her. Dansey's playbook. The one in which he had scribbled his thoughts down in. Well. Most of them anyway. The more that she found out about him, the more that she realized that the man had been made up of a lot of smoke and mirrors. There had been so much that he'd hidden. There was so much that was still hidden, like exactly what his plan had been.
That said, she could make some intelligent guesses at the outline of it, as she saw it. He'd been heading steadily upwards in the court system. The thing was, some of the people that he'd been replacing had all either died or done something incredibly stupid which had led to them resigning. The same had gone for many of his competitors for those positions. Judging (ha!) from his writings it had not been co-incidence. No, Dansey had been influencing things and had been heading in one direction. The Supreme Court. The thought made her feel slightly dizzy. The idea of her late and entirely unlamented master on the Supreme Court, giving his input on the laws of the land… well, he could have done anything, really. It would have been fun to watch. From Canada.
But there had been more than that. She was pretty sure that he wanted to go further on from there. The problem was where. The Supreme Court did not lead to the Presidency, the Constitution was very clear on that bit. Taft may have gone from the Presidency to the Supreme Court, but you couldn't do it the other way around.
So Dansey must have had a plan to go on from there… perhaps getting a flunky or a cat's-paw elected? She paused for a moment. Perhaps that had been her part of the plan? That would have made sense, but he had never mentioned trolling for votes to her. Besides, the chances were that Wolfram & Hart had tried to get a foothold in the Government before, and something had happened to put them off. Something probably quiet but messy. She'd heard that the last time that the Firm had tried to get into the British Government had been in 1650. Oliver Cromwell was not a name to conjure with apparently.
No, she wasn't getting anywhere with that right now. She sat back and looked at the room around her. The other thing that Dansey had had in his safe was a box that had contained a lot of money, both in the form of banknotes, and also in the form of bank records for large amounts of cash in places like the Sixth National Bank of Siberia. It was, of course, a front to launder money from the other places in the records. There was also a complicated cats cradle of ownership records and false identities to help the money – so complicated that anyone from the IRS who went anywhere near it would probably suffer an aneurism, just prior to their head exploding violently.
A quiet phone call here, a message left there, and the old mansion that had been her training ground had been sold and another building, the one that she was sitting in now, had been bought. It was smaller for a start. She needed to keep going through his notes and winnow out some of the training methods that he had been going to show her, along with details of the things that he had left out. Plus she had no intention of taking on an apprentice. Not yet, anyway.
One thing still intrigued her. In his book, part of his notes were missing. An entire section had been savagely ripped out. She wondered what it had been and why he had removed it so violently.
Well, whatever. She stood and summoned her lightsabre into her hand from where it had been resting on a table on the other side of the room. The moment that it smacked satisfyingly into her hand she thumbed it on and then leapt into the middle of the room, tucking into a quick somersault as she did. As her feet touched the ground she started her exercises, flowing from one position to the next, the lightsabre carving patterns of crimson light in the air as she did. She had a lot of training to do.
Daniel closed the book and stared at the blackboard again for a long moment. He had a feeling that he had squeezed about as much out of this thing as he could for the time being. He needed more information. Unfortunately this had its own set of problems and he crossed his arms, tucking the book under his left armpit as he did so, and grimaced. He had a lot on his mind and he also had a nasty feeling that it had been at least 48 hours since he had last slept. There was just too much to work out.
A set of knuckles tapped on the door behind him and he turned to see Teal'c standing in the doorway, with Bra'tac behind him. "Daniel Jackson, are you well?" the bigger of the two Jaffa asked, his head tilted slightly to one side. "O'Neill told us that you have not left your office in three days. Can I ask what is so pressing?"
"What? Oh… no, it's nothing urgent. I'm just… I'm just continuing some research," he said with a deep sigh punctuating his words. "Something that I need to work out."
Teal'c walked in, with Bra'tac following him. The old Jaffa looked slightly distracted. "You are aware of the fact that Jedi Master Xander Harris is at the airstrip, are you not?"
He nodded slowly. "Yes. Yes, I am aware of that."
"Odd," the older Jaffa said, "I would have thought that you would have talked to him by now."
There were times when Daniel wondered if Bra'tac was telepathic or something. He had a very nasty habit of coming up with statements and observations that verbalised what other people were thinking. It was very distracting at times.
"I've been… thinking about what he knows," he replied carefully. "About what it means to be a Jedi. About… what he can do."
"Surely he has given an adequate amount of proof by now," rumbled Teal'c. "He does indeed possess the skills of a Jedi Master."
"Scarily, freakily, yes," Daniel conceded. He lowered his head and ran a hand over his forehead for a moment before straightening up again. "Yes, he is a Jedi. But… there are some issues here that I've been trying to explore, to look into and assess. There seems to be some history involved here and I…" He faltered to a halt and then stopped. "I…"
After a long moment he sat down on the edge of the table, pulled his glasses off and closed his eyes. "He told me that I could be a Jedi as well," he stated in a flat voice. "And that information both intrigues and terrifies me at the same time."
There was a long moment of silence, punctuated only by Daniel sighing and replacing his glasses. When his gaze returned to the two Jaffa, they were both standing there, their eyes about as wide as it was possible for two such phlegmatic personalities to get.
"You…. could become a Jedi?" Bra'tac said.
"Yes."
"A Jedi," said Teal'c in a tone of voice that could best be labelled as 'well, damn.'
"Again, yes," replied Daniel with a slight frown. They both seemed to be having trouble either processing the information, or hearing him. He was pretty sure that they could hear him.
"Surely," rumbled Teal'c after a moment, "The answer to your question is a simple one. If you can become a Jedi than you should become one. I fail to see that this is a problem."
"I also fail to see that there can be any other solution," agreed Bra'tac. Ah. That was it. They were both looking at him as if the answer to the debate that had been raging in him ever since they had come back from Sunnydale was an insultingly easy one.
"Teal'c, Bra'tac," he sighed, "This, this really isn't as easy as you think. I'd be committing myself to something that could take me away from the SGC for… for… an indeterminate amount of time, training for something that still causes me the odd amount of disbelief and with, well, vampires and other potential monsters hanging around, and part of me still can't believe that I just said that."
The two Jaffa exchanged another look that seemed to be the equivalent of a quick conversation, but which was boiled down to a few flickers of the eyebrow.
"Daniel Jackson," said Bra'tac with a slight sigh. "You have the opportunity to learn the skills of the Jedi from a Jedi Master of great experience and wisdom. His appearance maybe that of a young man, but he fights and lives like a warrior and a scholar. Not to follow up on such an offer would be foolish. Very foolish."
"And you should not fear becoming a Sith," stated Teal'c seriously. "There is no false pride or anger within you. But there is much valour and wisdom. You should not feel fear. Apart from being a route to the Dark Side, you have no reason to feel fear."
Daniel sat there for a long moment of time. He couldn't later tell how long that moment had been. It was enough time for him to finally make up his mind and then nod. "Then I'd better go and see Xander then," he said eventually. "And ask him if he can train me."
"That is a wise choice, Daniel Jackson," said Bra'tac with a nod of his head that was definitely approving.
"Wow," said Daniel, that's a weight off my mind." He paused. The table felt very comfortable right now. "Of course the debate was keeping my mind active and that made me not think about how tired I am and Teal'c why are you all blurry?" Just before he fell asleep he heard his friend sigh and say something about sending for Dr. Frasier.
Creating a weapon for a space superiority craft from scratch was not an easy thing, but could be achieved with a lot of hard work and relevant technical expertise. Luckily Xander had memories of Obi-Wan helping Anakin repair, calibrate and at times massively rebuild the laser cannons on his various craft. Given the number of times that Anakin had flown his numerous star fighters almost to the point of destruction ("Don't worry, Master, we'll take a short cut," / "We can take them, there aren't that many of them," / "Come on Obi-Wan, where's your sense of adventure?" / "I didn't think there were that many of them at first.") he had a lot of technical memories.
Xander peered down the shaft of the second cannon and then shook his head slightly at the memories that ran through his brain for a moment. Now was not the time for wool gathering. One of the primary power couplings at the base of the cannon was misaligned. It wasn't by very much, but it was far better to be safe about this then sorry.
After a few careful tweaks he looked up at the shell of the craft that was emerging, slowly, from the wreckage of the former X-302. There was a hell of a long way to go, but the outlines at least were there, and just like so many building projects it was amazing what could be pulled together at the last minute when something was up. At the very least at the moment the main section of the fuselage existed at least in outline, with a squared-off stern and a long pointed nose. The hard points for the four engines would be the next thing to put on, after which the skeletal wings could be attached. He'd seen his uncle Rory weld things. He hadn't been bad. These guys were on another plane of expertise however. They really were that good.
As for the engines themselves they too were taking shape in one corner of the hanger. One was nearing completion. That had been the hardest one to build, because frankly he didn't have the kind of manufacturing facilities that Incom would take for granted. As a result although they were ion fission engines, they would have been laughed out of sight by Anakin for being so crude. He had a few ideas about that, especially as Incom had been experimenting with the 4L-class of fusial engines by the end of the Clones Wars, but that would take more time.
Besides, the overall reaction to them had already been baffled astonishment from the mechanics and ground crew who were building them, so perhaps they needed to start off with small steps and ramp it up later. The ion engines would serve their purpose for the time being. Hopefully, if they performed the way that he had designed them, speeds of up to 1,000 kilometres an hour should be possible. Maybe a bit more with some tweaking.
Oh and the hard points for the repulsorlifts were also ready. He was quite looking forward to building those, as they would be in many ways the easiest part of the whole build. He'd almost built his first remote target with his eyes closed, he was so familiar with the technology from his Obi-Wan memories. There had been times during Anakin's apprenticeship when Obi-Wan had been either building or repairing a combat remote at least once a week, after it had come to sad end due some bit of over-enthusiastic usage of a lightsabre. Obviously the repulsorlifts would have to be larger for the fighter, but the principle was the same.
Bending down again he tweaked the power coupling for one final time and then nodded. Perfect. He had the plans all laid out, so with them on the one hand and the completed laser canon on the other, Siler's team should be able to replicate it quite easily. That just left… a long list of things to do. Top of the list was the installation of a decent, or at least half-decent, targeting computer, because the one that had been in the X-302 couldn't have hit a drunk Hutt on a clear day at point-blank range. Well, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it certainly wasn't good by any stretch of his imagination. Heh. As if his imagination was entirely normal nowadays.
The problem was that the changes that he had suggested from the computer specialist on the team hadn't come back yet. Ok, the guy had a bad habit of dreamily staring off at the horizon whenever Xander had brought up concepts that were new to him, but he was pretty sure that the guy was working on it as fast as he could.
No computer and no engines did not make a good combination. Neither had the latest in fibre optic cabling arrived just yet. Apparently it was on the way. Until that arrived, they couldn't start to put the pieces together properly. Time. It was his worst enemy, but there was nothing that he could do about it just now, just plan things out and wait.
Hearing footsteps behind him he turned to see Jack O'Neill standing there at the entrance to the hanger. He was staring hard at the skeletal structure in front of him, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Interesting," he said after a long moment. "So, how's it going?"
Smiling wryly Xander looked at his creation. "It's coming along well. A lot done, but more needing to be done. And we're waiting on a few things right now. A slight hitch."
"What kind of things?"
"Some parts. Some cabling. Nothing major, just minor, but you can't build a fighter without the minor parts."
O'Neill nodded understandingly and then flicked a finger at his brow at Siler, who was walking past with part of the engine cowling. "Hey, Siler, this guy keeping you good and busy?"
"Yes sir, he is," the sergeant replied. "Busy but fascinated I should say."
"Okay," said Jack, as he rubbed a hand over his chin and then teetered up and down on the balls of his feet for a moment. "Xander, can they spare you for a few hours?"
He blinked. "I think so, but why?"
"General Hammond thinks that it might be a good idea to take you through the Stargate, and we have a milk run coming up. Carter wants to take some hotshot kid she picked up at the academy through it in order to get her interested in the programme or something. It might be a good chance for you to see what we do. Shouldn't take long, no more than a few hours, but you'd get a free trip to an alien planet at, I might add, no additional cost to yourself."
Xander paused, thinking hard and deeply tempted, and looked over at the construction work that was ongoing. Then he looked at Siler. "Sergeant, what do you think? You have a good grasp of what we're doing, but do you need my input for the next few hours?"
Siler looked around. "Sir, we've got to build the other engines, but you've left us with enough plans and input on that already. Cabling won't arrive until 0800 hours, and we know where that's going anyway. There's nothing urgent here at the moment, so I'd say go, sir."
Xander thought things through for a few seconds and then nodded. "OK, Jack. I'd like to see what's down the rabbit hole."
"Good, I'll tell Hammond," said Jack and then he frowned slightly and looked at Siler's retreating back. "Did Siler just call you 'Sir'?"
"Yes, he did. I think it was habit or something. I can't exactly turn my command voice off sometimes."
"Ah. You haven't commandeered anything like the entire planet yet, have you?"
"Jack, I don't think that I have the authority of the Galactic Republic behind me. Apart from inside my memories and the head of George Lucas, that doesn't exist."
"Right… right. Just checking. Anyway, I'll collect you in about an hour." He wandered off, his hands in his pockets and a slightly quizzical tilt to his head.
She was short. She had red hair. She had nostrils that looked as if they could flare at the drop of a hat. Oh and she had eyes that could freeze lava. All in all Cadet Jennifer Hailey looked like trouble. Right now though she was exhibiting a great deal of bemusement at everything around her.
Xander walked up level to her and then adjusted his olive green battledress. He felt slightly fraudulent in them, but they had insisted. Besides, Jedi robes might have felt better, but they would have marked him out as being very different at wherever the hell they were going. According to Jack the name of the planet was N4C862, which was distinctly unmemorable. That said, according to Sam Carter, there were so many worlds that giving names to all of them would have meant that unless they knew what the local name was, they would have swiftly run out of original ones.
He suppressed a slight wince as he remembered Jesse playing Civilization 2. His old buddy had been very good at it, but when it came to naming cities he didn't have much imagination. He'd once been forced to move his capital to Carrots and then conduct a major offensive from the cities of Peas and Potatoes, with a minor war on one flank to protect Steak and Ham. Sometimes you could tell exactly what Jesse had had for dinner the previous night by looking at the map.
Dragging himself back to the here and now he clipped his lightsabre to his belt, tugged his cap on and then folded his arms as the great ring at the end of the ramp started to revolve.
It seemed to take Hailey by surprise and she looked at it with her mouth slightly open as her eyes darted around it. Hearing footsteps Xander looked around to see Jack and Sam as they approached, also wearing the same olive green battledress. Jack had a small pack on his back and a smaller one on his front, which he was resting a submachine gun on, his hands grasping the butt and the barrel. Sam Carter was wearing a slightly larger main pack and had her gun slung on her shoulder. She looked at Hailey for a moment, quirked her lips for a second in what might have been amusement and then stepped up next to them and started to talk about exactly what was going on.
Xander listened, but absorbed the information absently as he stared at the great ring, which now had five chevrons glowing. It looked like an amazing piece of technology. Instant interstellar – or should that be interplanetary – travel via a stabilized wormhole. Fascinating. Although he couldn't imagine a mainline spacer being all that impressed. Moving large numbers of soldiers would be limited by how long the connection could be maintained, while bulk loads of supplies – and you needed supplies in bulk, in massive quantities if you wanted to keep a campaign moving forwards – would best be moved via hyperspace in bulk carriers. He could imagine quite a few Corellians expressing extreme contempt at the Stargate, as much as they might admire its technical abilities.
"Chevron Seven locked!" the guy in the control booth above his head announced and then the event horizon formed in a great vortex of energy, flashing forwards and then backwards, before stabilizing.
Wow, thought Xander, not bad. Out of the corner of his eyes he could sense slight disappointment in Jack and Sam that he hadn't flinched. Hailey had, but then from what Sam had said, she was still in the Air Force Academy and was consequently greener than grass. If Sam was pushing her though, then she had to be good. Heh. He wondered what would happen if she ever met Willow. It would probably be a technical word explosion.
"Well," said Jack as he tugged on his own cap and then put his sunglasses on, "Shall we go?"
"You mean… just walk into – that?" asked Hailey in a voice that was impressively level.
"Yes, Cadet. You see, this is what we do," drawled Jack in reply with a hint of sarcasm.
"Not a problem Jack, I'll go first," Xander grinned to break the moment and then strode up the ramp and straight into the event horizon.
The trip was… interesting. It was like a hyperspace jump, but where your eyes were open all the time, there was no ship around you and the route you took curved occasionally. He wondered if that was to avoid any gravitational eddies, like stars or black holes. He didn't have much time to think about it, because all of a sudden he was at the other end and was completing his stride on a stone ramp in front of a different Stargate on a different world.
"Wow," he said again as he walked a few steps forwards and then looked around. There were two moons, large ones, one that looked heavily forested and another one that was covered in clouds and was far further away, hanging in the sky. Further away a huge gas giant was hanging in the sky, taking up a large part of it. The trees around the Stargate site were tall and looked almost like firs, and the air, well, it smelt a bit like Naboo.
Oh and there was a guy with a machinegun just like Jack's staring quizzically at him about ten yards away. Fortunately at that moment Jack came though the Stargate, although perhaps ambled through might have been the right expression. He adjusted his sunglasses, looked around and then nodded at the man who had been waiting for them. "Major."
"Colonel," came the reply, along with a pointed glance at Xander.
"Oh, introductions. Xander this is Major Thomas Griff. Tom this is Xander Harris. He's a technical consultant with the SGC. Comes highly recommended. Anyway, anything particularly exciting to report?"
The Major smiled something that was almost a grimace. "Well, up until about a day ago the most exciting that that happened here over the past week was when Dr. Thompson lost his glasses. Then about a day ago we spotted something a bit out of the ordinary."
There was a noise to one side from the Stargate and then Sam Carter stepped through. Jennifer Hailey on the other hand lurched through looking as if her eyeballs were about to burst from shock. As she juddered to a halt she looked around – and then up at the sky. "This – this is another planet?"
"Moon actually," Xander pointed out. He scratched the back of his head. "Hum. Yavin IV again." Then he looked at Griff. "What did you mean, a bit out of the ordinary, Major?"
Griff opened his mouth for a moment, then caught himself and shot a look at Jack. "He related to General Hammond? He's got his command voice."
"Long story, Tom. Very long and very wacky story. So, what happened?"
Griff paused for a moment and ran his tongue under his upper lip quickly in thought. "Ok, we've spotted some small… well maybe insects. Made of light. That kinda pass through solid matter. Like trees. They were seen yesterday about a click away from the base. They did not threaten us. Seemed curious more than anything else."
Jack blinked and then nodded slightly. "Okay. That sounds like it can be classified as 'odd.'"
"Thing is, Hamilton is chomping at the bit to go and track whatever they are down. Keeps complaining. A lot. Not to mention bitching. A lot."
"Oh, for crying out loud," muttered Jack. "Did you tell him no?"
"Yup, but he's a sneaky bastard and he keeps trying to sneak out and-"
"Major Griff!" said a loud voice. Xander turned to see a balding man with glasses striding towards him. He seemed to huff with every step, either through shortness of breath or a need to get a great deal off his chest, on which was emblazoned the name tag 'Hamilton'. Looking over them all with a short glance he eliminated most of them with superbly condescending sniff of disdain and then concentrated on Griff and Jack. "Ah. You must be Colonel O'Neill. I trust that you have word on the missing parts to our generator that we requested four days ago?"
"Nope," Replied Jack, looking slightly nonplussed. "I'm sure that they're on the supply schedule though, which I can req-"
Hamilton cut him off. "I see. I was hoping that it was just Major's Griff's incompetence, but it seems to be an institutional thing, because I can't seem to get anything I ask for."
"Have you tried changing your tone of voice?" Xander asked, earning him a snort from Jack, a chuckle from Griff and a look from Hamilton that, had it been energy, should have reduced him to a small puddle of grease.
"Who is this person, Colonel?"
"Xander Harris. Civilian consultant. Not someone to dismiss lightly," said Jack.
"I see," replied Hamilton, obviously ignoring Jack's advice. "And there's the matter of these life forms. Colonel, has Major Griff given you a full report yet?"
"We only just arrived and yes he has," Jack said as he folded his arms around his P-90 and looked at Hamilton through his sunglasses, which seemed to put the scientists off slightly.
"It could not have been a very full report, as you've only just arrived!"
"Small glowing things, can pass through things, seem curious, yes. That seems to hit the high notes, as it were. And I understand you want to go charging off and track them down?"
This earned him the kind of look that Hamilton obviously only bestowed on complete morons. "Yes, of course! We're talking about something that can pass right through solid matter! We have to track these things down and study them! Which Major… Major McAuslan here refuses to let us do!"
Jack held up his hand to stop him. "Ok. First things first, the McAuslan jibe was a low blow. Secondly I think that Major Griff's thinking was on the lines of threat assessment, am I right?"
Griff nodded. "Yes, sir."
"And third, please stop ending your sentences so vehemently, as you're starting to spray the air with spittle, and that's just disgusting."
"Oh please! That's typical military thinking – you see something outside your experience and you think that it's a threat!"
"No, I'm thinking that if it can pass through solid matter then we have no defence against it," Jack pointed out. "So until we determine that there is no threat, I will assume that there is one. That is how we keep people alive on planets that are 99.9 uncharted. It seems to work. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some very important tramping around to do. I'm sure that you have a very important bug you need to pull the legs off somewhere."
Hamilton swelled slightly with indignation for a moment and then choked back whatever he was meaning to spit out, before stomping away, the personification of petulance.
Griff watched him go with a sigh. "Actually sir, when he isn't being a pain in the ass, he's quite good at his job, and he does have a point about the generator. In the meantime I take it that I'm relieved?"
"Yes, Tom, I relieve you of the burden of command, and the responsibility of making sure that bad things don't happen to Hamilton, which I will now have to think of in the privacy of my own brain. Before you head back to the SGC can you walk me around the perimeter and then point out the general direction of where these things are?" After receiving a nod from the Major, Jack turned to the others. "Ok, Carter, you show the cadet how we do exciting research things here. Oh, and if Hamilton tries to sneak away and catch one of the things, then tie him to something, as shooting him in the leg might be overkill. Xander, can you come with Griff and me? I want your… special skills on what might be out there."
"Ok, Jack," Xander smiled and then looked around. Something was prickling at the edge of his mind slightly. "Ok."
Jennifer Hailey watched the three men walk off and then frowned. "Ma'am?" she asked.
"Yes, Cadet?"
"Who is Mr Harris?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Because he's carrying a replica of a lightsabre clipped to his belt, but he's not armed at all. What does he do?"
Major Carter smiled and then chuckled. "Cadet, remember back at the Academy when I warned you about making assumptions?"
Confused, Jennifer nodded.
"You just made another one just then."
"About him being armed?"
"Yes," she said, and then started walking off towards the buildings in front of them. "And about it being a replica."
The trees looked a lot like firs, thought Xander as he walked around the base perimeter. He was partly looking with his eyes and partly looking with the Force, as he could definitely sense something. It was a long way away though, and could best be described as 'nebulous'.
After they had taken a turn around the perimeter, with Griff pointing out one or two things to Jack, they walked to a point where there was a slight rise away from the base with a view overlooking the surrounding forest. "They were seen over there, about a kilometre away," said Griff pointing.
Xander looked in the general direction of Griff's finger and then reached out with the Force. Yes, what he had sensed was out there. "Jack, there's something out there alright," he said quietly.
"You sure?" Jack asked. He nodded. "Ok, can you tell what they are?"
"Sorry sir, but how can he tell what's out there?" asked a visibly confused Griff.
"Major, Xander here has access to certain abilities that sound a bit crazy," answered Jack with a wince. "Very useful, as he helped to save our butts in California this year when an NID project went FUBAR, but still sounding a bit crazy at first."
Griff still looked confused but nodded despite this.
"Sorry, Jack, I'd need to get closer. I'll tell you this much, I can't feel anything malignant. Just a vague presence." He paused. "Wait a minute…" Turning his head he looked at the trees to one side. "There's something in there. It's very, very faint, but I think we have a visitor."
Jack looked over and then swore under his breath. "Ok, let's check this out. Stay focussed everyone."
Jennifer Hailey had only known Dr. Hamilton for half an hour, but she already disliked him. Actually she had filed him away in her mental filing cabinet under 'Bumptious prick', with a mental note that there was very little that could cause her to reconsider her conclusion.
Right now he was looking very, very smug, as he studied a glass cylinder linked to some wires. The cylinder contained one of the small life forms that had been reported on his world, which was just another of the amazing things that she had seen today. Her brain was starting to hurt a little from the amount of new information that she had to think through. For one thing though, she knew that come hell or high water she was going to get straight through the Academy to get into the SGC. The possibilities were astounding.
Right now though there was a very good possibility that Major Carter was going to punch Dr. Hamilton one on the nose if he didn't stop being such a condescending asshole. She had it figured as about a 68.9 percent chance.
"It may be trapped, but if it is intelligent – and I see more than enough evidence of that –then I do not think that keeping it imprisoned is a good idea!" Major Carter said, obviously trying to keep control of her temper.
"Oh please, Major, this is a chance in a lifetime to study such a fascinating creature!" Hamilton riposted.
The doors opened to one side and then Colonel O'Neill, Major Griff and the mysterious Xander Harris strode in quickly. They looked around – and did not look happy. "Damn it, Hamilton, what part of 'threat assessment' do you not understand?"
The scientist looked smug again. "Colonel, it wandered into here. Based on the earlier sightings Dr. Lee here came up with a working theory for holding one of them using this cylinder, with the top and bottom plates electrified. The field is keeping it in. So that we can study it."
"Sir, I do not recommend this," warned Major Carter.
"Neither do I," sighed Colonel O'Neill. "Xander, take a look at it please."
"What? What for? And is he even a scientist?" protested Hamilton, only to meet the full force what looked like a nuclear blast of a glare from the Colonel.
Harris walked up to it and then stared down at the creature as it zipped almost tremulously around the cylinder. "I'm not sure if this thing could pass a logic test, but it's intelligent on some scale," he said after a long pause. "It's sentient, Jack. Very fuzzy and energy-rich, but sentient. And right now it's terrified. Angry as well." He paused and then looked over his shoulder. "I think it's projecting something too."
"What? How the hell can you tell all that just by looking at it?" asked Hamilton, baffled.
"I just can," came the reply. "And it's still annoyed. Jack I think we need to let it go. I'm sensing some kind of reaction out there. Like they're getting annoyed as well."
"Sense?" asked Jennifer, staring hard at him. However this guy was, she was finding it very hard to classify him in her mental filing system. For one thing he acted far older than he looked, and he couldn't have been more than about 19 or 20. And that damn fake lightsabre was still clipped to his belt. What was up with that?
"You think that they're picking up on what it's sending out?"
Harris stood there, staring first at the life form and then at the wall. "In a word, yes."
The Colonel nodded. "Good enough for me. Hamilton, let it go. Now."
This order did not go down well. "No, Colonel. We need to study it."
"Then study it from a distance. We know next to nothing about it and there are a lot more out there, who all appear to be getting irked. Let it go."
Hamilton's fist crashed down on the table. "No! How the hell can this boy tell what they're doing? Who is he? What is his area of expertise?"
Colonel O'Neill glared at him and then paused, before turning to Harris and then smiling slightly. "Xander? Can you free this thing?"
"With pleasure, Jack," Xander Harris replied and then he looked at the cylinder – which promptly shattered into a million pieces. The top fell off to one side, the wires buzzed insistently for a second before they fell silent and the small energy globe soared out in a dizzying spiral of light.
Jennifer found herself gaping along with Griff, Hamilton and the assembled scientists. The creature buzzed around them for a moment and then paused, hanging in mid-air above Harris, who was looking up at it with a smile. "Move along, little one," he told it, as he raised a hand in the air. "They won't harm you. They're just as curious about you as you are about them."
The little energy wisp hovered above his hand for a moment, before darting down and touching it lightly – and then it sped off, straight through the wall, in the direction that Harris had been looking at.
The moment that it vanished Hamilton turned bulging eyes towards Harris. He appeared to be lost for words, which probably a good thing as Jennifer suspected that those words would have been of the pungent, four-lettered, variety.
Harris stared calmly back at the scientists for a moment. "You will leave them alone, they should only be observed from a distance," he said, almost in a monotone. You are not to harm them."
"We will observe them from a distance," repeated Hamilton, his eyes looking a bit glassy. "We will not harm them."
"You will reconsider your decision to be a horse's ass."
"I will not be a horse's ass."
"Excellent," said Harris and then he looked at his watch. "Well, Jack, thanks for the tour. Can you get me back to Earth now please? Those parts ought to be arriving soon and I've got a lot of work to do."
"Sure," said Colonel O'Neill with a smile as they walked over to the doors and away from the befuddled scientists.
"Ma'am?" asked Jennifer Hailey.
"Yes, Cadet?"
"What is he again?"
"Ask me again when you join the SGC," Major Carter replied with a tight grin.
"Hey, Jack," Daniel greeted his friend as he sat down to breakfast in the commissary. "So, anything interesting happen when I was away?"
"You were away?" Jack mumbled around his cornflakes.
"I took a big decision and then I had a kind of reaction to being incredibly tired, so Janet sent me home for four days," Daniel replied with a hint of grumpiness.
Jack leant back his chair and stared at him. "Is that your way of saying that you worked yourself into the ground again so that Janet sent you home?"
"Uuummm, yes."
"Damn it, Daniel I wish you'd stop doing that. I'm supposed to keep an eye on you to stop you from doing stuff like that. Janet threatens me with the huge needles otherwise."
Daniel thought this over for a moment, as he chewed on a piece of toast. "Jack," he asked eventually, "What is it about you and big needles?"
"Childhood trauma, I won't want to talk about it," Jack replied. "Besides, hello? Big needles? What's to like about those things?" He paused. "What was the question again?"
"Did anything happen when I was away? And is Xander still around? Everyone I talked to has told me to ask you about him."
"Oh, Xander. Yes, he's around. I took him through the Gate on a so-called milk run to N4C862, along with some tyro Cadet that Carter discovered at the Air Force Academy. We found some little zappy energy creatures that the lead scientists wanted to experiment on. Could have been nasty. Xander helped defuse the situation. He's on the air strip now. Building this fighter he's working on, from the ashes from the not-very-lamented X-302. Been there since we got back from the planet, three days ago. Should be almost done by now." He had another mouthful of cornflakes and then looked over Daniel's shoulder. "Hey, T. How's it going? Where's Bra'tac?"
"He is undergoing Kel-no-reem, O'Neill," said the massive Jaffa as he loomed over the table. "I have news from General Hammond. Xander Harris has finished his conversion of the X-302. He requires our presence."
Jack crammed one large mouthful of cornflakes into his mouth and stood, while Daniel absent-mindedly placed his remaining uneaten piece of toast in his pocket. "Let's go then," he mumbled.
Carter joined them as they reached the hanger, whilst General Hammond could be seen striding along to one side, looking as intrigued as he ever could. He'd taken a big gamble on this thing, thought Jack, and hopefully the pay-off should be a good one. He waited until his commanding officer was level with him and then they all walked through the doors into the hanger, where they stopped dead.
A fighter was sitting in the middle of the hanger. And what a fighter. It had a long nose and straight edged almost stubby wings that did not look as if they were at all aerodynamical. Not that the vessel needed them, based on the shape of the engines at the rear of the thing. No, the wings were obviously for the two large weapons that looked so very prominent on them.
The undercarriage was a standard tripod, but instead of wheels, there were what looked like skids, so it obviously didn't need much of a run to take-off. The implications for that were… interesting. The cockpit had moved upwards and had wide ranging field of view – better than the old one had had, with its blind spot to the rear. It was white with a red stripe down each side of the fuselage, from the engines to the nose, where it flared slightly.
It looked… lethally effective, and Jack felt his breath catch as he looked at it. It looked right, and that was a large chunk of the battle when it came to fighters. If it looks right, the chances are that it is right.
Xander walked up to one side from where he had been standing with his team of assorted helpers, all of whom were looking tired but very impressed with their own handiwork. "Hey, Jack, come to see what we built?"
"Oh, we just popped in for a wander." He looked back at it. "So what are you going to call her?"
"I believe that I know what class of a vessel it is, Xander Harris," rumbled Teal'c behind him. "It is a Z-95 Headhunter."
"Very good, Teal'c," grinned Xander. "Not as modern as an X-Wing, which Obi-Wan never saw, or a TIE Fighter, which would not be the right thing to build at all. Yuck, Imperial, no. No, the Z-95 Headhunter is the right place for the Earth to start. It's reliable, tough, has a good kick to it and can be a real sweetheart to fly. It can be upgraded easily too." He grinned. "Any volunteers to fly against me?"
Jack's hand beat Carter's to the punch by a fraction of a second.
