Disclaimer: I don't own it, yada yada.

Again, I had trouble getting the character's voices right, despite my best efforts. I think I did a little better, but only so much. I think once we get people going through the Gate, I'll have an easier time of it - Sam will get to nerd out about Tech, Jack will get to snark at the locals and the Goa'uld, etc. I have actually written these characters IC before, in other fic, so I know it's possible for me to do it. The downside of ripping characters from their contexts like I did for this fic is that it can be hard to regain their voices. But, as I said, it should be much easier.

Though do remember, their contexts are changed - the details of Jack's backstory are different, though they haven't been revealed in detail, and Sam's father is already dead at this point.

On the plus side, we'll see a second mission through the Stargate begin next chapter. That'll probably take a few chapters, but then missions after that should be shorter (in terms of writing space), once everything is all set up.

Wasteland Gate

By Kylia

Chapter 8: A Long Road East

December 10th, 2282

Near Shady Sands, NCR

It had taken a lot longer than Victoria would have liked, for Kimball to put together all the personnel and resources he was sending to Cheyenne. She'd hoped once a deal was made, they could get moving within a few days. Instead, even once Kimball and his advisers and cabinet agreed to a draft treaty that the NCR was signing with Cheyenne - assuming the Cheyenne Council approved - it still took nine days for everything to get put together, and the NCR had already started gathering the people before then anyway.

But they had finally assembled it. 100 soldiers - well, 98, but close enough - 8 Rangers, including Jack O'Neill, and six people from OSI, including Sam Carter. And finally, Kimball had added one last person at the last minute. A bureaucrat, a bland-looking bald guy named Richard Woolsey. Between his glasses, suit and meticulous demeanor when she'd first seen him, Victoria assumed the man was a born accountant, just some bean counter assigned as much as a fig leaf to civilian oversight and to handle logistical tasks. She hadn't even been sure he'd be up to the long trip to Cheyenne.

He certainly looked tired, but he seemed more capable of handling the march than she'd expected. He'd shown more pragmatism than she'd expected and not actually worn his old-world style suit for the march, wearing instead practical, understated traveller's clothes. He did still wear his fancy old-world watch, however, the thing probably worth more caps than an NCR Trooper earned in three months or more.

Kimball had explained that Woolsey was going along as the civilian representative, speaking with Kimball's authority on matters not related to the military or science, but still related to the agreement with Cheyenne and the Stargate. He was also very nominally in charge of the NCR forces being sent to Cheyenne, but only in the most general of senses.

For actually running the show in practice, there was Ranger O'Neill, though he preferred Jack. In order to ensure he had no guff from the NCR Troopers and their officers, the President had given Jack the rank of Colonel in the NCR Army, at least for the duration, making him the highest ranked officer on this mission.

He wore the rank lightly. She watched inspect the tents being set up as the sun set, and reprimand a few who set theirs up wrong or too close to the temporary latrine trenches that were being quickly dug but she also saw him repeatedly tell the soldiers not to salute him. He cared more about the practicalities than the forms of command. Which fit the Rangers. But it wasn't necessarily the best idea for soldiers, in most cases.

On the other hand, these soldiers were not likely to be taking part in large, pitched battles, given the bottleneck of the Stargate. So the informal approach of the Rangers, centered around small-unit tactics, and group cohesion through comradire was more likely to be useful.

A hundred seems excessive, but we'll probably want some on some off-world base.

The idea of having an off-world base hadn't even occurred to Victoria until Carter had suggested it, but the woman had made convincing arguments.

"Based on everything you're saying, the Stargate - and the Mountain itself - is a massive logistical bottleneck. Ideally, yes, we can use it to get clean, rad-free food from other worlds. But to do that in bulk would require moving the Stargate, or massive internal remodeling of the entire Mountain, and a lot more resources than even Cheyenne has, it sounds like." Carter had explained a few nights ago as they sat and discussed the plans for the 'Stargate Initiative', as Kimball had decided to officially label the NCR's contribution to the whole thing.

"Well, they are working on doing some of that, but yeah, there's only so much they can do, true," Victoria had been forced to admit.

"So we're going to have a lot of backlog, potentially, stuff coming in, through the Stargate, but not as easy a time moving it." Carter had gone on, moving a few of the knick-knacks on the table around to illustrate her point, somewhat unnecessarily. "It would be good to have a staging area and storage zone for this - we could move things we're trading with other people there first, and bring the stuff they give us there and bring it in slowly, so we don't end up with a logjam of anything in the whole chain."

Victoria hadn't expected the logistical insight from the woman, but she made a good point. As a Courier, Victoria had made a point to never deliver a package or letter she couldn't put in her pocket, even a large one, so her understanding of logistics was, in all fairness, limited, to say the least.

"But more importantly, we need a place to study things that are not necessarily safe to bring back to the Mountain - where people live. If we bring anew power source back with us, we should study it somewhere where an explosion might not kill a whole town above us." Sam added. "And quarantine as well. Easier to do off-world."

"The local doctors at Cheyenne did talk about quarantine plans, yeah." The Wasteland was full of all sorts of illnesses - it would suck if they brought back some super-virus, like those bioengineered ones before the war, the New Plague or whatever it had been called, if Victoria remembered the old newspapers and books she'd read right, back with them through the Stargate.

She'd enjoyed her conversations with Carter, except when the woman got too technical, and Victoria couldn't answer her questions. Which was a lot of the time, when she got technical.

Even after hanging around with Veronica and Arcade as much as she had, there was a lot of stuff Victoria still hadn't picked up. She could hack your average computer pretty well, but as much through trial and error practice as anything else. Most computers had fairly standard security, when hooked up to a PipBoy. Without one, she'd have a much harder time, or she'd need to know a password. With it, she could use the programs already on it to break through a lot of the security.

Carter was chomping at the bit to see the Stargate, and when they'd stopped for the night, Victoria almost thought the other woman would have forced on ahead on her own.

Once the camp was fully set up, Victoria, who was staying off to the side, away from the main body of NCR soldiers, with her own small cookfire, fiddled around with her Pip-Boy for a while, playing a game of Pipfall briefly, before muttering a curse when she lost.

"Pipfall, huh?" Jack said from behind her. Victoria let out another curse, louder this time, as she realized she hadn't heard him approaching at all.

"How the hell did you-"

"Get behind you?" Jack interrupted, coming around to sit in front of the fire, across from her. "Well, apart from the fact that you stopped paying attention to anything but losing at your game."

"Well, I've never been very good at PipFall. Or any of these little games, really. You?"

"Only thing computers are good for," Jack said. "Not that I get much chance to play, since I don't have one of your nifty little bracelets."

"I didn't always have one either," Victoria shrugged. "Sometimes I don't know if it's worth it."

Jack cocked his head to the side a little, raising an eyebrow, "Yea, I can see that. I mean, why would you want something that kept track of your health so well, came with a geiger counter that was one of the best in the Wasteland, had a radio and of course has a way to make sure you always hit what you're aiming for."

"It's heavy, bulky, a nightmare to take off and put on during those rare time it's safe to take off, and getting used to VATS is it's own problem," Victoria shrugged, "And of course, using VATS is one of the most painful things I've ever experienced."

"Worse than a Cazadore sting?"

Victoria considered for a long moment, "No, no, those are definitely worse. Been stung by a lot of those goddamn bugs?"

"Once was enough for me," Jack nodded. "Haven't been back to the Mojave in a long time, so not much chance to run into the pesky little buggers. Are they as bad as I remember?"

"I'm sure they're worse than you remember," Victoria countered. "They always seem to be worse each time. More of them, faster, more painful..." she shuddered. "Not as bad as some of the things that have happened to me, but up there."

Jack scoffed, "Really, what's worse than a Cazador sting?"

"Well, there's the time I got shot in the head."

"You look pretty lively for a corpse," Jack countered, taking a sip of water from his canteen.

"I didn't die."

"But you got shot in the head."

"Yeah, I'm not really clear about that either."

"So the stories about you waking up from the dead to get back the package some mucky-muck in New Vegas are actually true?" Jack chuckled, "Whatdaya know?"

"For a given value of the word. But apart from the headshot, there was how close I was to death after taking on Caesar's whole camp at Fortification Hill one-handed. Smart move on my part there. I had my brain, spine and heart removed and replaced with cybernetic versions once. Had a conversation with my own brain, even."

Jack stared at her for a long moment. "Good conversation?"

"My brain was kind of a dick, actually." Victoria chuckled. "And you don't believe me."

"Pretty crazy story," Jack shrugged. "But you don't look like you're lying. Which could just mean you're nuts."

"Enough people tell me that I'm crazy that they're probably right." She looked at Jack carefully for a moment. "You're familiar with that, I'm sure. I've been asking around since we met in Kimball's office. There's a lot of crazy stories about you too. You and Kimball go back a long time, they say."

"True. And he was usually the one calling me crazy. Until I told him he was crazy going into politics. He told me that after working alongside me for so long, he'd gotten used to crazy."

"To crazy," she pulled out her own canteen, holding it up as if making a toast, and mimed directing it towards him.

"Cheers," Jack mimicked the gesture, sipping at his canteen again. "Ever thought about writing a book? Setting the record straight?"

"Nobody would believe me. And I'm not really interested in fame." It had come to her, and she used it when it was practical - reputation had it's many merits - but ultimately, it was more trouble than it was worth for a Courier. Which is one reason she'd be so willing to trek all the way to Colorado.

And she still hadn't escaped her reputation.

Well, I'm sure I'll escape it on other planets. If she ran into people who knew about Hoover Dam on another planet, she'd probably just shoot herself then and there, and be done with it.

"I'd have to shoot anyone who read my book," Jack replied. Victoria raised an eyebrow. "Most of what I've done is classified, even by Ranger standards."

"Even whatever it was you and the other Rangers were doing in Baja?" She still didn't know the answer to that one.

"Especially Baja," Jack replied.

Victoria debated pressing the issue, but the good-natured, amused note in Jack's eye seemed to have faded a little as he said that, so she decided to leave off well enough alone.

"Fair enough," Victoria waved a hand, "consider the question forgotten. Better question: What do you think about... this?"

"Sounds crazy, and I'm kind of expecting it to all be a load of crap," Jack admitted. He paused a moment, considering, "But if it's true... well, there has to be a catch, doesn't there? There's always a catch in the Wasteland. Kimball and the NCR reach the Mojave, and they find out that Hoover Dam is intact... and the whole place is filled with Khans, Raiders, hostile tribals, the Legion is just on the other side of the river..."

He gestured off to the East, in the general - very general - direction of Cheyenne Mountain.

"Now we get a way to find radiation free food easy? Whole planets free of rads? And the way there is pretty damn small, can't be moved... and we've got bad guys out there that, from what you say, make Caesar look like a cuddly bunny."

"Bunny?"

"Pre-war animal. Cute, fluffy. About yea-high," He held his hand a foot or so above the ground. "Hopped around, ate plants, couldn't hurt anyone even if they wanted to."

It took Victoria a moment to register the word 'fluffy'. Out in the wasteland, 'fluffy' didn't describe anything. There were some breeds of dog back in the heart of the NCR that applied. And puppies were always 'cute', but she couldn't think of much else that was. Most dogs she saw were mangy, near-feral brutes, if they weren't even worse at the hands of their Legion trainers.

"Well, if the intel we have is to be believed, they're definitely that bad. Fortunately, they're a little busy."

"I heard. Big fight to find out who gets to be top snake," Jack mused. "Want to try to rob them blind while they're busy?"

"It's worked before for me. This is just... bigger." Victoria chuckled darkly, "Besides, what can they do to Earth that we haven't done to it?"

"That's some... interesting logic you're using," Jack said after staring at her for a long moment. "The kind that... isn't."

"Well, it's not your Earth Logic, but now we can go to other planets," Victoria replied.

"Ya think you'll have better luck peddling that logic in space?"

"Probably not, but what's the harm in finding out?" Victoria knew she sounded blase at the prospect of aliens attacking, but she didn't really think she was wrong, in some ways. After everything humanity had done to themselves here on Earth, what else could a Goa'uld do? If the Great War couldn't wipe them out, space lasers couldn't either. And once they landed troops to finish the job...

Well, humans were ornery cusses, and she'd love to see a team of Jaffa go up against a Deathclaw, or even an entire nest.

Just... from a safe distance.

January 8th, 2283

Outskirts of Town, Cheyenne

The trip back took longer with the whole team than the first trip with a small group. They got less travelling done each day, needing to stop, set up bigger camps, make sure everyone had enough food. The Brahmin carried a lot of the supplies, supplemented by hunting, buying from the local communities - usually with Legion money stripped from the corpses of Legionnaires from this or that splinter faction.

They were all pretty terrible at fighting, the Legionaries of today, survivors from Second Hoover Dam, the reserves that didn't get called up, garrison troops, and new recruits, subjected to far less effective training than before. Or at least trained by poorer officers.

But despite that, despite the size of the group, they'd gotten attacked by small groups or Legionaries, or even larger groups, every now and then. Most of the troopers didn't get a chance to fight - hell, even Victoria often found herself obsolete. Irreverent and unserious though he might often see, Jack was deadly in a fight, and alongside the rest of the Rangers along for the ride, it was a simple matter to deal with these second and third rate enemies.

They didn't even take any casualties - a few wounds, including a few pretty serious ones, but no one died, and they were never delayed by much.

But the trip still took slower.

But now, finally, they were here. Victoria had gone on ahead alone to let the Fort Carson people know, so they could radio ahead to Cheyenne, and she'd been surprised at the progress inside the camp. More permanent structures set up, business seemed to be handling itself well. She'd asked around, and apparently Cheyenne had decided to turn the town into basically it's marketplace - rather than bringing traders all the way to Cheyenne, they bought and sold most things through shops here. And a lot of trade had been coming in from points south and east, with Cheyenne spending a lot of money on all sorts of odd things.

The Stargate wasn't exactly classified, in Cheyenne, but it wasn't something they'd spread the word of beyond the town much, even if she heard a few rumors in Fort Carson. Word was spreading, as it always did, unless you tried to hide it.

Who is there to hide it from? Short of the Brotherhood and the NCR, there was probably no one else on this side of the Mississippi with the resources or numbers to really make a hard fight against Cheyenne. The community was too defensible, and they had plenty of tech.

And getting more.

"Holy Hannah," Samantha Carter murmured as she looked at the wrecked ruin that was the mountain ahead of them. "It must be as sturdy as a vault in the sublevels."

"More, probably," Victoria countered. "Or at least, it wasn't designed by sick bastards running experiments."

"You can't call what went on in the Vaults experiments," Carter countered, sounding indignant, and like this was a conversation she'd had before. "Even leaving aside how monstrous it all was, what exactly were some of them supposed to test or prove?" She shook her head, definitely indignant. "The Vaults were 'experiments' the way a child pushing buttons on a computer asking 'what does this button do' is an experiment."

"You... sound quite... passionate about this?"

"It's a common argument in OSI. There's a whole faction of us that think that, evil or not, the Vaults gave us useful data. Useful for what?" Carter shook her head again. "101 Ways To Drive People Insane?" She sighed.

"It's quite impressive what these people have done, so far from the NCR," Woolsey said, walking by them. He had his suit back on, even had a briefcase. He looked every inch the Shady Sands lawyer, ready to get his rich client off on a technicality. Nobody on the expedition seemed to like or trust Richard Woolsey, but he had pulled his weight, more or less, on the trip. Man couldn't fight, and hadn't tried to, but he also hadn't caused any issues, and he had handled his logistical duties pretty well.

Born bean counter, like she'd figured.

"Well, the NCR isn't actually the heart of all civilization in the former United States," Victoria noted.

"Of course not. But the relative peace and general prosperity on the West Coast the NCR has fostered is what has enabled us to have such a high standard of living. With a much smaller population base, and a lot less resources, the people of Cheyenne have done quite well for themselves, building a town here on the surface out of the ruins of the mountain and surrounding material."

He looked back towards Fort Carson, "And they've managed to make refugee resettlement a profitable enterprise, at least indirectly."

"Because profit is what matters when it comes to refugees," Victoria looked at Woolsey, screwing up her face in mild distaste. Of course the bean counter would think like that.

"Helping refugees is all well and good, but not if it drains you of everything you have in the process. It's the duty of any responsible government to put it's resources where they'll do the most good for their own people." Woolsey replied, firmly, stiffly.

"Well, there's something worth agreeing to in that," Victoria looked back towards the mountain at the sound of Hammond's voice as he approached them. Mitchell and about a dozen CDV soldiers, including four in power Armor, were with him, and Victoria thought she saw others in position all around the outer edges of the town and it's defenses.

None were making hostile or even threatening movies, but Hammond obviously wanted to make it clear his people could defend themselves if things went south.

Behind the, she saw a few other people from Cheyenne's government, including Hammond's friend Hayes, and -

Veronica.

And Arcade and Raul, she noted after a long moment's staring. But mostly, her eyes were on Veronica for a long moment, before she realized she needed to make introductions. She tore her eyes away from the former Scribe, and then set to work on that.

"Councilor Hammond, this is Richard Woolsey, Captain-Doctor Samantha Carter and Colonel Jack O'Neill is the one coming towards us," she said after half-turning to see him. She introduced just the most important three for now.

"Richard Woolsey, NCR Special Representative to Cheyenne and the Stargate. Pleased to meet you," Woolsey said formally, holding his hand out. Hammond accepted it and they shook. "I look forward to this being a fruitful partnership between our communities."

"As do I, Mr. Woolsey. Welcome to Cheyenne." Hammond agreed. He didn't speak with the same stiff manner as Woolsey, but he did keep his tone formal nonetheless. He turned to Carter. "Captain Carter? Welcome. I'm sure we'll have a lot for you to do - the scientists here in Cheyenne have been eagerly awaiting your expertise in Astrophysics to help them understand the Stargate better."

"I have been wanting to see it since I heard about it, Councillor," Carter shook his hand when offered.

Jack reached the front of the group, "Howdy," he waved a little, then looked at the assembled soldiers. "Should I be feeling unwelcome?"

"Just a precaution. When you hear over a hundred foreign soldiers are coming to visit... worth being prepared." Hammond reassured him. He held out a hand. "I take it you're in charge of these men?"

"The soldiers, yeah. Normally I'm just a Ranger, but someone has to be in charge of all these fine troopers, and Aaron - President Kimball - decided it should be me. Not sure why."

"And your relationship to Mr. Woolsey?"

"Good question. Woolsey?" He turned to the man.

"Colonel O'Neill is in charge of the military component of the NCR's contribution to our joint venture." Woolsey explained, refusing to just use normal words. "Officially he reports to me, as the President's direct representative but as he has the ear and trust of President Kimball, my orders are to give him a free hand for his responsibilities." Woolsey did an excellent job staying professional there, but there was a slight twitch which made Victoria think that Woolsey was less than thrilled about that part of his instructions.

"I will, however, be managing the non-military aspects of the NCR's end of our partnership," Woolsey went on, "such as technology sharing and contribution of raw and finished materials and financial resources as appropriate."

"I see. Well then, we should probably set to work negotiating that partnership." Hammond looked back to Jack, "There's room in the lower levels of the base, the ones that were part of the old Stargate Program, to house most of your men, but we might need to keep some up here on the surface too."

"Somehow, I think they'll manage. Besides, they could use a chance for some R&R. Do your bars take caps?" It was bulky, but the NCR had decided that caps would be more practical for this, since Victoria had reported that some shops this far out took them, having adopted the practice decades ago from people who adopted it from people who adopted it from the Hub's caravans.

Though some communities out here claimed to have also come up with the idea independently, she'd heard.

Hammond chuckled, "They do."

"Swell. Let me get everything sorted out, and I'll be thrilled to join you and... Dick for the political dickering." Jack turned back to the Troopers, and started giving a few orders. Victoria tuned him out and approached Veronica, Arcade and Raul.

"Victoria!" Veronica smiled broadly, and that was when Victoria noticed the other woman was wearing a dress! Not the formal one she'd given her, but a more casual looking one, like you saw in pre-war pictures of a housewife or something. It had sort of a faded dark blue color. Might have actually been pre-war.

"Told you I'd be back. Took longer than I planned though," Victoria smirked.

"And you're even in one piece." Veronica grinned.

"You did give me explicit orders to stay in one piece. What else could I do?" Victoria chuckled. She pulled Veronica in for a hug, holding it for perhaps a few moments too long to be totally platonic, but she couldn't help herself. "You doing good?"

"Amazing. They have dresses here, Victoria. A lot. Made here, or brought in from the east." She smiled ruefully, "I've probably spent more than I should on them, but..." she giggled happily, reminiscent - though not quite as loud - as the veritable 'squee' she'd made when Victoria had given her that fancy dress from the White Glove storeroom.. "I don't wear them when I'm working on the tech of course, but most of the rest of the time!?" She let out a brief exhale. "So the NCR decided to come through in a big way."

"I'm a little surprised Kimball agreed to commit this much, but apparently I'm more persuasive than I thought," she agreed, then she turned to Arcade and Raul.

"Arcade, Raul," she gave Arcade a quick hug as well, though shorter than the one she gave Veronica, and with Raul, she just gave him a small nod and he nodded back- the ghoul wasn't a very huggy person.

"Boss. Took the scenic route?" Raul asked.

"Something like that, feels like," Victoria told him. "And how have you two been? Keeping busy?"

"Very," Arcade nodded. "There's been a lot to do, with changing the interior of the mountain, setting up protocols and rules and policies for all sorts of problems that could arise offworld. Been trying to make sense of the power systems for the base - I think we didn't understand that Naqudah stuff properly."

"I'm sure Carter will be interested in that." If Arcade wasn't gay, she'd think the two nerds were perfect for eachother, though she still suspected they'd be great friends. "She's got a lot of theories about the stargate - and most of them went right over my head."

"There's always something that needs fixing. And they respect age here. They actually put me in charge of a team of mechanics and engineers. Right alongside this other fellow. Guy named Siler." Raul explained.

"He must be noteable of you wouldn't bring him up."

"Real smart, learned everything on the job. But he's got a habit of getting himself electrocuted."

"And surviving?" Victoria had trouble believing that, but Raul wasn't the type to make up stories.

"Unless he's a zombie without the decay," Raul shrugged.

"Lucky him." Victoria chuckled. "Obviously you guys had plenty to do while I wasn't here. And some interesting things happened at the NCR. Why don't I buy you all a drink?" She smiled, just happy to be back with her friends after the long trip away from them. She'd missed them all - not just Veronica - more than she'd expected.

"Sounds good to me." Veronica said, the other two nodding along with her.

January 8th, 2283

Sublevel 23, Cheyenne Mountain

Victoria Fernandez's Quarters

Of course, with all the NCR troopers in town all of a sudden, the bar was crammed full, so after buying some bottles for everyone, including some of the local moonshine for Veronica, they decamped to her quarters, all seated in chairs, or on the edge of the bed, in Victoria's case.

"...and then he sold me the protectron for half the price he'd been asking for. Just to get me to shut up." Veronica finished the story, smiling slyly.

"You're lucky he didn't try and force the issue, chica," Raul pointed out. "Doesn't usually work out like that when you call out a trader for selling junk."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Something like that," Raul agreed. "But then, Cheyenne's a lot better than northern Mexico or Arizona could be, so..." he shrugged, sipping at his beer. He'd once told Victoria that he preferred tequila, but that a good beer was a close second, though he missed the ones brewed in Mexico, and that a few decades back, he'd paid an impressive - or absurd - amount of money for one a trader had, passed on from trader to trader until it reached him.

"I could have handled him if he decided to make a scene," Veronica countered, shrugging.

"Of course you could have, but there was no reason to provoke him like that." Arcade chimed in.

"He was selling barely-working jury-rigged laser pistols as if they were fully functioning refurbishments!" Veronica countered. "The man would have armed people and let their guns fizzle out in the second firefight. He deserved to be called out for it."

"And then you shut up for a deal on a protectron."

"After everyone in Fort Carson's trader section heard me point out, in detail, everything wrong with those pistols." Veronica pointed out, pressing her case on Arcade. "If he can unload those duds for anything more than a tenth of what he had been asking for without going pretty far afield, I'll eat my power fist."

"He was heading northeast last he was seen." Arcade noted, sipping water. He'd drunk only half his beer, being the lightweight drinker among the four of them. Raul could carry his booze the best, though that came as much from being a ghoul as anything else.

Actually I don't think I've even seen him buzzed, when you get down to it.

"The Legion has a pretty brief way with anyone who sells them crap, from what Cass told me," Victoria commented. "Plus, I don't mind the Legion having their weapons fail on them at an inconvenient moment."

"There is that," Arcade admitted. "Speaking of the Legion, did you run into problems with them?"

"Quite a few. The silly idiots kept attacking us on the way back. But Casear must have taken his best guys to Hoover Dam and the Mojave, because these ones were mostly incompetent, barely had any discipline."

"Makes sense, much as anything involving the Legion makes sense. But do you think there's any danger of them uniting?"

Victoria shook her head, "Not for good while. I spoke to a few locals when we passed through towns nominally under the 'protection' of one warlord or another. Things have stabilized a bit from the immediate aftermath. You've got Legates in Denver, Two-Sun, Flagstaff, Malpais, Res and Pheonix, which is less than used to be. Territory isn't changing hands quite as much either. Nobody can take out another one without risking their rear to another Legate."

She chuckled after a moment, "Sounds like how Teal'c summarized the situation for the Systems Lords, now that I think about it."

"Well, the Systems Lords each sound like what Caesar would be like if he was immortal, so that makes sense." Arcade muttered. "The man was insane."

"No argument from me." Victoria agreed. "Speaking of Teal'c, how he acclimating?"

"Well enough, I guess. He got stir crazy here in the mountain, so he went up, took to doing patrols with the CDV guys between filling everyone in on everything he knows about the Goa'uld. And teaching Arcade the language."

"Still a lot to learn, but I think I've started to figure out the basics. I just wish the Air Force had left some of Dr. Jackson's notes behind." Victoria remembered the name, but she couldn't place it. Her confusion must have shown on her face. "Doctor Daniel Jackson. He's the guy who figured out the Stargate, and from what little we can tell from the files in the computer, the chief linguist on the entire program. Worked on translating the Goa'uld language. Apparently it's similarity to the language they used in ancient Egypt, so he had a head start."

"But when the Air Force left, they took all his books, all his notes." Arcade sighed, "It's very annoying."

"I can imagine. But how's Teal'c taking the surface? We hadn't gotten around to explaining the whole 'we destroyed ourselves' bit when I left."

"He's not the most expressive of folks," Raul said. "He wasn't happy, but he's found a good challenge in all the wildlife."

"He's planning on taking down a Deathclaw, apparently." Veronica said.

"Really?"

"He already went toe-to-toe with a Yao-guai. Taunted it and wounded it with a few well-placed shots from his staff weapon, then broke it's skull in with the other end when it came close." Veronica said. "I didn't see it, but it was the talk of the town a few weeks ago."

Victoria had taken on her share of Yao-Guais, but always at a distance, and usually with VATS to back her up.

"Well, if he decides to take on a Deathclaw, I'd love to watch. God knows the Wasteland could use less of the things."

"If only we could just train them and send them through the Stargate at some of these System Lords," Veronica mused. "Apparently all the words with the best tech are too well guarded to go for. But if some monster rampages through..." she shrugged.

"When did you get so bloodthirsty?"

"When it comes to these Goa'uld, as soon as Teal'c told us about Moloch." Victoria soon found herself very glad that she wasn't in the middle of sipping her drink when Veronica told her all about the System Lord Moloch. It was apparently mostly rumor and second hand, but Teal'c believed it - Moloch had taken to burning the daughters of his Jaffa alive, and he wasn't that shy about doing the same to the baby girls born amongst his slaves, although he did let a limited number of them live.

"And sure, he might be extreme, but... these bastards operate on a level that even Caesar wasn't, and with even more power." Veronica said, softly, but with an iron core to her voice Victoria had only heard a few times before. "Any one of them could be just like him. And I'm tired of not being able to do anything to stop people like them."

"So what, you want to go take them on head on?" Victoria asked. "I mean, I know I killed Caesar head-on, but look how that turned out?"

"You were barely held together by the end, yeah." Veronica let out a sigh. "No, I'm not saying we charge in. I just... these monsters are worse than anything in the Wasteland, and with their technology, so much good could be done."

"Save the Galaxy one dead Jaffa at a time?" Raul sounded doubtful.

"The Jaffa aren't really the problem," Arcade pointed out. "Just as much the slaves as anyone else. Just like most Legionaries were... are."

It was eerie, really, how many similarities there were between the Legion and the Goa'uld, Victoria considered. Every time she thought more about one, she was reminded of the other, and everyone else seemed to notice the similarities too.

"Right now, we need to focus on finding more of the tech. Hey, maybe if we're lucky we can even steal a ship." Victoria offered. "Someday. Undermine them on the low-level. Nibble at the sides. As long as they keep fighting each other... well, if we do it right, maybe we can be another version of Teal'c Phantom Godslayers."

"If we can pull it off..." Veronica mused. She held her bottle up, "to exploring through the stargate, getting tech, doing some good, and killing some would-be gods."

"I can drink to that." Victoria agreed, sipping at her beer. She paused for a long moment. "I hate to sound a bit... I dunno, sappy, but I don't think I said this earlier: I'm glad to be back here, with all of your. I missed you - all three of you. Spent a lot of time wandering alone, forgot how nice it was to have friends. Then I had you three," and Cass and Boone, true. "Then over three months of being back to not having you around? It wasn't fun. And I know I'm not always the easiest friend."

"The point is - it would have been easy for you three to not come with me, and leave me alone again. And that... that would have sucked. So...Thanks for agreeing to come on this mad little idea of mine," she finished, realizing she might be a bit tipsy. She put her beer down. Enough of that.

"Seems like it might just work out pretty well for us all." She finished.