Ch. 43 — Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Setting up the international floo in the Asmaan Galee Enterprise and Quark's stores took a bit of gold, but, as the Admiral had said, they had plenty, didn't they? Dropping a month's wages on the counter each time she met the next bureaucrat in the Ministry and asking to be processed immediately got her finished before lunch. As a result, the floo-installation crew visited their stores that afternoon.
Two floos were installed, in separate rooms, in each location. One was the International Floo that only connected to the other Enterprise or Quark's locations. The other Floo was a general connection to the Indian Floo Network. Josephine was more than happy to allow the installers to visit the other stores and emplace the spells that restricted the newly installed International Floo to just those locations. The installers used special spells to prevent the new Floo from connecting to anything else.
What the Floos in the other countries connected to, the installers didn't care.
She sent the installers on their way with a six-month's wages bonus, each, for doing the job so quickly and expertly. Doing that assured her that when they added Enterprise and Quark's locations in New Dehli, Chennai, and Kolkata, the installers would deliver the best service possible.
The Vanishing Cabinet room, opposite the Manager's Office, was hidden by a tech-cloak device and a muggle- and magical-aversion spell. Even if a magical finited that spell, the tech-cloak kept them from seeing anything. Only someone wearing a comm-link could see the door, or even open it. The locks on the door prevented anyone else from entering. If anyone apparated or portkeyed into the room without a comm-link, they would be magically stunned immediately. If the stunners failed to stop whomever it was from continuing to move, the tech from the ship would render them unconscious.
The Vanishing Cabinet led to the Hogwarts Central Terminus, giving them access to every other Enterprise, video store, and restaurant they owned. Not to mention the Requirement or Galileo if either were close enough for the cabinets to operate safely.
To help quell any unease at the Indian Ministry's about them using the International floo for illicit purposes, they had two Indian Ministry officials in the floo rooms that first week as they brought in their merchandise from the other stores. They surprised the inspectors by posting a list of illicit items, in large print in both English and Hindi, on the wall beside the floo. She explained that she wanted there to be no doubts about what the employees were and were not allowed to bring through the floo. Nothing illegal would be going through her International Floo!
The inspectors each went home at the end of the week with a year's wages as "thanks" for being so accommodating — and they hadn't even had to pretend they hadn't seen any contraband! Plus, she had told the Ministry that an Inspector could walk in at any time for a surprise inspection.
The store "opened" the week before Christmas. Like all the other Enterprises, there were two signs in the window, "OPENING SOON!" and "HELP WANTED". There was a new sign, though, that no other stores in Asmaan Galee had in their windows: "DALITS WELCOME". The signs were, of course, in both English and Hindi.
Unlike her experiences with the other Enterprise stores, Indians were not shy about investigating a store that had a sign of "Help Wanted" posted. She barely had time to post the signs before the door opened and an Indian came in.
He barely glanced around the store, stopping as soon as he saw her partner for the day, Tim. He immediately headed for the wizard. "I would like a job," he said in Hindi.
Tim gave her a surprised look, then nodded. He indicated the man should follow him and walked over to Josephine. "The one responsible for hiring is Manager Edgecombe," he said, also in Hindi, nodding at Josephine.
"Why would you want to work here?" she said in the same language, glancing around.
One wall was crowded with wizard moving-paintings of scenes from space of the Earth, Moon, Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter, as well as paintings made from their moons looking up at the planets. There was even one of the asteroid Ceres rotating in the blackness. The Galaxy-on-a-pedestal was by the front window. There were several racks for English robes, and one rack for other popular styles in India. She had left room for several more racks for when they found what styles they needed more of on the floor. The patterns were, of course, space-oriented.
The other wall was filled with the Twins' assorted candies and prank items — at least the space-themed ones.
The back wall, behind the counter and register, was filled with light-sabres and their personalization items. She expected them to be as popular here as they were in England, Ireland, and France.
He shrugged. "You are English, no?"
"Yes, I am."
"I am Dalit. Your sign says 'Dalit Welcome'. The best way to show Dalits are welcome is having a Dalit clerk."
This was very unlike the approach wizards in England used.
And he had a very good point, too.
She frowned, thinking. Then smiled. "If you could have any job, do anything you wanted, what would it be?"
He gave her a completely blank look for a minute.
"Seriously," she said, encouragingly, "What would be your ideal job? If you could have any job, at all."
He stared at her, now frowning in thought. "An Auror," he said slowly, using the Hindi word for their Department of Law Enforcement people. "But my poor education in magic disqualifies me." He gave her a steady look. "Dalits are only allowed second-hand wands and no more than one year of schooling. Just enough to prevent accidental magic."
Angrily she closed her eyes and took a slow breath as she pressed her lips tightly together. She opened them and smiled. "Are you the only magical in your family?"
He shook his head. "My father and sister are, my mother is not."
She lightly bit her lower lip, thinking. "Come with me, let's see what you know." She turned and led him to one of the back rooms. "Show me the spells you know," she said.
His wand was clearly old — nicked, scratched, and worn. His spells, she quickly discovered, were not that many.
"Just to confirm, your wand wasn't matched to you?"
He nodded. "It was my great-grandfathers," he explained.
He followed her quietly as she went out front. "Tim? Would you take Mr. Tiwari, here, to Olivanders and get him a proper wand and holster? The one he is using apparently belonged to his great-grandfather."
The Indian was giving her a wide-eyed stare.
She turned to him. "If you're going to work here, we can't very well let you use a wand that is totally unsuited for you."
She turned back to the Tim. "Take about a hundred galleons out of the till in the Diagon Alley store and set up an account with Ollivander. We'll probably be doing several more."
Tim nodded and headed to the back. "Come along, Mr. Tiwari, this'll probably take an hour or so."
"I'm hired?" he said, surprised, looking back and forth between them.
"Provisionally," Josephine, said. "We'll try things out for two weeks. In any case, you'll keep the wand in addition to your wages. We'll discuss it more when you get back."
Dazedly, he followed Tim into the back hall, to the International Floo.
She turned back to door as it again opened and a curious man looked inside. "Welcome to Enterprise," she said, "I'm sorry, we're not officially open yet, but feel free to look around. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask."
The customer slowly closed the door behind himself and started to meander around the store.
She tapped her comm-link. "Julianna? I just sent Tim off with a prospective employee to get a new wand. It looks like it's going to be busier than expected. Could you get me two volunteers for the day?"
It was slow in the morning, but steady.
Tiwari was delighted with his new wand, and astonished at how much better his casting was. He was shocked to discover that they planned to pay him a wage the same as the stores in England. He would be making more in a week than he had previously ever made in six months! Then she offered him and his family an apartment over the store.
Plus, she expected him to spend two hours a day studying magic in one of the back rooms, starting with the Hogwarts First-Year Charms and Transfiguration texts.
Teaching him the register was easy. Then, while the two volunteers she had asked for watched the store, she and Tim gave him a detailed tour of their products. He sampled the "prank" candies and "built" his own lightsabre. They used one of their tricorders to scan him, and had him change into his Enterprise robes for the rest of the day. Then they explained the curse-resistance of all the clothing they sold.
He even had a limited comm-link for easy communication with the store and the other clerks.
He was amazed at the reasonable prices.
Not to mention stunned at the meals being offered through Quark's, which wasn't setup yet. The manager was more than happy to bring over what they ordered.
Business picked up after lunch. She was surprised at how quickly word about the lightsabres got around.
Three more Indians came in asking for a job. One left when he saw he would be required to work with Tiwari, a Dalit. The other two were still interested, but Josephine could see, just from their reactions, that they didn't like the situation or thought they could bully him.
Tiwari was puzzled at her insistence that prospective employees be interested in space, or even fans of space-oriented shows, but he wasn't about to object! He was hired for simply being the first to ask and would do nearly anything to stay.
The lightsabres were all gone by dinner time. The bins of candy weren't empty, but several were close. Josephine thought they might have to use modified expansion charms that shrank the space as it emptied to always make the bins look full. She also thought that would decrease the number of times in a day they had to refill them once word got out about exactly what Enterprise sold.
Their new employee spent the evening bringing his family to their new apartment. That it had a television and video cassette player, despite being in the magic-rich alley, left them all speechless.
Josephine had thought Christmas in India was more of an afterthought. The number of Christians in India, after all, were only about twenty million, less than half the population of England. However, she learned that the number of non-Christians who also celebrated was over five times larger!
Those numbers were reflected in Asmaan Galee. Making it much more crowded, though, was that from the twenty-first to twenty-fifth was Pancha Ganapati. That was an ancient holiday full of family-centred happenings, but with five days of gifts, not just one.
The store was packed with customers from that day forward.
The tech items were easy to replenish as needed. The magical? Not so much. Josephine had to start limiting the number of each candy purchased by a single customer!
Fortunately, with Tiwari's help, staffing was complete the next day when she hired ten more employees. Not all of them were Dalits, two were Shuda (the artists, laborers, and servants caste), and one was Vaishya (merchants, traders, and farmers) caste. Apparently, the Dalits Welcome sign had chased off the Brahman (priests, advisors, and intellectuals caste), and Kshatriya (leaders, military, and landowners caste).
She suspected that Tiwari had carefully coached the Dalits the night before about needing to be interested in space. She had the suspicion that they had spent the night watching selections from the pile of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica tapes she had made sure that Tiwari's apartment had had before leaving last night.
Not that she cared.
Not all the Weres at Uranus Base were interested in space, either. That didn't prevent them from being part of the Crew!
Besides, Tiwari had said he wanted to be an Auror, and the Crew needed a few more Marines. He might make the cut once they beefed up his magical skills.
And who knew how the others would fit in? Only time would tell. In the meantime, she was on the lookout for anyone who had the right attitude and potential to be Crew.
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Then Christmas hols were over and it was back to Hogwarts for the new term for the Crew still in school.
On the train, the Crew made sure to visit the muggle-borns and half-bloods who followed the happenings in the muggle world. They pointed out that talking about those things would be considered boring by the pure-bloods and other half-bloods. The other magicals were completely uninterested in what might be happening in the rest of world.
If they did want to discuss it with others, there would be weekly meeting in a certain classroom.
In truth, it was a thinly-disguised recruiting effort for the Crew.
One unforeseen effect from distributing the PiMPS so widely was that hundreds of people had been discovered as Squibs! From St. Mungo's using the Black Family's "device" they were able to define the probable pure-blood family they came from. Most did not know of their magical heritage, and there were many whose parents and children were also Squibs. The Crew intended to keep a close eye on them for fully-magical children.
They also discovered a few dozen muggle-borns who had returned to the normal world but hadn't kept contact with any of their magical friends – or the friends had been killed by Death Eaters.
The result was that they were building up perhaps the single most comprehensive database of family relationships in the world. With luck, they might be able to discover just what it was that determined which children would be magical and which ones wouldn't.
Once at Hogwarts, Harry, Hermione, and the other NEWT students were quickly buried in work. Harry and Hermione still made time for the Duelling Club. By this time, they had instilled the "cooperation" ethic in the First- and Second-years, with enough Crew in the Fourth- and Fifth-years that they were confident it would continue next year.
Harry was happy to see that there were a few Slytherin half-bloods attending the sessions in the Library. Maybe, in a few years, they might find a few Slytherins in the Crew?
Still, they buckled down to studying and practicing.
Meanwhile, Teal'c had passed the one-month point, and over a thousand of the Jaffa made the transition to becoming "Tauri." By the end of January that number had doubled. The remainder were still sceptical, or hung desperately to the belief that their "god" was real and not a pretender.
A number of the captured were "pilots" for the Death Gliders, and were eager to learn about flying the X-wings. The rest were willing to actually take the fight the Goa'uld instead of merely resettling on a new planet.
Naturally, they used veritaserum to make sure the former-Jaffa were being truthful. Surprising everyone except Teal'c, the volunteers all easily passed as trustworthy.
The Marines were delighted to have mock-battles with the former-Jaffa. They quickly developed strategies to deal with almost every standard Jaffa practice. The Jaffa they trained with, only a few, at first, were stunned at the Marines' capabilities with stealth, communications, and tactics — and then there were their weapons.
It wouldn't be long before there were more former-Jaffa in the Marines than there were currently Marines.
As long as they were loyal to the DSF, Harry didn't care.
It was the Friday, January thirtieth, that things went pear-shaped. Naturally.
Harry was just finishing up his potions' assignment that afternoon when his comm-link vibrated. He tapped the code for "wait" then hustled upstairs to his dorm room.
Lee's image appeared as soon as he opened his tricorder and tapped his comm-link. Lee was shaking his head.
"I swear," he said, "the Stargate One team has worse luck than you, Harry."
Harry just looked at him, eyebrows raised.
"The first world they went to today, when we returned the Stargates to the Base, was P3X-775. They at first thought they were in an uninhabited area, but then they heard someone crashing through the undergrowth." Lee sighed. "He claimed to be being chased by something he called Taldor."
He pursed his lips. "Turns out the native was a criminal escaping the law." He rolled his eyes. "The Taldor were the law enforcement arm of their planet, Rillaan, and because he was captured with the S.G. One team, they were considered criminals, too. Especially because they trespassed with weapons on the Rillaan ancient grounds, which is a crime by the standards of the Taldor.
"Apparently, their law is black-and-white only, no excuses. The team was sentenced, then transported to a Stargate and sent to a world called Hadante, their version of a prison. The Gate at Hadante doesn't have an outgoing dialling unit." He grinned. "While their Stargate equipment was taken, the spacesuits, camouflaged as skin, weren't noticed. Lieutenant Rascal managed to change Colonel O'Neill's drone programming through the Beacon Drone that accompanied the team to Rillaan. The team went through the Stargate to Hadante one at a time, so there was a moment where we had complete communication between their new location and Uranus Base. Rascal had already alerted the Galileo, Su Song, and Requirement, and triangulated the sub-space distress signal as soon as it appeared. The Su Song can rescue them late tomorrow, not that they know that, if they don't get out on their own before then."
He sighed. "Unfortunately, Colonel O'Neill's drone used all its battery power sending the distress call as soon as he went through the Gate."
He paused a moment to see if Harry had anything to say. Then he continued. "Stargate Lieutenant-General Hammond and Stargate Team Nine are currently trying to negotiate with the Taldor to get the team back, and their equipment." He shook his head. "They aren't making much progress, and I don't think they will."
Harry thought a moment. "It bothers me that they would so cavalierly treat someone who came through the Stargate and doesn't know if the planet is occupied." He frowned. "Well, anyway, have the Su Song head for the prison world, just in case, if they aren't already. I'll talk with Hermione, see if she has ideas on if we should do anything more."
He sat thinking. He tapped his comm-link. "Hermione? Got a moment to talk?"
Shortly before curfew, Harry, Hermione, and Ron were on the Requirement's Bridge with Sirius, watching as the ship started for Rillaan. The Galileo would take up position over England in the interim.
"The Headmaster appeared rather frustrated," Harry said, his lips quirking in humour.
Sirius grinned and shrugged. "He didn't like me pulling the 'House business' card to get you three out of Hogwarts for the next few days." He frowned. "Are you sure this is the way to handle this?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't think we can just let it lie, there's just too many ways it could go wrong if we do."
He looked over to Hermione and Ron. "Well, it's going to take us all night to get there, we might as well get a good night's sleep."
They all nodded. Ron and Sirius headed for their cabins while Hermione followed him into his.
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The next day, at eight o'clock for the Crew, but closer to noon for the locals, the DFS Battlestar Requirement silently slid into position over Rillaan.
"The Taldur Tal'al, or speaking area for their so-called justice," Marietta reported, in a derisive tone, "is five hundred miles directly below us."
"The left wall is a view of the speaking area floor from one of the drones that went through with the General," Lee said. He gestured to the Apparition/Vanishing Cabinet Room wall reserved for displaying apparating and portkey destinations, when possible. He shook his head wryly. "General Hammond is still trying to negotiate a release for S.G. One, and their equipment." He sighed looking at the General with his escort standing in the spotlight in the centre of the room.
Harry looked at Hermione and the team of three Marines that were their escort. "Ready?" They nodded, Hermione a bit nervously, the Marines stoically. Harry grabbed his collar and his helmet popped up over his head. Hermione grabbed her collar only a second later. They were now in full armour, as were the Marines.
"I'll be listening and if I think of anything," Ron said, "or we see anything you don't, I'll let you know immediately." He had wanted to go, too, but they decided he would do better up here to handle any emergency tactics, should they be necessary.
Both squadrons of XE-wings had already launched and were executing a search pattern over the world. In an hour, they would know of every hamlet, village, town, and city on the planet, as well as having an exact idea of the technological level of the inhabitants.
The remaining two XE-wing squadrons were stationed with the other two Battlecruisers.
"On the count of three," Harry said. "One . . . two . . . three!"
All five started to turn right . . . and disapparated from the Requirement.
The General and his escort weren't the only ones to jump when the crack of the five apparating into the Tal'al Chamber sounded.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, General," Harry said to Hammond, "But we will be taking over from here." The four cloaked portkey drones they carried flew to their designated targets.
"Who are you!?" yelled a male's voice.
"We've located your missing equipment," Harry continued, ignoring the voices of the Taldor trying to question him, "and will return it to you shortly." He grinned, not that anyone could see his face except the Crewmembers with him. "Colonel O'Neill and his team will probably make their way back to you in a day or so. If not, one of our ships will be where they are, later today, and can get them."
The General recognized Harry's suit and robes almost immediately, but was still astounded that they were present. The three Stargate Team Nine members were still blinking in surprise.
Harry tapped his shoulder and said, "Scotty! Four to beam up!" He had a hard time suppressing his laugh as the General and Team Nine, with incredulous expressions, portkeyed out with the attendant sounds and illusions from the telly show using a spell developed by a die-hard trekkie in Research and Development.
Harry turned back to the Taldors in the room. With his enhanced infra-red vision from the helmet, they were clearly visible. Two of the Marines moved to watch his back, while the third and Hermione watched the sides.
"Despite your rudeness in not telling us your names, I will tell you mine. I am Admiral Potter of the Defensive Space Force. I am here because you have broken the law. It is my duty to tell you the crimes you have committed, render my verdict, and carry out the sentence immediately."
"Broken the law?" said one outraged voice.
"What law have we broken?" another exclaimed.
"Nonsense," cried a third.
Harry made an exaggerated shake of his head, and placed his hands on his hips. "I don't understand your reactions. After all that's what you told the Stargate Team when you detained them after they came though the Stargate. Aren't you just going to sit there and accept what I say, as you expected them to do for you? After all, you did claim that ignorance of the law was no excuse to escape punishment."
He was met with dead silence.
He sighed loudly and dramatically.
"Alright, I suppose, just this once, I can explain." He affected the attitude of one going beyond what was expected. "First, the Stargate Team that came through the gate were an authorized group of Stargate explorers. As such, they came armed. That's because the Stargate Teams have been attacked on other planets when they came through the gates. Some have even been killed. So, bearing weapons is merely good sense if you want your explorers to return to you, alive. They did not know, and could not have known, that the area they were in was sacred to you, nor that bearing weapons in that area was forbidden. Second, a man came to them begging for help. Again, they did not know, and could not have known, that the man who came to them was a criminal.
"You brushed aside their defence of being off-worlders who were ignorant of the law, and the situation, as irrelevant. You convicted them of unlawfully being in a sacred area, unlawfully carrying weapons in a sacred area, and unlawfully helping a criminal. Then you confiscated their equipment and sent them to a prison world, Hadante. A prison, which I have been told, you cannot retrieve them from?"
He scanned across his audience. "This is an accurate summary of what happened, correct? You agree that that is what happened and what you did?"
Nodding heads, followed by one of them saying, "Yes, that is correct."
"Excellent," Harry said, "I accept your confession that you unlawfully detained an authorized team of explorers, unlawfully denied them adequate legal counsel, unlawfully discounted their defence, unlawfully convicted them of trumped-up crimes, unlawfully deprived them of their equipment, and then unlawfully sent them to a prison on another planet from which you cannot retrieve them."
"But they broke our laws!" one of the Taldors exclaimed, as several others agreed.
"And it is possible to retrieve them," said another one.
Harry tilted, "And you have broken our laws," he said reasonably. "We are a starfaring race, with many worlds under our purview. As such, our laws have priority over local laws, just as your worldwide-laws have priority over local laws in small villages." He paused a moment for that to sink in.
"The sentence is being carried out as we speak," he finished. "Because you clearly cannot tell the difference between visitors and criminals, we are removing your Stargate. You need not ever again worry about anyone arriving here via the Gate and disturbing your 'sacred' grounds.
"So that they are not abandoned to slowly die on Hadante, we will, of course, retrieve all the people you have sentenced there and bring them here."
"But we don't have any place to put them!" cried one person.
Harry shrugged. "Not my problem," he said. "You should have thought about that before you started breaking interstellar laws."
He paused. "Are there any other worlds where you've stranded people?" he said in a flat tone.
Silence greeted him.
He stared at them. "For your sakes, there better not be any."
After a pause, and a signal relayed to him by Ron, he nodded. "The sentence has been completed; you no longer have a Stargate. Good day to you." He started to turn right, and all five disappeared with a loud crack!
Sirius was laughing loudly as they apparated into the Transfer Room.
Harry looked over at Hermione. "How'd I do?"
"Just like we practiced," she said smugly, smiling.
Harry looked around the room. Besides Sirius, who was also wearing his helmet, there was only the General and Team Nine standing. Ron was probably on the Bridge.
The General was shaking his head.
"Did you see their faces when you said interstellar law trumped planet laws just as planet laws trump local laws?" Sirius crowed. "They looked like they'd bit into a lemon!"
"Well," Harry said, "at least now no one else is going to stumble into their hands and get shafted."
Everyone nodded agreement with that.
"And we have another Stargate to play with," Lee said, chortling over the intercom. "By the way," he continued a moment later, "The Stargate is set up in Outrigger One's Launch/Landing Bay, as planned. We can access Hadante any time you want. With the extra Dialling Device from Apophis' ship, we can easily rescue the prisoners, and the Stargate Team."
Harry looked at Hermione. She nodded back. "Okay, send through the Beacon Drone, the remote DHD, and the communications drone to explain that we are setting up the Stargate to return them to Rillaan if they want, or sanctuary if they do not. Don't forget to emphasize that we will have medical teams ready for any who are ill or wounded.
"Make sure you have the veritaserum and PiMPS on hand. We can interrogate the prisoners as they come through to see if any were sent through for ridiculous crimes, and take care of any who are injured or sick. Remind them all to expect the prisoners to act like," he gave the General a quick glance before altering what he was about to say, "DEs and to expect treachery." He sighed. "There probably won't be any, but hope for the best, plan for the worst."
The Marines who had accompanied Harry and Hermione were already headed for Outrigger One to assist their other squads in maintaining order.
"Would you like to see the Bridge?" he said to the General.
"If you have no objections, yes."
Harry started for the Bridge. "We weren't expecting to find you here, General Hammond." He smirked. "I'm sure you didn't expect us to show up, either."
The General nodded. "No, I can't say I did. Was it a long trip?"
"Not really, the Beacon Drone deployed by the Team when they first went through allowed us to locate this star rather quickly."
Hermione, meanwhile was alerting the Bridge Crew that the four Stargate members were on their way.
After a moment, Hammond said, "You were rather high-handed down there." He shook his head. "Interstellar law," he finished ruefully.
"They were rather high-handed in their treatment of S.G. One, don't you think? Turnabout is certainly fair play." Harry was silent for a few steps. "Besides, I'll bet the Rillaans will look back on this and decide they came out ahead with the removal of the Stargate. Based on the conditions around the Gate when S.G. One arrived, it certainly didn't look like they used it all that much, anyway. The Colonel was about ready to call the planet uninhabited, if I remember right."
"Perhaps."
"In any event, we'll have this all sorted out pretty quick, and you sent home soon enough," Harry finished.
As they were stepping onto the Bridge, Lee had an update for him.
"Ah, General," Harry said, "The Captain of the Su Song tells me that S.G. One left Hadante a short time before they arrived. According to witnesses, they managed to manually dial the Stargate using a power supply that another inmate provided them. The five of them managed to make it through the Gate before it closed." He chuckled. "I imagine you'll find S.G. One waiting for you when you get back."
While Hammond and S.G. Nine admired the Bridge, and what they could see of the ship from it, the Marines quickly and efficiently processed the hundreds of prisoners they had. There were twenty-three prisoners who were only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Surprisingly, only five of them asked for sanctuary when it was offered. The others were too xenophobic to trust the Marines who were processing them.
When processing was finished, through several of the smaller drones they had left behind, hidden using tech-cloaks, Harry called the Taldors.
They were in a meeting room discussing what they were going to do with the prisoners that would soon be returned to them.
It was fun watching them all jump as he said, "This is Admiral Potter speaking."
The Rillaanian's were looking around the room with astonished and frightened expressions, trying to locate where his voice was coming from.
"The prisoners have been retrieved from Hadante. They have been given meals, any illnesses they had have been cured, and any other physical problems they had, have been corrected, including regrowing missing limbs or organs. They are in perfect health, now."
The officials sat in stunned silence.
"The prisoners, are being sent down from the Battlestar Requirement to the site where the Stargate used to be. They will be waiting for your law enforcement people to show up."
"Wait!" cried one of the Taldor, "Did you say regrow lost limbs and organs?"
Harry grinned at Hermione and the others. "Why, yes, can't you do that?"
"No," said another Taldor, looking excited.
"Well," Harry continued, "It's irrelevant, anyway. You clearly don't want contact with anyone not on your planet." He paused. "You should probably send your law enforcement people to your Sacred Grounds before all your prisoners run away," he added thoughtfully.
He switched off the microphone.
The General was staring at him.
"It's clear from the way they treated those they sent to Hadante that they wouldn't share the PiMPS equally, as we require," Harry said, then shrugged. "Maybe having this as a carrot will get them to change their ways."
Hermione snorted lightly. "I doubt it."
Harry pursed his lips, then said, "So do I, but one can hope, right?"
The others nodded.
Once that was done, they sent General Hammond and S.G. Nine back to Moon Base using the Stargate they had recovered from Rillaan. The Su Song was performing a clean-up operation on Hadante, picking up a few people who had been too afraid to trust the devices sent through the Stargate. The planet was, it appeared, rather lifeless. It was certainly incapable of sustaining any sort of population. The only reason they could see for the Gate's placement there was mining. The Stargate would be retrieved, and the address-block scouted for a suitable inhabitable planet to leave it on for later exploration.
Surprisingly, S.G. One had not yet returned to Earth.
Before the Requirement started her journey home, they replaced the Beacon Drone with a sturdier unit that had an upgraded subspace radio. It was left in a geostationary orbit. The drones on-planet were also upgraded units that could be recharged as needed from a drone designed for the purpose, with its own charging station on the Beacon Drone.
The Crew wanted to keep an eye on the Rillaans for a little while.
Just in case.
The trip home was spent with Harry, Hermione, and Ron working on their assignments that were due on Monday.
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Lee gave Harry a call on Monday, just before curfew. "As expected, S.G. One finally made it to Moonbase. Rather than dialling up Earth directly and leading anyone directly to it, they went to P2A-509, where S.G Three was scheduled, then used that gate to go to Earth after they contacted the other team." His image projected by the tricorder shook its head.
"One of the other prisoners helped them." He blew out his cheeks as he exhaled heavily. "Talk about a gryphon in sheep's clothing! Apparently, the person who helped them escape managed to kill off half of Rillaan's population — on purpose. They called her Linea, 'Destroyer of Worlds,' Unfortunately, S.G. One didn't know what her crime was that landed her on Hadante, and brought her straight back to Stargate Command with them. She's quite a genius, and managed to learn enough in only an hour to run Stargate's computer system." He rubbed his forehead.
"Fortunately for us, they didn't notice another Taldor prisoner, Simian, sneaking through the Stargate before it closed. S.G. Three managed to catch him and took him back with them. He didn't want to go and told them the reason was Linea; he was worried she would kill him by accident when she unleashed another plague."
He shook his head ruefully. "The monitor listening in on team Three's drone passed the word to the Weres watching Earth's Stargate."
"Linea was just about to step through the Stargate to another planet when our Safety Control Officer overseeing the Gate closed it and stunned her with a drone we planted on the back of her head when she first came through."
He pursed his lips. "SGC is debating what to do with her. They owe her for helping them, yet she was justifiably exiled to that prison planet." He paused. "I suggest we stay out of this. I've explained her being stunned as a reaction due to her close proximity to the Gate when one of our people issued the emergency shut-down because it was an unscheduled event. They seem to have accepted it. I did suggest that they improve their security on their computer system."
He sighed. "Thank Merlin we decided to stay with the Yank's computer dialling instead of using the one we salvaged off the Goa'uld ship. She would have been out of there half-an-hour before anyone knew she had been justifiably sentenced to that prison planet."
Harry could only shake his head, in turn. The Weres at Uranus Base were certainly earning their keep!
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