Chapter 21 – Debrief
"General, there has to be a way to get them back… These people have families, children, for crying out loud!" Jack exclaimed before closing his eyes and visibly calming himself down. That in itself was a sight to make Hammond pause, though Daniel and Teal'c had grown used to it over the last few weeks.
"I know, Colonel, but if what you say about their gate is true…"
"I think they know this, General," Daniel said quietly, a sad look creasing his face. "They've asked that they be allowed to organise a memorial for the people we lost. They want to wait until Sam's awake, though, as she was the Team Leader."
"They can start to organise it, by all means. You're alright to continue as the go-between?"
Daniel nodded. "One thing that they did ask is whether they could have a power unit for Threepio and Artoo. They can last a while, but they'd rather have it now than too late."
Jack sighed. "Won't work. The interfaces and energy outputs are different. Chewie could probably hash one out, but he doesn't know our technology, so it could take weeks if not months."
"What about Sam?" Daniel asked, oblivious to the General's amazed look.
"She could well be out of it for that long, apparently."
"Could you not do it, O'Neill?" Teal'c suggested.
"I was afraid you would say that," Jack groaned. "Sure. We need Goldenrod to translate for 'Tralla and Chewie, so I'm gonna have to. Knew I should've kept my mouth shut," he groused, though his friends knew that he wasn't that bothered, really. "I'll need Siler to help me with the Doohickeys and stuff, though."
"Colonel?" Hammond asked incredulously.
"General?"
"You're going to build a power unit for these droids?" Hammond was amazed to see the side of Jack that usually only appeared when he talked tactics, warfare, or explosives. He knew Jack was not a dumb man, but that was different to scientist level stuff.
"Oh, that's nothing; I can build and repair parts of a starship engine." He grinned.
Daniel chuckled at the General's expression. "I don't think Sam ever really thought we'd get home," he explained. "She insisted that Jack stopped being an ass and learned something useful."
"I believe she also wished him to stop irritating her, as DanielJackson was busy and I was sequestered with Cilghal." Teal'c's own amusement was visible as he explained.
Hammond nodded; he'd been told about how Teal'c had managed to survive without the Tretonin, though he as still dubious about the 'Force' thing, not least because nothing much had been explained about it. All he knew was that it had the ability to heal people when they were put into a trance. Most of their visitors were either injured, asleep, or in one of these trances to heal themselves, so he'd been unable to find out more about it. He also suspected that those who had woken recently were waiting for Carter, probably so that they knew how much to tell him. It sounded as if these people were far more advanced, and could possibly give them a lot of technology.
"Right, well…you get to work then. Dismissed."
Sam slept peacefully on the infirmary bed, curled on one side. She'd apparently been out for nearly two weeks and had ravenously devoured heaps of food before drifting back into sleep.
The tranquil rest was broken, however, when her danger sense informed her that two unknown presence's had entered the room. That would not normally have been a problem; nurses and SF's were in and out of there all the time, but they were headed for her. And the two presence's shared one body.
Keeping up the pretence of being asleep, she located the knife she'd used to eat with earlier, gripping it with the Force and waiting. The presence stopped by her bed and reached a hand towards her. Within seconds, Sam had grabbed the hand, rolled off of the bed, twisted the Goa'uld's arm behind its back, called the knife to her with the Force and pressed it against the skin of its neck, using the Force to pin its legs where they were.
"Sam?" it asked shakily, voice breaking. A normal voice. One she recognised.
"Dad?" Footsteps came running into the room and a concerned Jack appeared at the door.
"Hey, Sammie, it's me," Jacob slumped forwards, rubbing his neck as Sam released him.
"Oh, Sith! I'm sorry, Dad." She put the knife down self-consciously as Jack came over.
"You okay?" he asked Sam, who nodded.
"Yeah, I'm fine by the way, Jack," Jacob muttered bitterly.
"I didn't realise it was you…I thought you were a Goa'uld."
"You were asleep, how could you have possibly even known there was someone there?" he bit back, immediately relenting. "Sorry, I just wasn't expecting to be attacked by my daughter."
Sam had the grace to look a little sheepish, but she shrugged. "Kind of an instinct. It's saved my life enough times that I generally tend to listen when it tells me there's danger."
Jacob nodded. "Is it safe to hug you?" he asked, with a tentative smile.
Sam nodded and embraced him. "It's so good to see you!"
"You have no idea, Sammie," Jacob muttered into her shoulder. "I thought you were dead."
"Not quite."
Jack stood slightly awkwardly with his hands shoved in his pockets until Sam finally pulled away, turning to the door just as Daniel and Teal'c walked in.
"Jacob! When did you get here?" Daniel exclaimed, grinning at the older man as Teal'c bowed and let lose a trace of a smile.
"Just now; Vinnet called the new base and sent a message to me," he explained.
"What took you so long?" Jack quipped.
"I was tying up loose ends on a mission," he explained, one arm firmly wrapped around his daughter.
He dipped his head, allowing Selmak to the forefront. "We received the message only when we returned to the base less than an hour ago. Nothing else could have kept Jacob back."
"Selmak, it's good to hear you, too," Sam told the Tok'ra. "Sorry about calling you a Goa'uld…it's-"
"A long and complicated story, which you'll hear later, along with General Hammond," Jack cut in.
"You haven't told him yet?"
"We figured it would be best to wait for you to help explain." Jack caught her eyes and silently communicated to her that they had been unsure of what to say…certain information in the hands of the NID could be dangerous.
"I think it's going to be one hell of a story," Jacob commented, regaining control of the body.
"First, I'm going to have a shower and get dressed." She turned to Jack. "I don't suppose any of my clothes survived?"
"Your pants and your boots. They were cleaned along with the rest of the gear; the Doc sorted something for you though…in the cupboard I think." Sam nodded and searched the cupboard, pulling out blue BDU's, her black trousers and boots and several sets of new, clean underwear. Silently thanking Janet, Sam smiled once at the men before grabbing the clothes and heading for the infirmary shower.
Jacob planted himself on the bed, a dazed look on his face. "She's really back," he said eventually, raising his eyes to look at the quietly chatting men of SG-1. "And she's not dead."
"Really? I never would have guessed it," Jack quipped.
Daniel shot Jack a 'don't be an ass' look. "That's what we thought when we saw her, in an alien galaxy, far, far away, pointing a blaster at us."
Jack glanced at Daniel and reached out with the Force, trying to gauge what he was thinking and why he'd felt the need to share that delightful bit of information with Jacob.
"A what?"
"A blaster. A type of weapon. It is similar to your projectile handguns, but it shoots an energy bolt more like that of a staff weapon," Teal'c explained. Apparently he was in on Daniel's thinking too. Had there been a memo that he'd missed?
"Of course, that lasted only a split second before all hell broke loose, and she single-handedly protected and disarmed us." Jacob had an indecipherable look on his face and Daniel, catching Jack's now full blown glare, grimaced. "I guess what I'm trying to say, Jake, is just that…she's changed a lot. Just be prepared for that, because we weren't, and we hurt her." OH! He got it now…prepare Jacob for the fact that 'his little girl' is not going to be anything like 'his little girl' any more. Jacob having a funny reaction to her was not something she needed right now.
"See now, Daniel, why didn't you just come right out and say that? It would have been so much easier to understand."
"I'll remember that for next time we bring a long-lost-friend home, Jack."
They were interrupted by the loud and excited entrance of Dentralla, followed by the almost comically smaller Janet Frasier, who was moving as fast as she could to keep up.
Jacob jumped off of his bed and backed away in surprise. "What the hell is that!"
"That as you so eloquently put it, is Dentralla, Sam's best friend and Co-pilot," Jack replied, biting back his laughter as Dentralla turned and roared at Jacob. "Dentralla, this is Sam's Dad, Jacob, and the Tok'ra Selmak."
Jacob's head dipped and Selmak's deep, echoing voice issued forth, "I must apologise for my host's rudeness; he was not expecting to see such a large, and unusual being in the SGC."
Dentralla eyed him warily and jabbered something at Jack and Daniel.
"Hey, slow down 'tralla, we can't understand you that well," Daniel put a hand on her arm to calm her, face creased in concentration. Dentralla repeated it more slowly, gesturing wildly with her arms.
"'Are we sure he's safe?'. I think," Jack deciphered it before Daniel had, earning him several surprised looks and a grateful nod from Dentralla. "What? I spent hours with her and Sam teaching me, you didn't think I'd learn some of it?"
"I did not think that you would pick it up before DanielJackson," Teal'c commented.
"It makes sense, Teal'c; Jack spent much more time with her than I did."
"Oh for crying out loud; Yes, 'Tralla, we're sure he's safe. He's one of the two Tok'ra I trust."
"Really, who's the other?" Jacob asked.
"Reeses."
"Sarah and Vinnet?"
"Hey, Vinnet let Sarah stay on earth, finish her childhood…"
"Jack, you are a very strange man."
"You've only just noticed?" Daniel interjected.
"Point. So when you say you spent a long time with them…?"
"Well, I think it was nearly two months in the end." Not that Daniel had been homesick enough to count the days or anything.
"Two months? What took you so long to get home?"
"Pesky little Imp-Goa'uld combination that took control of the 'Gate."
"A Goa'uld took a little imp alien as a host?"
"Uh, no, Jack means an Imperial Warlord."
"It appears that the Goa'uld took a host who was most proficient at tactics. It is for the same reason that none of our companions can return to their own Galaxy." Teal'c had a pained look on his face, a reminder that he knew what it was like to be separated from his family.
"I don't suppose the Tok'ra have somehow managed to build a ship capable of crossing inter-galactic spaces in a short time in the last two months have they?" Jack asked caustically.
"No."
"Worth a try." He shrugged.
Their conversation turned to other things as they waited for Sam…how Cassie was doing in her last year of university was one of them.
"Wow, a party," Sam commented as she re-entered the room.
"Something like that," Janet commented as Dentralla pushed past the others and crushed Sam into a Wookie hug.
"I'm glad you're okay, too," Sam mumbled against the Wookie's chest. "Now, could you let me go? I need to breathe. Thank you." Stepping back a little, she looked Dentralla up and down. "You are okay, aren't you?" Dentralla whined an affirmative, showing the well-healed burn on her torso. "'Nother scar for the collection, huh?"
"Speaking of which, I need to check you over before you can leave," Janet told her, gesturing to the bed. Sam sighed but stepped over to it, gesturing and using the Force to pull the curtain around. Jack, who had been watching Jacob to see how he'd react to that, bit back a smile as the man just blinked, and frowned at it.
"Really, Janet, I'm fine."
"I'll be the judge of that. Top off," Janet ordered, waiting for Sam to take the black BDU top off. She'd opted for her own trousers, preferring their comfort to the now unfamiliar BDU trousers.
Sighing, Sam complied, allowing Janet to check the long, pink scar that ran down her front and the small dot where she'd been stabbed through the shoulder. The other, small wounds were more or less completely gone, with the barest trace of a scar.
"So are you going to tell me what all these scars are about?" she asked, running her hands over the lines on her hands.
"Not now," she replied bluntly, her eyes taking on a pained look as she snatched them away from the startled woman.
Janet frowned, taken aback and little hurt by the refusal to talk.
Sam sensed this and grimaced. "Janet, I'm sorry; you'll hear it along with everyone else, it's just…" she hesitated, "it's not something I especially like talking about."
The frown on Janet's face was now one of concern and sympathy as she understood at least a part of it. She gave a small smile. "Okay, but I'm here if you want to talk or anything."
Sam smiled, touched by the sentiment, but knowing that the chances of taking her up on it were slim to none. "Thanks," she said instead. "Have you got my chrono and stuff?" she asked, having not seen it on or in the cabinet.
"Chrono?"
"Sorry, watch."
"Oh, right, yes, I locked them in my office," she explained, leading her into the small room with only a slight wave at the others as she passed them.
Unlocking a drawer, Janet started to pull things out. "Here you go."
"You had them cleaned?" Sam asked as she fastened the thick strap of the Chrono over the tattoos.
Daniel had explained only that the shapes were numbers – 164 – and genetically written into her DNA, but he would say nothing more on the matter, stating that it was Sam's business, not his.
"Well, it wouldn't exactly be hygienic to have all that muck in my infirmary, now would it?" Janet replied, smiling unsurely as she handed a sack of holsters, watching with a touch of horror as Sam fastened them on with the ease of practice and much use. "Do you really need all those?" she asked hesitantly as Sam concealed a knife holster in her right boot.
Sam looked directly at her as she clipped a small holster to her left forearm. "No, just most of them." She flexed her arm and a spring mechanism revealed a tiny gun, just big enough to fit into her hand. She handed it to Janet. "You might want to add that to the others," she informed the stunned doctor.
Finally, she fastened the silver necklace around her neck, tucking it inside her top. "I take it you did put them all in the armoury safe store?"
"Ye-yeah," Janet stuttered. The fact that Sam felt the need to carry so many weapons, and was so blasé and confrontational about it sent a shiver down her spine. It was as if she was daring Janet to comment, or question her.
"Good. If anything happens to them, there'll be hell to pay," Sam told her before grinning.
Janet let out a breath she hadn't realised she's been holding. Sam was just joking, messing with her head. At the back of her mind a little warning bell rang; didn't that grin seem a little forced?
"Come on, I think Dentralla's had enough time to scare Dad witless, don't you?"
"Oh, definitely," Janet told her, regaining a shade of her composure.
When they rejoined the group in the infirmary, Sam found herself immediately ensconced in her father's arms again, her damp hair being ruffled by Dentralla, who yowled a comment.
"Hey! It's not as if I try to get hurt, just so I can scare you!" Sam retorted, grinning for a second before her face became a little cold. "I guess I'd better go talk to Corran and the others?"
"If they'd had their way, they would have all come when I told them you'd woken up," Janet told her with a smile.
"What stopped them?" Sam's face darkened just a little bit more, making Janet frown.
"Dentralla."
"Oh?" Sam looked up at her as they walked towards the elevator. Dentralla yowled a reply that made Sam smile. "Thanks, you're right," was all she said, leaving the others non-plussed, though Jack caught the words 'Corran', 'should', and 'you'.
"You want a few minutes?" Jack asked as they reached the VIP quarters where they were being housed, sensing her feelings through the Force. He'd been practising what she'd taught him already, determined to prove that her faith in him was well-placed.
Sam nodded. "Thanks." She stepped into the room with a blank look on her face.
Six sets of eyes turned towards her, brightening when they saw her, though they nevertheless hung back tensely.
"Sam?" Corran asked tentatively. He'd told the others that he suspected she was mad about something, but he wasn't sure what.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Tell you what?" Luke asked as Mara looked at her speculatively.
"About the Noghri team," Mara stated, knowing how she'd feel in Sam's place. It wasn't a question; she was sure now that she'd sensed how she felt with the Force.
"Oh," Corran grimaced. Of course that was it.
"What do you mean, 'Oh'?"
"I mean oh, we should have told you, oh, that's why you're angry, oh stang, I'm such an idiot for not telling you!" Corran retorted.
Sam shook her head. "I'm not angry," she replied coldly. She wasn't…she felt betrayed. "I trusted you, and you threw that back in my face." It had taken a long time for Sam to be able to trust any new people again, and it made it hurt all the more.
"No, we just didn't tell anyone who didn't need to know," Han interjected cockily.
"And I didn't!" she exclaimed in frustration.
"No, the only reason Corran knew was so that he could deflect people from sensing it," Luke added.
"I was the team leader; how am I supposed to lead a team if people hold things back?" All of them looked around uncomfortably. "Tell me you at least had a reason." She sighed, running a hand through her hair.
"I had a Force vision…it thought it told me that a Force-user would betray us, someone new to the Force," Luke explained.
"So why not tell me?"
Corran shifted uncomfortably. "We thought it was Jack."
Sam narrowed her eyes. "Then why tell me to train him?"
"This was after that."
"Right." Sam shook her head. She could, in a way, understand it now, though it still hurt.
"Hadn't Derren been using the Force as long as you have, though Sam?" Han asked, knowing now who the 'betrayer' had been.
"Maybe, but the Goa'uld hadn't," Leia interjected, a slight frown creasing her face as she tried to work her head around the information.
Sam nodded, several pieces of a difficult, convoluted, and widely scattered puzzle falling into place. "Have you spoken to General Hammond yet?"
"We were waiting for you to even try to explain this," Leia told her. "In our experience…less advanced planetary governments usually have a less than accepting view of things, and we thought we'd wait for a friendly face." The comment was said very diplomatically, but in the knowledge that Sam would understand.
"Good. There are factions of this government who are less than friendly," Sam finished, gesturing to open the door, making Jack, who had been leaning against it, fall through, almost landing on his ass before Sam caught him with the Force.
"Hey! That was my leaning post!" he exclaimed, silently asking her if she was okay.
"Well then, you should have chosen one that doesn't move." The others trooped in and Sam pointed to Jacob. "This is my Dad, Jacob Carter, host to Selmak of the Tok'ra," she introduced, making a point of the Tok'ra comment, to show them he was a good guy. "Corran Horn, Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade-Skywalker, Chewbacca, Han Solo and Leia Organa-Solo."
"Hi," Jacob said, before dipping his head and letting Selmak talk. "It is an honour to meet the friends of my host's daughter."
All of them flinched, not expecting a voice so like that of the Goa'uld and Selmak allowed Jacob to take control again. "George wanted everyone in the briefing room as soon as Sam was ready," he informed them, gesturing out of the door.
Daniel nodded and stepped out of the room. "I'll get Mel, Pelari and Borakahk."
"I shall retrieve Artoo and Threepio from the lab," Teal'c told them before disappearing.
"The lab?" Sam asked, confused.
"Siler's lab. There's a power unit thing been adapted for them," Jack explained.
Sam raised an eyebrow; "I would've paid good credits to see Hammond's reaction to that."
Jacob frowned. "Reaction to what?"
"Jack adapting our technology so that it was compatible with theirs."
Jacob snorted. "What, did he get the knowledge of the ancients downloaded into his brain…again?"
"Hey! I'll have you know I built the doodad on my own!"
Jacob rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and gullible's written on the ceiling."
Jack looked up. "It is!" he joked. "And anyway, what do you mean again? It's only happened twice."
"Twice? That's one more time than I knew about," Sam interjected, throwing Jack a questioning look.
Jack shrugged. "There was this whole thing with Anubis and the Lost City…we kicked his ass, saved the planet, I got frozen, defrosted, and we all lived happily ever after. The end." Sam remained. She could sense his turmoil and pain over that episode; clearly not something he liked to talk about, something she understood completely. She'd never thought that life at the SGC would simply stop without her, but it brought the reality that she hadn't been there to help; perhaps she could have stopped that particular piece of suffering, or maybe another, if she had been there. It also served to remind her that she knew very little of what had been going on. "Let's move, shall we?" They all trooped out of the room after him, heading for the briefing room, where the table had been extended, and several more chairs placed around it. Pelari, Gelk, Borakahk, Janet and Daniel were already there as they took their seats, and Teal'c and the Droids weren't far behind.
Testament to the cliché, SG-1, and Sam, fell into old patterns automatically sitting at the head, next to Hammond. Jack and Sam on one side, Daniel and Teal'c on the other. The rest of them filled in the gaps, Jacob sitting protectively next to Sam. Little groups started up conversations between themselves as they waited for Hammond to finish the conversation he was having on the phone in his office, no doubt to some high-up official in a cushy little office in their own private little world.
Jack leaned slightly towards Sam. "What was that about?" he asked, meaning her conversation with the others.
"About why they didn't tell me they'd brought a Noghri team along," she explained just as quietly. They were both careful not to whisper, knowing that a whisper attracted more attention than muttering quietly did. A whisper aroused people's suspicions and was easily identifiable as such. Jack nodded, knowing he'd be just as pissed if he were in her shoes.
"So what have you been up to for the last two weeks then?" Sam asked, still muttering but not as quietly.
"Oh, this and that. Practising," he replied nonchalantly.
"Practising? I'm impressed."
"So you should be…Daniel still has no idea why he keeps getting really annoying itches when he's doing his diplomat thing…"
Sam snorted, "You haven't done any really fine control?"
Jack raised his eyebrows. "Fine control?"
"Like oh…the hairs on his leg?" she asked innocently.
Jack smirked. "You know, if you try to steal my seat as chief pain-in-the-ass, I may have to set Teal'c on you."
"You wouldn't dare."
Before Jack could retort, Hammond entered the room, and Sam and Jack rose respectfully to their feet, soon followed by the others in the room. Sam may not have been Air Force any more, but she still respected Hammond.
"Please, be seated. First of all, Maj-Sam, it's good to see you alive and well," Hammond began, favouring her with a smile.
"Likewise, General."
"Now, to save the time and effort of having to repeat this," Sam silently thanked the Force…telling it once would be bad enough… "I will be recording this debrief." He hit a button on a remote and nodded to Sam. "Ma-Doctor Carter, if you would begin from when you were first taken."
Jacob raised an eyebrow at the quick correction from Major to Doctor but said nothing as Sam began.
She focused on the table in front of her and her hands as they played idly with a pen, using a Force calming technique to quell her rising emotions. She knew that for this to be done properly, she would have to go into details. It would be her last debrief of her last mission though the 'gate. "When they first came through the 'gate, the Colonel, Daniel, and Teal'c, had already started towards the site, I forget what, and I was about to catch up. They came back as I was being dragged through the 'gate, but they weren't in time." Sam paused, not realising that she had slipped into the mindset of 'Major Carter'. "The last thing I saw was the Colonel take a shot, I thought in the region of the heart. After that, I was put in a holding room with all the other slaves before we were processed, tattooed, given slave implants, and given a basic immunising drug. We were put to work in a Glitterstim processing factory." Her voice had taken on a dead, mechanical quality as she tried to detach herself from the emotions that were so painful. She sat ram-rod straight in her chair, not looking at anyone and shutting them off from reading her emotions.
She coughed to clear her throat. "Glitterstim is a highly addictive drug, the most potent form of Spice, and very expensive. Because of its nature, it has to be processed in absolute dark, and each strand has to be precisely aligned or the sharp crystals on it grind each other to dust, making it worthless." Her hands were shaking as memories of a time she'd rather forget assaulted her.
She was surprised when Han cut in, his voice taking on a sad tone. "Glitterstim is real sharp; it cuts workers' hands open easy as anything, and sometimes, given warm, damp conditions, it encourages the growth of an infectious mould that slows healing." Hammond and Janet nodded…that explained the thin scars on her hands and arms.
Acutely aware of the eyes on them, Jack reached across and took hold of Sam's hand, giving it a squeeze and letting reassurance flow to her through the Force. He resisted the urge to grimace and yell at the speculative looks several of the people adopted…now was really not the time for people to wonder about them. Right now it was just a friend supporting a friend.
Acknowledging him only by not pushing the reassurance away, Sam took a deep breath and continued. "I was there for three years before Telk sold me on to Terrell. Terrell took…certain measures against any of his workers being out of commission…" Jack detected a hidden meaning to that and decided to ask her later. "Including putting a slave implant in. The implant had a dead-man switch amongst other things. Even as soon as I started working, I found ways to make the equipment more efficient, and therefore safer." She let out a wry smile, "Average life expectancy upped from one or two days to one or two weeks." She could feel the horror radiating off of those in the room who had not heard this story in full – which was most of them – and blocked it off. "That was the only reason I agreed to make the changes; I wouldn't have helped Terrell in any way otherwise. Because of that, I became a 'favourite' of Terrell, and he allowed me certain privileges; including going out to cantinas, a few credits of my own whenever he was feeling 'kind'. He knew that he could hold my humanity against me and that I wouldn't condemn people to death by trying to escape.
"I bought myself a few things; gained other things from cheap-rate bounty hunters sent by Terrell's competitors." Her shoulders were tense, and it was obvious that this wasn't pleasant for her; disgust and bitterness evident in her voice. "I'd spend a lot of time in cantinas, trying to get away from the faces of people I knew would be dead soon. I couldn't give up, because I knew that there was a chance, however remote, that by keeping them alive for just a little longer would give them that chance to escape, or mean that less people were brought in as replacements, giving them a chance at freedom. Dentralla was one of the Wookie workers there, and when Luke brought about Terrell's arrest and our freedom, the Wookies chose Dentralla to carry out the Life Debt they all felt they owed me." At this memory, Sam smiled, looking away from the tabletop for the first time, the shaking in her hands slowing. "Luke insisted I became a Jedi, I became Corran's apprentice and trained." She shrugged. "A few years after that, we came across the Touched Virus – I guess from people taken before we gave them the cure – and tracked it from planet to planet, until I reached the Stargate. I asked Corran to help, and we tried to infiltrate and take the 'gate, but we were outmanoeuvred. We were there just in time to see SG-1 come through the 'gate, their fourth member being shot as we were surrounded and forced to leave."
Talking was easier now that the memories weren't so bad and Sam quickly detailed Teal'c's cure, gaining the help of the senate, and prep for the assault with the others, adding the occasional comment now.
Hammond shook his head, more than a little awe-struck. "All I can say is I'm sorry we couldn't rescue you," he told her sadly.
Sam nodded. She may have no longer harboured the subconscious anger at them, but to pull out old memories and then remind her of others would be like poking an angry Wookie.
"Due to the nature of your experience and the obvious emotional difficulties involved, I'll have a transcript of the tape written as your mission report." He gave her a kindly smile, to which she nodded. "If you'd like to take a break, we'll move on to the matter of this 'Force' when we continue."
As they rose to grab coffee, water, or whatever their preferred drink was, Hammond gestured SG-1, Sam, Janet, and Jacob over to the far corner.
"I'm afraid I have some bad news, people," he started quietly. "I just got off of the phone with the president. The CRDO – Civilian Research and Development Organisation – has demanded that their consultant be sent over to meet the 'aliens' and propose an exchange of information."
Sam couldn't help but notice the sudden darkening of everyone's faces, and the disgust and resentment that flowed from them. "What's this CRDO?" she asked bluntly.
"When the new president – President Hayes – came into power, he felt that it was inevitable that the SGC would come out into the open at some point, particularly after Anubis's attempted attack on Earth. Knowing that it would look really bad if it were a purely military organisation and that it was drawing billions of dollars of the tax-payers' money to fund it, he decided that there needed to be a civilian organisation that would be directly involved with it and that would raise money for it."
Hammond paused, and Daniel took up the explanation, "The CRDO is a civilian-run organisation that takes any discoveries, finds, information, and the like and develops it for public and commercial use. The royalties from patents and medical procedures, etc. is used to supplement most of the money."
Sam nodded. "You said they have a say in the running of it?"
"Not the defence and general running but the decisions over what's kept for development, who has access to it, the R&D side."
Sam sensed that there was more to whatever was causing their dark moods and raised an eyebrow at them.
"Their consultant is a man who had prior experience and knowledge of the SGC," Jack explained, grimacing. "Kinsey."
