Chapter 18 – Team Learning
"You know," Colonel O'Brien said a while later over lunch, "this food is way better than the hospital food was. You'd think they could import food from here to the other room just down the hall…"
"Yeah, well, you know how Fields is," Alex said as she took a sip of her milkshake, "she has the food specially made so that it's healthy for you."
"Oh, yeah…but still—I mean, lime Jell-O doesn't exactly beat an Ice Cream Sunday Special from our kitchen, or her bare ham sandwiches can't do justice to the hamburgers with the works we have here. It just doesn't make sense…she feeds us stuff that tastes bad."
"But it's still good for you, that that's what matters to her," Alex said.
John was about to say something back when the door opened, and a man Daniel hadn't seen before walked in.
"Can I help you?" John asked as he got up from the table and walked over to the man.
"I appear to be lost, sir," he said as he snapped into a salute; the Colonel returned it and told him to be at ease. Nodding the man asked, "This isn't GC-2's kitchen, is it?"
"No…Lieutenant," the Colonel said as he saw the man's rank. "You're on the entirely wrong part of the ship. You're supposed to be two floors down. This is GC-1's kitchen…we have the top two floors. Here, I'll show you to the elevator."
"Thank you, sir," the lieutenant said and the two men walked out of the mess hall.
"GC-2?" Daniel asked. "We're not the only GC team on the ship, let alone around Tierra? No one told me there were others!"
"We were actually getting to that, man," Dude said as he took a bite of cheeseburger. "The Colonel wanted us to debrief you about the things Hoffman clearly left out or forgot to mention, and answer any questions that you would have. We want you, man, to totally be on the same page as we are, and we all want you to totally feel at home and like one of the team."
"All right," Daniel said with a smile. "What about the GC system? What's it all about?"
"The GC system is an organization that protects both Earth and Tierra," Alex told him. "The government back on Old Earth knew about the threat from the Androidians for quite some time now. The GC teams are Tierra and Earth's last defenses against them. We're supposed to gather information and start to assassinate the Androidian gods; so far, we've only managed to kill one: Artemis…and she was pretty hard to kill. The others, Aphrodite, Ares, Hades, Hera, Apollo, Poseidon, Hermes, Dionysus, and Zeus, will probably be even harder. That's why the government's so worried about them.
"There are currently seven GC teams. Each number denotes how important each is…therefore GC-1 is the most important and has the best personnel on it, while GC-7 is the least important—they are negotiators for crying out loud—though important, nonetheless. There are three main ships in which they operate from. GC-1 and 2 both operate from the Karma, as they are the most important ones—the Androidians don't even know of our existence. GC-3 and 4 operate from the SS Shield and all of GC-5, 6, and 7 operate from the SS Solar Flare. We usually stay separate, and do not communicate with the others. That's just in case any one of the teams gets captured so they actually, honestly, don't know what the others are up to…the only ones who know everything about the GC teams are the President himself, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It's somewhat complicated, but it works."
"All right," Daniel said after a long pause. He was bewildered by all the information he received, but was still thirsting for more. He looked around at the table, debating whether or not he should ask the question that had been poisoning his mind for the longest time. After a second's deliberation, he decided to ask it. "What about you guys? Why were you recruited for The System? Where did you come from? What's your background?"
Alex looked towards John, who had just gotten back from walking the Lieutenant back to his floor. He nodded. "Okay. I'm from Raleigh, North Carolina. I was recruited out of almost-retirement because I was the only one the president would depend on to head his most trusted team."
Smiling, Dude decided it was his turn. "Dude, I was recruited off of the California reserve when my hacking skills got me into military intelligence. From there, they trained me and sent me here…haven't been surfing since, though. It was a total bummer."
Daniel smiled sadly at this.
"I was recruited from Wisconsin," Alex said, after a sympathizing look towards Dude. "That's why I may have a strange accent to you. I was recommended for this program for my uncanny ability to repair anything foreign without so much as looking at it."
"How 'bout you Daniel?" John asked.
"Well, I've been interested in archeology all my life, so I majored in World Studies and Languages. I've been the world's leading linguist for a few years now…I guess that's why I was recruited. Many people were envious of the ease I picked up the languages so quickly…not many people can say they speak 50 human languages and now 2 alien dialects…
"How about you, Dagón?"
"Well, matey," said he, while putting a toothpick inside his mouth and propping his feet up on the table, "I come from another planet. It was called Jalnok, but it no longer exists as a free planet, sink me! It is now infested with the bilge of the Androidian race. I escaped through the Spacegate into another Androidian territory with a whole bunch of other Machiá, and we were all turned into slaves and thought we were to be measured fer our chains…That wa' over 110 years ago…" Dagón saw Daniel's shocked expression, and continued. "Yea, as fer me age, ya young'ns, I be close to 138 of yer years. Me symbiote keeps me alive and well fer much longer than I'm supposed ter live."
"Whoa," Daniel said. "138? That's gotta be a record or something."
"It is. But no one will know of it because those on Old Earth cannot know about us. This is your home, now, Daniel," John said as he reclined in his chair a bit more to get as comfortable as he could. "Any other questions?"
"Yes. What is that liquid- or water-type stuff that comes out of the Spacegate every time we connect with another 'Gate?"
John, looking like he had no idea what it was either, nodded towards Alex. Sighing at her CO, she turned back towards the others and began her explanation.
"The 'water' is what we call the 'shield,' just like the ship GC-5, 6, and 7 are on. It isplasma and prevents anything from getting out of the Spacegate without reintegrating back into solid matter. You see, when solid matter enters the shield, its particles begin to move faster until it's almost to plasma velocity. Because they don't quite reach plasma, however, the particles are safe, and they follow a transparent 'river'—a rift in space—that's filled with the same plasma as the Spacegate, from one side to the other. The particles of matter travel at very, very high speeds until they reach the other side. The speeds are so tremendous that there isn't a word to describe how fast. We're still doing a lot of research on the Spacegate, but that's what we know so far."
Daniel nodded his head, understanding what she had said. John, however, looked lost.
"Okay! That was a lovely explanation, Major," he said, then looked at Daniel with a disbelieving face. "You understood that?"
Daniel nodded. "Uh, yeah… I did."
"Wow. Okay…um, anyone else who did?"
The others ignored him, clearly annoyed that the Colonel still pretended he didn't get it even though he had had extensive explaining from all of them on that subject, and turned their attention back to Daniel.
"What powers the Spacegates?" the linguist asked.
John looked from Daniel to Alex again. "Your explanation again, Major. Go for it."
"All right, sir. We have a power grid in which the Spacegates are connected to. This power grid is connected to a small piece of the rarest substance in the galaxy: Faneocxil. It enhances explosions so much that it makes them unstoppable. It's also necessary for the detonation of Androidian-designed bombs, and that's why they're taking over planets with deposits of Faneocxil—just as the Goa'uld had done to planets that had Naquadah and Naquadria. This stuff is most different than anything I've ever seen. It's radioactive, yet doesn't harm humans. Its half-life is over several billion years and it can power just about anything. We just hook the Spacegate up to the small piece of that stuff and it can run almost forever."
"Whoa."
"Yeah," John agreed with a smile. "I still don't get it, either."
"No, it's not that," Daniel said back, a slight grin on his face. "It's just hard to imagine a new substance with that capability. It's mind-boggling!"
"Any other questions, dude?" Rick asked.
"Um, yeah. What about the old ship? What happened to the Prometheus? Hoffman said something that you found it here and that I could see it when the time was right."
John smiled. "I thought you'd never ask! That's where we're going to go, as missions have been slow lately—PV3-401 is the planet's name. Hoffman decided to give us some R & R and so has postponed the mission to P97-080. Let's gear up. We're leaving in half an hour!"
The team quickly went to their rooms to get what they needed, leaving their dirty dishes to their serving droid.