The New Guys, part 3

"Captain McPherson, may I have a word with you in my office please?" General Hammond asked the young British officer as he made his way through the corridors that connected the various areas of the SGC.

"Certainly, Sir." McPherson nodded, following the older man to his office and standing at ease on the other side of his desk.

"Captain, there appear to be some minor inconsistencies in your reports." Hammond sifted through a pile of paper on his desk, "Let me give you a few examples missing equipment: four crates of fragmentation grenades, two crates of Claymore mines, twenty-kilos of C4 plastic explosive, two .50-caliber belt-fed machineguns, two sets of radios, twenty fully charged staff-weapons, one charger for staff-weapons, one crate of Zats, one charger for Zats, two recovered cannons from a crashed Goa'uld Death Gliders, two-kilos of weapons-grade Naquadah, a dozen suits of Jaffa armor, two fuel cells taken from the same crashed Death Glider as the aforementioned cannons and a significant amount of ammunition of varying calibres."

"I am not sure what the General is trying to say?"

"Oh, I'm not finished yet: two-dozen boxes of assorted Goa'uld control crystals, one personal force-field emitter, four ribbon devices, one healing device and one box of Goa'uld long-range communicators. There is also the question of the two Tel'tak shuttles and the Al-Kesh bomber your team supposedly destroyed, but our people have been unable to find any trace of when they went to look for spare parts."

"Perhaps they looked in the wrong place?"

"Would you care to speculate as to where they should look?"

"Not really, sir."

"Captain, I am capable of accepting a lot of the equipment your team gets through is the result of being rather aggressive when it comes to your dealing with the System Lords." Hammond pulled out a page from one report, "Colonel O'Neill reports that one of your men, a Private Jones, head-butted a minor System Lord into unconsciousness for, and I quote, 'looking at him funny'."

"I am afraid that Jones can get a little high spirited at the time, and it did work out well in the end…"

"Yes: half the System Lords Jaffa defected to the rebels, taking several of his ships with them, one of which is 'missing'."

"Is the General trying to infer something?"

"Is there something I should be inferring?"

"I wouldn't presume to know the Generals mind, sir."

"Just the sort of response I have come to expect from Colonel O'Neill."

"Sir?"

"What are you doing with the equipment you have captured? I know that you're not bring it back through the gate and there can' be anywhere you can stash it off world."

"I'm not sure I understand what the General is saying?"

"What are you people up to?"

"I am not sure I am at liberty to discuses any matters of United Kingdom national security, sir."

"This is not official: this is just you and me."

"With all due respect, sir, everything her is official to some degree or another."

"Off the record?"

"There are those in my government who believe that it is unwise to place planetary security in the hands of just on nation. The United Kingdom is, as a nation, rather paranoid about having all our eggs in one basket, especially if we're not the ones holding the handle."

"Care to speculate on what they are planning."

"Have you ever heard of a placed called Woomera?"

"I can't say that I have, but I would be interested to learn more."

"It's a small town, nothing to write home about, but it is just 27km from a area referred to on maps of Australia as the 'Woomera Prohibited Range', similar to your White Sands. It is some 127,000-square kilometres, located to the north of Adelaide."

"Your nations answer to Area-51?"

"In many ways, Sir: there are something that I can't talk about, even off the record."

"And the British government pays for all this?"

"In part. The bulk of the funding comes from selected members of the Commonwealth: Canada, Australia and New Zeeland. They don't know all the truth; just that we have some equipment there that we suspect is of extraterrestrial origin. They fork up the cash and a few specialists, we do the rest."

"And the American govement?"

"I am sure that they run spy-satellites over the base every chance they get, but the main work is carried out underground. They know it is there, but they chose to ignore it, the same way the British, Canadian, Australian and New Zeeland governments ignore Area-51."

"These things are just not talked about?"

"It wouldn't be cricket, sir."

"And you trust me with this information?"

"It is felt, by many of those behind the work at Woomera, that you are more interested in protecting this planet than any political gains that could be made by unmasking what my team does. And if you, of other selected personnel, ever left the SGC, you could probably expect offers to work as consultants for a DERA project in Adelaide."

"You have been told to tell me this?"

"I was told that, should the need ever arise, that I was authorised to tell you the truth. Or at lest, what I have been told is the truth."

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive."

"I could not have put it better myself, sir."

"Thank you Captain, that will be all."

"Sir!" McPherson saluted before turning on his heals and leaving.

Hammond sat in silence for a few minuets, then reached for his phone, "Page Colonel O'Neill to my office."

"You wanted to see me, sir?" O'Neill asked when he popped his head through the door.

"Come in, close the door and sit down." Hammond instructed, "You've got a lot of vacation time built up, Jack, and I think you should take some. Have you ever considered Australia?"

The End