GATE CRASHERS – CHAPTER 3
Daniel was in the process of recovering from the upgrade that he had gotten from the Tok-Ra when the message came through. It was a pentagram and the message 'through the eye of the heathen god' written in Attic Greek. The point of origin simply said 'Vatican City'. He looked at the message for a second, then he knew the answer. Rushing over to his copy of the scroll, he sketched in the pentagram and looked at the middle. He rotated the image, and eventually a symbol jumped out at him, a symbol he recognized from the Stargate, here was number six. All thoughts of relaxing for a few days left him as he gathered his materials and hurried to General Hammond's office.
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"So we have all the symbols needed, do we really need to take Hansel and Gretel with us?"
"I told you Jack, we are dealing with too many unknowns with this thing, bringing them along takes care of a lot of that."
"That I understand Daniel, but does it have to be those two?"
Daniel looked confused for a moment "what's the problem with them Jack, they seem competent enough."
"Yeah, with stuff here on earth, but there's no way kids that young could deal with what we do on a regular basis."
"How about this" Sam jumped in "run them through some training, and when they don't cut it, ask for replacements. That way we're not rejecting them outright, so no one is offended. And since there's no time constraint on this mission, we can afford to wait and make sure we get someone we can work with."
"Fine, but I want it on the record somewhere that I don't like this."
"I appreciate your position Jack" General Hammond said "but the Pope called the President about this, and was quite forceful, this is going to happen whether you want it to or not. Now as my senior team, I'd prefer you to take this one, but if you don't think you can, I can find another team."
Jack threw up his hands in despair "fine General, I'll play nice with the kiddies, but don't expect me to be easy on them."
With a bit of a gleam in his eye, Hammond said "I'd be disappointed if you did Jack."
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The guard had been told to expect some VIP's today, so he had made sure to wear his dress uniform and gave everything an extra bit of shine. He was wondering who the VIP's were and where they were from when an old Harley pulled up to his gate. The guard, whose name was Phil, loved the bike. His brother had known a couple of guys in a bike club back in the 70's and Phil had loved it when they came around, he was always trying to cage rides off of them and could fondly remember each one. He got out, admiring the '65 soft tail; the bike was in immaculate condition. The guy was wearing a white helmet with gold wings on it, as he got off the Harley, on the back of his jacket Phil could see a skeleton with a white top hat, around it were the words 'The White Hats MC' and the affiliate cities: Rome, Edinburgh, Devon, Tokyo, LA, Cleveland, Cairo, and Mondoniedo; Phil had no idea where that last one was, and he was surprised at all the international locations. His last surprise was when he noticed the front of the guys jacket, it said 'Prez Ian' on it; from his experience, the head of a motorcycle club was the toughest mother of the lot, this was a scrawny kid that couldn't have been a day over twenty five. The girl behind him wore a matching jacket, but her helmet was white with a skeleton key on it and her jacket just said Dawn on it. The guard was getting ready to chew the kids out when the guy took off his helmet and stuck out his hand and said "hey, I'm Ian, I've got an appointment to see General Hammond".
The guard froze, this was it, this was the VIPs he had been waiting for, these kids. "Uhmm, just a moment please" he went back to the house and checked his list, this really was them. He shook his head; it was amazing who they were letting in these days. He walked back to the two kids standing there "I'll need to see your ID's please".
They each pulled out a small folder and passed them to the guard. He took a look, then a double take because there was only one name on each of the ID's. The two people were simply identified as Ian and Dawn, and that they were special envoys from the Vatican. The guard did another double take at that, these two were from the Vatican, he would have expected priests or something like that, not a couple of twenty something hoodlum wanna-bes. Unfortunately for him, they checked out. He walked back out and handed them their IDs "you can head on in; there's a lot where you can park your bike about a quarter of a mile in; it'll be safe there and Dr. Jackson should be there to meet you."
"Thanks" the kids said, as they got on their bike and headed on into the compound. The guard just shook his head as he watched them leave; he had gotten all spiffy for them, what a waste.
Ian and Dawn parked and unloaded the saddle bags; they did travel light after all and didn't need much. Their weapons were stowed in their coats, and they had a couple of changes of clothing and toiletries. They looked around and saw a familiar face headed their way "Daniel, how are you doing" Dawn called out.
"I'm good, you two, how was your trip in?"
"Not bad, it was kind of nice to take our time getting here, so where do we go and who do we need to see?"
"Well, I'm here to take you to see General Hammond, we'll see after that."
"Then lead on MacDuff" Dawn said with a grin, and they followed Daniel down into the heart of SGC.
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To say that General Hammond was less than impressed would be an understatement of colossal proportions. Like the guard, he had been expecting someone like a Special Forces soldier and the girl to be some sort of intel specialist, not a couple of kids. He had dismissed Jack's less than glowing descriptions as Jack just being Jack, now he thought that Jack had given the two way too much credit. "Well have a seat you two, and we'll get started". SG1 was surprised at the General's ignoring of protocol, but no one said anything.
"Excuse me General" the girl said "I'm afraid we haven't been properly introduced".
"My apologies Dawn" the General said "you of course remember Dr. Jackson and Colonel O'Neill, this is Major Carter" he indicated a pretty blonde "and Teal'c."
"A pleasure to meet you both" Dawn said. "My name is Dawn and this is Ian, we are special envoys for the Vatican. We are what you would call 'trouble shooters' and are able to take care of a wide variety of situations. Now, I assume you all know why we are here?"
"Not quite" O'Neill cut in "we know why we are here; we're just not sure why you are."
"We are here" Ian replied "because none of you could properly deal with the Ark. In order for it to be retrieved, you will need our help. I realize that most of you are less than thrilled by this, but I assure you that both Dawn and I are fully capable of handling anything you could throw at us." This last was delivered as a bit of a challenge.
Sam smirked to herself, this was just the kind of opening that they had been hoping for and the kid had fallen right into it. Now they would run them through a bit of training and when the two failed they could be replaced.
"Really" Jack drawled out "working for the church do either of you even know how to shoot a gun?"
Just as the question left Jack's lips, Daniel saw a blur of motion. For his part Jack didn't see anything, it seemed as though the instant the question was asked, he was looking down what appeared to be a railway tunnel. He realized it was the barrel of a revolver, and in addition to being shocked at the speed of its appearance he was also surprised that it had been brought in despite the security measures in place. As soon as Ian had moved, Dawn had leapt backwards out of her chair and drawn her own revolver to cover the room,
Jack looked up from the barrel to meet a pair of incredibly pale and, at the moment, very cold eyes. "I think we both can manage" Ian said with a smirk.
He then backed of a bit and reversed the pistol and handed it to O'Neill, meanwhile Dawn's pistol had disappeared and she was once more in her seat.
"Everybody calm down" Hammond roared "how the heck did you manage to get those things in here" he asked Ian and Dawn.
"It's the lining of our jackets, the material bends X-rays around whatever is there, hiding whatever you want. Actually its standard Vatican issue, a couple of Jesuits came up with it a few years ago."
Jack O'Neill hadn't been listening to anything that was being said, he was looking at the gun in his hand, and recalling how it had gotten there. When Dawn finished her explanation, he looked over at Ian and asked "do you think it was wise, putting a gun in my face, and then handing it to me?"
"I gotta say I'm not that worried Colonel."
"Why, you think I won't shoot you?"
"Oh, I'm sure that under the right circumstances you wouldn't hesitate, but I don't think that these circumstances warrant that kind of a response."
"That's quite an assumption, tell me; why did you do it?"
"You and these other people were making rather rude assumptions, I thought a physical demonstration would shock you all out of that mind set."
"I see" the Colonel said, cocking the pistol and pointing it at Ian "and how do you feel about that demonstration now?"
"I'm pretty comfortable with it."
"I could shoot you right now."
"Not with that gun you couldn't."
"What are you talking about, I can feel the weight of the bullets, this thing is loaded."
"True, but that's an 1863 Colt Navy Revolver, it's a black powder gun and won't shoot without the percussion caps; these caps that are currently in my hand." Ian opened his hand to reveal a half dozen small brass caps. "So feel free to pull the trigger, nothing will happen."
Jack just gave the younger man a frosty smile "you're an arrogant punk aren't you" he said "I like that" and he slid the pistol back to the younger man.
"Not without a bit of justification" Ian answered as the pistol disappeared once more into his jacket with a speed that was difficult to follow. Meanwhile Ian and Jack just held each other's glare; held it until a hand shot out and smacked Ian in the back of the head.
"Enough with the testosterone show" Dawn said, "this isn't helping, and General Hammond was about to tell us about this installation."
"I was" Hammond said as all eyes turned to him.
"I was anticipating" Dawn said with a smile.
"How about you tell us what you know, then we'll fill in the blanks."
"OK then, this facility is built around a device known as 'The Stargate'. Our best guess is that it creates Einstein-Rosen bridges between itself and similar devices scattered all over the galaxy, allowing travel between these gates. As to how it got here, best guess is an ancient civilization that either moved up the evolutionary ladder enough to where they were not necessary or they moved to another galaxy and just left their toys behind. We also postulate that since there wasdefinitely one other race in the galaxy, that there are others as well, and probably at least one of them is less than friendly. Your function here is to contact these other races, establish allies wherever possible and defend us from the bad guys when necessary. Considering the manner of egress, that probably means small commando type raids rather than full scale battle. You also gather intelligence about the bad guys and look for more devices left behind by the older civilization." Dawn shot Hammond a dazzling smile when she was done, and ignored the looks she was receiving from the other SGC members.
For his part, the General looked dumfounded for a moment, then shook it off "you were quite right little lady. You did neglect to mention the archeological functions that we perform here, as well as researching simpler alien life, like plants and such, but that was a very good description. How do you know all that?"
"As I said, most of it is guesswork, but fairly educated guesses. As to how we know, well I'm sure that there are a few members here who are Catholics, and they tend to confess whenever they go through something stressful like an off-world mission; and since any information that isn't directly related to their sins can be passed on, well we learned a lot."
"And if we ever needed to contact you quietly, who should we confess to" the General asked.
Ian and Dawn shared a look before he said "Father Timothy Ryan, at St. Agnes here in town. He's got direct ties to our organization."
The General knew that they were trying to establish trust, but he was smart enough to realize that there was more than one connection "thank you, we'll keep that in mind if anything else ever comes up. Now that we know you have a basic understanding of the situation, how about we fill in some of the details." General Hammond went on to explain the history of the Stargate program and what had happened in the last four years. He explained about the Goauld and their efforts to control the galaxy. It was here that the talk got interesting.
"I think we've run into them before" Dawn said.
"Here on Earth, that's not possible" Major Carter insisted.
"At the time it was considered simple possession, but a friend of ours commented that they had a different odor than normal. You might use that, some sort of a pheromone detector or even something as simple as a sniffing dog to root out any that might be here."
"He said they smelled differently"Jack asked "how he could tell something like that."
"Trust me, Oz has a very well developed sense of smell" Dawn answered.
"We'll have someone look into that" the General said. "Now it's too late today, but tomorrow we'd like to run you through a few training exercises, just to gauge how fit you two are." The General stood up "Sergeant Neely will show you to your quarters and help you find your way around the compound. I hope I don't need to tell you that unauthorized roaming is not recommended."
"No General, you don't" Ian answered. "Thank you all for your hospitality and we'll see you tomorrow" and with that, Ian and Dawn left after the sergeant.
After they were gone, the General looked at his flagship team and asked "so what do you think?"
"I believe that they are both quite formidable" Teal'c answered; surprising everyone else.
"Why do you think that" Daniel asked.
"Because Daniel Jackson, they demonstrated both the willingness to act and the wisdom to listen, they asked thoughtful questions, and in their actions and words they were supporting each other at all times. They are closely tied in their actions and that is most formidable of all."
"I've got to say, I've never seen anyone move as fast as they did" Sam added "he had that gun out before I even noticed he was moving. What do you think Colonel?"
"I think he has the coldest eyes I've ever seen. I looked at him over that gun and I knew he wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger if he thought it was the right thing to do." Jack gave a little shudder "having that kind of intensity aimed at you is real un-nerving. I'm not sure how I feel about working with em, but I will definitely be keeping my eye on em."
"They seemed pretty knowledgeable, I mean about languages and stuff."
"True Daniel, but they didn't seem that scientifically oriented."
"Hey" Jack said "I'm not that scientifically oriented, that's why we've got you."
Sam blushed at that, but said no more.
"Very good" Hammond said "come up with a regimen that you want to put them through tonight, and we'll have them get started tomorrow, and Jack, nothing too crazy."
"Sir" O'Neill said, feigning outrage "I'm shocked you'd suggest such a thing, I can assure you it will be a fair test of their abilities."
Shaking his head, Hammond went back to his office.
"Fair" Sam asked.
"Well, fair if they're a team of Olympic athletes" Jack replied with a grin.
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"So what do you think" Dawn asked.
"I think they're a bit up tight for me, but they've got potential."
"That's scary"
"What is?"
"Hearing you call someone else uptight."
"Look who's talking Ms. 'I don't want to give the monitors something to listen to', you make me look like a libertine."
"I do not."
"Come on, you're a biker chick, you're supposed to be a little wild."
The two of them weren't stupid enough to actually be speaking in a human language. They knew their room was being bugged, so they had done the usual evening things for a couple and went to bed. Then they started talking in Fyarl, because it sounds like snoring. That and the fact that Ian doubted anyone here spoke any demon languages.
Dawn snuggled up a bit closer "maybe tomorrow" she said.
"Tomorrow is the question, isn't it? You know they're gonna give us a bunch of impossible stuff to do, so do we barely squeak by, or do we blow it away."
"Honestly I don't think it matters much, sooner or later they're gonna give us a med screen to see what's different about us."
"You think they'd find anything."
"A regular hospital, no way; but this place isn't regular, is it. They're used to dealing with exotic and unusual, so something might actually show up."
"I say we just blow whatever they give us to do away. That way they have some idea about our abilities."
"What about the mental ones?"
"Just perfect memory for now."
"OK" Dawn said as she laid her head on her husband's chest "I love you".
"I love you too Bella Alba".
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"You have got to be kidding me" was the only thing Dawn had to say. It was the next morning and the pair from the Vatican were going through the first bit of testing to insure that they were capable of dealing with a Stargate mission. This test was the martial arts instructor for the base. Steve Downing was 6'1" and 210 pounds, none of it fat; he also happened to be both the Karate and Aikido champion for the entire armed forces. Now he was squaring off against a 120 pound girl. 'I'll have to take it easy so I don't kill her' he thought.
"If you don't think you can cut it, just say so" Colonel O'Neill said with a smug little grin. Dawn glared at the man; she knew what would happen if she begged off, the two of them would be replaced.
"Let's just get this over with" Dawn said with a resigned sigh and stepped onto the mat with Steve. She took a loose Karate stance and signaled she was ready. Jack moved out of the way as he signaled them to begin. Steve made a straight handed lunge at Dawn's left side. The girl grabbed his right wrist with her right hand, and then pirouetting inside his grasp, slammed her left elbow into the side of his head. While her opponent was still staggered, Dawn ducked under his right arm until she was behind him, and then altered her grip so that she had his right arm in a punishing submission hold. Realizing that he would either have to submit or have his arm taken out of its socket; Steve surrendered. As Dawn stepped back, all of the military people were incredulous; this little girl had taken the instructor apart in less than ten seconds. Ian just beamed at her, and hugged her when she made her way over to him.
"Ready for round two" Ian said, stepping onto the mat. Steve just nodded, he had been overconfident with the girl and had paid the price, he wouldn't make the same mistake again.
Ian took a loose jui jitsu stance in response to Steve's karate stance. Steve smiled to himself, this particular form had a hole in the defense, it was vulnerable to a kick on the left side after a low right block. Jack signaled begin and moved out of the way. Steve shot a right at Ian's left side, which was blocked, then Steve kicked low and right which was also blocked then threw the kick at the left side, there it was, the hole in the defense. His inner smile turned to confusion as he felt the jarring impact of his kick being blocked. How was that possible one part of his brain asked? It wasn't answered another. His inner dialogue was cut off when he noticed he was flying backwards through the air. Just as he was feeling the blow to his chest, gravity realized that Steve was breaking a rule or two and turned its jaundiced glance his way. Steve came crashing back down on the mat, satisfying gravity (which turned its attention back to making sure everything else fell down the way it was supposed to). Now he could feel the blow to his chest as well as the realization that all of the wind had been knocked from him. What he couldn't understand was how he had ended up twenty feet away from his opponent. Steve tried to get up twice, and sagged back to the mat both times.
"I guess I win" Ian said to the gathered crowd, most of them didn't hear him; they were all open mouthed at what had just happened. All Jack O'Neill could do was nod; there was no way that those two kids should have been able to do what he had just seen them do there was a growing suspicion in the back of his mind that the two of them were sandbagging him, but he had no choice now but to go through the rest of the regimen with them.
They both broke the base record for the obstacle course, and could remember Pi to more decimal places than Sam, and could read more ancient languages than Daniel. Jack was now getting seriously worried; all that they had left today was the shooting range. The two carried those antique pistols, but he wondered how they would do with modern weapons.
"So what do you want to start with, the nine millimeter Beretta or the M-4?"
"I'm sorry, were you speaking English" Ian asked.
"Do you want to start with the pistol or the machine gun?"
Ian and Dawn just shared a look "how exactly do they work" Dawn asked finally.
Jack smiled to himself, 'we have a winner' he thought. He spent the next few minutes describing the workings of the two guns, how to load them and shoot them. "OK" he said finally "let's see how you two do on the range".
"Do we get a bit of practice, or are we scoring from the get go" Ian asked.
"One clip each to warm up should do it, after that we'll count it."
The two youngsters just gave a nod and started shooting. They seemed fairly comfortable with the Beretta, but the M-4 seemed to give them a bit of grief. They eventually ran out of bullets, and signaled that they were ready to shoot for score.
"Alright, ten shots at fifty yards, that's a maximum score of 100."
"What's qualifying?"
"Ninety Five Jack answered". He looked over to see that Sam looked scandalized, and Daniel even looked a bit surprised. For a novice to shoot anything above an eighty would be remarkable. Ninety Five was the qualifying score for an expert rating.
Both Ian and Dawn took a breath, then they started shooting. They didn't pause, they didn't shoot and look, they just ripped the entire clip off in under ten seconds. Jack was ecstatic, there was no way they had even come close to the score necessary, not with rapid fire.
As he reeled the targets in, he started to get a little worried; there were an awful lot of holes in the middle of the targets. Once they were all the way in, he became officially freaked out. Each of them had shot a perfect score, ten shots, ten bulls eyes, in rapid fire; there was no way that could have happened, but he had just watched it. There was absolutely no way they could have faked it or cheated, it was impossible, but the evidence that it had happened was in his hand. He showed the targets to both Sam and the range master. They were equally dumfounded.
He finally turned to the two Vatican agents "nice job, you both qualify with the Beretta, now lets just see how good you are." He put two fresh targets up and sent them down to the end of the range, five hundred yards to be exact "give this a try".
Again they each took a breath, and then opened up. Just like before they pulled off their ten shots in under ten seconds. As they stood up, they looked satisfied, as though they had been worried about something. As the targets came back, Jack was well and truly shocked. Dawn had again shot a perfect score; Ian had shot a Ninety Nine. The young man caught quite a bit of razzing from his wife about that. Jack and the others ignored their banter, something remarkable was going on here, these two kept doing things that should not have been possible, and the impression that Jack had was that they were holding back.
He just sighed "alright, let's try the M-4's". As he was coming to expect, they were just as good with those as they had been with the hand guns. Now a small crowd had gathered and watched in awe as the two of them kept getting impossible scores at unheard of distances. None of it pleased Jack, finally he got tired of seeing the scores the two kids were getting and called a halt.
Ian looked at Jack "anything else for today?"
"Nothing urgent, we've got some technical stuff to go over, but it can wait till tomorrow, go relax and get some sleep."
The two thanked him, and their pet security officer escorted them back to their room. Once they were gone, Jack huddled up with the rest of SG1. "So what do you guys think?"
"As I said before O'Neill, they are formidable."
"True, but what they're doing is just impossible."
"Maybe you just have to accept the fact that they're the best we've ever seen."
"No Daniel, what the Colonel said is literally true, there should be no way they could have scored what they did shooting."
"So you think something's up" Daniel asked.
"I think I don't know what's going on, and I don't like that."
"Well let's just wait and see how they handle the combat sims tomorrow."
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Jack O'Neill was not a happy man. After his plan had come to a spectacular ruin on that first day, the next two had been just as bad, if not worse from his point of view. The two kids blew through every combat sim like tornados through a trailer park. No one had ever seen scores this high, Sam had even called the programmer to see if it could be made harder. The programmer was incredulous when he had been told the kind of ratings the two Vatican operatives were getting. Jack was totally at a loss as to what to do, it seemed that there was literally nothing that these two couldn't do. The way they moved and acted was totally seamless, he had not been that tight with his old Special Forces team or with SG1 and they had been together almost five years.
As he watched them succeed in scenario after scenario he kept digging through his mind, hoping to come up with a situation that would put the brakes on these two very cocky youngsters. Jack truly believed that the young needed lessons in humility, and indeed, he had dished out a fair few of those in his life. But now he realized that he didn't really care for being on the receiving end at this stage of his life. He winced as the two finished off yet another impossible save; no, he didn't care for this lesson one bit.
After the kids had been dismissed for the day, Jack looked around at his team and asked "any ideas"?
"We could pull a 'Kobiashi Maru' on them" Sam suggested.
"A what?"
"It's from Star Trek, it means a no win scenario."
"What are you doing getting ideas from Star Trek?"
"Hey, we all have guilty pleasures, mine just happens to be Star Trek, I don't want to hear anything from you just because I don't like drowning worms."
"Hey, fishing is a legitimate sport."
"I always wondered how that could be a sport since you can do it while you're drunk?"
Jack didn't bother to answer, shooting Daniel a poisoned glare and turning back to Sam "so you're suggesting that we give them a scenario that they can't win, then what? They know that they're blowing all of the other tests away, as much as I hat to say it, it wouldn't be right to keep em out over not solving a no win."
"I agree Colonel, but if they did beat it, it would tell us that something is up, that somehow they're breaking the rules and then we have some leverage."
"Leverage, you mean blackmail them into telling us whatever we want to know" Daniel asked.
"That's a little blunt, but yes, exactly that."
"Then where does it stop, do we force them to do whatever we want, dance for us" Daniel shook his head "count me out."
"I am in agreement with Daniel Jackson, this idea is practical, but without honor."
"So what do you suggest" Sam asked.
"Ask them, has anyone tried just talking to them, maybe if we just asked them how they're able to do what they do, they'd answer us."
"You're saying just walk up and ask 'how do you keep doing these impossible things' have I got that right?"
"It's a place to start Jack, if they stonewall us, then we go to Sam's plan, but I want to avoid that if we can. These are our allies, we don't want to piss them off and then expect them to watch our butts."
"OK Daniel, after this last scenario, we'll talk to Romeo and Juliet, and see what they have to say."
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As soon as the briefing started, both Ian and Dawn knew that they were being set up. As they sat there, half listening, they discussed how to handle it; speaking in Fyarl of course.
"Set up?"
"Without a doubt, give in or full tilt?"
"They haven't asked us anything yet, might as well push it."
"You sure?"
"Nope, but that's what my gut says."
"Think they'll be able to handle it?"
"Not at first, but yeah, I do."
"I hope you're right."
"Me too"
It had been described as a routine sabotage run, but it was anything but that. There were hostages and a bunch of the enemy, about four times what they had been told to expect. They were currently holed up behind a few rocks, but they could hear the enemy working to surround them. Ian looked at Dawn "how about I break you out that way" he indicated some woods to the left "then it's a slayer hunt". This referred to one of the training exercises for the new slayers, where Ian and Dawn hunted them so the newbies could grasp exactly what would happen if they lost.
"Best we can do, I suppose" Dawn said.
Ian nodded and closed his eyes, he disappeared and in a minute or so all the shooting stopped from the woods. Dawn looked around for a second and then sprinted for the woods. No one that witnessed it could believe how fast she was moving. She made the woods easily and then the firing died down again. After that, at different points on the field, the firing would erupt for a second, sputter and then not start up again. In a relatively short time O'Neill could see Dawn leading the 'hostages' to the evac point while Ian was placing the demo charges.
'What the hell was going on' Jack thought 'they should be taking fire from all over the field'. But there was no shooting, no movement, no nothing. Suddenly Ian was standing behind him "you're gonna have to do better than that" the kid said with a smirk, then he disappeared. Jack just gaped and blinked, what the hell had just happened; because when he turned back there was Ian again finishing up with the demo charges and wiring them to blow.
Jack joined them at the end of the scenario along with the rest of SG1; he was just glaring at the two kids. Ian looked up at him, almost chagrined "I suppose we need to talk, huh."
"That would be a good idea" Jack said.