37: Waystation
The drive to Cleveland was long and awkward. It was more so the latter in particular, for Conrad Holt was seated in the backseat, dressed in little more than a tank top and trousers. His hands were tied in front of him, his ankles roped together and, for most of the trip, he talked incessantly about how much trouble Daniel, Teal'c and McKay were going to be in when his associates caught up with them. It was a lot of repetition, with Holt providing variations on the similar theme of how the trio would be imprisoned, or executed, or relegated to some black site somewhere that did not officially exist wherein they would be routinely tortured and humiliated. Eventually, Daniel grew tired of it, as did McKay and Teal'c. He tied a gag over Holt's mouth, reducing his words to agitated grunts and groans, which although annoying, were much preferable to his previous prattling. With that done, the trio were free to enjoy the drive in peace, as there was little else to do in the circumstances.
Little was said between them, as they all awaited whatever answers would be found in the place Holt had spoken to them about. Either answers, or a trap. It was a trap that Daniel expected, as did Teal'c. As for McKay, he was on the fence about either possibility, hoping for some kind of break that would help better explain just what was going on, especially after his run-in with the 'Herald'. It was all he had been thinking about since it had happened, and the creature and what it had said troubled him deeply. The same went for Daniel, who had overheard the creature's words. He knew they indicated something more, something important and somehow, McKay had been drawn right into it. They had spoken of what it could mean earlier, talk of the 'Devil' and how McKay might have opened a window into some sort of dark dimension during that last experiment he had conducted in Atlantis; it was all just speculation at this point, and Daniel hoped that from this latest jaunt they may find some answers. It seemed unlikely, but Daniel held out some small hope.
Daniel had never been to Cleveland, and it was not to the city centre that Holt's directions took them. So, he missed out on actually seeing the sights, whatever they may have been, and instead found himself directed into a drearier section of town full of older, more ramshackle-looking houses where the roads themselves were in various states of disrepair. It seemed the money intended to upgrade the infrastructure was going elsewhere when it came to these outlying districts. It was late afternoon by the time the group arrived in the city, and the sky above had turned darkly overcast during their drive through the side-streets, hinting at coming rain. They passed by one older house followed by another, before turning a corner that took them upon a street flanked by ageing townhouses that were packed in close together, comprised of ageing bricks and weatherboards, with some of the exterior walls coated in garish graffiti.
"I think I see it," Daniel said, and he pointed to a warehouse-like structure at the end of the street. It was at a dead-end, with little more than vacant, overgrown lots beyond it. The warehouse was not particularly large, formed of a basic rectangular shape constructed from concrete slabs and steel frames. A tall fence surrounded the property, with a gate at the front overwatched by a surveillance camera. Daniel stopped the car in the driveway before the gate, looking through the wire mesh over it into the front parking lot. The lot was empty, indicating that the place was deserted. He turned to Holt, who returned his gaze with a mean frown.
"Is this it?" He supposed it had to be, for the sign out the front denoted it as such: SWORD EXPORTS, PTY LTD. Established 1989. The same front corporation Janssen and O'Neill had looked into back when they had first become aware of some shady conspiracy, of a powerful group manipulating the stargate program for their own ends. And much like they had found then, Daniel found himself faced with an empty warehouse.
Holt nodded his head. Daniel looked to Teal'c, shrugged and then opened his side's door. Teal'c did the same, with McKay following suit. The three of them stood before the closed gate, searching for a means to open it. A keypad was at one side, complete with intercom. Daniel nodded to Teal'c, who got the hint immediately and moved back to the car. There, he pulled open the door at Holt's side and yanked him out of his seat. Daniel searched the street for any sign of onlookers; none were to be found. The place was deserted, quiet to an extent that was almost eerie. The old cliché came to his mind then, the whole 'It's quiet, too quiet' exchange. He stopped himself from voicing it out loud.
"You know the code?" He asked Holt. The man, still gagged, was shoved towards the keypad by Teal'c. At the same time, the burly Jaffa put a hand to the gun under his jacket. He was expecting trouble, they all were really. Daniel walked up to him and pulled down the gag, allowing him to speak clearly.
"Tell me," Daniel ordered. He glanced to the camera above the gate, wondering if anyone was watching. If they were, they were not likely within the building. Holt noticed the direction of his gaze and shook his head.
"No one's here, Doctor Jackson," he said. "It's an outpost, a safehouse."
"Then tell me the code to get inside," Daniel stated. He was in no mood for any of Holt's nonsense. With some reluctance, Holt recited a six-digit code that Daniel punched into the keypad. With the last number entered, the gate slowly slid open, creaking a little in its housing as it moved. The group strolled on into the small parking lot before the main building. There, another locked door awaited them. This one had no keypad, just an ordinary lock. The window in the door looked into a reception area of some kind, sparse and undecorated, with only what light seeped in through the window providing any illumination.
"You got a key?" Daniel asked Holt. He already knew the answer, and the man shook his head. Daniel turned to Teal'c instead, and he gave the Jaffa a nod.
Teal'c walked up to the window and, with his pistol in one hand, spun it about and slammed the hilt of it hard against the glass. It shattered under the powerful blow, shards showering across the concrete step and the carpet on the other side. Daniel and McKay looked back towards the street, pausing for a moment to make sure no one came running to investigate. None did, and so Teal'c lead the way into the building, his gun held low but in such a way he could quickly aim and fire it if need be. None of them were taking any chances.
Daniel followed Teal'c inside, with McKay and Holt trailing after them. The reception area was devoid of any signs of life, with not even a telephone or computer terminal present on the desk. A short hallway started behind it, leading to a handful of small offices that were also empty, not even fully furnished, the windows shuttered over. The main warehouse space was next, the kind of wide-open room that might have housed vehicles or machinery. Instead, it was almost completely empty as well, bathed in the midday light that blazed in through the windows that were up close to the ceiling. There was, however, finally something of note in the middle of it all.
Daniel paused partway into the warehouse space. Teal'c was a few metres ahead, his posture relaxing as he saw no immediate threats. Ahead, situated in the centre of the empty space, was a single desk. A lone swivel chair was before it, and a telephone was present upon the desktop. Cables snaked from a computer terminal situated next to it, running to a trio of black glass-fronted server cabinets. Hard drives and modems and the like blinked and hummed inside each of them. The setup itself was nothing out of the ordinary, akin to something you would normally find in an office environment. However, its place here, smack-dab in the middle of an empty warehouse was certainly unusual. The whole scene gave Daniel an ominous feeling, as if he was walking into something that would only lead to trouble. Even so, they were not being watched, far as they could tell. No cameras were present, and no prying eyes could have watched them from amongst all the empty space. It was simply a strange setup, and not one that indicated legitimate work was going on. If anything, the whole thing reeked of some shady black operation, which Daniel supposed made sense given the kind of man who had led them here.
As for signs of an ambush, there were none. Not yet, anyway. Daniel half-expected a bunch of armed gunmen to storm the building when they least expected. He looked to Teal'c, who had approached the desk with a curious look on his normally stern face. He did not touch anything, no doubt figuring that if anything was booby trapped, then tampering with the setup on offer would be a likely trigger. With this in mind, Daniel stepped over to Holt who was a few paces behind. He grabbed the man by his bound wrists and pulled him along, walking him over to the secluded desk and the devices upon it. That is, the landline phone and the ordinary-looking computer monitor.
"All right, Holt. What is this place?" Daniel stopped before the desk, shoving Holt towards it. He caught himself against the edge of the desk, keeping his footing as he turned around to face the archaeologist. He offered him a smile, the kind of smile that Daniel did not like one bit.
"It's an information nexus. A place where correspondences and data are transferred, a waystation if you will. It's one of several across the country, with more spread across the world." He paused, composing himself despite his lack of a shirt. "You wanted answers, Doctor Jackson. They are to be found here, if you look hard enough."
"Then look hard, Conrad," Daniel told him.
Holt held up his bound wrists, and Daniel knew what he wanted right away.
"Then release me, doctor. I can hardly work with my hands tied."
"Find a way. Your fingers are still free." Daniel did not trust him at all, so untying him was out of the question. Behind them, McKay was watching the exchange, eyes occasionally flitting about the empty warehouse space. There was little else to see in here, although Daniel noticed that McKay seemed a little on edge. Then again, that was nothing new for him. He likely felt the same uncertainty he did, albeit he did not hide it as well as Daniel was.
"These places are protected by codes only certain individuals know," Holt said.
"So? You must know those codes?" Daniel's patience was wearing thin. He wanted to know if this place was a bust or not; if it was, he would get on the line to General Janssen and get some help when it came to keeping Conrad Holt in custody. Chances are the man had friends in high offices, which meant taking him in as a sort of 'captive' would hardly work. Someone, some bureaucratic lawyer type most likely, would show up to the SGC in short order calling for his release. For now, it paid to keep the bureaucracy from even knowing that a man like Conrad Holt had fallen into the company of Daniel Jackson and friends.
"I will need to enter them into the phone," Holt said. Daniel quirked an eyebrow, unbelieving. "It's unusual, but it's the last thing any intruder would know to do."
"How do I know you won't be sending some kind of signal to your friends?"
Holt rolled his eyes.
"Your paranoia is unhealthy, Doctor Jackson. If you must, you can use the phone and dial in the code." He motioned, somewhat awkwardly, with his wrist-bound hands towards the simple landline phone. Daniel glanced at Teal'c, who simply cocked an eyebrow in a look that suggested doubt, a similar doubt to what Daniel was feeling. He picked up the phone anyway, turning to Holt with one finger to the phone's keypad.
"All right, Conrad. What's the number?"
There was a brief pause before Holt recited a seven-digit code, one that Daniel inputted into the phone slowly, still thinking that maybe this was some kind of trick on Holt's part. Something like a number that would send a signal that would alert his friends, bring a small army of black ops sorts crashing down on their location. However, on the other end of the phone, Daniel heard nothing but a blank tone. Even after he had dialled in the full number, nothing happened. With some disappointment, Daniel placed the phone back upon its housing and looked squarely at Holt with his eyes narrowed into a hard frown. It seemed that either Holt had strung them along on a wild goose chase, or whatever he had expected to happen had not happened. Perhaps his superiors had abandoned him? In the cutthroat world of black operations and secret cabals, one did not have too many friends.
Holt, however, smiled again.
"What was that supposed to do?" Daniel asked him. Suddenly McKay was there, right up in Holt's face, his eyes wide and his voice laced with an angry, frantic edge.
"This is how you move yourselves around, isn't it?" McKay asked him. "This is a nexus, but it's not for information. It's a recall point, isn't it?"
Daniel was confused, to say the least, when he heard McKay rattle all this off. However, something about it seemed to carry some meaning for him, and it was made all the more apparent when Holt's smile disappeared. His expression turned sour, and he directed it straight at McKay, as if insulted that the physicist had worked out what he was really up to.
"Rodney, what are you saying?" Daniel asked him. McKay spun around to meet his gaze, his eyes still wide.
"Holt's had us recall him," McKay stated. "And us with him. Don't you get it, Daniel? Their base of operations isn't on Earth." Somehow, the doctor had figured this much out. Daniel could only wonder how, yet he had often wondered altogether just how McKay's brain worked sometimes. Now, the ominous sense of foreboding had returned. Daniel realised then that he had just made a terrible mistake.
"We need to leave," he said, but his words became lost to the empty space then as he watched, with mounting horror, as Holt was enveloped in a familiar white light. And then he realised that very same light was shrouding him, enclosing him in its tingling warmth as his molecules were, for a very brief instant, disassembled and carried along a powerful subspace signal to some point far from Earth. The same fate had befallen McKay and Teal'c, with the entire group becoming ensnared in the teleportation beam, one that was no doubt Ancient in design yet modified to work in conjunction with more human technology.
Within seconds, all four men had been snatched from the warehouse floor in a flash of white light, leaving no trace of them behind. And only seconds later, they arrived in a darkened, circular room somewhere else, surrounded by armed men in black uniforms with their guns raised, their faces concealed under tactical masks and tinted visors. Daniel could do little as they grabbed him, with more than a few jumping upon Teal'c to disarm him. And McKay, he looked frantic as three of the thugs grabbed him, forcing him to the glazed floor face-down, his hands being forced behind his back.
As the armed goons tackled Daniel, the archaeologist saw a couple of things: for one, there was Holt standing nearby, being helped out of his bindings by one of the black-clad thugs. Secondly, the light blue, metal walls and the bronze panelling upon them in places reminded him of the interior décor of somewhere in particular, although he had no chance to recall where as something pricked his neck. A syringe of some sort, full of what he assumed was a tranquiliser, as the nothingness of unconsciousness swept him into its embrace a handful of seconds later. It appeared that he would have to mull it all over when he woke up.
There were problems in organizing an event such as this, that is, getting representatives from a number of nations to all be pleased with the arrangements. And the arrangements, from what Brigadier General Cameron Mitchell could tell, were being complained about by what must have been half of the attendees. There was barely a day before the commissioning ceremony for Anchorpoint Station, and so far they had complaints from the French, British, Russian, German and even the one Danish representative who, according to what Cameron was reading, was worried over the safety of the station itself. Something about it being built quickly, something that Cameron himself had noted more than once since being assigned as its commander. Yes, the station had been built in a hurry, a means for Homeworld Command to flex their muscles and show the world that they were a legitimate, multinational operation (a 'multinational' operation that had its headquarters at the Pentagon, so take from that what you will). It was also a means for them to get one-up on Stargate Command, which had been treated with an apparent favouritism the past two years that had very much irked the Director of Homeworld Command, Thomas Banachek, not to mention all those politicians and bureaucrats who were backing him.
It was politics, all of it. Cameron hated politics and he hated most of all being caught in the middle of it.
Seated in his office, complete with a small porthole view of the Earth below, Cameron rifled through the paperwork he had been given this morning and then, with a sigh, gently shoved it aside. It was not only the representatives who had concerns, all of whom were supposed to be coming here in a matter of hours to formally begin the commissioning ceremony. There were also issues with the station's on-board weapons, all of which were in place but none of which were in actual working order. Rail guns and missile launchers were not much good without the ammunition required to fire them. And, amusingly, the Chinese representative had sent forth a complaint about having a heavily armed 'battle-station' in orbit over the Earth. Apparently, they were all right with all the heavily armed starships docked to it, but the station itself? Cameron figured it had something to do with the fact that the Chinese had two vessels of their own; the fact that they did not have a 'battle-station' no doubt annoyed them, hence the complaint. It was one Cameron could not answer directly, and he put it aside to be sent off to Homeworld Command's headquarters later on.
At the end of the day, these representatives would all be here on time. None would want to miss out on the opportunity to have some input on the operation of Anchorpoint Station, or at the very least, claim to have had some kind of input. All the ships in Earth's burgeoning space fleet were here, with the French one, the De Gaulle, currently flying orbital patrol. The various commanding officers were already on board in preparation for the formalities of the ceremony, the start of what Banachek claimed would be a 'new era in cooperation'. One could admire the sentiment, but it was no secret that many nations were simply flat-out envious of what the stargate program had achieved. And the United States had begrudgingly shared some of its achievements with the rest of the world.
The alien Field Marshall and his troops had thrown a spanner in the works when they had broadcast their existence to the world. Anchorpoint Station was supposed to put confidence in the general public as well, to give the impression that Earth was well-protected from any similar threats.
A chime sounded from the door. Cameron checked his watch; he was not expecting anyone at this hour. Nonetheless, he called for them to enter. The door slid open, with a familiar and decidedly grave looking man in black business attire walking inside. Director Thomas Banachek often had the kind of stern, no-nonsense look about him that was only enhanced by his moustache, the sort that had been common for men back in the 1970s. Once he was inside, the door slid closed behind him.
Banachek stopped a few paces before Cameron's desk, looking down at the General, briefcase in one hand.
"General, I'm hearing there's been a lot of problems."
Cameron nodded his head. No point in trying to dress things up; problems were all they had up here.
"Everybody's got opinions on how to go about things," he said. "I'm barely keeping it all together here as it is." He gestured to the papers to his right. "Look at all the complaints. The politicians aren't too keen on this place."
"Growing pains, as with anything new," Banachek said. He sounded certain of this. Cameron did not feel like arguing the point. He could only suppose that Banachek was here for a reason, likely to criticise how he was running things.
"So, what brings you up here, Director?" Cameron asked him.
"You answered your own question, General." Banachek frowned. "I'm the Director, I'm a step above you when it comes to this place, with all due respect. I have to be here for the ceremony. It would be poor form if I was absent."
Cameron nodded his head, even if he did not particularly care about Banachek's 'form', be it poor or otherwise. He had a stack of paperwork to do, some of it on actual physical paper, most of it on his computer. The last thing he needed was the Director coming in and stirring things up, further complicating this headache of a command. Cameron made a mental note, that he would never sign himself up to take command of anywhere 'new' again. And by 'new', he meant freshly-built. Being in charge of an airbase was one thing, for a place like that was likely to have been established for many years. Up here on Anchorpoint Station, he had all kinds of issues cropping up from all sections of the station. Even a toilet paper shortage, if the reports in front of him were accurate. Someone had made an error when organizing shipments of supplies here; plenty of paper towels, but no toilet paper. You could not flush the much larger and thicker paper towels down a toilet, even on a space-station. Doing so would very easily back up the plumbing.
"Any word from General Janssen?" Cameron asked him. He knew Janssen well enough to know that he would have no intention of coming here. Banachek and Janssen ran what had become almost opposing operations, much in the same way the CIA and the FBI rarely got along.
"He'll be here," Banachek stated, as if certain of it. Cameron quirked an eyebrow, disbelieving of this. "Woolsey's here. Came up the same time I did." If the IOA liaison to Stargate Command was here, then it stood to reason that Janssen would follow soon enough. However, Cameron figured that Janssen had sent Woolsey up here so he would not need to be. And Woolsey was not going to complain about attending a ceremony like this, where he could rub shoulders with all sorts of influential people and get free food in the process. Janssen, on the other hand, despised the politicking same way Cameron did. Thinking on it now, Cameron sometimes regretted having accepted a promotion any higher than Colonel. Once you were any higher than that, desk jobs were about all you had to look forward to. Comfortable, perhaps, but headache-inducing for all kinds of reasons.
"You sure?" Cameron asked Banachek. "Because if Woolsey's here, then Janssen isn't coming."
"He'll come, if he knows what's good for him," Banachek said, his voice becoming a little firmer. If it was some kind of threat, it was a feeble one, as Banachek was in no position to affect Janssen's career in any significant way. Banachek no doubt would have loved to wield that kind of power over General Janssen, but in the end it was little more than a fantasy on his part.
"So, did you come in here to offer a critique of how I've been running things?" Cameron asked him, if only to annoy the man. Banachek's face retained its stern expression as he eyed Cameron carefully, mulling over whether it was worth answering this question or not.
"You've been doing an adequate job."
"Adequate?" Cameron was surprised to hear this. "Is that all?"
"It has to be preferable to your last command, surely?" Banachek had a point there. Cameron had been sitting at a desk in Area 51 before he had been offered the job here. He had been brought in after the Field Marshall and the rest of the 'mimetic', or so-called 'foothold' aliens, had attacked the base. Him getting a job at Area 51 had been a means of changing up the command staff not simply for the new blood, but also because much of that command staff had been killed during the incident. It had been a glorified clean-up detail, and Cameron had found it dull. Anchorpoint Station was certainly different, more chaotic in a way, seeing him run off his feet most days being here.
"I'm still on the fence about that one," Cameron replied. Before he could elaborate further, the chime at the door sounded. It slid open as soon as Cameron called out for them to enter, and he was pleasantly surprised to see Woolsey walk in, outfitted in his usual black business attire. Like Banachek, he held a briefcase in one hand. He was a little shorter than Banachek and somewhat older, but there was no mistaking Richard Woolsey.
Cameron stood up and shook hands with the old acquaintance (as 'friend' was perhaps too strong a word for how Cameron perceived him). Banachek watched them both with narrowed eyes.
"General," Woolsey said, and he offered Cameron a friendly smile. They broke off the handshake, with Woolsey turning to Banachek. For him, he offered him a much harder gaze. "And Director Banachek."
"Mister Woolsey," Banachek said. "I'm glad you made it." Judging from his expression and tone of voice, he did not entirely mean what he said. "I take it General Janssen has been held up in his duties at Stargate Command?"
Woolsey nodded his head. The slightest trace of a smile appeared at his mouth then, suggesting that he perhaps knew a little more than he was letting on.
"Janssen assures me that he'll be here once he has tied up some loose ends at the SGC," Woolsey replied.
"Uh-huh." Banachek did not believe him. Cameron did not either. Looking at Woolsey now, he figured that he was simply reciting what Janssen had told him to say.
"Well, I'll leave you two to get reacquainted." Banachek turned back to Cameron. "If you need me, I'll be in the main hall."
Cameron gave him a nod in reply. Banachek turned and headed out of the room, leaving Woolsey with the General. Cameron had to admit, for a man in his late sixties, Woolsey looked a little younger. Evidently, he was doing something right.
"You know Richard, I didn't think I'd ever be glad to see you, but here I am, actually pleased that you're here." Cameron spoke with some measure of genuine relief. Woolsey, however, appeared uncertain as to whether he should take this as a compliment or not. "You're a familiar face, for one. I've been dealing with a lot of idiots since I got here. Had I known what this place was going to be like, I wouldn't have accepted the command."
"It can't be that bad, General."
"It isn't," Cameron admitted. "But it's not good, either. I mean, take a look around. The place was built on the cheap. They threw it together in a real hurry so they can make a whole show about national unity, or something. It's all political." He shook his head. "I really don't like it."
"I thought someone like you might be more optimistic?" Woolsey asked. "Anchorpoint is simply the start of the Earth's first proper orbital defence grid. God knows we need it, especially nowadays."
"Yeah, I've heard." Cameron had a high enough security clearance to be privy to some of the recent events that Stargate Command had been involved with. "What are they like, really? These 'Calsharans'?"
"They're a species of mostly militaristic, xenophobic alien lizard people."
"And the 'makalvari'?"
"Aristocratic bird people." Woolsey smiled again, finding some amusement in the kinds of new 'friends' Earth had made in the past two years. "There's a war going on out there. I think a place like Anchorpoint is necessary, with what's happening beyond our corner of the galaxy. From my understanding, the Calsharans are subjugating worlds out there at a rate that would put the Goa'uld to shame."
"That bad, is it?" It was one thing to read the odd report on the situation but hearing it from Woolsey helped to put it in perspective. "You think they'd ever come here, to Earth?"
"They were planning to, some months back. But I think we're too far from their domain for them to consider us a serious threat. For now, at least." Woolsey's expression turned grim. "But they will come for us eventually, I believe. Janssen believes much the same. We need proper orbital defences, and quickly."
Woolsey did have a point. Even so, the orbital defences in question were still a long way off. Anchorpoint Station was a start, but it was still just one space-station in orbit around an entire planet. There was only so much it could cover with the ships and fighters it had at its disposal, and there were none of the latter since they had not been delivered yet. In fact, Cameron was fairly certain that the new fighters intended for Anchorpoint Station had not even been built yet.
"They have a massive fleet of vessels as advanced as our own, even more so in some ways." Woolsey was full of good news today, it seemed. "We have maybe twenty cruisers at our disposal. It isn't enough."
"We've done more with less."
"That is true." Woolsey nodded his head in agreement. There was a short pause then, as both men mulled over the downbeat line of discussion. It was Woolsey who spoke next, changing the subject: "Teal'c is back on Earth."
Cameron's eyes lit up at mention of the name.
"Is he?" He had not seen his old Jaffa friend for some years.
"Chulak has fallen under Calsharan occupation," Woolsey said. "SG-1 rescued Teal'c from a Calsharan prison there."
"Really?" Now that was news to Cameron. It was likely a more recent occurrence, as he had read nothing about it on the usual channels he had access to. "Who's in that team now?" He had lost track of the seeming revolving door of members of SG-1. He recalled there being a Calsharan in that team, but he also knew that he was gone, as was one of the human members.
"Now? Well, Colonel Sheppard is still in charge. Daniel Jackson is there with him. We do have a Russian Sergeant, a combat engineer by the name of Natalia Tarasovna, she's on the team. And then there's Aithris, a Nomad."
"Another alien?"
"Yes."
"You know, things have changed a lot since I was running that team." Cameron smiled, looking back on the various memories of his time in SG-1. A lot of bad things had happened, sure, but there was plenty of good he could recall and feel warm over. Inevitably, they had all drifted apart. It was bound to happen, especially as he had needed to go out of his way to bring the team back together after he had been assigned to the SGC. Eventually, everybody went their own ways for one reason or another. It was the way of the world, and Cameron, who had thought would be travelling through the stargate for as long as he lived, had even found himself driven elsewhere as time went on. Funding had been cut and the SGC had become less important, overshadowed by the starship program and political power-games. At least now it was back to its former glory, even if the people involved were mostly all new. Strangers to him, like so many here on Anchorpoint.
He had fallen into the warm grasp of nostalgia. He must have been daydreaming for an extended moment, as he noticed that Woolsey was watching him with mounting concern.
"Are you all right, General?"
"Sorry, Dick. Got caught up in my own thoughts." He knew Woolsey often got mildly annoyed when people called him 'Dick'. He only narrowed his eyes slightly on this occurrence, and Cameron gave him a smile.
"I'd like to pay a visit to the SGC, for old time's sake," he said. "Maybe when this ceremony is done, I'll put in for some time off and come down?"
"By all means, General. You'd be surprised at how little things have changed."
