AN: And here I change my mind again, using the Russian acronyms for ease of readability. I could have included them in an appendix. Would that be a better way of doing it?
Also commentary on the wider implications of the various things in this chapter for the USSR's internal politics would be good. As always, I encourage you all to comment and discuss.
-x-
Durov and Tarelkin continued their discussion for some time, with both of them learning a great deal. Tarelkin got a far better understanding of the specific present and future needs of the Program while Durov confirmed many of his speculations about the Union's politics on these matters.
"What do you think the Navy will say when they're told these are the last ships they'll be getting?" Durov's expression was enough, but Tarelkin had smiled. "Well," he'd continued, "At least they'll have no more aircraft carriers or battleships, though of course that's not my department. I can tell you that Minister Vasilevsky was laughing at how that Roman killed his god. Vulcan, enslaver of millions, crushed with a rock. There`s actually been a lot of discussion about the nature of exploitation and early socialist activities."
"Really?" Durov had discussed the issue with Basin several times.
"Certainly, it seems rather obvious that the exploitation of the worker is so direct. Not only is he so estranged by the capitalist exploitation process, but even from his own body! Like that Roman, what`s his name- Gaius? The aliens, these Goa'uld, clearly take humans as host like a parasite does."
"That was Dr. Belik`s conclusion as well."
"Unfortunately the biologists back home haven't finished their examination of the creature, but I have no doubt it can't survive on its own outside a host. By necessity, the Goa'uld are slaving despots, and must all be destroyed." Tarelkin said with a sure nod.
Durov though of a worrying implication though, somewhat concerned that it wasn't necessarily their enemies who might harm them but their friends, and he raised this point in the meeting.
"I understand." Tarelkin said, "But it's not as simple as that. I suppose you must know that already though, of course there are different departments, and no matter whether they all work toward the People's good, they still compete. Most of your requests are quite easy to fill, they simply require time and discretion. As you say, it seems that our own comrades are often the greatest enemy. Some quartermaster or station manager far away will send a dozen requests to know why his train hasn't arrived or what`s going on with such and such a shipment of equipment. That`s proved the most difficult thing to overcome."
"It's good those comrades are so dutiful!" exclaimed Durov.
"Oh certainly in the grand scheme of things, but currently it's most inconvenient. Consider that bomb Vulcan set to destroy the valley. Let us assume that it has at least the power of a nuclear weapon, or perhaps given its origin something more powerful?"
"Certainly."
"Well what happens when we send it back through the Stargate for examination? If we send it to some technical laboratory or secret research facility the comrades there will be suspicious of its origins. Do you know who protects those sites?"
"The army presumably?" replied Durov, "Perhaps some specialist unit of the police for the less secret ones?"
"No, it's the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And as you know we, or I should say Comrade Vasilevsky, is trying to keep everything in the army for reasons of security. What do you think happens when Comrade Beria hears about secret army-only research facilities? He'd be likely to think there's something going on… Perhaps some larger conspiracy, a coup occurring maybe, which would be a reasonable assumption if we weren't sitting on an alien world right now."
"And others would likely be suspicious of anyone else going missing who are actually coming to work for the Program?"
"Essentially yes, I've seen many requests for Egyptologists, Assyriologists, and various others that we need for translation and examination of artefacts. One professor might resign to spend more time with his family, or might be killed in a plane accident while flying to an excavation abroad, or simply disappear in a big city one day, but we don't actually have enough specialists in the Union to make the disappearances less suspicious. What would one of the secret cities need archaeologists for? Nuclear physicists, experimental mathematicians maybe, and the Anglo-Americans likely know that we're working on the same things they are, but if chairs of departments or conveners and lecturers start going missing, stop publishing articles in journals, and so on some suspicion is probable."
Tarelkin paused, taking a drink.
"Of course that doesn't solve your immediate problem. You've got a whole room that needs categorising don't you?"
"You'll have to talk to Igor about that." Replied Durov, "I've been thinking of having the teams carry cameras instead though, it would certainly prevent there needing to be a specialist on each mission. Currently whenever we identify what's on a pillar or a stone tablet we bring out the relevant expert. But potentially we could bring cameras."
"I agree, that does sound like a better idea. I was always somewhat sceptical about the usefulness of professors on covert missions."
Durov shook his head, "No that's not what I meant. It's very useful to have Igor on a mission because he can read whatever's necessary right then. We'd have never gotten through the door without him looking at the symbols, and we'd all be dead from that bomb if he wasn't able to read the symbols on it and know which ones to defuse it. We just need more of them. If I send a Captain through to examine some ruins and take pictures we can generally assume that whatever the ruins record isn't of great significance. Probably just some history of the conquests of some god. Comparably though we found most of the star-addresses from Ra's temple as well as the Abydos ruins around there. Either we secure the site and bring in an expert, or we take the site back through the gate to the expert. I don't know what the solution is, we just need more of everything."
Tarelkin considered that for a moment and made a note, then looked up "On the note of that specific issue of logistics, there's a few things I`d like to ask you about. I'll need to know for the future, and indeed that's why I'm out here in part. Firstly, do you imagine the artefacts and technology we recover in future will be of the smaller or larger variety?"
"It depends, many of our missions bring back some smaller stones of some great archaeological importance, others larger objects like the Markov Device-"
"Which as far as I'm aware doesn't work?"
"Markov says it needs two of them, he wrote a report but it hasn't been a priority given all that's been going on."
"No doubt, and the larger objects?"
Durov considered for a moment, "Best to show you."
He led Tarelkin along back to the new armoured car, it was rather angular, with an exposed rear compartment. The Air Force officer explained he`d brought it along to show them a prototype, and Durov thanked him.
"The German cars are fine but we need our own equipment." he said as they drove.
Eventually they came to a roadblock, but were waved through once the soldiers saw who it was.
"This is where Vulcan crashed his escape craft." explained Durov, leading Tarelkin to where they`d started to lay out all the components that had been scattered by the crash.
The clearing had been enlarged by the work of the Soviets, and ditches and sandbags had been set up all around them, and a rough tower made of three trees lashed together stood at the top of the hill. The land was devastated because of it, with trees lying all about them, but at least they now could tell whether enemies were coming through the forest at them.
Vulcan's ship had crashed down through the trees at a shallow angle, cutting a path along through the upper canopy and breaking into two parts when it struck the brow of the hill where the watchtower now stood. Those two broken parts now lay under canvas and camouflage netting to hide them from above. Similar netting hid the foxholes and defensive emplacements as well as a few tanks around there for fire support.
Men busily worked to excavate them from their small craters, really more like furrows and lines of dirt the ship had kicked up when it crashed.
"Now," continued Durov, "As an officer of the Air Force, what does that look like to you?"
Tarelkin walked toward the engines of the craft, examining the grey sludge which was still leaking from one of them. He took account of the back half and turned to the front, crouching down and peering into it. The craft was essentially a box, rather crudely build compared with the rest of the Goa'uld craftsmanship. At one end the two raised circles that were the engines and at the other the instrument panel and a chair for the pilot in front of a tinted window that took up the top half of the front face. The whole this wasn't more than eight metres long by about three metres wide.
Durov went over to Major Reniv. The Major commanded what might be described as the 'third echelon' of the SGC. Durov had the first with SG teams 1 to 6, Suslov had teams 7 to 12 and Reniv handled several special purpose and support teams such as the engineers and signals operators. Durov had set him to guard the crash site meaning there were two SG teams, one company of Regimental riflemen and a number of engineers, technicians and scientists there.
"How is it going?" Durov asked the Major.
"We're almost ready to start moving it sir." Reniv replied, "The road is good enough to transport them back. Are they going to the pyramid or back home?"
"Will they fit through the gate?"
Reniv made a non-committal grunt, "I don't think so sir, too wide. I'll check the measurements of the Stargate though, perhaps we can make something work. But I was under the impression they'd be taken apart and send it though in pieces?"
"Possibly. But for now just back to the pyramid. Can you do it by tonight?"
Reniv replied in the affirmative but before Durov could say anything else Tarelkin came back. The man looked incredulous. "It's like someone took a heavy bomber and made a fighter out of it!"
"Exactly!" grinned Durov, looking at Reniv. Several of them had puzzled over the craft for some time once the site had been secured, but Reniv's engineers had rapidly realised many of the parts were oversized for the craft. The doors, instrument panel, and a large ornate box or unknown construction, were all far too large to fit properly or comfortably inside the smaller craft. It was Reniv's idea that the smaller craft's engines were essentially the manoeuvring thrusters or the secondary engines of a much larger spacecraft.
"The next question then," continued Durov, "Is where that bomber is."
Tarelkin looked at him quickly. "You have another spacecraft? What is it? Where?!" he asked excitedly.
"What do you think the pyramid is?" Durov asked. "We thought at first Vulcan had a palace and a room with a view at the top of it. Then we found that the dimensions of that console in the smaller craft match a whole in the floor in the pyramid, right near the window. We think the pyramid is a smaller craft that Vulcan used to get here. Igor thinks he stole it and fled from something, possibly an enemy attack. Vulcan is the god of craftsmen in all pantheons, so if we imagine all the gods to be constantly fighting he probably used his abilities and skill to fight, not military strength like other gods like Mars or Horus would. He crashed here and used the functional parts of his ship such as this console to build a new escape craft. He was probably trying to get to another place and find a better ship."
"Wait a minute, didn't you also think he was trying to get to the Stargate, to get it back after the Romans took it?" asked Tarelkin.
Durov frowned, "We don't know what he wanted. The 'god' is dead." He said, "I still think he was trying to get the Stargate yes, but equally we might say he built this craft as a second option, or that he built it quickly as soon as he saw tanks coming through the Gate. We still don't know enough about his capabilities, but if the pyramid is a spaceship it explains a lot. We were amazed his weapons could fire at targets 50 kilometres away, but if they were weapons on a spaceship and are therefore designed to fire in space then it's not surprising. Space is large and well… full of space. Tens of thousands of kilometres rather than only a few thousand metres."
"Well even if it doesn't work," Tarelkin began, "We still have parts of the ship we can examine…" he trailed off, deep in thought.
"Of course, but we also know there are even larger ships out there."
Tarelkin looked at him. Once again jolted by the statement.
"The Romans claim to have been brought here in a single journey, and very quickly. If the journey had required more provisions, or more trips for each cohort of the legion and so on they might have come in the pyramid-ship, but if they came in one trip and no one got hungry enough to remember they must have come in a very large ship."
"How large."
Reniv glanced at Durov and the latter nodded. "Comrade Diakonoff thinks the pyramids were used for alien spacecraft to land on. Also remember Comrade-Colonel that the American Indians built pyramids for human sacrifice, and worshipped flying snake gods, just like Vulcan's parasitic form, and there are plenty of pyramids across Asia, particularly in Indochina. If Ra made the Egyptians worship him and Vulcan did the same for the Romans we have no reason to think they didn't go elsewhere outside Europe" he told Tarelkin, who spluttered for an explanation.
"Why isn't any of this in the reports?!"
Durov replied, motioning to the crashed ship. "Because its all theories. We think this ship is made of parts of a larger one. We know there are parts missing in the pyramid. We think therefore that Vulcan built a small craft out of a larger one. We don't know any of it. We only recently found Vulcan's slave population and we haven't yet started interviewing them. I telling you Yuri because I need you to know what might happen in the future. What happens if even a small ship like this turns up above Moscow? We have no defence against it. No anti-air piece will reach that high, and not even a rocket can fly far enough to hit something 50,000 metres away with any precision. What if it moves? How can we even track such a thing?"
Tarelkin made no response to that for a while, but he eventually nodded slowly "You've certainly given me a lot to think about."
They were quiet as they made their way back, with Durov not thinking about anything in particular but Tarelkin writing through several pages in his notebook. As they approached the camp Tarelkin turned to him. "Is there anything else I must see today? Have you recorded all your theories somewhere?"
"No to both questions. You've seen the important things I wanted to show you, the rest we either don't know what it is or our theories are very tenuous. I want to interview Gaius and the rest of the slaves here properly before making a report on it and also get into the lower levels of the pyramid. If there's anything that looks like an engine room or evidence that those propulsion units were taken from that area we'll know it is indeed a ship. But this also means restarting operations to try and find more of these sorts of ships. I'll need to get back to talk to the General about moving things along here, in whichever direction the dice fall, and really I'm thinking about moving usual operations here. Much safer for all involved if we bring some disease back through the Stargate for example."
"Alright." Replied Tarelkin, "I need to get back then… tonight. Do you have an escort for me?"
"I'll have one prepared." Replied Durov, "I have a letter for you to take back to General Thurius though so wait a moment. Go get some coffee in a flask or something hot to take back with you. The temperate drops here at night significantly, you'll be cold in that." He said nodding to Tarelkin's clothes.
Then Durov went back to his tent quickly and retrieved the letter he'd mentioned. He weighed it carefully in his hand, considering it for a moment. In the end though he slipped it into his pocket and strode out. Tarelkin was there again, fiddling with the flap on his jacket.
Durov handed over the letter. "Well Yuri, you know what you need to know. Good luck."
"I do, though I suppose I might wish I didn't." replied Tarelkin. "Thank you Vladimir, and good luck to you as well."