AN, Not much to say for this one, again, you'd be surprised how much stuff happened pretty early in SG canon. Might put out another chapter before Christmas, otherwise see you next year.

An amusing FFnet specific note, for some reason the private message function censors Ba'al's name.
-x-

After Thor had dropped them off Durov had been through a dazzling array of meetings with the different generals who were managing the Program. There were so many concerning pieces of information, not just those they knew but those they assumed as well, that General Abramovich took them off to Moscow immediately after they'd written up their reports. First they'd met with Tarelkin, then the Colonel had interrupted Minister Vasilevsky's schedule to meet with Marshal Zukhov, who'd been appointed to set up 48 new Special Operations companies of which the Stargate Regiment would be the top secret 49th. Igor had commented that this was appropriate given it was seven sevens and seven was the number of chevrons on a Stargate, but Durov had laughed and told him the Defence Ministry didn't need a numerologist.

Zukhov had also taken over management of many of the other unusual defence systems of the Union under a reorganisation program and had been given a new title of 'Minister of Strategic Resources' or something similar, Durov didn't recall. In any case, the Marshall had attended the meeting along with Ivan Konev who happened to be in Moscow already and who'd been appointed commander of the military forces in Germany. Konev had been included to be briefed in person regarding the issue of the missing German officers and their possible Goa'uld artefacts, which Tarelkin had made some progress on, locating several of the lower ranking members of the Hitlerite organisation.

In the end however when they'd presented their findings to Minister Vasilevsky little had come of it. Durov gave a more extended mission summary, explaining that they firstly knew now that the Asgard were monitoring Earth, meaning they likely had ships capable of making themselves unseen to any radiographic or telescopic equipment, because otherwise a ship probably would have been seen by someone already. While opinions were divided about whether they should be happy with this monitoring, it meant at least that the Asgard saw no need to intervene in the war, either meaning that they were callous, or that that didn't feel it necessary to do so. Durov had however noted that if the Asgard had been monitoring them they would know it wasn't the Soviets that had used atomic weapons, and that they'd lost the most in the war, which probably made them look better than the Americans who'd never had marauding bands of fascists besieging their cities.

Durov had also made a tactical assessment of the Asgard transportation technology, noting that after a few tests Chaya had run, neither their food, nor the batteries on the equipment they'd carried seemed to have been affected in any way. Certainly their grenades worked fine, as did their rifles, and the assembled marshals and generals had been very excited at the prospect of transporting a team of men, or indeed just a bomb, right into the enemy headquarters during a battle.

The meeting had devolved into an animated discussion of strategic teleportation before Vasilevsky had called them back to order, this time to get Durov's opinions on the Asgard themselves, particularly their unusual propensity for using worshippers just like the Goa'uld did, but Durov pointed out that unlike the Goa'uld, the Asgard did not seem to require either human hosts, or human labour. If they wanted Naqudah they could probably teleport it right out of the earth and certainly didn't have to rely on inefficient slaves to mine it for them. The Colonel however had conceded the point they still didn't know why Thor and the others represented themselves as gods at all, and that they'd know more once they visited the other Asgard protected worlds.

Konev had expressed some interest into how the Cimmerians were reacting to the revelation of Thor's actual size, but Durov had told him it was too close to tell. Certainly the Cimmerian they'd had with them, Helga, had been going about preaching a crusade (for want of better terms) about how Thor was still fighting the Goa'uld, and how the Cimmerians should help the Soviets help Thor. She'd asked to join them but Durov had send a few of their warriors to join the new Roman regiment under Thurius who were being drilled with rifles and light artillery.

Durov had been able to bring up the possibility of a more substantial base on Elysium, and had to his joy been approved, with barracks, laboratories, an airfield, and all associated transport links like roads and rails being put under Chapeyev's command, who was to be promoted full-Colonel. Chapeyev would supervised the construction, as well as improve the existing Roman infrastructure and supervise a humanitarian mission which would provide vaccinations and similar to the city people. In time, once the base was properly set up, the plan was to move most Stargate operations there, mainly for reasons of safety in case any infiltrator managed to impersonate a Stargate team member, or if some Goa'uld tried to bombard the base from orbit.

They talked over a few other matters for another hour or so, but eventually Vasilvesky called a halt to the meeting, as both he and the rest of the officers had duties to attend to, meaning the Stargate staff flew back over the Urals to Magnitogorsk that night, collapsing into their beds after a short debriefing with Abramovich. In the morning though it turned out there wasn't actually that many essential missions needing immediate attention, so the General sent SG-1 to take some time off for a few days.

Igor stayed on base, burying himself in his books but the rest of them escorted some scientific staff to take astrometric and geophysical readings. This was how the SG teams took their holidays, because with the Stargate, they were never more than ten minutes away from a beach or a sunny field, and there was always some excuse of 'supervising another team' or similar to occupy them.

Thus, the next day found Durov and Ilya sitting under an umbrella with their shoes off, feet in the sand while Durov read a textbook on Babylonian mythology Igor had lent him. Ilya was fast asleep, somewhat damp from where he'd been swimming earlier. Dimitri was off actually doing the supervising, also without his boots but carrying a pistol for the unlikely event that some animal did come to attack them.

They were on 'The Beach Planet', as it was known among the SG teams, though it had a proper designation as well. The Stargate on that planet faced a large sea, with no known predators. The beach itself extended into the horizon, and back about a mile gently sloping up to a forest of pine trees. It was always sunny, and there hadn't been a recorded storm yet, and as such the Soviets mainly used the planet to relax on, though there was a continuous scientific presence there examining some geothermal vents which were apparently terribly exciting for some reason.

Dimitri approached, his face a little red from the sun.

"You should have taken your hat." Remarked Durov as he came up, commenting on the redness. "Go for a swim and cool off."

"I think I'll just stay in the shade here sir." The sergeant replied, nudging Ilya with his foot. "Come on, your turn!" he told the sniper, who reluctantly sat up and shook himself, taking the belt and pistol from his friend and remembering to put a hat on as he went off to stand around by one of the vents.

"Is the Doctor's book any good sir?" Dimitri asked as he sat down.

"It's quite interesting actually yes," replied the Colonel, "I'm reading about our friend Mott." And he read a passage regarding Mott's control over the dead aloud.

"Well I shouldn't think he'll be doing any of that now that Doctor Belik's seen to him." Remarked Dimitri with a grin.

Belik had conducted the autopsy on Mott once they'd brought back his body, learning many interesting things from a scientific point of view, but little of military significance, other than that the Jaffa evidently knew how to kill Goa'uld, as Mott had been finished with a single stab to the neck which severed both his spine as well as the Goa'uld parasite's.

Durov heard steps on the sand and called out to Ilya, "You're back early, are they finished?" and he let his book down for a glimpse quickly, but then dropped it completely. "Dimitri?"

"Yes sir?" the sergeant asked, eyes still closed.

"Did you have another pistol?"

In front of them was a blue figure, his clothes, his skin, and his equipment were all blue, though he himself was very broad and tall. Water was running off him slowly, and Druov's fingers grasped for a holster he knew wasn't there.

Two beady eyes regarded the soviets from a truly alien face, for the creature before them had strange ridges in place of a nose and tentacles hanging from where his ears would be and down from his cheeks and chin like some sort of living beard.

"Hello! Can we help you?" Durov ventured.

"Babylon." Replied the creature.

Durov looked down at his textbook. Could the creature read English? Durov could read and speak it so Igor had given him a copy in that language. He stood up, Dimitri warily joining him. He knew the man kept a knife in his pack and he held out a hand to prevent any unnecessary action. Steadily, he offered the book to the creature.

"Our friend gave the book to me, it's about the gods of Babylon and the other cities." Durov explained slowly, as even if the creature didn't understand him he would hopefully be able to discern something from the tone of his voice.

The creature seemed engrossed in the book, having had some trouble turning the pages but eventually managed it, and was looking through, particularly at many of the sketches of the different carvings that had been included. Then he came to a page showing a sketch of an ancient city and shoved the book back at Durov. "Babylon! Tell me of Babylon!" the creature exclaimed.

This being usually Igor's expertise Durov was rather at a loss to satisfy whatever the creature wanted, but he went forward and held the book open. "It was an ancient city, thousands of years ago." He began, "The Goa'uld came to Earth to take hosts, but there was a rebellion against Ra, the Goa'uld ruler, and they were defeated and sent away. We discovered the Stargate," he pointed to the device, "And now we fight them."

While it was possible the creature was Goa'uld as well, for they knew the parasites took non-human hosts like the Unas, Durov thought the presently amiable behaviour of the fish-man to make this unlikely.

"What world?" asked the creature.

Of course, thought Durov, 'Earth' wouldn't mean anything to him. He thought for a moment, then knelt and drew the point of origin symbol of Earth, the chevron with a dot beneath it. "Here." He said.

"Omoroca. What fate Omoroca?!" asked the creature, his voice growing more intense.

"I don't know." Said Durov honestly, "But my friend will, I can bring him here, he'll have more books like this one, we can find out."

"Name."

Durov looked at him. "His name? Mine?"

"Nem." Said the creature, bringing its hand to his chest.

"I'm Durov, this is Dimitri." And the sergeant nodded at Nem. "Is Omoroca a city? A person?"

Nem gestured to himself again. Durov took that to mean the name meant another of his kind, perhaps a relation. "Did you know them?"

"My mate!" said Nem this time, and his voice was a woeful sigh.

"Omoroca went to Babylon? Is there anything else? A name?"

"Belus. Omoroca feared Belus. What fate Omoroca?"

"Belus was Goa'uld? One of them who ruled Babylon? Omoroca went to fight him?"

The creature said nothing.

"Then our people are allies!" said Durov happily, "We are free now, we've killed two Goa'uld recently."

Nem nodded and looked at the book again, Durov gave it to him and the fish-man turned away back to the sea. "Bring more." Nem said, holding the book, "Tell me what fate Omoroca. Will return." And with that he walked back into the water, quickly submerging till nothing could be seen.

Durov turned to Dimitri. "Well." He remarked. "That was something wasn't it?"

The big man nodded, relief clear on his face. "Serves us right for not bringing our rifles, if I might say sir."

"You may be right." Durov said, considering the sea carefully. "Go get the others back here, I want the scientists off this planet quickly. I'll radio back to base for Igor… and maybe a boat."