AN: And the second part of the 'episode'. I've decided to cut this into three parts. All together they'd made a decent 6 or 7k chapter but separately they improve the update rate which, for previously mentioned factors, is actually of greatest importance. I also find these sorts of lengths much more pleasant to write as they only take a couple of hours rather than a long slog of trying to plan stuff out. I am perhaps somewhat hypocritical because I don't like reading such short chapters because I find them offensive to literature but oh well, this fic has always been much more of a timeline fic than a literary work.
I'd considered using the term 'Bitch' in this chapter as it's a specific Russian word for prison snitches, but then I decided not to. In general I think I'm going to stick with the english words for things, or translate them if they're not proper nouns. Having said that I might also forget and not do it so thoughts on this are appreciated (esp from non-English readers).
Lastly, some people were confused about why the last chapter happened. I found this an unusual question but I suppose I can get why it was asked. Essentially this is me presenting the difference between canon Stargate operations and the Soviet Stargate Program. Feel free to ask other questions though in reviews/comments.
-x-
"I still don't really understand why they did it." Murmured Petrov, formerly Clars, as he worked at the machine.
Ivanovich, having regained most of his memories as well, struck one side with his mallet. "Here, help me with this will you?"
Petrov leant against the compressor from the other side. "Just hold it steady?"
Ivanovich grunted, "I just need to connect this up properly." And he gave the panel another hit. There was a dent in it which had thrown a blade off the compressor's fan and caused another halt in production.
Petrov moved again and Ivanovich managed to hammer the piece back into place with a few more hits. Then he stood back and regarded it.
"Just to preserve themselves." He said in answer to Petrov's earlier question. "I assume we came here from the base to meet them, and then perhaps we discovered this down here."
"And they knew we wouldn't like it?"
Ivanovich shrugged, "It's not as if there's not worse things back home in the East."
"Then why try and convince us and have us work? Why not just kill us and dump us in the snow? Do you think they need workers?"
"Well I never knew how to fix a compressor, did you?" Ivanovich looked at him, "My memories get clearer the further they go back. We've been here what, two months? Three maybe? Assuming it takes a month for this 're-education' technique to work, meaning Dragolov and you got it first, then me and Kaya-" he slapped himself on the forehead "Me and Captain Vozchik I should say."
"Right? And?"
"Well then they clearly decided they needed us for some reason, otherwise they would have killed us. There's not that much of a labour shortage there so no I don't think they need workers, but that doesn't answer much…"
Ivanovich hadn't managed to understand the rationale behind the re-education process his team had been subjected to. The dome-city was one of many hidden under the constant blizzards of the planet's ice age, with all of them producing particular goods. This one was metals and advanced alloys that were traded for various other goods. There was a city devoted to food production, and another devoted to chemicals and so on. He suspected the cities had once been part of some sort of doomsday system to save the society and the segregation of the production had been to increase efficiency. Here though it just created a sort of feudalistic trading system where each city-state competed with the others, sometimes holding out its goods for some gain.
They stood a while looking at the now fixed compressor. The Overseer had ordered a full review of the Refinery's machinery after the incident with the Salium line, which happily meant Ivanovich had an excuse to talk closely with Petrov and Chaya.
"There's a thought." continued the Captain, "Why would they let us work together if they knew we might talk to each other?"
"Overseer doesn't know? Can't think of any other reason. I certainly didn't know you two were here till I saw you up close sir."
Ivanovich nodded, in the last month he'd gone round and gathered as much information as he could with the other Soviets to try and get a better understanding of their surroundings. He only remembered flashes of the Stargate, Perm where he'd grown up, and of his parents. He remembered specific events, like Colonel Durov pinning the medal he'd been awarded "For Courage" due to his capture of Vulcan, but he couldn't remember other things, or rather they were replaced by the mental conditioning he'd been subjected to.
"There's at least seven other Pits." He said to Petrov, "And more than 20 mines if the numbers on the carts are right. I don't remember much of the surface other than that there is actually a city up there under the dome, but that doesn't tell us anything about what goes on up there. The work down here isn't very efficient, and unless they get everything through trade with other dome-cities they must have a large population of workers in separate pits. Assuming there's what, about 3000 of us here, that means there's 30,000 in the Pits and maybe that number again in the mines? At the very least we must outnumber the people in the city above, and that'll be why they keep the different Pits segregated."
"Sounds right sir. So what?"
"We do what we're trained to Sergeant." Grinned Ivanovich.
That night he met with Chaya.
"We'll need weapons, what can you do?"
"Explosives." She said simply, "I used to make bombs for Vol- I mean Colonel Durov."
"Oh that's right you knew him during the war didn't you? What kind can you make?"
Chaya shrugged, "What do you need?"
"Grenades, demolition charges, tripwire mines…"
"Timers?"
Ivanovich nodded as she got out a pad of paper.
"I can probably manage a flamethrower if I can get my hands on some Salium, though it wouldn't be very good."
"Incendiaries would be useful, try and siphon some off when we restart the Refinery. What about guns?"
"The propellant's easy, but I'm a chemist not a gunsmith and it's not as if I'll be able to test them. I can probably do some shotguns if you don't mind about accuracy, but it's that or muskets."
"I thought the Kalash could be made in any metal shop?"
"I'm a chemist." She said with a look.
Ivanovich considered. That would probably be enough, they could seize weapons from the Bluecoats.
"Listen, you don't think they'd just let us go do you? What if we went on strike?" asked Chaya looking up.
"Oh yes and I'm sure if we ask the Goa'uld that they'd do the same." Ivanovich said dismissively, "That's not how it works. If we strike they'll just storm the place and round us all up for re-education. That or kill everyone and replace them with workers from other Pits."
"But the production-"
"Will go down and then stabilise within a few weeks. Better than them losing their positions." He said with a meaningful look at the Overseer's office. "You remember what she was like when you wanted to improve efficiency. If they actually cared about productivity they'd give better food and equipment, not extract the labour through violence."
Chaya shook her head and held up a hand. "Alright alright sorry I asked." She glanced at the pad "What's going to happen then?"
Ivanovich explained his plan: First he and Petrov would investigate support among the other workers. There had been somewhat of a rebellion about eight years previously and the others must remember it. If they could get some of the older workers on their side they'd be able to replicate that previous rebellion. After they got a decent number of them, and they'd only need a few hundred actually committed soldiers the rest would fall into line. The conditions in the Pits were appalling and it wouldn't take much to persuade the rest.
"We'll need to sabotage a few of the key sectors, no production means no privileges till work's resumed and that'll create resentment." Ivanovich said, "Then one day we can stage something and get a load of Bluecoats down here. Eliminate them and we can take the elevator in the Overseer's office and get up into the city."
"And then what? Rally the other Pits? Won't you need to speak with them as well to coordinate? Or are we hiding in the city?" asked Chaya.
Ivanovich shook his head, "All we need to do is break them." He told her, pointing to the skylights. "Production can only be maintained on the assumption of necessity. 'Pull together or we all freeze'. Once we show that's a lie the workers will rise up. Then all we need to do is arm them and they'll cause all the trouble we need. Then we make for the Stargate and for reinforcements."
And over the next few weeks they did just that. Jarren, a former rebel now missing his right hand from the Overseer's not providing proper treatment after an accident as punishment for his disobedience, had accepted the plan in principal. He'd agreed to speak to the others of the Pit's Old Guard and even started passing messages in cargo containers which he knew would only be opened by certain people in other Pits. Apparently the Administrator and Overseers had split up the rebels after the last insurrection and sent them all over the dome-city to prevent another uprising. With Jarren brining popular support and Ivanovich having the tactical experience, all that was needed were the tools to pull the attack off. For this Chaya had come up with an array of explosives, a dozen crude shotguns, more like blunderbusses than modern weapons, as well as a blocky grenade launcher and a few precious rounds.
Every week something new broke and the Bluecoats sallied out to find out what was wrong. Ivanovich was put on half rations again for his inability to fix the damage (The Overseer not knowing it was him who'd caused it) and a sort of flying squad of engineers had been formed. Of those however three were Jarren's friends and the other was a young and impressionable man who Ivanovich suspected had also been mentally re-educated, though none of the Soviets recognised him.
This combination of factors had the whole Pit angry and several spontaneous demonstrations occurred. The Bluecoats were heavy handed and went out swinging their truncheons which only drove the resentment into more covert means. Jarren would call the meetings and the crippled beggars that lined the Pit's streets would spread the word. Ivanovich would be there and spoke several times, but it seemed unnecessary as when Jarren promised the others that he had ways to fight back, the only thing the workers had lacked before, they supported him fully.
"It's about time." Said one rugged looking ironmonger with speckled burn scars all down his left side. Ivanovich had seen him manning a small stall in the Exchange before. Perhaps his injuries went beneath the skin and had made him unable to work?
"I'm surprised they caught on so fast sir." Petrov whispered over to him, leaning in as they sat in a crowd of others in a secluded corner.
"It would have happened eventually." Replied Ivanovich similarly quietly, "The accidents, the maiming, all it would have taken is one bad harvest or a particularly nasty incident to set them off. Jarren knows about the guns, that's enough for him. We've just accelerated the process."
That night one of the others shook Ivanovich awake.
"There's a Bluecoat here to see you!"
"What?" Ivanovich bolted upright, reaching under his pillow for a knife.
The man led him quickly into the machinery, coming to a dead end where he found the burnt ironmonger from the meeting as well as several others with various tools and improvised weapons having cornered a man at the other end.
"What's going on?" Ivanovich asked as he came up.
"We're waitin' for Jerren." Said the ironmonger.
"Fair enough." Said Ivanovich, but they didn't have to wait long.
"Colman." Jerren waked up.
"'is one says 'e's got a message."
Jerren looked to the man and gestured with his missing hand.
Ivanovich didn't think he had the look of a Bluecoat, but then they were notably for their uniforms and visors. The man before them had neither, only a pair of loose trousers, good boots and a well-made shirt. He had a couple of days' stubble on his chin and a desperate look in his eye.
"I know you're planning something." Said the man, "We all do, we just don't know what and the Overseer won't do anything about it. She doesn't want the Administrator hearing about any problems with the plant." He began, "I want to help."
"Really?" asked Jerren, "And why's that then?"
"Would you believe me if I said morality?"
Jerren grinned nastily and Colman spat between him and the Bluecoat.
"My wife's pregnant. It's our third."
"A bad business."
Ivanovich looked around, "I'm missing something important here."
"We're limited to one child per adult." Said the Bluecoat, "Only replacements."
"When his next is born they'll take one of the first two." Said Jerren, "Not enough resources to go around."
Ivanovich nodded, it made sense given the harsh conditions of the dome-city.
"You know who he is?" asked the Bluecoat looking at Ivanovich.
That was an issue of some contention. Jerren had told Ivanovich that he thought the later was actually quite mad, 'Night Sick' they called it, and that the re-education process, which was known by rumour among the workers, hadn't worked properly on Ivanovich and had instead made him insane. Having said that, Jerren didn't care much as he was really the one leading the revolution and as long as the weapons worked he'd be happy with them. Whether or not Ivanovich was a madman or an alien didn't really matter.
"Well the Administrator copied the off-worlder guns." Continued the Bluecoat.
"How many?"
"Just the Administrator's personal guards, but we've had a shipment of them a few days ago, we're to have training with them next week. Apparently we got them first, they're going to terminate the whole Pit."
The others swore and cursed but Jerren looked at Ivanovich.
The Captain shook his head, "Six hundred rounds a minute, thirty round magazines."
"We've got to move before they get distributed properly then. There's no way we can take any position with even a few of those things." Jerren regarded the Bluecoat. "Have the off-worlders visited since?"
The Bluecoat looked at him in surprise. "You didn't know? Of course you didn't, they're still here. The Administrator's trading with them now."
"Can you pass a note or something to them?" Ivanovich asked. "Anything will do, and your children will be much safer afterwards."
"My cousin's a typist in the Administrator's tower, she can get something to them."
"Alright, how long have we got? How did you get down here without raising alarm?"
"Told them I was visiting the Exchange."
Jerren grinned again, the Bluecoats sometimes came down at night to visit the brothel and they'd thought about ambushing them in transit and stealing their uniforms or something similar before. One more making a nocturnal excursion wouldn't be remarked upon, it might even be seen as one last bit of fun before the liquidation.
They planed it all out, the workers would prepare that night and work the morning of the next day with the note being passed at 10am local time. After they heard the sounds of guns which Ivanovich promised would erupt as soon as Colonel Durov got the message they'd rally out themselves and take the Bluecoats by surprise before they could arm themselves. At best they'd end up with plenty of automatic weapons for the revolution, at worst they'd throw explosives into the Bluecoat's barracks and kill them but not get the guns. Then Jerren and Colman would lead teams to the other Pits, Petrov would take a team to try and bomb strategic locations like the Bluecoat headquarters in the centre of the city as a distraction and Ivanovich would make for the Administrator's tower and hopefully link up with the Soviet incursion and then report to Colonel Durov from there on the situation and coordinate their forces.
"I'd like more time to prepare and train everyone, but we all know the plan." Said Ivanovich as they headed back to wake the others leaders of the revolution up.
"There's nothing else for it, we have the armoury here, without us there's no revolt and with these new weapons the Bluecoats are getting we have to move now. Maybe if we waited a few years we could build up more, but I think the Administrator would try hitting the other cities. If one in the network embargos the others they can take it, for a time, if two do it together its war."
"We'll have to have some way of identifying everyone, it's going to get confused when we're all out there heading in different directions." Ivanovich said.
"We used colour last time. We had a load of green dye, well it wasn't actually dye but it worked as it anyway. Used it for armbands, bandannas and stuff."
Ivanovich looked at him with a smile. "Have we got any red?"