AUTHOR'S NOTE: Rated M for some language and mature themes and some off-screen violence. My apologies to any German speakers if I got the language bits a teensy bit wrong. Google Translate is not always the best. On that note, some of the things expressed here are NOT my opinions, feelings or anything of the sort. My apologies if anyone is offended, but sometimes one needs to tell the rough stories, no?

DISCLAIMER: Stargate, Stargate SG-1, and its related characters and setting are not my property and I'm only borrowing them for a little while for some free entertainment. No infringement is intended.

Chapter Three

Lynn let that declaration sink in for a moment while she watched Ashley rooting around on the floor for the book she had asked for. Returning moments later, Finn handed the book to Monroe who began to hurriedly flip through pages. Striking upon one, she showed it to Godfrey. His eyes quickly flew from the page to the Jaffa and back several times. There was an image on the page, its colors nearly washed bare with age, of a large gathering of creatures. All of them seemed to look much as this Jaffa. In the picture's background there hovered a great pyramid shape; what could be nothing other than a Goa'uld mothership. Emblazoned upon the ship was a more proper rendering of the crude marks on the floor; the symbol of Bastet.

Running his fingers through his militarily short hair Godfrey muttered, "I'll be damned."

The Jaffa, for her part, seemed very interested in the conversation, though she understood none of what was being said. Nevertheless, she found her ears perking forward anyway. "Mrroff?" she uttered in askance. Monroe turned to the enormous Jaffa and showed her the image. Her reaction was explosive as she shot back several steps, stabbing one clawed finger at the book and growling harshly. In an instant weapons were trained on the Jaffa so she began to bring her staff weapon to bear upon the group again. "Kree!" shouted Monroe, honestly directing it more to her own team than the frightened Jaffa.

As expected, the Jaffa lowered her weapon, head bowed in deference. Monroe showed her the book again and the furred woman reached out to point at the unusual swirls and strokes on the opposite page. Letting loose her claw again, the Jaffa made a sharp cross-wise stroke thereby bisecting the page. Monroe nodded in understanding. "Writing. Silly me, I should have realized it would upset her." said she by way of explanation. Monroe lifted the book again, gently guiding the Jaffa's eyes to the picture she wished the other woman to see. "Are these your people?"

Leaning down to inspect the image closely the Jaffa's ears went flat against her skull, amber eyes grown wide with surprise. Stabbing fiercely at the image with one finger her grumbling speech seemed to grow erratic and questioning. Monroe nodded slowly. "Your people lived here before Bastet came, didn't they?"

The warrior shrugged, but hesitantly nodded. The nod was accompanied by more unintelligible sounds.

"Damn," muttered Godfrey. "She's obviously intelligent, but we need to be able to get her to talk; something we can understand."

"And some clothes," Finn offered.

Keltit approached the Jaffa cautiously. "Do you know any other tongues that you can speak?"

A quizzical expression was her only answer. Lynn laid her hand on Keltit's arm and addressed the Jaffa in the language of the Unas, the First Ones, "Can you still understand me?" A nod. "Can you speak this language?"

"Yes."

Monroe burst out in a shining grin of excitement. "What is your name?"

"I am called Myrrwnn," answered the Jaffa. "Who are you?"

"We come from a planet called Earth. We're what you call Tau'ri."

"Are you like the others?" Myrrwnn asked cautiously.

Monroe was puzzled but probed onward. "What others, Myrrwnn?"

The enormous Jaffa sighed and leaned heavily on her staff weapon. "There was another group here. Not dressed like you. They came through the Chappa'ai, as you did."

Shaking her head sharply, "No, we are the first Tau'ri to visit this place." Briefly turning to her team, Lynn told Godfrey what she had just learned.

The Major was not pleased by this bit of news. "Does she say where they went?"

"I haven't asked her yet, Major." Returning her attention to Myrrwnn, "Where are they now? Do you know?"

Myrrwnn sank nearly to the floor, resting shakily on her haunches. "My pride was tracking them for many days. Somehow they discovered this and laid an ambush for us. I was the only one to survive it. Beyond that, I do not know."

"How is it that you came to be here, Myrrwnn?"

"We were hiding. Hiding from the metal insects. Our Goddess had forsaken us months before and our forces could do nothing to halt the insect's advance. Our world was about to be over-run so what few of us we could gather left the world behind. We have been seeking a new home ever since."

Pausing to think for a moment, Monroe tried to puzzle out what Myrrwnn meant by 'metal insects...'. "Replicators!" she burst out in English. Gathering her thoughts once more she continued in Unas, "You were hiding from the Replicators. All right. They, too, were defeated a couple of years ago."

Myrrwnn actually seemed to smile as she gazed up at Monroe. "I know. The power of the Gods was severely broken in many engagements with these unholy beings. With our Goddess gone, my pride knew that no other God would search for us. We were free for the first time in many years.

"There had been legends among my people of the First World, the place from which we had come, but none of us could remember it. We were told by the priests that this was nothing more than myth; we were created by the Goddess to serve Her; to do with us as She pleased. That was before she...died; too far from her sarcophagus to be revived to her glory." Myrrwnn finished and rested her head awkwardly on arms that she had crossed over her knees in a very human gesture of weariness. For many long minutes Myrrwnn would speak no more but, if the furious battering of her tail against the wall behind her was any indication, Myrrwnn was clearly upset about something.

Monroe filled in her team on this new information. Godfrey was getting restless. Staring out what remained of the library's windows, he could see that the sun was going down. "All right people, it'll be getting dark out soon. We're going to stay here for the night. Lynn, I'd suggest that you keep our guest company and learn what more you can from her," Godfrey was very clear to emphasize the word 'guest'. "She's obviously in a bad way from the looks of her. These 'Others' she spoke of have me a bit nervous. We ought to try to find them.

"Wally, Ashley and I will sweep the perimeter. Keltit, stay here and keep an eye on the Doc and our new friend here. And try to get her something to wear." The Major noted with some slight annoyance that the petite linguist was translating as he spoke.

The room was large, and hot. An almost constant buzz of activity had permeated the hallways and offices for the past two weeks. No one was certain what, exactly, was going on, only that the Secretary General seemed to have some strange new motivation. That was not entirely true; there were persons at this table who did know what was going on but weren't sharing with the rest of the class.

It was obvious to Saren Momarr that at least three of his colleagues on the Security Council knew. Several member Embassies had been particularly busy; the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia among them. Even the German embassy was aflutter, though the nation had not been a member of the Security Council for at least five years.

That was about to change, however. The time had come to shuffle the ten temporary seats and several countries, Germany among them, were clamoring to have those seats made permanent. But that would not be resolved today. Today the Secretary General had chosen to call a special session of the Security Council to address them on what he had called a "world altering issue"; whatever that meant.

The time for the Secretary General's appearance was drawing near and the room had begun to settle to a more subdued murmur.

Doors at the far end of the room opened slowly and the new Secretary General strode in confidently. Momarr harrumphed. Confidently, indeed! More typically the superior swagger of an American; the first American to ever hold the post. It was widely known that this American was merely filling in the remainder of the former S-G's term after an unfortunate debacle between North Korea and the United States had led to the Secretary-General's assassination.

Momarr watched the man's swagger carefully, or was he simply imagining that swagger? He decided that he was. The Secretary General, accompanied by two United States Marines (graciously provided for the U.N.'s security) approached the podium that sat in the open space of the table. The Marines left the Secretary General to walk the last five steps to the podium alone. Gingerly setting down the folder he carried, notes for his speech no doubt, on the podium the Secretary General calmly cleared his throat before beginning to speak.

His deep and husky voice resonated well in the room and many of the translators were unneeded since nearly all of the Security Council's members were fluent in English. "Members of the Security Council," he began, "I have come before you today in light of several recent developments that have come to my attention these past two weeks.

"I realize that it is not customary for me to address this body in this manner and further that I am but a placeholder to finish out Secretary General Ban's term. Nevertheless, what has come to my attention affects us all. Not as any single nation, one more so than another, but as a people; human beings all."

The room fell utterly silent as the Secretary General paused a moment. "I was recently visited by a high ranking member of the United States Air Force, the culminating of a joint proposal by several members of this very Council." Several members visibly squirmed in their seats. The Secretary pressed on, "In this meeting with General O'Neill it was revealed to me, and thusly to the United Nations as a whole, the existence of a clandestine operation within the United States military, in conjunction with several other nations, under the heading 'Project Stargate'.

"This Project Stargate, under the command of General Henry Landry, has the not inconsiderable task of exploring the galaxy in an effort to meet new cultures as well as to assess any potential threats to the security of Earth; to combat such threats when they are found. For the past twelve years this Project has been running, without our knowledge or the knowledge of the general public, and I assure you that such threats have been found."

Another pause as the Secretary took a sip of water near at hand, allowing the Security Council to mutter amongst themselves in astonishment. "I now direct your attention to the view screen we have set up for this meeting." The lights began to dim while the Secretary continued to speak, "Several years ago an explosive phenomenon was observed and recorded by numerous astronomical outposts in the Southern Hemisphere. This is what they saw:"

The view screen burst to life with a series of still images, as seen from the surface of Earth, depicting a glowing yellow string reaching out from the surface. It was followed by numerous large explosions. "Yes, we have seen all of this before, Mr. Secretary." That was the representative from Canada, a rather cold woman and a fierce advocate of her country joining the five permanent seats.

The Secretary smiled, though in the darkened room none could see him. "I know. But our satellites recorded more. Much more. Observe, please."

The screen changed to a motion recording that revealed several enormous craft over the planet's south polar region. Three of these ships were pyramidal in shape, disgorging hundreds of smaller vessels. Fighter craft of some type, it seemed. These fighter craft began to streak sharply toward the planet surface while the larger vessels opened fire on Antarctica. As the stunned Security Council watched the battle unfold a new ship began to rise swiftly from the surface. It looked to be heading straight for one of the larger pyramid ships, belching missiles and vomiting projectile fire so ineffectively against its larger opponent.

Then, from the surface, a bright flash and the yellow streak returned. It reached out from the planet's surface, engulfing only the enemy vessels. When examined closely, one could see that the streak was not solid, but rather composed of thousands of small squid-like things that the Secretary quietly identified as 'drones'. These drones pummeled the pyramid ships into dust, leaving only one ship (the Prometheus, he called it) and its accompanying fighter craft.

As the lights came up every expression in the room was virtually identical; unbearable shock. All eyes turned accusingly toward the representative from the United States who, for his part, looked every bit as surprised as the others.

"That," the Secretary continued, "was what the SGC has taken to calling The Battle of Antarctica. During that battle we successfully defended Earth against the invasion forces of an alien calling himself Anubis. There have been many such battles over the past twelve years."

"What is this SGC you refer to?" inquired the Brazilian Councilor.

The Secretary General launched into a lengthy and detailed explanation of the Stargate, the SGC and all that pertained to it.

Returning to the interior of the library, the sun having left the sky blackened and star-filled for nearly an hour, Godfrey smiled to himself as he watched Monroe and Keltit conversing quietly with their new friend Myrrwnn "How goes it, ladies? Learn anything new?"

"I'm afraid not Major." Monroe replied somberly. "Myrrwnn doesn't know anything more of these others than she has already told us. She did, however, mention that they did not speak as we do, but that shouldn't be surprising if they aren't from Earth." The linguist shrugged, unwilling to surrender to failure. "I'll keep trying sir, but really Myrrwnn is quite frightened." Lynn stood carefully, stretching to work out some of the kinks that had settled into her back and legs.

Godfrey pondered. Sighing, he asked, "What's got her scared?"

The linguist looked from her commanding officer to the dejected looking creature they had befriended then back to the Major. "Myrrwnn has nowhere to go, Major. And no way to get there, apparently. The cargo ship that brought her pride here was damaged fighting the Replicators and was destroyed in the crash."

While this conversation was taking place, Tenbaum and Finn were busy rearranging some desks to make room for their nightly camp. "So what do we do with her?" Tenbaum inquired rather huffily.

Keltit made her thought crystal clear. "We should help her get back to her people. The planet from which her pride came has no Gate, Major. That is why they fled by ship."

"She could stay with us, sir." Ashley chimed in.

Godfrey seemed to mull this over for a moment. He looked at Monroe questioningly. "Do you think she would, Doc?"

Monroe looked down at the Sekhmet. "She might. Myrrwnn seems to feel certain that her people think she and her pride to be long dead now. In short, she's not expecting a rescue. I suppose we should ask Myrrwnn what she wants." Immediately, she crouched down beside Myrrwnn and began a hushed talk in the tongue of the First Ones.

The sound of slow, deep breathing permeated the entrance hall of the library as the team slept. Well, almost all of the team. As each member succumbed to the excitement of the day's events, sorting and filing the information they had learned, one restless soul lay awake. Try as she might, turning first this way and that, Ashley Finn could not find solace in sleep.

Words of the day before, once spoken, had found root in her mind and would not let her go. Rolling onto her side, Ashley stared at the Tok'ra's back. There was obviously more to their presence than the rest of the team knew. Finn felt certain that she ought to confront them, Keltit and the Major, about this. It wasn't healthy to be keeping such secrets from the rest. The team was getting along incredibly well so far. Secrets could only serve to undermine the trust that was rapidly building.

Faintly whispered words intruded upon Finn's thoughts. "Is there something on your mind, Sergeant?"

Startled, Finn gasped and realized that she was now staring at the Tok'ra's kind eyes. "I...um.." was all that she could stammer at the moment.

Keltit offered a sweet smile to the girl and motioned towards a far corner. "If you'd like to talk, that is." Rising silently at Finn's somber nod, Keltit led the girl to a desk that seemed on the verge of collapsing at any moment. As the Tok'ra settled their weight against the edge of the desk they could tell that Ashley was frightfully nervous about something. "What is it?" Keltit softly asked.

Slumping into a nearby chair, Finn sighed and gazed up at Keltit's host. Her eyes were filled with questions though she knew not how to ask them. "Well, I was thinking about what you said last night."

"I thought you might be."

Ashley hung her head. "But I don't really know what it is that I want to ask. I mean, I have a million questions."

"Ask away, dear." came the gently urging voice.

Looking back up, Finn found herself seeing past the face Keltit now wore; past the skin, muscle and bone and had the sudden sense that she was seeing her. The symbiote, entwined around her host's spine, pulsing and breathing. Ashley realized that she could almost see, in her mind's eye, the myriad of microfiliments that pierced and entangled in Durann's synapses allowing the snake-like symbiote to interact with the world around her. A look of wonder came over Ashley's youthful features, her mouth held agape as she took in the beauty and elegance of the being. "Wow. For the first time, I think I'm just seeing you, Keltit."

For her part, Keltit was slightly surprised. She raised one hand to rest lightly on the back of her host's neck. The place where she lay. "You mean..."

Finn nodded. "You."

Keltit let her hand fall. "I'm surprised. So few even bother to try to see past the face of our hosts. That is," she smiled again, "when they aren't mistaking us for Goa'uld." Her smile quickly faded. "I suppose that's one reason why people have such a time dealing with me when I'm in a male."

"What do you mean, Kel?" Finn inquired.

"As you know we symbiotes are, as a rule, asexual. The exception being, of course, the Queens. They are female through and through, with all the accompanying drives that go with it."

Finn nodded, her eyes lighting up as she made a sudden connection. "You mean you're a Queen!?" she quietly exclaimed. Seeing the simple nod that was to be her answer, Ashley pressed on, "And you're talking about breeding, aren't you?" Another nod.

"My brothers would see me kept, and kept well I would imagine, but kept just the same. Kept segregated and safe from harm. Nature abhors a vacuum as they say, and I am but one of a precious few who have been found who are of the requisite sex." Keltit said flatly. Finn was stunned. It was written plainly on her face. "The others have allowed the Tok'ra to secret them away to replenish our numbers. I do not wish such a life for myself."

"I don't blame you." Ashley admitted. "A gilded cage is still a cage. So you have no desire to make any little Tok'ra?"

Keltit chuckled, staring out into the dim moonless dark. "I didn't say that. I certainly do, just not right now. I want to understand your kind better. Humans, I mean. I will one day be asking your people to house my offspring. I feel that I really ought to know what makes you tick, and I can't learn that being held as breeding stock by my own people. But the desire is there, I assure you."

The pair fell silent for a long time. At last Keltit spoke again, "My offer has intrigued you, hasn't it?"

"No sense in denying it, I suppose," Finn responded. "Yes, it has. I guess I'm kind of young to be so concerned about babies, but I've thought about it a bit myself. That kind of got put on hold for my career. First woman in the Pararescue and all. I'm a little surprised that they let me come to the SGC at all, really." One look at Keltit's face showed Finn a very sharply unspoken 'why?'

"Because," said Ashley with a heavy sigh, "I was supposed to be the poster girl for the new military back on Earth. Real feminist kinda stuff. You know, 'anything you can do, I can do better'." Finn shrugged. "Not like there haven't been women in high stress jobs in the service before me, but my job is so physically intense that the brass wouldn't allow women. Until me, that is."

"Something for which you should be extremely proud, my dear."

Finn smiled. She really did like this Tok'ra. Why was she getting to know Keltit like this though? Did it have something to do with the symbiote's question the night before?

"Oh I am, believe me," came Finn's quick reply. "In a way, I'm kinda glad that I don't have to get trotted out for stuff. Getting turned into some feminist symbol or something. Not that I don't sympathize, because I do; it's just that..." her voice trailed off suddenly.

Resting a gentle hand on the young woman's shoulder, Keltit asked, "What is it?"

"I worked really hard to make the cut in Pararescue, dammit! I put up with an awful lot of bullshit in training. I'm not exactly a big girl, you know? I had to be twenty times tougher than any of the guys in my training unit, and ten times harder than any woman in the military anywhere."

Keltit nodded slowly, understanding. "And you feel as though you've had to sacrifice some of your femininity to accomplish this." Finn's answering nod was filled with a sorrow that touched Keltit deeply and brought tears to her eyes. "That's absurd, dear. In the brief time that I've known you, through our training as a team and even here, you've been nothing but your own self. I'm proud to have the chance to know such a fine and talented young woman." The Tok'ra shrugged slowly. "Men will be men, after all and their egos can be so incredibly delicate. More to the point, they are frightfully jealous of us, the fairer sex, and what we can do that they never can."

"Do you really think so, Kel?"

"I know so, Ashley."

It was good to be home, sharing again in the familiar sights, sounds and smells of the new Fatherland. That was the foremost thought on Klaus Werner's mind as he stared out over the streets of Neuberlin. The light of an early dawn was cresting just over Mount Himmler, some two hundred kilometers distant. Below the man, where he stood upon his apartment's balcony, the streets were just beginning to awaken as people shuffled to and fro in an effort to begin their work day.

Werner was not certain that the adjustments between times, here and the various planets he had visited, would ever be something to which he could become accustomed. He, like so many of the population, had been born here in Neuberlin, and so took the planet's twenty-eight hour rotation quite for granted. Even many of the older members of the Party, who had emigrated here from the original Fatherland, had managed to adjust very well. It was a credit to the Aryan race that they were so adaptable.

Not like these pathetic natives, skulking and reptilian. It surprised Werner greatly that, although the beasts seemed content—pleased even—with German rule, the Party had not decided to do away with them. They were a blight on the face of the Fatherland and every good Aryan knew it.

Still, the creatures were intelligent, so far as they could be, and served the Reich well as a working class-doing all the dirtiest, foulest jobs that no self-respecting German should be made to do. Even without the idea that the creatures were an undesirable class within the Reich, they were repulsive to German eyes, squat and...alien. Gangly limbs were directed to their work and often to many different tasks at once. The creatures' brains were so unlike a proper German's that it was nearly incomprehensible to the Reich that these beings could even think, let alone reason. Perhaps someday, Werner thought, the Reich will find wisdom in eliminating these creatures from Heaven.

Sipping gently at the cooling mug of coffee in his hand, Werner turned back into his apartment to dress. Somewhere, across the great city, their finds were being studied and examined by the Reich's top scientists.

As he dressed in his casual duty uniform, Werner found his thoughts lingering on the wheeled monstrosity they had found and the group of humans he had seen through his scope. The device had to belong to them, did it not? If that was the case, was he wrong for having not reported their presence to his commander, as he should have done? Giving his head a sharp shake, Werner decided that there was nothing to be done about it now and proposed to himself that he would remain silent. For all the Reich knew, the device was a probe, a bit of flotsam thrust out upon the galaxy and never meant to be recovered. That seemed a bit silly to him, and tactically unsound, but he could know nothing different.

Werner closed and locked the apartment door behind himself and proceeded down the stairs to the ground floor. As he stepped out into the brilliant morning sun, he smiled. It would be a good day.

"This way," intoned the Jaffa in her silken voice. She stood high upon a ridge that overlooked a lush, dense jungle sprouting from the city's edge. Shielding her eyes from the glaring sun overhead, Myrrwnn looked back at the Tau'ri and the one who, by all rights, should be her new God. The Jaffa was further confused by the Tau'ri's use of pronouns. Myrrwnn assumed it to be no concern of hers, but as she understood biology, her God was male, but the Tau'ri often referred to the God as she or her.

Why might this be? The Jaffa wondered, intensely thoughtful. They all seemed a good sort, and they welcomed her openly, despite her pride's cowardice in the face of the Replicator's onslaught. She paused for a moment to stoop and examine the remnants of pavement for sign of her new, or rather old, quarry. A masculine voice from behind accompanied the shadow which spilled across her vision. "Find anything?"

Myrrwnn turned from her crouched position to gaze up at the one they called 'Major'. Myrrwnn slowly rose to her feet, balanced by her constantly shifting tail. "Nothing of consequence, but the others did pass this way. It was, perhaps, six days ago." The man nodded to her, all conversation still passing through the mousy, dark-haired woman. The tongue of these folk was strange, and Myrrwnn felt that she might be able to learn it in time. For now, she was still limited to speaking with, and through, her God(dess?) and the dark-haired one.

"All right then," said Godfrey. "Let's keep moving." He looked over his team as they began to march once more. His five, plus the Jaffa, made for a pretty nice sized team. Maybe the largest in the SGC. If they could convince Myrrwnn to stay, that was. Allen found that he pitied the woman, lost and alone on this planet for months; she had watched her entire team get slaughtered by these "others". It had to really be messing with the Jaffa's mind. Never mind having stood by and watched her Goddess get eighty-sixed by a bunch of mechanical bugs. Godfrey had to admit that Myrrwnn seemed pretty together for having been through all of that in so short a time.

From what Myrrwnn had said, it would be some six hours from the city to the research facility where her pride had tracked the "others". Godfrey had found himself pondering, over the hours since Myrrwnn's pronouncement of the other group, who this other group might be. While he knew there were a great many human civilizations in the galaxy, courtesy of the Goa'uld, many of them were still not so technologically advanced as Earth. Even those that were tended to stay in their own backyards, avoiding the idea of using the Stargate themselves. Maybe the Langarans had finally pulled themselves together? Who knew, really. Godfrey was eager to find out.

"Belinda!" The call came from her workroom door, so loud and sudden as to make her jump. Her pliers hit the concrete floor with a ringing clang and Geller stooped shyly to retrieve them. The voice from her doorway was quietly laughing. "My apologies, Belinda. I had forgotten how deeply you enjoy your work."

Furious and flushed with embarrassment, Geller wheeled around and glowered at her superior officer. "Major Werner," she coolly greeted him. There was no need to get onto his bad side when she was clearly at fault for not securing her workroom beforehand. She distracted herself by brushing behind her ear a tuft of hair that had recently freed itself from her ponytail.

Werner smiled to the young woman, then inclined his head toward the monstrosity that had enthralled her and Sonntag for the past three hours. "Do you have any idea what it is yet?"

Geller shook her head uncertainly. "Nothing clear, Major. It seems to have recording equipment built into its chassis the likes of which, naturally, I've never seen. I would venture to guess that it is a probe of some kind." With her pliers Geller prodded the small cylindrical device perched at one corner. "This would seem to be a camera, but that seems so improbable given the minute size." The young woman gave a small sigh and set the pliers on the thing beside her and crossed her arms. Her deep blue eyes chased between the thing and Werner several times and she leaned her hip against it. "In all honestly, sir, I'm not certain that the device can be made to serve us; short of being a curiosity. Not for a few years, at least."

Werner digested this information with a stony expression, his arms crossing in mirror to Geller's. "The General would still like to see the thing at least. The Oberstleutnant is with him now, so you'll have another half-hour to play with your new toy until he arrives; give or take."

"On the contrary, Major. I am here now."

It was Werner's turn to jump as both he and Geller came instantly to attention, right arms curled in a standard military salute. The heavily uniformed General returned a lazy salute and strode into the room, Oberstleutnant Marx in tow. "As you were," he gruffly commanded. His eyes were firmly affixed to the probe. "I've just heard your report, Fraulein Hauptmann, and find it disappointing. These are cle-," the General's voice cut off in a gasp as his eyes fell to one of the discarded access plates that leaned against one wheel. The words themselves were so innocuous, but those two words seemed to drain all the color from the General's face. "Mein Gott!" he declared. "Have you any idea what you have found!?"

Spinning on his three junior officers, he asked again with a louder voice. All three shook their heads in unison. The General carefully grasped the filthy plate and held it for the others to see. "'No step'. That's what this says. It is English!"

The three others in the room could not have been more befuddled. The MALP, their dismantled prisoner, could not have cared less.