Offworld Secretary Allard walked into the large gateroom in Egypt along with a phalanx of assistants and a pair of plainclothes guards in the lot. While this was an international facility, absent the United States participation, the varying delegates did not fully trust one another, hence the touch of quiet security that the British official required as he was transitioning to one of the United Kingdom's offworld bases.
This was to be his third trip, unfortunately having to oversee personnel matters in the flesh given the fact that one of their 6 primary colonies had been attacked by the Aschen with nearly the loss of all inhabitants. Some 1,283 had been evacuated through the stargate before an Aschen anti-personnel drone came through along with them and the connection had to be cut, stranding who knew how many behind to their capture or deaths.
With the British government adamant that their offworld investments be better managed, Allard had volunteered to go in person to rectify the situation. He wasn't foolish enough to go to a planet he expected to get hit, but he was getting away from the bureaucracy of Earth where he would have less oversight to daily activities.
The control staff dialed the gate with a large display panel above it indicating the destination. It stated that the planet's name was Wellington and that it was a possession of the United Kingdom, assuring those about to step through as to where they were going. With the iris already having been retracted, the Secretary and his posse walked up to the gleaming puddle and stepped through…arriving at another planet within a handful of seconds.
The Secretary stepped out unphased, but his staff staggered around clearly in awe of the unbelievable trip they'd just taken, for none of these had ever set foot through a stargate before.
"Welcome to Wellington, Secretary Allard," a civilian greeted them inside an artificial chamber that was far too utilitarian for his tastes, as would the rest of the colony be.
"Is the Acheron still in orbit?" he asked.
"It is, along with the rest of our defense fleet."
Allard resisted the urge to frown, for that 'fleet' consisted of only 3 warships at Wellington and 8 in total. "I need transported to her immediately along with my staff."
"May I ask where you are going?"
"Somewhere classified and off the gate network," he said ambiguously, then remained silent as he waited for her to carry out his order. After an awkward moment the civilian made the necessary contacts and within minutes Allard and his people were beamed into orbit.
Lieutenant Commander Beckham was walking through the corridors of the small, Valor-class British warship when there was an explosion that knocked her into the sidewall then bounced her across to the other. Her head got bashed and bloodied on the left side, leaving her on her knees and trying to focus as smaller secondary explosions rippled through the ship. At first she thought they were under attack, but as far as she knew they were still in hyperspace and there were no battle alarms…but as her head began to stop swimming she realized what had happened. It was those damn IOA upgrades!
The Acheron was built by the British, and proudly so, instead of utilizing IOA warship construction which they could have purchased in one form or another for an outrageous sum of money. But the technology the British had was largely dependent on the information flowing from the IOA, and the bean counters had insisted on buying select superior components from them to incorporate into the British hull. Problem was, not all of those systems played nice with one another and the Acheron had been experiencing problems ever since her launch three years ago.
A lump of updated machinery had been installed in the past two weeks and the Chief Petty Officer had told her that they were incompatible with existing systems. She'd told him what the Captain told her…to make it work, but he hadn't seemed confident that that was possible, stating that the software incompatibility glitches could threaten critical systems.
She wasn't sure what had just exploded, but the lack of follow-up damage or hull decompression suggested this wasn't an attack.
Another sailor reached down and offered her a steadying hand as she got to her feet, knowing she needed to head to the bridge. She got through two hallways and three turns until she came upon a gaggle of people blocking her path.
"Make way!" she demanded, then saw with horror that there were three mangled bodies on the floor next to a section of wall that was flayed into sharp daggers of shrapnel sticking out 6-12 inches around the holes that had been blown through it…and the bodies on the floor were not in uniform.
"The Secretary?" she asked, knowing it was true despite the gruesome wounds that had ripped off a good portion of the man's face.
"Commander…look…" a sailor said in a horrified and outright scared voice as he pointed a shaking finger at the open wound on the man's head.
"What are you pointing at specifically?" she asked in as much tenderness as her mood and bloody head could manage as another sailor walked up to her and began bandaging the dark red spot on her head that was soaking through her hair.
"Look," the sailor insisted. "Inside."
She didn't want to stare at the gore that was the man's body, nor look at the other bodies longer than necessary, but the other sailors standing around had identical horrified expressions on their faces. The Lieutenant Commander knelt closer, making sure not to touch any of the mangled bodies, and looked into the crater in the dead man's head.
There was a small twitching motion, which drew her attention to a slightly exposed bit of tissue that wasn't brain…and it was round and grey where the rim of the bloody stump had wiggled loose a centimeter.
Beckham sucked in an involuntary breath, unable to speak. She couldn't be seeing this. It had to be her imagination…or the mangled nature of the body…or maybe she had a concussion.
"Is that what it looks like?" one of the sailors said, staring directly at her.
"I…I…don't know."
"What do you mean what does it look like?" someone else asked, with a lot of looks from people thinking the same thing. They knew it was something unusual, but they didn't understand the gravity of the situation.
A few others did, she could tell, for they were staring at her with grim, betrayed faces and waiting for her reaction while everyone else was staring at the corpses or rushing down the cramped corridors attending to their duty in the wake of the explosion.
When the sailor got the temporary bandage wrapped around her head to stem the bleeding she waved off any further assistance and knelt down very close to the body, cringing at the gore and still seeping blood, from both the man's head and the twitching tube sticking out of it ever so slightly. If it hadn't been moving like that no one would probably have noticed, and even when the bodies were recovered they might have just zipped them up in body bags and carried them off, not worried about cause of death examinations.
Beckham stared at the cleaved head and the involuntary death twitch of the parasite that had been living inside him as it slowly wiggled its way further out a hair at a time.
"Everyone stand back," she said, almost in a whisper too soft to hear over the other noise as she was rapidly thinking through the ramifications of this. The Secretary of Offworld affairs, one of the most senior cabinet positions within the government…
"I need a camera, a guard detail, and a doctor here ten seconds ago!"
The sailors stiffened, then half of them broke up and ran off, ostensibly to carry out her orders.
"Keep your distance," she said, taking a step back yourself. "I think it's dead."
"Think what is dead?" a sailor asked. "What is that thing?"
"An alien," she said firmly.
"The Secretary was an alien?"
"You don't know what a Goa'uld is, do you?"
"I do," one of the sailors said.
His comrade looked at him with a confused expression. "You never said anything about aliens here!"
"It was classified at the time," he barked, not caring about who told who what as he looked at the Lieutenant Commander. "There may be more of them in his staff…or anywhere else on this bloody ship! Even in you."
She nodded. "We have to scan the crew immediately."
"Scan for what!" someone else yelled, drawing a severe look from the Lieutenant Commander.
"We've been compromised by aliens," she said firmly, still not letting herself succumb to panic at how widespread this could possibly be. "When the Captain is done dealing with the explosion I'll inform him, but for right now this body does not get moved and no one touches it. Am I clear?"
"Crystal, Commander," the veteran said, looking to the others nearby to reinforce that order.
"Get a firearm and shoot that thing if it slides out of his head," she said as another sailor came running up to her and handed over a small cell phone. She took it and switched it to camera mode, then began taking pictures of the scene and of the Goa'uld parasite within the Secretary's head.
"We've finished with the crew," the fleet doctor informed both the Captain and the Lieutenant Commander as they were standing outside the infirmary that had been closed off with a ring of security guards. "I am positive that no other aliens are present within their bodies."
Captain Blair nodded. "Good. But what about somewhere else on the ship?"
"I can't speak to that. The files you unlocked didn't specify much on these goodles."
"Goa'uld," he said slowly so the doctor could understand, but he still didn't fully get the pronunciation.
"I doubt there is just one of them," Beckham said quietly.
"There is nothing else living on this ship for them to inhabit," the Doctor said, missing her point.
The Captain didn't. "We have to tread very carefully here, Commander, but I agree. Our government has been compromised, and we don't know how deep."
"We've been carrying out their orders," she said with disgust. "And there may be more of them at our destination."
"I know nothing of where we are going aside from the coordinates. The Secretary said it was a new colony established off the gate network for security reasons."
"I respectfully suggest that we turn around and head directly back to Earth," she said, letting the implications of that resonate for a moment.
"Earth is a long way from here. We can't wait that long."
"The Secretary was in charge of all offworld assets. We can't trust anyone else out here, not for certain."
"And what if other senior officials also have Goa'uld in them back on Earth?" he challenged her. "We'll be coming back to them with the proof."
The two senior officers' eyes met and the unspoken danger was registered, with the onlooking Doctor oblivious to that bit of the conversation.
"The Americans," she finally said. "They've dealt with this before. Our own security measures are obviously inadequate."
"There's no guarantee they haven't been infiltrated too, but they do have access to better technology and they're a lot closer than Earth. General Carter is headquartered in their Stargate Command at Springfield. She was once infested with a Goa'uld herself. If anyone knows what to do, it'll be her. Once the Americans know, our government can't cover it up no matter how deep the infiltration goes."
"I concur."
"Doctor, no one examines the body until you hear otherwise from me. It is to be kept under guard at all times. No one, including yourself, is to have access to it. Understood?"
"I understand the order, but not the reasoning behind it. Do you think there could still be other aliens onboard?"
"I doubt it, but right now it's our only proof and it cannot be allowed to disappear. The Goa'uld could have Human agents working with them."
That thought hadn't occurred to the Doctor, and the implications of that obviously worried him. "The explosion?"
The Captain shook his head. "No. That was an equipment failure. The Secretary dying in the explosion was a fluke, but grim as it is, it was a lucky break for us or we may never have discovered this infiltration. No one touches the body, and no one is left alone with it. Keep three sets of eyes on it at all times. No exceptions."
"Understood," the Doctor said, this time in full agreement.