Chapter 6
Man to Man
***Milky Way Galaxy (Local Spur Arm)***
**Dead Space (Colonial Fleet)**
*USS Odyssey (Debriefing Room)*
"I don't know, how about you?" Daniel asked.
"What about the blonde guy from the Bridge?" Cameron asked.
"Marcus?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah, him," Cam replied.
"Good idea, he's already familiar with their language so that's a plus," Daniel agreed.
"Well, since I don't really need her for the repairs and I really, really want to see their FTL drives, I want to send Doctor Naco. She's the brightest mind on the ship that I can do without," Sam added.
"She's also a drop-dead gorgeous woman with a smile that'll make your… heart stop," Cameron said with an awkward look that implied he had almost said something else entirely. "Are you sure you want to send her over there?"
"She can handle herself, trust me," Sam replied with a small smile at a memory that none of the others were privy to. The Odyssey shook under them as they dropped out of hyperspace and Sam looked down at her tablet to check the dampeners, the ship's internal wireless network allowing her instant access to the diagnostic systems even while on the move. "And we're stuck for another half hour."
"At least the Colonials take about the same amount of time to calculate their jumps," Daniel said with a shrug. "Makes it to where they're not really waiting on us all the time."
"Hey, here's an idea," Vala began.
"Here we go again," Cam said with a roll of his eyes.
"Why don't I go over there and have a look around?" Vala asked.
"And why on God's good Earth would we let you do that?" Cam countered.
"What? I can be civil!" Vala argued.
"Civil?" Daniel asked indignantly. "Aren't you the one who made her first big move with Earth and the SGC the theft of the Prometheus, and her second big move strapping a killer alien device to my wrist?"
"Well," Vala said defensively, "that ship was rather pathetic and it's not like I really hurt anyone."
"You tortured me!" Daniel exclaimed.
"And then healed you immediately after," Vala argued.
"You tortured me!" Daniel said again.
"Candidates?" Colonel Davidson asked as he walked into the room.
"A few names come to mind," Daniel replied. "Marcus Howard and Gabi Naco being the first two."
"Neither of them are known to me," Davidson said.
"Doctor Naco's been with the Stargate Program for the past nine years," Sam began.
"Rumor has it that she dropped off the grid two years ago," Davidson more stated than asked.
"The details are classified," Sam said awkwardly before adding a heavily stressed, "HEAVILY," when Davidson seemed unimpressed by the word.
"Sam, we work for the most classified agency on Earth. Nothing is classified to us," Cam argued.
"Actually, there are a lot of things classified to us," Daniel countered. "We still don't have access to KGB records, the ASIS database, or several other intelligence agencies around the world."
"So which one does she work for? The CIA?" Vala asked. Daniel gave her a look at that before Vala added, "What? I know what your Civilian Intelligence Agency is."
"It's the Central Intelligence Agency," Daniel corrected her.
Sam let out a world-weary sigh before answering the original question. "She was reassigned from Stargate R&D to an advanced, deep cover team that was sent past the redline so far into Goa'uld territory that it was guaranteed that they'd be found, the only question was how long that would take. Their mission was to gather everything they could in that time and get out with their lives and findings intact. Her work in the field is the only reason we're as close to getting our plasma cannon designs operational as we are. Beyond that, her actions are classified beyond even my clearance. You'd have to talk to General Landry to get the specifics."
"And we picked her up with the rest of that group from that Lucian Alliance world?" Davidson asked.
"Yes, she was assigned to that team in an effort to find out what the Alliance is up to."
"And she fixed the sensors?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then why are we getting rid of her with the Odyssey in the state she's in?"
"Weapons, sensors, shields, alloys… her areas of expertise are in areas that are fully operational. She's done all she can here and it would be… wise to send a tech expert over to Galactica. She might find something that could help either one crew or the other."
Davidson nodded his agreement then turned to Daniel. "And Professor Howard?"
"I don't know him on a personal level, but I know his work. He's actually the one who cracked the Colonial language in terms of getting the translation software up and running. He's as good as I am, if not better," Daniel replied.
"And his etiquette?"
A look of uncertainty crossed Daniel's face before he answered that question. "He's also one of the people we picked up on the Lucian Alliance world. I don't know what that means or what role he played for the team given that the Alliance speaks English, but I do know that General Landry wouldn't have sent him if he couldn't handle himself in a fight. As to his mannerism… I don't know the man well enough to say. You could ask his CO," Daniel finished with a shrug.
Davidson let a noise of disapproval escape his throat before speaking. "You mean the Colonel from the Italian Special Forces whose actions I have no record of after his recruitment? He's a highly decorated officer with no justification for his decoration other than his taste in friends. Quite frankly I'm more likely to throw him out of an airlock than I am to trust him. The Doctor and the Professor have you to vouch for them, but I have no one here willing to vouch for him and our long range communications are still down so the Prime Minister can't give us some bullshit reason as to why he's so great."
"I… know him by reputation," Sam began somewhat awkwardly. "He was brought into the SGC four years ago, right before General O'Neill stepped down. Jack's actually the one who brought him in, and no, I don't know his reasons. What I do know is that they were both training him in Gate travel and testing his skills. He was assigned to SG-5 for six months then sent to Pegasus and attached to SGA-2 for the same amount of time. Over the course of his year-long evaluation, the Colonel proved himself to General Landry in some way that only they know, and was assigned to a subdivision of the SGC based out of the Zeta Site. In fact, he runs the entire subdivision with Landry being his only direct superior."
"The Zeta Site?" Davidson asked.
"Landry's appointment to head of the SGC was not… accidental. The more classified parts of Landry's service record aren't known to many people, but… Jack told me a few things because he wanted someone in the SGC he could trust keeping an eye on things. What do you know about Landry?" Sam asked.
"He was born on October sixth, nineteen-forty-five in Sacramento, California. He was a Captain during the Vietnam War. He flew a UH-1 Iroquois helicopter for the Eighty-second Airborne Division and also an F-4. He transported troops and supplies during combat operations and played a part in daring rescue missions. He was shot down near the border of Laos, well north of the DMZ, spending over 8 days in the jungle hunted by the North Vietnamese army. Following the Vietnam War, Landry was promoted to Major and later took part in tough operations in Grenada, Kosovo, and the Gulf War," Cam rattled off as if reading directly from a report.
"That's the official story," Sam said with a nod, "but not the truth. I know it's hard to believe, but Landry wasn't a member of the Air Force until his appointment as head of the SGC. Before then, he was a SEAL."
"You're shitting me?" Cam countered disbelievingly.
"Look, I'm not supposed to say this at all, but it ties together. Landry is black ops through and through. When he wasn't in the field, he was pulling the strings from the shadows. He's done stuff that makes SG-1 look like a sideshow by comparison. Landry is a good man, don't get me wrong, but we've all been lied to from the word 'go' because of why they brought Landry in. Have you ever heard of the Zeta Initiative?"
"I assume it deals with the Zeta Site?" Davidson asked.
"Yes, it's their base of operations," Sam answered.
"I thought the Zeta Site was just a rumor," Daniel said.
"That's what you're supposed to think, but… I've been there," Sam replied somewhat awkwardly. "Really late one night, I was blindfolded and shoved through the Gate so I couldn't see the address. On the other end, I met Colonel Viride. I helped Gabi set up the computers they were using then was tasked with planting a virus in the DHD on the Zeta Site to keep their Gate from ever being used to dial Earth, and made incoming wormholes impossible to connect without a special code sent through that prevented the Gate from connecting. If they were ever discovered, they would have to go anywhere but Earth. That way, whoever was chasing them would never know they were from Earth. I have no idea where the Zeta Site is, but my best guess puts it in Goa'uld territory on the inner edge of the Redline. It's just a guess, but it's a solid one considering what I did see.
"The mandate, as I understood it, was threefold. First, find any and all advanced alien technology and acquire it at any cost. There was a lab world that Ba'al had set up a few years ago that we were practically dying to raid, but Hammond wouldn't let us because Ba'al would most likely invade Earth if we did. A few months after I finished locking that Gate out of the network, the lab was hit by some third party alien race. A few days after that? The very technology we were almost desperate to get ahold of starts circulating through the SGC's labs. When I asked Landry about it, all he had to say was that we traded beaming tech for access to the data crystal the unheard of aliens stole. That pattern then started to repeat itself.
"We'd find one of Nirrti's old labs, one of Ba'al's active labs, or one of Anubis' labs and the tech would show up a few days later with the only explanation being that we traded something with some alien race for the information. Once or twice? Sure, why not. But somewhere around twenty?" Sam shook her head. "We were being lied to, I knew it, and Landry knew that I knew it. After that, all of our mysterious acquisitions started coming from a single source. An alien calling itself the Mimner. It wasn't small trades either. We gave them our shield designs for a half-cooked coaxial kinetic energy weapon design that required the use of some weird element to operate properly. We still haven't been able to crack those plans, and they got our Asgard shields from the trade!
"The second mandate is to frame other species for acts of aggression against galactic powers. Ba'al and the Lucian Alliance were never on friendly terms, but they weren't in a state of total war until one of Ba'al's Ha'tak was stolen from his dry-docks then rammed into an Alliance world. Shortly thereafter, an Alliance Al'kesh, once again stolen, was used to bomb Erebus. The war between the Lucian Alliance and Ba'al is a setup being fueled by acts of aggression from unknown sources that are then blamed on one party or another. Someone is hell-bent on keeping Ba'al and the Alliance fighting each other, and, in doing so, have kept both parties from attacking Earth directly. Tell me that doesn't strictly benefit us and isn't even the least bit suspicious considering Landry has a secret army hidden in Ba'al's territory!
"The third mandate, if I understood correctly, was to infiltrate our allies and make sure they're not looking to stab us in the back. Landry has agents in the Free Jaffa Nation reporting to him on a regular basis, and they're all, as far as I can tell, plants not traitors. They've also managed to infiltrate the Tok'ra and a few other of our more minor allies."
"Sam," Cameron said gently, "you sound like a conspiracy theorist."
"My point in all this is that Landry is a former Navy SEAL turned into a black ops General with a secret facility set up in Goa'uld territory, Colonel Viride's records are so heavily classified I can't even hack into the damned things, the Zeta Site is so closely guarded a secret that most people think it's a rumor, and did anyone else noticed the gear that the Colonel's team was wearing? Full-body armor isn't something that the SGC has access to."
"Well," Daniel said skeptically. "Landry trusts him."
"Landry does tend to have good judgment," Cam agreed.
"Yeah," Vala added enthusiastically. "He gave me a shot." When Daniel and Cameron both gave her a look, she said, "What? I've been helpful haven't I?"
"You can't argue with that," Daniel agreed with a shrug. "She did single-handedly stop the first Ori invasion of the Milky Way."
"Are you seriously ignoring me?" Sam asked indignantly. "I'm not crazy, I just happen to know more than you do."
"And who told you all this?" Davidson asked, his tone one that indicated he would believe her… if she could prove it.
"Jack," Sam replied. "Before Landry's first official day on the job, Jack told me his history, ask me to keep an eye on him, then I get taken to an unknown planet in the middle of the night and told to program a Gate to be unreachable? I pieced the rest together based off of those two events."
"You're remarkably close to having it right," a voice said from the entrance to the Debriefing Room. "You've missed a couple of key points, but don't feel too bad about that. You figured out more than most people ever have."
"And you are?" Cameron asked.
"Major Tomus Higgins, Zeta-1," the large man replied from his place leaning against the frame of the door. "Truth be told, Colonel, all you have to do is ask," the man said before pushing off of the door and walking away. When Davidson called after him, there was only a lazy, "Oliver's in the med lab," before no other sounds came.
A glance down the hall the man had just been in, the long hallway that had no turns or doors in it, showed only empty metal. "Did that really just happen, or did I imagine the whole thing?" Daniel asked from his place looking down the hall.
"Why is he in the med bay?" Sam asked no one in particular.
"Well, they did bring an Alliance soldier with them when we beamed them up," Cam suggested.
"How did Paul ever deal with this madness?" Davidson asked with a shake of his head.
"You're still relatively new to the program," Cameron replied respectfully. "You'd be surprised at how… normal that whole conversation was compared to the time Daniel was a Prior."
"I was there for that," Davidson countered.
"Yeah, but you didn't know us then so the strangeness was lost on you, trust me," Cam insisted. "Don't worry. You'll get used to it.
"I'll look forward to that day," Davidson said sarcastically. "Anyone else you want to send over to Galactica?"
"I want to go," Daniel said. "I've already opened a dialog with Commander Adama. Even if it's just for the introductions, I want to be there."
"Agreed. That gives us a cultural expert and a scientist. We should send a real negotiator and a few guards as well," Davidson added.
"I'm sure that Maria's up to the task," Daniel agreed with a nod of approval. "That is why she's here, after all."
It had, after it became more and more common for Tau'ri vessels to be deployed into unknown regions, become standard operating procedure for the ship to carry around a small team of delegates in case a First Contact situation ever arose. The Odyssey's primary delegate was a very motherly woman by the name of Maria Suefentes.
*Battlestar Galactica (Commander's Office)*
"Commander," Laura Roslin said as she walked into the man's office.
"Madam President," Bill replied as he stood to shake her hand.
"I just wanted to thank you for your hard work keeping us all alive. I know that the past week has been hard on us all, but more so for you and your crew. I hear the Galactica was hit during the fighting?"
"We took a nuke and a few conventional missiles. The nuke tore off a section of our plating and left a gap in the armor. We're working on repairing the rift or at least reinforcing it, but we're running low on raw materials. We have a mining ship in the fleet. All we need now is to find a planet to mine," Bill replied solemnly.
"You will, Commander, I have faith in you," Laura assured him with a soft smile.
"Thank you, Madam President," Bill said. "I assume you want to be filled-in on our current situation?"
"Yes, but I'm concerned about the fleet more than I am the newcomers. They've proven themselves worthy of some small measure of trust. If nothing else, let us put this new matter aside until we finish discussing the current one. I understand that Galactica is our guardian angel and that her crew is stressed to the point of breaking. Grim news is never good under the best of circumstances, and ours is far from that. With the damage suffered by the two cargo ships that were attacked by Raiders, we lost over three months' worth of food and one of the passenger liners was also hit."
"What's the death toll?" Bill asked grimly.
"Just under fifty," Laura replied with a frown. "We're going to hold a memorial for the dead as soon as all of the names are gathered. It's the least we can do."
"Good, they deserve to be remembered."
"I understand that some of your pilots are blaming theirselves for what happened, for not being fast enough. Don't let them beat theirselves up. We were outnumbered and I'm honestly surprised we didn't suffer more losses."
"We would've if the Odyssey hadn't been around to help."
"Which brings us to the next topic. What do you know?"
"If they are Cylons, they're either willing to kill a very large number of their brethren to prove otherwise, or those ships were empty and on autopilot. If they aren't Cylons, then… I don't know who they are."
"This is farfetched, even by my standards, but… what if they're from the Thirteenth Tribe? This could be more than just a chance meeting, Commander. This could be the will of the Gods."
"I never was a religious man," Bill replied as he stood from his desk and walked over to his liquor cabinet. "I didn't like how it blinded people to logic and reasoning." Pulling out two glasses and a bottle of scotch, he returned to sit opposite Laura. "I don't see you as the type to be blinded by faith." The Commander stopped to pour them both a drink before finishing his statement. "I want to see this your way, really I do, but I can't take that risk. They stay on our watch list until we're sure they're not Cylons."
"I can respect that," Laura said as she eyed her glass.
"You don't like scotch?" Bill asked.
"I don't hold liquor very well regardless of which one it is," Laura replied.
"I can respect that," Bill echoed her as he downed his glass.
*USS Odyssey (Infirmary)*
Colonel Davidson walked into the med bay and immediately noticed the two heavily armed soldiers standing guard of the bed that was occupied by a very angry man that was chained down, yet still struggling against his bonds. The man whom the Colonel had come to see, the other full-bird Colonel on his ship, stood over the man with a needle in his hand. He injected the yellow liquid into the man's arm then waited. A few seconds later the man grew still, but was still obviously conscious.
"What did you do to me!" the man shouted in outrage.
"Venom from a Viper-Bat," the Colonel explained as he first cleaned then stored the needle away in a case with vials of different colored fluids in it. "It paralyzes ninety percent of the muscles in the Human body, but we altered it so that it doesn't affect the heart, diaphragm, or anything involved in vocalization."
"I'm not telling you anything," the man snarled at the Colonel.
"So you say," the Colonel replied coldly. He finished packing his case away and handed it to one of his men before addressing his captive. "The planet we captured you on, what was its purpose?"
"Go fuck yourself," the man spat.
"Okay then," the Colonel said as he motioned for another person to join him by the bed. "I need him responsive and truthful," he said to the woman with a head of scarlet hair standing next to him. The woman swung her legs up onto the bed and crawled over the captive's own before kneeling over him with her legs on either side of his body. "The following is a new form of attempting to gain someone's compliance," the Colonel said as the woman hung her head over the man's face and whispered something into his ear. "On Earth, we call it hypnotism."
The woman sat up, back straight, and snapped her fingers twice, once over each of the man's eyes. She was close enough that she touched his eyelashes, but not the eye itself. She then placed one hand flat against his chest and the other over his forehead. She spoke more words that Davidson couldn't make out then moved her hands, and began pressing her fingers into parts of the man's body in quick, jabbing motions that were hard to follow.
She clasped his shoulder and pressed her thumb into the nerve cluster just below the collar bone. She pressed three fingers into the nerves on the side of his ribcage, jabbed an oddly shaped fist into his armpit, poked at his solar plexus, and several other places. In a matter of seconds she was done and the man had a glazed look in his eyes.
"Now, I'm going to confirm a few things I know to be facts," the Colonel said and the woman removed a small bell from her pocket and chimed it once, the noise resonating and lingering in the room far longer than it should've. "Raise your right hand if you recognize any of the following statements to be true. If they are false, raise your left hand. The planet we obtained you on was a lab world."
The man raised his right hand a few inches off of the mattress before his bonds stopped him and he let it fall again. "Good," the Colonel said as he pulled out a tablet and began reading off questions and noting the answers to them.
"You have black hair," he asked and the man raised his left hand. "You have green eyes."
Right hand.
"You have brown hair."
Right hand.
"You are a member of the Lucian Alliance."
Right hand.
"You were a soldier."
Left hand.
"You were a researcher."
Right hand.
"Answer the following questions as truthfully as you can," the Colonel ordered and the woman chimed the bell twice more. "What was your job?"
"I was assigned to a team researching a deep-space satellite found drifting in the void between systems."
"What satellite?"
"The one they brought us and told us to study."
Davidson almost laughed at the man's reply, but thought better of it when he caught the Colonel's response. Judging by the man's facial expression, he was already kicking himself for asking such a stupid question in the first place.
"How was the satellite found if it was drifting through the void?"
"The satellite was found by accident when a damaged cargo ship dropped out of hyperspace to conduct repairs. They detected a small power signal and investigated."
"What did the satellite look like?"
"A large building."
"How large?"
"Taller than the tallest building on Samsara. It took two Ha'tak to open a hyperspace window large enough to carry it back to the planet."
"Something that large would've been obvious. Why didn't we see it?"
"The satellite was found several lunar cycles ago. We dismantled it. The armor was studied. The sensors were studied. The communications equipment was studied. It was picked apart."
"What did you learn?"
"The satellite was badly damaged by the formation of a supernova that came into creation hundreds of thousands of years ago. It was beyond old. We couldn't determine the creating race. The systems were unlike anything we'd ever seen. We couldn't break its codes. The systems eluded us. The armor was too advanced to duplicate. Nothing was gained. The project was abandoned. We were selling it for parts when the Ori arrived."
"Did you keep the satellite's data core?"
"Yes."
"Where is it?"
"The main lab."
"What does it look like?"
"A crystalline orb of pulsating light," the man replied obediently, his tones unnaturally dry due to his induced state of mind. Despite the hypnotism, however, he still managed to add, "It was beautiful," in an awestricken tone full of wonder.
The Colonel looked up to one of the men standing guard of the bed and said, "Go ask Jack what she did with that orb she found. If she kept it, bring it here."
"Yes, sir," the man replied before marching off. As he moved past him, Davidson recognized him as the man from the Debriefing Room. He offered only a nod as he passed.
"How did you interface with the orb?"
"We used… spikes… other crystals… sharpened… touched the surface… data transfer… Go fuck yourself!" the man exclaimed weekly. The woman kneeling on top of him snapped her fingers once, and, as the man started to fight against his bonds again, his eyes rolled back into his head as he fell into a deep sleep.
"That's actually more than I expected to get from him," the Colonel admitted as he helped the woman down. "You're getting better at this."
"We got lucky," the woman said dismissively. "The fact that he was actually a scientist was pure chance. I honestly thought he was a soldier by the way he kept fighting."
"Let's just hope that Jack decided to keep the 'pretty ball,' shall we?" the Colonel said jokingly as the two of them walked towards Davidson. "Colonel Davidson, how goes the repair effort?"
"Slow, but measurable. Right now we're waiting on word from Galactica. The Commander is trying to find out if they have any resources to spare," Davidson replied.
"Are they likely to?"
"Not in my opinion," Davidson said. "Walk with me."
"Get in touch with Tommy and tell him to have Jack deliver the orb to Gabi if she kept it, and I'll meet you back at the barracks when your shift is over," the Colonel said to his subordinate while handing her his tablet before following Davidson out of the med bay. "Is there a problem, Colonel?"
"We're stranded in the middle of nowhere in a damaged ship that can't sustain hyperspace travel, our long range communications are shot to hell, our magazines are running low, our reserve of nuclear ordinance is nearly depleted, there's a man strapped to a bed being hypnotized into telling his secrets, I have strangers running around my ship, we're tagging along with a group of comparatively primitive space-faring people that are at war with something called 'Cylons,' they're losing that war, we're caught in the middle of it all, and we need them because they have raw materials we don't. Now add to that the rather interesting tale of Landry's classified service record and something called the Zeta Initiative, and I have a lot of question to which I feel I will never find answers," Davidson replied as they walked along. "Then there's what I was actually able to access on you before we lost our connection to Earth, and I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to do with you."
"You shouldn't believe everything you read in a military file written by a politician," Viride countered without breaking stride. "And, considering that my file was sealed, you shouldn't be reading things that are classified above your pay-grade. The only thing that you need to know about me is that I'm loyal to my planet first, and my country second. After all, if Earth is invaded, I'll be fighting for the planet to save my country. Might as well fight for the planet as a whole first. What you read in my personal records was, in its entirety, written by the Italian Prime Minister in an effort to make me more appealing to the Stargate Program. Don't make the mistake of believing a politician, Colonel. As for this so-called 'Zeta Initiative'… well, Carter needs to keep her imagination in check."
"So I should, what? Just ignore the fact that your files clearly says that you're a murder?" Davidson asked harshly.
"Murder?" Viride asked with a raised eyebrow. "That's actually not far off from what I was, Colonel, but the truth, in this case, will not set you free. And besides, I was acquitted of those charges."
"How?" Davidson asked, his tone unrelenting. "Friends in high places?"
"Ugo is the furthest thing from a friend I've ever had," Viride countered with such venom in his tones it forced Davidson to take a step back. "That animal," the Italian spat, "has caused me more pain than you could possibly imagine. If not for him, I would've grown up knowing the love of my family. Instead, I only discover I ever had one when I find my brother dying in a cave! Do not mistake my position as one of his underlings as a graceful appointment between two people of mutual interest. One of us wants to save the Earth from hostile threats, the other wants to rule the planet with an iron grip."
"What is the Zeta Initiative?" Davidson asked sternly.
"Classified above your pay-grade. I strongly advise you to leave it at that," Viride replied in kind.
"What. Is. The. Zeta. Initiative?" Davidson demanded.
Viride smiled in reply to Davidson's question. It was neither a pleasant smile, nor a handsome feature. It was dark, and sent a chill down Davidson's spine. "Privacy, Colonel, is key," Viride said before stepping down one of the other hallways, diverting Davidson away from the Bridge.
They started down the hallway, and Davidson asked, "What is it then?"
"Exactly how Carter put it," Viride replied. When Davidson looked at him questioningly, he added, "Tommy told me what you were talking about. Don't blame him though. He was just passing by on his way to the med bay when he overheard your… discussion of classified military documents. What she said is true. Landry service history in the Air Force is a carefully crafted lie. He traded identities with a man who had done all that claims to have done, and that man now claims to have done all that Landry did. It was all orchestrated by the IOA in their first remotely peaceful cooperative work with the SGC. The Zeta Initiative, as they called it, was born from an idea.
"Like the NID under Colonel Harold Maybourne, we were tasked with the acquisition of alien technologies to defend Earth. Regardless of who it belonged to, or whether or not they wanted us to have it, we stole it. I've run operations against Nirrti's labs, Ba'al, the Lucian Alliance, the Tok'ra, the Wraith, the Genii, the Jaffa… you name 'em, I've stolen from them, but that's not all that we do. There was a particularly… outspoken Tok'ra a few months back that wanted to end the Tok'ra's alliance with Earth. The unfortunate Tok'ra met a regrettable end 'at the hands of Ba'al.' In all actuality, he was assassinated in his own home."
"Landry sent you on an assassination?" Davidson asked, baffled by the mere idea.
"Of course not, Colonel," Viride replied. "The Tau'ri do not condone assassinations. There are other that do, however. Ba'al, for example, has had assassins working for him for thousands of years. The fact that he killed one of the Tok'ra that would've helped him is just… beneficial to Earth's continued good relations with the Tok'ra."
"So that's the Zeta Initiative? A bunch of assassins, thieves, and liars?"
"You could say that," Viride replied with a small chuckle. "It's best put as a version of the Lucian Alliance friendlier to Earth's wellbeing, but you're getting the gist of it and that's the important part. We started out just acquiring little bits and pieces of technology from Ba'al and blaming the theft on the Lucian Alliance. Then the Alliance started getting more aggressive so we planted evidence that made Ba'al so made he went to war with them. We've been fighting a war in the shadow of the SGC for years now. Mostly we just add more fuel to the fire and keep Ba'al and the Lucian Alliance so focused on one another they forget about Earth, but sometimes we go a little further and steal a few valuable pieces of technology from one side or the other. Most of it goes back to Earth, but some of it we need for ourselves to help keep us going. To help sell the illusion that anything we do isn't tied to Earth, I haven't been back home in four years, Colonel. That's my devotion to my position."
"So you keep the Lucian Alliance and Ba'al away from Earth?" Davidson asked. 'That's not as bad as Sam made it sound,' Davidson thought to himself.
"For the most part," Viride replied. "Just imagine if you had to worry about Ba'al and the Alliance more than you already do. The Ori are a threat to be taken seriously, and that warrants the Odyssey constantly being deployed against them, but what if the Alliance was moving on Earth and the Ori were still here? How do you use one ship to stop two enemies when one of those enemies can only be defeated by activating a Supergate? We keep the war effort focused where it needs to be by handling the minor threats and keeping the larger threats preoccupied."
"And that's all you do?"
"No. Carter wasn't lying about our involvement in galactic affairs. We do have agents in the Free Jaffa Nation and other such organizations, though I can't believe she said that in front of Teal'c. If my people end up dead, I'll have to have a word with her about her table-side etiquette involving classified military information. She's also right about us being the ones raiding the lab worlds Earth is interested in, but we're not Landry's private army. We're Earth's secret strike force. There's only forty combat trained personnel under my command. The rest of the two-hundred lives I'm in charge of are all civilians working in the mines, growing food, building ships, or researching what we find out there."
"How do you survive out there with only two-hundred people?" Davidson asked.
"We manage," Viride replied. "Most of our success is attributed to the truly baffling number of hours everyone puts in to keep our operations running smoothly."
"What is it that you have against the Prime Minister?"
*USS Odyssey (Cargo Hold Nine)*
"This is the part where things go bad, isn't it?" Tommy asked.
"Of course it is," Kimi replied dryly. "This is why Landry made rules about us interacting with the other SG teams."
"Rules he broke," Jesse pointed out. "We wouldn't be in this position if he had sent one of our ships instead of just having the Odyssey grab us. It's not like we needed the drama."
"How have you not fixed that yet?" Jack asked. "You've been working on it for a week, and you're normally better than that."
"I normally have access to the materials I need," Jesse replied easily. "I'm working with what they're willing to give me, but right now I'm contemplating melting down one of the pans from the kitchen just to get the iron I need."
"I don't think the chiefs will like that very much," Kimi countered. "And we're in enough of a troublesome situation as it is without you stealing from the crew."
"I'd ask before taking."
"And you'd take it even if they said yes. Just do the best you can and wait to finish the repairs when we get back home."
"Whatever you say, Kimi."
"I thought you outranked her?" Jack asked in a confused tone.
"True as that may be, Jesse's… wiser than most men and knows better than to argue with a woman," Kimi explained.
"You mean to say he's gay and that means he's got enough girl in him to know better than to argue with a woman," Jack amended.
"Damn, girl. Why you gotta put a brother on blast like that?" Jesse asked in a tone of fake hurt.
"What's that supposed to mean? I didn't blow anything up?" Jack countered, her face the personification of confusion.
"No, that's not what it means," Jesse replied.
"I thought we agreed to stop saying things the aliens wouldn't understand?" Kimi asked.
"Slipped my mind, sorry," Jesse said with a shake of his head.
*USS Odyssey (Halls)*
Viride stopped walking and stood in silence long enough to pull off his shirt before continuing, and, when he spoke, he purposely pointed to one of the various scars across his body that corresponded to what he was saying. "I have been cut, stabbed, burnt, electrocuted, shot, injected with deadly venom, dipped in acid, poisoned, gotten infections, and brought to the edge of death just to be brought back more times by that one man in the one month he held me prisoner than I have in the sixteen years I've been a soldier!"
"Damn," Davidson said with shake of his head. "Sounds like the type of man you'd hold a grudge against."
"I do," Viride replied darkly, "but he's still untouchable. He made sure of that."
One of the members of the crew, an average height woman with light brown hair and hazel eyes rounded the corner and stopped when she saw the two. "Excuse me," she said breathlessly as she passed between them. As she rounded the next corner she glanced back at the half-naked soldier and Davidson caught a glimpse of a smile on her face.
The Italian Colonnello pulled the fabric back over his head and it was then that Davidson realized that this man was truly a wolf in sheep's clothing. He had a very powerful build hidden behind loose-hanging fabric that didn't reveal the clean-cut muscle beneath. It was the type of deception that many hit-men used to keep their targets unaware of their true strength until it was too late.
"So you really were an assassin?" Davidson asked as they started walking again.
"Still am in a lot of ways," Viride replied. "As much as my new job definitely has more moral high ground than my last one, the fact remains that I'm still killing people for money, stealing their technology for my own benefit, and running around in the shadows doing things that most people would frown upon."
"But for the right reasons," Davidson countered.
"Like I said, more moral high ground, but I still feel… dirty."
"So… if Ugo had you kidnapped as a child, that means you're not even Italian, right?" Davidson asked.
"Don't mistake my words, Colonel. I'm Italian because that's where my loyalties lie, and they lie there because it's my home."
"Because you were forced to think that way."
"Doesn't matter," Viride said with a shake of his head as he kept walking.
"But you're not Italian," Davidson said as he followed the other Colonel.
"And your priorities are fucked up," Viride countered in a somewhat playful tone.
"What's in your file that makes you so unbelievably qualified that it stopped the IOA from fighting over who would lead the Zeta Initiative?" Davidson pressed.
Viride stopped and spun towards Davidson, a stern look in his eyes, "That's classified above your pay-grade, Colonel, so do yourself a favor and stop asking."
"This is my ship, Colonel," Davidson threatened as Viride began walking away again. "I'll have you thrown in the brig if I'm not convinced having you walk around my ship is safe for my crew."
Viride stopped again and turned to Davidson, the two Colonel's sizing each other up. "I've been through worse," the younger Colonel said with a shrug and a small chuckle.
Davidson just stared at the man, dumb-stricken by the simple statement. He was right, there was nothing that Davidson could do to this man without breaking his code of ethics that hadn't already been done. Imprisonment wasn't even a concern for a man like this. He was roughly ten years younger than Ian, and, as far as Davidson knew, newer to the program than he was as well. To say that the truth of that statement took him by surprise was comparable to saying that the Odyssey could beat the Galactica. It was an understatement of epic proportions. One nuke from the smaller ship would obliterate the far larger vessel. It would be a slaughter, not a victory.
"Clearly we got off on the wrong foot," Davidson said sincerely. "So you have a dark past. It left its marks on you the same as everyone's past does. If there's one thing I know it's that no one makes it this far in any armed forces without a good code of ethics. I apologize for believing rumor and conjecture to be undeniable fact."
"I apologize for being so confrontational," Viride said with a small laugh. "My wife always said I was hotheaded."
"I didn't know you were married."
"That's because we don't know anything about one another other than what scuttlebutt and our records say and we both know that scuttlebutt is unreliable and records are never one-hundred percent accurate. In my more recent past, they introduced me to the Stargate Program at a rather interesting time in my life. My wife had just passed away from an incurable genetic disease that my son had been confirmed to have. When they came to me, I refused to join. I wanted to spend the last year or months my son had left with him, not exploring the galaxy."
"How did you end up here then?" Davidson asked as they started walking again.
It was strange the way the minds of men worked. They could be at each other's throats one moment and friendly the next. Women were the ones who tended to hold grudges. Neither of these men had time for something that petty right now, so they came to blow, even if it was just verbal, blew off some steam and went back to work. That was the way it worked.
"They told me that they could save him," Viride said disbelievingly, "and that helping them wasn't necessary, but I'm not a fool. The American government… Sorry. Poor choice of words. No government, back on Earth or out in the stars, ever does anything that strictly benefits someone else that isn't in their inner circle. We finally know about aliens, but only so many of us do. We know there's something out there that could kill us all, yet we're more divided than ever because nobody's willing to tell the public. I joined the program because I had one other choice and I'd rather my son grew up never knowing his father if it means he has a chance to grow up at all. My brother's widow is keeping him safe, clothed, fed… she'll raise him in my absence. I trust her with that much."
The younger Colonel drifted off to another world, the homeworld of humanity, and let his thoughts be there for a second before returning to the ship they were stuck on. "When I started out, they deployed me with SG-5 to get a feel for Gate travel then I took a trip to Atlantis to get used to hyperspace. While I was there, I fought the Wraith. When I got back, I was assigned, not my own team, but my own command. They set us up behind what they called the 'Red Line,' an imaginary line on the galactic map that separates Ba'al from the rest of the galaxy. Not even a full year after seeing my son take his first steps as a healthy young boy free from his curse, I was leading a mission to capture what they told me was called a Ha'tak. To me it was just a flying pyramid. To them it was a target of interest.
"We boarded the ship with an Al'kesh, killed the crew, and stole the ship. We were ambushed before we could leave and the ship was damaged beyond the strike team's ability to repair it. Nevertheless, we had a mission to finish. We flew a ship that was falling apart at the seams on a three day hyperspace journey to a Lucian Alliance world, set the reactor to overload, and crashed it into their shipyards.
"We left in the same ship we came in on, reported back to Landry, and were sent to do it again only, this time, against a man called Ba'al who fancies himself a god. At least you know the Odyssey's systems well enough that they can be fixed. I didn't have that luxury, nor did I have anyone nearby that was even remotely friendly. Back then, we were soldiers following orders. It took us months to start getting alone well enough to be acquaintances and about a year to trust each other enough to be friends. Putting that many different nationalities together… it was three parts daunting and two parts inspiring."
"Your ship could make an extended hyperspace jump," Davidson argued sarcastically.
"Only after we shut down the diagnostic systems and overrode the safeties. By the time we reached our destination, we were only flying half of a pyramid. The Odyssey is still fully intact, her hull is sound, and the shields still work. Look at them," the Colonel said as he stepped into one of the side rooms and pointed out of the window that dominated the far wall. "The Galactica is the only warship they have left protecting tens of thousands of civilian lives and that's all that's left of their people. She's missing chunks of her skin, her bones are showing, her teeth have dulled, and yet her meat's only gotten tougher to chew. Has Commander Adama given up yet? Has he decided that death is preferable to survival?
"Living isn't for the weak, Colonel. Life is a struggle to survive from the moment you're conceived until the moment you finally meet your inevitable end. What defines us isn't who comes out on top. Even he who loses the war can still be victorious. When the Cylons attacked the Colonials they nuked them from orbit without giving them a chance to fight back then started sweeping away the civilians like they were trash on the ground. Is that victory? Have the Colonials lost? No. Instead they have, against all odds, survived. You're better off than they are, Colonel, and you sound like you've already given up. I expect more from someone in your position."
The Colonel, who was most likely still in his early thirties, turned to leave and Davidson was tempted to let him go, but he still needed to address the issue at hand. "I don't remember dismissing you," Davidson said as the other man reached the door, though the hostility in their tones was long departed. "It's your men so it's your call, but I want to send Professor Howard and Doctor Naco over to Galactica with a delegate team to open real negotiations with the Colonial President. They come highly recommended, and that's the type of people I need right now."
"I assume that Colonel Carter's already cleared Gabriella to shuck her duties on the repair team?"
"She has."
"Then you may do so under one condition."
"I suspected as much. Name your price."
"My Executive Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Sampson, and Major Amani will accompany them. While I'm sure that your men are well trained, mine have proven themselves to me in the fires of combat."
"Granted. Inform your people," Davidson said, his eyes never leaving the view of the Galactica which was, even now, undergoing repairs to her hull. He heard the door open and close behind him, yet he stood there, staring into space. It felt like a small eternity, but was likely only five minutes. Between the silence of the room and the solidity of being alone, he found answers to questions he hadn't even realized were being asked. "Yes," Davidson said to himself, "I can."
With the inner pool of his mind once again calmed, Davidson turned to the door and exited the room on his way back to the Bridge.
On the matter of posting:
To answer a question that's been asked, yes this story is already pre-written, but no it's not complete. There's forty-two chapters in total (including the Prelude and Epilogue) and I'm on chapter thirty-seven while you're on chapter six. You can see why that leaves me enough room to start posting stuff while I finish the last few chapters.
On the matter of character names:
All this "Green Arrow" stuff… I finally looked up what you were talking about. I assure you that my character has never spent time stranded on an island hunted by a mad-man hyped up on a super-soldier serum. For the record, his name is Colonnello Oliveto Viride. People call him 'Oliver' because that's what people do. They take a name they're not used to and they alter it. That's why they call Kimimaro, 'Kimi.' No, Kimi is not from "Naruto." She does NOT have magical bones that she can use as weapons. She's Greek, not Japanese. In Japan, Kimimaro may be a male name, but in Greece it's a female name.
On the matter of OCs:
For all of you who keep saying they're confusing, I know they are. This, technically, is an incomplete series. You know how the "Chronicles of Narnia" wrote the book that explains how it all happened last? Well I'm doing something similar. There are two books that "predate" this series. One of them tells you the full story of the omitted on grounds of being a spoiler. The other one tells you the full story of who my OCs are and what the Zeta Initiative is. I KNOW it's annoying, but those two books are hard to write. Believe me, I've been trying for a year to get one of those two to flow right. You know that whole time I wasn't posting stuff? That was me trying, and failing, to get those two books written. It didn't work out very well…
Also on the subject of "Green Arrow," TOMMY IS NOT HYPED UP ON MIRCURU (I have no clue how to spell that). A lot of people have "complained" about Nirrti being "overused." I've mentioned her twice… *Spoiler Alert* Jack is"Subject Zero" from "Mass Effect." Yes, the technology the Zeta Initiative sounds familiar to some of you, that's because it is. The way this book ends, without revealing too much to those of you who are reading this for the first time, leaves Earth facing an unstoppable enemy with a shattered fleet. Needless to say, they take a leaf from the Ancient's book and they run… Furling style. *End Spoiler Alert* Nirrti is used as part of the backstory for two characters and that's it! She's not overused.
On the matter of the timeline:
I've had people asking me when the Odyssey's going to start using her energy weapons on the Cylons. My response to that question is simply, "After the Asgard die." This story begins between the two SG-1 episodes "Dominion" and "Unending." That means that Adria is ascended and the Asgard are still alive. My version of "Unending" is done in chapter 22. After chapter 22 we get our plasma beam cannons. So, in closing, this series starts our as post Battlestar Galactica: 2003's "Miniseries," post Stargate SG-1 season ten's episode "Dominion," pre Stargate SG-1 season ten's episode "Unending," and Stargate Atlantis first shows up in the episode "Submersion" which is near the end of season three for SGA. YES THAT FITS CANNON! According to the Stargate Timeline, the Odyssey gets her ZPM from when the Asurans kick the Ancients from the Tria off of Atlantis. Shortly thereafter, the Odyssey goes to Ida. After the Odyssey gets back, the Apollo is completed but, for some stupid reason, they deployed it before upgrading it. I never understood that…
On the matter of author's notes:
I'll try to keep these things to a minimal. I hate writing them because it makes me feel like I did something wrong. People asking about the timeline makes me think I wasn't clear enough. If I wasn't, I'm sorry. Also, I hate how they throw off the flow of reading a chapter. You read this before it then you read it. *shivers in disgust* Horrible, horrible thing to do.