Chapter Two – The More Things Change…

After several hours, General Hammond leaned back in his chair with a sigh as he contemplated the phone call he had only just concluded with the President. President Clinton made it clear that they were to do whatever necessary to keep the trade agreement with the Nox from collapsing; Stating that he was speeding up the production of the new SGC in Alaska, having found and purchased over eight hundred square miles of land; This puts it just above five hundred thousand acres, nearly the size of Rhode Island.

George had also been told that the plan to bring in other world powers was also being sped up and he would need to be ready to help bring them into the fold.

That, more than anything, was what had him puzzled and nearly wish to take the chance to retire when he could but resigned himself to figuring out how he would accomplish this new task. Nine countries were on the list of disclosure and now it was his job to, somehow, convince them of cooperating with the United States in a galactic war…

He gave an explosive sigh as he closed his eyes.

No pressure…

Sitting back up, he pressed the button for the intercom to his aide's desk down the hall. "Sergeant, send SG-1 and Dr. Frasier to my office as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir. Anything else, General?" Came the voice of the aide.

"Not at the moment, sergeant."

"Understood, sir. I'll get right on it."

"Thank you." George said letting go of the button. The intercom went dead, and he gathered his notes from the phone call and set them aside. There was a knock on the door fifteen minutes later that snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Enter."

The door opened to the hallway as his team and Janet walked in. Jack gave a lazy wave. "You called, sir?"

George gestured to the seating in the office. "I just got off the phone with the President; He's ordered that all gate travel to planets other than the Nox is on hold until further notice." He braced himself. He mentally chuckled as he accurately predicted the first outburst of the meeting. "Sir! We can't just give up on this; There's so much more to learn and explore out there!"

"Easy, Captain. The reason for that order is why you're here. I've just been told that the construction on the new SGC has been, by presidential order, sped up. New resources and assets that we kept away from the project to keep it secret have now been ordered to have it completed as soon as possible. From the reports coming from the Army engineers on site, the deforestation around the mountain has been completed." He could see the tension drain from his subordinates' shoulders. "I've also been ordered to the Pentagon to act as the Presidents advisor." Jack interrupted.

"General?"

"Don't worry, Colonel. I'll still be your commanding officer. I'm to act as the President's advisor until construction is completed on the new SGC, at which time, I will then be moved there to take over day to day operations." He could see the tension draining from his flagship team's shoulders. "I've also been informed that I am to accompany the President at the NATO meeting to help convince them of the truth, and hopefully, gain their cooperation." The general explained.

"Sir? Are we talking all of NATO, or just the major countries?" Samantha asked.

"So far, we are asking for nine countries to attend the meeting. I have also convinced the President to allow the four of you to be there to help show what we are up against out there."

"Sir?" Jack asked. "I was under the impression that SG-1 was to head to the new SGC to inspect and give opinions on the design before it is finalized."

"That was the original plan, yes. However, your experiences out there with both hostile and non-hostile races will be important in convincing them to join us." The general nodded before he locked eyes with the lone jaffa on Earth. "Your input, Teal'c, could be by far the most important in this meeting. The President is asking that you speak about your time as a jaffa under the Goa'uld…specifically, your time as his first prime…"

Teal'c raised a single brow before he gave a small nod. "I will do what I can, General Hammond."

"That's all I can ask, son."

General, what am I doing here exactly? If I'm not part of the negotiation team than what did you need me for?" Janet asked.

"The President wants medical facilities to be in place just after the gate room is completed. You have one week before you are shipped out to tell the engineers what you will need." George gestured to her as her mouth began to open. "The President has made sure that all the best technology our medical field has is available to you to have purchased. While it's not a blank check, per say; It is, however, your opportunity to get as much as you possibly can. He wants you and your people to have a list ready for purchasing no more than a week from touch down. So, you have your homework for the new base." George finished.

Janet nodded. "Understood, sir. How many are going with me? I will at the very least need a few from each of my medical teams so I can get ideas from everyone."

"Take as many as you need as long as we still have the necessary staff for the base."

"Yes, sir. With your permission, sir, I will go ahead and get started on gathering my people and getting ideas." She said as she stood from her chair.

"Go ahead, Doctor." She nodded and left the room.

George looked to his team once more. "I need all of you to understand one thing…this meeting will determine the way our world will develop after this. We are looking at the greatest economic, resource and military cooperation since World War Two. I don't need to tell you just how much we need this to go right…and just what could come from this in the future…"

Sg-1 was befuddled to say the least. They didn't really understand just what this could lead to…

Daniel's face went from dumb founded to surprise after a few minutes and nearly shot up from his chair. "Are you saying that we would eventually push for a united government for earth? If so, I don't think that would work, since most countries including ours would sooner attempt to take over the world themselves before, they set aside their own perceived power and greed."

George shook his head in the negative.

"No, Dr. Jackson. We have no plans to try for something like that any time soon. Its more likely that your grandchildren will be the ones to see that eventuality. Our only goal for this meeting is for those in attendance to contribute to the saving of our world until we have the means to bring the rest of the world in."

"I see…"

"Don't worry doctor, while things might be a bit different once things get going. Most will stay the same."

"I understand, sir."

"Good! If there are no more questions?" The general waited a few moments then nodded. "So be it. We leave tomorrow at o-six hundred from Peterson Air Force Base for The Pentagon. For now, get some rest and I'll see you in the morning."

He watched his team file out of the room and heaved a sigh.

-THE FIFTH RACE-

Michael couldn't help but flinch when another file was slapped onto the president's desk in rage. It had only been an hour since he had returned from his task of finding all information pertaining the stargate from the archives and the President had been in a rage for nearly half of it. Another file slammed onto the desk as Clinton sat heavily into his chair with a huff.

"Fifty-four! Fifty-four fucking years this information has been sitting collecting dust, Michael! All of this would have been incredibly valuable when we finally got the gate working for the first time!" He finished with a large exhale.

Michael winced as he stepped forward and slowly set the file in his hands onto the desk. He became nervous as he watched the presidents' eyes snap and focus onto the file that was easily twice as thick as the others.

"That wasn't the first time we got the gate working, sir." His nerves increased when the mans eyes snapped to his own with a narrowed gaze.

"…What?" Michael couldn't stop the shiver that ran down his spine at the icy tone. The silence in the room was deafening.

With a gulp, he strode to the desk and flipped it open where a small cassette tape sat in it. Carefully, he grabbed the tape and inserted it into a VCR that then played onto a monitor that he had asked to be delivered that morning.

"Back in nineteen forty-five, the army uncovered the cover stones to the ring as you know." Clinton gave a small nod. "What the army didn't tell anyone is that they had also been working on the gate beyond the fact that they dated it back to before the pyramids were built at the very least." He stopped there as he let the video play with his boss watching.

TOP SECRET

PROJECT: GIZA

LOCATION: REDACTED

Clinton watched with increasing awe as the men in the video turned the gates inner ring by hand until with a surge of electricity the gate activated.

"My god…" He gasped. "That should be… "He stopped mid-sentence as he watched a man in World War two diving gear walk through the gate and the familiar vanishing of the gate shutting down before the video went to static. There was silence once more as Michael stopped the tape and ejected it from the television. Clinton spent several minutes gathering his thoughts as his aide stood knowing silence was needed. Finally, Clinton looked away from the small television even as he absently grabbed a piece of paper and began writing. "Michael. If this file was buried and mislabeled intentionally then what else is there that we don't know about this project? What attempts were made to get our soldier back from the gate?" He asked as he looked up at his closest friend.

Michael shook his head as he pointed at the file on the desk that the tape had fallen from. "That was the largest and last file I could find, sir. I don't believe there are more than the thirteen on your desk. However, I also don't believe that we have been told everything in the files either."

Bill nodded as he finished writing before capping his pen and holding the paper out to Michael. "I have a few things that I need someone I trust to get done, Michael." He grabbed the paper from him and began reading as the commander in chief began again. "First, I need this tape converted to DVD format so we don't have to worry about whether or not the tape stays in good condition." He gestured to the TV. "Second. I need you to find out who is still alive from the project and have them brought hereto see if we can get any more information from them."

"Yes, sir. Anything else?"

The President gave an explosive sigh as he sank back in his chair. "There are quite a few things that need to be done, but you will be busy for a while so I will pick up some of that slack. It will also allow me to make those phone calls we spoke of yesterday."

The slight widening of his aide's eyes was the only indication of his shock. "Already, sir? I thought we would wait a bit longer before putting the plan into motion."

"Normally, I would, but this new development has changed things. There is an American citizen trapped on whatever god-forsaken planet, moon or what have you and we need to determine whether he is still alive. Even if he's not. We are still going to bring his remains back home." He sighed once again. "As for the meeting. Now that we know that we managed to get it working back in forty-seven, even for a few minutes, it's something that we can use at the meeting."

Michael gave a nod, making his way to the door. "I understand, sir. I'll get started right away."

-THE FIFTH RACE-

He took a long and deep drag of his cigarette as he thought about his new posting. He exhaled. This posting was confusing to say the least. Even at the cliff face he currently sat on the edge of, he could only see tree for miles with the occasional bald spot for clearings. He snorted to himself in amusement. Of course, that's what he saw. The order came in to clear 5 miles worth of trees around the mountain and then lay out 2 runways leading up to the entrance to the mountain the carved and blasted out a few weeks ago. Both runways would be wide enough to land two C-5M Galaxy's comfortably.

This posting had started a little over a month ago with standing orders to clear the trees as fast as possible. As the project manager, he looked on, proud of the men and women that had nearly completed the deforestation and had begun to lay the foundation of the runways. When he had asked for more engineers and equipment it became very clear that the project for this mountain had nearly become a blank check. Within a few days they had nearly 30 chinooks bringing people and the equipment he had asked for along with orders to speed up construction. He had also been told that several military and medical and science teams were going to show up within a few weeks. They wanted the runways to have a wide connection between the two for the planes to be able to land, drop their cargo and passengers and then leave immediately.

He snorted to himself once again before taking one last drag before dropping the end of the cigarette into the snow below him before exhaling as he made his way back to the site. After all…

There was work to be done…

-THE FIFTH RACE-

END OF CHAPTER

Hello everyone!

I apologize for the amount of time that this took to get out, but real life is a bitch sometimes. I was originally going to have this and all future chapters be 10k or more words each, but realized that when I was getting close to a stopping point. There would be something new that I wanted to write into the story and so I ended up with nearly 16k words for this alone.

I also realized that it wasn't really good for me to try and keep that word count goal as I often don't have time to write, so from now on, I'll stick to around 2.5 to 3k words per chapter.

Anyways! Thank you for reading this! I have big plans for this story and plan to release chapters regularly from now on since I have split them up like this.

Also! Leave some critic for me to help me improve! Even if it's just spelling or maybe ideas that you have. Just throw them my way.

Let's leave reviews and PM's that are meant to be harmful from the story, please. The world is already shitty enough without those of us, writing or reading a story, ripping each other's throats out for nothing. Constructive criticism is great! Even if it sounds a little rude.

But!

Those that do leave messages should try and keep insults and derogatory terms away from it. If I see something like it. It WILL be removed.

Thanks again for reading and I hope you like the future chapters as well.

With Love, I-Defy-Fate