29: Headquarters
It was a cell, all grimy concrete with a single barred window up near the ceiling. Even so, John got the impression that it was not a typical Kelownan jail he was being kept within. This was something else, and from the glimpses of the outside he had gotten during his trip here, he suspected that he was somewhere within the city centre itself. Somewhere secure, a military compound perhaps. And, judging from the light seeping in through the window above, it was dawn. He had been out all night, which was more than enough of an indication to the others at the makalvari embassy that something had gone wrong.
The cops had not roughed him up too badly. Sure, they had not been gentle, but there had been no outright beating. It appeared that whoever was calling the shots wanted him in good condition. John got the impression that he had been dragged into the middle of some kind of political crisis, no doubt brought on by the war that had been tearing up Kelowna along with the plague. The nation was falling apart, and he had to assume that the rival superpowers of Langara, that is Tirania and the Andari Federation, were having similar problems. If not, they likely would have invaded Kelowna already.
He sat in the corner of the cell, back to the wall. There was a single grimy bunk in here, and the various stains across the grey fabric had dissuaded him from sleeping on it. He had caught a few hours of fitful sleep, only to wake up with a sore neck and aching back. Now he amused himself as best he could by making use of the various small pieces of concrete that had fallen about the floor over the many years of this cell's existence; little thumbnail-sized slivers of grey that had crumbled from the ageing walls. He threw them at a mark on the wall across the room from him, a mark that had been left by some previous occupant of the cell.
The door into the cell was a single thick metal one, complete with a sliding hatch in its upper centre. With that closed, there was no view available of whatever was out in the corridor, be it more cells or something else. John sat in relative quiet, although he could hear the sounds of footsteps and cars passing by through the window above. He was sure they had taken him somewhere deeper into the city, but they had done little else. There was yet to be any sort of questioning, no meeting with some high-ranking officer of the law. They had to have known he was with the makalvari embassy, that was hardly a closely kept secret amongst the authorities here. He would be on file, just the same as everyone else on the team.
So, he waited. He had nothing else to do but wait. Maybe the others would come and find him, assuming they knew where to look. Kav'rak and the Ambassador could make a formal protest, although John suspected that the Kelownan government would not be bothered by that. Their Prime Minister had practically reeked of desperation, and when the people in power got desperate, standard procedure would often be thrown out the window.
John looked up then, his thoughts interrupted by the clacking of footsteps upon the floor outside the cell. Someone stopped before the cell door, multiple people from the sound of it. He stood up then, thinking he should try and make himself presentable. His hair was scruffy and his clothes were dirty, so he gave himself a quick brush down. At that instant, the lock on the door clicked open and the door itself swung on creaking, rusty hinges. A familiar figure stood in the doorway, accompanied by a uniformed guard.
"Colonel Sheppard?" Defence Minister Tiron Ovillio was not someone John had expected to see here. He had been expecting some sort of mean military officer to pay him a visit, right before the torture began. "We met yesterday, when you saw the Prime Minister?" The middle-aged, grey-suited politician sounded worried. John frowned, more out of curiosity than anything else.
"We did. You're—"
"Defence Minister Ovillio." He stepped into the cell. "You're probably wondering why you're here."
"I guess it's because I broke curfew?"
Ovillio might have smiled, had the situation not been so serious.
"It's not just that, Colonel." He turned to the guard and gestured for him to close the door. The guard did as he was told, shutting the door and leaving the two of them alone in the grimy cell. "The authorities picked you up, certainly, but as soon as I heard it was you they had caught I intervened. I had you brought here, to the headquarters of the Kelownan Special Security Bureau. Our intelligence division, if you will."
So, they had him locked in the basement of what was essentially the Kelownan KGB (or rather, "FSB" as it was nowadays). John was not entirely sure if he should be relieved or even more concerned.
"I can pass through here freely, but the SSB isn't under my direct jurisdiction. Not really." Ovillio began pacing about the cell. His movements, uncertain and somewhat jerky, made it apparent that he was anxious. Something had him deeply worried, and John suspected he saw a means to resolve these problems through the apprehended Colonel. Again, John was not sure if this was a good thing, or a bad one.
"Their commander wants you interrogated. He considers you and the rest of your team as spies, saboteurs even." Ovillio shook his head, before he locked eyes with John. "I have him stalled for now, but we've only got so much time. I want your help, Colonel. You, and your friends. The makalvari as well, even if they have a self-serving agenda in play."
"Then just ask for it," John said. "Send word to the embassy. Tell my people."
"It's not that easy," Ovillio countered. "The Prime Minister is in a tricky position. He cannot accept outside assistance, not openly. It would present weakness, and the House of Assembly is already decrying him as a weak leader. This war, this unrest, it would only get worse. Kelowna hangs on by a thread. And we cannot necessarily risk allowing makalvari intervention in the way they wish. There is genuine concern that they would reduce Kelowna, and even the rest of Langara, into a vassal state of their Republic."
The Minister was probably right about that. The makalvari may have been allies, but they were not the kind of allies one could immediately trust. Accept their help, certainly, but fully expect it to come at a significant price. For the Langarans, it was the risk of being annexed into the Republic of Makvar. Hardly ideal, although given how desperate the situation on Langara was, it may have been an acceptable course of action. At least that way the makalvari could put all available resources to finding a cure for the plague, whilst using their superior technology to end the insurgency altogether.
"I need your help, Colonel. Your people have assisted mine in the past, and for a time there you even pledged to defend us from outside aggressors."
That pledge had come at a time when the stargate program had been in full operation. The years that had followed had seen funding pulled and the program reduced, only for more recent years to see it return to its former glory. As a result, a promise to protect Langara from outside aggressors had held little weight behind it, all due to the simple fact that the resources to rebuke an invasion would simply have not been available. In the end, it was internal aggressors who had brought Kelowna to its current predicament, assisted by a terrible plague that John was sure had been brought along by the Scourge.
"What do you need from me?" John asked him.
"Accompany me," the Minister said, and he walked over to the door. He knocked upon it, catching the attention of the guard outside who pulled it open. "The Colonel here will come with me for the next hour or so. Under no circumstances are you to report this to anyone else, is that understood?"
The guard appeared confused for a moment before the implications of this order registered and he nodded his head.
"If anyone comes by, tell them that the prisoner has been locked down. Do not open the door for anyone other than myself. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Minister Ovillio."
"Very good." The Minister motioned for John to follow. The Colonel, feeling somewhat wary, nonetheless fell into step after Ovillio, following him out into the drab grey corridor beyond. They were indeed in some kind of basement, and at least three other cells were down here. The end of the corridor led into a larger space, one occupied by a desk and a few vacant chairs. A single guard was seated at this desk, appearing bored. He did look up with some keen interest when Ovillio walked by with the prisoner. The Minister stopped before the desk, spoke quietly to the guard on duty who nodded in turn, before he headed for the stairs nearby. They went on up to ground level, and John followed closely behind.
The corridor above was a little more colourful with glazed wooden floorboards and a dark Army green paintjob along the walls. The orange-tinted light of dawn seeped in through a window at the corridor's far end. The building they were in seemed quiet, at least for this early hour. John detected multiple sets of steady footsteps from nearby, both on their level and the level above. Guards on duty, no doubt, and the Minister traversed the corridor with a hurried gait. John kept after him, doing his best to appear inconspicuous despite his dirty, rugged appearance. Some of Kelman's blood had stained his clothes, and the dark red marks were noticeable about the side of his jacket and its collar.
"The Special Security Bureau serves as our main intelligence arm and operates under a joint military and civilian command structure. Most field operatives have military backgrounds, whereas the support staff come predominantly from civilian occupations." The Defence Minister spoke quickly, moving equally so, and he directed John around a corner and into another corridor that seemed to run the entire length of the building. There was a guard keeping watch at a grey metal door at the far end, and he perked up and stood to attention as the Defence Minister and his companion neared.
"As you can imagine, there are often conflicts between those from the military and those from the civilian arm," the Minister added.
"Oh, I can imagine that all too well," John remarked, immediately reminded of the politicking that seemed to infest Stargate Command. The pair stopped at the door, and the Defence Minister flashed his identification at the guard.
"Just need to check over some old files," the Minister said, and the guard took the ID card and gave it a close examination. After a moment, he nodded and handed it back.
"All good, sir," the guard replied. He took a set of keys from his belt and used one to unlock the door behind him. "I'll have to lock you in, sir. As per protocol. Just ring the bell inside and I'll unlock the door." The guard turned to John, frowning at the sight of the dirty, blood-stained man. The Minister saw the direction in which his gaze moved and stepped in front of John.
"He's an associate of mine, a security contractor. He's assisting me with a security inspection." John got the sense that the Minister was putting a lot on the line by bringing him here. With this in mind, John said nothing; he simply offered the guard a friendly smile and a nod.
"Very good, sir." The guard knew better than to question one of the very people in charge of the bureau. He pushed open the door and stepped aside, allowing both men entry into the dusty, cluttered space on the other side. As soon as they were in, he closed the door after them. John heard the bolt slide closed and the jangle of keys as the entire thing was locked. The Minister plucked a clipboard situated within a small wooden slot upon the wall by the door, one connected to it by a narrow length of chain. He scrawled his name on the page, the latest in a long line of signatures, and in turn made a note of the date and time.
"Most of the first two floors of this building serves as an archive," Ovillio said, as he slipped the pen and clipboard back into its place on the wall. John found himself facing a room crammed with towering shelving units, all of which were piled with old carboard boxes, some of which were overflowing with bound files. Binders and simple manila folders filled just about every available space on the shelves, and boxes full of such files were piled up on top of one another where shelving space was not available. The windows along the far wall were mostly blocked by the piles of boxes, blotting out a significant measure of the morning light. As a result, the Defence Minister flicked a switch by the door, filling the room with a musty yellow illumination from the fittings above.
John saw some coloured tags amongst the shelves, presumably indicating what was filed and where. The Minister checked the end of one shelf, where a list had been stuck to the end. John could make nothing of the Kelownan text, all curves and lines he could not decipher.
"So, is this where they keep the juicy stuff?" John asked him.
"The older files, mainly," the Minister said. He proceeded down one aisle, before running his gaze over the files crammed upon the shelves at his left. John strolled over and joined him, watching the Minister very deliberately pick out one cardboard archiving box. He pulled it off of the shelf and carried it to a small table at the unit's end, whereupon he pulled off the lid and began sorting through the scuffed, dog-eared files within. He was searching for something in particular, something long buried and forgotten amongst the dusty old archive.
"The files we've tried hard to bury, that only exist as copies here within this building," the Minister added. "As soon as Gorum Kavul escaped prison, I put out feelers and set agents onto his trail. They were stonewalled at every turn, almost as if someone with as much knowledge of their movements as myself was interfering with the operation."
"Internal sabotage?" John suggested.
"A mole, a double agent, something of the sort." The Minister plucked out one thick, creased and generally worn-out looking folder. Various red marks had been stamped upon its front indicating its level of secrecy, suggesting that it was not intended for outside eyes. "One operative did determine that Gorum Kavul took a trip to the far northern reaches of Kelowna, into a remote forested valley. As for what he was doing there, we could not determine. Not at first."
John looked over the Minister's shoulder as he opened the folder. Again, it was all in the cursive-like Kelownan text, although some photographs were in the mix. Most showed what John took to be the interior of some kind of laboratory, with men in white lab coats caught in various stages of their work. All were in black-and-white, suggesting that they were quite old even in Langaran terms.
"There is a facility there, one that was long abandoned and forgotten. This is the one file we have on the place, and any copies of this information would have been destroyed when the facility was shutdown. In your terms, this place has been out of service for close to thirty years. The 'Kelowna Special Project Advanced Research Facility' is a somewhat unassuming name for a place in which a great deal of research was conducted at the behest of a long dead scientist, the pioneer of our genetic field, Doctor Vandre Bence."
John listened, intrigued. At the same time, he kept an ear out for anyone attempting to open the door behind them. He sensed that the Minister was not fully at ease here, and the risk of them being discovered by the wrong people was all too real.
"Doctor Bence believed that a small percentage of Langarans possessed traits on a genetic level not seen in the majority of the population. Anomalies, if you will. Not your typical kinds of defects, but other, deeper traits that suggested, in his view, an outside manipulation of the human genome amongst the Langaran population. Much in the same way our naquadah had been manipulated and turned into naquadria, Doctor Bence theorised that some outside force had toyed with Langaran genetics. And that some of that experimentation existed within some portion of the population."
"This facility was where he looked into this?" John asked.
"Yes, and from what I understand the project became quite the obsession. Doctor Bence was not forthcoming with full details of his experiments, much to the chagrin of the ministers who were providing the project funding. Eventually, the funding was stopped and the authorities swooped in on the lab and shut it down. Doctor Bence died not long after. A heart attack, as he was an old man by this point."
"But Kavul went and paid this place a visit?" Some of the puzzle was starting to come together in John's mind. There were still too many missing pieces, but overall there was at least some semblance of a picture beginning to form.
The Minister's expression turned grim and he nodded his head slowly.
"There's nothing else at that location," he stated. "The facility was locked down, but it was not destroyed. And a man as resourceful as Gorum Kavul could have broken in. Not long after I received word of his journey to the valley that we received our first reports of those infected with the plague." He paused for a moment, the implication clear: "That, in my view, is far too much of a coincidence."
John nodded in agreement. Kavul had gone to that laboratory and likely helped himself to what traces of the research had been left behind. And now, because of the plague his insurgent forces were pushing ever closer to the Kelownan capital. Rumours abounded concerning how his followers seemed unaffected by the disease, which only reinforced the Defence Minister's findings here.
"Doctor Bence became a controversial figure, if only because he insisted on experimenting upon human subjects," the Minister continued. "Vagrants, foreign spies, anyone who would not necessarily be missed here in Kelowna. His experiments were part of the reason his funding was stopped and the whole affair buried."
"Human experimentation?" John cocked an eyebrow. He supposed he should not have been surprised. Here on Langara, the human population was just as capable of various cruelties as those on Earth.
"This was before my time as Minister, Colonel. I would have sought to stop such barbarity, had I been in a position to do so. I was barely out of school at the time." The Minister sounded grim, and his disgust at the notion of cruel experimentation was apparent. "I do believe, Colonel, that we may find some answers at this facility."
"Did you tell the Prime Minister?"
Ovillio shook his head.
"The government has been compromised. I suspect Kavul has turned a few of our ministers to his cause. I cannot involve the Prime Minister, as I do not know if he himself has been compromised, or if some of his other associates may have been. I come to you with this information since you are an outsider, and your people have a history of assisting ours. I trust you more than I do the makalvari." There was a sincerity in the man's voice and a fear in his eyes that John could not ignore. Ovillio had carried this information for a while now, conflicted as to who he could pass it onto to guarantee that it would be followed up on. He had come to the Colonel because he was a man at his wit's end, trying to do all he could to save a nation on the brink of collapse. In a way, he was perhaps even more beleaguered than the Prime Minister was.
"You want me to go to this facility?" John asked him. It seemed the obvious course of action and, like anything worth doing, it was not without its risks.
"If you can and take your friends with you. Involve the makalvari if you must, but you must know as well as I do that they cannot be trusted."
"That I know, Minister." It seemed likely that he would need some sort of assistance from the makalvari, especially if it meant leaving this city and heading for some far flung, remote science facility.
"Kavul's people may be in the area," Ovillio added. "Or I could be wildly off the mark with this whole theory of mine. As it stands, we have little else to work with. People are dying out there, Colonel. Hundreds every day, and some in horrible ways. Innocent lives, ordinary citizens. All while we have barbarians at the gates." He let out a frustrated, even dismayed, huff. John could practically feel the stress and frustration emanating from the man. Drastic actions were needed if Kelowna, and Langara as a whole, was to survive.
Ovillio took a pen from his pocket, along with a blank piece of paper. He scribbled some coordinates there, before he handed the paper to John.
"You will find the facility there," he told him. "You're the only ones I can trust, you and your team. If my theory is correct, then something dreadful has been found in that facility."
John looked at the writing. Once again, it was in the Kelownan language. He supposed he could get Jonas to take a look at it. He stuffed the paper into his pocket, looking up as Ovillio placed the file back into its box and, in turn, slid that box back into its appropriate place on the shelf. He made sure to give the appearance that nothing had been disturbed before he strode over to the door and knocked loudly upon it. There was a brief pause before the jangle of keys sounded and the lock was released. The guard outside pulled it open, permitting the two to emerge.
John ignored the suspicious look the guard was giving him and fell into step beside the Defence Minister.
"What now?" He asked him.
"I'll arrange for your release," the Minister replied. He was leading him back down the corridor, towards the stairs that would take him back to the basement and the cell in which he had spent the past several hours. "That may take some time, but I'll get it done. I'll also make sure the makalvari delegation picks you up. It will at least guarantee your safety during the trip back to the embassy."
"Safe from who?" John asked him, and they paused before the door that opened onto the lower staircase. "From the insurgents or from your own government?"
"The latter," Minister Ovillio replied. "Unfortunately, we have no control over the former. There are already terrorist cells at work within the city, as evidenced by yesterday's attacks. Things will only get worse, which is why I will do everything in my power to have you released as soon as possible."
John nodded in acknowledgment. At least the Minister was willing to help him. The same could not be said for most of the other government officials here. Before either of them could add anything further, a guard appeared from around a corner back the way they had come. John immediately thought that something had gone wrong, but his fear was quickly allayed by the simple fact it was a single guard and he moved at a strident, if normal, pace.
"Minister, a message for you," the guard said, and he held up a folded slip of paper. He stopped before the Minister, handed him the note before he saluted, spun on his heels and quickly returned the way he had come. The Minister frowned, unfolded the paper and read the message that had been left for him. John saw the man's eyes widen noticeably, and he knew then that something had gone wrong, albeit not in the way he had thought it would.
"Change of plans, Colonel." The Minister stuffed the note into a pocket on his jacket. He turned to John, his demeanour having changed suddenly. He was hurried now, his brow creased with a grave worry. "One of your friends was apprehended not long after you were. However, it seems this one has fallen into the clutches of the General."
"Who?" John felt the small lurch in his stomach at the notion that one of his own was at the mercy of the Kelownan authorities.
"The message didn't identify them, just that they are being held in the east wing of this building. That is, the military intelligence wing." Ovillio's mouth narrowed into a grim line. John had to assume that the military intelligence branch of the Special Security Bureau was the harsher section of the organization. "We must move quickly, if we are to save them from the General's overzealous ways." He turned about and started down the corridor, moving at a brisk pace. John followed, thankful that he had a guide in the Defence Minister. Navigating this place would have been a hassle, otherwise.
Elsie knew she was in trouble the moment the black burlap sack was pulled off of her head. They had shoved it on her after her capture, depriving her of seeing the way in which she came. Now, after hours spent in a grimy cell in which she had managed only a few hours of fitful sleep, her captors had been thoughtful enough to pull the obstructing sack off of her dirtied face and tousled hair. Her surrounds were that of a plain grey room, one that overall appeared worn-out in the way the paint was flaking off of the concrete walls. A single barred window was at her right, allowing the dawn light to stream in. Seated in a flimsy metal chair, she found herself facing a stern, grey-haired man in the black of a Kelownan military uniform. It carried a form of rank insignia she did not recognize, although from the sheer amount of embellishments at the shoulders and even on the chest itself, she had to assume this man was of a high rank.
A guard stood in the corner, keeping an eye on things. He appeared relaxed, his automatic rifle slung about his shoulder. The officer seated before Elsie was mulling over some paperwork, and occasionally his blue eyes would flit to her, as if what he read had something to do with her. Elsie was tied to the chair, she found, and they had seen fit to tie her ankles to the chair legs as well as binding her wrists to its armrests. Behind her, there was a single metal door. More guards likely waited outside. There was no apparent avenue of escape, not that Elsie would let this stop her. There was always a way out, and she got the strong impression here that this was one situation she needed to get out of, quickly.
"You are Lieutenant Elsie Rhodes, is that correct?" The officer across the table from her spoke in a firm, no-nonsense tone. This was a question that would be followed with an answer, whether she wanted it to or not.
"How do you know my name?" Elsie did not like being at such a disadvantage here. Somehow, the Kelownan authorities knew her but she hardly knew them.
The officer leaned back in his chair, watching her with some disdain evident upon his lined face. He had to have been pushing sixty years of age from the look of him. Presumably a veteran of his field, be that soldiering or something more specialised.
"The makalvari delegation was required to provide certain details as to the humans they would be bringing here to assist them," the officer stated. "We also have you on file after your visit to the House of Assembly. There is also the diplomatic pass you had stashed inside your trouser pocket." With a faint quirk of the brow, he pulled the crumpled yellow pass from his own pocket and held it up.
"That'd do it," she said. The General put the pass on the table before he continued:
"Here, information is what we specialise in. You are Elsie Rhodes, is that not correct?" He had a pen in one hand, and he tapped the tabletop impatiently with it. "For the record, Rhodes. I need confirmation."
Elsie, seeing little other choice, nodded her head. The officer gave the smallest hint of a smile in response.
"Very good. Now, to alleviate some of the confusion you are no doubt feeling, I will explain a few things to you: We are inside the headquarters of the Special Security Bureau. This is the intelligence division within the Kelownan Republic. This includes counterespionage and military reconnaissance. I am General Vardan Karn, and I am one member of a board who direct the operations of this Bureau." He held up both hands then and put them about six inches apart. "When it comes to your people, that is, the people of Earth, we have a file this thick. We're adding to it all the time, every piece of information that has anything to do with our allies from Earth." He spoke the word 'allies' with something wry in his voice. It was obvious that he, along with many others like him on Langara, did not find their apparent allies very reliable.
"You were caught outside the embassy after curfew," the General continued. He reached under the table and from there, he retrieved one of the compact makalvari pistols that Elsie and John had taken with them during their outing the night before. He set it upon the table before him, barrel pointed towards the wall. "You shot up an illegal drinking establishment and killed several criminals in doing so. You also left behind two of these alien weapons. They are only marginally more advanced than our own ballistic small arms, no doubt a conscious decision on the part of your people and the makalvari to keep anything too advanced from falling into our hands."
Elsie frowned. This General had obviously brought her in for good reason, she was simply struggling to determine what that was.
"What's your point, General?" She teased the bindings at her wrists. They were tight, and they were similar to the cheap plastic zip-ties one might find on Earth. So, not ropes, because with ropes her chances of squirming free may have been a little better.
"My point, Elsie Rhodes, is that you were caught in a place you were not supposed to be. You were caught at a time you were not supposed to be there, and you also left a trail of several dead criminals behind you. As it stands, I could have you put away, diplomatic credentials be damned. You are, for all intents and purposes, a foreign spy and agitator."
"You just said I killed some crooks?" Elsie could see where this was going. General Karn had a very specific idea in mind when it came to having her in his custody. She spoke quickly then, trying not to sound too worried: "That should be like, doing a public service or something. Even here on Langara."
"They were still citizens of Kelowna. You murdered them, and for that hefty penalties apply." The General sounded almost pleased as he said this. "Of course, you weren't acting alone. In fact, we have one of your friends in our custody right now."
Elsie perked up when she heard this.
"Who is it?" She did not expect an answer, and the General did not give her one.
"That is irrelevant. You should be more concerned with your predicament here, Lieutenant Elsie Rhodes." He was tapping his pen upon the tabletop again, tap-tap-tap. An absent, perhaps even impatient, gesture on his part.
"Kelowna is in a state of crisis. Outside agitators, spies or otherwise, are to be treated with the harshest possible measures under the emergency laws put in place when the plague started to spread." He rose to his feet then, pen in hand which he began to spin about with his fingers in a fluid, well-practiced gesture. Elsie watched him, realising then that this General intended to use her as a scapegoat. That is, her and whoever else he had captive from her team. Scapegoat them, give the people an outside enemy to direct their anger towards. The civil unrest was severe and this General was no doubt willing to use any trick he could to bring an end to it.
"You want to hang me out to dry?" Elsie snorted. She could not help it; the whole thing struck her as ridiculous.
"What do you mean?" The General, whom Elsie remembered was from another planet, had obviously not understood the expression.
"You want to put me out there, turn the people's fury onto me. Hold me out before the crowds and point and say, 'Here's your problem!'" Elsie practically spat the words then, the idea all at once plausible and absurd. Just what did this General expect would happen if he did that?
"A short-term solution, that's all it'll be," Elsie added. She locked her eyes with the General's stern ones. Here was a man who did not take kindly to people talking to him in such a manner. "Your people are upset because of the plague, because it's killing their loved ones. Not because of some 'outside agitator', something of which I am not, just in case that wasn't clear enough for you."
General Karn's face scrunched up. He said nothing, and Elsie took the opportunity to elaborate on her point further:
"I'm here to help, General. I came from Earth to help in any way I could. That meant meeting with some shady characters. They tried to betray us, so we defended ourselves. That's all there is to that. I'm no spy, and even if I was, who would I be spying for? I'm from Earth, not Langara. And there is very little your people have that we want over on Earth. Not even the naquadria, from what I know. We source what we need elsewhere."
"You work with the makalvari," the General said.
"A means to an end, General. We do each other favours. They're the ones who want to exploit your people, not us."
The General's face adopted a firm mask. It was impossible to tell if anything Elsie had said had got through to him. Knowing her generally poor luck, this General was more than likely set in his ways. He had her here because he wanted to use her for a specific end and dissuading him from that end was probably well outside her persuasive skills.
"I would see all outside influences gone from Kelowna," the General said, after a pause. "Earth, makalvari, anyone; this Republic will stand on its own, and it will stand strong. With your people gone and those birds as well, the plague will go with you. It is you outsiders who brought it upon us."
"You can't know that for sure…" Elsie knew then that she had lost this argument. The General had his beliefs, and from the increasingly wild look she saw in his eyes it seemed that he held strong convictions for them.
"I do know it, Lieutenant!" He snapped suddenly, voice raising, eyes widening. Elsie almost flinched at the sudden outburst. "I know it, I always knew it, the aliens who wish to exploit our people have inflicted this plague on us to weaken us. And then, when we are desperate we will turn to them for help! It's an alien stratagem and I see right through it." He walked up to the table and snatched a page from the file he had opened before his place there. He held it before Elsie, who saw a page of carefully printed text in the Kelownan language.
"You will sign this and you will be spared the worse punishments," he told her, and he placed the page before her.
"What is it?" Elsie had a feeling as to the answer. The General appeared calm now, his outburst having ended almost as quickly as it had begun.
"A confession," the General replied. "You will confess to being an outside agitator. You will confess to being a part of a joint conspiracy between your people and the makalvari, one that saw the release of this plague and the materiel support of the insurgent forces running rampant through this country."
"What will happen if I do sign it?" She had no intention of doing so, of course. She hardly wanted to play into the schemes of some unhinged General. Nothing on the paper even made sense to her, all printed as it was in the Kelownan language. Why would she sign a paper she did not understand?
"You will be tried as a spy, but the judge will be lenient on you," the General said. "A lengthy prison sentence, some years in a work camp."
"Sorry, but that doesn't really sweeten the deal." Elsie shifted against her binds again. No such luck there, they were far too tight.
"It's all I can do."
"My people won't stand for this," Elsie proclaimed, even if it sounded a little desperate to her own ears. "You can't just lock me away, even keeping me here is going to piss them off. They'll storm the place. We even have ships that could obliterate this city from orbit."
General Karn's expression lit up then, and his mouth curled into a malicious smile.
"So, you admit that your people are aggressors, then?"
Elsie sighed, her frustration hitting a boiling point.
"No, for Christ's sakes. We're reasonable people, but if you push us too far—"
"Then the orbital bombardment begins. Yes, I got that much." The General paused then, and Elsie could feel her heart thumping in her chest. This was bad, this whole mess she had fallen into was worse than even her brief stint as a captive of the Calsharans. She was powerless here, and that thought only furthered her growing anger.
"You brought this plague here, you and those vile birds," the General declared. He was practically shouting now, spittle flying forth every time he opened his mouth. Elsie turned her head away from him, trying not to get rained on. "There is no other explanation for it. The nature of this disease is so clearly alien that it could only be the work of your people and of the makalvari. You wish to weaken us, bring Kelowna to its knees before coming in and offering assistance. A cure, even. Make yourselves heroes in the eyes of the people, all to further your own gains here. Turn us into a vassal state, beholden to your whims. I see right through you, Lieutenant Elsie Rhodes. I see through you and the rest of your people from Earth. As long as I live and breathe, I will not stop until I have seen every Earther and every disgusting makalvari gone from this world."
"You're crazy," Elsie said, simply voicing what she had been thinking for some time now. The General glared at her but did not immediately reply. "You're batshit crazy. You've got it all wrong and you must be pretty damn dense not to see it."
"That's quite a way to speak to a General," Karn said, and he scrunched up his face with disdain as he regarded her. "Do you talk in that manner to your commanding officers on Earth? Or do you save it only for those of other worlds, those you no doubt see inferior?"
"I save it for the lunatics," Elsie replied. "You fall well within that category."
"You will not sign this paper?" He tapped the printed confession on the tabletop before Elsie. She looked to it, then looked up at the General and shook her head.
"Shove it up your arse," she spat. The General, unfazed, simply leaned in a little closer with an unnerving smile on his face.
"Very well, Lieutenant Elsie Rhodes. You wish to be obstinate, that is your choice. We will see how defiant you are once we've ripped out your fingernails."