Ch. 38 — Secrets Revealed
"Unfortunately," the Admiral said regretfully, "we can't make any commercially acceptable quantities, yet, of that stomach soother."
"Restricting it to the rich would raise issues, not to mention being unfair," said the one he had called Number One.
"We are working on it, however," the Admiral said. "Commander Long . . ., uh, one of our commanders thinks we might have a commercially viable product in a few years."
"The twins tell us that the hang-over cure is even better, but I'm not sure we'll be able to get that one on the market for another decade," Number One added. "Again, the problem is supply." She shook her head. "Unlike the meals you've seen and eaten, our . . . medicines . . . are all natural and cannot be reproduced by our replicator. An adequate supply will require tens of thousands of acres, if not hundreds of thousands."
Jack stared at them, as did Sam and Dan. Teal'c merely looked intrigued. The aliens disclosed mind-breaking concepts as if they were everyday items, then admitted flaws that seemed . . . absurd.
After giving their dog-and-pony show to each of the barracks in the new ship, the six returned to the corridor outside the common room. "There you go," Potter said. "Just as I promised, the second time wasn't as bad as the first, was it?"
Jack gave him a sour look. "It's not that much of an improvement."
The female shrugged and pointed at the table in the room. "And there are four more glasses of the stomach soother."
"We'll be back to pick you up at half-past twelve, so take lunch a bit earlier than normal," Potter said. "Goodnight!"
Number One echoed him with her "Goodnight," and they both disappeared with a pop.
Jack stared at where they had been. "Interesting," he said quietly, "that we didn't see anyone else besides those two, isn't it?" He glanced at each of the others. "For such a large ship to have so few crew is rather unusual. To be able to house so many prisoners, they must be stacking their own crew like cordwood, somewhere."
"Or, they are all on-planet in their home residences with family," said Teal'c.
The others exchanged uncertain and disquieted looks — which might have been a bit envious.
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Interestingly, the next morning there were three aliens. This time their spacesuits were clearly armoured under their clothes.
From their voices Jack knew two were the Admiral and Number One. The admiral wasted no time in introducing the third as the Combat Operations Commander — wasn't that one an interesting title. She was clearly a female as she was dressed the same as Number One, although shorter. Whether there were more with that title, Jack couldn't tell from the introduction. He assumed so.
"Why the different spacesuits?" Jack asked warily.
"Hope for the best, plan for the worst," was what he got as a reply from the Admiral.
Jack could certainly understand that point of view. It also implied that they had had experiences that had taught them that caution. If they truly had been in hiding among humans for thousands of years, that caution was probably well-earned.
Clearly, they were not a trusting group.
As soon as the aliens walked in, SG-1's weapons appeared in flash of light in a pile on the floor. How the aliens had managed to find their weapons was mystery to Jack. The Beretta's were empty, they had fired all their rounds and hadn't been reloaded. Similarly, the MP5s' magazines were empty. Or had the aliens simply made replacement guns for them? Only the quartermaster would be able to tell them if the serial numbers matched.
Their combat knives were also in the pile.
He checked one of the ammo bags. The M18 smoke grenades and M67 fragmentation grenades were still in them, as were several magazines to use in both the Beretta and MP5. There wasn't any C4.
It was quite trusting that they aliens were giving them their weapons back. Or they regarded them as not important enough to be concerned about.
The landing bay they were led to had another one of the Space: 1999 boxy-looking thing with an arrowhead style front cabin. Jack took a long moment to examine the craft. The landing legs/manoeuvring pods were a lot smaller than he had thought. The feet of the pods clearly folded-up when retracted, and gave the craft a much slimmer in-flight profile. The caged areas before and after the main cabin were also smaller and seemed to have turrets built-into them. Whatever powered the craft had to be enormously powerful to have such small fuel tanks tucked below the turrets.
Based on what the scientists had shown him after his first report, the Eagle-One replicas were about half as big in all dimensions as the show's had been. Those had been large cargo and people carriers, these were more like, well, an executive's bus. Especially give how low to the ground they were. The clearance wasn't much more than a bus! Whatever they used their small ships for, it wasn't to move large numbers of people or cargo!
There was no way to tell if the craft they were boarding was one they had been on before. Its insides were exactly the same: two wide seats, spaced comfortably from the seat in front of each, to either side of a wide aisle, enough to easily hold thirty people, including the space at the back for portkeys, teleportation, or just plain cargo.
He looked up front to where the Admiral Potter, Number One, and the Combat Commander were seated. They had rotated their seats to face their guests.
He had wondered last time how the pilot accessed the main cabin. He had figured the door was hidden behind the front viewscreen. Now, he realized, they probably just teleported back and forth. It made for the ultimate pilot security method.
Unless the hijacker could teleport, too.
So, maybe not that secure. Even less, perhaps, given that anyone breaking in the door gave you a bit of time to react.
They watched out the viewscreens beside their seats as the landing bay receded while they felt absolutely no sense of motion — they could have been sitting in their own living rooms watching a movie. A giant door slowly closed over the open bay. Their ship turned and glided down the middle of the huge hangar until they exited — at which point they got another good look at the Requirement, this time a side-view of the front.
Jack hadn't been looking on the way in, too stunned at the ship's resemblance to a fictional television show's model, but now, after a rest, he could see the numerous turrets that seemed to take up a great deal of real estate on the ship's hull.
It abruptly shimmered and disappeared, revealing a stunning view of the stars and Earth.
Just as abruptly, their ship turned, rotated, and started moving rapidly forward. The Earth that had been beside them suddenly filled the forward display behind the three aliens. They appeared to rush at it with a visible velocity, but without any noticeable acceleration or motion in the cabin. Just like the last time.
The team members were still startled and gasped. Jack couldn't help gripping the armrest tightly. "Who's flying this bus?" Jack asked.
"That would be our Piloting and Navigations Commander," said Number One. "She's one of our most experienced pilots."
"We should be at Camp David in just a few minutes," said the Admiral.
True enough, less than fifteen minutes later, their ship was gracefully settling down toward the helicopter pad outside the main buildings at Camp David. Through the windows they could easily see the reception committee that was waiting for them. The ship settled smoothly to the ground and was sideways to the people outside. The only sign that they were completely down was when the three aliens stood up.
The side door popped open and the internal stairs were revealed.
"We will go first," the Admiral said.
The reception committee outside stared at the three as they descended the ramp. No doubt they were surprised at the aliens' appearance, Jack thought. They hid it behind a façade of calm smiles, however. They couldn't keep the surprise off their faces, though, when the three aliens were followed by the SG1 team. All in black clothes and carrying their full kit, weapons and all, besides.
Jack could see the secret-service members coming to a more alert stance. The soldiers a bit farther away were also assuming a ready position. As soon as Teal'c left the craft, he was the last to exit, the door smoothly closed.
Jack was sure that no one missed the holstered cylinders the aliens carried on their hips.
The aliens either didn't notice or didn't care. They did stare at the large group of people with video and still cameras that were ranked to one side. The sounds of the shutters clicking was like a swarm of crickets had gone mad. From the logos on the video cameras, it looked as if every major news network in the world was here.
Startlingly, the Admiral raised one hand and gave what looked like a bashful wave!
The sounds of the cameras clicking went faster and louder.
They walked over to the waiting politicians and unerringly singled out President Clinton. The admiral stopped in front of the President and held out his space-suited hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President," he said, loudly, obviously wanting the watching reporters to clearly hear him. "I am Admiral Potter of the Defensive Space Force." He turned and gestured at the female beside him. "This is my First Officer, Number One." He indicated the last alien. "And this is our Combat Operations Commander."
He turned slightly to indicate the four who had followed them. "And these are Colonel Jack O'Neill, Captain Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson, and the Jaffa, Teal'c. They belong to your Stargate Command. We rescued them from the Goa'uld starships shortly before we hailed, and then destroyed, the ships."
Jack tried not to look too embarrassed at the admission that they had had to be rescued.
The President and one of the other people standing there gave quick glances at Major General Hammond. The General looked toward Jack and made a subtle tilt to his head. Jack nodded back, and he and his team moved unobtrusively over to one side.
"They were setting up to disable one of the Goa'uld starships with a large quantity of C4 when they were captured by the Goa'uld," Number One said, just as loudly. "The charges were set to a timer and would have disabled, if not destroyed one of the ships."
The Admiral nodded and continued. "Unfortunately, the remaining ship could easily have laid waste to the entire planet by the simple expedient of dropping, at high speed, one of the plentiful medium-sized asteroids in this system on the planet."
"Your Stargate One personnel were extremely helpful in giving us information on how to handle the thousands of Jaffa prisoners we rescued from the Goa'uld ships." He turned to face the four. "Thank you, Colonel Jack O'Neill, Captain Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson, and Teal'c." He gave a slight bow to each as he said their name. "The situation would have been much more complicated without your assistance." He turned back to the President. "Their assistance was limited to only the Jaffa. Assistance which enabled us to convince many of the prisoners that they were being duped by their Goa'uld masters. Not only does this alleviate some of the problems of security in any facility we place them in, many also expressed interest in joining a resistance to fight against the Goa'uld, which would reduce the number of prisoners we have to house."
"We did not ask for any militarily sensitive information, nor did they volunteer any such information," Number One said.
"By the way," the Admiral turned to look at Major General Hammond. "Did you know the addressing system used in Stargates is very limited? It is to a location and not an actual address assigned to a Stargate." He sighed. "No matter how many Stargates you have, if they are too close to one another, then they all have the same address. So, if you have more than two, you can't use the Stargates to go from, say, Earth to the Moon, or Earth to Mars, or even Earth to Rigil Kentaurus or Toliman, because you don't know which Stargate you'll exit from."
"Even if you only have two, it's not a very efficient, either," Number One put in, in a disappointed tone. She was looking at a book none of them had noticed until now. "With one point nine eight billion possible addresses, but a volume of over fifty-three trillion cubic lightyears for our galaxy, each address is a cube of thirty lightyears on a side." She sighed and shook her head. "Not convenient at all if you have inhabited planets in neighbouring star systems, such as Rigil Kentaurus, or multiple destinations in just one system. So, no using the gates for close interstellar travel." She shook her head, again. "Not to mention that the number of actual Stargates is only about a million. According to the Library, there are about forty billion rocky planets in the Milky Way — four hundred million are in the habitable zone of the star. Unfortunately, only about five million of those could be inhabited by people — and most of those worlds are almost entirely covered by miles-deep oceans, such as the one orbiting Toliman." She looked up. "Dolphins have a larger selection of worlds to visit than we do."
Now there was a treasure-trove of information casually tossed out as general conversation. Such as their use of the old names for those two stars instead of Alpha and Beta Centaurus. And broadcast to the entire world.
After the introductions, the President and his party, and the aliens headed inside the adjacent building. Following the General's subtle hand signals, SG1 went to the side where they were met by the officers who would be debriefing them.
The single most boring, time-wasting, and vitally important procedure of any mission.
Jack, for one, was glad not to be a part of the talks that were about to take place. Their debriefing was going to be bad enough, and would last the rest of the day. However, at least it wouldn't be the meaningless prattle of politicians trying to score points against each other in a contest no one cared about. He wondered how experienced the aliens were at human politics.
At least they had a formal declaration from the aliens that the team had been of unique assistance. That meant they didn't have to worry about a court-martial for disobeying orders and using the Stargate to access Apophis' ship. Probably. Maybe. He hoped.
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The meeting room, Major General Hammond saw, was organized more as a large living room, with one wall a set of windows overlooking the grounds and forest outside. The aliens' transport ship was off to the far side of the building and not in sight.
Besides the armchairs and couches in the room there were several side-tables and a low coffee-table in front of one of the couches. Half of the President's Cabinet, and their aides, were present. The rest of the cabinet and the Vice President were in a bunker under the White House, he knew.
"I thank you, again, for intervening when the Goa'uld spaceships threatened to attack Earth," President Clinton said as they entered the room. "My scientists tell me that we could have handled it ourselves, we do have missiles that could have destroyed their ships. But that was with untested weapons that might not have worked as well as they claimed."
"If the missiles used warheads based on thermonuclear reactions," the one he had called Number One started, it had a female-sounding voice to match its vaguely female shape and clothes, "I'm afraid they wouldn't have been any more effective than our plasma blasts were. The Goa'uld ship-shields, which are the same as ours, apparently, would have stopped the missiles long before they were close enough to cause any damage to their ships. Proximity explosions would have been useless as the energy, the electromagnetic pulse, was diverted around them, just as our plasma weapons' fire was."
The President and his entourage slowed. "Oh, really?" he said flatly, looking at the Secretary of Defence, who flushed red.
The two aliens stopped. "You didn't seriously think that an enemy that had Starships capable of traveling a thousand lightyears in a matter of a day wouldn't have already perfected a defence against primitive rockets that can barely breech a few tens of miles-per-second, did you?" Number One said incredulously. "Any shield capable of diverting or destroying an asteroid in the ship's path while travelling at several-hundred-thousand-times the speed of light would have no problems dealing with a hunk of metal that was almost stationary by contrast." She shook her head. "That's like a . . . Zulu warrior declaring his wooden spear with a magical volcanic spearhead would be able to shoot down a hypersonic B-One bomber!"
The Secretary of Defence turned an even darker red.
"Our own plasma blasts were useless against their magnetic shields, just as they are against our ships. It was only when we went to lasers that we had any results worth mentioning," she concluded.
"We kinda expected that, though," the Admiral said, resuming walking over to a set of armchairs. "The plasma blasts were just tests, to verify our suspicions, and blind them to what we were doing." He paused. "But you're welcome."
The politicians exchanged worried looks.
After they were all seated, except the Secret Service and the aliens' Combat Officer, the President leaned forward slightly. "Pardon the question, Admiral, but are you a race of robots?"
The one that had introduced itself as Admiral Potter seemed to hunch down a bit. "Uh, sorry about that, Mr. President. No. We're not robots." He paused, then added as an afterthought, "Although, we probably could have gotten away with it if we had claimed we were. . .." He was silent for a few moments, then he sighed. "Oh, well." He looked back up. "We are as human as you are, just a tiny bit different on the inside. As such, if you were to see one of us on the street in London, New York, Cairo, Delhi, Beijing, or any other city, you wouldn't give any of us a second look.
"Which is why we're wearing spacesuits. We want to preserve our anonymity. If we hadn't hidden our faces, I'm sure that as soon as we stepped out of our craft, our pictures would have been broadcast to the entire world. Whatever hope we three would have had to be able to move around without attracting attention, both good and bad, would be gone." He shrugged. "I, for one, do not enjoy being mobbed every time I go out."
That implied, Hamond realized, that he was familiar with being mobbed. It also implied that he was a famous figure among his own kind, much like a rock star. Or could he be a popular actor or politician?
"Which is also why the only names you have are mine and Lieutenant-Commander Johnson's — with your country's resources, you would quickly track us down, if you had pictures to go with the names. And while you might not do anything else, other countries might not be as circumspect. Someone might decide that kidnapping one of our friends or family would be a good way to influence us to do what they wanted." He paused. "That would be a very bad mistake. It would not end well for them, or their government."
The female spoke up. "Based on our experience, there are always those who feel they can act with impunity, that no one can harm them no matter what they do, simply because of their position in society. Apophis is a good example. In his arrogance, he thought he had nothing to fear. That he was in an unassailable position of superiority. He never considered that we were an unknown factor, that he could be wrong. As such, he failed to take anything but the most basic of precautions."
The Admiral sighed, and said "A common problem with megalomaniacs."
The President leaned back. "So, my telling you to call me Bill in an attempt to learn your first name wouldn't work?" He smiled crookedly.
The humour in the admiral's voice came through clearly, "No, I'm afraid not. I will have to call you President Clinton, and you will have to call me Admiral Potter . . . or just Potter if you prefer."
The President nodded slowly. "There will be some who will ascribe sinister motives to your secrecy," he said warningly.
"C'est la vie," the female the admiral called Number One said without a trace of an accent, with a shrug. "There will always be people who ascribe sinister motives to groups they don't know, even when faced with evidence to the contrary. They feel safer regarding everyone who isn't in their group of friends as an enemy," she explained.
"If our actions in destroying hostile spaceships threatening your planet are not good enough for them to give us the benefit of a doubt, that's their problem," the Admiral said as he shrugged his shoulders. "I really don't care," he concluded. "What are they gonna do? Throw stones at the Moon?"
That was an interesting turn of phrase, Hammond thought.
The President exchanged looks with his advisors and cabinet.
"You mention friends and family . . . do you actually have family on Earth?"
The two aliens looked at each other. The admiral said, "I don't, but others do."
"Have you been here long?"
"I'm afraid that's all we have to say on the subject, Mr. President."
President Clinton gave a slightly frustrated look at his advisors.
"That brings up the question of just what you intend to do, now that you are here," said the man beside the President, whom he had introduced as his Chief of Staff.
The Admiral shrugged. "Nothing, really." He looked out the window. "We are the Defensive Space Force." He looked back at them. "Emphasis on the word Defence. We have no interest in conquest or ruling." He shuddered. "Just the thought of being in charge gives me the screaming abdabs. Herding cats would be easier. And probably more successful, too."
Hammond could understand the sentiments. The politics in the military were bad enough, but at least the people all had the same end-goal for the organization. Civilian politics did not have that saving grace.
His tone changed and became a bit harder. "That said, any group indiscriminately attacking civilians is a terrorist organization, by definition, and we will be taking notice in the future. We have sat at the side-lines for too many centuries. The current situations in Ireland, Turkey, Sri Lanka, the Congo, the Middle East, and a few other places are going to get our attention, now. It won't be overnight, but we will be taking action.
"We are not, however, a judicial organization. Any prisoners we capture will be handed over to the authorities for prosecution in a court of law, with clear evidence of the criminals' wrong-doing. Should the authorities be unable to fairly judge the criminals, then we will hold them until a fair judicial system is in place."
The President exchanged alarmed looks with his aides.
"Aren't you worried," the chief of staff said, "about holding innocent victims?"
"Not at all. We have a truth serum that compels you to tell the truth. With that, it is obvious when someone is innocent: 'Yes or No, did you deliberately do this crime?' If they say yes, they are guilty. Then you can determine if there are extenuating circumstances. End of story."
One of the President's aides spoke up. "In the United States, the authorities cannot compel someone to admit to a crime. It is too easy to fake such a confession."
"You cannot fake a confession with our truth serum."
"Still," said the aide, with a shrug.
"Our government does not allow the indiscriminate use of our truth serum."
So, they weren't a militaristic society, and he wasn't the final authority.
"A prisoner must request the serum before it is applied," the Admiral continued. "The innocent, of course, always ask for it. Sometimes the guilty ask for it, too — usually when they think they can beat it. They can't, but they are still held to the confessions they make." He paused. "Perhaps, by suggesting it isn't perfect, you could get them to agree to taking it?" He shrugged.
"Besides, even if you toss the confessions, you will always be assured that the innocent go free, won't you? Every solicitor will insist on using the . . . drug, if it proves his client is really innocent."
"And it can't be beat?" asked the Head of the Department of Justice.
There was a moment of silence as the two aliens looked at each other.
"There are ways to beat it, but they are only available to one of us," the female said. "For you? No, it can't be beat. If someone answers a question while using it, it is the truth."
The man sighed. "This will turn the whole justice system inside out." He shook his head. "If anyone goes to trial, the knowledge that they refused a serum that would prove they were innocent, well, as far as any jury would be concerned, the accused has to be guilty." He pursed his lips. "It goes against every principle of innocent until proven guilty."
The Admiral shrugged. "I don't care if you want to use the serum or not. You're the ones who have to live with the knowledge murders and rapists are wandering free, while your innocent brothers and sisters are rotting in jail because of a flawed and imperfect justice system that refuses to use a fool-proof method of determining guilt, not me." He paused. "Besides, anyone we capture will be at the scene of the crime, while they are committing it, which makes an extremely convincing case to most juries."
"How can you do that?" The Chief of Staff said, obviously very sceptical.
"Remember, we're going after terrorists. We simply identify their most likely victims, and give them a communications device — sort of a panic button. When they hit it, we go there and capture the terrorist in action. Once we have the terrorist, we use our serum to track him back to his organization and roll them up that way."
"How can you get there fast enough to do anything?" came the incredulous response.
He shrugged. "Like this." He stood up, began a turn to the right, and disappeared with a pop. Almost simultaneously, there was a pop from the door to the room, and the Admiral was standing there. As they stared at him, he again started to turn right, disappeared again, and reappeared over by one of the Secret Service agents, with attendant pops.
The agent almost jumped out of his skin.
There was dead silence in the room.
"I personally have a range of hundreds miles. I won't give you an exact number, for obvious reasons," he said, before popping back to his chair and resuming his seat. "Others have greater and smaller ranges."
"Teleportation?" Major General Hammond said.
"That's what Captain Carter suggested," Number One said. "It isn't quite; it depends upon your definition of teleportation, but I guess it's close enough not to matter. The current theory is that we are opening a microscopic wormhole and passing through it. Hence the sensation of being squeezed through a straw." He glanced at Hammond. "Your SG One team can explain more, in much more detail." He looked back at the Clinton. "A second theory is that we are punching a hole to another . . . dimension? plane?. . . where space is millions of times compressed, moving a fraction of an inch, and returning. A third theory is that we are convincing the universe that we aren't here, but really over there — and the universe puts us there. Recording instruments give conflicting data. It might be a combination of two or all three."
"Sort of like the two-slit experiment with light," put in Number One. "Observer-bias, where your instruments see only what the user expects to see. So, we really don't know."
No one said anything for several moments, trying to understand the impossibility of her explanations. Creating a worm-hole with their minds? Accessing other dimensions? Convincing the universe they were somewhere else? A combination of the explanations?
"Did you need your ship," Hammond, finally said, and nodded his head out the window, "just to bring the S.G. One team here?"
"No. We can only . . . teleport . . . to somewhere we've been or seen. A picture will do. It just has to be in range. If one is desperate enough, just knowing of the location is all that is needed, but you have much less control over exactly where you will appear. Depending on the description, you could miss, literally, by a mile."
Hammond narrowed his eyes. "So, if you had had a picture of this room and your ship was above us somewhere, you could have teleported in?"
"Yes."
"And you can take passengers with you?" He had implied that with his comment about talking with the SG1 team about the sensation of teleporting.
There was a silent communication between the two aliens. "Yes," said Number One, "but there are conditions and limitations depending on one's ability to concentrate, one's strength, how tired one is, one's familiarity with where one is going, the physical size of one's passenger, and so forth."
"Passengers tend to sick-up the first few times they experience it," the Admiral said.
Hammond looked over at the President and raised an eyebrow. After a moment, the President nodded. Hammond took a breath. "So, you have a ship about six hundred miles above the British Isles?"
The two seated aliens looked at each other silently for several seconds. The one standing behind them seemed to be laughing, if the way its shoulders were shaking was a clue.
Number One turned back to them. "Yes. Very good. What gave us away?"
It was very interesting to Hammond that they didn't seem upset at being discovered, just surprised.
"Space Command keeps track of everything in orbit around the Earth, from the smallest bolt or washer to large sections of rockets. For some time now, there's been a spot where the orbiting debris just . . . disappears without a trace." He paused, then continued. "Plus, there are regular meteor showers that we track. Sometimes, some of the meteors in a swarm . . . disappear at that altitude and position."
"Ah! Well . . .," the Admiral said, and rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand, "Right."
They were silent for several seconds. "Would you like us to . . . collect the worthless debris?" the Admiral said. "Say, anything smaller than a glove? It won't take more than an hour once we finish with the alien ships." He paused a second. "If you have a list of dead satellites, we could collect those, too, and give them back to you. We could even put them back in orbit after you fix them up, if you want?"
Their offer to remove the orbital debris was met with silence. Cleaning up the debris would greatly reduce the complexities involved in launching satellites through the near-Earth orbital field, a giant plus. It would also reduce the tracking workload in Space Command. On the other hand, it would make it impossible to detect invisible spaceships by the sporadic disappearance of pieces in the debris field.
A very clever ploy to keep their secrets while appearing helpful. One that would be difficult to turn down once it became publicly known. Hammond's scientists, in his former position, had told him that it was inevitable that two satellites would collide within the next twenty years. There had already been several near-misses with the Space Station. Coupled with the satellite retrieval and replacement offer, it would be politically impossible to say, "no."
An aide came into the room and whispered something to another aide. That aide walked over to the President and whispered something.
The President looked at the aide, then back at them. "Excuse me, but you do know your ship just left?"
Admiral Potter nodded. "No reason to waste the pilot's time waiting for us now that you know we don't really need the ship, at this time."
There were several interesting conclusions one could draw from that. Clearly, they were in constant contact with their ship. Which was to be expected — they were wearing spacesuits, after all! However, the pilot could have left the ship behind and returned to it as needed, given what they had been told so far about the aliens' teleportation powers. The US military never would have known the aliens' ship was within their teleportation distance — which they now knew was a minimum of six hundred miles — nine hundred and sixty kilometres.
They didn't seem worried about revealing this information.
That meant either they had moved their ship, or that they had more than one. Or, it was even possible their small ship was going go to the maximum teleportation distance of these three aliens — that moving their transport was a ruse to keep the US military off balance.
He hated these kinds of puzzles.
He remembered the reports from SG1 last August about how the pilot of that Runabout was very upfront that they could be lying through their teeth about what they could or could not do. Perhaps the teleportation was really technology built into the suits?
The president nodded in understanding of not wasting time.
"Do you have just the one ship?" Hammond asked.
"We have two ships housing the captured Jaffa, the Battlestars Requirement and Galileo. We're currently repurposing a Fuelling Depot into a prison base so that our prisoners won't be as crowded. We're also bringing another Battlestar into service for permanent protection, here, the Su Song." He paused. "Unless you know of a planet we can move them to through the Stargate?" He paused again. "We'd really rather not have a dedicated prison base, if at all possible." He stopped for a moment.
"We also have thirty-six fighter ships, the ones that destroyed the Goa'uld ships, currently deployed for service," Number One said. "Plus, seventeen Runabouts like the one we used to get here."
"I believe we've found one or two abandoned worlds through the Stargate." The General frowned. "What will you do when the prim'ta needs replacing?"
The Admiral waved his hand dismissively. "We can take care of that problem. Teal'c will be able to explain."
Hammond slowly nodded, then asked, "Do you have a base at Uranus?"
There was a long silence as the two aliens looked in random directions, obviously communicating.
"Again, very good!" Number One said. "When did you find it?"
The Admiral was shaking his head. The Combat Operations Commander was clapping its hands and clearly laughing.
"Space Command first noticed in August 1996, but a graduate student at UCLA noticed in late June of that year."
The Admiral sighed. "Ah, when we began building Uranus Base." He paused. "Why were you watching Uranus? We thought nobody was paying attention to it." He shook his head. "And we were so careful to arrange the orbit to not throw a shadow on the planet."
"A graduate astronomy student was studying hydrogen-two quantities in the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune for his Masters Degree, and caught an anomalous reading of high temperatures being generated in orbit in June that year. For several months the astronomers had a world-wide watch on the gas-giant trying to figure out the source."
Potter sighed. "And, thus, they saw our construction. If we'd stayed at Jupiter no-one would have noticed." He shook his head. "Just bad luck."
"Construction?"
"We needed a station to harvest fuel — water and helium-three — from Uranus, so we were using the Requirement to do the work. It wasn't designed for continuous construction work, so it had to stop periodically to cool off.
"Then in August, we were experimenting."
"Experimenting?"
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