Ch. 41 — Diplomacy
For the next several days, things were rather busy on all fronts. Fortunately, the Christmas season was quickly coming, and he looked forward to two weeks at Grimmauld Place. Sirius seemed to think that the Wizengamot was under control.
One of the Fuel Depots had been converted to a Prison Station, and they had transferred the Jaffa into it. As planned, it had been stripped down to only station-keeping engines and a power-plant capable only of running the life-support systems. A separate Fuel Depot was tasked with providing food, clothing, and other materials. Exercise rooms, theatres, and libraries were included. Teaching programs for English were provided through terminals.
After that, they just sort of ignored them, except for periodic checks that there weren't any problems. Next month, assuming Teal'c didn't report any issues, they would start removing the prim'tas from those Jaffa who wanted to be rid of them.
They would suggest, though, that only those Jaffa reaching their time to replace their prim'ta take the offer. Those with younger prim'ta could use the advantages offered by the parasites until it was time to be replaced. Why give up an advantage until you had to? However, based on Teal'c's reaction, they expected many Jaffa would request the operation, anyway, just to be "free."
As soon as the General Construction Units completed the Moon Base they would start X-wings for the new recruits that the different countries were gathering.
They might not have the magical enhancements that the Crew pilots had on their X-wings, but they were far superior to the so-called "death Gliders" the Goa'uld preferred.
Fortunately, they had plenty of naquadah on hand so the fighters still had long flight-times and more than enough power for the plasma guns and lasers. They wouldn't need to divert any of the Fuel Depots from the current duplication program.
They ended up designating the magically-enhanced fighters as XE models to avoid confusion.
The Yanks and British military were already assembling a wing of pilots for them to start training. Harry had already decided that the muggle fighter-wings would be a mixed group, and had so informed both governments. Training in the fighters would only begin if a squadron had a mix of at least six nationalities as pilots.
This squadron was for the protection of the Earth, not for settling minor disputes between government rulers with thin skins, or ideological differences. The fighters would remain under D.S.F. control, and the pilots would be taking oaths to back that up. With a veritaserum test, first, for why they wanted to join: To protect Earth? Take the technology for their country? Attack their government's enemies? No one would be "stealing" the technology.
The muggle X-wings could mock fight all they wanted. Lethal attacks against other X-wings, or any DFS unit, were locked out.
They decided to copy the general floorplan of the base on Earth, with several important differences.
First, the gates would be nearly ten miles — sixteen kilometres — apart, but linked to the underground Moon Base via two elevators, each. Their "departure/arrival" rooms would look almost exactly like the original Stargate room, blemishes and all, with the same style of Observation and Control room deck overlooking the facility. The only difference would be that they would be much, much larger and roomier.
They would be buried deep inside a crater wall, for the radiation protection the stone provided from space. The crater wall would have to be reinforced into a monolithic structure, with stress seams, to maximize that protection and add overall resistance to any outside forces brought to bear on it, either natural or not.
One wall of each Stargate room would open to a zig-zag tunnel that led to a massive X-wing hangar, capable of holding a full squadron of seventeen fighters and two redesigned General Purpose ships (without the expansion charms, of course). The hangar would have two massive doors. On the Moon, one would open to the zig-zag tunnel that led to the Stargate and the other would open to a zig-zag tunnel that went nowhere. On Earth would be a matching hangar, except its outside access tunnel would be real and the tunnel to the Stargate a fake.
The pilots' elevator to the X-wing hangar would activate a Ring Transport to the appropriate Stargate.
The wall with the Observation-and-Control-room Deck would have two doors. One would lead to a massive freight-elevator. The second to a short hallway that led to a more modest elevator for groups of people and emergency evacuation should the larger be occupied or unavailable for any reason. That hallway also had a separate elevator and staircase to the Observation-and-Control-room Deck.
The two elevators would descend to the actual base far below the Moon's surface.
Both Stargate rooms would also be outfitted with several mini-guns that covered the entire space, but could not be used to target each other.
Only the designers, and selected personnel, would know that the rooms, with the assistance of gravity generators, were actually mounted vertically in the crater walls so that the Stargates pointed up and away from the surface of the Moon.
The elevators would move sideways from the rooms before actually descending. They turned as they did so, to be properly vertical. The shafts themselves would not be straight, either. They zig-zagged ninety-degrees sideways, much like the trenches that troops used in World War One — or the turbo-lifts in Star Trek. This not only would act as protection from conventional explosions, it would make it impossible to predict the elevators' exact paths and the location of the base underneath to anyone not in-the-know. Certain sections were designed to blow-out in the event of an interior explosion so that most of the force was vented into space and not down into the base.
As far as anyone in the elevators knew, they ascended straight up a short distance from the Stargate rooms into the main Base, leaving them the impression that they were above the Stargate rooms — as they had been in Cheyenne Mountain. The elevators would move extremely fast, but the people inside would feel only a small change to indicate only vertical movement the entire time.
The base wasn't directly below either room, but under the wall of another crater.
The elevators also carried scanning equipment to look for anyone carrying internal passengers, especially the Goa'uld, and other problematic items and substances, such as bombs, or their components. They made sure to include a search for the one that had been hidden in Cassandra.
Combined with the Earth-based Ring Transport disguised as an elevator to "descend" to the Stargate Command Complex, no one on Earth would suspect that they were on the Moon and not simply under Cheyenne Mountain in the United States.
Any invading individual or group would be easily contained, with multiple choke points at which they could be stopped with only minor effort. There were also separate power sources, and multiple backups, for the Stargate rooms, elevators, and different sections of the base. There would be no way to cut power to the entire base.
Lee assured Harry that the Yanks were quite impressed with the planned base, as well as the choke points designed into it. They would be delighted, he insisted with the finished product.
The average worker would have a normal shift on the Moon Base, return home to his family for dinner every night, and never realize he had left the planet.
Even the security rooms had been designed to conceal this fact, as their displays would not show the true routes of the elevators, nor the true distances covered.
A witch or wizard could circumvent most of those security measures, but would never survive the Ring Transports nor passage through the Stargate. The only access a wizard would have required the use of a Runabout, X-wing, or starship. All of which had transponders that revealed their presence to Stargate Security, and the DFS, whether they were cloaked or not. And even then, the wizard still needed either apparition or a portkey to get into the base!
The second Stargate was their emergency backup if the main Stargate was "unavailable" for any reason. Its controls were set to "out of service." An imperviused metal iris was kept closed over it as additional insurance against any "accidental" arrivals.
Whether that could withstand a "plasma burst" was not something they wanted to test.
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It was the weekend following the Moon Base being completed and put into operation — it was their N.E.W.T. year and studying took most of his time — that Lee told him over the tricorder that their security had just proven itself worth all the effort.
"The planet Nasya," he said, "was under a Goa'uld attack when the Yanks started their first mission from the new Stargate Base. In helping fight off the attack, and bring through the survivors, Captain Carter was infected by a Tok'ra named Jolinar." He shook his head.
"However, two prim'ta victims were detected and beamed into holding cells when the freight elevator left the Stargate Room with the evacuees." He sighed heavily.
"With Captain Carter being an SG-One team member, we interviewed her first, naturally." He chuckled. "Veritaserum works on Goa'uld, it seems. General Hammond was quite pleased with that discovery!" He smirked.
He took a breath. "Apparently, Jolinar was being stalked by a Goa'uld assassin — which she said was called an Ashrak — who specializes in hunting Tok'ra. That was, perhaps, one of the reasons for the attack, the Ashrak was hoping the chaos would let him get close enough to Tok'ra's host to kill him.
"Anyway, the Ashrak, Edrekh, was impersonating a wounded native Nasyan, and was also beamed from the elevator to a holding cell.
"I tell you, Admiral, that fidelius was a genius idea! I hit him with a confundus and no one said a word or blinked an eye! With the veritaserum in him, he confessed everything. He's been killing Goa'uld and regular people for decades. They're in the process now of interrogating him and unravelling the Goa'uld hierarchy. He is, literally, a goldmine of information." Lee chuckled. "We'll soon have the Stargate address for every Goa'uld home planet.
"The problem now is, what do we do with the Tok'ra? We're not going to let this Jolinar just waltz out of here wearing Captain Carter like a glove, are we?"
Harry and Hermione exchanged looks. They were currently in one of the empty classrooms not far from the library.
"Well," Harry said slowly, thinking, "The only thing I can think to do is use one of the PiMPS to let the Requirement beam the Tok'ra out of her. Then put the creature in stasis until we can return it to its companions." He raised his eyebrows as he waited for Hermione to say something. "Which might be easy to do, considering the veritaserum will force her to tell us an address to use to contact them. Or, at the very least, a drop-point where we can leave a message for them.
Hermione slowly nodded. "Run this by the General. If the General agrees, we'll use a PiMPS to remove the parasite and keep it in stasis."
She looked at Harry. "From the Hathor incident we know how to make a tank in which to keep it safe when we transport it through a Stargate."
Lee nodded. "Sounds good to me." He paused a moment, thinking. "By the way, shall we interrogate Hathor with veritaserum to see what we can learn? Her information on the Goa'uld is hopelessly out of date, but we can get information on their home-world and how they got to where they are."
"An excellent suggestion, Lee!" Harry said. "Just make sure you have someone outside the room watching on a tricorder with a set of stun-drones at the ready in case she tries anything strange." He paused a second. "By the way, what's the word on Snape's progress with a way to kill the prim'ta?"
Lee shook his head wryly. "Say what you will about his personality, but he's a genius with potions. He has one that's harmless to humans but will kill Goa'uld via a direct injection or as an aerosol if they are outside the host. He thinks both methods will work with one in a host, and it even counteracts the toxin released when the Goa'uld dies that normally kills the host. I've been putting him off saying we don't have an infected host, but this Edrekh sounds like a promising opportunity. Much as I hate to say it, we can use Hathor to help refine the potion, later, if needed."
Harry wrinkled his nose and shook his head, but then sighed. "I suppose so. I really don't like the idea, but if anyone sounds deserving of being executed, it sounds like Edrekh does. As for Hathor, she did kill two archaeologists in Mexico and was prepared to slaughter more." He sighed. "If we can kill the parasite without injuring the person, then maybe we should do it."
"Who knows how many people she casually killed in the past, too," added Hermione.
"As soon as you finish with Jolinar, see if the General will release Edrekh, to us as a test subject," Harry said, Hermione nodding beside him. "You can tell the General that one of our best chemists is working on a way to prevent a prim'ta from infecting a host. The first test is something to kill the prim'ta in an already infected host. That way, a simple shot, aerosol, or gel-pill would solve the question of if someone is infected."
"Tell him that once that's complete, then we can try to come up with a vaccine or something they could take before going through the Stargate to prevent it in the first place," Hermione added.
"What about the refugees? How many are there?" Harry asked.
Lee raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "We certainly never thought this would happen, but we should have." He sighed. "Several hundred survivors came through. Fortunately, there is an Air Force base near Cheyenne Mountain, and they managed to move them there rather quickly. The hospital had a PiMPS, as did Stargate, so they managed to process them all, and none died after making it through the gate. They've also managed to house most of them."
He grinned. "Not a single one of them suspected that they were transferred from the Moon to Earth."
He looked back and forth at the other two. "Moving that many refugees to Earth is a potential security problem. I don't doubt several of them will try to escape into the general population. Who knows what mischief he or she might cause, especially given that the Goa'uld might try to sneak deadly diseases through in that manner? I think the next project for the GCUs should be preparing an underground city not far from Moon Base. That would be one more security step in keeping potential problems away from Earth.
"It could be sectionalized to handle anywhere from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand. We would need to provide a separate powerplant for the city, but that's about it. We wouldn't have to change the on-hand library much at all, except to provide food and backup for the PiMPSs. As long as we disable the scan-to-create-a-pattern functions, it would be safe to leave there."
It was sensible.
Harry pursed his lips. "I don't see why not," he said. "Except maybe make the city a couple of hundred miles away so we don't have to worry about attacks spreading from the Stargates to the city, and vice versa. Just use a high-speed transfer system like the elevators from the gates to the rest of the under-surface Base."
"Definitely," Hermione agreed.
"Maybe put it far enough underground so that it can't be detected? Wait, a better idea would be to put it deep underground and put a muggle-aversion spell over it so nothing can find it and attack."
He widened his eyes with a sudden inspiration, he stared at Lee's image. "Why couldn't we have that spell on the XE-wings?" He turned to look at Hermione. "It would give our pilots maximum protection! Then if someone had a way to detect our tech shields, they would still overlook our fighters."
"We could make it a toggle," Hermione said excitedly, "For when they practice with muggle pilots. That way no one would suspect anything."
"We could put it on the Runabouts, too," Lee said, getting excited, in turn, "for emergencies!" Then he tsked, rolled his eyes, and said, "On that subject, I'm happy to tell you that we finally have anchor stones in place on the Requirement!"
They both sat up straight at that news. "We tested a small marble slab in one of the X-wings. The tech shields were worthless, as expected, but the magic-shield on the hull stopped the lasers all the way up to full-power. They were only good for one hit at full-power, though, then the slab cracked from the heat. Then Bob, the head of the company had a brainstorm." Lee grinned widely. "Why try to stop it when you can reflect it for a fraction of the power?"
"Reflect it?" Harry said curiously.
"Yep!" Lee said happily. "Lasers are concentrated light. At the right frequency, with the right mirror, it simply bounces off. In fact, normally, some of the energy the laser beam has is lost to reflection when it hits anything. It's just that that percentage is so low, it is insignificant. However, the shield powered by the anchor stones can detect the exact frequency of the laser, and become a mirror for it at that spot. It works throughout the entire light spectrum, and even works on x-ray and higher-frequency beams!" He shook his head. "The library calculated that the shield wouldn't start to fail until we went up against nine ships with the Requirement's defensive batteries." He grinned happily. "No slicing and dicing for us!
"Anyway," he continued, "the Requirement uses eighteen marbles slabs, ten tonnes each. Two each fore and aft on each of the three sections, plus two on the top and bottom in the middle of each."
He looked down a moment, then back at Harry. "I was thinking we should offer Bob a bonus equal to the contract, and give the other workers the same size bonus to share."
Harry nodded. "I certainly don't object to that! His idea will save lives, I'm sure. Hermione?" He turned to look at her. She was nodding. "Fine, Let's do that." He frowned a moment thinking. "Alright. Ask him if he's interested in a contract for the Galileo, Su Song, the Runabouts, and the rest of the XE-wing fighters." He hesitated, and looked at his girlfriend — that still made him smile.
She was frowning slightly. "I think we should start with the XE-wings, first, then the Runabouts, then the other two Battlecruisers. The smaller ships will be quicker to do, I imagine."
Lee was nodding.
"What about the Bases, Construction Units, and Fuel Depots?" Harry suggested.
She sighed and pulled out her tricorder. She wrote something down, then studied the result. She shook her head. "That's not a contract, that's a career — we currently have three-thousand and fifty-two depots. In January, we'll have six thousand one hundred and four, in February, twelve-thousand two hundred and eight, and end March with twenty-four thousand four hundred and sixteen."
Both Harry and Lee were glassy-eyed as they thought about that.
"Well, the marble isn't a problem," Lee said hesitantly, "The units can make their own."
"How long did it take to enchant the Requirement?" she said.
He sighed. "About a day to enchant each slab."
She slowly nodded, and tapped on her book like a calculator. "It would take sixty-seven years if they worked every day. Or ninety-four years if they took the weekends off. Assuming that each Depot only needed one slab."
Lee stared at her. "Job security?" he said weakly.
Harry shrugged. "Talk it over with the man. Maybe have him hire other firms to work under his supervision? If there aren't enough in England, then hit the continent, over the pond, or down under. If he can get ten teams working, then it's only ten years, right?"
Hermione nodded. "Just make sure they all take that oath to keep our secrets, first."
"Not a problem," Lee said, nodding again. "Anyway, the Requirement now has anti-apparition and anti-portkey spells in place, as well as the laser shields and impervius spells. I'll makes sure we add the muggle-aversion spell, too. Portkeys are limited to a certain area in each hangar deck, and the Apparition and Vanishing Cabinets Room. Crew are exceptions to the apparition spells, but limited to Apparition room. Even knowing of the room, no one but Crew can use apparition to and from it."
He frowned. "I think that's all the news." His eyebrows went up. "Oh, and we're starting to get Crew from the Dublin and Paris Enterprise Stores! Plus, based on what Padma and Parvati tell me, we can expect to get a lot of interest from Indians when we open a store in Bombay. The wizards and witches there follow the caste system, so the lower castes will see the DSF as a way to escape being treated as second- and third-class citizens despite their talents." He scowled. "Apparently, their caste system makes the pure-blood, half-blood, and muggle-born nonsense look absolutely democratic."
Harry grinned. "Sounds good to me!" He looked at Hermione. "Well, if that's all, we need to head for dinner."
"Captain Lee Jordan, over and out!" He snapped off a rather credible salute and his image disappeared.
Harry shook his head as Hermione smothered a grin.
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Harry took a deep breath, steeled himself, and walked out onto the stage. He had given speeches to his Crew, but they were friends for the most part. While he had been slightly nervous, then, it was nothing like now. There was a spotlight on the centre of the stage.
The auditorium was full of people, slightly over a hundred of them. Of them all, he had met only four. They were all muggles.
He took a took another deep breath and let it out slowly. He turned off his invisibility cloak and stood silent for a moment for them to realize someone was standing in the spotlight.
"I am Admiral Potter of the Defensive Space Force." He paused. "I'm sure you all recognize me." Which was his feeble attempt at a joke — he was wearing his space suit. The only identifying marks were his rank insignia on his helmet, shoulders, wrists, and ankles. He wasn't wearing the armour, just the regular robes.
The audience barely stirred. He sighed.
"You have all been chosen by your governments," he said, "to participate in the Stargate Program exploring the worlds across the galaxy. Half of you are the American teams that have been doing just that for the last few months. One-third are exploration teams, one-third are medical teams, and one-third are backup-and-rescue teams. We will be breaking up the old teams and new people will be joining them, as well as new teams being formed."
He started pacing.
"The Yanks will tell you that this is not a risk-free operation. One team found themselves in the middle of an attack on the area around the Stargate, another found themselves on a world that was suffering from an all-life extinction-level event, another team was wiped out. The first two teams barely escaped the same fate. Other teams have been captured by the aliens on the world they visited, one team has simply disappeared. More than one team member has been attacked and taken-over by a Goa-uld."
He stopped and looked across the room.
"That is why you are here, right now. The Stargate program is currently suspended to allow the DSF time to provide you all with new equipment, and training with it, so that the odds of your survival and returning home are as high as possible. The DSF believes in keeping their members as safe as feasible."
He chuckled. "The Gates are not idle, however, they are being used to assist in terraforming Mars and Venus."
That made the audience sit up and take notice. He waited a minute for the noise to drop down.
He cleared his throat to get their attention. "First, each of you will be fitted with a spacesuit like this." A helmeted Marine member of the Crew walked onto the stage. He was wearing only the spacesuit. He stopped beside Harry and held his arms out to his sides.
"As you can see, the suits are what some call skin-tight — which is why I, and the entire DSF crew wear clothes on top of the suits." He paused. "The spacesuits do not merely protect you from the environment as normal spacesuits do. They have communication and location equipment built-in, so you will never be out of touch with the rest of your team. They also have camouflage built-in."
The Marine's suit flashed from its current blue-and-silver to the camo-style troops used in jungles, switched to desert, and then forest in winter. It finished with sky-blue. He stepped back against the stage curtain and faded from view as the suit matched the curtain's pattern, then it turned to Black Watch plaid. It then faded into a skin-tone colour that completely masked that he was wearing a spacesuit — unless you took a really close look below his waist.
The audience burst into a surprised chatter.
"Unlike regular spacesuits," Harry continued, "There are no bulky life-support or oxygen tanks on the back, although the built-in oxygen tank has about one litre of oxygen. That may not sound like much, but the built-in tech breaks-up your exhaled carbon-dioxide to free the oxygen so that you essentially have an unlimited supply. Or, rather, limited to your battery's supply and your suit's current usage demands."
The Marine's suit became white as he turned around.
"You'll notice the flat area across his back."
An area two-hands wide and stretching from his shoulders to his hip flashed grey.
"That is his hoverboard. It also covers some of the support equipment."
The audience reacted to the word hoverboard.
The Marine reached over his shoulder, pulled the hoverboard off, and dropped it carelessly to the floor. It flipped over and hovered barely a hands-width above the floor. He stepped up on it.
"Completely silently movement, the only indication of your presence is the wind passing over the suit and your clothes."
The Marine took a quick run around the stage.
"It has a top speed of about a hundred miles an hour, a hundred and sixty kilometres, and an acceleration of one gravity in space, given that there's no friction. Acceleration in space, and speed on the ground is as long as its internal battery lasts, about a week at the highest rate, two months at the lowest."
"It will also treat any surface as the 'ground'," he made quotes signs with his fingers.
The Marine executed a quick flip, and suddenly was coasting up the curtain. He repeated the manoeuvre at the ceiling, and coasted across it, upside-down, over the audience.
"The final feature that you will all appreciate is the invisibility cloak."
The Marine disappeared. The audience was silent a moment, then burst into excited chatter.
"The invisibility cloak is powered by the suit's battery, but should be used sparingly, as running the suit's battery down can be catastrophic in the field. We do not suggest using invisibility for more than a day, total, on any mission. Hence the suit's chameleon ability to blend into the surroundings, which uses power only to change."
The Marine reappeared, still on the ceiling, his suit a solid white. Then it faded to match the ceiling. Only by watching closely could you see him move back to the stage curtain, and thence to the stage, itself.
"For the rest of this month and next, you will be training in the abilities of your spacesuits, the hoverboards, and how to fight while using them."
He paused a moment for the chatter to die down, again.
"While these are useful features, having to remove your uniforms and equipment supplied by Stargate Command to use them is problematic. Thus, you will also receive cloaks to wear over your uniforms and equipment."
The Marine grabbed the collar of his spacesuit, gave a tug, and a floor-length cloak fluttered down to cover him.
"Anything you can fit under the cloak while it is closed will be concealed."
He paused again.
"Finally, each suit is designed for you, and will only accept you as the wearer. It will not work for anyone but you. The same is true of the hoverboard . . .. The tech used in the suit and hoverboard is far beyond anything that your scientists are capable of understanding at this point in your technological development. Heck, most of it is beyond my understanding. The Hoverboard, for example, appears as a single, solid, piece of metal. A scanning electron microscope, I've been told, can detect some of the circuitry inside. However, trying to duplicate it would be like asking a scholar from two thousand years ago to build a transistor radio out of a handful of sand, charcoal, some copper, and a chunk of iron. He might understand how a transistor radio worked, but to make one? He, and his children, and their children, would spend the rest of their lives making the tools to make the tools to make the tools to make the machines just to make the components."
He sighed.
He pointed to the first row. "Will the first row please stand up and come up onto the stage." He swept his arm to point at the stairs at one side of the stage.
At the same time the curtain behind him opened to reveal a row of doors.
"There are several rows of changing booths, here. Please select one and disrobe when you are inside. When you are fully disrobed, stand like this," he stood with his arms up and out at a forty-five-degree angle and his feet a shoulder-width apart. "The Library will measure and fit you for a suit, and then construct one on you. It will tell you when it has finished, then you can redress and exit the booth for the next person to use."
For the next hour, all Harry did was act as a traffic-control officer, calling up the different rows and sending the newly outfitted soldiers and scientists back to their seats.
As the last person settled back in their seat he stepped to the centre of the stage, again.
"The first thing you will want to know is how to take off the spacesuit!" He chuckled. "Place a finger of your right hand at the edge of where the spacesuit is on your neck." He did so himself. "Now run your finger over to your shoulder," which he did, his suit peeling open, leaving his helmet still on. "Then run it down your side to below your hip."
"You will then be able to remove the spacesuit. Putting it on is just as simple: press the edges of the suit at your hip together, and work your way back up to your neck. That's it." He stopped and looked at them.
"Taking off your helmet is simple. Grab the edges of the faceplate," he demonstrated that. "Then pull it back to your collar as if you were taking off the hood of a hooded jacket," which he also demonstrated. He wasn't worried about them seeing his face, he had cast a notice-me-not charm on his features. They wouldn't remember what they saw, and if they compared their observations, they wouldn't agree on what they had seen. Also, he had a small tech shield over his face that blurred his features, so even if someone had smuggled in a camera, they wouldn't get a clear picture.
"As you can see, when the helmet is removed, it forms what looks like a thin band around your neck.
"Putting on your helmet is just a matter pulling it over your head. Grab the band, pull it outwards and over your head. The faceplate will form as soon as you let go. Removing the helmet is the reverse."
He pulled his helmet back in place.
"One nice feature on the helmet is that you can make it transparent at will." His helmet appeared to disappear.
He waved his hand at the Marine, who was now wearing the standard uniform worn by SGC members.
"I now turn this over to the Master Sergeant, who will take you to the Moon so that you will have plenty of room to practice. Good luck."
There was a stunned silence.
"ALL RIGHT!" the wizard shouted as Harry stepped back. "You will follow the direction of the Marine at the end of each row!"
A Marine appeared in the aisle at each end the auditorium as they turned off their cloaks. Three of the Runabouts had been refitted to accommodate all the people comfortably.
Harry headed off the stage to disapparate to his waiting Runabout. He still had a Potions essay to finish.
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Lieutenant-General Hammond — the additional soldiers from other countries had necessitated an upgrade in rank — set the folder back on his desk. He had to admit that the DSF had come through with flying colours, delivering everything they promised in an incredibly short time.
The base, built in under three days, was breath-taking in its duplication of the insides of the base in Cheyenne Mountain, with all the sections having to deal directly with the Stargate Command on the Moon. The transition from the Base on the Moon to Cheyenne Mountain was impossible to detect. That the Stargates were positioned to point away from the Earth, and the Moon, without revealing their orientation was incredible. Separating the Stargates from the rest of the Base with ultrafast elevators made security much simpler, too. Secret, too, was that there were two Stargates on the Moon.
Their detection equipment put anything Earth could supply to shame, and had already proven its effectiveness with detecting Goa'uld intrusions. The new city they were building nearly two hundred klicks from the Base itself, and ten klicks below the surface, showed they were serious about both security and safety.
To anyone arriving through the Stargates, everything seemed to be compact and neatly placed under Cheyenne Mountain instead of spread out over hundreds of kilometres on the Moon. Plus, each section was independent of the others with their own power units and security systems.
And yet, the everyday workers in the Stargate program could go home at night to their families in Colorado.
The truth drug supplied by the DSF was everything they had claimed. The assassin Goa'uld would take several weeks to fully interrogate, but they had already developed a detailed chart of the systems the Goa'uld controlled just from what they had learned so far. The decision had already been approved to turn the assassin over to the DSF for their testing of the drug to kill the parasite while leaving the human unharmed.
Jolinar was a different problem. The veritaserum, as the 'aliens' called it, had proven that Captain Carter was a willing companion to the Tok'ra. The DSF had offered to 'sequester' the Tokra using a PiMPS. They had promised it would be harmless to the Captain, and so fast that the Tok'ra would never have time to react. One moment it would be in the Captain, the next it would be asleep in a nutrient tank until Stargate Command could convince the Tok'ra high command that they were serious about returning the lost Tok'ra.
The President, instead, had suggested letting Jolinar remain with the Captain through her training with the new equipment supplied by the DSF before doing that. That way the Tok'ra could tell its companions what the Earth Forces were capable of doing with a high degree of accuracy, and perhaps get them to cooperate in eradicating the Goa'uld threat. They might also be interested in taking the 'freed' Jaffa as their helpers in fighting the Goa'uld.
The DSF was very interested in getting rid of their prisoners.
Learning how to use the equipment was simplicity itself. It was mostly intuitive. Learning how to fight with that equipment? The learning curve was steep and very high. It would take every one of the eight-weeks scheduled before the Teams' use of their equipment was second-nature.
The next time one of their teams tangled with the Goa'uld, the Goa'uld would be very surprised at the outcome.
Very surprised, indeed.
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