Add bookmark

#9

Chapter 1
"Okay, so… someone wanna fill me in?" Jack asked once introductions were done.

"Right there sir." Bradford gestured at the table, where Kawalsky pulled up a seat.

Unease fought with his curiosity, curiosity won. Plopping himself in the chair, Jack scooched up to frown at the guest on the opposite side, who peered up with his own grimace. The… big guest. Jack blinked at the man wearing fatigues in distinctly non US Military camo while he looked across, taking a weak breath.

First Jack noticed that the patch on his shoulder was a tricolor, Bundeswehr. Second, he asked himself why the deepest level of Cheyenne Mountain had a German soldier, a grunt based on the insignia, hanging out alongside USAF Special Forces, looking shaken like he just got out of a nasty fight. He had the stare he recognized, the shakes like he was having trouble keeping himself together. This man had been through something bad.

Leaning sideways as much as he was able, thirdly Jack realized that the man's seat was at its lowest. He was not a short man, but he was still smaller than this guy. Under his breath he groaned, shaking it off.

"So, from the top. What happened?" Jack frowned, focusing on what mattered.

Bradford moved to the center of the table, once he spoke to an aide. A screen came to life, it looked new. Actually it looked really high end, Jack wondered how much it cost at the same time as he examined the map being shown, that of a dense and complex cityscape. Wait…. He recognized that city, though it had been a good long while since he had last been deployed to Germany.

To be fair, back then, the place hadn´t had a whole city block torched and sealed off by a whole lot of yellow tape and soldiers.

"Do you follow the news Colonel?" The man swallowed as some more pictures appeared on the screen. Blackened out cars. A half collapsed restaurant. A truck filled with a frankly ludicrous amount of bullet holes. A whole street covered with body bags.

"Yes. I had heard there was some kind of big chemical explosion in Germany…" His mind spurned for a moment. There was no reason why he would've been shown a cordon then if it was just that. He knew explosion shrapnel could produce similar craters, but he had seen enough bullet holes to know what was caused by what, and that crater before had definitely been shot up.

"A lot of people died. I assume that wasn't some accident then?" Terrorist attacks were covered under Article V, so if there was something like the World Trade Center bombing or the kickoff to another Yugoslavia war the rest of NATO would step in. Germany was a NATO partner, so of course they would act if they had been attacked.

But then, why make this up as an accident?

"51 people are dead. 7 children included." There was a hardness in Bradford's voice for a moment. "And indeed, it was no accident."

Looking past the big guy, Jack noticed a few more Germans hanging back around the smaller conference table, probably waiting their turn to debrief them. Without fail, each and every one tensed up at the statement. Not just anger… fear.

Again, new images showed up on the screen. Of a burning APC - Type Marder if Jack remembered his Nato info well enough, which he was sure he was - with a whole bunch of dead Bundeswehr men straying around it.

Bizarrely enough, beyond the nasty look of their injuries, the way their weapons were pointed and their wounds….. Had they opened fire upon one another?!

"Three days ago there was a terror attack in Hamburg, Germany. According to the initial reports the attackers targeted civilians. Casualty estimates are high, with perpetrators unknown." Bradford hit the switch.

A video played, a low quality security camera by the look of it, probably some store owner's idea of protection. What it showed now was a man running for his life, getting a bolt of green energy slamming into his back that turned his chest into vapor. He dropped like a rock, hopefully dead the second he was hit.

Jack straightened up, right as the shooter scampered into view… a short gray creature that scampered on all fours, before standing up. Its bulbous head scanned the area, raising a pistol in preparation to fire. It wore nothing else, not that it had anything to show. Blinking a couple times to make extra sure his eyes weren't deceiving him, Jack wondered if the footage of a Roswell Gray alien was real, before mentally slapping himself.

"Local police and Heer forces moved in to neutralize the enemy." Bradford spared a glance at the big man. "What the Germans weren't aware of, was that their attackers were not…. Human."

A new picture clicked on, this one in much higher quality. It was the same creature as in the footage on an autopsy table, but now Jack could see all the little wrinkles, veins, and unpleasant bits he could do without. The wounds it had were encouraging, until he counted how many there were. How much punishment could these things take?

The sweater clad man must have expected a more shocked reaction. Instead Jack and the others just grimaced, with Kawalsky and Ferreti both leaning back with the latter leveling a frown, the three of them simply staring at the image of the alien.

Jack slid a hand under the table, so he could ball up a fist instead of letting it show on his face.

This was really happening.

"The enemy force, we've designated them X-Rays for the time being, used advanced weapons that eliminated all opposition." The screen clicked to show burned out cars, torched streets with a tree that was reduced to a charred trunk, then a police car that looked half melted. After a moment of examination Jack realized there were bodies on the street, looking to be in awful shape. "The Heer platoon wasn't just destroyed, several soldiers were affected by some kind of mind control. Private Johann Müller, part of a KSK unit that had been called to the scene, personally witnessed some of it."

The German hissed, his hands pressed so hard together that Jack wouldn't have been surprised to hear a crack or two from them. When he spoke his accent was hard but understandable.

"That is one way to call seeing a man gun down a good comrade and friend of mine from a near point blank distance, before taking himself out with a hand grenade." His tone was dry, but even without special forces training, O'Neill could have picked up the rage there.

"Private Müller was the only survivor of the world's first engagement with alien aggressors…. Or so I thought." Bradford leveled a stare at them.

"Well…. These things are definitely no Jaffa, but that little gray fella there, he definitely looks familiar. Lot of old urban legends" His old friend glanced over to him. "But you didn't see any Roswell Grays up there, right? Just humans, and the big boss himself."

"Yeah." His own eyes were dry as well, now, his mind racing with the implications. "Ra had a lot of bling on him, gold, jewels and all that stuff. But on the outside he looked human, the alien parts were all on the inside."

"But I thought Ra was dead, at least from your reports, Colonel." A new voice raised himself up, from behind him. A voice with a thick texan accent, radiating a commanding aura from his tone alone.

Jack turned, needing a lot of willpower to keep himself from bolting upright and snapping off a salute. The man in full dress blues walking in was in his 60s or so, with sharp features and a bald head, showing just a bit of gut under his coat. Nonetheless his presence had everyone's attention, from Jack to the Germans and even Bradford. When his gaze fell on Jack he felt a shiver crawl up his spine, recognizing a General long before he saw the stars.

Disapproval briefly showed on his expression, but he banished it to examine the others. In doing so Jack saw a couple new insignia on his chest he didn't recognize, on his cap was a strange pentagon shaped emblem. It was a blue thing with a globe and an X over the front, it had a couple words on top that he could only make out when he approached the table: Vigilo Confido. Latin, he cursed his brain for not learning the language before.

Bradford for his part simply saluted the man, with a quick 'commander.'

"My name is General George Hammond, of the United States Air Force. Formerly, I've been selected to command this new organization by order of the President." Hammond briskly introduced himself, waving the others down. "You will refer to me as Commander, I have all the responsibilities and authority of a Lieutenant General."

"Our president?" Jack had to specify.

"Colonel, you may not be aware of this yet, but this situation is of the upmost importance. I've already gotten a full debrief from General West, he had a lot of things to say about you, but he said he trusted in your judgment. Now, did you or did you not kill this Ra person?" Hammond leveled a stare upon Jack, one that would have cowed an enlisted man and a lot of lower ranked officers.

"Well, yeah. He is. We exploded a nuke right in front of his face." That part of his report had been true, after all. Admittedly, he had left out a couple details here and there, but the fact that the Goa'uld were here now made that rather moot.

"And yet more of his kin are here then." Hammond creased his brow. Not a happy man it seemed.

"Well, Sir, Ra probably had friends then." Kawalsky was quick to jump into his defense. "The enemy did not come through the stargate, did they?" He looked back and forth between Commander Hammond and Bradford.

"No sir." Spoke another newcomer, this one much nicer on the ears.

Coming in from another entrance was a blonde in a white lab coat, but with USAF fatigues underneath. She stopped to salute Hammond, who nodded in acknowledgment, then she laid her stern gaze upon Jack. She was younger by a fair margin, but despite the getup she didn't carry herself like a REMF.

"Colonel O'Neill sir. I am Captain Samantha Carter, USAF." Now she saluted him, he grimaced but returned the gesture. "But no, these aliens didn't arrive through the Stargate. It's been under guard since your team returned two years ago, there has been no activity or abnormalities in that time. This means the enemy had to come from space."

"Well, Ra did have a spaceship. A real big one, bigger than the pyramids." At least going by Daniel's theories. They did never get a great look at it, to be fair. "Makes sense that, if others like him showed up, that they'd also have some."

"It would make sense with the way our satellites have been picking up massive radiation spikes over the last couple weeks." The blonde scientist lady agreed.

"Either way, no matter if we face the Goau'ld or some new foe, if they come via space ships or some other way of transportation. The enemy is here and we know little about them, outside of the fact that they chose to murder 51 people as their method of first contact. We are both treaty and morally bound to react to this." Hammond crossed his arms behind his back, Jack was sure it was for dramatic effect, and so an aide could slide a few papers in front of him. "As such, you are requested, Colonel Jack O'Neill to joinX-Com. Your country needs you. No, your world needs you."

Jack skimmed the documents, frowning. Words aside he doubted saying no was an option. However…

Feretti and Kawalsky meet his gaze, both men nodding. So they said yes already, idly he wondered what they were being paid to sign on. Ritters straightened up too, taking a breath but meeting his gaze. Another recruit he bet.

For a moment Jack considered rejecting the offer. Teasing the authority, see what the brass was willing to do, maybe haggle for a good deal.

Then he remembered the mission. Cresting a sand dune towards a filthy city, seeing thousands of people toiling away without knowing anything more. Owing fealty to a wannabe god, who ordered an airstrike on those people for offering aid to strangers.

That kid Skaara, who saw Jack as a beacon of hope. Of those thousands rising up with no fear of death, spurned on by his actions to free themselves. Earth had been under alien Tyranny before after all.

The pictures of a city, at least in part, burning under attack. 51 dead.

For once he made no comment when he put his name onto the document.

Hardly the first time he joined a suicide mission.

Who knew? Maybe this time he would even top blowing up a wannabee god in the orbit of a far distant world with an atomic bomb?

"So, where are the fancy toys?" He grinned. Okay, at least one comment. He had a reputation to uphold to the boys after all!