Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Star Wars, or Stargate movies, TV shows, games, books, or comics. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not for sale or rent.
Chapter 2: Making deals with the Devil...
=SBS=
Part 3
=SBS=
22 May 1996
Project Giza complex
Cheyenne Mountain
United States
Milky Way galaxy
Three very different people gathered in a small, bland room. A flimsy-looking folding table, holding a few bottles of water, and several uncomfortable chairs, made up all the furniture inside. The trio had only one thing in common. That was the thick stacks of NDAs they had to quickly go through and sign.
One of them was a tall, broad-shouldered soldier, with sandy blond hair, showing the first traces of going gray. He removed his sunglasses, revealing a pair of tired, blood-shot eyes, and silently picked up the top folder from the stack in front of him.
Beside him sat a hunched civilian, who looked around curiously through large glasses. The man sneezed and muttered a quiet apology while patting himself in search of a tissue paper.
The third man appeared in age somewhere between his two unknown companions – visibly older than the civilian, and somewhat younger than the soldier. He silently cursed pushing away the need to go to get his eyes examined and rubbed his aching forehead. At a first glance, the NDAs were standard government fare. However, a closer examination did raise both a red flag and his curiosity. The listed penalties went beyond anything standard, and unless someone incompetent drew them, they weren't just for show. That was in line with what his contact in the U.S. Corps of Engineers mentioned. This was supposed to be a priceless opportunity he would be missing if he didn't get his ass in gear and accepted the call to serve.
The civilian squinted at the NDA he was reading, looking a bit sick.
"All that it means is that the project we will be briefed on is going to be particularly important." Woosley tried to be reassuring. While being a people person wasn't one of his strengths, it was something he had been working on for years now. Sadly, just being good at what you do was seldom enough if you wanted to prosper, either in the private sphere or working for the government.
"Excuse me?" The younger man looked up, and a look of panic flashed over his face. He was barely able to put his hands up to contain a mighty sneeze. "Sorry. Allergies. The crop up every time I travel."
"The NDAs' is standard fare for working on a classified project as a civilian consultant." Richard tired again, doing his best not to use any legal jargon.
"Ah!" The civilian nodded. "Thank you. I'm Dr. Daniel Jackson."
"I'm Richard Woolsey, no doctorates to my name, just a couple of law masteries." He introduced himself and glanced at the soldier, who just skimmed through the documents and signed where he had, without a second thought.
"O'Neill, with two L. Colonel." The man grumbled, obviously not feeling like socialization. He was already halfway through his stacks with NDAs as well.
Well, if something went wrong, it would be his funeral for not reading them, Woolsey decided and returned to his documents.
Half an hour later, they were all done. At that point, a painfully young-looking soldier came to pick up all the documents.
"Please follow us. You're about to be late for your briefing." Another soldier appeared at the door. He appeared to be outfitted to fight world war three, Richard noted. Was this baseless paranoia, which happened, or was this whole thing that important?
The soldier led them deeper under the mountain. As they headed for an elevator, Woolsey worriedly noted that combat engineers and regular troopers were setting up defensive positions. They were all aimed to contain something, not to protect an incursion from the outside. Of course, considering that they were nearly in the middle of the U.S., either option should have been utterly ridiculous in the first place.
A few minutes later, the soldiers ushered them into a large, well-lit and quickly filling up the conference room. The briefing began as soon as they could find themselves free seats. Halfway through it, Richard wondered if the paranoia he saw so far was enough. As the briefing went on and on, Woolsey's brain spun at the revelations. A tired-looking Captain spoke of ancient artifacts, which were all but confirmed as alien in origin, a potential peaceful first contact, which was the reason why most of them were there in the first place, the list went on and on.
"I was right!" Dr. Jackson exclaimed in the middle of the briefing.
"Dr. Jackson, while that might very much be true, we still lack credible proof that the entities who contacted us have space ships, in the first place! Much less ships that use pyramids as landing sites!" The Captain explained with visibly straining patience. "You'll have the opportunity to see the message they sent and translate it. If you're successful enough, we might need your services as a translator. In that case, if everything goes all right, you might get to ask if you were right or not."
Wait, this Jackson was the infamous Pyramid crackpot? Richard blinked owlishly at his new acquaintance. Well, by the look of things, the man might be a visionary instead of another crazy babbling about ancient aliens, or alien abduction. Oh, God, all those people, or at least some of them, might be right…
As soon as the briefing was over, tense armed soldiers, ushered the attendees to meet various people. In Woolsey's case, it was a combination of a scratch diplomatic and legal team. Their apparent mission was to figure first contact protocols and how not to turn a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity into an utter disaster not only for the United States but Earth and humanity as a whole.
No pressure, no sire, Richard thought.
=SBS=
"Dr. Jackson, please follow me." Catherine Langford looked positively tiny flanked by a pair of very large soldiers, who held very big guns in their hands.
"Did you know about this when you contacted me for this job?" A flushed Daniel stammered out.
"The ring? I was there when my father unearthed it in Egypt. That someone would activate it and send us a message? No, that happened after we had our little chat, Daniel. Now, come one. It's your time to shine." Catherine waved him to follow. Despite her age, she practically skipped down the corridor.
Daniel had to endure yet another elevator ride that brought him deeper under the mountain. Catherine led him through a maze of identical-looking corridors that would have him hopelessly lost if he had to find his way back alone. Finally, they reached a large, loud room, where multiple people were busy arguing with each other. He could see white and blackboards covered with hieroglyphs, some familiar, some less so. Large colorful pictures of more Ancient Egyptian writings covered a huge table that took up almost half the room.
For a few seconds, Daniel felt overwhelmed. This was all new, nothing he had seen before! More importantly, all he beheld corroborated that his ideas weren't madness!
"Go on, do your thing!" Catherine gently ushered him forward.
Daniel slowly walked into the room, feeling dazed. First, his allergies made him miserable. Second, all the excitement of the day was doing its best to overwhelm him. Otherwise, Daniel might have at least tried to be diplomatic. Instead, his attention snapped to the nearest blackboard, the symbols on it, and the sorry excuse that passed for translation over there, while he ignored everything and everyone else.
Without thinking things through, Daniel picked up a piece of chalk, and dusty sponge, then began correcting the obvious issues as if he was back in school.
"Who wrote this? It's all wrong?!" He couldn't help and exclaimed.
"I did…" A tall, vaguely familiar man wearing a blazer looked at him in confusion. "Aren't you the pyramid guy? What are you doing here?!"
"Your job…" Daniel muttered. He kept writing and deleting wrong words until he had it right. "Here lies buried the Stargate," he went on. "Well, it says that the Stargate is buried here for the next million years or something close enough. That's our artifact I gather?"
"Stargate sounds better than stairway to heaven, or the Portal." One of the scientists voiced a tentative agreement. "Show him the message. If he could translate the covering stone's inscription this fast…"
Many people spoke as one, trying to gain Daniel's attention by pointing either at printed pictures or what they had written on various boards.
It took one of the soldiers whistling aloud to get the commotion under a semblance of order, which meant that everyone argued with anyone else about who to go first. Catherine shook her head, went to the table, and got a few large pictures, which she unceremoniously pushed in Daniel's hands, then pointed him at the blackboard behind him.
He looked at the priceless pictures and forgot everything else.
"Huh, is that real parchment?" Daniel muttered. He put down the chalk, and quickly brushed the board clean while examining the various pictures.
"Thunder chief? No, that's not right… Lord of Thunder? The God of Thunder… invites you… cordially… diplomacy… meeting… security… guarantees…" While he muttered under his nose, Daniel kept writing and scratching words, until he got the contents of the first picture.
"The message is from someone calling themselves The God of Thunder. I think it's a variation of the Slavic Perun. That said, how that connects with Ancient Egypt, or why are they using hieroglyphs, I have no idea. He cordially invites us to diplomatic talks, and guarantees our security." Daniel turned around to face the room with a smile. "I'm pretty sure I got that right."
Everyone, except for Catherine stared at him slack-jawed. The old woman instead had a proud smile on her face.
=SBS=
Part 4
=SBS=
22 May 1996
Project Giza complex
Cheyenne Mountain
United States
Milky Way galaxy
Project Giza's primary briefing room was packed to bursting with scientists, high-ranking military personnel, the odd diplomat, and lawyer. Here and there, soldiers ready for battle stuck out like sore thumbs. Their job was to get the valuable civilian personnel and military specialists to the surface in case of incursion, instead of trying to contain it.
Their presence was a stark reminder of the unprecedented situation.
Generals West and Granger sat at the head of the table, surrounded by aides, and several lower-ranked officers. The other attendees generally gravitated in several groups – civilian support personnel and military specialists sat or stood divided by the table, further grouped by vague specialization.
"So, you've been struggling for months with a translation of what was recovered in Egypt, then this Jackson fellow comes in and gets it all done in a few minutes…" Granger snorted. "Why didn't you get him hired in the first place?"
"His name never came across my desk for approval. Apparently, someone saw Dr. Jackson's biography, and deemed him unfit for purpose because of his theories." West answered quietly.
"That would be the same theories that got all but proved over the past few days?" Colonel O'Neill inquired from his place behind the Generals. He was still busy getting up to speed and skimming through various briefing documents.
"I'm glad to see you up and about, Jack. How are you holding up?" West asked.
"I appreciate the distraction, and will do whatever is needed, sir."
"That's good to hear. To answer your question, yes. As soon as I find the time, I'll be firing up a memo to make sure we don't miss on competent people over stupid biases." West looked around. "That's everyone important. Doctor Jackson, you and your new team have a presentation to make. Please do go on."
Dr. Jackson carefully made his way to the large table carrying a large stack of folders, and various printouts. Members of the Egyptology team, who now worked for him, followed through, bringing more documents and they began hanging everyone thick white folders.
"Just to be clear, we have to do this quickly and dirty due to time constraints. There likely are things we've missed, not accounted for, or failed to research yet. Perun is a prime example – all we got on him is from a few not necessary reliable sites on the internet, and mostly summaries."
"Duly noted," West spoke aloud as he got his folder. He opened it up and saw neat pictures with hieroglyphs on one side and their translations on the other.
The folder contained printed sheets with grainy pictures and small text giving a bit of information of Perun – common knowledge, or what passed for it in the relevant circles. There was a bold red message on top of every page. It pointed out, that what they knew about the Slavic deity of that name, and those related to it might share nothing in common but a similar title with whoever sent them the message.
"I've translated the message to the best of my ability, noting that Ancient Egyptian is a dead language on Earth. Whoever uses it has likely seen it evolve in various manners so, while I'm largely confident on the gist of it, I can not be absolutely certain on the details without having either a larger sample to work with or a native talker to speak with."
"Noted, Doctor. Carry on." West waved at him to go on.
Jackson looked down into a folder he retained – it was notably much slimmer than those handled to everyone else.
"In plain English, an entity claiming the name of Perun, God of Thunder, greets us in peace. He cordially invites us for diplomatic talks and guarantees our security as envoys. He offers what I believe to be a Stargate address for a neutral location to meet at. The larger part of the message is kind of complicated. However, that crude painting at the back, the one that shows a star, a few planets, and another star system, well it tells us something about how everything in the universe is constantly moving, and that has something to do with the address. Some of those Hieroglyphs, if translated literally, make no sense. They must represent technical terms. Unfortunately, I have no way to say which, if we have them in the first place."
"Interstellar drift!" One of the scientists exclaimed. "Right now, Earth moves quite fast around the sun, and the sun, along with the whole solar system is moving very damn fast by our standards! Any interstellar coordinates used to designate where someone wants to travel using a Stargate would have changed by now. This Perun must have a way to compensate for the drift. Without taking that into account, I don't believe that simply plugging in the address he sent us will be enough to make contact with the gate on the other side! Sam Carter is working on FTL theories about the Stargate at Area 51. Contact her team, they should be able to figure out how to compensate for the drift so we could dial that address!"
"That was what I needed to hear," West muttered quietly. "I need to brief the President and confirm that we have the authorization to continue. Get in touch with Nevada, and tell them what we need. Then get our diplomats to figure out how not to piss off Perun. Whoever he is, he might not be one of the most patient beings out there."
=SBS=
CC FOB Alpha
Krepost
Milky Way Galaxy
Days passed without an answer from Earth, and I was beginning to wonder if they chickened out and decided to bury the gate. It was either that, or they had issues translating the part of the message informing them about interstellar drift and the need to compensate for it. Well, there was option three – they got a viable translation, and struggled with figuring out how to connect anyway.
I decided to give it a few more days before I would send another probe, this time one outfitted with means for two-way communication. The primary reason for the wait was that Lyda had to more or less design the necessary components, and wait for an open slot on my fabricators.
Needless to say, I didn't spend the past few days idly. More and more intelligence flowed from the Goa'uld outposts I intended to raid. With a comprehensive picture in place, I let my Primes craft plans, then we went together over what they did right, or wrong, and why. One of the big lessons we all learned was to do our best to avoid misunderstandings.
The preliminary plans all called for more or less conventional Jaffa strikes, with us simply making sure not to leave any evidence that would single us out. It wasn't a bad plan. However, with Ba'al being up to no good as usual, I had a better idea. We would strike the original targets and wipe them out, leaving no trace of who did it. After the coming fight with Ba'al's forces, we would ensure that whoever investigates the sites of future raids, would find artifacts and even the odd dead Jaffa belonging to Ba'al, giving the bastard something else to worry about.
Further, hopefully, we were going to have a complete surprise in the initial strikes, that's why the revisited plans called for mass deployment of Lighting Legionaries. The idea was to strike and neutralize the enemy before they even knew we were there. If it worked, we should have more time to plunder the outposts to our hearts' contents.
We were going to launch the raids in a staggered fashion using a pair of empty worlds as staging ground to strike two separate targets at the same time. The reason for that decision was simple. Between ongoing operations, reserve forces, and the Legionaries training the bulk of my Jaffa, these operations were going to tap up almost my whole Lighting legion.
We were busy going over the plans for attack one last time before setting up the date, and pre-positioning strike forces when an excited Jaffa interrupted us. He came carrying an official-looking letter, complete with stamps in English.
The US government was finally ready to meet me.
"Orel, get the strike teams in position. The Custodes will be handling site security. We won't be showing our new friends everything we have."
=SBS=
If you want to support my writing or discuss this story, see the following links:
Pat re on: Delkatar's writing corner
the space battles forums - this is where most discussion over my stories takes place
the sufficient velocity forums
the alternative history forums