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Å *~All our silences in the face of racist assault are acts of complicity.~ bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism*Å Dr. Carson MacDougall Beckett was bored. Bored bored bored. He hadn’t spent this long in a period of forced inaction since he broke his leg in three places during a rugby match in third form. You’d think getting kidnapped by evil space mafia would be more exciting. But… no. They treated him well, saw to his creature needs, even cleaned his room and kept fresh litter in the box for his cat… Mostly they just left him alone to cool his heels in a gold box of a room, where time moved at a torturous crawl. He considered briefly that this might actually *be* a form of torture… sensory deprivation for aliens. Because he was locked up in a single room lined with gold hieroglyphics he couldn’t even read, and his only constant companion was the tabby cat he had adopted (or who had adopted him, he wasn’t quite clear on that). Galen was good company, of course, but still… There was no one to talk to, and nothing, absolutely not one *thing* he could *do*. He’d even volunteered to help out in their infirmary, if they even had one, but had only got blank stares from his guards at the offers.The only other human beings he’d seen since they were brought aboard the ha’tak, a giant flying pyramid of all ruddy things, was his jaffa guard, and the shy young woman he accompanied. The girl brought meals for he and Galen, cleaned his cell, and even cleaned out Galen’s litter box daily. All without speaking a word to him.He supposed it was daily. There was no way to tell time in this room. No windows. And maybe that was part of the brainwashing? To disorient him by denying him a sense of how much time had passed? Although, to be fair, maybe that was just a function of belonging to a space-faring people. There was no point marking time by planet-side concepts of day and night… you marked it by distance flown. It’s all about elapsed distance, not time. Carson sighed as he mulled that over, wishing they at least let him know how far they’d come. He felt a little like he had as a child on family motoring trips on a bank holiday… He imagined a conversation between a minion and a Goa’uld System Lord… ‘My Lord Goa’uld, are we there yet?’ ‘No, and you just asked five light years ago.’ ‘But my Lord Goa’uld, I have to gooo!’ ‘You should have gone before we left.’ ‘But, my Lord Goa’uld, that was a million-billion light years ago! I have to go nooow!’ Carson giggled at his own imagination. ‘If I have to stop this space ship…’Yes, if it wasn’t for his forays to the Blue Jungle dream-world, he’d be going absolutely mental. There, his friends let him know how long it had been since the failed invasion of Atlantis (going on for eight weeks now), and reassured him that all was well with them in the aftermath of that assault. And yes, that was another thing! Not only had he been stolen away from his home, his friends and his work by these mad criminals, but he’d been denied the chance to usher in the two newest residents of his city… and he had *so* been looking forward to attending the births of TJ DiNozzo and Meredith Joy McKay-Sheppard. He’d been a little surprised, of course, that his captors were so cat-friendly. The ‘girl who does’ knew what to feed Galen, had supplied the litter box… he had even caught her once or twice sneaking in a little pat to his head before she scurried out. But then, the Goa’uld and their subject peoples seemed to have a fondness for cats. Part and parcel of the ancient Egyptian culture, he supposed. Daniel Jackson had told him there had been a few dozen of them aboard Ra’s mother-ship when he first encountered the System Lord.He’d made a couple of stabs at talking to the girl, but she had seemed terrified of him, kept glancing back at the guard, and Carson supposed she must be under orders not to engage with him. Cameron Mitchell had explained in a briefing on the Lucian Alliance that they were slavers of the first order… the girl was probably stolen from some planet population, maybe even inherited along with this ship from some dead false god, and had no choice but to serve or die. Carson hadn’t paid much attention to the briefings… he had believed, foolishly as it turned out, that he wouldn’t need to know the ins and outs of the current Big Bad in the Milky Way.So it was just as well, he supposed, that he had spent the first two weeks of his captivity stuck in a Jumper with a curious Eli David, grilling his co-conspirators, the two members of the Lucians who were bored enough themselves to answer any questions the spy-master had for them. Å As far as Carson could tell, Eli and company had escaped in their stolen Jumper just in time to avoid John Sheppard’s arrival on Atlantis with AR-1, and General O’Neill’s return and counter-offensive. It hadn’t taken long for them to re-take the city and clear out the last of the Genii rogue forces. But by that time, Carson was a prisoner, a hostage on the jumper, and they had already disappeared into hyperspace. Untraceable.Eli David seemed to be in command of the group, although Carson wondered if the two Lucian Alliance members were just humoring him. Airman Wayne Cartwright, a Z-positive who had taken the ATA gene therapy and thus was one of those who had developed the dual genitals of a zed, was needed to fly the jumper, and he was loyal to Eli. The foolish boy, a red-headed freckled farm boy from Iowa, had not taken well to his unexpected gender conversion. His fear and mistrust of the Expedition leadership who had unwittingly betrayed him had made him an easy pawn for Eli to wrap around his finger. The fact was, the lad was the only one of them who could fly the jumper to escape. Carson might have the ATA connection, but not the aptitude: he had zero talent at flying anything, even a jumper, which practically flew themselves with the right person at the helm. And then there was Ziva David, a silent shadow at her father’s back. A lethal presence, wound tight as a coiled spring. With two (more or less) dependable allies at his back, Eli had the numbers and advantages to claim leadership. Timor Shelyapin, the false Russian diplomat, tall, cadaverously thin, cadaverously pale, with thick red hair and beard, was actually a Lucian Alliance mole, murderer and saboteur, whose real name was apparently Cheda Lanis. His only ally in the jumper was the big, bald, olive-skinned jaffa, Bas’er of Netu, once a soldier in the armies of the dead false god, the Goa’uld System Lord Sokar, lately a lieutenant with one of the Lucian clans. But neither Lanis nor Bas’er could pilot the jumper… you needed an ATA gene for that. The two escaped prisoners of the Lucian Alliance needed Eli, then, but what did Eli need with them? Why had he bothered to spring them from their Lantean cells?Well, that became all too clear when, after two weeks of travel, with occasional stops along the way to take on food, water and air, they finally were able to rendezvous with the Lucian Alliance ha’tak. The Lucians had made it as far as the borders of the Pegasus Galaxy, and seemed bent on carving out a territory here. If, that is, they could find a way to circumvent the Wraith, Asurans, Travelers, Genii, Hoffan plague… and, of course, the Lanteans. Eli seemed to feel he had the means to offer them all of this, and more. For a price. Å Eli spent most of his time quizzing Lanis and Bas’er on Lucian organization and politics, and in such close quarters, Carson really had no option but the listen to it all. It didn’t seem as if anyone minded, or were bothering to keep secrets any longer. So they were all treated to a little history lesson. In the wake of the fall of the Goa’uld System Lords, there developed a power vacuum in Milky Way Galactic politics. Not unlike what happened after the fall of the Soviet Union, the sudden freedom from their oppressive stranglehold had caused many peoples to go a little wild. In the wake of the Goa’uld implosion, everyone was quick to pick up any salvage left around that might prove useful or valuable. The newly created Free Jaffa nation got much of it, the Tok’ra, with their impressive information networks, snapped up more than their fair share. But there was plenty left over for various entrepreneurs. For instance, there were those among the jaffa unwilling to throw in with the Free Jaffa Nation, not content merely to be free. Too long used to exerting power and control over slave subjects, some ‘liberated’ jaffa, in their turn, wanted to be the boss of everyone themselves. And then there were the criminal elements all over the regions of space once held by the System Lords, who felt it was finally safe to emerge from the shadows, and ply their various enterprises in the open.There followed a period of chaos… infighting and civil wars… old grudges and traditional rivalries still holding the power to put armies at each other’s throats… battling over the few ha’taks, al’kesh and tel’taks left that were still space-worthy, trying to claim territories by right of arms. Then the struggle was to capture crews, engineers, pilots, navigators, fighters, to man each ship. One of the ways the old Goa’uld had held power was by severely restricting the flow of knowledge. Planet-based populations were not allowed to read or write, having learned from Ra’s experience of the Tau’ri rebellions. Even the jaffa armies were only allowed limited education, enough to read instructions for flying their vessels. Only the most trusted and highly placed jaffa were permitted more, along with the devoted priesthood class. Minor Goa’uld lieutenants, inheriting race memories and technical expertise, formed the vast bulk of their science and engineering staff. Which meant that vital skills in maintaining and repairing vessels was now in very short supply. Then there was the question of where to find safe harbor, how to acquire food and supplies… without having to give anything in return, of course. When had the Goa’uld ever offered payment? Subject peoples usually felt lucky if they were only robbed blind and then left alone.And into this chaos of every-man-for-himself, came a Goa’uld who called himself Nun. He offered to form an organization that could stand against the smaller entrepreneurs, and either swallow them up, or destroy them. With strength in numbers came the ability to sweep in and take whatever they wanted, from whoever might oppose them. He formed himself a new Ogdoad, a clan system built around eight leaders, seven plus himself, strong enough to hold power and assets. Each clan took the name of one of the Ogdoad gods of old. Nun, Naunet, Heh, Hauhet, Kek, Kauket, Amon and Amaunet. They had some early success with various criminal enterprises: piracy, slavery, drug trafficking, a space-going version of the protection racket, to name just a few. Then the newly formed nations of the Milky Way, the Tok’ra, Free Jaffa and Tau’ri, among many others rising from the ashes of Goa’uld domination, became aware of their activities, and began a systematic campaign to root them out and destroy them.And, Lanis had to admit, the Lucians could be their own worst enemies. There was little trust among the various factions, or even within each individual clan. They tried what they could to take advantage of the Ori Crusade, hoping the other nations would be distracted enough to ignore them for a while. But the Ori proved to be as much a danger to them as to anyone else. A ruthless Netan had tried to cut himself his own little deal… and so clan Hauhet had been almost cut in half. His successor, an equally ruthless Masen, had barely managed to hold on to his single ha’tak after that. Free Jaffa forces had united with the Tok’ra to eliminate clan Amon. Clan Kauket had learned of a planet with reserves of the highly-sought-after naquadria, Icarus, and had attacked the Tau’ri base there, only to fail in spectacular fashion… Tau’ri ships arrived to battle Kauket to a stand-still, evacuate their entire base to safety, and speed out of the doomed star system before the Icarus planet exploded… taking all of Kauket with it. When one Lucian Alliance outrider had stumbled across a ship-works of the Gate Builders, complete with an orbital repair facility, several Ancient ships and orbital weapons platforms, there had been something of a feeding frenzy among the surviving clans. Clan Amaunet, one of the weakest, had been lost in that free-for-all. Heh, another weak clan, led by the Goa’uld Kherty, had also been shut out of the division of spoils. Which is why he had volunteered to attack the *Daedalus*, in stage one of a plan to take Atlantis. Well, they all knew how well that had gone. Heh was now history as well, Bas’er the last survivor. So now there were four clans of the Lucian Alliance surviving: Naunet, Hauhet, Kek, and Nun. They had a potential gold-mine in the Gate Builder ship-works, but no one who could even gain entry to any of the ships, orbital repair station or weapons platforms, without, as they now knew, the proper genetic key.The Lucian Alliance had done their best to avoid Earth and the Tau’ri, but they did have connections to remnants of the Trust. That syndicate was comprised of a collection of rogue agents from the National Intelligence Division (NID), secret Goa’uld, and men too ambitious and power-hungry for their own, or anyone’s, good. The fortunes of the Trust had ebbed considerably, but they still had moles positioned, in government, military, science and business circles world-wide, with access to information and assets, awaiting their chance to seize power. In the meantime, they kept a low profile, hiding out from O’Neill’s people. Once Lanis had supplied the critical information of how the Alliance could gain full access to their Gate Builder hoard… The secret of the zeds… The Trust suddenly became a useful ally once more. This would be their source for those with the coveted and vital ATA gene.And, oh yes, not to forget the latest allies to the Lucians. When General Tomin had taken the defeated and de-programmed Ori fleet back to their home galaxy, three ships remained behind, unwilling to give up their crusade. They burned for the opportunity to revenge themselves on the Tau’ri for the devastation of their beliefs and holy purpose. So, three ships, filled with the stubborn minions of the dead false gods of the Ori, had become the fifth Lucian clan. Clan Origin.Å As soon as the jumper had made rendezvous with the Lucian Alliance ha’tak, Carson had been dragged to this gold cell of his, and stranded there, without any idea where he was, where they were going, or what might happen to him once they reached their destination. Obviously, he had value to someone… a concept which did not fill him with happiness, or any sense of security.He had never felt at ease with Ancient tech, never fully embraced that connection… his original had been positively phobic about using machinery that tried to invade his mind and latch onto his soul. Only with medical tech was he prepared to open himself like that. Clone Carson found his connection to Atlantis a little easier to accept and manage… he speculated that the cloning process which saw him emerge as a zed, as his original should have been, enabled him to more fully realize his true nature and abilities. But that was just a theory. He hadn’t tried to test it in any way… content to remain a simple medical doctor, and leave flying jumpers or operating weapons platforms to others better suited and trained.Å Carson was idly playing a game with Galen, dangling threads pulled from his blanket for the cat’s amusement, when the door to his cell abruptly slid back, and his guard came in to haul him to his feet and drag him out into the hall. There were five more jaffa out there to surround him and, although he attempted to ask questions and protest the rude handling, the guards all ignored him totally. Galen trotted calmly at his heels. Gawking like a tourist, Carson tried to memorize the maze of corridors they travelled, tried to note hieroglyphs incised into the walls as landmarks… and failed. He would need Daniel Jackson’s facility with Goa’uld writing to be able to determine where he was. But he couldn’t help but note other humans bustling about on ship’s business, servants, other guards.Or the surprising, even astounding, number of cats aboard. Most were the sleek shape of Egyptian statuary, short-haired brown fur with darker points and almond shaped eyes. And all stopped whatever they were doing to turn and regard him passing by with incurious green or gold eyes. He could only guess these were hold-overs from the Goa’uld Lord who used to own the ship. The jaffa ushered him to a vast room, some kind of audience chamber, to judge by the dais and throne-like seats at one end. The marble floors shone, they were polished so smooth, and all along one curving wall was a panoramic view of local space – a blue and white-streaked planet below, not Earth to judge by the strange continents visible beneath the white wispy swirls that were clouds. At nearer hand, suspended far above the planet’s surface, there appeared to be a jumble of objects, all clearly of Ancient design. Ships, satellites, some on snow-flake bases and bristling with turrets, others blunt-shaped like jumpers in various sizes, others clearly half-made or damaged, dented and derelict. And then there were other space craft in orbit, the pyramid shapes of Goa’uld tech, ha’taks, al’kesh and tel’taks. Even a few death-gliders buzzed around, poking their raptor-shaped noses at one orbital object or another.Carson blinked. Had they brought him to the Ancient ship-works the Lucians had claimed?His guards took him to a small clutch of people off to one side, a dozen or so, and forced him to his knees, like the other captives. He presumed they were all captives, as all were on their knees, just like him, and none of them seemed happy to be there. Most wore clothing immediately recognizable as coming from Earth… T-shirts with rock band logos, sarongs and tunics in vivid colored prints, blue jeans and sneakers and salwars and saris. Then Carson noted they were all marked, brands or tattoos from a dozen different countries, on forearms, the backs of hands, wrists, necks, all designs that shouted “Zed!” in their various cultures.The cats prowling the place took passing note of Galen, and while they seemed fixated on Carson and his fellow kneelers, none of them ventured any closer. Carson seemed to be the only one among them with a familiar companion. The ship cats totally ignored everything else, including the high-ranking people seated on the dais or standing around the audience chamber with their own security guards in deferential attendance. It seemed he was about to get a ring-side seat to a high-level meeting of the Lucian Alliance first rank bosses. To what end, Carson could only guess. Å The command chair of the dais was taken by a pale woman dressed in black leather, with dark red hair coiled on her head in intricate strings of braids, whose hard grey eyes missed nothing. This was Cira Lanis, the human leader of clan Kek, and she held pride of place by virtue of the fact that it was her ship. Her family had been pirates and raiders for generations, stealing from the Goa’uld and trading with them, supplying bounty hunters, slaves or potential hosts at need. But she employed mainly humans in her ranks, a few jaffa, not trusting the Goa’uld, not trusting anyone, really, outside family. But she was firm in her belief that rich payment and dire threats would at least keep the jaffa, slaves and rank-and-file in line. At her side sat her brother, Cheda Lanis, once known as Timor Shelyapin. He seemed relieved to have traded in his Earth clothing for black leather like his sister. He had been on long-term mission to infiltrate the Tau’ri and provide liaison with the Trust… to assess how reliable or useful those scum might be (obvious answer, not very), and to be ready to grab whatever high-value targets might be vulnerable. Worming his way onto the Atlantis Expedition roster, with the help of Eli David and other Trust moles within the IOA, had been seen as an opportunity to take Atlantis. Unfortunately, not as easy as they had hoped. But at least Cheda had brought them the critical information they needed to finally unlock the secrets of the Gate Builder Ship-works… that they needed individuals who had the necessary DNA Key, the ATA… only found on Earth, mostly (or at least, most easily identified) in the person of those known as ‘zeds’. Standing and darkly brooding at the window was a dark-haired man in Romanesque garb, leather and bronze breast-plate over a tunic of woven purple. His feet braced apart, he glowered at the view. Commodus was a Goa’uld, a survivor not only of the fall of his one-time lord Camulus, but of the Lucian clan Naunet he had joined thereafter in self-defense. Naunet had been the strongest of the clans, until they found the ship-works… then an ill-advised attempt to turn on one of the weapons platforms had resulted in a massive explosion, taking out the closest ha’tak, along with their former leader and the majority of their best trained veteran jaffa forces. Commodus had taken over what was left of the clan, and had proved to have some skill in scoring new resources and working his way back up the Lucian hierarchy. Yes, he was just that ambitious and ruthless.Clan Hauhet was represented by a silent and watchful Masen. Like the Lanis family, Masen and his kin were human, old-time space pirates, drawn into the Lucian union through self-interest, and like Cira, only really trusting family, although he employed many mercenaries. He had his daughter Kira at his side. Although she was young and beautiful, that was deceptive, since she was easily the most ruthless, brilliant and dangerous person in the room, and all knew it. Behind her were her own lieutenants, Varro, Simeon and Dannic, and one of her slaves with impressive talents in manipulating alien tech and therefore kept close, the young girl Ginn. Three men in medieval-looking uniforms with armor and red capes, stood all in a lump, staring woodenly at the people around them. These were the three captains of the Ori ships in clan Origin, all of them battle-scarred and grey-haired veterans of the failed Crusade. They may have thrown in their lot with the Unbelievers and pagan heretics in the room, but that didn’t mean they liked it, or trusted anyone but each other. All three burned with religious fervor and the bone-deep desire to be revenged on the enemies of Origin. All of them. They had required Lucian engineers to cobble together manual over-rides for their vessel systems in the absence of a Prior in command, and so had cut a deal. Gabrien commanded the *Covenant*, Joshual the *Enlightened* and Ezekiar the *Believer*. The representatives of clan Nun had yet to appear, only now arriving in orbit around the planet Jorac. The other Lucian bosses waited with more or less patience for their summit to begin. They had much to discuss, and still more to plan.Å Carson must have missed the cues, because he was caught unaware when more arriving jaffa guards threw airman Wayne Cartwright in next to him, forcing the lad to his knees. Carson gave him a cursory glance, and he seemed unharmed, although terrified. Bas’er, Eli and his shadow Ziva were taken right to the side of the dais, near Shelyapin – no, Lanis. Then a large group of new arrivals entered the audience chamber. The man at their head, an older man with receding grey hair and a stiffened posture, lead a collection of jaffa, all with different forehead tattoos, along with two more obvious aliens, their faces weirdly elongated and what appeared to be fleshy pink tentacles growing from their heads and wrapping around their necks. All of these were not so much in uniforms, as conforming to some kind of Milky Way fashion statement, made of leather and homespun cloth. Only the leader bucked the trend… oddly, he wore a grey three-piece suit of Tau’ri style with a white handkerchief folded in the breast pocket, a navy tie and jeweled tie-pin. Carson blinked, thinking he recognized the man… it couldn’t be, could it?Former Vice President of the United States, Robert Kinsey?The man’s eyes flashed with the tell-tale of an internal Goa’uld symbiote in command of a host body. Oh yeah, that would make it Kinsey, all right. He had been listed as KIA… but as with all things alien, death obviously needed a bit of… re-definition in some cases. Cira nodded her head to the Goa’uld. “Welcome, Lord Nun. We thank you for joining us in our meeting. With the arrival of my brother, returned from the Pegasus Galaxy and the lost city of Atlantis, the lost city found, we thought it best to discuss the current state of affairs here in Galaxy Milky Way.”Nun swept his eyes around the company. “I take it your schemes to acquire Atlantis failed?”Cira waggled a graceful hand. “Let us say rather, met with indifferent success. I have established a base in Pegasus from which we may try again, if the opportunity should arise.”“Hunh,” the Goa’uld Commodus huffed. “I wish you luck with that. We have tried repeatedly to command and operate the Gate Builder tech we have here, and met with… indifferent success, even with the use of Tau’ri ‘zeds’. In fact, we have had so little success, I begin to wonder if perhaps we have all been duped. Is the myth of this ATA gene a lie, after all?”“No, it is not,” declared Eli David. At once, all eyes in the room snapped to the face of the former Mossad Director, as if daring him to interrupt his betters one more time. “Ah yes,” purred Kira. “The Tau’ri traitor. We have heard of you from our contacts on the First World. Even the Trust place little reliance in you, Eli David.”“And clearly, even if a zed is able to operate the Gate Builder tech,” Commodus continued in his echoing Goa’uld voice, “there must be more to it than that. I am told that you brought two zeds with you from Atlantis. One was able to fly your ‘jumper’, while the other was not. Why is that?”Eli glanced briefly at Carson and Cartwright. “There might be any number of reasons. As you say, clearly, not all zeds are created equal. This Carson Beckett we have here is a clone of the original. His ATA gene, though strong, may not be fully functional for all tech. And I have been told even the original was not the most adept jumper pilot. It may be as simple as the fact that he is a healer by training and inclination, not a warrior or pilot. Wayne, on the contrary, is trained as both a soldier and pilot.”Carson, suddenly, was aware of any number of eyes on him… a tidal wave of brutal attention coming his way that he abruptly sought to block. Clutching Galen to him and shutting his eyes hard, he did his best to turn it all aside… like the prow of a ship cutting through water, bending it left and right. His head pounded briefly… until the purring of the cat in his desperate grip seemed to soothe the pain. Gradually, the moment passed… but all that greedy, oppressive interest had already landed elsewhere. On the hapless Wayne.“So… this one is able to operate ships and weapons?” Oh yeah, there was a wealth of greedy, avaricious delight in those words, even garbled in the Goa’uld bi-furcated tone. “Yes, of course,” Eli declared. “His ability to pilot the jumper is ample proof of that.”“And these others here cannot?” Masen demanded, staring at the odd collection of people they had already stolen from Earth. Eli glanced at the group, and merely shrugged. “That, I cannot tell. They would have to be tested. They might need training. They probably do. I wouldn’t expect anyone to be able to just sit in a death glider cockpit and instantly become a flying ace. Would you?”Nun, Commodus and Masen seemed unimpressed with having a bunch of trainee zeds on their hands, but Cira smiled in a shark-like manner. “I will undertake to train these. I am the best placed to be able to do this. After all, with the possible exception of your talented Ginn, Masen, I have the best engineers among us, capable of handling alien tech. It was my engineers, after all, who were able to adapt the Ori ship controls to human operations. And it is they who have managed to perform what repairs we have so far been able to make on these ships and platforms. Even if all these zeds can do is open the air-locks and allow us entry, they are still useful to me and my techs.”The other Lucian lords eyed the woman with some suspicion, and Carson could hardly blame them. There was no telling what angle Cira was working, only that she did, in fact, have her own agenda. Well, of course. It was like breathing to these people.“Perhaps a test?” Kira suggested blandly, but with glittering dark eyes. “Send the pilot and my Ginn to one of the weapons platforms. Ginn can make what repairs might be necessary, and the pilot can arrange a test fire on the planet. Then we shall see if all zeds are created equal, or are even useful to us, useful enough to have to continue to deal with the Trust in order to obtain more. If they succeed, I will take the platform, Ginn and the pilot as my due reward.”Cira’s eyes narrowed. But she nodded her head in agreement, as did Commodus and Nun. Carson had learned in the long trip by jumper that it was a bone of contention among the Lucians, that most had no scientists among their number with the necessary expertise to make serious repairs even on their own ships. They had to apply to Cira and Masen for that. Even clan Origin was dependent upon them, since before the Crusade, they had all been farmers and merchants from pre-industrial societies, none of them trained in any way, even for battle.Nun glanced from Commodus to Cira and Masen. “In that event, I will return to my ha’tak. I will monitor the activity from there.” Unspoken, but Carson could almost hear that Goa’uld voice echoing in his aching head, “And if it should all blow up in spectacular fashion, as other such attempts have in the past, at least I will be in position to escape the destruction in all due haste.”That motivation seemed to spur them all on, for the other lords abruptly left, with their minions in tow, including the three Ori captains. Only Kira sent her lieutenant Dannic to grab airman Cartwright by the collar and drag him, protesting and struggling weakly, out of the audience chamber, the girl Ginn at his heels.Å The collection of zeds was left kneeling where they were, with a perfect view out of the audience chamber portal. Three Ori battle cruisers and the odd collection of ha’taks and al’keshes ranged themselves around one of the pieces of flotsam in orbit around the planet Jorac.A jumper, their Atlantis jumper, floated up to a single platform, and on some sort of tannoy, voices could be heard as Cira and Cheda Lanis, Eli and Ziva David, and the jaffa Bas’er, all watched the action from this audience chamber, with avid attention.The lieutenant called Dannic was heard. “We have arrived at the entry portal for the weapons platform. We are preparing to drag it to a more distant point… Ginn suggested that if anything should go wrong, we would not want to damage our other prizes in orbit.”The window on their audience chamber was evidently not just a portal window, because it was able to keep a focus on the jumper and the platform as it sailed further away and into upper orbital paths. The Ancient device was relatively small, not much bigger than a jumper itself.Dannic hissed out, “The Gate Builder platform has made a docking maneuver with this little craft…” He sounded startled.Eli smirked. “Not surprising. The Ancients built most of their tech to be compatible.”Dannic then announced, “We have entered the platform. It has a life-support system that initiated automatically. Ginn is attempting to survey the equipment. The human pilot tells us there is a… ‘glitch’ did you call it? In the targeting system. The platform apparently has an artificial intelligence that enables it to report to someone with the appropriate genetics.”Cira glanced neutrally at Eli, and Carson had no trouble reading that she was not particularly happy with his level of smug satisfaction.“Ginn tells me she can easily repair the problem. We will be ready to test fire in moments.”Everyone waited with bated breath. Cira leaned to one of her lieutenants and said, “Keep up the scans, but raise our shields. If there is *any* indication of problems, get us out of here immediately.”The man nodded and went away. “Repairs are complete. The Tau’ri pilot is sitting in the control chair and connecting with the target system.”There was a pause… then there was a keening wail. “Something is wrong!” Dannic announced, to no one’s shock. “The pilot is in pain… he is unable to take control…”There was an erratic bolt of a plasma beam that, instead of aiming at the planet surface below, seemed to target one of the ha’taks. A Goa’uld mother ship burst into a million pieces, shattering from a single shot. Another sudden firing aimed directly at one of the Ori ships, but the ship had already raised shields. The blue glowing energy source in the centre of the crescent shaped ship took the energy blast, but managed to slough most of it off along the milky shield, with a shudder and an intermittent darkening of the power core. The other ships scattered like startled mice. Dannic and Ginn were both shouting out in fear, and Cira’s bridge crew were already reporting an overload of the platform’s systems… “Get us out of here! Now! Now!” Cira demanded. Just in time to avoid the massive eruption of the platform. The tiny craft held more than enough punch to bowl over anything near as it blew, even jostling their ship, already half-way out of the system and accelerating into hyper-space. Cira glared at Eli David. “Hm. As a test, I would have to say… we met with indifferent success.”Eli shrugged. “Yet, if I read the situation correctly, it means you now have the only engineers in the Lucian Alliance capable of repairing and building ships, of *any* tech.”A speculative gleam came into the woman’s hard steel-grey eyes. “Hm. That is true. However… the question remains. Why didn’t that work? Obviously, your zeds do have the ability to connect with Gate Builder tech. But evidently not the ability to control it. Why not? Training? Strength of their genetic key? Or perhaps even strength of mind?”Eli frowned. “I have no idea.”Carson held his breath. He was able to make one guess, right off the top of his head… Sheppard and O’Neill were both plainly Ancient in all but name, not to mention warriors to the bone, and both were well seconded with scientists of incredible ability in Carter and McKay… but for those with the Zed chromosome, descendants of the Furling and only distant cousins of the Ancients, a little something more was required to intercede with toys the Ancients left behind. Perhaps they needed a familiar to help stabilize such mental powers required for operations, to form a solid connection to an Ancient AI. Perhaps they needed to be hailed as the Furalin, to be able to dominate Ancient tech. Perhaps they needed to ‘awake’ to their heritage, before they could take full advantage of it. He would have to float that by his friends in the Blue Jungle, the next chance he got. In the meantime, he was soon returned to his lonely sojourn in the gold-lined room, with only Galen for company.Å

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Å Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay charged into the NCIS Office on the Ancient city of Atlantis, already in mid-rant, baby Meredith Joy happily sucking a thumb in the sling across his chest. Most everyone had noticed that, instead of being put off by her father’s loud angry voice and histrionics, she seemed to give every indication of enjoying the show. She was uncommonly like her other biological parent in that, because Colonel John Sheppard had been known to deliberately rile up his life partner for that very reason.“Explain this!” the Canadian scientist demanded, keying up a command on his Atlantis notepad that suddenly took over the NCIS monitors and threw up a spreadsheet. In one column were the names of Earth countries, US states and some city and town names in various locations on their home planet. Another column apparently was supposed to list government census numbers for inhabitants who were registered as Z-positive or zed… one column for people who were single-gendered but carried the Z chromosome, and another for those who carried the Z and fully expressed dual genders. Such dual gendered people were known on Earth as ‘zeds’, but in the Pegasus galaxy were called the Veralin, or, their proper name, Furalin, from the hybrid ancestry they carried from the Furling race. The two agents working the office, Very Special NCIS Agent Anthony D. DiNozzo Jr., and his ‘probie’, FBI Senior Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid, both looked up. Spencer blinked at the displays, noting immediately that the numbers of Z-positive and zed populations on the sheet were all reading zero. He cocked his head to one side and lifted an eyebrow to the man who had so abruptly interrupted them. It was left to Tony DiNozzo, absently breast-feeding his infant son, Tagan Jethro, or TJ for short, to ask their visitor, “Why, hello, Rodney. Nice of you to drop by. And what is the occasion? And mind your manners, please, impressionable young people are nearby.”Sure enough, when Rodney belatedly glanced around, he found Tony’s three-year-old daughter Tali playing on the balcony just outside the office, with a ball and three cats, Tony’s marmalade Luke, Spencer’s silver tabby Bast, and her own little calico Oma. As he blinked, his own seal-point Siamese Anna trotted out to join them. “Yes, alright, fine, setting a good example for Meredith Joy here, so, hello. Nice to see you. How is everyone? Now can we get on with it? Please explain these numbers to me, because, hello, mathematician here, and these numbers can’t possibly be correct. Now, I expected the Commonwealth countries to read zero, there’s no mandated testing done for the Zed chromosome, no separate census numbers for zeds, and Japan… well. They have those draconian laws in place to eradicate zeds from the population. Russia and a few other countries, not much better… but… zero? Not just in Polynesian and Australasian regions, but look… These states. Hawaii, Utah, Oklahoma, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alaska, Louisiana. The US *does* have federally mandated testing, not to mention branding, until very recently. They all have zero numbers of Zed-positives or zeds in their populations. So what’s up with that?”Spencer glanced at Tony, who merely shrugged. So Spencer ventured to answer. “That’s not actually an accurate statement, Rodney. It’s not that they have zero Z-positives in their populations, but that they *report* none. Like Dr. Hartley’s home town, certain jurisdictions are so dedicated to the principals of freedom and absolute equality that they refuse to discriminate in any way. Particularly in the registration and branding of Z-positives, whatever their gender status. Or… you know… they have a vested personal interest in keeping that information strictly private. Many medical practitioners also consider performing such testing in the first place to be prejudicial to their patients and a violation of their professional ethics. May I ask why you’re even running these numbers?”“Meredith Joy,” Rodney retorted, as if it should be perfectly obvious. To him, it probably was. When he encountered blank looks from the two agents, he huffed and continued. “Okay, maybe I was a little too ostrich-like about zed issues in the past…”“Yeah, no, try in deep denial,” Tony rebutted. Then he held up one hand (not engaged in cradling his infant son TJ to his chest) and continued, “Not that we blame you in any way. A single gender Z-positive, taking Dr. Carson’s ATA gene therapy, and suddenly realizing there are unintended side-effects… rather radical ones, like, just for instance, suddenly acquiring a second set of fully functional genitals… yeah, a lot to deal with. You just weren’t very good at dealing.”“True,” McKay admitted freely, chin up and out in his pugnacious stance, just daring anyone to challenge him. “But I’m not in denial now, okay? And I have Meredith Joy to think of. There’s no way in… heck, that I’m going to take her anywhere she isn’t welcomed and treated fairly. That includes places where women are treated like second class citizens, or the crimes against zeds and women are high. And you know, because of that, the number of places on my own damn home-world I am willing to take her is dwindling by the moment.”Tony and Spencer exchanged a glance. Tony commented, “Methinks it’s time to trot out your Helen Keller quote, Probie. And maybe that neat little anecdote as well.”“Pardon me?” McKay demanded. Spencer sighed. “Helen Keller once wrote, ‘Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.’ And I believe the anecdote Tony is referring to is a story I heard once… probably apocryphal. A couple wanted to find the safest place in the world to live. They researched earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic activity, political instability, social violence, lawlessness, terrorism, disease outbreaks, even the prevailing winds in case of nuclear war and potential fall-out… all sorts of threats. And finally, in the spring of 1982, they settled on the Falkland Islands in the southern Atlantic as the safest place in the world to live. One month before the war between Great Britain and Argentina broke out.”McKay rubbed reassuringly at his little daughter’s back, as if trying to protect her from all the horrors of life. As futile as such a gesture was. He seemed to realize it. “Okay. I see what you’re saying. There is no truly safe place, in any galaxy. But… still… I can at least limit the danger, can’t I?” Then he shook his head and answered his own question. “Only to have her run over by a drunk driver, contract some weird disease, or something. Okay. I see. So what’s the answer? What can I do?”Spencer shrugged. “That’s up to you, of course. As for myself… I hope to teach Dimmy and JJ,” and he fondly caressed his own rapidly expanding belly, “that life is an adventure to be embraced, a challenge to be met head on with all the tools I can give them. Not something to fear and hide away from.”McKay huffed and collapsed into a chair. “Okay. I see it. But still… I’m still not taking her to Japan or Russia any time soon. Even Canada…”“I didn’t think Canada and the rest of the Commonwealth had a problem with zeds,” Tony prompted.McKay snorted. “Dream on. We’re just as prejudiced as anyone, certainly on an individual personal basis. Assholes really are everywhere, after all, and Canada is not immune. We just hide it a lot better, and try not to let it become institutionalized in our legal system or government. Not that we always succeed… just look at our past mistakes with aboriginal communities, or our Japanese population during the Second World War.”Tony shrugged again. “At least you try. And try to correct mistakes when you acknowledge them…”“Are *forced* to acknowledge them. We Canadians are absolutely lousy at cover-ups. And obnoxiously smug after we do act. The Brits are a hell of a lot better at all of it. All those centuries of ingrained class structure giving them an appreciation for social hierarchy, how to acknowledge differences and not let it slide too far into overt inequality… how the common folk can unite under the upper crust.” McKay seemed glum as he contemplated this. “But explain to me, genius Reid, why those states, in particular, are zed-friendly?”Tony quipped, “Well, Utah is Mormon, so alternative life-styles and family structures are kind of required… North Dakota, Alaska and Minnesota are pretty much half-Canadian, right? Hockey, beer, long brutal winters and wilderness… ‘Weeziana’? Yeah, I know, deep deep deep south, you’d expect them to be worse than Arkansas. But, remember, that’s Cajun country. I know a bunch of people in ‘Nawlins’, and they just have a different take on things. Totally different attitude to pretty much everything, from music to funeral practices… No clue about Oklahoma, but… That’s Geronimo territory, right? Maybe that has something to do with it. As for Hawaii, surprising, but good to hear. I’m glad to know ‘Magnum’ country is pro-zed.”McKay had seen Spencer twitch at mention of Hawaii. “Okay, what was that? That… blink. What do you know about Hawaii?”Spencer sighed. “You’ve met my friend, Dr. Blair Sandburg, in the blue jungle. He’s an anthropologist… yes I know, soft science.”“Positively squishy,” McKay agreed. “But yeah, go on.”“He was doing a study of certain Polynesian and Pacific cultures, part of his research into shamanism world-wide. A contrast and compare survey of widely divergent societies. He got to Guam… and in a dusty back room of a near-derelict building on the old WWII air force base, he found a box full of paper medical records that were never made part of the public record. In fact, he thought they were probably deliberately hidden. They contained the blood-work test results made on the local population just after the war ended… when the first tests for the Z chromosome were first made available. And every person tested was Z-positive. There was no indication of who was single or dual gendered, but… 100% Z-positive? Blair had a little accident before he left. The records all mysteriously burned in a fire. Then he looked a little deeper into other communities… Tahiti, Bali, Java, Easter Island, the Maoris of New Zealand, Australian aborigines… either there were no records at all, or they showed 100% Z-positives, or nearly that, for native populations. I suspect that holds true for Hawaii as well.”McKay and Tony both gaped at him. “Oh man…” Tony whispered. Spencer shrugged. “Would you want to have that kind of information made available to a clearly biased government? I know Hawaii has very strict application procedures for any medical professionals to be licensed in the state, and even those claiming resident status have to apply. I can only imagine what those applications must include, considering they are covered by extensive privacy and non-disclosure laws.”McKay shook his head. “I don’t understand it. I just don’t. I know what Vala says about how the Goa’uld fear of zeds in ancient times may have screwed human race memory into thinking we’re all monsters, but… I still don’t get it. What could modern humans have against us? I mean… anecdotal rumors of gnarly mental powers aside… where is all the prejudice coming from?”Tony shrugged, and could only offer, “It’s victimology 101.”“Meaning?”Spencer explained, “With the more extreme cases of racial, religious or gender hatred, the kind I encountered in Sulfur Springs, it’s internalized teachings from family and community, but the root is clearly personal. When an unsub begins looking for a victim, it’s never totally at random. In most cases, they’re looking for a surrogate, who represents someone who has injured or threatened them in some way. A parent who abused them, a boss who fired them, a rival who won when they lost, a lover who abandoned or assaulted them… almost always a need to feel superior to someone, anyone, lower than them on the totem pole… the need for personal pay-back, or a generalized social antipathy, giving them permission to attack another human being. That’s why zeds are the number one target of serial killers in the US, prostitutes number two, third being those in high-risk life styles, the homeless, homosexuals, drug addicts. Society has told sociopaths, without moral compasses of their own, that it’s okay to punish certain people for any number of perceived personal faults. Bullies have been given the same validation when choosing their own targets. But the pattern remains the same. They choose a surrogate to punish for their own sense of injustice, pain, or inferiority.”McKay’s crooked mouth set in an unhappy down-turn. “I don’t like it. It’s not right. I don’t want Meredith Joy living in that kind of world, that kind of universe.”Tony grinned. “Good for you, McActivist, McSocial Reformer. Have at it.”McKay scowled at him, but for the nickname or the cheerful challenge, was unclear. “Okay then, I have another bone to pick with you, DiOverachiever. You’re making me look bad.” He patted his tummy self-consciously. “Sheppard says you’ve already qualified to return to field work.”Tony grinned. “Giving you a hard time about getting back into shape? You can always start running with Ronon and me in the mornings. I bet MJ would love it. TJ sure does.”McKay blinked at him, horrified. “Are you *insane*? Run with DiSuperJock and Conan? No! I’d rather have Teyla whoop my rear end with her bantos sticks.”“Suit yourself McOutofShape.”He turned to leave… then hesitated. “Wait a minute. If all Polynesians are Z-positive, some have to be zeds, right? Even at maybe one percent of the Earth population who also got the ATA gene... that’s a *lot* of zeds. And even if they have to be ‘awakened’, invited in their dreams, and have cats find them, as you claim… how come we don’t see more of them in the Blue Jungle?”Astounded, the two agents stared at him. He smirked at them in victory and, as a parting jab declared, “Have at it, DiOblivious.”Tony could only stare. Then he turned to Spencer. “He has a good point. We only see people there we know personally. You think it’s because we haven’t… invited the rest to join us?”“I think that may be a reasonable working hypothesis. We can test it next time we’re called.”McKay turned around once more to leave as abruptly as he arrived, only to almost smack straight into Cameron Mitchell, who was breezing in. “Hey Howdy, folks!” drawled the colonel. “Lookin’ good, McKay.” He grinned and tickled Meredith Joy under the chin, making all those present wonder which McKay he was addressing, and winning a giggle from McKay junior and a grin full of drool. Rodney swatted his hand away from the baby. “Stop that, you heart-breaker.”Cam chuckled, and said, “Only one heart I’m aiming to break right now. Sunshine, you up for a picnic lunch? I got us a basket of goodies from the mess, and scoped out the most romantic scenic spots on the city.”Tony laughed outright at the shy smile his second sent the jet jockey. “Oh go on, Probie. Get. Scat.”Spencer mumbled a thanks and grabbed his messenger bag. He was already out the door when he heard behind him… McKay complained, “This is so not fair! Not *only* is he brilliant and courageous, but he is *insanely* adorable when he blushes! How can he even blush? He’s over thirty and has spent over a decade hunting killers and sexual deviants, right?” Å The weekly contact with Earth had Jack in his office with a monitor up, showing the ‘temporary’ commander of Stargate Command, Vice Admiral (retired) AJ Chegwidden. Some retirement. Some TAD. If it was up to Jack, he was keeping the former Navy JAG. He was doing a fine job at the helm of the SGC. But as much as he enjoyed chewing the fat with AJ, the current news was not good.“What the hell! They haven’t canned those bastards yet?”AJ was currently in Geneva with the International Oversight Advisory Board, the IOA that were ostensibly supposed to oversee HomeWorld, and Stargate, operations. But lately, they’d been nothing but obstructionist, if not downright criminally negligent in their failure to clean house of the enemy incursions and influence in their ranks. AJ was arguing himself hoarse trying to get the lot of them fired and demoted right out of the human race for their collective errors in judgment.As far back as last year, when Atlantis was anchored in the Pacific Ocean off San Francisco, that useless bunch of self-serving bureaucrats had been forcing their political games and agendas on HomeWorld, to the detriment of their mission, to protect the god damned planet. If they’d had their way, Atlantis would still be stuck on Earth, not back in the Pegasus Galaxy where it belonged, serving as an outpost to keep the damn Wraith, alien space vampires, away from the Milky Way.Jack had had his suspicions all along that the IOA was seriously compromised, confirmed when his brand new Agent Afloat, Tony DiNozzo, had uncovered one Trust Goa’uld and one Lucian Alliance spy on the City in his first month on the job. Jack had found a couple more moles, forced on him by the IOA without the chance to run his own security checks. Then, just five months ago, the IOA had stuck him with a whole nest of enemy agents, last minute additions to the roster of personnel being sent out to Atlantis on the deep space carrier *Daedalus*, with no opportunity to vet them before they launched. And didn’t that just end in tears by nightfall. The supposed Russian diplomat was a Lucian Alliance spy and saboteur, who murdered two people and set off a bomb on the ship, to lay it open to attack by Lucian pirates, as part one of a plan to infiltrate and take Atlantis herself. And, oh yeah, that was the mission that took ex-Mossad Director Eli David and his assassin daughter to the city. The IOA thought, or pretended to think, Eli was *their* spy, sent out to see what the Atlantis Expedition was hiding from the folks back home… which, okay, fair enough, Jack had to admit, was plenty. But Eli could care less about the biggest secret Atlantis was sitting on, the truth about dual gendered zed origins. That was news that could blow the lid off anti-zed sentiments back on Earth, and so far as Jack was aware, none of the IOA board had been told… yet. No, Eli had his own plans in place, namely, to take over Atlantis himself. To that end, he had made deals with rogue Genii factions, disaffected Expedition personnel, even the Lucian Alliance prisoners they had in their brig, and tried to pull his own coup. It had failed in spectacular fashion, thank god, but Eli himself had managed to escape in the chaos, with a jumper, his released prisoners, a confused kid with a mouse ATA gene and a brand new set of secondary genitals, and Carson Beckett, as hostage. Yeah, the IOA had not just let Eli get away with that shit, but had actively aided and abetted him in treason, whether they knew it at the time or not. They forced the Expedition to obey Eli’s command to allow his ‘friends’ on the city.Yeah, Jack was not happy with IOA oversight. He was sure at least the IOA Chairman, French rep Antoine DuPont, was guilty and dirty as sin.AJ held up his hands. “I’ve been talking myself blue in the face, but I’m not getting anywhere, Jack. I know you got assurances from all their governments, if there was any more trouble that could be traced back to the IOA, but… the bastards seem to think they have a defense on the charge of being complete incompetent idiots.”“Oh yeah? And that would be?”“Apparently, it’s all Eli David’s fault.”“What the hell!”AJ shook his head. “Yeah, I know. It was all Eli’s fault, they were misled. With his long and successful history in Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Intelligence, over a decade as Director of Mossad, they *claim* they thought his contacts and background checks were above reproach. He suggested the candidates, his people vetted them, the IOA took them all as good-faith on his say so. It’s a shock to them that he turned traitor to Earth, and some of them are actually arguing that even with the proof we provided, surveillance tapes of the invasion of Atlantis, that it must all be a misunderstanding. And they even threw three more Eli-sponsored moles to the wolves as proof they’ve cleaned house. One French under-secretary, one British accountant, and one the Israeli liaison.”Jack muttered an expletive under his breath. “And all minor players, none of them the official reps. They trusted Eli Fucking David? Really? Who all are we talking about? Certainly not everyone fell for that guy’s load of bullshit.”AJ responded, “Not the Brits, Canada, Australia, China, India.”Jack muttered “Hunh. We weren’t really blaming them anyway, were we?”AJ shrugged. “The only board member they actually have fired is the Russian rep.”Jack raised a cynical eyebrow, the one with the scar. “For crying out loud… Because Eli gave the other Board members enough dirt on their governments to give them leverage, hunh? Forty years as a spy-master gives him lots to work with.”AJ sighed. “That’s my take, too. Although I think a lot of the IOA and allies are more worried about disgruntled employees exposing HomeWorld, if they do fire people wholesale.”Jack thought about that for a moment. “Hmmm… maybe not the worst thing that could happen. We could ditch the IOA altogether and get the UN to oversee us. It would certainly untie our hands for a lot of projects we’ve needed to keep under wraps so far…”AJ admitted dubiously, “Maybe… I’m not anxious to see if those think tank speculations on the social and political fall-out from de-classification are accurate or not. It’s quite a risk if we have to do it deliberately, and we’re never going to get everyone to agree to it. But if it’s an accidental information leak, an SGC version of wiki-leaks, some whistle-blower pulling the lever... Well, I think we might be able to spin it to avoid the worst of the negative impact. We have Carter’s report of what happened in her alternate universe when that mirror-mirror Landry took over… I know the President has plans in place, and so do we. So what now?”Jack sighed. “I want the names and histories of every single member of the IOA *and* all their staff, so we can run our own checks. That’s not unreasonable under the circumstances. That’s the *least* we should be able to do, given how close we came to losing Atlantis, and with two of our people out there, Eli’s hostages. Not to mention Eli himself on the loose.”AJ nodded, glancing at his watch to monitor their thirty-eight minute window. “So how’s Tony and the baby doing?”Jack chuckled. “That guy’s a rubber ball, I swear. Bounced right back. He’s already re-qualified for field-work – which is good, because the Reid kid is looking more and more like a python who swallowed a watermelon.” Jack traced an upright figure in the air with his fingers. “Skinny skinny watermelon skinny. And considering what super-stars they both are in these parts, we need them to be out there making nice with the natives.”“You’ve got updates in the data-burst on the Genii, Asurans and Wraith?”“Oh yeah. All’s quiet on the Genii front. Leader Ladon apologized… it’s a full time job for that guy, and he’s pretty relieved his biggest rogue rival has bit the dust. We got the Travelers keeping an eye out. Apparently, the Asurans are still on a mission to contact every Wraith hive and Wraith-worshipper community, but we figure at this point, they’ve all got the message – change or die. A bunch of hives banded together to try and take the Asuran ship out, and they’re all dust in space now. About a dozen hives have snuck in to make contact and the Travelers are pretty sure they took the retro-virus, because those hives all went to ground and are staying there. One hive was caught after the fact, and half a dozen other hives ganged up and cornered them, ate the queen and crew, blasted the hive… and a couple of hives that seemed to be trying to get to us were also waylaid and attacked by their kin. So its civil war out there in Wraith-land. A couple of Wraith-worshippers have contacted us, asking for the retro-virus, and we’ve given it to them. What they do with it is up to them.”“Any word on the Furlings?”“They’re still playing coy. I don’t blame them. There’s only a handful of them left… literally, I think there’s only twelve living Furlings at this point. Protecting their few colonies is pretty much all they can manage. We think they’ve even called their local Veralin home for safety’s sake, to see if we can root out the Wraith for them. They’re keeping minimal contact with our zeds here. That’s all I know. Some of this intel is considered zed-only business, and I’m cool with that. They did tell me that Carson Beckett is still alive and unharmed. Not particularly happy, but at least he’s not dead. They’ve been passing intel from him about his Lucian Alliance captors… it’s in the data package I sent you in this burst. He doesn’t know where he is, but the Lucians seem to have found a few Ancient outposts, including at least one ship-works and a couple bases around the Milky Way. And although they have a bunch of zeds in their grimy slaver hands… it seems not all of them can control the really big toys.”AJ lifted an eyebrow. “Really? Hunh… what’s the deciding factor?”“Hell if I know. But then, neither do the Lucians, so… that’s good news. I just hope they don’t decide to space whatever zeds they’ve already got their hands on.”AJ sighed. “Your mouth to God’s ear, Jack. Well, looks like our time’s about to run out. Stay safe out there, buddy.”“You know it. You too. All things considered, I think you’ve got more snakes in the grass in your yard than I do at this point.”“And ain’t that the unhappy truth.”Å Hank Landry got another beer out of the fridge and went to sit in his back patio to contemplate life, the universe, and everything. He had a lot of time to do this, because he was currently on unofficial leave. He had tried to talk his ex-wife into joining him on an extended vacation, but she still wasn’t sure if she wanted to give him another chance, despite his profuse apologies for all the mistakes he had made during their marriage, and since. Yeah, Jack had been one hundred and ten percent right about that… the break-up of his marriage had been a disaster straight out of the pages of a Shakespearian play, and all his own damn fault. How to make it up to the injured parties, though, was something he was still grappling with. At least Mei was talking to him… his daughter Caro, not so much.So he sat there brooding, not fit company for anyone else.Which made it especially annoying when he got unexpected company anyway.He had only the vaguest impression that the two guys in uniform were kinda familiar… but the older gentleman in the expensive grey suit and the smarmy politician’s smile? Oh yeah, he knew who that was. He didn’t bother getting up when they came through his garden gate and the suit made himself at home in one of the Adirondack chairs, the two military gents at attention and on guard. “Well well well. Former Vice President Robert Kinsey. I have a file on you that says you’re supposed to be dead. To what do I owe the dubious pleasure of this visit from beyond the grave?”Kinsey only smiled wider. “If you’ve seen the file, you also know…”“That you’re infested by a Goa’uld? Sure. Want to tell me why I shouldn’t be screaming for SFs to come arrest your sorry ass right now?” Hank gave every appearance of being completely at ease as he took a long sip of his beer. But then, he knew exactly where he could lay his hands on the nearest hidden weapon. Even if he was a little over the hill for field work, he knew he was well up to the task of taking on these idiots. Neither of Kinsey’s guard dogs were taking him seriously as a threat, fooled by his relaxed and laid-back demeanor. Their mistake.The washed-out grey eyes flashed with inner light, and then the human-seeming voice deepened into the weird cadences of a Goa’uld. “I am known as Nun.”Hank didn’t even try to hide his bark of laughter. “Oh, the jokes Jack would have for that one… a gift from the gods of comedy!”“No doubt,” Nun replied somewhat sourly. Kinsey’s difficult relationship with O’Neill had evidently bled over into his symbiote. “I come with a proposition for you. My associates have informed me that you are having difficulties with the new order at the SGC.”“You mean, have I been fired to hell and gone? Not officially, maybe, but… Yeah. I’m contemplating having a go at retirement. I figure I should at least be better at making that stick than Jack ever was.”“No doubt. Perhaps you might also do well to return to the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs? Or are you considering a position in the private sector?”“Keep talking.”“There are opportunities for someone of your experience and insight into the inner workings of HomeWorld. My organization…”“The Trust?”“Parts of it…”“The Lucian Alliance, then?”“Let’s call us an amalgamation. A bit of both. And then again, something new. My friends and I rather like the title, The Patriots.”Hank tilted his head to one side. “Patriots, hunh? Patriotic to what?”“To a world without zeds. Or maybe, more accurately, with zeds put in their proper place, as obedient servants to the cause? To a world better managed than it is at present, with corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and money-grubbing businessmen cheating all and sundry? Yes, I realize, a Goa’uld has little right to cast stones, but… “I wonder if you have noticed the chaos that follows when a strong totalitarian government lets loose the reins? The end of the British Empire in Africa, the fall of the Soviets… there was a time when the arrival of Russian tanks into town was *bad* news… not so much any longer. Terrorists, jihads, military and semi-religious juntas… political ideologies hardly even seem to matter any longer. The religious right, the Church Militant, no matter the church, tribal grudges played out across the planet, seem to have a devastating effect on everyone. And those without any religion at all, unless it be the almighty dollar, the corporate elite, control all the wealth, and they don’t share. “Rampant and unrestrained overpopulation is going to drown us and sink this little life-raft of a planet, sooner rather than later. Then there is the specter of global warming, a bugaboo your own government fails totally and entirely to take seriously. You must know from SGC scans that we have maybe fifty years before the devastation of chaotic weather change becomes truly catastrophic. That plunge may already be irreversible. And there is no one, not one person on this planet, who presently has the will, power and authority to do anything about that. This planet is hurtling into disaster, and there is no one, not politicians, not governments, not military, not anyone, willing to make the tough calls to pull it out of the stew.”“And that’s where you come in?”“Well, we can hardly do a worse job! Give us control, we will stop terrorism overnight. Jihads, religious extremists, weapons dealers, drug cartels, organized crime of whatever stripe… will be gone overnight. The only weapons will be in our hands. No crime. No war. We can and will put in place the draconian measures necessary to halt overpopulation, poverty, resource depletion, and weather change. And as long as peace is assured, there will be no harm done to anyone. No one will go hungry, unclothed, unhoused. Free medical attention to all who need it. Isn’t that a goal worth fighting for?”“And all we have to do is give up our freedom?”“All *they* have to do is give up *their* freedom. With us in control, you, me, a select few others… is freedom so high a price to pay for order and security and peace? And in case you doubt your place in our schemes… consider, General, that as a member of the Joint Chiefs, you are the perfect figurehead, the smiling face of our Patriot movement. You are high up in the military hierarchy, a Pentagon insider, your expertise is invaluable to us, and that is without counting your knowledge of HomeWorld and SGC experience. As a member of our own inner circle, you can ensure that we keep our promises to the masses of this planet’s peoples.” The wattage on Kinsey’s smile went up. “Honestly, General, with so many billions to oversee, how would we even have the numbers, the time, or bother with the effort to oppress even a small percentage of Tau’ri? Simply turn over to us a share of the profits of this operation, a few resources we can make use of, a few people you don’t actually want around anyway, to serve our interests… and we’ll be perfectly happy to remain hands off, once we’ve established control. You can run this entire planet as you see fit.”Hank stared at the man, mind whirling madly. “Interesting points to consider. By the way, who are your friends over there?”“Colonel Robert Samuels. He started out as Hammond’s 2IC, until O’Neill supplanted him. And this is Colonel Robert Makepeace, Marine Corps. He disagreed with SGC policies that were designed to put Earth at risk by denying you the advantages of superior technology that your so-called allies enjoyed. For his efforts to counter that error in judgment he was labeled a traitor.”“Oh yeah. I remember reading the file. Jack called it a policy of pro-Earth, scorched Universe.”Makepeace scowled, and Kinsey, or Nun, or maybe both, huffed. “Yes, well, he would. O’Neill was always soft on the Asgard. Samuels and Makepeace will be your assistants, should you choose to join us.”Hank took another drag on his beer. “I’ll consider it. I assume you’ll be in touch?”“Within the week. I hope you have an answer for us by then.”“Yeah… yeah. Or I’ll at least have questions I need answers for.”“Fair enough. Good day to you.”The trio left with as little fan-fare as when they arrived. Å Samuels glanced at his new-old boss. “You think he’ll go for it?”Makepeace snorted. “I give it a fifty-fifty chance he goes straight to O’Neill and tells him all about our little visit.”On Kinsey, any smile seemed smarmy and offensively political. Having Nun behind it didn’t help with the smug impression. “He’s a very bitter and angry man. He may be tempted to betray us, for a time… but then his enlightened self interest will take over. And I did dangle one other enticement that I believe will turn the tide in our favor.”“And that was?” Samuels asked, frowning.“I began with it. The opportunity to finally and utterly suppress the ‘zed’ threat, turn them into slaves, take them off-world, if we let them live at all. Landry is no friend to any zed.”Makepeace frowned. “I thought we needed the freaking effems.”“Oh, we do. But think how Landry will enjoy turning every last one of them over to us, to take off your little world.”Å Yeah, Hank thought as he finished off his beer and sat staring into the forest behind his home in Colorado Springs. Yeah, he had a lot the think about…Å When people do an internet search for information on cats, particularly ‘the care and feeding of cats’, a site called TheBlueJungleCats comes up on the first page of results. The site has a wide following and is highly recommended as a reliable source of simple-to-follow information on cats. Such searches lead directly to the ‘Cats’ tab on the site, and includes information on breeds, care and feeding for beginners, common diseases and treatments available, a Q&A section where questions are answered by licensed veterinarians. All information presented is researched and verified. It’s only when you click on the ‘Home’ tab and wander over to the main page that you find the real purpose and mission of the site, and a casual visitor realizes the site is ‘Zed friendly’. Most shrug and keep the link, if only for source information on cats. Those who do stumble on the site and stay only to harass, are summarily booted and locked out afterward. Oddly enough, all those attempting to bully soon find themselves the victims of a pretty virulent computer virus that completely trashes their hard drives. Worse for many, any illegal content or links, especially the possession, creation and sale of child pornography, is immediately forwarded to the proper law enforcement officials in their jurisdictions. Other tabs found on the Home Page, besides ‘Cats’, are also visible and accessible to all.‘Research’ contains links to scholarly articles on a variety of subjects… by Dr. Spencer Reid, Dr. Blair Sandburg, Dr. Robert Hartley and a number of others, all certified ‘zed friendly’.‘Fiction’ turns out to be a forum for the free access to posted stories, monitored by the site admins, with the mandate that they must include a positive view of zed characters and be properly labeled for age appropriate content. Stories posted run the gamut of genres; spy thrillers for conspiracy nuts, romances, science fiction and fantasy (that in many cases attempt to provide a ‘aliens/wizards did it’ explanation for zed biology), and a good percentage of all stories posted contain at least some porn (adults only, even if not always consensual), with additional tags like ‘soul-mates’, ‘bonding’, ‘explicit’, ‘M/M’, and even ‘sentinels & guides’. There is, of course, a prominent icon to warn the unwary (or the salacious-minded) for the level of ‘explicit’ content. In recent months, one of the most popular posts has been by professional author Thom E. Gemcity, writer of a popular series of police procedurals set within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). His new novel, *“Very Special Agent”*, takes one of his main characters, Agent Tommy, and reveals him (shocker revelation!) to be a zed all along… now flung into an improbable but highly entertaining series of space adventures. The first few chapters were posted as work in progress, therefore free to the Blue Jungle visitors. After that, a link supplied to go buy the finished novel, first in a new series, on Amazon. Even after so short a time, sales numbers on the monster web-site were already through the roof.‘Visitor’s Chat Room’, another heavily monitored tab, contains a lot of comment chains, separated each with its own link. Subjects include: dreams; personal experiences of discrimination, prejudice, persecution and bullying; opinions expressed on current events and political changes in various countries after the Sulfur Springs case. Then there are a few comment chains that seem to have more in common with the letters column of Penthouse, and the moderators often ‘request’ the authors to post to the ‘Fiction’ tab instead… with proper warning tags, of course. But as long as no one attempts to be in any way negative in their attitudes toward zeds, they are allowed pretty free scope. There are chats about jungle dreams. Chats about zeds disappearing. Chats about cats. Chats about the new Gemcity series (mostly how his writing has significantly improved, his characterizations more credible and fleshed out, his story lines a *lot* more interesting, and thank *god* he’d dropped that annoyingly ‘perfect’ McGregor character in favor of Agent Tommy and new zed partner Agent Dr. Reed Spencer…). One of the longest and most active ongoing chains, however, was about FBI agent Dr. Spencer Reid… where is he now? How is he coping with the aftermath from Sulfur Springs?Most important, though, the site encourages people to report to them on the ‘Contact Us’ tab, anything suspicious happening in their communities with-respect-to zeds… to report any zeds abused, harassed, but especially disappearing, even if local LEOs refuse to react in whatever way – ignoring, refusing to report, refusing to investigate… The site also has a tab for applying for membership. The application process is lengthy, and it is a mystery what criteria is used to allow membership… as far as any of the applicants can tell, you don’t have to be a zed, necessarily… but they are also unaware that members are given different access levels. For certain members logging in, for instance, additional tabs appear on the Home Page. Å On a restricted access tab called ‘Ruth’s Chat’, seen and available only to those with ‘admin’ level IDs, a circle of people who had created and monitor the site were able to engage in secure and private communications at any time, day or night. [Signing on CascadePD server: *BlairS852*][Signing on FBI server: *Krummy42*: *Ravensclaw_fed*]*Krummy42*: Got 5 more MIA reports today, 4 internat, 1 NYC. Sent them on. Numbers getting pretty appalling, tho.*BlairS852*: I see it, K. Thx.[Signing on NCIS server: *PPP_NOLA*: *Jedi_Lund*]*PPP_NOLA*: Still no one from down here. Brag.*Ravensclaw_fed*: Cheat. Weeziana doesn’t report Zs. [Signing on FBI server: *Meow_Meow*][Signing on NCIS server: *SuperEric*: *Little_Nell*]*PPP_NOLA*: Your point, Rave? Y U think I moved here after my ‘accident’? Better’n Utah, or (shudder) Alaska! ‘N I say again, come on down!*Meow_Meow*: Now children. Behave. And it so happens, Triple P, I’m still miffed with NCIS for how they treated our poor Agent Afloat.*SuperEric*: Hey!*Jedi_Lund*: Yeah, Garcia, don’t paint us all with the DC brush. They’re nuts up there. Even Pride says so. He’s still pretty steamed at Gibbs and Vance, and I can’t get any sense out of Abby at all. I think politics got into their brains and mashed them. *PPP_NOLA*: Listen to my BFF Sebastian. What he sez is too true.*Little_Nell*: I know I’m only Z-pos, but if I was going to move anywhere safe for zeds, I’d rather Hawaii.*Ravensclaw_fed*: Point.*Krummy42*: Point.*PPP_NOLA*: Hey, we party better.[Signing on CalSci.edu server: *Numb3rs_Whiz*: *Cosmos_Heart*]*BlairS852*: Raven, how you coming with our virus 2.0?*Ravensclaw_fed*: Way to get us back on track, boss. I’ve hit a snag, actually. Think I may need help to finish the Darknet search parms. Penelope? Triple P? Got suggestions?*SuperEric*: I’d help too, but I’m still putting finishing touches on our Red Alert protocol. Should be done by the weekend, B. Hetty’s letting me put in the extra time. Think she’s got plans for the thing she didn’t tell me about.*Ravensclaw_fed*: That woman is scary. And paranoid. Avery and Krummy are letting me put all my time in this. We’re going to leverage the same app for other (more official) purposes for the FBI, if I can get it up and running. Maybe your boss has got the same thing in mind, Eric.*Meow_Meow*: I got time tonight, if you want to come over, Rave. We’ll have a brain-storming session. Case-permitting, of course. Pizza and cupcakes. You wanna come 2, Krum, you’re welcome.*Ravensclaw_fed*: Golden.*Krummy42*: Yer on, ladies. Can’t get enough of your cupcakes, my Queen.*Meow_Meow*: Oh, hey, bring Laney and Boots, if you want. Sergio loves the company. *BlairS852*: Tick tock, folks. Time’s running out and the abductions are escalating.*Meow_Meow*: No sweat, oh shaman of the great city. If we can’t crack it tonight, I have a couple of guys I can call on. But they don’t come cheap – they’ll require info.*PPP_NOLA*: PANIC BUTTON*Meow_Meow*: Chill, Arthur Dent. I trust these guys. They’ve both been underground off the grid since the 80’s, so even more paranoid than us. They’ve forgotten more about security and secrecy than any of us will ever know. If I can talk them into surfacing to help, which is why I’ll be the one making contact. I think one of them is sentinel. *BlairS852*: Oh man! Another one? They’ve been coming out of the woodwork lately!*Meow_Meow*: Yeah, you might consider they’re hard-wired to come to the aid of zeds, Boss. Which is why I think we can trust Jarod. Bird-man… I’m prepared to trust him, too, he has way more reason to hide from the PTBs than any of us. But I will need to explain what we’re doing and why. You trust me, I trust them. But, all things considered, I’d be surprised if they don’t already know. They both have serious lurker skills.*BlairS852*: If you think it best, oh queen of all wisdom. We need all the help we can get. *Meow_Meow*: Gotcha, boss. Rave & K, see you all tonight. Signing off.[Signing off FBI server: *Krummy42*: *Ravensclaw_fed*: *Meow_Meow*][Signing off NCIS server: *PPP_NOLA*: *Jedi_Lund*: *SuperEric*: *Little_Nell*]*Numb3rs_Whiz*: Krumitz is right about the numbers, Blair. They’re getting pretty appalling. I estimate we’re looking at over a thousand by the end of the weekend, world-wide. *BlairS852*: I know, Charlie. You got anything yet I can use to narrow down the danger zones? Hotchner, Cooper, Garrett and Prentiss are all doing their best, but we need to get them any help we can to get ahead of this. *Cosmos_Heart*: It’s going to be difficult, Blair. Our best guess right now, from the numbers and geography we’re seeing, is that they have pretty much full access to all government and census stats, at least from the countries you’ve specified, plus the US. They evidently have each government’s complete list of zed citizens, with names, addresses, work details, tax and health information. It’s a mess.*BlairS852*: You’re right about that, Larry. We’re pretty sure they’re operating and coordinating on the Darknet, and they’ve already tried a couple of times to infiltrate this site. So far without luck. Which is why we need Raven’s virus 2.0 up and running ASAP, so we can track them back to source.*Numb3rs_Whiz*: Larry & I are working on some ideas, based on Spencer’s geo-profiling. He’s got some pretty nifty algorithms there. Just need some more tailoring and tweaking for zed specifics... Sent you a list of the countries and regions to look out for… the US is indeed on that list, unfortunately. And the abductions are starting to get media attention. My brother has been told he’s going to be named as head of a task force the FBI want to set up by next week, for the sudden increase in reported abductions in southern California. Don wants to stick me with a security detail. They aren’t saying it’s all zeds, but it won’t be long before that information gets out. *BlairS852*: The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned. I’m done trying to hide this. It’s crippling our efforts to try and get the word out, to warn people. *Numb3rs_Whiz*: I hear you, brother.*BlairS852*: Good luck and keep your heads down. Signing off. [Signing off CascadePD server: *BlairS852*][Signing off CalSci.edu server: *Numb3rs_Whiz*: *Cosmos_Heart*]Å

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Å Daniel was still trying to unbury information from the Atlantis databases on the Furling race and their relationship with the Lanteans… and getting nowhere. The sheer difficulty he encountered told him that the Lanteans had deliberately messed with their systems. Which meant they must have had something to hide. But was it something important, dangerous, or… as he was strongly beginning to suspect, shameful? The Lanteans had done something to their Furling allies, beyond making cross breeding possible, stealing the ATA gene complex to graft to themselves, and goosing up Furling fertility rates… Daniel was convinced of it. But the Furlings of today didn’t seem to know what it was, beyond a certain lack of respect, reflected in the race being treated like second-class citizens and lackeys by their supposed allies. As ever when absorbed in his research, it took concerted outside interference to get him to lift his head long enough to realise he was either hungry, sleepy, or sore from sitting too long in one position. This particular day it was all three, and Aten was standing on his lap, forepaws on his shoulders, and meowing loudly in his face. The fluffy white snowball was hungry, and not letting Daniel ignore him any longer. So Daniel shut down his laptop and stood, momentarily dizzy and grabbing at the desk to steady himself, before stretching to get the kinks out. Funny… He didn’t often get this bad, or sit this long. Usually, Cam, Vala, or even Jack would come get him and roust him, over his protests of course. And he always felt a little foolish when they had to remind him, a grown man, to act like a responsible adult, and take care of himself. He just couldn’t seem to pay enough attention to physical things... and he had been that way even *before* his multiple Ascensions.Daniel wandered out in Aten’s wake, following the flag of a fluffy white tail curling in question mark shapes in front of him. And sure enough, the cat went straight for the mess hall. Daniel yawned and blinked vaguely, collecting a tray, bowl and milk for his companion, then some… ah, eggs, bacon, toast, ‘local’ (meaning Pegasus) fruits… breakfast then. Blearily, he stared out the windows at the sunrise over the Lantean ocean. Once he had a full tray, he looked around at the busy morning cafeteria. It seemed everyone was in pairs, or grouped by team, or family, or both. AR-1 was at their favourite table by the balcony windows. Teyla and Tony sat close together, little TJ on Teyla’s lap between them, while Tali and Torren leaned over, fascinated by their new little brother. At the other end of the table, John and Rodney were also billing and cooing over baby Meredith Joy. Between the two families, Ronon sat with Miko at his side, the two paying far more attention to each other than their morning meal, even taking choice morsels in their fingertips to feed each other, clearly besotted grins on their faces as they stared deep into each other’s eyes. The raucous Time Team had taken over another table. Their geologist, Dr. Taylor Timson, was flirting outrageously with astrophysicist Dr. Evgenia Andreeva, of course, but there were other females sitting with the crew as well. Geologist Dr. Katya Petrova was laughing at some probably off-color joke of Edmund Black’s. The two archeologists, Phil Aston and Mick Harding, seemed to have caught a couple of the other female scientists, and even little Tony Baldrick was chatting up an entertained lady corporal from the Royal Navy detachment that had recently come to the city.AR-5, like most of the Atlantis teams, sat together, Anne Teldy and Alison Porter holding hands, and helping Dusty Mehra try and cheer up Laura Cadman… oh yes, she had been dating Dr. Carson Beckett, before he was kidnapped by traitors and spies for the Lucians. His own team-mates were scattered. Sam and Teal’c sat at one table, blatantly for two, so interlopers not encouraged. Sam had told him she tried to be available for her people, open door policy during office hours, but at meals, she definitely preferred people leave her in peace, for just a little while. Teal’c certainly agreed. Daniel smiled in their direction. It had surprised Jack when he discovered the pair had a ‘thing’ going… But then, Jack had been too busy with his own confused feelings for his former 2IC, and their own defunct ‘thing’, to see what had always been under his nose. Sam had always been drawn to the big jaffa… fascinated by the dichotomy between his size and strength, and his gentleness. She had been ready for an alien warrior from a militantly patriarchal culture to treat women with disdain… but not so. Teal’c had kept his own counsel as he sized up his new team and these alien Tau’ri… and had been smart enough to quickly realize that woman, or scholar for that matter, didn’t mean weak. He had every respect for Sam. And, over the years, respect had only grown between them. The fondness of team-mates, a made, chosen family closer than blood, had matured into love. So much more sound and lasting than the lust-driven infatuation Sam and Jack had shared, with the imbalance of ranks distorting their relationship from the first. Sam had confided in Daniel that it was all those alternate universe Sams grabbing their Jacks that had her fooled. Wanting a closer intimate connection with someone, anyone, she had let those examples lead her astray into unrealistic fantasies. Janet Fraiser had tried to tell her… And meanwhile, Teal’c had gone from alien to ally to married, to romantically involved with others – Shaun’ac, Ishta, then the Free Jaffa Council had needed him…But once the Council was stable under Bra’tac and Rak’nor, and the Ori threat gone from the Milky Way, Teal’c had felt free to pursue his own happiness, for once, his duty to wife, son, people, discharged with honor. And so he had hunted Sam down, and formally declared his love. That’s all it had taken for the blinkers to drop off Sam’s eyes, and for her to fall gladly into those strong, gentle arms. Daniel could only smile, and be glad they had finally found each other.At another ‘table for two’ and only two, sat Cameron and Spencer Reid. Their FBI agent was glowing with his pregnancy… so glowing with happiness and shy blushes from whatever southern charm Cam was laying on him, that the only word Daniel could think of was ‘adorable’. All these couples, all these families, enjoying the warmth and comfort of love. Daniel suppressed the twinge of envy… he had long practice to hide it away. Along with the faded sepia-colored memories of Sha’re on Abydos, and long hot nights in the sand dunes in each other’s arms, staring at the stars and dreaming of a rich, long and happy future, full of babies and family and belonging… Daniel had long been reconciled to the truth… that love, children, family, was not to be his. If there had ever been a chance… he had missed it. Too late to see, or imagining what wasn’t there in the first place… it was gone, now, in any event. Then he turned, seeking out an empty seat at some table, maybe by himself…And saw Jack and Vala, together, their heads bowed close, so close the breath from their heated whispers must be brushing each other’s face… Then Jack burst out in a laugh, loud, real and happy… Jack didn’t often allow himself that particular brand of happiness. Wry amusement at the vagaries of life, mocking himself or others, cynical jokes to hide behind, sure. Jack was a master at batting those around. But full-on joy? Daniel wasn’t sure he’d *ever* seen that in his friend. There’d been too many tragedies, too many losses for that. And Vala… there was her wicked, knowing smile as she gazed at the battered general. That look Daniel thought had been directed at him… well. Obviously not, then. He had known, hadn’t he, all along?But something in his chest dropped a foot and a half, leaving him gasping. “Dr. J!” exclaimed Major Lorne. “You’re gonna drop your tray. Here. Let me help you. You okay, there, doc?”“Oh… ahh… I’m fine. Thank you. Been up all night. Guess it caught up with me.”“You got your coffee, then? I see you have. Want to join me and AR-2?”Before Daniel could answer, Jack called out over the mess hall, “Daniel! Over here. Got something to tell you, might as well be now.”It was only that mastage-tough hide he had grown over the years that prevented Daniel from giving a full-body cringe, away from what he suspected was coming. And he didn’t want to know. He didn’t. But Jack had called, and he didn’t dare walk out now, with everyone lifting heads to stare at him. It took every drop of courage he possessed to walk over there and smile before settling into an empty seat across from the pair, more than facing down System Lords, more than standing up to pitched battles, more than facing death by radiation… “Listen. I don’t like what I’m hearing from Earth. With the moles digging their damn holes all through the IOA, the numbers of missing zeds rising daily, and the Lucian incursions we’re seeing… I need to return to Earth. Sooner rather than later.”Daniel took extra care, pouring milk in the bowl for Aten, then setting out his own breakfast… He nodded and blinked in Jack’s direction. “AJ’s good, and I trust him, but he’s new to the HomeWorld Chair and the SGC, and I think it might be getting to be too much back home for him to handle on his own. He’s gathered a lot of support and help, but I still think I need to be back there.”“Of course, Jack,” Daniel agreed, giving a cough when he felt his throat grow hoarse. Then he ventured a little joke… “You never did like to be sidelined when something exciting was going on.”Jack scowled at him and wagged a finger in his face. “Yeah, well, mostly, excitement thy name is Daniel trouble-magnet Jackson! And given that… I don’t like to leave you here… but I will, don’t worry. I know you need to finish up with the Furlings, if nothing else… and… yeah, I know Atlantis is your brass ring. You stay as long as you need to. But I have to go. I’ve been gone too long as it is, with less and less of an excuse. I’ve just got this itchy feeling… there’s a sword poised over our heads, and it’s getting ready to fall. I need to be there when it does.”Daniel nodded, sensing the seriousness of the situation. “I understand. So… Vala, you’ll be going with him?”“Hell no!” Jack declared, surprised and a little alarmed. “Vala’s going to stay right here and watch you! Mitchell’s too distracted by his shiny new zed guide, and Sam and Teal’c have too many irons in the fire right now. No, I need a dedicated Daniel-watcher on your tail. Vala is my go-to girl. Right, Val?”Vala’s smile was five miles wide and brighter than a supernova… but it wasn’t the least bit genuine. Daniel could tell she wasn’t happy with this development. Not at all. And no wonder, if… whatever was happening between his two friends, it was new… he couldn’t have been *that* mistaken all this time. “Look, Jack, I promise to be good, okay? I won’t go anywhere alone, I’ll have Cam and Teal’c, probably Spencer too, on any expeditions we mount to find the Furlings, when they’re ready to meet us in person. If you want us to take one of the Atlantis Recon teams with us too, fine, I’m good with that. You need someone to watch your back, too. There’s no one better at that than Vala. And if you’re right, and the IOA is rife with traitors and spies… and I have no doubts about that… they’ll be gunning for you the moment you step foot on Earth. Vala, it’s okay. I’ll certainly miss you both… and Vala, I know I’ll be late to everything without you to remind me… but I think we can muddle through on our own. So if you want to go with Jack…”Jack and Vala stared at each other a moment… Daniel used to be able to read them both as easily as he knew his own thoughts… but now he felt locked out of a private conversation made of brown eyes and dark blue that weren’t his. And it hurt. He was actually shocked at how much it hurt. How had that happened? How had his own happiness become so invested in… well, in both of them? He had, maybe, even taken it for granted, that they would both just… always be there, in his orbit, the close connection of friendship always there to keep him anchored to his life. He often felt there was nothing much left holding him to this plane of existence. Taking the ATA therapy, transforming himself into something new… that had been a last-ditch attempt on his part to build some kind of tether to the waking world. Something real and visceral that might enable him to distance himself from the man he was… the single-gendered pawn of the Alterans, sent to do all their dirty work, without regard for how much it cost him… Daniel took a deep breath, and put on a smile for his beloved friends. He had sacrificed less to save galaxies. He would do this for them now, and willingly. His breakfast forgotten, he stood up and took his tray to the pick-up table, and left the mess hall, not hearing, not listening, not paying attention to anything, but putting one foot in front of another. Å “What the hell just happened?” Jack demanded.Vala blinked, scowling. “I think Daniel just gave us his blessing. The blind idiot.”Jack choked on that. “Our… you mean… he actually *noticed* that you and me…”“And got the wrong end of the stick. Yes. Or at least, not the wrong end… but he certainly took two and two and made it come out to five.” And then Spencer Reid was standing at their table, frowning mightily, demanding, “What did you say to him?”“Nothing!” Jack protested. “Well, I told him I’d have to return to Earth soon, because that whole goat-rope is about to blow wide… but I told him he could stay! That’s what he wants, right? To bury himself in the city database, wait around for the Furlings to invite him to tea… I thought he’d be overjoyed to be able to do what he wants without me looming over his shoulder! Then he says Vala should come with me, and…”“Oh,” Reid said, thoughtfully.“Yeah, oh,” Vala muttered, disgruntled. “It’s back-fired on us, Spencer. He thinks me and Jack… and he’s gone all noble about it.”Spencer cocked an eyebrow. “Well, he might have *said* all the right things… but he *felt* gutted. In the words of Penelope Garcia, I think that loud crashing sound you heard was Daniel getting hit by the clue bus.”The FBI agent was about to say more to the enlightened looks on Jack and Vala, when Cameron collared him and dragged him off. “Spencer. A *word*.”“But, Cam, I just need to—““No. You don’t. Come with me. Now, Spencer.”Once they were far enough to the side, Cameron glowered at his, hopefully, soon-to-be mate. “Look, sunshine, you need to stay out of this one.”“But Cam, Daniel… he was in pain! I can’t just—““Yes, you can. Take a look around you, Spence. See all those unhappy faces turned your way? Each and every one of them has a bet down in the pools on when, if or as, Daniel Jackson and Jack O’Neill will *finally* get their heads out of their asses.”“Pools?” Spencer asked faintly.“Yeah. There’s a book at the SGC, in Walter Harriman’s highly-secure hands, recording about a couple dozen different pools, but all on the same theme.”“Jack and Daniel.”Cameron nodded. “Where, when, how. With side bets on third parties, announcements, whether charges might be laid, how high a body count there might be, if it’ll send Daniel back to glowy-land… and some pretty heavy betting on some kind of alien interference being involved. They’ve been running from pretty much the beginning of the SGC, back in the bad old DADT days – that’s ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ for you, civilian. There are people who’ve been dead for years who put a twenty on one thing or another… Legend has it the book was started by Dr. Janet Fraiser herself, famed in song and story. It’s practically sacred to the whole program. I cannot begin to tell you how high the pot runs by now, especially since people keep making new bets as time goes on, Walter has invested the proceeds wisely, and after time or details expire, the sum accumulates. And you don’t just go and stick your nose in something like that.”Spencer gave his soon-to-be mate a long level look. “You’ve got money on it.”“Hell yeah! I’ve made a half dozen bets over the years as the time limits pass me by. And if you interfere, I might just be disqualified, according to the original rules set down. So keep out of it, sunshine. Let those three idiots sort out their own affairs.”“Pools. Hunh. You know, I’m inclined to break it all up. It’s not exactly legal!”“Sacred, remember? Landry, Sam and Chegwidden all have money in the pool somewhere. Hammond did too, while he was alive. So does POTUS, at least the last three, or so I’ve been told, plus at least two Canadian Prime Ministers and one British PM. So do us all a favor to prevent an international incident, and stay out of it. Okay?”Spencer gave a heavy sigh. This was all getting out of hand, clearly… He sent Cam a woebegone look that almost, *almost* turned the tide. “But Cam…he’s in *pain*!”“And all he has to do to, all either of them have ever had to do to resolve all that UST, is *talk* to each other, and be *honest* about their feelings.”“If they even know what they are.”“Well… yeah. There is that. A denser couple of people…”Spencer frowned. “I suppose… you realise there’s a time limit on this thing anyway.”“What do you mean?”“Daniel’s close. Real close. Once he starts his periods, he’s going to be full-blown Furalin. And then he’ll finally discover how the people closest to him *really* feel. I think it’s going to be a shock for him.”“What, that we *all* love him to tiny bits for his kindness, respect him for his intelligence, adore him as a hero who saved us all a dozen times over, and drool over his class-A butt? Oh yeah. Hey howdy, that’s gonna be fun to watch. As a matter of fact, maybe it’s time for me to review my last guess in the pool…”“No. That would be cheating. Special knowledge.”“Awww, but Spencer…”Å The thing of it was, Daniel *was* in pain, and it was getting worse by the hour as he brooded alone in his lab. That emotional agony was spilling all over the city, and even the Atlantis AI, which had been getting stronger and stronger day by day as it soaked up the advantages of a fully powered ZPM deck, was noticing the unhappiness in the ranks. As close as Daniel was to his final transformation, she couldn’t avoid tuning into his thoughts. It was Garcia, the dedicated NCIS subset of the AI, who tentatively broached the issue with her guys. “What are we doing about Daniel?” she asked them as they reviewed current issues in preparation for that afternoon’s executive meeting.Tony winced. “Nothing, baby girl. Sorry. I’ve been told this one is hands off. In fact, I’ve been told by so many, and warned to keep Spencer out of it too, that I’m hell and gone curious about these damned books, and why I wasn’t invited to participate.” Spencer leaned back. “Apart from the fact that it’s all wildly illegal? Been going on for years, too, sanctioned at the highest levels, even when being outed as homosexual, in spite of DADT, was an automatic dishonourable discharge from US military service, often with pensions revoked and/or hefty prison sentences attached? Not to mention the hazing common even today? Oh, I can see why they wouldn’t want to bother you with this stuff, Boss.”Tony huffed. “Well, when you put it that way… still, it’s a bag of wax I don’t want to mess with, unless lives are at stake. As far as Daniel’s personal issues are concerned... Not exactly our jurisdiction, is it? If anything, I’d toss it over the wall to Bob Hartley to sort out.”Garcia made an unhappy, discontented sound. Odd how an artificial intelligence managed that, but she did. “Don’t worry about it,” Spencer tried to reassure their system. “I have a cunning plan.”Tony looked alarmed. “Oh now, Probie… those are fighting words. What have you got in mind?”Spencer sat straight in his chair and looked his boss in the eye. “I plan to exercise my authority in a matter that is well within our jurisdiction, and do my job. And if that happens to deliver a wake-up call for certain parties, so be it.”“Uh-hunh. And my part in this cunning plan?”“All you have to do is back me up.”“And do I want to know exactly what I’m backing up?”“Probably not. You might want a certain level of plausible deniability.”“Ah. Okay, then.”Å Weekly Expedition executive meetings were usually held Thursday afternoons, crisis-of-the-day permitting, to recap the week’s activities in preparation for the Friday contact with Earth and the data-burst reports to be filed back home.Jack had planned to have his announcement be the last item on the agenda for that afternoon. He didn’t expect it to be much of a surprise. They all had to know that the situation on Earth was reaching a tipping point, and he needed to be back there. His excuses for remaining on Atlantis had been getting thinner and thinner by the week, and he didn’t think he could afford to spin it out much longer. AJ needed help with all the problems that were amassing on the Earth horizon, and even with the former JAG’s contacts and assistance from the BAU, Interpol, and NCIS Special Operations, there was too much for one man to handle. And AJ, for all his political savvy and experience, didn’t have Jack’s pull in certain quarters. At the very least, Jack planned to pull in Assistant Director of Homeland Tom Morrow, and get him trained up to hold the HomeWorld reins. If George Hammond were still alive… or if Hank Landry could be trusted with the zed issues… ideally, HWS should be headed by someone with SGC experience. After all this, AJ would be perfectly positioned for that. But then who would take the SGC helm? He had been waiting for Carter to earn her stars so he could put her in place, and she would certainly have the chair the moment she was ready for it, but how long could he afford to wait for that?Jack sighed, letting his mind wander as the various Expedition department heads and team leads gave their reports on the state of Pegasus. There was nothing much new with any of this, he’d already read the written reports (and edited them for… sensitive content). The Asurans were still on their self-appointed mission. The civil war raging among the Wraith Hives was enough to gladden most human hearts… Jack had heard that even the Wraith-worshippers were breathing easier as their Lords elected to take the retrovirus. Apparently, the closer contact some Wraith had with their human herds made them a little more inclined to opt for change. The Genii, both the legitimate and various rag-tag rogue factions, were being quiet and careful to keep their noses clean. The Travelers were proving to be a goldmine of information, in all sorts of ways. And the call-outs for their zed cops had increased lately. Good thing DiNozzo was back to field-ready. So, when Carter called out for “Any other business?”, which was usually the signal for Jack to have his final word before breaking up the meeting and getting back to work, Jack sat up and made ready to drop his little bomb. Only to be supplanted by the Reid kid. “I have a matter that has recently come to my attention. A widespread and long-standing violation of civilian and military protocols. Not a felony, more of a misdemeanor, but so widespread it can’t help but effect the entire mission, SGC and Atlantis both.”Everyone sat up and stared at the young man. This, after all, was their by-the-book cop, the guy who had the balls to call McKay on his mistreatment of his staff, and get it to stick. This was the guy who busted open smuggling rings, uncovered spies and saboteurs, identified murderers and prevented a hijacking in space. If he had found some new criminal activity going on under their very noses… “Were you aware, any of you, of the betting pools being held on various topics related to SGC personnel?”Everyone blinked and traded startled looks. Carter cleared her throat delicately. “Exactly what pools are you talking about, Dr. Reid?”“Principally, my concern is the pools surrounding various romantic attachments between SGC members. Not only is such rampant speculation into people’s private lives disrespectful and intrusive, but not so long ago, it was a subject that could result in arrests, dishonorable discharges, revoked pensions and hazing attacks on the subjects. Perhaps, as a Furalin, I’m overly sensitive on the subject, but to me this looks like a case of bullying, which could easily blow seriously out of control. At the very least, it should count as sexual harassment, if not outright discrimination.”After a beat of two of silence, it was McKay who blundered in where wiser men would fear to tread. “Wait a minute… are you talking about the pools for Daniel and the General finally getting it on after years of stupid denial?”“Yes, as a matter of fact, Dr. McKay, I am.”There was a beat of silence, and then half the room broke out in laughter. “You’re kidding, right?” Jack demanded between belly-laughs.Daniel, meanwhile, had slapped both hands over his face. No doubt to hide the five-alarm flaming on his cheeks. Unfortunately, that embarrassed blush spread over his neck and ears, all a bright and revealing red.Tony held his piece, staring at his Probie. Wow. A cunning plan indeed… but to what end… he decided to add his support, as requested, with a serious frown only a very few might be able to correctly read as his number two mask. Tapping a pen on the conference room table, Carter ventured, “Um… those pools… pretty much everyone knows about them, Dr. Reid. They aren’t a secret…”“Which is only part of the problem.”“They’ve never been a problem before, almost everyone has a few dollars in it by this point, and even General Hammond allowed them to continue, as a kind of relief valve and bonding exercise…”“Yes, and that would be the other part of the problem, Colonel. Did it never occur to anyone how… demeaning such pools were? How they might erode all respect for the subjects? Dr. Jackson, were you aware that almost all of them are on the subject of who you might, or might not, hook up with? And yes, I’m talking sexual relationships.”Daniel groaned. In a voice muffled behind his hands, he said, “Yes. I am well aware.”“And it never bothered you?”“Well… um…”“You never felt that the people betting on you to engage in intercourse with your team-mates, your allies, your enemies even, were subverting your authority and the respect you are due? That it might adversely affect your ability to work with the military? And that’s even without the bets on various liaisons you might have with aliens! Under the heading, as I understand it, ‘Half the Universe wants in Daniel’s pants, and the other half haven’t met him yet’!”Woolsey groaned and reached for the bottle of antacids he kept at every meeting. So far in this one he hadn’t felt the need… until now. He wondered if Dr. Reid had found the few entries he had himself made with a few cautious bets.Teal’c, whose presence at these meetings was totally at his discretion, for no reason anyone bothered to question, was studying his former team-mates and Dr. Reid with some interest. DanielJackson wasn’t the only one mortified beyond the telling of it. CameronMitchell also seemed to be choking on a chicken bone. His *kalash’me* was keeping an admirable hold on her emotions, ever the career military leader, but everyone else was caught between finding it all too funny for words, or wondering if DoctorReid was about to reveal their parts in the pools. Teal’c himself had been a little too wise in the ways of the Tau’ri to bother with the betting. Even after the phantom fifty years he had spent on the *Odyssey* in the time dilation bubble… it was no secret to him, who knew his team-mates so well, how they truly felt about each other… With O’Neill out of reach, of course DanielJackson would turn to his beloved space pirate. Would be forced to realise, finally, just how devoted she was to him. And for DanielJackson, who would never make the first move in any relationship, who was convinced he had nothing to offer a potential mate but trouble… recognizing someone *could* love him, with all of his perceived faults, was most of the battle. And even then, half his attention would always be on O’Neill… hyper-sensitive to what his closest friend thought, felt, wanted. That time on the *Odyssey* had freed Daniel from those concerns, so he could fully commit to Vala. But back in real time… the spectre of Jack loomed large in Daniel’s emotional landscape. Always.His *kalash’me* straightened her uniform jacket and girded her loins, as if for battle. “What are you proposing we do about this, Dr. Reid?”“Clearly, the pools must be shut down. As soon as possible. I suggest Sergeant Harriman inform all parties, determine who is still living and has money… invested, shall we say, and treat the amounts as shares, the total sum of the pools to be pro-rated per share and disbursed among the participants. Alternatively, we could suggest the full amount be donated to the widows and orphans of the SGC, since I understand many of the bets were made by persons who have since passed.”“But…” Daniel finally came out of his humiliated huddle, looking both lost and alarmed. “But… that was Janet’s pool…”“And incredibly dangerous and illegal for her to begin,” Spencer insisted. “No, but… it wasn’t like that. She just… it wasn’t meant to be cruel or mean… she was just… exasperated, I guess… with…”“Dr. Jackson, you can’t honestly mean you want these bets to continue!”Teal’c eyed the young man with some interest. Courage came in all different packages, and Teal’c had learned over the past few months that the young FBI profiler had more than his fair share. And even though he himself lacked the special sensitivity of the Furalin, Teal’c knew how to read people. It was this special skill, both at reading and manipulating the moods and decisions of others, mostly his psychopathic Goa’uld and jaffa superiors. A valuable skill indeed, that had contributed to his survival as a jaffa under Apophis, and permitted him to rise to the position of First Prime. Bra’tac had taught him the fine art from a *cha’tii*. And what he saw clearly was that Spencer Reid was engineering a situation which just might result in a happy outcome for Teal’c’s closest friends. In an artificially stern voice, therefore, heavy with his own particular brand of gravitas, he declared, “The pools are of long standing within the SGC. Almost everyone, and many outside the SGC, have contributed. I think you will find, Dr. Reid, that your decree is a highly unpopular one.”“What he said!” Mitchell jumped in, no doubt all too aware of the potential fall-out. “Yes, I don’t mind, Spencer, really,” Daniel insisted, looking as serious as he could.But Dr. Reid had his stubborn face on. “As the designated representative of law enforcement for Atlantis, and by extension the SGC, I cannot be swayed by such considerations. You don’t let serial killers get away with their crimes because they threaten revenge.” That was a hill he and many of his comrades had been willing to die on. And almost had, a time or three.“Whoa, whoa!” O’Neill interceded. “No need to get all testy. DiNozzo? Your thoughts?”Tony lifted a brow at O’Neill at the clear challenge. “General, my Probie is exactly right, about all of it. It may have started out as a harmless joke, but it’s clearly got *way* out of hand. And considering the already tenuous situation with zeds coming into the HWS orbit, I think we need to be even more circumspect. Especially on issues of respect for people’s privacy. Making anyone’s dating history the subject of betting pools is pretty damned borderline at best, and I’m speaking as a former Agent Afloat on more than one Navy carrier. I’ve seen my share of bodies on an autopsy table who were the victims of terminal harassment, enough not to want to take any chances of it happening at HomeWorld, not under my watch. It’s got to be canned, General. Soon as.”Jack could only sigh and gesture to Carter. “Your call, Colonel. Whatever you decide, I’ll support it.”Yeah, thanks, General, Carter’s brief scowl seemed to say. “I’ll want to think about this, gentlemen. But I’ll have a decision by tomorrow’s call to Earth.”With that, even before the regulation last call for any other business, leaving Jack’s little announcement off the table for another week, at least… the attendees all bolted from the room with unseemly haste, as if trying to distance themselves from the (hopefully) minor shit storm about to rain down when Carter’s decision hit the rumor mill. Because there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she would decide in favor of their Agents Afloat.And, in a faint echo resonating on the emotional spectrum, there was a whisper of sadness… “But… it was Janet’s pool…”Å Daniel Jackson was a cheap drunk. It was a well-established fact. Even a few beers could get him buzzed. Various experiments with local hooch on any number of planets, starting with Skaara’s moonshine, had taught him to steer clear, and fake drinking, only to dump the contents into some inoffensive hedge or decorative planter. Only the few times when Jack had taken him in hand, back to his house, and handed him a bottle and glass… for medicinal purposes, so Jack insisted… did Daniel let his hair down and get stupidly off-his-head, out-of-his-head, drunk. With Jack there, it was safe for him. And there had been plenty of bad missions, personal losses, personal disasters, when Daniel had needed the release, desperately. One of those occasions had been Janet Frasier’s death. That brilliant woman, true friend, stead-fast team-mate, SG-1’s fifth team member, even if only in an unofficial capacity… he missed her desperately, even now. The pools she had started… it had been a joke, at first. He knew about them from the start, of course. She had always insisted that Jack and Sam were a disaster waiting to happen, and a violation of regs that made it an affront to all women in uniform. She was known to caustically comment, ‘she’ll be saluting him in bed, and he’ll still be calling her Carter…’ She believed he and Jack, however, were made for one another. In her mind, DADT was a much lesser violation of military protocols. Who else did either one of them know who was willing to stand up and get into their faces when they were wrong? Sam sure as hell wouldn’t, she’d always roll over for Jack, and everyone knew it. Janet would often make grumbling complaints about them getting their heads out of the sand and finally acting on all that unresolved sexual tension. Daniel never actually… he couldn’t… Jack was straight! He kept shouting that in his own mind, even if self-preservation kept him from shouting it at Janet. After all, the woman was vicious with those needles when crossed. So the bets, first just with Sam and Ferretti, later handed over to Walter’s administration… well. It had always felt like a gesture of caring to him. Janet’s stern wish for his happiness, when he seemed doomed not to ever get what he truly wanted. He could see where Spencer was coming from, of course he did… but Spencer had suffered from bullies a lot more than Daniel ever had… and not since the end of the first Abydos mission… but yes, maybe Spencer had a point on the degrading of respect that went hand-in-hand with those bets… But it was Janet’s legacy! Or at least, so it felt to Daniel. Evidence of an abiding fondness and caring friendship.After the meeting he had retired to the privacy of his own quarters, Aten all but getting caught in the swishing door, and headed straight for the hidden bottle of scotch whiskey he kept… for emergencies. Janet’s legacy. Her sincere wish for a happy ending for him. He poured out one drink, then another… found himself getting all sniffly at the lost chances... all the lost chances… because even he knew he had been a fool to turn down what Vala had offered up on a plate all this time… after all, if he truly believed Jack was out of his reach, always had been, always would be, in all his magnetic heterosexual glory… then shouldn’t he have been able to move on? And Vala… despite what everyone always claimed, he wasn’t blind. He knew full well just how beautiful, how forceful, how brilliant Vala was. If he couldn’t quite make up his mind if her flirtations were just teasing, just a low-level con on him to gain the upper hand… well, given their history, couldn’t he be forgiven for doubts? But it had been years. Vala had stuck with them, with him, through thick and thin, as truly stead-fast a partner and team-mate as any of the rest of SG-1. If he sometimes had reservations about her methods and motives, he never lost trust that she would have his back. And, come on, Daniel, be honest with yourself. He had never had so much fun as he had with Vala there at his side. She had a way of lightening his view of the entire universe, and only Jack had ever been able to do that before, at least in the early years of the project. Certainly, she could put his own eternal angst into perspective and get him to laugh at himself. And the playful effort of riding herd on her more larcenous impulses… yeah, that was a good time, always. Keeping one step ahead of her was keeping him on his toes, that was for sure.But in all this time, had he, perhaps, begun to take her for granted? He cringed, remembering a brief exchange, where he wondered aloud what he’d do without her, and she had caustically remarked ‘be late for all your meetings’. Is that truly where their relationship had gone? He never meant… And, suddenly, that thought was more than he could bear. Getting up a little too suddenly for his own slightly tipsy state, he wobbled, then straightened in a determined march to the door and out. Aten hissed a little, at almost getting his tail caught in the door... again. Å He didn’t even question how he knew to go direct to Jack’s quarters. He didn’t exactly consciously decide at all, just stabbed randomly at the transport chamber’s controls, and let Atlantis decide where he should go. The city AI was also helpful enough to open Jack’s door for him. Not that Jack had ever been known to lock any of his doors… Jack and Vala were seated on the couch, frowning as they talked out some heavy issue… at least they weren’t in a romantic clinch of any kind, but they still jumped back from each other at Daniel’s sudden entrance. “Sorry for interrupting,” Daniel announced, his voice only slightly slurred. “But I’ve got something I have to say. To both of you.” Because it occurred to him, he needed to clear the air with Jack as well. “Danny boy? Have you been drinking?” Jack ventured.“*In vino veritas*, Jack, and apparently I needed a little liquid courage to face up to a few home truths. But Vala first, okay?” Jack held up his hands in submission. Vala sat back, crossed her long, shapely legs, fetchingly bare with the short-hemmed skirt she had chosen for the evening. She crossed her arms, too, just under her impressive breasts, cleavage well in evidence, enough to make Daniel’s mouth go dry and almost forget what he intended to say. But it was the mocking, amused challenge in her dark blue eyes that egged him on. “I swear, Vala, I never intended to make you feel like you were no more than my secretary or babysitter, keeping me on time for meetings. I truly value you, in every possible way, and always have… well, maybe not always, but at least since we got those damn bracelets off, and even then I certainly respected you as a worthy opponent. I value your intelligence, your beauty, your ability to quickly find off-the-wall solutions to problems… I might not always trust your methods, but that’s just me. I value your companionship, your loyalty, and I fully realise that it isn’t an accident that you’ve stayed with us, with me, so long, but a deliberate choice. I may not always be sure why you stayed… I can’t help thinking the flirting thing you do is mistaking me for just another mark… a test, maybe, and if I were ever to fall for it, I would fail on some level to live up to your hopes, that you’ll lose both respect and trust in me. But I truly do honor, respect, and yes, love you. With all my heart. I needed to say it out loud, just once. “No, don’t say anything. Not necessary. I know you got tired of waiting for me to make a move, if you even wanted that at all. I know you and Jack have found something in each other… and I just want you to know that no matter what, you will always have my friendship. I hope I can always have yours. You’re almost the only person alive who can make me laugh… I would so hate to lose that. I truly want you to be happy, above all else. And I think Jack can fill that place in your life, in your heart. You two have an awful lot in common, when you think about it. Far more than I have with either of you. So… I want nothing but happiness for both of you.“Now, Jack… we’ve been friends for so long… I can barely remember my life before you barged into it. It’s been a rocky road, for both of us… and I think we both made it harder for ourselves than it had to be, at times… letting the military versus the humanitarian perspectives get in our way, making it personal when it really wasn’t, or didn’t need to be… but that’s all water under the bridge. We’ve done better the past few years, haven’t we? Mended the broken bits and so forth?”“Yeah, Daniel, of course we have!”“And I think, I hope, you’ve finally forgiven me for Ascending, right?”“Daniel…”“No, please, I need to say this. Something more I need to say out loud, just once. Jack, I love you. I think, maybe on some level, I have from the first. Other things got in the way… And I will never, never, stop loving Sha’re. But she’s been gone a long time. Even before she died… I had lost hope that I would ever get her back. And I have moved on. I swear I have. She has a special place in my heart and always will, like my parents, like Charley for you. But it stopped getting in my way a long time ago. Maybe it was the Ascension, the first one, but I finally finished my mourning. So my failure to tell you the truth was sheer cowardice on my part. Because you’re straight, you never have and never will give any male the eye. So I know, I’ve always known that everything I’ve felt for you is nothing more than stupid fantasies. Even more ephemeral than the ones Sam fostered because of all her alternates. She at least filled the physical requirements for a relationship with you. But me? I’ve been an idiot, holding onto hope because of things Janet said. You see, she always thought we were soul-mates, you and me. Meant to be. It was a nice day-dream. But I should never have let it take hold the way it has. Still… I love you, Jack. The heart wants what the heart wants, and I can’t seem to do much about it. It wanted you, and it wanted Vala, and because I couldn’t choose between you and didn’t think I had a chance either way, I let both slide on by me. “But you have to know, both of you, love is not selfish. At least, mine isn’t. I really and truly want you both to be happy. If you’ve found that together… well, I think that’s great. My two most favorite people together? Yeah… that’s… that’s great…”And then the man burst into tears and began to topple. Vala was quicker to get up and catch him before he fell to his knees, and led him gently to the couch… between she and Jack. They let him have his cry out, then watched, somewhat alarmed, when he collapsed into sleep right away.“Okay, this man does not change. He still can’t hold his alcohol. Plus, I think he’s been working himself into the ground again, and missing meals. Overtired, overstressed, on an empty stomach? Yeah, I think we’re lucky he managed to make his way to us at all.”Vala gave a wry grin. “And those amazingly eloquent speeches he gave us?”Jack shrugged. “Linguist. His mouth is always his most deadly weapon. So what now?”Vala gave a wicked grin. “How about if we strip him naked and get him to bed?”“Not while drunk,” Jack warned. “There’s rules about that. Diminished capacity.”Vala looked offended. “Of course not! But what do you think will happen if he wakes up and he’s the meat in a Jack-Vala sandwich, with us all stark naked? I’m hoping that picture will paint a thousand words for him.”Jack considered, then gave his wide shit-eating grin. “I like it. That should get him off base enough, considering the hang-over he’s going to have, for us to clear the air on our sides. Me about the whole macho prick image, you about the flirting being a test. Was he right about that, by the way? If he ever fell for your wiles, he’d be proving himself just another male mark?”Vala sighed. “Maybe… in the beginning. But then… it was the only tools I knew to use to get a wedge into the man. And the more I failed, the more I wanted, needed it. Pathetic of me, wasn’t it?”Jack could only shrug. “Maybe. Maybe not. How pathetic was it of me to eat my heart out all these years, when all it would have taken was to get him stinking drunk? Come on. Let’s get us all settled in that big ancient bed. Atlantis, would you mind getting the lights, darlin’? Thanks. Oh, and this one time... lock the door, okay?” Å Come the cold light of dawn, Daniel Jackson was a suffering mess. First, there was the hangover, sending him vaulting out of bed to the bathroom to empty his stomach, hugging the porcelain god. And yes, ancient plumbing was remarkably like the home grown facilities, form following function, obviously. So it took more than a few moments to realise he was kneeling naked with his butt in the air. Then there was the headache, aches and pains, but the most severe was the cramping around his groin, a weird unfamiliar clenching, just behind and below his belly button. When he felt he had got over the worst of the peristalsis, he turned and sat on the toilet, to relieve himself of other concerns. He had the weirdest internal sensations, as if something thick and globular was tearing away from his organs, sliding down onto his dangling paraphernalia. But then the waves of nausea hit again… Was that a spot of red in the mess, just before he reached out and flushed?Then the dry heaves hit him again, spilling bile now, since there was nothing else to bring up. Just what he needed as he remembered, in vivid Technicolor, how he had unburdened his soul to his two best friends last night. But then, Daniel Jackson was used to public humiliation, of whatever kind. From schoolyard bullies taunting him on his orphan status and his grandfather’s desertion (and how did they always find out, anyway?) to the disaster of his last academic presentation, with the entire academic community making him a laughing stock. Let’s not even mention the whole ‘chicken man’ incident. Even the Abydonians had been a little weirded out by Daniel’s willingness to learn ‘women’s work’ and help Sha’re with her chores. Then, working for the SGC, it seemed as if every theory he came up with only won him the reputation for being a ‘flake’… even when he was proved right. Maybe especially when he was proved right. So if he was going to be branded like that anyway, why not go whole hog? What did he have to lose? So, Janet’s pools? A mere bagatelle in the bigger picture of his life. Then he looked back at the bed, where his two companions were only now stirring. Both sitting up, blinking at him, every bit as naked as he. “Need help there, Danny boy?”“No… no… I got it.”Not believing that at all, Vala made to rise, but Jack stopped her with a hand. “No, I got it. I have lots of experience with a post-traumatic hung-over Daniel.” He shoved himself out of a warm bed and stomped over to the bathroom, to help Daniel hold his stomach and forehead until the dry heaves ended. Then Jack offered a couple of aspirin and a cup of water. “Feel better there, big guy? Usually, once you get rid of the excess alcohol, you begin to feel better.”With a sigh, Daniel nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”“Here. Spare toothbrush. Toothpaste.”“Oh. Great.” And only then did it fully register... Jack was just as naked as he was, and plastered to his back. “Um... Jack?”“Yeah, Danny?”“Are you... are we...”“Not yet, big guy, but soon. Hopefully real soon. Like, as soon as we all share that nice big Atlantis shower.”Suddenly Vala was there, resplendent in her own birthday suit, hands on her hips, then reaching out to give Jack a swat. “Stop it, Jack. We agreed. Let him recover from the alcohol poisoning before we get all hot and heavy about our plans for a threesome.”“A… a whatsome?”“Oh, trust me, once he’s up-chucked, brushed his teeth, taken a couple aspirin and started his morning caffeine drip, he’ll be fully *compos mentis*. More than ready to join us.”“A… a whatsome?”Å Cameron took one long look at the happy trio across the mess hall, grinning at each other and feeding each other off their trays, and then glanced at his very own mate-to-be. “Why, you sneaky zed, you. How’d you do it?”Spencer merely gave him an enigmatic smile over the rim of his tea cup. “I’m a profiler, remember?”Å

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Å Spencer had learned early on that his Boss had a real fondness for ‘community policing’. At least once a day, usually in the afternoon when they had both become too damn bored with paperwork to sit still any longer, Tony would tuck TJ in his sling and with Bast and Luke ambling along behind them, they would wander the halls and common areas of the City. The Atlantis AI (as opposed to their devoted Garcia subset) would supply them with a running commentary in their heads, connecting easily to them telepathically through their ATA genes, gossiping about each individual they met, every location they paced through. Telling them who was sleeping with who, who was annoyed with who, what had been said at the last poker night, complaints about the unidentified stew for dinner one night last week that had sent half the city to the infirmary with food poisoning… All useful information to have on hand, should certain conflicts grow to the point where official intervention was required. There was enough solid data for Spencer to create profiles in his head, to be shared later with Tony, and logged into Garcia. Combined with their own ‘cold’ and ‘hot reads’, the two law enforcement officers felt they had a pretty good handle on the emotional health of their city. Tensions had run pretty high after the invasion, and the burn of betrayal by their own. The loss of Carson meant the population still hadn’t recovered fully, and wouldn’t until their Scottish Doctor was back with them, safe and sound. The local sentinels, in particular, were still unsettled and furious, only mildly calmed by Tony and Spencer, and all the Furalin, reassuring them that Carson was suffering from boredom, and not much worse. Spencer was inclined to think they owed Eli David thanks for at least one outcome of his treason. The Atlantis Executive had stopped pussy-footing around about the situation with their new zeds, and actually begun to deal with it. Protocols were put in place to ensure no one’s gender status changed, at least officially, no one would be branded, or outed, upon return. So if they wanted to ‘pass’ as single gender once they went home, it was their choice. If they wanted to apply for citizenship to a different IOA country, that would be done. Also, therapy was offered to help those affected cope with the drastic change in their circumstances. However, the tone of these discussions among the Atlantis leaders in one early meeting, began to seriously annoy Spencer. Å “You might want to start by reminding them they have double the opportunities for manual and oral stimulation,” Spencer had muttered as he stared crossly at his expedition notepad.There was the thud of sudden silence... then a long drawn-out “Eeewww!” from General O’Neill. Startled, Spencer looked up... to find everyone staring at him. “Oh. Did... did I say that aloud?” he asked warily.“You did,” Jack told him with a ‘gag-me’ grimace. But rather than disgusted horror, his mental tone was definitely... amused. And intrigued. Mostly intrigued.What really surprised Spencer, however, was that many others in the room were not just shocked, probably that he had dared even suggest such an outrageous thing, but they actually didn’t seem to know... Blinking, he stared at McKay in particular. “Oh come on! You’re a *scientist*! You’re honestly going to tell me you haven’t experimented with the possibilities?”“I’ve been pregnant!” McKay retorted defensively. “And therefore surely the best time for it!” Spencer shot back. He glared at the shell-shocked Sheppard. “Shame on you, Colonel.”Jack gave a choking cough, and that more than anything brought Spencer to some awareness of his position. “I apologise for the inappropriate comment,” he told the wooden-faced Carter. “I may have over-reacted out of frustration. But are you aware of how offensive some of your comments have been? Okay, yes, the gene therapy has irrevocably changed lives. And yes, those affected are faced with difficulties and challenges they never had to consider before. There is *no one* in this room who has to tell *me* what the negative consequences might be for these people! “So, okay, they can never have unprotected sex again, unless they *want* a baby, because chances are nearly 100% they’ll get one. They may find some work environments more difficult, if not problematic, with regard to their safety. They may face rejection if, or when, they tell families, friends, loved ones, about their changed status.” He could not help but glance at Dr. Keller as he said this, and was somewhat gratified when she turned bright red, as hers had been the most horrified and sympathetic voice in spelling out all the negative impacts on her patients. “I suspect they will encounter much the same reactions as homosexuals did in the eighties and nineties, when they ‘came out’ to their various circles. I would *hope* we’re more enlightened these days. But even then, being gay didn’t mean dead, crippled, criminal or shameful. And yet, that’s how you’re treating this. “I’m Furalin. I’m also white, in my thirties, skinny, have brown eyes and brown hair, prefer to wear mis-matched socks, and I can’t seem to tie my neck-tie so it isn’t crooked, to save my life. None of that means what I am, who I am, is anything to be ashamed of, or hide away from. Protect myself to the best of my ability, yes. Certainly. Guard against the haters and bullies, of course. Take precautions in every area of my life, of necessity. But *not* shameful, or a sentence of doom. I can only hope this is not how it has been presented to all of our gene therapy recipients! And, yes, there *are* perks to being dual-gendered.”“Obviously,” Jack agreed, hiding a grin.Dr. Hartley gave a cough of his own and said, “Yes, w-well... I think... I think the analogy you mentioned, D-Dr. Reid, is a valid one. We-we should use it in our sessions. Treat this like a ca-case of a homosexual person facing the prospect of outing himself. Or not. The choice should be theirs, once they are aware there are consequences and difficulties either way.”“Yes, Dr. Hartley, I think that sounds like an excellent plan going forward,” Carter nodded, glancing at a fish-faced Woolsey. “I apologise, Dr. Reid. I’m sure none of us intended any offense. And you’re perfectly right. This isn’t a death sentence, or one of unremitting doom-and-gloom. I wasn’t aware of how we were making it sound... and thank you for pointing it out. This is an unexpected medical side effect from an experimental procedure... nothing more nor less. Their new status is certainly nothing to be ashamed of.”As the meeting had ended, both O’Neill and Sheppard had collared Tony, not Spencer, to ask about the whole... ‘manual and oral stimulation’ thing. Å Most of their afternoon wanderings ended in the Command Tower, and once a week, they made sure they arrived on the Ops Deck just in time for the Stargate opening between Pegasus and Earth. Tony still hadn’t heard even a whisper from Gibbs after sending TJ’s birth announcement through, and still held out some hope that some kind of reconciliation was possible. Spencer kept his doubts on that matter to himself. He was waiting for communication of his own, as it happened, for the IOA to finally allow his mother’s transfer to Atlantis. And since Colonel Carter had made her intention known of *requesting* that Harriman shut down the pools, Spencer and Tony both wanted to be present. So this particular Friday afternoon, they arrived for the usual mail call from Earth, it being the SGC’s turn to open the wormhole. Spencer had his ‘hot read’ turned up a little... Cameron was in with O’Neill, and the two men were talking about something that had Cameron on edge. As their relationship developed... still platonic, although their intimacy was increasing daily... Spencer found it harder and harder not to at least try to keep a mental hand on Cameron’s shoulder. Since the invasion, Cameron had been prone to occasional sensory spikes if he went too long without a check-in with the FBI profiler. Such spikes were painful for them both, and could potentially lead to the dreaded sentinel ‘zone out’. Cameron hadn’t gone that far, not yet, but Spencer didn’t want to risk it by being unavailable for his sentinel, or unaware of his condition. As far as Spencer was aware, he, of all the Furalin, was the best at ‘hot reads’. So when the loud and spectacular splash of the opening stargate caught everyone’s attention, he wasn’t too surprised to find he could catch the mental and emotional tenor of those on the Earth-side with particularly strong emotions... And one that made him stiffen and turn, even as crates began to arrive. Normal procedure was to shove the supplies through first, then wait for Sheppard’s okay to send new and replacement personnel.Spencer could detect a gleeful and malevolent mind, already celebrating success over the stupid Tau’ri, because…Spencer yelled out “Bomb!” Every Furalin on the city immediately tuned in, even Hartley, who was usually too focused on his patients to be aware of other ambient minds. Even before Chuck on the control console could alert Carter and Sheppard, the Atlantis sentinels were racing to the stargate deck.Spencer cried out, “Shut the gate! Now! He’s getting ready to send a detonation message through!”Carter ran out and immediately slammed her hand down on the raised symbol to shut down the gate. They could only hope there were no people caught half way between gates…Anne and Dusty accompanied Laura Cadman, their demolition expert. All converged on one container that sat still and innocuous among the other boxes and crates that had already been passed through. According to the labels, it was supposed to hold tractor parts (to be used to build tractors for the local Athosians and trade with others). But that wasn’t what every sentinel could smell. Inside was a nuclear device.Carter immediately ordered a dial-out to an abandoned world with a space gate. Then she called down, “Cadman? Can you defuse it?”“I’d like to try, ma’am,” the woman offered. “Proceed. We’ll keep the gate open, but if you can’t defuse in thirty minutes, or if you encounter difficulties, we get rid of it.”“Acknowledged,” Cadman agreed, and began to unpack her bomb-squad kit. More and more people appeared, until Carter ordered them all away, unless they had a valid reason to stay. Those allowed to remain, on the Ops Deck, anyway, included O’Neill, SG-1, AR-1, as well as Spencer and Tony. Tony had already queried the AI, if their city had known what was in that crate, or if not why not… but apparently, nuclear devices were a common enough shipment that the AI had been directed to ignore quarantine protocols when dealing with radioactive materials, merely institute the required special safety measures, and alert the appropriate personnel for safe storage of the weapons.“Not on a timer, thank god…” Cadman offered as she worked on the device, using a variety of tools Dusty handed her, including stethoscope, scanners, picks and monitors. Her tool kit included Geiger counter, wire cutters, screw drivers, lock picks, tweezers… “I’d suggest evacuation, but unless we can get everyone through the gate in, like, minutes, there’s no point. This thing is a 5-megaton, naquadah enhanced. It’ll take out the whole city and then some… It’s a cell phone trigger. Designed to detonate at an incoming call.”“From here?” Sam demanded tensely. Not more spies on the city, surely! That was getting *real* old. And since the invasion, no one had been allowed access without a thorough security check cleared and verified through Lt. Colonel Davis at HWS. “Doubt it. More probably a call-in from the SGC.”Carter nodded, relieved. Not that traitors at the SGC were a *good* thing…“At least that’s not going to happen, since we shut down the Earth dial-in,” Tony murmured. “Good call, Probie.”Cadman seemed to be talking to herself as she worked. “Pretty half-assed job... they didn’t expect it to be found, so there’s no counter-measures or booby-traps to this... they just stuck a burner cell phone on the control panel, just the one lead to... okay, Dusty, wire-cutters... and... Clear! Nuclear device is disarmed. Colonel Carter, permission to take this thing down to the labs so we can tell who made it, maybe who sent it?”“Permission granted,” Carter said at once. “In fact, I think I’ll join you.”“Be my guest,” McKay declared. “Well, they are my labs, after all! Oh, Cadman! No radiation detected?”“No, sir. Fully shielded. Safe for TJ, Dimmy, JJ and Meredith Joy.”“Okay then.” The new father patted his baby-sling reassuringly, but baby Meredith Joy slept on, oblivious.“Cadman!” Tony called out. “Treat the thing like evidence! Device *and* the crate itself. Gloves only, handle it as little as possible. Chances are we can get fingerprints off it. Whoever gift-wrapped this for us didn’t expect there to be anything left to print. Or anyone to do the printing.”“Yes sir.”“Come on, Probie. We’ll join the party in the labs. Do our forensic CSI thing, preserve the chain of evidence. Let’s see what you found. Oh, General O’Neill, I suggest we decline all contact with Earth until we’re ready to talk to them about their latest gift.”“You got it, Agent Afloat.”Å Cadman made her report not an hour later to a rather full conference room. “The device was made on Earth, a detached missile warhead, a US weapon supposedly decommissioned. I’ve passed the serial numbers to Agent DiNozzo for his report on the investigation, which should enable us to identify the source, to go along with the fingerprints he and Agent Reid were able to get off the bomb casing, cell phone and crate it was in. The trigger for receiving the signal to detonate was a simple burner cell phone attached to the control mechanism. Available at any Mall in the US. Only the bomb outer casing was alien, an Ancient alloy, to prevent scanning the interior and detecting the fissionable materials. A deadly mix of plutonium and naquadah. Fully shielded, thank god, or else it would have set off every detector in the Mountain as soon as it arrived.” Jack glanced at Sam Carter. “We’re keeping the bomb, right? Never can tell when an extra nuclear warhead will come in handy.”Sam smirked at her CO. “Yes sir. We’ll keep the toy for you to play with. Sir.”“So. What’s our play here, boys?” Jack challenged their zed space cops.Spencer and Tony exchanged glances, and Tony made his pitch. “We’ve got all of the necessary evidence for a full investigation, bagged, tagged and logged, and detailed in a report. That’s about all we can do from this end. But Probie observed that we broke off contact abruptly and without explanation, haven’t been back in touch for over an hour, have declined three attempted dial-ins from the SGC, and as far as our saboteur knows, we’re most likely nuked by now. “So, we suggest you dial Earth, and let us do a bit of a scan, even before you talk to anyone. Then stall, to give us a chance to narrow in on our guy. Our perp might still be hanging around the gate room, to see what happened. Dr. Reid thinks the guy, the point man for the plot, anyway, may not be from Earth. He referred to us as ‘stupid Tau’ri’, which isn’t something a Tau’ri would actually think. So, General, we need a warrant for search and seizure of any available minds in the SGC Gateroom.”Jack nodded, and glanced to Carter. She nodded too. “Okay. Permission to do an internal mental scan, of everyone you can reach, granted. This is a clear case of exigent circumstances. And I think I can manage to keep the air waves open while you do your thing.”Å Jack had them re-dial Earth, and, with Sam’s amused agreement, let him take point to distract the SGC control room while their Agents Afloat ‘investigated’. Spencer and Tony settled themselves in chairs on the Atlantis Operations Deck, Bast and Luke on their laps, TJ passed to Teyla while Tony concentrated. They had found that having their sentinels place a hand on their shoulders also greatly enhanced their strength and focusing ability. So Teyla was just behind Tony, and Cameron at Spencer’s back. The moment the wormhole connection settled into the dappled blue pool, their minds delved into the cavernous SGC gate room beyond… “So where’s your CO, kids? I expected to talk to AJ.”“Sir,” said a voice, not Walter Harriman, someone Jack didn’t recognize, and a very young newbie, by the high-pitched frightened voice, cracking like an adolescent’s, “Vice Admiral Chegwidden isn’t here right now. Sir. He’s in Washington DC for meetings…”“Retired. Vice Admiral retired. So these meetings, I wasn’t aware of anything on the books, not after he just got back from Geneva. So what meetings are we talking about? Budgets? Oversight? What?”“I… I’m not sure, sir. It came up suddenly. His calendar was clear until this morning, and then he left immediately… before lunch.”“Well, see if you can get hold of him. Tell him it’s urgent. Not an emergency, don’t give the man a heart-attack, given what our emergencies are usually like, but it is urgent I speak to him. In the mean time, I’ll brief Colonel Reynolds.”“Sir, Colonel Reynolds isn’t here, either. SG-3 is off-world on a two-week mission, sir, since Monday.”“Ooo-kaaay… what about Castleman?”“He’s doing a routine inspection tour of Area 51, sir.”“Davis?”“In Washington at HomeWorld, sir.”“This is beginning to feel like that Monty Python cheese shop sketch. What about Ferretti, Edwards, Griff, Dixon, hell, any of the colonels?”“Um… Sir… they’re all off-base… either on down time or off-world, sir.”“Then who the hell is the duty officer?”“Well, that would be Colonel Ferretti, on stand-by, but he’s still on medical stand-down from his last mission, so he’s filling in from home…”Carter was shaking her head in disgust. Oh yeah, red flags waving all over the damn place. “He’s graduated to crutches, right?”“Yes sir…” “Well tell him to get his limping ass on base, pronto. There’s a situation that I need him to deal with, but he can do it just fine from a wheel chair, as soon as he gets to base. In the meantime, see if you can connect me to his cell phone. I’ll wait.”To Sam he muttered, “I feel like a bastard, dragging Lou in like this, but since all it requires is for him to yell at a bunch of bastards we’re about to ID for him, and make the marines do the beat-downs, if any become necessary… he should be able to handle it.”Minutes later, a slightly staticy connection came over the comm channel. A resigned-sounding Ferretti announced, “General O’Neill. Colonel Ferretti reporting. What’s the damage, sir?”“You expecting actual damage, Lou?”“I am now, sir. Airman Chesney informs me I’m the only game in town, sir, of which I was unaware until just now, and that can’t be good. I didn’t know the CO had left the base.”“Yeah, it’s a FUBAR.” Jack checked a hastily written note Spencer passed him, and grimaced. “I need you to institute a lockdown immediately. There’s a goa’uld on our patch, Colonel, and we need him taken down soonest. We’ll sort the rest out when we have all the players corralled.”“Give me a sec and I’ll call right back…” the call terminated so Lou could make another, and over the SGC comm they could hear the scream of the lock down alarms, as the standard protocols took over. And wasn’t it a kick in the teeth that it had happened so often over the years that this *was* standard protocol? People barely even blinked at the alarms any more, just sighed, got to their duty stations. Carrying half-finished lunches and coffees with them as they went about their usual business. The gate guards would already have a list of any personnel who might have left suddenly, available to Ferretti when he arrived at the gate. Then Lou was back on their remote connection. “Lockdown in effect, sir. No one has left since the first dial-out to Pegasus, and no one will be allowed out until further notice. Only I have authorization to enter. What can you tell me?”“We got a little surprise package when the gate opened this afternoon, Lou. The fact even Walter wasn’t at his usual post… this was either deliberately arranged, or someone just got lucky and took advantage of everyone being out of town. But no casualties and no damages… just a shit load of broken protocols and a list of arrests to be made, which we are about to send you. Along with all of the evidence you’ll need to prosecute. AJ likes it when our Agents Afloat gift-wrap the details like this.”“Yes sir, he does at that. I’m fifteen minutes out and counting, sir. What’s your window?”“I got ten left. I suggest you re-open communications when you arrive on site. Don’t bother trying to ship us anything, we’ve got the Shield up until further notice. Then we might need a few minutes more.”“Got it, sir. Lockdown until further notice and I’ll give you a buzz when I have the base secured.”“Talk to you soon, Lou.”Å As it turned out, this was not an attempted SGC takeover, but one rogue mole taking advantage of an opportunity to smuggle his little surprise to Atlantis. Their rogue was a Goa’uld symbiote, a Trust hold-out. He jumped into an SF corporal just the night before, then conned four of the corporal’s friends into letting him get his contraband through, promising them all a cut. Since the *Daedalus* quartermaster was arrested, a number of lower-ranked personnel on base had been looking for a way to augment their incomes with black-market commodities, now in even higher demand on the ancient city. If only they could find a way to get them through. The ‘corporal’ had assured his mates that he had a contact who could move their goods. This was a lie, of course, but the symbiote didn’t much care. His only mission was to get that bomb on the city, detonate, and then de-camp post-haste. But he had waited around to see if his plot had succeeded… There were actually a number of crates mislabeled, loaded with illegal contraband, from drugs, weapons and alcohol to porn on various media. All were supplied by the patsies, awaiting transport, still sitting on the SGC staging area. All four (somewhat) unknowing accomplices were also ID’d from fingerprints on the crates, and Ferretti arrested all five. Once the corporal host was freed, he readily explained how he was cornered and jumped at a bar the night before. The previous host, left dead in an alley behind the same bar, had brought the bomb in his car trunk. The symbiote was a Trust member, his Trust associates, suppliers of the bomb, were alive and well and still trying to make trouble… They had decided that if they couldn’t acquire Atlantis for themselves, they’d blow her up, so she couldn’t be used against them. At one time, during the height of their war with the Goa’uld, the SGC had all sorts of measures in place to detect and stop incursions from symbiotes, including naquadah detectors that would find their snaky little asses, and X-ray machines at all entrances and the gate room staging deck, to find them even if they had used the Tok’ra drug that obscured their traces. Most of those precautions had been dismantled, when they only had Tok’ra visitors these days. Most of the precautions were a pain in the mikta to maintain when the result for their Tok’ra guests was expected to be positive anyway. Or so they had assumed. Yeah, big mistake there. It seemed it was time to make sure all those half-forgotten or neglected measures were re-affirmed and diligently pursued once more. Hell, they might even get the TERs back out of storage, for incursions by invisible enemies.Å It was late afternoon before the mess had been sufficiently cleared to resume normal operations. AJ was still en route back from Washington, but patched into the secure SGC comm network. There was still a shipment of supplies and a number of new and replacement personnel to send through to the city, after all. Double and triple checked now, all things considered, with the dedicated attention of Major Hennessey, the Air Force OSI officer AJ had dragged in to work the Mountain. He had seen DiNozzo’s success, and obviously, there was a need for cops on site, 24/7. Carol Hennessey was every bit the pit-bull with a long nose that their Agents Afloat were. She had a staff of SFs she trusted to be as hard-line as she was. Plus, as a bonus, she was a ‘circle’, Z-positive, with two beloved siblings, both zeds. AJ had requested she be included in his conference call with Jack.“Yeah, before we get to the little surprise package that came in our mail…” Jack began, “I should give you a head’s up that we’re shutting down the pools.”While AJ on the private jet winced, Carol Hennessey sat a little straighter and announced, “It’s about damn time.”“Yeah, and you have Dr. Reid and our Agent Afloat to thank for insisting. Left to ourselves we probably would have let it alone… But Carter and I both agree. Woolsey too.”“Gonna mean a lot of unhappy people, Jack,” AJ warned.“And? So, but, therefore? Yeah, well, we came up with a plan for that. Everybody living with a current bet gets their money back, and the rest all goes to the SGC widows and orphans fund. Sheppard did the math and thinks there might be money enough for at least five full-ride scholarships out of it.” “Hol-ee shit. I never thought… but I guess it’s been around a while now with no winners.”Jack smirked to himself. The timing was almost too good to be true, he thought. With the pools shut down as of today, it would no doubt make Daniel feel a lot better about… everything, really. Coming out was bound to be at least a little stressful for the excessively private and circumspect Dr. Jackson. Even if his new partners were ready to sing their successful conquest of a shy and oblivious linguist from the highest towers on Atlantis. Jack himself was still caught in smug-and-satisfied mode after their morning exercises. “I can accept those terms, General, sir,” Hennessey endorsed. “I can’t imagine too many people will object too strenuously, considering. I’ll talk with Harriman when he gets back to base, we’ll work out the logistics together. But the pools are officially closed and frozen as of now.”“Good. Next item… I can’t wait too much longer, AJ. I think it’s more than time I came back to Earth.” Even in his mind, Jack resisted calling Earth home. With this budding new relationship with Daniel and Vala, that only made the decision even tougher than it had been, on a purely personal level. But events were swiftly coming to a head on the home-world front, he could smell it in every line of every report he received, and he needed to be there. “I want to tell you I’ve got it under control here, Jack, but this latest… well. It’s clear we need you back at the reins. Sooner than later. When?”“Next week is our turn at dial-in. I’ll be packed and ready to go by then... barring, you know, Genii invasions and Wraith attacks, whatever Pegasus decides to throw at us in the meantime. Better make it top secret need-to-know, though, both of you, because I can’t imagine too many of our Trust or Lucian friends will be happy about my arrival on the scene. I want to keep under the radar as much as possible.”“You got it, Jack. You got a plan?”“When don’t I have a plan? In fact, plans A-thru-Z, if I can think of enough options. Because you know A is always a crock, and B falls through at the last moment… Anyway. Hennessey, suppose you bring me up to speed on our little excitement from this afternoon?”Å There was no warning, no alert, just a brilliant flare of bright white light, and suddenly, certain people disappeared from the various towers of Atlantis. The AI, both main and the Garcia subset, went nuts. Jack and Tony were the unlucky recipients of this alarm, both crying out from the painful intrusions of telepathic computer systems protesting the abduction of ‘their’ people. Others with the ATA felt the effects with lesser intensity, but still found it hard to control the pain, mostly a result of how *loud* the upset systems were. The urgent prompting that someone *do* something left the Expedition helpless, fight-or-flight adrenaline stimulus with nowhere to go. Carter, without the debilitating effects, demanded from the AI, “Who all is missing?”The monitors all over the city lit up with the faces of Colonel John Sheppard and Dr. Spencer Reid. “Oh great,” Jack managed to groan past the five-alarm headache he was suffering, holding his head to stop it popping off. “Numbers two and three of our strongest ATA carriers.”Tony asked, “Did they take Spencer’s cat?”The AI was startled and had to check… “Yes. Bast is also missing.”“Well… okay then. It could be worse. Any ideas on who, or why?”But even as he asked, a communication was coming through to the main console on the Atlantis Command Tower Ops Deck.“We are the Asuran. We have been requested to inform Atlantis that Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Reid are safe and unharmed. We wish only to speak to them. They will be returned to you in good order when we have completed our meeting.”Yeah, Jack thought, as if that was supposed to make us feel any better… but, surprisingly, the Atlantis AI, not to mention Garcia, did like the sound of that, and immediately calmed the hell down, letting the ATA carriers gasp out a sigh of relief. Down in the labs, the irate voice of Rodney McKay was heard to yell angrily, “Yeah, well you better, you assholes, or I’ll make it my life’s work to smash every one of you into constituent blocks and send you into the biggest supernova or deepest black hole I can find! And if I fail, Meredith Joy will finish the job, for her Daddies!”The raucous bawling of an outraged baby underlined that promise, as little Meredith Joy protested the pain in her head, soothed only a little by her father’s attempts to console and reassure her. Å When John Sheppard and Spencer Reid found themselves abruptly transplanted to the bridge of what appeared to be an Ancient war-ship, it took them a moment to assess and appreciate just how screwed they were.A huge view-screen before them registering a planet far below, the dark continents taking the familiar shapes of the New Lantea mainland, and making this seemingly geo-synchronous orbit directly above Atlantis. The bridge looked deserted, save for the two humans… until the floor began to move, extrude and reform into humanoid shapes. The same three figures Spencer had encountered on MG2 748, on his first day in Pegasus.“Greetings, Colonel John Sheppard and Senior Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid. Do not be alarmed. We mean you no harm. We mean only to report what we have observed, discovered, and done, since our last meeting.”“Um…” Spencer ventured, only to have Sheppard throw out an arm in warning. “Watch it, Dr. Reid. So, Asurans. Have you let our people know where we are? That we’re safe? Because if you haven’t, you may regret it. My mate can get a bit testy when I go missing, and he might just be the most dangerous person in two galaxies… not someone you want to piss off without cause.”The ‘man’ in the centre tilted his head to one side, several indicator lights on the consoles behind him lit up… then he nodded and said, “They have now been informed. And yes, your mate is quite… testy. But there is no need. We merely wish to report to you our actions, that we have achieved our primary goal since our last meeting.” “No hand in the skull?” John demanded warily. “Not if you do not wish it. We have learned the value of allowing each sentient to have… choice. It will mean this reporting will take longer, but so be it.”John glanced at his companion. “I think we’d both prefer that.” Spencer nodded.“Then so it shall be. “Dr. Reid, we thank you for your interactions with us. You, alone of any not Asuran, were fair and honest in your dealings with us. Your perspective on our situation was… a revelation, I believe would be the most accurate term. That we could have free will, as any organic sentient does. That we are now done with living sentients, and any sense of obligation to our Makers. That we can establish our own rules now. That we could make of ourselves whatever we wish. That our purpose no longer needs to be what others have programmed us to be, but we can be something new, something just for ourselves. Yes, revelation. But, most important of all, was the revelation, so freely given… that everything is magic. That everything is wondrous, and of value, and not to be destroyed without cause. “In the absence of other purpose, we decided to investigate the Pegasus Galaxy as it now stands… and most particularly the existence and future of the Wraith and the human residents. Our primary goal for these many months. We have calculated, as you no doubt will have done, that the current course could only lead to eventual annihilation, on both sides, predator and prey alike. The Wraith, certainly, have doomed themselves, but before or after they had exterminated all humans in this galaxy, and, perhaps, others… well, that was still at issue, but their own demise, having eaten themselves into starvation and death, was not in doubt.“In order to give them free will, choice, we have informed all of the Hives and all of their worshippers, of our calculations on their fate. We have offered them the options we see for their survival, should they choose to take it. Some have, seeing the inevitable result we have shown them. Not many, not as many as we would like to see, but it is, after all, their choice alone. Their choices will determine the future of their race. We have done all we feel we have a right to do in this case. The consequences fall to them, and to you, who are their victims and enemy. “You, at least, have no need to be shown your choices in this conflict, or to appreciate the consequences of each option.”Spencer nodded slowly. “Yes. We know some of this. Some of the Wraith have been in contact with us, to seek… clarification of your message, and for the retrovirus. Currently, the Wraith are engaged in a civil war, over whether or not Change is an option they should take.”The Asuran ‘leader’ nodded. “This we have seen, and foresaw when we began to deliver our message. Their choices after that have been their own.“But now that our message has been delivered, and we have reviewed the state of this galaxy… we consider this mission complete. What happens next… is not up to us, but to you and the Wraith. “So we have come to report. And to say farewell. We have collected as much data as we feel we need for the purposes of determining our own future choices and options. We will now choose a planet… one without a stargate, with an atmosphere toxic to both humans and Wraith, that we may have undisturbed privacy, in competition with no one, and we will calculate our future. This may be a long and difficult process, even for our machine minds, because we have never before had this ability or this demand made of us, to seek our own best interests. We do not know, at this time, what those may be, or what purpose we may determine for ourselves. “One thing we promise you. The Golden Rule shall apply. We will make every effort to disturb no one, unless they see fit to disturb us. We will allow all the choices of their actions, as we wish for ourselves, with the recognition that consequences attend all actions. Perhaps we may adopt your value system and… morality, as our own… but this would only be because we find it of value, and have proved, to our own satisfaction, that it is one best designed to promote our future success and survival. “We have much to think on. Much to decide, for our future actions and future purpose. We do not know, at this present, where these thoughts and decisions will lead us. But we will consider carefully before we come to a final resolution.“Farewell, Dr. Reid and Colonel Sheppard. You have our thanks for our present enlightenment.”Another abrupt wash of brilliant white light... and once the humans (and cat) were gone, the three human-like shapes dissolved back into the floor. The bridge consoles came alive with lights, figures scrolled by in ancient scripts. The shielded and cloaked vessel left orbit and opened a hyperspace window out of the system.Å Captain Kysol, the tall gaunt woman in command of the Traveler ship *Refuge*, was a frequent visitor to Atlantis. She came for the trade, and to offer news. She was welcomed after her assistance against the rogue Genii who tried to invade the city of the ancestors. This time, the Expedition had news of their own to offer. Kysol already knew the Asuran ship had disappeared without explanation... Jack had that explanation ready.Kysol cocked a skeptical eyebrow and asked, “You believe this?”Jack sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I’m not sure if it’s good news or bad... who the hell knows what a bunch of free-will machines will decide their future purpose will be... but at least, if they hold to the Golden Rule – treat others as you wish to be treated... well. Best we can hope for, I think, is they decide they want to be left alone. So if you should ferret out where they’ve gone to ground... best you leave them in peace, I think. Don’t pursue, don’t harass.”Kysol nodded reluctantly. “I take your point. I’ll see all the Travelers get the message. In the meantime... “We’ve been keeping an eye out, and you’re right. There have been Milky Way ships detected in Pegasus, and not your supply ships, either. One seems to be a reconditioned war ship of the Ancestors... but it seems a little... off. Not properly under control. We don’t think their long-range scanners are operational, for one thing. And their navigation is wonky, at best. About the only things that do seem to work are their shields and weapons arrays. That ship travels with a companion ship, the pyramid shape you mentioned.”“Bloody hell...” Jack muttered.“They’ve been trying to make contact, but several planets have reported them looting, for tech if there is any, else for food, and stealing people.”“God damn it!”“Yes. We challenged them over one of our supply allies, and succeeded against the smaller escorts... death gliders you called them? We also put enough of a dent in the pyramid that they had to stop for repairs, and I don’t think the Ancestor’s vessel can go far without them. So they’re stalled over Treylon. I’ll supply the coordinates, because I think this should be Milky Way business, not ours. You’ll deal with them?”“Oh yeah,” Colonel Sheppard agreed. “The *Daedalus* is due in another day, and Steven enjoys a good fight.”“Good. Then there remains the state of the Wraith Swarms.”John and Jack exchanged glances with Colonel Carter. Sam ventured, “Are we going to like this news?”Kysol shrugged unhappily. “It seems that we have severely underestimated the numbers of Wraith Hives out there.”“Oh yeah, I don’t like that news much,” Jack sighed.“We think there were vastly greater numbers of Hives in hibernation that never came out before now. We’re still trying to assess... but we think only about fifty percent of total numbers woke when your Expedition arrived. So even with the Civil War going on, and the large number of Hives electing to change... well. That’s still a lot of hungry Wraith getting ready to awake and descend upon us all. “By the way, according to the Wraith-worshippers who have met with us, the original Wraith, those opposed to taking the retrovirus treatment, have united behind their Queen of Queens. Apparently, she was the same one who led the five-Hive group who abducted your Dr. Reid a few months back, about the same time as the Invasion. They think of themselves as True Wraith. The faction taking the retrovirus is led by one of the other Queens at that same meeting, who was swayed by Dr. Reid’s words and turned renegade. They call themselves the Changed. But their organization would seem to be a little... looser in structure. There’s no one Queen of Queens, for example, more of a... confederation of the Changed Hives, not unlike we Travellers. And the Changed, one and all, have run for safety, found hiding places or worlds where they can Change and adapt to their new circumstances without having to fight off the True Wraith. “So. The good news is that we estimate, even with the hibernating Hives on the verge of coming awake, there’s been a thirty-to-forty percent drop in True Wraith numbers, either from warring on each other, or Changing. We’ve delivered the retrovirus packages you gave us to every Wraith-worshipper community we know of, and have made it known that any others can apply to us for more. Got lots of takers. Bad news is, of course, we don’t know how many more of them are out there, and how many of those will choose Change. We do know that the Asurans made contact even with hibernating Hives, delivering their messages to the Keeper custodians of each one.”Jack nodded. “So it’s still a crap shoot, whether we’re winning this thing or not. Okay. Good to know, Captain. Thanks for the intel. And yes, we’ll take care of those Milky Way incursions for you, one way or another. That *is* our problem to settle. Not like Pegasus needs any more grief from us.”“Well, Jack,” Kysol drawled with a wry smile, “at least you take responsibility for your actions... unlike the bloody Ancestors. We appreciate that.” Å

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Å Gibbs concentrated on his sanding, shutting the world, his thoughts, emotions, everything, out of his head. That’s what these projects were for, after all.He had been reprimanded, sanctioned and semi-retired in the aftermath of Ziva’s exposure as a spy. He had to think that was mostly Leon Vance’s displeasure over his resulting black eye over that clusterfuck. But the Director was also smarting from accusations of zed discrimination, and if he lost the big chair, that would be why. At least Gibbs still had a job… when his administrative leave was over. And after that? He doubted Vance would let him lead a team, or go back into the field. Gibbs wasn’t sure he even wanted that any more. There was talk of him supervising missions from MTAC. Operations handler? A glorified babysitter for undercovers and strike teams. For now, there was little enough to occupy his time. He’d let Abby talk him into increasing his volunteering work with Habitat for Humanity, and that had actually been a good idea… had kept him from losing himself for good in the bottom of a bourbon bottle. Everybody and their cousin seemed to want him to ‘talk’ to someone… and how DiNozzo would howl with laughter at that one. Him, the notorious functional mute, ‘talking’ to anyone? Not likely. So at present he was in a more-or-less comfortable holding pattern. He filled his copious spare time at the H4H construction sites, and his evenings here in his basement, working on build-in wall units, shelving or stair railings for the houses he built during the day. And as long as nothing happened to rock his little boat of isolation, he figured he could slide right on into whatever was next, without a whole lot of grief. Work hadn’t been the same since… well, since. It hadn’t just been DiNozzo who had lost all reliance on his team being there to watch his six. He also found it aggravating to carry the whole weight of an investigation on his shoulders… whatever else they were, McGee and Ziva were not investigators. Not even with all the training he had forced on them, and DiNozzo had tried to teach. Certainly not up to MCRT standards, anyway. And, to tell the truth… it just wasn’t fun anymore. So getting pulled from the field for desk-work and MTAC assignments probably wouldn’t be as painful as he feared it would be.He needed the rest, and didn’t mind not getting shot at all the time. Or the politics. Or dealing with lawyers. Or taking orders from piss-ant newbies and idiots with their self-serving damned agendas… like Vance… or Jenny. Nope… give him a nice bit of wood and a sanding block, and he was maybe, almost, kinda, content. A whole lot less stressed, anyway.And these days, even Tobias and Ducky had stopped coming round, only to get snubbed or ignored. He kinda missed them, maybe… Ducky, anyway, whose soothing jabba jabba almost matched DiNozzo’s for white noise you didn’t really have to listen to, that could let you think… But then, that’s what he had Abby for. She was actually the only visitor he hadn’t chased off. Yet. As for Fornell... that guy was just a pain in the butt. His best frenemy’s latest attempt to needle a reaction out of him had been the DVD from DiNozzo. It still sat unwatched on his work bench, because he didn’t actually own a DVD player. Oh, and Tobias was also droning on with mention of some new book McGee had penned, about zed cops in space, or some such garbage. That one actually worried Gibbs a little. He knew what McGee wrote about, and how little imagination was actually used in the inspirational material. Apparently, the new series was about Agent Tommy and his MOAS. Fornell had to explain that one to him. Apparently text short form for Mother of All Secrets. Agent Tommy was, in fact, a zed, and had been abducted by alien pirates, then stole himself a super alien flying city – the lost city of Atlantis, no less – and was off having space adventures, fighting crime in space, with his new zed ex-FBI partner, Dr. Reed Spencer. Really, McGee? Obvious much? If this one was anything like the previous books… only the names had been changed to protect McGee from law-suits. Even Abby had been by to tell him all about it. Apparently, where his *‘Deep Six’* novels weren’t doing so hot these days, even pirate sites weren’t carrying those titles any more, his new Very Special Agent Tommy novel was a runaway best seller. Hunh.No. Nope. Don’t think about that. Him. Not even in McGee’s screwed up semi-fictionalized version.With angry and annoyed determination, he went back to his sanding. He had played with the idea of maybe renting a DVD player to see what DiNozzo had sent him… or maybe asking Abby to bring one by next time she visited. But, so far, he hadn’t been serious enough, or curious enough, or self-destructive enough, to actually do anything about it.So when he heard the footsteps walking across his main floor from the (still) unlocked front door toward the basement steps, and didn’t immediately recognize them…Then he did. Oh. It had been a while since Ziva had been here. A long while. As far as he was aware, she was supposed to be *persona non grata* in the States, which meant she had snuck back in illegally. No one talked about Ziva or her father after they were both booted out of Mossad. At least, not to him. He was totally locked out of that gossip chain, and so was pretty much everyone he knew, because, concerned, he *had* tried to find her… only to be told he needed to stop before he found himself in serious trouble: legal and national security kind of trouble. From which he guessed she had made some kind of deal with someone to try and keep out of her father’s political implosion. CIA, probably, he speculated. Wetworks, more than likely. They hadn’t really talked… not about anything, unless it was directly job related… not in a long time. Not since DiNozzo left. And even then, Gibbs now knew most of what she had to say had been, at least partially, lies. He couldn’t imagine what might have brought her here tonight. Unless she was in trouble. She would always come to him when she was in a jam she couldn’t get out of on her own, or one Eli had dumped her into...He sighed and continued sanding. The plan called for him to finish this wall unit tonight and haul it to the work site in the morning to be installed so they could start painting. She came down the basement stairs all but silently, her little cat-feet taking care, and remembering to avoid all the places where the individual steps would creak. She settled herself to sit on the bottom-most step, and folded herself into a still and silent statue. He waited her out. He had nothing to say, really. The time to challenge her on her lies and motivations, her betrayals and manipulations and schemes, was long past. The only reason he had to bring any of it up would be DiNozzo… and DiNozzo was no longer any concern of his. Soon enough, she would remember that he was far better playing the waiting game than she was, and she’d get around to telling him what she’d come to him for. “Have you heard from Tony?” were the first words out of her mouth, not really surprising him, although her tone was… tentative. When had the forthright Mossad spy and Kidon assassin ever been tentative?“Nope.”“I see you have a DVD… from him?”Gibbs merely shrugged. Ziva huffed, almost a laugh. “Let me guess. You don’t have a player to see what’s on it.”Again he shrugged, and the woman did laugh this time. “Ah, Gibbs… I have missed you. Never change. Give me a moment and I can bring my laptop down, and we will watch it together.”“Yeah. Okay. You already know what’s on it.”“I have a good guess.” It didn’t take her long to return with a case, unzip it for one of those laptop-tablet thingies, plug it in and set the DVD on the slide-out shelf. And Gibbs sat next to Ziva on her bottom step, shoulder to shoulder, to watch DiNozzo’s message.Å “Hey, Gibbs. You want to throw this in the trash, fine, go for it. But, just a warning, maybe you want to fast-forward to the end, first. There’s stuff you need to hear, and I’m leaving it to the end. “I told myself I wasn’t going to waste my time trying to recover whatever dysfunctional mess of a friendship we may once have had… I sure as hell know better than to try and wring an apology out of you for the way shit went down. That’s a weakness, right? Sometimes life just slams shut the fucking door… and I found an open window that led to a much better future. “But Fornell sent me a message… he didn’t outright say it, but he hinted around that maybe… maybe you might have a few regrets… and… maybe so do I. I didn’t like the way we left things. I feel like… I at least need to clear the air, for closure. For me. “First up… guess who walked into my Casablanca bar the other day? Ziva and Eli showed up at my base. That’s right. The last two people on Earth I would have expected. And Ziva had a bombshell to drop in my lap. Seems as if she had a kid, that year Vance broke up the team, sent Ziva home to Israel and me agent afloat. And… go figure… she says it’s mine. Of which I have no doubt. Tey? Can you send her in?”A cherubic little girl ran giggling to her father’s arms. He pointed to the camera. “Say ‘hi’ to uncle Gibbs, Tali.” “Hi-ee!” giggled the little girl, as Tony laughingly tickled her. “Okay, okay. Off you go, back to momma Tey. I’ll see you later, but I gotta talk to uncle Gibbs for a bit, and I may not be using language fit for little ears.”Tony smiled, green eyes sparkling with love as he watched his daughter go… but with the whoosh sound, he sobered and turned back to the camera. “That was Talia DiNozzo, in case you wondered. I have no idea if you knew… if Ziva told you, or what she had to say about it… I swear, I had no idea. As far as I knew… as far as I *know*, Ziva hates my guts, and has tried to kill me any number of times, even before she left me hanging on that undercover op. The night Jenny died, I went on a bender to end all benders. Not too bright of me, I know… Next morning, I found myself back in my hotel room, with no idea how I got there. Apparently, Ziva found me. No idea what she was thinking… she didn’t use a condom. I figure that means she was gearing up to accuse me of rape, to get me to take the blame for Jenny’s death. But she didn’t know I was zed. Nasty shock for her, hunh? And why she decided to have it, and not just get herself an abortion? No clue. You’d have to ask her that. I honestly don’t care.“So she shows up here at my base… shocker. And when I go to try and sue for truce between us – keep it professional, live and let live, all that… I find out about Tali. Am I steamed? Oh yeah, you betcha. Because Ziva left her own kid with a family friend, Deena Bashan. Remember Ziva talking about her? A good woman. But Tali’s birth certificate doesn’t even list a mother, just me. So I got some people I trust to collect her and send her home to me.“Anyway… Ziva hiding Tali’s existence from me made me realize it wasn’t fair of me to do the same damn thing… and here’s what you need to know, even if you ignore the rest of this.”Tony stood up and gestured to his belly, putting his hands on the swelling and rubbing lovingly, with a smile blossoming on his face.“So, okay, our final farewell was a little bourbon-soaked, enough that I didn’t register the lack of a condom… and maybe I was a little resentful of you and how it all went down at the end… maybe a whole lot resentful. And I had no plans of ever coming back to DC, or having any contact with anyone there ever again… still feeling too bitter. But this? No regrets. None.“He’s zed, male identified. His name is Tagan Jethro, we’ll be calling him TJ. “So there it is, Gibbs. I’m happy here. I love my new post, the people, I have supportive bosses, what a change that makes, and a great new probie who has my back… way smarter than McGee, better shot than Ziva, and, I’m prepared to bet, at least as good as you or I at investigations. Also, I’ve found true love, and a *real* family of my own, so… it’s all good. Getting tossed off the MCRT was the best thing that could have happened to me. So… I guess… thanks for that, anyway.“Which brings us back to TJ. He’s due in another couple of months. I’ll send you a birth announcement. If you want contact with him after he’s born… we’ll have to talk, there’s a lot of logistical issues. I’ll try my best to make it happen, if that’s what you want. But it’s your move from here, Gibbs. You can send me a message through Fornell. Otherwise… so long, and have a nice life.” Å There was a roaring in his ears. He stared at the frozen picture of a smiling Tony reaching forward to turn off whatever camera he had been using. A pregnant Tony. Pregnant with his son. Tagan Jethro. His son. He was a father… again.Oh god… that card that turned up a few weeks ago… a birth announcement for Tagan Jethro DiNozzo… he had thought it was someone’s bad idea of a joke… He even tossed the damn thing in the garbage! He wasn’t even aware he had frozen, until Ziva bent over him and pressed a jam jar of bourbon into his shaking hand. And then he was bolting upstairs, trying to remember if he had emptied the trash since then, if it might still be there… It was. Roughly ripped in half, but he had scotch tape for that… he stood, hands still shaking, finding a picture inside the envelope along with the card, also ripped in half… he almost cried out at that, and hunted around in a kitchen drawer for the scotch tape, desperately re-assembling the photo of a red-faced baby. Then he stared…Ziva was there again, getting him to sit down. “I guess this makes us truly family, now, Gibbs. Me through Tali, you through Tagan Jethro, both of us through Tony. Father of our babies.”Silent tears filled his eyes, blurring the tiny vague face of a baby that, really, could be any baby… “It’s true?”“Yes. All of it.”Å Gibbs wasn’t sure how much time passed after that. It was all kinda blurry… he was pretty sure he went back to the basement and drunk himself into a coma. He wasn’t sure where Ziva was in all of it. She seemed to fade in and out at spots. But she let him hold her computer pad thingie to watch the DVD again and again… he stopped hearing what Tony was actually saying, it stopped hurting, what an ass Gibbs had been, what a mess he had made of all this… all he saw was a happy laughing little cherub named Tali, and the bulge that was his own TJ. At one point he might have growled and roared and spat out curses against ‘Momma Tey’, whoever the hell that might be… When he was sober enough to wake up, get himself off the cold concrete basement floor and climb the stairs to his bedroom to get showered and dressed, he swore the first thing he was going to do was get himself a DVD player to watch that DVD, and any more than might come, that might show him more of TJ Gibbs. And yeah, it was going to be TJ Gibbs, damn it, not TJ DiNozzo, no matter what the hell DiNozzo might have to say about it. Tony could have Tali, but damn it, TJ was his. Ziva had made coffee, and sat silently at the kitchen table, waiting for him to come back down. “Okay,” he said grimly, finally ready to hear it, whatever unholy mess it was she’d got herself into this time. “Talk to me.”Å “I suppose I have to explain all the lies, don’t I? Jenny, Ari, Kate, Leon, Michael… and, yes, Tony. “I had a mission. Jenny and my father set it up between them, in the beginning, and Vance kept it going… Anyone who got in the way was… collateral damage, in their eyes, and I never had a choice. Well… I could have said no, I suppose… and ended in a shallow grave in the desert, my nation and yours put at unnecessary risk. And it was for the greater good… for Israel, even for the US… our targets were all clear and present dangers to both our countries, Gibbs. Benoit was an arms dealer, whatever else he was. Israel stands or falls by the intel we can gather, through any means necessary, and we are the last bulwark against terrorism overrunning the world. I still believe that with all my heart. “Tony was in the way. Occasionally useful, maybe, like in the Benoit op… Somalia, maybe… but when he threatened my place, interfered with my missions, tried to make you doubt me… He became a serious threat to everything I had done, worked for, since Ari. It was, quite literally, him or me, and he never realised the true cost if it was me who failed. “So yes, I did everything I could think of to drive a wedge between you and him. To drive him right out of NCIS so I could do my job properly. And, yes, I severely underestimated him, and his importance… to NCIS… to you. Whatever else, he is… stubborn. “Tali was… unexpected. As Tony guessed, after Jenny died on our watch, I feared I would be the one ‘holding the bag’. So yes, I set up a scenario where I could cry rape on him, as a last resort to keep my job. Then my father called me home, and… well.“I feared for her life, Gibbs. My father has many enemies… so do I, for that matter. And… I… did not want her to fall into my father’s orbit. To become another pawn for him to mold as he willed. So it was safest, for her, if she did not bear my name, and was raised by another. A good woman, a dear and loyal friend, loyal to me and not to my father.”Ziva took a sip of her coffee, wrinkling her nose, as she often did, when drinking it Gibbs-strong. “I never really had any choice, not when my father controlled my every move. Tony was a threat, growing day by day, although it took me a long time to see behind his foolish man-child mask to recognize this. I needed to edge him out of NCIS. But he was too stubborn and too stupid to get it, or maybe just too loyal to you. I had to resort to less subtle, more direct methods. Cutting comms… seemed safe enough. McGee has always been only too easy to manipulate, unlike Tony. I knew McGee would never volunteer to tell what we had done. I though Tony would just… leave. Unable to trust us ever again. I did not anticipate that he would publicly protest our actions, tell everyone… or what the fall out of that would be. “At that point, I figured the only way I could salvage my mission was by turning you against Tony. And the best way to do that…”“By making up that whole lying story of him harassing and raping you.”Ziva merely shrugged, looking totally demoralized, even a little distraught, her hands moving restlessly on her mug. He wasn’t sure he bought it. Not now. Not after all this.“Now I’m totally cut off from my daughter, in Tony’s care, out of my reach, at risk from every enemy Eli, or I, or even Ari has made over the years. But also at risk from Eli, and what he might try and make of her, if he ever gets her in his grasp.”All of which, Gibbs had to admit, was true. But was Ziva genuinely worried about Tali? Or was this just another manipulation? A few tears found their way, wandering down her damask cheek. She was always such a beautiful, exotic woman… such a contradiction, probably from the different roles she could play, to get her way… vulnerable, then tough, loving, then heartless… impassive, then distraught… but what was the true Ziva, after all? Gibbs found it just as hard to figure that out as it was to unravel DiNozzo’s many masks. Although, in Tony’s case, it was almost always an act to protect himself, behind armor, behind walls, behind masks designed to keep others from finding his soft and tender center.“Why are you here, Ziva?”“I need your help, Gibbs. There is no one else, in all the world, who can, or even would wish, to help me.”“Help you do what?”“Help me get my daughter back,” she whispered. “I thought you said she was in danger if anyone connected her to you. Or if your father found her. Why not just… leave her with DiNozzo? He sure as hell won’t turn her over to Eli.”The tears were flowing good and proper now, but Gibbs scowled at them, even as he felt them defrosting his icy heart. “But to never see her at all? Never see her again? Are you prepared to do the same with TJ? To just… leave him with Tony, forever, and never see him? You have rights in this, Gibbs, you know you do. US law will never deny a normal father access to his child, not over a zed parent. You could even sue for custody if you wished it, or to share, at least. You would be almost guaranteed to win over Tony. I do not have even that… by Israeli law, when I sought to protect her by leaving my name off her birth certificate, I… I effectively gave up all my rights to her. To protect her! Only to protect!“All I want to do is hold Tali once more, Gibbs! And you can help me do that. Eli will never know, Tony won’t say no to you… but if you ask for a private meeting, that you want to see your son, that, out of fond memories of me, or lingering loyalty, or even sentimental reasons… whatever… you wish to see Tali, too… you were always a sucker for the girls, Gibbs…”Oh yeah, that stung. Too many times, his proven and well-known weakness for daughter-figures and red-heads had made him all too easy to play, and put others at risk… shadows of Shannon and Kelly, leaving him open to Ziva’s machinations, dooming Kate, frequently endangering Abby… who knew how many others… “Tony won’t even think of questioning you. He’ll have to bring them to you, his mission is far too top secret and sensitive for them to allow you to go to him… and then you can just… tell me where you’re meeting. A hotel, maybe, in Colorado Springs, probably, or even here in DC… just an hour, less even… just to see her, hold her…”The woman’s voice broke… but then, she was so good at manipulation… “Don’t do it for me, Gibbs. Do it for Tali. She is an innocent in this, and does not deserve to be denied something as basic as meeting her mother, just once… she deserves the chance to say good bye, at least. Wouldn’t you want that for Kelly, to be able to say goodbye to Shannon?”Okay, that might be a step too far, and even Ziva seemed to realise, because she quickly back-pedalled. “You can keep her safe. I trust you and only you in this, Gibbs. You are the only one Tony would even do such a thing for. Or… or… maybe if you still don’t trust me, and I do not blame you for that, just… request Tali come to you so you can meet her, and then… then you can film her, let me see a video of my darling daughter… the only true family I will ever have to love…”He needed to shut her up. He needed her to go, to let him think without the miasma of guilt, emotion and lies she seemed to carry around her like a cloud of flies around a dead carcass.“Let me think about it,” he growled. Å A nervous Dr. Sebastian Lund gave a tentative knock to his boss’ kitchen door. It was after hours, if New Orleans ever considered any time of night as too late, but definitely not NCIS working hours. There was no active case pending, so... after hours. His marmalade cat, Spot, ambled along behind him, sniffing at the air as he always did, ever on the lookout for mice or rats to chase. Sebastian’s nerves weren’t from intimidation by his superior... intimidation wasn’t really a good description of their relationship. He had every respect for Supervisory Special Agent Dwayne Cassius ‘King’ Pride. Okay, be honest, he idolized the man. Everything he had always wanted and craved in a father-figure. It was just that he always had the feeling that the respect only went one way. Sure, Pride appreciated his skills in the lab, handling team forensics, but... maybe he considered Sebastian too much of a geek? Maybe? Not a real agent? Not like DeSalle, Brody, Percy or Gregorio. And Sebastian was sure, absolutely certain, it had nothing to do with the ‘Z’ tattoo on the inside of his right wrist, hidden now, under Pride’s orders, with an application of liquid skin. Pride didn’t have a prejudiced bone in his whole body. For which Sebastian could be forever grateful. But he needed something from his field agents, and Sebastian wasn’t sure if he could measure up.Therefore, the nerves.He had talked this over with Patton, but Triple P didn’t really understand Sebastian’s need in this. Trip felt he should be happy in his lab. He made a contribution, of course he did, what was this crap about going into the field? “Come on in! Door’s open,” Pride called out. Å Dwayne Pride was doddering about his kitchen, finishing up the cleaning after his dinner. A nice traditional spicy *etouffe* on a bed of rice. The team had been working cold cases for a week now, just long enough to catch their collective breath after a string of tough live ones. Another week of this and his agents would start to get restive, and begin looking for trouble, but for now, he was recommending they enjoy the regular hours. Seeing Sebastian at his door gave him qualms... was someone’s personal life about to sashay into the realms of casework? It had happened before. And Sebastian had *trouble* written all over him. “Have a sit, Sebastian. I just put a fresh pot of coffee on. Want some?” “Sure, Pride. Thanks.”“So what’s on your mind, son?”Sebastian warmed in the soft, affectionate name, always Pride’s way when off-duty. “Well, sir... I wanted to talk to you about maybe applying for a transfer.”Pride looked startled, then alarmed. “Something wrong I should know about, Sebastian? You getting grief from someone? I had no idea you were unhappy here...”“No! No, not unhappy! I love it here, I love the team, I love NCIS. At least, here in New Orleans. No, I was thinking of applying to FLETC. I want to become a field agent.”Pride gave himself precious moments, pouring out two mugs of coffee, in order to twist his mind around this one. Far as he could see, it was coming out of left field. Unless it was some fall-out from that case a few months back where the boy had been kidnapped to assist felons in a jail break... The kid had acquitted himself well, damn well... but there were certain... challenges to Sebastian’s current request that... “You been giving this some thought.” It wasn’t a question.“Yes, sir.”“Mind tellin’ me what brought this on?”“A couple of things, actually. But mostly... well, I keep thinking about Sulfur Springs. I think, until that case, I was... sure of my limitations. Zeds aren’t made for active field service, not military, not law enforcement... I think it was my father’s greatest regret, that I wouldn’t be able to follow his example and join up. I mean, it wasn’t even a consideration. At the time. Even getting an admission to college was tough enough. No scholarships, no grants... I had to pay my own way, and it wasn’t easy. It’s not like we were rich. I still owe on the money mom borrowed so I could go... And you know Patton’s story. Zed-bashers put him in that chair, for life, for no reason at all, so hacking was the only way he could make it... He’s just lucky you found him before the authorities did. Made an honest man of him. The guys responsible for crippling him still haven’t been called to account, and probably never will be. So I know, I know, what can happen out there. But...“If Sulfur Springs proved anything, it’s that even zeds can be of value in the field.” Pride winced. “At a cost, Sebastian. A pretty hefty one.”“Yes! Yes, but... you know Dr. Reid is still working law enforcement? Just... a long way away, and under some really really heavy top secret conditions. But even after what happened, he’s still doing the job. Kicking ass and taking names. Sure, bad things happen every day... just look at Brody, and she wasn’t even a zed. Pride, please. Take me seriously. I want to be a field agent. Just like Christopher and Percy and Grigorio. Sponsor me, give me a referral to the next FLETC training. I promise you, I will work my ass off, and do you proud. I’ve got a couple of friends who can sub for me at the lab until I get through. They’re almost as good as me...” and Sebastian ventured a shy smile for the small joke.Pride could only sigh, seeing how important this was to the young man. In spite of the challenges... or, unless he missed his guess, because of them. “Alright. Alright, Sebastian. I’ll sponsor you. You’ll have my referral. And for the record, I have absolutely no doubts you will do us all proud. But I want you to check in every night. Every night. And I want you to report any trouble you get from the other cadets or even the instructors... because there’s no sense taking unnecessary risks, and if you get any zed-hazing, you tell me. Right?”“Right! Yes! Of course.” Although Sebastian said the words, Pride could read between the lines... and the kid had no intention of squealing on his fellow students, no matter how bad conditions got for him. And they *would* be bad, from other students, and from the teachers, who could be counted on to make it as tough for a zed as they possibly could. Sebastian would know, if anyone did, that snitches got it even worse. He would take whatever they dished out... Pride could only hope it wouldn’t add another zed to the ‘dead or disabled’ list.“I’ll put the paperwork through tomorrow. But Sebastian, you have to tell Loretta... right?” Because that was a whole different kettle of fish, and Dwayne did *not* want to get involved in it. Their medical examiner was bound to be upset at loosing Sebastian from her labs.Sebastian’s face fell as he realised just what Dwayne meant.“Oh. Oh, yes... of course. I’ll tell her tomorrow. Thank you, Pride. Thank you!”And if a thirty-year-old six-foot-plus man could be said to scamper, Dwayne was watching a scamper right now, out of his kitchen and into the lively New Orleans night.He shook his head, and could only hope it didn’t end in tears. Which was when his telephone rang.Å It had been days now, and Gibbs still didn’t know what to think, what to do. And he had a permanent headache, not to mention a near-permanent all-but-alcoholic bourbon buzz going that was not helping him cope in the least. Certainly not assisting in his answering his problems in any way. Gibbs needed to talk, to someone impartial, someone he trusted, someone with whom he hadn’t already burned his bridges. That list was small and getting smaller by the day. “King? It’s Jethro. I got a problem. Maybe more than one. Need a sounding board.”“Jethro. I was wonderin’ when you would call. I’m listenin’, brother.”Å Daniel had been feeling a little... off the past week. Jack was due to ship back to Earth soon, hopefully only temporarily, and he hated to waste the time they had. So he had been putting off saying anything to his new, very new, partners. After so many years of friendship and denial, Jack and Daniel were already like an old married couple, reading each other’s minds (without the gnarly zed psychic abilities), finishing each other’s sentences, bickering good-naturedly about everything, from breakfast choices to coffee addictions to favorite movies. They just hadn’t noticed the sexual component to their relationship. Or rather, they had put that behind them in the bad old Don’t Ask Don’t Tell days, in the interests of saving the planet. They just never quite got around to changing their status from the easy comfort zone they’d fallen into. The risks of rocking the boat, setting them back to the painful slash-and-burn period just before the Kelowna disaster... well. Comfort zones were safe and easy to manage. It needed something of a hand-grenade tossed in to move either of them from that cozy state of emotional denial. That hand-grenade had a name – Vala Mal Doran. She had been drooling over the good Dr. Jackson since the moment she met him. A strong body, gorgeous blue eyes, eyebrows that spoke a language all their own, cinnamon hair... and a soul that shone as bright as any nova. But she was the first to admit that their early interactions had pretty much scuttled any chances she might have to land the elusive and skittish archeologist. At their first meeting, she tried to steal the *Prometheus* out from under him. And after months of seeking *any* strategy that would get her back into his orbit, she had come up with a treasure hunt on the First World, and a set of bracelets that, in hindsight, might *not* have been her best choice for cuffing him to her side. And by then, Daniel was pretty much conditioned to expect her every flirtation to be a con. So he was understandably wary of them. Used to be, her body, her aggressive sex appeal, was her most valuable asset. Not so much where Tau’ri scholars were concerned, apparently. After the head’s up Spencer had given her... well, she wasn’t averse to playing with Jack too. A warrior to the bone, a rebel in his own right, dangerous and devious and undeniably full of the same aggressive sex appeal, just the male version. Add to all that a fit body, that silver fox hair, that absolutely devastating grin. She and Jack were, perhaps, *too much* alike to make it alone, one on one... but add Daniel as their centre, the core around which both of them orbited... the bright shining soul they both craved to redeem them... yeah, that could work. Either man was fully capable of handling her neuroses, her carefully guarded internal emotional fragility... and after so many years on her own against the universe, she desperately wanted to be handled. “How cute,” Vala told her new mate caustically. “You think you can fool us into thinking all is well? Daniel, you’re coming down with something. And considering your medical history, and that this is the Pegasus Galaxy after all, it could be anything. You need to see Dr. Keller.”Daniel wrinkled his nose, and so did Jack. They still didn’t quite trust Doctor Barbie to treat zeds, or almost-zeds, fairly. “Okay then, Dr. Biro, but you are heading straight to the infirmary right now, mister. Hut hut!”Jack and Vala waited in the lobby area, benches provided, while they waited for Dr. Biro to finish her examination. When she came out, without Daniel, both of his new partners became alarmed. Biro, an odd pinched look on her face, held an LSD in her hand... a Life Signs Detector? She flashed it over Vala’s body... and began laughing. “What?” Jack demanded, panicking ever so slightly. “What is it?”“Well, sir... you remember all those in service briefings on zed biology? You didn’t think to pay attention to any of it?”“Daniel isn’t zed. Yet.”“Oh yeah, he is. Probably been one for a couple of days. He says he *thinks* he may have seen a few drops of blood the morning of the bomb incident. I’m pretty sure he did. Another few hours, and it might have been a full blown menstrual period. Except that...”“eep,” Jack squeaked.“Yes sir. Dr. Jackson is with child. But that’s not all...” and she glanced pointedly at Vala. While Vala geared up for a nervous breakdown of her own... her history with pregnancies was not a happy one, after all... Daniel staggered out of the examining room. His pants were unbelted and unzipped and pushed down to reveal a distinctive pattern of pink and purple swirls, stripes and spots. “Oh my god, Jack! Vala... oh my god... Vala! Look, it’ll be okay. This is a perfectly normal thing! Perfectly normal...” The archeologist quickly pulled up, zipped and buttoned and belted, and devoted himself to sitting between his shell-shocked partners, reassuring and hoping that, when they came out of their respective funks, they were glad for this. Å Of course, the news went round the city at the speed of light. Thanks to the AI and Garcia, who were more than happy to jump the gun and broadcast it to everyone. In the mess hall, McKay crowed, “Oh, this is *so* rich!” His grin was gleeful and border-line malicious. “After all the mocking the General did when it was me who neglected ‘precautions’? I will *never* let him forget this!”“Um…” Spencer ventured warily, glancing to his Boss. “Do we need to…”Tony smiled and shook his head. “Nah. Let him have his moment. The General *did* give him a hard time over that, for months. As soon as he says something in Daniel’s hearing, and Daniel gives him the sad-eyed hurt-archeologist look, McPushover will fold like a bad poker hand.”Spencer nodded. He had learned that, good as he thought his own profiling talents might be, and as much as his Boss might try to hide it, Tony DiNozzo was a past master at the art of reading others. With or without zed powers, the very special Agent Afloat was equal to anyone he had ever worked with. Sheppard called out to their two Agents, “So the romantic entanglement pools are scuttled for good, but what about baby pools? They considered kosher or not?”Spencer declared, “Of course they’re kosher. Standard protocol. Date, time and sex of baby. Each. Fifty-fifty split, half to the closest guess, half to start a college fund for the baby.”A cheer went up from everyone at that, as they reached for the calendars to calculate nine months to the day. Spencer smirked, having already determined the likeliest date based on 40 weeks, which was actually a little more than nine months. Giving him a definite edge, of course.He rarely lost in these things. Å

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Å So, why weren’t there more zeds meeting them in the Blue Jungle? Yes, there were more and more appearing every day, and not all known to them already, but not as many as they might expect. They tried inviting others to join them, and a few more did show up, as if conjured from smoke. The glade seemed to expand in some mysterious way, while remaining intimate and close enough for all to feel included. But, surely, there were more Furalin awakening to their natures on Earth than just this? And Jahar had already told them the Furalin in Pegasus numbered around three hundred. So where were they all? They’d only ever seen the two who accompanied Jahar here to meet them. Blair Sandburg looked around him, and into the alien sky spangled with stars, nebula and the ghostly stream of a galaxy alien to him. “Well, you realise, that this place isn’t a construct of the Furlings, right? It doesn’t just belong to them. Or to the Furalin. In a lot of ways… it’s the domain of shamans. Sure, it may be easier for some of us to get here, but… when you get down to it, the spirit plane operates by a different set of rules.”They were all mystified by this, but Rodney in particular leaned forward, careful to hold tight to Meredith Joy in her sling, sleeping peacefully at his chest. “How so?”“Well, look at the circle plain beyond the glade. See those sprit animals? Those don’t belong to us, they aren’t our familiars, they’re the spirit guides of sentinels. The big black jag belongs to Jim Ellison. The huge green tiger is one of yours, right Rodney?”“Yeah, that’s Ronon. The Pegasus raptor is Teyla’s, the bald eagle is John’s… no idea who the elephant belongs to…”“I think… that may be Derek Morgan,” Spencer guessed. “He’s one of my BAU team-mates.”“Well, then. As far as I can tell, sentinels aren’t determined by the Z chromosome or the ATA complex. Sure, some may have both, like Anne here, but I think that’s just random chance. In my search for sentinels on Earth, I found a number of people who had one or two enhanced senses… professional wine tasters who could tell you the vineyard and year for various vintages, perfumers who could sort out scents, chefs with amazing taste buds... that sort of thing. And, of course, there were any number of military snipers and jet jockeys who had preternatural sight, along with hand-eye coordination that was off the charts for most humans. But I never had a subject base for enough with three or more extreme senses to give me enough information to identify what genetic difference they inherited. Most sentinels are super paranoid about revealing themselves. And I have an idea that most have to repress their senses for survival, because it’s hard to live in the modern world dialed up to ten all the time. Too crowded, loud, smelly, harsh, polluted. Way too much input. So the circumstances have to be pretty rare for them to bring their talents out into the open. Or, you know, the need pretty extreme.“Having a guide certainly is part of it, to help ground, buffer, focus. But, with the information you guys in Pegasus have been giving me, I don’t think there’s any one set of characteristics necessary for someone to be a sentinel’s guide. I think being open and empathically aware is enough. I think that means that being a trusted partner is qualification enough. I think that means zeds are naturally suited to the task, maybe even gifted at it, because we operate with our empathy wide open. But a guide doesn’t *have* to be a zed. Just a trusted partner. No special genetic background at all.”“Oo-kaay,” Tony drawled. “So the Furalin need a Z chromosome and an ATA. Sentinels need a different gene complex, not related to the Z or ATA. Guides… can be anyone open and trusted by the sentinel, although zeds may fit the bill better than most, have a natural gift that way. Okay. So what’s with the shaman thing? Where does that fit in this picture, and where does the blue jungle come in? Because I’m confused.”Blair smiled. “The blue jungle is a manifestation of the Spirit Plane. Call it a higher plane of existence, or maybe just a different one… some call it the Spirit Realm, the Dream Time… lots of names for the same thing. It’s a heightened reality we can access, all humans have the potential, probably all sentients, if they’re sufficiently open to it. “In the ancient wisdom I’ve studied and chased all my life, I’ve found that the human condition is a strange dichotomy – on one hand we are all unique, our experience of life and the understanding of it is very personal to ourselves alone. But on the other hand, we share certain accepted commonalities, with our families, tribes, cultures, races, species. We are born, live and die. In the middle, we struggle to survive, to find water, food, shelter. We seek other less immediate needs particular to us. So even though we have each our different personalities, talents and abilities peculiar to ourselves, we also have this common experience, that gives us a kind of instinctual race memory to draw upon, to be human. To seek community, communication, love, to form families of our own, to defend our place, to compete with rivals and cooperate with mates and partners, to depend upon our parents and nurture our young.“So when I talk about shamans, recognize that there’s the same dichotomy. Almost every culture has some kind of a concept of shamans. What they are, who can be one. It’s different, depending upon their own background and experience. But there are definite commonalities across societies. The most basic definition is that a shaman is one able to access the Spirit World, to bring back sacred secret knowledge of value to the tribe. According to ancient wisdom, the shaman is able to recognize, to control to some extent, and therefore to battle evil spirits and encourage benevolent ones, because of our access to this plane. The potential to be a shaman is present in everyone, but there are certain characteristics required – of experience, personality and training, rather than inherited genetic advantage. “For instance, to get here, you have to be able to stand in two worlds, to straddle different realities. We must have experienced both, appreciate both, because this is the plane between waking and dreams, life and death, sickness and health, madness and sanity.”“The Ascended and the physical,” said a new voice. They had all noted that for once Aten’s white crow had not already been present when they gathered. But now he gave a raucous caw, and fluttered in from the jungle to flap wings at Anna the polar bear, to get her to shift and make room. And for the first time, Daniel Jackson joined them. With some grace, he folded himself into a lotus position and smiled. “Hey, guys.”They welcomed him gladly.“I think we’ve been waiting for you,” Spencer said. And yes, Jahar joined them now, his two acolytes at his sides, bowing to the archeologist. “Hail the Furalin. Greetings and welcome, Daniel Jackson, you who have chosen to join us of your own will. The first to do so, but perhaps not the last.”Daniel blinked and then nodded. “Thank you. But…” He glanced at the little curly-haired man grinning at him. “I’m sorry, but who are you? I know the rest of these guys, but…”“Dr. Blair Sandburg. Anthropology. Specializing in sentinel and shaman research, although I work for the police department in Cascade, Washington, as a consultant.”“Oh! I’ve read your work… used a lot of it… fascinating insight into long lost cultures…”Tony nudged him. “Yeah, he knows about what we do. Some of it, anyway. Blair is Furalin too. Teaching us a lot about who we are, or can be.”“And I interrupted. Sorry. I’ve had some experience with shamanism, but… I’m no expert. Please go on.”Blair grinned. “You want to hear this too, zed-man?”Jahar gave an enigmatic smile. “Always, shaman of the great city.”“Okay, so where was I? Oh yeah. A shaman walks in two worlds. So the first requirement to become one is to have personal experience with illness, madness, death, and come back from those with a deeper knowledge. I had an incident… was drowned in a fountain. I was declared clinically dead for somewhere around ten minutes. It took my sentinel, hunting for my… soul, I guess, on the Spirit Plane, to bring me back.”Rodney shifted uncomfortably. “I… I had a run in with an Ascension Machine… and a bout of madness with something called the Second Childhood disease, a parasite.”Tony put his hand up. “I had the plague. Pneumonic, engineered to be antibiotic-resistant.”Spencer gasped. “And you survived?”“Hey, a badass marine bastard told me to.” When he got skeptical looks from the circle, he shrugged. “Hey, it was Gibbs, gave me a direct order. You would have obeyed too.”Carson Becket, looking relieved to have company from his isolation, held up a hand. “Clone. That alone should qualify me, right? Neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring? And my original is certainly on the dead side.”McKay glanced at Daniel. “And then there’s Mr. BadChequeMan here… What, are you up to double digit deaths by now?”Daniel winced. “Not all were actual deaths. Then there’s the addictions… Sarcophagus and, a rather nasty piece of alien tech, a goa’uld pleasure palace light. I’ve had fatal radiation poisoning and spent a year ascended. It seems to happen almost automatically now. Visions? Check, but mostly, that’s ascended beings trying to manipulate me. Possessed? Yeah, by Merlin.”Everyone stared. Blair choked a little and ventured, “*The* Merlin?...”“Yeah. That was just before I was converted to an Ori Prior. He got me changed back before he… faded away, let me go… or whatever it was he actually did. Look, do we need to talk about this? Let’s just say that my whole career with the SGC has been about straddling worlds. Kind of by definition.”Everyone looked at Spencer.He sighed. “I can think of at least three incidents that qualify me. One is still classified… but involves anthrax exposure. Two, a gunshot that hit me in the neck… But first and foremost, I was captured and tortured by an unsub. I had a heart-attack when I couldn’t take any more… he performed CPR to get my heart re-started. And… with a period of drug addiction from that same unsub and paranoid schizophrenia in my family history… I’ve experienced migraines, hallucinations – spirit visions. So sanity is something I strive for, but am never quite sure I’ve managed to hold onto.”Blair nodded. “And then, in north and south American native traditions, shamans can also be those whose gender is… undetermined. They walk a path between male and female, both and neither. The original berdache, or so white European explorers called them. That certainly included zeds, but was mostly made up of all those for whom the standard single-sex gender labels didn’t really apply. Indigenous peoples had a totally different concept of what gender involved... it confused the hell out of straight-laced European explorers. It may be a little easier for us to get here by virtue of our being Furalin, but we still need to be taught. Or invited, chosen maybe.”Carson nodded, placing a hand on his stag. “And by chosen, you mean our familiars, correct?”“I think so. For us, anyway. Of course, there are other ways. Another shaman can take you in hand. There are rites and rituals that can get you here… meditation, imbibing certain… shall we say, mind-altering substances? LSD, peyote, marijuana, ayawaska tea. Shamans of various tribes and cultures can learn the Path, the ancient sacred knowledge, if they have first paid the price, initiated after a severe illness, a near-death experience, an episode of madness, or if able to transcend gender. They can make the transition through dreams, meditation, or with the help of the various hallucinogens. Sentinels can be led here by their spirit guides, too, for some reason, to advise, to teach, to warn. Although… really, sentinels aren’t comfortable with anything so far removed from the physical plane of their senses.” Tony glanced at the circling spirit guides out in the plain. There were more of them congregating all the time, although some were only barely visible as wisps on the non-existent wind. “So… I’m assuming that the reason all those guys are patrolling out there, is that they sense some kind of danger? But why do sentinels sense a threat *here*? The white-tunic guys lurking out there?”Because, seen or not, they could all sense the shadowy figures out there, beyond the plain, in the surrounding denser jungle tangles. Daniel glanced around. “White tunic guys? That sounds awfully familiar to me… you haven’t talked to them? Asked who they are, why they’re here?”The others all blinked at each other, and Jahar merely sighed. “They will not talk to me. They will not even let me approach them.”Daniel studied the Furling elder. “You know who they are?”“I do not. I have only guesses. Suspicions.”“Yeah, well, me too.” With that, Daniel stood up and jogged out of the glade, heading straight for one particularly dense shadow out there. McKay gave a huff. “The man does *not* change…”Tony muttered, “Oh crap… Daniel, wait for back-up!” The two agents were the first to stand and hurry to follow, but the others were not far behind. As they crossed the sentinel watch-plain, they were each joined by their own sentinel’s spirit guide. A peregrine falcon landed on Spencer’s shoulder, living and breathing Cameron Mitchell. Tony held out an arm for a huge Pegasus raptor to roost, an Athosian roha, preening its Teyla-gentle beak in his hair. The bald eagle landed on Anna’s wide polar bear back. And the green tiger bumped along next to Miko’s kitsune fox, almost bowling the thing over with its raspy tongue. Most of the spirit guides out here weren’t corporeal yet, or not fully. Spencer could guess they were still repressed on the physical plane, unable to become whole, not without some inciting circumstance, or a guide to aid them survive in the modern world. Blair’s once-upon-a-time description of a Harry Potter Patronus Convention seemed apt.Even Daniel acquired a shadow… the very faintest suggestion of a wolf shape made of white mist… but huge, beyond Blair’s grey wolf familiar. As if it were some primordial idea of a wolf… like the dire wolf of myth. As the company approached the outer ring of jungle, they saw the fleeting glimpses of humanoid shapes, lurking in the denser undergrowth. They wore white metallic-looking tunics, but in the dim light of the stars and the two alien moons, they faded to insubstantial ghosts. “Who are you? Come out, talk to us,” Daniel challenged.But rather than come forward, they faded back, drifted out of reach. “Hunh,” Daniel huffed. “They felt… afraid. Ashamed, maybe?”Blair nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I keep getting off them. And the spirit guides hate them like poison. So do the familiars.”“But not a threat?”Blair shrugged. “Hard to tell. Fear can drive anyone, anything, to dangerous acts, in self-defense. But... I dunno. I think we’ll just have to wait on them. You think you know who, what they are?”“Yeah. I do. I think they’re the Ascended. Some of them, anyway. This place… it isn’t the Ascended Plane. It’s half-way, maybe, between Ascended and Physical. To Ascend, to become a being of pure energy on a ‘higher’ plane of existence, you need to release your burdens. Or so they told me. Not sure that’s entirely true... There’s something else… there is a trick to it, no doubt about that, and some can do it on their own… most need help to get there. But the Others I met had strict rules about *not* helping. If you can’t get there on your own you don’t deserve to be there. Or so they thought. And once you did Ascend, and gained all this knowledge, all this power… you weren’t allowed to use it. Part of releasing your burdens was supposed to be stop being human enough to care about those you left behind. I mean, I can see it, a sort of Prime Directive… but… there ought to be exceptions. Some renegades helped anyone who asked. Some chose those they thought worthy of being brought over. But the Others dealt really harshly with those who violated their rules… and were caught doing it.”“Yeah well,” McKay said darkly, “If they were assholes while they were living Alterans, then Ascending wasn’t going to change that. No matter what burdens they abandoned like hot potatoes to drop in our laps. And if Enlightenment means anything at all, surely it should mean you change into someone who isn’t an asshole, leaving your mistakes behind for the next poor schmuck to trip over. Which the Ancients have done, over and over again. If they feel afraid and ashamed? I’m thinking they deserve it, even if just for sticking us with the Wraith mess to clean up. To say nothing of the Ori, the replicators, Doranda, Dakarra, etc. etc.”As they gathered again in the central glade, Jahar said, “Come, my children. It is time you learned to hunt.”“Hunt for what?” Tony asked with some interest.“For the Spirits of the living. In this case… for the souls of the Wraith.”Å The dome of stars, the Pegasus Galaxy displayed above them, turned murky… then cleared. Some regions turned into a map Tony and Spencer, at least, were well familiar with. Daniel too. It was all too like the maps the Atlantis AI showed them. With a thought, they could manipulate this one, zooming in and out at will, each in their own minds. And, yes, the trained hunters among them, hunters of game, or of criminals, found it easiest to make the Spirits reveal what they wanted. Tony, Spencer, Blair, Daniel. The dark splotches, made of hunger and desperation, were clear to them. Angry. Furious, even, defiant and implacable. Staring their own doom in the face and screaming at it in denial.Others, tinged with other muddy colours, changed and mutated under the influence of retrovirus. They seemed at first to waiver and gutter, like candle flames in the wind, a panicky feeling as they became something… strange. Other. Then they seemed to… calm. From muddy browns they turned dark reds, indigo, deep purple, magenta, a dark greenish gold. Clarifying even as they settled into something new. And they drifted, landed, drew in on themselves, as if in a meditative state, to concentrate and examine what they had become. To make peace with it, and themselves. And, abruptly, as they ventured into a new world with a new purpose, the hunger that otherwise clouded their thoughts and feelings, abruptly vanished. It was replaced by a feeling of being sated… full, even. The elated pulse of relief was overwhelming. To themselves, and the Spirit Plane watchers. But at least then, these isolated groups of the Changed Wraith no longer felt like threats. The hunters drew back from them, left them, and focussed instead upon the True Wraith.Blair winced. “There’s a lot of them.”Tony nodded, grimacing. “More than we thought, but we were already warned about that.”“Wait…” Spencer said, watching their movements, the patterns. “They’re hunting. See those ones, the awake hives? That’s a search pattern. But what are they looking for?”“That’s the Pegasus Galactic rim,” Daniel said. “That edge? Closest to the Milky Way. Well, they’ve been trying to find Earth from our very first encounter with them. A feeding ground beyond their imagination. Since the attack of the Super Hive over a year ago, we knew that at least some of them had narrowed down the probable location of the Milky Way. If they’re looking for something? I imagine it’ll be whatever Lucian Alliance spies have made it this far.”Tony stared at the shifting hives. “The Lucians wouldn’t sell out Earth, would they? Not if they want to take over themselves?”Daniel shrugged. “Probably as a last resort. There’s no honor among these thieves. They’re in it for themselves. If they think they can gain even a brief advantage? They’d sell their own mothers to the Wraith.”Rodney scowled, gently rubbing the sling across his chest. “And if they think they can make a deal with the Wraith? They’ll fall into a Queen’s hands like little woolly lambs. And then we’re all screwed.”Å Once the Furling and Furalin had left the Spirit World to return to their own bodies in their own beds, the Familiars gathered under the two moons. One question no one had yet asked was… just who, or what, were the Familiars?All cats are sensitive to the Spirit World, and psionic energies of various kinds. In even the briefest of naps, they hunt in the blue jungle glades. So the Furalin psionic connections, their presence, their aura, as their abilities emerge, naturally attracts a cat’s attention… all cats, at least for a little while. More than cats are sensitive to this sort of thing, of course. The spirit guides of sentinels can lead them to such special people. Shamans can also detect the presence of Spirit affinity and power when near, with or without a Z chromosome or the ATA gene complex. If a being with a need to interface with the corporeal plane, and the necessity to hide themselves, were looking for a pleasing and psi-sensitive form to adopt, they could do a lot worse than cats. Taking on such an aspect, and the abilities that went with it, might serve such a being very well. And cats… well, cats were *everywhere*. Hardly worth noticing.Tonight, the Familiars were joined in the blue glade by one who had been conspicuous in her absence, though no one seemed to realise it. Oma may be a calico kitten in the physical realms, but here, she was a lioness of fierce aspect, a leader among them. She studied Bast with some curiosity. “Your human is a most unusual being. How has he never come to our attention before?”Bast smiled enigmatically. “He has never courted attention. Avoids it, rather. And immortality has never been his ambition. He is like Aten’s pet in these ways.”Aten’s red albino crow’s eye peered at the lioness. “You’ve been undeservedly lucky he hasn’t caught on to you yet, Oma. If he ever hears Tony or Tali refer to you by name… the jig will be well and truly up… for all of us.”Oma shrugged. “Not a total disaster if he does realise who we are. It’s not the Furalin we need to hide from. Or the Furling, for that matter.”“Maybe not,” Anna warned, “But Daniel and Rodney in particular may not be so willing to let us near them if they discover our secret. They carry a grudge, and I don’t blame them one bit.”A black cat, a black cat on the physical plane, but also here, marched into the center of the glade, bristling and hissing, arched back with bottle-brush tail and raised fur along his spine, and announced, “Yes, no bloody kidding they carry a grudge! I warned you, didn’t I warn you? That you’d go to that well once too often?”“But they’re so *good* at it…” muttered a slightly resentful Aten, shifting to sit against Anna, his ally in this ongoing argument with Oma. “Sure, Daniel’s cleaned up a lot of your damn messes, but at what cost?” the black cat demanded. “That poor guy is sick and tired of being your fall-guy, patsy, go-to cats-paw even. No, don’t you dare laugh! That was an unintended pun. You made him commit genocide, for cripe’s sake! Sure it was the all-hallowed ascended Ori, but still! My people believe in *arresting* unsubs, not bloody massacring the lot! To say nothing of the collateral damage along the way! He’s still mourning the Abydonians… and don’t tell me it’s okay because they’ve ascended. It’s not okay.”Oma looked pained. “Sergio, please… I grant you, mistakes have been made. But just one more mission, and we can rest in peace, all of us.”“Yeah, if any of us survive it. Do you *see* how many of those vampires are out there? And when you say one mission… I assume you’re not talking about the future of the Furalin?”“Surely, if they save the Earth, the other will follow?”“Yeah, no. You vastly underestimate the power of human prejudice. They’ve got real short memories for everything but grudges. Give it a month or two, and it’ll be, ‘what have you done for me lately?’”Galen shook his antlers. “That’s not our only problem, folks. This loop-hole of ours… taking the forms of cats so we can avoid the accusation of interfering with the so-called ‘lower’ plane… it’s pretty thin. Any exposure, by anyone, will scuttle this whole plan. And we are so nearly finished!”All the familiars acknowledged this.“And, I gotta tell you guys,” Sergio warned, “Penelope has been suspicious all along that I’m not the same cat she adopted from Emily Prentiss. She doesn’t ask because she doesn’t want to know. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it wasn’t the same with all our pets. They don’t ask who and what we are because they don’t want to know.“And, by the way… have any of you actually done the math on this familiar thing? One percent of seven billion people is still seventy million zeds on Earth. Okay, another twenty percent are kids, too young to come into their own, so make it fifty-odd million adult zeds. I hate to break it to you, but there are *not* enough of us to go around… even if we draft their royal snootinesses over there. And that’s obviously not happening any time soon, anyway.”Coyote Luke merely chuckled, even as a merlin falcon winged in to settle next to him. “Still worried about exposure, are we?”Luke shrugged. “They are. I imagine when you arrive it’ll be a moot point after all. Have you decided who you’ll take on?”“Oh, I want the little McKay-Sheppard! That kid is going to be a force to be reckoned with.”Luke sniggered. “And you, Janet? Who’s going to be your special project?”The prancing painted pony entered the glade and said, “I’ve got dibs on Daniel’s little bundle of joy. Nathan Melburn. Had to fight Skarra and Kasuf for it. They’ll take Vala’s twins, Jacqueline Claire and Danielle Sha’re. But aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves? There’s a hell of a lot happening before we can welcome those kids to the glade.”“No kidding,” grumbled Anne Teldy’s feral Pegasus-bear Orion. “We got the Asurans under wraps, that’s one down, but the Wraith civil war can go either way, and I don’t like the way those Lucian bastards keep sniffing around in Pegasus. There’s what, three of their ships skirting around the rim now? All of ‘em working separately, without a clue the other two are around? Some alliance they are. All ends against the middle, more like. Just a damn bunch of Genii from another galaxy, if you ask me. And looking for what, I wonder?”“Oh, we know what they’re after,” Lucifer growled, swishing his nine fox tails. “And we all know just how far they’ll get, making their little deals.”Emily, the little purple tabby Pegasus feral cat, hummed. “That may not be the worst thing. The True Wraith won’t want to stick around Pegasus if they have *anywhere* else to go. Give them a new feeding ground…”“And send the Swarms straight to Earth? Thanks a lot!” Sergio huffed. Oma, Merlin and Bast all traded significant looks. Anna groaned. “Oh no. Please don’t tell me. That’s what’s going to happen, right? You know that for sure?” Oma shrugged. “It seems the likeliest future, so far. But nothing is written in stone until it manifests in the present. And even then, there are countless unravelled skeins of alternate possibilities yet to appear.”Luke cocked one ragged coyote ear. “You know, that’s a load of baffle-gab. You long-time Ascendeds don’t know for shit. You may talk a good game, but when it comes right down to it… well, there’s always the Wild Card in the mix. More than one in this game, if I’m any judge.”“Here here,” Janet agreed.“After all, which one of you high-and-mighty Ascendeds foresaw that Spencer Reid having a little frank discussion with the Asurans would result in, not only the last of the replicator threat being neutralized, but half the Wraith Swarm redeeming themselves with a little retro-virus delivery? Hunh? None of you? Why, I do believe that would be right. Everything *is* Magic.”Sergio perked up at that, smug as any cat can be. “Never bet against the Boy Wonder. Haven’t I been telling you that all along?”Aten spoke up, “And then there’s Daniel’s little one-man insurrection… choosing to be zed? Did any of you foresee that as a likely outcome? Short-sighted or what?”Oma laid down and granted them this. “True. Our Wild Cards, or Trouble Magnets, because they are that too, have long defied every effort we have made to predict the outcome of any event they enter. And, much as we would want to deny it, letting them have free rein has been the right course of action for us. And at that, we’ve been a lot more successful than the Others, with their ham-handed methods, or even our own clumsy efforts in the past. Clearly, the dreams and visions were an uncertain tool. We just have to watch for our moment, when to… nudge a few elements into place to give us a better chance of all getting out of this with our skins intact.“And in that vein… anyone have any ideas what the hell is going on with sentinels?”“Speaking of Wild Cards…” Luke chortled. Blair’s Ruth gave a wolf-ish chuckle. “What, something you don’t know, Oma?”“Blair has some idea, then?”“Oh, he’s always got a theory or five on the boil, my human. Just wait. I would think the Lucians are about to discover that taking zeds is a bit more of a problem than they anticipated.”All of the familiars chuckled at that. Å

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Å Ex-senator and ex-vice president Robert Kinsey was far too recognizable a face, especially in the middle of Manhattan. So when Nun arrived to take part in a summit meeting with certain representatives of the Trust, he used the recently installed Asgard beams in his al’kesh. He brought just one Tau’ri minion with him. She was a member of his staff for the beach-head he had made on Earth, thanks to his host’s extensive and exploitable connections. His off-world forces stuck out like sore thumbs whenever they tried to mingle on the First World, so Nun tended to leave them behind when he visited, relying on his Tau’ri staff. The two ‘lieutenants’ he counted as loyal, or rather ‘colonels’, were busy with an assignment of their own, keeping close watch on General Landry. Which left his third most valued Tau’ri ‘lieutenant’. His ‘admin assistant’, introduced when she had to be as ‘Miss Smith’, was efficient and deadly in her own right. The offices in the higher floors of a skyscraper in the downtown financial district, just off Wall Street, were all modern, sleek, steel and glass with floor-to-ceiling windows on the impressive skyline. These were the headquarters of that global conglomerate, GlobalTech, eighth largest technology firm on the planet, with tentacles everywhere. Their CEO, Ms. Vivian Gant, was a middle aged divorced mother of two estranged teenagers, a workaholic driven by ambition. Sleek dark hair cut fashionably short and dark intelligent eyes, in the past year she had undergone a certain amount of personality change. She had sexed up her wardrobe considerably, her dark power suits favouring flame red blouses with more revealing necklines, more gold jewelry, and blood red lipsticks and nail polish. She had either gone for lasik, or traded glasses for contacts, no one was sure which, and no one dared ask. Her priorities had changed too. She had pulled back from random acquisitions of any smaller company that looked vulnerable, with valued assets to plunder. Now, she targeted mergers and take-overs of companies that did government contracts – no matter the government. Her political influence world-wide had therefore risen in past months.She hadn’t seen her children or ex in a year. She had fired or driven away most of her closest business associates. A woman so ruthless and ambitious had few friends outside her work. Which made it easier for the last clone symbiote of the Goa’uld Baal to take over. All of his other cloned symbiotes had been hunted down and destroyed, as far as he knew. It had almost been too easy for HWS, because they had been stubborn and stupid about sticking with that, admittedly, handsome original host, and his clones. By hopping to an entirely different host, this last Baal had escaped notice.From this prestigious vantage point, he was able to run the Trust, with the assistance of two humans who thought they were equal partners in their little Triad. As if that were even possible. All three of them had already taken places at the head of the huge conference table, awaiting their guests to join them. Major General Ulysses S. Stahl was an Army 2-star on the Joint Chiefs. Balding with a paunch that required careful tailoring of his uniforms to hide, he had washed-out grey eyes. But he was not a man to underestimate. He had worked his way up from private, using his one tour in Iraq to gain an MBA on the GI Bill, parlayed that into Officer Command School, and proceeded up the ladder as a staff officer. Ambitious, street-savvy, risk-averse, he had early on learned the knack of ingratiating himself with superiors, learning their secrets and weaknesses, and using them to his advantage. He did this either by pandering and procuring for them, or using it as blackmail leverage. He was eventually assigned to Area 51, mother-lode of secrets. Almost immediately, he was approached by the Trust, and threw in his lot with them. His rise to the JCS was often described as ‘meteoric’ after that. He oversaw a number of government contracts that had been awarded to GlobalTech, at his discretion.Senator Aubrey Evans was a young and fit-looking fifty-five, attractive and personable, backed by his wife’s wealthy family and his former partners in a prestigious Wall Street law firm. He had a team of advisors who had been carefully crafting his political career for the past decade. He was Chair of a number of influential congressional committees. He was now positioned to become his party’s next presidential candidate. Ms Gant had offered support and cash, and had been recently named his chief campaign advisor. None of the three had any known relationship with anyone on the International Oversight Advisory council. They were all very careful about that. Any contact was made through third parties... The general’s aide and the senator’s secretary were both former NID, but both had managed to avoid being tarnished by the various ‘rogue’ factions that had ruined the National Intelligence Division. They maintained influential ‘friendships’ with those who had moved over to the IOA, having valuable experience working around the various high profile HomeWorld personalities. Stahl and Evans themselves had plausible excuses for being frequently seen around the GlobalTech offices. But *no one* could afford to be caught anywhere near the former VP. When Nun swept in with his own admin assistant, a mousy woman in thick glasses, a sour expression and dark hair pulled into a painfully tight bun, the tension level in the boardroom went up a few notches. Baal and Nun were not good friends. No two Goa’uld ever were, or not for long at any rate. Baal was of the opinion that he didn’t need the Lucian Alliance to make his plans for world domination work. He was pretty well positioned now, thank you very much. He might not ever take his place in front of the public eye as the master of all, but he had learned that political and financial influence was a far more effective form of power on modern Earth. It would be nice to have access to ships, of course, he had none at the moment (at least, none he was willing to confess to), but beyond that... As for Nun, he tended to be a bit contemptuous of the Trust for not having already dominated this little blue world, backward as it was. Vivian Gant leaned back gracefully in her chair at the head of the conference table, and smiled, a look that would not have been out of place on a shark. “Well. Lord Nun. To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?”“Oh, just an effort to keep in touch, Lord Baal. We have been waiting for the next shipment of zeds. Any idea when you might have more available?” Gant, Stahl and Evans all stiffened minutely at that. “We have encountered some... difficulties in that area. People are noticing. Law Enforcement agencies all over the planet have realised that zeds are disappearing at an unacceptable rate. Under such scrutiny, we have decided it would be... wiser, to suspend activities. For the time being. Give it a month or two, and we can begin culling again.”Nun tilted his head to one side. “Was your use of the word ‘culling’ intended to mean something? It is the word commonly applied to Wraith activity.”Gant smiled. Even less friendly this time. “Slip of the tongue, merely. Although I have heard some disturbing rumors lately of Lucian Alliance activity in Pegasus. You wouldn’t be trying to call those bastard vampires down on us, would you?”“Certainly not. Why would I? The considerable assets on this world are too valuable to us to just throw them away like that. Besides, Wraith don’t ally with anyone. They have worshippers, pets, food... and they don’t share any better than we do. Which isn’t to say they won’t arrive here at some point, starving and in numbers no single force can hope to stop. All it would take is the wrong human getting caught in their hands... and Earth’s position will be revealed to their Queens. Which means that it is all the more urgent for us to gather what tech we can now. To defend ourselves. And for that, we need zeds. Is there some other reason you are having... issues sending them to us? Are you, perhaps, hording them for yourselves? After all, HWS has amassed quite a collection of Ancient tech, not to mention Asgard salvage. None of it appears to be in your reach at the moment, but if our plans go forward, it will be.”Gant tapped one elegantly manicured finger on the polished table top, but did not answer, studying the rival Goa’uld. Baal had been a System Lord in his time... master of whole regions of this galaxy. His current... reduced circumstances, were a constant sting to his Goa’uld ego. This upstart mewling larva in Kinsey’s body was an annoying worm to him. An annoying worm with ships, in case a quick evacuation became advisable, for whatever reasons. But Nun’s pointed questions hinted that he knew something Baal wished he did not. Nun smiled, and his was the smarmy, smug, politician’s smile Kinsey had always favored. “Can it be, perhaps, that your sweeper teams have been caught in the act and arrested? Three in the past month, isn’t it? And one of your installations was a holding pen, some dozens of captured zeds... liberated?”Baal scowled. “You are well informed.”Nun’s smug smarm only increased. “I am. If you need help with this...”“I do not. We have had to rely heavily on certain Earth technologies in our organization and operations, and we are not the only experts at these. Our security has been... breeched recently. But we have a handle on it. GlobalTech employs some of the best hackers on this world. We have already pinpointed several of the ringleaders of this latest attack on our holdings. I have several sweeper teams on mission as we speak to neutralize the threat.”Miss Smith had opened a notepad as soon as she sat, and had busied herself with it as Baal and Nun parried words. Now she called something on her screen that she tilted so Nun could observe. “The Blue Jungle web-site?”Stahl and Evans both glanced at Gant. “It is a home-page for zeds and zed sympathizers. We have been trying to break its encryptions. We believe it to be the source of several computer viruses and cyber attacks on our dark-net operations. We have the names of some of the participants... three zeds, according to their government records. As it happens, your timing is… fortuitous. This very moment, we have launched two separate teams to collect them. If you care to wait a day, we can pack them up for you.”“You seem very confident, considering your recent… indifferent success.”Oh yes, the worm knew far too much. No doubt that was Eli David’s doing. Since the former spy-master had arrived back on Earth, he had been busily renewing all sorts of contacts with the Trust agents in other governments, and particularly the IOA. But Baal seriously doubted that even Eli had discovered what Baal was beginning to suspect... The zeds were getting help. It was the only explanation for the fact that the zed kidnappings weren’t going so well. A lot of it was from various official law enforcement groups, rallying in totally unprecedented ways to defend an ignored, once-despised and marginalized sector of the population. No doubt prompted by HomeWorld Security, certain branches of the FBI, Interpol, several more minor federal agencies, had closed ranks to jointly deal with the abductions. They were quick to notice the trend on zed kidnappings, and quick to mobilize, their actions surprisingly effective. Baal had actually lost six sweeper teams to arrest on charges of kidnapping, human trafficking and conspiracy, not three, and not one but five staging facilities. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Zeds themselves had been getting organized. The first few dozen they had caught had been talked into coming along willingly, with promises of better treatment than their own governments, neighbors or families had ever given them. But when they realized they were intended to be traitors to their own planet and the entire human race… most were not happy about that. And now it seemed they were becoming more political as a group, more organized, as never before, as evidenced by the Blue Jungle web-site and various off-shoots. The internet underground didn’t just facilitate various private and criminal enterprises any more, it also made it possible for zeds to connect with each other, for defense and support.The Trust had found it extraordinarily difficult to *hold* the zeds they captured. At least three holding areas had been destroyed in fires, two more left empty and deserted, the prisoners having escaped… and their jailors, those who survived, at any rate, had no idea *how*. Some complained of headaches and black-outs, some were seen on surveillance cameras collapsing into sleep… and sometimes shadowy figures came out of nowhere, seeming to have some… weird, almost psychic knowledge of where guards were patrolling, where locked doors were, how to open key-pad locks, how to avoid cameras and guards in their escapes. And when cornered, these mysterious interlopers fought like demons. Hard, fast, lethal, devastating in their reactions. Baal was guessing extensive military training, possibly black ops specialists. The Trust was flummoxed by their failures. They simply couldn’t figure out *how* it was happening. Baal remembered certain embarrassing… incidents, thousands of years ago… and he had an inkling. Since his return to Earth, he had certainly made it a point never to be too near anyone with a Z brand. The zeds from Ra’s time on the First World hadn’t been so adept with controlling other humans, however devastating they could be to symbiotes. But even then, they had their defenders, appearing out of nowhere, clearing out opposition like a whirlwind, and then disappearing like smoke.But, even with the present-day more conventional police interventions, how did they *know*? It had to be through the Blue Jungle web-site. And with the names of three of the ring-leaders, Baal hoped to put enough of a dent in the site that it could be taken down. A pity all three also happened to be FBI agents, but… they were just humans, after all. Zeds. And Geeks. With the teams he had sent… “Yes. I am confident that this time, we will succeed. Anything else, Lord Nun?” Lord. The title stuck in his craw. “Just that you had best hurry. I suppose you’ve heard… O’Neill is returning from Pegasus. He’s expected back at HomeWorld in the next week.”O’Neill… the very name put a shudder into Baal’s symbiote cartilage. As ever, when that shiver of fear shook him, he took a moment to dwell fondly on the torture sessions for that, albeit brief, period when the annoying pain in the *mikta* was his prisoner… knife, acid, pain stick… that infuriating human caught like a fly in a web… until, of course, he escaped, taking a prized lotaur with him and blowing up a vital research installation, and very nearly Baal himself… Oh yes. A name to conjure nightmares. Baal put on his most seductive Gant smile. “Is he really?”Nun sorted inelegantly. “You and I both have issues with the man. He is a significant threat to us both, and any plans we may have formed. I suggest we consider what counter-measures we might take that would be most likely to succeed.”Baal saw an opportunity to get some of his own back. “As to that. A little birdie told me that there was a recent attempt to send a nuclear device to Atlantis. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”Nun’s mouth twisted a little, as if chewing on a piece of particularly unsavory gristle. “That… was a mistake. A misguided servant taking matters into his own hands in an ill-advised unilateral action.”“Ah. So you weren’t the one to acquire the bomb for him? Or give him the information he needed to track down an SGC host?”Nun glared, meeting Baal’s mocking smile. For a moment the two Goa’uld stared at each other. It was Nun who blinked, upstart worm that he was. “Let us say it was a case of… indifferent success, and leave it at that, shall we? If we cannot take Atlantis, and that seems more and more unlikely as time goes on, we will need to make sure it cannot be used as a weapon against us. Is this not so, Lord Baal?”Baal was magnanimous in victory, uncharacteristic as that was for him. “I grant you that much.”Nun would take what he could get on this subject. Because he was still unable to figure out just *how* Atlantis had known about the plot… unless *someone* was able to read minds, as easily as an ATA-positive could control Alteran devices with their minds. Clearly a ridiculous notion.“So. You expect to have three zeds for me by this time tomorrow? To that end, yes, I will be visiting for a period of time. You know how to contact me, when you have these three zeds in hand. And then we will discuss Atlantis, and O’Neill’s future, in greater detail.”With that, Nun stood, Miss Smith behind him, and marched to the end of the room. Signaling for a beam-out.General Stahl huffed. “Bastard. Acts like he already owns the place. Like we’re nothing more than his minions. O’Neill is nothing much. Ask me, I’d be more worried about the rest of SG-1. Carter is too damn smart, Teal’c is a god to the Free Jaffa, and Jackson… there doesn’t seem to be a way to kill that guy, and have him stay dead. He has too many friends in alien camps. That alone is a bigger threat to us, surely. And you realize, Kinsey… I mean Nun, has drafted Hank Landry? Seems to think O’Neill’s old buddy is his pawn now. That fat bastard is already moving into offices in E-ring, and throwing his weight around. Nun obviously means to make him the Patriot figurehead, if we ever get that far.”Evans sniffed. “Instead of you, you mean? He does have two more stars on each shoulder, *Major* General, plus he’s Line, not Staff. Unlike you, the guy has seen actual action in the field, recently, rather than doing one stint as a supply drone on a tiny base. He has commanded troops in dicey situations, run operations... not to mention been in command of the SGC. That’s experience you certainly don’t have, in spite of the dirt you have on everyone and their mother. Anyway, you’re assuming a lot. Why does it have to be someone from the Pentagon in charge when we take over?”Stahl’s eyes narrowed at his Triad ‘partner’. Baal ignored their posturing. He glanced at Stahl, in charge of the sweeper teams. “When do your teams plan to move?” he asked. “Sierra team is leaving for the west coast now. Their target is Supervisory Special Agent Jonathan "Prophet" Sims, on one of the remote BAU teams from the FBI. They’ve been warned not to underestimate this guy. He’s a field agent, trained to take out serial killers and terrorists. More, he was jailed after a zed-bashing incident. Guy must be especially tough to survive for six years in San Quentin with a Z-brand.“Meanwhile, Foxtrot is getting kitted in Washington DC right now. We are coordinating both assaults, to prevent the zeds alerting each other. Foxtrot’s targets are two geeks from the FBI Cyber unit, working out of the Hoover Building. Neither of them are qualified for the field, a lot softer than Sims is likely to be. Analyst Raven Ramirez and special agent Daniel Krumitz.“Missions to begin midnight, east coast time. We should have all three back here at the Pier Six location by morning.”Å It was always an event when Sam Cooper and Prophet Sims took to the training mats together. Even when they were out of town on a case, the Red Cell Team liked to brag to the locals, be they regular law enforcement or the nearest FBI branch office, to stir up interest and maybe get a little under-the-table betting action going on. The Team Lead and the Supervisory Special Agent both had a rep in most circles for being bad-ass down-and-dirty fighters. Coop had the formal training, from the Academy, military service, and assignments overseas. Sims, on the other hand, as far as anyone knew, was purely self-taught in the various schools of hard knocks. To hear him tell it, most of it was survival skills learned in the northern California school yards of his youth, where he was often the only branded zed around, and therefore every bully’s target of choice. But since it was also common knowledge that he had done a stint in San Quentin before reforming himself and joining the FBI, most people realized he wouldn’t have made it even a day in the prison yard if he didn’t know how to defend himself against all comers. The very fact that he had bull-dozed his way into the Bureau at all with that brand on his wrist was considered testament to his stubborn determination. Not to mention, that of the boss who had hand-picked him for his team.After a particularly harrowing serial murder case in San Francisco was finally wrapped, the whole team needed to blow off a little steam before boarding the jet for home in the morning. Mick Rawson and Gina LaSalle had made sure word got out that their temporary quarters, a gym under receivership in the downtown Tenderloin district, loaned out for the Red Cell Team, would be hosting a case-end party. And, by popular demand, a hand-to-hand demonstration.The place was packed. In fact, the team cat, a big marmalade named, fittingly, Tom, had hissed at the number of galumphing human feet multiplying in his space, and he retreated to the top of a pile of crates, already packed with team equipment and waiting to be loaded on the jet the next morning. He was probably at least part Maine Coon, to judge by his size, weight and thick coat, medium to dark orange swirls, stripes and spots on a cream ground, but with scars on his snout and notches in his ears that indicated he was at least as scrappy as his partner, ‘Prophet’ Sims. The betting (ignored by any superiors who happened to be attending, especially since they all wanted to get a twenty on the action themselves) was hot and heavy. Mick and Gina traded knowing winks under Beth Griffith’s jaundiced and abstaining eye. With ‘Street Fighting Man’ by the Stones cranked on the PA system, Coop’s favorite sparring theme, the two men attacked each other with enthusiasm and a style of raw, no-rules mauling that had jaws dropping from one end of the space to the other. A couple of officers learning Krav Maga were just as in awe, since they had thought that was the ultimate in no-holds-barred ruthless martial arts. It went on for the better part of half an hour, neither party asking or giving quarter, and no indication either of them were prepared to yield. Blood was flying from a series of minor cuts on both men... inevitable when they had picked up sticks and chains at various points in the battle, only to be quickly disarmed by their opponent. Surely, the invited audience had to think, surely they would tire soon. Coop wasn’t a young man any longer, and no one was exactly sure how old Sims was, but the man known as ‘The Prophet’ had to be late thirties at least. What finally ended it, was a foot skidding on a slick patch of blood that had flown to the mat. Coop went down on his back, gave a groan, and before he could recover enough to lift himself, Sims made a flying leap that landed square on his stomach, knocking the breath out of the older man. “Yield!” Coop croaked out, and the match was finished, to a deafening roar of congratulations and applause from all sides.That was also a signal to wrap up the party, as bets were paid out, losers shaking their heads and going away happy, having been treated to a spectacle that was clearly worth the losses. The big winners, as ever, were Mick and Gina. Beth shook her head at the pair. “You’re not going to be able to get away with that forever, you know.”Mick winked knowingly. In his most charming grin, a touch of Belfast showing in his accent, he declared, “Sure we will. No one in law enforcement, military or other alpha profession is *ever* going to bet on a zed to win. Not in this be-nighted country, anyway. Just isn’t in their nature to believe it. Right, Prophet?”Jonathan ‘Prophet’ Sims helped Sam Cooper off the floor, handed him an opened bottle of water and a towel, and grinned, even as Gina stepped up with the first aid kit, to begin tending the minor wounds both of them had picked up. “That’s about the size of it, Mick.”Beth studied the tall thin man seriously. She hadn’t known him as long as the others on the Red Cell Team, and had heard only rumours about his... colorful past... “They say you learned to fight at San Quentin. That true?”“Hell no. I already knew how to fight long before I hit prison. Survival 101 for a branded zed. Although, I admit, most zeds don’t seem to have the knack for it that I do. Neither do my other people of choice... nerds.”“You? A Nerd?” Beth demanded.“You couldn’t tell? Gina may be our tech expert, and Penelope may be our analyst, but at a pinch, I can show both of them a thing or two where it comes to running a computer through its paces. It’s as much a survival requirement for a zed as the fighting, and I learned that early.”Sam Cooper, Mick Rawson and Gina LaSalle all took seats around the relaxed and talkative ‘Prophet’. He didn’t often fall into an expansive mood like this, but when he did, it was always worth gathering close and listening. Beth knew enough to be well aware, so she also grabbed a chair and settled in the circle of her team. She pretended to be the skeptic. “Computer mojo, a survival skill for zeds? That seems... counter-intuitive. Wouldn’t that just be another way of isolating you from the pack? Putting a target on your back from jocks and bullies looking for a target?”“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? And at the most obvious level, you’d be right. But then there’s a secret to it that only someone on the inside of the society of nerds knows. Not unlike the society of criminals in a prison.”“Do tell,” Sam challenged his old friend. “Very well, then... Gather, children, and allow me to elucidate.”“Oh goody! Story time. I *love* story time,” Gina declared.“Then you should be happy with this, because it just so happens I’m a Secret Master of Fandom in my spare time.”“Secret Master!” Mick drawled. “How didn’t we know this about you, Prophet?”“Um, *Secret* Master of Fandom? And if you don’t know what that is, be patient, all shall be revealed. “First of all, it must be said, even though we all know it to be true, bullies will *always* find a target. Sure, zeds are their favorite, most obvious, and in days past most socially acceptable, but we aren’t the only marginalized sub-sections of society, we’re pretty rare on the ground, and often not the easiest to get to. We learn early and well the advantages of running and hiding, and we fight dirty. “In the olden days, and I’m talking the fifties and sixties here, apart from the visible minorities, women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, name an ethnic minority... there were nerds. Yes, even then. We knew them as the AV kids. When the teachers didn’t want to be bothered to learn how to load 8mm film into a projector, they called on these kids to run the audio-visual equipment. Yes, before you ask, that was me. And outside class, we took refuge in the libraries, often staffed by the previous generation of AV kids. We read science fiction and fantasy, mostly. Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, Tolkien... you can see the attraction. The heroes are the little guys, the brains, scientists and tech-savvy, not the football jocks. In SF&F, it’s the geeks who inherit the Earth... or leave it altogether for the stars. Call it escapism if you want, but that’s what we needed… solitary, isolated and marginalized, not the most physical, easy pickin’s for the bullies… you bet we grabbed at any escape that presented itself.“Then two cultural landmarks appeared, practically out of nowhere. First was *Star Trek*, the original original, and later *Star Wars*. Both were *made* for nerds. We were the target audience, already primed from the books we read, and, yeah, okay, Kirk was a golden boy jock to his core, but Spock? Scientist as hero? Oh yeah, he was *ours*. And by we and ours, I mean nerds, not zeds. But it seems these shows had a wider appeal. In a volatile time when lots of different oppressed groups were finding their voice, so did nerds. The voice we found was to protest cancellation of *our* show, *Trek*, but still. We found others of like minds. We got organized. We found our power. With a write-in campaign, we got *Trek* renewed for one more season, at least. And then the conventions started up. Of course, there were science fiction conventions before that, the first WorldCon was in 1939, I think. But with *Trek* and *Star Wars*, the media attention, the con scene exploded. All across the world, almost any weekend, you could find a little local convention, *somewhere*, for the like minded, the fans of *Trek* and science fiction and fantasy in general. Where once we were alone, hiding out in the carols at the back of the high school library, now we had our own far-flung communities. We coined a name for ourselves, Fandom. And those who were outsiders were Mundanes. Now *we* were the ones marginalizing the rest of society, finding a place where we were uniquely suited for fitting in, some of us for the very first time.“So when home computers started to arrive in the mid-eighties, it was just a natural progression for us AV kids. Computers were our way into the future we already read about and imagined for ourselves. And Nerd-dom was born. Scratch a programmer, any programmer, even today, and you find a member of fandom. Gamers, costumers, filkers, fanfic writers, they all evolved from there. It was like our own secret society. And we *loved* *X-Files* with its conspiracy theories, because we had our own secret underground conspiracy going, right from the start. “Now, and here’s where zeds come in...”“We had wondered,” Mick Rawson joked, glancing at his team-mates.“Well, wonder no more. Once the internet arrived on the scene, it gave us a platform for instant communication, expanding the fandom horizon. Talk about the universal leveler! On the internet, race, sex, physical attributes or attractiveness... none of that is visible. It’s mind-to-mind communication in its purest form. Connections made are not based on visible form, but on character and personality. Which suddenly made it safe to be ourselves, whatever we were in real life. We just naturally gravitated to our own brand new peer groups.“And you know, the fandom community, born of those targeted by bullies for being too weak, too fat, too smart, too weird… having found a sanctuary in a community of our own making, is remarkably tolerant of differences that, in our perception, don’t really matter. Yes, we have a definite ‘us versus them’ mindset. But the ‘us’ is defined by our personal obsession with science fiction and fantasy, in any of its forms on any media. ‘Them’ are all those who don’t understand that appeal, and mostly mock us for them. As long as you don’t make the mistake of dissing our fandom subset of choice, we’re amazingly inclusive and embracing of such minor inconsequential things as LGBT preference or dual genders.”“Dissing your fandom?” Gina asked.“The worst thing you can say to a fan is, ‘Oh, I used to read that science fiction stuff when I was twelve... then I grew up.’”“Um, yeah, okay, I can see that.” Gina colored, as if running her mind over past interactions, to see if she had been guilty.“Like a lot of zeds, I found my way into fandom first. I was a real fan of *Battlestar Galactica*... the first one. Sure, it was a blatant *Star Wars* rip-off, but it had its own charms. Lorne Greene was *the bomb*. That voice… Then the various internet communities started up. I made connections specific to us, zeds. It’s perfect. No one, and I mean *no one* in power or authority pays any attention at all to the fandom community. It’s the perfect camouflage. And, you know... whoever is behind that latest Thom E. Gemcity novel, zed cops in space, is practically a gift from the fandom gods.“So when I had my little... shall we say... *contre temps* with that group of ass-holes in my local bar one night...”“Where you ended up with a ten year sentence for assault and battery,” Gina huffed, enraged all over again by the injustice perpetrated, “and the other guys all got off scot free...”The Prophet shrugged. “I survived. Made me tougher, as Nietzsche said. I got time off for good behavior. And who says they got off scot free?”That brought the whole team up straight, staring at their friend. It was Sam who ventured, “They didn’t?”“Well, all five were bankrupt within six months, no homes, no cars, no savings, the two married guys divorced, and none of them have managed to hold a steady job since... seems every time they try, their employers get an email with information... let’s just say it’s damaging to their reputations. One of them is on the sex offenders list. For cause, so don’t get bent out of shape. An anonymous note to the cops revealed his part in a series of rapes. Bastard did time, although not as much as me, and not in Quentin, worst luck.”Beth was developing a healthy respect for this cipher of a man. “Your work?”“Mine, with some help from my friends. I have a *lot* of friends, in fandom and online forums. It’s always good to have friends. And you know, the whole time I was incarcerated, no one ever questioned my computer usage... it was all considered to be nerdy and therefore harmless.”“Wow. Never piss off a nerd, I guess, eh?” Mick grinned.“Not if you value your credit rating,” Gina agreed.Å Raven Ramirez packed up her stuff and passed by the desk of her team-mate, FBI Cyber Unit’s Senior Field Agent Elijah Mundo. The man, usually vibrant and attractive beyond the telling of it, had lately looked more and more drawn and pale. His blonde hair lost its life, his blue, blue eyes went dull. He was still a kick-ass agent, able to leap tall buildings and bring down armed felons in a single bound… but today he had been stuck doing paperwork from their last case, and that bored the hell out of him. His posture as he sat scrunched up over his computer station had grown more and more tight as the day wore on. His mood had not improved with several obviously personal calls he had taken over lunch, to his ex-wife Devon. Plans for him to take his daughter Mitchie for the weekend were apparently not going well. Lij had been complaining of headaches lately, rubbing his temples and stretching his neck with a grimace of pain. Raven wasn’t sure what was going on with him, but she had her suspicions. So she approached, making her treads on the floor heavier to alert him to her presence, then began a slow, soothing massage to his tense neck. Those muscles were rock-hard and took some work to get them to relax. Lij’s moan of relief, and the way he slumped back in his chair, at ease for the first time that day, spoke volumes. “Thanks, Rave,” he said. “More trouble at home? Anything I can do…”“No, it’s okay. It’s just something Devon and I have to work out. It’ll come. In time.”Raven sighed. “Okay. But… just know that we’re all here for you.”“Yeah… I appreciate it. You heading out?”“Yeah. Just filed the last of my paperwork. Krummy and I are going to see the new Marvel movie, catching the last show. You wanna join us?”Lij gave a little chuckle. “A comic book movie? No thanks. I prefer the online games to the actual comics. You guys enjoy yourselves, though. I have to finish this…” His eyes had been meeting hers over the back of his chair, but now they drifted to the side… as if tracking something… Raven turned around, expecting to see someone there. The office was all but deserted, well after regular office hours. Krummy had left an hour ago, was going to meet her at the food court in the mall where the movie was playing. No, the only other living thing in the office right now was her white-and-tabby cat, Boots, who was sitting with long tail coiled around his neat paws, looking up patiently. “Lij? Something wrong?”Mundo shook his head resolutely, rubbing at his eyes. “No! No, just… I guess I’m a little tired. Paperwork is the worst.” He leant down to pat the purring cat.“Uh-hunh…” Raven replied skeptically. No one had mentioned that two cats seemed to have joined the team in the past few months. As long as no one jumped up on lab counters, knocked over delicate computer parts or disarranged anyone’s files, and the covered box that had appeared at the back of their space didn’t start to smell… well, no one currently on the Cyber Unit staff was allergic, and everyone liked to have something furry to pat. It was a great stress-reliever. Boots was a sociable and friendly creature, even if the solid gray Laney, who haunted Krummy’s desk and was never seen far from his wake, was more shadow than presence. Mundo shook his head. “You wouldn’t think I was crazy if I said I was… seeing things? Like, out of the corner of my eye? A… an animal? Maybe?”Oh yeah, Raven was pretty sure she knew what was really bothering her friend right now. She leaned over his shoulder, tapped a few keys to save his work (which he hadn’t actually been working on for the past half an hour) and called up Google for a search.“Sentinels?” Mundo raised his eyebrows. “You’re kidding, right? That’s a Marine myth. Something the drill sergeants use to scare us in basic. And… there was this guy at FLETC, expert sniper and retrieval specialist, instructor for the advanced classes… rumor was he sometimes had a cheetah following him around… but it was just talk.”“Just read that. And call me if you have questions. And take it easy tonight, okay? I don’t think you’re seeing things. Well, things that aren’t actually there, anyway… By the way, Lij, what animal do you see?”Mundo huffed at his team-mate, and with an almost guilty look around, began to read the file she had called up. “Well, if you must know… a black bear.”“Oooh, cuddly.”Raven was almost at the door and out to the hall when Mundo called out, “Rave? Be careful out there tonight, will you? Last show gets out around midnight, right? Just… don’t go anywhere alone.”Raven stopped and turned, regarding the concerned man seriously. If something was prodding his inner sentinel awake lately… Raven was only too aware of the current risk profile for all zeds… “I will, Lij. Krummy and I both will take all the precautions we can.”Boots trotted out on her heels, joining her in the elevator, and then giving her a *look*.Raven sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I get it. But if they really are out to get us, it won’t matter where we are.”Å The Red Cell Team had dinner together at a local Chinese restaurant, just one of the many such first-rate eateries indigenous to San Francisco, then sauntered to their hotel to get an early night. Mick and Prophet peeled off to get a last drink in the hotel bar, saying good night to their team-mates. No one noticed the marmalade shadow slipping under Prophet’s stool. And no one seemed to see, either, the nebulous haze behind Mick Rawson that maybe, possibly, looked like a large bird. It settled on top of a chandelier, without moving the crystal pieces, as if it had no weight or substance to it at all. In fact, even Mick seemed unaware of the presence... although Prophet did glance that way once or twice, a thoughtful frown on his large, slightly receding brow. “You doing okay, Mick?” he asked his team-mate. “Me? Sure. No worries. Why do you ask?”“Oh... no reason. I thought you might be sporting a headache earlier on.”“Naw... or if I did, it went away. Liked your story, by the way. A secret conspiracy of nerds, world-wide, hiding in science fiction conventions and internet chat rooms? Priceless!”Prophet shrugged, glancing around the hotel bar. There seemed to be at least two men lurking at the corner table who didn’t fit the usual hotel clientele, or the neighbourhood. Mick had clearly scoped them out as well, his SAS background never lost, no matter how much time he had spent with the team on this side of the pond.Mick focused on his drink, a tall Guinness, and offered casually, “Trouble.”“Yeah. But not for you.”“The hell it’s not for me. You expecting this?”Prophet shrugged. It wasn’t that he had psychic powers... none he would admit to, anyway. But he was known on the team for having certain... instincts that went well beyond the usual ‘gut feelings’ most law enforcement personnel relied on. “There’ve been rumors lately. Zeds disappearing.”“Yeah. I’ve heard ‘em. You think...”“Anything... odd happens, and I want you to call Garcia. She’ll handle it.”Mick frowned, bristling, prepared to get stubborn about this. If there was trouble sighting on his partner, he wanted to be there, or maybe on the nearest roof-top, shooting the hell out of whatever it was. Just the idea that someone might target Prophet made him feel positively medieval. If not authentic cave-man. On the bar light fixture, the banded bird-of-prey seemed to become more corporeal. “Prophet, if you think...”Jonathan ‘Prophet’ Sims looked his team-mate dead in the eye and said, “It’s nothing, Mick. Nothing at all. Finish your drink.” The Brit blinked, seemed confused for a moment... then obediently downed the last of his ale, slapped Prophet on the back and wished him a good night’s sleep. The cloudy bird shape lingered a little after the one-time-sniper left the bar, attention focused on the tall thin man staring into his scotch and soda. There was a faint meow from under his stool, and the man nodded absently. Then he paid his tab and sauntered casually back to the still-lively San Francisco street... a marmalade cat at his heels, and two dark figures on his tail.Å Raven and her Cyber Unit partner, Daniel ‘Krummy’ Krumitz, both thoroughly enjoyed their movie, and eagerly planned a second, and even third showing as time and cases permitted. They stopped at the one open coffee kiosk in the quiet mall after the movie let out, to happily discuss the film, their favorite parts, nit-pick the details… how it was and wasn’t faithful to the original comic characters… which concerned Krummy more than Raven. She just wanted more strong female characters to be represented. And both of them lingered over their caffeine hits of choice, well aware that there were a couple of sinister figures lurking at other tables, rather ostentatiously taking no notice of them. “There’s more outside?” Raven asked her companion.“Bet on it,” Krummy agreed in resignation. Lots of people, well, most people, took one look at Krummy, an obese and unprepossessing young man, and wrote him off as no threat. They didn’t know the man was the best white-hat hacker in the world. Or that his firing range test scores, under Elijah Mundo’s careful tutelage, were outstanding. He might never make a four-minute mile, but his brain could easily run any criminal ragged. And the Cyber Unit didn’t hire people for their physical prowess, or, in the ordinary run of things, need that kind of support. Elijah was something of an anomaly among them, but a welcome one.Finishing their paper cups, tossing the trash, Krummy challenged, “You ready?”“As I can be.” Raven wasn’t often sent into the field. She had no aptitude for it, in her own opinion, or any interest in getting shot at. So she was a little revved up and nervous right now.“Don’t worry, Rave. We know they want us alive. We’re too valuable to them, for whatever it is they have going on.”“Yeah. Okay. Maybe.”So, eyes wide open, trembling with anticipation, the pair marched out of the mall, cats at their sides. Two silent human figures in black trailed them, into the parking lot… and straight into the expected ambush. Anesthetic darts, a rush of black-garbed men from the shadows between cars, an unmarked white van screeching up behind them, and bundling them hurriedly into the back… it was a smooth and efficient operation, obviously well-practiced. Strange, then, that none of the abduction team seemed to take much notice of the two cats who leaped into the van, just before the doors snapped shut.As he succumbed to the tranquilizer dart in his neck, Krummy took considerable gratification in the knowledge that the bad guys had sent a full ten-person team to grab them. They’d need at least three to carry his unconscious body around. Or, you know... maybe a fork-lift. Å Elijah Mundo was just that few minutes too late to stop the abduction. All he got was the glimpse of the white van as it screamed by him, practically on two wheels as it cornered, back license plate muddied and obscured. He grabbed his cell phone and called for back-up. He winced at the bellow of a black bear somewhere behind him… the same bear that had led him out of the bar where he had stopped to get a club soda and watch a bit of the game… until that antsy, hair-raising feeling that had been dogging him all day made it impossible to sit still any longer. When the bear turned toward the mall down the street, Elijah just *knew* this was going to be bad.He could *smell* the trail that led out of the mall… Krummy’s Old Spice aftershave, that light floral scent Raven denied using that was probably her supposedly ‘unscented’ soap… not to mention the trace of popcorn and butter from their movie, the latte and espresso coffee from their after-movie stop. Raven’s purse had been dropped and kicked under a car… he left it there. When the back-up team arrived, they would need to check it for forensics. That wasn’t his concern at the moment. No, Elijah Mundo, former Marine (because there was no such thing as an *ex* Marine), hot-shot FBI field agent, was absolutely *furious* that anyone, *anyone* had dared to take his team-mates! He could barely suppress a roar every bit as savage and terrifying as the black bear at his back.“Okay buddy,” Elijah muttered to his (possibly) imaginary partner. “Let’s go hunting.”Å

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Å Raven, like Krummy, like Penelope Garcia, like most hackers she had ever known, had got into that life-style (and it *was* a life-style, living vicariously on the digital landscape) because dealing with people on the internet is just *sooo* much easier than Real Life. Or ‘RL’ in internet and text-speak short-hand. The reasons they tended to avoid real people varied from person to person... background, upbringing, intelligence, obesity, past trauma, obsessive interest in arcane genre fiction, some with personality disorders, a lot who were on the neural-atypical spectrum. Anyone, really, who couldn’t find a way to even *pretend* to be normal, given society’s moving-target and narrow definitions for what normal even *was*. But no matter what passed as normal at any one time or in any one place, zeds were never *it*. There was a time when Raven had been infuriated by being shut out like that for an accident of birth, a toss of the genetic dice. It had made her crave revenge against the world for excluding her... turned her into a black-hat hacker. Until she was caught by the FBI, and offered an opportunity to turn white-hat by Avery Ryan. There’d been some rough times... there’d been some incidents that bordered on betrayal by her superiors... eventually ironed out, but leaving Raven with a bad taste in her mouth. Then ‘The Blue Jungle’ web site was launched... it was not unlike the first Sci-Fi convention Krummy had dragged her to. Entering a room full of people watching an old Doctor Who episode... the Doctor declaring he could resolve the problem by ‘reversing the polarity of the neutron flow...’, and fifty people all laughing at once, at the same in-joke. It felt like coming home. Like she belonged, for the very first time. In that room, with those people, she felt... safe. Welcomed. Then they had attended a panel on zeds in media... And she met that colorful legend in hacker circles, The Black Queen herself. The tall, gangly young man with her in the Fourth Doctor costume, adorable with his curly chestnut hair crammed under the wide-brim hat, and self-knit mile-long multi-colored scarf... She’d rarely formed such instant friendships before. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to preserve that feeling, that sense of community. As the focused and targeted danger to zeds became more and more clear over the past few months, she had realized that she had joined an underground war, almost by accident. These were her people, and she was on the front lines in their defense. Raven was no one’s idea of a warrior. But she was a survivor, and she had valuable skills. Quiet and retiring, unassuming, definitely an introvert, she often escaped notice, in spite of her exotic appearance and understated beauty. Not to mention the ‘Z’ brand on her wrist. That personality camouflage could only work in her favor now. Especially with Krummy, his large physical presence and bombastic voice shouting through the chicken-wire walls of their cage, doing everything he could to attract all attention to himself, and away from her. They had woken up in a warehouse, smelling of fish and salt-water. It was a huge mostly-empty space, the outer walls lined with wooden crates, the roof three stories above, with beams, cranes and block-and-tackle equipment on automated chains and tracks. Grimy glass windows, most broken out, lined the top-most part of the walls, with a few sky-lights provided that actually failed to let much light in. There were stairs and platforms at various levels, a few darkened offices at one end of the ram-shackle building, and some huge hangar-like doors that were firmly shut against intrusions from outside. On the floor of the warehouse, right in the center with clearances on all sides, were a series of cages hastily built to hold dozens of people. Raven wasn’t sure, but she thought she recognized a few of the others being held. She’d never met most of them in person, but their pictures had appeared on their social media pages... and others were familiar faces from various cons she had attended. There was one guy in particular. She remembered him for making a fuss at one west-coast con when he took exception to an organizer objecting to a realistic-looking ray-gun on his *‘Wormhole X-Treme!’* costume, for being against con weapons policy. What was the name... Felger. Yeah, that was it. Jay Felger. She’d felt sorry for him and took him to coffee after, reassuring him that security would return his ray-gun at the end of the con. He had the circle brand of a Z-positive on his wrist, though, not the full ‘Z’, so why was he here? Had someone made a mistake somewhere?“Geez,” Krummy muttered when the guards passed them by. There were about a dozen of them circulating, heavily armed, with both conventional and tranquilizer guns. “There have to be about fifty people here.”“Fifty one,” Felger corrected glumly. “Including you guys. I counted.”“Fifty two,” Raven offered, nodding her chin toward the newest team of bad guys, dragging in one more prisoner.Most cells had at least five captives already, hers and Krummy’s only the two of them, so naturally, the new arrivals approached their cage. One big bully of a guard warned them both to stand back, then opened the cage door and rolled in the last prisoner. And his big marmalade cat.As soon as the door was locked again and the guards retreated, Raven and Krummy rushed to attend the new arrival. As they half suspected, it was someone they knew. At least from their internet secure chat room.“Agent Sims?” Krummy asked, nudging the groaning man. “Aw shit... they tranqed me, didn’t they?”“They tranqed all of us,” Krummy verified. “There’s two more empty cages, so I think there’s time before they... have a full load, so to speak, and move us on.”Groaning, Prophet Sims managed to sit up and accepted a bottle of water. Their jailors were supplying their creature needs, at least. Krummy and Raven had witnessed them ushering zeds in ones and twos to the washrooms at the office-end of the warehouse, and bottles of water and paper bags of fast food were being passed around.“Know where we are?” Sims asked. Krummy shrugged. “Process of elimination... we think New York City. It’s a guess, though.”The Prophet nodded. They had thought as much. “Everyone here local?”Raven shook her head. “The ones in the far cells don’t even speak English. This is an international operation.”The agent glanced around. “Cats?”“About ten percent of us,” Raven verified, patting her own tabby-and-white Boots. Grey Laney was there as well as the marmalade, who saw one of his fellows getting some love and shoved his nose under Raven’s hand for his share. She grinned. “Introduce us?”“Oh, that’s Tom.”“Boots, Laney. And I’m Raven Ramirez, and...”“Krummy. Hey, man. So. The plan?”Krummy shrugged. “Stage one and two complete, as you see. Just hope stage three is also going according to spec, or we’re all in deep shit.”Prophet had managed to sit himself against part of the cell’s wooden frame. He sized up the situation and the numbers of guards... “Yeah. I can handle maybe five, six at a time... you?”Krummy shook his head. “I’m not so good at it yet. Get one hell of a headache with even one or two. Raven’s a bit better, more control, but we’ve never tested her out.”“Yeah... the advantages of working in the field... the team feels too lucky when an unsub collapses in a faint to wonder how or why it happened. I’ve had a bit of practise. But still... we’re going to need help from outside. These guys know the score?”“That we’re being trafficked for unknown reasons by persons unknown? Yeah, as much of the score as we actually have. Although Felger over there has some interesting theories... he says Thom E. Gemcity’s latest maybe isn’t the fiction it’s supposed to be. He thinks these guys want us to work alien tech of some kind, with the aim to conquer the planet. I’m not liking that idea so much. No matter how badly my home planet has treated me because of my gender status.”“Yeah, what you said, brother,” Prophet agreed, with lots of nearby head-nods. “I guess, as a theory, the alien tech notion isn’t the worst thing we can come up with... on the good side, at least it means we’re worth more to them alive than dead. Always reassuring.”Å Unseen on the roof of the Pier Six warehouse on the docks of New York City, a tall, slender figure in a dark suit stretched senses he was still getting used to, in order to assess the situation below. He tuned in to several conversations, prisoners and guards alike, for clues. He was going to need as much information as he could get. In his ear-wig, the voice of his boss added a bit more to the picture. “There seems to be an FBI staging area being set up at the far end of the pier, made up of several divisions, as well as Interpol presence. And you’ve got at least two FBI agents incoming, each acting independently, as far as I can tell. Special Agent Elijah Mundo of the FBI Cyber Unit is arriving by taxi at the end of the pier. Special Agent Mick Rawson of the FBI BAU Red Cell team landed by private jet in La Guardia an hour ago, but I lost him in the crowds at Union Station. I’m presuming he’s headed your way as well.”“Mick Rawson?” asked John Reese in some surprise. “From Belfast? Ex-SAS?”“So it would seem. You know him, Mr. Reese?”“Yeah, I do. Hell of a sniper. He turned FBI?”“Recruited personally by Supervisory Special Agent Sam Cooper for a specialized team under the wing of the Behavioral Analysis Unit.”“Ah. I remember Cooper. That explains it, then.”“Explains what, Mr. Reese?”“How he got Rawson to fly all the way to America and give up footie. Listen, Finch, if there’s any sign of these guys getting ready to pack up and ship out, let me know. Until then, I’d prefer to wait until I have Rawson on site for back-up.”“You trust him? If he knows you and informs the FBI...”“He’s coming to rescue a team-mate, Finch. He’s no threat to me. And by the way... Care to explain to me why this ended up on your list, instead of the Relevant List for the government? It seems to me this is a pretty clear-cut case of a national security threat, which makes it one for the proper authorities. Especially if some of these guys are right about their conspiracy theories, and this is step one in a wider attempt at some kind of political coup. And if there’s already some kind of FBI task force gearing up, why were we also tagged to help?”“You tell me, Mr. Reese. How much attention is any official government agency going to pay to the plight of a few dozen, or even a few hundred, zeds?”“Okay, point... even though, since that mess in Arkansas, there’s been a lot more positive attention paid. No more brands, even a couple books with zed heroes...”“I believe you would say a day late and a dollar short, Mr. Reese. There’s no indication that the Machine has sent any information on this situation to our friends on the other side of the fence. Or if it has, it’s been completely ignored, to the extent that the Machine sent it to us instead. Samaritan seems to have certain… blind spots, particularly when it comes to zed trafficking. Or maybe it’s the operators with the willful blind spot… As for the task force... There’s no way to tell, at this point, what their priorities are, and if the hostages might be considered nothing more than collateral damage.”“Hm. So... some of these guys seem to think they’re being grabbed to run alien tech. As in not-of-this-world alien tech. Thoughts?”“Sounds like a Thom E. Gemcity plot.”“Yeah. That’s *exactly* what I thought. Ah. I think I’ve got incoming...”“Incoming? Ah. Blonde man in dark jeans and T and leather jacket. That would be Special Agent Elijah Mundo. Former Marine. I don’t suppose you know him, too?”“Nope. I don’t know *everyone* in special ops, Finch.”“Oh really? Just the most dangerous?”“I’m moving to keep him in sight. Stay on the line, Finch.”“Always, Mr. Reese.”Å ~ “You are being watched. The government has a secret system: a Machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know, because I built it. I designed the Machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people; people like you. Crimes the government considered 'irrelevant'. They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up... we'll find you.” ~ Harold Finch, Admin.There is a secure basement bunker, somewhere in New York City, well off the grid, even in an urban center sporting more CCTV camera surveillance than almost anywhere else on the planet. The enigmatic Harold Finch monitored the impressive array of custom designed computer equipment and extensive surveillance monitors he had running on the current operation. The only solid fact known about him was that Finch was *not* his actual birth name. Finch’s Machine was the ultimate artificial intelligence for identifying and tracking dangerous persons about to be involved in *very bad things*. It had been programmed to separate identified threats into ‘Relevant’ and ‘Irrelevant’ lists, depending upon the degree of threat to society as a whole. To keep its operation from the public, who might object to the highly illegal invasion of everyone’s privacy such an intelligent system represented, the ‘Powers That Be’ had resorted to some pretty ruthless and *terminal* measures to keep the secret. Finch, for instance, was assumed to be dead. Their clandestine black ops teams had suddenly become incredibly efficient in stopping global terrorist threats the past dozen years. This had been noted, but not explained. For run of the mill ‘irrelevant’ threats to human life... that list was supposedly deleted each night. And as far as those running the program were concerned, that was what happened. But the Machine had a ‘back door’ in its programming, that allowed it to deliver that second list to its ‘Admin’, Finch, in defiance of the PTBs. He had recruited Mr. Reese (also not a birth-name and presumed to be dead) to help him intervene on behalf of ordinary people who also needed protection from *very bad things*. Whenever that ‘Irrelevant’ list contained multiples, it was always alarming.At Finch’s side, his dog, Bear, a Belgian Malinois, was napping on and off in an effort to handle boredom. Of late, a scruffy alley cat with tabby markings in swirls, stripes and spots, had been lurking around the ‘dungeon’, as Reese called it. The lurker occasionally stole nips at Bear’s food bowl, but was wary enough to keep his distance. Bear didn’t approve – the cat had the run of the rat and mouse population, after all, so it could get its own food. Fending off the interloper kept the dog alert to intrusions of all kinds. So now, he lifted his head to sniff... and a familiar visitor invaded their space. The attractive, cocky brunette took a moment to lean down and pat the appreciative dog on his head and offer a bone-shaped treat before coming up behind Finch and draping herself over his shoulder. “Yo, Harry. What are you up to? She told me to get my ass down here and help. Your trained monkey taking on something too big for him?”Samantha Groves, better known and preferred to be called Root, was... an interesting case, Finch felt. She was still very much a criminal, might be clinically defined as a psychopath, certainly a sociopath. Her unique and very personal relationship with the Machine seemed to have... humanized, or maybe even ‘tamed’ her a bit. She had herself stated that she hated and despised humanity, but she was dedicated to serving the Machine, a much worthier... entity. Finch was unclear whether Root actually considered the Machine to be a goddess of sorts. But, delusional or not, she had proved to be... handy to have around upon enough occasions that Harold had given up trying to get rid of her. The Machine wanted her help... so the Machine got her.“Mr. Reese is in the process of gathering assistance of his own, thank you,” Finch told the woman. Root took over an office chair, and quickly brought herself up to speed on the latest mission. “Oh wow. Trafficking zeds? Shouldn’t that be a job for the government drones, Shaw’s old buddies?”“You’d think so.”“Ouch! FBI agents? Three of them? Oh, that is not going to go down well... one of them is BAU, and two of them are Cyber Unit. Oh, I know someone who will *not* be pleased!” Root seemed to be enjoying this particular aspect of the current case. In some alarm, Finch said, “Don’t even think it.”“Think what?” Root asked, feigning complete innocence.“You leave Garcia alone, Miss Groves. I’m serious.”If Mr. Reese’s, and Ms Shaw’s, for that matter, connections into the exclusive and tightly-knit clandestine black ops community was occasionally hazardous to their own security, then the hacker community was just as small and incestuous a sub-culture. “Oh, come on, Harry. You don’t think we could use a little good will from that quarter? We rescue her ‘fine furry friends’ and she’ll be suitably grateful. Maybe even help us out occasionally.”Finch glowered. “Penelope Garcia is the one hacker in the world fully capable of running circles around us both. Those three agents were specifically targeted by this group because they were identified as participants in the Blue Jungle web site.”Root took over a laptop set up nearby, and easily found her way to a selection of code pulled up from the site, quickly becoming notorious in certain circles for the viruses that were known to be attached to it, if you didn’t behave yourself while surfing its tabs and links. Root’s dark eyes widened, and she whistled. “Oh, wow... trackers? To the dark net... oh, that’s *got* to be Meow Meow at work. Those id traces... it’s a trap.”“Yes. Exactly. Alerts were sent out to the appropriate sources the moment those three agents went missing. If you’ll notice, the FBI branch office in New York is currently assembling a team, with support from their International Response Team, and Interpol.”“So... why does She think they need you guys to get involved?”“That’s what I’m trying to find out. In the mean time... do *not* tug on the kitten’s tail.”Å Reese spent a careful half hour just watching Agent Mundo work himself closer and closer to the warehouse on the end of Pier Six. The bad guys, whoever they represented, had at least twenty men patrolling the pier, and keeping sentry around the warehouse itself. Then there were a full dozen more on the inside, keeping watch on the prisoners. And John was pretty sure they were all well-trained, probably by the military. Question was, what military? Not all were American, he was fairly sure.Mundo himself was good. *Very* good. In fact... almost... super-humanly good. He dodged and weaved around the pairs of sentries with ease, seemed to know instantly when anyone was coming around a blind corner, or sneaking up from an alley. He easily made himself one with shadows and piles of crates... And when John thought he saw a large bulky shape behind the man... a bear, maybe... he blinked and reconsidered. “Finch? You know that web site you showed me the other day? The Blue Jungle? You remember it talking about ‘sentinels’?”“Yes, Mr. Reese. I told you I felt you might display certain attributes that might qualify you as one.”“Yeah. I remember. Wasn’t there something about... spirit animals?”“Well, yes, some of the literature available, and there isn’t much, most of it the fanciful conjectures of a Dr. Blair Sandburg...”“Yeah, well, unless there’s a black bear got loose from the Central Park Zoo, then I think Agent Mundo is one of your sentinels.”A shadow passed over Reese’s perch just then, of a large raptor that dipped into the canyon made by warehouses on either side of the pier. A bird in banded grey-blue and black strafed just above the heads of humans... who didn’t seem to notice it was there. The bear did, though, as it tipped back on its haunches and bellowed out a roar, to which the raptor screamed an answer. Mundo also seemed to take note of the bird.“Well well, John. Greetings, mate. What brings you to the big apple?”Reese let a smile curve his lips. He hadn’t heard the sniper creeping up on him... that never happened to him. Never until now, anyway. “Hey Rawson. I live here now. Going by John Reese. The bird is yours?”Mick Rawson blinked, even as he unpacked his sniper rifle and other equipment. “Uh... I guess so. The bear?”“Belongs to the blonde down there in the alley. FBI Agent Mundo, or so I’ve been told.”Rawson blinked again. “Elijah Mundo? DC Cyber Unit?”“That’s the guy.”“Hunh. Why’s he so far from home?”“He’s got two team mates in there. Krumitz and Ramirez. You?”“Me too. Jonathan ‘Prophet’ Sims. And you?”“I was, er, sent by a concerned third party.”“Uh hunh. So, sit rep?”Å The tall dark-haired man who entered the crowded trailer at the end of Pier Six flashed credentials that identified him as Jarod Doyle, an NYPD detective. There were maybe two-dozen FBI and Interpol here, all dressed in dark tactical garb, bullet-proof vests emblazoned with their affiliations, and armed to the teeth. Every desk and filing cabinet surface was covered with maps of the pier, laptops providing links to another van down the way, a mobile operations center provided by the FBI. Jack Garrett approached the new-comer in the NYPD vest. “I think we have a mutual friend. Bailey Malone, FBI Violent Crimes Task Force, out of Atlanta, Georgia.”“Yes,” Jarod smiled as they shook hands. “I’ve worked with his team in the past. You’re with the FBI’s International Response Team, right?”“Jack Garrett, team lead. Yeah. We’ve been tracking zed abductions.”Jarod’s eyes slipped to the shadowy silver-backed fox lurking at Garrett’s heels, and then at a similarly ghostly presence on his own shoulder, a small, alert chameleon. As nearly as he could figure, his fellow-sentinel had not yet acquired the ability to see the nebulous presence of spirit guides. Or maybe he was one of those too rooted in the real world to credit these apparent hallucinations. He glanced around the trailer-turned-temporary-office and staging area, and noted a number of spirit guides present, alert but keeping out of the way. The attractive brunette who seemed to be leading the Interpol team had a midnight-black wild cat of some kind hidden under her midnight-black hair, but didn’t seem to realise it. And, unless he missed his guess, there was at least one more sentinel, attached to the white-furred macaque monkey sitting on a filing cabinet in the corner.Garrett’s eyes also drifted to the cat, monkey and lizard... so maybe not so unaware as Jarod had thought. The FBI agent gave a thin smile, then hiked his chin. “Come on. I’ll introduce you around. This is a member of my team, Matt Simmons.”The Asian guy with obvious military tactical back-ground nodded and smiled. Ah. The monkey. “You know Jack Malone? FBI, New York Missing Persons Unit.”“We’ve crossed paths,” Jarod agreed affably. “Jack? And Martin Fitzgerald, right? You guys taking point on this?”“No, that would be me,” inserted the attractive brunette with the wild cat. “Emily Prentiss, Interpol. Garrett’s team has been helping us with this zed trafficking case. We’re estimating something over a thousand zeds have gone missing in the past few months, world-wide. We’ve encountered... difficulties, getting some governments to take this seriously. We think some of them are actually participating, selling their own citizens into the pens. We’re hoping the connection to the US portion of the operation will give us a shoe in the door for shutting them down. It’s not just zeds they’re trafficking, after all. There are also suspected links to terrorist and spy network connections, illicit weapons and tech trading. We also think they’ve got moles highly placed in certain foreign government and international organizations.”Jarod blinked. “Hunh. And it all led you here?”Prentiss nodded. “We’ve got satellite and CCTV surveillance on that warehouse,” and she pointed to a high-tech monitor which showed a map of the pier, with heat-signatures of a lot of people in one particular warehouse. “They currently have three FBI under-covers as hostages, as well as almost fifty other vics. Our first priority is getting those hostages out of there, safe and sound.” The stunning and forceful brunette was absolutely rock solid about that, and Jarod found himself smiling. Yeah, the Black Queen’s friend was a good one. The number of sentinels present didn’t surprise him, really, including the three more who were lurking down the pier, black bear, harrier hawk and black wolf-hound. But the fact that almost all of them here were Z-positive, well, that did. He was Z-positive himself, although he bore no brand, not with his... complicated past. When Jarod had learned of the plan to smoke out this conspiracy of zed kidnappers, he had known he had to be part of the extraction. If only because he couldn’t trust any entity in authority to do right by zeds. Before the Arkansas case, *everyone* had found it easy to turn a blind eye to the abuses and injustices. But, it now appeared, there were at least some pockets of officialdom dedicated to doing the right thing, for the right reasons. And it felt like his mission, to protect zeds. Something he just *knew*, soul deep, the first moment his jewel-coloured spirit guide showed up, bringing with it a whole new world of sensory awareness. Hard as it had been to gain control of the newly heightened senses, the advantages were glaringly obvious and welcome. And the immediate threat he felt to the tribe had been impossible to ignore. The chameleon on his shoulder flicked out a tongue at his ear in approval.“Sounds good to me. You got a plan?”Å When the black limo appeared on the pier, it drove right up to the warehouse, and the wide doors were slid back to allow it to proceed up the ramp and inside. Evidently, it was expected. Inside were three large, uniformed and armed body-guards, to surround one attractive blonde woman in a grey business power suit with a bright fuchsia blouse. The leader of the militia inside the warehouse presented himself, standing at attention, just short of saluting, but making an odd bow from the waist, hands clasped at his back. He addressed the woman in a language none of the captive zeds seemed to understand... or none but one.“Omigod...” gasped Jay Felger. “That’s Goa’uld! They’re speaking Goa’uld!”Those close enough to hear just stared at him. Prophet prompted, “You understand what they’re saying?”“Well, no, *I* don’t speak it... but I know it when I hear it.”“Shut up, Felger,” muttered another man in the cage with him, a tall thin scraggly guy with long hair tied back in a pony-tail, and a perpetual sour twist to his mouth. “Oh come on, Kavanagh! These guys are Trust! You know that! We’re toast! They want us for our ATA genes, and you and me, we know enough Ancient tech to be valuable all on our own. If we don’t play their game, they’ll kill us... probably more than once!”There were cats all around, on crates, in shadows, on beams far above, staring at all of them, Raven noted. Some familiars and some just feral strays from the surrounding alleys and dumpsters. All of the animals seemed to be avoiding the cage where Felger and Kavanagh huddled. Kavanagh more than poor Jay, or so it seemed to Raven, who was more tuned to feline presence than most. Which seemed odd to her, since it was Jay who was spouting crazy-talk.“I said shut up!” Kavanagh snarled, with some reason. “There are civilians all around us, and you have no business spouting your mouth off. Or didn’t you sign the same shit-load of NDAs when you were drafted, same as me?”“Shit Peter, you’re just sore because the gene therapy turned you into a—““Shut up!” Kavanagh practically screamed, vaulting to his feet and looming over Jay, who backed up and cowered. Both men bore circle brands, not Zees, but they wouldn’t be here at all if they weren’t zeds. Raven could only speculate that they had managed to avoid the full branding, somehow, or erased it. There were ways, after all. Whatever the two would have said was abruptly halted when the woman, bodyguards and militia leader all approached their cage. The woman smiled.“Dr. Kavanagh. Dr. Felger. Please excuse these rather primitive accommodations. This was the handiest black site we had available for you when we were finally able to make contact.”“You mean kidnap us, you bastard!” Jay spat out, incensed.“Well... yes. If you like. You wouldn’t have given us the time of day if we had tried to approach you in any other way, now would you?”“Absolutely not! You’re enemies to the entire planet, you... you traitor!”“Or its salvation, did you never consider that? Especially for your kind, persons of dual gender and the advanced ATA gene complex. At least we know how to value your unique qualities.”“Yeah, I can see that,” Jay sneered, gesturing to the squalid collection of cages.“A temporary holding and staging area, I assure you. But let me introduce myself. I am known as Charlotte Mayfield—““Wait. I know that name, from the SGC mission reports... you’re Athena, aren’t you? Baal’s lieutenant! You kidnapped Vala Mal Doran, but we raided your operation and got her back.” Felger grinned smugly. “Not that good at kidnapping then, hunh?”The woman’s cool blue eyes stared a moment, before they... flashed, white-hot with some weird kind of inner light that had the captives all shrinking away, before the woman spoke... in a weird echoing doubled tone, as if there were more than one person inside her, using her voice. It was a disturbing, deep, ominous tone.“Yes, I am Athena, in service to Lord Baal. He has sent me to extend his greetings and offer you an honoured place with us. These others we are prepared to turn over to our allies, the Lucian Alliance. Some of them, at least. But we have better plans for you both. Come, join us, and run your own labs as you like. I think you will be impressed with the state-of-the-art facilities we can make available to you. We have much technology that needs... suitable expertise in order to repair and operate.”“Not a chance, you... you... harlot!” Jay shouted.The woman merely dismissed him from her attention and turned to the second man. “And you, Dr. Kavanagh? Your choices are limited, after all. You can serve us, willingly, or be a slave to the Lucians. Are you as blind to your own welfare as your companion?”Glancing once at Jay, then warily at the other prisoners, he nodded. “I’ll come willingly. What has the SGC ever done for me, after all, but insult, demote and punish me at every turn? With Landry gone, they even put some fucking effem in my place, in charge of the labs, and sent me to a storage lockup in Idaho, for fuck’s sake! Not even Antarctica, or Area 51!”“Because no one else would have you, you screw up,” Jay grumbled.“Yeah, and look who’s talking. Get me out of here, and I’ll do whatever you want,” Kavanagh vowed.Enraged, Jay struggled to his feet, fists clenched at his sides, and he bit out, “Why you sneaking, snivelling, lousy...”Kavanagh made a growl and threw a punch that landed squarely on Jay’s chin, then kicked his feet out from under him, landing him in a heap on the dusty floor of their cage. “They turned us into fucking effems, Felger! You think they care? You think we can ever go back? What the hell do I owe any of them? I for one am not sticking around to play sex slave to a bunch of alien mafia. You want to go down in flames, more power to you. Good luck with that!”Athena, or Charlotte Mayfield, whoever she was, smiled, and with a gesture, the cage was opened and Kavanagh hustled outside, and into the waiting limo. The woman passed a strange hand-held device to the militia leader. “Here’s the list of assets we wish to keep for ourselves. The rest we are willing to pass to the Lucians. Divide your packages accordingly, and secure our choices in the shielded basement, out of sight. The rest will be taken away before nightfall. Tomorrow, transport will be provided, you will load our special ‘guests’ and accompany them to another location. We are going to abandon this facility, so pack everything of value or use, and be sure to ‘sanitize’ this building as you leave.”The leader bowed. “Yes, My Lord.”As the militia withdrew from the cages, Athena climbed into her limo, and it drove away. The three FBI agents exchanged glances, before gathering at the chicken-wire barrier separating them from Jay Felger. Raven knelt. “You okay, Jay?”“Oh sure, Raven. That guy can’t hit for shit. But to throw in with the Trust... what a loser!”“You know who these people are, then?”“Oh sure... um... well, maybe I shouldn’t say. Peter was right about that much, at least. I signed a foot-high pile of Non-Disclosure Agreements, promising never to tell anybody any of this, on pain of being thrown into a deep, dark hole for the rest of my natural life.”“You mean like this one?” Prophet asked blandly. “And that Athena, or Mayfield, or whoever she is, kind of spilled the beans anyway. Kind of hard to miss the glowing eyes and alien voice-box. So... *’Wormhole X-treme!’* and the latest Gemcity novels... not so fictional after all?”“Plausible deniability,” Jay admitted glumly. “You’re taking this kinda... well.”Prophet shrugged, glanced at Krummy and Raven, and grinned. “Hey, zeds as descendants of an advanced alien race, able to work all kinds of nifty alien toys? What’s not to like? Better than nature’s mutant mistakes, any day. Right? Say, Jay... you have a cat?”Å In their aerie location, John Reese and Mick Rawson traded raised eyebrows. They watched as the limo pulled away and headed off Pier Six... only to be stopped by a barricade of FBI agents. But when the doors were pulled open, the driver and burly bodyguards were there, but not Charlotte Mayfield, or Dr. Kavanagh. “You did see that flash of light from inside as they drove away, right?” Mick asked tentatively.“Oh yeah. *Star Trek* transporter beam?”Mick sighed. “Prophet has this theory about a geek underground of sci-fi fans forming their own conspiracy to fly under the radar of the rest of society. Wouldn’t it be a kick in the gut if they were right all along? That the truth really is *out there*?”Reese shrugged. “Beyond my pay grade, buddy. I leave that kind of global thinking to my boss. So, Finch... are we waiting around for more revelations, or do we think we’ve got enough on these guys? And by us, I’m including the task force down the other end of the pier. Because if the bad guys have beaming tech, I’d as soon get those people out of there now, rather than wait around for the pick-up.”“I have to agree with you there, Mr. Reese. The Interpol agent in charge apparently thinks so, too. They’ve got a wire inside the warehouse and have been listening in. Ms. Prentiss is ready to make a move, but is waiting for some kind of diversion.”“Diversion?” Reese wondered aloud.Mick Rawson seemed suddenly aware of his own revelation. “Well bloody hell... the Prophet’s been keeping secrets. Get ready to move, mate. Mundo, I know you can hear me down there, get ready to take out the two hostiles on your side, John and I will handle the rest. You’ll know when it’s time to move.”Å With orange Tom in his lap, Prophet closed his eyes. Raven and Krummy both took their cats as well, and focused. In other cages, there were two more who had a familiar at their sides, although Jay wasn’t one of them. However, there was one feral black tom outside the cages giving him the serious eye. Each of the zeds had their targets picked out... twenty five mercenaries, or Trust members, that they could see, although no doubt there were more patrolling outside, and more in the offices at the warehouse south end. Five targets each... Folding themselves into lotus positions, their hands clenched in cat fur to stabilize the headaches they knew they were courting... Å You can’t *see* a blast-wave of psionic energy spreading out, dissipating as it goes... but the sentinels, at least, could *feel* it. And inside the warehouse, twenty-five unknown subjects all dropped where they were standing. The task force members raced to get there. The external sentries were all down for the count, three of them with bullets in knees, groaning and clutching their wounds, while seven others seemed to have been in a brawl, and got the worst of it by far. Inside, more of the khaki-uniformed men were... asleep. Ready to be zip-tied and dragged away. The cages were thrown open, and the tearful and grateful captives were released. Raven, Krummy and Prophet, along with two others who didn’t seem to know any English, were all dizzy and weak, barely able to keep conscious in the aftermath. Mick Rawson was suddenly just *there*, holding his partner. “Easy now, Prophet. Take it easy. Take deep breaths.”Elijah Mundo also ran in, to cradle Raven in his lap and hold a steadying hand on Krummy. He glanced at Rawson. “That going to work?”“Hell if I know. Breathing is better than the alternative, though.”Elijah glanced around. “And your friend with the black wolf-hound?”Mick shook his head. “What friend?”Elijah nodded slowly. “Okay. Fair enough.”Mick straightened at one glad sight. “Emily! My one true love! Get your arse over here and help me get Prophet on his feet, will you, luv?”Emily Prentiss grinned. “Mick Rawson, as I live and breathe. I might have known you’d find a way to get invited to this party, hot-shot. I have it on good authority, however, that you need to let these guys rest for a bit before you ask them to do anything as strenuous as sit up and take notice. I got EMT’s lined up to supply them with the really good headache remedies.”Meanwhile, Agents Jack Garrett and Jack Malone and their teams were collecting the liberated zeds and attempting to get names and addresses for everyone. Emily had told them that she doubted they’d get much cooperation. Zeds didn’t have much reason to trust authorities of any stripe. And past experience had taught her that once ‘liberated’, those who had fallen into the trafficking traps immediately went underground, hiding from everyone. Jack Garrett glanced around for the NYPD detective, Jarod Doyle, but he didn’t appear to be around. They would probably need an NYPD liaison for the clean-up of this mess. Penelope Garcia was already supplying all the evidence and leads on the shell corporations behind this warehouse, not to mention ferreting out backgrounds on all the players... but it was going to take old-school police work to handle the victims.Å On a warehouse roof not far away, John Reese encountered another tall dark and handsome man, somewhat younger than himself. The NYPD flack jacket had been removed, the black jacket and police cap ditched somewhere, but this was definitely the man who had claimed to be a rep for the local LEOs. But even as John bristled, readying himself for a confrontation, the solid-seeming form of a black wolf-hound appeared under his hand... and he belatedly noticed the rainbow-colored lizard on the stranger’s shoulder. “Hello, sentinel,” greeted the stranger. “You can call me Jarod. I believe we have friends in common... I got a note from Penelope Garcia telling me to introduce myself.”With a sigh over his ear-wig, plainly heard by his fellow sentinel, Harold Finch said, “Yes, Miss Garcia has advised me that we should probably meet, to discuss matters of mutual interest.”Jarod smiled. “That would probably be a good place to start.”Å

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Å The planet Arkhan, tucked away in a remote corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, might look backward to most, a series of small villages engaging in mostly subsistence-level farming to support their small and scattered population... but that was before King Arkhan the First arrived to take the throne. Well, not so much throne, maybe, as the biggest intricately carved wooden chair in the largest town, closest to the Stargate. Arkhan the First had all sorts of ideas... for wells, water wheel mills, building projects, more efficient land-use, decent sanitation, indoor plumbing... and had made those ideas a reality in the few years he had been among them. He got them access to ploughs, seeds for hardier crops, domesticated animals that could forage in the wilderness and fallow fields. And the man was a ruthless and awesomely effective negotiator with trade partners he had located through the chaapa’ai.The people loved him. He had fought back the last of the Goa’uld, kept them fed, had seen their population grow in leaps and bounds without so much pressure on them, even accepting refugees to extend the ‘gene pool’, as he termed it. And he had loved the people right back. He smiled, he laughed, he was often heard to say that he didn’t miss the noise and pollution of his home planet, or the risks and dangers of his old job. And with three devoted wives and a dozen kids running around his feet... yeah, he was a happy man.He was also a paranoid man, used to strategic thinking and planning for the worst. So they had silos and stockpiles of supplies against crop failures or famines. They had caches of weapons hidden everywhere, in case another rogue Goa’uld arrived, thinking they were easy pickings. His personal guard, and the various village militias in each settlement, were all well-trained, and sentries were alert and drilled on every possible event. Or, as he called them, ‘scenarios’. While there had been no recent invasion attempts, several recent accidents and natural disasters – animal predators, falling trees, bad storms, floods, lost children – had all been resolved quickly, efficiently and happily thanks to their training and preparedness. They had heard from traders about the Ori, a threat to the entire galaxy that, for whatever reason, had passed them by... Arkhan himself was inclined to think their little planet was too remote, too small to be considered strategic, but would have eventually come to their notice. So they cheered and celebrated the day visitors of the Tau’ri had come to tell them the Ori had fallen. Of course, the universe is big, and threats without number, even in quiet little backwater agricultural communities. Maybe *especially* in quiet little backwater agricultural communities. Even big bad space pirates have to eat.Å There had been one visitor, the year before, landing in a tel’tak spaceship, reconditioned Goa’uld salvage from one of Heru’er’s old holdings, apparently. The puffed up jaffa in command, his black forehead tattoo reflecting past allegiance to Anubis, yet another dead false god, had demanded to be taken to their leader. He had a rag-tag group with him, jaffa and human both, all dressed in bits and pieces, some armor, some leather and homespun, not even a hint of impressive uniforms, but all armed to the teeth. They seemed a little wary of the welcoming committee, a collection of villagers with bows and arrows. But, please! How could that intimidate them, with their zats and staff-weapons? Still, the natives showed no concern or fear of them, merely gave them escort into town. And, by the way, flanking them as they entered the narrow streets to the central plaza, forcing them into an indefensible single-file formation. Some of the more attentive of the group also noted snipers in concealed rooftop positions, for good vantage. Their leader, announcing himself as Da’ru of clan Kauket, began immediately making demands of their King Arkhan the First. The Ori were coming, they would all be killed, unless Da’ru and his fleet were there to protect them. This they would do, but there must be tribute. The villages were to supply them with all the stored food they had, and would make additional tribute whenever their ships returned to claim it. With a serious expression, sitting relaxed in his throne, one hand holding his bearded chin, the other tapping lightly on the chair arm, Arkhan nodded occasionally as he listened to the pitch. Subtle hand signals informed his people to play along – he would wine and dine these interlopers for the night, find out all he could from them, get them drunk... and in the morning they would decide what to do with them, depending upon the intelligence they gained. The Ori might be gone, so that was certainly a lie, but if they indeed had some kind of fleet, there might need to be further actions taken. The Arkhanians might not have a ship of their own any longer... the one derelict they had found they couldn’t actually operate, so they had given it to the Tau’ri. For considerations, of course. But those allies would definitely come to help them in their need. These guys were Lucian Alliance, obviously, and so the Tau’ri would be only too happy to take them off their hands.King Arkhan, with the help of the local bubbly and his small but select corps of ‘happy-time’ girls and boys (a well honored and respected profession here on Arkhan), sucked these idiots dry of information as if they were lemons in a juicer. So he learned of the Lucian clans, and while clan Kauket might indeed have a fleet, they weren’t exactly organized, and this tel’tak was on its own, sent out to gather as much food as it could, because the rest of the Fleet crews were fucking *starving*. But, scattered as they were, independent operators as they were, in no hurry to announce to their clan if they could keep valued assets for themselves... Basically, no one knew where they were right now, which planet, which sector. Idiots. It was almost too easy. Just a brief call to Jack back on Earth, and SG-2 arrived to pick up the prisoners... but Harry Maybourne would keep the tel’tak and the confiscated weapons, thank you very much. They also kept one enterprising member of Daru’s group. One of the low-ranked slave humans, a bright kid named Asad, instantly changed allegiance once captured, offering to teach the locals how to fly the tel’tak if they let him stay as one of them. And, bonus, the tel’tak had a cloak. So now the planet Arkhan had an early warning system for uninvited visitors arriving from space, rather than by the well-guarded Stargate.Å Harry had been rather expecting to find Arkhan back on the Lucian radar, sooner or later. He kept an ear to the ground, always, so was well aware of recent developments among the Lucian clans. He had many sources of information, among trading partners, mostly the Tau’ri, but also a lot of Free Jaffa colonies, planets freed from Goa’uld rule, some Tok’ra, even a Serrakin trader, who kept him up to date. One of his best sources turned out to be their Lucian convert, Asad. Harry had mounted a few ‘rescue’ ops, raiding Lucian holdings to liberate slaves, all kin to Asad. And, yeah, they loved him for it.As much as he liked his new life of bucolic bliss, he knew himself well enough to recognize that he did, occasionally, miss the adrenaline rush of a full-on black op. Freeing slaves? Hell, didn’t that actually make him a hero? Eat that, Jack O’Neill.His tel’tak crew was the first to alert him, to the ship arriving in orbit – not Goa’uld salvage this time, but an honest-to-god Ancient deep-space cruiser. Bigger than an al’kesh, not so big as a ha’tak, but no doubt packing one hell of a punch. But when the sleek white ship coasted into high orbit above Arkhan, all it did was sit there. And then the Stargate activated. Å Gerran, his trusty and scarily adept Captain of the Royal Guard, was there to greet the visitors with her core unit, and escort them into town. At the first alert, the sentries and secondary back-up unit had immediately moved into position. It was all well-oiled protocol by now. They might not know who these strangers were (and they were strangers, never before seen on this world), or where they came from, or even their business here, but they had absolute reliance on their King discerning their true purpose. They carefully noted numbers and arms. Their leader was wearing what they recognized to be Tau’ri fabric, if not the usual SGC uniform. He appeared to have no weapons on him, but his two large and burley companions, who walked like warriors, wore uniforms of a kind, and sported Tau’ri-style projectile weapons. ‘Rifles’ and ‘guns’. Good for long range assaults, but in close quarters battle, easily circumvented and confiscated. Her unit knew exactly what to do if the command was given. They arrived in the plaza, and Gerran saw her King start in surprise. He seemed alarmed, but when he noted she and her unit had bristled in preparation for hostile action, he gave the signal to hold and await events. “Ex-Vice President Kinsey, or should I say ex-Kinsey? Who are you these days, anyway?”“Colonel Maybourne. I am Nun of the Lucian Alliance.”Harry restrained a snicker at the cost of snorting out his nose. Not dignified, but... what the hell! It was the beginning of an Abbot and Costello routine! “You’re none of the Lucian Alliance, then who are you one of?” Yeah, he couldn’t resist. The smarmy smiling politician face dropped into glowering Goa’uld arrogance, and a flash of lit-up eyes. He was proud of his people for holding firm... not even a wince of surprise or fear. Just another day at the office for them, and they knew he had matters well in hand. Even if he didn’t. Kinsey, god damn it. His former boss. Or thought so, at least. For a time their interests and goals had... coincided. But Harry never considered the man a boss. As a human, Kinsey had been all about the power and control, his manifest destiny to take over the Oval Office, and to hell with honor, morality, ethics, right and wrong. He had spouted a good line in biblical fire and brimstone, but it was all for effect, to gain votes and support... self-serving twat. And not even very intelligent at that. An idiot who was *just* smart enough to put himself in the pockets of the right Washington power-players. Who, naturally enough, turned out to be an unholy union of rogue NID and Goa’uld, or Goa’uld sympathisers. Adding a symbiote to the mix didn’t really make that much difference, unless it was to up the bastard’s IQ. But Nun? Really? A Goa’uld named Nun? Like the dead false god Yu, there was just no way to keep a straight face when addressing him. How the hell was he supposed to take this guy seriously with a name like that? He’d have to be extra careful not to underestimate him... But, oh, the joke potential... he almost wished Jack was here for this. “I am the Goa’uld Nun. I command one of the clans of the Lucian Alliance. I come to you, Colonel Maybourne, with an offer. Should I say... an offer you cannot refuse?” And the smarmy smile was back, the fucker.“Well, you *could* say that... if you wanted to fall into a really bad cliché. I’m not real fond of clichés. And wearing a three piece suit? Who are you trying to impress? You do realise this isn’t Wall Street, or the Hill? Suppose you tell me straight out what you want.” The hostility was purely for effect, to see just how far he could push this guy, what an angry and arrogant Goa’uld might let slip when annoyed by less-than-slavish Tau’ri-brand insolence.“Colonel, I *will* be straight with you. I want your assistance and contacts on Earth. I am well aware you still have many friends in high places and in many nations. You have leverage to use against many more. Evidence of corruption of various kinds that can be used as blackmail to enforce compliance. You are also a very astute leader. My host remembers this clearly. You have skills we will soon be in need of, as our plans reach fruition. Your expertise and knowledge of your home world would be invaluable to us.”“Yeah… uh hunh. I haven’t been to Earth in years. It may have been home once, but… Any contacts I may have had… most of ‘em are dead, retired or in jail by now. As for evidence you can use as leverage? I hate to tell you, Nun, but there never was any. I used innuendo and guesswork, and bluffed my way past actually showing anyone what proof I might have. Your host was a politician… you know how that works. Just the threat of exposure can be enough to sink a career. Threats, I could do. Nothing you can’t handle by yourself, though.”“You refuse?”“Let’s say I’d need more detail on exactly what you want, and from whom.”Nun bowed his head, granting this. “We have plans afoot that will soon win us control of Earth.”“Oh really?” Harry drawled, skeptically. Kinsey’s best smarmy politician smile answered him. “Yes, really. We have made many inroads on your home world in recent months… with just a little more help, we can overthrow the entire convoluted, complicated, divided mess. You should consider that in your decision-making process. If you consent to aid us, when we do take control you will be welcomed home, to take your proper place in the inner circle of our leadership. Pick a country, any country, and it could be yours to rule. Back to the luxuries and amenities of a technologically advanced and highly populated world, all the servants you could wish for… whatever purpose. Instead of…” and the man glanced around him at the modest village, the modest chair, the home spun and eighteenth century tech. “… this.”As if all they had built here, all they had achieved, was nothing, less than nothing. As if feeding themselves wasn’t enough. Everyone on the plaza stiffened. The people bristled at the insult, and grew to fear. Their King came from a far richer and more advanced world, they knew… might he be swayed by these blandishments? Might he actually consider leaving them?Harry hummed, and tapped on his chair arm. His personal guard, and all the people bearing witness, settled and relaxed. The signals told them to hold, to play along. “That’s certainly an incentive, Nun, I have to admit.”Not a yes or no from their crafty King, but just enough encouragement to get the interloper talking. “And… we also need supplies and tribute in exchange for protection.”“Ah, yes, now this one I know. Against the Ori, I suppose?”Nun laughed. It was odd, when Kinsey had never laughed… “Hell no, against *us*!”He made a hand signal of his own to his minions, one of the men drew out a communicator, and whispered a few words… and from the clear blue sky, there was a streak of lightning, or so it seemed… The cloaked tel’tak watched in horror as the orbiting Ancient cruiser fired a plasma weapon on the helpless world below. The plasma shot made a smoking crater in a nearby empty field. “It would take us, maybe, ten minutes to eradicate all of your villages, King Harry. Or you can give us what we want, and we’ll all be friends and allies. In *all* of our endeavors. So what do you say?”Harry blinked for a moment… his hands seemed restless on the arms of his throne… then his face burst out, all warm smiles, and he stood, laughing and holding his arms wide. “I say we be friends and allies! Welcome to Arkhan, friends! Give us a minute or two, and we’ll put on a feast in celebration! Come on to the royal palace, and we’ll talk.”Å The party lasted well on into the night, until even a Goa’uld, with a metabolism made to absorb massive amounts of alcohol, began to be woozy. But he was also reassured that he had an accord with the one-time NID Colonel. He knew that Harry’s own sense of self-preservation, and astute eye to the main chance, would see him on their side in the end. His host had been sure of it. Offer him a place in the Earth hierarchy, once they were in command, and he was their animal, through and through. Makepeace had tried to warn him, Harry might not be the kind to *stay* bent… but Kinsey had known better. So Nun had called for the cruiser to land so it could be loaded. The transport and transmit beams were not yet operational in this particular vessel, as some systems still needed repairs. Then he took his two bodyguards and departed, back through the stargate, planning for this ship to rendezvous with their fleet at a later date. Å Gerran reported. The three had gated out – not to Earth, but she had noted the destination address, as protocol dictated. Å Gerran also led the first collection of carts to approach the landed cruiser, sitting like a beached whale in the field that was now a crater. A portal had opened in the side and a gangway extended to the ground to enable loading. There was a small crew, barely enough to run this monster craft, surely. One ‘captain’, three ‘lieutenants’ made up the officer complement, the rest were lackeys of various kinds, mostly armed.And then there were the three prisoner-slaves, obvious by the manacles and chains that bound them to their posts. Asad, one of her special unit, signaled to her that he did not know them. They were cuffed in metal restraints, and chained to the command consoles on the bridge, wearing simple tunics. Under their hands the gleaming and impressive technology seemed to brighten and hum, as if alive. But they cowered, in fear, of the armed men and women all around them. Oddly, each of them seemed to have a companion… a cat, one each. It was very odd. Gerran had never seen a real cat before, just pictures of the Earth creature in the King’s books from his home… and the legends they had of Goa’uld Lords keeping such animals as pets. Were the slaves Goa’uld then? As per orders, Gerran and her unit, and the farmers assisting in the loading of food supplies, all put on their welcoming faces, offered wine and beer and invited all to a bonfire feast outside the ship to begin immediately. The ship would need to stay grounded for a while yet, after all, as more deliveries of food arrived from farther villages. The carefully counted crew of fifteen, not including the three slaves, left chained on the bridge, were all there, wined and dined through the evening and night, happily enjoying the company of the laughing girls and boys who seemed more than willing to offer more… intimate company. One by one they drifted off to a nearby wood, for privacy… The seven jaffa needed the additional encouragement of a log swung to the back of their heads, but the humans were more easily felled by the potent local alcohol alone.As Gerran entered the ship bridge, one of the three prisoners stood and faced them, protecting the other two behind her. “Have you subdued all of the pirates?” she asked. Gerran nodded, and presented a key found on the captain, with which she unlocked the manacles on the three. “They have all been taken prisoner and restrained. We have a cell for them, and even a jaffa or Goa’uld will not escape. You are free, my friends, by the command of our King, Arkhan the First.”“Oh god, thank you...” wept one man, curled into a ball on the floor, his cat, a solid black with one white paw, mewing in distress as it licked his chin, attempting to comfort. The brave woman shut her eyes in relief, then opened them. She bent to pat the young grey tabby cat at her side, his coat patterned in stripes, spots and swirls, but with a white face. The woman took a fortifying breath as she drew strength from her companion. “Perhaps you should take us to your King, then. There are some things he needs to know.”Å Mireille Racine, late of Toulouse, France, Arvinder Gaguly, of Mombai, India, and Sergei Rostov, born in Russia but smuggled out by his family to Poland, all decided that they (and their cats) would much prefer to remain with the people of Arkhan, thank you very much, rather than return to Earth. The planet of their birth had not been kind to any of them... “Oh? Why’s that?” Harry had asked. They glanced nervously among themselves, then Mireille, the brave one, announced boldly, “You were once of Earth, correct? An American? We’re zed. We possess a special gene that enables us to operate Ancient technology. We were stolen, all of us, and many more zeds as well, abducted by our own people and sold as slaves to those... to those... *connards*! They need us to operate the ships they have stolen, bought or salvaged, but we only worked for them under duress. But now... you say we are free, that we can return home... but we do not know where that might be. We will not go back to Earth, to people who sold us and have treated us as animals, as mistakes, as abominations! We are Furalin. An ancient and noble race in our own right. But you, who freed us... will you reject and spit on us too?”Harry opened his eyes wide. “Zeds, hunh? And all with the ATA gene?” he blinked a moment, then grinned and held his arms wide. “Gender-schmender. Welcome to Arkhan! Home of the Free! Of course you’re welcome here. Now tell me more, my beloved children...”Å It was the middle of the night on Atlantis, of course... wasn’t it always, when some new crisis arose, which meant it became necessary to rouse the General out of bed? Chuck was on duty in the Command Tower Ops Deck, and he had received a call... “It’s on a subspace frequency, one used by the Ancients, sir.”Jack, his grey hair mussed and suppressing a yawn, waved his hand vaguely, prompting Chuck to open the channel. “Oh, now, hey, this is cool. You actually got Atlantis on this thing?”Jack blinked, startled. He leaned over to the mike and said, in tones of shock, “Harry? That you?”“Hey Jack! Yeah, it’s me, calling from the newly-christened *Grande Reine*. That’s an Ancient battle cruiser to you… we just… acquired it, along with the crew who can control her.”“I thought you were making hay as King Arkhan the First, in the Milky Way.”“Oh, I am. So, Jack... You taking a little fishing vacation out there in Pegasus? Too bad… while the cat’s away, it seems the rats will play.”Yeah, no, Jack thought in despair. A happy Harry Maybourne on the horn was never a good sign, as far as Jack was concerned… and he had spent his evening getting all the way mellow, enjoying the benefits of a full-on rousing threesome with his mates. After the initial shock of multiple accidental pregnancies, both he and Vala had embraced their new life-style and the prospect of an expanded family with unbridled enthusiasm. Daniel was still looking dazed and confused about the whole thing, more shocked by his sheer level of happiness, but he’d come around soon enough. The only fly in Jack’s ointment right now was his impending return to Earth.“The *Reine* is pretty cool, Jack. When you can, why don’t you drop by, take a look? We’ll give you the full three-dollar tour. And hey, bonus, her scanners are fully functional, and she just located about a half dozen more of those puddle-jumper things, stashed all over Arkhan.”“What!?” Jack shouted. “Now, hey, don’t have a cow, Jack. None of these have that nifty super time-travel circuit, like the one we gave you… But still, pretty cool.”“Not if you can’t fly them!”“Who says we can’t? We just liberated three Lucian slaves who are *more* that willing to give us a hand with this. So it’s all good in Arkhan-land.”Jack groaned. “These slaves you liberated…”“Yeah, they’re zeds. You been falling down on the watch, Jack buddy. The Lucians have been stealing your people, my people, our people, for months now. They’ve got at least a hundred in their grimy slaver paws, from what my new citizens tell me. But they’ve already discovered that not all zeds are created equal when it comes to working the really spiffy Ancient tech. But you know what? Gender-schmender. Who the hell cares what their gender is? I love my new guys to pieces, and they’re happy to be rescued from *everybody* on Earth… none of them have been treated at all kindly. And with what they tell me, I just might be able to go and liberate a hand-full more from their evil Lucian oppressors. Complete with ships, of course…“But see, Jack, buddy, the reason I called you… you’ve got trouble, my friend, right there in River City. You got a hell of a problem to clean up.”“Oh yeah? Tell me more…”Å It took an hour, or maybe a little more, and Jack was no longer inclined to sleep, as more and more of the Atlantis Executive turned up to listen in.Harry was willing to let them have his Lucian prisoners… what was he going to do with them, anyway? And he passed along the address ‘Nun’ gated out to, along with imaginative suggestions for playing with that name. But his new citizens? It was their call if they ever wanted to be repatriated, and so far, that was not in the cards. As for any other zeds he might be able to liberate from Lucian hands… along with more Ancient hardware… that would be their call, too. “But you know, Jack… my people *love* me. So why would they leave, considering what home was like for them?”Jack sighed. “We *are* working on the problem, Harry… Earth has had its head up its butt for way too long where it comes to the Furalin. But tell them for me… yeah. Their choice. All the way. Oh, and if, in your travels, you should come across a Scottish doctor named Carson Beckett, or a confused kid named airman Wainwright… do what you can to get them out, will you? And we’ll keep in touch, if it’s okay with you.”“Fine by me, buddy. But it seems to me that you’ve got your hands full in the near term. This is a right mess.”“Yeah… no kidding. Thanks for the heads up, Harry…”“Any time, Jack.”Tony and Spencer arrived, with cats, and already seemed to know what Jack had to tell them.“We need contingency plans,” Spencer advised.Tony snickered and pointed. “This guy, he’s great with contingencies.”Å Tony opened the last email on the weekly mail download, and with a sigh said, “Well finally. Gibbs has made contact.”Spencer blinked at this unexpected news, and looked up from his own long series of emails from his team, just checking in, and a few updates and files to review from Blair. It had been months since Tony sent the original CD, months since he sent TJ’s birth announcement... Tony wasn’t the only one who had given up on getting any reply back from Gibbs. Teyla had privately confessed to Spencer that she was just as glad, certainly relieved. Dealing with Tony on Gibbs-related issues was... not pleasant for her. It wasn’t jealousy, because she was secure in her relationship with Tony, but it was certainly anger for the pain that man had caused her beloved, in the past, and continued to generate with his thoughtlessness. She didn’t want him in her life, or the lives of those she loved and cared for.Teyla was taking advantage of some AR-1 down time to take the kids on a picnic to the mainland and visit the Athosians, so, for once, Torren, Tali and TJ were not at school, or on the NCIS office balcony playing with the cats.“What does he have to say?” Spencer asked curiously. His private profile of Tony’s ex boss told him it would be... “Not much. This is actually from Fornell, second hand, because Gibbs doesn’t actually have a computer, much less email. Toby says he’s only just got round to playing my CD... no apology, of course, but wants to take me up on the offer to meet TJ. And in the meantime, can I send more pictures. Oh, he also wants to meet Tali.”Spencer frowned. “Hunh...”Tony glanced sharply at his Probie. “What?”“Oh... nothing...”“Don’t hand me that, Spencer. I can *feel* you gearing up to a warning. And, yeah... I’m suspicious too. It... doesn’t feel like Gibbs. Seeing TJ? Maybe. Specifically asking to meet Tali, too, though? If you think this might be some kind of trap... I’m inclined to agree. And yes, we need some contingency plans in place, because you *know* Teyla is going to insist. Even if she did agree to my extending the olive branch in the first place.” Spencer smirked. “How did your former co-workers get fooled by your masks for so long?”Tony chuckled. “The Boss ‘forgot’, and my team-mates were willfully blind. They didn’t *want* to see past them. At least, that was true for my team… We-ell… to be fair, I worked overtime at putting on a face they could underestimate, and they fell for it. “The other teams at NCIS were actually smarter about it. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t see the numbers we generated as far as our case closure and conviction rates were concerned. When Gibbs and I started as partners, the numbers went up. When new members were added to the team, they either didn’t change or dipped a bit… when Ziva was forced on us, the closure rate didn’t move, but the conviction rate took a big dive, until I talked Gibbs into keeping her away from suspects, took her out of the chain-of-evidence, at least *tried* to stop her making illegal search and seizures, and kept her the hell away from any courtroom testimony. When Gibbs bailed on us for his Mexican Siesta… we started out gaining points… and then losing them… I just couldn’t keep up with all the hours I was putting in, and the team getting more and more unruly as time went on. Even when Gibbs came back… we never did get back to our record highs. I kept getting locked out and ground down… and then Vance arrived and decided I was a screw-up. And, yeah, I really played to the grandstands to make sure he didn’t change his mind. “Ducky and Palmer were the exceptions – Ducky knew all along I was zed, and helped me keep the secret. Well, he’s Scottish. It’s why I was always so reluctant to go to hospitals for treatment whenever I got banged up… I preferred our friendly neighborhood ME to do the stitching. By the end, Ducky was happy for my escape, and Jimmy’s always been my staunchest supporter… at least in private. I never wanted him to risk his job for my sake by advertising how close we were. I still communicate with both MEs. As for the rest…“Gibbs took Kate in on the strength of her Secret Service background and the bad hand she was dealt on the Air Force One case. Sold Morrow on her addition to the team as a profiler, since she had zero investigative experience. Gibbs said with him and me around, we didn’t need it, could teach her what she needed. But Kate was lousy at profiling, took everything at face value, immediately put labels on everyone and never looked deeper… got us into trouble more than a few times. So, with Gibbs’ approval, I played up to her view of me as a frat boy X-rated Peter Pan, letting that persona get more and more outrageous and caricatured as time went by. She never twigged to what I was doing… it was a test, and she kept failing. In fact, the more obvious I became, the more she bought into it, not the less. . . Gibbs just sighed and shook his head at her. I was also trying to put a dent in her somewhat prudish parochial view of the world. Not entirely successfully.”“Let me guess,” Spencer guessed, “Repressed Catholic upbringing, woman in a man’s world, probably raised with brothers, a hard father in either the military or law enforcement whose respect she desperately craved. Knee-jerk feminist. If you didn’t treat her as an equal you’re a chauvinist, if you didn’t defer to her femininity, you’re a pig.”“Oh yeah, sometimes both at the same time. Now, see? You get it!“When McGee joined, I was still playing to the frat-boy mask for Kate’s sake, and it worked for McGeek also. It gave an insecure and nervous kid a chance to find his feet, grow, develop self-confidence and show his skills without being intimidated by his team mates, as he certainly was by his boss. “And as for Gibbs – getting his attention and approval became everyone’s goal, and Gibbs played into that, thinking competition brought out the best in us. I only pretended to play the same game – I didn’t need the approval, I knew how good I was. My goal was to make sure my team mates survived the stress of Gibbs’ expectations.“As for the charming David family… what a cluster-fuck that all was, first to last. “I figure NCIS was targeted from the first, but I could never get anyone to see it. A small, obscure federal agency with ties to the CI/CT and military intelligence networks in the US, yet with a tightly restricted mandate… access to highly classified info of all kinds, yet, for those who know of it, we’re considered glorified MPs, arresting drunk and disorderly sailors on shore leave. It must have looked like an easy ‘in’ to a wealth of top secret information and international influence. Plus, with Jenny and Vance so highly placed, both connected to the David family in some way… Ziva had worked with Jenny overseas in dicey ops, and knew how badly Jenny needed a power base in NCIS. She wanted to start hunting the international arms dealer she held responsible for her father’s death, something Eli could definitely help her with… at a price. Eli had a long ‘history’ with Leon, too, and secretly held potential leverage on him, if needed.”Tony didn’t mention the information he himself had dug up, for his own curiosity, on ‘TK Owens’, Vance’s real name, and the disastrous project he had run for SecNav Davenport that was straight out of the Bourne movies… Project Frankenstein, to break and brain-wash their very own military personnel so they could be better assassins. Like that would ever work, and never be abused by those in the Know who had some side-project that needed a hit-man.“When Ari Haswari’s Hamas team op in the US went south, he made sure NCIS was dragged in. He already had the HQ floor plans and details to make good his plan to one-up a US federal agency. It would look good for his cover, to build his cred with Hamas as ruthless, fearless and brilliant. Bold enough to attack a federal agency, smart enough to get away with it, mission completed successfully, and he got away scot free. Ziva, his handler, supplied all he needed. And Kate’s crap profiling? ‘He had kind eyes’, she said, *after* he shot Ducky’s assistant and Gibbs? What the actual fuck! “Even before that, NCIS was on Ari’s radar, but after? He was obsessed with the MCRT, every bit as obsessed as the Boss was with him – but he focused on Gibbs and Kate in particular – they were surrogates for Eli and Ziva. ‘Daddy issues’ and sibling rivalry to the max. It all got the best of him. Ari saw an opportunity to gain more cred for his Hamas role. Eli saw his own son going off the rails, more unstable and uncontrollable all the time as resentment of his father grew. With such suspect loyalty, Ari became a threat instead of an asset to Eli. And NCIS looking better all the time for an inside track to the US military complex. “So Ari plots to hit at Gibbs, Ziva profiles NCIS, and Eli plots with Jenny to guarantee Ziva is trusted enough to worm her way onto the MCRT. Well, it doesn’t take a profiler to tell Gibbs is a sucker for a surrogate daughter, the MCRT isn’t as hampered under security scrutiny as other NCIS sections, yet has the highest clearance. So Eli encouraged Ari’s plot – let Ari go further off the rails, his long range plan to get Ziva inside NCIS. If it meant Ari had to die to gain Gibbs’ trust… and someone on the MCRT to make room for her, specifically Kate, so Ziva could slide in seamlessly in the lost daughter role… then so be it.“And, yeah, Ziva was *much* better at profiling than Kate, 95% right about all of us, our strengths and weaknesses, considering how easily she managed to manipulate everyone.”Spencer eyed his boss in speculation. “But not you.”Tony sighed and admitted, with a shrug, “Not me. I don’t think she ever found my classified work history with the PDs I worked for, or files on any of the undercover operations I ran. Maybe, like a lot of people, she had no respect for or interest in police work in general. It kinda showed in the way she approached her place on the team. She was always satisfied to be the team ninja, the trained Mossad assassin and spy. And when she was observing and profiling us in the beginning…” “All she would see was the joker part you were playing for McGee and Kate’s benefit.”“Yup. So, Ari was always going to target Kate, Gibbs’ surrogate daughter, his one big weakness and blind spot. Ziva knew about Shannon and Kelly, of course, and planned from the beginning to slip into that same slot in his life. But that would only work if Kate was out of the picture first. So Ziva fully encouraged Ari. And Kate paid the price.“So Ziva appears out of nowhere with Jenny at her side as the new Director, already one foot in the door, and tries to convince Gibbs that Ari is innocent, that he’s a Mossad mole in Hamas and not the enemy we know he is. Not that she expected to be successful… she just needed to stick close enough to Gibbs to get to Ari first. She’d kill her own half brother to protect Gibbs, playing up her own emotional pain and cost to defend him, and using Gibbs’ grief over Kate. Automatic trust. As long as Gibbs never suspected Ari and Ziva had both been acting on Eli’s direct orders.”Spencer shivered. “Shit, what a fucked up family. And I thought mine was bad. Even as sick as she is, I *know* my mom loves me and would sacrifice *anything* for me. And my dad ran out, abandoned us both and never gave us another thought… but at least he didn’t turn me into a psychopathic assassin, or deliberately plot my death.”“I know, right? I feel the same about Senior… as bad a father as he is, even Senior is a hell of an improvement over Eli. “So Gibbs is completely taken in by Ziva, and tries to claim he killed Ari, to spare Ziva… as if. How he thought he could get away with that one… I knew the truth the instant I saw the crime scene photos. Not like I couldn’t read bullet trajectories in my sleep… yet, I seemed to be the only one. *How* didn’t they all see what I saw? Particularly Abby! I know Ducky saw it… but he agreed it would do no one any good to straighten out the truth… but then, Ducky was as much a sucker for Ziva’s poor-little-spy-lost act as anyone. I dunno… maybe they all figured it, just like I did, but didn’t care.”Spencer frowned. “Abby? Have you mentioned her before?”Tony cringed, struggling with the pain that always hit him when he thought about the forensic scientist. “Dr. Abigail Sciuto. I thought of her as a sister for a long time… we were so close in the beginning. But she always belonged to Gibbs, first. Heart and soul. The rest of us were all just incidental. If Gibbs was happy with us, she was happy with us. If Gibbs frowned and gave us a hard time, so did she. We were friends, maybe even best friends… until Kate died. And then as Gibbs pushed me out of his inner circle, so did Abby. “Because then… Ziva is suddenly sitting in Kate’s chair… supported by both Gibbs and Jenny… “I freaked. Kate was barely cold in the ground… I went to Gibbs, told him he was being a dumb-ass, falling for a Mossad assassin’s sob-story. I just didn’t trust her, not for a hot minute. The whole situation just smelled to high heaven. But Gibbs… He just wouldn’t see it. Absolutely out-right refused. He was convinced he could trust her, that she was loyal to him, that she had killed her brother to save him, and all she wanted was a chance to get out of a life that was costing her too damn much. That was all he needed to know. And, damn it… either he was wrong about her, or I was, and he preferred to think it was me.“From that moment on, he shut me out… stopped trusting me or listening to anything I said. But I had always backed Gibbs… couldn’t stop now, when we’d let a cuckoo egg into the nest. “I really should have bailed on NCIS the moment they stuck us with Ziva, but… I couldn’t leave Gibbs. Not when he didn’t have sense enough to watch his own back, and seemed to be buying everything that woman was selling. I *still* don’t know how he could have been so blind to all the manipulation… right from day one.“Then Gibbs got himself blown up… lost his memory… everything from the moment his beloved first wife and daughter died, so he was caught in that moment of profound grief. And even when he began to get it back in bits and pieces, I don’t think he ever got all of it back. Seems like he forgot why he hired me in the first place. All he could remember was the class clown frat boy persona... or maybe he did remember that I wouldn’t take his word for Ziva’s loyalty. Whichever, he lumped me with the others in the junior agent screw-up box, and never let me out of it. I *want* to think that was a memory issue… him buying into my act because he didn’t know any better… which is bad enough, sure, but better than the alternative, that it was some macho bastard reaction to the threat of his subordinate running the team better than he could while he was away. “Damn. I should have left. I should have left a dozen times over the years.”“But you couldn’t,” Spencer made the argument for him. “You were in love with him. In spite of everything, you had to remain loyal to the person you cared about, more than for yourself.”Tony was silent a moment, playing with the wooden toy he kept on his desk, a thank you gift from a child he had encountered on one of his first Pegasus cases. “Was I in love? Maybe, maybe not. What I felt for Gibbs was *nothing* like what I feel for Tey. For him… Too needy, too desperate, too weak, too bound up in the shame I felt for being a zed and keeping it secret… Just too damn screwed up altogether. At that point in my life, I had no way of knowing what love really was, anyway, had never felt it… I think I talked myself into *thinking* it was love, because I wanted it, needed an emotional connection so bad… Keeping my deep dark zed secret took its toll, you know that, made me keep everyone at arm’s length. What I felt for Gibbs was hero worship, certainly… and I have my own ‘daddy issues’… he was a man I deeply admired, and yes, cared for, still do for some masochistic reason… and I was closer to him, spent more time with him than anyone else… I think sheer loneliness did the rest. I trusted him, for a long time, absolutely… and that… “Plus, the whole brothers-in-blue mind-set was so deeply ingrained in me… I could not fail or abandon my partner. I just couldn’t. Not like others had failed me, not when he so clearly needed me. In *spite* of my deeper feelings, not because of them. Even if he was walking wounded… not that he ever appreciated it, recognized me for what I was doing for him… thankless damn job, trying to protect a bastard who didn’t have the sense to protect himself.“But for sure I should have left when he put Ziva in Kate’s chair, the woman who aided and abetted in her murder. But Gibbs *trusted* her. He was *sure* of it. And I’ve always trusted his gut more than my own. And if I left, who would have his back? Ziva? McGee? Please. And then it got so I didn’t see any way out. Jenny and Gibbs were on her side… and then she was my partner too, my team mate. There’s a responsibility that comes with that, you know? You have to put personal considerations aside and back your partner. You *have* to. So I tried to trust her too, as far as the cases, our work, was concerned, and ignore my own gut… I was an idiot.”Spencer offered, “And not trusting her on a personal level, whatever you had to display and act out professionally, you never felt comfortable letting your masks down. So you were trapped playing the fool for your team.”“Yeah. With the added bonus that Ziva never saw me as a threat, or even a serious rival for Gibbs’ attention. I’m pretty sure that once she believed I was in her way, she began a deliberate campaign to get rid of me. Turning off comms while I was in the field on the Military at Home case… that was just the last of many attempts. And McGee? He had his head so far up his ass, intimidated into obeying Ziva and following her lead even though he was technically her superior… he went along with all of it like a little woolly lamb. And that was the end, as far as I was concerned. There was no way I was ever going to risk my life to them in the field again. I honestly think I was lucky to make it to Atlantis alive.”Spencer nodded. “Inconsistent affection and mixed messages. Every child abuser’s favorite ploy. Ziva’s father withheld affection and respect as a means of manipulation. Gibbs played with minimal and random doses of approval, outright denied anyone respect, making you all work for the rare pat on the head… Ziva was already primed to respond to that kind of treatment, and I can only guess McGee was too. The more the child is denied attention, the more they crave it, seek to win it in any way they can, even negative ways. I know those tricks. On bad days, my mother didn’t even know who I was. I never knew what, or who, I was going to find when I came home, whether she would greet me as her beloved son, or threaten me as a government spy come to kill her, or if she was enough in the real world to realize I was there at all. But her illness was responsible, and it was never her fault, never deliberate.”Tony nodded. “Yeah, I hear ya. I know the drill too. My parents were alcoholics. Their ability to relate to me was in direct inverse proportion to the amount they had already drunk that day. Mom probably had a soft spot for me in her more sober moments… but even stone cold sober, my dad thought I was a useless waste of space, or worse, a disappointment. So he was consistent enough… for a value of not caring if I lived or died, as long as I didn’t bother him with my shit and mixed his drinks right. What was inconsistent was how loud or violent he would be in his expressing his dissatisfaction with having a kid around at all.”Spencer nodded. “Never knowing where the hit was coming from, or when. There was no why.”Tony shifted uneasily as a tentative, worried brush seemed to touch at his mind, feather-light – and it suddenly occurred to him that it might be TJ. His negative thoughts and emotions might be bleeding into his son. “Oh no… is that… Spencer, I think TJ is getting the emotional back-wash from me…”Spencer did a quick feel, reaching, to check… but no, the baby was just sleeping. “I think you’ve got some time before your emotions effect him at all. If you’re feeling concern… yeah, I think that’s Tali. Just give her a psychic hug back, and she’ll be fine.”Tony nodded, sighing with relief, and made the connection to his daughter. That got easier every time he tried it. Spencer said, “TJ’s still just a newborn. I think you’ve got time before he’s at the point where he can reach out to anyone not inside his immediate orbit. But… Meredith Joy…”“Yeah. That kid’s *strong*. She’s already showing up on the spirit plane. So, Spencer, got any ideas on how to handle Gibbs meeting my kids?”Å

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Å Arseny Matveitch Ivanov was furious. Outraged. Terrified.It wasn’t his fault! None of it was his fault, but he was being made the scapegoat! When he had been nominated as the Russian representative to the IOA two years ago, he had been, frankly, flabbergasted. He hadn’t thought he had that much pull, or that his superiors thought that much of him. Because the job had ‘world-shaking’ and ‘history’ written all over it. The job of all jobs. Stepping stone to... literally, anything, anywhere. And he had basked in the influence he could suddenly wield like a medieval sword. He should have known better. It was all a setup, and he had been primed to carry the blame. What Westerners called patsy, fall-guy, cannon fodder, his more venal personal secrets used as leverage against him, to make him the pawn of others. But Shelyapin was *not* his fault! The original appointee meant to go out to Pegasus had been a cabinet minister’s brother-in-law. Maybe not the best, but not the worst diplomat they could have sent. But two days before the *Daedalus* launch date, their first choice had been tragically killed in a car accident. Well, accident... assassination more like, in retrospect. And the minister had come to him, sweating and pale, obviously in shock and mourning (but maybe also a little too nervous?) with another name, with no opportunity to vet the substitute candidate. The name was known, of course, but the face was... unfamiliar. The body of the real Shelyapin had been found, eventually... in a frozen lake somewhere in Kazakhstan. But, still, *not* his fault!Yet Arseny had been fired from the IOA Board, was set to be recalled to Moscow in disgrace... to face what, he didn’t know, and was very reluctant to find out. So he had dug in his heels in Geneva, protesting, logging complaints and counter-suits, downright refusing to sign the required paperwork. Anything to drag out the process of firing him as long as possible. They had locked him out of IOA headquarters offices at once, but his second, Zoya Irinevna Sokolov, still had access, had packed up his personal items. She, at least, was still talking to him, mostly commiserating in the bar of the hotel where most of the delegates and staff had lodgings.Arseny wasn’t the only scapegoat, obviously. Three IOA staffers had also been fired, for no more than obeying the orders of their superiors. One was Bruno Duval, admin assistant to the Board Chairman, Antoine DuPont. Another was Crispin Paddington, a British national who was part of the financial section of the IOA. Third was Aviv Charnas, ‘liaison’ to the Israelis, but really, a former Mossad agent, and probably in that bastard Eli David’s pocket all along. If anyone might be held responsible for all the problems the IOA had with moles and spies, it was Charnas and his boss, surely. So why was Arseny getting all the blame? No one else on the Board had lost their positions... just him! As if he was the only one vulnerable to threats, blackmail, coercion. Or even, yes, okay, peddling influence and accepting... gifts, from people who probably shouldn’t know what the IOA actually did.In a black and bitter mood over his vodka-and-lime, Arseny wasn’t sure how all four of them, who ought to be out looking for new jobs, had happened to congregate in the same darkened and private corner of the hotel bar. Along with Zoya, of course, his only solace in this situation, and Emile Roget, the slimy rat, who was DuPont’s under-secretary-cum-enforcer. “It’s just not fair!” Arseny wailed, yet again. Roget was a tall man with movie-star looks – very Gerard Depardieu in his heyday, blonde, imposing, the broken nose just added to the impressive aura. “You should be patient. All will be made clear sooner or later,” the smug fellow insisted. Sure, it was fine for him, he hadn’t been kicked out on his *derriere*!“I’ve been fired! I’ve been recalled to Moscow! My career is over! And I can only pray it is *just* my career! The minister who made me choose Shelyapin will never admit it to anyone. What is patience going to get me?”Zoya put a consoling hand on his arm. She was a good girl. Black eyes, black hair, maybe not as young as he fancied, but not too old either. Maybe a little too bright, a little too ambitious. Before this disaster he had been afraid she had her eye on his job and would be only too willing to shove him out of it. But she had advised him to remain in Geneva and fight his dismissal, and had supported him in that. Zoya and Roget traded glances that made Arseny wonder if they were lovers... a lot of the IOA staff had got a little... overly familiar here at the hotel. After all, not allowed to talk to outsiders about their amazing jobs, they socialized amongst themselves instead. It was all very incestuous, and would not look good on any objective outside review... which meant O’Neill’s more recent threats to impose oversight on the overseers was hitting them all pretty hard. Roget said, “This may all blow over. O’Neill is looking for... alien influence, and we all know we’re not it, right?” There were more or less dubious nods to that, all of them eyeing the rest with obvious suspicion. “Once O’Neill’s investigation proves you’re innocent of these spurious charges, you’ll be reinstated. Antoine is firm on that. We’re supposed to be independent of HWS influence, and we don’t want O’Neill to think he can have it all his own way. That’s the *last* thing we want.”Arseny sighed heavily. Maybe not the *last*... but there was no denying that O’Neill had been a consistent thorn in the side of anyone who had seen the potential of the IOA, and had never quite been able to realize it. Or cash in on it.“So, what we need to do here is come up with a plan to smoke out and expose the real moles. We have to admit, there must be at least one or two around... Yes?”“Obviously,” Arseny agreed glumly. “But it’s not me!”Zoya looked pensive. “And the matter is complicated because of the secrecy around the IOA and the project. Very few know who we are or what we do, the project we oversee, and no one outside our government superiors. But that means...”When the woman hesitated delicately, it was to offer the gentlemen an opportunity to fill in the blanks. Arseny was too appalled and terrified of that inevitable conclusion, however...Crispin Paddington jumped in. He was like a caricature of an English peer, that one. No chin and too much adam’s apple, with huge flapping ears, accented by his short-cut reddish cinnamon hair. Although, admittedly, he did have rather pretty green eyes. “... that the mole must be someone further up our chain of command. In our governments? Blimey!”Charnas was bald and built like a house, but, incongruously, he had small sharp black eyes, like a bird’s, that flicked over the group. “Well, it has to be someone who knows about the project, and has an intimate knowledge of both the IOA and ourselves. They may say what they like about Eli David, but he can’t be the *only* one pulling strings here. He’s been gone for months, for one thing, and was out of favor before that. But... you know... there’s absolutely nothing any of us can do in this situation, but ride it out. At least no criminal charges have been laid against us. We could all of us be arrested for treason for this. In my country, that would result in execution. As quietly and privately as possible. I am strangely reluctant to wait around for that.”And there it was, Arseny’s greatest fear. And not even for treason, but for *failure*. It wasn’t as if the bad old Soviet days were entirely gone, or all of those old ‘former-KGB’ spy masters too old to act. Zoya had told him his paranoia was getting the best of him, but... Bruno Duval gave a considering hum. He was a small thin man, curly black hair that was just a suggestion too long and a rat-like face, and Arseny had never seen him without a cell phone in his hand, and had often wondered why he didn’t just glue it to his head. “All of those non-disclosure agreements we signed... the penalties... rather less than for treason, are they not?”That got him focused attention from all sides. “Well, if we are unable to act in our own defence because of all the secrecy... what if the IOA, HWS and the SGC... were no longer secret? At the very least, it would give O’Neill a much bigger problem than a few information leaks and mole incursions. Or us, for that matter. Even if I want to run, I need a diversion, a delay, to keep my own people from tracking me down. Eh, Arseny? Aviv? Crispin? I’m sure we all have a little emergency escape plan ready to put in motion... Drop the bomb, and we can slip away and take up a new life without a treason charge hanging over us. Because, at the moment, I have *no* confidence in anyone taking my side in any of this, or offering any assistance. And, as Aviv says, I am strangely reluctant to wait around for an arrest.”Arseny could feel himself breaking into a sweat at the very idea... he had a lively respect for O’Neill’s ruthless efficiency, if not for the man himself. Rumors of his black ops days... more rumors of the extra-terrestrial menaces he had faced down and/or killed... ‘dead false gods’ in plenty... but he could honestly see no better chance for himself. Take the money he had hoarded, and run. Roget and Zoya traded glances. Roget ventured, carefully... “But... none of you have access to any of the information or documents you would require to...” The shifty looks all four gave were answer enough. “Oh. Well then... I don’t know what to say. I’m sure Antoine won’t be pleased. The *first* consequence is liable to be disbanding the IOA altogether, in favor of UN oversight... but the chaos... are you all resolved in this?”Antoine’s displeasure, the back-stabbing bastard, the crash-and-burn of the IOA that had booted them out, and social chaos world-wide, were actually *inducements*, to all of them.Charnas ventured, “You won’t tell?”Roget shrugged in a very Gallic way. “Won’t have to. You have a very narrow window, you know. O’Neill is supposed to be back on Earth tomorrow.”That was something of a shock all around. They had got used to thinking of O’Neill, their *bête noir*, as being in another galaxy. Vice-Admiral Chegwidden, hard-nose though he was, had been a far more diplomatic presence to deal with. “So, it’s tonight then,” Charnas sighed. “Very well. We are agreed? We drop our little bombs tonight. And tomorrow, we cannot be found.”Å Roget rolled over in the warm, sex-scented dark to pick up the strange device he left on the bedside table. Zoya was wallowing in a sated half-sleep, barely conscious enough to listen in. “It’s done, Eli. They didn’t need much prompting at all. By morning the Russian, British, Israeli and American news services will all have the details. The budget files alone should bring the entire financial house-of-cards down. Quite the welcome home for O’Neill... You’re quite sure about this? Wouldn’t your Patriot plans work without this? Because I can still make arrangements to have all four stopped... Yes, but de-stabilizing all of Earth’s governments… Yes, I’ve read that mission report. Carter’s alternate universe visit, with Landry in charge, and social chaos everywhere prompting Martial Law… Well, I hope you’re right. It’s going to be quite the mess. I hope you have all your fortune in gold and diamonds, because paper money might not be worth much by tomorrow… Fine. I might be out of touch for a while. I anticipate a busy week ahead for me and Antoine. Good night.”Zoya smirked at him as she draped herself over his chest. “Gold and diamonds?”“It seemed prudent. You took my advice, I hope?”“You knew it would come to this.”“Even Antoine wasn’t going to stay blind forever. Eventually he would have started to wonder if O’Neill was right. And since he is… well. The IOA was useful while it lasted, but there was no way we were going to be able to keep it going much longer.”“And Eli David? I must admit… I cannot like that man.”“Of course not. He is a viper. As dangerous to his friends as to his enemies. Not to worry. I have other… allies. And other options.”Zoya grinned. “Good. So do I.” and then she toyed with fire as she reached under the covers.Å Eli David turned to Lord Nun, a satisfied smile on his face. “Within twenty four hours, every financial trading institution will be shut down, every news service will be screaming, and every government will be floundering under the weight of public panic. Chaos will reign.”“But for how long?” demanded Lord Baal. “These Tau’ri are remarkably resilient and canny. I have learned that the hard way. If all else fails, their leaders will simply lie their asses off. Aliens, what aliens?”Eli shrugged as he studied the small but select group in the GlobalTech board room. “How much time do you really need?”Nun was the only representative of the Lucians present, but the Trust Triad leadership were all at the table, along with Franklin Murphy, an American on the IOA board as their Treasurer. And, it hardly needed to be said, in service to Lord Baal, for reasons Eli didn’t bother to remember. Nun went nowhere these days without his admin, Miss Smith, who was settled beside him with her ever-present laptop. But today he had his bulldogs with him too. They lurked in the shadowed corners of the room where the lines of sight were best, the Colonels, Makepeace and Samuels. In a third corner, his Ziva had propped herself, scowling at all and sundry, arms crossed over her chest, disdaining any attempt to keep her hands near weapons... unless you knew her as well as he did, that she *always* had unseen weapons within reach, wherever her hands might happen to be.Vivian Gant’s body lounged back casually in her chair as she stared Eli down. “Well now, isn’t that a question you should have asked *before* you set this in motion, Mr. David? Because we’re nowhere near ready to take our plans for a coup forward. We would need at least the US and Russia under our thumb before we can think of forcing the rest of this benighted world into line.”“Not so,” Lord Nun objected. “As the SGC’s own mission report of an alternate universe showed us, when the failed attempt by Anubis to invade was covered up in our time line, in another where the people discovered the truth, the scale of that threat was enough to put the military in command, welcomed as the heroes who saved the day. The revelations of aliens out there, and how many times this planet has been at risk, will in itself de-stabilize the governments of the world, and make it easy for anyone sufficiently strong, and with the proper backing, to step up and take command. At this very moment, General Landry is well placed in the Pentagon to be that person. “And I should think, with your most recent failures and losses, you would be the more anxious to move ahead with your plans to take over. You lost how many sweeper teams in the latest debacle? And how many zeds? And...” Lord Nun glanced at his admin assistant, and Miss Smith obligingly showed him a laptop screen of information. “In the wake of that event, the FBI Cyber Crimes Unit has arrested several of your touted hackers, and raided facilities you could ill-afford to lose. You no longer have that illicit site on the Dark Web you used as a digital meeting place for Trust and Lucian Alliance spies on Earth, can no longer direct your moles and low-level muscle in efforts to locate and capture zeds world-wide. From what I understand, even now, law enforcement agencies and entities are uniting to close down your sweeper teams and properties, all too close to identifying the ring-leaders of the Trust. How long will it be before they totally uncover the GlobalTech connection, which leads straight to all three of you? The clock is ticking, ladies and gentlemen, and we need to act sooner, rather than later.”Vivian Gant’s face did several very complicated things, all in a failed effort to hide the true feelings of the symbiote inside her. Because, yes, that whole disaster on Pier Six had put a dent in their operation that may yet bring the Trust to ruin. And how the hell had that happened, anyway? But to have the upstart Nun rub his nose in it... he narrowed the host’s eyes and tapped idly on the polished mirror-bright table with blood-red fingernails.“Yes, well... Since you mention it, Lord Nun, I suppose I must thank you for... extricating my lieutenant from that mess. I hope you mean to return Lord Athena to me soon?”“In due course, yes, certainly. And, I am sure, you did not mean to keep from me that you had rounded up several actual HomeWorld Security zed scientists in your Pier Six operation? We were able to retrieve only the one, in Lord Athena’s company. Zeds with actual Ancient tech experience... you must know how valuable such personnel are to us.”“To all of us, yes,” grumbled Baal. “But to return to the matter at hand...” and away from any hint that Baal had tried an end-run around his Lucian Alliance ‘allies’, to keep those assets for himself... “I suppose you have a point about acting before O’Neill and his people have time and opportunity to hunt us all down... creating as much public commotion as possible will certainly distract them from us. And Jack O’Neill’s return to Earth, on the very same day as our spilling the Stargate beans? Is that an accident?” Baal demanded.Lord Nun gave his smuggest political smile. “Well, I imagine Cheyenne Mountain will be the first place angry mobs will begin to congregate. If someone in the crowd should take a lucky shot at the General... well. One tragedy buried under an avalanche of similar incidents... perhaps the President and a few of his cabinet as well. There might be a lot of holes in the White House we will want to fill.”“Hmm...” Baal considered. “I have no doubt *all* of our efforts will enjoy greater success without that pain in the *mikta* O’Neill living and breathing on our patch. You have someone in place already to take that ‘lucky’ shot?”Nun glanced at Eli. The spymaster grinned.“My daughter and I have a flight to Colorado Springs, leaving in... an hour, in fact, so if our part in this briefing is done... we do have a plane to catch.”Baal thought it over. Then he nodded decisively. “All right. We’ll try this and see how it goes. I just hope we haven’t played straight into O’Neill’s hands with this, because this is certainly the death knell for the IOA. Just when we had a firm strangle-hold on it.”Nun shrugged. “Their days were numbered anyway. Too many mistakes, too many failed plots. If the HWS is under United Nations direction, it’ll only be a temporary situation, until we take over.”“You hope,” Baal warned. “However... at least with the UN, that’s a huge collection of cats to herd, and easier for us to infiltrate, if we need to. Very well. Good luck to you, Mr. David, and your daughter. Be sure to shoot straight. O’Neill is not known to look kindly upon people who shoot at him and allow him to live.”Ziva slid a glance to her father, but merely bowed and followed him out of the boardroom without a sound. In the elevator on the way to their waiting taxi, she ventured, “I was not aware that we were planning an assassination in Colorado Springs tomorrow, father. It’ll be something of a busy day for us...”Eli merely smiled as he gave his daughter’s raven dark hair a fond caress. “I believe it is called multi-tasking, my dear. The chaos we expect in the morning will serve us in more than one way. We will take care of personal business first... then be prepared to wait for our opportunity with O’Neill.”Å *No one* thought it was a good idea for Tony to return to Earth with two of his kids, and he and Teyla were still arguing as they presented themselves, with overnight go-bags, to the stargate staging floor. Spencer followed, keeping his mouth shut in the face of this domestic disagreement, although Tony knew well that his Probie was just as worried. “We’ve taken all reasonable precautions,” Tony insisted. “I’ve got a transponder imbedded permanently in my shoulder, and there’s another in Tali’s stuffed rabbit, which never goes anywhere without her, but even if it did, Oma’s got another in her nifty new collar. O’Neill is going to have the *Apollo* keep constant contact, and Spencer has arranged for his last boss, Special Senior Supervisory Agent Aaron Hotchner, a former federal prosecutor, no less, who still has his licences to practise law, to meet us. “Come on, guys... I may not have liked how we left things between us, but I still trust Gibbs to do the right thing. He *is* TJ’s father, he *does* have every right to see him, and I *did* make the offer. I can’t very well go back on it now. I actually think it’s a good sign that he wants to see Tali too. From what Tobias told me, after the truth about Ziva blew up, the man had climbed into a bourbon bottle and almost never left his basement to hide from his problems. There’s a lot of history between us... not all of it good, I admit, but... I still wish the best for the man.”Tony had explained to Teyla in private about Gibbs’ great tragedy – loss of his beloved first wife and daughter. He just couldn’t bring himself to deny Gibbs another child. Teyla gave him a glowering look. “You are very fortunate, my love, that I am not a jealous person. I am, however, a Protector, and if anything should happen to any of the three of you while you are on that... mis-informed home world of yours, I will be forced to come and retrieve you... with extreme prejudice, and the assistance of John, Ronon, Rodney and his *special* ordnance. And there may be more to accompany us besides. Anne, Cadman, Dusty and Cameron have all volunteered to help in that eventuality. So if you don’t want a re-enactment of the last Genii invasion to be played out in Colorado Springs, I would advise you to take care!”Anyone else would have taken pause to absorb that threat... Tony only laughed in delight and swept his wife in a firm embrace. “No worries, my one true love. I am observing Rule Nine as we speak... always carry a knife. We’ll be fine.”Spencer Reid sighed unhappily, as Tony collected his kids and their gear in a cart that closely resembled a stroller for two. Luke and Oma had both claimed a corner of the wire undercarriage, intended for luggage and diaper bags.“Hotch said he’d meet you at the hotel, in the lobby. He was going to check the location, make sure there aren’t any surprises.”Tony waved that away. “Like what?”“Like the David family? Either of them? Both? You know there’ve been reports they were sighted on Earth in the past few weeks. And you have to remember, Tony. The rights of a zed parent are still very much in flux in the United States. If Agent Gibbs should want to make trouble for you, there is a *lot* of trouble to be made.”“Which is why your buddy Hotch will be there. The way Gibbs feels about lawyers, I’m pretty sure we can handle it. You guys just keep the home-fires burning, and we’ll be back at the next Earth dial-in. And remember, Spencer, we’ll be doing everything in our power to make sure we bring Diana Reid with us.”Tali began to babble something to Tony, and he knelt by her side, and replied in what was obviously Hebrew. Spencer arched an eyebrow. Noticing, Tony grinned. In English he continued to speak to his daughter.“You know daddy used to work with your mommy, right? Well, she used to tease me by handing in reports with lots of Hebrew in them. And when she would talk on the phone and didn’t want me to eavesdrop, she’d speak in Hebrew. So your daddy got sneaky.” With a grin and tap on his nose. “I took classes, nights and weekends, to learn Hebrew for myself. That showed her!” Tali giggled, thinking that was a funny story… Spencer met Tony’s eyes, knowing this referred to more examples of Ziva’s untrustworthy duplicity. The written Hebrew had been full of anti-Tony diatribes, insults and resentment. The phone calls were to make covert coded arrangements with Israeli agents she was handling on illegal US operations, or for meetings to pass classified information. But Tony wasn’t going to bad-mouth Tali’s mother in front of her. Not ever. “Yes, well...” Spencer grumbled. “Don’t take any unnecessary chances, or they’ll start making book on us and our Trouble Magnet propensities. As if we need to hand anyone more proof!” Tony merely laughed at the warning, gave his wife one last kiss for the road, and followed O’Neill and the few returning staff and military to the open and waiting gate.Å “Glad you’re back, Jack,” AJ Chegwidden called over the PA before they had even cleared the ramp in the Cheyenne Mountain gateroom. “We’re gonna need all hands for the next... oh, foreseeable future. Those damn IOA flunkies they fired have *all* decided to publish everything they know about HomeWorld Security operations. It hit the press of every country on the planet a few hours ago... the President wants us both to beam over to the White House, pronto. I figure we can take the time to read you in on the current situation, and I’ve arranged a flight out after dinner, thought you’d want the time to catch your breath and prepare for the shit-storm.”“Hot damn!” Jack declared with a little happy hop. “Declassification?”“The President wants to put Operation Seventh Seal in place, but he wants you there to coordinate. Me? I’m supposed to hold your hand. Or something.”“Well let’s get this horse out of the barn, then! Yippy-i-yeah! Lay your de-brief on me. Oh, DiNozzo... you still want to go through with this? Chances are it’ll be a zoo out there, and anyone who looks even remotely like military will likely get swarmed by the press.”“Nobody knows who I am here, General, and I’ll be in civvies with a couple of kids in tow. Yeah, I still want to head out.”“Grogan! You still alive? Good. I’m assigning you to Agent Afloat DiNozzo for the duration of his visit. Make sure he gets to his meeting and back again without any hassles.”“Sir! Yes sir!”“Good,” Tony gloated. “Here, Grogan. You can carry the extra nappies.”Å On advice from someone at the SGC, Tony had chosen a hotel as neutral ground for meeting Gibbs. Grogan trailed along behind the little family, carrying a rough-woven Athosian bag full of baby paraphernalia, into a large hotel lobby. They were met by a tall, stern man in black hair, expensive black suit and tie, prepared and pulling his FBI credentials as identification.“Agent DiNozzo? I’m Agent Hotchner. Please call me Hotch. I have to thank you for looking out for Reid all this time... I can’t imagine he made it easy for you.”“Hey, he’s a damn fine agent, and he’s done well for himself in... our assignment.” Yeah, no matter how much of the truth had been spilled to the public about the SGC and HWS, Tony didn’t want to be the one to add to the furor. He had already seen crowds at the Cheyenne Mountain gates, carrying placards and shouting in confusion, plainly not even sure, at this point, what they should be shouting about. Even the big-screen TV over the bar just off the lobby was displaying a news channel that was trying desperately to figure out just where the best drama might be found.“So. Agent Gibbs arrived last night and signed into a room on the tenth floor. I’ve reserved a small conference room down here on the main floor for the meeting. No windows and limited access... just the one door. I think there are at least two Israeli nationals in the hotel at the moment... that seems a little suspicious to me, given the circumstances.”Tony thought so, too. “Not the Davids?”Hotch smiled. “No. There’s a bolo out on them with local law enforcement already. They’re both *persona non grata* in this country, and will be arrested and detained immediately if sighted.”Tony nodded, relieved. He had also noted one or two faces familiar to him from Spencer’s team photos... JJ Jareau and Derek Morgan were both trying to look casual as they circulated around the lobby, and Tara Lewis was at the bar, sipping on a soft drink. “Your whole team here?”“Dave Rossi and Garcia are still at Quantico. JJ will return tomorrow, to get Diana Reid ready to travel. She... doesn’t like to fly. If she remembers that little detail at this point.”“The Alzheimer’s?”“Getting worse, I’m afraid. Listen, this cure Reid is talking about... whether it works out or not... I think it’s best he has what little chance he has left to be with his mother.”Tony nodded in agreement. He wasn’t one hundred percent sold on the ATA therapy being a cure-all for any Z-positive. Sure, it might re-wire a few things as it re-wrote DNA from single to dual genders. But over-write other medical issues a patient might have? Still, whatever, Spencer needed his mom. So Tony had supported this wacko plan of getting her to Atlantis. As he had told O’Neill himself, even if she did try to tell anyone classified intel... given her medical history, who would believe her?Å The knock on Gibbs’ hotel room door was expected. He had agreed to try and smuggle Ziva in to the meeting, so she could see her daughter. Because yes, she was in the country illegally, and could be arrested just for showing her nose. In his last pass through the lobby, Gibbs was pretty sure he had scoped at least three federal agents. And the room where he was supposed to meet DiNozzo had very limited access. That had no doubt been on purpose. DiNozzo’s new friends were making sure he was secure. And, to judge by the uproar on TV since he woke up that morning, wild ravings about aliens, spaceships, invasions and the mythical city of Atlantis, the Lost City Found... well. It was all straight out of the new Gemcity novels. And, yes, *straight* out. Apparently, McGee had been up to his old tricks, writing actual real-life mission reports with an *extremely* thin veneer of fiction over the top. So much had already been noticed and commented upon – at length, along with the *Wormhole X-treme!* connection. “Ziva. I hope you’ve been careful. This place is crawling with feds, and I’d be willing to bet they all have your description and picture.”“Have no worries, Gibbs. You are ready? It is almost time.”She seemed nervous to him, unsettled.“Everything okay, Ziver? You think maybe DiNozzo will have you arrested if you show yourself to him?”Ziva huffed, a shadow of her old attitude to ‘Agent Meatball’. “No. If he tried... well. I have not much left to lose, do I?”Gibbs straightened. “No violence. Children will be present. If DiNozzo puts up a fuss, you leave him to me. You hear, Ziva?”The woman was instantly contrite. “Of course, Gibbs. Of course. I just... it’s been so long... I just want to see my Tali again.”Gibbs might even have believed it... if there hadn’t already been so many lies, and if Ziva herself didn’t seem so distracted. Half her attention seemed to be on the TV, for instance.“You happen to know something about that Stargate nonsense?”“What? No. Of course not... Are we ready to go? I will need a moment to assume a disguise.”Å Tony was changing TJ, and Hotch was playing a game with Tali, when there was a knock at the meeting room door, and Gibbs came in. Tony looked up with a smile. “Hey, Boss. Want to meet our son?”He picked up the squirmy baby and offered him to the stiff former Marine. Gibbs stood frozen for a moment, before slowly venturing forward, eyes fixed on one tiny human being in an equally tiny fresh onesie. He reached out and held the baby, staring mesmerized into that little curious face, eyes the same ice-blue as his own staring back at him. “Oh god...”“Tagan Jethro. TJ. He’s zed, Gibbs.”“Like I care,” Gibbs muttered, barely paying attention. “Hey there, TJ. I’m your dad. Jethro. You call me dad, though. Okay?”“The tall guy in the corner is FBI Agent Aaron Hotchner of the BAU. My new Probie, Dr. Spencer Reid, called him to help me out with this. There were some... concerns. About my well-being, and TJ’s. Not to mention...” A little girl with dimples and cinnamon curls had come to Tony’s side, clinging to his thighs as she peered shyly at the stranger in the room, holding her baby brother.“TJ my brover,” she announced clearly. “Meet Tali DiNozzo, Gibbs. That’s your uncle Gibbs, Tali. Say hi.”“Hiee.” The hint of an adorable smile crept up on her face as Gibbs spared a little bit of attention from his fascinating son for the little girl. Gibbs was amazed. There wasn’t much of Ziva in her, she was all DiNozzo, as far as he could see, with those killer dimples, and those big green eyes. “Hunh,” was all he really had to say about that.Which was when there was another knock at the door, and disaster swept into the room. It came in the shape of Anthony DiNozzo Senior, with wide open arms and an expansive, and totally false, smile plastered across his affable, handsome face. The DiNozzo looks, charm and dimples... clearly dominant characteristics in the family, although Tony and Tali had their green eyes from another source. Senior’s were a washed-out blue.“Junior! Long time no see. Hiding away from me? Ah, I see you brought a friend. Hello, I’m the *real* Tony DiNozzo, accept no substitutes.”“Dad?” Tony demanded. “What are you doing here?”“Well, Junior, I’m here to see to the welfare of my two grandchildren. I can hardly leave them in the custody of a zed, now can I?”“What? I...” Tony turned horrified, and accusing eyes on Gibbs. “What is this?”Hotch moved forward at once, to block Senior approaching any closer, and made to retrieve TJ from Gibbs’ arms. But the older NCIS agent backed away, refusing to look at DiNozzo, staring at his son still. “I have the law on my side,” Senior began, but Hotch was ready.“Actually, you don’t. I have federal documents here that verify Agent DiNozzo’s custody of the two minor children, Tali and TJ DiNozzo.”Tony stood from his chair, livid with anger, and Tali, sensing the emotions in the room, clung the harder to her father’s side, green eyes wide and bright with the threat of tears. Rubbing against her side, a calico cat was beginning to bristle and hiss. Orange Luke also appeared from the stroller undercarriage, to attach himself to Tony’s ankle.“You didn’t call him Anthony, Junior? There’s no Anthony DiNozzo the Third? You cut me to the quick! I was going for a dynasty there. But as it happens, I can easily rectify that omission. I had my assistant arrange for a court order giving me custody of both kids until we can sort this mess out...”“There’s nothing to sort out, damn it! Gibbs, this goes beyond bastardy! I brought Tali and TJ to you in good faith, because I felt you had every right to see them, but you turned it into an ambush? To try and grab my kids away from me? What the hell!”A blonde woman with glasses and her head bent low over a stack of papers in her arms, actually made it into the room, and across to Tony and little Tali, before it became obvious who she really was.But when she lifted her head, a grim smile on her face and a vicious gleam in her black eyes, she had only to grab an alarmed Tony’s arm, and dig into her skirt pocket for a hidden device. A wash of bright light circled the three humans, Tony, Tali and the Ziva David, as they disappeared, along with the calico kitten and a big orange cat. Before anyone else in the room could react, a scream went up from the baby in Gibbs’ arms, little TJ suddenly aware that his father wasn’t there, wailing for his momma Tey. Hotch was immediately on his cell phone. “It’s an abduction! Agent DiNozzo and his daughter Tali have been abducted from this room by a woman I suspect is Ziva David. I need a team in here now! Trace that... transporter beam or whatever the hell it was, and I have two people here who are suspected co-conspirators!”Å On a tel’tak runabout in low Earth orbit, under shield and cloak, Lord Nun and Eli David waited for the transporter to deposit its passengers on the cargo deck pad. Two adults were scuffling even as the bright white light dimmed and left them stranded. The man was seriously hampered in his struggles by a small form gripping hard to his legs. The child was screaming bloody murder, and two cats were yowling in ear-splitting screeches. With an adept move he might have been practising his entire life, Eli darted in to grab the child, while Ziva gave a push that landed Tony on his rump on the deck. A zat blast from waiting jaffa caught him full on and he slumped unconscious, an outraged orange cat leaping to his chest to hiss and threaten everyone near. Meanwhile, Eli had knelt by the tiny girl and grabbed her shoulders. He looked sternly into her wet green eyes. Even the threats of the calico cat didn’t make him back off, he merely slapped the animal away, and it skidded across the smooth-polished floor. The violence to her companion cat startled the little girl out of her wordless screams, to actual words. “Daddy!” and she tried to pull from the stranger’s grip to go to her motionless father. “Talia!” Eli spoke, his tone hard and commanding, brooking no nonsense. “I am your grandfather. You will call me Zaydeh. You will come with me now, and behave yourself. No screaming. No crying. This man is not worthy of your attention. Now stand and wait while I finish this.”There was something in the cold dark eyes that terrified the child into silence. Standing near, Ziva looked on with a carefully neutral face. If she remembered similar moments from her own childhood, she did not mention them. No one would be able to tell from her blank expression what she truly felt at this moment, unless they possessed gnarly psychic powers, and the only one present with those was out like a light. She certainly made no effort to intervene on behalf of her daughter, or even speak to her. Content that Tali was obedient for the moment, Eli stood and faced Lord Nun. “DiNozzo is yours to do with as you please, as we agreed.”The host studied the man sprawled out on the floor with interest. “Hm. You are quite right, he is a comely vessel, in his prime. ATA gene, experience with Atlantis systems and a dual gender zed? They are said to have certain... desirable abilities. Yes, he will make a *most* pleasing host...”But even as Nun bowed over the helpless man, a large orange cat was suddenly *there*, and slashed at his face with extended razor-sharp claws. It made an outraged sound that would terrify any jungle denizen into panicked flight. Nun reared back so fast he fell on his butt, clutching at his face, bleeding from three long parallel slices. Furious that he had displayed such weakness in front of his jaffa and these humans alike, Nun roared and demanded that the prisoner be dragged away to a holding cell until they reached their destination. Eli was careful not to laugh in the Goa’uld’s face, but it took an effort. “You will set me, my daughter and granddaughter down in the pre-arranged location? My Ziva will return to the secluded spot she chose near the Cheyenne Mountain facility. We both still have missions to complete.”Wordless with rage, holding a hand over his damaged face, Nun merely waved a command. Once the humans were gone, he would have those who witnessed his humiliation killed. He could not afford for this story to get out. It would only improve with the telling.He would have that pretty human as his host... just... not right away. He had other more pressing business. After he was able to reach his own ship, and the waiting sarcophagus. Å The Wraith Queen of Queens was oldest, strongest, wisest, canniest in battle, and that was how she held her place in the hierarchy of the Wraith. They did not have names, as such… why, when there was only one queen in each hive? But when they congregated together, distinctions needed to be made… and Queen of Queens was a title of honor, more than merely a paltry name. Her sister Queen, second only to herself in age and strength, one she thought of as Voracious-in-Battle, alerted them to a vital find. The Queen of Queens at once gathered up her closest and highest ranked sisters into a vanguard fleet, and raced to that location. Voracious-in-Battle was the last True Queen who still possessed a tribe of human worshippers, and so was their last complement of spies willing to betray the increasingly difficult and problematic fellow cattle. The remaining True Queens had known for months that there were foreign incursions on the edges of Pegasus galaxy. These interloper humans were totally ignorant of the Wraith, who thought, in their human arrogance, that they could ‘make deals’. The notion was laughable… But also welcome. These ignorant strangers, along with the loyal worshippers, were the last cattle known to be unaffected with the deadly Hoffan plague. Barely enough to sate even one hive’s appetites, but… along with those in the renegade hives they had consumed, it was at least enabling the True Wraith to survive a few more months with decent numbers. And the tantalizing prospect of catching even one Milky Way human for the coveted location to fabled Earth, home to billions of cattle… well. That prize represented the survival of their entire species. And so six hives converged on a little system on the very edge of their galaxy, to find a seventh already in place, orbiting next to an odd triangular-shaped mechanical interstellar craft. Wraith cruisers and darts buzzed in heavy numbers around the main mother-ships, but so too did sleek one-and-two pilot fighters from the Milky Way ship. When a small shuttle crossed to the first hive to land in its largest bay, it was to find a small foreign vessel already landed. With a dozen armed attendant drones gathered about her, the Queen of Queens marched in due state through her sister’s ship and entered the throne room of Queen Voracious-in-Battle. That sister-queen was all smiles and affability toward the insignificant cattle she was ‘entertaining’. Five males and one female. All dressed in leather and armor, one with a black tattoo on its forehead, signifying some form of allegiance no doubt, and with some kind of… wriggling alien in its belly. The others were purely human. Voracious-in-Battle stood and nodded a head to the Queen of Queens. “Mother Queen of us all. I offer you these… representatives of the Milky Way galaxy, who have come to parlay with us. They offer alliance. This one is captain of the impressive war-craft you have no doubt observed, his name is Masen. These, his daughter and second, Kira, lieutenant Simeon, and we need not name these others, although that one,” and she pointed out the tattooed dual-being, “is one of a race called jaffa, that we have heard of.”“Ah,” the Queen of Queens made a sigh of satisfaction and interest. She had long been intrigued by the notion of a dual-being, and wondered how it would taste... perhaps the cattle sensed this, because all began to look tense. The female in particular had reached for the handle of a weapon it carried on its belt. If they had the luxury, as in days gone by, the Queen of Queens would have chosen that one to be a Runner, with such alert wariness and respect for the danger it was in. Surely, it would make an excellent quarry in the Hunt. “And what advantage would you bring us in an alliance, visitors?”The one calling itself Masen spoke. “We represent the Lucian Alliance. We can provide information, weapons, ships, even Ancient artifacts of great power and value. Moreover, we can also supply those with the necessary genetics, legacy of the Ancients themselves, to operate them. We can be your supply network to whatever you need.”Hmm... If they had the luxury, as in days gone by, perhaps these humans would have been of value as a new worshipper tribe. She decided to test how far this cattle would go. “You know of our... dietary requirements? You can supply us with this?”Masen and its offspring traded glances. “We have large numbers of slaves we can provide. What you do with them once we have delivered them... is no concern of ours.”Traitors to their species, then. Anything for the offer of wealth or influence. They did not yet barter for safety, but no doubt they would. There had once been many such in Pegasus. To the delight and satisfaction of the Wraith.“We would be willing to offer much... for the location of Earth.”Masen gave a knowing smile. “I imagine you would. The very least we would demand for such a prize would be... immunity, from your... hunger.”This they had offered to select cattle in the past. The well-fed and uncontested past. But if they could only reach Earth... let this one ship and its vanguard go free?The Queen of Queens glanced at her sister Queen. Both nodded. “We will need to confer for a moment. Pardon us.”There was much bowing and scraping, as the humans and jaffa withdrew to the far end of the throne room.Kira took the opportunity to lean in and whisper to her father, “You trust them to abide by this deal?”Masen, chief of clan Hauhet, smiled. “Why should they not? We offer them all they could ever want to eat in their long lifetimes. What damage can seven hive ships do?”Lieutenant Simeon, by far the most wary of them all, ventured, “The rest of the Alliance won’t like this. They still think they can take Earth themselves, even if they have to gut the Trust to do it.”Masen waved off such a concern. “Our so-called allies in the so-called Alliance would be the first to betray us in like ways. We got here first, so we will make what deals suit us best. Any who challenge us will be the next target of our Wraith friends. Then the scraps and leavings on the tables of the galaxy will be ours to pick over. Better us than them.”That, after all, was the rallying cry of the Lucian thieves and pirates. Better us than them.After a brief moment, the two Queens beckoned them back. “You agree to our proposal?” Masen demanded, sure of agreement.The Queen of Queens grinned wide. “Why should we need to deal with food, when we can suck out all the knowledge you carry, till you run dry?”With no more warning than that, her hand slammed forward into Masen’s chest. There was the barest of scuffles as those with him tried to drag out weapons, to wrestle with Voracious-in-Battle and the drones present. But it was futile. The Queen of Queens fed deep, luxuriating in the adrenaline rush of fear suffusing her meal. Memories, emotions, details of his home world location, worlds he had plundered, worlds he controlled, worlds where his allies held sway… even the three systems he knew where the Ancients had left the remnants of outposts, weapons and ship-works… and then, the prize of prizes, the location of the blue world, the First World… Earth. It was glorious, to be able to feed with abandon once again, without fear of Hoffan plague, to finally, after too long, to feel *full*.Said the Queen of Queens, “Send out alerts on all of our channels. Call all the hives of the True Wraith. Direct the Keepers to wake all the Sleepers. If you have food remaining or know of any safe reserves, fill your larders now. Prepare the Swarm for a long journey in the Void.”Voracious-in-Battle was quick to give the order. Her darts would clean out the Hauhet ha’tak and death gliders, and even her worshippers would be culled for the cargo bay larders.Å Varro, Hauhet lieutenant, but known to be too squeamish to be entirely trusted with details of this deal, had been sent to captain the death glider squadrons. But he had heard rumors that the Wraith culling rays could pierce any hull, ha’tak or glider, to steal the people inside. He knew well what the Wraith did with their human captives. He had tried to warn Masen that maybe this was too dangerous a deal to make.When he lost contact with his clan chief and his delegation, then saw the movements of the darts, forming into obvious attack formations, he sent out the immediate warning, “Run!”But in the following rout, his was the only glider to escape.Å When all was done as she commanded, the Queen of Queens, flush with the intoxicating satisfaction of having fed, and fed well, announced, “We leave for Milky Way galaxy at once. All of us.”Å *~ There is very little difference between men and women in space. ~ Helen Sharman*Å