Complete
Action/Adventure, Drama
Set in Season 8
Spoilers for Chimera, Fallout
Disclaimers:
Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, The SciFi Channel, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is written purely for my own entertainment, and that of anyone else who may happen to read it. No infringement of copyright is intended. It is not intended and should never be used for commercial purposes.
The original characters, situations and ideas contained within this work are the property of the author.
Author's Notes:
For further details regarding the SEG or Langara, please visit the main SEG website.
Acknowledgements:
Many thanks to Corin Nemec for his work as Jonas Quinn, and to the PTB for giving me the opportunity to continue his adventures by failing to do so themselves.
Thanks also to my beta reader, Sarah.
The Stargate Facility,
Langara
Dr Kianna Cyr walked through the corridors of the former palace of Thanos, a stack of files in her arms. If she seemed distracted there were plenty of reasons why she might be. As Assistant Director of the Langaran Stargate Expeditionary Group she had been run ragged for the last six months, trying to get a Stargate programme up and running in the face of considerable obstacles. Aside from the logistical difficulties involved in adapting an ancient palace for use as a modern facility, she had to soothe the tensions between the Group's scientists and their military counterparts. Facilities, funding allocations, dormitory space; if it was there, the researchers would argue with the engineers over it, the engineers would squabble with the security detachment and the security detachment would fight tooth and nail with the expeditionary teams, who were themselves growing impatient with the shortage of expeditionary work for them to undertake.
Then there was the continual interference from the planet's three superpowers. In theory, the SEG was under the direct and sole jurisdiction of the Joint Ruling Council and the island of Amamos was unclaimed territory, but in practice the Andari Federation, the Terranian Tetrarchy and Kianna's own people, the Kelownan Parliamentary Democracy, all wanted to flex their muscles and assert control over the project. The Andari said that Amamos was closest to their territorial waters, the Terranians maintained that their selectively bred and highly trained scientific and military élite were the best qualified to undertake the work of the project and the Kelownans refused to let the fact that the Stargate had been found on their land be forgotten.
Kianna had to deal with these problems, while struggling to avoid accusations of betrayal from the Kelownans and her fellow scientists when she tried to take the middle road. It was hard work and that was perhaps why, as Kianna rounded a corner, her mind on the dozen things she had to do before she could even afford to stop for a cup of tea, she did not see a man walking the other way. He was as distracted as she and he did not see her. They struck one another hard and each recoiled, falling to the floor in a flurry of papers.
The two of them struggled up and groped around for their own files. It was only when Kianna picked up one of the man's folders and passed it to him that she noticed who it was she had collided with.
"Gereth!"
Their eyes met for a moment, before Dr Gereth Stele looked away. "Dr Cyr," he muttered, accepting the file and passing one of Kianna's in return.
"How are you?" Kianna asked.
"Fine," he replied. "Busy." There was a pause. "You?"
Kianna forced a smile. "Much the same. I know this whole place is buzzing like a beehive, but sometimes it feels like I must be doing all the work myself."
Gereth's face was stony. "Well, we're all working hard."
"I... I know that." Kianna flinched a little at his coldness. "It was just a joke. Not a very good one, but... "
"I have things to do," Gereth interrupted. "I'm sure you do too." His lips tightened into a thin line, but he gave no other sign of emotion as he said: "The Director is expecting you."
Kianna closed her eyes to try and hold in the hurt. "Gereth... " she began, but when she opened her eyes, he was already moving quickly away along the corridor.
She watched him go, wondering what that tension in the line of his mouth meant. Was it anger that she saw there? Pain? Jealousy, perhaps? Kianna shook her head; she did not even know what she wanted it to have been. Did she want him to be jealous of the director? That might mean that he still cared. Part of her might even want him to be hurting still; to hurt in the way that no-one seemed to realise that she was hurt.
"Artume!" she muttered, sharply. She lifted a hand to her temple as her blasphemy triggered a flash of memory. Once, Artume had simply been a name to her, the goddess of the hunt and of the night who, in legend, thwarted the foul Voltumna; now, she remembered that goddess as a person, or at least a Goa'uld. She could close her eyes and see the powerful figure, proud and alert.
With a sigh, Kianna banished such thoughts and continued on her way through the corridors to the majestic door of the throne room. Instead of passing through this great portal, however, she turned to the right, where the door to the steward's chambers lurked in the shadow of a pillar. A guard stood to either side of the door, their bodies looking ludicrously over-sized in their bulky flak jackets. They were Kelownans by the insignia on their sleeves, but the automatic carbines that they carried were Andari C-45s and their most prominent badge was that of the Stargate Facility Security Garrison.
A brass plaque had been fixed to the door with two screws.
Mr Jonas Quinn - Director
Kianna opened the door and went through to the office behind it.
If few people at the SEG worked harder than Kianna Cyr, then Jonas Quinn was one of them. The Stargate Expeditionary Group was his creation; he had pitched the idea of using the Stargate to the Joint Ruling Council, and pressed for the placement of the facility on neutral territory. He had produced the first drafts of the Group's charter and mission statements – based in large part on his experiences with the SGC on Earth – and, having been appointed as the Director of the SEG, he had been ultimately responsible for selecting the Group's personnel. It was Jonas who had suggested – no, demanded – that Kianna be given a senior role in the SEG's scientific team. It was also Jonas who had located and appointed Gereth Stele as Chief Medical Officer; a kind act, Kianna believed, but a misguided one.
Jonas saw the SEG as Langara's best chance for lasting peace, progress and a place in the wider universe. He had thrown himself into its creation and every time the governments of Langara threw an obstacle in his path it was like a physical blow to him. He strove constantly to overcome these difficulties and move forward, but it took a terrible toll on his strength.
Kianna exchanged a friendly greeting with Jonas's secretary, Miss Arden, and knocked on the inner door. She went through at a call from within, but Jonas did not look up until almost a minute after Kianna's entrance and he seemed surprised to see her there. "Kianna?" he asked. "I didn't hear you."
"You heard me knock?"
Jonas shook his head, not in disaffirmation but as though to clear a fog. "Of course," he agreed. "Sorry. I'm a little tired." It was hard to tell with the light streaming through the great bay window at his back, but he looked even more tired than usual.
Kianna tried to act casual. "Aren't we all?"
"I have another progress review with General Blitze and Mr Haht coming up, so I have been burning the midnight oil a little."
"Our illustrious oversight committee do seem to add considerably to our paperwork," Kianna agreed. "But Dr Stele said that you were expecting me."
Jonas rubbed his forehead. "I... That's right; you said you needed to speak to me about something."
"The Andari Intelligence Service has flagged another dozen of our personnel as potential spies or anti-Federal terrorists; four Terranians, three Kelownans, four Andari from the outer provinces with supposed secessionist agendas and one independent." She handed over the top file from her stack.
Jonas read the file's title. "Lab equipment requisition?"
Kianna blushed. She searched through her disordered pile for the correct folder and exchanged it for the budget requisition. "Sorry. I ran into Ger... Dr Stele outside, literally."
This time, Jonas skimmed through the entire folder before replying; Kianna knew that at that pace he had time to absorb all of the information contained within.
"I'll have Mr Lenaux re-run the security checks," Jonas promised. "That should satisfy Andari Intelligence."
"I hope so, because we can't afford to lose these people."
"We can't afford to lose anyone," Jonas replied. "This is one reason why I wanted the Group outside of national control in the first place. What I want to know is how our security screenings haven't picked up these alleged connections and agendas if the national governments have granted the JRC full access to their intelligence files?"
"Overriding national interest," Kianna replied. "Clause 114d, subsection 3, paragraph 1: 'Any nation of Langara may withhold from the Joint Ruling Council such information that they deem to be of overriding national interest and which if revealed could compromise the dignity or position of the nation or of any other nation in the global political situation.' Tages, but I'm tired of hearing that quoted at me," she sighed.
"Imagine how bad it must be for Kaise," Jonas suggested. "He deals with this sort of thing all day long."
"So do I," she assured him. "So do we all. Even if it isn't our job, we all get inundated with this khar!"
Jonas raised an eyebrow in shock. "Language," he chuckled.
Kianna blushed. "Excuse my Andari," she said, "although I suppose we aren't supposed to say that anymore, either. Not now we're all one great, global nation."
"Oo; good sarcasm," Jonas commended. His smile was brief, but it was good to see. Once, he had smiled every day, every time he found something new to learn or experience; he had not smiled very often since moving into this office. Kianna wondered if it was the pressure that made him dour, or the betrayal he had suffered at her hand, although not of her will.
"You look dreadful," she told him.
"Have I mentioned lately how much your confidence in me means?"
Kianna smiled, but pressed on. "I mean it, Jonas. I hope that we're friends and, as a friend, I think you should know that you look like death."
"We're all tired," he reminded her.
"You're working too hard," she pressed. "You need to take a break. Chief Lenaux and I can look after things for a while; why not take a few days away to clear your head. You could spend some time in the Macian Hills, or even visit the Gloran Forest, now that the Andari border is open."
"Kianna... "
"Or visit Earth," she suggested. "I know you miss people at the SGC and if you feel you have to work you could pick their brains over protocol and see if you can't change their minds about that iris shield. Or maybe go home and... " She broke off, realising what she had said. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
Jonas sat very still and quiet. "I don't have a home," he said at last. "All I have is this and I won't rest... I can't rest until I have built something here for the good of the whole world. Always assuming the whole world will let me. Was there anything else?"
Kianna shook her head. "Some budget requests, but those are for Miss Isato. Take care of yourself, Jonas."
"I have to," he replied. "Who else is there to do it?"
From the Director's office, Kianna headed back towards the labs, pausing only to drop her requisition forms through Miss Isato's in-slot. Her team were experiencing difficulties there in adapting the Langaran equipment to run from the Goa'uld power supply and Kianna was uniquely qualified to solve those problems. Halfway to the storerooms that had been converted into laboratory space, however, Kianna turned and struck out towards the administration section again.
This time she turned right before reaching Jonas' door and continued on through half-a-dozen security checkpoints, showing her ID each time, although all of the guards knew perfectly well who she was. At last, a short flight of stairs took her into what had once been a minstrel's gallery overlooking an antechamber to the throne room. Now it was packed with computers and the gallery window had been fitted with sliding steel shutters.
Kianna strode to the window and looked down into the antechamber. It was a grand reception area and the minstrel's galleries on the other three sides provided perfect positions for covering fire. It had been judged the optimum place in which to store Langara's greatest treasure. The Stargate.
"Activate the Stargate," Kianna ordered, displaying her ID as she spoke.
"There is no scheduled contact, Assistant Director... " one of the technicians began.
"I know that," she assured the man. "Nevertheless, connect the grid and bring the Gate online. Stand by with the main transmitters and dial address 1."
"Yes, Dr Cyr," the man agreed. His hands flew across his console and the Gate hummed into life. Once the power was running from the main palace grid, the technician was able to dial the first address in the Langaran Stargate Directory; the address of Earth.
*
The Colony
Trooper Rebus Badon was increasingly certain that someone had something against him. In fact, he knew that several people in the Kelownan military hierarchy hated his guts and most of his other parts, but now he was starting to believe that one particularly sadistic individual had taken it as a personal insult that he had not been discharged from the military altogether. It seemed unfair that anyone should hate him so much; it was not as though the court martial had charged Rebus with any offence that would merit dismissal. Then again, maybe that was the point. After all, he had committed any number of dismissible offences; he had simply never been caught. Perhaps that was why, in addition to being demoted from Leading Trooper, he was serving out his sentence as a supply clerk in the Colony; the farming and industrial community established on Amamos to supply the Stargate Facility. But when a man was convicted of minor black market charges, but escaped prosecution for several more serious acts of illicit supply redistribution, and then found himself given custody of a massive, multinational logistical storehouse, he had to suspect that somebody was willing him to screw up again.
Rebus had made a promise to himself when he had been sentenced: to never get caught again. If he was being watched then he would just have to keep his nose clean until the watchers were convinced that he had turned over a new leaf; it was irritating, but there it was. The only trouble was that he had forgotten how excruciatingly boring it was to work in the supply corps without the excitement of a few illegal activities.
Today, Rebus stood on a rocky beach, watching as a group of men and women worked on the sonar posts which would protect the sandy shores along the coast from clandestine landings without making them unusable for recreation. It was a good plan and it would have been criminal to let such beautiful beaches go to waste on tank traps and razor wire, but the sonar posts were sophisticated devices and the team required regular shipments of electronic parts. It was Rebus' job to oversee these deliveries and that meant dealing with the engineering team's supply clerk, Corporal-at-Arms Rezna, a walking example of the crushing boredom of logistics.
"Seventeen cases of diode packs; fifty diodes to the pack," Rezna intoned.
For a horrid moment, Rebus was sure that he would insist on counting the diodes in every pack; not to make sure that none had been stolen but simply because that was Rezna's idea of a fun afternoon.
"And five soldering stations," Rezna finished, ticking off the last item on his checklist.
"Damned if I know what you do with all this stuff," Rebus admitted. "I went over the supply manuals the other day and we've brought down enough components for at least fifteen sonar posts."
"Well, we're building seven on this stretch," Rezna replied, "but we have to build them in place and we're having some trouble with salt corrosion."
"Let me guess; they thoroughly tested the design's waterproofing in fresh water?"
Rezna shrugged. "Dr Kha says that they have everything sorted out now, so this should be the last delivery." He sounded as though he had just announced the impending demise of, if not a parent or child, then a favourite cousin.
"Where is Dr Kha today?" Rebus asked as casually as he could which, after almost ten years in the black market, was very casually indeed. "I just need her to sign a few forms – explaining about the salt corrosion."
Rezna nodded his understanding. "Sonar station three, and good luck. I've been telling her she needs to file an official report for days, but she's always 'too busy'."
"Aren't we all?"
"Is there any such thing?" Rezna shot back.
"Probably not for you," Rebus agreed. He saluted smartly, before Rezna had time to wonder if he might be being insulted, and headed out along the jetty towards sonar station three. The sonar station was a steel drum, and would have been just large enough to contain two people if it had not been packed with electrical components. Even at low tide the base of the station had to be submerged and they were mounted on scaffolds so that they could be lifted clear of the sea, in order that maintenance engineers could open the casing without flooding the delicate components.
Dr Kha had lifted station three and had her head and upper body right inside the casing. Nonetheless, she clearly heard Rebus approach because she called out as he drew near: "Pass me the negative three gauge socket wrench, please."
Rebus obliged, digging the heavy tool from her kit and pressing it into her outstretched hand. It looked almost comically oversized in her oil-stained grasp, but she held it with a confidence that was unusual from her.
The wrench disappeared inside the casing and a series of loud clangs emerged. After a moment she passed the wrench back to Rebus. "Thanks."
"My pleasure."
After a short pause, the shoulders and head withdrew from the casing and the scientist turned to face him. Engineer Élite Dr Eudora Kha was considerably smaller and lighter than Rebus, who was himself no giant. Generations of selective breeding had gifted her with slim, strong, clever hands and a first class mind, while happy chance had given her auburn hair, sharp green eyes and a pleasant smile, when she felt confident enough to use it. Five weeks of working on the coastal defences in the fresh air and sunshine had turned her cloistered pallor first to a painful red and then to a healthy tan.
She wore a set of grubby overalls and her curls had been dragged back from her face and tucked under a work cap. Her freckles were mostly hidden under a layer of grime. A tool belt hung around her waist, she had a pencil behind her right ear and a screwdriver behind her left. She looked about as glamorous as a monkey wrench, although she would have had most of the male engineers of Rebus' acquaintance panting on their knees. Not that there were many women who couldn't have reduced the male engineers of Rebus' acquaintance to panting fools; he knew very few male engineers and most of those were not, he felt, paragons of the genus.
"Trooper Badon," Kha said. She sounded surprised and awkward, as though she had been caught doing something that she should not have been doing, and despite the fact that she was the sonar Project Supervisor and thus ranked equal to a Captain under the SEG's Joint Command Structure, she cast her eyes downwards to avoid his gaze.
"I'm flattered, Dr Kha," Rebus told her.
"You are? Why?"
"You remembered my name."
Kha shrugged. "I don't speak to many people."
"I noticed that."
"Is there something I can help you with? Only there is still an awful lot to do and I shouldn't leave the casing open for long. It's the salt in the air, you see," she explained.
"Ah, no," Rebus admitted. "That is, at some point I need you to fill in a form to explain why you've needed so many components, but actually there was something I thought I could do for you."
"There is?" Kha looked nervous.
Rebus coughed awkwardly. He had only spoken to Dr Kha a few times, but he had always seen this nervousness. He was aware that, as a member of the Terranian Scientific Élite, she would have been raised in the élite cloisters among an all-female order. Naturally she found the company of men to be confusing and intimidating, even such an unassuming individual as Rebus Badon. This made it difficult enough to broach the matter in hand, never mind that by doing so he would be breaking his parole and the promise he had made himself.
"I know you don't know many people here and you always look a little lost," Rebus began.
"I have my work," she assured him.
"Sure, but all that 'service is its own reward' stuff is just old religious talk and... "
Kha coughed politely. "Your people may have embraced rationalism wholeheartedly, but mine is a more spiritual nation."
"No offence," he assured her. "Anyway, I'm a Drusarus; we're pretty big with the faith. I just thought you might like... Well, there was this box of spoiled goods up at the old palace and they wrote it off. A friend of mine was in charge of the disposal and he... collected up the stuff that was still good."
"He stole it!" Kha gasped.
"It isn't stealing," Rebus assured her. "When they write a shipment off like that they can't keep any of it and so the supply crew get to divvy it up. There's nothing illegal about it." Providing you don't write off perfectly good stock and sell it on, he thought to himself. "So my friend and his mates split this shipment and some of it found its way to me. I just thought it might pick you up a little." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a foil-wrapped packet. "A taste of home."
Kha's eyes widened at the sight of the bright label. "We never had much chocolate in the convent," she admitted.
"Well, there isn't much of it to be had anywhere at the moment," Rebus noted. "That's why my friend didn't want this to go to waste." He proffered the packet.
"How much?" Kha asked warily.
"Nothing," Rebus assured her. "It's a gift. That's why it's legal," he added. "I didn't pay anything for it and I won't charge you."
Slowly, Kha put out her hand and took the bar of Terranian chocolate. Rebus felt a pang shoot through him as half a week's wages left his hand, but then Kha gave a broad, genuine smile and it all seemed worthwhile.
"Thank you, Trooper... What's your given name?"
"Rebus," he replied.
"Eudora, but please don't call me that. Thank you, Rebus."
"No problem. You looked like you needed a friend."
"And now I have one. I think that may be a first," she added wistfully.
Rebus frowned. "You didn't have friends in the convent?"
"It's very competitive in the élite. There were a few of us who worked together, but mostly it's every woman for herself. I had a cat."
"Well, I don't think we have any of those on Amamos, but if there's anything else you need, just let me know." Rebus took out his notepad and scribbled down his base extension. "Everything's still in short supply after the invasion, but I can keep an ear to the ground and see what turns up."
"Again, thank you."
Rebus was feeling good about himself as he walked back to his van. From the first time he had seen her, Dr Kha had reminded him of his niece, Alanna. He had always enjoyed buying presents for Lannie, but since his conviction his sister had refused to let him visit. In some ways he supposed that he was using Eudora – she was right, that name needed something doing with it – as a substitute, but he still felt good about helping her.
"Money well spent," he decided.
*
The Stargate Facility
Kaise Lenaux was a big man, like Jack O'Neill had been a big man; perhaps that was why Jonas trusted him so instinctively. Certainly, the physical and ideological similarity was one of the reasons why Jonas had chosen Lenaux to be his head of security. Another was that there was not a single member of the JRC who would have approved the selection; Jonas had come to like people who had no political approval. He had first met Lenaux through a similarly-minded friend in Representative Tarthus' retinue and took to him at once. Lenaux was an Andari war hero, decorated for prominent actions against both Kelownan and Terranian forces during his time with the Ninth Andari Artillery Regiment, but had then received an honourable discharge in murky circumstances, putting him out of favour with his own people. His courage was unquestioned and from what Jonas could learn he had been dismissed over a matter of conscience. He had pushed even harder for Lenaux's appointment than he had for Kianna's.
Lenaux's rank at the time of his discharge was Senior Commander – roughly the equivalent of a USAF Major – but he was not permitted to use that. His official title was Assistant Director (Security) – in parallel to Kianna Cyr's office as Assistant Director (Technical) – but nobody called him that either. He was, to everyone, the Chief.
Lenaux cast his eyes over the report from the Andari Intelligence Service and sighed. "I'll see if they'll give me sources on these," he promised, "but it's probably another time waste. Tell you what, I'll put one of my junior clerical assistants on it, just to wind them up a little."
Jonas chuckled. "You're a bad man, Chief."
Lenaux did not laugh.
"That's not a good sign."
"We have a problem," Lenaux admitted.
"Do we have anything else?"
"The canteen is now fully operational."
"You have no idea how happy that makes me. Alright; what's this new problem?"
Lenaux drummed his fingers pensively on the desk. "Another security breach," he announced. "Someone has been accessing the files that were sent by the SGC; specifically, the address logs and summary reports."
Jonas frowned. "How secure were those files?"
"They were stored on the internal server and protected by high-level encryption and access restrictions. Without specific authorisation – and there was no authorisation code on the access – they can only be decrypted with directorial clearance."
"So you and I," Jonas noted. "Kianna, Dr Tai or Lance-Colonel Aaen."
"Or Dr Stele," Lenaux added. "The CMO has directorial clearance."
"He does?"
"He has to; he needs full access to all personnel files."
"Why does he need directorial clearance for medical files?"
"The files for the Terranian élite include a genealogical history," Lenaux explained. "Apparently the élite bloodlines are a state secret."
Jonas nodded his understanding. "So; six suspects. Since you're telling me, I guess you didn't do and for the same reason I presume you don't think I did it."
"Well I know I didn't and your access codes would have showed up as an authorised access and barely registered on the security monitors. That leaves Dr Cyr... "
"I don't believe it was her," Jonas said. "Kianna isn't political enough."
"Even if we accept that," Lenaux replied, tactfully not accusing Jonas of allowing personal feelings to cloud his judgement, "we're left with our Chief Medical, Scientific and Expeditionary Officers as suspects. Whichever of them it might have been, it's going to be a kick in the teeth for our... well, certainly for my credibility and a major setback to the programme. If nothing else, we can't get the Expeditionary Force off the ground while the head of Unit 1 is under suspicion."
"What do you recommend?" Jonas asked.
"We keep it to ourselves for now," Kaise said. "I've got some of my data analysts working on it, but even our best people are pretty new to electronic computers. I might enlist the aid of Miss Isato, with your permission."
"You trust her?"
"She's Isteri, which more or less guarantees non-political, and she has an honest face," Kaise replied. "She's also good with computers, has an eye for detail and is as highly placed as anyone in the Group who doesn't have the necessary access to be a suspect, if that makes sense."
"I think so." Jonas nodded. "Use your discretion, Kaise, and let me know what you find."
"Yes, sir."
Jonas gave a wry grin. "'Sir,'" he laughed. "I'll never get used to that."
*
Dr Gereth Stele sat in the SEG infirmary and worried. He had made an effort since his arrival to avoid the Assistant Director (Technical) as much as possible and he had been shaken to find himself forced to confront her. He supposed that, eventually, he would have to perform a medical examination on his former fiancé, but so far he had managed to delegate.
"Dr Stele?"
Gereth looked up. Draius Nute, the Andari who had been appointed his chief of nursing staff, stood over his desk. "More difficulties, Nute?" he asked, wearily.
"Actually, no," Nute replied; for perhaps the first time since Gereth had met him, the man was smiling. "The technicians have finished with the converters and most of the medical equipment is now up and running. We're going to start a few test runs with the scanners we received from the SGC; they should give us significantly better resolution than our own machines, but we need a little hands-on experience."
Gereth nodded. "Good news at last," he sighed. "Alright; draft some of the garrison and we'll take some practice images to compare with what we can get from our old machines."
"Yes, Doctor," Nute agreed. "There is one other thing," he added.
"Good or bad?" Gereth asked.
"I'd say good. Lance-Colonel Aaen wants to see you."
Gereth sighed.
Nute sucked a breath in through his teeth. "Oh dear."
"Mr Nute?" Gereth asked, pointedly.
"Just thinking," Nute replied.
"Thinking what?"
"That when a man looks like that when someone tells him Leleth Aaen wants to see him, he must have a pretty bad case of something. Or someone."
Gereth shook his head. "Just don't go there," he said firmly.
"Understood. I'll send the L-Col in; maybe that'll cheer you up a little."
Gereth gave a noncommittal grunt; he was not convinced. In his experience, a man suffering from the complications of love could not easily be cheered by the presence of another woman, even one with Leleth Aaen's undoubted charms. Despite his reservations, however, he did sit up a little straighter and make a barely-conscious effort to tidy his hair and jacket. Love was one thing, but a man could only do so much to deny his nature.
Lance-Colonel Aaen strode into the room with an aristocratic gait that was popularly known as 'Number 3'. Number 2 was the efficient soldier's gait that made full use of the length of her legs to carry her at great speed along the corridors of the SGF and Number 1 was a predatory prowl that she reserved for special occasions in the officers' bar.
Aaen was a tall woman, an inch under six feet, with a rangy, athletic build. It was likely that no-one ever had or would call her beautiful, but she had a handsome face, with large, almost black eyes, skin like chocolate and long, black hair, which she wore in a tight braid that twitched teasingly from side to side across her back as she walked. She had long, powerful legs that haunted the dreams of many in the Group. She was strong, and her strength was more than physical; she wore her charisma like a cloak and it made her seem even taller than she was.
There could be little doubt that Leleth knew the effect that she had on men but, so far as Gereth could tell, she made no effort either to exaggerate or to diminish that effect. She was neither a temptress nor a mouse, she just was, and Gereth respected that. If he had met her before Kianna... but that was wild, and rather optimistic, speculation.
"What can I do for you, Lance-Colonel," Gereth asked.
Aaen put her hands on the back of the chair which stood across the desk from Gereth and leaned forward. Her expression was serious. "I'm worried about the programme, Dr Stele," she admitted.
Gereth sighed. This was a familiar turn of discussion. "Please sit down, Lance-Colonel," he said.
She waved her hand airily as she sat. "Call me Leleth," she insisted. "Lance-Colonel is such a cursed mouthful."
"What's worrying you, Leleth?"
"The Director," she replied. "Is it only my imagination, Gereth" – a woman like Leleth Aaen rarely had to ask permission to use a man's first name – "or is Mr Quinn becoming somewhat spun down?"
Gereth shrugged. "Everyone's working long hours," he hedged. "I couldn't venture a medical opinion without an examination and if I examined him, I wouldn't be able to discuss the results with anyone else."
"I'm not asking for specifics, Gereth; just testing the waters. Fact is, I think Mr Quinn needs a break and, if he won't take one, I think he needs to be compelled. Only people who can do that are the ADs and you, and neither AD would listen to me because one won't hear wrong of him and the other can't think right of me."
"Why is that?" Gereth asked, speaking more sharply than he had intended in an attempt to drive the conversation away from Kianna's loyalty to Jonas Quinn. That would have raised too many questions that Gereth was unprepared to hear answered.
Leleth shrugged with forced nonchalance. Her eyes flickered dangerously and Gereth suspected that she knew enough of his troubles that she could have put the boot in if she had been so inclined. Instead she shrugged again and the movement was loose and more natural now. "Old business," she replied, dismissively. "It isn't important. What worries me is that our Senior Command Officer is losing balance when we're just about ready to start our expeditionary program."
"So, you fancy yourself as the ultimate authority on expeditionary matters?" Gereth asked.
This time, the dangerous flash was closer to the surface and it was prudence rather than sympathy that still her tongue. "No," she replied tersely. "I do not. I want to go through the Gate at the head of EF-1; that won't happen if they decide that they need me to make up the numbers on the directorial council. If Quinn is incapacitated, the Kelownans will insist on Cyr as acting Director and my government will push hard for me to take her place and I don't want that." She was growing angry now and she paused for a long moment to muster her reserves of self-control.
"Look. You know as well as I do that half the JRC think this whole programme is a dumb idea and all the home politicos think it should be in their control. Our first mission is going to be a test case and it has to be flawless. If anyone screws up, and especially the Director, everything we've worked for here will go down the toilet. Quinn has to be on the ball when we kick off and it does have to be him. If that means he takes medical leave until the hour before my team make their first walk up that ramp, then so be it. You must force him to take leave."
"That is a medical matter," Gereth replied, flatly. "I have noted your concerns and, if a time should arise when I believe that Mr Quinn can not perform his duties, I assure you that I shall oblige him to take a leave of rest. In the meantime, Lance-Colonel, I must respectfully suggest that you attend to your area of expertise and leave me to attend to mine."
Leleth drew herself up with a fierce hiss and Gereth flinched from the anger in her gaze. He had known women who took poorly to being crossed, but this was a level of rage that he had not seen before.
"Don't you understand how important this is!" she demanded furiously. "Your stupid national pride... "
At that Gereth started up from his own chair. "This is not a matter of national pride, but of professional judgement!" he snapped. "I agree with you that Mr Quinn is tired, but he is not yet incapable. Until such time I will not order medical leave on the say so of a soldier any more than you would advance or retreat on the tactical analysis of a surgeon. Now, if you have nothing else to say then I am sure that there are things for you to be doing. As you say, there is a great deal to be done to make ready for the SEG to go into operation."
For a moment, Gereth was sure that Leleth Aaen was going to strike him, but instead she drew herself up and adopted her most regal and dignified pose. "Then I shall bid you good day, Dr Stele," she hissed. "And on your head be the consequences of your pride."
She stalked out with such arrogance that Gereth felt it might qualify as gait Number 4. Once she was gone he slumped back into his chair, quite exhausted. His first impulse was to seek out Kianna, but that of course was impossible.
"We'll never make it past the first mission," he groaned.
*
Stargate Command,
Earth
"What's new, pussycat?" Amy Kawalsky asked.
Louise Stillwell looked up from her books, a strand of black hair escaping from its restraining scarf and flopping comically over her face. "Ugh," she replied eloquently.
Amy laughed and flung herself onto a stool by Louise's side, catching the edge of the table to halt her movement. There was little to choose between them in years, but Amy looked older, in part because a thousand and some years of another's experiences looked out from behind her brown eyes. Louise, with her round face and sparkling baby blues, looked younger than her years, although less so than she had once done; life at the SGC had taken its toll on her innocence.
"Whatcha doing?" Kawalsky asked.
"Translation," Louise replied. "That damn text from 418."
"No breaks?"
"It looks like Mayan, but it isn't. It isn't anything Mesoamerican, or even anything nearby, so far as I can tell." She sighed. "Maybe there's something here, but I can't spot it; I don't have Jonas's eye for patterns and permutations."
"Who does?" Amy asked, rhetorically. "So why don't you ask him while you're on Langara?"
"I guess I – wait; what?"
Amy grinned and pulled an envelope from her pocket. "Go home and pack a suitcase," she said. "You're booked on a fast wormhole to Langara and the General wants to see you at eighteen-hundred."
Louise's eyes bulged and her mouth hung open.
"And don't gawp at him like that," Amy warned. "If you sit there making frog faces at him he'll slap you in quarantine."
Louise had only spoken to General O'Neill a handful of times and he had always intimidated her a little. She had made it onto the field register, but she was simply not important enough to sit in on command briefings except on the rare occasion that a mission called for expertise in Mesoamerican archaeology. She was just a research assistant and doctoral student at the SGC, but when it came to the Mayan language she was It. It was a good feeling to be so valued, but daunting at times; almost as daunting as speaking to Colonel O'Neill.
"I'm sure you know why we like Langara," O'Neill said. He sat behind his desk, looking... big.
Amy had implied to Louise that she was travelling as a private individual and so she had changed into casual clothes. Now she wished that she had kept her SGC fatigues on, at least until she was on Langara. In jeans and sneakers, a black blouse and red poncho, she felt even more out of place in the General's office than usual.
"I, um... They are still the only source of naquadria and, ah... "
"Cut the crap, Miss Stillwell," O'Neill scoffed. "We like Langara because of Jonas Quinn."
"Oh."
"If he wasn't in charge of this Stargate Expeditionary Group, we never would have sent them a Christmas card, let alone our address database."
"I see."
"We've had a couple of worrying reports from Langara lately," O'Neill went on. "Jonas sends us regular updates and he seems to be having some security concerns. Then we received a signal from Kianna Cyr."
With an effort, Louise kept her expression neutral, but her lips pressed tightly together and she could feel her left eyelid pulsing nervously. "And what does Dr Cyr have to say?" she asked darkly.
General O'Neill raised an eyebrow quizzically, but made no comment. "Dr Cyr says that she is worried about Jonas himself. She thinks he's working too hard and I suppose that these security concerns must be a part of that. Officially, you're visiting as part of a goodwill exchange, but off the record I'd like you to see if there's anything you can do to help out."
Louise blushed. "Well... I'm not much good with security," she admitted.
O'Neill gave a soft chuckle, his grim features breaking up with good humour. "This I know, but that's why we're sending Senior Airman MacVeigh to look at their computer problems. I'm sending you more as an expert on Jonas Quinn."
The blushed deepened. "I'm not... I mean, I thought I might be, but... "
O'Neill raised his hand. "You and he got on well enough and he'll talk to you, I hope. You can liaise with Dr Cyr and... " He broke off as Louise's eyes darkened. "Ah."
"I'll do my best," Louise promised, forcing her temper down, as it was not directed at anyone present. "And it will be good to see him, in any event."
O'Neill nodded, apparently satisfied. "Then get a good night's sleep in the VIP quarters; you ship out at oh-seven-hundred."
*
The Colony
As the sun set, Kha pulled off her cap and replaced it with a headband with a lamp mounted at the front. She tucked the cap into the pocket of her overalls and touched the bar of chocolate. Moving with exaggerated care, despite the fact that no-one was around and she had her head inside a steel can, she fetched out the bar, unwrapped one corner and broke off a square. She paused for a moment and then popped the square into her mouth, letting it lie on her tongue until it began to melt. She gave a shudder as the half-forgotten, bittersweet flavour washed over her taste buds, touched with just a hint of orange.
"Oh, Turan that's good," she sighed, feeling quite justified for once in invoking the goddess of sensual pleasure.
At last she swallowed the chocolate, ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth in search of every last trace, and then closed the break in the wrapping and pushed the bar back into her pocket. With just a hint of regret, she reached up to switch on her torch and put a hand out for her soldering iron.
In the dark, her hand brushed the handle of the iron and it fell with a clatter and a soft splash into the water beneath her. Kha turned and looked down at the dark, surging water and sighed. "Oh... pootle," she muttered. "No doubt Corporal Rezna will want me to fill in another form for that one. So much for my chances of finishing this post tonight."
Without a soldering iron there was little more that she could do and so Kha grasped the top of the casing and prepared to step backwards onto the scaffold. Just as she was about to emerge, however, she heard a voice. Instinctively – in the convent, members of the élite were not permitted to remain in the workshop after dark and old habits were hard to shake – she pressed herself into the casing of the sonar post. She reached for the hatch, but then withdrew her arm. The salt water had rusted the hinges; trying to move the hatch would alert anyone within a mile of the beach.
"I'm telling you I heard something," a man's voice declared.
"Why would anybody be here this late?" a woman replied.
"The Project Leader is an élite; who knows how long she stays at work?"
Kha stifled a whimper as a beam of light flashed across the scaffold and wished she had tried to close the hatch after all.
"Someone's working on that one!" the man declared.
The light flashed across the hatch and Kha pushed herself as far back into the casing as she could.
"Sloppy procedure more like it. Anyway, it doesn't matter; the damned thing's high and dry, so that's our work done for us."
The man grunted in agreement. "Come on; let's deal with number four."
Kha squeezed her eyes shut and tried to control her breathing and heartbeat. The intruders were gone. She could just wait until they left altogether and then... And then what? Pretend nothing had happened? Could she do that?
Steeling herself, Kha stepped out of the casing and scrambled down the scaffold onto the jetty. She could see the intruders' torch bobbing along the wooden walkways towards post number four. With all the arts of stealth that almost thirty years of life in a rigidly controlled environment had given her, she crept along the walkways behind them.
"Badon!"
Rebus looked up from the card table. Across the rec room, Junior Trooper Dev waved the phone at him.
"Who is it?" Rebus called.
"Someone about a car! I think."
Rebus looked at his hand, then at his opponents. He sighed. "Fold."
Rebus could see at once that Dr Kha really was as worried as she had sounded on the telephone.
"I want you to know that I wouldn't do this for just anyone and I left a grand parade over a five hundred cestarii pot to come here."
Dr Kha's lip began to tremble.
"But for you I don't mind, Dor," he hastily assured her.
"Dor?" she asked.
"I was thinking about it and I thought we could shorten your name to Dor."
"But my last name is Kha. Do I really want to be known as 'Kha Dor'?"
"Possibly not," he conceded. The banter had served its purpose and she looked a little less upset. "So what's troubling you?"
"Someone has disconnected all of the sonar posts. They've cut the relays to the control centre."
Rebus stared at her. "What?"
"Someone has disconnected all of the sonar posts. They've cut the relays to the control centre."
"Alright, I heard what you... So we need to reconnect them, if you haven't done that already?"
Kha shook her head. "I don't know if they're still out there somewhere."
"Well, I'll keep an eye out while you fix the relays."
Kha nodded and turned to lead the way. Rebus followed and could not help but be impressed by her calm as she moved from post to post, rewiring the relay blisters which topped each of the cases. It was as though she had entirely forgotten her fear as soon as there was work to absorb her attention.
I just hope the saboteurs have gone, Rebus thought to himself. It's not like parolees get to carry sidearms.
Suddenly, floodlights cast their beams out over the water.
Kha cried out in fear. "What's happening?"
"The sonar must have picked something up," Rebus realised. "We'd better get away from here; if the defence teams come down and catch us here they might not stop to find out that you're the hero of the hour."
From the interior of the island, the sound of whining gyrolift rotors and roaring car engines cut through the night.
"They're efficient, at least," Kha noted.
"Good thing too. Look." Rebus pointed out across the floodlit waters.
Following his finger, Kha saw a v-shaped wake cutting through the surf, and a second some distance beyond. "Submarines," she declared. Even as she spoke the two wakes veered away from one another as the two submersibles, realising that they were detected, swung away towards the open sea and accelerated away from the shore.
A few moments later, a trio of Demilance gyrolift gunships flew overhead and struck out in pursuit, their whirling rotors straining under the weight of torpedoes and depth charges that hung from the ordnance racks. Behind them came a twin-rotor R661, with a sonar rig strapped to its fuselage.
"Hmm," Rebus mused.
"Rebus?"
"They won't get them," Rebus said. "The Demilances are fast enough to keep up with those submarines, even laden as they are, but without the R661's sonar they won't be able to target them once they reach deep water. Probably shouldn't have switched on the floodlights until the cars were in place."
Kha looked away from the gyrolifts. "Did you hear something?" she asked.
"What sort of something?"
"It was like one of the sonar posts slipping onto the rocks. Oh, gods; if number three has slipped it will fill with water and... "
"It hasn't. Look; you can see it's still up on its scaffold. So if that wasn't the metal can hitting the rocks then... " Rebus pursed his lips. "Stay down," he cautioned. "Stay here."
Despite his warning and the feeling of her heart rising into her mouth, Kha followed as Rebus made his way across the rocks. Her whole body tingled with excitement and, despite her fear, she felt sure that she had never been so alive. For a moment, she knew herself ready to take on the world, but then another metallic thump sounded ahead of her and she ducked behind a rock, her pulse thundering in her ears.
As she forced herself to be calm, Kha heard whispering voices from the same direction as the thumps. She could not make out words, but recognised the voices of soldiers. With all the courage she could muster, she moved closer. She could see Rebus crouching behind a cluster of rocks and the sight of him gave her courage; she was afraid, but she could not leave her first and only friend alone in danger.
Rebus pushed himself up so that he could peek over the line of rocks. As he had feared, a third submersible had beached on a strand and soldiers were emerging from it. The submarine could not have been more than three yards long, but four armed men now stood on the beach. The only giveaways that it was not some bizarre carnival illusion were the way the men were stretching to try to unkink their cramped muscles and the vicious-looking C-20 autocarbines that they held in their hands.
It was hard to say who might have sent these men. Langara had always been a melting pot of the many races brought upon her by the gods and there were only a handful of ethnic groups on the planet who showed distinctive physical characteristics. The élite bloodlines tended to emphasise extremes of colouration, the Isteri were quite distinctive and most Drusari claimed that they could spot their own, but these were of neither group. They spoke Terranian, but lots of people spoke Terranian, and the C-20 was of Andari design, but cheap and easy to maintain and thus a great favourite with mercenaries the world over.
One man, who seemed to be the leader, spoke again. "The tide will start to go out in twenty minutes. Get the sub under water and let it drift out; we can't risk the engines if the sonar is operating."
"So much for our insiders," a second man grumbled.
"Get back in the can and rendezvous with two and three!" the leader hissed. "The rest of us can head into the hills; they'll never find us and we'll make contact to arrange a second insertion."
Unfortunately, they were right. There was too much of the island for the patrols to cover it all and too much cover to spot a cautious intruder from the air. That was why the coastal defences were so important. Three armed enemies could put the whole project in jeopardy and, despite a reluctance to put himself at risk, Rebus knew that he could not allow that.
He took out his flashlight and shone it down onto the beach. "Halt! Drop your weapons!" He called out as loudly as he could, hoping to attract the attention of the patrols currently sweeping the wrong part of the beach.
The four men on the beach lifted their carbines and arrayed themselves in a defensive pattern. They were well-trained, whoever they were.
"You are surrounded. Drop your weapons and raise your hands above your heads or we will open fire."
"I hear one voice," the leader replied. "I see one light." He turned so that the shrouded barrel of his C-20 pointed directly at Rebus.
Away to Rebus's right, Kha heard this exchange. Eager to help she fumbled with the lamp on her forehead. The beam flashed into the night and fell on a black-clad figure creeping through the darkness and glinted on the knife in his hand.
"Rebus!" she called.
Rebus spun on the balls of his feet and saw the man lunging at him from the shadows. He put up his hands and the knife cut a long gash in his left forearm, but his right hand caught the attacker's wrist and they fell to the ground, grappling for control of the blade.
Kha raced over, but in the tangle of limbs she could see no way to help Rebus without risking further harm to him. As she glanced about, however, she saw that the attacker had dropped his main weapon in the struggle. There on the sand lay a squat, black C-20.
From the beach, feet crunched on the sand as the remaining commandos ran to aid their comrade. Without letting herself think too much about what she was doing, Kha scooped up the carbine, leaned her body against the rocks, braced the weapon to her shoulder and fired. Five hours basic pistol training was scarcely sufficient to allow her any control over an overpowered automatic weapon like the C-20, but it was enough for her to remember such details as the safety catch and the carbine discharged with a lusty roar, causing the commandos to dive for what little cover there was and almost inadvertently putting a bullet through the leg of their leader.
"Back!" he roared, barely controlling his agony. "Fall back."
The man who was grappling with Rebus broke away and scrambled over the rocks. Rebus let him go and cradled his injured arm, panting for breath as the adrenaline began to wear off. He staggered up and leaned on the rocks beside Kha to watch as the commandos stuffed themselves into the cramped submarine and wrestled with the hatch.
Engines roared behind Rebus and Kha and lights out at sea showed the gyrolifts returning from their hunt. Mobile spotlights flared, one beam lighting the submarine and another falling on the valiant defenders.
"Drop your weapons!" A voice behind the light ordered.
"But... " Kha began to turn, but Rebus clamped a hand over the C-20 and pushed the barrel down.
"Drop the weapon now, explain later," he told her. "Just let go of the carbine."
"I'm not sure I can," she admitted.
Gently, Rebus peeled back her adrenaline-stiffened fingers and removed the carbine from her grasp. Holding it by the barrel he first lifted it above his head, then crouched and set it on the sand. At once, three men appeared to seize hold of them and a dozen more poured onto the beach.
"Are you okay, Dor?" Rebus asked as a large man in Andari uniform cuffed his hands behind his back.
"Yes. You?"
"Nothing that won't heal."
"I don't understand," she admitted. "Why are they arresting us?"
"Just being cautious. Don't worry; you did well tonight."
"I did?"
"You did."
*
Stargate Command,
The Next Day
Louise suppressed a shudder as she stepped towards the event horizon. She had no love of Gate travel and her past experiences on other worlds had not been very encouraging. Despite knowing that a safe haven and Jonas lay on the far side on this occasion, she could not escape a sense of deep foreboding.
"Does this hurt?" Molly asked warily.
"Nah," Louise assured her.
"Then why do you look like you're about to grab hold of a live cable?"
Louise flashed the technician a weak grin and then stepped through the Gate. Stars swirled about her as she was catapulted across space, and a moment later she stepped out into a space that looked worryingly similar to a Goa'uld hall.
"Oh my God, that was like the worst trip ever!" Molly exclaimed.
Louise took a step forward, hardly noticing her friend's unique contribution to interstellar diplomacy. Her gaze was riveted on the man standing at the base of the ramp.
He took a step forward as Louise moved towards him and he smiled. "Welcome to the Threshold," he said.
Louise grinned foolishly. "Hello, Jonas," she replied. "It's... been a while."
Jonas blushed. "Yeah. I'm sorry I haven't called, but you should see what the charge is from here."
Louise laughed far too loudly. Behind her, Molly gave a soft cough.
"Oh! This is Senior Airman Máire MacVeigh," Louise explained.
"Tech support," Molly added. "I was told you had some problems with the computers we sold you."
Jonas nodded and waved at one of the guards. "Take Senior Airman MacVeigh to see the Chief," he ordered. "Chief Lenaux will fill you in on our problems," he told Molly. "Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated."
"All part of the service," Molly assured him.
"She's doing better than I did my first time out," Louise noted as Molly walked away.
There was an uncomfortable pause and then Jonas said, quite suddenly: "It's good to see you, Louise. You look well."
"It's good to see you. You look like crap."
Jonas laughed. "I suppose I do. It's been a tough time."
"You look like you need a break," she added.
"Perhaps, but I really can't afford to take one. I've set back three appointments just to come down to the Threshold to meet you."
"I'm flattered."
Jonas grimaced. "I'm afraid I have to leave you again now," he admitted. "I must get back to work, but I've asked Kianna to come and look after you."
"Joy," Louise said, deadpan.
"Could you... Would you like to join me for dinner later on?" Jonas offered.
Is a bear Catholic? Louise thought to herself. Does the Pope... "I'd love that," she said.
"So would I," he assured her.
Louise suddenly found that she was having trouble swallowing.
"You remember Kianna?"
It took a moment for Louise to realise that Jonas was speaking to her again and to process the words; a moment longer to focus on the melancholy blonde at his side. "How could I forget her?" she growled.
"Hello, Miss Stillwell," Kianna Cyr said. Her expression was one of kindness and sympathy and Louise almost immediately felt her desire to throttle the woman double and redouble.
"Dr Cyr," Louise replied, with a face that looked as though she were chewing a wasp. "How lovely to see you."
"I'll see you this evening then?" Jonas asked. He wore a concerned face, apparently not as oblivious to Louise's rage as he had always seemed to her feelings for him.
"Yes," she replied listlessly, her heart sinking as she realised that she had leaped to the conclusion – no doubt erroneous – that Jonas had meant her to dine alone with him. On the other hand, Jonas' face did fall with remarkable sharpness at her sudden lack of enthusiasm.
"Don't let us keep you, Director," Kianna told Jonas. "I'm sure I can keep Miss Stillwell entertained and she'll probably feel better for getting out of the Threshold. Whatever we may have done with the decoration, it is a little oppressive with all of those shutters and gunports."
In fact, Louise had been too busy gaping at Jonas to even notice the shutters and gunports.
"Of course," Jonas agreed uncertainly. Despite his doubts, however, he was clearly rushed off his feet and with a mumbled apology he departed.
Kianna took Louise's arm and led her from the Threshold. "He looks terrible, doesn't he," she whispered.
For a moment, Louise was tempted to say something snappish about succubae, but Kianna's concern was as genuine as her own. "Yes," she agreed. "He looks ten years older."
"The project is killing him. I just hope that you can provide the cure."
Louise frowned. "Me?" she asked, alarmed. "Shouldn't you... "
Kianna shook her head, sadly. "Not I," she assured Louise. "Far from it. I'll get you cuffed, then let's go to the bar and I'll explain over a drink."
*
Having found no success with Dr Stele the day before, Leleth Aaen tried to speak to Kianna Cyr first thing in the morning, before their respective diaries filled up for the day. Leleth knew that the ADT was protective of Jonas Quinn, but believed that that could be turned to her cause. It was after all as much in his interest as in the interest of the programme for Jonas Quinn to take some time to rest and recover from his endeavours. Unfortunately, Kianna Cyr was nowhere to be found and so Leleth was compelled to take her case to the third member of the senior council; Chief Lenaux.
She found the Chief in conference with a woman in SGC fatigues. Leleth had not seen that uniform since her orientation tour of the Alpha Site; a tour that had seemed designed to try to convince the members of the SEG Expeditionary Force that they were hopelessly inferior to those of the SGC.
With impeccable formality, the Chief introduced Senior Airman MacVeigh from the SGC.
"We are honoured by a visit from an SG team?" Leleth asked wryly.
"Nothing so exalted, Ma'am," MacVeigh assured her. "Just a small delegation. I think I'd best make a start, Chief Lenaux," she added. "Who gets the report when I'm finished?"
"Better to bring it to me," he replied. "I'm not exactly the technical one, but the others are even busier than I am. If you need any help, just ask the Group Administrator, Miss Isato; she'll know who to assign."
"Right," MacVeigh agreed. "I'm on it. Colonel," she added respectfully.
"Lance-Colonel," Leleth corrected.
"Andari ranks don't take contraction," Lenaux explained. "A lance-colonel is always a lance-colonel... "
"A senior commander always a senior commander," Leleth added quietly.
Lenaux's eyes narrowed. "Quite," he growled.
MacVeigh coughed awkwardly. "Sir. Ma'am." Perhaps wisely, she then fled the room with all dignified haste.
"Did you just come to gloat, Aaen?" Lenaux demanded. "Or is there a reason for our visit?"
Leleth flushed, regretting her quip. "You are a senior commander still," she reminded him.
"But I may not be called so, and besides it would be a joke for a man of my years to go by such a title. Now, I am quite busy; you may have heard that we had an attempted landing last night."
Leleth stamped down hard on her instinctive response, which would have been defensive and bitter. She looked at the man she would once have followed into hell and tried to forget how much she hated him. "I need your help," she said, through gritted teeth.
The Chief raised a sceptical eyebrow.
"Something must be done," Leleth pressed on. "Mr Quinn's current state of exhaustion must be addressed; he must be obliged to stand down and to recover himself before he can be allowed to retake the directorship.
"Where were you at twenty-five hours on Losna last?" Lenaux responded.
Leleth stopped short. "I don't... I can't recall offhand. Probably in bed."
"You weren't."
"And how do you know?"
"Because your quarters – all of the dormitories and officers' quarters – are on the security grid," Lenaux replied. "Your tracer was off the grid from twelve minutes before twenty-five hours until three minutes after midnight. What were you doing for those three and a quarter hours?"
"I don't specifically recall," Leleth insisted, fidgeting with the tracer cuff around her left wrist. "And I refuse to be held accountable for the failings of your security system. Your bloody grid has more holes than coverage."
"This may be true, but the fact remains that you disappeared from the grid at the same time every two or three days."
"You have been spying on me!"
Lenaux shrugged. "The grid effectively spies on everyone; including myself," he reminded her.
Leleth narrowed her eyes. "The quantity of data is huge and the software is crude. You'd never have noticed if you weren't keeping tabs on me in particular. I know you don't like me, Seni... " She bit off the appellation, but too late to judge by the flicker in Lenaux's eyelid. "Chief Lenaux, but I had thought that I might have been trusted. I went through enough screenings to get this post, after all."
"The Director trusts everyone," Lenaux assured her, "therefore I must trust no-one. You have been off the sensor grid more often than almost anyone else in the facility. In fact, only one person has spent as much time outside the areas covered by the grid as you have, and mostly at the same times as you."
Leleth flushed with rage. "How dare you... !"
"It's my job."
"This will not rest," she insisted.
"So take it to the Director; the man you want to have replaced," Lenaux suggested.
"Damn you!" Leleth snapped. She stormed to the door, pausing only to fire over her shoulder: "Damn you to Orcus."
*
The Colony
After spending a night in the cells for saving the entire SEG from armed infiltrations, Rebus was in the mood for a little mischief. He was released shortly before dawn and by the time the early watch came on at eight hours he had spoken to half-a-dozen contacts, found a storage space and was ready to fall back into his own habits. Let them catch him. Let them throw him in the cells and melt the key to make a bolt; he had little enough left to lose. His earlier disgrace had cost him his family, most of his friends and any real future in the armed forces; no-one wanted a thirty-year-old trooper. As for his new friend, there had been no sign of Kha when he was released. No doubt the élite had whisked her away and she had seemingly made little enough effort to have him released earlier.
Rebus knew that he was being unfair, but then he also knew that he was being foolish. That did not stop him either. He knew the right people and the right kinds of people; by the time they sent him down he could have a tidy sum squirreled away where no-one would ever think to look for it, just waiting and earning interest to pay for his release party.
Of course, there was one other hurdle to be jumped before he could really get to work.
"Trooper Badon?"
"Senior Trooper," Rebus replied politely.
"Sergeant-at-Arms would like a word with you," the man said, gesturing towards one of the storehouses.
"Sure."
Rebus walked ahead of the s-troop to the storehouse door and went through. He was not in the least surprised when the door slammed shut behind him and hands grabbed his arms. He grunted in pain as he was flung to the floor, more from his injury of the night before than because of his current treatment.
He looked up at a pair of shiny, non-regulation boots, then further up to the tall, powerful figure of Sergeant-at-Arms Melko of the Terranian Military Command. As he picked himself up, Rebus looked around. He was in the corner of the storehouse, which had been done out as a sort of office, complete with desk and adding machine. A folding bed stood beside the desk. There were five people present besides Rebus himself: Melko, two Andari drivers, another Kelownan trooper and a Terranian woman-at-arms. The Senior Trooper who had brought him was not in the room; no doubt he was watching the door.
"So this is the local chamber of commerce," Rebus said.
"You've got a big mouth, Badon," Melko growled. "You should show some respect in your unpromising situation."
Rebus drew himself up straight and saluted. "Sir. Sorry, Sir!" he snapped.
Melko nodded and one of the drivers kicked Rebus in the back of his knee. With an effort, and by shifting most of his weight to the other foot, Rebus stayed standing. When they hit the other knee – and they would – he'd go down hard, but he needed to show a little resistance at this stage in the game.
"You've got guts, but no brains. You don't call me 'sir', little man; I work for a living."
Rebus chuckled. "If you worked for your living, I wouldn't be in here."
The other knee bent forward under the impact of a booted foot and Rebus hit the ground.
"Two Andari, two Kelownans – including the s-troop outside – and of course yourself and your good lady wife from Terrania," Rebus commented.
The woman-at-arms started towards Rebus, angered at the suggestion she had only gained a place in Melko's racket by sleeping with the boss, but the sergeant stopped her with a gesture.
"Your point?" he asked.
"Just that it's beautiful," Rebus replied, sitting up as casually as he could manage. "It's a touching example of the international cooperation that this project is all about; a glowing tribute to the success of the SEG. They should put you in the brochure, really."
Melko nodded again and the woman-at-arms grabbed Rebus by the hair and punched him across the jaw. His head snapped back; his vision swam and the tearing pain of sudden hair loss shot through his scalp. The woman-at-arms was a big girl and she had a punch that would not have shamed a professional boxer.
"We run the black market around here, Badon," she hissed. "Try and muscle in" – she punched him again – "and we'll muscle back."
"Couldn't just gimme a frien'ly warning?" Rebus asked; he was punch-drunk and his words came out slurred. His eyes focused for a second and he noted with distracted interest that the woman's name tag bore the inappropriate moniker 'Gentle'.
"This is a friendly warning," Melko assured him.
Gentle hit Rebus again, then the others joined in. It was, all in all, a thoroughly professional job, with little risk of serious harm to anyone... except for Rebus of course. Just as the world was becoming dim around him, a voice called out: "Enough!"
As he blacked out, the only thing that Rebus was sure of was that it was not Melko's voice.
*
The Stargate Facility
Jonas returned to his office to find the subject of his first delayed appointment waiting for him.
"You are late," Dr Nastasi Tai growled.
"I was obliged to shift our appointment on a matter of interstellar diplomacy," Jonas replied. "You were informed."
"As the reasoning was insufficient; I chose to ignore the change. Therefore you are late."
For all his acuity, Jonas was unable to tell whether Tai was being deliberately offensive or whether it just came naturally to him. Tai's appointment was one of the compromises that Jonas had been forced to make in order to maintain the support of the various major governments of Langara. The Terranians had refused to allow him to select the various academics and officers that he felt appropriate to the Group's mission unless he accepted certain additional personnel drawn from the upper echelons of the military and scientific élite, including Subgeneral Élite Liten Blitze, the senior member of the Military Oversight Commission and Academician Élite Nastasi Tai.
The Terranian élite orders were selectively bred for excellence in particular military and scientific fields. Members of the élite lived in cloistered halls and foreswore sexual relations save as a part of the ongoing breeding programme. They were invariably brilliant in their field, utterly out of their depth anywhere else and – with the exception of the pastoral élite – socially incompetent in one way or another. Jonas found them a strange breed, although with the exception of Nastasi Tai he did not find them especially objectionable.
"You were early," Jonas replied blandly, striving to contain his intense dislike of the man. "However, please come in now." He turned to lead the way into his office; Tai followed impatiently on his heels and declined to sit.
"What I have to say will not take long. I have prepared a report which goes into more detail."
"Of course you have."
"I have outlined a programme for accelerating preparation work on the Stargate Programme," Tai explained. "If you persuade the Joint Ruling Council to exercise its powers under the terms of Emergency Resolution 13 and declare the Project a matter of planetary imperative, we can draft in the indentured workforce that we require. We could be ready to send EF-1 on their first offworld mission in a matter of weeks. I have also proposed a replacement policy statement and charter."
"Have you now?"
"The existing policy is too meek."
"You have said that before."
"And you have rejected my proposals," Tai agreed with perfect calm. "However, I believe that if you review my proposed draft, you will find that my position becomes clearer... "
"You make your position pretty clear with your plan to use slave labour... "
"Indentured workers," the Terranian insisted.
"... slave labour to work on the facility. You are the worst kind of academic zealot."
At this, Tai's perfect composure snapped. "And you are too timid to serve the needs of this world!" he snapped.
And you are an amoral louse, Jonas wanted to retort and just barely managed to hold back from saying. "I am the Director of this Group and I will decide our policy," he insisted. "Your protests will, as ever, be taken under advisement." And thank you for that phrase, General Hammond, he thought to himself.
"Mr Quinn," Tai hissed, "you should know that my government has very definite plans for the Expeditionary Group. They will demand results – results that this travesty of a policy will fail to produce – and if you can not prove the efficacy of your approach – as you will not – I think it likely that you will find yourself replaced, hero of the Anubite invasion or not."
Jonas flushed with rage and gripped the arm of his chair until his knuckles turned white. He pressed his eyes closed, fighting to control his temper. He was tired and irritable already and Tai made him want to shriek at the best of times. "Doctor Tai, I don't think we can get very far if you are going to resort to threats."
Tai planted his hands on the desk and loomed over Jonas. "You are working on borrowed time, Quinn. The Andari Federation will not continue to support your Directorship in Council when it becomes clear that your leadership is ineffective in carrying this planet forwards and your state of grace with your own government will not prove inexhaustible. You can accept my proposals now or I can enact them when I replace you; it is for you to... "
The Terranian broke off with a cry as Jonas sprang to his feet. Tai tripped, staggered and fell to the ground. He tried to push himself upright before Jonas could reach him, but Jonas had not moved from behind his desk.
"Get out of my office, Tai," he growled and the rage on his face was as frightening as any physical threat. "Go back to the labs and do your job. If you ever threaten me again, if you try to replace me, if you tell me how to run this programme, I will... make you regret it."
Tai rose to his feet, struggling to regain his composure. As he scrambled to the door, he flashed a look of rage and fear at Jonas, who had resumed his seat and turned his attention to his paperwork.
"You're insane, Quinn!"
Jonas looked up calmly. "Good morning, Professor Tai."
Faced with this extraordinary shift in gear, the Terranian blenched and left the office with all the speed his battered dignity would allow. Jonas watched him go and then, after a moment, wiped his hand over his face. "I really hate that man," he sighed.
*
The officers mess had a terrace which looked out over the wide, blue ocean that surrounded the island of Amamos. The sun shone above with Mediterranean warmth. Sixty feet below, the surf drove against the base of a cliff wall, the sound drifting up to the terrace as a gentle murmur.
Louise sat at a table and tugged at her new tracer cuff. She was used to wearing a watch, but now it felt as though she were wearing two at once. "Is this strictly necessary?" she asked as Kianna returned.
"Absolutely," Kianna replied, setting down a glass of dark liquid with a white, frothy head.
"I'm not much of a stout drinker," Louise noted warily.
"Stout?"
"What we'd call this," Louise explained. "Now, Molly lives on it, but... "
Kianna took a long drink from her own glass. "If you don't like it I can get you something different."
Louise shook her head. "I'll give it a try," she replied. "Now, what about the wristband?"
"It's a tracer," Kianna explained. "We've got over a thousand personnel from a dozen nations and it's a fool's bet that none of them have been suborned by their own or someone else's government. The Chief and his staff have installed a detection grid, which picks up a signal from the wristband and keeps track of each cuff's location."
"Isn't that a little big brother?"
"Huh?"
"Um... intrusive," Louise explained.
"It doesn't say what we're doing, just where we are," Kianna assured her. "So mostly it shows the security techs that we're in our offices."
"Jonas certainly looks as though he doesn't get out much."
Kianna gave a small smile. "He pushes himself far too hard," she agreed. "You care a great deal about him, don't you?"
"Yes," Louise admitted impatiently. She picked up her drink, took a long swallow and choked on the heavy beverage. "Oh, God that's foul!"
Kianna laughed. "Alright; I'll get you something less... grown-up."
Louise scowled at her.
"You don't have to be jealous of me," Kianna said.
"Who said I was jealous?"
"No-one had to say anything," Kianna assured her. "You've been willing me to die of a sudden seizure since we first met a couple of months ago. Kelan was very amused."
Louise was very angry. "Who's Kelan?" she asked sharply, picturing Kianna gossiping about her with her friends.
Kianna made no reply; instead she reached back and tapped the nape of her neck.
After a moment, Louise realised what it was that Kianna meant. "Oh."
"You don't need to be jealous because I have never been Jonas' lover. That was Kelan; she thought it was the best way to keep him close."
Louise sniffed. "Still did better than I did. He never noticed I was interested. Or maybe he just wasn't interested," she added bitterly.
"Kelan had to be pretty damn pushy," Kianna assured her. "But... Look, very little would make me happier than for Jonas to find something – or someone – to take his mind off things a little, and... " She coughed, awkwardly.
"Dr Cyr?"
"I always thought that you and he would be... Kelan thought that was pretty funny as well."
"Oh."
"I think if anyone would be good for him, it would be you, Louise," Kianna went on, "but there's something you should know."
"What?"
"A lot of people went missing when Anubis attacked and when the naquadria quakes began we were just beginning to recover. A lot of people were never found. Jonas and his family weren't close... "
"No!"
"It took a long time for him to realise that they weren't coming back. They weren't close and he hadn't heard from them in a long time. When he visited Dr Kieran, Jonas tried to make contact but his father told him not to speak to them. When he came back he wasn't keen to be rejected again, so it was months before he tried to get in touch with them and... "
"How many were there?"
"His mother and father, and his younger sister. When he found out they were gone, it catalysed his decision to leave the JRC and focus his energies on research. There are still rescue teams trawling the wreckage of the cities and he checks the reports every now and then, but he doesn't have much hope left. Even if it wasn't for his damn fool propriety, I don't know if he could see a good thing if it landed in his lap at the moment."
"That's terrible," Louise whispered. "Poor Jonas."
"I'll get you that drink," Kianna said.
She rose and moved back to the bar, but for a long moment Louise did not register her departure. She was lost in thought, trying to fathom how terrible it would be to go home and discover that your family were all dead. For Louise, whose family were so tight-knit that it pained her to keep her work with the SGC secret from them, such a loss was unthinkable and she could not believe that it would have been much easier for Jonas.
"Poor Jonas," she murmured again. She felt a pang of sympathy so visceral that it almost made her gasp aloud. To lose your mother and father; a sister. Her own sister, Ashley, was a prancing It-girl – Louise had never been sure what girl actually defined an It-girl, but whatever the hell an It-girl was, Ashley was it – and they had never been as close as Louise was to their brother, David, but still the thought of losing Ash, of never being annoyed by her drawling, affected voice or her phoney laugh – let alone of never against sharing one of the rare, unguarded moments when she let herself be herself – was unbearable.
A crash of broken glass drew Louise from her funk. She looked up and saw Kianna standing in a puddle of spilled beer, facing the man who had walked into her. Her face was suffused with instinctive anger, but even as she opened her mouth to snap, her expression softened. Louise could not hear what she said, nor the man's reply, but she could see. She saw hands seeking, but never reaching each other; bodies that would have touched if only feet would move.
It took several minutes for Kianna to drag herself away, gesturing apologetically towards Louise – 'I'd like to stay and talk and maybe make out some, but I have to look after the Earth girl,' Louise imagined her saying – before returning to the table, glancing back over her shoulder three times in the ten feet that she had to walk and once more as she sat down.
"Boy, am I thirsty," Louise said, pointedly.
Kianna blushed. "I, ah, had an accident. Dr Stele is getting you another."
"And does Dr Stele have a first name?"
"Gereth," Kianna agreed.
Louise grinned. "So I really don't have to worry about the competition?"
"Well, yes," Kianna corrected, "just not from me. Not that there's anything between Gereth and me."
"That wasn't how it looked to me."
Kianna sighed and then glanced over her shoulder again before explaining: "It's in the past."
"The hell it is!" If Louise surprised herself with her vehemence, it was as nothing to the shock in Kianna's expression. "That is, it didn't look like ancient history. Ancient history doesn't sizzle that way."
As the shock faded, Kianna sank her head into her shoulders, the shoulders meeting her halfway in a disconsolate shrug. "There's only so much you can take back; I don't think that having your dead mother's antique engagement ring thrown into a pile of chemical waste is something that many men could forgive."
Louise was stunned. "How could you... ?" she began, before realising the truth. She tapped the back of her neck and Kianna nodded.
"She needed to be free to seduce Jonas and... "
"... and she thought it would be funny to rip your fiancé's heart out and grind it into the dirt beneath her... your... her heel while she was at it."
"Her wacky sense of humour," Kianna agreed with a grimace.
"And now you meet up here. Is that coincidence?"
Kianna shook her head. "Gereth is a highly qualified doctor and a brilliant epidemiologist, but I think the final deciding factor was that Jonas wanted to make up for taking advantage of me."
"But he didn't... Only of course, he's such a gentleman that he has to blame himself."
"He's a good man and I am grateful to him for bringing Gereth here, but I don't think it's going to work. Kelan put him through too much and it was me that he saw. We hadn't been together that long, either, so there's not much to weigh against it. I just can't see how... "
Louise lifted her hand a fraction, fingers spread to caution Kianna to silence as Gereth Stele approached the table. He set a drink on the table and smiled at Louise. "Welcome to Amamos, Miss Stillwell," he said. "I hope you have a pleasant stay."
"Thank you, Dr Stele," she replied.
He nodded. "I'll leave you to talk."
"You could stay," Louise suggested innocently. "Might be nice to hear a different viewpoint."
"I should get back to work."
"But you've only just arrived," Louise insisted, "and it's such a lovely day. Besides, there's this pint of peat water that someone's got to drink."
Gereth gave a soft chuckle, raised his hands in surrender and sat down; Louise pushed her barely-touched glass of stout towards him.
"You're so lucky," Louise went on, addressing both of her hosts. "If the SGC was based somewhere as beautiful as this I doubt we'd ever get any work done."
"It was just that, actually," Kianna admitted. "Luck, I mean. The palace of Thanos was protected by three ancient devices called the Colossi."
"If you look behind you, you'll see one of the Colossi," Gereth added.
Louise turned and looked. Some miles distant, a great finger of rock jutted out of the water.
"That contains the machines which generate the defences," Kianna explained. "The first is an electromagnetic field which disrupts navigation and sensors. The second is a cloaking device which conceals the island and masks the massive distortion which it creates by vaporising sea water to form a dense cloud of mist. Finally, the Colossi can – at full power – generate an energy shield to protect the island from bombardment.
The defences have degraded over the years, of course, but the Anas Triangle has had a bad reputation for centuries. Ships vanishing or going miles off course, mysterious electrical discharges."
"Sounds familiar," Louise admitted.
"No-one knew why, of course, until... " Kianna broke off.
"Until Ba'al's fleet spotted the island from orbit and Kelan brought the knowledge, indirectly, to us," Gereth finished, speaking primarily to his drink. He drained the glass with worrying speed and stood up again. "It has been a pleasure, Miss Stillwell."
"Likewise," she assured him. As he walked away, she slumped in her seat. "I'm sorry, Kianna. Who knew 'it's a lovely day' would turn out to be such a controversial topic?"
*
Dr Kha sat in the interrogation room, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes fixed directly ahead of her. Every outward sign suggested that she was entirely at her ease, but this was merely another legacy of the convent. The Prioress of her house had possessed a canine ability to smell fear and had attributed all fear to guilt. The girls under her authority had learned swiftly to control their emotions, lest they be punished for something that they had not done. She felt in desperate need of chocolate, but the patrol had confiscated it; contraband, they had claimed.
She had been allowed to clean up and change before being brought up to the Facility to be interviewed and she had dressed in her formal robes, as though she were attending a disciplinary hearing at the convent. The deep burgundy fabric was too heavy for the climate, however, and she was sweating horribly, so that her hair – so recently washed and brushed – was starting to stick to the back of her neck. Despite her best efforts, she also knew that there was still grease beneath her fingernails.
She rose when the door opened behind her, but did not turn, instead waiting for her interrogators to walk around to the chairs opposite her. Only when she saw them did she slip and allow her surprise to show.
"Assistant Director Lenaux!" she gasped. "Academician Tai!"
"Please sit down, Dr Kha," Lenaux said. "I apologise for keeping you waiting for so long." He pressed the record button on the cassette deck built into the table. "Beginning interview; time code marked." As he said this, he pressed the button to record the current time on the magnetic tape. He looked up at Kha and smiled. "I want you to understand that you are not under arrest and that you are free to leave at any time, although to do so might compromise your future involvement in the Stargate Project."
"I understand," she replied. "I want to help in any way I can."
"Good. For the records I am Assistant Director for Security, Mr Kaise Lenaux. CSO Academician Nastasi Tai... "
"Academician Élite," Tai corrected.
"Academician Élite Nastasi Tai is present as a senior representative of the Scientific Élite to ensure that all correct protocol is maintained. If you could state your name, please?"
"Dr Eudora Kha," she replied.
"Not Dr Élite?" Leanux asked.
Kha shook her head. "My full title and name is Engineer Élite Dr Eudora Iphne Kha; only lectors and above attach the élite appellation directly to their honorific."
"Understood. Now, I have read your statement regarding last night's events and all I need is a few clarifications. Did you recognise the two people that you observed sabotaging the sonar posts?"
"No, Assistant Director," Kha replied. "It was dark and they were whispering. I might have recognised them if I had been closer, but I was very afraid."
"Of course; I quite understand. Anything you can tell us."
"They were definitely Terranian," Kha noted. "From their accents I... "
"Preposterous!" Tai spluttered angrily. "You've barely stepped outside of a cloister in your life and you consider yourself an authority on Terranian accents?"
Dr Kha cast her eyes downwards. "I may have been mistaken," she admitted.
Lenaux snorted. "Or you may not have been. Academician Élite, you are here to keep me from badgering your compatriot, not to harangue her yourself."
"My apologies, Chief Lenaux."
"You believed them to be Terranian?"
"I... may have been mistaken."
"Understood," Lenaux agreed. "Now, you said that their accents sounded Terranian – and accepting that you might have been mistaken – what language were they speaking?"
"Well, they were definitely speaking Terranian. I suppose that might be why I thought that the accent sounded Terranian."
"Terranian is a very widespread language," Tai noted. There was a cold, satisfied gleam in his eye, more like a cloister-yard bully than a senior member of the élite.
Lenaux sighed. "As are Kelownan and Andari, but knowing what language the saboteurs used when they thought that no-one was listening will help us to narrow down the field of suspects."
This was true, Kha knew, but only just; many Langarans from the border regions learned at least two languages from birth and there were few adults who were not at least partially bilingual. Moreover, Terranian was a trade language, used by residents of many of the independent states as a common tongue.
"What of the commandos?" Lenaux asked.
"Trooper Badon challenged them in Terranian and they responded in the same language," Kha replied.
"Because he challenged in Terranian," Tai scoffed.
"Academician Élite. If you do not desist I shall have you removed."
Tai glowered poisonously at Lenaux, but said nothing. Kha felt a trickle of sweat run down her back.
"In your own words please, Dr Kha."
Kha swallowed hard. "The leader spoke Terranian; the others hardly spoke at all. If I had to try and place them, I should have said that the leader was Terranian, but the one he sent back to the submarine sounded less fluent. It was nothing major, just something in the inflection of his words; a slight hesitancy perhaps and the way he formed his long vowels. He might have been from one of the northern states, or even an Andari."
Lenaux raised an eyebrow. "Not much good with accents?" he asked Tai.
"The girl was frightened and confused and you are putting words into her mouth."
"On the contrary, I think that you are taking words out of her mouth. However, I think that is all we need for the time being. Dr Kha, do you have any questions?"
"The commandos. Did you manage to capture them?"
Lenaux shook his head. "They attempted to submerge their craft. We held off on the torpedoes but the casing of the submarine sprang a leak. We dredged it up this morning; there were no survivors."
Dr Kha squeezed her eyes shut.
"That troubles you?" Tai demanded.
"I fired at them when the hatch was open," Kha explained. "I don't know where the shots went except that one of them hit a man in the leg and a shot to the inside of the craft would do more harm than one outside. I never meant to hurt anyone, just to frighten them off and I might have... "
"It's hard to tell," Lenaux replied gently, "but it looks as though they simply failed to properly close the hatch before submerging. It wasn't anyone's fault."
Kha swallowed. "Thank you, Assistant Director. There was one other thing," she added.
"Yes?"
"Trooper Badon. The patrol seemed to think that he had something to do with the attack, but he was there because I called him."
Lenaux nodded. "He's already been released," he assured her.
"However, he is a noted criminal," Tai added. "A black marketer, a thief and a spy."
"I doubt you would hold that last against him if he had not been a Kelownan spy against the Terranians," Lenaux noted. "But it is true that Trooper Badon is on parole from military detention; he is not the kind of friend you should be cultivating."
"It is unseemly for a member of the Scientific Élite to be consorting with a criminal. As your superior, I order you to break off all contact with the man. If you refuse to comply, you will be returned to your convent under a warrant of disobedience for corrective training."
Kha shot a helpless look at Lenaux.
The Chief pursed his lips angrily. "So long as you remain on this base, you may associate with anyone you chose," he assured her, "but your order has the right to recall you. I can not interfere in that."
Tai looked unbearably smug. Kha had never seen a senior member of the élite look so self-satisfied. They could be proud, yes, but not so arrogant. Arrogance had invited disaster on the élite once before, bringing about an uprising that almost destroyed centuries of work and breeding. Humility, in seeming if not in fact, was now prized above all things. Kha stared at Tai in horror and his return gaze seemed to say 'I could crush you, little girl; just give me a reason.'
She shuddered and looked away.
Lenaux rose quite suddenly to his feet. "Interview ends. Time code marked." He pressed the button to mark the time, then shut off the recorder. "Thank you, Dr Kha," he said. "I'll detail someone to take you back to the Colony as soon as possible."
"Thank you, Assistant Director."
"Call me Chief; everyone does. Assistant Director sounds so dry."
He walked around the table and put a hand on her arm to guide her to the door. Tai followed and Kha could feel his icy disapproval, but Lenaux's presence was comforting and solid. He stopped at the door, so that he blocked the way entirely with Kha on the outside and Tai on the inside, and held out his hand. "Goodbye Dr Kha, and thank you again."
As they shook hands, he held her arm in place and slipped a packet from his pocket and into her sleeve. "And don't forget this," he added in a whisper. "I won't ask where it came from, but do be careful of the source."
"I... I will," she replied.
"Infantrywoman!" Lenaux called. "Escort Dr Kha to the gyropad and put her on a lift back to the Colony. She has important work to finish."
Dr Kha glanced back at him as she walked away. He had left the doorway and Academician Tai was watching her with his cold eyes. She turned from him and fixed her eyes on her shoes. She slipped a hand inside her sleeve and felt a familiar shape: a bar of chocolate with one square missing from the corner.
*
The Colony
Rebus hobbled from the infirmary, too proud to use a stick. He did not think that the doctor had bought his story – 'I fell down the stairs... onto some boots' – but the theory seemed to be that the patrol had beaten him up and it suited him to let people believe that.
As he made his way slowly towards his barracks, a woman fell into step beside him. "Need a hand, soldier?" she asked.
Rebus shied a little bit away from her.
"Hey! Something I said?"
Rebus turned his head to look at her through the eye that was not swollen most of the way shut. He saw, as he had expected, a woman with short, brown hair, but instead of the sour-faced glower he had expected, he saw a crooked, self-assured smile. "I'm sorry, Senior Sergeant," he said. "I thought you were Gentle."
"I can be," she assured him, but Rebus was pretty sure that she knew what he meant.
"Can I help you with something, Senior Sergeant?" Rebus asked. "I mean, obviously I'm not going to be much use for carrying heavy objects at the moment."
"Maybe you can," the senior sergeant replied. "Come with me."
Rebus laughed and then held his aching ribs. "Given I'm actually not much good for anything but body parts, I'm a little wary, but who am I to refuse an order?"
The senior sergeant led Rebus to the communications' centre. She paused at a side door and turned to look at him. Rebus got his first good look at the left of her face and realised that the crooked twist in her smile was caused by a scar that ran through that edge of her mouth.
"Are you sure you want to walk through this door?" she asked mockingly.
"You mean after the last time? Sure. Why not? After all, it was you that stopped them beating me up the last time."
He smile deepened and perhaps grew a little more teasing. "You're tougher than you look, Trooper. I like that. I'm Deva, by the way. Deva Lal."
"A pleasure to meet you, Senior Sergeant Lal," he replied. "And a particular pleasure to do so without your friends performing an interpretative dance on my ribcage."
"They're not friends, just colleagues." Without taking her eyes off him, Deva Lal turned the door handle and pushed the door open with her hip. "Step into my office," she invited, gesturing along the corridor behind.
Lal's 'office' was a store closet with a locked door. Inside, the cupboard was bare, with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling and a handful of empty shelves.
"It's nice," Rebus noted. "Sort of minimalist."
Lal shook her head in mock despair. "Honestly, Badon. I hear great things about you. They say you have a flair for the work, but I have to say, you just don't know when to shut your mouth."
Rebus shrugged. "Well, I normally get the message eventually, but by that time there's a boot in my mouth and it's difficult to shut."
"And is that your boot or someone else's?"
"One boot tastes much like another."
"I'll take your word for that; now will you shut the door please."
Rebus pulled the door closed behind him. Lal reached past him to turn the key in the lock, pushing up against him with something a little more deliberate than inadvertency.
"This is all so sudden, Deva," Rebus murmured.
"Keep saying your prayers, Trooper," she scoffed good-naturedly. She reached up to one of the empty shelves and pressed a button. The back wall of the closet swung open. "My office," she explained.
"Very nice."
The secret door led to a cramped space about five feet by ten, packed with shelves and cases and radio equipment. Rebus was impressed; Lal must have had some serious contacts on the construction crew to have 'lost' so much space in the structure.
"Suddenly I feel very second string."
"Probably that talking problem," Lal noted. "How are you feeling, by the way?"
"Like I've been worked over by a group of unimaginative goons."
"They have their uses, and you really shouldn't have made such an effort to piss off Melko and Gentle."
"Really, it was no trouble."
Lal sat down at a table and began fiddling with the radio rig.
"That's connected?" Rebus asked.
"Oh yes," she assured him. "This is one of my most lucrative lines. Bandwidth out of Amamos is severely restricted and the civvies are all desperate to call home. I'm running a public service, really. A friend on the mainland has a tap into the Andari phone network, so I can put people in touch with their loved ones."
"For a price."
"Of course." Lal pulled a keyboard towards herself and began to type. "Now, you're from Kelowna so it won't be a great line at the telephone end, but is there anyone you'd like to speak to?"
"I doubt I could afford it," Rebus assured her.
Lal turned and winked. "First time's free, Badon; you know that. Come on, who do you want to call?"
Rebus thought about it for a moment. "Lindau exchange, 457."
Lal tapped the information into the terminal. "Alright; it'll be a few minutes to make the connection and you'll have a little signal lag, but there won't be any time limits." She stood up and offered the chair to him. "When you're done, tap on the cupboard door and I'll let you out."
"You're not staying?"
"Of course not!" She looked shocked at the suggestion. "I'm not going to pry into your private conversation."
Rebus watched for a moment to see how she worked the mechanism for the secret door and, if he was honest, just to watch her. Scar or not, Deva Lal was an attractive woman, and quite brilliantly devious to boot. His mind was awhirl with the possibilities that the world offered to two such dishonest individuals, working in concert.
The door closed and he sat down, picked up the headset and put it on. There was no sound but a soft hiss of static. Rebus examined the rig, which was quite impressive. It was computer controlled and presumably tapped into the main arrays to piggy-back its signal on the authorised transmissions. He pushed the chair back a little and looked underneath the desk. He was not entirely surprised to see one of the SGC hard drives taped underneath.
"Clever girl," he murmured. She keeps a log of every transmission. She doesn't need to listen to what her 'clients' are saying because she can play it back at her leisure, and if anyone tries to inform on her, she has the proof that they made an illegal call. No wonder she wanted me to take a free sample; now I'm implicated already.
His attention was dragged from this speculation by a dialling signal, which was then replaced by a soft chirrup.
There was a click. "Lindau 457."
Rebus swallowed hard. "Lannie?" he asked.
After a moment of silence, during which Rebus held his breath, the girl's voice spoke again. "Uncle Rebus?"
"Your mother isn't there, is she?"
"No, she's at work."
Rebus smiled. "Oh. Good. So, how are you doing, sweetheart?"
*
The Stargate Facility
Tanith Arden's smile was creating an ache at the corners of her mouth as she said for the third time. "I know that it is very short notice, but I'm afraid that Mr Quinn was called away on urgent business."
"We had an appointment," Dr Lee Taighairm insisted. A brilliant scholar, she had been passed over for the post of CSO because she was felt to lack initiative; her habit of doggedly pursuing a single point of view in any discussion was seen as supporting this decision.
"Dr Taighairm; Mr Streith... " Tanith began.
"We had an appointment," Matthus Streith echoed.
"Actually, sir, Dr Taighairm had an appointment," Tanith corrected, a trace of testiness beginning to show through the cracks in her smooth, professional manner. "You seem to have tagged along... again."
The two actually blushed at that and tried not to look at one another. Officially, any personal relationships between members of SEG was supposed to be declared, so as to avoid assigning couples to the same offworld expeditions, but these two – a Kelownan diplomat and a Terranian archaeologist – seemed to honestly believe that they had kept their involvement a secret.
"We had... " Taighairm began once more.
"Is there a problem Miss Arden?"
Tanith responded to Chief Lenaux's arrival as a drowning woman to a luxury yacht filled with cabana boys, cocktails and moisturiser.
"Not at all, Chief. I was just explaining to Dr Taighairm and Mr Streith that Mr Quinn has been called away and will be unable to keep their appointment."
"An urgent security matter," Lenaux agreed. "I'm sure Miss Arden can reschedule your meeting."
"But we had... " Faced with Lenaux's stony face, neither smiling nor frowning, Taighairm's nerve broke. "Of course. Miss Arden, when might it be convenient to... "
"Eighteen hours this afternoon?" Tanith suggested at once.
"If that is the earliest... "
"Excellent. Good of you to come and I apologise again that it was not possible to provide more warning."
"Well we... "
"Good day, Dr Taighairm; Mr Streith," Lenaux rumbled.
"Good day, sir," they mumbled in reply.
"I swear," Tanith confided once she was alone with Lenaux, "if he doesn't take a weekend off – and by extension give me one – soon, I am going to shoot someone."
Lenaux gave a short, dry chuckle. "With the number of people who've told me they don't think he's standing the pressure, I wouldn't be surprised if you got a chance soon enough."
"To take a break or to shoot someone?" Tanith's grin turned to a frown. "You think someone might actually try to hurt him?"
"Just stay on your toes and try not to let snippy academics distract you from your real job, Dragoon."
"No, sir," Tanith replied, her back straightening automatically.
"Now, where exactly is he?"
"In his office," Tanith replied.
"Then... why did you say he'd been called away?"
Tanith had the decency to blush. "Sleeping, sir."
"Sleeping?"
"Gods know, he needs it."
"Alright," Lenaux sighed. "But you'd better wake him up now. I need to speak to him and this won't wait until eighteen."
"Yes, Chief Lenaux." Tanith pressed the call button and held it down for almost a minute before receiving a reply.
"Huh?"
"Chief Lenaux to see you, Mr Quinn."
"Mm? Righ', righ'. Sen' 'im in."
"The Director will see you now," Tanith told Lenaux in her perkiest voice.
"Thank you, Miss Arden."
Kaise opened the door and stepped through quickly, unwilling to leave the door open and expose the Director to public view in his current state.
"I know, I know; I look terrible," Jonas said.
"You look dreadful," Lenaux amplified. "I don't begrudge you a little sleep, Jonas, but you have a whole secondary apartment behind your office. If you could at least sleep in there you wouldn't have keyboard marks on your face."
Jonas rubbed vigorously at his cheek, partially blotting out the impressions of the keys of his electrotype with a sore redness. "I didn't actually plan this," he assured Lenaux. "How many appointments have I missed?" He glanced at the clock and then answered his own question. "Three. Just great."
"Dr Taighairm and Mr? Streith were here when I arrived. What was that about?"
Jonas groaned. "I'm not sorry to have dodged that bullet. I just informed them that they had been deselected from EF-1 and reassigned to Auxiliary Support. I doubt they were very happy."
"Civilians don't always deal well with frat regs," Lenaux agreed. "Was it necessary to bump them both from the flagship team?"
"Would it have been better to bump one of them? At least this way they've still got each other."
"You're a romantic, but now we have to replace two members of EF-1 at short notice."
Jonas shrugged. "We'll ask Lance-Colonel Aaen to vet the standby personnel and maybe bump someone up from EF-2."
"You evidently have more faith in her than she has in you. Aaen has been complaining that you aren't up to leading the Group at the moment. She doesn't seem to want you out, but certainly she's pushing for you to take a forced break."
"Maybe she's right."
"I don't think so."
Jonas frowned. "Kaise?"
"Tai," Lenaux explained. "If you go on leave, Dr Cyr will take over as Acting Director and either Aaen or Tai will step into her office. I have every respect for Dr Cyr as an administrator and researcher, but she's uncertain in herself."
"Can you blame her?" Jonas asked. "She spent the best part of a year sharing her head with a snake."
"I don't blame her, but two strong individuals like Aaen and Tai could sway her in two weeks and you could well come back to a Group with its priorities shifted."
"And its corridors full of slave labour."
Lenaux raised an eyebrow.
"Tai came to see me again. He wants us to draft indentured workers to complete work on the facility."
"We could use the workforce."
Jonas shook his head. "Even if I could square it with my conscience, I doubt there are many qualified electrical engineers or xenotechnologists on Langara's varied indentured work schemes and community service programmes. We already employ most of the people qualified to work for us, not to mention the several thousand colonists we have getting the island's farms and industries up and running. I don't know what Tai thinks... "
"Jonas?"
"He wouldn't... " Jonas rummaged in his in-tray and dug out Tai's proposals. He flipped through, his hyperaware mind devouring the details that he had missed earlier.
"What is it?" Lenaux asked.
"I should have known. He wants to flood Amamos with indentured farm and factory labourers and send the colonists home."
Lenaux frowned. "Why? The Colony hardly costs us anything."
"But it will make the island self-sufficient," Jonas pointed out. "The last thing any of the national governments want is for the JRC or the SEG to slip any further from their control. I know you're stretched thin as it is, but you'd better increase security on the Colony."
"Will do," Lenaux agreed. "But meanwhile we also need to keep a closer eye on Aaen and Tai."
Jonas shook his head. "They're ambitious, but... "
"They keep going off the sensor grid," Lenaux insisted. "Their off-grid times match up as well; there's definitely something going on between them. I've never trusted Aaen," he added.
"I remember."
"You overrode my veto on her appointment."
"Yes, I remember, and I had my reasons. Her record since the incident has been impeccable and I think she's just what we need. Apart from that one lapse... "
"It was a hell of a lapse."
"And that's another reason why I want her onboard. George Hammond and Jack O'Neill were two of the best men I ever knew and that was partly because they knew from personal experience, and regret, what happens when you decide that the end justifies the means."
Lenaux grunted doubtfully. "I don't like her taste in friends."
"Well, if she's spending time with Tai I can't argue with that. It does have the marks of a conspiracy," Jonas admitted reluctantly. "It's like the Trust on Earth. We'll probably find that whoever is ultimately behind the disruption will have their claws into a dozen of our most trusted personnel." He sighed. "Alright, Kaise; it'll take a long time, but re-check everyone; look for anything that could possibly be used to blackmail any of them."
Lenaux groaned. "As though there's anyone who can't be blackmailed, if you put your mind to the task. But I'll get my people on it right away."
"And check the external communication logs as well," Jonas suggested. "No-one could organise a thing like this alone; there has to be considerable outside support. Find out who has been talking to someone on one of the mainlands – and if possible, who they were talking to and on which mainland – and we'll have our suspect."
Lenaux nodded. For a moment he looked despondent, but then he smiled. "With your permission, I'll bring Airman MacVeigh in to assist me. She knows the systems better than anyone on this planet."
"Good. Let me know as soon as you find anything. We're going to sink or swim on... " Jonas winced and held his stomach.
"I'll take care of it," Lenaux assured him. "You get some rest and give Miss Arden a little time off. Don't give Lance-Colonel Aaen the chance to push you out, even for a month."
Jonas chuckled. "Yes, Mom."
*
After their drink and the encounter with Gereth Stele, Louise and Kianna both felt somewhat subdued. Kianna offered a full tour of the Stargate Facility, but Louise was not in the mood and did not think that the other woman would have been in a fit state to show the Facility to best effect. Instead, Kianna took Louise to her suite in the guest quarters.
Louise gave a low whistle. "This is a sight better than the VIP rooms at Cheyenne," she noted.
"One of the great advantages of using a Goa'uld's palace as your HQ," Kianna explained. "We're as well protected here as if we had a mountain on top of us – in theory, anyway; we're having some teething troubles with the defences – but the architects' watchword was clearly luxury. We've even got the Sec Force barracks done up pretty well." She walked over to a small table and sat down. At a touch of her fingers on the surface, a holographic display shimmered into life and the table lit up beneath the veneer to show a Goa'uld keyboard.
"All mod cons," Louise noted, approvingly.
"Hmm?"
"Modern conveniences," Louise explained. "It means everything built in."
"Oh, quite," Kianna agreed, her fingers flying nimbly across the controls. "While it was hard won, Kelan's knowledge has been a great blessing to me in integrating our systems and your systems with the existing Goa'uld computers. Now, you can use this terminal to access some of the SEG files – the non-secure ones, obviously – and bring yourself up to speed a little."
"Thank you," Louise replied.
Kianna smiled. "I'll stop by Jonas' office at about twenty hours and make sure he hasn't lost track of the time. As many times as he's missed appointments with the great and the good, he won't forget that he's having dinner with you, I'm sure" – Louise blushed at that – "but he might forget that it's dinner time. I'll meet you for breakfast on the terrace in the mess tomorrow morning; I can give you the tour and you can tell me all the sordid details."
"Of dinner with Jonas?"
Kianna laughed as she rose to her feet. "Alright, probably not sordid, but still, you can tell me the details. You should reset your access code for the system," she added.
Louise nodded her understanding. "No regular words, no parents' birthdays; letters, numbers and use both cases. I know the drill."
"Okay then." Kianna smiled warmly. "Have a good evening and I'll see you in the morning."
"Same to you."
As the door closed behind Kianna, Louise flopped into the chair with an explosive exhalation. "God damnit," she growled. Louise liked to key herself up for big emotional outbursts and had spent hours revving herself up to hate Kianna Cyr. Instead, she felt bitterly sorry for the woman and even guilty for driving Gereth away by inadvertently bringing Kelan into the conversation in the bar.
Her suitcase had been brought up and Louise rummaged for her radio. Offworld protocol demanded that she bring it with her, but she had not felt it necessary to carry it around with her, any more than she had felt a need to wear her intar pistol on her hip. The armoury officer had scowled a little when she tucked the weapon into the case, but she was on a diplomatic assignment and she had Molly – who might be a computer geek, but was still an airwoman – to protect her.
She switched on the radio and pressed the transmit switch. "Sierra Golf Tango 2 from Sierra Golf Tango 1," she said. "Are you there, Molly?"
The radio in her hand crackled and emitted a raucous laugh. "Oh, sweetie. Radio protocol is just something that happens to other people, isn't it?"
"Sorry, SGT-2," Louise replied. She sounded chastened, but rolled her eyes as she said it.
"And don't roll your eyes at me, SGT-1; the rules are there for a reason."
This time, Louise actually felt herself straighten up at Molly's stern tone and apparent omniscience. "Yes, Two."
The channel went dead. After a moment, the telephone on the table – which looked as though it were made of bakelite, or something very like it – began to ring. Gingerly, Louise picked it up.
"Hello?"
"So what can I do you for, hon?" Molly asked.
"How did you know... "
"Your number? Sweetie, I'm logged into the central mainframe here. Hey; I see Dr Cyr's given you an access account for the computerised files. You know, they really have taken to computerisation well."
"So you're busy then?" Louise asked.
"You could say that."
"I just did. Never mind then; I just... I feel I need someone to talk to."
Louise could almost hear Molly's expression of sympathetic rage. "That bitch," she hissed.
"No!" Louise protested, anxious to cut Molly off before she did something horrendous and Nemesistic to Kianna's file space. "No, she was lovely. She was really sympathetic and totally into this other guy she knew before she got possessed."
"So... not a threat?"
"No."
"What a waste of good spleen."
"Tell me about it. So, I need to adjust my attitude; thought it might help to talk things through, but... "
"How're you fixed for dinner tonight?" Molly asked.
"I'm having dinner with Jonas," she replied, just a little smugly.
Molly snorted with laughter. "And yet you were worried about the blonde? Honestly, Louise, for such a smart girl you sure don't have the brains you were born with sometimes."
"Thanks... I think." Louise grimaced. She had not expected sympathy from Molly, but then that was the point; Molly was an alarmingly frank woman and Louise had found this invaluable for cutting through self-pity. "How're you doing?" she added.
"Considering someone told me yesterday that I was going on a callout to fix a hybrid computer system and, by the way, the client's on another planet, I'm doing pretty good. You wanna catch up at breakfast, maybe?"
"Sure. Oh, I'm meeting Kianna on the terrace of the mess, maybe you can join us?"
"Would that be the officers' mess?"
Louise winced. "Sorry."
"'S okay, hon. You and Dr Cyr have fun, but meet me in the commissary for lunch or I'll never be your friend again. Unless Jonas asks you to have lunch with him," she added. "Skip out on him after all this moping and you're just too dumb for me to bother with."
Louise chuckled. "Thanks, Máire," she said, softly.
"For what?" Molly asked, struck by the use of her proper name.
"For not indulging a mopey old so-and-so."
Molly laughed again. "You're not old, honey. See you for lunch."
Feeling much better, Louise turned to face the computer. "Now, SEG central database: what do you have to tell me, I wonder?"
*
Molly hung up the phone and turned back to the Group Administrator, Miss Dilan Isato. Her name had caused Molly to imagine a Japanese woman, but in fact Isato looked as though she would have been more at home in New Delhi. She was a tall and sturdy woman who certainly looked as though she could carry the weight of an entire command on her shoulders. She spoke highly of Chief Lenaux and he had spoken well of her. If Molly knew anything of the way that a military base worked, then these two larger than life characters were the father and mother of the SEG; much like Senior Master Sergeant Siler and Master Sergeant Chiltern at the SGC.
"Is your friend alright?" Isato asked, with every sign of genuine concern.
"Aw, she's fine. She just gets a little fussy sometimes. Louise is as bright as they come, but... Well, I think it's on account of her brains being a little overdeveloped she gets in these flusters. You work with this lot; you probably know the kind."
Isato nodded. "So much brains that there's no room for sense," she agreed. "But then, that's why the gods made administrators; or made adjutants, I believe is the military equivalent."
"Sergeants, where I come from, but it's the same idea," Molly agreed.
"But we're straying from the point. Run me through this process again."
Molly laughed. "You run me through it," she replied. "You're a darn sight more familiar with this system and I'm a hardware gal anyway. We've been through it three times already, so you must know it better than me by now."
"I doubt that, Airman," Isato replied dryly, "but I shall make the attempt. Alright," she began, matching her actions to her words. "First I open the log files, but not using the regular access program."
"And why not?"
"Because the access program can be tampered with, if you have the clearance; log entries relabelled to conceal them with a false time or date or ID."
"So instead?"
Isato nodded. "So instead I open the raw data file using the primary file viewer and look at the core attributes of each log entry instead of the display labels. That way I can order the files according to those attributes."
"And what else does the raw data tell you?" Molly asked.
"Where the system was accessed from," Isato replied. "Terminal IDs, interface numbers, remote access details. That information can only be accessed through the primary viewer and can not be edited, so we know that it is accurate."
"Probably accurate," Molly corrected. "For a system to be utterly hack-proof it would have to be completely uneditable. That ain't gonna happen until we make a system that never falls over, seeing as how when the system does crash you gotta go in and poke around a little. And when I say you, I mean the sysadmin."
"And when they do make a system that never crashes?"
Molly shrugged. "They'd better make damn sure it's idiot proof as well, because there ain't no way anyone's getting a sysadmin to install something that'll make 'em redundant."
"How very true."
There was a knock at the door of the machine room and Isato switched the screen off before calling out: "Come in!"
The door opened and Chief Lenaux eased his heavy frame through. He closed the door behind him, heedless to the stuffy heat inside the machine room. "Any luck so far?"
"A little," Isato replied, "but nothing terribly informative."
"We're workin' on it," Molly amplified, "but mostly we've been finding our way round the system. Neither one of us is entirely familiar with the exact setup you got here. Things should start happening real soon though," she promised.
"Good," Lenaux replied, "because there's something else I need you to do for me while you're poking about in here."
"You need only name it," Isato assured him.
"I need a full audit of the communications logs and an itemised list of all outgoing comm. usage, broken down by departmental and individual access codes. Pay particular attention to log entries for Nastasi Tai and Leleth Aaen."
Molly frowned.
"Airman?"
"Nothing, sir," she assured him. "I think Miss Isato has got the hang of the system access logs, so I'll take a look at the comm. traffic for you. I can't promise anything before dinnertime, though."
"Just do the best you can; that's all I can ask."
"Yes, Sir."
"Something wrong?" Isato asked, when the Chief was gone.
Molly turned away and hunched over another terminal. "No," she mumbled.
"Airman?"
"No, Ma'am."
There was a pause. "Máire?"
Molly pushed her shoulders up higher, as though she could hide behind herself and go completely unnoticed. The sense of Isato's gaze on her back was inescapable, however, and eventually she had to turn to look at her.
"What's wrong, Máire?"
"I'm a senior airman," Molly explained. "I'm good at my job, but I'm just a senior airman and... and I'm above the zone," she admitted, blushing. "This isn't a routine system security audit, it's a mole hunt and I'm not qualified... You should contact the SGC; ask for Master Sergeant Davis."
"Your superiors knew what we needed when they sent you," Isato assured her. "They must think you're up to the job."
"I don't know... "
"Then trust that they do. You are good at your job, Senior Airman MacVeigh, so stop flustering, show a little of that common sense we both have so much of, and do your job."
Molly swallowed hard. "Yes, Ma'am."
*
The Colony
After the Assistant Director's warnings, Dr Kha was not sure if she was pleased to see Trooper Badon waiting for her on her return to the colony. Any protests or questions were forestalled, however, when she saw the state he was in.
"Rebus! What did they do to you?"
"What, this?" Rebus asked offhandedly. "At least he didn't catch me with his knife; that's thanks to you," he added.
"The man with the knife did this?"
"Him and some rocks. Don't worry; it looks worse than it really is." He smiled at her. "You're looking a little pale, and just when you were starting to get a nice tan."
Kha blushed.
"There's someon