How Do You Lose a Stargate?!?
Posted on Tue Feb 26th, 2019 @ 8:43pm by Brigadier General Nathan Wolf
Mission:
A Brand New Day
Location: The Pentagon
Timeline: Current
Brigadier General Nathan Wolf had been summoned to DC for a meeting. It was an odd time for a meeting, but he went anyway. He made his way through security at the Pentagon, and sat through a really boring Human Resources briefing. When it was over Nathan was separated from the group and led to a conference room. He was asked politely to wait, so he waited. After a little while, an Academy classmate of Nathan’s, Brigadier General Alice St. John, currently the Commandant of USAF Office of Special Investigations, entered the room, followed two other men.. She was in uniform, which was unusual for her job, one of the other men was a USAF Colonel, also in uniform, and the other man with her was in a suit and tie. Nathan rose from his seat and shook Alice’s hand and that of her companions.
“Nathan,” Alice said. “I know you have questions, and we’re going to try to answer them. Before we go any further, these men are Colonel Raymond Cruz, the commander of OSI Region 7, which you know handles, among other things, counterintelligence for the Special Projects division, and consequently, Project New Dawn. This other gentleman is Special Agent Gabriel Kubina, who is currently Executive Director of OSI, and responsible for all of OSI’s counterintelligence efforts. More importantly, they were involved in the investigation into the Cheyenne Mountain cave in. So was I. Please Nathan, sit. We have things to discuss.”
“I’m sure we do,” Nathan said, returning to his seat. “I assume we’re meeting here instead of your office because we could conceivably both be here at the same time without attracting attention?”
“That’s correct, General,” Cruz replied.
“Okay,” Nathan said. “Alice, I know you wouldn’t go all secret squirrel on me if it wasn’t important. What’s up?”
“No,” Alice said as she took a seat at the table. “I wouldn’t. Gentlemen?”
Cruz and Kubina also sat. Cruz slid a tablet and a thumb drive over to Nathan. “Sir,” Cruz said. “The tablet contains fairly brief summary of our investigation into the cave in and other, shall we say...irregularities in the old Stargate Program. You’ll have to give that back at the end of this meeting. The thumb drive includes that summary, plus more detailed information for you to take back with you. It’s encrypted, but we’d really appreciate it if you didn’t lose it.”
Nathan nodded. He took a minute and started looking through the tablet files. What he saw was frightening.
“Someone triggered the self-destruct?” Nathan said. “And you’re sure it wasn’t General Hammond? Or that other guy? Samuels?”
“Fairly certain, yes,” Kubina replied. “Obviously most of the evidence took over a decade to dig out and a lot of it was too corrupted to be useful, but yes, we’re fairly certain someone other than Hammond triggered the self destruct.”
“And...the National Intelligence Division?” Nathan said. “That sounds like something out of a bad spy novel. Then again, I just got command of a unit that sends people to other planets via wormholes and fights alien parasites who have styled themselves as Earth gods, so…”
“The NID has been around a long time, Nathan,” Alice said. “And yet, even with my clearance, I can’t get anyone to tell me much about it. Friends at ODNI and NCIX have intimated that even the Director of National Intelligence doesn’t even know what they’re up to.”
“And you think they might have triggered the explosion?” Nathan said. “Really Alice? Men in Black, government conspiracies?”
“Nathan,” Alice said. “I understand you are aware of the existence of another Earth gate? One we found in Antarctica?”
“Yes,” Nathan said. “Doctor Andrews informed me of its existence...wait, you knew about that? Why the Hell didn’t anyone tell me? Why haven’t we been using it all this time...wait...have we been using it all this time?”
“The original SG-1 stumbled onto the Antarctica Gate twenty years ago,” Cruz said. “Nobody told you about it because you weren’t cleared to know that the United States Air Force lost a stargate and its dial home device.”
“We...what?!?” Nathan said. “We lost a stargate? Just exactly how does one lose a stargate?”
“Very carefully, sir,” Kubina said. “Very carefully. To pull off something like that, you’d need, say, the resources of an ultra hush hush top secret organization that nobody will admit exists and that has no oversight.”
“This NID?” Nathan said.
Kubina nodded. “We think they’ve got it set up somewhere. We don’t know if they’ve been using it this whole time or not. As you know, even with a working DHD, they would still have needed the cartouche addresses and the algorithm to compensate for stellar drift. The algorithm any good astronomer or astrophysicist or even just mathematics specialist could come up with. The cartouche, that’s another matter. The Air Force had that information backed up off-site, which is how you’re able to find valid gate addresses. Whether the NID somehow accessed it, we don’t know.”
“Crap,” Nathan said.
“Yeah,” Cruz said. “That pretty much sums up how we feel, too.”
“So what are you guys doing about it?” Nathan said. “I assume you didn’t just call me here to tell me how screwed Project New Dawn is.”
“We’re continuing to look into this, Nathan,” Alice said. “You have my word on that. And we’re going to assign agents we can trust and who are familiar with the details of this situation to the OSI Detachment at New Dawn. They’re going to want to talk to Doctor Andrews and possibly her Tok’Ra as well.”
Nathan nodded. “That can be arranged. Alice, if I understand the mechanics of the stargate, if the other gate is active when one of my teams is trying to get home…”
“Then your gate either won’t work,” Alice said. “Trapping your teams off-world, or your team could be routed to the other gate. At some point, we may have to discuss the possibility of trying to make that latter option happen intentionally. We’ll be in touch about that. Until then, I’ve got your back, Nathan, and so do my people.”
“Alright, Alice,” Nathan said. “Kubina, Cruz, I’ll guess I’ll have to just trust you. Just please keep me informed. My people’s lives depend on our gate working when it’s supposed to.”
“Understood, Nathan,” Alice said. “We’ll be in touch.”
