Seeds of Trust

Posted on Fri Feb 22nd, 2019 @ 5:58am by Brigadier General Nathan Wolf & Civillian Dr. Jessica Andrews
Edited on on Mon Feb 25th, 2019 @ 8:08pm

Mission: A Brand New Day
Location: General Wolf's Office
Timeline: Current

Nathan's secretary called the general on his phone. "Sir, Dr. Andrews is here to see you, she says its important."

Nathan sighed. "That woman thinks everything she has to say is important. Okay. Send her in." Nathan hung up the phone and rose from his chair to greet Jessica as she eirgntered. "Hello, Doctor. Please, have a seat. Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? A bottle of water perhaps?"

"No, thank you General. I won't take up too much of your time." Jessica noted. "But I will tell you the God's honest truth, and it's a hobby of mine even the Council is irritated of. If Ba'al, Apothos, or even one of the minor lords were to attack tomorrow, using their fleet, it would be utterly catastrophic for you." Jessica noted. "So how will you and your SGC defend these seven billion divided Tau'ri, and the Tau'ri nations with all their rivalries and history? You cannot simply bury your stargate this time. Eventually they'll get around to Earth's complete annihilation."

"Doctor," Nathan said. "We didn't bury our gate. The Goa'uld did that for us. Their bombardment of Cheyenne Mountain caused a cave in. The damage was so bad it took us a little over twenty years to get up and running again. Now, if you're not going to sit down, I am, and then you can tell me all about how what I can only assume is a brilliant idea you've just had is going to save the Earth and countless other planets, while also feeding the hungry, curing cancer, and fixing the ozone layer."

Jessica nodded and sat down. "I have in my posession a data cache that I took from Ba'al's computers while I was masquerading as Anthousa. Staffs, ships, and hyperspace drives and much more. I knew it was going to be useful one day, but then I wondered if I gave the technology to someone, would I be creating one empire to defeat another. I will provide you with the means to defend this world. But I can't solve the world's problems with technology." She placed a device that displayed a holographic blueprint of a death glider. "With this, you can build your own fighters to defend Earth. I may give you more, when the Tau'ri are united."

Nathan leaned forward and looked at the holographic image. "You have more of this? Including the tech for the Goa'uld staff weapons and, what do they call them? Zat'nik'tel? Because while I am happy to turn this over to our engineers, who will eventually perfect the design and hopefully manage to get it built without telling the whole world we're building them, Jake and the others could really use those in the field...but...okay, let's say we start with this. There's no way to 'unite' the world under the current circumstances, especially without revealing secrets that would divide the world even more. If the rest of the world's leaders knew we had the gate up and running again, if they knew about New Dawn...that could present real problems. If most of those other governments had access to even just the tech for these fighters here, they would use them to oppress their people, their neighbor's people, and to make war on each other and us. You're old enough to know that things here have changed since the first two stargate programs were active, and even then the risk of abuse and conflict over alien tech was huge."

Jessica nodded. "There's a chance the people of this world may indeed learn who their true enemy is, General. There's a chance even this world will become a battlefield, and the veil of secrecy will be completely removed. Yes, I do remember how unstable this world is, but as I recall, the United States of America does have allies. I would welcome a united Tau'ri, but I'll live with an alliance of Tau'ri all the same." She mentioned. "But this is a defensive weapon. I have a few thoughts in mind how to push the System Lords to feast on each other, and I'll share them with the Major."

"That's fine to share them with Jake in the field," Nathan said. "But I need you to share your ideas with me so I can oversee things."

"Some of them are just ideas I scratch on a napkin at this moment General. Hard to say unless we've done some intelligence gathering ops, but I will keep you informed of any developments. Information is difficult to come by when you live under the radar." Jessica pointed out. "Thank you for your time, General. And get the engineers working on those plans. We will need as many squadrons we can build when the endgame is upon us."

"Lady," Nathan said. "One of these days you and I are going to have to get something straight between us...er...somethings...I meant to say somethings...never mind. Fine, I'll take this design to my superiors and they'll arrange for it to be developed."

She stared at him without a reaction for a moment and then turned to leave.

*The fact that you are a civilian may be a limiting factor, Jessica.*

'I've given him the tools he needs to defend this planet, now we must lay the ground work for the Goa'uld's complete destruction. He knows what it will boil down too.'

*He considers Civilians to be cattle.*

'Now you know why I didn't follow my family into the service. There are places for dreamers in the universe, military officers are not dreamers, they're all pragmatists.'

"Doctor," Nathan said. "I truly enjoy your company, and I'd love to spend some time talking with Salara, but if you two are going to commune with each other or however that works, maybe you could do it somewhere other than my office?"

Jessica didn't know that Nate was, in fact, a dreamer. It was just that he was living one of his dreams right now. Not all of them, maybe not one of the more creative of his dreams, but nonetheless, the life he was living was where he wanted to be...for the most part.

Jess closed her eyes. "Apologies, General. This is an emotional time for Jessica. She's been away from her world for five years, and has faced horrors that would break other women. She carries the heavy burdens, and I try to help when I can."

"Please, sit," Nathan said. "I've seen more than a few horrors myself over the course of my career. Jessica seems very strong to me, but I can tell she's got a lot of emotion churning around inside. What can I do to help her? I know I seem like I'm being difficult at times. It's just that Jessica comes on like a freight train, fast, powerful, and demanding. She has great, if sometimes grand, ideas. I like most of them. But there are certain bureaucratic, political, diplomatic, and national security realities I have to contend with when implementing her ideas. I want to be supportive. I just need, from everyone, a willingness to get creative, to figure out ways to work within the reality we've got while we work to create the one we'd really like to have. Does that make any sense?"

Salara nodded. "Indeed. Seeing such youthful enthusiasm, it makes me feel young again. We're not like most Tok'Ra. While most of us hide and act from the shadows, she usually ignores the Tok'Ra council and seeks out allies directly." Salara smiled. "And good for her I say. I'm not fond of the Tok'ra council myself. I'd be a thousand years old before they stopped talking about what they were going to do and did it."

Nathan grinned. "It's a tradition here not to ask a woman her age, so I won't ask just how far from 1000 years old you are. So, I'm guessing we can't expect a lot of help from the other Tok'Ra then? At least until we can figure out how to get them to stop contemplating their navels and commit?"

"My host knows it won't be easy. That never stopped her from putting together her own expedition when your Earth Universities refused to fund her and going to Antarctica after Atlantis." Salara mentioned. She looked up for a moment then closed her eyes. "And that leaves us with the second thing we need to discuss. I think I was followed before I disappeared."

From the change in her voice, Nathan could tell he was talking to Jessica again. "Followed by whom, Doctor? Do you have any idea?"

"It happened after I found the Tome of Plato in a chamber under the Athens Acropolis. Two gentlemen appeared at my office at UCLA telling me they were historians. They were dressed too well for historians. I was receptive at first, but then I realized they were browsing my office, one even tried looking at things on my desk." Jessica noted. "I demanded them to leave, and after that; I noticed I was being followed here and there. I returned to my home one evening to find my house turned upside down. I was on to something, General. Something incredible. So, I gathered some friends, what money I could scrape together, some old snow vehicles and I launched before they could steal my research." Jessica mentioned. "But I do know they were dangerous people. While this was happening, more of my colleagues began to distance themselves from me."

"You they were part of...whatever this was?" Nathan said. If Jessica was telling the truth, then Project New Dawn could be facing threats on both sides of the gate. "Jessica, trust me. I have some very good people working for me here, some whose job is dealing with this exact kind of threat. Tell me what you know, and I'll set them to work on it."

"I don't know who they really were. But when I found a stargate in Antarctica, I knew the magnitude of what I discovered, what they wanted. I'm willing to bet they were intelligence, some nations spies, or even a private defense contractor." Jessica noted. "When I attempted to dial the antarctic stargate to get home the gate did not function, I believe they buried it or are obstructing the gate with something. But there are two stargates on Earth, that much I know and our potential enemies lie on both sides of the gate." Jessica looked the general in the eyes. "That's why I dare not give out too much technology. I don't know who's tracking me, and you may get orders one day to hand me over to some more men in black suits."

Nathan nodded. He'd been in Special Tactics his whole career and had run afoul of 'men in black suits' on more than one occasion. He smiled.

"Jessica," Nathan said. "I want you to know I would fight such an order as hard as I could. Off the record, if I couldn't stop it, I'd stall, push you through gate, and tell them I had no idea what had happened or why the dialing computers seemed to have dumped all of the address records for the past month. Jake, Hassan, Tony, they'll all tell you I look out for the people I'm responsible for."

"Thank you, General, but I don't intend to run this time. Even if they shut down New Dawn and the SGC even if they turn your leaders against you. I'll simply set the SGC up again on a new world. If I must retreat so I can keep New Dawn running. Which reminds me about looking into a portable Iris we could set up on a fly, but I digress. I intend to remove the snake of the last System Lord and crush it beneath my foot." Jessica smiled. "I must meed with Major Asher. I have a few ideas for our next move."

"Alright," Nathan said. "And Jessica, a couple of the OSI agents we have assigned here, mostly for counterintelligence work, are going to come and see you. Please tell them everything you told me about being followed, having your office tossed, everything. It's their job, along with the Security Forces Squadron, to protect us from threats on this side of the gate, and they are very, very good at their jobs, and they know how to be discrete, too. I'm going to have them look into this threat and see if then can identify this threat and neutralize it."