I own neither Stargate nor the X-COM franchise. No infringement is intended, no profit is to made and I'm just not worth the hassle of suing anyway unless you want a share of the wages of an underpaid Civil Servant.
Aschen Harvester - P3A-194 (former Vollian Union) – August 2001
One thing that Colonel O’Neill hadn’t expected when the Aschen were confronted with the evidence SG-1 had found in the underground ruins of the Vollian city was for them to so readily admit what they had done to the unfortunate Vollians two centuries earlier. Releasing a genetically engineered plague then offering a “cure” which incidentally rendered the vast majority of the population sterile was close to being one of the most despicable acts O’Neill had ever heard of, and after years of fighting the Goa’uld that was saying something.
It was damn fortunate for the galaxy that the Aschen Confederation was isolated by circumstance from everyone else. They had control of a small number of star systems relatively near their homeworld which they had reached via spaceship, and they possessed the stargates that linked P3A-194 with their own planet which was apparently P4C-970, but like the Tollan their indigenously developed hyperdrive technology was relatively slow and both of their stargates lacked the DHD’s needed to account for stellar drift over time. This meant they had never expanded very far and although advanced enough to actually convert a Gas-Giant planet into a star as they had in the Vollian System they were nonetheless not the major power in the galaxy they potentially could have been.
Recalled from Tollana early Elizabeth Weir had been given the job of negotiating with the Aschen and she couldn’t say she was enjoying it. At least the Tollan for all their technological advancement didn’t think that other less-advanced peoples were worthless like these people apparently did, or perhaps used to. Spearing Mollem, the lone Aschen official present, with a look across the small briefing table she made sure to voice her comments as calmly as possible. ‘So you freely admit what you did to the people of this world?’ she asked. ‘That you snuffed out their entire civilisation?’
‘Yes’ Mollem replied flatly, ‘please keep in mind that it occurred a long time ago however’ he added.
The Aschen were far from stupid, they knew that trying to pretend their sterilisation and stealthy conquest of the Vollian Union never happened might fail, and if caught out in the lie they would look very bad to these primitive, though presumably more dangerous than they looked Earth people, so they had prepared a cover-story if discussions turned for the worst.
‘What do you mean it happened a long time ago?’ O’Neill retorted. ‘Do you think that makes it alright?’ he asked sarcastically. He was very pleased that the rest of SG-1 with plenty of firepower were by the gate, if anything unpleasant happened they were ready to demonstrate to the Aschen that being centuries behind in technology overall didn’t mean that Earth didn’t still have some very nasty hardware. In the worst case scenario the SGC would throw some very large naquadah-enhanced nukes through the gates to both here and the Aschen homeworld which would at least give even the most advanced societies pause for thought regarding messing with the Tau’ri.
Mollem’s expression did not change in response to O’Neill’s obvious hostility. ‘No of course not but although our average lifespans are perhaps twice yours according to the information we have already shared, you must remember that it has been over two centuries since the Confederation came to this world’ he noted, ‘many decades have passed since the last member of the administration of that time died of old age’ he said. ‘Is there no action of the government of your own nation within the last two centuries that you would not now regret and wish to change if you could?’ he asked.
O’Neill opened his mouth to retort but then realised what the United States was still doing to the Native Americans barely more than a single century ago. Just because the Aschen government used to be evil assholes didn’t mean they still necessarily were so maybe he should be willing to give them a bit more of the benefit of the doubt. ‘Okay I see your point’ he conceded. You couldn’t automatically hold someone guilty for a crime their ancestors committed.
‘You need to understand our situation’ Mollem told them. ‘The habitable areas of our homeworld are densely populated and highly industrialised’ he said. ‘We have too many mouths to feed with the farmland available so we rely upon grain supplies from here to sustain our population’ he continued. ‘The situation deteriorated sharply a short time before our spaceships found the Vollian Union and our leaders at that time decided that we deserved the agricultural output of this world more than the people originally living here did.’
‘Because you were a couple of hundred years more advanced?’ Weir asked.
‘That was the justification made’ Mollem replied.
Elizabeth Weir thought about what Mollem had said and this raised a question. ‘Why did your population problems get worse so quickly?’ she queried.
‘We developed new techniques for increasing the lifespans of our people’ Mollem explained. ‘Unfortunately we had not fully considered...’
‘That less people dying is more people to feed’ Weir finished for him.
‘Exactly’ Mollem responded. ‘We have conquered almost all forms of disease, we live over twice as long as our ancestors’ he continued. ‘There are simply too many Aschen for a single world to accommodate’ he said. ‘The most extreme elements said we should simply release biological warfare agents to kill all the Vollian’s at a stroke but that was deemed too immoral, even when we ourselves were facing famine’ he told them. ‘Instead our government used more subtle means.’
‘Sterilise ninety percent of the population and just wait for them to die out’ Weir replied.
‘Yes’ Mollem confirmed. Taken as a whole it was a very well-considered lie given that it was in fact mostly an accurate version of the events and would therefore stand up to scrutiny if investigated, the only deviation from the truth was that the current Aschen government would still be perfectly willing to do what their great-grandparents did. They didn’t feel guilty about what they did to the Vollians whatsoever and would happily do the same to these Tau’ri if given the opportunity.
‘I suppose that’s easier to live with than slaughtering them’ O’Neill remarked with a snort.
‘The Vollian Union was a century less advanced than you are now when we encountered them’ Mollon noted, ‘we had faster-than-light starships and they had the internal combustion engine’ he continued. ‘We could have easily blasted wiped them out from orbit but even at a time when our own children were starving we would not kill theirs so callously.’
‘But you would happily ensure they wouldn’t have any more?’ Weir commented.
‘It was a difficult decision which I am glad the current government does not have to make’ Mollem told them. ‘Our population is stable and thanks largely to food shipments through the stargate from the farms here nobody goes hungry.’
‘Covered up the whole story from the remaining Vollians though didn’t you?’ O’Neill pointed out.
‘What’s done is done’ Mollem replied. ‘Do we mistreat the Vollians in any way other than hide their past from them?’ he asked.
‘To me that’s bad enough’ O’Neill told him. ‘What your ancestors did to theirs was monstrous.’
‘I agree but what do you expect us to do about it now?’ Mollem asked rhetorically. ‘We try to make amends in a small way by providing the Vollians with medical and other technologies that make their lives better’ he said. ‘You have talked to the people here, do they consider us oppressive invaders?’ he asked.
O’Neill frowned. ‘No’ he conceded. Keel, the farmer that lived closest to the stargate with his family hadn’t had anything bad to say about the Aschen, in return for his grain they provided medicine, machinery and help when requested and otherwise left him alone to do whatever the hell he wanted, he was inordinately better off than he would have been under the Goa’uld at least.
‘We know that you are unlikely to trust us in the circumstances but the Aschen Confederation hopes that you will come to do so in time’ Mollem told Weir. ‘You have both stargate addresses and the knowledge on how to correct for stellar drift plus more advanced hyperdrives to offer’ he said. ‘We can trade teleportation technology, medicines and far more’ he said. ‘An alliance or at least continuing friendly contact would be advantageous to both parties’ he continued, ‘especially given the goa’uld threat you have made us aware of.’
‘You guys are way more advanced than the Goa’uld’ O’Neill pointed out.
‘We control a small number of worlds, we do not have a vast navy to protect us and what vessels we have are slower than theirs’ Mollem replied. ‘We do not keep a large standing military, the most dangerous weapons we could produce in a short space of time would be biological, thanks to our mastery of genetic engineering, but the ability to poison the air of their worlds would not help us when they send ships through the vacuum of space.’
‘Oh for crying out loud why can’t we ever meet an advanced human civilisation who’s got a proper damn armed forces’ O’Neill complained. Although he did wonder if the idea of the Aschen with a decent fleet might have bothered him even more, they had no sense of humour and frankly gave him the creeps.
‘When did we ever need one?’ Mollem asked reasonably. ‘Perhaps given our more comparable technological base the Tollan you mentioned might be more willing to help us than they apparently were you?’ he suggested.
‘Sure’ O’Neill replied with a snort, ‘I bet they’d give you guys Ion Cannon’s’ he said bitterly. That was a continuing sore-point with him.
‘Ion Cannon?’ Mollem repeated quizzically.
‘Big Honking Space-Guns’ O’Neill explained. ‘Tollan weapon, blow a Goa’uld ship right outta the sky’ he said. ‘They don’t have a proper military either but they can kick some serious ass when provoked’ he added.
‘We would very much like to include them in negotiations’ Mollem stated. ‘Along with establishing contact with the Asgard, Tok’ra and Nox’ he requested. ‘If you were to act as intermediaries on our behalf you would earn the gratitude of the Aschen Confederation’ he said.
‘How much gratitude are we talking about?’ O’Neill asked with rising interest.
‘I’m sure we could offer something as a gesture of good-will’ Mollem replied. ‘Have you cured cancer yet?’ he asked.
Weir and O’Neill looked at each other before facing him again. ‘Okay, you can consider us interested’ O’Neill told him, Weir nodding her heartfelt agreement. ‘But if we start going sterile just remember that we will nuke you back to the stone-age’ he added seriously.
Mollem decided O’Neill was being serious and correctly surmised that it was making that mistake which led to the Aschen sending a warning from the future about not provoking X-COM. It would not be a mistake they would repeat, far better to play a long game and ingratiate themselves with the other major civilisations of the galaxy until the Aschen Confederation was in a position to take over.
Say what you like about the Aschen, they were a great deal of help when the Ori started releasing their own genetically engineered bio-weapons starting with the “Prior Plague” into the Milky Way, the Ori being, to put it mildly, less than happy to discover that there was an advanced and independent human civilisation who were just as ruthless and competent at germ warfare as they were. To quote Major-General Jack O’Neill in 2005, when Earth put together the Grand Alliance to fight the invaders “The Aschen? They’re bastards, but they’re our bastards.”
Desert (Wormhole X-Treme shooting location) – Earth – September 2001
Tanner couldn’t do much but just stare at the two Tau’ri as they continued to argue. Despite his men having firearms trained on them they were pointedly ignoring the implied threat and were continuing their impromptu heated conversation unabashed. Only the Jaffa seemed to be taking the situation seriously and was aiming a weapon of his own, aiming it Tanner himself as the leader. They were all some distance from the filming with the vans that had bought the equipment and everyone else seemed more interested in watching the show being filmed than they were in them.
‘Lighten up Sergeant’ O’Neill told Andianov. ‘It’s not like it’s really us’ he pointed out. ‘The guy they’ve got playing Teal’c is supposed to be a freaking android’ he told her, pointing across at the actor plastered in grey makeup. If nothing else the existence of the show was a terrific cover-story for the real SGC, and added much plausible deniability for any leaks.
Andianov narrowed her eyes. ‘You are not the one who for some reason is portrayed as going into battle in ludicrously short shorts and a tight top’ she complained, indicating the actress playing “Elena Yermalov” the “feisty and fast-on-the-trigger” fifth member of the team as she talked to the producer. ‘I will be mocked relentlessly about this when the series is televised’ Andianov told him. Both the SGC and X-COM personnel would never allow her to forget this embarrassment, she knew, it was bad enough that the drug addled brain of the extra-terrestrial Martin Lloyd had remembered enough of them to write this dire television show but it was clear in Andianov’s mind that in his subconscious he had been harbouring lascivious thoughts about her, the shower scene in the script was particularly galling, especially as she had a much nicer backside than that actress.
‘You should take a leaf out of my book’ O’Neill told her. ‘I’m taking this all in my stride.’
‘Your character “Colonel Danning” gets all the good lines, such as they are, shoots many aliens and gets all the girls’ Andianov retorted. ‘Of course you are not displeased’ she continued, ‘I am nothing but... what would you call it?’ she said trying to think of the right phrase, ‘eye candy’ she declared irately crossing her arms in front of her borrowed USAF uniform, the two of them there supposedly as technical advisors to the show. Her accent explained to the curious as her being a naturalised citizen born in the Ukraine.
Tanner finally couldn’t take it any more. ‘Aren’t you in the least bit annoyed that we’re about to get away?’ he asked.
O’Neill turned away from the Russian and towards Tanner ‘Why the hell did you think that was going to happen?’ he replied in mock confusion.
‘Because any second now our ship is going to arrive and transport us off the planet’ Tanner replied evenly. ‘We can’t stay here any longer, either you people or the NID will find us eventually.’
‘You’re going to get away on your ship?’ O’Neill queried, turning back to Andianov with exaggerated surprise. ‘They think they’re going to get away on their ship’ he told her, overacting nearly as much as the guy playing “Colonel Danning”.
‘What ship?’ Andianov asked, playing along.
‘They must have two’ O’Neill remarked. ‘It’s the only explanation’ he said. ‘Damn we only knew about the one that probe took a picture of out near Mars or somewhere’ he noted regretfully.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Tanner demanded to know.
‘Your ship, the one you hid out past Mars, in the asteroid belt wasn’t it?’ O’Neill replied. ‘We didn’t know about the other one’ he said, shaking his head sadly before smirking.
‘We’ve only got one ship’ Tanner replied, with increasing annoyance evident in his tone.
‘Ooh, that’s not good for you guys then’ O’Neill told them. ‘Seeing as how you’ve got about as much chance of getting away in that as I do getting a job in show business’ he continued, ‘I guess seeing as how the Goa’uld kicked your butts that your ship isn’t really much use in a stand up fight with a Hat’ak right?’ he asked.
Tanner blinked. ‘A Goa’uld Hat’ak?’ he said nervously.
‘Well it was Goa’uld built but it’s more of a Tau’ri Hat’ak these days right Teal’c?’ he asked his companion.
‘Indeed O’Neill, our seizure of the vessel makes it the property of this world as spoils of war’ Teal’c agreed.
O’Neill pointed upwards. ‘We had it positioned so that the Earth was between it and your ship on its way in, in case your ship might have spotted it and warned you about it somehow I mean’ he explained, ‘but it’ll be right above us just about the time you try to get away and it’ll shoot your ass right outta the sky if you try and make a run for it’ he said confidently. ‘Unless one of the Reapers gets to you first’ he added, ‘we’ll have a squadron of those things over this desert any second and those fighter-jocks are always looking to be the first to knock down a new type of alien ship.’
‘Reapers?’ one of the other extra-terrestrial humans queried, looking up, there were vapour trails way up there.
‘Earth built fighters made from recovered alien technology’ O’Neill explained, ‘they’re sweet too’ he continued appreciatively, ‘hey I think some of the tech might have even come from the escape pod you people came to Earth in originally’ he noted. ‘I think that’s just a load of spare parts at Area 51 these days.’
‘You want our ship’ Tanner said coldly.
‘Oh yeah’ O’Neill confirmed, ‘and we’re going to get it’ he added. ‘The question that should really be concerning you right now is what are we going to do with you?’ he told him.
‘Planning to strap us to a nice dissection table somewhere?’ Tanner asked, ‘pump us full of truth drugs so we tell you all the secrets of our technology?’ he suggested. ‘Kill us or leave our memories like Marty afterwards?' he said with distaste.
‘It would get my vote’ Andianov spoke up, earning a disparaging look from O’Neill which caused her to roll her eyes and mutter in Russian about how the X-COM way was more efficient.
‘But fortunately for you this isn’t a democracy and I was thinking something less drastic’ O’Neill noted. ‘You guys were sent out looking for people to help you find the Goa’uld right?’ he asked Tanner rhetorically. Martin had told them the full story the last time they met him the year before.
‘This planet was a dead loss on that score’ Tanner replied bitterly. They were even further behind the Goa’uld in weapons technology here than his people had been.
‘And then instead of going home to fight you deserted when you realised Earth wasn’t advanced enough to fight the Goa’uld’ O’Neill continued. ‘That didn’t sit well with Martin’ he added, at least the little guy had the guts to want to go home and fight after he got guility enough about it.
Tanner glared at O’Neill. ‘If we didn’t know for a fact it was suicide and wouldn’t achieve a damn thing we would have gone home to fight’ he practically growled.
‘Your world was destroyed’ O’Neill told him, it was hardly a great revelation by their reaction ‘we went there and checked’ he said. ‘If you’d gone home to fight you’d be dead like all the rest of your people’ he told them all, looking each of them in the eye in turn, all but Tanner unable to meet his gaze. ‘Me, now I’d have probably gone home and gone down fighting but it’s too late for you guys to get your honour back that way’ he said, ‘but I know you’re soldiers and I do know a way for you to at least live with yourselves and achieve something worthwhile’ he said.
‘Worthwhile?’ Tanner responded, his voice cracking slightly as the guilt he felt every day reared up again. He would never be free of it, none of them would.
‘You wouldn’t be the first people who weren’t born on this world who joined us’ O’Neill declared. ‘The Goa’uld slaughtered your people because they wouldn’t kneel and become their slaves’ he said. ‘You must feel something about that?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘If it was me I’d be proud of my race and want to make sure I lived up to them’ he said. ‘You came here for allies, well you found them’ he said indicating himself, Andianov and Teal'c, ‘you guys have as much reason as anyone else in the galaxy to hate the Goa’uld and if you don’t want to hate yourselves forever you’ll pay the bastards back.’
Tanner blinked. ‘You want us to help you fight the Goa’uld?’ he asked.
‘I want you to help us beat the Goa’uld’ O’Neill corrected him. ‘You’ve got a ship that you know a hell of a lot better than we do’ he said. ‘You can’t use it to save your people any more, but with our help you can use it to get some payback for them’ he said.
A commotion a few hundred yards away caught their attention. As the actors and crew of Wormhole X-Treme looked up in the sky in amazement what appeared to be a spaceship, or at least a very good special-effect, slowly moved into position hovering above them.
‘So are you going to sign up or not?’ O’Neill asked. ‘This is a one-time offer’ he told them.
As Martin Lloyd nearby told the cameraman to angle up and film the ship, Tanner looked away from it back to O’Neill. ‘Do you expect us to trust you?’ he asked.
‘Tell you what’ O’Neill replied. ‘Transport aboard, head for space and when you’re under the guns of the Hat’ak up there, then make the choice about whether it’s get back into the fight against the Goa’uld or get blown all to hell by the Tau’ri’ he said.
In the circumstances Tanner and his men couldn’t help but be swayed by the weight of the Colonels arguments and after teleporting aboard the ship along with O’Neill, Teal’c and Andianov they were soon heading upwards to rendezvous with the Earth Hat’ak Ship Enterprise. They took a great deal more convincing that was the ships real name though, not even Martin would have come up with something that goofy for the god-awful Wormhole X-Treme.
Cheyenne Mountain – Earth – September 2001
Cameron Mitchell on one of his infrequent visits to the SGC was enjoying himself immensely as he acted as narrator to the action being projected up onto the screen. It was a packed house in the dining hall, the only space large enough for everyone not on gate duty or offworld to fit into and he had their rapt attention. A number were munching popcorn they must have made in the microwave and wishing they could get a bucket sized cola like at the movie theatre too.
‘Okay, now this is footage from a Reaper chasing a Sectoid Large Scout Ship over the North Atlantic’ he said as the film played. ‘I hope you’re noting the smooth flying technique’ he added.
‘Yeah that bug knows his stuff but the guy in the F-302 is all over the place’ barracked one of the audience.
Mitchell threw a baleful glare at the Skyranger pilot who had flown him up from Area 51 and who had decided to stay on to watch the show. ‘I was being shot at with a plasma cannon’ he pointed out to the grinning Major John Sheppard.
‘Excuses, excuses’ Sheppard feigned to mumble, just loud enough that at least half the hall could hear clearly.
‘So why aren’t you shooting back?’ someone asked. In the earlier footage of human Firestorms and Reapers dogfighting with the aliens the firing had been considerably less one-sided, with much cheering as the film showed human Laser Cannon ripping up Sectoid machines which eventually either exploded from a hit to the power-plant or broke up into pieces that fell to Earth.
‘Because I was there to observe not to engage’ Mitchell answered, ‘you’re gonna love this’ he promised as the film approached the best part.
After a few weeks during which it became evident that the F-302X, unlike the Firestorm, could catch any ship the Sectoids had the aliens had reverted back to using the slower vessels they had previously stopped deploying as well as their more capable craft. The cross-shaped “Large Scout” as X-COM had christened it was a slow-coach compared to the likes of the “Battleship” or “Abductor” but it was likely considerably more disposable and it seemed like Loki’s Legions must have an unlimited supply of the things as no matter how many the human fighter-pilots knocked down there were always more arriving a day or so later. Flying without the Foo Fighter escort of the largest enemy ships it was generally left to the older Firestorms to intercept the small-fry, along with Deathgliders from the Enterprise which now all re-equipped with X-COM Lasers instead of the inferior Staff-Cannon armament they were originally armed with.
‘Okay we’re currently five hundred kilometres south of Greenland doing about twenty-seven hundred knots or approximately Mach Four’ Mitchell told the SGC and X-COM people. ‘The bug pilot would probably be crapping his pants right now but they don’t wear pants, or according to the dissection guys with the scalpels, have a proper digestive system’ he continued with a grin. ‘I’m faster, better armed and I’ve got a shield which he doesn’t, so I guess the bug thinks his days are numbered... which they are but not for the reason he thinks’ he said.
On screen the alien ship suddenly and inexplicably came to a dead stop then simply fell out of the sky like a stone.
‘Okay, so what did you just do there?’ Colonel O’Neill spoke up from the front row.
‘Me?’ Mitchell responded, ‘nothing, I was only there to film’ he said. ‘We call this the Wile E. Coyote manoeuvre’ he told them, ‘because it looks a lot like the cartoon character did when he accidentally went off the cliff for the thousandth time’ he said replaying the sequence in slow-motion, ‘that brief pause in mid air before gravity takes hold’ he continued, clearly trying to keep a straight face.
‘So what happened Son?’ General Hammond asked from the best seat in the house, Sharp was off-world again so he was definitely in charge.
Mitchell took deep breath ‘We used the teleporter in the new ship we put in low orbit directly above to beam the poor son-of-a-bitches elerium engine right out of his ship when he was ten miles off the ground’ he said then cracked up as the entire room erupted into howls of laughter merging into copious applause.
‘The Wile. E Coyote manoeuvre’ Hammond repeated, ‘very funny’ he told Mitchell.
‘Thank you Sir’ Mitchell replied with a grin. The Firestorm and Reaper pilots had also started referring to the opposition as “Marvin’s” after the alien Looney Toons character “Marvin the Martian” who was always trying to destroy Earth.
‘Comedy value aside, why not just teleport a bomb aboard?’ O’Neill asked eventually over the dying laughter. ‘Not that I’m not totally in with the humour you understand’ he added. The mental image of the expression of abject horror of the faces of the Sectoid crew watching their ships source of power and locomotion vanish in front of their eyes was hilarious.
‘Elerium is valuable stuff’ Mitchell explained, ‘we wanted to see if we could take out the ships but still save the engine and boy did it work’ he told them. ‘We’re hoping to score a lot of free and easy fuel doing that’ he continued.
‘It’s a shame the teleporter is short-ranged’ Carter observed. ‘Anything more than a couple of hundred miles and you run the risk of losing containment of the material you’re transporting’ she noted, inwardly grimacing at the idea of that happening to someone because it would be messy on re-integration to say the least. ‘The rings the goa’uld use get around it by having a receiver and transmitter to improve signal clarity, that’s why you can beam all the way from a planet to its moon’ she said. ‘I guess the Asgard get around it by just being tens of thousands of years more advanced, they worked out all the bugs.’ she added.
‘Have you tried using it on the Foo-Fighters?’ Hammond asked. ‘I know we’ve been trying to get one of those things intact.’
Mitchell shook his head. ‘We tried but we think the same countermeasures that stops us getting a radar lock on them also stops the teleporter’ he said.
‘Loki would know how to jam teleporters, he knows we had help from the Asgard so maybe he thought we might get given their beaming technology and planned ahead for that?’ Carter reasoned.
‘Why not upgrade the larger ships too?’ Daniel queried.
‘Unlike the Foo-Fighters they land which means we might capture the technology and work out a counter-measure to the jamming’ Carter replied. ‘Loki knows how good we are at figuring out any technology we get our hands on now, he wouldn’t want to risk it.’
‘Yeah, we’ve shot down plenty of the fighters but the wreckage is usually made up of burned-up melted chunks you’d carry away in a small bucket’ Mitchell agreed. ‘Not much good for trying to back-engineer the things’ he said regretfully. ‘The R&D guys would love to get their hands on a whole one.’
‘What we really need is a big net’ Sheppard joked. ‘You know, like catching butterflies’ he said, miming the action.
‘Or a tractor beam like on Star Trek’ Teal’c added. ‘I believe the Asgard may have such technology’ he noted.
‘They’d never let us have it’ O’Neill told him. Damn Protected Planet’s Treaty was more trouble than it was worth sometimes.
‘No, but we can make our own net’ Carter responded, a smile slowly developing on her face. ‘Trinium makes very good cable’ she said.
‘Oh I know that expression’ O’Neill said suspiciously, ‘mad scientist at work.’
‘I can’t see any Sectoid Pilot letting himself get caught in a net Major’ Mitchell told her.
‘If he’s unconscious he won’t have much say in the matter’ Carter replied, ‘General Hammond request permission to make a really big Zat gun I can strap to an F-302’ she asked.
‘Permission granted’ Hammond replied, ‘and if this works I want to see more film’ he announced to a chorus of whoops.
Sheppard stood up and looked around the room. ‘The net idea was mine, and you’re all witnesses’ he told them all. ‘I’ll have something for you to sign to that effect if there’s any kind of reward, promotion or extra leave entailed’ he announced.
‘We’ll put his name after yours in the paperwork’ O’Neill whispered to Carter.