I own neither Stargate nor the X-COM franchise. No infringement is intended, no profit is to be 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.
Village square – Jebanna – July 2002
It had long been said that beauty was a curse on Jebanna. Once part of Marduk’s domain it was now exploited by Goa’uld from many worlds who went there to find new hosts from among the population, only choosing the most attractive as worthy to carry one of the gods. A culture barely beyond the bronze-age the people did not know much of galactic affairs, tales of great battles raging amongst the stars as the gods fought among themselves were heard of course, spread by the occasional traveller or merchant coming through the chappa’ai, but Jebanna was far from the fighting, untouched by the ravages of war. With a temperate climate and good soil it would have been idyllic if not for the ever-present fear of what might come through the ring of the gods next.
Other rumours had come of late, only whispered by some for fear the gods would overhear them spoken and strike down those that repeated such heresy, but over time more and more visitors had arrived with stories of the warriors of the First World. It was said the Tau’ri were mere humans but that they used powerful magic of their own to make war even against the greatest of the System Lords, others told that again and again the Tau’ri had faced great Jaffa Armies a thousand times their number but had triumphed over and over again, piling their fallen enemies in heaps that reached as high as one of the great stone pyramids so many slaves had died to build.
The latest visitor to arrive had come with goods to barter and new interesting stories to tell, always a good combination and one that had drawn many to the village closest to the chappa’ai when word spread of his arrival there. Leading a small horse-drawn cart laden with his wares and with a slave following behind he had already negotiated deals to exchange much of it for local merchandise and was now of a mood to regale the crowd with oft-repeated travellers tales. He told them of the worlds he had visited, periodically interjecting a sales pitch into the story aimed at interesting the audience in products he could import from there, but it was when he began to speak of the Tau’ri that a hush fell across the village and everyone began to listen with rapt attention.
A simple people the villagers of Jebanna would not have known what propaganda was, nor less understood the complex psychological warfare campaign that was being waged throughout the galaxy, all they knew was that the trader was saying what they wanted to hear as his tongue was seemingly becoming more loose with the wine he was being offered. ‘It’s true’ he said, ‘they carry weapons that cut down Jaffa like wheat before the scythe’ he declared, ‘and wear gleaming armour that a bolt of lightning from a Staff cannot pierce’ he told them.
‘You talked of their warlord’ a villager spoke up expectantly.
Starting to enjoy himself, probably helped by the wine, Harry Maybourne still working his trader disguise decided to lay it on thick. ‘Sharp of Canada is the leader of the Tau’ri warriors’ he said, taking another gulp from the clay cup, it was better than the mead he had gotten drunk on the world before last and hopefully wouldn’t leave him with such a bad hangover either. ‘They say his homeland is a frozen wasteland where the icy wind would cut you to the bone and where water only ever falls as snow, like it does here upon the mountaintops yonder’ he told them, pointing to the peaks in the distance. ‘It is said the forests there are full of ferocious beasts with huge teeth and claws called bears, and that you must prove yourself worthy by defeating one with a traditional weapon of his tribe they call a hockey stick’ he continued, desperately trying to keep a straight face, deadpan delivery was everything.
‘You have met him?’ a woman asked with obvious scepticism. This wouldn’t be the first inebriated trader that tried to ingratiate himself with potential customers by making up unlikely stories.
‘No in my travels I’ve only met those who have met warriors in his service’ Maybourne responded, shaking his head. ‘Others say that he enslaved the System Lord Nirrti and that she now serves as his hand-maiden, forced to live on scraps from his table’ he declared. Well it wasn’t like the locals would understand she had been forced to do genetic research to earn her keep and fend off the threat of being extracted from her host by the Tok’ra he decided. Sharp had tortured the Goa’uld bitch into a more compliant state of mind after all, he thought, justifying to himself the not inconsiderable spin on the truth he was telling.
‘A god serving a man?’ the same woman queried doubtfully.
‘Perhaps if they can be made to do so they are not truly gods’ Maybourne suggested. ‘Haven’t you heard of the Free Jaffa that rebelled against the Goa’uld?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘They can’t think their masters were divine if they’d do that and they’ve got to know more about them than we do right?’ he suggested logically, further spreading the corrupting message he and others had been cascading throughout the galaxy. If you could sow the seeds of doubt on enough worlds the feudal society the System Lords relied upon would start to crumble, Goa’uld dominance was based on superstition backed by fear of the increasingly depleted Jaffa Armies, shake its foundations a little and you would be a step closer to bringing the whole damn edifice crashing down around their ears.
‘That is blasphemy’ a strident voice declared from the back. There were alas always a few that actually bought into the idea the goa’uld were gods whose will and actions were not for the likes of mortals to question.
‘Maybe, but unless the enemies of the gods are all struck down how can we know for certain they’re truly divine and all-powerful?’ Maybourne countered. ‘I’ve been to worlds where the people lived in caves and didn’t even have knives or fire’ he said. ‘I could have killed any of them easily with the crossbow I carry with me for protection from beasts but did having a weapon they couldn’t understand or stand against make me a god?’ he queried meaningfully, pausing to let that sink in with the crowd. ‘Is anyone interested in pelts?’ he asked changing the subject so he sounded less like a rabble-rouser and more like a trader. ‘The coat I’m wearing is made of the finest available and you can get the very same yourself for the right price’ he told them, showing it off. ‘Warm in winter, stylish in summer, be the envy of others’ he said.
‘What about the boots?’ someone called back.
‘You Sir have a keen eye for quality merchandise’ Maybourne replied in his best impression of a used car salesman. ‘Buy in volume to sell on and I can even arrange a discount with my supplier’ he offered. They were a damn nice pair of boots, he thought, hand-crafted by a Shavadai leather-worker on Simarka with a taste for the brandy Maybourne had picked up on Rolan. Once you had good contacts on enough worlds you could make a very good living going from planet to planet, the most difficult thing so far had been finding a trained horse which was willing to walk calmly into the event horizon of a stargate but Maybourne had found one of those too eventually, greatly increasing the quantity of stock he could haul with him.
‘I want to hear more about the Tau’ri’ a little girl protested.
‘I’m trying to earn a living cutie’ Maybourne replied, giving her a smile. ‘Lovely girl, perhaps you’d like to get her a pretty necklace?’ he asked the man he assumed was her father, taking one from his pocket, holding up the seashell on a thin coloured ribbon which he dangled in front of her.
‘The story would make her happy too and it wouldn’t cost me anything’ the girl’s father responded.
Maybourne laughed. ‘Got me there’ he admitted. ‘Talk to me later and we’ll haggle about the boots’ he told the man interested in them before resuming his stories. ‘Well I don’t know if this is true’ he began again, ‘I heard it from a Lucian and we all know they’re not too trustworthy’ he told the crowd, ‘but they say that the infamous Tau’ri known as O’Neill was the one that killed the Supreme System Lord Ra and that the price on his head is now even greater than the one they had on Garshaw of Belote!’
Having heard it all before on other worlds they had visited Aikaterina continued to load the fine cloth and other goods Maybourne had bartered for earlier onto their cart. She was well aware that her master was really a Tau’ri Spy pretending to be a trader, using the disguise to travel freely, gathering information and spreading rumours but that was no reason not to do the tasks he set her as thoroughly and diligently as she would have for any other that had purchased her. He wouldn’t beat her for doing a lacklustre job as others would have done but to her mind he was still her owner and that meant obedience even though he had tried to get her to think and act more independently of late with little result as yet, she was simply too conditioned by a lifetime of servitude.
‘Is the slave for sale?’ someone asked, as she worked.
‘No it takes too long to train them up to go through that again any time soon’ Maybourne replied. ‘If they’re too smart they run away so you have to get a dumb one and then it takes months for them to learn something easy like how you like your eggs cooked’ he complained, rolling his eyes skyward for dramatic effect. He noted the pout on her face and made a mental note to apologise for calling her dumb later and explain he was only making up a reason why she wasn’t available for trade.
Sometimes he wished he really was the utterly amoral bastard people thought he was. For one thing he wouldn’t be bothered when she was upset, and more importantly he wouldn’t have been held back by the thought that if he was going to start sleeping with her he would have to marry her too for the sake of his damn conscience.
‘Can you get others?’ a well-dressed villager asked. ‘If we had a few good looking slaves to offer the gods instead of our sons and daughters we might be spared their loss’ he suggested to the others.
‘I don’t deal in slaves, too much trouble’ Maybourne replied. ‘You need to hire guards for them, buy chains, beat them enough but not too much... it’s just all too much work’ he said apologetically. ‘I could mention you’re interested to the people I bought mine off’ he offered, having no intention of doing so. Selling people to be turned into Goa’uld hosts was a step beyond his admittedly fuzzy moral guidelines would allow, he would lie, cheat and steal for his country, or himself for that matter, but there were still a few things Harry Maybourne wouldn’t do. ‘Feed and water the horse once you’re done loading the cart’ he ordered loudly. ‘We’re heading back for the chappa’ai before it gets dark and we’ll camp there overnight ready to go through first thing tomorrow morning’ he told Aikaterina.
‘You are very brave to travel through the ring of the gods’ a villager told him, few ever did so even if they knew the addresses of other worlds. Although only a few Goa’uld totally prohibited their slaves and vassals using the stargate network, trade being good for the economy after all, superstition about the monsters that lived on other worlds kept most peoples on the planet of their birth. Some even said it was travelling through the chappa’ai that made those that did so evil.
‘Fortune favours the brave and profit is the motivation of every good merchant’ Maybourne replied. ‘My people are well known as traders in our part of the galaxy, I’m just the first to expand our network to here’ he said. With many thousands of worlds to visit it was going to take a good long while for the various spies and infiltrators Earth had sent through the gate to visit each one although they had already scouted many of the most important goa’uld worlds sending valuable intelligence back home. Sometimes they also carried out sabotage operations, a member of British MI6 on secondment to X-COM had used an elerium-naquadah mini-nuke to blow up a trinium mine belonging to Apophis only days before.
‘What world are you from?’ the little girl who wanted to hear stories about the Tau’ri asked curiously.
Maybourne straightened up. ‘Ferenginar’ he replied proudly, once again trying to keep a straight face.
Temple of Cronus – Malkshur – July 2002
‘Carter are you sure we’re going the right way?’ O’Neill yelled at her as they continued to fight their way through the sprawling temple grounds. It seemed like there was a damn Jaffa wearing the mark of either Apophis or Sokar behind every stone column and since the architecture was Ancient Greek in style there were columns aplenty.
‘Yes Sir’ Carter replied, firing her L2-A2 from the shoulder as she moved to the next available cover. This had been the homeworld of Jolinar, the Tok’ra symbiote she had carried for a brief time, and being here made the memories stronger than ever.
Yet another Jaffa appeared but before any of SG-1 could deal with him he was cut down by laser fire coming from the right as SG-2 under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Ferretti moved around to try and flank the defenders. It was a large-scale mission with the mixed US Marines and X-COM Troopers of SG-3 and SG-5 screening and SG-10 to the rear holding the stargate secure, but O’Neill was starting to wish he had requested even more manpower.
‘How many, Jonas?’ O’Neill called back to the newest member of the team. Teal’c and Andianov were acting as fire-support whilst the Kelownan played with his toys.
‘Motion Scanner can’t track them all Colonel’ Jonas replied, checking the device again. There were so many Jaffa around the device was starting to glitch out.
‘Use the Force Luke’ O’Neill told him.
‘Sorry?’ Jonas responded in confusion.
‘O’Neill means use your Psionic Amplifier Jonas Quinn’ Teal’c explained, moving to the next pillar himself attracting Staff-Weapon fire from up ahead. ‘I will have to lend you my Star Wars DVD Box Set when we return to Earth’ he added.
‘Oh right’ Jonas replied, returning his Motion Scanner to the pouch on his belt and replacing it in his hand with his Psi-Amp, switching it on and reaching out with his mind.
‘So, how many?’ O’Neill asked again before firing a short burst of mixed zat and laser fire from his rifle.
‘I’m still counting’ Jonas told him. ‘Um... how many Jaffa does Apophis have anyway?’ he asked, his mind reaching out through the device to touch the thoughts of more and more Jaffa and the prim’tah they carried.
‘That is not encouraging to hear’ Andianov commented, moving to join Teal’c.
‘Indeed’ Teal’c concurred wholeheartedly. They must have slain dozens already to get this far and the numbers shooting at them were not noticeably decreasing despite that. The garrison must number several hundred at least he decided.
Once a major stronghold of Cronus, one that the Tok’ra Jolinar had attempted to rise in revolt against him years before, Malkshur was now part of the empire of Apophis and was clearly deemed important enough to station an impressive number of Jaffa upon. Cronus himself was now barely more than a vassal of Lord Yu and in no position to try and re-take the world but with plenty of local knowledge available in Samantha Carter’s head the top-brass back home had decided it was a good choice for another spot of Tau’ri-Patented military mayhem.
The sound of metal tracks grinding across stone floors preceded a storm of plasma bolts as a turreted Heavy Weapons Platform, the type nicknamed a “Mighty-Malp” mounting a rotary staff-weapon joined the fray, the small robot tank putting down a volume of support fire which a whole platoon would be hard-pushed to match. SG Teams might be outnumbered as a matter of course but it was policy to never be outgunned and on missions like this an HWP or two certainly helped even the odds. After firing several hundred shots in support of SG-1 it switched targets and began moving to support SG-2 still unleashing a continuous stream of plasma sweeping its turret back and forth.
Before the Jaffa could recover their wits O’Neill took a shock-grenade from his pack and pitched it underarm along the ground like he would a bowling ball, the polished stone floor allowing it to keep rolling on until its timer eventually ran out and it discharged its burst of energy, incapacitating every Jaffa within ten yards. ‘Strike!’ he yelled in triumph as a number of them fell unconscious from cover into view.
‘I think you still need to pick up the spare Sir’ Carter responded as a remaining Jaffa warrior started firing blind from behind a column with a zat’nik’tel.
‘Damn it, there goes my average’ O’Neil complained just before Andianov went sprinting past him, dodging the zat discharges and quickly closing the gap on the remaining Jaffa. Throwing herself to the floor she completed her charge sliding in on her knees a single shot striking the very surprised enemy soldier in the head as she swept past his position, his body hitting the floor before she stopped sliding, coming to a stop back in cover rifle shouldered and ready.
‘Clear’ the Russian called out, putting an extra burst of zat’nik’tel energy into every fallen Jaffa in the vicinity just to make sure.
‘Move up’ O’Neill ordered, their objective was the main chamber where Carter believed relics of either Ancient or Furling origin were kept. They were probably not worth much but their main objective was only to beat up on the garrison anyway so any additional trinkets they could pick up on the way was merely a bonus. In a couple of days they were going to undertake a similar operation against one of Baal’s worlds just to show they didn’t play favourites, the Tau’ri were purveyors of equal-opportunity havoc these days.
‘She’s amazing’ Jonas observed as he followed the others. Although he had only been involved in a handful of firefights alongside SG-1 so far he had already seen the Sergeant demonstrate an almost disturbing ability to kill people with great finesse on several occasions. Teal’c was a better tracker, and supremely dangerous in hand-to-hand combat, but with a gun in her hand Andianov was quite simply poetry in motion.
‘She has her moments’ Carter agreed.
‘Not sure about her sanity’ Jonas added more doubtfully.
‘Again, she has her moments’ Carter told him.
The sound of very large heavy boots hitting the floor with a metallic clang that echoed off all the stonework immediately had SG-1 diving to cover again. ‘More Jaffa?’ O’Neill queried with a grian, those guys were never particularly light on their feet.
Teal’c listened more intently. ‘No’ he said eventually, raising his rifle to point in the direction the sound was coming from. Moments later a bulky two and a half metre tall figure came pounding into view at a jogging pace. ‘Lieutenant Hailey’ he said as the young officer wearing her prototype powered armour arrived.
‘Nice of you to make it Lieutenant’ O’Neill told her, checking his watch for effect. ‘Oversleep did we?’ he asked sardonically.
‘Sorry Sir, I got sidetracked between the gate and here by a few Jaffa’ she explained via the helmet’s external speaker, her voice rendered suitably scary to match her appearance. Without the suit on Jennifer Hailey was the smallest person in the SGC, even shorter than the diminutive Doctor Frasier, but wearing it she finally had the physical presence to match her often fiery temperament.
‘You were supposed to deploy through with the rest of us’ O’Neill asked reminded her. They had only been told she wasn’t coming minutes before going through the gate.
‘Problem with the naquadah reactor Colonel, thought I’d better swap it out and it went faster than I thought it would so General Hammond told me to follow on and join you’ Hailey explained.
‘What was wrong with the reactor?’ Carter asked.
‘I didn’t like the power fluctuations and when you’re wearing something that has a twenty-kiloton yield when it explodes I decided not to bring it into a firefight Major’ Hailey replied. ‘It was okay until five minutes to go so I didn’t have time to ask for your advice’ she said. Although smart as hell in her own right Hailey recognised that Major Carter was still likely the more knowledgeable of the two of them in that department and would have gone to her for assistance if the opportunity had been there. This was not to say that she appreciated being called “Mini-Me” by the Major as had happened a couple of times, trying to get out of her mentors shadow was still very much a goal of the SGC’s other excessively smart USAF physicist.
‘Okay, that scores high enough on my acceptable-excuse-o-meter to get you off this time Lieutenant but don’t make a habit of it’ O’Neill told her. ‘So what happened to the Jaffa you ran into?’
‘I basically ran over them Sir’ Hailey replied. The inch-thick laminate armour that covered the suit would probably absorb a hit from a Staff-Cannon, Jaffa personal weapons weren’t exactly up to the task of stopping something like that. ‘One tried to go hand to hand but that didn’t go too well for him either’ she said.
‘Do tell on the way’ O’Neill replied, ‘Sergeant you’re on point’ he ordered as SG-1 started moving again.
‘He clubbed me with his Staff a few times then I punched him’ Hailey explained. ‘He must have gone fifteen feet and I think I caved in his skull’ she added, removing one hand from the L3-A1 Heavy Laser Rifle she carried to show the blood on it. Despite increased firepower over the standard issue L2-A2 the heavier version had never proven very popular in X-COM use, it was too bulky to be handled effectively, lacked full-auto capability because it overheated when rapid-fired and it weighed too much for the infantryman’s preference. With Powered-Armour on to take up the load however it became a much more effective weapon, especially when you ran it straight from the suits own reactor and could remove the Heavy Laser’s own hefty power-pack making it slightly less unwieldy as well. She would have still preferred the lighter, harder-hitting and more ergonomic P3-A1 Heavy Plasma by choice but precious elerium was utterly wasted on Jaffa so only troops fighting Loki’s forces used those.
‘I believe stealth is no longer an option’ Teal’c observed as the sound of Hailey’s armoured boots told any remaining Jaffa in the area exactly where they were.
‘Subtle has its place but brute force and overkill has its appeal too’ O’Neill replied. ‘Jonas, do you know how many are up ahead now?’ he checked.
‘I think they’re starting to pull back from the temple complex’ Jonas replied, employing his Psi-Amp once again. He closed his eyes and concentrated picking up the surface thoughts of the nearest enemy. ‘SG-2 nearly had them flanked, they don’t want to get cut-off and surrounded’ he said.
‘Way to go Ferretti!’ O’Neill enthused. As one of the men who had been on the original Abydos mission the Colonel knew he could always depend on the commanding officer of SG-2 to get the job done.
‘There are a few die-hard hold-outs still guarding the stuff we’re after’ Jonas told him. ‘They’re strong-willed, with the interference from the goa’uld mind too I don’t think I can take control of any of them’ he said apologetically. That had been an interesting discovery, it was already known that the prim’ta could communicate at a low-level with the Jaffa carrying it but that this could interfere with a psionic attack had only come to light when it was determined Jaffa were considerably more resistant than regular humans than they should be according to their genetic makeup.
‘Can you shake them up a little?’ Hailey asked.
‘I’d have more luck trying to scare them’ Jonas replied, you could use a Psionic Amplifier to induce a feeling of dread in a subject and it was generally easier to do that than take over their mind ‘I don’t think they’ll run away though’ he said.
‘Had an idea Lieutenant?’ O’Neill asked.
‘If they’re already shaky then when the big scary metal monster with the big gun arrives they might be easier to deal with Sir’ Hailey suggested.
‘And at least if they’re shooting at you it’ll be easier for the rest of us’ O’Neill replied. ‘Good plan, we’ll call it Operation Replaceable Second Lieutenant’ he said. ‘What?’ he asked Carter who was looking at him funny, ‘the Academy churns out loads of them every year’ he pointed out. ‘I’m not going to waste Teal’c or a perfectly good Sergeant on a job like that’ he declared.
‘He’s only kidding’ Carter told her protégé.
‘Just don’t get that armour too damaged and try not to get those valuable brains blown out’ O’Neill told Hailey. ‘Jonas you’re on, Freddy Kruger us some Jaffa.’
‘Freddy who?’ Jonas asked.
‘That’s it, no more Weather Channel for you until we’ve sat you through more movies’ O’Neill told him seriously. ‘You come to our planet, take our jobs and you don’t even bother learning about our culture’ he complained as they went to deal with the remaining pocket of resistance and claim their souvenirs.
United Nations Building – New York – August 2002
Commander Russell Sharp was not a happy man. He was not happy about being ordered to report to New York in person, he was not happy about the uniform he was wearing, he wasn’t too enthused about the company and he was especially on edge because he wasn’t armed.
Looking across the table to the representatives of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, here representing all the states participating in the X-COM program, Sharp wasn’t entirely sure if he missed having his pistol by his side because of ingrained habit or it was an instinctual urge to shoot the politicians. So far they had already managed to annoy the crap out of him by asking idiot questions, they had mentioned reducing the planned increase in project funding which was frankly insane from his perspective, and if that slimy prick Kinsey smirked at him one more time he might snap, dive across the table and throttle the life out of him.
At least Elizabeth Weir sat to his left was currently dealing with most of the truly inane queries regarding the state of diplomatic relations with Earth’s allies giving Sharp the opportunity to check his notes and play with his collar. Since X-COM didn’t officially exist he couldn’t go around wearing its dress uniform in public, even if it had one, so he was in the uniform of a Major-General of the Canadian Army, an approximately similar rank to a Senior X-COM Commander, topped off with a blue UN Beret in deference to his surroundings. When originally seconded from the Canadian Military to X-COM he had only been a Colonel so it was quite a promotion even if technically only one on paper.
Infinitely more comfortable in the surroundings Weir was very smooth, Sharp had to admit. The only person sat across from them who he would have spent any time with by choice was the Chinese representative Shen Xiaoyi and that was only because she was worth looking at, but Weir handled them very well once again demonstrating that X-COM only recruited the very best in each field. The problem for Sharp is that his ideal field was a battlefield not a conference room.
‘So negotiations with the Orbanian government have been fruitful?’ Jean LaPierre the French representative asked.
‘Very much so’ Weir replied with a smile.
‘I’m surprised given that the commander of our supposedly top Stargate Team once completely fractured their entire society’ Senator Kinsey commented, he was now firmly entrenched as the US member of the group.
Weir put on a more serious expression. ‘Although Colonel O’Neill did inadvertently cause a seismic shift in their culture the Orbanians do not seem to bear him or Earth any ill-will because of that’ she responded. ‘In fact Kalan the Orbanian I negotiated with asked me to pass on a message to SG-1 saying that the former Urrone children are continuing to prosper although traditional schooling seems to have lost it’s favour amongst many of them once the novelty wore off.’
‘So when can we expect to see concrete results from your negotiations?’ Russell Chapman the representative of the British Government queried.
‘The Orbanians have already agreed to process our naquadah ore in return for keeping a reasonable percentage of the enriched reactor and weapons grade product’ Weir told him. ‘Final terms for purchasing naquadah reactors from them in bulk should be reached very soon.’
‘I thought we could make our own reactors?’ Kinsey asked.
‘Our reactor design is basically a less advanced copy of the original Orbanian device’ Sharp replied before Weir could ‘Their reactors are more compact and produce more power than ours and they’re so cheap we’d have to be nuts not to buy them given the asking price is only access to Goa’uld technology we’ve back-engineered’ he said.
‘We’re using more and more naquadah and more and more reactors powered by it all the time’ Weir added. ‘Orban has a far greater existing industrial apparatus to produce both, outsourcing is frankly good economics and as a bonus trade deepens diplomatic ties with Orban’ she continued. ‘Although less advanced technologically than the Tollan or Aschen they are sufficiently industrialised to be well worth cultivating a stronger relationship with.’
‘But we are retaining our ability to process ore and build reactors here on Earth too?’ Shen Xiaoyi asked seriously. ‘We should not become completely dependent on foreign manufacturing’ she stated.
‘Our existing production lines will be retained though operating at a reduced level of output’ Weir confirmed. ‘These can be bought back into full production if ever required’ she reassured the Chinese delegate.
‘Sounds acceptable to me’ LaPierre responded. ‘If I may move on to the next order of business we have been reviewing SGC files for some time and have noted several instances where non-terrestrial human civilians were relocated to other planets to protect them from Goa’uld predation’ he said. ‘In addition we are not entirely convinced that our Free Jaffa allies have been receiving sufficient humanitarian as opposed to military aid.’
‘It’s practically a tent city on Hanka now according to one report I read’ Chapman observed. ‘Damn sorry state of affairs’ he remarked, shaking his head sadly.
‘And the way the refugees from Nasya were practically dumped on Gemmond for lack of somewhere else to put them is regretful in the extreme, they are still a long way from integrating with the local culture’ Kinsey interjected. ‘When the Stargate Program is made public the press will certainly rip us to pieces for always putting military considerations first’ he said.
‘You’re not thinking about going public are you?’ Sharp asked aghast.
‘Not for the foreseeable future Commander but it is inevitable in time’ Chapman replied. ‘We’ve got to make some provision for how we look in the history books and for that matter there is the humanitarian imperative as my French colleague pointed out’ he continued. ‘It’s about time we presented a better face to the galaxy.’
‘And perhaps win a few hearts and minds in the process’ Kinsey said with a very unnerving smile.
Shen Xiaoyi smiled too. ‘Given X-COM is a UN backed and affiliated organisation we have decided in concert with the other member countries that other UN organisations have a role to play’ she said. ‘As a start personnel from UNHCR will be affiliated to your command’ she said.
Sharp blinked. ‘This is a joke right?’ he asked.
‘No’ Kinsey told him.
‘I dealt with people from the UN High Commission for Refugees when I was on peacekeeping duties years ago’ Sharp said. ‘They’re the biggest bunch of do-gooder peaceniks I’ve ever met in my life and I know her’ he said for emphasis, indicating Weir.
‘Coming from you I’ll take any criticism as a complement’ Weir responded quietly.
‘How the hell am I supposed to conduct efficient military operations with a bunch of bleeding-heart relief-workers and doctors to look after?’ Sharp asked incredulously then paused as another thought occurred. ‘And where is the money for this coming from anyway?’ he added suspiciously.
‘Your existing budget should have enough capacity to fund the limited UNHCR Teams we envision’ Chapman replied.
‘Oh sure, we’ll just blow up a few less Jaffa next week because we can’t afford as many grenades’ Sharp retorted sarcastically. ‘Seriously this is a very bad idea and will negatively impact on my ability to fight the war effectively’ he stated. ‘It took me over a year to get the SGC to adopt a more pro-active approach and I don’t need a major set-back like a bunch of UNHCR hippies coming in and screwing up my command’ he declared.
‘By “pro-active” he means unbelievably violent and destructive’ Weir told them.
‘Yes we know’ Shen Xiaoyi responded. ‘Commander this is not negotiable, you set off bombs you do not set policy’ she told Sharp flatly.
‘Policy is the intelligent faculty, war is only the instrument, not the reverse. The subordination of the military view to the political is therefore the only thing possible’ Weir quoted, mentally thanking Colonel O’Neill for telling her that line from Clausewitz which Sharp clearly recognised judging by the glare he directed her way.
‘X-COM has always been given huge leeway in determining its own strategic goals and tactical objectives’ Sharp pointed out.
‘In fighting Loki and his forces yes but the war with the Goa’uld is more complex politically’ Kinsey replied. ‘It’s not just a matter of killing the enemy, their are other dimensions to consider such as diplomacy and our image overseas’ he said, ‘or rather offworld’ he corrected himself.
Sharp muttered something obscene under his breath. ‘Do I at least get to vet these people?’ he asked.
‘Perhaps Doctor Weir might be better suited to the task’ Chapman replied. ‘We’ll provide her with a shortlist of qualified candidates.’
‘Fine, great, go with that’ Sharp replied glumly.
‘You’ll have to forgive Commander Sharp, he’s usually more amiable but he hasn’t shot at enough people recently’ Weir quipped.
‘We are all aware of the Commanders strengths and weaknesses Doctor Weir’ the Chinese representative replied. ‘As I believe is the Commander who, I hope will forgive me for telling you this, always gives you most glowing personnel evaluation reports saying that your talents in diplomacy and negotiation went a long way to make up for his own limitations in that area’ she said. ‘That helped us to decide to keep you on the Stargate Program long-term’ she added.
This time it was Weir’s turn to look incredulous. ‘He did?’ she asked in amazement.
Sharp leaned back in his chair. ‘No good deed goes unpunished’ he said.