Chapter 29
White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC
October 11, 2010
In the room with the rest of the media for President Kinsey’s press conference Dominic listened to the president’s speech’s closing remarks, barely resisting the urge as he had for the entire speech to interrupt Kinsey’s outlandish spin on the situation with hard questions.
From the looks on the faces of those around him, he was not the only one with hard questions.
Kinsey called for the first of the questions with his usual paternal expression and the first volley began.
“Mr President, in your closing statement you just said that Jack O’Neill impregnated Samantha Carter, correct?” a reporter for CNN questioned.
“That is correct,” Kinsey replied sorrowfully.
“Then, if Samantha Carter has been pregnant and born children, that means she is not infertile. And it is a known fact that O’Neill refused the anti-aging vaccine and that the Veritas report states the vaccine is the method of sterilising Earth. And if he ‘absconded,’” the CNN reporter’s diversion for the word could be clearly heard, “with Carter then would it be safe to infer that Carter was also not vaccinated?”
Kinsey cleared his throat, “As Miss Carter has not been safely recovered, I am unable to answer if Miss Carter was vaccinated or not.”
“Is it not a fact,” a voice in the crowd shouted out, “that thousands of peoples have gone to Earth doctors since Veritas was broadcast and confirmed that they are infertile—adding confirmation that O’Neill’s figure of ninety percent is right? That the World Health Organisation, because of all these reports, has declared the situation a pandemic?”
Kinsey ignored that question as another reporter was selected to poses his questions.
“President Kinsey,” the man began, “you made mention that O’Neill had support from the aliens and mentioned specifically the Jaffa. The Jaffa, who initially rebelled and aided Earth in the war against the Goa’uld—Mer Teal’c and Master Bra’tac in particular—who have died in the thousands since the goa’uld tonic was released by Confederated operations and are dying off in great numbers with each passing year? Why Mr President—”
“I am afraid I am not able to answer for the mindset of the Jaffa,” Kinsey cut the man off and quickly called for the next question from The Washington Post.
Dominic restrained himself mightily and, as everyone else seemed to be working backwards with the president’s speech, questioned him about Jack’s vendetta against Kinsey. “Mr President would you please expand upon the mentioned hostility that O’Neill has for you? Surely you must have some idea about why he would be so unreasonable.”
Pleased with the tone of voice and seemingly sympathetic question, Kinsey responded. “O’Neill, as a military man, hated the idea of more civilian control over the then operating Stargate programme and resisted all my efforts to have more civilian control to disclose the programme to the public.”
“I see. More civilian control. So it has nothing to do with your blackmail of the late General George Hammond into retiring in 2001 by threatening his granddaughters?”
Kinsey’s face went white and he was not the only one to stare in surprise at Dominic.
“Evidence of which was taken from your computer regarding not only the threats to the late Hammond, but your connections to rouge NID actions over the preceding year and a half; including secret operations that were run out of Area 51 and involvements with the Russians….” Dominic trailed off.
“I do not know where you got your ‘evidence’ but I assure you it is false!” Kinsey snapped. “You should take more pride in investigative integrity by validating such nonsense.”
“Evidence?” Dominic snapped, “Then how’s this for evidence. Three years ago my wife and I were inoculated and shortly afterwards we attempted to have children. For three years we tried with our Aschen doctor saying all along that there was nothing wrong with us! Finally, after the last trip to our Aschen doctor I convinced my wife to see an Earth doctor who revealed to us that my wife’s couldn’t have children. Then I went in for testing myself and the doctor told me the same thing—no, didn’t just tell me, showed me using Aschen machines! We were both infertile and our Aschen doctor had lied to us!”
A murmur rose in the crowd around him, it was unfortunately an all too familiar and personal tale to them as well. The eyes that looked at him sympathetically turned very hostile however when they turned back to look at the president at the podium.
“Then my wife,” Dominic forged onward as his rage at the situation bubbled over, “a student of medicine herself, accessed the Aschen medical sub-core and read in their own writing that ninety percent of Earth had been sterilised because of the anti-aging vaccine!
“It’s in their computers Kinsey!” Dominic yelled in anger. “Just as is the clause of the treaty with your signature agreeing to the Aschen sterilising part of Earth’s population!”
The mood of the media crowd swelling further with anger, the secret service agents and other military personnel moved forward and hustled Kinsey from the stage. The world watched his retreating back and not one, now that they had heard the reports questions, believed much, if any of the speech that the president had just given in his defence and attempted to cast public opinion against O’Neill.
Dominic reined in his temper, displeased that he had let it get the better of himself especially in a professional situation such as this. But what the Aschen had done to him, done to his Cassie, was just too personal to be pushed aside all the time.
. . .
Later back at his desk at the Post’s headquarters, Dominic went over Kinsey’s televised speech once again. The other reporters had asked good questions and even his own had been fine, even with his loss of control, there had been other points of Kinsey’s speech that had not been addressed or questioned.
While he had a feeling that many other people would be covering the points addressed, with most focused on the Veritas file and the WHO reports, he in particular would address Kinsey’s attempt to slander O’Neill’s reputation.
As for Kinsey’s ludicrous claims that O’Neill’s wife—he noted the president had been careful to not mention the O’Neills marital relation—had been abducted, brainwashed, and forcefully impregnated he would let the interview with Mrs O’Neill address those issues.
Dominic turned his efforts back to removing whatever tarnish O’Neill’s reputation might have acquired from Kinsey’s remarks by first paying a visit to the online Stargate Program Archive. Like the Blue Book Archive provided access to the government UFO documents of the Project Blue Book study, the Stargate Program Archive was the official online database providing access to the over 50,000 AF documents and mission reports of the above top-secret program and its three operational phases during its seventy-seven years of existence, from 1928 to 2005.
His search though the mass of data would take time because he did not know the file name or where it had been filed. He was looking in particular for a psychological report that reported retired Colonel O’Neill as unfit for duty—a report that Major General W. O. West ignored as well as West’s orders to O’Neill to detonate the bomb once the reconnaissance team to Abydos had returned to Earth.
A report he remembered his mother-in-law Janet ranting about during one documentary they had watched about the establishment of the Stargate program some years back and how it had been clearly skewed to slander SG-1—not unexpected as the documentary had noted President Robert Kinsey as a major contributor.
Now, if he could just find it in the archive… Dominic was relieved some minutes later after search and entering various search parameters he spied the file and opening it up, got down to work.