Great Powers

by The_Art_of_Transfiguration

Summary:

“What the hell is happening on Langara?”

SG-1 is called to Kelowna to investigate a naquadria theft at a highly secure government facility. Daniel enlists Sam’s help uncovering the purpose of a mysterious Ancient device while Vala, Teal’c, and Cameron go undercover to track down the stolen naquadria – but not everything is what it appears to be. Meanwhile, the Cold War is heating up on Langara, and at the center of it all is none other than Jonas Quinn. Featuring Jack O'Neill.

Part 3 of a 9-part series, but can be read as a standalone story. See series summary for more on "Return to Langara".

Notes:

Hey folks, I'm back (finally)! If you're new to the series, it takes place after The Ark of Truth. I have marked Part 3 as a possible standalone because I think most of the relevant plot developments from Parts 1 and 2 are mentioned or can be inferred from the story, so you don't have to read them first if you don't want to. Any other context I feel is necessary will be left in chapter notes, but if anything confuses you, just let me know in the comments.

As always, comments and kudos are much appreciated -- they reassure me that I'm not just shouting into the void!

Chapter 1: One Very Daring Theft

Jonas Quinn, the Science Minister of Kelowna, was sitting in a meeting with First Minister Dreylock and the contingent from Tirania. Ambassador Vin Eremal was incensed.

“The people of Tirania consider the Kelownans’ decision to host Prince Eltine to be a grave insult,” he explained.

“Ambassador, Kelowna had no ulterior motive in hosting the Nekofian prince,” Dreylock said.

“Our people will not tolerate any challenge to the integrity of Tirania!” he proclaimed. “Even to utter the name ‘Nekofia’ is to undermine the legitimate territorial claims of Tirania.”

“Nekofia has been an independent nation for decades,” Jonas said. “Surely the Tiranian people recognize that.”

Eremal grew quiet. “Jonas Quinn…” he began, “you and I are well acquainted with one another from our days on the Joint Ruling Council.”

“Yes, the Joint Ruling Council which the Tiranian people chose to withdraw from,” Jonas reminded him.

“I have always known you to be a man of peace,” Eremal continued. “Tell me why you would ever want to endanger the fragile peace in our world over one tiny sliver of land.”

“We meant no disrespect,” Jonas reiterated. “We were only trying to be polite in receiving our guests.” He looked squarely at the ambassador. “Look at me and tell me you think that we were trying to pick a fight.”

Eremal cast a hard look at Jonas. Then he rose from his seat and left the conference room, his two aides trailing close behind.

Dreylock sighed in exasperation.

“They might just need some time to cool off,” Jonas said.

Dreylock shook her head. “I’ve been dealing with the Tiranians since the first treaty was signed after the Great War,” she said. “He’s not going to come around.”

Dreylock stood up from the conference table. “The Tiranians are becoming more assertive. We’re just going to have to be much more careful going forward.”

Jonas stood up from his chair. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help.”

“I doubt there’s anything you could have done,” Dreylock said. “I’m sure he appreciated your honesty,” she added, trying to find some silver lining in the proceedings.

Jonas followed Dreylock and her aides out of the room, the atmosphere more tense than when they had entered it.

“Have you given any more thought to taking the Foreign Minister position?” she asked as they walked down the hallway of the capitol building.

“I think I’m happy right where I am,” Jonas said.

“I call you into these meetings so often, it seems like it would be easier if you simply made it official.”

“Oh, but if I don’t make it official, I can always say ‘no’,” he explained.

Dreylock rolled her eyes. She stopped in front of her office and bowed her head. “Minister…”

“First Minister…” Jonas bowed.

After leaving the capitol building, Jonas was driven to a military base on the outskirts of the capital and ventured deep underground to the bunker where Kelowna kept its stargate. There, he eagerly waited for SG-1 to arrive.

Soon, the alarm sounded, and the iris opened onto the blue, rippling surface of the event horizon. Teal’c, Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran emerged from it.

“Jonas Quinn,” Teal’c greeted him, smiling warmly. “My old friend.”

“Teal’c!” Jonas called out excitedly. “So good to have you back!”

Teal’c bowed his head.

Jonas turned to Sam. “Sam!”

“Good to see you again, Jonas,” Sam said, smiling.

“And you must be Col. Cameron Mitchell!” Jonas said, reaching out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet a true hero.”

“Pleasure to meet the famous Jonas Quinn,” Cameron said, shaking Jonas’s hand.

Jonas smiled. Then he turned to Vala.

Vala looked at Jonas longingly. Seeing her again, Jonas felt his heart flutter. He leaned in and kissed her tenderly.

Cameron’s eyebrows raced to his hairline and he looked away.

“Well, that’s new,” Sam said, turning to Teal’c. Teal’c raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Jonas, still a little love-struck after kissing Vala, turned to address the rest of his guests.

“Right this way…” he said, motioning them over with a smile.

SG-1 followed Jonas as he led them up to the surface.

“So, Minister Quinn,” Cameron addressed him as they walked, “what can you tell us about this… naquadria theft?”

“We’ve been scaling up our naquadria mining operations since the Ori invasion,” Jonas said. “We can’t rely any more on the Andaris to provide naquadria for the planetary shields, so we’ve committed ourselves to complete self-sufficiency.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Sam said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Jonas said gravely. “We keep our naquadria stored in top secret, highly secure facilities, but recently one of them was breached. We lost nearly 20% of our stockpiles in one… very daring theft.”

Jonas stepped into the elevator, the team following behind.

“Now that Langara has been brought to the galaxy’s attention, we fear this may not be the last time we have to worry about naquadria thieves,” Jonas explained. “We assumed the Tau’ri would want to ensure that the black market naquadria trade doesn’t have an opportunity to take off. Given the potential scope of the problem, we weren’t sure we could handle this ourselves.”

“Langara is our only naquadria source, we’ll do everything we can to ensure the security of our naquadria supply,” Cameron said. “And we certainly don’t want any bad actors getting their hands on it.”

“That’s good to hear,” Jonas said. “After the tepid response to Anubis’s invasion, and our abandonment during the Ori invasion, we weren’t sure how committed the Tau’ri were to Langara’s security.”

“Jonas, you were there when we defeated Anubis!” Sam protested.

“Believe me, I know,” Jonas said. “Unfortunately, all anyone else here remembers is the eight men Stargate Command sent.”

“And we couldn’t help you during the Ori invasion because we were already overwhelmed!” Sam explained.

“I understand the situation,” Jonas said, “but I’m not the one you have to convince.”

“Look, why don’t we set history aside and just focus on the issue at hand?” Cameron suggested. “We can start by having a look around at that facility.”

Once they arrived on the surface, Jonas walked with SG-1 to the armoured vehicle that would take them to the remote location where Kelowna stored a significant portion of its mined naquadria.

“So, the naquadria…” Sam said as they walked. “You’ve only been mining it for peaceful purposes?”

Jonas gave a look of chagrin. “The Defense Council has been diverting more and more for weapons development,” he said.

“What about the shields?”

“Things have gotten pretty tense on Langara,” he said. “The three major nations of this planet are at each other’s throats again. We’re trying to cover all our bases, but stockpiles are stretched thin.”

“Do you think one of those other nations could have stolen the naquadria?” Cameron asked.

“No,” Jonas said. “The Andaris have their own naquadria mines. The Tiranians… well, we have a number of spies in Tirania, and if they had been trying to steal naquadria, we would probably know about it.”

“So it’s most likely rogue actors,” Cameron surmised.

“We don’t really know,” Jonas said. “We don’t even know if they’re from Langara.”

Jonas entered the armoured vehicle with SG-1 and they set off on their journey. Teal’c sat next to Jonas.

“How are you my old friend?” Teal’c asked.

“Same as always, I guess,” Jonas replied.

“Are you not troubled by the disarray of your planet?”

Jonas breathed a heavy sigh. “I heard you were stuck for over 50 years on a spaceship with your teammates,” he whispered. “Did you ever worry you might tear each other apart?”

“I am still here, am I not?”

Jonas smiled, somewhat heartened. “You must have learned a lot from that experience about how to get along.”

“Indeed,” Teal’c said. “I learned when to speak and when to keep my mouth shut.”

“You’ll have to teach me,” Jonas said wryly.

“If I do, I am sure you will pick it up quickly,” Teal’c said with a smile.

Chapter 2: Investigation

“We upgraded these facilities a few years back according to the advice of Stargate Command,” Jonas said as SG-1 entered the facility. “They extend hundreds of meters underground, and the walls are made of three feet of concrete. There are automatic lockdowns in the event that a burst of radiation is detected. The naquadria is stored in small quantities in individual cells that absorb neutron radiation, so if one cell goes critical, the chain reaction will be disrupted. We also have redundant cooling systems in place. If there is an explosion, it should largely be contained.”

“Well, that should have improved the safety of the facility, but security is another matter,” Sam said.

“How exactly did the thieves gain access to the facility?” Vala asked.

“Well, there are multiple checkpoints they would have had to get past on each level, but we think they may have had someone on the inside who knew the layout,” Jonas said. “Even with that help, they still incurred casualties.”

“Casualties?” Cameron inquired.

“Two of their people died in the theft, they were killed by security guards on site,” Jonas explained.

“Were you able to identify the casualties?” Cameron asked.

“No. They were dressed as maintenance personnel, no identifying information other than the phony ID badges they used inside the facility. They had even burned off their fingerprints.”

“Burned off fingerprints? They sound like professionals,” Cameron said. “Any idea who was helping them on the inside?”

“We’ve been doing thorough background checks on all the employees at the facility, conducting extensive interviews,” Jonas said. “We haven’t identified who the inside man or woman was yet, but the higher level employees are very carefully vetted. We think it was one of the lower level employees. They wouldn’t have had access to the actual naquadria, but they could have helped the thieves get past the first set of safeguards.”

“Do you use biometric scanners in this facility?” Vala asked.

Jonas smiled. “We do. I was wondering if you might know how they may have hacked them.”

“Did you find any unusual residue on their fingers?”

“Not as far as I know. But the deceased were both wearing the same type of ring. I thought that that might have been what they used to fool the scanners.”

“I think we’re going to need to see them,” Vala said.

Jonas took the team to the morgue where the deceased thieves’ bodies were being kept and examined. The bodies of a dead man and a dead woman were layed out on slabs.

“Male, approximately 30 years old, gunshot wound to the abdomen,” the medical examiner said, pointing to the injury on the dead man’s body. “And over here…” he said, motioning to the deceased woman, “female, approximately 30, gunshot wound to the chest. The man took several minutes to die, the woman died almost immediately.”

“What exactly happened?” Vala asked.

“According to multiple witnesses, the thieves were making their escape and the man was shot first,” Jonas said. “The woman stopped to try to return fire, and a security guard struck her.”

“How many others were there?”

“Four others escaped with the naquadria. Their confederates landed an aircraft and took off with them moments later.”

“Were you able to track them in your airspace?”

“No,” Jonas said. “They appeared to have been using cloaking technology not native to Langara.”

“So they were most likely offworlders,” Teal’c surmised.

“Not necessarily,” Jonas said. “There’s been a growing presence of offworld visitors on Langara. New kinds of cloaking technology and even spacecraft have found their way to the black market.”

Jonas looked forebodingly at the rest of SG-1. “Now that the rest of the galaxy knows we’re here, we’re starting to be overwhelmed by newcomers with advanced technology that renders many of our own security technologies obsolete. It’s become a significant problem.”

“Indeed, I suspected as much after my time undercover in Kamloops,” Vala said. “This planet is not prepared.”

“You had asked about some residue,” the medical examiner said. “There was something on their fingers.”

“An electrically conductive substance that mimics human skin, if I’m not mistaken,” Vala said.

“You’re exactly right,” the medical examiner confirmed. “We found more of it in their pockets. They probably wiped it off when they were done with it.”

“Just as I suspected. Can I see the rings?”

The medical examiner handed Vala the rings.

“I remembered that you had used my key fob to open that biometric safe in the club in Kamloops,” Jonas explained to Vala. “The rings each had a small electrical current, like the key fob.”

Vala put the rings together. They glowed slightly when they touched.

“That’s a very clever deduction, Jonas,” she said. “Unfortunately, it’s wrong.”

Vala turned to the group. “Biometric scanners don’t operate the same way as biometric safes do,” she explained. “You can’t use the same methods to hack one as you would the other. The only way to hack a scanner is to mimic the biometrics. That’s what the conductive material was for. Most likely, your inside man or woman got impressions of the fingers of someone in the facility with higher security clearance and then used that to make phony fingerprints that were used by these two.”

“Well, then what were the rings for?” Jonas asked.

“These are popular pieces of jewelry on Langara,” she said.

“Well, sure. Wait…”

“They glow when they touch,” Vala continued. “That means they’re a matching set. Which means…”

“...that these two were probably husband and wife,” Jonas realized.

Vala looked down sadly at the woman. “That’s probably why she tried to come back for him.”

Vala looked up again at Jonas. “It’s not a certainty, but I think these people probably came from this planet.”

“Why would they go to the trouble of burning off their fingerprints, but still wear rings that could be used to identify them?” Jonas asked.

“The phony fingerprints work more reliably if you don’t have your own fingerprints confusing the scanners,” Vala said. “If you want to get in and out quickly, you don’t want that kind of complication. Hence burning off their fingerprints.”

“As for the rings, you can try to trace the origin of the rings to see if you can identify these two, but this is a very common style of ring. It would be like — what’s that Tau’ri expression? Looking for a needle in a hay bail.”

“Hay stack,” Cameron corrected her.

“Yes, thank you, Cam. Your only hope is that some jeweler in Kelowna recognizes them and knows something about them.”

“We’ll have our investigators ask around,” Jonas said.

Cameron looked over the deceased couple. “A married couple willing to die together?” He shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like your typical hired guns…”

***

“We’ve completed our interviews and background checks on the employees at the facility,” Jonas said in his office in the capitol complex. “We’ve come up with three suspects for the insider.”

He put three photos on the table and pointed to the first, a young man. “After some probing, we discovered that one of the cleaning staff had significant gambling debts,” he said. “Mr. Sellus started working at the facility three months back, the timing seems awfully suspicious.”

“Well that might establish a motive,” Cameron said. “What about the other two?”

“Suspect number two is a maintenance worker,” Jonas said, pointing to a photo of a young woman.

“Did she maintain any of the security features at the facility?” Sam asked.

“No, just routine maintenance on site,” Jonas said. “Miss Laren’s been there three years and doesn’t have anything suspicious about her, but we did discover through digging that she has a cousin with connections to organized crime.”

“A long shot, but not impossible,” Cameron remarked.

“Suspect number three is the most troubling,” Jonas said, pointing to a picture of a middle-aged man. “He’s a nighttime security guard at the facility. He’s been there longer than almost anyone else.”

“What’s suspicious about him?” Sam asked.

“Mr. Allin is a refugee from Tirania,” Jonas explained.

Cameron looked at Jonas incredulously. “You have Tiranians working at your facility?”

“He immigrated thirty years ago when the Great War started on Langara,” Jonas said. “He’s worked in Kelowna for decades, always reliable, always loyal…”

“You suspect he may still be loyal to his home country,” Teal’c surmised.

“We didn’t think the Tiranians were involved, but maybe we were wrong,” Jonas said darkly.

“We do not yet know if Mr. Allin was involved in the theft,” Teal’c reminded him.

“Did any of the suspects know Bonnie and Clyde?” Cameron asked.

Vala looked at him quizzically. “Bonnie and Clyde?”

“Famous twentieth-century American outlaws,” Jonas explained.

“Very good, Jonas!” Cameron cheered. “Vala, you could learn something from this guy. You’ve been on Earth for how long?”

“We don’t know of any connection any of them had to the deceased,” Jonas said. “It’s possible they didn’t even know each other, they may have been connected indirectly. I think our next step is to investigate if the naquadria ended up on the black market.”

“Well, lucky us, we already know someone familiar with the black market in Kelowna,” Cameron said.

“If you’re thinking of me, I’m afraid I might not be the best person for the job,” Vala said. “I’m getting to be a little too recognizable around these parts, I’m not sure I could go undercover without being noticed.”

“Actually, that might not be a problem,” Sam said. “I brought some toys along that we can use to disguise you.”

Sam pulled a small device out and showed it to everyone. “I borrowed a few of these from Area 51.”

“Is that…?” Jonas asked.

“A mimetic imaging device,” Teal’c recalled.

“Yep,” Sam said. “We only had twelve people to choose from for the disguises, but that shouldn’t be a problem on Langara. Vala, you’ll be disguised using a holographic scan of Dr. Janet Fraiser.”

“Oh, Dr. Fraiser!” Jonas said smiling. “How is she, by the way?”

“Who’s Dr. Fraiser?” Vala asked.

Sam’s expression fell. “Oh… I guess no one told you…”

Jonas’s expression fell as well. “Told me what?” he asked nervously.

“Dr. Fraiser was killed in battle a few years back while she was treating an injured unit offworld,” Sam explained.

Jonas turned gloomy. “I’m really sorry to hear that,” he said. “Dr. Fraiser conducted the surgery to remove a brain tumor I had,” he explained to Vala. “She saved my life.”

“As she saved the lives of many,” Teal’c recalled.

“I’m sorry you only found out just now,” Sam said.

“She died in battle, huh?”

“An honorable death,” Teal’c said.

“A hero’s death,” Jonas said bittersweetly.

“That was Janet,” Sam said mournfully.

Cameron looked at Vala. “I’m sorry I never met her. Although I did meet her alternate once…”

“Alternate?” Vala asked quizzically.

“Long story.”

Vala looked at him curiously but decided not to press further. “Are you all comfortable with me impersonating a dead woman?”

“It’s for the mission,” Sam said.

“Well, if we’re looking for black market naquadria activities, I would say we should probably start by looking in Kamloops,” Vala said.

“Our thoughts exactly,” Jonas said. “We have a flight to take us there soon. Col. Mitchell, Teal’c, you can accompany Vala. Sam, Daniel wanted to meet with you to show you something we discovered. He’ll be waiting for us in Kamloops.”

Chapter 3: Return to Kamloops

Notes:

A drink called 'gamzin' is mentioned in this story. From Part 1:

“This is gamzin,” Jonas told his guests. “It’s a popular drink on Langara. It’s made from an extract of the gamzea flower, which is primarily grown and harvested in the Gamzea region of Kelowna, so named for the flower. The ancient Kelownan poet Kermozas famously said that the gamzea ‘weeps its last tear into the soul of man and shows him a glittering sea of possibilities’.”

“Sounds intriguing,” Vala said.

Jonas chuckled. “It means it’ll make you feel a bit cheery and goofy and then you’ll probably be seeing blue for a while. It’s been a feature of Kelownan life for thousands of years.”

After a short flight, Jonas had arrived in Kamloops with SG-1. Jonas and Sam took a cab to the Kamloops office of the Ministry of Science. There, Daniel was waiting in a conference room.

“Hey Daniel,” Sam greeted him upon entering. “How’s Kelowna been treating you?”

“Quite well,” Daniel said. “They were very excited to be introduced to PowerPoint.”

Sam raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Daniel motioned to a chair at the conference table. “Have a seat.”

“Jonas said you had found something interesting,” Sam said as she and Jonas sat down. “Let’s see it.”

“Well, as you know, I came to Kelowna to investigate a laboratory where an Ancient named Tarsem had been conducting scientific research,” Daniel began. “The Kelownans learned about it from tablets they had discovered in an Ancient repository. One of the tablets had been stolen, but Vala was able to recover it, and it contained more information about Tarsem’s work.”

Daniel started flipping through slides on the display. “Based on his writings, Tarsem appears to have been a complex figure – a brilliant scientist who also pursued artistic expression through music and poetry. His later work became increasingly focused on mortality and transcending death, possibly influenced by personal losses or the isolation of his work. The numerous references to gamzin consumption in his personal writings suggest he may have used it to cope with his growing obsession, it's an intoxicant native to Langara... “

Daniel clicked through several more slides. “His first forays into cheating death took the form of the ill-fated youth potion we discovered, but after that experiment, he moved on to other things, namely this –”

Daniel turned to a slide of a room that had caved in.

“What am I looking at here?” Sam asked.

“It’s a device that was built and then later destroyed by a cave-in, most likely caused by one of the recent earthquakes in Kelowna. We learned of Tarsem’s attempts to build the device from the recovered tablet.”

“So Tarsem built this?”

“No, I don’t think Tarsem actually built it,” Daniel said. “There was a more recent addition to his laboratory.”

Daniel flipped the slide to show the secret room Vala had uncovered.

“Someone else came along, possibly within the last few thousand years, found Tarsem’s work, and used it to build the device. We found the specifications for it on this crystal.” He placed a crystal in front of Sam.

“So what does the device do?” Sam asked.

Daniel shrugged. “Not a clue, really. But given Tarsem’s aforementioned preoccupation with cheating death, it could be… a device for extending life, a device for curing disease…”

“It could be almost anything, in other words,” Sam said.

“Pretty much. I was kind of hoping maybe you could figure it out.”

“Our scientists in Kelowna don’t know what this device is,” Jonas said. “I tried taking a look at it myself. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but I’m not a scientist.”

“Whoever came later left the specs for the device, but erased all mention of its function and purpose,” Daniel said. “The accounts say that it worked, but how and why… that’s been buried. No lab notes, no experimental results. What their motivation was for burying it, it’s hard to say.”

“Well, perhaps if I’m allowed to take the specs for it, I could try running simulations to figure out what it might do,” Sam said. “Jonas, would your government be willing to let us do that?”

“I can ask for permission,” he said. “My secretary’s out, I’ll have to make a call to the capital myself, I’ll be right back.”

Jonas got up from his seat and left. Once he was out of earshot, Sam turned to Daniel.

“So, Daniel,” she said. “How have things been going in Kelowna? Really?”

“Well, at Jonas’s request, I’ve been teaching some seminars at the local university, and I’ve been working with Adell Beed’s protégé Meera Voss on translating what we found in Tarsem’s laboratory. Meera was actually the one who found the specs for the device…”

“Jonas and Vala seem awfully close these days,” Sam cut in.

Daniel nodded casually. “Yeah, I know.”

Sam arched her eyebrows inquisitively. “Anything you have to say about that?”

Daniel shook his head. “No.”

Sam cast a probing glance at Daniel.

“Did you want to have a look at those specs?” he asked, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

“I want my friend to talk to me,” Sam said, undeterred. She moved in close to talk discreetly. “Daniel, what happened?”

Daniel’s expression fell for a moment, and he looked vaguely irritated, but he quickly recovered. “Are you sure you don’t want to have a look at those specs now?” he said.

Sam frowned worriedly at Daniel, but Jonas returned before she could press him again.

“The National Security Council said you can take the specs and run the simulations on the condition that I supervise everything,” Jonas said.

“That should work,” Sam said. “We’ll get started when we return to headquarters. That is, if you’re available.”

“Sure, I can come with you when you go back!” Jonas said excitedly. “Just as soon as the team wraps their undercover operation.”

“They’re using mimetic imaging devices to disguise themselves right now,” Sam explained to Daniel.

Daniel knitted his brows. “You mean the ones from that whole… situation?”

“The foothold situation? Yeah, don’t worry, Jonas knows about that. They’re disguised as other people from the SGC.”

“Which other people?”

***

Dr. Janet Fraiser, Master Sergeant Sylvester Siler and Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman were venturing through the back streets of downtown Kamloops.

“Not sure why I had to be part of this, but I guess I’ll play along,” Harriman said.

“I find it heartening yet unnerving to see Dr. Fraiser alive and well again,” Siler remarked.

“Well, I find it unnerving to be so short!” Harriman whinged. “Couldn’t Sam have picked someone taller?”

“Don’t get distracted, we’re looking for a man named Parko,” Dr. Fraiser said. “He doesn’t seem to be in his usual spot.”

Dr. Fraiser stopped the two men accompanying her. “Wait. It looks like he’s returned.” She turned back to Siler and Harriman. “Follow my lead.”

Dr. Fraiser waited as a shabbily-dressed man emerged from the back of a raucously loud club and returned to the stool under the overhang where he was normally stationed.

“Parko! My old friend!” Dr. Fraiser called excitedly.

Parko looked at her quizzically. “Do I know you?”

Drat! Too familiar, wrong face.

“Why, yes!” she said, quickly trying to recalibrate. “We… knew each other in secondary school!”

“I don’t remember you,” Parko said suspiciously.

“Oh, well I… dropped out pretty early on…” she explained.

Parko looked at her skeptically.

“So, I heard you’ve been trying to break into the…” Dr. Fraiser leaned in, “naquadria trade…” she whispered.

Parko stood up straight. “Why, yes, I have been trying to branch out!” he said proudly.

“I always knew you were going places, Parko!” Dr. Fraiser said, leaning in flirtatiously.

Parko smiled. Then he looked at the men accompanying her and became circumspect again. “Who are these guys?”

“Oh, well, these are some gentlemen I met who are very interested in, uh…” She leaned in. “Well, they have a lot of money,” she whispered. “And when I told them about you, they were very eager to make your acquaintance.”

Dr. Fraiser straightened up again. “So tell me, how might a curious gal and a couple of dynamic fellows such as these find their way into acquiring some… special materials?” She looked at Parko hopefully. “You wouldn’t happen to have any on you, would you?”

Parko looked down, embarrassed. “No, I don’t have any.”

Dr. Fraiser backed up. “Right.” She turned to Harriman and Siler. “More or less what I expected, if I’m honest,” she admitted with chagrin.

“Well, hold on!” Parko said. “I think I know someone who can help you.”

Dr. Fraiser turned back around. “Hmm?”

“Yeah, did you want me to introduce you?”

“Well, that’s something,” Dr. Fraiser said, glancing back at Harriman.

“Let me make a call, I can arrange a meeting,” Parko said. “It’s gonna cost you, though.”

“Oh,” Dr. Fraiser said. “Well, I just thought, seeing as how we’re old friends and all…” she leaned in and adjusted Parko’s collar, “perhaps you would… waive your fee?” She winked at him coquettishly. “Call it a friend’s discount.”

Parko smiled at her lasciviously. “Sure, honey.” His smile fell away. “What was your name again?”

“What, you don’t remember?”

Parko lifted a finger as if he remembered but then dropped it. “No, I don’t.”

Dr. Fraiser frowned.

“Wait!” Parko said, pointing. “Are you… Leo’s sister?”

Dr. Fraiser smiled again. “See, you do remember me! Good old Leo!”

“Clea, right?” he said, smiling and nodding.

“You got it!” Dr. Fraiser said delightedly.

Parko’s smile dropped. “I don’t know any Leo.”

Harriman rolled his eyes. Dr. Fraiser blushed. “How much?” she said.

“70,000.”

“How about this?” Dr. Fraiser countered, holding up a fistful of bills.

Parko took the bills silently and counted them. He disappeared into the back of the club.

“Smooth,” Harriman gibed.

“Nevertheless, she haggled the price down to a small fraction of the 70,000 he requested,” Siler noted.

“That’s really not as impressive as it sounds,” Dr. Fraiser admitted out of the corner of her mouth.

The trio stood in silence, waiting for Parko to return.

“How did you become acquainted with Mr. Parko?” Siler asked, making small talk while they waited.

“Clearly not in secondary school,” Harriman murmured.

Parko returned bearing a piece of paper with a scribbled address. “My friends have to lie low right now, but they’ll meet you here in three days,” he said, passing the paper to Dr. Fraiser.

Dr. Fraiser glanced at the paper. “Thanks, Parko,” she said, turning to leave with Harriman and Siler.

“Hey, where are you going so fast?” Parko said.

Dr. Fraiser spun back around. Parko walked up close to her.

“Hey, I don’t know you, honey, but I’d like to!” he said, grinning vulgarly. He eyed her white lab coat up and down. “You seem interesting.”

Siler raised one eyebrow. Dr. Fraiser laughed uncomfortably as she backed away from him and glanced back at Harriman and Siler apprehensively.

“She’s spoken for, Romeo,” Harriman said, putting his arm around her and leading her away impatiently. Parko scowled.

As they were returning to Jonas’s office, Harriman decided to address the elephant in the room.

“So, Dr. Fraiser…” he said. “You never mentioned anything about you and… the Science Minister…”

“It’s still very new,” she said.

“Seems like the two of you have gotten pretty well acquainted.”

“Yes, we have.” She looked at him expecting him to say more.

Harriman nodded awkwardly. “Just checking.”

“He is a man of integrity,” Siler said. “I approve of your choice.”

“Well, if you approve, I must be doing something right!” Dr. Fraiser said delightedly.

Siler smiled broadly and bowed his head in one downward motion.

“So weird seeing Siler do that,” Harriman said.

***

Dr. Fraiser, Harriman, and Siler returned to the Ministry office and found Jonas, Daniel and Sam in a conference room looking over design specs. They shut off their disguises to reveal Vala, Cameron, and Teal’c.

“We have a lead on the naquadria,” Cameron said. “But we won’t be able to follow up for three days. Apparently our contacts are trying to lie low.”

“Probably because of the recent theft,” Jonas said. “I’m kind of relieved it’s run of the mill thieves, actually. If Tirania had been involved, it undoubtedly would have inflamed tensions even more.”

“Well, don’t celebrate just yet,” Cameron said. “We don’t know who these thieves are or how sophisticated their operations are.”

“They didn’t strike me as terribly sophisticated in their methods,” Vala said. “Alien tech has made it much easier to create phony biometrics on this planet. Seasoned criminals would probably have been able to escape that facility unscathed. No… this theft has the hallmarks of desperation, not sophistication…”

“Well, perhaps we could return to Earth until you need to come back,” Sam suggested.

“Jackson?” Cameron called. “Are you ready to go back home?”

“I already discussed it with Meera,” Daniel said. “I think she’s ready to take over.”

“Happy to get the band back together,” Cameron said.

“I’ll call our ride,” Jonas said, leaving to call his driver.

As Jonas left, Vala decided to follow behind him, hoping to get him alone. Jonas entered his office and picked up his phone. Vala cracked open the door silently and peered inside, spotting him.

Just as she was about to enter the room on tiptoe, hoping to surprise him, Vala saw a thin man in a gray jumpsuit quietly step out from behind a curtain.

He was holding a long, sharp dagger.

“Jonas!” Vala called out.

Jonas bolted upright, his eyes fixing on Vala. Seeing her alarm and where she was looking, he quickly whirled around to see the man behind him wielding the blade, about to bury it in his flesh.

Vala whipped out her zat’nik’tel and shot at the intruder. The blast struck him and the stunned man fell to the ground, dropping his weapon with a clatter.

“Jonas, that man just tried to kill you!” Vala cried frightfully.

Jonas stared in shock at the man on the ground and the knife lying next to him.

Vala ran to the curtain and swept it aside, holding her zat at the ready to take down any other intruders. “Everyone, come into Jonas’s office!” she shouted into her radio. She continued checking behind the other curtains and under the desk.

“What happened?” Cameron asked as the team raced into the room.

“This man just tried to kill Jonas!” Vala exclaimed, pointing to the unconscious man on the floor.

Cameron searched the man for identification and other weapons. “Why would someone want to kill you, Quinn?!” he cried.

Jonas didn’t answer, still shaken.

Chapter 4: Return To Earth

Jonas and SG-1 had gathered at the local police station, where Jonas’s would-be assassin had been taken to a holding cell.

“The assassin disguised himself as a janitor,” Jonas said as they watched and waited outside the cell for the man to wake up. “His knife was made from a material they couldn’t identify, but it’s probably alien, some kind of stealth fiber that doesn’t set off a metal detector. The First Minister is launching an investigation.”

“Any idea what the motive was?” Sam asked.

“We seem to be entering a new arms race between the three great powers on Langara,” he explained gravely. “Most of the scientists who worked on the naquadria bomb project in Kelowna have died or were institutionalized with schizophrenia induced by exposure to naquadria…”

Sam looked at Jonas with shock. “You’ve become the de facto expert on the naquadria bomb in Kelowna!” she guessed.

“You got it,” Jonas confirmed, popping up his eyebrows and half-smiling uneasily.

“So what? What has that got to do with the assassin?” Vala asked.

“Kelowna’s adversaries want to kill Jonas so he can’t build naquadria bombs,” Cameron explained. “Have I got that right, Minister?”

“Yeah,” Jonas sighed.

“But he’s not working on any bombs!” Vala objected.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jonas said. “Because of my expertise, other nations view me as a threat.”

Vala looked around, confused and unnerved. “Jonas, can’t you just explain to them that you have no intention of doing that?”

“It doesn’t make a difference what my intentions are,” Jonas said bleakly.

“But Jonas, that’s… that’s patently absurd!” she scoffed, trying desperately to laugh off the idea. She searched his face for any hint of reassurance, but his mouth was drawn into a flat, melancholy line. She recoiled with alarm.

Just then, the unconscious man reawakened in his cell.

“Now we can interrogate him,” Jonas said as two police officers entered the cell.

As the police carried the would-be assassin to the interrogation room, he started shaking violently.

“What’s happening?!” Vala cried.

As the two officers tried to restrain him, the man began to foam at the mouth. Then, as suddenly as his violent shaking had started, it stopped. He slumped over in the officers’ arms.

One of the police officers checked for his pulse. “He’s dead,” he said. He held the man’s mouth open while the other officer checked inside with a flashlight.

“It looks like he had a poison capsule in his tooth,” the officer said. “We didn’t catch it when we searched him.”

“So we don’t know who’s responsible,” Cameron said. “What the hell is happening on Langara?”

“It’s just like the Cold War,” Sam said.

Jonas looked around at SG-1. “Now seems like a good time to visit Earth.”

***

At Cheyenne Mountain, SG-1 returned through the stargate, now complete with Daniel, and with Jonas accompanying them.

“Shall we get to work, Jonas?” Sam asked.

“Sure!” Jonas said, smiling.

“Hold on!” Vala interjected. She took Jonas’s hand and looked at him protectively. “Jonas, you’ve hardly taken a breath since you were nearly assassinated. Come with me. Sam, you can have him back later.”

Jonas shrugged at Sam. Sam waved him off. “Go ahead, Jonas.”

Vala led Jonas to her quarters on base. She brought him some hot tea and watched him, her face etched with concern.

“It’s okay, Vala, you don’t have to watch me every moment,” he said, sipping his tea.

“Stop talking nonsense, Jonas!” she chided. She took Jonas’s hand and gripped it tightly. “Why didn’t you tell me there were people after you? How many times has this happened?”

“This was the first.”

“Is it going to be safe for you to return to Langara?”

“It’ll be fine. I’ll put in a request for a security detail.”

Vala looked at Jonas skeptically. Jonas set down his tea.

“You’re really worried about me, aren’t you?”

“What would have happened if I hadn’t walked in at just the right moment?” she asked fretfully.

“Fortunately you did,” he said, smiling sweetly.

Vala pleaded at him with her eyes. “Jonas, you need to be more careful.”

Cameron was pacing back and forth in Sam’s office.

“Jonas could have mentioned he had a target on his back,” he said.

“He might not have realized how much he was in danger until it happened,” Sam said.

“He has been deeply unsettled by the brewing conflict on Langara,” Teal’c noted. “Perhaps he realized more than he was willing to let on.”

“Well, what should we do?” Sam asked. “Is there any way we can protect him?”

“Shouldn’t the Kelownans be doing that?” Cameron said.

“I didn’t see any security personnel around his office, did you? I mean, that’s a good point. If the Kelownans knew that Jonas could be targeted, don’t you think they would have at least had some security?”

“What are you saying, Sam?” Cameron asked worriedly.

“I don’t know, it just seems like they must not be taking it very seriously.”

“Why wouldn’t they be taking it seriously?” Cameron gave her a very pointed look. “Sam, are you suggesting that the Kelownans deliberately left Jonas exposed?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. He did seem really eager to come back to Earth.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Cameron said, shaking his head. “Sam, you’re going to be spending more time with Jonas, maybe you can find out what’s going on.”

“I’ll try talking to him. Maybe you should ask Daniel about it. He was in Kelowna for a while, maybe he knows something about it.”

“I’ll definitely do that. Look, anyone who served on SG-1 is someone we need to look out for. I’m thinking we oughta at least look into this.”

“Indeed, if Jonas Quinn’s own government is conspiring against him, he may still be in danger,” Teal’c said.

The team dispersed and Cameron headed to Daniel’s office.

“Back in the Asgard knowledge base already,” he observed from the doorway, seeing the holographic text that had popped up in front of Daniel. “I guess a few weeks of detox on Langara didn’t quite kick the habit.”

“I was wondering if the Asgard were aware at all of Tarsem’s work,” he explained.

“Say, Daniel…” Cameron said, approaching him, “did you happen to notice Jonas acting strangely at all when you were over in Kelowna?”

Daniel looked at Cameron confused. “Strangely how?”

“Well, I’m no psychoanalyst, but don’t you think it’s odd that somebody almost killed the guy and he didn’t seem the least bit surprised? I was talking about it with Sam and Teal’c and we were thinking something seemed a little fishy about this whole assassination attempt.”

Daniel thought for a moment. “You know, I didn’t really see him much while I was over there.”

“Really?” Cameron narrowed his eyes. “Hey, are you avoiding him because of the whole Vala thing?”

Daniel shot Cameron a death glare. “No, I am not avoiding Jonas!” he snapped. “I’m just as concerned about him as you are!”

Cameron went wide-eyed and pressed his lips together with chagrin, feeling like he’d just stepped on a landmine. “No, no, of course you are,” he said, trying to calm him. He turned grave for a moment. “Any idea why the Kelownans might be so cavalier about his safety? I mean, he’s their top guy, things are turning ugly over there… but Sam was pointing out, they don’t have anybody protecting him.”

Daniel grimaced. “You think they were hoping the assassin would… finish him off?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

Daniel pursed his lips pensively. “You know, when I first arrived, he did hint to me that he might want his old job back,” he recalled.

“You mean…”

“SG-1.”

“Sam did say he seemed eager to come back to Earth,” Cameron recalled.

“Oh, he’s always like that, he’s very… enthusiastic,” Daniel said. “But if he needed political asylum, why wouldn’t he just ask us?”

“I don’t know, but something’s not right,” Cameron said.

Daniel furrowed his brow worriedly.

“I’m gonna try to get to the bottom of this.”

“Do whatever you can,” Daniel urged.

A short time later, Jonas showed up at Sam’s office.

“I’m back,” he said with his usual sunny demeanor.

“Oh good, we can get started.” Sam opened her laptop.

Jonas pulled up a chair next to Sam and watched as she tried to construct a model of the Ancient device based on the specifications. His mood turned nostalgic.

“I miss this,” he said. “It was always a pleasure working with you, Sam.”

Sam looked at Jonas curiously. “Everything alright, Jonas?”

“Just… reminiscing.”

Sam cast him a sideways glance but continued typing. She was feeling a little nostalgic herself. Jonas still had that sweet, almost boyish look about him that he had had years before when he worked at the SGC, but with a few more worry lines now on his forehead, a slightly more drawn expression, no longer carrying around that ever-present composition notebook where he used to collect his thoughts and observations. How had time changed him? she wondered. What was he facing now?

“How long do you think this will take?” Jonas asked.

“Once the model is complete, we’ll run the simulations overnight,” she explained. “You should be able to go back home tomorrow.”

“That’s fast,” he said. “I really thought this would be more involved.”

Sam looked at him pointedly. “Thought or hoped?”

“What do you mean?”

Sam stopped working and turned to face Jonas squarely. “Jonas, is there a reason you’re trying to get away from Kelowna right now?”

“I was almost assassinated in my office,” he pointed out.

Sam cocked her head to the side. “Jonas, if there’s something else going on, you can tell me.”

Jonas bowed his head nervously but said nothing.

“Do you need to get away from Langara? We can ask our government to give you asylum, I’m sure they’ll grant it.”

“No, I have to go back to Kelowna,” he said resolutely.

Sam stared at him with concern. Jonas tried to buck up and smile. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I should probably just continue with what I came here for.”

Sam hesitated, but she returned her attention to her laptop. Jonas sat watching her, his expression pensive.

“You know, I could try doing a more thorough modeling of the device by broadening the parameters,” Sam said. “I didn’t think it would be necessary originally, but I’m thinking it’ll give us more comprehensive results. I mean, our understanding of the device is so opaque at this point, we probably want to be as thorough as we can be.”

“Sure, if you think that’s a good idea,” Jonas agreed.

“I do.” Sam started going back to revise her work. “It means the simulations will take longer. You’ll probably have to stick around an extra day.”

Sam glanced back at Jonas again. He smiled faintly at her kind gesture. Sam smiled back.

Chapter 5: Jonas Quinn at the SGC

As Jonas lay in his temporary quarters at the SGC, he had a haunting dream. It started with the urgent wailing of sirens all across Kelowna. Then, a perfect hemisphere of blinding light exploded outward with the deafening sound of a thousand thunderclaps. A naquadria bomb had struck the capital.

The shockwave from the blast shattered every structure for miles. They crumbled instantly to the ground. It was followed by the sharp, shrill sound of a missile returning fire with its own payload of mass destruction, disappearing out of sight as it raced towards its target.

The hellish volley continued, with more bombs and more blasts vaporizing everything in their path, shooting debris with such velocity that it escaped the planet’s gravity. The devastation was world-ending.

Just as he was about to be engulfed in a blast more scorching and brilliant than a hundred hydrogen-powered suns, Jonas jolted awake. He was sweating and panting, clutching his chest where he could feel his heart pounding a mile a minute.

He looked around the blackness of his room. “It was just a dream,” he told himself. He tried to steady his breathing and reminded himself that he was in Cheyenne Mountain, on Earth.

“It was just a dream…”

***

The next morning, Jonas sat in his temporary accommodations at the SGC poring over SG-1 case files that General Landry had generously given him access to while the Weather Channel played on television. Feeling restless, he set the files aside and walked over to the chalkboard he had borrowed, picking up the book he had started the night before and resuming his mental exploration of naquadah reactions by scribbling some formulas in chalk as he took in the forecast for Colorado.

“Seven day forecast…” he muttered to himself. “Clear blue skies.”

A knock came at his door. He set down his book and chalk and answered it.

“Jonas!” Vala greeted him brightly. “Can I come in?”

Jonas stepped aside and Vala entered his room. She glimpsed the television, the pile of case files, the books and the chalkboard and began to worry.

“Jonas, what have you been doing?”

“Oh, I just thought while I was here I would try to catch up on the case files for SG-1,” he explained.

“What were you doing with the chalkboard?”

“That? Oh, well, I’ve been supervising Sam’s work creating simulations of the Ancient device, and I thought I would take a crack at trying to understand some of the science involved.”

Vala furrowed her brow curiously. “Did you stay up all night?”

Jonas bowed his head awkwardly. “Sometimes my mind gets restless…”

“Would that have anything to do with the attempt made on your life?” Vala asked probingly.

Jonas looked down dourly. Vala placed her hand on his cheek.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone…”

“You know, I recently helped Kelowna set up its first network of advanced weather stations,” he said, turning upbeat again as he motioned to the television. “With the meteorological modeling software we purchased from the Tau’ri, pretty soon we’ll be able to forecast the weather more than seven days in advance…”

Vala wrapped her arms around Jonas’s neck. His chipper affect quickly fell away.

“Vala, maybe I’m not the kind of guy you want to get close to.”

Vala frowned. “Do you think I would consider for even a moment leaving you to fend for yourself?”

Jonas looked away, trying not to look her in the eye. “Vala, you barely know me.”

Vala was undeterred. She stood firm and gently turned his cheek to face her again.

Jonas struggled to stay composed. He placed his hand over hers and held it, desiring her comfort despite himself.

Vala drew Jonas’s lips down to hers and kissed him tenderly. He kissed her back with feverish urgency, desperately hoping that the taste of her lips could wash away his troubled thoughts. He leaned his forehead against hers, nuzzling her and wishing impossibly for the moment to stay frozen in time.

“I think this morning I would like to take you to breakfast,” she said. She looked around. “You shouldn’t be attempting to understand the intricacies of Ancient technology on an empty stomach.”

Vala took Jonas by the hand. “Come on, Jonas,” she gently prodded him.

Jonas reluctantly followed as Vala led him to the commissary.

A short time later, Sam and Daniel entered the commissary together. At the same time, they spotted Vala sitting in Jonas’s lap. Vala snatched a grape out of his fingers before he could put it in his mouth and promptly swallowed it. Jonas tickled her in return and she playfully smacked him on the cheek. Jonas held his cheek, pretending to be offended, but then tickled Vala even more with a mischievous grin.

Sam glanced over at Daniel trying to gauge his reaction.

Daniel knitted his brows. “What?”

Sam looked back at Jonas and Vala.

“Why do you keep asking about it?” Daniel snapped peevishly.

“So you’re just not gonna say anything?”

“There’s nothing to say, Sam!”

Sam looked skeptically at Daniel, but let it go. They went to get breakfast, then returned to Vala and Jonas’s table. Vala was grinning madly at Jonas’s teasing, but as she spotted them approaching, she scooted off of his lap and sat down next to him so that he could visit with his friends.

“There you are, Sam,” Jonas said as Sam and Daniel sat down across from him and Vala. “Hey, last night when I was going through the SG-1 case files, I came across some details about the architecture of Ori ships. I think I might have come up with some ideas of how you can integrate those features into your current ship designs. If you wanted to go over it with me later–”

“Keeping yourself busy, I see,” Sam said.

Jonas shrugged. “I just thought while I was here, I would try to help out.”

Sam smiled. “We can talk about it once I’m done reconfiguring the model for the next round of simulations.”

Jonas smiled back. “I’ve been trying to learn more about the science of the Ancient device, too,” he said. “I found some books in the library that seemed promising, but I was wondering if you could recommend some to me.”

“Sure, Jonas.”

“I think I’m starting to get a handle on naquadah reactions with organic compounds, but I could use some guidance.”

Sam scrunched up her face quizzically. “Naquadah reactions?”

Jonas half-smiled bashfully. “I was making my best guess,” he explained. “Maybe you could point me in the right direction.”

Sam smiled. “Well, who knows, maybe you are on the right track, Jonas. Why don’t we drop by the library after breakfast?”

Jonas beamed excitedly.

After making a stop in the library, Jonas returned with Sam to her office and they continued to tinker with the virtual model of the Ancient device that Sam had created. Meanwhile, Vala followed Daniel into his office as he returned to searching the Asgard knowledge base.

“Any more interesting gossip about the Asgard you’ve been able to discover?” she asked as she sat up on Daniel’s desk and watched him.

“I’ve been trying to find out more about Tarsem,” he explained.

“How much did the Asgard know about what the Ancients were doing in this galaxy?”

“Well, they were allies,” Daniel noted.

“Yes, but as we both know, our allies don’t know everything about us.”

Daniel’s eyebrows popped up. “Yeah, we certainly didn’t know everything about the Asgard.”

“Hmm…” Vala got down from the desk and walked up beside Daniel. “Sounds to me like you found something unflattering.”

“There was a schism between the Asgard and the Ancients when they returned to the Milky Way ten thousand years ago,” Daniel revealed. “The Asgard didn’t want the Ancients to rebuild civilization in the Milky Way.”

“Why would they be opposed to that?” Vala asked, puzzled.

“Apparently, they had philosophical differences about the merits of trying to uplift primitive peoples,” Daniel explained.

“But I thought the Asgard wanted humans to join galactic civilization.”

“It seems they didn’t always feel that way. From the Asgard perspective, it was always a roll of the dice which way civilization would evolve. They had seen what happened with the Ori and they didn’t want a repeat of that development.”

“I guess we were all so charming we must have won them over,” Vala mused.

“You can thank Jack O’Neill for that.”

Vala looked at Daniel quizzically, but then moved on. She watched as Daniel flipped through glowing blue text. “Daniel, Cameron told me that the circumstances around the assassination attempt seemed… concerning.”

Daniel nodded. “Yeah, he told me that, too.”

“Jonas won’t tell me what’s really going on.” She leaned in close. “Maybe you can get him to tell you, Daniel. He looks up to you.”

“I’m sure Cameron’s handling it,” Daniel said without looking up, feeling more ambivalent about her request than he was willing to admit.

“Daniel, please…”

Daniel glanced at Vala and stopped as he saw the concern on her face, her pale blue eyes prevailing on him for help. His heart rose in his throat.

“I’ll talk to him,” he said.

Vala’s face lit up with a smile and she gripped his shoulder with a grateful shake. “I knew you would!”

Vala skipped away, now light on her feet. Daniel followed her with his eyes until she was out the door and out of sight.

He would have agreed to almost anything when she looked at him with those eyes.

Chapter 6: Meditation

After Jonas had concluded his work for the day with Sam, he decided to find Dr. Janet Fraiser’s memorial. As he looked over her picture and remembered the encouragement she had given him, Teal’c appeared.

“Jonas Quinn,” he said in his characteristic commanding yet reassuring tone. “Would you like to join me today in meditation?”

“Sure, Teal’c,” he said, intrigued.

Teal’c smiled warmly.

Teal’c’s invitation was surprising, but welcome. They hadn’t been in the habit of meditating together when Jonas was at the SGC, as Jonas hadn’t been interested initially, assuming it wasn’t much use to those who didn’t have symbiotes to heal them. But then when his brain tumor caused him to have precognitive visions, he did find it helped to focus his mind. Since then, he had occasionally engaged in the practice.

Jonas followed Teal’c to his room. It was filled with lit candles; the atmosphere was tranquil.

“So why am I here, big guy?” Jonas asked.

“Meditation provides a much needed respite from the difficult duties that men such as ourselves must face,” Teal’c explained, sitting down on a cushion. He motioned for Jonas to do the same.

Jonas looked down at the cushion hesitantly, but sat down. “I never thought I’d be included with you in a sentence like that,” he remarked.

“I was merely guessing,” Teal’c explained. “It seems I was correct.”

“How did you know?”

“You fear for your life on Langara, yet you feel you must return,” Teal’c explained.

“Well, Teal’c, you’ve cracked the case,” Jonas said gravely.

“What is the nature of your predicament?”

“I think I know what I have to do, I’m just afraid that I’ll fail,” he explained.

“Why does this fear weigh so heavily upon you?”

“Because I failed before. The Joint Ruling Council fell apart on my watch. Now I’m surrounded on all sides by opposition. If I couldn’t succeed under more favorable circumstances, why would I fare any better now?”

“You have the spirit of a warrior, Jonas Quinn,” Teal’c said. “I know you will not give up so easily, even if the odds appear to be against you.”

“I won’t give up, Teal’c,” he said, his voice starting to strain. “I’m just afraid.”

Teal’c’s expression softened. “Whatever challenges you may face at home, Jonas Quinn, you will always have friends here.”

Jonas peered up timidly. “You really mean that?”

Teal’c held his gaze resolutely.

Jonas smiled faintly. “Thanks, Teal’c.”

***

Jonas spent the remainder of the afternoon meditating with Teal’c and left his quarters feeling more centered. Vala found him as he was perusing the library again and told him to go to Daniel’s office. He walked in bashfully.

“Oh, hey Jonas,” Daniel said, looking up from the Asgard knowledge base as he walked through the door.

Jonas waved shyly. “Vala said you wanted to see me?”

“Yeah…”

Jonas approached nervously.

“Jonas, would you mind just levelling with me about what’s really going on back home?” Daniel said.

Jonas started to shift uncomfortably.

“Whatever it is, you can trust me.”

“I guess I’m pretty bad at hiding my emotions,” Jonas reflected sheepishly.

“Jonas, we’re all just kind of concerned about you. We just want to help.”

Jonas looked down at the floor. Daniel watched him worriedly, straightening up and adjusting his glasses. When Jonas’s eyes rose again to meet his, he gave him a reassuring look.

“Some folks in Kelowna would really like to see me involved in developing more naquadria bombs,” Jonas started. “Now, I keep turning them down. But they can be very insistent.”

“How insistent?”

Jonas shot Daniel a grave look.

“Now, I have a close relationship with the First Minister. I’m not officially an advisor, but I might as well be. She listens to what I have to say. And I’ve been discouraging her from approving a new naquadria bomb program. Unfortunately, it’s making me pretty unpopular in Kelowna with those same people. I didn’t realize quite how much until yesterday.”

Jonas held his forehead, reeling. “The intelligence services must have known the threat level was higher, but they didn’t bother recommending any additional security. I don’t know if they were hoping the assassination would succeed, or if they just wanted to send a message. Maybe this is a pressure tactic.”

Daniel cocked his eyebrow quizzically. “That certainly puts you in a strange position.”

“You’re telling me!” Jonas grumbled. “The Tiranians and Andaris want to kill me so that I can’t build bombs…”

“...and some of your fellow Kelownans might let them because you won’t build bombs,” Daniel filled in, leery at the irony.

Jonas popped up his eyebrows apprehensively.

“But if your expertise is so valuable, wouldn’t they rather have you alive?”

“I don’t know,” Jonas said morosely. “As long as I’m working against them, I don’t know if they care much what happens to me. They could eventually replace me with someone else. It would slow down the program, but it wouldn’t stop it.”

“So that’s why you feel like you have to go back,” Daniel surmised. “Because if you don’t oppose the naquadria program, the other side will probably prevail.”

“Well, even if I continue to oppose it, it might not be enough. Right now, the First Minister won’t approve the program, but if enough members of the High Council disagree with her, she could lose her position. And tensions right now are the highest they’ve been since the Second Great War. Eventually, our leaders will feel they have no choice but to build more bombs.” Jonas shook his head, bristling at the implications. “The last time we used the bomb, we nearly destroyed our planet. What happens if another war breaks out?”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound good,” Daniel agreed, eyebrows tensing with dismay.

Jonas hugged his head with his hands, growing distraught. “I’ve been hiding out at the Ministry of Science, but I can’t stay out of politics any longer. The situation is getting out of hand. And I might be the only one who has enough clout with the Andaris and Tiranians to actually defuse it. If that’s even possible.” He peered up and looked Daniel in the eyes. “That’s why I have to go back.”

Daniel turned back to the holographic Asgardian text. “Well, Jonas, I certainly don’t envy your position,” he said, his expression marked with trepidation. “But why didn’t you want to tell us about all this?”

Jonas folded his arms across his chest and looked out desolately. “I didn’t really see the point,” he admitted. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do.”

“Well, you’re still our friend,” Daniel said. “You shouldn’t have to face all of that alone. Why didn’t you tell me all this when I was in Kelowna?”

Jonas bowed his head. “I thought about talking to you about it, but then… I noticed I never saw you around in Kamloops. You never took me up on my invitations, you never offered to have tea or have a chat…”

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t visit with you again while I was over there.”

Jonas’s expression grew somber. “Daniel, I know you probably didn’t want to see me.”

Daniel frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, after I mentioned to you that Vala had stayed in touch with me… it seems like that’s when things kind of turned chilly.”

Daniel recoiled. Cameron was right, he realized; he had been avoiding Jonas. “Jesus, Jonas, you’re still my friend. I need you to know that.”

Jonas looked up skeptically. “Really? I mean, you kept telling me I shouldn’t get involved with her…”

“Yes, really.” Daniel furrowed his brow with alarm. “Christ, I never should have said that to you. Yes, of course you’re still my friend.”

Jonas started to relax. He straightened up, the smile returning to his face. “Well, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that.” He shook his head and chuckled to himself. “Oh gosh, all this time I was worried that – well hey, I’m glad we cleared that up!” Jonas started beaming. “I’m really glad we had this talk.”

Daniel smiled back at him. “Yeah, me too.”

Daniel turned back to the holographic text. “Hey, did you want to look in the Asgard knowledge base?”

Jonas perked up. “Oh, I didn’t know if I was allowed to do that. I know it was bequeathed to the Tau’ri.”

“Yeah, sure. I have some discretion over who can access it. It’s fine by me. What would you like to see?”

“I don’t know, I mean, where to even start?!” Jonas bubbled, eagerly scooting in next to Daniel. “There must be all kinds of fascinating stuff in there!”

“Did you need me to translate?” Daniel asked.

“No, I’ve still got a pretty good grasp of Asgardian,” he said, watching the text float by with wonder.

Daniel was heartened to see Jonas’s face light up, if only for the moment. His boyish enthusiasm belied the man carrying the weight of his entire world on his shoulders.

Chapter 7: The Simulations

The next morning, Vala was racing through the halls of Stargate Command headquarters.

“Looking for this?” she taunted, looking back and holding up a crystal. She paused and watched as Jonas tried to weave his way through a crowd that had entered the hallway, then she took off down another corridor as he escaped the scrum.

Vala darted past Daniel, who looked up from a book he was carrying on translating Ancient as she brushed past him, wondering what she was running away from. He raised an eyebrow as he watched Jonas follow soon after, racing to catch up with her.

Vala turned into her quarters and Jonas came to a sliding stop outside her door. He rushed at her as she held the crystal behind her back and backed up towards her bed. A brief game of Keep Away ensued until Vala dove backwards onto the bed. Jonas tackled her, grabbing her wrists.

“I caught you,” he said, smiling and holding her wrists over her head as she gripped the crystal in her hand.

“Only because I wanted you to,” Vala retorted, trying to wriggle out of his grip. “Otherwise, you would have rather a lot of explaining to do to your government.”

Vala stopped struggling and looked up at Jonas longingly. Jonas’s smile slowly fell into a desirous stare. He leaned down to kiss her.

“Ehem…”

Jonas looked up and saw Sam standing at Vala’s door.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said.

Jonas took the crystal from Vala’s hand and stood up, slipping it in his pocket.

“The simulations finished running a little while ago, I just took a preliminary look at the results,” Sam said.

“And?”

“Well, even with the expanded parameters, the results were… inconclusive.”

“Inconclusive?”

“You might want to come take a look.”

Jonas followed Sam to her laboratory and reviewed the results of the simulations.

“I don’t understand, you were testing the model every which way,” he said.

“Yeah, it’s bizarre,” Sam agreed.

Daniel strolled into Sam’s lab, his translation book tucked under his arm.

“Daniel, I was wondering if you might have any insight here,” Sam said. “Are you sure the device you found ever even worked the way it was supposed to?”

“I reviewed my translations, just to be sure, but yes, I’m pretty sure the device did work. Although I’m less sure of the ‘how it was supposed to’ part.” Daniel adjusted his glasses. “It seems like whoever built it got it to work, but not the way its designer envisioned.”

Sam gave him a scolding look. “Well, that might explain why the simulations didn’t produce any results. The design was incomplete. Unless we can figure out what’s missing, I’m afraid we’re still in the dark about what we’re dealing with.”

“Why do you think they made it so difficult to figure out what this thing does?” Jonas asked. “Why did they leave the design specs somewhere that they might someday be found, but covered up or destroyed anything that might give us any idea of what the device’s actual function is?”

“Maybe they were trying to hide it,” Daniel speculated. “You know, like they wanted to preserve the technology, but they were afraid someone would destroy it if they knew what it was.”

“Do you think it could be dangerous?” Sam asked.

“No, the elixir was dangerous, but nobody tried to cover it up,” Daniel said.

“But the elixir was limited in how much damage it could do; this could be something else entirely,” Jonas said. “Do you think it could be… a weapon of some kind?”

Daniel thought carefully. “No, nothing in my research indicated Tarsem was trying to build weapons.”

“But what if that was buried too?”

Daniel shook his head. “No, I really don’t think so. Tarsem wasn’t interested in weapons. He was a solitary poet who drank too much and was afraid of death. Why would he want to build a weapon?”

Jonas stroked his chin. Daniel knitted his brows and folded his arms pensively.

Sam handed a hard drive of the data they had collected to Jonas. “Well, for now we’re at a dead end. Sorry we couldn’t be more helpful, Jonas.”

Jonas took the hard drive from Sam. “Thanks anyways.” He looked down at it and sighed. “I guess it’s time for me to go.”

Sam, Daniel, and Vala gathered to see Jonas off through the stargate.

“So what are you going to do when you go back?” Daniel asked.

“The First Minister keeps asking me if I’ll take the Foreign Minister position,” Jonas said. “Next time, I won’t say no. I’m just gonna have to try to reset diplomatic relations with our geopolitical adversaries.”

“Jonas, you don’t have to go,” Vala said pleadingly.

“Yes, I do,” Jonas said. “Vala, I can’t let anyone think this assassination attempt got under my skin, they’ll think I can be intimidated.”

“But who’s going to protect you?”

“I already talked to the First Minister, she’s sending some of her personal bodyguards.”

“And who exactly are they loyal to?” Vala demanded to know. She walked up to hold Jonas’s hands. “Please let me go with you, at least.”

“People already question my loyalty to Kelowna,” Jonas said. “If I have Tau’ri guarding me, it’s only going to add to their suspicions.”

“But I’m not Tau’ri! I’m just… someone who cares about you.”

Jonas caressed Vala’s cheek. “The First Minister is taking care of it. She’s a friend of mine.” He tried to smile for her. “I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

Vala pulled Jonas’s face in close and kissed him with a nervous urgency. As they separated, he lingered a moment in her protective embrace. Finally, she let him go.

Jonas picked up his briefcase and felt around in his pockets. “Oh no…”

“Something wrong?” Sam asked.

Jonas checked his pockets again. “I don’t have the crystal, I must have dropped it somewhere.”

“Well, I guess that means you can’t go home,” Vala said. “Not until you track down that crystal.”

“Vala’s right, I have to find it,” Jonas said. He stepped away from the stargate.

“Wait!” Daniel cried.

Jonas stopped. Daniel turned to Vala and arched his eyebrows. “Vala?”

“Daniel, don’t…” Vala pleaded.

“Don’t do this…”

Vala laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Daniel stepped up close to Vala. “Vala, it’s his decision,” he said quietly in her ear. Vala didn’t move. “Vala…”

“Why are you looking at me like that, Daniel?” she laughed nervously.

Daniel put out his hand and waited, looking at her pointedly.

“Vala, did you take the crystal?” Jonas asked worriedly.

Vala didn’t answer. She looked back and forth at Jonas and Daniel. “Fine, take it!” she cried, pulling the crystal out of her bra and shoving it into Daniel’s hands before rushing away.

Daniel watched as she left and then handed the crystal to Jonas. Jonas breathed a heavy sigh and looked down guiltily.

“She’ll get over it,” Sam tried to assure him. “Good luck, Jonas.”

Jonas’s eyebrows popped up apprehensively. With that, he turned around and disappeared into the rippling surface of the stargate.

Vala tracked down Cameron, marching with steely determination. She found him in the briefing room, reviewing mission reports and intelligence briefings on Langara.

“Cameron, you’ve been trying to investigate who might be trying to get rid of Jonas,” she said. “Daniel said that Jonas thinks the threat was coming from the intelligence services.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t really narrow it down enough,” Cameron said. “We’ll have to find out more when we go back to Langara.”

“Well, Jonas said he has a close relationship with the First Minister. Maybe she knows. When we go back tomorrow, we can go to her office and question her. Can the SGC get us a meeting?”

“The SGC doesn’t like to get involved in Kelowna’s internal politics.”

“Alright, so we go outside of the SGC,” Vala said.

“She’s a head of state,” Cameron said. “We can’t just drop in.”

“Not even for Jonas?” Vala protested. “Surely she’ll meet with us if it’s for the sake of protecting him.”

“Maybe,” Cameron said. “But either way, when we do find out who these people are, we’re gonna need a plan.”

“Yes, a plan,” Vala agreed. “Just how many guns do you think we can sneak over to Kelowna?”

Cameron smiled wryly at Vala’s suggestion. “I thought I would ask Jack O’Neill for advice,” he said. “He’s dealt with the Kelownans before. He got them to make significant concessions when he sat in on negotiations for Langara’s evacuation plans a few years back. He thinks the Langarans are all idiots, but he did mention that threatening them helps.”

“Is that all?”

“General O’Neill also expressed his displeasure with the Kelownans in very colorful language and said that if anything happens to Jonas Quinn, he is personally going to wring all of their necks.”

“He’s not the only one,” Vala said. “Well, this is good, I can do threats.”

“Vala, if these people are as dangerous as it seems like they are, threats could backfire,” Cameron cautioned. “If we remind them that Jonas has powerful friends, they might be even more eager to get him out of the picture.”

“Well, that’s nonsense!” Vala said. “O’Neill said threats could work. Now when we go back to Langara tomorrow, we’ll just make a little detour and drop in on some of Jonas’s unpleasant acquaintances…”

“Even if we can do that, what are we going to threaten them with?” Cameron asked. “This isn’t sanctioned by the SGC, we don’t have any officially granted form of leverage.”

“What if… we just subtly remind them that we can target people from orbit without anyone being the wiser?” Vala suggested.

“Vala, we don’t have that capability.”

“Do the Langarans know that?”

Cameron folded his hands. “Look, Vala, I know you’re worried about him, but this is a delicate situation.”

“Don’t lecture me about delicate situations!” she shot back. “Jonas was nearly stabbed to death right in front of me!”

Cameron looked Vala in the eyes. “Vala, he’s one of us. I may have never worked with the guy personally, but I’m gonna do everything I can to help him out.”

Vala looked at Cameron skeptically.

“Honest to God,” Cameron promised.

“I should hope so. Because if you all let anything happen to him, I would walk straight out of this place and never come back.”

“Well, if you did, I’d be sorry to see you go,” Cameron said, casting her a heartfelt look. “But that’s not gonna happen.”

Chapter 8: An Unexpected Guest

The next morning, Vala, Cameron, and Teal’c had assembled at the stargate to return to Kelowna for their undercover mission. As they were preparing to leave through the gate, they were unexpectedly accompanied by a guest.

“General O’Neill!” Cameron exclaimed excitedly.

“General O’Neill?” Vala said quizzically.

“Hi,” General Jack O’Neill said, smiling unassumingly. “I thought I would tag along on your little trip to Kelowna. I hear it’s lovely this time of year.”

“What a pleasant surprise,” Cameron said smiling. “I don’t believe we were expecting you.”

“Well, lately the Kelownans have been getting on my nerves,” Jack explained. “Always, really. They always get on my nerves… But what can I say, I can’t let them make a habit of killing my friends.” Jack shook his head derisively. “Really not a good look for them.”

Jack’s displeasure started to show through.

“General O’Neill, do you intend to address the threats against Jonas Quinn on his home planet?” Teal’c asked.

“I think I’ll pay the First Minister a visit,” Jack said.

“See, wha’d I tell you?” Cameron said, gleefully drumming his fingers on Vala’s shoulder. “You gotta trust me.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here, General,” Vala said. “The three of us are supposed to be on a mission. Do you think you can help sort out this situation with Jonas?”

“I’ll do my level best,” Jack said.

Vala frowned sternly, in no mood for levity. Jack moved in close and looked her in the eye.

“Hey, this is personal for me, too.”

“What do you need me to do?” she asked.

“It’s probably best if I go it alone,” he explained solemnly.

Vala studied Jack carefully. The man had a way of conveying that he could be trusted completely, and even Vala was finding it persuasive. Reluctantly, she nodded. “I’m counting on you, General,” she said, partially in warning.

Jack bowed his head, acknowledging the heavy responsibility she was entrusting him with.

Jonas greeted his guests as they emerged through the stargate in Kelowna.

“General O’Neill!” he exclaimed. “Nobody told me you were coming!”

“Hey kid, how’s life treating you?” Jack asked. “Not so great, I hear.”

Jonas looked slightly embarrassed. “I guess they told you about what happened.”

“Jonas, don’t you worry about a thing,” Jack said, putting his hand on his shoulder. “I mean, apart from the fact you have to live on this planet.” He shuddered. “I don’t really see the appeal myself.” He patted Jonas’s shoulder. “Lead the way. I want to speak with the First Minister.”

Jonas led his charges away. A short time later, Jack strolled into First Minister Dreylock’s office.

Dreylock popped her head up from her desk as Jack entered. “General O’Neill – to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I think you and I both know I take no pleasure in this visit,” Jack said, approaching the First Minister’s desk. “But before we get into it, I just want you to know, nobody sent me. This was all my idea.”

“If you’ve come regarding Jonas Quinn, I have already been taking steps to ensure his safety.”

“Give me the real dirt, Dreylock,” Jack said. “Who’s behind this?”

“If you’re asking about the assassination attempt, we think it may have been the Andaris…”

“Don’t beat around the bush with me, Dreylock.”

Dreylock folded her hands neatly. “Well, we haven’t yet identified the individual who… ended his own life…”

“Dreylock, cut the crap, I really don’t have the patience,” Jack seethed. “Why was Jonas afraid to come home?”

Dreylock became serious. “Jack… I think I can call you Jack…”

“General is fine.”

“General,” Dreylock began again, “Jonas Quinn is a personal friend of mine. I am doing everything I can to help him, but I am in a difficult position…”

“Difficult, my ass! You can’t protect your own people?!”

“General, I am hanging on by a thread, politically,” she went on. “The people in our government who disagree with Jonas Quinn’s position on the naquadria bomb are numerous. If you think the ones who would let a memo mysteriously vanish or neglect to pass on a warning are in the minority, I assure you, they are not.”

“I thought you people all regretted using the bomb,” Jack said.

“Times have changed, General.” Dreylock sat up. “The Andaris are attempting to develop their own bomb, and some believe the Tiranians may already be building their own stockpile of bombs in secret. Now, as it happens, I agree with Jonas’s position on the naquadria bomb program, but an increasing number in Kelowna do not. I have to mind them very carefully if I don’t want to be forced out.”

“Just tell me who’s responsible,” Jack said. “I’ll worry about the rest.”

Dreylock quickly penned something on a piece of paper and stood up from her desk, approaching Jack. “After a war and two planetary invasions, the people of Kelowna are traumatized and scared,” she explained. “They don’t trust our adversaries, and they don’t trust that our allies will back us up. The bomb gives them a sense of security. It’s very difficult to persuade people otherwise.”

Jack eyed Dreylock warily as she sidled up next to him. She discreetly pushed the piece of paper into his hand. Then she blinked twice at him and cast her eyes about the room. Jack nodded subtly, picking up on the message. He glanced down at the piece of paper. It had a name.

“So you see, General, I have a very precarious juggling act to maintain here,” she continued, walking back towards her desk. “I wish you would understand that.” She sat herself down.

Jack walked up to Dreylock’s desk. “Well, thank you for your time, First Minister,” he said cordially. “And might I say, you’re looking especially lovely today.”

“Thank you, General.”

Jack turned to leave.

“As I said…” she called back to him. “Jonas Quinn is a personal friend of mine.”

Jack looked back and smiled uneasily. “Well, we have that in common.” Jack’s smile reverted back to a scowl. “You’re lucky to have him. Pretty sure your planet would be toast right now if he hadn’t been playing for your team. But given your track record, I can’t say I’m surprised that this is the thanks he gets.”

“I know you may think I don’t understand, General, but I do,” Dreylock said.

Jack glanced at the paper again. “You say you’re his friend. Who else around here is his friend?”

“Sadly, there aren’t many of us,” she said dourly. “Jonas’s political views haven’t made him very popular.”

Jack’s expression turned grim. “I might have to think outside the box on this one,” he mused to himself.

Jack bowed half-heartedly. “Good day, First Minister,” he said, and departed.

***

Vala, Teal’c and Cameron returned to the back streets of downtown Kamloops donning their disguises as Dr. Fraiser, Siler, and Harriman.

“We’re getting close,” Vala said. She stopped and examined what looked like a dumpster.

“Why are you looking around in the trash?” Cameron asked.

“I’m looking for an address,” she explained.

“On a dumpster?”

“Parko gave us the address 344,” she whispered. “There is no 344. There are, however, numerous illicit businesses on this block who carry out their transactions in the alleyway. They don’t leave their addresses out in the open, you have to know where to look.”

As Vala was searching the dumpster, a small bald man in a high-collared gray coat approached them.

“Excuse me,” he said, “I believe you are seeking people who have recently acquired some naquadria.”

Cameron turned around. Teal’c stood to attention.

“You would like to know who is responsible for infiltrating a highly secure government facility, if I’m not mistaken.”

Vala emerged from the back of the dumpster. Cameron looked sidelong at the man. “Hey pal, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “We were invited to a party, we were just trying to find the location.”

“Sir, you have nothing to fear,” the man said. “If you would just follow me…”

“Does this guy seem legit?” Cameron whispered to Vala.

“It could be a trap,” Vala said. “Our contacts might be trying to sniff out law enforcement. I would strongly advise you not to take him up on his offer.”

“I think we’ll just keep looking around, thanks,” Cameron said to the man, turning back around. Vala resumed searching the dumpster.

“You received an address from our mutual acquaintance, Mr. Parko,” the man said. “I was the one who gave it to him. You’re not going to find a 344.”

Vala stopped. Cameron and Teal’c fixed their attention on the man once again.

“Please come,” he beckoned.

“Who are you?” Cameron asked.

The man looked at the three of them. “I’m a concerned party.”

“Concerned for what reason?” Teal’c asked suspiciously.

“I’d like to help you catch the thieves,” he explained.

Cameron looked at Vala, then Teal’c, and shrugged. Cautiously, they followed the bald man.

“How did this man know our true purpose?” Teal’c asked as they walked down the alley.

“I don’t know, but apparently the disguises didn’t help,” Cameron said.

“I agree that this is highly irregular,” Vala whispered. “It’s almost as if he were expecting us.”

“Perhaps your initial suspicion was correct, and we are walking into a trap,” Teal’c said.

“Well, if it is a trap, then we might find exactly the people we’re looking for,” Cameron reasoned. “Everyone ready in case of an unwanted surprise party?”

Vala and Teal’c clutched their sidearms.

“Alright, the second anything doesn’t feel right, we’re pointing our guns at this guy,” Cameron said, motioning to the bald man.

The bald man led them through the back entrance of a nearby club.

“My name is Bergdis, I am the proprietor of this establishment,” he said as they followed him into the backroom. He motioned to a table and chairs. “Welcome to the Silver Sands.”

The trio sat down, Bergdis joining them. A petite young woman on staff walked into the backroom and started flipping through aprons on a rack.

“Leyka,” Bergdis addressed her.

Leyka looked up with a start.

“I am with friends right now. Please ask the others not to disturb us.”

Leyka nodded, pulling one of the aprons off the rack and departing.

“And Leyka,” he called to her before she went out the door.

Leyka stopped again and looked back.

“Fetch Garrell.”

Leyka nodded very carefully at Bergdis. Then she continued her exit.

Teal’c and Vala watched the exchange warily. Cameron didn’t take his eyes off of Bergdis.

Bergdis turned his attention back to his guests. “Lately, I’ve been concerned about the sorts of characters I’ve seen around the neighborhood,” he explained in hushed tones.

“What kinds of characters?” Cameron asked.

“Not your run-of-the-mill black and gray market dealers, I’m afraid,” Bergdis said. “I don’t normally like to snitch on my neighbors, but the men I’ve been seeing around here are not my neighbors. They are much more dangerous than the usual types we get around here and they don’t come from this planet.”

“Where do they come from?” Cameron probed.

“Are you familiar with an organization known as the Lucian Alliance?”

Cameron, Teal’c, and Vala each looked at each other. “We might be,” Cameron said. “Look, before we go any further, how did you know why we’re here?”

“Oh, well, that’s easy, sir,” he said. “The Lucian Alliance doesn’t bother trying to sell any naquadria on this planet, they seem to have much more lucrative markets elsewhere. I took a chance that the people seeking to buy it were probably undercover law enforcement.”

“Why didn’t you just go directly to the police?” Cameron asked.

“Because I don’t know who’s trustworthy and who’s on the take from the Lucian Alliance. But you three seem like you’re trying to deal with the problem.”

“You said you wanted to help us catch the thieves,” Vala said. “How were you hoping to do that?”

“I can give you information about the Alliance’s activities in Kamloops,” he explained. “They sometimes conduct business in my club.”

“You’ve been spying on them?”

“I get intel from my staff,” he explained. “I have been receiving payment in exchange for looking the other way regarding their illegal activities.” He reached his hand out as he explained himself. “Understand, if I had refused this arrangement, it could have been very hazardous to myself and my business.”

“Sure,” Cameron said apprehensively.

Suddenly, there was a racket in the club. Bergdis rose to investigate. As Vala, Teal’c and Cameron followed him to the club floor, they saw that a group of men had entered the front of the club and barred the doors.

“Oh no…” Bergdis froze.

Vala, Teal’c and Cameron readied their guns. “Through the back!” Cameron shouted.

The trio retreated to the backroom and raced to the back door, but another group of men entered. Soon, they were surrounded.

Bergdis returned to the backroom holding his hands up as the men who had entered through the front held him at gunpoint.

“I do not believe our contingency plan will work,” Teal’c said trepidatiously.

Chapter 9: In the Silver Sands

Jack entered the office of Ambassador Eremal in the Tiranian Embassy. The First Minister’s note had said that she couldn’t prove it, but she was fairly certain of who was responsible for the security lapse.

“General O’Neill,” Eremal addressed him. “I was certainly not expecting you.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I wasn’t expecting to be here either,” Jack said. “So I’m just gonna come out and ask a big favor from you. What leverage might you or might you not have over Agent Barry Lyden of the Kelownan Intelligence Agency?”

Eremal recoiled in shock. “On what preposterous grounds would you presume that I would share with you such information?!”

“Well, you see, a friend of mine has been running into some problems with Agent Lyden, and I figured you might be the man to ask to help them go away.”

“What is this, some sort of trap?” Eremal thundered. “Did the First Minister send you?”

“No trap, I’m not representing the Kelownans,” Jack said. “I’m here on behalf of Jonas Quinn. Now, he doesn’t know that I’m here, he didn’t ask me to come here. But the way I see it, he’s one of the few friends you’ve got in Kelowna, so I figured you might want to help keep him alive.”

“Is Jonas Quinn’s life under threat?” Eremal asked.

“According to the First Minister, Jonas opposes renewing the naquadria bomb program in Kelowna, and that’s made him a bit of a nuisance to some people, including, as I understand, Mr. Lyden.”

“Jonas Quinn doesn’t have final say on whether that program is approved,” Eremal said.

“No, he doesn’t, but Mr. Lyden would really love to see him involved in it, and it seems he’s willing to let an assassination here or there slide if he doesn’t get his way.”

“Assassination?!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, that wasn’t one of yours?”

Eremal gasped. “General, I resent the implication–!”

“Why is it that everyone wants to kill the guy who wants to save all you morons?!” Jack whinged.

“I assure you, there was absolutely no attempt made on the life of Jonas Quinn by Tirania!”

“Okay, it was the Andaris, does that make you feel better? Come on, don’t pretend you haven’t thought about killing him.”

Eremal glared fiercely.

“But ironically, if they were trying to slow down Kelowna’s bomb development, they may have helped speed it up,” Jack explained.

“What do you mean?” Eremal asked, confused.

“I believe I already explained that,” Jack said impatiently. “Look, bottom line is, Jonas is trying to keep Kelowna off the war path, and if you would like him to keep doing that, it would help me a lot if you can tell me how to get to Lyden.”

Eremal cast a hard, skeptical glance at Jack.

***

The armed men searched Vala, Teal’c, Cameron, and Bergdis, and removed their weapons. Then they marched Teal’c and Cameron into the front of the club, while Vala and Bergdis remained behind.

“Why are we being separated?” Vala asked. A man butted his gun into her back. “Never mind, seems like you fine folks know what you’re doing!” she sputtered with an uneasy smile. “Bergdis, how did these men know we were here?” she whispered.

“Somebody on my staff must have tipped them off,” Bergdis said with dismay.

Back in the club, Teal’c and Cameron had been tied tightly to their chairs with rope.

“You think Bergdis set us up?” Cameron asked.

“That is possible,” Teal’c said. “It is also possible he was telling the truth and has also been taken captive by the Lucian Alliance.”

“Well, either way, we’ve got a problem,” Cameron said. “Our disguises only work for four hours at a time. By my count, we’ve got less than three hours left.”

“I do not recognize any of these men,” Teal’c observed. “Perhaps they will not recognize us either.”

“Unless more of their friends show up,” Cameron said worriedly.

One of the men who had taken them captive sat himself in a chair and looked them over carefully. He was wearing a richly embroidered red trench coat and had a brown goatee peppered with gray.

“I know who you are,” the man said confidently, absent-mindedly waving a knife around.

Cameron sucked in his breath. Teal’c looked straight ahead.

“I should have known they would send the feds in sooner or later,” the goateed man said.

Cameron exhaled silently with relief and nodded. Teal’c cast a subdued but menacing look.

“And who might you be?” Cameron asked.

The man chuckled. “Yes, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Tavaris. I’ve recently taken over these operations, and this is really not the headache I want to be dealing with right now.”

“Sorry to be such a bother,” Cameron taunted.

“Listen, the easiest thing to do would have been to slit all of your throats without question,” Tavaris said. “But I figured that might not make the best impression, and I’m sure you have many more people you could send after me, you Kelownans are always so persistent, so we’re going to handle things a little differently.”

“Differently how?” Teal’c asked, his eyes fixed intently on Tavaris.

Tavaris pulled out a tiny rod with a blinking red light at the end. “I’m quite sure your primitive planet is not familiar with the device I hold in my hand, so I’ll give you a simple explanation, simple enough for you to understand with your rudimentary technological knowledge. This device will wipe your memories. Not all of them, only the memories of the last… oh, eighteen hours or so.”

“And if we do not wish to have our memories wiped?” Teal’c asked.

“You won’t really have a choice in the matter, this device will work with or without your cooperation,” he explained, holding up the blinking rod again.

Tavaris pulled his knife up to his face and examined it. “However, there is a small favor I’d like to ask of you, and that will require your cooperation which, if it is not forthcoming…” he circled the air several times with the knife, “that will compel me to revert to plan A.”

“What favor would that be?” Cameron asked coolly.

“Well, since I’ve got you here, I would like to know what information the feds have on our little operation here on Langara.”

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we really can’t help you with that,” Cameron said. “We’re just here on temporary assignment.”

Tavaris peered with steely eyes at Cameron. He let out a peal of derisive laughter. “Color me skeptical, but I find that hard to believe. You were undoubtedly briefed before you were placed in the field. Don’t peg me for a fool, gentlemen, I’ve been here long enough to know how you Kelownans work.” Tavaris waved his knife at them again. “Turn off those ridiculous disguises, they’re not fooling anyone.”

“Well you see, we’re a little tied up right now…” Cameron said.

“Very well, leave them on, what do I care,” Tavaris replied impatiently. “They clearly haven’t spared you from being recognized.” He propped his leg up on a chair, his tall, black, polished boot reflecting the overhead light. “How did you manage to get your hands on those mimetic imaging devices? I know you bumpkins didn’t build them yourselves.”

“Where we get our technology is none of your concern,” Teal’c said defiantly.

“I’ve decided to make it my concern,” Tavaris bristled threateningly.

“Fell out of a Cracker Jack box,” Cameron quipped.

Tavaris pushed his chair away, turning his back to them. Suddenly, he flipped around and flung his knife at Cameron. It landed squarely between his knees, digging into the edge of the wooden seat.

“I don’t think I need to tell you how unpleasant your life would be right now if I’d flung that knife just a few inches higher,” Tavaris said coolly. He came over to retrieve his knife, staring intently at Cameron as he did so. “This attitude will not keep you alive, I assure you.”

Tavaris started walking towards the backroom. “I’ll give you gentlemen some time to think it over,” he called back.

As he disappeared, his men trained their energy pistols on Cameron and Teal’c.

Chapter 10: Priestess

First Minister Dreylock’s secretary, Broyle, was prepping memoranda to her staff when he saw Jack approaching.

“You’re back,” he said nervously.

“Hey, can you tell me where I might find a retired intelligence agent named Gordon Zellis?” Jack said.

“Zellis? He’s been retired for years, why are you looking for him?”

“Probably best if you don’t know,” Jack said.

“Well, I can’t give you any personal information, but I happen to know there’s a bar here in the capital that he frequents. He might even be there right now.”

“Right now?” Jack grimaced. “It’s not even noon time.”

“The retired life, huh?” Broyle chuckled.

“Yeah, sure,” Jack agreed hollowly. “What’s the name of the bar?”

Broyle penned the name and address on a piece of paper and handed it to Jack.

“And if I don’t find him there?”

“Stick around. He’s bound to show up eventually.”

Jack walked away from Broyle’s desk. “Thanks for this,” he said, holding up the piece of paper.

***

Tavaris entered the back room of the club where Vala and Bergdis were now tied to their chairs.

“Good afternoon, Bergdis,” he said cordially.

“Good to see you again, Tavaris,” Bergdis replied nervously.

Tavaris’s smile fell into a scowl. “I’m very disappointed in you, Bergdis. I rather like your club, and now I’ll have these terrible memories of your betrayal every time I come back here.”

Bergdis looked down at the floor, his heart racing. “I’m sorry, I… didn’t mean to betray you–”

“Save it, you bald rodent.”

Tavaris pulled up a chair and sat unnervingly close to Vala. “Right now, the question I have burning up inside of me is, whyever did you think a woman of God would be trying to get her hands on stolen naquadria?”

Vala was baffled by the question, but tried not to show it. “What, do you think the clergy don’t have their own agendas?” she answered nervously.

Tavaris laughed. “It’s certainly a creative choice. By the way, I already know it’s a hologram.”

Somewhere in Vala’s brain she deduced that Dr. Fraiser’s white lab coat must resemble the garb of a holy woman on this planet.

Tavaris leaned in close to inspect the deception. “I’ve decided I’d like you to keep it on though, I quite enjoy it.”

“I dread to ask why,” Vala said.

“Well, you see, sweetheart,” Tavaris started, “I’m not from this planet, but I was raised in a devout family.”

“They must be so proud of you,” Vala snarked.

“There was one priestess in particular on my home planet who I’m quite sure had it out for me...”

“Please spare me your life story!” Vala groaned.

Tavaris pulled out his knife. “She was quite fond of the switch,” he continued, undeterred. “Little did she know, so was I. I couldn’t help but love the way those thin, delicate fingers beat me red and raw…”

Tavaris stared at Vala. “You are quite pretty, aren’t you?” he said, placing a hand on her knee.

Vala winced uncomfortably.

Tavaris chuckled. “Never fear, my lady, I’m not a brute. Anyway, I much prefer to be on the receiving end of things.” He smiled impishly. “Thank the priestess for that.”

Vala relaxed, but only slightly.

“However… under the circumstances, I’ve permitted myself a small indulgence. No switches, sadly, but… would you care to share a drink with me?”

“I don’t suppose I’m in any position to refuse,” Vala replied coolly.

“That’s the spirit!” Tavaris cried jovially as he departed for the kitchen.

As Tavaris left, one of his underlings approached Bergdis and adjusted his restraints.

“Dendry,” Bergdis whispered to him, and motioned him closer with his head when his associate wasn’t looking. “That’s her.” He motioned slightly towards Vala.

Dendry bolted upright and stared at Vala.

“Dendry, I can’t believe you would do this!” Bergdis cried loudly.

Dendry’s associate snapped his head around. “Yeah, well maybe you should’ve paid him better!” he gibed.

Tavaris returned from the kitchen wielding two glasses and a bottle of gamzin. He looked down at the bottle for a moment.

“I have no idea how to gauge the quality of gamzin, it’s all new to me, but I find it to have a pleasing bite,” he said. He opened the bottle and began decanting it into each glass. He peered up at Vala as he twisted the bottle mid-air to catch the drips before recapping it.

“Well, you weren’t kidding about having no idea,” Vala sneered. “Did you try to pick the cheapest bottle on the shelf, or was that just dumb luck?”

Tavaris stopped mid-sip and grinned delightedly. With much drama, he tossed the glasses of gamzin into the corner and they smashed to pieces. Vala and Bergdis both shuddered.

“I really want to remove your restraints so you can accompany me to the gamzin rack,” Tavaris told her, evidently enticed by her insults. “Sadly, that is not to be, but perhaps you can tell me which maker might suit your fancy?”

“I prefer a dry gamzin,” Vala said. “A nice Velkor, or perhaps a Sood,” she said, recalling the bottles she had seen when Jonas had bought her drinks. “But not with you. I’m afraid sobriety is the only way where you’re concerned.”

Tavaris pouted melodramatically. “Well, I won’t pretend I’m not disappointed, but I suppose I’ll sample some Velkor alone.”

Tavaris returned to the kitchen.

“Yoder!” Dendry called to his associate. “Ask the boss if we can have some gamzin too.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Yoder said.

“Come on, don’t you think he’ll want someone to drink with? If this broad isn’t going to…”

Yoder shifted from foot to foot indecisively. “Yeah, okay.”

Yoder disappeared into the kitchen. Dendry watched him leave and then turned his attention to Bergdis.

“She’s the one?” Dendry asked, pointing to Vala.

“Yes!” Bergdis proclaimed in a tortured whisper. “Which is but one reason why it is so very disappointing to me that you would do this!”

“I’m sorry, Bergdis, I didn’t know.”

“Never mind that now, what are we going to do?” Bergdis asked urgently.

“Would either of you care to clue me in as to who precisely you think I am?” Vala asked, puzzled.

“I’ll figure out some way to get you out of here,” Dendry said. He looked around nervously. “I’ll call Garrell.”

“Yes, you must call Garrell!” Bergdis urged.

Dendry grabbed a piece of the shattered glass in the corner and handed it to Bergdis behind his back. “Here…”

“Shh!” Bergdis shushed them as Yoder and Tavaris returned. He concealed the piece of glass in his hand.

Tavaris held up a bottle and wiggled it invitingly. “I found some Velkor, my lady,” he informed Vala excitedly. He set two glasses down on the table and started decanting the bottle into them. “My underling here has been so impertinent as to ask if he and Dendry can join me in a drink. I told him that is absolutely off the table… unless of course, you wish to give your glass over to him,” he said, motioning to Yoder.

“Dendry may have it,” Vala said without hesitation.

Yoder scowled at Vala.

Tavaris grimaced and placed the glass in front of Vala. “I’ll let you have a little think about that one before I waste this on Dendry.”

Vala sat stone still and stared blankly at Tavaris as he sat down near her again. Tavaris circled the glass of Velkor around his nose to catch a whiff of it before taking a sip.

“Bracing,” he opined, “yet satisfying. Much like yourself, I’m sure. I can see you have good taste, sweetheart.” He smiled lasciviously.

Dendry eyed Bergdis furtively but darted his eyes back to Tavaris, fearing detection. In his quick glance, he had seen that Bergdis had set to work cutting through his ropes with the shard of glass.

Tavaris lifted the glass of Velkor in front of Vala and held it close to her face. “Would you at least like to sample the aroma?”

“No, thank you,” Vala said flatly.

Tavaris scooted to within inches of Vala, still holding the glass to her nose. “You professed to prefer Velkor,” he said. “Were you lying?”

“I prefer to not be held captive,” Vala said without missing a beat.

Tavaris let out a hearty guffaw. “Oh, my dear!” He leaned back in his chair. “I’m afraid I’ll have to return to your associates soon, and things may start to get ugly. I was so hoping we might have a pleasant moment before then.”

“Well, I’m not sorry to have disappointed you.”

Tavaris leaned forward again and looked Vala up and down in the holographic white lab coat. He chuckled. “You remind me of that priestess. So deliciously disdainful… I know you wished dearly to deprive me of this pleasure, but you’ve failed.”

Tavaris set her glass down again in front of her. He clinked his own glass against it, and then downed the remainder of his drink in one gulp. He stared long and hard at Vala as she scowled at him. “Such a lovely scowl,” he swooned, gently grazing her cheek with the back of his hand.

With that, Tavaris rose from his seat and departed.

“I’ve gotta make a call, I’ll be right back,” Dendry told Yoder once Tavaris was gone, heading for the back door.

“Alright, I’ve got my eyes on these two,” Yoder said, holding up his energy pistol.

Chapter 11: Enforcer

Jack sidled up beside a scruffy, gray-haired man in a faded, tan suit, nursing a large glass of gamzin. He was sitting on a stool at a bar in the Kelownan capital called The Blue Room.

“Gordon Zellis, I presume,” he said casually, sitting in the stool next to him.

The gray-haired man turned to Jack and glared. “And you are?”

“Jack O’Neill,” he said, extending his hand. “Remind me, do you people shake hands?”

The man reached his hand out reluctantly and shook Jack’s. “Jack O’Neill, the Tau’ri general, I suppose.”

“Bingo,” Jack said. “Oh, sorry, that means you’re correct.”

“What business do you have in Kelowna?” Zellis asked gruffly.

“Is this a safe place to talk?”

“I suppose it had better be, for your sake. I don’t intend to move from this stool any time soon.”

“Trying to drink your troubles away, sir?” Jack asked genially. “Allow me to recommend Jack Daniels.”

“Never heard of him.”

Jack smiled wryly. “Alright, to hell with the small talk. I have recently learned that you are not a fan of one Barry Lyden.”

Zellis turned slowly to Jack and eyed him suspiciously. “Who told you that?”

“Let’s not worry about that right now. Am I correct?”

Zellis sat silently glaring at Jack.

“I’m gonna take your silence as confirmation,” Jack said. “I have a bit of a beef with the guy myself, I was wondering if you could help me… gain some leverage.”

Zellis side-eyed Jack. “For what purpose?”

“Well, let’s see, would you consider yourself to be more of a hawk or a dove, sir?”

“What are you driving at, General?” Zellis asked, narrowing his eyes with a hardened scowl.

“Never mind. How much do you care about my reasons for wanting to get to Lyden? Honestly?”

Zellis turned back to his gamzin and gulped it down. “What do you need from me?”

“Ideally? Two words: compromising materials.”

Zellis called for the bartender to bring him another glass. As he waited for the bartender to return, he tossed Jack a set of keys.

“Good idea, don’t drink and drive,” Jack quipped.

“I’m gonna call my assistant. He’ll take you where you need to go.”

Jack held up the keys. “Many thanks.”

“Wait outside. He’ll find you.”

“Got it,” Jack said standing up.

As he started to walk away, he turned back. “Say, is there a story here with you and this guy? Something I should know about?”

“He knows what he did,” Zellis replied without looking up.

Jack pressed his lips together apprehensively. “I’m sure he does.”

Jack turned and walked back out of The Blue Room, into the sunny Kelownan afternoon where he awaited his contact.

***

Tavaris returned to the floor of the club where Teal’c and Cameron remained restrained.

“Alright, gentlemen, I trust you’ve had ample time to consider your positions, blah, blah, blah…” Tavaris said, seemingly bored by his own threats.

“Oh yeah, sure, there was plenty of lively debate,” Cameron japed.

“And surely you have arrived at the very sensible conclusion that this miserable job is not worth your lives, so shall we get on with it?” Tavaris pulled up a chair and sat down before Cameron and Teal’c.

Cameron and Teal’c looked blankly at Tavaris.

At that moment, Tavaris’s men opened the front door of the club and another man walked in, one with a hardened mien and a chilling self-seriousness. Cameron and Teal’c recognized him.

“Vashin!” Tavaris exclaimed. “What an unexpected treat! What brings you to Langara, old chum?”

“Uh-oh,” Cameron whispered. “Well, thank God Tavaris half-assed his interrogation.”

“Indeed,” Teal’c replied quietly. He clenched his jaw and breathed uneasily. “Do you think they will release us sooner if we give them… ‘information’?”

“That’s probably our best bet. Unless of course they think we’re lying, in which case… yeah, that might not go so well.”

Teal’c peered cautiously at Cameron. “Do you think we can give them… ‘information’?”

“What other option do we have?”

“Melandra is displeased with your slow progress, Tavaris,” Vashin said.

“Well, listen, Vashin,” Tavaris said, “I don’t think Melandra is aware of the subtleties of dealing with the Langarans. You can’t just come in with guns blazing. We’re carrying out a highly sophisticated stealth operation here, I’m sure you can understand–”

“Melandra has no use for your excuses!” Vashin warned. “You haven’t delivered a naquadria shipment in weeks.”

“Melandra,” Teal’c repeated to Cameron. “I have heard this name.”

“Who is that?”

“She is a human warlord who has been gaining power in the former domain of Apophis.”

“A warlady, huh?” Cameron said. “What’s she doing with the Lucian Alliance?”

“Perhaps she has somehow gained influence over their organization,” Teal’c speculated.

“She sent me to investigate your tardiness,” Vashin said. He looked over at Cameron and Teal’c. “Who are they?”

“Oh, it seems that the feds have come calling,” Tavaris explained. “I’m handling it.”

“You call this a stealth operation?” Vashin sneered. He glared at Cameron and Teal’c.

“The Kelownans are very guarded about their naquadria, as you can imagine,” Tavaris said. “But as I said… I’m handling it.”

Vashin cast him a hard, skeptical look. He stood face to face with Tavaris and smelled his breath. “You’ve been drinking, Tavaris.”

“I assure you, gamzin is not like liquor, it has no effect whatsoever on my performance here,” Tavaris quickly explained.

Vashin stood firm, unconvinced.

“See for yourself,” Tavaris insisted. “I was just about to interrogate these federal agents about their investigation before I use the neural disruptor,” he said, holding up the blinking rod again. “But you’re welcome to interrogate them yourself, if you’re truly concerned about the state of operations here.”

“Why didn’t you make them remove their disguises?” Vashin asked sternly, staring stone-faced at the captives.

Tavaris arched his back uncomfortably. “I… didn’t think it was necessary.”

“Very sloppy, Tavaris.”

“Very well. Remove your disguises, gentlemen,” Tavaris said.

“Again… tied up…” Cameron reminded him.

Vashin approached Cameron. With a menacing glare, he reached out with one hand to search for the mimetic imaging device.

In the back room, Dendry returned from the alley and closed the door behind him, placing the bar across it again. He trained his gun on Bergdis.

“They give you any trouble?” Dendry asked.

“Nope,” Yoder said.

Yoder reclined in a chair, pointing his gun at Vala. “So why do you think Tavaris didn’t just memory wipe this broad, huh?”

Dendry shrugged. “Maybe he’s not done with her.”

Yoder looked down at the still full glass of gamzin in front of Vala. “You really gonna let that go to waste?”

“What do you care?” Vala said. “Can’t you just get your own?”

Yoder huffed, but considered her point. “I’m gonna get some Velkor,” he decided.

“Be my guest,” Dendry said.

Yoder left for the kitchen. Once he was out of sight, Dendry quietly removed the bar from the door. “I told Garrell what happened, he’s on his way,” he whispered to Bergdis.

“Thank goodness!” Bergdis said. “I had already sent Leyka to fetch him. He could have walked right into a trap!”

Minutes later, Yoder returned, taking a swig from an open bottle of Velkor. He swept his eyes around the room, a vastly changed scene from the one he had left. “Uh-oh…”

Back on the floor of the club, after fumbling around for a few moments, Vashin found the elusive chip on Cameron’s chest and turned it off. Col. Cameron Mitchell now sat before him, still as a statue.

Vashin stared incredulously. “Col. Cameron Mitchell?! Of SG-1?!”

“You know him?” Tavaris asked, surprised.

Vashin turned around slowly and glared at Tavaris. “You told me these were feds,” he growled.

Tavaris shrugged. “I guess I missed the mark on that one!” he laughed nervously. “I’m sorry, who did you say this was?”

“This is Col. Cameron Mitchell of SG-1!” he repeated angrily. “SG-1, of the Tau’ri! The bane of our existence!” He turned back to Cameron. “And who is your associate?”

Vashin approached Teal’c and reached out to find his mimetic imaging device.

Just then, Yoder emerged from the backroom, limping. “Tavaris!” he called out, pained.

Tavaris turned around.

“I was attacked!” Yoder cried. “I’m injured!”

“Don’t let these men out of your sight!” Vashin ordered the other men as he left with Tavaris to investigate.

“Dendry must have let them in,” Yoder said, straining to recount what had happened. “Bergdis and the woman escaped!”

“Your underling helped them escape?!” Vashin fumed at Tavaris.

Tavaris pulled anxiously at his goatee as Vashin stormed into the backroom. The back door was flung open, the captives had indeed fled; a pile of ropes lay on the floor. Tavaris peaked his head out the door, but the escapees and their rescuers were nowhere to be found.

“No sign of them,” Tavaris uttered with irritation.

Vashin grabbed Tavaris’s goatee and pulled it tight. “If you don’t find them again, you can consider your employment terminated. And your life with it.”

Tavaris tried to maintain his cool. “They can’t have gone far,” he said.

Chapter 12: Escape

“What’s your name, son?” Jack asked the young man driving the stately black vehicle that Zellis had given him the keys to. Zellis’s clean-cut, fresh-faced assistant drew a striking contrast with his employer.

“Royce Laurel, sir,” he replied, “but you can just call me Royce.”

“How did you come to work for Zellis?” Jack asked quizzically.

“Work study. The university pays half my wages. Officially, I work for the Center for Strategic Intelligence.”

“And unofficially…?”

“I work at Mr. Zellis’s house,” Royce chuckled. “I mostly just help him organize his files and drive him home when he’s intoxicated. But I’m learning a lot about spycraft!”

“Right… Okay, Royce, mind telling me where we’re headed?”

“We’re going to a mansion in the suburbs of the capital. It’s a pretty upscale neighborhood, it’s in a gated community. Belongs to a woman named Benessiara. We’re gonna tell her you’re looking to do business. Mr. Zellis and I are hopeful that she’ll let you in.”

Jack scrunched his face up worriedly. “What kind of business?”

“Ms. Benessiara is… a lady of the evening,” Royce explained.

Jack shifted uncomfortably. “So I’m guessing this Ms… Benessiara… she’s been ‘doing business’ with Mr. Lyden? And we’re going to collect evidence, threaten to go to his wife, something along those lines?”

“Not exactly…”

Several minutes later, Royce pulled up to the front gate of Lakeside Haven.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the front gate attendant said cordially. “Whom are you visiting today?”

“Number 78,” Royce said. “She doesn’t know we’re coming, could you contact her?”

“Yes, sir.”

The attendant punched in a code and Jack could hear what sounded like a dial tone.

“Good afternoon, Ken, my precious!” a woman’s voice, richly dulcet, came through the radio in the gate attendant’s station. “I’ve just awakened from my nap. Why are you calling at this hour?”

The attendant smiled. “Good afternoon, Ms. Benessiara,” he said with relish. “There are two gentlemen at the gate here to see you.”

“Ah… I am not accepting any visitors right now. Could you tell them to please come back later?”

“Ms. Benessiara!” Royce called. “I think you’ll be interested in receiving my guest. He’s come a very, very, long way.”

“Ooh, whose voice is that?” she asked curiously.

“Royce Laurel,” he answered. “Today, I’m driving General Jack O’Neill of the Tau’ri. I’ve been showing him around town – he was very much looking forward to visiting the House of Gamzeas.”

“Ooh, la la! General, precious, come on over! Ken, open the gate for my honored guest immediately!”

“Right away, Ms. Benessiara,” Ken said, dripping with sweetness. He pushed a button to open the gate. “You must be the real deal, sir!” he said, winking at Jack and seemingly excited to let the visitors through the gate.

Royce drove through the gate and rounded a corner.

“Most of Benessiara’s clients are government officials,” Royce explained. “She only does business with the well-connected and those who have ‘access’. Gordon’s been out of the game too long for her to ever consider entertaining him, but we thought a Tau’ri general might get her attention.”

“No kidding,” Jack murmured, eyeballing one monumentally opulent mansion after another as they passed.

“It’s rumored that Benessiara’s mother was an Andari spy. We’ve long suspected she has an extensive collection of materials she keeps for blackmail purposes. Not just photos of married men in compromising positions, but law-breaking, violations of public trust, treason. We’ve never seen it, but if we’re right… she should have what you’re looking for. It’s just a matter of finding it. And getting past Benessiara…”

“And how were you planning to get past Benessiara?” Jack asked apprehensively.

“You were in special ops, weren’t you, sir?” Royce said.

“How would you know about that?” Jack asked warily.

Royce laughed. “My boss knows one when he sees one.”

“I’m afraid I’m gonna need a little more to go on here,” Jack said. “Where does she keep this stuff? How are we gonna get our hands on it?”

“Leave that to me,” Royce said. “You keep Benessiara occupied. I’ll let you know if I need your assistance.”

“Got it,” Jack said. “Keep Benessiara… occupied.”

Jack looked out the window and started nervously banging his fist with his hand. “Say, does Benessiara have a last name?”

“It’s just Benessiara.”

“One of those one-name kind of women, huh?” Jack murmured gravely.

Honey, please forgive me for what I’m about to do, Jack thought to himself as Royce pulled into a long driveway leading to a white brick mansion surrounded by flower bushes.

***

Vala and Bergdis were sitting in the back of a windowless minibus, putrid green in color, frantically speeding through the alleyway. Leyka was seated with them, and Dendry was seated in front, quickly trying to explain the situation to the driver.

“Tavaris thinks they’re federal agents, he’s going to wipe their memories,” Dendry said. “I think we can still carry off the plan.”

“What plan?!” Vala shouted.

Dendry glanced back at her and then returned his attention to the driver.

“Are you sure about that?” the driver asked.

“She can tell her people that her memory was wiped, the others will have had their memories wiped, it will all be quite plausible,” Dendry assured him.

“Bergdis, how are we going to rescue my colleagues?” Vala asked urgently.

“Dendry said that Tavaris will release them if they cooperate,” Bergdis said.

“But Bergdis, Dendry said that Tavaris believes that we’re federal agents!” Vala protested. “If he discovers my colleagues’ true identities, he may not keep them alive!”

The green vehicle tore around a corner and the group in back was flung to one side of the vehicle, all pressed together.

“Bergdis, where are we going?!” Vala demanded. “I need to contact my government liaison immediately, we have to plan an extraction!”

“I am afraid that is impossible,” Bergdis said.

Vala gave him a wild-eyed look of disbelief.

Dendry looked back at Vala, a deep remorse marking his features. “I’m sorry,” he uttered ashamedly.

“You’re sorry?!” Vala shouted back indignantly. “I demand to be released from this vehicle at once!”

“Bergdis, I think I can help,” Leyka said. “Garrell can take you two. Let me and Dendry go.”

“I beg your pardon, Garrell can take us where?!” Vala asked furiously. “If you’re going to rescue my colleagues, I’m going with you!”

Leyka grabbed Vala by the shoulder. “You need to go with Bergdis,” she insisted.

“I’m not going anywhere with anyone until my people are safe from the Lucian Alliance!” Vala declared firmly.

Leyka gave a hard look at Bergdis, no words passing between them.

“Garrell, stop at the Inn,” Bergdis commanded.

The driver, Garrell, glanced back at Bergdis and then made a hard left. Again, everyone slammed against the side of the vehicle.

“Why are we going to the ‘Inn’?” Vala asked.

Bergdis softened his expression. “We’ll get your friends back safe,” he said. “You have my word.”

Minutes later, the green minibus pulled into a parking lot with cracked pavement and a decrepit-looking two-story building named simply “The Inn”.

As Garrell exited and slid open the back door, Dendry looked pleadingly at Bergdis.

“I have to go with you,” he said.

“Dendry, you need to help Leyka free the captives!” Bergdis said sternly.

“Bergdis, if I stay here, Tavaris will kill me!” Dendry bleated.

Vala exited the minibus and followed Leyka and Garrell into The Inn.

“Alright then, what is our plan?” Vala demanded.

The woman at the front desk left her station hurriedly and joined the group that had entered. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Bergdis said that this is the woman,” Garrell informed her, motioning to Vala and closing the front door behind him.

The woman went wide-eyed looking at Vala.

“You keep saying that,” Vala said. “I don’t understand, what woman? Who do you think I am?”

“I have to apologize to you, Miss,” Garrell said.

“Well, I should think so!” Vala replied indignantly.

“I meant, for this–”

All of a sudden, a bag dropped down over Vala’s head and all went black. She felt Garrell restraining her as the women started binding her arms and legs again.

“What are you doing?!” she cried. “What in blazes is going on?!”

She heard the sound of the front door opening again and the minibus doors being flung open. Garrell and the two women dragged her into the back and shut the doors. Then the ignition was restarted and they were on the road again.

“Who are you people?!” Vala cried.

Chapter 13: Extraction

Leyka was driving Dendry and two of her friends, Petry and Deya, in a dinged up blue car through an alleyway in downtown Kamloops. She pulled up to the curb a block away from the Silver Sands and exited with her companions. Dendry froze.

“What gives, Dendry?” Leyka whispered, noticing Dendry was still in the vehicle.

Dendry said nothing. Leyka flung his door open and grabbed him by the collar.

“This is your chance to redeem yourself,” she warned. “Don’t blow it.”

Dendry rose shakily to his feet.

“I can squeeze through the ventilation system and signal back to you what I see,” Leyka said to her friends.

“Leyka, you won’t fit,” Dendry protested.

“I’ve done it before,” the very petite waitress said. “Trust me on this.”

The foursome walked down the alley to the back of the club.

“Give me a boost, Petry,” Leyka said when they arrived.

Petry obliged and lifted Leyka up to the wrought iron railing surrounding the balcony on the second floor, and she gripped the bar at the base with both hands. She heard footsteps and whirled her head around.

“Someone’s coming to the back door!” she whispered loudly. “Get out of here!”

Leyka’s three companions scattered in different directions as Leyka hooked her foot over the bar and hung still as a statue as two of Tavaris’s men stepped out the back door.

“Keep a lookout,” Tavaris said from inside.

“Okay, boss,” one of the men said.

Quiet as a mouse, Leyka tried to hook her other foot around the bar. She was now suspended by all four limbs.

“How long do we stay here?” Deya whispered as she stood frozen around the corner of the club, just out of sight of Tavaris’s men.

“Shh…” Petry shushed her. He looked around for Dendry, but saw him nowhere.

Slowly, quietly, Leyka hoisted herself up the bars of the railing. Soon she was able to stand upright on the bar at the base. She slipped over the railing and tiptoed onto the balcony, moving to the edge and peeking around the corner, where she could just spy Deya down below. She put her finger to her lips, signaling her to be quiet, then motioned towards the door to the balcony to indicate she would go inside. Then she motioned for Deya and Petry to go to the street in front.

Deya nodded and she and Petry crept away to the street through the narrow passageway between the Silver Sands and the abandoned theatre next door.

Leyka walked to the door and unlocked it silently with her keys, creeping inside and shutting it soundlessly. She was in the storage room, surrounded by old furniture and boxes of cleaning supplies. She found a screwdriver and used it to remove the screws from the register covering the ventilation duct. Once it was free, she crawled inside and, moving slowly and silently, she made her way to a vent overlooking the club floor from above.

As she approached the main floor, her arms and legs were growing tired – the duct was barely wide enough for her to stand on hands and knees – but once she arrived, she could just spy the captives below, surrounded by Tavaris’s men. They were tied up, but appeared to be unharmed.

Leyka continued on to the intake vent at the front of the club. Through the bars of the vent cover, she could just make out Deya and Petry, sitting on a bench across the street. It was virtually deserted; the street usually didn’t get busy until after dark. She tried waving at them, but they couldn’t see her. She pulled the screwdriver from her pocket and dropped it through the bars.

Deya and Petry perked up. They rushed across the street to the intake vent.

“Psst!” Leyka called.

“Leyka?” Deya whispered.

“I saw them, they’re still alive,” Leyka said. “But there are too many of Tavaris’s men in there. We need to distract them somehow.”

“Well, how do we do that?” Deya asked.

“I have an idea,” Leyka said. “Do you have any matches?”

Petry pulled a matchbook from his pocket. “Here!” he said, trying to throw it up to Leyka.

The matchbook bounced off the intake vent and fell back down.

“Nice,” Leyka snarked.

“Hold on,” Petry said. “Take your shirt off. I’ll tie it to your sleeve and you can pull it up.”

“Petry!” Deya whispered angrily.

“Oh, get over it, Deya,” Leyka chided as she tried to shimmy out of her top.

Leyka dropped the long-sleeved garment through the bars of the vent and Petry tied the matchbook into her sleeve. Leyka pulled it back up and grabbed the matchbook.

“Where’s Dendry?” she asked as she hastily put her shirt back on, not noticing it was backwards.

“No idea,” Deya said.

“He must have split,” Leyka tutted. “The coward.”

“What’s your plan?” Deya asked nervously.

“If you hear a commotion inside, see if you can create a diversion out front. Then scram.”

“Okay,” Deya agreed warily.

“We’ll rendezvous at the car, but at the first sign of trouble… go back to the Inn! Don’t worry about me.”

Leyka inched her way back through the ventilation duct. It took twice as long to go back as it had to go forward, as there wasn’t enough space to turn around, and she had to stop a few times to rest as she was crawling backwards.

She peered through the vent again to check on the captives as she passed. They hadn’t moved, but Tavaris’s men seemed to have gotten lax in their watch, chatting amongst themselves. Leyka counted eight of them.

Tavaris had returned to the main floor and was trying desperately to convince Vashin that the situation was under control, but Vashin was skeptical. Then, one of Tavaris’s men returned from the backroom.

“We got them, Tavaris!” he proclaimed excitedly.

Leyka stopped to watch. Two of Tavaris’s men dragged Dendry and the woman in the white lab coat in from the backroom.

Leyka gasped in horror. With a renewed urgency, she resumed her backward trek to the storage room.

When Leyka finally arrived in the storage room, she hurriedly looked around for supplies to carry out her plan. She quickly found a box of paper napkins and a fan. She also found some box cutters that she thought could be used to cut through bindings.

Hmm… how to get these to the captives? she wondered to herself. She grabbed a spool of packing twine. Maybe she could swing them over through the vent? If that didn’t work, she might have to dash onto the club floor herself, she thought apprehensively.

She quickly stuffed the implements in her pockets. Then she hooked up the fan and placed stacks of the napkins on a stool near the door of the storage room.

She pulled out the matchbook and struck a match, setting a handful of napkins on fire. Trying unsuccessfully not to burn her fingers, she used them to set the rest of the napkins on fire, holding the flame to the sides of the stacks and letting each napkin go aflame. Once the napkins were on fire, she quietly opened the door to the storage room and turned on the fan.

Scores of flaming napkins flew out over the stairway, landing all over the floor of the club down below. A tablecloth caught on fire, sending up curls of smoke. Leyka rushed back to crack open the door to the outside balcony, then retreated into the ventilation duct and pulled the register closed to conceal herself.

Two of Tavaris’s men flew up the stairs and into the storage room, searching for the perpetrator. Leyka couldn’t see what was happening on the club floor, but she could hear a lot of shouting and confusion. One of the men shut off the fan and tried to put out the pile of flaming napkins with his coat, inadvertently sending out more as he did so. The other man rushed to the balcony.

“Did somebody jump off the balcony?” he called down to the two men keeping watch out back.

“No,” one of the men said, confused.

“Somebody set a fire in the club!” he shouted back.

“What?! Oh, for the love of the gods…”

One of the men keeping watch stormed back into the club and the two men in the storage room returned to the club floor, once they had put out the fire. After they had gone, Leyka left her hiding spot in the ventilation duct and crawled across the floor to peer out over the scene below, hoping no one would spot her.

While Tavaris’s men had been frantically stamping out flaming napkins, Dendry and the woman in the white lab coat had somehow gotten free, as had the other captives. Vashin was knocked out cold, Tavaris was knocked off his feet, and Dendry was sprawled out on the floor, bleeding.

The two male captives had wrestled energy pistols away from their captors and were shooting their way through Tavaris’s men, trying to reach the exit. One of the captives, the gray-haired one, unbarred the doors of the club and flung it open with impressive strength, fleeing with his colleague as he fired back. More guns fired back at Tavaris’s men from outside.

“What the–?” Leyka wondered at the scene.

Leyka crawled back into the storage room and walked out to the balcony cautiously, crawling again to peer over the edge. Everyone was gone, the last man keeping watch presumably having rushed back into the club to stop the captives from escaping. But the green minibus was parked there.

Leyka slipped over the railing of the balcony, inched down the bars, and leapt down to the ground below.

“Ow!” she cried, feeling like she had twisted her ankle, but it just hurt a lot. She limped to the minibus and, fortunately, the keys were still in the ignition. She drove it back to where the blue car was parked, but it was gone. Petry and Deya must have left, she realized.

Leyka drove the minibus back to the Inn. When she arrived, she spotted the blue car in the parking lot. Her friends had escaped safely, but where were the captives?

Leyka walked inside the Inn and found not only Petry and Deya, but also the woman in the white lab coat and the two captives. They were gathered in a circle with several others.

“Leyka!” Deya cried, and threw her arms around her, kissing her on the cheek. “You made it back!”

“What happened?” Leyka asked the group.

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” the woman in the white lab coat said, and Leyka noticed she was holding a blinking rod in her hand.

“What are you doing with that, Vala?” the handsome captive asked.

Without answering, she flashed the blinking rod in their eyes, and the two men fell back into the arms of Petry and his male friend, Ardis.

“Hurry up,” Ardis said, “Dendry said we only have 20 minutes until they wake up.”

Petry and Ardis loaded the two captives into the blue car with the help of the others. Leyka watched as the woman in the white lab coat suddenly morphed into Neesa, the innkeeper she knew so well. Neesa took a small device she had pinned to her clothing and stuffed it into the pocket of one of the captives.

“We’ll take them to the construction site on the outskirts of town,” Ardis said.

Neesa nodded. Petry got behind the wheel of the blue car and drove away with Ardis and the unconscious captives.

“Deya, Neesa, what happened?” Leyka asked.

“Vala Mal Doran had a device that disguised her,” Neesa explained. “Garrell found it on her and gave it to me. Garrell had the idea of taking the minibus and luring Tavaris’s men into taking me captive. Then when I got taken, I would have tools to escape my bindings and free the others, and we would escape outside. We called everyone we could and told them to bring their guns, to bring as much backup firepower as possible.”

“When I showed up, Dendry ran up to the minibus, so I brought him in on the ruse. Petry and Deya told me you had some plan to create a diversion. I thought, when that happens, it should be even easier to escape in the confusion. We both infiltrated the club, then when you sent out the flaming napkins, we made our move.”

“Oh, wow,” Leyka marveled. “And you got the neural disruptor!”

“Dendry did,” Neesa said. “He handed it to me when Tavaris shot him. Leyka… he didn’t make it.”

Leyka’s face fell. “I guess he redeemed himself after all,” she reflected sorrowfully.

A tear fell from Neesa’s face as she nodded. “Garrell said the plan is moving forward.”

Leyka tried to take comfort that they had succeeded. So far.

Chapter 14: Captured

After being taken on a ride through Kamloops, Vala, still with a bag on her head, was dragged out of the green minibus and taken aboard another vessel. Only once seated inside did she have the bag over her head removed. Still restrained, Vala saw that she was now with Garrell and Bergdis. They appeared to be on board a tel’tak; Garrell was piloting.

“I’m going to remove your restraints now,” Bergdis said. He set to work untying her ropes.

Vala shook out her arms once she was free. “Who are you and where are you taking me?!” she exclaimed.

“I apologize for the unpleasant manner in which we brought you aboard this ship,” Bergdis said. “It was necessary for me to be able to speak with you in private.”

“In private?!” she cried. “What is happening?”

“Your friends are being rescued,” Bergdis assured her. “I expect to hear soon about whether the rescue was successful.”

“And why should I take your word for it?” Vala asked incredulously. “Why have you kidnapped me?”

“Look, most of what I told you was true,” Bergdis explained. “I am the club proprietor, and we have been dealing with the Lucian Alliance in the neighborhood, as you witnessed first hand. I can also tell you who stole the naquadria, but not quite yet.”

Vala looked on in shock.

***

Cameron roused from unconsciousness in a field near a construction site and glanced at his still unconscious companion. He rubbed his head, feeling like he had a splitting headache.

“What the hell am I doing passed out in a field with Siler?” he asked. “Jesus, did we get completely wasted?”

Siler sat up and rubbed his head, a look of consternation across his face.

“Hey buddy, how much did we drink last night?” Cameron looked around. “Yeesh! What time of day is it? Morning? Afternoon?”

“I have most assuredly not been drinking,” Siler said soberly.

“Where are we?” Cameron asked.

“I do not know, Col. Mitchell,” Siler said.

Cameron looked quizzically at Siler. Then he laughed. “What, are you doing your best Teal’c impression?”

“It is not an impression,” Siler told him flatly.

As he said so, he flicked off his disguise. Cameron could now see that Siler was, in fact, Teal’c. A worried look spread across his face.

“Okay, now, really, what the hell happened?” Cameron said.

“It appears we went on our mission,” Teal’c said. “What happened after, I do not know.”

“Oh, boy. Are we on Langara?”

“Most certainly.”

Cameron and Teal’c helped each other to their feet. Cameron felt around his pockets. “I got a mimetic imaging device in my pocket. Why is it in my pocket?” He felt around some more. “I don’t have my radio, do you?”

“I do not.”

“Guess we’re gonna have to go find civilization and call Jonas.” Cameron noticed the cityscape in the distance. “That must be Kamloops. Let’s get moving.”

Cameron and Teal’c began walking towards Kamloops.

“Where do you think Vala is?” Cameron asked.

“I do not know, Col. Mitchell, but she may be in grave danger.”

“Then we better hustle,” Cameron said, breaking into a jog.

Teal’c jogged ahead.

***

Cameron and Teal’c entered the city and contacted Jonas from a fuel station. Jonas arrived with the police to meet them on the outskirts of Kamloops.

“So you two have no memory of what happened?” Jonas said.

“Nada,” Cameron confirmed.

“And you have no idea what happened to Vala?”

“We do not,” Teal’c said.

“We were hoping maybe you might have a clue,” Cameron said.

“After you contacted me, I asked the police to go to the address you had been given,” Jonas said. “They said it doesn’t exist. We had the SGC check for Vala’s tracker, but there’s no signal. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Last thing I remember was the lousy meatloaf they were serving in the mess hall,” Cameron said.

“I recall that the meatloaf was so-so,” Teal’c said.

“How long ago was that?” Jonas asked.

“Yesterday evening,” Cameron said.

“I would give a similar estimate,” Teal’c said.

“So I take it you weren’t tracking us before we ended up in that field?” Cameron said.

“No, we didn’t check on you until you called us.” Jonas shook his head. “Who could have done this? Do you think they have some kind of… memory wiping technology? They must, since you both lost the same amount of time. That can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

“Maybe not,” Cameron said.

“What could cause this kind of memory loss?” Jonas asked.

“No technology that I have previously encountered,” Teal’c said apprehensively.

“Hey, Vala had her memory wiped before, didn’t she?” Jonas said. “Could it have been the same people?”

“She had her whole identity wiped,” Cameron pointed out. “Not really the same.”

“No, I guess not,” Jonas said dispiritedly. “It must have been whoever stole the naquadria, and we still have no idea who that is.”

“They used a memory wipe, you think they’re from offworld?” Cameron asked.

“Probably, but who can be sure?” Jonas said. “Why do you think they let you go? Why didn’t they let Vala go?”

Cameron shook his head. “Beats me. I think we should retrace our steps, maybe cast a wider net.”

Jonas nodded in agreement. “I’ll go with you…”

Jonas instructed the police to take them back to the approximate location of the phony address. The police car sped to the scene.

“It’s probably just a coincidence that they let you two go and kept the woman, right?” Jonas said nervously as they sat in the police cruiser.

Cameron looked him in the eye. “We don’t know anything right now. It’s not time to worry yet.”

Jonas nodded uneasily, trying to absorb Cameron’s advice.

***

“Vala Mal Doran,” Bergdis said. “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Vala looked at Bergdis, shocked.

“I hope you don’t mind, we removed your disguise,” he said. “My friend is using it to try to rescue your colleagues.”

Vala glanced down at herself and noticed she no longer appeared to be wearing a white lab coat.

“We’ve nearly arrived at our destination,” Bergdis said.

“And what precisely is our destination?” Vala demanded.

The tel’tak carrying them came to a stop. Bergdis rose from his seat.

“Please, come with me…” he said. “You will not be harmed. I only wish to have a conversation with you, then you will be returned.”

Vala looked at him with a mix of confusion and apprehension, but followed him. He led her off of the tel’tak. They had landed in a village.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“First, I would like to explain to you that we have taken a huge risk by bringing you here,” Bergdis said. “I hope that impresses upon you not only the direness of our situation, but also the sincerity of our intentions…”

Chapter 15: A Huge Risk

Notes:

There's some inter-cutting in this chapter... I hope it's not too confusing. Oh, also, greenfruit is a Langaran fruit.

Jonas, Teal’c, and Cameron were sweeping the alleyway where the bogus address should have been. The police were searching the area looking for clues.

“I just spoke to the federal investigators again about the suspects from the naquadria facility,” Jonas said.

“Have they identified the deceased thieves?” Teal’c asked.

“No, the rings weren’t much of a lead,” Jonas said. “But they did follow up on a hunch I had about one of the suspects…”

Jonas paced as he walked through his reasoning, pulling a greenfruit out of his coat pocket and taking a bite. “You see, we thought the security guard was Tiranian. He had immigrated from Tirania, he had a Tiranian passport. But he immigrated thirty years ago…”

“Why is that significant?” Cameron asked.

“Well, he didn’t have any family, and his coworkers didn’t know much about him,” Jonas went on. “But when the investigators talked to some of his neighbors, we learned that he wasn’t Tiranian.”

“Then why would he assist in a naquadria theft on behalf of Tirania?” Teal’c asked.

Jonas took another bite of the greenfruit. “Well, we couldn’t rule out the Tiranians, but there was another possibility. Thirty years ago, Tirania still had control over a tiny kingdom called Nekofia.”

Vala followed Bergdis through the village. There were children playing and villagers going about their daily work.

“I’m sure you’re wondering how we were able to recognize you in disguise,” Bergdis said. “We have an informant in the capital who told us of your undercover operation. He recognized you from Prince Eltine’s reception.”

“Prince Eltine’s reception?” she repeated quizzically.

“Ms. Mal Doran, you are currently standing in one of the border villages of Nekofia,” he explained.

“Nekofia?” Teal’c and Cameron both repeated, confused.

“Anyone immigrating from Nekofia back then would have had a Tiranian passport,” Jonas explained. “And as it happens, I’ve recently had some dealings with the Nekofians.”

“What manner of dealings?” Teal’c asked.

“Prince Eltine recently asked me if Kelowna would provision the Nekofians with weapons. They were worried about the Tiranians invading and retaking control of Nekofia. I had to tell them the First Minister would have to approve anything like that, and that was unlikely to happen given the tense relations we had with Tirania…”

Bergdis took Vala to a tall central tower in the village. “After the Great War ended 25 years ago, we gained our independence from Tirania,” he explained as they ascended the spiral staircase to the top. “Our people had lived for generations under their tyranny, our royal family was forced to flee to the Kingdom of Andar – now known as the Andari Federation – and was living in exile for nearly a hundred years. But once we gained our independence, they were able to return to their homeland. In the time since, our people have experienced a great period of flourishing. There was a difficult period of transition, but ultimately, the people of Nekofia are very grateful for the freedom they now have.”

They arrived at the top, in a room surrounded by windows overlooking the village. “Unfortunately, that freedom is being threatened…” Bergdis said, motioning to a telescope pointing out a window.

Vala walked to the window and looked through the telescope. She saw a number of troop formations nearby. “There’s an army assembled near this village,” she observed.

“Queen Imelda is being threatened by the Tiranians,” Bergdis explained. “If she does not accede to their demands and allow Nekofia to fall once again under Tiranian control, they have pledged to take it by force. We are a tiny nation, but we sit on valuable mineral deposits. As an independent nation, we trade them freely with many other nations. But now that competition is intensifying between the three great powers of Langara, the Tiranians are eager to secure those valuable deposits once again for themselves.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” Vala asked.

Bergdis looked her in the eyes. “Well, that brings me to the delicate request we have brought you here to make. You see, I am an immigrant and proud citizen of Kelowna, but my heart has always been in my home country, Nekofia. You have been seeking the thieves who stole from Kelowna’s stockpile of naquadria. Now I will tell you… the thieves were Nekofians. In fact, I lost two dear friends in the operation.”

“You stole the naquadria?!” Vala exclaimed.

Bergdis looked down sadly. “We would not ordinarily resort to theft, but our situation is desperate. The Tiranians are positioned to easily overpower us. We decided to carry out a risky plan to obtain naquadria in order to build a bomb.”

Vala looked at Bergdis in shock, finally grasping the situation.

“So you think the Nekofians stole naquadria… to make a bomb…” Cameron surmised.

Jonas took another bite. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“But why would they be offering to sell it, if they wanted it for themselves?”

“Perhaps the offer of sale was a ploy to confuse law enforcement,” Teal’c suggested. “Perhaps we discovered their true intentions on our mission and they felt it necessary to erase our memories.”

“It’s possible,” Jonas said. “But then, why didn’t they return Vala?”

“Do the Nekofians know about your relationship with Vala?” Cameron asked.

Jonas’s expression washed over with anxiety.

“Is it possible they kept her in order to get to you?”

Jonas ran his hand down his face. He chucked the remainder of the greenfruit in a nearby dumpster, having suddenly lost his appetite, and shook his head nervously. “They haven’t made any threats or demands.”

“Maybe capturing Vala was an unexpected bonus,” Cameron said. “They might be trying to figure out how to use her as a bargaining chip.”

“As I said, we have taken a tremendous risk by bringing you here,” Bergdis went on. “We currently have a group of scientists working around the clock attempting to construct a naquadria bomb, with the assistance of a Tiranian scientist who morally objects to Tirania’s war plans. Understand, we have no desire to use or even build such a bomb. But the Kelownan government has repeatedly refused Prince Eltine’s request for military aid, and we are in imminent danger of losing the freedom we had sought for generations.”

Bergdis approached Vala closely. “Ms. Mal Doran, we have learned that you lived under the rule of the Goa’uld. You understand what oppression is.”

“So did my colleague, and you didn’t bother to bring him,” Vala said.

“We are also aware that you have a personal relationship with Jonas Quinn,” he continued. “And Jonas Quinn is a close, informal advisor to the First Minister of Kelowna. We need you to convince him that the Kelownans should aid our cause. Prince Eltine failed to do so when he last met with him in Kamloops. We understand he is concerned about starting a war with Tirania. But we believe it is possible to protect ourselves while avoiding a wider war. If we are provisioned with the weapons we require, we will return all of the naquadria and forswear any attempts to build a naquadria bomb.”

Vala looked at Bergdis agape. “I can’t, I…” she sputtered. “It was my job to track down the thieves…”

“For generations, our people, our culture and our identity were suppressed by Tirania,” he said. “Now we are free and proud. Would you have us return to that dark time?”

“Well, if the Kelownans won’t help you, perhaps the Tau’ri will,” she said. “I can have a word with my people…”

“The Tau’ri did not intervene when Kelowna was attacked by Tirania and the Andari Federation, and they will certainly not intervene now,” Bergdis said. “The Andaris are our friends, but they worry about their own ability to defend against the Tiranians and are reluctant to part with any of their own military resources. Kelowna is our only hope. ”

“This seems like an awfully bold move for a small nation,” Cameron remarked.

“Do not underestimate the resolve of those who have tasted freedom and do not wish to relinquish it,” Teal’c said.

“I assume these aren’t the kinds of accusations you can simply make directly,” Cameron said.

“No, we would need more concrete proof before we approached the Nekofians about this,” Jonas said. “Unless we can prove the security guard was involved in the theft, I’m afraid we don’t have enough to go on.”

“Maybe we don’t have to approach them directly,” Cameron said. “Maybe we can go covert on this.”

Bergdis cast a dire look at Vala. “Ms. Mal Doran, as I explained to you, we have taken a great risk in bringing you here and sharing with you what we have done. We will return you to Kelowna now if you wish, but please tell me… have you considered our request?”

“Aren’t you worried about being found out?” Vala asked. “I could go back to Kelowna and tell them exactly who stole the naquadria and they could send in their forces to take it back before you have a chance to even build a bomb.”

“I don’t believe you will do that,” Bergdis said. He looked Vala in the eyes. “As I speak to you, I sense that you intimately understand our motivations.”

Vala’s expression softened. “Well, you’re right. I won’t disclose your secret. But Bergdis, I can’t guarantee that Jonas Quinn can convince the Kelownans, or even that I can convince him.”

“We knew that success was not guaranteed,” Bergdis said. “We had planned to take you here and blame your kidnapping on the Lucian Alliance in order to conceal our true purpose; that plan was very nearly derailed when we were actually captured by the Lucian Alliance. It is remarkable that our plan has been carried off thus far. The Tiranians may yet invade before we can even build the bomb, and all of this will have been for naught. Indeed, that is very likely, as our time is quickly running out. But we hoped to at least make one more ally, if only in spirit.”

Vala nodded at Bergdis, feeling the heavy weight of the trust his small native country had placed in her. “I think I’ve heard enough, Bergdis,” she said. “I’m ready to go back.”

Chapter 16: Conflicted

“I’ve discussed the possibility of Nekofia’s involvement in the naquadria theft with the First Minister,” Jonas said. “She’s approved a covert operation to infiltrate Nekofia and search for the naquadria. That just leaves Vala.”

“Come look at this!” one of the police officers shouted.

Jonas, Cameron and Teal’c followed the police to a club three blocks down from where the bogus address should have been. On the front, there were blast marks. The doors were hanging open, the establishment was completely empty. There had been a gunfight.

“This must be where we went on our mission,” Teal’c surmised.

“It’s the Silver Sands,” the police officer said. “It’s owned by a Nekofian immigrant. Search the building!”

***

“My friend was happy to report that the extraction was a success,” Bergdis told Vala aboard the tel’tak. “Your friends were freed. Their memories have been erased, so they don’t remember anything that’s happened since yesterday.”

Vala breathed a sigh of relief.

“Sadly, my dear Dendry was lost in the operation,” Bergdis said sorrowfully.

Vala’s face fell. “Oh, I’m sorry Bergdis.”

“Dendry told me he started working for Tavaris because he needed the money. He thought if he tipped him off about federal investigators, he would get a reward and Tavaris would wipe their memories and let them go. Oh, if he needed money, why didn’t he just ask me?”

Bergdis covered his mouth with his hand. He pulled up a coin pendant that was suspended around his neck and kissed it. “All is forgiven, nephew,” he said, tearing up.

“He was your nephew?” Vala asked.

“We Nekofians refer to all of our juniors as ‘niece’ and ‘nephew’,” he explained. “I have known Dendry since he was a baby. He was my employee. I will have to tell his mother and father what happened.”

Bergdis let go of the coin pendant. Vala noticed it said “Her Majesty, Queen Imelda.”

“Once we arrive in Kelowna, we will leave you on the outskirts of town, not far from the construction site where we left your colleagues,” he explained. “You can tell them that you also have amnesia.”

“Alright, Bergdis,” Vala said.

“We’re almost at our destination,” he said.

“We just picked up the signal from Vala’s transmitter again,” Jonas told Cameron and Teal’c.

“Where is she?” Teal’c asked.

“Looks like not far from where you two were left.”

Cameron patted Jonas on the back. “I think that probably means you can relax.”

“Not yet,” Jonas said. “Let’s get going.”

Jonas, Teal’c and Cameron took off to accompany the police to find Vala.

Vala was walking through a field on the outskirts of Kamloops near a derelict playground. She watched as three police vehicles passed on the street, then came to a screeching stop. Teal’c, Cameron, and Jonas exited from one, while the police searched the area.

Jonas jogged over to Vala. “They let you go? Are you okay?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know where I am,” Vala said. “Are we in Kamloops right now?”

Jonas wrapped his arms around Vala and held her close. “You must have had your memory wiped,” he told her. “What was the last thing you remember?”

“I seem to recall some horrendous meatloaf in the commissary.”

“A-ha!” Cameron exclaimed.

***

After the police returned Jonas and the SG-1 members to the office of the Ministry of Science, Jonas apprised Vala of the situation.

“We believe the Nekofians were responsible for the naquadria theft,” he explained. “They must have wiped your memories because you were digging around, getting too close. We don’t know where they acquired mind-wiping tech, they might have gotten it off the black market.”

Vala looked at him surprised. “The Nekofians?” she asked incredulously.

“The First Minister has already approved a covert op to enter Nekofia and find the missing naquadria,” Jonas said.

Vala’s expression shifted to concern. “Jonas, I think I’m feeling a bit claustrophobic right now, would you mind accompanying me outside?”

Jonas walked outside with Vala to the green space behind the Ministry office and sat beside her on a bench under a tree as the sun hung low in the sky.

“I guess kidnappings are a regular part of the job for you,” he quipped.

“Jonas, there’s something I need to tell you,” Vala said gravely.

Jonas took Vala by the shoulders, worried by her expression. “What is it?”

“You’re right, it was the Nekofians. But it’s not what you think.”

Jonas’s expression shifted. “How do you know that?”

“They were the ones who kidnapped me. They didn’t wipe my memory. Actually, we were taken first by the Lucian Alliance.”

Jonas cocked his head quizzically. “You were kidnapped by the Lucian Alliance and the Nekofians?”

“Yes, it was a rather tangled web of complications,” Vala murmured wryly. “And yes, you should definitely be concerned about the Lucian Alliance poking around your planet.”

Jonas frowned angrily. “Why did you lie to us?”

“I only lied because of how delicate the situation is,” she explained. “Jonas, the Nekofians trusted me enough to tell me what they had done. They only stole the naquadria because they were desperate.”

“They want to build a bomb,” he guessed, the fury building in his eyes.

“No, they don’t want to, but they feel like they have to. They’re about to be invaded and overrun. They want Kelowna’s help, they need conventional weapons, they don’t want to use the bomb…”

“We can’t do that, Vala,” Jonas said, shaking his head sternly. “If Kelowna provides armaments to the Nekofians, it could just inflame tensions with Tirania even more. Look, rightly or wrongly, the Tiranians consider Nekofia to be a part of their territory. This kind of interference could justify a declaration of war for them. That’s precisely why we turned them down before. Kelowna’s covert operatives are on their way to Nekofia right now to find the stolen naquadria.”

“But Jonas, that naquadria is their only bargaining chip!” Vala protested.

“Look, Kelowna asked the Tau’ri to help us when the Andaris and Tiranians were poised to invade us five years ago,” Jonas went on. “They didn’t want to get involved. And Kelowna doesn’t want to get involved in this. Especially if weapons of mass destruction are on the table.”

“And what happened when the Tau’ri refused to help Kelowna?”

Jonas paused. His expression fell. He suddenly became pensive. “Kelowna dropped the bomb,” he recalled. “Our leaders felt they had no choice.”

“And the Nekofians don’t feel they have a choice either,” Vala said. “Jonas, please tell the First Minister to help these people.”

Jonas now felt conflicted. He looked away from Vala’s pleading gaze, anxiously contemplating her request.

***

After speaking with the First Minister and scheduling a meeting, Jonas asked his secretary to arrange transportation to the airfield. He returned to find Vala, Teal’c, and Cameron reclining around the waiting room of his office.

“No, no, no, Kamloops definitely reminds me of Amsterdam,” Cameron said. “I spent a little time there one crazy summer.”

“Amsterdam?” Vala said. “Do they have gamzin there?”

“Gamzin?” Cameron repeated quizzically.

“Okay, our ride is coming to take us to the airfield,” Jonas said. “We’ll fly back to the capital tonight, you’ll be able to go home.”

“Have you heard from General O’Neill?” Teal’c asked.

“No…”

Chapter 17: The House of Gamzeas

Jack and Royce entered through the gate of the wrought iron fence surrounding the House of Gamzeas and approached the towering blue double doors. Before Royce could ring the shiny golden bell dangling from the wall, one of the doors opened.

A striking woman with wavy, chestnut hair, emerald green eyes and some of the longest legs Jack had ever seen appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a sheer black chiffon robe with fuzzy trim that trailed six feet behind her and did nothing to conceal the lacy black bustier and thong panties she was wearing underneath. Her already long legs were further elongated by the black stiletto heels she wore with straps that criss-crossed all the way up to her thighs.

Jack swallowed hard.

“General O’Neill,” the woman addressed him, enunciating every syllable through lips colored blood red. “Welcome to the House of Gamzeas.”

She motioned them inside with a delicate hand bedecked with long nails the same blood red color as her lips.

Jack and Royce ambled cautiously inside and she closed the door behind them.

“Allow me to introduce myself, I am… Benessiara.”

Benessiara gave a deep, dramatic bow. She looked up again at Jack with an enchanting smile.

“Thanks for letting us in,” Jack said casually, glancing around the marble and gold foyer of the exclusive mansion. “Sorry to drop in outside your regular hours.”

“I only wish you had told me you were coming, General. I would have arranged a welcome more befitting a man of your stature.”

Jack shrugged. “Hey, don’t feel like you have to go all out over me.”

Benessiara threw her head back and laughed effervescently. “Dear General, your humility is most charming!”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Jack said absently, trying hard not to stare at the mostly naked woman.

“Come, my precious, get comfortable,” Benessiara said, beckoning Jack and Royce to a sitting area filled with plush blue cushions and stuffed chairs. Three women were waiting for them, reclining languorously.

Royce sat down on one of the large cushions while Jack settled into an oversized stuffed chair, propping his feet up on an ottoman.

“Ladies,” Benessiara said, addressing the three women, “this distinguished gentleman is General Jack O’Neill of the Tau’ri.”

The three women smiled and rose from their seat. Two sat down on the chair arms by Jack’s sides and began stroking his chest sensually. One sat next to Royce and began to massage his shoulders.

“General, this planet was saved by the valiant efforts of the Tau’ri in the war against the Ori. We would love to show you the depth of our appreciation. Most of my girls are absent at the moment, regrettably, but I am confident you will find the current selection very appealing. Allow me to make introductions…”

Benessiara walked over to the red-haired woman to his right with electric green eyeshadow and a pink lace teddy. “This is Joya. And she is a joy.”

Joya crinkled her nose adorably at Jack and smiled coquettishly.

“She’s also a green thumb. She grows all of the gamzeas for our house gamzin. Isn’t that right, my darling?” Benessiara said as she pinched Joya’s cheek. Joya blew her a kiss.

Benessiara walked over to the woman on Jack’s left with jet black hair and a black satin teddy. “This is Ariella. She is very naughty,” Benessiara teased, tapping the tip of Ariella’s nose as Ariella growled playfully.

Benessiara walked next to the very young blond woman in the baby blue lace teddy next to Royce. “This is Simmi. She’s… new.”

Simmi smiled nervously.

“But she’s very eager to learn,” Benessiara assured him, stroking Simmi’s chin affectionately.

“You are welcome to enjoy the company of whomever you prefer. All on the house, of course.” Benessiara approached Jack and caressed his cheek delicately with her finger. “But I would be most honored if you would permit me the pleasure of thanking you personally, my precious.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Jack nodded awkwardly. “I’d love to get a… personal ‘thank you’.”

“Ooh, la la!” Benessiara clapped her hands together excitedly. “I was so hoping to get the silver stud all to myself. My girls will be jealous!”

Joya and Ariella pouted theatrically.

“What about my friend here?” Jack asked, motioning to Royce. “Does he get the VIP treatment too?”

Benessiara smiled obligingly. “It’s your friend’s lucky day,” she said. She turned to Royce. “You may have one of my girls. On the house. Your choice.”

Royce grinned excitedly. “How about Simmi?”

“Simmi, show the gentleman to the Petal Suite,” Benessiara instructed.

“Actually, I heard you have an impressive gamzin cellar here,” Royce said. “Could Simmi maybe… give me a tour?”

Benessiara smiled. “Joya is very proud of her gamzin collection. Perhaps you would like for her to show you instead?”

“I’d really like it if Simmi did,” Royce insisted, as Simmi massaged his neck.

“Simmi,” Benessiara said, “show the gentleman the cellar.” She turned to the other women. “I will be taking the General to my private quarters. We are not to be disturbed under any circumstances.”

Joya and Ariella rose and bowed graciously as they left.

Benessiara took Jack by the hand and ran her other hand up his arm, pulling him away. “Follow me…” she said in a sultry whisper, guiding him up the stairs.

Jack followed Benessiara into her dimly lit quarters on the second floor. As Jack walked in, he was hit by a sweet, exotically floral aroma. Benessiara gingerly shut the door behind them.

“Can I get you a drink?” she asked. “Some of our house gamzin, perhaps?”

“Sure, I could go for some house gamzin,” Jack said absently, trying to think of how he could stall as long as possible.

Benessiara smiled and pulled a crystal decanter out of an antique wooden cabinet. She poured two glasses as Jack glanced around her room. She had an enormous canopy bed draped in blue chiffon, numerous statuettes of the nude female form in various erotic poses, and oil paintings of gamzeas large and small. There were large French-style doors leading to a balcony with heavy blue drapes to dim the light.

Benessiara turned around holding the two glasses. “Sit down, General. No need to be so formal.”

Jack sat down at the edge of the enormous canopy bed, and Benessiara sat down next to him, handing him a glass.

“Are you aware, General, that Tau’ri culture is all the rage now in Kelowna?” she asked.

“Cultural exchange is a wonderful thing,” Jack said, trying to grin.

“Is it true that the Tau’ri engage in a practice known as ‘toasting’?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s a thing where I’m from.”

Benessiara smiled. “I would love to make a toast with you.”

“Sure, toast away,” Jack said.

“Let us toast to the defeat of our mutual enemy, the Ori,” Benessiara said, grinning with fiendish delight.

“To victory,” Jack said, holding up his glass.

Benessiara held her glass.

“Oh, this is where we would clink our glasses together and say ‘to victory’,” he explained.

Benessiara smiled and clinked his glass. “To victory, dear General,” she toasted with relish.

Jack took a tiny sip and glanced at the French-style doors, trying to figure out if they would make a viable exit in a pinch.

“I’m so glad you accepted my offer, General,” Benessiara said. “I’ve been wanting so much to give thanks to the Tau’ri.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” Jack asked casually, trying to make chitchat as he mentally mapped the layout of the mansion.

“After the priors and their armies came to Kelowna, an Ori commander ordered that my mother be taken prisoner,” she revealed. “They tortured her for nearly two months.”

Jack stopped drinking and stared at Benessiara.

“They had heard a rumor that my mother was an Andari spy,” she explained. “They thought she could have valuable information that could help them overthrow the Kelownan government. My mother didn’t know anything.” Benessiara started to get choked up. “But no amount of pleading or reasoning could convince them that it was just a rumor.”

Jack recoiled. “Oh geez, I’m sorry.”

“When she came out of that hellish prison, she was barely alive,” Benessiara recalled, holding back tears. “I think the only reason I still have her is because of the Tau’ri.”

Benessiara quickly tried to collect herself again. She gently placed her hand on Jack’s thigh. “Forgive a girl for getting a little emotional,” she said.

“Hey, don’t apologize,” he said reassuringly.

Benessiara smiled. “I appreciate your understanding,” she said. She broke into a sultry whisper again. “I feel very safe, having a Tau’ri general here to protect me and my girls…”

Benessiara started stroking Jack’s thigh increasingly high up. Jack shifted uncomfortably.

“Hey Nessy, you know, I’m the kind of guy who really enjoys… a little romancing before we get into it. You know, dinner, flowers, that kind of thing.”

Benessiara smiled broadly. “A romantic – I like that in a man!” She stood up from the bed. “Would you like to go picking flowers in my garden?”

“That sounds perfect,” Jack said, trying to smile.

“Shall I call my chef first? She makes excellent leg of capsu. Have you ever had it, General?”

“No, but I’d love to give it a try,” Jack said, figuring that should buy him and Royce at least a little bit of time.

Benessiara clapped her hands together excitedly. “Oh, how wonderful to be able to introduce you to the finest cuisine Kelowna has to offer!” she gushed.

Benessiara walked to the door. “Excuse me while I step out for a moment. There’s dried greenfruit and candied hornberry in the drawer in the nightstand,” she said, pointing. She eyed Jack hungrily. “I do hope you will help yourself to the hornberry,” she intoned seductively.

Benssiara slipped out and carefully closed the door behind her. After she left the room, Jack decided to buzz Royce with the walkie talkie his accomplice had given him.

“General?” the voice came in thin over the primitive radio.

“Royce, are you sure your intel on this woman is solid?” Jack asked, a slight panic in his voice.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Royce said. “In fact, I think I may have found a secret compartment in the cellar. I sent Simmi to get a bunch of things, massage oil, candy, ropes… She’s the new girl, I don’t think she knows where anything is, so she should be gone for a while. But I can’t open the compartment without a key. Do you think you can find it?”

“I’ll have a look around here, Nessy just stepped out to call her chef.”

“If you do, try to get to the cellar.”

“Copy that,” Jack said.

Jack started quickly checking drawers, cabinets, jewelry boxes. He felt around lampshades, under the furniture. Soon he heard footsteps clacking on the hardwood floors. He dashed back to the bed and reclined back, leaning on his elbow as if he hadn’t moved since she’d left.

“So sorry to keep you waiting,” Benessiara said, opening the door. “My chef will be here soon to start preparing a meal for us. Would you like to go to the garden now?”

“Hey, you know, I’m feeling kind of tired, actually,” Jack said. “Long trip, coming here from all the way across the galaxy and what not. Would you mind going down and picking the flowers yourself? I’m sure you’re a natural florist.”

“Certainly, General,” she said. She pointed to the French-style doors. “You can watch me from the balcony, if you like.”

“I think I’m gonna lie back and prop my feet up for a bit, if it’s all the same to you,” Jack said. “I’d like to be well-rested for the main event, you know what I mean?” he said winkingly.

Benessiara covered up a fiendish grin with her hand. “Ooh, General, I look forward to seeing you in fighting form!”

Benessiara stepped out again and Jack hurriedly resumed his search for the key. He checked under the bed, around the floor moulding. Finally, he found a small vent in the floor. Inside, he thought he could just spy a shiny object.

How to open this? he wondered. Nessy’s gotta have a million hair pins, right?

Jack quickly searched Benessiara’s vanity and found a golden hair pin in a drawer. He used it to unscrew the vent cover, then reached in to grab his prize: a set of silver keys. He stuffed them in his pocket and hurriedly screwed the cover back on.

Jack walked out to the balcony and spotted Benessiara, still nearly naked in her black chiffon robe, in a bed of blue flowers. Her backyard garden was vast and expansive, filled with flowers of all shapes and colors, swaying lazily in the gentle afternoon breeze. In the middle there was a glass greenhouse where Joya cultivated the gamzeas.

Benessiara looked up at Jack as she carried a handful of the blue flowers. “General, you decided to watch me after all!” she observed happily.

Jack smiled and waved. “Looking good, toots!”

Benessiara turned around and bent down to pick more flowers, flaunting her backside as she glanced back alluringly at Jack. Jack backed up into the room nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets. Having seen that Benessiara was still in the backyard, he decided to make a break for the cellar. But first, he opened the nightstand drawer and pocketed some candied hornberry.

“Save that for later…” he muttered to himself.

Chapter 18: The Cellar

Jack rushed back downstairs and looked around for the entrance of the cellar. He bumped into Simmi on the way, who had her arms full carrying numerous items that Royce had requested.

“Oh, hey Simmi,” he said. “Hey, can you show me the way to the cellar? I thought I wouldn’t mind having a look for myself at that collection you got down there.”

Simmi froze. “Um… okay.”

She guided Jack to the cellar and Jack opened the door for her. When they arrived, Royce turned around with a start.

“Simmi!” he exclaimed. “You’re back. With the General?” He looked quizzically at Jack.

Jack motioned for him to play cool, conveying with his face that he had a plan.

“Hey, why don’t we make a toast?” Jack said.

“A toast?” Simmi said excitedly. “Ooh, how fashionable!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack said. “Simmi, you got any glasses around here?”

“No, I’ll have to go back upstairs,” she said bashfully.

“Why don’t you do that? Royce and I will sit tight.”

“Um… okay,” Simmi reluctantly agreed, setting down ropes, lacy gloves, massage oil, lubricant, candies, exotic fruit syrup, and pouches of flower petals.

Once Simmi had left, Jack pulled out the set of silver keys he had found. Royce pulled a large rack of gamzin away from the wall in the back of the cellar.

“I think this might be our target,” Royce said.

Indeed, there was a large door, barely visible, but clearly present in the wall, with a tiny keyhole that had been hidden by the gamzin rack.

“Keep a lookout,” Jack said.

Royce walked back towards the entrance to the cellar and Jack started trying each of the keys in turn in the keyhole.

Suddenly, another hidden door opened to Jack’s side. It connected to the backyard. In walked Benessiara, carrying dozens of blue flowers.

“Looking for this, General?” she said, pulling a key from her bustier.

Jack immediately stopped. Royce rushed over to see what had happened.

“Hey look, this isn’t anything personal…” Jack tried to explain.

“That is immaterial, General,” she said, all charm having disappeared. She pulled out a handgun and aimed it at him.

“Where the hell were you hiding that?!” Jack cried, holding up his hands and staring at the nearly naked woman in bewilderment.

“I always keep a gun in the garden,” she explained without explaining anything. “Simmi told me you had gone to the cellar. I knew you were up to something.”

Royce pulled out a gun and pointed it at Benessiara.

“Hey, look, I’m really sorry about all this, but you’re gonna have to let us go,” Jack said.

Just then, Simmi returned, this time with Joya and Ariella, all holding guns. They pointed them at Royce and Jack.

“Oh, boy…” Jack sighed. “Okay, what do you want?”

“I want you to tell me the truth about why you’re here,” Benessiara rasped.

“You want the truth, huh?” Jack muttered nervously. He scrunched up his face uncomfortably. “Well, the truth is, I didn’t know all that stuff about your mom, and now I’m feeling a little guilty…”

“What are you doing in my cellar?!” Benessiara bellowed.

“The cellar… right…”

Jack swallowed with apprehension. “Well you see, I have this friend, Jonas Quinn…”

Benessiara looked at Jack in astonishment. “You are here for Jonas Quinn?”

***

Benessiara and Jack sat on the swinging bench on the balcony overlooking the garden. Benessiara was smoking a green cigarillo with all the surreal mystique of the caterpillar about to address Alice.

“My mother has been dogged for years by this rumor that she is an Andari spy,” she said. “Pfft! My mother was a hotel housekeeper. She got sent to a prison camp on a bogus accusation of espionage after she walked in on a Tiranian commandant with his mistress. That was back when the powerful didn’t even need a reason in Tirania.”

Benessiara looked pointedly at Jack, holding her cigarillo between two fingers. “Tell me, what kind of worthless piece of shit takes a mother away from her four children, just so his wife doesn’t find out he’s screwing another woman?” She covered her mouth with her hand. “Pardon my language, General.”

“No, you’re right, he was a piece of shit,” Jack agreed.

“It took us over a year to find out where my mother had been sent. Then my father had to save up to bribe the prison guards into letting her go. After that, my mother and father wanted to immigrate to Kelowna. ‘Because it is the Land of Justice’, my mother said.”

“Puh!” Benessiara spat at the notion. “The Land of Justice? What a joke!”

She tapped ashes into a crystal ashtray.

“One of my clients told me that a Tau’ri man died disabling a naquadria device before it exploded in the capital. Was he a friend of yours?”

“Yes, he was,” Jack said.

“The public wasn’t told the true story of what happened, but my client knew. He said Jonas Quinn defected because the government tried to blame your friend for the accident.”

“Yeah, he did,” Jack confirmed.

“Fuckers,” she hissed, puffing on her cigarillo. “I’m glad Mr. Quinn was pardoned.”

“Me too.”

“General, this is why I started my collection,” Benessiara explained. “It started with taking photos of men having extramarital affairs, but I soon discovered I could get my hands on much more scandalous things. And the things some of these scumbags are up to, you wouldn’t believe…”

“Oh, I can believe it,” Jack said.

“I learned from that commandant how far some men are willing to go to cover up their infidelities. So I would tell these men I would trade all the evidence I had of their indiscretions in exchange for evidence I could use against their colleagues. And, amazingly, most of them were willing to make that trade to save their own skins. That’s how I learned so many dirty little secrets.”

“Smart,” Jack said, genuinely impressed.

“Nobody’s ever gonna fuck with me and get away with it, I’ll tell you that, General. I’ve got leverage over half the KIA.”

“I certainly wouldn’t want to get on your bad side,” Jack said, a little afraid.

“But it didn’t help me at all when the priors showed up,” she said ruefully. “I had to watch my mother rot in that god-awful prison.”

Benessiara started to get emotional again.

“The Ori were really bad guys,” Jack agreed.

“I really did want to thank you personally for dealing with that menace,” Benessiara said, placing her hand on his thigh.

Jack lifted her hand and put it back in her lap. “Sorry, I really didn’t come to play. Not that I don’t appreciate the offer and all.”

Benessiara smiled warmly. “You got somebody?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jack said, nodding profusely.

Benessiara leaned her head on his shoulder. “That’s nice, General.”

Jack eyed her warily, but let her lean against him. He stroked her hair softly.

“I’ve lived in the Andari Federation, in Tirania, in Kelowna. Good men are hard to find in this world,” she reflected sorrowfully.

“That they are,” Jack agreed.

“My father was one. May he rest in peace.”

Jack and Benessiara rocked gently on the swinging bench, watching as the sun set over the garden, casting dark shadows over the bright, colorful flowers.

“So you were looking for something you can use against Barry Lyden?” she said, putting out her cigarillo.

“If you have it.”

“Lyden is a real son of a bitch. I’ve seen what he gets up to.” She smiled cheerfully. “I will help your friend, Jonas Quinn. He’s one of the good ones.”

“Thank you so very much, Nessy,” Jack gushed, making prayer hands in gratitude.

“For you, General?” She stroked his chin and smiled as she stood up. “My pleasure.”

Jack watched as Benessiara sashayed away, glancing back at him with a twinkle in her eye before she disappeared out the bedroom door. He stood up soon after and followed her downstairs.

On a cushion in the sitting room, Simmi was reclined in Royce’s lap. Jack took a seat in one of the oversized stuffed chairs while he waited for Benessiara to return. He glanced over at Royce from his stuffed chair.

“Did you have a good time, Royce?”

Royce was playfully biting at Simmi as she giggled madly. He stopped and looked over at Jack. “Oh, yeah, General!” he answered, grinning like a fool.

Jack leaned in. “You like blonds, son?”

Royce nodded enthusiastically.

Jack sat back and bowed his head. “Me too.”

Benessiara returned and handed a packet to Jack. “Glad I could be of service,” she said, blood red lips curled into a satisfied smile.

“So am I,” Jack replied wryly, taking the packet.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner, General?” she asked hopefully.

“Nah, Royce and I should really be hitting the road.”

Royce nuzzled Simmi one last time and then lifted her off his lap. “Bye, Simmi,” he said, still grinning.

“Hey, you know, I was wondering,” Jack said. “What were the silver keys?”

“Where did you find them?” Benessiara asked.

“In a vent in your room.”

“One of my clients must have dropped them,” she said, pulling them out of her robe pocket. She raised an eyebrow, sensing an opportunity. “Maybe they’ll want to make a trade.”

Jack nodded. “Good luck with that. Sincerely.”

Benessiara opened the door for Jack and Royce. “Have a lovely evening, gentlemen,” she said cordially.

Jack and Royce stepped out into the cool evening air. “Take care, ladies!” Jack called back as they walked back to the gate.

“Come back soon!” Simmi called from the door, waving goodbye with her handkerchief.

As Royce drove them away from Lakeside Haven, Jack asked, “Say Royce, could you tell me why exactly your boss has it in so bad for Lyden?”

“Gordon?” Royce said. “Lyden convinced the KIA director that he was getting too cozy with the Tiranians. The whole thing was kept quiet to protect his reputation, but the damage was done; Gordon was forced to retire and Lyden got promoted. He was never able to convince the director that he was set up. Gordon’s long suspected the Tiranians had a hand in it; pushing him out was quite a coup for them.”

“Huh…” Jack murmured. “I guess Lyden really is a son of a bitch.”

Jack started looking through the packet Benessiara had given him. It was full of photos and documents. His eyes popped out. “A real son of a bitch…”

“Hey, you think you can take care of this for me?” he asked, holding up the packet. “I kind of need to be on my way pretty soon.”

“Sure thing, sir. Where does it need to go?”

Chapter 19: Riding Off Into the Sunset

Notes:

Note on music: Songs are used throughout this series. When you see Song: [title], that's your cue to start listening as you read. If you prefer not to listen to the songs, the lyrics are woven in in places to give the gist. Please note, I don't own the rights to any music featured. No copyright infringement intended.

Playlist now available on Youtube:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9Uf3hMA3MyYODe0H0ulAE8yudeKp82Sy&si=082zPgMV9mAVqNiR

Songs will be added as they appear in the series.

Jonas, Vala, Cameron, and Teal’c returned to the capital and traveled to the underground bunker. Jack met them at the stargate.

“So what did you do while you were in town, Sir?” Cameron asked.

“Oh, you know, saw the sights, visited some old friends, made some new ones, that kind of thing,” Jack said.

“Are you ready to go back now?”

“I think my work here is done.”

“So you found out who was doing you-know-what?” Vala asked furtively.

Jack bowed his head. “It’s all taken care of,” he whispered.

Vala jumped up on Jack and hugged him.

“Oh…” Jack raised his eyebrows at Vala’s unexpected gesture.

“Thank you, General.”

Jack patted Vala on the back. “Any time, kid.”

Vala let Jack go and turned to Cameron and Teal’c. “I think I’ll catch up with you gentlemen a little later, if that’s alright.”

“Alright, we’ll see you back at base,” Cameron said.

Jack smiled and patted Jonas on the shoulder. “I think you’re gonna be okay.”

Jonas raised his eyebrows and smiled. He and Vala held hands and watched as Jack, Cameron, and Teal’c walked up to the stargate.

“And Jonas…” Jack called back.

Jonas stood to attention.

“If you ever need our help, you can just ask. Okay?”

“Yes, Sir,” Jonas said.

“Hey–” Jack said sternly. His expression softened. “It’s Jack.”

Jonas smiled brightly. “Yes, Jack.”

Jack smiled warmly. “Alright, time to ride off into the sunset.”

Jack gave a little salute and started walking to the gate again. Teal’c and Cameron passed through to the other side.

“Oh, and watch out for the Andaris!” Jack yelled back at the edge of the event horizon.

Jonas looked on quizzically as Jack disappeared into the blue.

***

First Minister Dreylock was sitting in her office poring over reports. A server wheeled in a cart with two covered dishes.

“Two dishes?” She looked at the server. “You’re not Marcus.”

The clean-cut, fresh-faced young man wheeling the cart raised an eyebrow and gave a little smile. He lifted one cover to reveal the dinner that had been prepared for the First Minister. He lifted the second cover to reveal a small treasure trove of photos and documents.

Dreylock examined the pile, confused. Then her expression shifted to deep satisfaction.

“Thank you,” she said to the young man. He bowed with a knowing smile and left.

Dreylock picked up her phone and dialed Barry Lyden.

“Hello, Barry,” she said cordially. “I just thought I would call to catch up. How’s the wife? Uh-huh. And your son? That’s wonderful… How’s the mistress?”

The line went quiet.

“Oh, don’t worry, Barry, I’m not actually concerned about your personal life,” Dreylock said cheerfully. “I’m much more concerned about what you’ve been sending your agents to do in the southern gulf. I’m sure the Kelownan public would be concerned about that as well…”

A torrent of inaudible threats came from the phone.

“Barry, I know it was you,” she rasped menacingly. “Who do you think you are, threatening Jonas Quinn? I may not have proof it was you, but I do have proof of this very disturbing field trip.”

The line went quiet again.

“Listen, Barry, this little incident can stay between us, but if anything should happen to Jonas Quinn – absolutely anything – rest assured the Kelownan public will be kept in the dark no longer.”

The voice on the line grew more panicked.

“It happens to carry a life sentence, Barry. But I’m sure you already knew that…”

“I’m glad we had this little chat,” Dreylock said smiling. “All my best to the family. Ta ta!”

Dreylock hung up the phone, still smiling, and placed the treasure trove in a locked drawer in her desk. Then she resumed looking over her cabinet reports, and started digging into her dinner, now with a cheery grin.

“First Minister,” Broyle called over the intercom. “Jonas Quinn is here to see you.”

“Send him in.”

***

After meeting with the First Minister, Jonas returned to the airfield with Vala. They walked together in the dark around the hangar where her old smuggling ship, the Salaminx, was kept.

“I spoke to the First Minister about the Nekofians,” Jonas said. “She hasn’t made a final decision yet, but she’s considering her options. I think she’s going to approve some weapons shipments.”

Vala smiled.

“I also told her I would take the Foreign Minister position,” he said.

Jonas stopped and Vala turned to face him.

“And how do you feel about that?” she asked.

“The naquadria bomb has remade the world. I guess it takes some getting used to. But that’s what I intend to do.”

Jonas walked out of the hangar and looked up at Langara’s moon Tellis in the night sky. Vala followed behind.

“When I was a little boy, I was really excited by the possibility of space travel,” he said. “I used to daydream about going to the moon. That was back during the Great War. I just thought… everyone’s fighting down here, but it must be peaceful up there.”

He looked out at the stars. “There was so much more going on up there than I could have ever imagined.”

He turned to Vala and smiled. “I never thought I’d be walking in the moonlight with a woman from another world, looking after her spaceship.”

“Thanks for keeping it safe for me,” Vala said.

“You’re welcome,” Jonas said. “Our scientists have been studying the design. They’re still trying to figure out the advanced cloaking.”

Vala looked over the Salaminx, feeling adventurous. She looked back at Jonas mischievously. “I was thinking maybe we could take it out for a little spin,” she said.

Jonas raised his eyebrows, intrigued.

“What do you say we go to the moon?” she said. “Maybe it is peaceful up there. I think we’ll need to see for ourselves.”

Jonas smiled, charmed by Vala’s gesture.

Song: “You Only Live Twice” performed by Björk, playing non-diegetically

Jonas sat in the copilot seat as Vala piloted the Salaminx towards Tellis.

“Jonas, darling, we’re about to make moonfall,” she said as the curve of Tellis appeared in view. Jonas’s face lit up.

Slowly, the Salaminx settled onto the surface of Tellis. Jonas jumped out of his seat and stood transfixed, looking out over the barren lunar landscape. He had dreamt of this moment since boyhood.

Vala watched him and smiled with satisfaction. “Doesn’t look to me like there are any wars, or arms races, or diplomatic tensions going on up here,” she remarked.

You only live twice, or so it seems
One life for yourself, and one for your dreams

Vala joined Jonas in looking out the window at the bright panorama of dusty and pockmarked regolith, baked by Telnar’s rays, and she could almost feel the childlike excitement he exuded at visiting the strange and inhospitable heavenly body.

Jonas pulled out a case he had taken with them on their moon voyage and opened it, pulling out two glasses and a bottle of gamzin he had brought to commemorate his new job.

“Shall we make a toast?” he asked, holding them up.

“I’d love to.”

Vala walked over and took one of the glasses, and Jonas poured gamzin into each one.

“What are we toasting to?” she asked.

“I understand it’s customary on Earth to toast to world peace,” Jonas said. “Maybe that’ll catch on on Langara.”

Vala held up her glass. “To world peace,” she said, smiling regally, “and the man who will achieve it.”

“To a woman who’s saved many worlds,” Jonas said, grinning and tipping his glass toward Vala. “I only hope I can save one.”

Vala and Jonas clinked glasses and gazed out at the stark lunar horizon, side by side. They glanced back at each other as they sipped gamzin.

This dream is for you, so pay the price
Make one dream come true – you only live twice

Jonas admired the woman next to him, as pale and otherworldly and beautiful as Tellis itself.

And love is a stranger who’ll beckon you on

He inched his arm around her waist and drew her close to him.

Don’t think of the danger or the stranger is gone

She rested her head against his shoulder.

This dream is for you, so pay the price
Make one dream come true – you only live twice

“We can come back here whenever you like,” Vala said.

“Really? Any time at all?”

Vala looked up at Jonas with her mesmerizing pale blue eyes. “For you, darling? Anything.”

Jonas squeezed her tight. “Vala, you’re like a dream come true,” he swooned breathlessly.

Jonas kissed Vala passionately. He hurriedly set their glasses aside and swept her onto the console between the pilot and co-pilot seat, feverishly kissing her neck against the backdrop of Langara’s only moon.

Soon Telnar began to set, and the shadows grew long, like black daggers cutting across the face of Tellis. It was time to go home.

(fade out)

Chapter 20: Jonas Quinn Returns

Some time after SG-1 had returned from Langara, Jonas returned to the SGC. Sam and Vala were waiting for him in the gateroom. Sam had recently returned from working on the Midway Station, a faster form of travel between the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies.

Vala rushed up to kiss Jonas as he arrived. He grinned happily.

“I was surprised you agreed to do this after you found out you got that posting in Atlantis, Sam,” he said. “Congratulations, by the way!”

“Oh, thank you!” Sam said with a smile. “I was happy to do it. Any excuse for you to come visit us!”

Jonas smiled brightly.

Sam raised her eyebrows expectantly. “So you said you had some ideas for how we could rerun the simulations for the Ancient device?”

“Yeah…” Jonas said as they walked away to the laboratory.

Vala sat in the corner in the lab, looking over a glass paperweight she had pulled from Sam’s desk. Jonas stood pacing as Sam sat at her laptop.

“Now, Tarsem never actually built the device, but someone else did later on,” he explained. “We know that it worked, so I was thinking about how the later builder might have deviated from Tarsem’s original specifications.”

“Deviated how?” Sam asked.

“Well, Daniel said whoever built the device probably did it within the last couple thousand years, and since we couldn’t get the simulations to work, I thought… maybe what the device needed was a bigger initial kick in energy.”

Sam thought carefully. “And within the last few thousand years…”

“...they would have had access to naquadria.”

Sam nodded. “Good thought. I can run the same preliminary simulations, I’ll just swap out the crystalline energy source for naquadria…”

Sam started typing at her keyboard. She looked back at Jonas. “Looks like you’ll be staying overnight again.”

“I think the preliminary simulations will probably suffice,” he said.

“Probably so,” Sam agreed.

“Actually…” Jonas said, thinking of changing his mind.

Sam looked up.

“No, I can’t do that,” he decided.

“Can’t do what?”

Jonas looked fondly at Vala. Sam smiled in amusement.

Vala noticed Jonas looking at her. “So you think this time you’ll figure out what this blasted device does?” she asked, setting the paperweight down.

“With any luck,” Sam said. “But hey, we can always expand the search tomorrow, if we have to.”

Sam furtively winked at Jonas. Jonas smiled.

Cameron poked his head in the laboratory. “Hey Jonas! Carter here’s been appointed to lead the Atlantis expedition. We were all thinking of going out to dinner tonight as a little farewell. Did you want to come along?” He looked over at Sam. “Unless… you changed your mind?” he asked hopefully.

Sam scrunched up her face awkwardly and shook her head.

Cameron pressed his lips together, swallowing his disappointment, and nodded. “Well anyway, what were you thinking? Il Fiore Bianco?”

Sam lifted a finger. “Actually…”

***

That evening, the team assembled at an all-night diner. Jonas, having arrived through the gate in his Kelownan garb, had changed into the olive green T-shirt and BDU pants Cameron had lent him for their outing. It gave the appearance that he was part of the team again.

“I missed this,” Jonas said, looking out over the table as a waitress brought him a plate piled high with the traditional American cuisine they served all day.

“Good call on dinner,” Jack said as the waitress made her way around, placing plates in front of each of them.

Jonas picked up some French fries, dipped them in his vanilla milkshake, and stuffed them in his mouth.

“Mm… oh, that is incredible,” he moaned with his mouth full.

“Hey, take it easy, Jonas, you haven’t been eating Earth food in a long time,” Daniel said.

“Mm-mm, no way,” Jonas shook his head. He pointed at his plate. “I am finishing all of this.”

“Well, look at this, all of SG-1, together at last!” Cameron cheered.

“Somebody take a picture!” Sam said.

“I’m on it!” Vala said excitedly, pulling out a camera. “Smile, Daniel!”

Daniel looked up and quickly smiled, holding his fork in mid-air over the waffles he was about to dig into as Vala snapped a picture of him from across the table. She handed him the camera so he could see it on the screen.

“Oh, very good, you’ve really captured that moment where I just realized you’re trying to take my picture,” he snarked.

“Now, would you take a picture of me and Jonas?” she asked, oblivious to his sarcastic remark.

“Yeah, sure.” Daniel set down his fork and took the camera from her.

Vala fluffed up her hair and leaned against Jonas, placing her hands on his chest. Jonas put his arms around her, beaming his dimpled smile, and waited for Daniel to snap the picture. Daniel framed them in the video feed and looked up.

Seeing the happy couple embracing each other, Daniel suddenly froze. He sat staring, holding the camera, not taking any photos.

“Daniel, are you going to take the picture or not?” Vala asked impatiently.

Daniel popped up his eyebrows in chagrin, realizing he had just frozen up.

“Yeah…”

He looked back at the video feed as Vala and Jonas posed again and snapped a couple of photos.

“Here you go,” he said, smiling and handing the camera back to Vala.

Vala inspected the photos Daniel had taken. “Look at us, darling!” she gushed as she showed them to Jonas. Jonas looked over the pictures and smiled. He stroked Vala’s hair affectionately and kissed her on the cheek.

“Mug for the camera, will you Cam?” Vala said.

Cameron flashed his teeth, making a goofy smile as Vala snapped a photo.

“You should know this is going in the album,” she warned.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, grinning. He turned to Jonas. “So… after General O’Neill’s visit to the First Minister… things have quieted down?”

“Things have quieted down,” Jonas confirmed.

“So I don’t have to worry about another assassin popping up unexpectedly?” Vala said.

“I have additional security while the threat level is elevated. I’ve also been carrying a zat’nik’tel.”

“Just a zat?” Vala frowned.

Jonas grinned at Vala. “Whatever Jack did seems to have restrained some of my more aggressive critics, so… I don’t think they’ll be giving me any more trouble.”

“I’ll have to send him a fruit basket or something,” Vala said.

“What became of the Nekofians?” Teal’c asked.

“The First Minister got approval from the High Council to provision them with weapons,” Jonas said. “Not enough to actually defeat the Tiranians, but enough to make it too costly for them to consider invading any time soon. After they started receiving weapons shipments, the Nekofians returned all of the stolen naquadria.”

“Well done, Jonas,” Vala said.

“The Tiranians weren’t thrilled about us giving the Nekofians weapons, but once we explained that they had renounced naquadria bomb development in exchange and agreed to regular inspections, they begrudgingly accepted this as a better alternative.”

“So Kelowna and Tirania actually agree on something?” Daniel said.

“Yeah,” Jonas said. “Strange how weapons of mass destruction can bring people together.”

“Indeed,” Teal’c said, smiling warmly. “I am very proud of you, Jonas Quinn.”

Jonas perked up. “You’re proud of me?”

Teal’c bowed his head.

Jonas smiled. “And here I was thinking it couldn’t get better than French fries and milkshakes.”

“Allow me to capture this moment on film, darling,” Vala said as she aimed the camera at Teal’c. Teal’c smiled broadly as she snapped a photo.

“Everybody, you can thank Jack for picking up the check on this one,” Sam said.

Jack scowled at Sam.

“Everyone appreciates your generosity, Jack,” Sam said, smiling mischievously.

Jack lightened up. “I’m just glad Jonas was able to talk a little sense into the Langarans. No easy feat.” He raised his glass of water and motioned to Jonas. “You did good, kid.”

Jonas smiled proudly.

“Smile you two!” Vala said, holding up the camera. Sam kissed Jack on the cheek as Vala snapped photos.

“I’m glad we got a chance to reconnect, Jonas,” Sam said. “We hadn’t heard from you in so long, I wasn’t sure what had happened.”

“Yeah, Jonas, why didn’t you ever drop us a line?” Jack said.

Jonas wasn’t sure how to answer. He couldn’t quite recall why they had fallen out of touch.

“See, everyone here missed you,” Vala said.

Jonas smiled his sweet, dimpled smile. It no longer seemed to matter.

Cameron frowned. “I didn’t miss him.”

Vala snapped her head around to glare at Cameron.

“What? I’d never met him until we went to Kelowna,” he explained. “But now that we’re getting to know each other, it’s pretty cool having someone else around who studied SG-1 as obsessively as I did.”

Cameron grinned impishly. Vala bit her lip. “Good one, Cameron,” she said begrudgingly.

“Hey Jonas!” he called. He pointed at him. “The planet where SG-1 had their identities overwritten and were forced to work in a mine!”

“P3R-118,” Jonas answered.

Cameron slapped his hands together excitedly. “Hot-dog! That is awesome.”

“I didn’t even remember that, and I was there, unlike these weirdos,” Jack murmured to Sam.

“Hey, you should come shoot hoops with us sometime,” Cameron said.

“Oh, absolutely!” Jonas said excitedly.

Vala’s heart swelled to see Jonas accepted back so warmly by the team. She turned his head to face her. As she looked into his eyes, Jonas beamed brightly, as happy as she’d ever seen him. Her lips rose to meet his and he kissed her tenderly.

Vala flagged down the waitress. “Would you be a dear and take a photo of all of us?”

The waitress took the camera and held it up.

“Smile, everybody!” Vala cried.

The crowd turned towards the waitress and posed. The waitress snapped a photo and handed the camera back to Vala.

Vala looked over the photo of all the SG-1 members past and present. She ran her fingers over it fondly.

Chapter 21: Sam's House

After dinner, all of SG-1 gathered in the backyard at Sam’s house. They sat together in lawn chairs.

“It’s not gonna be the same around here without you, Sam,” Cameron said, snapping open a Coors Light.

“Absolutely not,” Vala agreed, opening her own beer.

Vala sat on Jonas’s lap, snuggling up to him. Jonas was practically incandescent. So much so that he seemed unconcerned about public displays of affection. He ran his arms around Vala and kissed her over and over, stopping to smile at her, then kissing her all over her face. Vala smiled and giggled girlishly.

Teal’c smiled broadly, seeing the heart-warming scene unfold between Vala and Jonas. Then he glanced at Daniel.

Teal’c saw that his friend was looking out pensively from behind his spectacles. He sipped disinterestedly at his Coors Light as he watched the joyful pair.

“Are you troubled, Daniel Jackson?” Teal’c asked quietly.

Daniel looked up suddenly from his quiet rumination. “What? Oh, no, I’m fine, I’m just… gonna miss Sam,” he said. Which was true, but wasn’t the truth.

Teal’c felt his heart ache. “I too shall feel her absence.”

“I guess you’re kind of losing her for a second time, huh?”

“Indeed,” Teal’c reflected wistfully as he watched Sam laughing with Jack.

“Hey Vala, why don’t you come to the kitchen with me?” Sam said.

Vala followed Sam to the kitchen where Sam pulled another beer from the fridge and snapped it open.

“I’m sorry we won’t get to have girls’ night any more,” Sam said.

“Perhaps I’ll try to drag Cameron or Teal’c into continuing that tradition,” Vala said with a wry smile.

Sam smiled softly. “I hope this isn’t a presumptuous question, but… are you gonna be okay here without me? You’ll be the only woman on SG-1.”

“Not presumptuous at all,” Vala said, taking a swig of her beer. “Although, you are aware I used to be a pirate, right? I think I can handle myself.”

“Yeah, I know, but… I just don’t want you to feel like I’m bailing on you.”

Vala gave a heartfelt look at Sam. “Cameron said it. It won’t be the same around here without you.”

Sam sighed and nodded.

“I mean, who’s going to go clothes shopping with me?” she said. “All of the men have appalling taste.”

Sam burst out laughing. “Hey, you remember your wardrobe leaned towards ‘dominatrix’ when you showed up, right?” she teased.

“Exactly why I need you around.”

“I’m sure you can figure that out on your own.”

Sam looked at Vala with an almost sisterly regard. “Hey, don’t let anyone around here look down on you or push you around,” she said. “You’re a civilian, you’re an alien, and you don’t have a home to go back to. Don’t let anyone use that to take advantage of you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Vala said, standing tall.

“Just remember, you’ve done as much for this planet as anyone around here with medals pinned to their chest. You deserve respect. And you should demand respect.”

Vala’s expression softened. “Thank you, Sam.”

Sam smiled warmly.

“You know, it means a lot to me that you’ve always been so nice to me,” Vala said. “A lot of women have treated me abominably in my life.”

“A lot of people, period, have treated you that way,” Sam said.

“All the more reason it means so much to me.”

Sam looked at the formerly rogue alien woman she had come to consider her friend and pulled her in for a hug.

“Be safe out there,” Vala said, sniffling slightly.

“Watch your six,” Sam said.

Vala laughed and pressed her forehead to Sam’s. Sam smiled reassuringly.

In the yard, Jonas walked over to Daniel and Teal’c. “Hey, how have you guys been?” he asked, smiling.

“Great,” Daniel said.

“Exemplary,” Teal’c said.

Jonas took a seat next to Teal’c. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Teal’c – What was it like, spending 50 years on the Odyssey?”

“Oh, he prefers not to talk about that,” Daniel explained.

“Oh… sorry, I didn’t know,” Jonas said.

“Yeah, it’s a little strange because he basically can’t say anything about his life for the past five decades, especially anything that has to do with us,” Daniel spilled in the flat, pressured manner he had when he was expressing his more uncomfortable thoughts while trying to avoid the discomfort.

“I’ll bet,” Jonas said, raising an eyebrow.

“What did you wish to know, Jonas Quinn?” Teal’c asked solicitously.

“Well, you told me you learned when to speak and when to keep your mouth shut,” Jonas recalled. “Did you care to say more about that?”

Yes, he had said that to Jonas. But now, as he sat with Daniel, Teal’c was questioning whether he really had learned that lesson. Perhaps he had made a mistake, intervening as little as he did between Daniel and Vala. Daniel had seemed very sure of his wish to live life on his own terms in this timeline. But, as Daniel himself had pointed out, Teal’c had known Daniel longer than Daniel had known himself. Perhaps he knew the man better than he knew himself.

“I will say that in this instance, it is perhaps best to keep my mouth shut,” he said.

“Smart ass,” Daniel murmured.

Teal’c looked ahead nonchalantly as he sipped his beer.

“Right…” Jonas said. “Well, I’d ask if you want to catch up, but I guess that’s out.”

“My betrothed, Ishta, and I have set a date for our rite of everlasting union,” Teal’c said.

Jonas’s eyes went wide. “You’re getting married?”

“Indeed. You are invited to partake in the festivities. You can expect a formal invitation soon.”

“I’ll definitely try to make it!” Jonas said excitedly.

“Your presence would be most welcome,” Teal’c said, smiling warmly.

“Well, congratulations!” Jonas cheered, patting Teal’c on the back. “I look forward to meeting the lucky lady.”

“She is an exceptional warrior – and an exceptional woman,” Teal’c said. His expression fell. “I feel very fortunate to have been accepted back by her.”

“The whole Odyssey incident was a sticking point,” Daniel explained. “Turns out that getting trapped on a spaceship for fifty years can adversely affect your relationships, who knew? But I guess you worked things out, Teal’c?”

“We have arrived at an understanding,” Teal’c said. “I am ready now to give her my whole heart.”

Jonas grinned sweetly. “Wow, your whole heart. She must be something special,” he said, glancing at Vala returning to the yard with Sam.

“Indeed,” Teal’c said, glancing at Sam.

“Hey Vala, I’ve been meaning to tell you…” Jack said.

Vala swiveled her neck around to face him as she returned to Jonas’s lap.

“...I appreciate you keeping SG-1 cool.” He glanced at Jonas. “You’ve kinda got a thing for nerds though, don’t you?”

“In the worst way, General,” Vala said.

“Hey, I kind of have a thing for nerds, too,” he whispered, glancing at Sam. “Don’t tell anyone, I got a reputation to uphold,” he winked.

Vala raised a knowing eyebrow and smiled.

“So, Jonas… how did you and Vala get together?” Cameron asked. He bowed his head and looked up furtively. “Did you get hijacked?”

Jonas furrowed his brow. Vala started scowling.

“Wait, wait, let me guess it! Did it involve handcuffs?”

Vala glared.

“Hey, lighten up, Vala! You've got nothing to worry about. I’m sure by now he’s got Stockholm syndrome.”

Vala smacked Cameron's shoulder. He chuckled fiendishly.

“They’re the odd couple of the century, aren’t they, Sir?” Cameron remarked to Jack.

“Oh, definitely,” Jack agreed hollowly.

“Cameron thinks we’re an odd couple,” Vala explained to Jonas. “At least I’m not dating human Ambien!” she raised her voice snidely so that Cameron could hear.

“I suppose now’s the part where I should tell you that Amy broke up with me,” Cameron said.

“Oh no, what happened?” Vala asked worriedly.

“What? Now, suddenly, you care?”

“Cam, you know I was only teasing. Why did she break up with you?”

Cameron slumped in his lawn chair. “Well, you know, you build someone up in your mind for years and years, and sometimes it’s just not all it’s cracked up to be,” he said dourly.

“And she dumped you?”

“Yep,” Cameron confirmed, taking another swig of his beer.

“Well, you’re better off without her.”

“I can’t say I agree,” Cameron murmured morosely.

***

After the rest of the team went home, only Jack remained at the house with Sam.

“So you’re really doing this, huh?” he said.

Sam pressed her lips together. “Jack, we talked about this…”

“Hey, I know, I know." His expression softened. “Would it make a difference if I told you I was gonna call Washington tomorrow and tell them I’m retiring?”

Sam scolded him with her eyes.

“I had to ask.”

Jack approached Sam and brushed aside a lock of her hair. “You’re gonna be great out there, Carter.”

Sam’s expression started to warm up.

“Look, I know we weren’t gonna do this, but… I figured, since you’re going to another galaxy and all, it’s kind of a special occasion…”

Sam cocked her eyebrow quizzically as Jack pulled out a baggy of candy.

“I was wondering if you’d maybe like to give this a whirl tonight.”

“What is it?”

“Just a little something I picked up on Langara. It’s called ‘candied hornberry’. I think the clue’s probably in the name…”

Sam covered her mouth with her hand. She started laughing. Jack grinned like a naughty school boy.

Chapter 22: You Only Live Twice, Reprise

Notes:

Okay, so... this chapter was originally much more explicit. But because this work is rated "Mature" not "Explicit", I decided to tone it down... a lot. If you would rather read the full, explicit version, you can find it on my Works page under the title of this chapter, "You Only Live Twice, Reprise".

“So, is everything really alright back home now?” Vala asked as she opened the door to her quarters.

Jonas walked inside with her. “I’m not out of the danger zone,” he said. “There are still people who would rather see me gone. But I’ve been trying to reset relations with Tirania and the Andari Federation. The Nekofia deal was a good start.”

Vala ran her arms around him, holding him tightly. “Anyone would be a fool to want to get rid of you,” she said. “Anyone who tries will have to answer to me,” she added threateningly.

Jonas wrapped his arm around her and grinned his dimpled grin. He found it sweet how protective Vala was of him. And more than a little sexy. “I’ll be sure to let them know,” he said. He popped up suddenly. “Hey, I got you a little something…”

Jonas rushed to his temporary quarters down the hall and found his briefcase. He pulled out a small wooden box and returned with it to Vala’s room, quietly shutting the door behind him. He handed the box to Vala.

Vala looked over Jonas’s gift, intrigued. She opened it to find a small platform with two tiny figurines on top.

“Try winding it up,” he said, pointing to a crank on the side.

Vala wound the crank and let it go. The two tiny figurines began dancing together as a few bars from “You Only Live Twice” rang out. It was the song that the band had been performing when they danced at Prince Eltine’s reception.

“Maybe it’ll remind you of me,” he said.

Vala looked up at him with fond eyes. “As if I could forget.”

Vala cranked the music box again and set it down on her side table as its sweet, romantic melody played. She took Jonas by the hand, interlacing her fingers with his and placing her hand on his shoulder as she had when they had danced. Jonas placed his hand on the small of her back to complete the pose and started to sway her a little.

As they slow-danced in Vala’s quarters, Jonas’s mind drifted back to the night of the reception. In the late hours of the evening, Vala had asked him if he wanted to have sex. And of course he had said “no”. Sex on a first date – that kind of thing just wasn’t done in polite society in Kelowna. Jonas certainly wasn’t bold enough for that anyways. But that night, he had dreamt about it vividly. In his dream, Vala was all over him. Her eyes glistened with desire, her soft skin and curves were intoxicating. He felt like he was drowning in her, losing himself in her.

Jonas thought about the dream often. It was a fantasy he replayed over and over again in his mind, like a favorite film. His eidetic memory rerendered it each time in near perfect detail.

Vala looked down at the bulge forming below Jonas’s waist and raised an eyebrow. “Seems like someone is enjoying Earth dancing quite a lot,” she quipped.

Jonas stopped slow-dancing and grabbed Vala’s shoulders, looking her in the eyes. “I want you, Vala,” he whispered huskily.

Vala’s back straightened as she felt Jonas squeezing her. “You’re ready for sex now?” she asked hopefully.

Jonas’s arms drifted down to her backside and he pulled her close, pressing his body against her. Vala felt electricity through her body.

“What if I had said ‘yes’?” he asked, revealing the question that had been on his mind for weeks. “That night in the safe house, when you asked me if I wanted to have sex. What would you have done if I’d said ‘yes’?”

Vala stared down Jonas like a hungry lioness, her eyes glassy with desire. “Why don’t you let me show you?” she said, gripping his backside and digging in her manicured nails with one hand.

Jonas jumped a little at how firmly she had grabbed him. She was like his fantasy, he thought, quivering with excitement.

But Jonas restrained himself. “Not tonight,” he said. “Tonight… I want to make love to you.”

Vala cocked her head to the side, a little puzzled. “Alright,” she agreed, nonetheless intrigued.

Jonas slipped his olive green T-shirt over his head and threw it aside. Vala immediately stood to attention. Underneath, he was just as delicious as she had imagined — muscular, but with a slight softness, a smattering of light brown chest hair. She ran her hands over him eagerly as he started kissing her, deeply and passionately. Vala pulled her black T-shirt over her head and Jonas continued on, kissing her neck. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as he ran his teeth over the curve of her jaw, down her pulseline, reaching around to unsnap her bra.

***

Jonas carefully dismounted from Vala and lay down beside her, sweating and grinning madly. He draped his arm over her and kissed her on the cheek, glowing in the wake of their love-making. Vala turned to him and ran her fingers through his hair, still buzzing inside.

“That was worth the wait, darling,” she said, smiling.

Jonas snuggled her close and nuzzled her shoulder. “That was wonderful,” he agreed.

Jonas seemed to lose himself in the moment, looking into Vala’s eyes. As Vala looked back at him, it seemed to her that there was something different there; something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“I love you, Vala,” he said.

Vala froze. Her smile turned befuddled. “You… you love me?” she repeated.

Jonas caressed her cheek softly and smiled warmly. “Yeah, I do.”

Vala knitted her brows, agape. A tear fell from her eye.

Jonas pulled back worriedly. “Everything alright, cupcake?”

Vala started to quiver. Another tear fell.

“Oh no, what’s wrong?” he asked nervously.

“Nothing, absolutely nothing at all,” she assured him.

Jonas cocked his eyebrow quizzically.

“It’s fine, I’m completely fine.”

Jonas narrowed his eyes. “Are you crying because I said I love you?”

Vala burst into tears. “Yes,” she whimpered.

Jonas chuckled and smiled. “Come here, cupcake.” He wrapped his arms around her lovingly and she nestled into his chest as the tears continued to stream out. He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head.

After a while, the crying stopped. Vala brushed the tears away, and there was Jonas, coming into focus again, like the sun peeking through the clouds. Only now, he had that smile, that indescribable smile – warm, gentle, content – of a man falling in love.

“Better now?” he asked.

“Much better,” Vala said, smiling again. “I love you too, Jonas.”

Jonas smiled happily and kissed her. His fantasy of her was exciting, but he had wanted to show her how he felt first. He lay staring at her, losing himself in the eyes of his beloved, stroking her cheek, cherishing his treasure.

“Next time you can show me what you would have done,” he said, grinning mischievously.

Chapter 23: Paperwork

The next morning, Dr. Bill Lee was visiting with Sam in the laboratory.

“Are you still running those simulations?” he asked.

“They’ve been running overnight, they should be nearly done,” she said.

“So Jonas Quinn had some idea about… using naquadria?”

“Yeah, he thought it might provide enough energy to initialize the device.”

Dr. Lee looked at his watch. “Where is Jonas, anyway?”

Jonas and Vala lay in bed together, locked in each other’s embrace. Jonas looked down at Vala and kissed her forehead. She looked up at him.

“I have to go soon,” he said.

Vala squeezed him tightly. “How soon?”

Jonas smiled, still glowing from the night before, but extracted himself nevertheless from Vala’s arms. A short time later, he arrived in the laboratory.

“Oh good, you’re right on time,” Sam said. “The simulations just completed.”

“Let’s have a look…” he said, peering at her screen.

Sam started scrolling through the results. “Inconclusive… inconclusive…” She shook her head. “Looks like we’re gonna have to broaden the parameters. I guess you’ll be staying through lunchtime at least…”

Jonas popped up his eyebrows and grinned excitedly. Sam smiled warmly at him. She started clacking at her keyboard, preparing another round of simulations.

A short while later, a knock came at Vala’s door. She answered it in her bathrobe. Jonas was standing outside, grinning.

Vala let him in and began kissing him passionately. Jonas closed the door and Vala dropped her bath robe, standing completely naked.

“My turn,” she said between kisses.

Vala pulled Jonas towards the bed and started zealously ripping off his clothes. Jonas’s heart raced in eager anticipation as she laid him down and climbed on top of him. The sultry space vixen was all over him, just like in his fantasy.

***

Some time later, while taking a break from his exploration of the Asgard knowledge base, Daniel entered the commissary. He spotted Jonas and Vala already there, but this time, they weren’t playing; Vala was sitting next to Jonas, and Jonas had his arm around her. Vala picked up a grape and fed it to him. He ate it and smiled. He whispered something in her ear and she laughed. Vala said something back and kissed his cheek, then she gave him another grape.

He’s literally eating out of her hand, Daniel thought to himself.

As he watched from afar, Daniel could tell there was something different in Vala’s eyes. She wasn’t just flirting with Jonas. And judging from how Jonas was looking at her, he wasn’t merely infatuated.

They’re definitely in love, he thought.

Daniel started to have a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He turned his back and tried to ignore them as he went to grab a tray. He bumped into Sam as he got in line.

“Hey Sam,” he muttered, not looking up.

Sam had just noticed Jonas and Vala sitting together. She saw Daniel carefully trying to avert his gaze and rolled her eyes. “Daniel, are you trying to pretend you don’t notice those two?”

“No.” Blinking uncomfortably, Daniel finally dropped the pretense of not noticing the lovey dovey pair. “Why is Jonas even still here?”

“I thought we should broaden the parameters of the simulation.”

“Was that really necessary?”

Sam stopped and frowned sternly at Daniel. “I like Jonas.”

Daniel looked down with chagrin. “I know,” he said sheepishly. “Christ, I like Jonas, too. Who can dislike that guy?”

Sam shook her head with dismay, grabbing a dish of blue Jell-O.

“Can you come sit with me?” Daniel asked quietly.

Sam followed Daniel to a table and sat down with him as he suddenly and breathlessly recapped his last visit with Jonas.

“Did you know, the last time Jonas was here, we were going through the Asgard knowledge base together, and we had this long, in-depth conversation about how the Asgardian language had evolved differently from human languages because of the differences between Asgard and human vocal anatomy, and how the Asgard conceptualize time differently in their language? Then he told me this theory he had about why there’s a gap in their records 50,000 years ago, and that led into a discussion of the Nox and their alliance with the Furlings, and by the end, as I started to follow his train of thought, we were practically completing each other’s… sentences…”

Daniel trailed off, catching sight of Jonas and Vala wrapping their arms around each other and smiling. Sam arched her brows at Daniel’s unexpectedly effusive rant.

“He really is… brilliant,” he added, seemingly both deeply admiring and deeply troubled at his realization.

Sam chuckled wryly. “Sounds like you have a crush on Jonas,” she teased.

Daniel shot a death glare at Sam before shaking off her silly comment. “You know, you never told me that he was an orphan.”

Sam thought for a moment. “I guess it never came up. I knew he grew up in an orphanage.”

“Yeah, and the government paid to send him to elite boarding schools when they realized he was gifted,” Daniel said. “We actually have a lot in… common,” he reflected ruefully, his voice dropping as he glanced back at Jonas and Vala again.

The sinking feeling in the pit of Daniel’s stomach was returning.

“I knew it!” Sam said. “This whole situation with Vala is turning you upside down!”

“Ever since she started dating Jonas, she’s been completely different!” Daniel whined. “She’s been much more professional, she’s not crossing the line any more, she’s not… making inappropriate remarks. It’s driving me crazy!”

“Why don’t you just say something to Vala? Tell her how you really feel?”

“Why do you keep asking me that?!” Daniel cried angrily. “Sam, I told her I would never get close to her in a million years!”

“A million years?” Sam grimaced.

“Actually, it was a million, million years,” Daniel mumbled, increasingly distraught. “So will you just drop it?”

Sam shook her head. “Oh, Daniel…”

Daniel looked pleadingly at Sam, his blue eyes tinged with sorrow. “Sam, please don’t go to Atlantis.”

Sam stopped dead and set down the sandwich she was eating, staring worriedly at Daniel. Daniel shook his head vigorously. “Forget I said that.”

“Why don’t you come with me?” she said, picking up her sandwich again and taking a bite.

“No, I don’t think I want to do that,” he shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m… busy with the Asgard knowledge base,” he said lamely.

Sam fixed Daniel in a skeptical look.

“Don’t look at me like that!” he snapped.

She scrunched up her face uncomfortably and patted Daniel on the shoulder. “You’re a real sick puppy, Daniel.”

Daniel scowled sourly and started cutting up his chicken. Sam rubbed his shoulder, worrying about the friend she was leaving behind. “You’ll still have Teal’c.”

“Teal’c’s been different since…”

“...since the Odyssey, I know. But he’s still your friend. You won’t be alone here.”

Daniel slumped down in his seat, setting down his knife and fork, his expression flat.

“And hey, Cameron’s a good guy.”

“He’s not you,” he said morosely.

Sam let out a heavy sigh. She picked up her tray and walked around behind Daniel, slinging her arm around his neck and hugging him. “I’ll miss you, Daniel.”

“I’ll miss you too, Sam,” he said sadly.

She kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, buddy.”

Daniel squeezed Sam’s arm firmly before letting her go, leaning his head on his hand dispiritedly as he started pushing his peas aimlessly around his plate with his fork.

Jonas had noticed Daniel and Sam seemingly having a private, heart-felt conversation, and didn’t want to interrupt. With Sam leaving for Atlantis soon, he figured he should leave them alone to have their time together. But once Sam left, he got up to talk to Daniel. He looked sad after speaking to Sam – probably because he was going to miss her, Jonas assumed – and Jonas hoped that maybe he could cheer him up.

Daniel spotted Jonas approaching him from across the commissary and froze.

“Hey, Daniel!” Jonas greeted him, smiling warmly and sitting down across from him. “Hey, I was wondering, did you ever find out why the Asgard research on reproduction hit a dead end?”

Daniel’s eyebrows reached for his hairline. “No, I still haven’t found that. In the knowledge base.”

“Did you want me to help you look while I’m here?” he asked solicitously.

“No, no,” Daniel said. “I’m sure you’re busy enough.”

“Oh, no actually, I have a little more time,” Jonas said excitedly.

“You probably want to spend it with Vala, right?” Daniel reluctantly suggested, trying not to squirm in his seat as he did so.

“Oh, Vala doesn’t mind.”

Daniel wracked his brain trying to find another excuse. “You know, I just remembered, I think Landry wanted me to catch up on some of my paperwork, I should probably do that next.”

Jonas looked quizzically at Daniel. It sounded fairly implausible that he would urgently need to do paperwork. His expression slowly shifted. “Alright.”

Realizing from his crest-fallen look that Jonas had probably figured out that he was making up excuses, Daniel sat up, adjusting his glasses and arching his brows casually. “Take a raincheck, though,” he said, trying to sound sincerely interested.

“Sure, Daniel,” Jonas said glumly.

Jonas stood up again and returned to Vala, his gait slow and heavy. As he left, Daniel sulked and angrily stabbed at his peas with his fork, feeling like a jerk.

“Back so soon?” Vala said.

“Daniel’s busy,” Jonas said gloomily.

Vala frowned. “Everything alright, darling?”

“I’m fine,” Jonas said flatly.

“Oh, not this again. No, we’re past all this business of you not saying what’s really bothering you.”

Jonas realized he had to say something. “It’s just… I feel like Daniel is avoiding me,” he said, trying to be as vague as possible.

“Why would you think that?” she asked incredulously.

“Well, when I asked him about looking through the Asgard knowledge base, it seemed like he was coming up with excuses not to do that with me.”

“I don’t understand,” Vala laughed. “Daniel adores you, why would he be avoiding you?”

“You know, I’m sure I’m just imagining it,” he said, trying to shake it off and appear cheerful.

Vala frowned worriedly. She looked over at Daniel, who had finished his lunch. She tried to make eye contact with him, but he seemed to be avoiding her gaze as he stood up with his tray to leave.

Vala narrowed her eyes. Clearly, something was up, she thought.

“Well, that just means I get more time with you to myself!” she said cheerfully.

Jonas smiled faintly and gave her a kiss.

Jonas spent the afternoon with Vala, visiting around the base. Once the simulations had completed, he returned to check over the results with Sam. While he was gone, Vala decided to pay Daniel a visit in his office.

Daniel was guiltily filling out paperwork in a feeble attempt to give plausibility to the lie he had told Jonas in the commissary.

“There you are,” Vala said from the door.

By her harsh tone, Daniel could already tell she meant business. He popped his head up casually, pretending not to notice. “Yes?”

Vala marched over to Daniel’s desk and snatched the paperwork out from under his pen, glaring at him angrily. “Daniel, why are you avoiding Jonas?”

Daniel shuddered at her brusque tone, not having expected this level of confrontation. “I’m not avoiding Jo–”

“Don’t lie, Daniel,” she cut him off.

Daniel recoiled in shock.

“This is about me isn’t it?” she accused.

Daniel froze like a deer in headlights. Did she know?

“Look, whatever problems you continue to have with me are none of his affair,” she said angrily. “If you have something you wish to say, if I have offended you in some way, say it to my face. Don’t do this to Jonas.”

Daniel pulled off his glasses and rubbed between his eyes, realizing that, no, Vala had no idea. Rather, she had seemingly formed her own theory to explain his behavior.

“So, what is it?” she demanded.

Daniel put his glasses back on and stared at Vala, at a loss for what to say. Failing to think of anything else, after a long pause, he shrugged. “I’m not… avoiding Jonas,” he sputtered.

Vala gaped at his galling response and shot daggers at him with her eyes. “I never expected you to go this low, Daniel!”

Daniel watched aghast as Vala threw his papers back on his desk. They splayed out in a fan as she stormed away. She stopped at the door before exiting and turned around. “You know, he’s not even angry with you. I think he admires you too much for that.”

Daniel hung his head, not able to look her in the eye.

Vala smirked. “I can’t believe you,” she said bitterly. With that, she turned and left.

Daniel took off his glasses again and covered his face with his hand, somehow feeling like an even bigger heel than before.

Chapter 24: The Device

In the laboratory, Jonas and Sam were reviewing the results of the simulations. As they were scanning through them, Sam stopped.

“Look at this, Jonas,” she said.

Jonas glanced over one of the models they had generated. “It’s a concentrated beam, rearranging atoms at the molecular level,” he observed.

“Not just rearranging atoms, but nucleons,” Sam noted.

“You mean it’s constructing elements from scratch?” Jonas said. “What for?”

Sam continued playing out the simulation. “It looks like it’s… building nucleotides.”

“Nucleotides? As in the building blocks of DNA and RNA?”

“Yeah, except that some of these are not any of the standard nucleotides…”

“So it’s building nucleotides that aren’t adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, or uracil…” Jonas said. “What are they?”

Sam watched the simulation play out in shock. “Jonas, I think it’s created two new nucleotides with naquadah.”

Jonas’s eyes bolted open. “Somebody was building DNA out of naquadah?”

Sam turned around in her chair. “You know, I thought this thing might be a genetic manipulator, but I dismissed it because I thought, why would you need such a complicated device for a simple gene splicer? Why would you need naquadria to power a simple gene splicer? But now I think it makes sense. It’s not building normal DNA. Tarsem had the right concept, but he didn’t have a power source that would generate enough energy. Whoever came along later must have cracked that problem by using the naquadria available on Langara. Your hypothesis was absolutely correct.”

“Well, what is the DNA for?” Jonas asked.

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “You’d probably have to build the actual device and test it on living cells to know for sure.”

Sam took a hard drive of the data and went to see Jonas off at the gate. Vala was waiting when they arrived, carrying Jonas’s briefcase for him.

“Did you ever find out what Tarsem’s machine actually does?” Vala asked.

Jonas and Sam looked at each other. “Yes, but it just left us with more questions,” Jonas said.

“It’s some kind of gene splicer,” Sam explained.

“A gene splicer that needs naquadria?”

“It’s not a normal gene splicer,” Jonas explained.

Vala shrugged. “Hmm. Well, that’s weird.”

“Yeah, it is,” Jonas agreed, reeling at the possibilities.

Jonas popped up suddenly. “Hey, you know, I have one more thing I’ve got to do before I go.”

Jonas bounded away hurriedly from the gate room.

“Where’s he going?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know,” Vala said, confused.

Jonas jogged to Daniel’s office and stopped at the door.

“Hey, Daniel,” he called from the doorway.

Daniel looked up from the paperwork he was still inexplicably filling out. He could tell from the melancholy look on Jonas’s face that his lie had not become any more believable since he had said it.

Jonas looked down bashfully. “Don’t worry, I won’t stick around,” he said dourly.

Daniel felt his soul deflate a little at the tone in his voice.

“Last time I was here, you said I was still your friend,” Jonas said. “I guess that’s not really true, is it?”

Daniel’s eyes wandered about the room, unable to connect in any fashion with Jonas’s.

“I understand, Daniel,” he went on. “I just wish you had been honest with me.”

Daniel put his hand to his forehead, hiding his eyes in shame.

“Good bye, Daniel,” Jonas said sadly.

Jonas quietly backed out of Daniel’s office and left.

Daniel put his head in his hands, bowing over his desk in frustration. Then, in one swift motion, he grabbed his pile of paperwork and flung it across the room. The pages fluttered back down to the floor in a flurry.

Jonas returned to the gate room and Sam handed him the hard drive of data. “Here are all the results, ready for review.”

“Thanks for all your help, Sam. Good luck in Atlantis.”

“Thanks, Jonas,” Sam said smiling. “Good luck to you, too.”

Jonas turned to Vala. “I guess this is goodbye.”

“Not for long, I hope,” Vala said.

Jonas caressed her cheek tenderly with his thumb. He smiled bittersweetly. “I’ll miss you, cupcake,” he said softly.

“Not as much as I’ll miss you, my darling,” she said, feeling like she was missing him already.

Sam sighed. Gosh, Daniel really botched this one, didn’t he? she thought to herself.

Jonas looked in Vala’s eyes. There was nothing but love there now. Would it still be there when he came back? he wondered. Was Daniel going to tell Vala that he’d made a mistake, that he wanted her back and shouldn’t have pushed her away? Would it all be over soon?

“I love you, Vala,” he said, his heart heavy as he said it.

Vala pulled Jonas in for a long, heartfelt kiss. She let him go and clasped his hands.

“I love you too, Jonas.”

Jonas lingered for a moment in her loving gaze. He didn’t want it to end. But at last, he let go of her hands. He picked up his briefcase and backed away slowly, disappearing through the stargate.

As Daniel sat hunched over his desk, ruminating after Jonas’s departure, Jack appeared in the doorway.

“Hey Daniel,” he said casually. “Sam went to pack up her things, so I just thought I would drop by to say hello.”

Jack looked at the various papers strewn around the floor of Daniel’s office. His brow hardened with worry. “I see you’ve redecorated…” he remarked dryly.

Daniel sat up. Jack walked over to him, making wide strides to avoid the papers.

“Did I come at a bad time?”

Daniel faced his former team leader with a desolate look. Jack studied him carefully. “What’s going on, Daniel?” he asked.

Daniel stared at Jack for a moment. Then he held his head and let out an exasperated sigh.

“That bad, huh?”

Daniel flipped around in his chair.

“Did you want to get some ice cream?” Jack asked.

Daniel snickered at Jack's incongruous suggestion.

“Hey, that got a laugh,” Jack said proudly. “Tell me, what trouble have you gotten yourself into now?”

“Hey, how do you know I got myself into trouble?” Daniel said, turning back around as he finally spoke.

“Oh, this has Daniel’s inner turmoil written all over it,” Jack said, motioning around the room. “And I’m pretty sure there’s no bad guy holding someone you care about captive, so… that must mean you screwed up.”

“Impeccable deduction skills, Jack,” Daniel replied flatly.

“Thanks, I’ve been trying to get better at… deducting.”

Jack casually mosied up beside Daniel and leaned against his desk. “So, what happened?”

“Look, it’s a long story,” Daniel said, waving him off.

“Why don’t you tell me the short version?”

Daniel started tapping his foot impatiently, glaring at the wall. He stopped for a moment to side-eye Jack.

Jack pulled up a chair and sat back, relaxing. “Why don’t I just get comfortable while you’re trying to decide whether or not to talk to your old pal, Jack?”

Daniel cast a blistering look at Jack, but finally broke. “Look, you’re right. I screwed up, okay?”

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” Jack said. “Is that all?”

“Now I’m dealing with the consequences of my own actions,” he sulked sourly.

“I hate it when that happens,” Jack quipped.

Daniel’s pout fell away. It deepened into a chastened expression of gloom. “Am I just going to be alone for the rest of my life?”

Jack sat up, his face etched with concern. “No, you’re not gonna be alone, Daniel.”

“Right, because Jack O’Neill won’t let that happen,” Daniel guessed.

“No,” Jack said, scowling. “If I get tired of your ass, you’re on your own.”

“Very funny, Jack.”

Jack turned serious again. “Why are you worried about that, huh?”

Daniel sat silently mentally reviewing every mistake he had made in recent memory.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Jack said, snapping his fingers in front of Daniel’s face.

Daniel glared at Jack. “Look, Jack, I don’t want to get into it. It’s complicated.”

Jack’s face strained as he considered how to respond. “Well, did you at least learn your lesson?”

Daniel rolled his shoulders awkwardly. “Maybe.”

“Hey, don’t be all… like you usually are, Daniel,” Jack chided.

Daniel shot a look at Jack that said, “Make me.”

“I’m sure you’re not gonna make the same mistakes again, right?” Jack said. “So no more of this being alone forever talk, okay?”

Daniel sat back with arms folded, still sulking.

“Still upset, huh?”

“What can I say, I’ve just been having a really bad day. What do you have to say about that? Huh, Jack?”

Jack leaned forward, hands folded. “Hey, you screwed up, you had a bad day. It’s not the end of the world, is it?”

Daniel sighed. “No, not this time.”

Jack stood up and patted him on the shoulder. “So… ice cream?”

Daniel chuckled.

“Come on, Daniel,” Jack beckoned to him.

Reluctantly, Daniel stood up and followed Jack. Maybe it was stupid, but the prospect of having ice cream with Jack did actually make him feel slightly better. The two friends stepped over the strewn papers and walked out of Daniel’s office.

Daniel stopped at the door. He turned back to survey the scene one last time.

“Trainwreck,” he muttered wryly – and shut the door behind them.

Notes:

Well, I was having a rough week, but I finally got out all of Part 3! Yes, this series is a "completed" work, in the sense that it's written from beginning to end, but I am rewriting/editing as I go. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it -- this one definitely felt like the most ambitious for me! If you did, please leave a kudos. And if you have any thoughts/feelings/reactions you'd like to share in the comments, I'd love to hear them.

I think I may need a little break, but I will be back soon with Part 4. In the meantime, if you think you might want to continue with the series but you haven't read Parts 1 or 2, you might want to do that before moving on to Part 4 -- they are relevant backstory. And if you just read Part 3 as a standalone, well, I'm glad you stopped by! Until next time, take care of yourselves ; )

Update: Part 4 going up now!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of Return to Langara