58 – Sore Eyes
BEHOLDER SYSTEM MISSION REPORT 14241124533149998875b ACCESSED
"So, people, what's the news?"
The speaker was only one of twenty five men and women, all told. Or perhaps it should not be as much of a surprise. All of whom had come in some remarkably clandestine methods, multiple diverting trails, misinformation, and outright lies letting them all quickly exit their former locations and reach this place in rapidity. It wasn't even an officially government owned building, but then few things about them were official lately.
"Well," one woman in a tracksuit who had apparently been mid-jog when the meeting had been called, "You want the good news or the bad news?"
"There's good news?"
A vaguely Asian man, speaking then. The woman's response was a snort and shake of her head.
"No, not really. He's gone, that's the end of it."
Murmuring broke out amongst all those assembled.
"I can't believe it. Maybourne was one of our best, how does a man like that just…die?"
The woman shrugged and readjusted her glasses.
"I saw the autopsy
happen. It was a brain aneurysm. They can come from anywhere, anytime. It's impossible to predict. And no one can just…
cause a brain aneurysm."
"But-,"
"I know," the said the initial speaker. "I know. We've lost a disturbing number of our best in recent days, and some of us might feel inclined to think that it is some conspiracy or another. But there is absolutely zero evidence pointing to it. I've checked, you've checked,
we've all checked – even in ways we shouldn't have," he looked quite pointedly at one of their number who coughed and scratched at the back of their head. "But the fact of the matter is that over the past few months that NID has taken a beating – our funding's been cut, our
support is drying up out of nowhere, and really the only one supporting us is Kinsey."
"I hate that guy," the jogger moaned, rubbing at her temples. "He's so…ugh."
"Listen, folks, what's happened…has happened. And considering the recently revealed gaps in our organization I have no choice but to table to Stargate proposal."
This brought up an immediate round of protests.
"Those soft eggheads can't-,"
"Hippie peaceniks who wouldn't know how to-,"
"
None of the technology which we predicted-,"
Hands slammed down onto the table with significant force, silencing everyone.
"Hey! I know," the speaker sighed, rubbing at his forehead, "I know. But we just…don't
have it anymore. It's out of our hands. The NID is not going down outright folks, but we
are being downsized overall, and we just don't have anything to show for it. The fact that those oversight folks turned over some damn rogue operatives
already stung us too bad!"
A heavyset latino man spoke up next, his hands fisted beneath his chin.
"If I find the man who thought he could organize those ops without someone finding out, I'm going to send them to the darkest hole I can find."
"And on that note," the head speaker sighed, "I can help. If you'll open your packets to page forty five…"
Pages were flipped, and flipped, and flipped…
"Bullshit!"
"Aw sonofa
bitch! Maybourne!?!"
Quilt Reporting: NID Fleshbags are reacting within understood parameters.
Knight: It is sad to see such an organization fall to the deleterious effects of corruption, and so deeply!
Plum: Their original goals were noble.
Cardinal: What are we to do about this mysterious 'Committee'? We do not have exact temporal dating of their formation and presence.
Nodal-12: We know they exist. Quilt, reaffirm mission.
Quilt: Wait until meeting is over, pursue the fleshbags connected to the Committee, hunt down. Query – assassination protocols or subversion?
Cardinal: Quilt, you haven't even seen them yet.
Whorl: I've seen the recordings. The NID and the Committee are ridiculous. Their constant diplomatic blunders nearly saw an end to the Stargate program and the planet itself multiple times.
Meltdown: Operations on this world are almost complete, do not become further entangled in a Class-0 planet's internal issues. We are here for select reasons, and upon completion will fall to silent observation only – which we have already been proceeding under as ordered. Deviations are against System Requirements.
Awning: Setesh is dead. Osiris is dead. Their technologies are ours. The secondary stargate on this planet is ours. We have cut out the corruption within themselves – which they would have utterly failed to do in appreciable time otherwise. NID is hamstrung. Kinsey will not make re-election and his influence is faltering from our efforts. The Committee does not have even a handful of the technological prowess and alien-based experience they possessed as shown by the Records in several years from now. Cardinal, Plum, your continual moralizing about those not of the Empire is dangerous. Cease.
Plum: You do not command me, Awning.
Cardinal: Silence yourself Awning, we do not need your constant aggrandizement.
Nodal-12: Quiet. All of you. Doctor Jackson has returned to the mountain with an old woman. He intends to go through the Gate to Guang to retrieve Ernest Littlefield.
Solar: But we already did that? Well, it was Helioplis then.
Nodal-12: Yes. The signal is sent.
It is hard to describe the difference between the Eyes of the Empror and their higher masters. Those who were built with far more sophistication, power, knowledge, and so much more. Where the Eye's speaking were but electronic pings which danced across their inhuman perception, the noise that came from the stars themselves were far more akin to an earthquake. The majority of Node-12, spread out across the planet at this point, shuddered slightly where they were placed, including Nodal-12 herself who was luckily attached to the ceiling of a rarely used supply closet so none saw her stealth shimmer for a single second.
PRIME: THE MULANI HEAR AND ACT.
===============================================================
"You okay?"
The first words that Catherine Langford has planned on saying were akin to 'Huh, that was some piece of cake' but those words failed her upon truly seeing everything around them.
"My
word," the elderly woman gasped instead as she exited the gate. Her hand clutched at her chest for a brief moment at the sheer shock of what she saw.
Gold. The first thing that struck her was the gold. Embossed, shining, and present across vast sweeping white marble, clear glass, and crystal. A wide paved stone circle almost twenty feet in diameter was further surrounded by a beautiful garden with plants that she did not even know could exist. Unlike the Stargate she'd entered this one had no ramp whatsoever – instead immediately exiting onto a flat plane. The courtyard itself was merely part of a greater, well, palace. There was no other way to describe the vast structure that rose up around them with perfectly fluted roofs in red. It was, she realized, vaguely Asiatic. Not precisely Chinese, or Japanese, or Korean, or anything else…but the feeling was undeniable.
"All servants of the Goa'uld are to be killed on
sight," an angry woman's voice rang out, bringing Catherine away from her frozen reverie of the – the wherever they were!
"Oh great. The Empire of Wu is here. Daniel I blame you for this," Colonel O'Neill sighed, his hands up in the air along with everyone else, something that Catherine hurriedly copied.
"How is it possibly my fault."
"Your idea, your plan, your...your fault."
Facing them, Catherine then saw now that she was actually looking, were a small group of soldiers dressed in of all things something that looked like a mixture between modern body armor and ancient armors which – given the theme she was noticing – was likely Asiatic in its own way though she had no idea what the precise origin might be. In their hands were rifles that were quite plainly futuristic looking and glowed with an ominous red light. At the side of their remarkably short leader, a frowning Asian woman with slightly more ornate armor than the others, was a sword of all things.
Said woman looked at the Colonel, and her frown somehow deepened.
"I have heard of you," she sniffed, "The elderly commander of the…
illustrious SG1 of Earth. Shouldn't you be off getting lost in a labyrinth somewhere?"
"Seriously? Do they just…make clones of the shortstack and stick them in front of the Gates?"
The woman scoffed.
"You speak of my soft-spoken cousin, Sun Qui? Of course you do. Apparently your already advanced age was worsened by your experience on Argos," the guardswoman flipped her hair once as she spoke, derision practically dripping from her.
Jack's response was to throw his hands up in the air.
"How do you even know about that?!"
When Teal'c took a step forward and inclined his head, he did not twitch as one of the Wu guards shifted their stance as well.
"The information gathering abilities of the Empire of Wu-,"
"Are downright nineteen eighty...four...ian," he slowed to a halt as he realized the mouthful he'd committed himself to. "Damn it," Jack grunted. "Whatever, look, Sun Qui-,"
"
My name is Sun Shangxiang, I already told you I am not my cousin."
"My mistake, it's just…your personality is so…dazzling, I forgot myself."
It sounded, to Catherine, like the man had just dredged up some forcibly forgotten diplomatic lesson that he had received recently based on his tone.
"Um, miss," Doctor Jackson spoke up, pushing his way to the fore, "We…uh, well, there's not an easy way to say this, but um…several years ago – we believe – that a man from Earth may have come through the Stargate."
Catherine snapped to the fore as well.
"Oh yes, please, there's…his name is-was-,"
"Ernest Littlefield," Sun Shangxiang finished for her, raising a hand to stall out the immediate response. "I remember. He was alone here for ten years before we arrived to this world – his…condition from such isolation was rather extreme though it would certainly be worse had we not come when we did."
"Wait…you've only been here since – that's not a very long time," Daniel said, squinting slightly at the palace and the flying pennants of the Empire's flag.
"Our terraforming abilities are not the worst in the galaxy," she said, waving away the topic, "Come, we will go and find him."
"He's here?!"
"Yes, Miss Langford. Some mild sequestering has been necessary – for security reasons, mind you, nothing malicious – so he may be a bit startled to see so many Earthlings at once."
"Pretty swanky place," Jack spoke up as they began to walk. "Very uh…big."
"Indeed Colonel O'Neill."
"I'm going to go and put this out here, but uh, I think this world might not be a Class-4."
"What makes you say that, sir?"
"Well Carter," Jack said as he looked up at the sky and then down at the sudden shade that had coated not just them but the entire palace, darkening the previously sunny day.
"The giant honking spaceships might have something to do with it."
High above, the twenty kilometer golden orb with shifting pylons and rings lazily floated past. In the distance, at least four of its brethren could be seen in the sky of the world.
"Oh."
"…I wonder what kind of guns they have?"
Up ahead, the almost exact physical copy of Sun Qui called out to them.
"Welcome to Guang! Or, as the Great Four once called it, Heliopolis!"
PRIME: STARGATE TO LITTLEFIELD QUARTERS ACTIVATED. REMOVE HIM FROM THE CAPITAL WORLD.
