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jedibuttercupPG-13, A:tS/SG-1. Other chapters here.
A certain package meant for Angel ends up on Daniel Jackson's desk instead.
Title: An Unexpected Gift, 6/?
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A certain package meant for Angel ends up on Daniel Jackson's desk instead.
Spoilers:AU of Angel 5.1 "Conviction", Stargate SG-1 to 7.12 "Evolution Part II".
Notes: Not your average disclosure conversation.
Sam covered her mouth with one hand as she yawned, then took another sip of her coffee. She'd only had a few hours of sleep before she'd been recalled to the base at oh-dark-hundred, and from the looks of things it had been the same for the others. Only Daniel seemed unaware of the time, but that was probably partly due to caffeine overload; he was vibrating in his seat and tripping over himself verbally the way he usually did when he'd drunk most of a pot on his own in the space of a few hours.
"Are we all here?" Daniel asked, glancing around at the others present at the table-- the remainder of SG-1, plus General Hammond and a young Army Captain that Sam didn't recognize. An apparently empty chair had been pulled up as well between Daniel and the unfamiliar officer, and Sam wondered idly why the SF with the TER that had been assigned to follow Daniel and Spike around wasn't presently illuminating their visitor.
"We're all here son," Hammond said, frowning tiredly at the archaeologist. "Now why don't you tell us what this is all about?"
Instead of explaining, however, Daniel turned an expectant expression on the Army officer. "Captain Miller?"
The young man cleared his throat, shot a sidelong glance at the empty chair and crossed his arms on the table in front of him. "Sirs," he said, briefly meeting gazes with General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill. "When I was recommended for this project several months ago, it was ostensibly due to my extensive experience as part of a search and rescue team."
Both men nodded at Miller's statement. "Major Griff has had nothing but praise for your performance on SG-2," Hammond said, neutrally. "I take it that was not the only reason?"
Miller looked down at his hands, a rueful twist to his mouth. "The top-secret project I served on prior to this one, and the one before that, were both unofficially under the jurisdiction of the NID," he said.
Spines stiffened around the table at that statement. The SGC had had too many run-ins with rogue members of that intelligence organization to take a mention of their involvement lightly; even the legitimate side of the NID had a tendency to run rough-shod over the Stargate project whenever they could, trying to acquire as much profit and power as possible at the expense of all else.
"Let me guess," the Colonel said, slouching back in his chair. "They said they'd put you in for a bigger, better, more exciting job, if only you'd keep them informed about everything that happened while you were here."
Miller nodded grimly. "The thing is, sir, I've seen more than enough over the last several years to give me nightmares, long before I came to the SGC. The team I served on under Major Ellis was clean enough, but I've never forgotten how few of us were survivors of the previous project, and why. I don't want to see that happen again here; I haven't been reporting anything that isn't available through other channels."
There was a beat, as everyone considered the oblique statement Miller had just dropped in their laps-- and then Daniel turned to the empty seat again, frowning. "Spike," he said quellingly. "You're not helping." Then he turned back to Miller. "Sorry, go on."
Miller smirked, and his eyes drifted to the empty chair as well, as if he could see Spike, too. "Don't worry about it. All of us that made it out of there remember Hostile 17 pretty well. This isn't the first time he's shown up on the doorstep of good people and annoyed them into helping him."
"To what does this designation, Hostile 17, refer?" Teal'c asked, speaking up for the first time during the meeting. He looked as groggy at Sam felt, which was unusual for him, but she knew he was still adjusting to actually needing sleep now that he'd exchanged a symbiote for regular tretonin injections.
"Classified," Miller replied, glancing at the Jaffa. "Though I will say, because you'll find out soon enough even if he doesn't tell you, he's about as human as you are."
Sam saw the colonel straighten in his chair at that; she frowned herself, wondering just what the bleached-blond man might be if he wasn't, well, a man. They ran into plenty of races off world who looked just like humans, but that was generally because they were human, relocated to another planet by aliens in centuries past. The Jaffa looked mostly human as well, but had several notable differences; they'd been genetically engineered away from human stock ages ago. How did Spike differ from human standard, she mused, and why?
"If you're not here to expose classified details about the situation in which you previously encountered our visitor," Hammond asked, "then for what reason did you go to Dr. Jackson?"
"And how can you see him when none of the rest of us can?" Sam asked, watching as Captain Miller's eyes drifted again to the invisible occupant of the extra seat.
"In a nutshell?" he said. "Anubis isn't the first incorporeal, evil being to have designs on Earth. A few of them set up shop in the Los Angeles area and other places on the planet literally ages ago and have been influencing humans to their will ever since."
"Well, that explains a lot about the entertainment industry," Colonel O'Neill muttered, tapping his pen against the edge of the conference table. "But what does that have to do with our invisible friend here?" he asked, a skeptical expression on his face.
"You live in an area under the influence of these beings long enough, and you start-- noticing things. Things that don't make sense, things that seem crazy, things you dismiss as fever dreams the further away you get," Miller said solemnly. Sam could tell that he was leaving a lot out, but there was no shiftiness in his expression; he was convinced he was telling them the truth. "I can only guess that there's a kind of-- radiation effect, maybe, something that builds up that you become acclimatized to. Ask around-- if you have any recruits here from Sunnydale, I'd bet they can see and hear Spike, too. 'Cause, see-- when he died three weeks ago, he took one of those beings with him."
"What?" Sam objected, startled. "How is that possible? The Ascended are energy beings; the only reason we've had any success against Anubis at all is that he's only half-Ascended-- he's trapped on our plane of existence-- and even then--" She shrugged helplessly.
Miller gestured at the amulet currently resting on the table in front of Daniel. "That amulet? When Buff-- I mean, when we heard from the people who'd been at Ground Zero when Sunnydale collapsed, we asked them how it had happened, and they said it had been Hos-- Spike, wearing that, fighting an entity called the First. An old friend of mine who's still with Major Ellis' unit did some unofficial checking when they were sent to secure the site, and found out it originally came from a law firm run by more of these beings. We think they'd lent it out so someone else could do the legwork and take down the competition for them, but they wanted it back afterward. When Rye's team dug it up, someone snuck it into the mail to send right back to the firm; Rye swiped it back and mailed it here instead, hoping you guys could find a way to re-use it against Anubis.. He had no idea that it was... occupied."
Sam's breath caught. A weapon capable of taking down Ascended beings... that looked like a gaudy piece of jewelry? It seemed almost too good to be true.
"Putting aside the fact that this friend of yours shouldn't even know that Anubus exists," Hammond said, lips pursed, "if that was all there was to it, it could have waited until later in the day. What else is going on?"
Miller took a deep breath. "Rye's unit has also been keeping an eye on, uh, one of Spike's relatives I guess you'd call him. He changed sides a few weeks ago, got made the CEO of that law firm, with all its resources at his disposal. And yesterday, he suddenly started asking questions about the Stargate."
-~-
(x-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
stargate_xing & twistedshorts)
A certain package meant for Angel ends up on Daniel Jackson's desk instead.
Title: An Unexpected Gift, 6/?
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A certain package meant for Angel ends up on Daniel Jackson's desk instead.
Spoilers:AU of Angel 5.1 "Conviction", Stargate SG-1 to 7.12 "Evolution Part II".
Notes: Not your average disclosure conversation.
Sam covered her mouth with one hand as she yawned, then took another sip of her coffee. She'd only had a few hours of sleep before she'd been recalled to the base at oh-dark-hundred, and from the looks of things it had been the same for the others. Only Daniel seemed unaware of the time, but that was probably partly due to caffeine overload; he was vibrating in his seat and tripping over himself verbally the way he usually did when he'd drunk most of a pot on his own in the space of a few hours.
"Are we all here?" Daniel asked, glancing around at the others present at the table-- the remainder of SG-1, plus General Hammond and a young Army Captain that Sam didn't recognize. An apparently empty chair had been pulled up as well between Daniel and the unfamiliar officer, and Sam wondered idly why the SF with the TER that had been assigned to follow Daniel and Spike around wasn't presently illuminating their visitor.
"We're all here son," Hammond said, frowning tiredly at the archaeologist. "Now why don't you tell us what this is all about?"
Instead of explaining, however, Daniel turned an expectant expression on the Army officer. "Captain Miller?"
The young man cleared his throat, shot a sidelong glance at the empty chair and crossed his arms on the table in front of him. "Sirs," he said, briefly meeting gazes with General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill. "When I was recommended for this project several months ago, it was ostensibly due to my extensive experience as part of a search and rescue team."
Both men nodded at Miller's statement. "Major Griff has had nothing but praise for your performance on SG-2," Hammond said, neutrally. "I take it that was not the only reason?"
Miller looked down at his hands, a rueful twist to his mouth. "The top-secret project I served on prior to this one, and the one before that, were both unofficially under the jurisdiction of the NID," he said.
Spines stiffened around the table at that statement. The SGC had had too many run-ins with rogue members of that intelligence organization to take a mention of their involvement lightly; even the legitimate side of the NID had a tendency to run rough-shod over the Stargate project whenever they could, trying to acquire as much profit and power as possible at the expense of all else.
"Let me guess," the Colonel said, slouching back in his chair. "They said they'd put you in for a bigger, better, more exciting job, if only you'd keep them informed about everything that happened while you were here."
Miller nodded grimly. "The thing is, sir, I've seen more than enough over the last several years to give me nightmares, long before I came to the SGC. The team I served on under Major Ellis was clean enough, but I've never forgotten how few of us were survivors of the previous project, and why. I don't want to see that happen again here; I haven't been reporting anything that isn't available through other channels."
There was a beat, as everyone considered the oblique statement Miller had just dropped in their laps-- and then Daniel turned to the empty seat again, frowning. "Spike," he said quellingly. "You're not helping." Then he turned back to Miller. "Sorry, go on."
Miller smirked, and his eyes drifted to the empty chair as well, as if he could see Spike, too. "Don't worry about it. All of us that made it out of there remember Hostile 17 pretty well. This isn't the first time he's shown up on the doorstep of good people and annoyed them into helping him."
"To what does this designation, Hostile 17, refer?" Teal'c asked, speaking up for the first time during the meeting. He looked as groggy at Sam felt, which was unusual for him, but she knew he was still adjusting to actually needing sleep now that he'd exchanged a symbiote for regular tretonin injections.
"Classified," Miller replied, glancing at the Jaffa. "Though I will say, because you'll find out soon enough even if he doesn't tell you, he's about as human as you are."
Sam saw the colonel straighten in his chair at that; she frowned herself, wondering just what the bleached-blond man might be if he wasn't, well, a man. They ran into plenty of races off world who looked just like humans, but that was generally because they were human, relocated to another planet by aliens in centuries past. The Jaffa looked mostly human as well, but had several notable differences; they'd been genetically engineered away from human stock ages ago. How did Spike differ from human standard, she mused, and why?
"If you're not here to expose classified details about the situation in which you previously encountered our visitor," Hammond asked, "then for what reason did you go to Dr. Jackson?"
"And how can you see him when none of the rest of us can?" Sam asked, watching as Captain Miller's eyes drifted again to the invisible occupant of the extra seat.
"In a nutshell?" he said. "Anubis isn't the first incorporeal, evil being to have designs on Earth. A few of them set up shop in the Los Angeles area and other places on the planet literally ages ago and have been influencing humans to their will ever since."
"Well, that explains a lot about the entertainment industry," Colonel O'Neill muttered, tapping his pen against the edge of the conference table. "But what does that have to do with our invisible friend here?" he asked, a skeptical expression on his face.
"You live in an area under the influence of these beings long enough, and you start-- noticing things. Things that don't make sense, things that seem crazy, things you dismiss as fever dreams the further away you get," Miller said solemnly. Sam could tell that he was leaving a lot out, but there was no shiftiness in his expression; he was convinced he was telling them the truth. "I can only guess that there's a kind of-- radiation effect, maybe, something that builds up that you become acclimatized to. Ask around-- if you have any recruits here from Sunnydale, I'd bet they can see and hear Spike, too. 'Cause, see-- when he died three weeks ago, he took one of those beings with him."
"What?" Sam objected, startled. "How is that possible? The Ascended are energy beings; the only reason we've had any success against Anubis at all is that he's only half-Ascended-- he's trapped on our plane of existence-- and even then--" She shrugged helplessly.
Miller gestured at the amulet currently resting on the table in front of Daniel. "That amulet? When Buff-- I mean, when we heard from the people who'd been at Ground Zero when Sunnydale collapsed, we asked them how it had happened, and they said it had been Hos-- Spike, wearing that, fighting an entity called the First. An old friend of mine who's still with Major Ellis' unit did some unofficial checking when they were sent to secure the site, and found out it originally came from a law firm run by more of these beings. We think they'd lent it out so someone else could do the legwork and take down the competition for them, but they wanted it back afterward. When Rye's team dug it up, someone snuck it into the mail to send right back to the firm; Rye swiped it back and mailed it here instead, hoping you guys could find a way to re-use it against Anubis.. He had no idea that it was... occupied."
Sam's breath caught. A weapon capable of taking down Ascended beings... that looked like a gaudy piece of jewelry? It seemed almost too good to be true.
"Putting aside the fact that this friend of yours shouldn't even know that Anubus exists," Hammond said, lips pursed, "if that was all there was to it, it could have waited until later in the day. What else is going on?"
Miller took a deep breath. "Rye's unit has also been keeping an eye on, uh, one of Spike's relatives I guess you'd call him. He changed sides a few weeks ago, got made the CEO of that law firm, with all its resources at his disposal. And yesterday, he suddenly started asking questions about the Stargate."
-~-
(x-posted to
stargate_xing & twistedshorts)
