| And here you find what little was written of Chapter 4...
==
FOUR: Musical Chairs
Pentagon
November 12th, 2006
0930 hrs
Jack had been seated in the empty Pentagon briefing room for almost twenty minutes to make sure Major Davis wasn’t coming back before gathering his things and wandering off to find the room where the negotiations with the Temple were to take place. Once he had found it, he plonked himself down at the table and carried on with his reading, some ten minutes passing by before any of those taking part in the trade negotiations had made an appearance. In that time he’d managed to complete only one form, realising in the process just how out of practice with red tape he was. In order to distract himself from the form, and the inane questions it was asking, Jack had taken to reading one of the many briefing folders that Major Davis had heaped upon him. He was filled with a horrible feeling as he waded through the report, the depth of the threat that the Ori posed readily apparent to Jack.
“Worse than frickin’ Goa’ulds. Ascended my arse!”
So it was between paragraphs of the report that Jack had managed to complete the necessary tax forms so that the government could once again start paying him a working salary as opposed to the retirement pension he had been pulling down yesterday. If he’d read the piece of paper right, and there was a good chance he hadn’t, then he was supposedly getting quite a handsome figure. Ah, the perks of being a Lieutenant General in USAF.
“Would you care to repeat that General O’Neill,” said a voice, letting Jack know he was no longer alone even though he’d heard the person approach some time ago.
“Nothing worth repeating Mr ...?”
“I’m Jerry, Jerry Thallock. I’m leading the negotiations for our side, General.”
Jack glanced up and took in the figure standing on the opposite side of the table from where Jack himself sat. He was tall, but too much so, with thick, wavy, blond hair and was dressed in a sharply cut black business suit.
/He looks like a bloody fashion model,/ groused Jack. Jack’s sense of self worth wasn’t helped by the fact that he himself must have looked positively peasant-like with his rumpled and shabby uniform.
“What happened to Folger?” Jack tried in an attempt to seem personable.
/Smile and bend over, Jack. Take it like a man!/
“The President thought it prudent to have someone else lead these negotiations and has assigned him a task worthy of his abilities,” replied Thallock smoothly.
Jack just ‘harrumped’ and turned back to the report on the Ori. He wondered who had written it as it read like a thumping good, page turner of a novel. It was a pity he was going to be disappointed by the fact that the story would end without a resolution. At least for now.
Thallock cleared his throat. Jack threw the report down onto the table in irritation and snapped out an annoyed, “Yes?”
“You’re sitting on the wrong side of the negotiating table, General,” Jerry Thallock pointed out, voice as smooth as silk and giving no indication that he had at all been ruffled by Jack’s angry routine.
“I’m not sitting on the wrong side of the table, Thallock,” bit out Jack. /Shut up you arrogant bastard!/
“You are sitting on the side reserved for the emissary of the Celestial Temple, O’Neill. Those representing Earth will be sitting on this side of the table.” Here Thallock gestured to the side he stood behind.
“And it seems to escaped your notice that I’m not part of either of the negotiating teams, Mr Thallock. I’m here purely to accompany Lady Hannah.”
“So you shouldn’t even be at this table,” declared the diplomat.
Jack rolled his eyes. /Where’s Danny-boy when you need him to baffle somebody with lots of unusual words?/
“Look, idiot,” began Jack as he upped the ante, “I’m here because Lady Hannah wants me here and the President, who clearly lost his marbles, agreed with her. So here I will be, and I am so *not* moving an inch.”
Thallock didn’t get the luxury of a reply because at that point Lady Hannah herself swept into the room, her two ladies-in-waiting a step behind her. She turned to Jack, casually ignoring Thallock, and smiled. “Good morning, Jack.”
“Lady Hannah,” Jack managed as he tried to get out of his seat and sketch some semblance of a bow.
Hannah seemed satisfied with Jack’s attempt, her two attendants tittering lightly behind her. “Hush,” she told them softly and they ceased.
“Lady Hannah, I’m Jerry Thallock,” the Earth diplomat began.
“And how are you this morning, Jack?” asked Hannah before admonishing, “Remember, you may call me Hannah.”
“Er ... right. I’m good. Yourself?” /Peanut Butter varieties must go ‘Smooth’, ‘Crunchy’, ‘Extra Crunchy’, and ‘Jack’./
“I am well, thank you for asking.”
On the opposite side of the table the still standing Thallock was turning a rather unpleasant shade of red. The blasted woman was ignoring him in order to talk to the jumped up upstart O’Neill.
“Ma’am,” he tried.
“You do not appear to be attired in a manner that flatters you, Jack. Is there a reason for this?”
“Ah ... well, this was all I had to wear. Haven’t had a chance to go home and find some clean clothes,” Jack tried to explain.
Hannah cocked her head as if puzzled. “Your government would deny you clean clothing?”
Jack shrugged. “Probably just forgot. Running this country takes a bit of effort, apparently. I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me.” Jack then sat once more. “I’ve got a pile of stuff to deal with,” and here he waved a hand at the mountain of folders. “You’d best get on with the negotiating as Thallock looks like he’s gonna have a heart attack.”
“If that is your wish, Jack, then we will commence the trade negotiations. I will have talking to you about the places we’ll see to look forward to at our first break.”
“Super,” replied Jack, as he picked up the folder about the Ori he’d abandoned when Thallock had arrived.
Hannah gave him one last smile before taking a seat of her own next to Jack, her shoulder brushing against him as she sat down. She looked at Thallock and asked, “Are you going to be seated, Mr Thallock?”
Thallock’s brow furrowed and he forced himself to sit without yelling at O’Neill for upsetting the negotiations from the word go. No wonder the President considered the man a loose cannon. Once seated the diplomat was once again all smiles and smooth words as the pair settled into the first round of negotiations. Jack caught the words ‘tariffs’ and ‘subsidies’ and automatically tuned out the discussion to focus on the efforts of the SGC to deal with the Ori menace. He wasn’t encouraged by what he read.
SGC
1037 hrs
SG-1 was sat around Daniel’s rather cluttered workspace in the middle of his office. Teal’c didn’t have an office of his own, Mitchell’s was a tiny hole in the wall job that wasn’t up to hosting meetings (or so he claimed), and Carter’s was currently hosting an experiment that didn’t need three grown men tramping all over it.
“Lieutenant General, huh?” mused Mitchell. “Only General O’Neill could get promoted in such a manner. If that had been me, I would have been kicked out of the Air Force so fast your head would spin.”
The Jaf’fa in their midst merely raised an eyebrow and filed away the Tau’ri idiom for possible later use, wondering if human heads could actually spin in a full rotation. He hadn’t seen any evidence of it so far. Perhaps DanielJackson had some historical notes about it that he could peruse?
“That’s Jack,” confirmed Daniel as he gratefully sipped on his third coffee of the morning. “For a man whose idea of diplomacy consists of chucking a grenade at people and seeing how they react, he sure does end up with a lot of diplomatic work.” Daniel paused. “Not that I envy him in any way.”
“Really?” prodded Sam with a grin. “A whole new culture with which to establish ties with?”
“Okay, that I’ll admit I’m a little envious about that. But I have a feeling that all that work has been done already and this really is the boring, nitty gritty of trade agreement writing.”
“Lots of pages of rules, et. cetera, that only a lawyer could possibly understand then?” chuckled Cameron from where he sat perched on a stool.
“Pages and pages,” agreed Daniel. “Jack must be pulling his hair out in boredom by now.”
“Well, if this is such an endeavour, how did we meet up with this ‘Celestial Temple’ then? I don’t recall hearing much about them until Lady Hannah was announced as attending the dinner.”
Daniel played with his glasses as he considered Carter’s question. “If you’ll let me air a theory or two ...?”
The three other members of SG-1 nodded their heads and waited for what the archaeologist had to say.
“Well,” Daniel cleared his throat, “the Celestial Temple is a conglomerate of several different star systems and their ruling bodies. Lady Hannah is in effect their elected diplomatic representative, not part of the ruling structure per se. At least I think that is how it works. I may be wrong.
“Anyway, from what I managed to prise from the Asgaard Heimdall, prior to Jack’s gatecrashing of the party, is that the Temple have been aware of Earth for quite some time.”
“How long, DanielJackson?”
“At least since we became a protect planet under the Asgaard/Goa’uld treaty. Possibly since Jack first visited one of the Asgaard planets when under the influence of that first Ancient repository that we found.”
“And they’ve done nothing about it till now?” queried Mitchell.
“From what I’m guessing, it looks as if they chose to get to know us through our interactions with the Asgaard.”
“Sort of like seeing how we treat our friends, before becoming one themselves,” summarised Carter.
Daniel nodded. “That is what I believe. Our repeated aid to the Asgaard during the Replicator threat was probably a big positive in our favour. And,” Daniel huffed a little here, “since we seem to have passed that test they decided to make contact. That was over three years ago, while we were busy dealing with Teal’c being trapped in the virtual reality chair.
“The Temple had a first contact team of their own that deliberately made contact with SG-17 while they were doing a survey of an uninhabited planet, P1X-098 I think. The Temple’s ranking officer at the time came to the SGC and that is where treaty talks kicked off.”
“So the General was aware of the Temple that far back?” scowled Carter.
“I guess. Although you’ll have to remember that the government has never been keen on Jack being in any sort of diplomatic post. Which meant that when the talks did start, it was people like Folger who were doing the negotiating at an off world and neutral location. Jack didn’t get anywhere near it after that initial encounter.”
“Till now,” said Mitchell shaking his head in amusement.
“Yeah,” Daniel said, before glancing at Sam out the corner of his eye. “That may be down to Lady Hannah taking a shine to Jack.”
“How is that possible?” said Sam a little heatedly. “She’s never met the General before!”
“Well, given Thor’s liking of Jack, I think it is a given that she’s heard little but good things about him from the Asgaard.”
Mitchell snorted, almost toppling off his stool.
“Something to share with the class, Lt. Colonel?” asked Carter as she fixed the team leader with her gaze.
“Sorry, Carter, just too busy picturing the Asgaard as an intergalactic dating agency. Do you think they could match me up with someone like Lady Hannah too?”
Carter groaned.
“Oh, come on, Carter, aren’t we macho men in the Kirk mould meant to have sexy alien women on every planet?” Cameron was hamming it up for all it was worth, speaking in Shatner-like tones and pace.
That was worth a giggle from Carter, as it caused her to forget just how aggressively Lady Hannah seemed to be in staking out her interest in Jack.
“I do believe that in SG-1, that such a task fell to DanielJackson and not O’Neill,” observed Teal’c, enjoying the way the younger man flushed with embarrassment and squirmed in his seat.
“Oh,” cried Mitchell, “so Daniel is the Lothario of the group, huh? And what does Vala have to say to that?”
Daniel threw his hands up in protest. “For the last time, there is nothing going on between Vala and myself.”
The sound of feet jogging away down the corridor let Daniel know that his outburst had been overheard.
“Well,” smirked Carter, “I wonder what sort of mangled version of that will be around the base by lunchtime?”
“With SG-1’s luck, I’m pretty sure they’ll all be talking about how Daniel here declared his love for Vala to the rest of us,” grinned Mitchell, sharing a smile with Carter. SG-1 was definitely the place to be and Cameron patted himself on the back for going to the effort to bring them back together a couple of years ago.
“I am sure that Vala will be overjoyed by this news,” added Teal’c, nailing the coffin shut with a last nail.
Daniel hung his head in despair.
The White House
1103 hrs
The White House Press Secretary stood at the podium, in front of the sign that gave a visual clue as to where the TV broadcast of the coming press conference was coming from, and stared out over the sea of people that had crammed into the room. He’d not seen the conference room so overflowing in all his time with the White House staff. In many ways he was glad that it was the President, and not himself, that would be facing up to the seething mass of journalists. He was sure that almost all here were just straining at the leash to ask questions about Lieutenant General O’Neill. As he opened his mouth to speak, the Secretary had a moment to gauge the size of the firestorm that was about to be unleashed.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the White House. The President will first be addressing some issues by way of a short prepared speech. After that, the floor will be open to questions. I will take a moment now to remind you all that the President may refuse to answer some questions and others he may be unable to answer due to matters of national security.”
Taking a step back from the podium, the Secretary gave a small nod and President Hayes slipped out from the curtain and strode confidently to the spot that could well mark the end of his term in office. The Secretary had to admit to himself that at the moment Hayes looked every inch a President secure in his position. Whether or not he looked like that at the end of the press conference was another matter. Before he could step away, the Secretary found himself being collared by the President who, it seemed, wanted a quick word.
“How much coverage?” hissed Hayes.
“Every major national newspaper, magazine, and television network. We also have over five dozen international media representatives.”
With a pat on the shoulder, Hayes let the Secretary go and turned to the podium where he placed his prepared notes. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and looked up into the waiting faces of the media. This was going to be an interesting conference if the twitching from the journalists was anything to go by. Hayes had to wonder if any of them would actually listen to his little speech, or would they all be too busy formulating questions to ask about the events of last night.
“Good morning. It’s only been a matter of hours since the celebratory dinner that marked our recognition of the recently unveiled stargate programme. It has come to my attention that the media and the public at large have taken an interest in the sudden arrival of one Lieutenant General Jonathan O’Neill at last evenings event.
“Firstly, General O’Neill’s arrival was not unexpected since his attendance was at the request of both one of the alien ambassadors at the function and myself. Secondly, to counter some of the wild speculation already to be seen the nation’s media, General O’Neill is simply a member of the United States Air Force, nothing more.
“While the revelation of the nature of the stargate and what it represents in terms of our knowledge of our place in the universe is something new for the majority of us, it would behoove the people of the United States to remember the difference between facts and rampant speculation. I hope that people will understand that General O’Neill is just one man doing his job, part of a larger machine in our exploration of our newly expanded horizons.
“To that end we hope to schedule a press conference between General O’Neill and the press later in the week so that any questions or concerns that the public might have can be dealt with, within the bounds of the Official Secrets Act of course.”
This got a slight chuckle from the assembled press.
“On a related note, the White House is proud to announce that we have secured an agreement to trade with the Celestial Temple. In fact by now we should be in negotiations with their representative and this deal represents a significant coup for the United States government. It has taken near on three years of delicate negotiations to reach this point and full credit for that has to go to the tireless efforts of our diplomatic corp.
“We hope that by the end of these final negotiations that our two great nations may grow closer and benefit from the alliance that we have forged.
“Now, I have kept my remarks brief and to the point because I anticipated a deluge of questions and I can already see some of the reporters chomping at the bit.”
Again Hayes got a chuckle. /At least they are not heckling me,/ mused Hayes.
With that it was open season, reporters raising their hands and firing off questions.
“Yes?” asked Hayes, pointing at one reporter who looked like they might have a fit if they weren’t chosen.
“You mentioned that O’Neill was at last night’s celebratory dinner at your request.”
“That is true. I had him specially ‘beamed’ over by one of the Asgaard representatives,” answered Hayes, highlighting the word ‘beamed’ with his crooked fingers. The President idly hoped that all the questions he field today would be this easy to answer.
Hayes hopes were dashed when the same reporter pressed on. “Yet, Sir, we have sources that have led us to understand that, despite O’Neill’s significant contribution to the stargate programme, that he was deliberately left off the invitation list for the dinner. And that you were forced to send for the man to help keep negotiations with the Celestial Temple on track. How do you answer that charge?”
Hayes couldn’t help himself and and played with his collar despite years of training himself not to do so when under the media spotlight. “Yes, O’Neill was initially left off the list. I’ve yet to determine if this was an accident caused by the fact that O’Neill was retired at the time.”
“Retired General George Hammond was invited though,” began another reporter before Hayes could continue, “and I take your use of the past tense ‘was’ to corroborate your earlier assertion that he is now Lieutenant General O’Neill?”
“Indeed. He recieved his promotion at the dinner.” /That at least makes it sound like he was attending the dinner for a reason other than due to Lady Hannah./
“How could someone of that status be left off such a list by accident? Don’t you have a large support staff whose job it is is to double and triple check such lists?” A third reporter had popped up to punch further holes in Hayes answer.
“Mr President, what do you say to these questions?” asked a fourth.
“My contact with O’Neill during his time at the SGC was always limited, due to the demands of state on my time, and thus never gave his absence from the planned dinner a second thought till said absence was questioned by others.” /There, that should dig me out of that hole./
“By ‘others’ you mean Lady Hannah. So, you are working contrary to official state policy and letting a foreign dignitary dictate US plans?” shot a further reporter.
/I can deal with one,/ mentally grinned Hayes. “Our initial relationship with the Celestial Temple was based on the actions of the SG-1, whom O’Neill lead for seven years, and naturally Lady Hannah wished to meet the people who had made such an impression on our other allies such as the Asgaard. Thus when O’Neill’s absence from the dinner was finally noticed I set about having such an omission dealt with as swiftly as possible.”
“Mr President, are you able to tell us what has aliens such as the Asgaard, Nox, and the Temple so interested in General O’Neill?”
“That I’m afraid is something people at the SGC have been pondering ever since the Asgaard known as Thor took a liking to O’Neill some nine years ago.”
“What do you have to say Folger’s assertions that he made last night? Rumour is that he is under pressure to retract his words.”
“I can’t answer to rumours, but Folger’s outburst was an unfortunate but understandable reaction to Lady Hannah’s wish to talk with O’Neill. O’Neill is not know for his diplomatic skills and Folger was worried that the work that he and his team put into the negotiations of the past three years would be undone in the space of a single meal. From the point of view I can sympathise, even if his manner of dealing with it will require reprimanding.”
“If O’Neill is not suited to negotiating with alien ambassadors then why is he officially our representative to the Asgaard?”
/I can dodge this one too! Hooray!/ “You have to understand that that position is in many respects purely decorative. O’Neill is essentially the figurehead to our diplomatic relations with the Asgaard.” Hayes pointed to a TV reporter, “Yes?”
“Sir, there have been word from sources at the Pentagon suggesting that General O’Neill has a less than stellar past. Is this tied to what appeared to be an assassination attempt of your ex-running partner Kinsey?”
“I am not privy to all the details, but I understand that O’Neill was in some way involved with what happened.” Hayes was almost estactic and was halfway convinced that he should shower his PR team with presents if the media were already questioning O’Neill background and tying him, fairly or unfairly, to unpleasant events.
“If O’Neill was retired, why was he reactivated at the dinner?”
“We have come across a situation, possibly a prolonged one, that could stand to use O’Neill skills. It was simpler to have him reactivated than to jump through the hoops to have him contracted as a civilian.”
“Is \
press conference, President talks about CT - fields qs about Jack
Jack & H on walk in washington
more celestial temple background
===
Last bits are reminders for myself of things I need to write - which obviously I never got around to! |
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gallicus's journal
