Bombshell

Title: Bombshell
Series Title: Fallout
Series Order: 1
Author: Ladyholder
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, JAG
Relationship: Tony DiNozzo/Jack O’Neill
Warnings: Character Bashing, Canon Typical Bullshit
Word Count: 17,917

Prologue

 

The afterglow had barely faded when the watch on his wrist started to buzz against his skin. Jack tried to casually glance at it without drawing too much attention to his actions. From the small huff Tony let out, he wasn’t successful.

“It’s cute that you still try to get stuff past me,” Tony muttered into his pillow. He pushed up and stared at Jack. “Also, that’s a very Dick Tracy kind of watch you’ve got. Better find out what’s going on. You know they won’t stop calling.”

“I am not thrilled with them interrupting my time off,” Jack bitched. He pressed one stud on the watch and glanced at the screen. The 911 notice from Daniel made him stiffen up. “God damn it. I have to leave.”

“Well, that sucks ass,” Tony said. He tilted his head slightly and gave him a considering side-eye. “You might want to catch a quick shower before your minders show up. Can’t have a General showing up smelling like he had copious amounts of sex.”

Jack snorted once and got up. “If those assholes want to interrupt me on my vacation, they can take me as I show up.”

“You’ll feel better and less like you got caught flatfooted if you’re clean, Jack. Don’t even try to tell me otherwise,” Tony reminded.

“Fair,” Jack allowed before he leaned over and pressed a brief kiss to his lover’s mouth. “I’ll be quick. You get some sleep.”

“I’m going to have to lock up after you,” Tony protested.

“You gave me my own set of keys, remember?” Jack reminded him. “I’ll take care of it. Sleep. You had a shit week.”

“Fine,” Tony said before he settled back onto the bed.

Jack couldn’t take the time to watch Tony fall asleep, no matter how much he wanted to. As soon as he was in the bathroom, he pressed the stud on his watch again and moved the message on. The 911 flashed on the small screen again followed by a single word. Ori.

Fuck.

The shower was short, and sweet and got him clean enough. The motions to dry off were automatic as he tried to figure out why the Ori was a 911 issue. The last reports he had said that they were far enough away that the SGC didn’t have to worry about their movements. Which is why he’d worked to get a few days with his partner, away from the insanity that was the SGC.

As soon as he was dressed, Jack leaned over and pressed another kiss against Tony’s temple before he walked out of the room. He made sure to close the bedroom door. Pulling out his wallet, he took the small coms device out of it and hooked it into his ear. “This is O’Neill. One to beam up.”

Tony’s apartment disappeared and the bridge of the Daedalus appeared around him. “Okay, what in the hell happened?”

 

 

Chapter One

 

Tony rolled over and stared at the clock. Eight AM was not an hour he often saw from his bed and he’d planned on sharing the whole experience with his lover. But Jack had gotten called away sometime around 1 am and he was sure that the only reason he’d fallen asleep was that Jack had tired him out before he’d left. Sitting up, he rubbed his hands over his face before he grabbed his blackberry. Checking the messages on it, he raised an eyebrow at the lack of messages from Jack.

Whatever had pulled his lover away had to be something major. Tony sighed and headed towards the kitchen to get coffee. If he was going to have a last day to relax at home without Jack, he was going to enjoy it. Since his day was free, Tony decided that he was going to indulge in a good cup of coffee. Opening his freezer, he pulled out the bag of Kona he had stashed away. Assembling his French press, he spooned in the required amount of grounds and started his kettle for boiling water.

Humming softly, Tony glanced at the shopping list on his fridge and frowned. He hadn’t bought groceries in weeks and he needed to. His cupboards were bare and so was his freezer. Eating takeout wasn’t great for him and since he had the time… decision made, he started writing down everything he would need to prep a lot of meals for his freezer.

His planning was interrupted only by the timer on his coffee going off and he poured himself a cup as he started checking his spices. Sipping carefully at his coffee, Tony finished his list and leaned against the counter, enjoying the flavor. He wasn’t all that interested in actually doing the grocery shopping he needed to do, but none of the stores in his area were high-end enough to deliver and he didn’t want to call out to the one that did.

Frustrated, he poured the last of his coffee into a to-go cup and capped it to keep it warm while he cleaned up. One shower later, he quickly got dressed and grabbed his list and coffee on the way out the door. His phone started to ring as he slid into his car. “DiNozzo.”

“Hey Tony,” Jack said.

“Jack,” Tony said warmly. He leaned back into the warm embrace of the leather seats of his car. “Is your emergency still ongoing?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jack said with a sigh. He was silent for a moment and Tony could hear the hum of frantic voices in his background. “Do me a favor?”

Tony could feel his eyebrows raising at the request. “Okay. What?”

“Keep your phone on you at all times,” Jack requested. “And stay home until you have to go in to work tomorrow?”

“I’m going to the grocery store to get supplies so I can prep a bunch of meals,” Tony said. “Once I get that done, I plan to stay in.”

“Good,” Jack said. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I had to leave this morning. I am. But it really was and is an emergency.”

“Jack, I knew you were on active duty when I started dating you,” Tony reminded him. “I’m a Federal Agent and I’ve had to call off some of our dates due to my own responsibilities. Neither of us has a great track on that front. So, you know that I get it.”

“Right,” Jack agreed. “Just… Stay safe. Please. I’ll get in touch as I can.”

“Take care of your emergency first, Jack. I can wait,” Tony promised.

“Thank you. Tony,” Jack said before the line went dead.

“What in the hell are you up to, Jack?” Tony asked the air as he started his car and headed for the store. Whatever bug had gotten into Jack, he wanted to get his shopping done and get back home. If only so he could tell his lover that he was safe when or even if he called again.

 

 

Jack leaned back and stared at the screen in front of him. Two Ori ships were heading on a direct course for Earth. Jack had set off the emergency beacon for the Asgard, but there was no guarantee that the little grey guys would show up. They had their own issues, and Earth couldn’t expect them to pull their bacon out of the fire every time shit went down. The only good thing out of the mess that Earth was in, was that all their ships were actually in orbit.

Daedalus, Odyssey, Apollo, Sun Tzu, and the Hammond were all as ready as they could make them for the battle before them. They had scrambled every 302 in the fleet and all of them were aloft, waiting to see what would happen. If things went south, there was an emergency satellite in orbit that would beam everyone on the evac list into the Mountain so they could get sent through the gate to Atlantis. Landry was working to get everything staged in case it actually came to that. From all reports, that effort was going about as smoothly as they could expect.

After the first batch of reports, Jack had taken the time to dig at the wall separating him from the knowledge of the Ancients. If he wanted to send anyone to Atlantis and defend the planet, he needed to make sure that they had the power to do it. And that meant that he needed to get the information on how to build the small generator he’d used once before. The nosebleed had been irritating, but he’d gotten what he needed and built a half dozen of the little things as reports on the Ori advance came in. Several of the engineers at the SGC had watched his builds and put together their own. As soon as he was sure they were able to reproduce his success, he’d left them to it.

“Any idea what caused them to come for us?” Jack asked the room at large.

“None of the Teams has had a run-in with any Ori troops, sir,” Mitchell reported as he walked by them. He shrugged when Jack glanced at him. “And there’ve been no reports of a Team hitting an occupied world.”

“There’s been no chatter either,” Daniel said. “Adria has been laying low for the last few weeks.”

“It’s not good when the bad guys lie low, Daniel,” Jack reminded him. He tapped his fingers against the table in front of him and tried to understand what he was seeing. “Where did we see her last?”

Daniel went over to the map of the galaxy and pointed at the last verified position they had for her. “Here.”

“And the ships headed our way? Do we know where they were last?”

“One of them was at the battle of P3Y-229. They’ve repaired the damage, but we have the reports from the Odyssey to confirm it. The other seems to be a new ship,” Mitchell called from his place at a computer terminal.

“Do we know if the Ori name their ships?” Jack asked Daniel.

Daniel cocked his head to the side before turning to look at Vala. “Do you know?”

Vala shook her head once. “No. I didn’t hear any names in connection to their ships.”

Jack kicked his chair softly and let it swing back and forth as he contemplated the two ships heading down on them. “I’m tempted to call them Frick and Frack, but I’m not sure we could do that with a straight face.”

“Well, it would be amusing,” Mitchell muttered. “I’m going to guess we can’t call them Asshole One and Two either?”

“If I can’t get my names, you can’t get yours,” Jack said with a snort. “Walter, label the damn things One and Two since we can’t be too out there.”

“You know that’s not what they’re going to be called by the crews, right?” Daniel asked quietly as he walked over to lean against the table behind him.

“Oh, I know,” Jack admitted. “And officially, I won’t know a damn thing about the names they give them. But for me, they will be Frick and Frack. Because as the General, I can’t call them anything stronger.”

“Sucks to be you,” Daniel commiserated. “Sorry about taking you away from your time with Tony.”

Jack shrugged. “Eh. We’re both grown-ups and we both know our jobs can and will interfere with our time together sometimes. Admittedly, I didn’t expect to have an invasion happen while I was with him.”

“Is he going into the office?” Daniel asked.

“Nope. He took today off and he said something about doing a whole lot of cooking so he has meals for later. Now that, I am missing,” Jack said with a frown. “Tony is a damn good cook and thanks to these assholes, I have to miss it.”

Daniel snorted softly in amusement. “Sucks to be you.”

“You don’t have to keep repeating that when you find something that’s not going my way.”

“I do,” Daniel said with a smile. “I really do.”

“Asshole.”

 

Jack took a drink of coffee and grimaced. It was cold and he wasn’t fond of cold, stale coffee that was also slightly sour. “Daniel, you’ve turned me into a coffee snob!”

“Bitching about my efforts to improve your taste in caffeine is not going to make me stop at this late date,” Daniel called as he pulled a full pot off the machine. He quickly poured himself a large cup and then a smaller cup was assembled. “If anyone wants coffee, you’re going to need to make another pot. I’ve made mine.”

“You are such an asshole, Jackson,” Mitchell said as he got up from his console and started putting together a new pot. “You could have made another pot.”

“I could have,” Daniel agreed as he walked over to where Jack was sitting. “But the last time I did that, you stole my coffee and I’m not doing that again.”

“Asshole,” Mitchell muttered as he ripped open one of the prepared packets of coffee grounds.

“You actually stole his coffee?” Jack asked Mitchell as Daniel slid his second cup in front of him. His colonel shrugged once as he poured the water into the pot reservoir.  “Thank you, Danny.”

“You’re welcome. Where are we?”

“Fucked,” Jack said softly. He waved at the screen in front of him showing the battle raging over their heads. “Junior is in Antarctica manning the Outpost and taking potshots at One and Two as they come into range. It’s helping our ships survive, but they are getting the shit kicked out of them. One is the ship from P3Y-229 and it’s the one with the worst damage. I’d put it at under 30% capability right now. Two is somewhere in the 70% range, I’d guess. Our ships? In the 50’s. We might be able to kill both of the Ori vessels, but doing so will likely kill our ships.”

“And the Ori have a lot more ships than we do,” Daniel finished with a sigh. “Which means that they can do this again without much of a fuss.”

“Plus, Congress and the IOA are being stingy assholes who don’t want to pay for more ships,” Jack said. He grimaced as Apollo took another hit. “God damn it.”

“You know that they won’t say that what they are doing is in vain,” Daniel reminded him. “We certainly thought that when we were going through the gate and getting into trouble every week.”

“Oh, I know,” Jack agreed. He kept his gaze on the screen and hissed in satisfaction as One took a massive hit. The numbers floating beside it fluxed and then it went dark. “Now that’s good news.”

“Is it dead?” Daniel asked. He glanced over at Mitchell as the colonel slid back into his seat. “Cam?”

“If it’s not dead, its engines are,” Mitchell said. “General, Colonel Ellis is calling in.”

“Patch him through to me,” Jack directed. “Ellis? What can we do for you?”

“Keep the drones coming, General. They’re making a huge difference every time they hit,” Ellis said. “The ship you designated as One is dead in the water. Two seems to be firing up its engines.”

“Do we have a course setting for Two?” Jack asked. The Ori ships were way too close to Earth for his comfort. It would make salvaging One easier, but that left Two playing loose cannon in the middle solar system.

“No sir, we do not,” Ellis said promptly.

Jack exhaled slowly through his nose as he tried to control his temper. “Right. Well, keep after them. We need to keep them away from Earth.”

“Yes, sir,” Ellis confirmed.

Jack signed off the call with Ellis and patched himself over to the channel his clone was hanging out on. “How many drones do you have?”

“Good to hear from you too, old man,” Jonathan muttered. He sounded tired and Jack could sympathize. Sitting in the command chair in Antarctica sucked every single bit of energy from whoever was in it and the higher your percentage of Ancient ancestry, the worse it got. “I’ve got just under two hundred left. Why?”

“Shit,” Jack said with a growl. He made a mental note that if they lived through this, they would need to reach out to Atlantis to see about getting more drones shipped through the gate to them.

“Yeah, shit,” Jonathan agreed. “One sec.”

The line between them went quiet and Jack kept an eye on the battle. A drone trace appeared briefly before it exploded against Two. “Good shot!”

“Thank you,” Jonathan said. He sounded even more tired. “This can’t go on much longer.”

“I’d tell you to sleep, but you know you can’t. Are they at least giving you coffee?” Jack asked.

“I wish. I’ve got IVs and a catheter,” Jonathan bitched. “Bastards aren’t letting me have any stimulants that they don’t control.”

Jack grimaced in sympathy. “Better you than me.”

“Fucker.”

“General, we’ve got movement on Two! It’s heading towards Earth!” Mitchell called.

“Jonathan?” Jack asked urgently.

“I’ve got a shot,” Jonathan said.

The drone trace moved across his screen and he could see the impacts on the sensors. But it seemed that Two was able to shrug off the damage. “Is the damn thing going to crash into the planet?”

“That would not be good, old man. The computer down here says that if Two stays on the course it’s on, it’ll fly over DC and most of the East Coast, heading north, before crashing in the Arctic,” Jonathan warned. “I’m still trying to get a drone or two past their shields, but they’ve done something to them to keep me out. I’ll keep trying, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope.”

“Keep trying,” he said. Every single sensor was trained on the Ori ship as it moved towards Earth. Jack could only watch in horror as the Ori ship evaded Daedalus, Apollo, and Odyssey to skim the atmosphere along the East Coast. “It’s after 8 am out there, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Daniel said softly. “It is. And it’s Tuesday. So. There’s no way to hide this, Jack.”

“Right.”

Fuck.

 

 

“You were not here over the weekend,” Ziva announced as she slid into her chair.

“So glad you noticed, Officer David,” Tony said. His attention was on the masses of emails that had accumulated while he was on vacation. Five days and his email had spawned three hundred messages. And those were only the case-related ones. There were over two hundred agency related ones he had assigned to separate folders by subject. Being the Senior Field Agent for MCRT meant that he was cc’d on a large number of routine policy messages. Depending on cases, it could take him up to a week to dig himself out from the blizzard of message traffic.

“Gibbs is not going to be happy that you were not available,” she continued. To Tony’s ear, she sounded like she was looking forward to the possible drama that might be brewing. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“He doesn’t have to say anything to you, Ziva,” Gibbs said as he walked into their area of the bullpen. “DiNozzo’s leave time isn’t something you need to worry about. Worry about your reports that are due by 10 am this morning. And I won’t be taking any excuses for them being late, so you best get to work.”

“In Mossad, we had someone to do our reports,” Ziva muttered as she turned her computer on.

“I call bullshit to that,” Tony said. He glanced up at her and stared at her as she frowned at him. “I highly doubt that Mossad let some third party, who wasn’t part of an operation, write the after-action report on it. Do I think the analysts, techs, and the like submitted their own reports? Yes. But I’m 100% certain that active-duty agents have to write their own reports. Given that, Officer David, while you are here and working with NCIS, you need to write your own reports. Only, make sure they are in English. You can’t pawn them off to anyone and you can’t send me something in another language.”

“She’s still trying to submit them in Hebrew?” Gibbs asked. He drained the last of his current cup of coffee before pulling out an insulated thermos to top off a new cup. Tony eyed the thermos before he mentally shrugged. If it had been anyone else, they’d have been jittering from the levels of caffeine in their system, but Gibbs was mostly immune to his vice of choice.

“From the way her sentences are structured, she’s writing them in Hebrew and running them through a translator,” Tony said. He raised an eyebrow at Ziva when she hissed at him. “You are. When you actually write out the report in English, I rarely send it back to you for more than an expansion or clarification of an item. It’s only when you write a report in another language and then translate it into English that I have issues. The syntax doesn’t work.”

From the frown she gave him, she didn’t understand what he meant. Taking pity on her, he went into the continuing education classes that NCIS had and sent her a creative writing course. He cc’d Gibbs as a routine matter so he was aware of his efforts. One thing he had insisted on when David came onto the team was that Gibbs treat her as a visiting law enforcement officer, not his substitute daughter. The fight had been epic, but he’d dug his feet in. There was no way that he was going to suffer any bullshit from her. He might have to train her, but he wasn’t going to deal with Gibbs undercutting his authority any more than he had to.

“What is this?” Ziva asked, voice rising as she started to read whatever she’d clicked on. “Why did you send me this, Tony?”

“Your spoken English is very good, Officer David,” Tony explained with a shrug. “You just need a bit of polish on your written English. That course I sent you will help. It will also mean that I don’t send your reports back on a daily basis.”

“Do the course, David. It may also mean that JAG starts accepting your reports, instead of relegating them to the addendum,” Gibbs snapped. From the frown she flashed him, she wasn’t happy that he hadn’t backed her up. Too bad, Tony thought. If actual NCIS agents had to take the course to improve their report writing, so did she. And she needed it far more than any of the current crop of agents in the building.

Tony hummed softly as he checked the time. It was just about time for CNN to do their hourly report. Turning on the TV, the top-of-the-hour report came on. “We have reports of a UFO being reported up and down the East Coast, starting in South Carolina and moving north. On its current heading, it will cross over Washington D.C. in the next five minutes. The Navy and Air Force have scrambled fighters to try to meet the object, while all other air traffic has been grounded. There has been no word from the White House at this time, but unofficial sources state that the President has been moved to an undisclosed location.”

He stared at the screen for several seconds before he scrambled up and out of his seat and headed for the stairs at a run. Hitting the door, he headed up. He could hear Gibbs behind him, but he ignored the older man. Whatever it was that was moving over the East Coast, it was going to impact his job, and he had to see it for himself. Tony strongarmed the door to the roof at speed and ran for the nearest open area. Turning to face the south, he could see the UFO heading their way.

Its speed was frankly unreal. No terrestrial plane moved that fast, nor were any that big. Large, white, and looking more like a toilet bowl with a ball in the center, it didn’t look like anything he had ever seen. “What in the hell is that?”

“I don’t know,” Gibbs panted as he stood next to him. “But whatever it is, it’s not ours.”

“It’s not Mossad’s either,” Ziva said as she stepped up next to him.

“Holy shit,” Tony breathed. Aliens.

 

 

Chapter Two

 

“What in the fuck happened O’Neill? How did that ship get through?” Hayes demanded.

Jack stared over Hayes’ head and out the windows of the Oval Office. “The Ori have extremely well-constructed ships that can absorb massive amounts of damage. Earth had five ships that did everything they could to kill the invading ships. And for the most part, they succeeded. Both of the Ori vessels were eventually knocked out of commission with hull breaches that killed the crew.”

“But that happened after ONE OF THE SHIPS WAS EXPOSED TO THE WHOLE PLANET!” Hayes yelled. He stood up and waved his hands as he ranted. “There were no plans in the works to declassify the Stargate program at all! Let alone this way!”

“Sir, do you want the honest reasons for all of this? Or would you like the one that is politically expedient?” Jack asked. He dropped his gaze to meet Hayes’ eyes straight on. He’d been getting yelled at by the President and the Joint Chiefs for the last hour and he was fed up with them utterly missing the point.

“Sure,” Hayes said, dropping back into his chair and leaning back. “Why don’t you enlighten us?”

“Thank you, sir. Every single ship we have as a planet was in the battle this morning,” Jack started. “We currently have only five ships. The Ori, to name one of our enemies, have over two dozen in this galaxy alone. They have more in their own galaxy and they can send them over here at any time.

“The Goa’uld had thousands of ships in their heyday and even now, the remnants of the System Lords still have enough ships to invade our planet. The Lucian Alliance has hundreds of ships. The Wraith in Pegasus also have thousands of ships. There are a multitude of other factions in the galaxy at large that have ships that can reach this planet. And to defend it, I have five. I’ve asked, I’ve begged for more. And I’ve been told no. Because we were able to beat back our enemies before they reached this planet and that number was deemed sufficient,” Jack said evenly. He kept his gaze level and trained on Hayes. “Well, that’s no longer the case. Because our enemies came here to kill us and the men and women who crew those five ships spent their lives like water to keep them at bay. Half of the total crew members on those five ships are dead. Another 30% are wounded. I have skeleton crews on those ships, working like dogs to get them back up to fighting strength so if another enemy ship shows up, we can fight them. If I’m lucky, I’ll have enough armaments to resupply them with enough munitions to carry out their mandates. I already know that I don’t have enough people to fully crew them.

“We have an installation in Antarctica. At the start of this last battle, we had five hundred and fifty-three drones. The ATA positive asset who was placed in the Command Chair spent over 36 hours in it. He had IVs pumping nutrition, hydration, and stimulants into his system so he was able to stay awake and aware enough to do his part in defending the planet. Oh, and to make sure that the Chair wasn’t left unattended, he had a catheter put in. After the battle, there was a count done of our remaining drones… We have one hundred and eighty-two. We know that Atlantis can make more because she’s slowly topping off her own drone battery. But to do it, she needs rare earths, naquadah, platinum, and a host of other items. Thankfully she can get most of those in Pegasus, but it’s a slow process.”

Jack took a deep breath as Hayes winced. The Joint Chiefs all looked a bit shellshocked but he didn’t care. He’d had years to store up this speech and he was going to say what needed to be said. “So, before our fight with the Ori, we had five ships, with a total of sixty, two-person fighters onboard them, another hundred odd on Earth, and a seriously underequipped Ancient Outpost to defend us. And now that this wave of Ori has been defeated, we have five ships, none of whom are above 40% readiness, an Ancient Outpost with bare cupboards, and thirty-two fighters with only fifty-three pilots and gunners surviving. Exactly how was I supposed to keep that ship from skimming our atmosphere? Order one of my ships to ram it to kill it and themselves? Fire every single drone we had left at the Outpost in the hope that one would pop through and do the impossible? And then pray we were able to get more drones? What?”

“Ships are expensive,” General Santos, the Air Force general on the Joint Chiefs protested.

“So is letting our enemy do carpet bomb runs on the planet, sir,” Jack snapped as he turned around the face the other men in the room. “And I’m not willing to let that happen.”

“We only have your word that they were a hostile force,” Admiral Molinaro of the Navy said. He held his ground when Jack glared at him. “For all we know, they were coming in peace.”

“Really?” Jack asked, flabbergasted. The meeting had started with a video taken from an F-302, showing the moment the Ori ships had come in range of Earth’s fleet and had opened fire. “I don’t know anyone who comes in peace and does it at the point of a gun, sir. Do you?”

The admiral had the grace to flush and finally dropped his gaze. Jack turned his attention to the Marine general and raised an eyebrow at him. The other man leaned back in his chair and spread his hands in a placating gesture. “You know my feelings on the whole situation, Jack. I’ve done my best to get you the troops, supplies, and money you need to support the war you’re fighting. I can’t help it if these guys are lily-livered assholes who care more for politics than for the men and women in uniform. Or for the people of this planet.”

“And we appreciate your efforts, General Rampart,” Jack said with a nod. “But there’s only so much you can move around in your budget before there’s no more room. And the Air Force isn’t giving us much if anything. The Army, Navy, and Coast Guard certainly aren’t contributing to our day-to-day bills. All of our scientists are paid out of so many different black box programs that I have a half dozen payroll clerks whose whole only job is to make sure that mess stays straight. And we’re still short every year on operating funds.”

Hayes sat back in his chair and stared at him. Jack stared right back. “Do you have this information in a report?”

Jack nodded before pulling the yearly budget he’d had put together and handed it over to the President. “It’s all laid out in there, sir. Every single penny we get in is listed, where it comes from is noted, and to what aspect of the program it pays to.”

“How did this boil down to money?” Santos asked.

“Because you have blocked every single request we’ve put in to get more ships by saying they cost too much and there’s no way we can man them because we can’t hide the personnel numbers,” Jack said bluntly. “Well, sir, spaceships aren’t cheap and we need them. Now more than ever.”

“Tabling that discussion for another day,” Hayes cut in. “We need to figure out what to say to the world about this.”

“We’ve known that we wouldn’t be able to keep the SGC secret forever,” Jack said. He flipped open his folio and pulled another packet out this one was courtesy of Daniel and his people. “So, we’ve got a whole media campaign prepped.”

“Give me that then,” Hayes demanded. Jack passed the document over quickly and waited with as much patience as he could muster as the President read it. “This looks better than what my people have come up with. Do you think it will work?”

“It’s not like we have a lot of choices, sir,” Jack reminded. “The Ori took care of that for us.”

“Right,” Hayes said with a growl. “Well, it’s a good thing you’re in your dress uniform.”

Jack blinked once and then slanted a glance at Rampart in confusion. “Sir?”

From the amused look the Marine general was giving him, he was enjoying his confusion.

 

 

“Can you believe this?”

Tony pulled his attention away from the TV to look at Tim. “Yes.”

“Really? You think this whole thing is real? That Earth has been exploring the galaxy, has space ships and there are humans stolen from the planet on other planets?” Tim asked. He sounded like he was doubting everything and Tony frowned at him.

“Well, item number one, McDoubtful: I saw the ship with my own eyes as it passed overhead. And I know that the US does not have any ships that look like that. Honestly, until today, the only spaceships I knew the US had were the space shuttles. And while those have white on them, they do not look like the one I saw.” Tony said softly. “Item number two: I know several of the men behind the President personally and by reputation. None of them are the type to play an April Fool’s Joke on this scale. Also, it’s June.”

“You know generals?” Ziva asked from her desk. Unlike them, her attention was on her computer and she had been typing steadily at her reports.

“I’ve been part of NCIS for years, Officer David, and handled a lot of cases. I’ve met a number of senior officers through the course of my job,” Tony answered shortly. “It would be more surprising to say that I didn’t know some generals.”

“Why is the President turning this over to an Air Force general?” one of the other agents behind them asked.

Tony frowned at that. The general in question was his partner. What in the hell had Jack gotten himself into? When Gibbs stepped up to stand next to him, he shrugged slightly. “I have no idea, Boss.”

“Looks like we’re going to find out,” Gibbs observed.

“Yeah,” Tony said.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Jack said. “My name is General Jack O’Neill. I am the general in charge of Stargate Command. We are the line in the sand that the President spoke of. We send people out every day to explore, make friends, learn, and in some cases, defend us from those who are our enemies. One of those enemies decided to come by ship to Earth. Our ships went out to intercept them to determine their intentions. When we were fired upon, we worked to defend ourselves and the planet. Unfortunately, one of the two attacking ships got through our blockade and in the course of their retreat, skimmed the planet. Not long after it left the atmosphere, we were able to subdue it and it is no longer a threat.”

“General O’Neill,” one of the reporters cut in and Tony watched as Jack turned his attention to him. At his nod, the reporter pressed on. “You mentioned that we have ships?”

“I did. They are Daedalus, the Odyssey, Apollo, Sun Tzu, and the George Hammond. All of them are manned by men and women under my command,” Jack confirmed.

Gibbs cleared his throat softly. “Tony?”

“Yeah, Boss. That’s a shocker,” Tony admitted. “I wonder if the crew is strictly Air Force?”

“I doubt it,” Gibbs said. “Otherwise, the other senior officers wouldn’t be there.”

“Fair,” Tony agreed. He was listening to the question-and-answer session going on and he had to wonder what Jack was thinking. He could tell his partner was deeply uncomfortable, but if he’d been keeping this secret for almost a decade, he couldn’t blame him. It had to be rather akin to stripping himself naked in front of the whole of the planet.

“General O’Neill, you mentioned that this enemy is called the Ori. Do you know what they want?”

“Right,” Jack said with a sigh. His hands were placed on the sides of the podium and Tony could see that they were flexing slightly as he answered each question. “The Ori are an extragalactic race who want to conquer this galaxy so they can pull everyone and everything under their banner. And they tend to do it by the sword. As the remit of the SGC is to protect this planet and everyone on it, we objected to that.”

“He’s not telling everything,” Tony said softly. “Whatever he’s hiding, it’s not good.”

Gibbs nodded. “Agreed. And he’s going to have to fully explain what the Ori are one day soon.”

“By the sword?” the same reporter repeated. “What do you mean by that?”

“The Ori are a people, a religion, and a creed,” Jack said after several seconds’ pause. “Their leadership wants everyone in this galaxy under their control to worship them. To get that, they will conquer anyone in their path by the sword, by creating diseases and providing miracle cures, and using guile and lies to trick people into inviting them into their homes. And those are just some of the ways that we have found that the Ori have taken over a planet. And if those ways don’t work? Well, the Ori are of the opinion that if they aren’t going to be worshipped, then the people who refuse them need to die in whatever way makes the biggest example possible.”

He stared at the quiet reporters before him before turning his attention to the cameras that had to be pointed his way. “I objected to that. And my people objected to that. Earth, no matter how deep our internal strife goes, does not need someone imposing their ideas on us. And when we made our objection known? The Ori determined that we were to be wiped out. The SGC is not going to let over six billion people on this planet die without making an effort to defend it. Thankfully, we managed to do our job.”

“Thank you, General O’Neill,” President Hayes said. He stepped up to the podium and Jack stepped back behind him. “As the general has said, he and his people defended the planet. No matter what relationship the US has with anyone on Earth, our men and women in uniform have stepped up. Their job is to protect the planet. And given that, we fully support their endeavor. Thank you for your time. We will be having meetings with Congress, NATO, and other involved authorities over the next few weeks to more fully explain what happened.”

The President nodded at everyone and ignored the shouting of the reporters as he walked out of the room. The generals that had been standing behind him, followed him without pause. The press secretary stepped up to the podium and cleared her throat. “The President has obviously decided that he is finished with this meeting. As we get more information, we will pass this on to both the American public and the world at large.”

“Wow,” Tony said softly. “So. We really are in a world where aliens are real.”

He checked his phone and smiled at the text message that he had gotten in the last minute. I wish I had been able to tell you this directly. Never, ever think that I didn’t trust you.

Tony let his thumbs move over the keyboard of his Blackberry quickly. I’ve always known that you trusted me. And yes, you will be telling me all about this mess. Soon.

Please have beer? And I’ll tell you everything I can.

Smirking softly, Tony sent his confirmation and tucked his phone away. Yeah, it was finally time for him to get his curiosity satisfied. Finally.

 

 

Jack slipped a ballcap over his head and walked towards the stairs in Tony’s building. It had taken three days to get free of the insanity surrounding the forced declassification of the SGC and he really needed a break. Knocking on Tony’s door, he drew in a careful breath. He rarely gave in to nerves, but this was important and he didn’t want to fuck things up.

“Are you going to just stand there?” Tony asked as he leaned against his door.

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Jack said with a wry grin. He shrugged once, making sure his garment bag stayed on his shoulder. “Am I still welcome?”

Tony snorted once and reached out to grab a fistful of Jack’s shirt. “Come on, Flyboy. You owe me a talk and I owe you a lot of beer.”

“Please Thor, tell me you have some beer,” Jack muttered as he let himself be pulled into Tony’s apartment. When Tony pushed him against the closed door, he let it happen, only dropping his briefcase to get a hand free to slide around his lover’s waist. “Whatcha doing?”

“Gonna kiss you,” Tony murmured as he moved closer. “You good with that?”

“Hell, yes,” Jack said as he pulled Tony in. The kiss felt searing, full of passion and desperation. When they finally broke it, he let his head rest against Tony’s. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Jack,” Tony said softly. He pressed another kiss against his lips. “Come on. I have food prepped that we can heat up, you can have a beer and we can talk about what happened.”

“Sounds good,” Jack said. Letting go of his lover was harder than he wanted to admit and he drew in a deep breath. “Right. Food? All I’ve had for the last few days has been power bars and MRE’s when we had the time to spare.”

Tony snorted once before he headed for the kitchen. “Did you at least get coffee?”

“I did,” Jack confirmed. “That I got a lot of. And it wasn’t even the good stuff that Daniel keeps tucked away in his office.”

“You are such a coffee snob,” Tony said fondly. He pulled a beer mug out of his freezer and opened the fridge. Inside the fridge was a mini-keg of Jack’s favorite beer and Tony quickly filled the mug for him before passing it on. Once that was out of his hands, he pulled a foil-wrapped casserole dish out and set that on the stove. “I’ve got a lasagna here, and all the fixings for a salad.”

Jack smiled at that. “Do not tell Carter this, but yeah, I’m good with the green stuff.”

“So am I,” Tony agreed. “Drink your beer and start wherever you want on what you can tell me.”

“Right,” Jack said, taking a deep pull of his beer. “Damn, that’s good. So, you’re going to need to sign a non-disclosure agreement before I can get into the nitty-gritty of things. I’ve got it in my briefcase. And something that will keep anyone from listening in as I explain what happened. Also, your security clearance went up.”

“I’m guessing it’s because I’m your partner?” Tony asked as he laid out the items he wanted to add to the salad.

Jack nodded. “I’ll get it now before you start that. It’ll let the food get to a safe temp to add to the oven. Which you might want to turn on.”

“Uhm.”

Jack laughed softly as he headed for the door and his briefcase. While he was there, he made sure that all the locks were thrown before heading back into the kitchen. Once in, he quickly secured the NDA and the small disrupter device Sheppard had given him the last time he’d come to Earth. It worked far better than the one Carter had made for him when he’d become the head of Homeworld. He hadn’t used it every time he’d spent the night with Tony, but tonight, his motto was ‘better safe than sorry’.

“What was that?” Tony asked as he stood up from where he was adding the lasagna to the oven.

“What?” Jack asked. He had his hand over the little disrupter, hiding it from view. “What is what?”

“You turned something on, Jack. And it sounded happy to be on,” Tony explained. “Which is weird to say, but true nonetheless.”

“Interesting,” Jack breathed out. He placed the disrupter back in the front pocket of his briefcase before he pulled an LSD out of the main pocket. “What do you think of this?”

Tony caught the Ancient device and froze. “Jack? What is this?”

“What does it feel like?” Jack asked as he pulled the NDA out.

“It feels like it wants to scan stuff?” Tony asked slowly. He stared at the LSD and cocked his head to the side. “And it’s old.”

“It is very old,” Jack confirmed. “And it’s a type of scanner. It’s currently set to be a nice, general kind of scanner. We’ll talk about what it can be later. Now, I’ll finish the salad while you look over the NDA.”

“Will I get to play with it again after I read and sign the NDA?” Tony asked. He reluctantly placed the LSD on the kitchen island and turned his attention to the NDA. “You got a pen in that bag?”

“Yeah, I do, and yes, I will let you check it out,” Jack said. He passed a pen over before he moved to start working on the salad. Thankfully he was used to helping Tony with meals, so he was familiar with where his partner stored all his kitchen tools.

It took him only a few minutes to get the salad ready, and Jack started working on some garlic bread. Even using Tony’s recipe, it didn’t take long for him to get that prepped and into the oven. While the lasagna was warming along with the bread, he got a refill on his beer and settled against the counter to watch as Tony worked his way through the NDA.

He had to wonder what his lover was thinking as he read. It was fascinating looking at Tony’s face. It had taken years before his lover had relaxed in his presence and allowed himself to show what he was actually feeling. The trust was heady and Jack had made damn sure that he didn’t abuse it.

Tony was obviously fascinated by what he was reading and Jack had to wonder what he was gleaning from the sparse information contained in the NDA. He made a mental note to ask what he thought of the NDA itself when he was finished with the discussion. There were far too many people who would need to sign the damn thing before all was said and done, and he wanted to make sure that no secrets were easily determined. He trusted that Tony would tell him if his people had let too much slip.

“Damn it, Jack,” Tony muttered as he lifted his pen from the last signature line on the NDA. “You and your people are insane,”

“That’s not nice to say,” Jack protested. He grabbed the NDA and quickly flipped through it to make sure that all the required signature lines were done. “How many questions do you have?”

“Oh, lots,” Tony said with a smile. He eyed the oven and checked the lasagna. The cheese was perfectly toasted on top and he pulled it out. “Did you mix up a salad dressing when you got the salad ready?”

Jack pulled the salad dressing out of the fridge and set it down in front of Tony. “I made that balsamic vinaigrette that you developed.”

“Awesome,” Tony murmured. “So, I had already figured that the ship I saw was an alien ship. There’s no way that came from Earth. No matter how much we might like to fuck with other humans, I know the Air Force isn’t really likely to make a spaceship that looks like a white cat toy. Even if it would make the other services twitch.”

“No, that’s not something that we do. The BC-303’s, and BC-304’s look like what they are, which is dangerous. And we’ve marked them with all the symbols that show they are from Earth,” Jack said. He waved his hands in a vague representation of an Ori ship. “The Ori, they seem to like the bowl shape. And then they added the round thing in the center. Add in the gleaming white and it took very little time before my people started calling the damn things toilet bowls.”

“That wouldn’t be what I would call them, but I get it. Did they ever explain their reasoning?” Tony asked. He dished up the lasagna and passed his plate over to his lover for a serving of salad. “Well?”

“Honestly, for me, it’s the fact that they look like round disks. White round disks, so maybe instead of bowls, they would be toilet seats. Whatever. That’s not really all that important. Even if almost every single Ori I have ever met has been a raging asshole. And none of the rank and file have any idea why the ship is shaped as it is. We asked,” Jack admitted as he sat down at the table. He snorted once at the laugh Tony let out. “Yeah, they don’t get any better the longer you know them. Vala said that each and every one of the ordinary Ori crew members she was acquainted with before she made it back to Earth was a nice person on their own, but when they had to make a decision between the rules of the Ori and what might be right, they all chose the Ori. Fanaticism at its finest.”

“Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be relegated to only the Ori. We have versions of them here on Earth,” Tony reminded him. “And those assholes are already making noises because it’s been proven that humans aren’t alone in the universe.”

“Oh, we know. We’ve been getting a lot of blowback from all sorts of religious leaders. Daniel was very unhappy to get a call from the Pope,” Jack said with a frown. “I don’t even know how he got his phone number!”

“He’s the Pope. He’s got his own version of the Secret Service, Jack. Finding out someone’s phone number isn’t that hard,” Tony said with a smile. “Okay, I signed the NDA. And that’s a hell of an NDA. Tell me what you’ve not been able to tell me since we started dating.”

Jack took a bite of his dinner and hummed softly. “The lasagna is great, by the way. Anyway. Yeah. Let’s get this started. So, in 1928, an archeologist doing a dig at Giza discovered a ring made of an unknown metal hidden by a massive cover stone with ancient Egyptian glyphs carved all over it. For years attempts were made to figure out what the ring was and no one got it right. The popular consensus was that the ring was a weapon.”

Tony shook his head as Jack paused. “That sounds like the plot of a movie.”

“It gets worse,” Jack cautioned. He got up to get a second serving of pasta. “Do you want more?”

“Sure,” Tony agreed. He handed over his plate and smiled when he got it back with another piece of lasagna and garlic bread. “Okay, hit me with the rest.”

Jack snorted once before he made a stop at the fridge for more beer. Mug refilled, he settled back at the table and picked up his story again. “When WWII finished and the Cold War kicked off, the research continued. And then they were successful in getting the damn thing to work. But it wasn’t what they thought it was, and that freaked them out. So, they shut everything down and hid the ring. For decades. And then, the daughter of the man who found the ring managed to get the research running again. It took her years to get to the point where they were able to turn it back on and reveal its true function. And that’s where I come in.”

“Seriously, this is like a movie,” Tony murmured. “One with some seriously weird twists and turns.”

“Oh, I have some things to show you,” Jack said with a sigh. He was sure Tony would love to watch Bregman’s documentary before he was screened for the whole world. That damn thing would finally be useful. Jack took a deep pull of his beer before he started on the rest of the story.

 

 

As his lover wound down, Tony got up to pull the dessert he’d made. Crème Brule was a guilty pleasure that he didn’t indulge in often. It was easy to make, which was a point in its favor, but that also was a point against it because he liked it too damn much. Thankfully, Jack liked it just as much, so he didn’t fuss as he pulled out a small blowtorch.

“So, when Daniel texted me to let me know we had an invading force, well. I’m the general in charge, so I had to head out,” Jack said, finishing his story. He accepted the dessert with a smile and pulled him down to press a kiss against his lips.

Tony returned the affection with interest before what Jack had just said and what he knew about where he’d been stationed while the battle was ongoing connected in his mind. Pressing a final kiss against Jack’s lips, he stood up and headed back to his side of the table. “So, question.”

“Okay. If I can answer, I will,” Jack promised.

“How in the hell did you get from my living room over to Colorado in time to deal with the Ori?”

Jack started laughing and shook his head. “So, this is utterly the most Star Trek thing ever. We have transporters. And I reached out to one of our ships to move me between here and our base in Colorado. The whole trip takes about two minutes.”

“Transporters?” Tony said numbly. “Really? Did we develop them?”

“You mean, did we take the idea from Star Trek and make one?” Jack asked. When Tony nodded, he shook his head. “No. We got them from an ally. They installed them into our ships and we learned how to make our own pretty quickly. Now all our ships have them. Well. Other than the small fighter-sized ones.”

Tony snorted once at that and then cocked his head to the side as he considered that information. “Must make the commute a lot shorter.”

“It does,” Jack confirmed. “But sometimes it’s been more bother than it’s worth because I work out of the Pentagon and while I can transport in to work, I can’t actually go around the building unless I actually check-in. It causes too much confusion.”

“And I’m sure that your programs didn’t need the scrutiny,” Tony suggested.

“No, we really didn’t need that,” Jack said with a nod. “Honestly, before this shit with the ships, we were doing our best to stay under the radar. Unexplained entrances into the Pentagon would have raised too many eyebrows. So, we did a lot of stuff the old-fashioned way.”

“Guess that’s going to be about a bright spot in this mess then,” Tony observed.

Jack snorted once in laughter. “Right. Small favors.”

Tony did his best to keep the conversation light over the next few hours as Jack filled him in on the ins and outs of the Star Gate program. The whole thing blew his mind in so many ways, but the alien ship that he had seen proved that the whole thing was true. But with every new piece of information, his gut got tighter and tighter. Something had to give and he could only hope it wasn’t at the expense of Jack and his people.

 

 

Chapter Three

 

Tony whistled softly as he watched Jack shrug into his uniform jacket. “Damn, you look good, flyboy.”

Jack snorted in amusement as his ears turned a bit pink. “Thank you. I am not looking forward to today.”

“I bet. No one smart looks forward to being in the hotseat for a Congressional hearing.”

“I know I don’t,” Jack confirmed. He poured himself a cup of coffee and took a sip before he set the cup back on the counter. “Daniel and I will be getting grilled on the SGC, the battle and anything else they can think of. But at least we got Bergman’s documentary out. I just hope the committee aren’t complete assholes.”

“Honestly, you know they are going to be,” Tony said with a frown. “And you’re right. The documentary will be both a help and a hinder because they’ll have more questions. You aren’t going to let them get to you, right?”

“I’ve dealt with overblown twits for years in this job. Some self-important politicians are nothing compared to terrorists, Goa’uld, or some of the other assholes who’ve gotten in my way,” Jack reminded him. “No matter how many times I’ve saved the planet, if I wasn’t able to play the game, they wouldn’t have given me the rank. I just don’t like it.”

“Politics are the devil,” Tony muttered. He leaned forward and kissed his lover thoroughly before leaning back. “Okay. You’re prepared with all the information you need?”

“Oh, yeah. Carter has made certain of it. And Daniel will be there with me, so he’ll be able to fill when I falter,” Jack reassured.

Tony nodded once. “I’ll be there watching.”

“I’m very glad I filled you in then on the basics at least,” Jack said with a smirk. “I expect this is going to be very educational for everyone. And if I’m lucky, entertaining.”

“I’m sure it will be educational, with a side order of horrifying at times. And yes, I’m expecting to be entertained,” Tony said. He pressed a final kiss against Jack’s lips before he stepped back and handed his lover his coffee. “Drink this. You’re going to need it.”

 

 

“This is going to be fun. Not,” Jack muttered as they walked into the congressional hearing room. He was using Ancient since the chances of anyone besides them understanding the language were slim.

“Definitely not,” Daniel muttered back in the same language. He scanned the room and Jack could see the moment he noticed the same thing he had. “Tony’s here?”

“He said he wanted to see this thing, so I suggested that he get a seat in here with us,” Jack admitted. His partner gave him a firm nod before he turned his attention back to the rest of the room. “I figured he deserved to know some of what had been happening while we were dating. And it gives us a, mostly, hidden backup if things go to shit.”

“All good points,” Daniel said. He sighed as he took in the desk they were going to be sitting at, “Why did you want me with you?”

“Do you really want McKay as the public face of the civilian scientists?” Jack asked.

“He’s a good man, Jack,” Daniel reminded as he sat down. “And Atlantis has been very good for him.”

“Oh, I know. I have no problems with his work at all. And I can tell he’s a lot different than when we met him the first time,” Jack said. “I just think he doesn’t need to lose his temper with these people. You have a longer fuse.”

“Ah. Well, that is true enough,” Daniel conceded. He quickly started unpacking his bag. The biggest item in it was the binder with a breakdown of every major and most of the minor events that had taken place at the SGC since their inception. The second item he pulled out was totally alien and went on Jack’s side of the table. It was an Ancient projector loaded with video clips that were referred to in the binder. If the clips were needed, Jack would be able to use the little machine to play them.

Jack eyed the machine closely and pushed against it mentally. The pushback he got confirmed it was primed. With that item confirmed, he pulled his laptop out and quickly got that set up. When he signed in, the chat program the SGC used popped up. “McKay, Kusanagi, Carter, and crew are in the main conference room standing by to provide data.”

“I’ve got Sheppard, Cam, and Lorne on mine,” Daniel said. “Why are they switched?”

“Because I know the military side easily and it’s the science that might trip me up,” Jack read. “Fun. When did McKay learn Ancient and how to lip read?”

“He lives on Atlantis and has to use the language daily. I’d be utterly surprised if he wasn’t conversant in it,” Daniel said quietly. He checked his watch and nodded. “Almost time.”

“Right,” Jack agreed.

When the Congressional Committee walked in, Jack rose to stand with everyone else. The steps to start their testimony followed what their research had shown them would happen and he relaxed slightly at that. At least one thing had gone according to plan.

The head of the committee cleared his throat and started speaking. “General O’Neill, Dr. Jackson, you have been called here to testify before us to answer the questions that were sparked by the flyover of the alien spaceship, the very short press briefing the President held the next day and the utterly insane program you released.”

Jack glanced down at his laptop screen. It looked like Carter was on the ball. “The head of the committee is John Stephenson, Democrat out of California. To his left is Maria Scharffenberger, Democrat, out of Maine. On his right, is Richard Patterson, a Republican out of Texas. I’ll add the rest as needed.” Since he didn’t think he’d be able to type his appreciation, he gave the camera a small nod.

Turning his attention back to the committee, Jack listened as each of the members said their pieces. None of it was particularly interesting and he really wished that he could get away with a yawn. From the way Daniel was reacting, he was aware of how bored Jack was. Not that his boredom would be a surprise to anyone that knew him. His lack of patience with speeches was legendary. When the last of the committee stopped speaking, he crossed his hands on the table in front of him and tried to look attentive.

Stephenson stared at them for several seconds before he started talking. “General O’Neill like the rest of the world, we have watched the information that has been released since that ship flew over the East Coast, including the documentary produced by Emmett Bregman. You are here today because Congress, the American people, and the planet want and need answers beyond what has been supplied. So. We’re going to start with the first question. What is the SGC?”

“SGC stands for Stargate Command, sir,” Jack said shortly.

“And what is a Stargate?”

“A Stargate, Representative Stephenson, is a device built by a race called the Alterans, colloquially known as the Ancients. This device creates artificial wormholes, allowing for near-instantaneous transportation between two distant points in space. We know that they are in use in at least three galaxies,” Daniel explained. He went on to explain in very basic terms, exactly what the gate was. From the faintly skeptical looks he was being given; the committee wasn’t fully believing what they were hearing.

“Thank you, Dr. Jackson,” Scharffenberger said. She looked down at her notes and nodded once. “How did anyone figure out how the Stargate worked?”

Jack watched the room as Daniel explained the, frankly, decades of work that had gone into getting the gate functional and working. Well. Roughly how it worked. No one, other than their astrophysicists, needed to know exactly how the damn thing worked. Honestly, the public and Congress just needed to know that it worked. From the slightly overwhelmed look the congress members were wearing; they weren’t quite keeping up with what Daniel had to say. When he finally wound down, they all perked up and looked at their notes.

“General O’Neill…,” Patterson said leadingly. When he met his gaze, Jack tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Why did you all open this thing? Why expose us to the universe at large?”

“It started with the US Government being certain that the stargate was a weapon and in WWII, we needed every advantage we could get. And then, when it was found to be something entirely different? Well. Humans are curious, sir. When faced with the unknown, we want to see what’s beyond the next hill, over the mountain, beyond the ocean,” Jack started. He’d known he was going to be asked this question and he’d thought on how he wanted to answer.  None of the various powers that be had given him an official line, so he’d had to come up with his own. “Everything that was known about the stargate when it was being explored hinted at the wonders beyond its horizon. And when we opened it? Well, we got the chance to see what was out in the galaxy at large. We took the chance. To paraphrase a very famous man: ‘We went to explore, discover new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one had gone before.”

“And yet, we made enemies,” Patterson observed.

“We did. We also made a lot of friends,” Jack said. “We have allies that stretch across this galaxy and into two others. Yes, our enemies are nothing to sneeze at, but we have managed to come out ahead of them, each and every time. Sometimes by the skin of our teeth, but we did.”

“But they were made when we went out to explore. How do you reconcile that?” Patterson asked.

“First, I would like to remind you, sir, that it was stated that all of you had seen the Bregman documentary,” Jack said. He waited while the men and women in front of him nodded once before pushing on. “A large number of the enemies that you are speaking of have been enemies since they discovered this planet. Because they stole humans. And that started over ten thousand years ago. Humans, to the Goa’uld, were useful. Easy to manipulate, easy to breed, easy to wear as a meatsuit. And so, they took people from all over this planet and transported them by ship or by a trip through the gate to other planets to use as slave labor in every single meaning of the words.

“When we went back out through the stargate, by our own choice, we found those people who had been stolen from Earth. We discovered civilizations that no longer existed on Earth and we learned from them. We also found those who stole them. And yes, we went from being inactive, unknowing enemies to being active enemies in contact with the Goa’uld. It’s been my mandate since the first meeting to kill any Goa’uld who has been proven to be a danger to this planet. And we’ve killed a lot of Goa’uld,” Jack said, voice grim.

“Is there any way to negotiate with these Goa’uld?” Patterson asked.

“Sure. Who do you want to consign to slavery?” Jack asked. He stared at the congressman, eyes level. “Who will you consign to having their friends, neighbors, and relatives taken so their god can have worshippers? Or to have a symbiote burrow into their brain to wear their body like a meat suit? Or maybe find someone to warm their bed? Or cook their food? Or a million other things? Because negotiating with Goa’uld means all of that and more.”

Stephenson cleared his throat as silence fell over the whole room. “None of us want that. Would these Goa’uld do that to us?”

“They tried,” Daniel informed him. “For thousands of years, the Goa’uld System Lords came back to this planet by ship to steal humans for their use. Then, eventually, they stopped because Ra got kicked off Earth and took the secret of our location with him. Other System Lords kept looking for Earth because new blood in their slave populations was eventually going to be needed. It just took them over ten thousand years to find us again.

“That time, allowed Earthborn humans to advance to our current technological levels without their interference and without the Goa’uld holding us back. Our technology didn’t attract their attention and we stayed mostly safe. Which was a miracle given how loud our solar system is. Now, the SGC and the troops assigned to it go out and explore, keep an eye on the galaxy as a whole and do the best they can to keep us mostly safe.”

“Mostly safe?” Scharffenberger asked, confused. “What do you mean by that?”

“Ma’am, they have spaceships,” Daniel reminded her. “When Ra found Earth, he spread the word about his new slaves to all the other System Lords. In turn, they came to Earth to take their own slaves. And when the stargate was buried, the only way they had to come was by ship. We found, not long after we started exploring, that Ra had plans to eventually come back to Earth to collect new slaves. So did Apophis, Ba’al, Yu, Setesh, Sokar, and a thousand other System Lords. All of them knew where Earth was in a general manner. With how loud we were, finding us would have been easy, and they all knew that humans made great slaves. Well, we’re not willing to be slaves.”

“And since we’re not willing to be slaves, we’re going to fight,” Jack continued. “This attitude has carried over to every single interaction we’ve had with the different races we’ve met. For those who want to be our friends and allies? We’re great friends. We’re good allies. And as those who’ve attacked us have found? We’re deadly enemies.”

Stephenson nodded once at that. “Bergman’s documentary didn’t go over the Ori. How did we meet them?”

Jack held in his wince by sheer willpower. They had all known that Congress would want to know about the Ori and there was no getting around how they had met. “They popped up after that was filmed. We were given access to a device that we only later found out, connected the user to another person. Specifically, in this case, the person was someone in the Ori galaxy. As we would later learn, the Ori are the religious offshoot of the Alterans that we had previously encountered.”

Like hell was he going to let Daniel fall on his sword taking the full blame for the clusterfuck their introduction to the Ori had been. There was plenty of blame to go around and he was going to make sure that most of it hit the ones who deserved it the most. The Ancients and the Ori.

 

 

Tony watched as Jack and Daniel explained their life’s work to both Congress and the world. Daniel was the one Jack obviously relied on to explain in very small detail exactly what was what. When it came to anything policy, or military-related, Jack was the one to answer. It was unexpectedly hot to see how competent Jack was at this. He kept his cool, even in the face of people calling his word into doubt.

While most of his attention was on Jack and Daniel, Tony kept an eye on everyone in the room. He was going to get a copy of the whole event so he could watch it again because he could see several people who were pinging his gut. And not all of them were in the audience. Several of the committee members were a bit too shifty. And they perked up a bit too much when Jack mentioned some of the technology they had seen.

He needed to talk to Jack about what he was seeing because while he was sure his lover had people watching everything, none of them were cops. He wasn’t certain what they would see that he didn’t, but it never hurt to have more than one point of view. He was actually looking forward to the whole thing.

“General O’Neill, why do you want to protect the people of this galaxy? Why are you trying to keep the Ori away from the whole of the Milky Way and not just our solar system?” Patterson asked.

Tony frowned at the man. He was more than a bit of an ass, who tried to say that his ‘conservative’ views were patriotic. Patterson had been poking at Jack every time he’d gotten to speak and that question had to take the cake.

“Again, Representative Patterson, there is no way that any of us are good with leaving people to be slaves. Forced conversion to a religion is also out. By keeping the Ori out of this galaxy and keeping the people of the galaxy at large safe, we stay safe,” Jack explained, voice soft and implacable. From the way Patterson was squirming, Jack was glaring at him. Good. “Every single sentient race in this galaxy deserves the chance to be free. Free to worship as they choose, free to live as they choose, and free to work as they choose. Freedom is the business of the United States military and we are quite happy to export that doctrine far and wide.”

Patterson sat back in his chair and frowned at Jack. “I am surprised, General, that you are not interested in helping the humans here on Earth versus those out in the galaxy.”

“We have been,” Jack said. “Every single innovation that we have been able to pass back as something Earth-based, has been. The SGC has several think tanks that push inventions out to be patented, papers to be peer-reviewed and theories to be considered. We are not hogging the knowledge; we’re doing all we can to share the wealth of information we have with everyone on Earth.

“And now that the program is public, we will be able to publish papers that have been held back because they would reveal too much. We will also be able to offer technology that’s been just that much too advanced for us to be able to pass it off as coming out of a think-tank. And with this shared knowledge and technology, we expect that there will be a large step forward for the whole planet.”

The room was silent as everyone in it considered what Jack had just said. What marvels were hiding within the SGC? And how soon could everyone get access to it?

 

Chapter Four

 

Jack made sure that he stayed in the center of the protective bubble his guards were making as he and Daniel were escorted out of the Congressional hearing. It was something that he was going to have to get used to. Being guarded. At least Carter had made sure that his guards were members of the SGC.

Daniel flashed him a dark look and Jack laughed softly at the subtle levels of irritation he read on his friend’s face. “What are we doing?” he asked in Ancient, trying to distract the archeologist from his mood.

“What we always do, Jack. Making sure we defend the planet. Even if it’s from itself,” Daniel returned in the same language. He shrugged once before relaxing and started to move in a more natural manner.

“Maybe especially from itself,” Jack said. He kept a careful eye on the people around them and saw Tony pacing their group. Switching back to English, he leaned forward to speak to the team leader Carter had placed in charge of their security. “Major, have you been briefed on my partner?”

Bond nodded once. “Yes, sir. I’ve sent Rosenberg to let him know to meet us at your car, sir.”

“Sounds good. We’re headed back to the Pentagon, correct?” Jack questioned.

“Yes, sir. Back to the offices for Homeworld. Colonel Carter confirmed that Agent DiNozzo has signed his NDA,” Bond confirmed. “Since he’s been here at the hearing, I expected that you would want to talk to him.”

“Oh, I do,” Jack confirmed. He really wanted to know what Tony thought of the six hours of hell he and Daniel had just sat through. “Anyone got a comm for me?”

“Got it, sir.” Lt. Summer handed him a comm unit and Jack quickly hooked it over his ear.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Jack said. He tapped the contact stud on the small device. “Carter?”

“Sir,” Carter confirmed.

“Please tell me that your lot recorded that whole mess?” Jack demanded.

“Sir, we got the whole thing recorded. From multiple angles,” Carter said. She was quiet for several seconds and Jack had to wonder what she was doing. “We’ll be going over everything when you get back to the Pentagon to ensure we didn’t miss anything.”

“Tony’s going to be with us,” Jack murmured. They were exiting the building and there was a whole gauntlet of reporters that they needed to get through. He did his best to ignore the questions being shouted at him. From the frustrated tone to their voices, the reporters weren’t happy at being ignored. Too damn bad. Until he had authorization from the President to talk to any of them, he was staying quiet around them.

Carter hummed in his ear as he slid into the back of the SUV that Bond had requisitioned that morning. “Since we’re public now, I was able to actually get his full record without issue. We’ve all reviewed it, sir. All of us are quite certain that you’ve got a very smart boyfriend and we all want to talk to him about what his take on this is.”

Jack snorted once in amusement before glancing at where Tony was tucked into the front passenger seat. “You’ll have the chance to ask him all your questions in a bit, Carter. Sorenson is driving, so we should be there soon.”

“I’ll have SG-5 meet you at the doors,” Carter confirmed. She cut the circuit right after her announcement and he grimaced.

“Carter is getting more abrupt the longer she hangs out with McKay,” Jack griped.

“She’s worried,” Daniel admonished. He glanced at Tony and waved. “Hey, Tony. Glad you could make it today.”

“Hey, Daniel,” Tony flashed them a smile over his shoulder before he returned his attention to the world outside the SUV. Sorenson was carefully driving through the Capitol Complex to get them on the road to the Pentagon. “So, just an FYI, Jack? Gibbs and crew saw me in the background of the hearing and all hell is breaking loose over at NCIS.”

“Gibbs didn’t know you were going to be at the hearing?” Jack asked.

“He knew. That’s honestly the least of it. He’s the one who warned me that hell is breaking loose,” Tony said absently. “Captain, instead of going straight through the intersection here, take the left.”

“Yes, sir,” Sorenson acknowledged. He maneuvered the car through the intersection and followed Tony’s quiet instructions until he got on the interstate. “Why did we do it that way, sir?”

“Too many cars lining the city streets leading to the interstate. It’d be far too easy for someone to get fresh while we’re on them,” Tony explained. “Anyway, to continue to explain, a good chunk of my team was very surprised to see me at the hearing. I expect that they will try to grill me later.”

“That’s going to be fun,” Jack muttered. He leaned back in his seat and watched the traffic go by. “How much shit do you think they will try to give you?”

“Far more than I want to deal with,” Tony said shortly. Jack listened while Tony took a deep breath and let it out in a controlled manner. “But honestly, I’m not going to explain anything to them. They don’t need to know why I was there.”

“Fair,” Jack agreed. “Carter wants to go over your impressions on the whole hearing.”

“Good. I want to go over things with your team as well. I assume they’ve got recordings of everything?” Tony questioned.

Jack nodded. “Yeah, they do.”

“Depending on what we see while we’re going over everything, I may suggest that you reach out to the BAU.”

“Why the BAU?” Jack asked.

“Because they’re profilers and they will be able to give you a collective view on what’s happening with humanity,” Tony said. He shrugged. “I can take guesses on what criminals will do in certain situations, but getting an idea of how people will react to the information on the SGC and the Stargate? Honestly, I don’t want to guess and be wrong. You need experts and it’s not me. I doubt it’s anyone at the SGC.”

“Well, I don’t have a profiler on staff,” Daniel cut in. He frowned when Jack slanted a glance at him. “We’re archeologists, linguists, anthropologists, sociologists, and a whole lotta other ‘ists, but profiler is not one of them. Given what little I know about the profession, we likely should have had at least one on staff when we discovered the Goa’uld. It might have helped.”

“Well, killing the assholes didn’t always help,” Jack groused. Damn Apophis and his inability to stay dead. Even with the asshole getting a Ha’tak dropped on him, Jack was sure the universe would find some way to send a version of him back. If it did, he was going to kill him again. With prejudice.

“I’m missing something,” Tony said after several seconds of silence. “Exactly how much didn’t you tell me last night, Jack?”

“Lots,” Jack said finally. “We’ve been in business for over a decade, Tony. I just gave you the highest of the highlights last night. You’ll be getting more over the next few weeks.”

“Well, that’s going to be fun,” Tony muttered. As Sorenson pulled the SUV to a stop, Tony quickly unbuckled and slipped out of the vehicle to pull open Jack’s door.

“Why thank you,” Jack said sweetly as he slid out of the SUV and made sure to place his cover on his head before scanning the area for SG-5. Four Marines in fatigues wouldn’t stand out at the Pentagon. When Major Altman stepped forward, Jack raised an eyebrow at the combat load the team was wearing. “I take it Colonel Carter is feeling paranoid?”

“Her, General Landry, Colonel Sheppard, Colonel Mitchell, Dr. McKay, and most of the Mountain, sir,” Altman confirmed. “Let’s get you inside.”

Jack nodded once and started for the entry into the building, not even protesting when Tony slotted into place on his left. Daniel was tucked into place on his right and he sighed. He was the one who was active-duty military, not them.

“You’re the general, Jack,” Tony reminded him. “Live with the fact that you’re going to have bodyguards for the next long while.”

“You know, once it gets out about you…” Jack threatened softly.

“Bite your tongue,” Tony groaned. He was glancing around the area. “You two are getting a lot of attention from people here. Let’s hurry this up a bit, eh?”

“We’ve got passes for everyone to get around the metal detectors,” Altman said as he moved them toward the side of the entryway. At his nod, one of the other members of SG-5 started passing around badges. There were enough for the whole party and Jack was grateful. It was a pain in the ass to get into the Pentagon on a normal day, but having to try to get nine or ten armed men into the building would be a nightmare if someone hadn’t thought ahead.

The walk up to the offices for Homeworld was surreal. He was tucked into the center of his men and they were treating one of the most secure buildings on Earth as if it was off-world and hostile. They did manage to keep all the lookie-loos away and Jack was okay with that. He didn’t want to talk to anyone in the building anyway.

He didn’t relax until they were in the offices of Homeworld and the doors were locked. “Okay, we’re in our own territory. I need a sitrep people!”

 

 

Tony watched as Jack took reports from the group who had obviously been watching the hearing from the offices instead of in person. From what he could gather, they had been working as both research staff and cheat sheets for Jack and Daniel while they were being questioned. It made some of the answers that the two men had given a bit more understandable. He was sure that Jack knew everything he’d said, but the exact facts and figures had been too precise.

Scanning the room, he paused as he saw someone he hadn’t seen in almost twenty years. “John?”

“Hey, Tony,” John Sheppard said, greeting him with a smile.

“Did I know that you two knew each other?” Jack asked as he scanned a report from one of the colonels populating the room.

“Sheppard is a common enough name that I didn’t even think that your Colonel Sheppard, might be the John Sheppard I knew as a kid,” Tony admitted. “The last time I saw John was at a command performance of a party I had to attend before I could escape to college.”

“Yeah, those are masses of fun,” Jack muttered. He was scrawling his signature on whatever he’d been reading when he stopped and turned to stare at him. “Speaking of. Since I have more Marines than is sane under my command, I am required to attend the Marine Ball. Wanna go?”

“Way to be subtle, sir,” Carter complimented with a small grin as Tony nodded his agreement. “Agent DiNozzo, if you’re okay with it, we’d like to go over your impressions of the hearing.”

“Sounds like a plan, Colonel,” Tony agreed. He glanced at his old friend and offered him a small smile. “John, I’ll get with you when we can. Now that I know where you work.” Tony eyed his partner for a second before he followed Carter into another room. “Nice to see you again, Sam.”

“It’s good to see you too, Tony. How are you dealing with the reveal?” Carter asked. She waved him towards one of the chairs at the conference table and he slid into it without a fuss. She quickly introduced the men and women still seated at the table and Tony added faces to the names he’d learned the night before. “Rodney McKay, Miko Kusanagi, Major Even Lorne, and Colonel Cameron Mitchell. Everyone, this is Special Agent Tony DiNozzo out of NCIS and Jack’s partner.”

“NCIS?” the man identified as Rodney McKay asked. “What does that mean?”

“Naval Criminal Investigative Service,” Tony explained. “We’re the ones who investigate any crimes committed on or by anyone who is part of the Department of the Navy.”

“So, you’re familiar with how to investigate,” McKay concluded. “Good. While we’re all good at following clues in science or in the field, we’re not familiar with this level of politics. Having another set of eyes will be good.”

“Since I’m 100% certain that you are well aware of how the game of politics is played, Dr. McKay, I’ll take that with a grain of salt,” Tony said with a smile. Jack had let him know what each of these people did for a living and no one who reached the level of CSO of a program like the SGC could be ignorant of politics. Jack was just sure that McKay hated the whole game and ignored what he could and bulldozed over what he couldn’t. Sadly, neither of them was able to use the same tactics.

“Take as many grains of salt as you want, Agent DiNozzo, but politics in the sciences are a bit different than the ones in government,” McKay snapped. He held up one hand and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. We’re all massively stressed and no one expected that the SGC would be outed like this.”

“Honestly, Doc, we should have,” Lorne cut in. “As many times as we’ve had battles in the solar system? I’m surprised that we weren’t exposed years ago.”

“Me too,” Carter agreed. “I can think of a half dozen times we came way too close to showing the full Monty for comfort.”

“I’ll want to know about that eventually, Sam. But right now, we need to go over the footage of the hearing,” Tony reminded them. He pulled a small notebook out of his breast pocket and flipped it open. “I took notes so I could discuss the whole thing with Jack.”

“We took notes too. Let’s see if what we flagged matches what you have. And figure out where we differ,” McKay said. He pulled a remote off the table and aimed it at the large tv on the opposite wall. “Let’s get started.”

Tony snagged a legal pad and set it in front of him so he could take more notes. Of necessity, his notes from the hearing were brief, and getting the chance to watch it all again would be helpful in fleshing the whole thing out. Plus, this would let him see what he might have missed, while also keeping an eye on the people who had pinged his radar. “Does anyone have any coffee?”

From the laugh that got the room, he was sure they had plenty. And he was going to need it.

 

 

“Right. So, we’ve gone over the whole of the hearing. For the most part, O’Neill and Jackson were calm, well-spoken, and reasonable. Even when they called people on the tripe they spewed, they were good,” McKay summed up. He stood up and started checking the various coffee carafes. When they all came up empty, he went for the machine in the corner and started making a pot. “We’ve figured out some of the people we need to keep an eye on are on the committee. And we have names to go with the people in the audience who we all think are suspicious. O’Neill and his group out there are looking at the media after-action reports that have been happening and will break that down so we can all be prepared.”

“I just want to say that as soon as anyone figures out who is attached to the SGC, they will be after that person for a soundbite. And the higher up in rank or position that person is, the more the media will hound them,” Tony cautioned. “You’re going to need to brief all your people on what to do when confronted by the media.”

“If we’re all in danger of that, you are too,” Sam reminded him. “After all, the general has been seen with you before and it won’t take much to start connecting the dots.”

“True,” Tony agreed. He stared into the distance for several seconds while he followed the ripples of his relationship with Jack being outed. “I should be okay for the most part. I work at the Navy Yard and the only way onto the station is via the front gate and you have to have ID to get in. My apartment is in a secure building as well. I did that not long after I started at NCIS.”

“I’m not worried about the media,” McKay said. The coffee was brewing and he was leaning against the table, watching the room. “You’re a cop. A military cop. It wasn’t so long ago that the US contemplated a law that would have made it illegal to be openly gay in the military. While the SGC screens for most of the dangerous ‘phobias’, we occasionally get one that slips through. And if we’ve got them in our troops, you’ve sure as hell got them in your workplace. Will you be safe if it’s known that you are in a relationship with a man? And that the man is O’Neill?”

“Gee, ask the hard questions, Doc,” Tony muttered. “My team? They’ll get a bit stroppy, but I doubt they’ll do more than bitch at me. Gibbs, my boss, knows Jack and they have a mutual respect thing going on. But Gibbs has never been thrilled that Jack put his foot down when it comes to our time together. Per Jack, Gibbs can’t call me in while I’m on vacation unless the world is ending. And obviously, I now know where that came from.”

From the snorts let loose around the room, everyone saw that humor in that as well as he did. “I was the one to look into you for Homeworld, Agent DiNozzo,” Miko Kusanagi informed him. “That meant that I took a hard look at your team. You haven’t mentioned the others.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at her and blinked once as she smiled at him, slow and mean. “Remind me to get with you about that review later, Dr. Kusanagi. At any rate, Ducky knows what secret means and he’ll be fine with them. I know he’s still got secrets for England locked up in his head that he’s never told anyone. Abby will want to know everything about the SGC and will likely pester me for an introduction to someone so she can get information,” he paused before turning to Mitchell. “Can I throw her at you?”

“No,” Mitchell shook his head quickly before he raised his hands to ward off the idea. “I’ve got SG-1 and that means Carter, Jackson, Mal Doran and Teal’c, I don’t have time to take on another curious person.”

“Fine,” Tony said with a sigh. “McGee is going to be curious and likely will try to hack his way to the information he wants. He’s good, but I’m certain your people are better. Please block him. He doesn’t need to know and while he’s likely to twitch over my relationship, he’s a Navy brat and knows better than to go against a senior officer.”

“You’re leaving off David,” Kusanagi observed. She was leaning back in her chair and looking at him with a level gaze. Tony kept his eyes on her and considered what he knew of her. From what he’d picked up over the course of their planning session, she was McKay’s third in command of the sciences. That to him, meant that she was a lot more astute and ruthless than her very pretty and delicate looks would suggest.

“I bet you’re underestimated a lot,” Tony said. When she smiled and gave him a measured nod, he snorted once. “Right. David is a member of Mossad. She’s very proud of that. We’ve been dealing with her since she was placed on our team and between Gibbs and I, she’s as restricted as we can manage.”

“Why is she restricted?” McKay asked. He had poured himself a cup of coffee and was bringing the carafe over to the table. “Wouldn’t that mean it would be hard for her to do cop stuff?”

Tony held his coffee cup out for a refill. When McKay filled his cup to the three-quarter point, Tony nodded his thanks. Taking the cup back, he added some of the flavored creamer that Jack had delivered at the start of their meeting. Sipping at the cup in appreciation, he leaned back in his chair. “We restricted her because she’s not a citizen, hasn’t been through FLETC and thus, hasn’t been cleared to handle evidence. It’s an issue we’re working to get settled.”

“What in the fuck?” Mitchell asked. He looked over at Carter and raised an eyebrow at her. “That can’t be normal.”

“It’s not and the general is aware,” Carter agreed. She looked faintly disgusted at the thought of something and Tony had to wonder what she was thinking of. “He was hesitant to throw his weight around before now. Despite all the Marines we have on our bases, we’ve never had an NCIS agent be assigned to us and it would have looked suspect if he’d contacted them with this issue.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tony confirmed. He mentally shuddered to think of what Madame Director would have done with a two-star Air Force general weighing in on MCRT. The fallout of that would have been epic. Actually, now that he thought about it, it was still going to be epic. Because Ziva was not going to let anything go and the news coverage had shown him and his position behind Jack and Daniel a lot. He also had a hunch Vance was going to get pissy. Oh, well. “Something tells me that’s not going to change soon.”

“Well, you aren’t going to be the one doing investigations do us in the short term,” Carter said softly. “We did the background check and you came through with flying colors, but we’re going to have to figure out how to keep the general out of anything involved with you on a professional level.”

“As much as we might like to have him on Atlantis, we’d do okay with just a normal agent. It doesn’t have to be DiNozzo,” McKay tossed out. “Even if he is ATA positive.”

“Yeah, that status needs to stay under lock and key,” Mitchell ordered. He glanced at Kusanagi and relaxed when she nodded. “Thank you, doc.”

“Agent DiNozzo’s record with the SGC is currently classified on the same level as SG-1’s, the colonel’s, yours, mine, and every other ATA-positive member of the Program,” Kusanagi said. She smiled slowly and meanly. “They’re on a special server that will fry the computer of anyone who tries to get unauthorized access to them. And there’s no way to stop it once it starts.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, doc, but you’re one of my favorite geeks,” Mitchell told her, voice sincere.

“Mine too,” Tony agreed. He took another sip of his coffee and then placed the cup back on the table so he could spin it as a fidget toy. “Right. So, we have a plan in place for the next hearing, because you know Congress will demand one. As will NATO, the UN and all of our allies. And I know that the extremely high overview I got from Jack was at best skimpy, at worst non-existent on details, but there will be people digging into your files to get all the dirt. It’s a given you have some. Make sure that anything that has to stay secret is moved somewhere like our files are. If there are physical copies of the files? Move them. Somewhere the at the bean-counters can’t get at easily. Somewhere a clandestine search can’t find it either.”

“Atlantis has enough secure rooms that we can take anything that needs to be hidden,” McKay suggested. He grimaced once before he took a pull from his own coffee cup. “And you know we can make sure it’s utterly secure. We can also take anyone who shouldn’t be on Earth and will be vulnerable, once the PTB get started on their review. You know we have ways to hide anyone we have to.”

“Like who?” Carter asked, face blank.

Tony flashed her a suspicious look and she smiled back at him with a perfectly straight and neutral face. “Nice poker face.”

“Thanks. I use it a lot with Goa’uld, politicians, and senior officers,” she said cheerfully before turning her attention back to McKay. “McKay?”

McKay huffed once and frowned at her. “Do I have to spell it out?”

“Yes, you do,” Carter said. “Who?”

“O’Neill Junior, Cassie Fraiser, Orlin, Lloyd to name a few,” McKay said shortly. He held up one hand when she opened her mouth. “You know each of those people are in danger and they all have lives outside of the Mountain. Orlin is especially vulnerable and letting him be taken would be abuse.” He turned to stare at Mitchell and Kusanagi and gave them both a hard stare until they nodded their agreement. “Atlantis will be safer for all of them.”

“Okay. When do you want to send them through?” Carter asked. She seemed resigned and Tony made a mental note to find out why. Whoever the four people McKay had listed were, they were all important in some way, and it was in his best interest to know why. “We’ve got a Booster set up to send you and Sheppard back, but we can use it for them if needs be. We’ve got enough parts to make more as needed.”

“How important is it that these four people leave Earth?” Tony asked. He pulled his phone out and checked the various news sites to see what they had to say. “So far, my review of the news shows them rehashing the testimony at the hearing. A lot and with great relish.”

“Same here,” Kusanagi confirmed. “But we all know that won’t last.”

“I…Let me get the general,” Carter said finally after hesitating for several seconds. She headed out of the room and carefully closed the door behind her.

“Just how deep is this rabbit hole Jack’s got me in?” Tony asked the room at large.

“Oh, Alice, Wonderland has nothing on us,” McKay said with a smile.

“Shit.”

 

 

“So, I hear you want to send my mini-me to Atlantis,” Jack said as he entered the conference room that Tony had been holed up in for hours. Tony glanced at him sharply and Jack shook his head once. He did plan on explaining Junior to his partner, but right then, they didn’t have the time. “He’s going to love that.”

“Yes, sir,” Mitchell agreed. He leaned forward and propped his arms on the table before them. “McKay’s right. We have too many vulnerable people on this planet. And that’s not even touching the sheer amount of stuff we need to move.”

“What do you mean, stuff?” Tony asked. He looked at everyone in the room. “How much stuff did you all collect?”

“Lots,” Daniel said after SG-1, past and present, looked at each other for several seconds. “There are twenty-five teams that go out on a weekly basis and at least a third of them bring back something. Sometimes, it’s samples so we can check out the planet, sometimes, it’s tech, sometimes it’s cultural. All of it has to be stored. And that’s not counting the stuff we’ve brought back because we took down a System Lord, we came across a dead civilization, or we bluntly scavenged a battle site. We did all of that and more over the years.”

“You have a whole mountain,” Tony reminded him dryly. “Cheyenne Mountain isn’t exactly small.”

“No, it’s not. And we’ve hollowed out most of it. More than what NORAD left behind,” Jack confirmed. They had managed to trade for some Tok’ra crystals that they had used to make space in the mountain for storage warehouses, and that had been deeply weird to watch unfold. “The mountain is basically hollow, with just enough original material to keep it standing. All the lower levels, the services and elevators match what was in place when NORAD was in place, but the rest of the mountain is very different. We’ve been eyeing some of the other mountains connected to us, but we haven’t gotten the authorization to expand.”

“I’m going to guess that you haven’t let anyone know this?” Tony asked.

“Oh, hell no,” Jack said, shaking his head. “There are a number of people who don’t need to know exactly what we’ve got stored. We’ve got enough shit that if we’re not careful with some of it, we could blow up the damn planet. Shipping some of this shit over to Atlantis sounds like the best idea anyone has had in a while.”

“I’ve already got a mental list, sir,” Mitchell cut in. “I’m sure Sam does too. Daniel?”

“I’ve had a list for years,” Daniel reminded him. Daniel flashed him an irritated look and Jack had to nod his agreement. “And Jack’s had it on his desk for just about as long. I add to it on a quarterly basis.”

“Wow. I take it there’s a lot from your departments that shouldn’t be allowed loose?” Tony asked.

“Honestly, yes. Even if we weren’t going to have disclosure, we needed to get them off the planet. Because we’ve come way too close to people violating their NDA because something neat was found that fit a theory,” Daniel confirmed. He grimaced and Jack frowned along with him. The archeologist had been blacklisted for years by the ‘reputable’ cadre of his peers. If there had to be something good coming out of this mess, Jack hoped that Daniel getting his reputation repaired was on the side of good.

“Right.” McKay stood up and started pacing. “I only know a portion of what’s in the storehouses, both because I’ve not been back in years and I wasn’t all that interested before I left for Atlantis. We’ll need to know what can go through the gate and what will need to actually travel by ship.” Jack watched as the Canadian pinned Sheppard with a hard look. “You’ll need to let Atlantis know that she can’t let just anyone in the storerooms we choose.”

“She’ll listen to me,” Sheppard agreed. He seemed vaguely uncomfortable for a moment before his face smoothed out.

Jack was sure that he knew why. Atlantis preferred Sheppard to him and would listen to his colonel over him. But it wasn’t because of Sheppard’s position on the city, but because of his percentage of Ancient heritage. Sheppard was just more Ancient than he was. “Good. Make sure to lock that shit up tight. Some of it does not need to be played with.”

“Fair,” McKay agreed. “I will have our people go over everything to see what’s Ancient so we can deal with anything, but after that, I want it locked up.”

“Works for me,” Jack agreed. “I don’t think we’ve had any ATA-positive scientists checking out the stacks. Carter?”

“No, we haven’t,” Carter confirmed. “Getting back to what started this… We have several resident aliens who work in the Mountain. I’m going to need to check with them to see who might want to go.”

“You can bet that Teal’c won’t be going to Atlantis,” Jack reminded her.

“Do you want to ask him?” Carter asked. She seemed amused and Jack could understand why. Teal’c’s heart was mostly with the Free Jaffa and only slightly with SG-1 anymore.

“No.”

“You’re the general, General,” Carter said with a smug smile.

“You are all heart, Carter,” Jack groused. “Anyway, we’re in agreement? All our resident aliens need to head out to Atlantis or Dakara so the building insanity doesn’t sweep them into the inferno. All our treasure, plunder, and potential weapons need to go out as well because the war hawks don’t need to be tempted to be assholes. On or off planet”

The chorus of agreement came from the whole room and he nodded. Good.