Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 158

Chapter 158 - Jaffa Cakes

The truly funny thing about a Gerak’s faction wanting what basically amounted to a spiritualism guard towards Ascencion, was that his people had both put together exactly that, and that his portable interface held a copy of it. Which meant that the only real difficulty in offering it up as a bribe had been transferring it into a usable format.

In the end Eventus had to transfer up to one of the orbiting Motherships, spend several hours cobbling together an adaptor since the Goa’uld didn’t really do wireless, and then upload the files under the suspiciously watching eyes of Gerak and several other high councilors.

Though that of course hadn’t really stopped him from clandestinely making a flash copy of everything in the Mothership's main computer. But it had apparently made the Jaffa feel better to at least believe they could prevent him from doing things other than what they wanted. So he hadn’t felt the need to debase them of the idea.

That whole thing had taken most of the morning, so after a quick lunch of a gyro-like wrap with a type of meat that reminded him more than a bit of chicken, and Teal’c saying his goodbyes, they had headed out.

“I was surprised you were willing to accommodate Gerak so after he arranged to ambush you.” Teal’c put forward as they walked to the gate.

Eventus offered the Jaffa what he hoped looked like a suitably mysterious smile. “Sometimes the worst thing you can do to someone is give them exactly what they want. In Gerak’s case, I suspect he will find the understanding to be gained in those pages to be as much of a curse as a blessing.”

After all, you didn't need to have the gift of telepathy to see the guilt and self hatred lurking under the surface of Gerak's various choices.

“I see.” Teal'c said, leaving it at that as he stepped up to the DHD and began dialing Earth.

Registering the address by pressing down on the central control, the Jaffa waited several seconds for the unstable vortex to collapse before pulling a GDO out from under his cloak and entering in the code. Several more seconds passed before the LED on the device's surface blinked green, indicating to them that the iris had been lowered and that it was now safe for them to walk through.

Nodding to himself, Teal'c put the device back away and then strode up to and then through the gate, with Eventus following mere steps behind him.

The water-like event horizon collapsed behind them mere moments after they arrived back at Stargate Command. And Eventus looked around, his eyes passing over the handful of soldiers in the gate room before focusing in on the reinforced glass of the control room.

“Welcome back.” Walter’s called down from one of the speakers. “General Landry should be down in a minute or two.”

“We will wait.” Teal’c agreed with a nod.

Standing around in wait wasn’t exactly ideal, but Eventus supposed that it was more on him for leaving their return time as a general ‘next day or two’ instead of something more specific.

“Do you have any plans after this?” He asked Teal’c.

The Jaffa nodded. “Colonel Mitchell wishes my assistance with SG1.”

“And it's a choice between that or going back to Dakara to deal with politics?” Eventus guessed.

“Indeed.” Teal'c confirmed with a small smile.

The groaning of one of the room’s heavy metal blast doors opening heralded the arrival of the base’s commanding officer. And Eventus offered Landry a small wave as he walked up that the General returned with a nod of acknowledgement.

“Teal’c, Eventus, your meeting with the high council work out?”

“The High Council managed to come to an agreement about the general threat of the Ori.” Teal’c confirmed.

“Gerak invited a Prior to the meeting.” Eventus expanded a bit since Teal’c hadn’t. “We had a small debate, he tried to kill me, I killed him instead, then Teal’c and I sat through several hours of political debate where the High Councilors tried to work out what political concessions they could get out of me in exchange for doing what they were already planning to do.” 

Landry glanced over to Teal’c who gave a small nod confirming Eventus’s general summation of what had occurred on their trip. 

“Well, it’s good you're both okay.” He seemed to consider something for a second before continuing. “Anything about that encounter that might be helpful to us?”

Eventus went back over the fight in his mind before offering a nod. “The Prior I encountered didn’t have a personnel shield and relied on his telekinesis to protect himself. So surprise attacks with beam weapons or explosives would probably be an effective way to kill them.” He frowned as a thought hit. “Though if you go the explosive route it might be possible their staffs have some method to detect things like mines or block remote detonation signals.”

“Might be?” Landry asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Detecting buried weapons of your general technology level and blocking radio signals are relatively simple things.” Eventus said, offering the man an apologetic shrug since he couldn’t give more than that. “So while the Ori’s should have the technology to do that, that doesn’t mean they’ll have actually implemented it.”

“And they don’t have powers that would let them detect things like that?” Landry pressed with a frown of his own.

Eventus rocked one of his hands back and forth in the human understood sign for maybe. “In theory there are several ways you could detect that sort of thing with various gifts. But all of the possibilities I know about would require active effort.”

He chewed on his bottom lip. “Keep in mind though, it’s likely the Ori are more advanced then we are when it comes to constructing what you would call psychic technology.”

“Noted.” Landry said.

He motioned to the open doorway. “If you’ll follow me to the briefing room, we received a guest through the gate shortly after you left that was hoping to speak with you about several different issues.”

“Was it the Nox?” Eventus asked in confusion, unable to think of anyone else in the galaxy who would even know he was on Earth.

“The Tok’ra.” Landra admitted with a grin. “Apparently you offering sanctuary to Yami lit something of a fire under their ass.”

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Author’s Notes: Was it slightly petty to steal a copy of that Motherships database from the Jaffa? Yes. But Eventus is okay with that. Which is why you don't play games with the Ancients.