Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 114

Chapter 114 - A General’s Day - Part 1

Walking up to the SGC’s beam out point, Jack gave the trio already waiting there a nod of acknowledgement as he stepped into the taped off square.

“Jack.” Daniel put forward, tossing a questioning look to the marine on duty who just gave a non-commital shrug. “Something going on?”

“Nothing you're needed for.” Jack said, since he didn’t want to give the man any excuse to avoid actually getting out of his lab and doing something. “I've just got a meeting with the President in a bit, so I thought, why not share a taxi with my favorite Archeologist.”

“Do you know many Archeologist's?” Rayla asked, fidgeting with the headband that was covering the tops of her pointed ears.

“Surprisingly, yes.” Jack confirmed, grinning down at the young elf. “Even met Harrison Ford once.”

“He's not…” Daniel began, only to pause mid sentence and frown at him. “Wait, you did? When?”

Jack matched Daniel's frown, sure he had told him about it before. “Six years ago, when I called in a favor with the President to get Teal'c tickets to the premier of Phantom Menace for his hundredth birthday? I know we offered to take you with, but you were busy cataloging something.”

Vala gave Daniel an odd look before turning to Jack. “This world premier, was it some kind of party?”

“Pretty much.” Jack confirmed with a nod.

She reached over to poke Daniel in the shoulder. “Again, this is why everyone thinks you’re boring. You have the chance to go to a giant party for your friend's hundredth birthday and you’d rather stay home cataloging rocks.”

“They were Goa’uld artifacts recovered from Seth’s compound in Washington, not rocks.” Daniel corrected, glaring up at the woman currently inhabiting his body. “And it was very important that get done after some marines accidentally dosed themselves with Nish'ta.”

Jack bit back his immediate urge to correct Danile on how that exposure had been anything but accidental. Because it hadn’t been something the Archeologist had needed to know then, and it wasn’t really something he needed to know now.

Vala scowled. “Nish’ta? Really? I’d think even you people would know about the forced immunity trick.”

“We didn’t exactly have a ready supply of it at the time.” Jack offered, idly wondering what was taking the people on the Prometheus so long. “Nowadays though the ol dose and shock’s a standard part of SG team orientation.”

He frowned as a thought occurred to him, and he glanced over at Daniel for a moment before focusing back on Vala. “We need to do that with you?”

She shook her head. “I was exposed during my very brief time as one of Qetesh’s handmaidens.” She cocked her head slightly before smirking at Daniel. “And also forced to get a tattoo in a very uncomfortable place.”

Daniel twitched and looked down at his borrowed body with a frown. “Tattoo?”

“Qetesh had it removed as part of a cosmetic upgrade when she took me as a host.” Vala confessed with the type of flippant tone Jack had heard once too often from soldiers trying to brush off traumatic experiences. “Couldn't have her new body possessing that sort of unsightly blemish on it.”

“On the up side. She continued in a suddenly happy tone. “She also did something–

The waiting area around them disappeared in a flash of light to be replaced with the bridge of the Prometheus.

“so my boobs would stay perky.” Vala finished, only to look around at the various airmen now giving her odd looks before giving their new audience a jaunty wave. “Hey guys.”

“General.” Pendergast greeted with a nod.

“Colonel.” Jack returned.

Another flash of light engulfed them, and this time when it cleared they were standing inside the small room in the pentagon that had been set aside for beam transporting.

“Why does it always have to be the worst timing with that?” Daniel whined.

Jack shrugged. “I kind of just expect it at this point.” He offered a nod to Vala, a smile to Rayla, and then a two fingered wave to Daniel before heading for the door. “Have fun at the museum, kids.”

It was a couple minutes walk from there to the high security motorpool, where his usual car and driver were already waiting to take him to the Whitehouse.

“Bob.” He greeted the man in front as he slid into the back seat. “How’re the kids?”

“Still keeping us up all hours of the night.” Bob returned, shifting the car out of park and beginning the slow drive out of the packing garage.

“That’ll get better.” Jack offered, stamping down on the pang of loss that followed those particular memories.

With those words quiet decided on the car, and Jack pursed his lips fidgeting slightly before letting out a sigh and grabbing one of the folders in the seat next to him.

He was half way through the latest progress report on their currently under construction 304 hull when the car pulled up to the West Wing. And with a two fingered wave to Bob, Jack grabbed his dress hat from where he’d left it last time before opening the door and beginning his trek.

Three security checkpoints, two full body scans, and a back and forth through the metal detector like device Carter had put together to detect naquadah in a person's body later he was standing in front the closed doors to the oval office. At which point there was a few minutes of awkward standing before one of the secret service agents opened the door and motioned him in.

“Henry.” Jack greeted as he walked in, making sure to offer a nod of acknowledgement to the secret service agent flanking the doorway as he passed.

“Jack.” Hayes returned distractedly, motioning towards one of the couches with a pen. “Be with you in a minute, just need to finish reading through these intelligence reports.”

Nodding, he took a seat on the couch, making sure to remove his hat and set it down on the end table next to him before settling in to wait for Hayes to finish with the ever present enemy that was paperwork.

“Sorry about that.” Hayes said as he sat down on the couch across from Jack. “New report just came in from some of our Chinese people about what our guest’s been up to over there.” He shook his head and gave a sigh. “Apparently he’s a fan of tea.”

“No accounting for taste.” Jack joked. “Everyone knows coffee’s really where it’s at.”

Hayes gave a light chuckle before his look turned serious. “He's been here a week, Jack.” Hayes said angrily. “In that time he's found a crashed Goa'uld starship off the Florida coast, a broken weather machine in the Bermuda Triangle, a scientific outpost on the moon, and a giant space-station filled with monsters orbiting Pluto.”

There was also probably a terraforming facility on Venus and some sort of refinery in Jupiter's atmosphere Jack knew. But they hadn't been able to get outside verification on either of those yet. So they wouldn't have been in the high priority reports that had made their way to the President's desk.

“So what exactly have you people been doing all this time with those hundred billion dollar spaceships we've been paying for?”

Jack grimaced, knowing there wasn't really any acceptable answer to the question given the number of 'should have done’s’ they were looking at.

“Shakedown work and cargo transport mostly.”

The last was pretty much the only reason they'd been able to get the 304 class off the ground as quickly as they had.

Hayes threw up his hands. “And you couldn't have done that shakedown work by, I don't know, looking around our own damn solar system for things various Aliens might have left behind!?”

“We're military sir, not Starfleet.” Jack told him, really hoping the man understood the reference. “Unless otherwise ordered,” And he made sure to put extra emphasis on that last word. “our ship shakedowns are just going to be a work in progress version of the navy standard.”

In hindsight he knew they should have been pushing to go over every pebble in the solar system after the discovery of the Antarctic outpost. But Carter had been focused on contacting the Asgard, and everyone else on either excavating the outpost or covering up Anubis’s attack on Earth. After which point the whole idea that there might be more Ancient stuff around the local area had kind of just fallen to the wayside of various more important things going on.

“All right.” Hayes said, resting a hand on his knee before leaning forward to give Jack a focused look. “Then consider this an order, from now on any time the Prometheus isn’t otherwise engaged I want it scanning every inch of this solar system with those fancy Asgard sensors it has for Alien space junk.”

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Author’s Notes: This was originally intended to be just a single chapter, but it ballooned a bit so I decided to make it a two parter instead. Enjoy.