Just Talking

Posted on Fri Sep 30th, 2022 @ 7:55am by Lieutenant Ralph Brennan & Lieutenant Colonel Jonathon Raynor

Mission: Jumping Right In
Location: McMurdo Station, Interview Room
Timeline: Subsequent to "New Age"
1969 words - 3.9 OF Standard Post Measure

ON

The sounds of a strummed guitar echoed through one of the interview rooms of McMurdo Station's underdown complex. He could hear footsteps outside, a stimulus that forced the young man to withdraw into himself. He continued to strum, wondering where- and maybe when- he was. The room was cold, though he'd been given a grey woolen blanket to wrap around himself. As he continued to worry for his safety, he began to sing a song- what he guessed was a song of the native inhabitants of the planet he'd crashed on.

"Like a rhinestone cowboy," He began, "Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo."

The boy hadn't noticed the footsteps outside grow closer, nor the sound of the interview room door opening. A moment later his trance was broken.

A bottle of orange juice was placed in front of him on the black table. He looked from the strange fluid up to the man who'd placed it there.

"Brennan!" He called. He tried to get up, but in his haste, he was kept in place by a set of shackles.

"Lu'car, how are you man?" Brennan beamed. "How are ya, fella?"

"I am," Lu'car paused, hesitantly as he noticed another man, a military type like Brennan enter the room. "Fine."

"Okay." Ralph nodded. "Lu'car, this is Lieutenant Colonel Raynor, he's a friend of mine. We wanted to catch up with you, have a chat about a few things."

Lu'car eyed the Colonel suspiciously, though he gave the officer a curt nod. "Hello. Are... are you here to hurt me?"

"Uh wait, what?" John looked at the jaffa and was confused. 'Why would I be here to hurt you? Who said that was going to happen?"

"Have you been harmed while you've been in our care, Lu'car?" Brennan asked, a hint of urgency in his voice.

Lu'car looked down to the table, ran his hands over the guitar, then shook his head in silence. He looked up once more. "No one here, but... it is what I have come to expect."

"Come to expect?" John cocked his head slightly before it hit him. "Wait, you speak better English then some of the people around here. How do you know our language?"

"'Your' language?" Lu'car asked inquisitively. "This is the only language I have ever known and ever spoken. It is the language that they insisted we use since we were children, they took the language of our parents from us and schooled us in 'your' tongue. Even when our masters spoke another language to others of our kind, we were told it was forbidden to learn it or speak it. Only those amongst my peers who were... anointed were ever allowed to learn the language of the Goa'uld."

"So I'm assuming your masters were the ones that liked to beat you," the colonel asked as he shifted his weight and looked around to find a chair. "And I'm assuming if you know our... tongue, you also know more about our world?"

"You are the Tau'ri?" Lu'car asked. He looked at the table and took a slow breath in. "This is beginning to make sense."

"Make sense?" Brennan asked.

"If this is the world of the Tau'ri, then you may be correct. This may be the world they were... preparing me for." Lu'car said.

"Preparing you for?" John looked over at the naval officer. "Are you talking about being raised to be a sleeper agent? A freaking Jaffa sleeper agent, who would have thounk it."

"What did they teach you, Lu'car?" Brennan asked.

"I was never taught much, aside from your language. They told us about your people, what they believe, but I believe that you may be correct," Lu'car said, "They were preparing to put us in a position to infiltrate your world."

"Lu'car," Brennan began carefully, "As a result of this information, you may find that there is increased scrutiny around your presence on this planet. Some might find it beyond coincidence that you've arrived here after being prepared by the Goa'uld to insert yourself on our world. Are there others who were similarly prepared?"

"Yes." Lu'car admitted sheepishly. He looked at the table, cagey as if waiting for bad news. "What is to become of me?"

The colonel shrugged as he leaned back. "Couldn't say, but I don't think you have to worry about benig tortured like those snake heads. Maybe get you a Playstation or Xbox to keep ya busy while we are off planet. Who knows... Could you tell us more about this place you were at? How many were being raised up to act this way? When they may have said that they were going to deploy you onto our planet?"

"The Gods taught us in groups of 50," Lu'car said, "We were of many different backgrounds, chosen to be inserted into the countries of your world. Chosen to the population would pity us. I've heard of the squabbles on your world, how divided you are. The Goa'uld planned to exploit that. They would put us in your military, use our natural strength and intelligence to allow us to progress up your ranks, gather information to report back, help make decisions in your military structures to undermine you. Then, when the time is right, the Goa'uld strike."

"Would have been a better way of taking us down instead of the assault that happened over a decade ago," Raynor replied. He took in the details of the plan that had been shared to Lu'car. This was a much more well thought out plan then before. Why hadn't they done that? It wasn't as though they didn't already know all that they knew to take them down. Hell, if they had done it that way, they would probably mostly be dead, slaves, or hosts. The possibilities.

"We were told the first assault between the Tau'ri and the Goa'uld was meant to be the only one," Lu'car said. "I was told once by a Jaffa master that many Goa'uld were confused by our leaders choice to assault the Tau'ri."

"They questioned their gods?" Brennan asked.

"Yes," Lu'car nodded, "Because there was no clear motive for the attack. Before the engagement, the Tau'ri were unknown to most. Many simply assumed that the Gods knew the way, or had their reasons. Some were less willing to believe what the Goa'uld were doing was right. From learning about your culture, I myself wondered what threat you may pose, or what your people may offer... as your people would say," The boy strummed his guitar, "No offense."

"None taken," John replied as he shrugged. "But to be fair, we are now probably a thorn in their side after such a devastating blow to their armada. Hell, we still have some of their wreckage still in orbit around our planet. Every once in a while, we get a nice view of their crap falling and burning in our atmosphere. A couple years back, some of it took out parts of the west coast of the Americas."

"As your people say, you 'poked the bear'," Lu'car gave a quickly fading smile, remembering the Jaffa soldier who had taught him the human phrase. "The Gods have demonised the Tau'ri to our people, it quietened many of those who questioned the first attack. They said that if you gained strength you would destroy us, starting with our women and children. They used evidence from your past to show how brutally you treated enemies of your own race."

"I guess they told you that if we treated our own people that way, we were capable of anything when it came to people from another planet." Brennan reasoned. "My Lai, Guantanamo Bay, The Holocaust. No wonder you were so afraid of us."

"Then I must know, if you are not going to torture or execute me, what will you do with me?" Lu'car asked.

"Not my place to say. But I would love to know how they had so much information and what not to teach a whole generation how to act and blend into our culture so well in such a short amount of time," the colonel pondered for a moment.

"Did the Goa'uld have people living amongst us already?" Brennan asked.

"Perhaps," Lu'car nodded. "There were rumours that there were some amongst the Gods who know a lot of the Tau'ri. Beyond strict observation, that they had met the Tau'ri in battle, before the attack on your planet a decade ago."

"Wait... Tau'ri, humans from Earth before that battle?" John's ears perked up. Before all this had happened, there was never a hint to the possibility of a stargate program, let alone alien races out there. To hear that this information maybe off, could change everything. "You must be talking about the ancient humans that were taken from Earth centuries ago to populate other planets to be slaves elsewhere."

"More recent," Lu'car said. "Though my knowledge was limited, one of my masters said that a system lord spoke of battles he had with the Tau'ri, that all our knowledge had been formulated from his experience in battle. It seemed to confuse him as much as it confuses you now."

This information made the colonel truly confused but knew that the Goa'uld were well known liars and this could mean almost anything. But still, the idea really dug deep in him as he tried to understand what the young man had explained or was trying to say. "yeah... all that was clear as mud."

"I am only telling you what I was told," Lu'car said.

"We know," Brennan replied. "Lu'car, I've been look over the report from our military who analysed the wreckage of your craft. I do have some questions."

"I need to rest," Lu'car said, suddenly becoming disoriented in a way that would swing a jury towards a guilty verdict. His skin flushed, he began to breathe heavily. "Your... questions... they will have to wait."

This caught the men off guard as they saw the change in the kid's skin color. This was unexpected but they quickly moved and grabbed the kid before he fell to the ground. "What the hell?" John remarked before calling out over his shoulder. "Get medical in here, NOW!"

An MP rushed into the room. Brennan and Raynor checked the boy over. Lu'car was overcome with nausea, he strained against a compulsion to vomit.

"Easy buddy," Brennan said as an army medic rushed to Lu'car's side. The 68-Whiskey, whose nametab read Yates, took the Jaffa's temperature with a infrared thermometer as he listened to his stethoscope. Brennan looked to the media, "Staff Sergeant?"

"His temp has dropped below the established baseline. Pulse is racing and erratic," Yates reported as he listened to the alien's heartbeat. And looked between the two officers, "Anything out of the ordinary happen?"

"Negative," Brennan said. "He just suddenly became... fatigued."

"I want to get him to the infirmary so an MD can look him over," Yates said as a pair of junior medics stepped forward with a stretcher and loaded up the ailing Jaffa. "If he's become ill suddenly it could be a number of issues. Might be a panic attack, might be that he's allergic to something in our environment. Either way, I'm unable to confirm that. Let's get him out of here, I'll alert Doctor Gallo that we're on the way."

With that, the medics carted the boy away. Raynor and Brennan were left in the empty room, both reflecting on what an odd turn that the situation had taken. For now, they had to wait for an update on their condition and prepare for their first journey through the gate. Until then, it was a waiting game, one that had become all the more urgent with Lu'car's vague recollections.

OFF