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SG-1 Story: Taken Away
Title: Taken Away
Spoilers/Season: Future Fic. Mild spoilers for the end of the series and for Season 4 of Atlantis.
Rating: PG to PG-13
Synopsis: Members of the SGC family are missing and the IOA wants them back.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, people with a lot of money do. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.
“General! This is unacceptable!” The man stormed into his office without even knocking, let alone checking to see if he was busy with minor little things like saving the planet.
Landry looked up from the papers on his desk and hoped his expression told the weasely little man before him just how “unacceptable” his own behavior was. “Woolsey...” he drawled, not at all surprised the IOA had already found out about recent events. “I’m a little busy here. Unless you happen to have some very important information that I simply must hear right now, I really do not have time for this.”
“Oh, you’ll have time for this. Don’t you forget just who writes your paycheck!” the balding man threatened, crossing his arms in front of him.
Hank leaned back in his chair and tried really hard not to look smug. “That would be the U.S. Air Force, I believe,” he commented.
“Only because we request it,” Woolsey retorted.
Hank fought the urge to sigh, forced to agree with his premiere team’s assessment: the IOA had gotten a bit big for its britches, seeking to control far more than the original charter had allowed. “What appears to be the life-threatening issue?” he asked, crossing his own arms in front of him and decidedly not mocking the other man’s pose.
“Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran are missing,” the other man declared.
This time, Hank fought not to roll his eyes. “Surprisingly, I am aware of this development. It is, in fact, the very issue I am trying to work on right now. Doctor Jackson and Miss Mal Doran appear to have gone missing some time around 1900 last night,” he advised, stressing the titles the man before him decided to dismiss.
Woolsey started pacing. “Our estimates place their disappearance closer to 1930,” he said, more to himself than anything else. Louder now, he began, “What I am about to tell you must not leave this room.” He glanced over his shoulder to ensure he had the General’s full attention. “We had surveillance on Jackson’s residence. We know Miss Mal Doran visits often, and many times stays the night, at least in recent weeks. We know she was at his residence last night, and neither one of them left through traditional means. There was a flash of light similar to beaming technology, and then they were gone.”
“You were watching our own people?” Landry asked, trying to keep the venom in his voice at a minimum. It was one thing for them to suspect it, but completely another for it to be true.
It was Woolsey’s blasé attitude that was really pushing him over the edge. “We had plans for them, rather large plans that did not include their disappearance,” the man waived him off.
Landry took a deep breath, tried to think calming thoughts, but could only picture his hands around a certain committee chairperson’s neck. “They fought to save this world from threat after threat, succeeding time and time again. If not for them, we never would have defeated the Ori, and you know it!” He leaned forward, gripping the edge of his desk with a white-knuckled clench. “They were thinking of taking a much deserved break. Doctor Jackson was debating retiring after playing a role in the victory over the Goa’uld, Replicators, and the Ori, and I can’t say I blame him. Miss Mal Doran had already promised us a list of her contacts in the Lucian Alliance and on dozens of other planets that may have technology to assist Earth. What further plans could you possibly have for them?”
It was Woolsey’s turn to roll his eyes. “A man who ascended and descended multiple times, not to mention being genetically altered to become a Prior? A woman who was a host not only to a Goa’uld, but to a child of the Ori? Let me think... Whatever could we want with them?”
“You were going to use them as lab rats,” Landry growled. “After all they did to save you and this world, you were going to experiment on them.”
Woolsey stopped his pacing and leaned forward onto the General’s desk. “Just think of how much they have to offer us, how much we could learn from the changes to their DNA, their physiology. Think of the breakthroughs in medicine we could achieve just from those two little people.”
“Don’t you think they’ve done enough?”
“Two people, General. Two people,” the civilian stressed. “Weigh the lives of just two people against the lives of an entire planet, and tell me what you get.”
“I will not!” Hank shot back. “And I would certainly hope that anyone with a shred of conscience would not even think of doing so!”
“Get off your high horse and look at the potential,” Woolsey scoffed. He then brought the conversation back around to his original reason for coming. “At the very least, the fact remains that two of your people, rather high ranking in the scheme of things security-wise, are missing, and we need to find them. What happens to them once they are returned is not your concern.”
Landry stopped himself from saying, “The hell it isn’t,” and instead tried to focus on the task at hand. “Prior to your little revelation that my people are little more than expensive cattle to you, I was working on the situation.”
“It should be relatively easy. They were both tagged with transmitters. Beam them back.”
The General closed his eyes and internally shook his head at the fact the man had just proved his point. Opening them, and looking at the ass before him, he advised, “We tried that. This is what we got.” He opened one of the folders on his desk and held up a plastic bag. Inside the bag were two smaller bags each with a small, circular item that could easily be mistaken for a large watch battery. Both were liberally coated with dried blood. Personally, he thought that was a nice dramatic effect; too bad it was wasted on the uncaring man before him.
“They cut out their transmitters,” Woolsey said, obviously surprised.
“If the Goa’uld Athena was able to figure it out, I’m sure others have by now as well,” Landry pointed out.
“So, someone has our people and their belongings, and we have no way of tracking them,” the committee man commented.
“Their belongings?” Landry asked.
“IOA agents searched their rooms for evidence after your people turned up little. Almost everything seemed to be in place, except most of Jackson’s journals were replaced with blank copies, his laptop was missing, and Mal Doran’s stash of Goa’uld and other alien devices were gone,” Woolsey advised as if it were nothing.
To Landry, it was far from nothing. It confirmed many of his suspicions, the least of all being that the IOA now had agents of their own.
The other man was still talking. “Without those, the past few months have been a waste. Even without Jackson or Mal Doran, at least we could have examined their notes, seen if they gave any clues as to some of the advancements they underwent.”
A pit began to grow in the General’s stomach. One that suddenly became a black hole when he heard, “We’re going to have to review our other options.” He made a mental note to apologize to Doctor Jackson should he ever see him again. Once again, the man had seen all the angles, including those he himself had been blinded to.
“We’ll get to that later, you do still have the alien girl’s and the clone’s current whereabouts, correct? What about that alien researcher that was working for Jackson, is he still around?” Woolsey did not even pause for an answer before he continued on. “That’s not the biggest issue right now, finding the two members of SG-1 take priority. A priority being stalled by one of the remaining members of the same team. Now, Mitchell has been helping us look. He’s very eager to find his teammates and will do nearly anything if we tell him it’s an order. Mister Teal’c, on the other hand, is very insistent that he be allowed to leave to do things his way.”
“Teal’c has resources at his disposal that we do not,” Landry pointed out. “Those resources may be the key to tracking our missing people.”
Woolsey cocked his head to the side and surprised the General by saying, “I agree.” His eyes turned flinty again though when he added, “But apparently our Jaffa friend is claiming his contract with the SGC does not bind him to either the U.S. military or the IOA. Now, I personally drafted his latest contract and know what terms were added. Somehow, that version never got to him and he’s claiming he has the right to do whatever the hell he wants.”
Landry sighed, hoping the IOA would not discover that fact for several more months. “You do not want to make an enemy out of Teal’c. To do so would be to make an enemy out of the entire reformed Jaffa Nation, something I really don’t think Earth has the firepower to do quite yet.”
“Fine, fine, whatever,” Woolsey waived him off, something he was becoming quite adept at doing. The weasel stood up a bit straighter as he dictated his next demands. “What I expect, what the IOA expects, is for every resource available to be focused on the return of Jackson and Mal Doran. I also expect you personally to keep tabs on Miss Fraiser and the young O’Neill clone, as well as ensure Mister Teal’c signs a new contract, with the full, binding language included. If this is not possible, I expect your resignation.”
Landry looked him right in the eye as he stated with the utmost conviction, “Trust me, that’s something I can agree to.”
He watched as the civilian stormed out, forced to agree with Vala’s initial observation: that really was one disagreeable little man. He waited until he felt his blood pressure return to almost normal and stood, walking around to the other side of his desk. He pulled off the little electronic device he knew was recently planted there by a certain IOA agent, flipped it to the floor, and crushed it with his heel. It was such a shame that there had been a strange interference from the gate over the past few weeks, randomly disabling certain equipment of the surveillance type.
He closed his door and pulled a rather innocuous looking item from his pocket. This was one piece of equipment he knew was not about to be affected. He activated it, stating only, “You were right. Commence with the second phase as soon as you can, and, hopefully, I’ll see you again someday.”
~~~~~
It was about three months later while he was planning his retirement party when his daughter came knocking on his door. They talked about the whirlwind of the past few weeks with three additional people going missing. Cassandra Fraiser, young John O’Neill, and the elder General Jack O’Neill had all gone missing without a trace. SG-8 had run into Bra’tac on one of the Jaffa-controlled worlds, and he had passed on the message that Teal’c was remaining diligent in his quest for his friends and had promised to return with them or not at all.
They then talked about how Colonel Mitchell would be accompanying the next supply run to the Pegasus Galaxy, personally delivering the extra supplies Colonel Carter had requested there. They joked about scientists and their apparent need for coffee as two of the three extra cases were nothing more than a caffeine fix. There had been many new finds technology-wise and the science departments needed the extra incentive to review what they were teasingly calling their “loot”. The third container was labeled as medical supplies, but no one wanted to identify it more than that general description on the ship’s manifest. Apparently several boxes of Tretonin had gone missing on recent runs to the Jaffa Council to negotiate a truce, and they were not about to take any chances.
Neither were surprised when Colonel Carter went missing shortly after the shipment arrived, and Mitchell stayed on at Atlantis to supervise the attempts to find her.
End.