Shadows and Siege 2
Two years ago, a secret covert ops organization called Section One showed up in Jim's loft to force Jim and Blair to help rescue an agent named Nikita. (~read Shadows of the Past~). Fearing that Section One would assassinate them as soon as Jim had finished helping them, Jim took his guide and ran. Jim lost. Michael, a dangerous agent, recaptured Jim and Blair, but just when Jim expected to die, Section offered them a deal. If they were available when Section called, Section would allow them to return to Cascade. Now, two years later Jim finally gets the call he has dreaded for all this time. But when Section's new head, Nikita, tells him that he's supposed to work with a traitor from Stargate Command named Makepeace to get rid of a group of invading aliens called goa'uld, Jim really, *really* wishes he could just pretend none of this ever happened.
Shadows and Siege.
Sequel to Shadows of the Past
Fandoms: Primary: Sentinel. Secondary: La Femme Nikita, Stargate SG-1
Slash
Rated: ADULT?
Author's Note: You don't have to know La Femme Nikita at all if you read the first story because Jim explains the whole organization to Blair. You don't need to know Stargate to read this, but if you want background on Makepeace (a member of SG-3 who lands on Jim's team) or Tobias, you may want to read the transcript or watch the episode Shades of Gray where they are both arrested for treason.
Shadow and Siege part one
"Makepeace," Nikita offered with a tilt of her head. Jim stood, listening to the man's heart race faster as he saw Nikita sitting at the head of the table. Covering his nervousness, Makepeace stepped into the room and focused on Jim. "This is Jim Ellison," Nikita offered. "He's commanding the mission."
"*He* is." Makepeace made the words into a clear challenge. Even without looking over, Jim could tell that Nikita had an unhappy expression because Makepeace's heart pounded just a little faster as his gaze flicked to her. "Yes ma'am," he offered after an unhappy silence. Jim didn't need sentinel senses to figure out just how Nikita had secured his cooperation. He wondered if Makepeace had been tortured in the same damn chair he had been when he first arrived. Section probably had an entire wing of soundproofed rooms with nice handy torture chairs. But he had to give Makepeace credit. The man remained outwardly calm and even as his heart slowly settled into a regular beat. Of course, that didn't stop the sour stench of fear-soaked hormones from making Jim's nose itch.
"I'm Blair Sandburg." Blair got out of his chair and moved forward, holding out his hand, and Makepeace looked absolutely lost for a second, like he didn't know what to do with a man offering to shake hands.
"Robert Makepeace," he offered in return. Robert... not captain. Jim filed that information away for later. "Do we have a preliminary target, ma'am?" Makepeace asked Nikita.
"The rest of the team is coming," Nikita said, but Makepeace definitely took the words as a rebuke because his heart did a fast half-step before settling back into a rhythm.
"Man, eight days to learn to work with a whole new team, which is better than last time, but still. You know, most literature on sociometric orientation in group dynamics would suggest that eight days is totally not even long enough to set the group dynamics," Blair complained mildly. Yep, stress Blair, and random academic babble just sort of spilled out. Jim still remembered the first day the kid had stayed with him… he'd been nervous about being in Jim's house and had babbled about tribal warriors and street gangs and Senate races, making connections that Jim still didn't understand to this day.
"We tend to employ an empirical-statistical orientation to group dynamics," Nikita answered with an amused smile. Jim focused on the two new team members coming into the room. Karl Jurgen looked older than in the hologram, the first signs of gray in his hair, but from the way the woman next to him smiled up, she still found him attractive. The woman was Clare Tobias. Her hair was longer and darker than in the hologram, but she still had that childlike face as she looked around the room, her eyes carefully avoiding Nikita even as she studied the others, her eyes on Makepeace the longest. The part of Jim's brain that had once commanded made a mental note to make sure she understood that he was the top of the chain of command, not Makepeace. Nikita had the power to force him to work with a traitor, but he wasn't about to let the man take any kind of control over the members of his team.
"Well, yeah, you totally would. But Cartwright and Zander totally overemphasized the behavioral elements. Empirical-statistical and exchange theory are both the last bastions of the 'people as automatons' crowd. So not for me," Blair argued with Nikita. Tobias and Makepeace both looked at Blair uneasily, but Jurgen got an expression of almost amusement on his face as he made eye contact with Jim.
"But the theory is useful in predicting behavior; isn't that the defining characteristic of what's valid?" Nikita asked, one eyebrow up. Jim divided his attention between the last of his arriving team members and Blair's debate with Nikita.
Blair shook his head, his ponytail swinging. "Sadly, the social comparison theory is way more predictive."
"In the subgroups you've studied, I have no doubt of that. Section functions on a much more..." Nikita paused and Jim glanced over at her. She was still amused so Blair hadn't managed to piss her off yet. "... a more egalitarian model."
"Egalitarian?!" Blair almost choked on the word, and even Jim had trouble controlling a smile at that. You tell 'em, he thought to himself as Blair got that intense look he sometimes did right before he ripped some patrol officer a new asshole for using an ethnic slur. "Oh man, what universe are you living in? Section... egalitarian? You are like the epitome of totalitarianism. This place is ready to implode under the collective gravity of the power struggle around here."
Jim watched as Jurgen smiled widely, obviously amused. The ski twins slid into place at the table, one pushing Blair's enlistment papers aside with his foot as they both ignored the debate. Tobias and Makepeace both looked ready to run for the hills. Either those two were the nervous sort, which didn't really seem like the kind Section would recruit, or they'd come out of that torture room pretty recently. Jim still remembered sitting on the cot in that white room, his body aching from drugs and shocks that he couldn't get Madeline to stop administering no matter how truthful he was. He had been pretty skittish at that point, so Makepeace and Tobias might just be showing the normal aftereffects of being welcomed into Section's little family. Jim took his seat and Jurgen sat on the other side of Blair, pulling Tobias down into the chair next to him.
"Certainly someone has to be in charge," Nikita said as she leaned forward. "However, beyond the obvious need for leadership, everyone in Section is equal. You do your job, and not only is the world a little safer, but your life will be easier."
"Don't do your job and you get another visit to the soundproofed rooms?" Blair demanded. "Real egalitarian. Equal opportunity torturers."
"Chief," Jim warned as the tone in the room became a little darker. Nikita leaned back.
"Section takes actions that other agencies do not--but do not ever assume you understand why. Section and every member of Section risks more every day than most people ever will in a lifetime, and the result is a world that hasn't yet self-destructed," Nikita said quietly.
Blair narrowed his eyes, and Jim knew that look. "Typical ingroup-outgroup bias. Feel better about yourself by pretending that the group you belong to has a claim to some glory," he snorted. Nikita leaned back.
"Chief, enough," Jim said firmly. "Makepeace, you have the briefing on the target?" Jim redirected the conversation, his hand gripping Blair's arm hard enough to let Blair know that he seriously needed to shut up before finding himself in one of those sound-proofed rooms. Makepeace was the only one standing now, and Jim firmly ignored his guide's glare as he focused on the man.
"Yes, sir," Makepeace offered, his manner all military even though his eyes had dilated in fear. An image appeared in the hologram of a huge circle stone thing. "The Stargate was discovered several decades ago, but the purpose of it was only discovered a few years ago. The Stargate is part of a system of travel designed by an alien race. The system connects worlds with roughly Earth-type environments. As of right now, representatives from Earth have visited almost a hundred planets."
"No way. Oh man, that's... that's wild," Blair breathed, immediately distracted from his rant. Jim was surprised at the venomous look Makepeace gave Blair, but the expression cleared almost immediately as the captain continued with his lecture. The image changed to a man who looked like a villain straight out of a Flash Gordon comic book.
"Apophis is a member of a race called the goa'uld who have used human mythology and religion to impersonate gods and enslave humanity for thousands of years. When we opened the Stargate, the first team encountered and eliminated a goa'uld impersonating Ra. That gave Apophis a chance to take over much of the known universe, although there are an unknown number of other goa'ulds out there. Since then, Apophis had made several attempts to destroy the planet, including a plan to bring two motherships and decimate the cities from orbit."
Jim couldn't have formed words if he tried. The hologram changed again to show pyramids... fucking pyramids floating in space near the moon. Looking at Nikita, Jim desperately searched for some sign that she was pulling some weird practical joke.
"Wait," Blair interrupted. The hologram paused on the image of a colonel with his hair just starting to gray. "Whoa. Okay, I'm overloading here. These goa'uld were on Earth. They were here? Impersonating our gods?"
Makepeace glanced toward Nikita before answering. "Yes. Thousands of years ago, the Egyptian people rebelled against Ra, but before that, a number of different goa'uld had empires here."
"Apophis... the Greek name for Apep the serpent who constantly desired to eat the sun and destroy the earth... that Apophis?" Blair asked. "This is..." Blair just stopped, obviously even he couldn't come up with words for this, which made Jim feel slightly better for not being able to form any words himself. "Oh man. Is anyone else just slightly freaked and seriously hoping that this is some sort of truly bizarre psych test, you know, test our responses to being totally weirded out?"
Tobias nodded. "I thought that when I first saw the files, but I've been off world. I've seen the sort of tech they have."
"You've been off-world? Off the planet-off world?" Blair looked at her with wide eyes, and Jim couldn't decide if Blair was freaked or excited. He seriously hoped his guide was freaked because the man got in enough trouble on this one planet, so he was vetoing the idea of Blair going to any other planets.
Tobias smiled at him, but Makepeace interrupted the moment by loudly continuing with the briefing. "Colonel Jack O'Neill, Air Force, leads the off-world teams and coordinates planetary defense and the diplomatic mission to find allies and technology against the goa'uld."
Jim could hear the stress in his voice at that, and Tobias lost some of the color from her face. If he had to guess, he would say that Makepeace's and Tobias' convictions for treason had something to do with O'Neill, but Makepeace continued the briefing in a voice so controlled that only a sentinel would have noticed the difference. "He is second-in-command at Cheyenne Mountain, base for Stargate Command, and the leader of a field unit known as SG-1. Information from the mountain suggests that a small number of goa'uld have landed in Eastern Europe and have set up a small base disguised as drug runners."
"Why here?" Blair blurted before Jim had a chance to ask that same question.
Makepeace hesitated for a moment before answering. "The goa'uld are ruled by system lords-snakes who have set themselves up as gods and lead armies of warriors called jaffa. Younger or weaker goa'uld either have to serve one of the system lords or they are vulnerable. By setting up here, they think they're safe from the system lords whose attacks have failed."
"How are we defending the planet?" Jim asked. His voice was more calm than even he expected.
Nikita smiled. "Colonel O'Neill is very good at his job. However, he is a member of the American military, and intel suggests that Stargate Command will not lead an official mission into Slovenia, which leaves the NID as the only other agency preparing to act."
"Local military?" Jim asked. The Yugoslav war had been brutal, and there were sure to be both professional soldiers and mercenaries in the area who could do what Jim suspected Nikita wanted done.
"They are not aware of Gate travel or the current threat inside their borders," Nikita answered.
Jim frowned. "Just how well kept is this secret?"
Nikita gave tilted her head as though considering something for a second before answering. "The American military has not informed anyone. Right now, the president, the joint chiefs, a half dozen money men in Washington, the NID, a few dozen scientists, a few hundred soldiers, and Section are the only ones aware of this situation."
"Any more than that and we'd have a panic. We can't afford to have our off-world missions compromised with in-fighting," Makepeace hurried to add. The man might be a traitor, but he still had some loyalty to the program.
"The conspiracy to top all conspiracies," Blair said so softly that Jim didn't think anyone else heard him.
"The danger is having these things breed. We still aren't entirely certain how the reproduction cycle works, but one female can spawn thousands of little snakes. After they spend some time incubating inside a jaffa's stomach, they can take over a human being by burrowing into the back of the skull and turning it into a host."
Jim sat straight up, but before he could say anything, Blair beat him there. "Host? Host as in these things get in the brain? Okay, now I know this is a psych test. Man, this is a nightmare… a horror movie. No fucking way."
"One of those things got in my friend. I watched him trapped in his own body as a snake took him over. The surgeons tried to remove it, and the thing just burrowed deeper into his brain," Makepeace snapped. "You have no idea what we're fighting here."
"What's our exposure?" Jim asked, forcing himself to stay calm when every instinct in him wanted him to recoil in horror. Blair was right-this was a nightmare.
"Minimal," Nikita broke in. The image of Colonel O'Neill vanished and a snakelike creature with gill/wing things floated in the air above the table. "They don't seem to change hosts very often, which might be due to the fact that they are vulnerable when out of a host and which might equally be some cultural taboo against changing bodies of which we are not aware. Profilers are severely limited in the information that has been gathered so far. Dr. Sandburg, Jurgen… you are to observe any targets, making sociological observations to help the profilers better predict goa'uld behavior in the future. If Stargate Command ever fails, we will be the last line of defense, and we need to be prepared. Colonel Ellison, the rest of your team will focus on first identifying all targets and then eliminating them. If the team is identified, eliminate the targets you have access to, but as long as you have not been identified, give Sandburg and Jurgen time to make any pertinent observations."
"How do we identify the targets?" Jim asked. Blair reached over and rested his hand on Jim's arm, and Jim could almost hear Blair's thoughts. Jim had once told Section that he would die before becoming their attack dog, but for these creatures, he was willing to make an exception.
"We can't, Colonel," Nikita admitted, "not without using technology that would immediately reveal your presence; however, you can. The last sentinel team who encountered a goa'uld was sent to observe one who has been on earth for a long period of time." The hologram shimmered to show a dark eyed man with floppy hair and a neatly trimmed beard that screamed 'villain.' These aliens had obviously watched far too much Flash Gordon before trying to infiltrate Earth culture. "This is Seth. He's considered a low-priority target and what psychological data we do have comes from observation of his compound. He appears to be both solitary and unwilling to attract any attention. However, when our sentinel team came within a mile, the sentinel began to exhibit signs of distress. Near the compound, the sentinel lost control and attempted to enter the compound and kill the goa'uld with his bare hands. His guide barely managed to pull him out, and she sustained a serious injury."
"No way." Blair shook his head. "No way are you sending him in if this is going to-"
"Enough," Jim said, cutting him off.
"Not if you're considering-"
"Enough, Chief," Jim growled as he turned to his obstinate guide. Blair opened his mouth, and Jim leaned forward. "I've heard your objections, and I am officially ordering you down." Jim made his words harsh, far more harsh than he would ever speak to Blair, at least not without expecting immediate and vicious retaliation in the form of either a lecture or hair remover in his shampoo. He just hoped Blair got the message because he could not afford to have his command questioned in front of these people.
Blair blinked at him in surprise for a second, his face pinking as that brain of his processed the fact that everyone in the room was watching his reaction. "Yes, sir," Blair managed with only a touch of sarcasm.
"What weaponry can we expect on the aliens' part?" Jim said as he smoothly turned back to Nikita.
He had no illusions about Blair letting this subject drop, but hopefully he would be willing to have it in private where the rest of the team wasn't watching. Already Jim could feel the tensions. Makepeace resented Jim's authority and was playing nice only because he feared Nikita more than he hated Jim. Tobias had that same fear of Nikita, but in her case, she translated that into a jumpiness that left her suspiciously watching while her fingers clutched the chair tightly. Bruhn and Knudsen were more passive, but Knudsen was definitely watching Bruhn for his cues, so that was another person who would hesitate to follow orders, listening to Jim only once he confirmed through Bruhn that the order should be followed, and in combat, that could mean precious seconds lost. Jurgen… he was the wildcard. He just looked amused. If this were the Army, Jim would outright refuse to take a team like this into the field, and now he had just days of training in order to get them all to follow his command. Jim was getting that same sinking feeling he'd felt before the Peru mission.
Nikita paused before answering, studying Jim closely for several seconds. "Bruhn has that report, but before I turn the briefing over to him, I want to point out that you should expect resistance on two fronts: the aliens and the NID."
"The NID," Jim said flatly, and he could hear Tobias' heart speed up again. Makepeace had a perfectly calm face and his heart was so steady that Jim suspected the man was using covert techniques designed to defeat polygraphs. So, that was one member of the team who knew exactly what a sentinel could do. Jim filed that away as one more piece of information on his team. He truly needed full jackets on these people before taking them into battle.
"The NID has a stated objective to capture and study the goa'uld. Some sources suggest they are interested in breeding."
"What?" Tobias blurted. "No, they want to defeat the goa'uld, not breed more." Jim glanced over as Tobias stared at Nikita with a combination of denial and anger for just a second. Then she blushed deeply and dropped her gaze to the table as she realized just who she was calling a liar.
Nikita didn't seem offended. "The NID is interested in the goa'uld's ability to heal and strengthen the human body and the genetic memories that are passed from one generation to another."
"Genetic memories?" Blair echoed.
"The NID would like access to those memories even if there is no current data on whether the memories are specific enough to include details such as technology or whether the memories are more cultural. However, Section has determined that keeping a goa'uld in custody at this point carries too high of a risk. We are unaware of their full potential either defensively or offensively, and bringing one into the middle of an operation could prove fatal. That analysis was shared with the NID and rejected, so if your mission is compromised by the NID in any way, you are authorized to cancel all NID operatives."
"Oh man, does she mean…" Blair let his words trail off as he considered the meaning of that phrase. Jim clenched his jaw at the thought of doing that kind of work again, of putting himself and his team up against human beings who had been ordered into the field. He wasn't as comfortable with that as he was with the idea of eliminating the aliens who had set up on earth; however, Nikita wasn't giving him much choice in the matter.
Jim nodded. After a second of silence, Miko Bruhn with with scarred face stood up and a hologram of a strange curved weapon appeared above the table. "The zat'n'ktel…" he started, and Jim focused on the image. If he had to go up against this stuff, he needed to know exactly what he and his guide were getting into.