Fic - The Next Recruit in Lord Iblis's Secret Service part two
Here is part two of The Next Recruit In Lord Iblis's Secret Service. This is a sequel to "In Lord Iblis's Secret Service", "Training Wheels" and "Every Stray Child" and is a BSG/SG1 crossover, cowritten with the lovely batsojopo who is a comment whore so feel free to speak up. This and all the stories are tagged sgfic.
The Next Recruit in Lord Iblis’ Service part two
~~~~~~~
“Open the Iris,” Hammond commanded from the observation area. Helo’s report showed that the team had been successful in their retrieval. He glanced over to the side to Felix Gaeta. The younger man was hiding his uneasiness well enough, but he could tell he was worried about what they were going to find.
“It’ll be fine, son,” he said with compassion as he placed a hand on Felix’s shoulder.
Gaeta shrugged, his expression worried. “She was always a loose cannon, but brilliant pilot. Admiral Adama treated her as the daughter he never had.”
Before Felix could continue, the klaxon sounded, warning that someone, or something, was coming through the gate. Hammond let a smile cross his face while watching Felix’s reaction. He could easily tell the former Colonial was still fascinated in the ring and the wormhole it created. “We might never figure out just how it works, you know.”
Felix’s head whipped around to look at him. “What?”
“The Stargate,” Hammond indicated the room below them. It was now filled with marines and several medical officers, including Janet Frazier. “We might never figure it out even with your help.”
“I don’t think I‘m even close, not compared to others,” Felix answered wistfully. He stiffened up suddenly, which made Hammond turn his attention back to the room below. The team was now returning with one disheveled barefoot woman in tow. She tumbled down the ramp and onto the floor. In an instant Janet was there and starting the preliminary checkout. Seconds later the newcomer started fighting the soldiers that were holding her down, but she was not strong enough. Helo came up and knelt down beside her and said something that seemed to calm her down enough to get her onto a stretcher, and rushed out of the gate room and into medical.
“It’s done,” Felix muttered as he nervously gathered his paperwork together.
“Felix?” The general’s question made the younger man stop for a moment and turn back around.
“Yes, sir?”
“I’m not forcing you to go and talk to her right now, only when you’re ready.” Hammond suspected it hadn’t been easy for the man to face the memories of his previous life.
“Thank you…sir.”
~~~~~~~
Karl stood in the locker room slowly taking off his gear. Kara’s attitude was exactly what he expected when they arrived back on base. To be honest she had been through Hades the last three years. Her near uncontrollable rage alone made him realize that it would not be good for the former pilot to meet with Felix.
He wasn’t the only one in the locker room. Jack had arrived and was now in the process of removing his own gear when he asked, “When’s the briefing?”
“Ten minutes,” Jack gave him a look while hanging up his baseball cap. “You can talk to her once we’re finished. It’ll give Doc Frazier time to do what she does best.”
The former Colonial officer nodded absently. He couldn’t think about talking to Kara at the moment, he had to go through the debriefing first. “Hurry up or you’ll be late,” Jack called back over his shoulder as he was exiting the locker room.
“I know,” he muttered as he hurried after the colonel. Hammond was an easier commander to follow than Adama in certain things, but not everything.
“I want to know what you found,” Hammond said as soon as the last person had found their seat around the table.
“It was radically different from the last time, Sir,” Jack said. “The room Thrace was in was like a prison cell compared to what Gaeta had.”
Jack’s comments surprised Karl. Felix never mentioned what his quarters were like, and the ones that rescued him never talked about it either. He shook his head. The thought of Kara living like a prisoner for the last three years was not good. “Where’s Gaeta?” he asked suddenly. He figured it would have been good for him to be here.
“He’s on base, son. I’m not ordering him to see Thrace immediately.”
“I understand,” Karl answered after a moment. Felix never had a decent working relationship with Kara. If she saw him now, she would have immediately peg him as a Cylon, which was the same thing he did. It was understandable. Felix had not changed in literally 13 years. He only now looked to be in his early 30s. And Kara was in too much shock to connect the dots between that and her own appearance. He realized suddenly that part of her fearful reaction to him during the rescue was probably because she assumed that he would think *she* was a Cylon.
“Do we know how many times Iblis used her for …” even Hammond couldn’t quite state what she had been used for.
“No,” Sam answered for the first time. “She wouldn’t mention how many there were. We‘ll need to try harder for information once she‘s calmer…”
As soon as the debriefing was finished, Karl headed towards sickbay. He really wanted to see how Kara was holding up after the rescue. It still shocked him to see just how much she had changed in three years. She showed no signs of aging at all, in fact she looked much as she had when they first met and that was twenty years ago. The only thing that had changed was how long her hair had grown. The year on New Caprica showed him just how fast her hair could grow, and now it was a whole lot longer. It was like Iblis had some sick fascination with women that had long hair. Kara might have been the only destroyer of gods in Iblis’s stronghold, but she hadn’t been the only captive woman.
“Hello, Helo,” she said in a sarcastic, angry tone.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“How do you think I’m doing!?!” she snarled at him. “I’ve been that thing’s plaything for who knows how long.” She started to get up but stopped, looking wary and suspicious.
Sounds behind him let him know that there were guards stationed nearby. “Starbuck,” he said carefully. “They are not here to do anything to you but help you heal.” What shocked him was the once brutally tough pilot shrunk back in fear at his tone. “I’m sorry,” he said in a much softer voice. “You may not believe this, but the people here do understand what you’ve been put through.”
“Yeah, right,” she muttered with tears in her eyes as she looked away.
“Captain,” Janet came up to him and pulled him away. “I think it would be best that you leave.”
Karl knew an order when he heard it. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered and turned around to leave sickbay. What surprised him was seeing Felix just outside the door looking like he wasn’t sure of whether or not to go in to talk to her. “Not yet. She’s not doing well right now,” he told his old friend and continued down the corridor.
~~~~~~~
Karl had to admit that a good night sleep and a filling breakfast could and did wonders for anyone. Kara’s eyes still had that haunted look, but she seemed more at ease with her surroundings. He looked up to one of the cameras and winked. Felix was going to watch the entire debriefing, however long or short it was going to be from somewhere else on base.
The former Colonial pilot was wearing duty fatigues and sneakers. Just seeing her fully rested made Karl feel better about putting her through the debriefing. She followed Jack into the conference room. They all felt that it would be much better there, than the interrogation room. Kara may have looked healthy, but he knew that she was anything but stable.
“So, what am I doing here?” the Colonial asked as she plopped down in the chair. “You planning to use me? Like Iblis did?”
Jack raised an eyebrow at her apparent insubordination, but said nothing.
As Sam walked into the room Kara’s eyes narrowed. “I know why you’re looking at me,” the astrophysicist said as she sat down.
“Oh really?”
“Yes. For a short time I carried a Tok’ra. Once you‘ve had one inside you, it‘s something you can sense in others. I can tell you‘ve had a Goa‘uld inside you even if I didn‘t know where we‘d found you.” Kara look of revulsion wasn’t that much of a surprise to the group.
“Kara, you’re safe here,” Karl said emphatically as he placed a hand on her arm.
“Don’t touch me, Helo,” she pushed his hand off her shoulder.
“Kara, the one that held you captive? We’ve got a little war going on with his kind,” Jack commented as he indicated both Sam and Karl.
“Yeah, and I’m the President,” she muttered. She crossed her arms, scowling belligerently.
“Just great,” Jack muttered under his breath. Gaeta had told them in no uncertain terms to be gentle with her, citing his own experience. It hadn’t occurred to Jack at the time that Gaeta, upon being rescued, had been terrified about what Stargate Command was going to do with him but it made sense. The problem was that Kara Thrace was anything but gentle. “Okay,” he continued suddenly as he stood up and leaned over the conference table in her direction. At the sudden actions, she cringed back, and scowled more. “You want to know what’s really going on? That slime bag Iblis used you as his personal executioner.” His voice softened as he sat back down, “And we’re going to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. There is no need to lash out at everything and everyone. We want to help you, but you have to try to remain calm and be cooperative.”
“There’s something else,” Karl said quietly. When she didn’t say anything he continued, “The destroyed world with that ring was not Earth.”
“Of course not, it’s fake,” she snarled. “Let me guess, this is Earth.”
“Kara, it’s not fake,” Jack said with compassion in his voice. “You’re on Earth. Well, underground at the moment, but that’s beside the point.”
“But … it was destroyed.” Thrace, Jack recalled from Karl’s briefing, had been like most of the people in the colonial fleet, shattered that their quest had led to nothing but a burnt out rusk of a planet with a ring they considered to be deadly.
“That world was, but it was not Earth.” Karl said carefully.
“I don’t believe this is Earth,” Kara stubbornly held her ground while folding her arms. More shock than anger, Jack thought. She was handling the news better than Gaeta had.
Karl closed his eyes for a moment, considered his next actions. He hoped he knew what he was doing. “General,” he said as he indicated the screen off to the side.
“What’s going on?” Kara asked nervously as Jack picked up a small remote.
“I want to show you something. Something that I hope will make you realize that we are all telling the truth,” Jack’s voice was full of compassion as he pointed it at the screen.
“Kara, do you remember that transmission we intercepted? The one with the two men in EVA suits and we couldn’t figure out what they were doing?” Karl said. It had been one of the few things that had kept the fleet going, a mysterious transmission they’d received almost a year after finding the false Earth. When he’d found out what it really was, he’d been amazed as the coincidence.
The video was almost an hour in length, but the ending was always the same. It was the same thing she had seen long before Iblis had captured her. It was the image of an extremely primitive spaceship landing on a desolate planet. Just from the look on her face, they knew she had seen the images before. “It’s real?” she asked in a small voice.
“Yes,” Jack answered with a smile. “I would call the two astronauts here, but … they prefer their privacy.” Noting her effort not to shake, Jack looked at Sam and indicated the door.
The Next Recruit in Lord Iblis’ Service part two
~~~~~~~
“Open the Iris,” Hammond commanded from the observation area. Helo’s report showed that the team had been successful in their retrieval. He glanced over to the side to Felix Gaeta. The younger man was hiding his uneasiness well enough, but he could tell he was worried about what they were going to find.
“It’ll be fine, son,” he said with compassion as he placed a hand on Felix’s shoulder.
Gaeta shrugged, his expression worried. “She was always a loose cannon, but brilliant pilot. Admiral Adama treated her as the daughter he never had.”
Before Felix could continue, the klaxon sounded, warning that someone, or something, was coming through the gate. Hammond let a smile cross his face while watching Felix’s reaction. He could easily tell the former Colonial was still fascinated in the ring and the wormhole it created. “We might never figure out just how it works, you know.”
Felix’s head whipped around to look at him. “What?”
“The Stargate,” Hammond indicated the room below them. It was now filled with marines and several medical officers, including Janet Frazier. “We might never figure it out even with your help.”
“I don’t think I‘m even close, not compared to others,” Felix answered wistfully. He stiffened up suddenly, which made Hammond turn his attention back to the room below. The team was now returning with one disheveled barefoot woman in tow. She tumbled down the ramp and onto the floor. In an instant Janet was there and starting the preliminary checkout. Seconds later the newcomer started fighting the soldiers that were holding her down, but she was not strong enough. Helo came up and knelt down beside her and said something that seemed to calm her down enough to get her onto a stretcher, and rushed out of the gate room and into medical.
“It’s done,” Felix muttered as he nervously gathered his paperwork together.
“Felix?” The general’s question made the younger man stop for a moment and turn back around.
“Yes, sir?”
“I’m not forcing you to go and talk to her right now, only when you’re ready.” Hammond suspected it hadn’t been easy for the man to face the memories of his previous life.
“Thank you…sir.”
~~~~~~~
Karl stood in the locker room slowly taking off his gear. Kara’s attitude was exactly what he expected when they arrived back on base. To be honest she had been through Hades the last three years. Her near uncontrollable rage alone made him realize that it would not be good for the former pilot to meet with Felix.
He wasn’t the only one in the locker room. Jack had arrived and was now in the process of removing his own gear when he asked, “When’s the briefing?”
“Ten minutes,” Jack gave him a look while hanging up his baseball cap. “You can talk to her once we’re finished. It’ll give Doc Frazier time to do what she does best.”
The former Colonial officer nodded absently. He couldn’t think about talking to Kara at the moment, he had to go through the debriefing first. “Hurry up or you’ll be late,” Jack called back over his shoulder as he was exiting the locker room.
“I know,” he muttered as he hurried after the colonel. Hammond was an easier commander to follow than Adama in certain things, but not everything.
“I want to know what you found,” Hammond said as soon as the last person had found their seat around the table.
“It was radically different from the last time, Sir,” Jack said. “The room Thrace was in was like a prison cell compared to what Gaeta had.”
Jack’s comments surprised Karl. Felix never mentioned what his quarters were like, and the ones that rescued him never talked about it either. He shook his head. The thought of Kara living like a prisoner for the last three years was not good. “Where’s Gaeta?” he asked suddenly. He figured it would have been good for him to be here.
“He’s on base, son. I’m not ordering him to see Thrace immediately.”
“I understand,” Karl answered after a moment. Felix never had a decent working relationship with Kara. If she saw him now, she would have immediately peg him as a Cylon, which was the same thing he did. It was understandable. Felix had not changed in literally 13 years. He only now looked to be in his early 30s. And Kara was in too much shock to connect the dots between that and her own appearance. He realized suddenly that part of her fearful reaction to him during the rescue was probably because she assumed that he would think *she* was a Cylon.
“Do we know how many times Iblis used her for …” even Hammond couldn’t quite state what she had been used for.
“No,” Sam answered for the first time. “She wouldn’t mention how many there were. We‘ll need to try harder for information once she‘s calmer…”
As soon as the debriefing was finished, Karl headed towards sickbay. He really wanted to see how Kara was holding up after the rescue. It still shocked him to see just how much she had changed in three years. She showed no signs of aging at all, in fact she looked much as she had when they first met and that was twenty years ago. The only thing that had changed was how long her hair had grown. The year on New Caprica showed him just how fast her hair could grow, and now it was a whole lot longer. It was like Iblis had some sick fascination with women that had long hair. Kara might have been the only destroyer of gods in Iblis’s stronghold, but she hadn’t been the only captive woman.
“Hello, Helo,” she said in a sarcastic, angry tone.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“How do you think I’m doing!?!” she snarled at him. “I’ve been that thing’s plaything for who knows how long.” She started to get up but stopped, looking wary and suspicious.
Sounds behind him let him know that there were guards stationed nearby. “Starbuck,” he said carefully. “They are not here to do anything to you but help you heal.” What shocked him was the once brutally tough pilot shrunk back in fear at his tone. “I’m sorry,” he said in a much softer voice. “You may not believe this, but the people here do understand what you’ve been put through.”
“Yeah, right,” she muttered with tears in her eyes as she looked away.
“Captain,” Janet came up to him and pulled him away. “I think it would be best that you leave.”
Karl knew an order when he heard it. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered and turned around to leave sickbay. What surprised him was seeing Felix just outside the door looking like he wasn’t sure of whether or not to go in to talk to her. “Not yet. She’s not doing well right now,” he told his old friend and continued down the corridor.
~~~~~~~
Karl had to admit that a good night sleep and a filling breakfast could and did wonders for anyone. Kara’s eyes still had that haunted look, but she seemed more at ease with her surroundings. He looked up to one of the cameras and winked. Felix was going to watch the entire debriefing, however long or short it was going to be from somewhere else on base.
The former Colonial pilot was wearing duty fatigues and sneakers. Just seeing her fully rested made Karl feel better about putting her through the debriefing. She followed Jack into the conference room. They all felt that it would be much better there, than the interrogation room. Kara may have looked healthy, but he knew that she was anything but stable.
“So, what am I doing here?” the Colonial asked as she plopped down in the chair. “You planning to use me? Like Iblis did?”
Jack raised an eyebrow at her apparent insubordination, but said nothing.
As Sam walked into the room Kara’s eyes narrowed. “I know why you’re looking at me,” the astrophysicist said as she sat down.
“Oh really?”
“Yes. For a short time I carried a Tok’ra. Once you‘ve had one inside you, it‘s something you can sense in others. I can tell you‘ve had a Goa‘uld inside you even if I didn‘t know where we‘d found you.” Kara look of revulsion wasn’t that much of a surprise to the group.
“Kara, you’re safe here,” Karl said emphatically as he placed a hand on her arm.
“Don’t touch me, Helo,” she pushed his hand off her shoulder.
“Kara, the one that held you captive? We’ve got a little war going on with his kind,” Jack commented as he indicated both Sam and Karl.
“Yeah, and I’m the President,” she muttered. She crossed her arms, scowling belligerently.
“Just great,” Jack muttered under his breath. Gaeta had told them in no uncertain terms to be gentle with her, citing his own experience. It hadn’t occurred to Jack at the time that Gaeta, upon being rescued, had been terrified about what Stargate Command was going to do with him but it made sense. The problem was that Kara Thrace was anything but gentle. “Okay,” he continued suddenly as he stood up and leaned over the conference table in her direction. At the sudden actions, she cringed back, and scowled more. “You want to know what’s really going on? That slime bag Iblis used you as his personal executioner.” His voice softened as he sat back down, “And we’re going to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. There is no need to lash out at everything and everyone. We want to help you, but you have to try to remain calm and be cooperative.”
“There’s something else,” Karl said quietly. When she didn’t say anything he continued, “The destroyed world with that ring was not Earth.”
“Of course not, it’s fake,” she snarled. “Let me guess, this is Earth.”
“Kara, it’s not fake,” Jack said with compassion in his voice. “You’re on Earth. Well, underground at the moment, but that’s beside the point.”
“But … it was destroyed.” Thrace, Jack recalled from Karl’s briefing, had been like most of the people in the colonial fleet, shattered that their quest had led to nothing but a burnt out rusk of a planet with a ring they considered to be deadly.
“That world was, but it was not Earth.” Karl said carefully.
“I don’t believe this is Earth,” Kara stubbornly held her ground while folding her arms. More shock than anger, Jack thought. She was handling the news better than Gaeta had.
Karl closed his eyes for a moment, considered his next actions. He hoped he knew what he was doing. “General,” he said as he indicated the screen off to the side.
“What’s going on?” Kara asked nervously as Jack picked up a small remote.
“I want to show you something. Something that I hope will make you realize that we are all telling the truth,” Jack’s voice was full of compassion as he pointed it at the screen.
“Kara, do you remember that transmission we intercepted? The one with the two men in EVA suits and we couldn’t figure out what they were doing?” Karl said. It had been one of the few things that had kept the fleet going, a mysterious transmission they’d received almost a year after finding the false Earth. When he’d found out what it really was, he’d been amazed as the coincidence.
The video was almost an hour in length, but the ending was always the same. It was the same thing she had seen long before Iblis had captured her. It was the image of an extremely primitive spaceship landing on a desolate planet. Just from the look on her face, they knew she had seen the images before. “It’s real?” she asked in a small voice.
“Yes,” Jack answered with a smile. “I would call the two astronauts here, but … they prefer their privacy.” Noting her effort not to shake, Jack looked at Sam and indicated the door.