“And fired her as soon as she cleaned them up.” Jack didn’t look up from his plate.
“Yes, well.” Nechayev shrugged. “That is the way it goes.” He took a long drink of his beer. “An entire sentient race wiped out.”
“They’re machines,” Jack said. He looked at Nechayev across the table. “Sophisticated machines. No different than blowing up a tank or taking out a satellite.”
“Not people. Not possessing an immortal soul.” Nechayev shrugged. “I am not arguing that they were. That is the thing about machines. You cannot appeal to their better natures. Failsafe devices and dead men switches.” His eyes met Jack’s. “We have seen those in our nightmares, yes? The machines that cannot be dissuaded from their programming, locked in a firing routine long after all those they protect are dead.” He took another long drink of his beer. “We are old cold warriors, you and I. There is no reasoning with the machine. It is as well that Carter destroyed them utterly.”
Jack didn’t reply, only turned the beer bottle around in his hands, reading the label.
“I only mention it to point out that I doubt she would have been so quick to annihilate them completely with no quarter asked or given if it had not been for her own experiences with the Replicators in the past. Taken prisoner and tortured terribly, was it not?” Nechayev shrugged again. “But then we are all what life has made us. We all have those we cannot forgive.”
“True enough,” Jack said, still turning the beer bottle around. He put it down and raised his eyes. “I know the IOA won’t have Sheppard or Caldwell. I had a civilian candidate in mind. Dr. Daniel Jackson.”
Nechayev whistled. “That is a game changer,” he said quietly.
“I thought you’d think so,” Jack said, spearing a clam strip. “How about it?”
“No one can say he’s not qualified,” Nechayev said. “He’s eminently qualified. One of the foremost experts on the Ancients in the world, active at the highest levels of negotiations for a decade. A close friend of yours, of course, but that is to be expected. You would hardly recommend someone you didn’t trust.”
Jack smiled pleasantly. “No. I wouldn’t.”
“Shen won’t buy it.”
“Of course,” Jack said. “She wants it herself.”
“When pigs fly, as you say,” Nechayev replied.
“We’re paying the bills. It’s an American.” Jack speared another clam strip and twirled it in the ketchup. “You know the saying, you’ve got to dance with the one that brung you?”
“I do know it,” he said. “And I will tell you something that you already know as well. Our interests are far more in the Milky Way than Pegasus. Not nearly so far, and much more friendly. There are many opportunities among the Jaffa alliances and others that do not involve going nearly so far, or encountering quite so many life sucking aliens. We want our hand in, if there is a hand in Pegasus, but frankly if the IOA closed down the expedition tomorrow we would not weep.” Nechayev took a long drink of his beer. “You are overcommitted, O’Neill. You know it. You are overextended on Earth and…” He cocked his head to the ceiling. “Now you are looking down the barrel of a sour economy and an isolationist population dreaming of a solution that will make everyone else’s problems not their problems. You hate the IOA, but we are your best chance at not having to fold your hand completely. Perhaps if you can shoehorn some of it off onto us or those hungry boys who are pretending they are building weather satellites for Ariane just outside Warsaw, you will not have to turn over the City of the Ancients to the Chinese.”
“The Austerlitz is eighteen months from completion,” Jack said quietly. “And it’s only the communications systems that are being assembled in Poland. The hull is being built in Clermont Ferrand.”
“And then the EU will have their own warship, and we are three years from replacing the Korolev,” Nechayev said. “And you’ve suspended work on your new vessel indefinitely.”
“Money,” Jack said.
“There is no such thing as a cheap war.” Nechayev shrugged. “Very well. I will back Jackson. But you…”
“I know,” Jack said. “I’ll owe you through the nose.”
“I was going to suggest a less polite part of your anatomy,” Nechayev laughed. “But I will take your nose if it is what is offered.”
Chapter Nine
Sheppard and Guide
“We have much to discuss,” Guide said. “If you do intend to make an alliance in truth.” He looked from Teyla to Sheppard. “There are other things besides the location of Dr. McKay that may prove of interest to you.”
“And I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff you’d like to know,” Sheppard said pleasantly. “We’ll see.”
Guide snorted. “I understand if you must consult with your Colonel Carter first. After all, you are her consort, and doubtless she will want to hear of your safety first and foremost.”
Sheppard frowned. “What?”
“Do you not think she will have a care for your safety?” Guide baited. He had seen such before, a blade trying to play old queen and young queen both, a dangerous game, and one that usually lost a man his life. “Are you not her lover?”
“Carter’s?” Sheppard’s eyebrows rose, and the bewilderment in his voice was genuine. “You think me and Carter? No. Not at all. She’s been with somebody else for a long time. We get along really well, but not that way at all.”
Teyla looked amused. “Though I am sure she will be glad to hear he is safe and well.”
Guide nodded inwardly. Better. That was safer, if Sheppard was not playing some dangerous game of his own. Better if he were Consort to She Who Carries Many Things in name only, a reliable man that a queen might choose to represent her in the absence of her own consort of many years, some older blade who doubtless protected their interests elsewhere. Such a man might be valuable to a queen. “I must have misunderstood,” Guide said smoothly. “Your pardon,” he asked of Teyla.
“Of course,” she said, and Sheppard tipped his head to her, as if wondering what that exchange were about.
“If we have much to discuss,” Guide said. “Will you come aboard my ship?”
They exchanged a look, but this time it was Teyla who spoke. “No. But we will give you coordinates where you may meet us, and there we will talk.”
“And if it is a trap?”
“How should it be?” she asked. “I did not know you would come here, so how could I have arranged with any other to ambush you? And if I did give you the coordinates for a rendezvous with the Hammond, the hive ship and the Hammond would be well matched, and you would come out of hyperspace with your shields raised.”
Which was of course true. Guide sighed. “Very well,” he said tersely. “Give me your coordinates. I will have my shuttle return me to my ship, and we will follow you to this location. I hope you appreciate that doing so is an unprecedented act of trust.”
“Not so much,” Sheppard said. “We’ll be talking under your guns.” He still looked doubtful.
“I will speak with my ship first,” Guide said, and stepped away, lifting his communicator to his mouth. He did not speak into it, only turned his back and listened, wanting to hear whatever passed between them. It would tell him a great deal, what was said and not said. If this were an ambush, there would be no need to say anything.