[b]GM posting on players behalf.[/b]

[b]Gravity and Ciphra[/b]

Damn. Cody was worried about this happening. His natural instincts in the field getting in the way. The question was how to deal with Blaze now. He could always kill him and blame it on the natives, but that was the last resort. He was on this mission to protect people, not kill them off if they asked too many questions. He still kept his Zat raised but spoke calmly and without any change. “Why are [i]you[/i] here Colonel Blaze?” The question might be found annoying to the Colonel but it was a needed answer that would affect this entire conversation so he needed the answer.

The Colonel was now incredibly irked and angry. The Lieutenant was putting his entire work at risk by doing what he was doing. But he answer the Lieutenants question, and play his game for now. He attempted to remain outwardly calm, succeeding to an extent, and said ¨Lieutenant, you are currently committing insubordination of Class 4, by DOD DCU standards, and that being American as well, but I will take my liberty to answer your bloody fucking question. I, Lieutenant, am here to serve humanity.¨

¨To protect Earth, and my country, and my relatives, and most of all, my fellow fucking humans. And what your presence and ‘secrecy’ is doing, is putting my line of work in danger. I have a team here, which is based on [i]trust[/i]], and I do not trust you, so answer. And by now, I’ve figured out whatever you’re doing is authorized by some fellow higher up than me, probably someone in the IOA, damn those civilians, so you can’t pull that card.. So, Lieutenant, it is your turn. What, I demand to know, are you doing?” Never in the Colonels life had he had to deal with insubordination of Class 4. Either the Lieutenant answered him, or he did whatever it took to drag his American spook ass to the brig.
But he didn’t wait for Cody to answer. He had a job to do. He walked away from the scene, and immediately contacted the ship. ¨Cap’n, we’ve dealt with the guards. Send down the marines. Oh, and when I get back, tell the IOA Rep I want to have an official talk with him. For the safety of the Strike Team, of course.¨

Cody actually let a smile creep onto his face for once and lowered the Zat. The first time he’d showed any sign of morality, at least to the Colonel. He closed the door to the makeshift guard house and locked it while the Blaze radioed up to the Captain. He then walked over to Blaze still smiling. “You know, what you consider insubordination is just me trying to be casual. I figure if we’re stuck together for God knows how long, it might make things easier if we’re not barking sir yes sir all over the place. As for what I’m doing here. Well that’s simple. While I don’t have a whole lot of personal connections left on earth, and you probably find my methods distasteful. My reasons for being here aren’t as corrupt as you might seem to think. I was told before I took the mission that it would be like nothing I’d done before. By that I mean I knew that it wasn’t just going somewhere to kill someone. The down time would be extensive compared to what I’m used to, but the reason I accepted it was for one of the most basic reasons. Maybe even the reason I allowed myself to kill so many.” He paused for a moment. 

He looked at the sky in thought, once more taking in the planets beauty. “I’m here to protect the lives of everyone on board Colonel. I chose to change up my usual assignments so I could protect everyone I could, and now that I’m here and I know I’m protecting [i]everyone[/i] on Earth. Not just my countrymen, but the entire planet! There’s no way I could regret this decision. One might look at this as a chance for me to even make up for the mistakes, or regrets of my past. Maybe my being here will help save everyone on board.” He chuckled realizing this was the first time he’d truly talked this much about himself in a long time. “Colonel, I know I go about things differently, it’s what I was trained to do. I know you’re going to have issues with it, and probably be sickened by my methods even. Give me a chance though, and I’ll try and act a bit more like a usual soldier. I can’t promise the change will happen immediately, or quickly, but I will change. I have your back sir, and everyone else that’s on board that ship, that is why I am here.” He left it at that, a nice long speech, which now that he’d concluded the rest of the team should be following shortly, not allowing for much time for the colonel to respond, but enough he guessed.

The Colonel did not take this well. All of this was a symbolic way of saying that the only reason he was here was to maintain security, and by that, probably nab spies or something, he didn’t know. All he did know was that the higher-ups didn’t trust him, or the Cap, or the rest of the ship’s crew. Of course, he couldn’t make any assumptions whatsoever, but that didn’t quite matter anymore to him. 

But there was no point in this ridiculous charade, of him against a subordinate. He’d deal with this by talking to Williams, otherwise he’d just be wasting his time. “Lieutenant” he said, once more in monotone, “we will discuss this once this mission is over, by which I mean we get back to sweet mother fucking Earth.” At least things had calmed down now, and he wasn’t liable to getting shot now. The marines were going to beam down any second now.

“I suppose so, Colonel.” Cody hadn’t fully intended to rant so much. Maybe part of him just wanted to get a little weight off his shoulders, who knows. Sadly this wasn’t the time or place for it though, the Zat retracted into its small form as Cody put it back in his pocket. “Maybe we should start a wager.” He said optimistically. “On what’s going to be inside of here. I mean there will be enough people once the marines and science guys get down here!” 

Oh, at least the Lieutenant was finally being a bit normal. Perhaps things [i]would[/i] cool down now. “Three rations on weird ass alien shit being down there, Lieutenant.” Of course, this wager was heavily in his own favour, because whatever they going to find down there was definitely going to be of non-human design, and all of it being “weird”? Well that was truly up to whoever was looking at it, and judging. 
Cody shook his head. “Colonel! That would be absolutely boring! How about…” Cody thought for a minute. “Thirty dollar buy in.” Of course this was nothing but still it was something.

Well, the Colonel was definitely outmatched in terms of money. Sure, he was paid quite well by the Stargate command, better than what the Canadians would pay, but he didn’t have five bucks to his name on the ship. Well, he’d win this wager then. “Fine, agreed upon it is. Usually, we’d kill a few bears and give each other the furs, in Canada” he said, trying to joke about the popular views of people about Canada.

Cody chuckled. “Well I’ll be voting for...hm…” He’d only read a little bit into the ascension part on the ancients, and heard that they had actually studied it before the completed the process, and he was hoping to find out more about this along the way. The idea of purifying oneself and eventually shedding the physical body sounded nice to him. “Lets go with genetic research into ascension for me! Oh and Colonel, I think you might be disqualified for a smart ass remark, but since you’d probably pull rank on me for officially saying that, I’ll just say it was to generalized of an answer.” Did the Colonel really think he’d get off that easily? Though Cody was half mocking him with the joke of rank, since clearly that hadn’t mattered before.