Operation Flirt!

[valaunbound]

If Vala's talents lay anywhere in particular, they lay in her seasoned ability to sniff out the seedy underbelly of a place. Before her time on Earth at the SGC medieval taverns just like this one, scattered across the galaxy, had been her life. Shady arms deals done under tables, intel exchanged at a price, secrets slipped over a tankard of ale or an inflated ego, even just plain old gossip could all be found right here, if you knew the right person to ask.

The ne'er do wells, the mercenaries, and more importantly the resistance, congregated at places like this. Stacy was so vastly populated, Vala was absolutely positive that they weren't all willing to fight someone else's war. She'd seen the recruitment drives already broadcast across the communications channel, all the new arrivals that were willing to sign up without so much as needing a shred of evidence before they were metaphorically saluting and pledging their naive and blind allegiance to the cause. If she wasn't so willing to risk her life for a war she knew very little about, then there were bound to be others.

The Drunken Dragon seemed, at first glance, the ideal place to start. Vala wanted to know how to buck the system, how to get hold of contraband, who to give a wide berth to, everything that the hierarchy didn't tell you. That was how you found out how a place really ticked. She might not have anything to barter with, but that could easily be fixed. She didn't have a reputation as one of the best thieves in the galaxy for nothing, and she always had her feminine wiles to fall back on. And even if she did say so herself, her feminine wiles were an incredibly attractive proposition.

Flagon of ale in hand Vala looked around for an empty table, surveying the faces of those already huddled tightly in conversation with a smile warm enough to appear alluring, whilst still not trying to appear overconfident. 'Time to lay on the charm, I guess,' she told herself.

Comments

[valaunbound]

Great! Vala's reaction to the Mitchell doppelganger grabbing her arm was as if she got this kind of treatment everywhere she went and even expected it. Truth be known, she did get this treatment everywhere she went. Twice just today.

"Of course," she smiled sarcastically, letting him pull her towards the table. "You know if you wanted to have sex with me, you could have just asked," she said through gritted teeth, her ventriloquy skills really quite adept as she simultaneously forced a smile through for the benefit of any onlookers.

For once though, she wasn't guilty of anything. At least as far as she knew. But she still felt guilty. Call it instinct, or habitual even.

[youmissed]

John has no clue how he could've mistaken Vala for Aeryn. For one, Aeryn doesn't smile like that all teeth and sugary-sweet and frankly, it's making him nervous all over again and he can't even say why. Guts? Hunch? Instinct? Despite the mouth on Vala, it isn't as if she's pulled a gun on him or done anything to get him jumpy, aside from, y'know, the obvious. John shoots her a startled look when she brings up sex.

He's a guy. He likes sex. Sex is Pretty Great and it's actually one of the things that the Uncharted Territories trumps Earth on: beyond crazy alien sex in all shapes, sizes, and pheromones. The few times John had sex with Aeryn, he had a pretty good time and he's not just saying that to prove a point about humans and Sebaceans. But now is one of those times where he's got his pants on and he's not even thinking about sex, not even a tiny bit, and suddenly getting that thrown in the face puts him back a step. John lets Vala's arm go as he sits down across from her. The hard part is he keeps telling himself she's nothing like Aeryn, only that face right there? Not helping things.

"You know that's not what I'm here for. And if I really needed to have a good time, I got my trusty sidekick." Hey Mr. Right Hand, how you doing? John drops his hand back onto the table, leaning forward. "So you're really from Earth? And what's this SGC?"

Seriously, she could be Aeryn's identical twin. It's freaking him out.

[valaunbound]

What was this guy's problem? It didn't help that a tiny niggling part of her still suspected he was Cameron, despite his protestations in the pod caverns. Anyone else would have had an elbow in the face or a knee in the groin by now with the way he was manhandling her. As it was she was sorely tempted, until he let go of her arm that is. Vala chose instead to make a dramatic deal of dusting her violated arm off.

"So that's why you nearly broke my arm?" She stated incredulously rather than asked. "To ask me where I came from! Well I've seen some poor chat up lines but that one takes the..." She wanted to say cake, but wasn't sure if that was right "...prize."

As for actually answering his questions, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Stargate Command was all part of that non-disclosure deal, and now she knew he wasn't Cam and that Daniel was here, perhaps she shouldn't cross that line. She really didn't want to piss Daniel off any more than she already had.

[youmissed]

"I didn't - " John catches himself. He tries again. Remember: Jedi Master Zen. "Cake. You mean cake. You don't think it's weird that you think I look like this Cameron of yorus? And since we're on the subject of Twilight Zone weird, look at you! You look like Aeryn's long-lost twin."

He gives her a kind of all-encompassing wave at her Valaness or whatever you wanted to call it. It's hard to describe. If this was Aeryn, she probably would've been going down on him for not going "far enough" if he'd wanted to break her arm, not sounding this level of offended. The problem is John hasn't really planned this out much further than cornering Vala and talking. Somehow he guesses he assumed she would have all the answers. Usually that was how it went down back on Moya - John Crichton is almost the last to find out anything and by now he's gotten so used to it that he started working around it. So now that he's here, he's not sure what he wants.

An explanation would be nice. How there can be some Bizarro Crichton running around with a Bizarro Aeryn. What are the odds?

John's fingers drum on the table as he fixes Vala with a stare, frowning at her. Trying to figure out what to do. He's not even sure on that front. This isn't cut and dry like another alien deciding to take pot-shots at him. There's no way he's going to shoot Vala.

"So what's this Cameron of yours like? His past, that kinda thing?" John can't resist asking. How much of his past matches up. He can't see the Ancients plucking two Johns -- or alternate Johns -- and giving them the wormhole stuff. Too much of a liability.

[valaunbound]

"Cake! I knew my first instinct was right." Vala snapped her fingers, internally berating herself, seemingly more bothered about her grasp of the language than the real matter in hand. Or maybe she was playing for time while she thought, it was hard to tell. She did have her theories though.

"Ohhhh," her attention now firmly back with the plot, it was all making sense now. "You know her then? Great figure, fabulous hair, the unfortunate manners and demeanour of an underpaid Prison Warden?" What? It was true, at least by Vala's experience of her 'twin'.

"I do have to admit, it's certainly strange. Not unheard of though. I mean, parallel universes, all that." She waved a dismissive hand as if it were merely conjecture, as opposed to something she knew for sure existed.

"Weeeell," Vala began, trying to think of the bits she could say, "he's from Kansas, has a devout grandmother, dreadful at baking cookies and is a... pilot. For the United States Air Force." There. That would do it.

[youmissed]

John pauses there. Aeryn's a bit...rough on the edges, he guesses, only take that and multiply it by a hundred and actually, Vala's totally right: Aeryn does have some fabulous hair. He distinctly remembers telling her something along those lines a cycle ago, before it had gotten even more complicated between them. Vala has a way with words there, leaving John with no choice but to agree.

"That's her," he nods. He leans forward. "So basically parallel universes and in that one, you're saying I'm some Kansas farmboy who can't bake worth a damn. And Mirror Me's military."

So that's basically the gist of it? Except --

"I thought you said he was with this SGC. So unless they're switching acronyms on me, he's either with this SGC or with USAF, Vala." So it's not the "ah-ha" moment he'd been hoping for. John thinks he probably needs to stop doing this, busting in with what only looks like a plan if you look at it sideways, and come at it a little less guns blazing and more like he used to. Seems like that was so long ago.

Still, he's feeling a bit better about this. The explanation is so off the wall that it could be true and not some crappy attempt to get into his head. Besides, he thinks by now he'd recognize Scarran interrogation techniques and this isn't feeling the same. John decides to play nice, holding up a hand and soon enough, Vala even has her own beer (or the next closest thing to beer here) sitting pretty in front of her.

[valaunbound]

The more she thought about it, the more she was slowly coming to the conclusion that maybe it didn't matter about disclosing information about the Stargate program, there were plenty of quite obvious aliens here, and they were actually on a spaceship.

"Well he's with both, SGC is part of the Air Force, based at Cheyenne Mountain?" It didn't hurt to say that much surely, and if he questioned her further she could always change what it stood for. "But that's about the size of it, in fact I'm convinced that's the case because you have the same accent and voice, although I suspect you're a little more excitable."

Typical Vala, just saying it like it is. "So how about Aeryn? Is she a sexy alien too, who's saved your ass more times than she cares to remember?"

[youmissed]

Huh, okay, so that sounds more like top secret, should get stamped classified in red and "off your paygrade" kind of thing to him. Obviously Vala doesn't care about it and he guesses when you hear your universe might be destroyed, little things like confidentiality don't mean much in the end.

John does have to raise an eyebrow at "excitable". He guesses that's way more polite than some of the other things he's been called.

"That's about the gist of it," John says, thrown for a loop. The resemblance to Aeryn gives a whole new definition to uncanny. "I thought you were the same species as her, but I've never heard a Sebacean call anyone a 'sexy alien'. So where you're from, you make first contact yet?"

Still, "sexy alien". Two words he's still trying to adjust coming from Bizarro Aeryn's mouth. Not that Aeryn isn't sexy and she has a great walk whether she knows it or not, but that's neither here nor there and yeah, it's time for a drink now. John nurses his mug, licking his lips and relieved that it's not anything really ridiculous like some of the stuff he's had to drink over the past cycle.

[valaunbound]

"Oh no I'm completely human," Vala interjected almost defensively, there'd been a time when she wasn't and that was not a memory she had any desire to recall. "I'm just not Tau'ri... from Earth," she clarified.

"I'm from a small planet in the Nylus Sector if that means anything to you." If John had encountered other species before such as these 'Sebaceans' that Aeryn apparently was, then it really didn't matter that she was truthful. If Daniel wanted to chew her ear off about it, then let him. It was only an addition to a long list of things to come, she was sure.

"I'm curious though, outside the SGC and the NID, I wasn't aware any other Tau'ri had got further than your moon."

[youmissed]

John's blank face at "Nylus Sector" said all Vala needed to know. It took him another moment to realize that when she was throwing that Tau'ri thing around that it was one of those multipurpose words. Earth, Earth-man; same difference. "I’m probably the only one back where I come from. Went out for a test flight and pop,” John snapped his fingers. “Suddenly I’m way past where no man’s gone before.”

That was the short, short, super-edited version. These days he’d learned to be more careful about running his mouth off on wormholes or slingshot maneuvers or – huh. He didn’t remember being so paranoid. John stared at Vala over the rim of his mug.

“So how’d you get out in this Nylus Sector? I’m guessing humans from your end got their act together, space-program wise.” Had to be. He really, really couldn’t see her as being under IASA or NASA, and she didn’t seem to be wigging out about aliens like folks back home might, so he pinned her as having enough exposure to get past the shock factor. He frowned at the way she’d answered him, almost too quickly. Touchy subject? Something he said?

[valaunbound]

Vala may be clueless on many things, mostly Earth related, but she knows a thing or two about space travel and wormholes. And as far as she's aware there's only a limited number of ways to suddenly 'pop', as Crichton put it, and find yourself half way across the Galaxy, or hell even a different Galaxy altogether as her recent experiences had proven.

"So you'd installed a Hyper Drive?" Because accidentally and unknowingly dialling a Stargate wasn't really possible and natural wormholes were so few and far between. Vala's curiosity had been piqued, she cupped her chin in her hand, leaning in on her elbow on the table in interest.

"Not exactly a space program," she dismissed the question easily with a nonchalant flip of her hand. Vala had just grown up with space travel being easily accessible, not a big deal to her.

[youmissed]

“You’re telling me you went the magic carpet route?” Vala made it sound like all a guy had to do was snap his fingers and there you were, all ready to go. John shook his head. “I think if I tried to slap a sucker like that on, my ship would fall apart. It’s not built for long distance.”

“Long distance”. Funny how his definition of it changed; John used to think long distance was thousands of miles; full on light years; the time it took for Alpha Centauri’s light to hit Earth; that crap route the Pizza Hut by Dad's house always took. Now he kept thinking metres and Starbursts and it suddenly made everything before look…small. Really small. Ask him later how he was adjusting to that. John worked his way through his mug, nursing it instead of chugging it because he’d found that was the safer thing to do with alien beer. Save him a whole world of hurt if he played it careful with stuff like this. It wasn’t like he could expect his friends back on Moya to hold his hair back for him, figuratively speaking.

“So if you don’t have a space program, than how do you get around?” John found himself gearing up to ask about that first contact with aliens. There had to be something. Vala was just far too calm about all of this, so there had to be some experience or something. Maybe she’d been born after it. Now there was a thought.

[valaunbound]

"No but tell me more about these magic carpets." If Vala was a cartoon, you'd be seeing the dollar signs in her eyes right about now, because they sounded very interesting. She took a long mansize swig of her.. well she wasn't quite sure what it was but it tasted good and that was all that mattered.

Okay that question stalled her a little, because although ships were fairly common place, you had to have money to get one, or the where-with-all to steal borrow one. Which Vala had in bucketloads thanks to her less than moral upbringing. But other than ships, people used the Stargates; which she was definitely not allowed to talk about. She looked into the bottom of her tankard and took an extra gulp while she thought.

"Ships, cargo vessels that sort of thing." She almost struggled to spit that out through the wince. Wow, it was strong stuff when you gulped it down that fast.

[youmissed]

Was she serious? “They’re carpets. And magic. That’s about it on the rocket science front,” John said, deciding that if Vala was going to pull his leg then it was fair game to return the favor. He wasn’t having a conversation about magic carpets. “So basically you guys figured out the whole faster than light travel thing.”

It was a statement, not really a question.

John didn’t sound like he believed her; not all the way, anyway. Still, he didn’t see why she’d lie to him considering they were a long, long way from home, way too far to worry about him blabbing to the public, and aside from her looking creepily like Aeryn, he didn’t have anything else other than paranoia going for him. Technically she hadn’t done anything wrong. John glanced up from his mug when Vala hit the alien beer (or whatever it was really called: he called it “alien beer”, way easier to remember than some word he might not even have the right vocal cords for). So, note to self, basically don’t chug the stuff like Vala just did.

John was once again glad he took it slower.

“Anyway, I think we’re all going to be stuck here, unless we can convince the ship to turn herself around.” John licked his lips. Not sure what to make of the alien beer’s aftertaste. “Unless your SGC or whatever it is you replaced IASA with decides to bust in.”

His Earth? Yeah, there was no way that was happening. Compared to this tech, his Earth was just a couple of steps up from riding a log across a river and thinking that was cutting-edge technology. He wasn’t sure about Vala’s tech but it didn’t sound like it was anywhere as advanced as this stuff.

[valaunbound]

The magic carpet thing was a disappointment, he obviously knew nothing about them. She didn't think they were magic for a moment, everything could be answered by science. But she had hoped he'd have a little more information on them. Oh well, not every line of enquiry ends up with treasure. Vala shrugged it off with a 'can't win them all' face.

"If everything I'm hearing is true, my SGC," Ooh she liked how that sounded and it wasn't even her idea, John'd said it first, "are all in those pods too. Any chance of them 'busting' in, relies entirely on whether we're being lied to or not."

[youmissed]

So same boat then. More or less.

"Well, there's always heading down to the pod caverns and doing a pod-by-pod search. Good luck with that one," John snorted. "Me, I'd like to know how they shanghaied us in the first place."

Getting shanghaied at all, okay, he could get it happening if it was something like more critters boarding their ship and kidnapping people, but this. This was doing it without even touching the kidnapees or even being close enough to see it happen. Reminded him of Maldis. Nice thought. He wondered if Vala or her SGC/Scooby Gang had alien beings like that where she came from.