by Karen Miller
Sam looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to imply…” She squared her shoulders. “Of course every SGC mission is intrinsically valuable. And I suppose it’s possible the telemetry’s wrong and we’ll find something useful on 050.”
“Exactly.”
“And while we’re gone,” said Daniel, grinning, “you’ll be able to catch up on all those reports.”
Jack scowled. “Which reports?”
“The reports General Hammond keeps dropping anvil-sized hints about. The reports — ”
“You’ll be eating if you don’t shut up,” said Jack, then raised his eyebrows at his team. “And? So? What are you waiting for, written invitations? Get your gear on and report to the gate room. I’ll go tell Hammond I’m sitting this one out.”
“Yes, sir,” said Sam, and led her team’s exodus from the gym.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine, Colonel,” Janet said quietly. “It does seem like a perfectly straightforward mission.”
“Famous last words,” he grunted, watching them leave. “Are you trying to jinx them?”
Well, that was a nasty thing to say. She plucked the MRI flimsy from his fingers and tucked it back into his file. “Of course not. I don’t choose the missions or the teams. I just get to pick up the pieces when everything goes to hell.”
He looked at her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean — ” He shoved his hands back in his pockets. “How’s Lee doing?”
“She’s fine. Considering.”
“And Esposito? Brackley?” he persisted.
“They’re fine too. Colonel — ”
“I know,” he said. “You’re just doing your job.”
“That’s right.” She hesitated, then added, “When you saw the geophysical readout from that planet you must have known — ”
“I did. But haven’t you heard? ‘Optimist’ is my middle name.”
“Since when?” she called after him as he headed for the door.
He didn’t answer. She smiled to herself, collected her bits and pieces of paperwork and went back to her office where the mission status report awaited her completion and signature.
O’Neill found the General in his office, glued to the phone. Hammond waved him in and pointed to the empty chair, still talking.
“Yes, Scott. — Yes, I agree. — That was my impression as well. — Yes. Good. — No, no. I appreciate you’ve got some hoops to jump through. Come back to me when you can. Goodbye.”
“What was your impression, sir?” O’Neill asked, as Hammond replaced the receiver. “If I may be so bold as to enquire.”
“Am I imagining things,” said Hammond, “or are you supposed to be getting ready for a mission to PX8-050?”
In other words mind your own damn business, Jack. “No, sir, you’re not imagining anything. I was scheduled to visit good old 050 but our doughty Doc Fraiser’s put an end to that dream.”
“Ah. Well, I didn’t think your knee would stand up to it,” said Hammond. “And be honest, Jack. Neither did you.”
“No. But you know me, sir. Hope springs eternal.” He cleared his throat. “At the risk of being court-martialed for presumption, General, I’ve given Carter, Daniel and Teal’c the go-ahead to romp through the Stargate without me this time. Pending your approval, naturally.”
“Naturally,” said Hammond, dry as a martini. “Though why you should give a rat’s ass about being court-martialed at this stage in your career I really don’t know. It’s certainly never stopped you before.”
They shared a brief smile. “Well, sir, I thought I’d try turning over a new leaf.”
“That’ll have all the charm of novelty,” Hammond murmured. Then he relented, and stood. “Let’s go bid your team bon voyage, shall we?”
After three years working out of this base O’Neill had lost count of how many times he’d watched the Stargate open. And yet, just like the majestic flight of the native American UAV, the sight never got old. The seventh chevron locked and the wormhole blossomed into existence. Something from nothing. A miracle that defied belief or explanation… no matter how many times Carter tried to explain.
“Sir!” she said smartly, presenting herself to Hammond. “We’re ready to go as soon as you give the word.”
Hammond always found a smile for Carter, no matter how tough life was, no matter how many crises he was juggling at once. “The word is given, Major. Take your team and have a good look around. I know the telemetry wasn’t promising but we both know telemetry doesn’t always tell the full story.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Colonel — ”
He nodded. “Have fun, Carter. Don’t let the kids get into any trouble. And if Daniel’s struck with the sudden urge to explore any mysterious caves or unexpected ruins I am ordering you to sit on him until it passes. Capisce?”
“Capisco,” she said, grinning. “Have fun with your reports.”
“Oh come on,” said Daniel, mock-complaining. “It’s been months since I got lost in a cave. And anyway, it only happened the once.”
“Once was sufficient,” said Teal’c. “O’Neill, we will return.”
“You have to leave first,” he pointed out. “So scram. Skedaddle. You’re costing us a fortune, leaving the wormhole on like this. Use it or lose it, boys and girl.” He waved his hands at them. “Shoo!”
It was a cruel wrench, watching them step through the gate without him. Who cared if this was a standard recon mission meant for the newly re-formed SG-4? His team had no business going anywhere without him.
“They’ll be fine, Jack,” said Hammond, clapping him on the shoulder.
“I know they will, sir,” he said as the wormhole disengaged. “Our run of bad luck can’t last forever, right?”
The minute the words were spoken he wished he could call them back. The warmth in Hammond’s eyes chilled and his shoulders settled a little, as though remembering the heavy weight duty had placed on them.
“I certainly hope not,” he replied. “But even if it has ended, Jack, there’s still the fallout to be dealt with. We’ve got some… interesting… decisions to make.”
Something in the way Hammond said that set off his alarm bells. “Ah — sir?”
But Hammond shook his head. “Not yet, Colonel. But… soon.”
“Yes, sir,” he said after a heartbeat’s hesitation.
Hammond departed the gate room, and O’Neill watched him go, frowning.
Crap. What now?
Chapter Two
One of the screwiest things about Gate travel was trying to keep the time zones straight. Basically it was impossible. A day on some planets lasted nearly forty-eight Earth hours. On others there was hardly any day at all, just hours and hours and hours of night. Some gates weren’t on planets, even, they’d been placed on moons, which meant more screwy timekeeping. gate travel hangover made airline jetlag look like a picnic.
SG-1 had gated through to PX8-050 just after 1600 Earth time to arrive shortly after dawn local time. That meant it would more than likely be midnight or later in the base before a peep was heard from them. Assuming they didn’t run into trouble, of course.
O’Neill, slogging his way through his belated mission reports, kept slapping that thought away like it was a persistent mosquito.
Damn. They went without me. They shouldn’t do that.
He was prepared to stay on base all night if he had to, until he knew his people were okay. God knew he had the paperwork to keep him going for that long. But Janet Fraiser tracked him down to his corner of the almost empty commissary, gave his half-eaten piece of pie a pointed look and damn well pulled rank on him. Again.
“Colonel, it’s really very simple,” she said, hands thrust into her lab coat pockets. “We can’t afford you getting over-tired. It’s bad enough that Washington politics means SG-1 had to cut short their mandatory post-mission downtime to cover SG-4’s slate. But if you don’t use this chance to fully recover from your last two missions there will be physical repercussion
s and the SGC can’t afford to lose another team leader. You know that. So why are you giving me a hard time?”
“Because all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” he said, promptly. “Come on, Doc. Everybody needs a hobby.”
With an impatient sigh Fraiser pulled out the chair opposite and shoved herself into it. “Colonel, please. Don’t argue with me. Go home. Sit in front of the tv for an hour or two, eat something with more to recommend it than calories and food coloring and forget about this place for one damned night.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Forget my team?”
“No, of course not,” she said, with another look. “But that doesn’t mean you need to sit around here convincing yourself they’re coming back on stretchers just because you’re not with them.”
Hell. What did I do, hang a sign around my neck?
She tapped her discreetly manicured fingernails on the table between them. “And you need to forget about the rest of it too, Colonel. The dead are beyond our help and the survivors have to find their own way back or they’ll end up diminished and doubting themselves. Nobody knows that better than you.”
When the mood was on her, Janet Fraiser wielded words like a scalpel. He scowled. “Thought you were a paid-up member of the Touchy Feely brigade?”
“My dues go to the Tough Love Club, of which you’re the cuddly mascot, I believe,” she retorted. “Right now we don’t have the luxury of worrying ourselves sick. We’ve got a base commander who needs us to keep it together. And if you don’t rest your mind, Colonel, even for a lousy twelve hours, sooner or later you’re going to burn out.”
Crap. She was seriously worried about him. He hated it when she seriously worried about him. Nobody did worry like Janet Fraiser.
She looked up. “Please, Jack,” she said, very softly. “Go home and get some rest.”
And why was it worse when she didn’t pull medical rank on him?
Defiant, he forked up what was left of his cherry pie — his third piece but he wasn’t telling her that — and shoved it into his mouth.
“Fine,” he said, around the sticky pink goodness. Letting her know he felt put-upon and was only doing her a favor because he was such a good guy. The fact that he was so tired his eyeballs had turned into lumps of burning coal had nothing to do with it. “I’ll go.”
Her face lit up, briefly. “Excellent.” She stood, brisk and professional, as though she hadn’t just let the human Janet off her strict military leash for a moment. “Don’t let me see you back here before — ” She checked her watch. “It’s 2115 now. So — 0900 tomorrow. Better yet, 0930. Clear?”
He gave her a mock salute. “Ma’am, yes ma’am.”
She gave him yet another pointed look, turned to go, then turned back. “I’m sure they’re fine, Colonel,” she said quietly. “Sam, Daniel and Teal’c are the best. And given everything that’s gone wrong around here lately it’s easy to spook ourselves, or start believing that off-world missions can’t be anything but dramatic and dangerous. That’s not the case.” She nodded at his paperwork. “You’re not dragging your heels on those reports because you’re inefficient or undisciplined. You’re dragging them because the missions aren’t any fun to write about. They were boring. We can do boring here, too. Don’t forget that.”
He watched her leave the commissary, his jaw metaphorically dropped. She had the most uncanny knack for sticking her finger right on a pulse…
Suddenly he was exhausted. Home. Home and pizza. Home and Chinese. Home and anything not cooked by the Air Force or himself. Home and something mindless on the idiot box. And beer. Cold beer.
After calling ahead to place a late order with the Dragon Palace he changed into civilian camouflage of jeans and sweatshirt, signed himself off-base and escaped into the normal world. Sometimes it made him feel like the alien. All those people with no idea what was happening in the great big scary, incredible, amazing galaxy. Tonight, though, all he could feel was relieved beyond measure that the regular world was there, still there, and bumbling along in its glorious innocent ignorance.
Just as he was diving headfirst into sauce-soaked potstickers someone uninvited knocked on his front door.
“Oh, for crying out loud!” he muttered, and went to see who’d so lost interest in living that they were on his doorstep harassing him at 2207. PM. At night.
“Sorry, Jack,” said General Hammond. “I know it’s late, but can you spare a few minutes?”
Oh crap. Oh crap. “SG-1, are they — ”
“No!” said Hammond, lifting his hands. “I’m sorry. The team’s fine. Major Carter radioed in before I left the base to say they were staying a few more hours to get soil and plant samples. Everything’s fine. The mission’s going to plan.”
As the potstickers stopped doing the rumba in his stomach, he stepped back. “Oh. Good. Then — come in, sir. Want Chinese?”
“Chinese?” said Hammond vaguely, as though he wasn’t entirely familiar with the concept.
O’Neill waved the general down the stairs into the living room. God, he looks beat. “Yes, sir,” he said, heading for the kitchen. “You’d better. I always order too much. Carter’s renamed my fridge the The O’Neill Laboratory. She says I should apply for funding.”
“Ha,” said Hammond, wearily amused, and lowered himself into an armchair, still in uniform but looking crumpled. Not a good sign. Hammond was Old School; probably he really did spit on his shoes when he polished them.
O’Neill shoved a bit of everything into a bowl, finished it off with a splosh of dipping sauce, shoved a fork in it and joined Hammond.
“Here you go, sir. Dig in. Did you want a beer to wash it down?”
“Thanks,” said Hammond. “And yes. A beer would be appreciated.”
They ate in companionable silence, with a re-run of Cheers droning in the background. Eventually Hammond put his emptied bowl to one side and relaxed against his armchair’s cushions.
O’Neill considered him. “Better?”
“Better,” Hammond acknowledged. Then he balanced his beer bottle on his knee and sighed. “Jack, the SGC is in a tight spot.”
“We’re going through a rough patch, sir, yes,” he said, chasing the last stubborn grains of fried rice with his chopsticks. “But we’ll survive. We always do.”
“We might not this time,” said Hammond. “Not without taking a few drastic steps.”
To hell with the fried rice. He put aside his bowl. “What kind of drastic steps, sir?”
Instead of answering, Hammond took refuge in his beer. O’Neill felt his skin prickle. Oh, crap. I’m not going to like this.
Hammond put down the emptied beer bottle. “Have you ever crossed paths with a Colonel David Dixon?”
He thought for a moment then shook his head. “No, sir. I don’t think so. Why?”
“Colonel Dixon was Frank Cromwell’s second in command at the time of the black hole incident,” the general said at last. His blue eyes were steady and promised no compromises. “After Cromwell’s death he took over the Pentagon strike team.”
Frank Cromwell. A name that could punch a hole right through him, if he let it. A memory he’d buried fathoms deep, and for good. Frank’s face as the wormhole swallowed him. Fear and disbelief and shocking, endless pain…
“No, sir,” he said. “I’ve never met Dixon.”
And I don’t want to. Cromwell. The black hole. Iraq. Don’t you make me dig it all up again, George. I’m too old for that crap.
If Hammond could read his mind this time, as he read it so often, he didn’t show it. “Dixon was on emergency leave when Cromwell and his men were deployed here. There was no need for him, the rest of the team was available, so he wasn’t recalled. Not until Cromwell was killed and he had to assume the strike team’s leadership.”
Yeah. You said. And this is my problem because…?
“Jack,” said Hammond, “Doctor Fraiser is adamant it’ll be a minimum of six weeks before Riley, Adams and Keffler are fit
to return to full field duty. In the meantime I’ve got to find acting replacements for them and plug the holes in their teams. I’ve got to permanently replace Jake Andrews, Natalie Larke and Manny Dominguez. There’s going to be a lot of robbing Peter to pay Paul around the SGC and the upshot is we lose team numbers overall.”
“Yes, sir,” he said. He’d eaten too much moo shu pork. His guts were rebelling. “I know. But six weeks isn’t that long.”
Hammond pulled a face. “Jack, in politics six weeks is a lifetime. The midterms are coming up and the President’s approval ratings are flat. He’s vulnerable to the kind of backroom manouverings that make Washington such a cesspool.”
“Yeah, but what’s that got to do with us?”
“More than you realize,” said Hammond. “More than I like. I’ve heard whispers there’s a push for a Stargate oversight committee, designed to monitor the risk and expenditure versus rewards of the program. Our recent losses are not going to look good on a balance sheet. Every person on this base represents a substantial investment of government money… and in the last few weeks we’ve seen a lot of money lost.”
O’Neill watched his hands clench into fists. “Yeah. Because that’s what’s really important, here. The loss of government money. Screw the individuals, screw the fact Jake Andrews just got engaged and Natalie Larke was awarded her doctorate last month, screw — ”
“Jack!”
He let out a harsh breath. “Sorry, sir. I know. It’s the politicians, not you.”
“And it’s the politicians I answer to,” Hammond said, his voice still sharp. “Which means sucking up my personal feelings and remembering this is a game for pragmatists. However distasteful we may find it, Colonel, the reality is we need consistently good results from the field in order to justify our expensive existence. And without strong SGC teams out there our quota of good results will be significantly decreased.”
“Yes, sir. But you said there were only whispers of an oversight committee, so — ”
“Whispers from a source that mean they’re the same as orders in triplicate,” said Hammond flatly. “It’s happening, Jack. It’s not just the financial angle, although that’s significant. The foothold scenario we experienced earlier this year — ”