"I can spell it out for you, jarhead!"
"Jarhead? Wanna take that up with an officer?"
The participants in this lively conversation had surrounded a portable defib unit and were threatening to come to blows over it. A shylooking orderly took his life into his hands and tried to rescue the equipment. "Excuse me?"
"What officer? Somebody's actually in charge of you hoodlums?"
"Excuse me!"
"Yo, flyboy! Butt out!"
"Muscles are required, intellect not essential. Can you string the initials into a word,jarhead?"
"Excuse me!" The orderly made a grab for the defibrillator and got in the way of a shove.
That did it. Dr. Janet Fraiser was all for healthy social exchange between the service branches, but this was getting a little too tactile. She'd either have to start administering chocolate or clear the tent. The latter was better for her nerves, and never mind the patients' welfare.
"Shut it! That's an order!"
The bellow stalled arguments, made Marines and Airmen flinch, provoked ducked heads among nursing staff, caused Pancaldi to choke on his candy bar, and trailed blessed silence in its wake. Inevitably, really. Most mouths hung open. Yep. Meet the mouse that roared. Janet Fraiser was five foot three in heels and not of a build anyone would associate with Pavarotti volume. A good diaphragm had its perks. What made it especially rewarding was the fact that at least half of this mob didn't even know her.
She smiled winningly. "Ladies and gentlemen! Now that I have your full and undivided attention, listen up. Anyone who can walk and doesn't have a job to do, get the hell out of my tent and don't step back in unless you're dying!"
From the gurney to her right came a rustle, followed by a strangled moan. Without even looking, she snapped, "That doesn't include you, so stay put! Sir!"
The rest of the delinquents were still gawking at her, though some of the mouths had started to close.
"Well? What are you waiting for?"
"Shorry, Doc," mumbled Pancaldi around a chunk of chocolate. Then he slid off his perch and led the exodus.
Two minutes later the tent had cleared, except for three patients-well, two patients and an immovable object-and two nursing staff. The daredevil orderly still clucked over the defib unit like a hen over her chicks. He had a slightly nervous disposition, but he was a cracking triage nurse.
"Stand down, Corporal. I think it's safe," she said, trying hard not to sound patronizing. "Can you see to Private Lamont? The morphine should have kicked in by now, and her jaw needs bandaging. It'll have to be wired shut, but I don't want to do that here. The ambulance is standing by, so whenever you're done, she can go."
"Yes, ma'am!" The corporal relinquished the defibrillator and headed for the opposite comer of the tent, where PFC Lamont lay sprawled on a gurney, humming tunelessly. The morphine had kicked in alright.
Now for the fun part. Fraiser squared her shoulders and turned to the would-be absconder who, unlike the now departed multitudes, knew her exceedingly well-too well to even have tried to vamoose. The back of his gurney had been raised, bringing him to eyelevel with the immovable object, which was delivering a hushed lecture. The patient, not in the mood for sermons, dispensed one of his patented glares.
"Dammit, Daniel!" His outburst stopped the lecture in its tracks and rattled the tent poles. Then he lowered his voice. "Can the pep talk already. I screwed up."
Sitting in a chair next to him, Daniel Jackson sported a first-class shiner that was only partly concealed by an eye patch. Shiner and patch were down to a close encounter with an airborne brick. His glasses were trashed, though they hadn't done any further damage, and he squinted myopically at his friend. "Guess what, Jack? We all do. Live with it."
Whereupon Colonel O'Neill looked ready to throttle an archeologist.
The temper was only a first reaction, and Janet Fraiser knew it. She sure as hell didn't want to be there when it all sank in. He wasn't exactly adept at forgiving himself. If this had been for real, eighty percent of his men, Sam Carter included, would be dead and it would have been his fault. If it had been for real... Well, it hadn't been!
She sighed and moved in to join the fray. Nothing like a good distraction. Which really was the reason why she'd allowed Dr. Jackson to stay. That and the fact that, for the first time since Reese's death, there seemed to be a spring thaw in the cold war between him and Jack O'Neill. Maybe the accident hadn't been such a bad thing after all. "Let's check you out, Colonel," she said.
"I'm-"
"Peachy. Yeah. I heard you the first six times. Newsflash, sir: you're peachy when I say you are and not a moment sooner."
"Na-"
11 -poleonic power monger. So you keep telling me."
"I was going to say `naturally'." For a split-second his gaze met hers, and he shot her a grin that was as brittle as glass.
"The Marines who pulled him out said he had trouble breathing," Dr. Jackson offered, which earned him a sour snarl.
"I'd like to see them breathe with a mature killer whale landing on their asses."
"It wasn't your ass, and she didn't mean to. One of our guys knocked her off the gallery."
"Didn't mean to? She took aim! Just keep her the hell away from me!"
"She-"
"You won't have to worry about her for a while," Janet cut in. "Private Lamont's worse off than you, Colonel."
His scowl crumbled into concern. "She gonna be okay?"
"Eventually. She struck the stock of your rifle face-on. Her jaw's fractured pretty badly. She'll need some new teeth, too."
"Ouch." Dr. Jackson winced.
"Yeah. Ouch. Speaking of which." She nodded at O'Neill. "Can you take your shirt off for me, sir?"
He tried. The result were clenched teeth and a grimace and something that sounded like cannelloni herbs and summer fish.
Janet blinked. "Come again, Colonel?"
"Can't sit up." He made an elocution lesson of spitting out the words. At a guess, the respiratory problem had resolved itself. "It hurts like a son of a bitch!"
"Ah. Good job I didn't let you sneak out then."
"It wasn't that bad a while ago."
If he actually admitted to it, it had to be really bad. She peeled the shirt apart. His skin had barely left the flushed stage for indigo, but tomorrow it'd be a dozen shades of purple. About five inches wide at its broadest, the contusion looped from the lower right front of his ribcage up the side and disappeared under his arm. Superficially nothing seemed to be broken, which was great news -if not entirely pleasant. Deep bruising could be more painful than a fracture and for longer.
"Sorry," she announced. "This'll hurt."
"Ya think?"
As gently as she could she probed for injuries, bits that moved when they shouldn't or were stuck where they didn't belong. He didn't say a peep, but by the time she finished his face had turned pale under the tan and glistened with sweat.
"Sony," Janet said again, meaning it. "I had to make sure."
"Sure of what?" he panted. "My pain threshold?"
"Didn't know you had one, sir." Eyebrows arched in mock surprise, she grinned. "Button up. The shirt, I mean. You're lucky. When Lamont fell on top of you, those cotton bales absorbed most of the impact. No broken ribs this time."
"Then how come-"
"But you've got severe contusions, and I don't have to tell you that those always are fun. They've triggered something that's called intercostal neuralgia."
"Panama Canal?"
"Costal, not coastal!" Across the gurney, Dr. Jackson rolled one eye. "That was crap, Jack, even by your standards."
In Janet Fraiser's experience, the safest course of action lay in ignoring the pair of them. "I'll give you some Demerol, Colonel, but other than that it'll just have to heal on its own."
"I don't need painkillers."
The phrasing was disputable, though she knew better than to quibble. He didn't want painkillers. He thought he deserved everything he got and t
hen some. Janet pasted on an innocent smile. "Oh, you'll need them. Sooner or later you'll find it necessary to take off your pants or tie your shoelaces."
Assertions of the contrary were cut off by a commotion at the entrance. The ambulance crew was about to stretcher offPFC Lamont, and two visitors were trying to get past it into the tent. Her orderly made the most unlikely bouncer you could ever hope to meet.
"Sorry, ma'am. Uh..." With an uncertain look from the blond Major to the enormous black guy whose rank, if any, was a mystery, he added, "Sir. You can't come in unless you're dying. Dr. Fraiser's -"
"It's okay!" Janet called before the corporal, in the line of duty, committed a folly he might regret. "Let them in."
Dusty, disheveled, streaks of camouflage paint still decorating her nose, Major Carter pushed past the orderly. She came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the tent, the relief on her face boundless and, for once, unguarded.
Teal'c filled in what she didn't say. "O'Neill. Daniel Jackson. I am pleased to see you alive."
Trust him to come straight to the point. His dark voice rang with genuine warmth, and it had the added effect of shaking up Sam Carter. She snapped back into her usual efficiency, just about jumped to attention, and said, "Sir. Daniel. Debrief's over at the factory in fifteen, if you're good to go."
Major General George S. Hammond's chair-an exquisitely uncomfortable creation in orange plastic-crowned one end of two stained tables, which had been pushed together lengthways to create a debriefing venue for this debacle. At the other end, too far to kick the man's ankles but not far enough to miss the smirk, sat Lieutenant General Philip `Alistair' Crowley, USMC. Whoever had dreamed up that call sign displayed commendable insight into the human psyche. The key members of his coven sat along one side of the makeshift conference table, looking as superior as their intrepid leader. The Air Force participants opposite looked anything but.
The room itself was high in ambience, a former cafeteria on the top level of an abandoned factory building on the outskirts of Colorado Springs. The floor was padded with newspaper where the linoleum had cracked, the windows were dirty and streaked by drizzle, and yellowing acoustic tiles drooped from a damp ceiling. Atop two crates in a comer sat a TV/VCR, screen snowy with static. Up until two minutes ago it had been playing video footage of the Armageddon that had taken place two levels below.
All in all, Hammond wished he were in a galaxy far, far away, where they had comfy chairs. Where the people voted least likely didn't suddenly commit catastrophic deployment errors. Where one's superiors didn't insist on scheduling exercises that did more harm than good and only served to stroke inflated egos. Maybe he wasn't entirely objective. Losers rarely were. He closed his eyes. The galaxy far, far away didn't materialize.
The underlying mistake had been his, of course. He should never have agreed to it: a handpicked crew of Recon Marines against the finest the US Air Force had to offer. Okay, he hadn't agreed to it. Staging an exercise like this at a time when the Navy was at the Air Force's throat, and the Air Force at the Navy's, and the Army at everybody's because they'd all been led to believe it was a matter of survival? Madness. Waste. To the best of his knowledge, rivalry among the forces had never won a war yet, and fact of the matter was that they were fighting a war-the most crucial war ever. Even if only five people in this room were aware of it.
So he'd said no. Once, twice, a half dozen times. But Crowley had been more insistent than an insurance salesman. He also was wellconnected. After all, the Marines guarded you-know-whom. The final invitation had arrived via that red phone on General Hammond's desk, and its phrasing had been along the lines of Do it! RSVP. If he weren't up to his eyeballs in politics, struggling to keep Senator Kinsey and the NID at arm's length, he still might have talked his way out of it-he'd done it before- but giving in had just seemed quicker. Easier. Safer. The hallmarks of a poor decision.
In consequence, a bunch of good people who should be out there doing it for real had got the crap kicked out of them for kudos, and one of them had damn near got himself killed.
Christ almighty, Jack! What the hell went wrong?
Rejoining the proceedings might be one way of finding out, Hammond figured. To his dismay, the room hadn't magically transformed into a desert island when he opened his eyes. At least the timing was perfect. Crowley was through pontificating on the merits of inter-service competition. Gives the men an edge, and that's what we want, right?
Rah-rah!
"So, let's assess this, ladies and gentlemen, shall we?" brayed Crowley. "George?"
Hammond dumbly nodded his assent-what else could he do?-thinking all the while that, if anything, Colonel O'Neill might have lost his edge. Under the circumstances, eighty percent casualties were indefensible. It had been a simple raid scenario. The rules allowed each team to carry laser-sighted intars-the Marines had been told they were a new type of long-range stun gun-and basic equipment and two cutting charges. Specialized gadgets, even radios, had been off-limits. Straightforward stuff, in other words. Which, in the way of any decent circular argument, led right back to What the hell went wrong? If Hammond were to play it by the book, today's performance should be Jack's ticket to a desk from where to organize supplies. Under strict supervision. But when it came to this particular officer, Hammond rarely played things by the book, and he wanted to know a lot more before he even contemplated going down the supplies route. Question was whether he'd learn it in this room.
Chest feathers puffed, Colonel Pete Norris, the CO of the Marine teams, had begun outlining his strategy, which boiled down to Take It And Keep It. Pragmatic, if hardly novel. Either side of him, his team leaders dutifully scratched the highlights onto notepads. Crowley interrupted here and there, asking through a benign smile for reiteration of choice moments.
"That's correct, sir," replied Norris. "There were those steel girders under the ceiling. I ordered ten of my men up there when I realized that the gallery could be critical."
"That's a considerable proportion of your manpower, Colonel," Crowley observed. "Wasn't that a bit reckless?"
"With respect, sir, no. We had the ground floor entrances covered. Same goes for the only staircase to the upper levels. I had twelve people on standby there. Those are the ones who were then deployed to break through the walls onto the catwalk."
"Hang on a minute." Dr. Jackson, who until now had been listening with sullen forbearance, started scribbling numbers onto the notepad in front of him. Once he was finished, he frowned at them. The eye patch made him look like a kid who'd come to the Halloween party in a pirate outfit two inches shy of menacing.
"You've got a question, Doctor?" Crowley was craning his neck, trying to see what Jackson had written.
"As a matter of fact, yes. These figures don't add up. We were allowed no more than twenty-five men each. Now, even if the unit that Murray"-he cast a quick glance at Teal'c whose tattoo was safely hidden under a watch cap-"and his team chased around the grounds was only half the strength we assumed it was... still seems like Colonel Norris had about five men too many."
"That's exactly why civilian contractors shouldn't be allowed in the field!" Norris snarled. "How can you folks even start to comprehend tactical issues?"
Slick as a buttered bun, Crowley cut in. "Dr. Jackson, have you considered that Murray was chasing his own tail because Colonel O'Neill's reconnaissance wasn't quite what it should have been?"
"No, because that's absolutely-"
"Colonel Norris, please continue," said Crowley.
And on it went. With the one difference that Major Carter had furtively swapped her notepad for Dr. Jackson's and was adding some scribbling of her own.
At last Norris ran out of brilliant ideas to present for applause, and Crowley thanked him and turned his gaze on Jack O'Neill. "Colonel O'Neill? Your take on it, please."
Face rigid, Jack abandoned an ongoing attempt to skewer his notepad with a pen and stared at the window. "Yessir."
He kept staring
at that window throughout a clinical analysis of his actions that lasted a fraction of the time Norris's homily had taken and was twice as brutal. Largely on himself Halfway through, Hammond heard the door open and close. Somebody had stepped into the room, silently hovering in the background. Whoever it was could wait while Jack relentlessly approached the crux of the matter. He had failed to correctly assess the tactical situation inside the factory. The problem was, George Hammond still refused to believe it.
"I screwed up. Sorry, sir." Jack finally gave up on the window and glanced at Hammond. For once, he looked his age. "I'm just glad it was an exercise. God help me if it hadn't been."
"That's one reason why we stage these things," intoned Crowley. "We all can do with a wake-up call now and again. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I think that wraps it up. Thank you all for your efforts, and hopefully we can arrange a rematch at some point. Dismissed."
There were perfunctory handshakes across the table, then the Marines rose and Norris went to collect his pat on the back from Crowley. In a cloud of chatter they filtered out the door. The Air Force contingent all but ignored their exit. Colonel O'Neill had resumed his scrutiny of the glassware. Dr. Jackson and Major Carter were huddled over a notepad. Maintaining his quiet air of aloofness, Teal'c didn't huddle but peered over sideways and evidently didn't much care for what he-
The slow, deliberate claps echoed through the empty room like gunshots, startling them all.
"Astonishing. I didn't think I'd ever have the privilege of seeing you eat humble pie, Colonel. Actually, for a moment there I thought you'd choke on it." The man slid off a chair by the door and ambled toward them, perfectly groomed in a suit by Armani or Boss or some other designer that didn't tailor for people of Hammond's stature. The urbane facade was as deceptive as quicksand, of course.
Sam Carter's face suggested that somebody was trying to feed her live slugs. "What are you doing here?"
In a way, Hammond was grateful she'd beaten him to it. He couldn't have risked infusing the question with quite the same amount of venom. Then again, he didn't have quite as much reason to hate the man. "Simmons," he ground out.
Stargate SG-1: Survival of the Fittest: SG1-7 Page 2
