"Seems to be engaging fine," muttered Major Carter and bent over the dialing computer, backpack already on her shoulders. She'd been recalled from the embarkation room when the wormhole to M3D 335 had failed to establish. "It's all nominal, and the diagnostics came up okay, too.
"Alright, ma'am. It's just..." Harriman frowned a little. "Well, it's not the first time."
"I know. Could be an orbital thing. I'll look into it while I'm there. For now, and as long as it locks eventually, just roll with the punches. I don't want to risk messing with the failsafe..."
She left it hanging, but George Hammond knew what she was thinking: again. The last override on the failsafe had damn near annihilated a planet whose primary had taken none too kindly to being skewered by a womlhole.
Recently two out of seven attempts to establish a connection to M3D 335 had failed, but if and when the wormhole chose to engage, everything worked. Hammond hoped it stayed that way. The last thing he needed was Simmons or Crowley accusing him of trying to sabotage their bright idea.
The moon-ten days into the program `335 was uniformly referred to as Parris Island, though Hammond still refused to adopt the habit-had been declared a training and selection camp for a whole new USMC unit. The jury was still out on how to name the child. Crowley had mooted `Force Galaxy'. The various proposals circulating among SGC personnel weren't quite as swanky. George Hammond favored `Space Cadets'.
Whatever it was going to be called, it would be an elite attack force operating independently from Stargate Command. As promised, Hammond had received Colonel Simmons's report within a day of the NID agents' sudden departure. It had been delivered in person and informed him of the fait accompli. Use of the red phone was discouraged. Given the outcome of that exercise two weeks ago, the President had already approved the report's central suggestion and ordered the SGC to assist in any way necessary. To underline the point, Simmons had brought along ten Marine instructors and technical specialists who, accompanied by SG-3, had gated out to set up camp on `335. During the past week, fifty men had deployed with equipment and supplies.
At this moment, another ten troops were gathered in the gate room, waiting to embark. Some distance apart stood Teal'c and Dr. Fraiser, the only people not to jump sky-high when the wormhole engaged. Colonel Norris, who apparently was joining this trip, approached them. There was a brief exchange of words, then he glared up at the control room window, spun around, and stormed out through the blast door. Seconds later Hammond heard him clattering up the stairs.
"General! I'd requested an-" Norris caught sight of Sam Carter in full gear and bellowed, "You gotta be kidding me! Not her, too?"
"We're good to go, sir," Major Carter interjected sweetly.
"Wait a minute! I'm not prepared to drag along God knows how many babysitters, including one who isn't even... American!"
"Would you prefer a Russian babysitter?" Hammond smiled when Norris broke into the expected grimace. "It can be arranged, Colonel."
"I don't-"
"You requested an expert on off-world medicine and alien diseases to brief your men. I gave you my CMO who, incidentally, is this world's leading authority in the field. However, Dr. Fraiser is not a combatant, and I've therefore decided to have Major Carter and Teal'c escort her." Which wasn't entirely accurate, though Hammond felt no stirrings of guilt. Major Janet Fraiser was an experienced soldier and more than capable of looking after herself. The simple truth was that SG-1 still remained on stand-down, and Teal'c and Sam Carter were getting a little stir-crazy. A friendly snoop around the Marine camp would take the edge off it-and give General Hammond a better idea of what he was up against.
Norris blustered some more. "My men are perfectly-"
"I'm sure they are. My men are going to accompany Dr. Fraiser, and that's my last word, Colonel!"
"General Crowley will hear of this."
"I'm counting on it." Knowing he'd won this round, Hammond briefly berated himself for deriving quite so much satisfaction from it. Then he shot a pointed look at Sam Carter. "You have a Go, Major. Godspeed."
"Thank you, sir!"
The clipped nod was a military caricature, as was the brisk parade ground turn she executed. Norris seemed to suspect that somehow he was being sent up, but he had no time to dwell on it. Major Carter headed down the stairs, and he all but ran after her, determined to beat the SGC team through the gate.
Minutes later the embarkation room was empty, the wormhole winked into oblivion, and the iris slid shut across the Stargate, obstructing the view of gray concrete behind. Hammond gazed at it for a moment, as though it might present him with an excuse to postpone the return to his office a little longer. Nothing was forthcoming. Stifling a sigh, he made for the staircase and the inevitable.
The inevitable had been sitting in the in-tray on his desk for ten days. So far he hadn't even opened it. Neither had anybody else, given that the words Private and Confidential leered from the envelope in a sprawling hand that was only too familiar. He could guess the contents, which was reason enough to take a leaf out of their author's book and pretend he wasn't getting all his memos. Unfortunately, ten days was pushing the limits, and the only miracle was that Jack O'Neill hadn't called him yet.
Hammond slid behind his desk and into the sumptuous orthopedic chair, which, as so often, offered no real comfort. Private and Confidential stared at him accusingly, and he finally fished the letter from the tray, poked a finger under the envelope flap, and started ripping as despondently as he knew how. Halfway through, a knock rattled against his office door.
"Come in!" he called, grateful for a reprieve, however temporary.
The door opened on an uncommonly bashful Dr. Jackson. He'd abandoned the eye patch for an eggplant raccoon effect that suggested he'd led the mother of all bar brawls. "Am I interrupting, General?"
"Sit down, son." Hammond waved at a chair and waited. Somehow he had the feeling that anything as overtly aggressive as a question would make Daniel run for the hills.
Whatever had prompted this visit, it wasn't a request for a pay raise. As Dr. Jackson settled in the chair, his gaze fell on the semiopened letter Hammond was still holding, and he obviously recognized the handwriting too. "Not getting all your memos, sir?"
George Hammond smiled momentarily, then turned serious again. "I take it you know what's in here?"
"Kind of Jack, uh, dropped a hint." He paused, cleared his throat for the third time since entering the room. "General, supposing it is what you and I think it is... What are you going to do?"
Good point. Then again, Dr. Jackson's points usually were. If truth be told, Hammond's gut instinct and fondest desire was to feed the damn thing to the shredder unread and plead ignorance, but he couldn't say that, much less do it. Instead he opted for rational if unpleasant ground. "You got a few minutes, Dr. Jackson?"
Daniel nodded, eyebrows arching in surprise.
"Let me tell you a story."
The only thing to set the tale apart from hundreds like it was the fact that Lieutenant George Hammond had been there and come out the other end. It had happened during his first-no, second-tour in `Nam. They'd got reports, fabricated by the Viet Cong as it would later turn out, that a whole platoon was nailed down in the jungle, some fifty miles northeast of a village whose name he didn't care to remember. His CO, an experienced officer, had decided to go in. And in they'd gone, twenty men in all, including Colonel Freeman, and parachuted straight into a killing ground. Only three had made it out alive: a private who subsequently lost his arm, Lieutenant Hammond with a bullet in his leg, and Freeman who, by some cynical twist of fate, had suffered only minor injuries.
"You might say it was a clear error of judgment on Freeman's part." Hammond leaned back in his chair. "He relied on the intel, because confirming it would have cost too much time while good men might be dying out there. There never was a choice, really, but he'd committed a horrific mistake all the same."
"What became of him?" Dr. Jackson asked soft
ly.
"Freeman was, without a doubt, the best commanding officer I ever served under. Bright, gutsy, unconventional, a tactical genius, and he cared about his people to the point of running himself into the ground-and if you think that sounds like somebody we both know, you'd be right. But he made a serious mistake in a situation where he couldn't afford to make any." Suddenly Hammond had no wish to go any further. Funny how the grief was still fresh, so many years later. Funny how things didn't seem rational at all anymore.
"What became of him, sir?"
"He retired. He felt that he'd failed us, which was a mortal sin in Freeman's book. According to him, he didn't deserve to lead anyone. He never said it in so many words, but we knew. The irony was, we'd never stopped trusting him. A few months later he drove his car into a ravine. They only found bits of him among the wreckage."
"So you're going to run this"-Daniel nodded at the letter clutched in Hammond's fingers -"through the shredder?"
Occasionally, the young man's mind-reading abilities were a little on the disconcerting side. Nevertheless... "I'm afraid I can't do that, son. I can't-"
Dr. Jackson got up, stared through the window out into the briefing room, fists jammed into pockets, shoulders rolling with tension. "Jack didn't-" Suddenly he whipped around. The words tumbled out like water through a breaking dam. "General, this is strictly between you and me. Jack didn't want us to take it further, and Sam and Teal'c agreed. But I'm not military, and sometimes I find that military notions of honor, ethics, idealism, whatever, get in the way of facts." His good eye narrowed, and he grinned. "Go ahead, sir. Don't choke on it."
Sound advice. Hammond let out the chortle that had been creeping up his throat. "That's a fascinating observation, Dr. Jackson, espe cially coming from you. And yes, we'll keep it in this office, if that's what you want. Go on. What are the facts?"
"You can't let Jack go, sir. Because he didn't make a mistake."
"That's not the way it-"
"The exercise was rigged. Jack never stood a chance. It was a nowin scenario, designed to get that Marine base up and running... I think."
"Care to elaborate, Dr. Jackson?"
Five minutes into the explanation, General Hammond had lost any desire to chortle and silently congratulated himself on sending Major Carter and Teal'c to Parris Island.
A saffron expanse with cinnamon clouds filled what little was visible of the sky, and Teal'c instantly succumbed to a sense of oppression. The Stargate was located at the end of a deep, narrow gorge. Either side rose vertical rock walls, a hundred meters high or more. Looking up it was impossible not to conceive the notion that the planet above was about to crush its moon, settle on the surface, and suffocate anyone trapped inside the valley.
"Should have brought a helmet," muttered Major Carter.
Dr. Fraiser seemed unaffected. "Oh, I don't mind. At least you know you're off-world."
This probably was true, though Teal'c found it difficult to share the sentiment. Most of his life had been spent off-world on one journey or another; indeed, twice in his one hundred and four years he had been forced to make a home of planets not his own. His birthworld was long lost to him, but at least among the Tauri he had found acceptance and kinship.
Behind them the wormhole disengaged with afinality that appeared to disturb even Colonel Norris. "Welcome to M3D 335, Marines!" he shouted, a little too forceful, a little too loud.
"Sir! Thank you, sir!" came the reply, molded into uniformity by years of training and rigid discipline.
The same training and discipline had compelled these ten young men-mere children by a Jaffa's reckoning-to arrange themselves in a perfectly straight line and to adopt a stance that evoked pride and a readiness to fight. In truth, they were afraid. Teal'c saw it in their eyes. They were apprehensive of this alien landscape that lookednoth- ing like the Moon they had learned about in their schools, and, more than that, they were apprehensive of admitting their fear. Because they were afraid of Colonel Norris. The discovery was unsurprising. Unlike O'Neill, Colonel Norris did not inspire trust or confidence. Unlike O'Neill, Colonel Norris would never consider punishing himself for failing those who relied on his guidance.
"What are you waiting for?" he barked. "Move out! On the double!"
A ripple of hesitation traveled down the line, barely perceptible and instantly overridden by the mechanisms of unquestioning obedience. They took up formation, five rows of two, and broke into a brisk trot. Colonel Norris followed them, an avenger alert to any faltering in their step, any sign of uncertainty.
O'Neill would have been attuned to their apprehension and, knowing that, of all the ways to combat fear, laughter was the most formidable, would have found some joke, absurd and out of place. And they would have loved him for it.
"Don't look like that, Teal'c." Major Carter had concluded her routine test of the DHD and gave a crooked smile. "Colonel O'Neill's the exception, not the rule."
"I am aware of it." He was, after all, Jaffa. And while Master Bra'tac's leadership closely resembled that of O'Neill, there were many, too many, who acted like Colonel Norris. "It is one more reason to discourage him from his present course."
"Good luck," Dr. Fraiser replied dryly. "You know what he's like. Anyway, I suppose we'd better catch up with Colonel Congenial and his cohort."
"Did you say catch up?" enquired Major Carter, evidently not relishing the idea of an unwarranted run. The moon's atmosphere was thinner than Earth's.
"Well, I would have said overtake, but what's the point in embarrassing them?"
"If you put it that way. I mean, two women and a guy who's not even... American?" Grinning, Major Carter adjusted her backpack and set out.
Twenty minutes later Teal'c passed the Marine camp's outer perimeter at a steady jog, barely having broken a sweat. Perhaps it was petty, but he felt he owed O'Neill this victory, inconsequential though it might be. At any rate, it would not have occurred had Colonel Norris not spurred his men to a faster and faster pace once he noticed the SGC team's approach.
Ignoring the bemused faces of the guards, Teal'c came to a halt and turned to review the situation behind. Dr. Fraiser had fallen back a little, but Major Carter kept abreast of the two Marines in the lead, not forcing a race but making plain that she could match any further increase in speed. Not so Colonel Norris.
Teal'c conceded another stab of furtive pleasure, propped himself on his staff weapon, and awaited the column's arrival. While Major Carter and Dr. Fraiser broke left to join him, the Marines slowed and reformed their line. Some doubled over, gasping for air. Most faces had reddened dangerously. It had been foolish to subject them to such exertion without permitting them to acclimatize first.
"Well, that was bracing." Major Carter dragged her forearm across her face to soak up sweat. "I need a shower."
"That was idiotic," panted Dr. Fraiser, echoing Teal'c's own thoughts. She bent over, hands pressed onto her knees, and tried to catch her breath. "The kid over on the right looks like he's gonna crash! This kind of thing's alright for you two; you guys swap atmospheres twice a week, but for the rest of us..."
"So why didn't you slow down?"
"What? And let him win?"
"Attention!" Colonel Norris tone had lost some of its vigor, breath failing him mid-word. Nevertheless, the ten men pulled themselves up straight, some with obvious difficulty. Their unease was overt now. With reason. "You are pathetic! So I'm telling you right now, shape up or ship out! If you want to lose, join the Air Force. They love losing. I don't."
"Yeah, we noticed," murmured Major Carter. "You'd rather cheat."
Colonel Norris's rant continued, the men before him shrinking under every word. Suddenly a hand clasped Teal'c's shoulder, and an amused voice noted, "Wow! You people sure put a burr up his ass!"
"Hi, Warren." Turning to the speaker, Dr. Fraiser gave a soft laugh.
"I don't think we were supposed to keep up with them."
"Oughta know better, Doc. After all, th
ey're Marines. Teal'c. Carter. Nobody told me you guys were gonna join the fun." Major Warren, himself a Marine and SG-3's commanding officer, peered in the direction from where they had come. "Where're Colonel O'Neill and Dr. Jackson?"
"Neither of them's fit for active duty yet," Dr. Fraiser answered, a fraction too quickly perhaps, wishing to avoid the subject.
However, the major failed to notice. "My men and me still can't believe that General Custer got the upper hand on O'Neill of all-"
"Who?" asked Major Carter.
"General Custer." Major Warren grinned. "Norris's nickname. Not that anyone's ever risked calling him that to his face."
"Didn't realize that Custer was a Marine."
"Neither's that chicken shit," he replied. Then his gaze roamed over their packs and weaponry. "Anyway, welcome to Parris Island, folks. Let's find you a place to bunk down, whaddya say?"
As with most linguistic peculiarities of the Tauri, it had taken Teal'c some time to establish the workings of this last phrase. It did not, in fact, require the addressee to say anything. Agreement was a foregone conclusion, as indeed it was in this case. They abandoned Colonel Norris who was still punishing warriors better than himself for his own weakness and followed their guide along a broad, dusty trail toward the camp.
Teal'c was unsure at which point during the moon's diurnal cycle they had arrived, but it seemed to be getting close to nightfall now. The hues of the giant planet above had gradually changed to greens and blues and bathed the landscape in a sallow light.
"One good thing about this place, it never rains, though temperatures actually are pretty moderate," said Major Warren. "No open bodies of water, of course, just a few shallow wells. Most moisture precipitates as morning dew."
This much was evident. The moon's surface showed no sign of climatic erosion. Its only remarkable geographic feature was the rock formation where the Stargate was hidden. Once past it, they had emerged onto gently rolling plains, dotted with tussocks of short, wiry grass and low brush and extending as far as the eye could see. The encampment was visible for miles around, which posed a danger to say the least. There was a further ramification, and Teal'c found it odd in the extreme. Was it not the purpose of a facility such as this to accustom warriors to a variety of terrains?
Stargate SG-1: Survival of the Fittest: SG1-7 Page 5
