Author: RowenaR

Rating: T

Category: Action/Adventure

Disclaimer: Stargate belongs to Gekko and… all those other people making money with it. Anyway, I don't. Honestly. So – I don't own, you don't sue. Deal?

Summary: After that little time-out from last time, SG10 should be fit for service again, so Major Moore doesn't waste time to catch up on the team's scandally low tally on survival exercises. OCs... plus Major Evan Lorne. Really.

A/N: Anyone remembers the survival exercise Major Moore didn't get at the end of "Odd Man Out"? Well, here it is. And yes, everything else would just be telling. Have fun :) Ooooh, I nearly forgot"! Of course the lovely mac betaed this one as well :)

Anyway, as always: Not a native speaker, so please excuse any weird grammatical constructions, run-ons and typos. Feedback will earn you a cookie, flames will roast my marshmellows.

Minor Characters III: Take charge

"You were meant to live large
Come on, take charge
Let's go light the world up
Let's not wait until the end
To be the things we wish we'd been."

Superchick, "Super Trouper"

One

Reece

Okay, so the velvet gloves are obviously off. Not that it takes me totally by surprise, but yeah… if I didn't know he could be nice, I'd now be sure the Major is a superior asshole. Or maybe he is a superior asshole and I just let myself be fooled by the occasional acts of appearing human. Anyway, I really have a problem here and I should focus on it.

So… either I turned kind of blind or the checkpoint does indeed have different coordinates than those I am at. Or I could have… no, honestly, I didn't mess up orientation. I did everything right, got to the coordinates in my list… and am surrounded by nothing but… scenery. Which leads me to aforementioned conclusion: The Major is a superior asshole. I just bet I'm the only one who got wrong coordinates and ended up in the middle of nowhere… or, to be precise, even more in the middle of nowhere than the rest of the team.

Okay, so the Major didn't know the coordinates to the checkpoint himself, because he left most of the planning for this wretched survival exercise to Major Lorne, but I'm almost positive he requested Lorne to mix up my coordinates a bit. But anyway… I just should stop whining. He never made a secret out of the fact that he'd give me hell, and after that weapons drill from hell last week I should have anticipated something like this. I signed up for it, I have to go through with it. As easy as that.

But dammit, that doesn't change anything of the fact that I'm fucking lost. And a look at the map isn't helpful at all, because I don't even know if this is really the right map for this part of the planet. For all I know, I could very well toss it into the shrubbery. So… what to do?

Taking another look around, I really only see trees, trees… and yeah, more trees. Oh… and there's a faint rushing of water in the distance. A river? Another look on the map and… oh, goody, maybe he forgot to tell Lorne to give me a wrong map as well, because there is a river near to my supposed position on it. Well… it's a start. With a suppressed sigh I start walking towards the sound.

Or rather… stumbling. I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I'm afraid that I'm not at my most elegant at the moment. To be honest, I'm even a bit grateful for the fact that I seem to be all alone here. But hey, no one is able to look elegant with a heavy pack on their back, equipment vest, G36, Beretta, spare ammunition, sleeping bag… It's really starting to unnerve me that flat ground not covered in leaves and mean foliage that makes it impossible to see if there are holes in the ground is very, very rare here.

Not to sound whiny or anything, but it's been about two and a half days now and quite frankly all I want is a nice hot bath and then dozing off while reading a book in front of that fireplace I've come to love since I moved in with Laura. Alas, it was never supposed to be easy anyway. Onwards, Marine. The faster you walk, the sooner you're home again.

And yes, there's the river. Fast current, not looking particularly inviting – most of all because temperatures here are chilly at best – so lets all hope I don't have to cross it. Alright, so where's the Beta site from he… huh, what's that? Looks like a SGC standard backpack… kinda like the one I'm carrying. What the hell is that doing here?

Very cautiously, I approach the black backpack that's tangled between two branches in the water. If the Major was mean enough to give me wrong coordinates, he might as well have been mean enough to have Dee rig a small charge, just to teach me a lesson about booby traps. Okay, what did Dee tell you about examining unknown objects that might contain C4 or other nasty surprises?

Oh, right. First of all… keep a careful distance. Then: Try to determine if there are any triggers or fuses that can be seen from your position. Mh… kinda difficult, with half the pack still hanging in the water and the whole thing moving. Anyway… what else? Oh yeah, right… if you can be sure you won't give away your position with it and have enough ammo to spare: Shoot at it and see if anything happens. Well… I am all alone here, but maybe… that's exactly what the Major wants me to do: Be careless enough to go for this option, give away my position, be surrounded by grinning SFs in a minute or something.

Pack's still dangling in the wa… oh, no, wait, something changed… dangerously close to be taken away by the current. And anyway… as soaked through as that thing is, shouldn't any trigger mechanism be destroyed anyway? If the Major really had Dee rig something up, he would have made sure it's not lethal, just loud enough to embarrass me and maybe give me a blackened face. Dangling… okay, I'll risk it.

Carefully, I make my way over to the pack and just before it finally falls off I manage to grab it and retrieve it. Now… what to do with it? Looks like an ordinary standard SGC-backpack… quite heavy, so there must be something in it. Still doesn't explain why it's here, though. Mh… maybe some other team lost it here on one of their survival exercises? Only one way to find it out… open it and see if anyone was dumb enough to pack some easily recognizable personal item.

Let's just hope it won't blow up in my face. Okay… what do we have here? BDUs, t-shirts, MREs… wait, what's that? A knife? Definitely not SGC standard… mh… What the… ? I know this sign on the bottom… three horizontal bars, one vertical, three horizontal. That's the Major's knife. It has to be, because I remember that from my little stunt in his body, when I discovered his personal knives. They all have this little discreet unmistakable sign. What the hell is a backpack with one of the Major's knives doing in the middle of nowhere?

Something… isn't right here. The Major is very attached to his knives. In fact, he made me sort through all of them after we came back from the NID mission, to make sure he could bellow at me in case I managed to lose one of them during the time in his body. So there's really no chance he'd accidentally lose one of them or plant it here, with the faint possibility someone might come by. Something happened and I'm already starting to have a very bad feeling about this.

And of course something like that happens on an exercise where we weren't allowed to carry radios with us. Whose stupid idea was that, by the way? I mean, it's not like this is fairy land where trees break your fall and the water carries you home if something happens.

Anyway, I don't have a radio, the Major doesn't have a radio and something separated him from one of his beloved knives, most probably by force or accident. So… best option I have? Following the river upstream – something tells me the Major wouldn't be dumb enough to fall into the river and lose his backpack – and hoping to stumble upon another clue to his fate, since I have no clue where the Beta site is anyway. Let's just hope someone there realizes we're gone.

DeLisle

Homely Beta site, here I am. After two and a half days in the wilderness, even the open tent in front of one of the Beta site's huts looks like wonderful, wonderful civilization. As I come closer, Major Lorne takes his feet from the crate they were resting on and stands up from his chair. "Congratulations, Sergeant. You're the first one of your team to arrive here."

Huh? First one? The Major isn't already here? Usually, he arrives first. Granted, at least half the times he arrives first because I managed to track him down and give him a head start. For me, that's a kind of bonus exercise – keep him in my sights, but keep out of his. Until now, the score is something like "Sergeant DeLisle: 38, Major Moore: 0"… although every time I have this distinct feeling that he knows that there's someone on his trail.

"Thank you, sir. If I might add: This is a first." Major Lorne raises his eyebrow and looks a little skeptically.

"Really, huh? And here I thought a Sergeant of your experience would be able to beat even Major Moore more than once." I knew it. The Major always was very aware of me following him and I bet he talked about it with other officers.

"Well, sir… there's a reason why he's a Major and I'm a Sergeant, I guess." He nods, still not fully convinced by my little charade.

"Right. Anyway… go get inside and grab a shower and something to eat. I'll signal you when the rest are here and ready for a debriefing." Something… in his bearing makes me wonder if everything is alright. There's an edginess to him that usually isn't there. Very faint, but… yeah, well, there.

I know I should just heed his order and maybe even grab an hour or two of sleep until the rest arrive, but if Major Lorne is edgy, something is afoot. I clear my throat. "Uh, sir… permission to ask a question?"

He nods. "Sure, go ahead."

"Any news on the rest of my team? I'd really love to know how far ahead I am." Mh… maybe that was a bit over the top.

"Really? Never thought you were the competitive sort of guy." Errr… he didn't see right through the little pretense, did he? "Anyway… according to her signal, Captain Greenspan should be here in about an hour if she keeps up her current pace." Hey, great! Because… that means she's… a really good soldier. Yeah. "Lieutenant Reece… oh well, looks like she's about a day's hike away from here. Mh, better than we expected." A day's hike. Better than they expected? Did I miss something here?

He looks at me again. Uh, sir… there's still someone missing, you know. I clear my throat again. "What about Major Moore, sir?"

"Well…" He rubs his neck. That's never a good sign. "We lost contact with his signal an hour ago. As of now, that's not necessarily a cause for alarm since he's done that a few times before." Major Lorne looks a little miffed now. Do I smell another Academy story behind this? Or something that happened later? Too bad I'm too polite and know my place too well to ever ask either of you. "Like I said… I'll signal you when the rest arrive."

"Right. Thank you, sir." I give him a small casual salute and make my way over to the hut temporarily assigned to my team, already looking forward to the hot shower. Provided there's some hot water left, that is. What is it that they can never make the showers work properly here? And why is it that something in Major Lorne's bearing told me I'm not alone with that strange underlying bad feeling? Oh well… not even three days in the wilderness and I already start seeing things. Must be getting old.