Disclaime: I own nothing at all to do with Stargate SG-1, so please please
don't sue me!
Note: I am not in the military and neither is anyone that I know, so there is some terminology or other things that I may get wrong. If you feel the need to point this out to me, please do it in a congenial fashion, because I am trying my best.
Chapter One
Reassignment
"What in God's green earth possessed you to do that, son?" His CO yelled from the other side of his desk, slamming his hands down on his desk for effect.
"My concern for my wingman's safety, sir," he said back smartly, although he felt his arms tense dramatically. Perhaps this wouldn't be the easy lecture he had anticipated it to be. He seemed to have ruffled feathers.
"His safety! HIS SAFETY! What about YOUR safety and the safety of YOUR RIO?"
"Sir, I didn't call that into question."
"How could you not, captain?"
"I know my capabilities, sir, and I knew my wingman's. I knew I was more capable of handling the situation than he was, he's fresh."
"I don't care if he just got out of flight school! Fresh! Why didn't you just order him to eject?"
"If it came down to that, sir, I would have rather ejected than him, sir. I at the least would have a chance of survival, colonel."
The older man was visibly calming down. His tone of voice was no longer irrate, but frustrated and concerned.
"While your concern for your subordinate's welfare is commendable, I have to wonder about your motives, captain. You don't even seem phased and that was more than just a brush with death, son."
"I'm just not afraid, sir, I've had to eject before. I've had a heat- seeker on my six before. I had more of a chance, sir, that's what it comes down to. I had more of a chance to bring all four of us back in one piece, and I took that chance, Colonel."
"It wouldn't hurt you to be a bit more conservative, captain, though I have to admit that this stunt might earn you some distinction yet."
* * *
His boots hit the pavement purposefully, his adrenalin still running on high as he pulled off his helmet. He ran his fingers through his slightly plastered, dirty blonde hair, so much so that it nearly looked a deep caramel color.
He smacked fists with his R.I.O., his right eyebrow raised appraisingly.
"Got my thrills for the day, Merlin!" The young man answered, knowing exactly what that eyebrow had meant.
The captain was a man of many facial expressions and comparatively few words.
"Not so much so as last week, or was it the week before."
"Can't have that everyday..." the R.I.O. answered, "Would you really want to?"
The man called Merlin answered, "That's what we are here for in't?"
"No sir, last I checked we were supposed to shoot them down, not evade their fire!"
"Doing both isn't bad either, Skates," he said, smiling slightly.
Merlin combed his wet hair, grateful for the much-needed shower. His reflection stared back at him. His honey-brown colored eyes looked much too youthful, as did the rest of his face for that matter, for what he had seen and experienced in his life. He had risen in rank quite quickly, much to the chagrin of many of his ambitious collegues. He was reminded again and again as he overheard it being discussed, that talent most often spoke louder than time. And Merlin had talent, and a legacy of Air Force pilots behind him.
A loud, "Hey Merlin!" jolted him out of his thoughts.
He turned to face the voice.
"Colonel wants to see you ASAP. His words were he wants to see you ten minutes ago."
Wondering if he was once again going to fly two missions in a row, he dropped his comb and exited the locker-room, pulling his shirt on as he went.
When he pulled open the door to the Colonel's office, he was still buttoning up his shirt, but when he looked up, he noticed that his CO was not the only man in the office.
Recovering quickly, he snapped off a salute, being in the presence of not only his CO and but also the General. Which was obviously, most unexpected.
"Take a seat captain."
Merlin sat down, pushing his reluctance back as he wondered if this had anything to do with his close-call with the heat-seeker from the week before.
"Well, I am sure that you are curious to know what this is about, Captain. So, we will get right down to it. Your flight record is most impressive, despite your age and relative few years of service. Your reviews have been outstanding, not one single blemish to speak of, not one low mark on your training exercises. The speed at which you have been promoted has had you flagged for some time now."
The General paused, puffing out his chest importantly.
"Flagged, son, for more intense investigation. All your files have been reviewed on the highest level. You are due in for a new assignment."
"New assignment, sir? He's my best pilot. Surely, there isn't anything more important than this war-."
"Not my call, Colonel. As I said, the orders have come down from the highest level. You are due to report at the Pentagon. You are fueled up and there is a refueling iternary in this packet, as are the rest of your orders." The man stood, and everyone else in the room followed suit.
Merlin reached out his hand and took the packet from the man, knots twisting in his stomach. He was being reassigned? Reassigned to where?
"That said, I suggest that you get prepared. Dismissed."
* * *
Merlin scowled deeply, and for the fourth time in 48 hours without any sleep donned his flight suit.
"Stupid fucking Secretary, stupid fucking President!"
He could still not believe what he had just heard. The President had hand-picked him out of a group of pilots to be assigned to a top priority operation. He was being ripped out of his comfortable, albeit dangerous, assignment near Iraq where he had earned the respect of those both under his command and those over him.
His mind travelled back to when he had first stepped into the office of the Secretary of Defense, which was where his high-level orders had come from.
"Captain, at ease. It is a pleasure to meet you finally. I have been following your actions for some time. I speak for myself and the President when I say that you embody what we call America's Finest."
Had he been in another situation, Merlin would most definitely have scoffed. Where he came from, there was no pencil-pushing sycophantism.
Instead, he settled for, "Thank you, sir."
"In fact, we have live footage of you, satellite enhanced of course. We couldn't follow a jet around with a camcorder."
The young man raised an eyebrow as the Secretary continued.
"The President asked me to say that your drawing of enemy fire away from your wingman was the most impressive and daunting thing he has ever been privy to see. I am inclined to agree. Have you seen the tape, Merlin? May I call you Merlin?"
"Yes, sir, you may call me Merlin. No, sir, I haven't seen the tape."
The man pressed a remote and a sliding cabinet gave way to a TV.
"We've superimposed the sound from your transmissions onto the tape. It's very dramatic."
Merlin envisioned this tape being on some enlistment commercial on network television, the way the man talked it up.
His thoughts were jolted back to the tape when he heard the distressed voice of his wingman cut through the silence of the room.
"Merlin! I've got a, a h-heater on my six, sir."'
"How many meters?" he heard himself ask.
"I dunno, it's close, sir. I gotta punch us out!"
Merlin scoffed out loud in real life at the gross exaggeration his wingman had made. On the tape, the heater was meters away.
"Are you a Navy pilot Lieutenant, or an Air Force pilot? This isn't some simulation and that is a multi-million dollar piece of machinery you are flying! You do not punch out, do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir! What do I do, sir?"
Over the audio he heard himself ask his RIO, "You with me on this one Skates?"
"To Hell and back, Merlin. Lets do it!"
Next he was back talking to his wingman.
"Level out, do not pull up or turn. Do you understand? I am coming over on top of you."
"Got-Gotcha, Merlin," came the reply.
He watched on the video as the two planes appeared as if they had become one when he came over the top of the other jet.
"Now when I tell you to, you drop and keep going, then roll out in the other direction."
"Okay, sir."
Holding his breath as if it were really happening all over again, he watched his wingman drop and then roll out the other way. When the man dropped, the heater did what it would normally do and stayed with the heat source that had kept in the same course, his own jet.
After some tactical evasive moves, he steadied out.
"Skates? We'll have to try something else. How close have we got now?"
"Only a bit over ten meters, Merlin. What're your plans?"
"In ten I am going into a 60 degree turn towards the sun, another ten and I'm killing the engines."
"Good to go."
The plane cut hard to the right.
"8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1..."
He cut the engines and plummeted the plane down nose-first.
"Hold onto your lunch, Skates."
"Holding, sir!"
Seconds passed by.
"Starting up," he called, "Tell me what we've got as soon as you see it."
But before Skates had a chance to answer, a loud explosion took over the audio, and for the first time, Merlin saw the heat seeking missle explode far above him. It had been fooled into being guided on the sun and then it went off.
The tape cut off.
"This action sealed your ticket to your new assignment. The President hand-picks everyone for this mission himself. You will be one of two captains assigned. There is command potential in the post for your future, Merlin. You have earned this one, son."
"Permission to speak freely, sir."
"Granted."
Merlin cleared his throat, "I still haven't been informed of my new assignment, sir."
"I've been dodging that a bit, captain, very perceptive of you. You'll be going out West, to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, to eventually learn how to fly some technologically very different jets, once we build a few. Until then, we have a very advanced simulator program to train you, and then you will be working to design a training program."
Blinking furiously, Merlin wondered if he had been hearing things, or if this was some horrific sort of a dream.
The secretary stared at him for a moment and then continued, "Stunned, I believe, afterall this is the opportunity of a lifetime for a young man such as yourself. Just wait until you are fully briefed on the situation of the Complex..."
Merlin swallowed, wondering how best to bridge the subject. He decided that direct was best.
"Mr. Secretary, sir, there is a rather large conflict of interest with me being stationed there."
The man looked at him curiously, "And that would be what, captain?"
The congenial conversation took a dramatic turn to formality.
"Sir, no military personnel can be stationed in the direct chain of command as a family member."
The dramatic turn to formality took another turn to sheer discomfort, as the man walked straight into his face. Merlin stiffened, waiting for the arsenal to begin.
"Are you suggesting, captain, that I have not been doing my job? That I had accidentally, or through negligence, over-looked that small fact in your file?"
"No, sir."
The man showed his military ferocity very well, "So, pray tell me exactly what the problem is then?"
He swallowed again, this time having no idea what the hell he was supposed to say to that... he thought that 'you see, sir, my father and I haven't talked in a few years and we don't exactly get on very well, so it is probably not a good idea for the two of us to be in that close a proximity,' was not something acceptable. Instead, he said nothing.
"Nothing to say? You aren't going to tell me that you cannot handle being in the direct chain of command of your father, are you? Because if you do perhaps you aren't the man I thought that you were."
"No, sir, hadn't crossed my mind."
Then he thought to himself, 'Shit!'
"Good, because this mission is more important than any stupid regs about being in the chain of command of a family member. This mission, captain, calls for the best of all fields, regardless of who the hell is related to whom."
"Yes, sir."
He faded back out of the memory scowling like he hadn't remembered scowling in a long time, probably since his father had argued with him about going to the Air Force Academy while he had wanted to go to a 'civilian' university. Yanking his helmet on, he growled and muttered obscenities, and the lack of sleep didn't help his mood at all. By the time he got where he was going and underwent all the necessary ceremony and introduction, he could hopefully get some sleep if he didn't end up in a holding cell for indecorously knocking his father out cold.
A/N
This starts off a little rough, jumping around a lot, but it was necessary to not drag the beginning out too much. We'll see what happens at the SGC next.
For those of you who do not know, and if you are reading Stargate fanfic you probably do, here is the meanings of all the military terms:
RIO – Radar intercept officer – the person in the backseat of the jet that tells the pilot where stuff's at.
CO – Commanding officer
SIC – Second in command (this is for future reference)
On my/your Six – this basically means 'on your ass' or 'following your plane' generally refering to enemy aircraft or enemy fire.
Merlin/Skates etc – These are pilots' call signs, which means that this is what they call each other over the radio. Basically nicknames.
Note: I am not in the military and neither is anyone that I know, so there is some terminology or other things that I may get wrong. If you feel the need to point this out to me, please do it in a congenial fashion, because I am trying my best.
Chapter One
Reassignment
"What in God's green earth possessed you to do that, son?" His CO yelled from the other side of his desk, slamming his hands down on his desk for effect.
"My concern for my wingman's safety, sir," he said back smartly, although he felt his arms tense dramatically. Perhaps this wouldn't be the easy lecture he had anticipated it to be. He seemed to have ruffled feathers.
"His safety! HIS SAFETY! What about YOUR safety and the safety of YOUR RIO?"
"Sir, I didn't call that into question."
"How could you not, captain?"
"I know my capabilities, sir, and I knew my wingman's. I knew I was more capable of handling the situation than he was, he's fresh."
"I don't care if he just got out of flight school! Fresh! Why didn't you just order him to eject?"
"If it came down to that, sir, I would have rather ejected than him, sir. I at the least would have a chance of survival, colonel."
The older man was visibly calming down. His tone of voice was no longer irrate, but frustrated and concerned.
"While your concern for your subordinate's welfare is commendable, I have to wonder about your motives, captain. You don't even seem phased and that was more than just a brush with death, son."
"I'm just not afraid, sir, I've had to eject before. I've had a heat- seeker on my six before. I had more of a chance, sir, that's what it comes down to. I had more of a chance to bring all four of us back in one piece, and I took that chance, Colonel."
"It wouldn't hurt you to be a bit more conservative, captain, though I have to admit that this stunt might earn you some distinction yet."
* * *
His boots hit the pavement purposefully, his adrenalin still running on high as he pulled off his helmet. He ran his fingers through his slightly plastered, dirty blonde hair, so much so that it nearly looked a deep caramel color.
He smacked fists with his R.I.O., his right eyebrow raised appraisingly.
"Got my thrills for the day, Merlin!" The young man answered, knowing exactly what that eyebrow had meant.
The captain was a man of many facial expressions and comparatively few words.
"Not so much so as last week, or was it the week before."
"Can't have that everyday..." the R.I.O. answered, "Would you really want to?"
The man called Merlin answered, "That's what we are here for in't?"
"No sir, last I checked we were supposed to shoot them down, not evade their fire!"
"Doing both isn't bad either, Skates," he said, smiling slightly.
Merlin combed his wet hair, grateful for the much-needed shower. His reflection stared back at him. His honey-brown colored eyes looked much too youthful, as did the rest of his face for that matter, for what he had seen and experienced in his life. He had risen in rank quite quickly, much to the chagrin of many of his ambitious collegues. He was reminded again and again as he overheard it being discussed, that talent most often spoke louder than time. And Merlin had talent, and a legacy of Air Force pilots behind him.
A loud, "Hey Merlin!" jolted him out of his thoughts.
He turned to face the voice.
"Colonel wants to see you ASAP. His words were he wants to see you ten minutes ago."
Wondering if he was once again going to fly two missions in a row, he dropped his comb and exited the locker-room, pulling his shirt on as he went.
When he pulled open the door to the Colonel's office, he was still buttoning up his shirt, but when he looked up, he noticed that his CO was not the only man in the office.
Recovering quickly, he snapped off a salute, being in the presence of not only his CO and but also the General. Which was obviously, most unexpected.
"Take a seat captain."
Merlin sat down, pushing his reluctance back as he wondered if this had anything to do with his close-call with the heat-seeker from the week before.
"Well, I am sure that you are curious to know what this is about, Captain. So, we will get right down to it. Your flight record is most impressive, despite your age and relative few years of service. Your reviews have been outstanding, not one single blemish to speak of, not one low mark on your training exercises. The speed at which you have been promoted has had you flagged for some time now."
The General paused, puffing out his chest importantly.
"Flagged, son, for more intense investigation. All your files have been reviewed on the highest level. You are due in for a new assignment."
"New assignment, sir? He's my best pilot. Surely, there isn't anything more important than this war-."
"Not my call, Colonel. As I said, the orders have come down from the highest level. You are due to report at the Pentagon. You are fueled up and there is a refueling iternary in this packet, as are the rest of your orders." The man stood, and everyone else in the room followed suit.
Merlin reached out his hand and took the packet from the man, knots twisting in his stomach. He was being reassigned? Reassigned to where?
"That said, I suggest that you get prepared. Dismissed."
* * *
Merlin scowled deeply, and for the fourth time in 48 hours without any sleep donned his flight suit.
"Stupid fucking Secretary, stupid fucking President!"
He could still not believe what he had just heard. The President had hand-picked him out of a group of pilots to be assigned to a top priority operation. He was being ripped out of his comfortable, albeit dangerous, assignment near Iraq where he had earned the respect of those both under his command and those over him.
His mind travelled back to when he had first stepped into the office of the Secretary of Defense, which was where his high-level orders had come from.
"Captain, at ease. It is a pleasure to meet you finally. I have been following your actions for some time. I speak for myself and the President when I say that you embody what we call America's Finest."
Had he been in another situation, Merlin would most definitely have scoffed. Where he came from, there was no pencil-pushing sycophantism.
Instead, he settled for, "Thank you, sir."
"In fact, we have live footage of you, satellite enhanced of course. We couldn't follow a jet around with a camcorder."
The young man raised an eyebrow as the Secretary continued.
"The President asked me to say that your drawing of enemy fire away from your wingman was the most impressive and daunting thing he has ever been privy to see. I am inclined to agree. Have you seen the tape, Merlin? May I call you Merlin?"
"Yes, sir, you may call me Merlin. No, sir, I haven't seen the tape."
The man pressed a remote and a sliding cabinet gave way to a TV.
"We've superimposed the sound from your transmissions onto the tape. It's very dramatic."
Merlin envisioned this tape being on some enlistment commercial on network television, the way the man talked it up.
His thoughts were jolted back to the tape when he heard the distressed voice of his wingman cut through the silence of the room.
"Merlin! I've got a, a h-heater on my six, sir."'
"How many meters?" he heard himself ask.
"I dunno, it's close, sir. I gotta punch us out!"
Merlin scoffed out loud in real life at the gross exaggeration his wingman had made. On the tape, the heater was meters away.
"Are you a Navy pilot Lieutenant, or an Air Force pilot? This isn't some simulation and that is a multi-million dollar piece of machinery you are flying! You do not punch out, do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir! What do I do, sir?"
Over the audio he heard himself ask his RIO, "You with me on this one Skates?"
"To Hell and back, Merlin. Lets do it!"
Next he was back talking to his wingman.
"Level out, do not pull up or turn. Do you understand? I am coming over on top of you."
"Got-Gotcha, Merlin," came the reply.
He watched on the video as the two planes appeared as if they had become one when he came over the top of the other jet.
"Now when I tell you to, you drop and keep going, then roll out in the other direction."
"Okay, sir."
Holding his breath as if it were really happening all over again, he watched his wingman drop and then roll out the other way. When the man dropped, the heater did what it would normally do and stayed with the heat source that had kept in the same course, his own jet.
After some tactical evasive moves, he steadied out.
"Skates? We'll have to try something else. How close have we got now?"
"Only a bit over ten meters, Merlin. What're your plans?"
"In ten I am going into a 60 degree turn towards the sun, another ten and I'm killing the engines."
"Good to go."
The plane cut hard to the right.
"8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1..."
He cut the engines and plummeted the plane down nose-first.
"Hold onto your lunch, Skates."
"Holding, sir!"
Seconds passed by.
"Starting up," he called, "Tell me what we've got as soon as you see it."
But before Skates had a chance to answer, a loud explosion took over the audio, and for the first time, Merlin saw the heat seeking missle explode far above him. It had been fooled into being guided on the sun and then it went off.
The tape cut off.
"This action sealed your ticket to your new assignment. The President hand-picks everyone for this mission himself. You will be one of two captains assigned. There is command potential in the post for your future, Merlin. You have earned this one, son."
"Permission to speak freely, sir."
"Granted."
Merlin cleared his throat, "I still haven't been informed of my new assignment, sir."
"I've been dodging that a bit, captain, very perceptive of you. You'll be going out West, to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, to eventually learn how to fly some technologically very different jets, once we build a few. Until then, we have a very advanced simulator program to train you, and then you will be working to design a training program."
Blinking furiously, Merlin wondered if he had been hearing things, or if this was some horrific sort of a dream.
The secretary stared at him for a moment and then continued, "Stunned, I believe, afterall this is the opportunity of a lifetime for a young man such as yourself. Just wait until you are fully briefed on the situation of the Complex..."
Merlin swallowed, wondering how best to bridge the subject. He decided that direct was best.
"Mr. Secretary, sir, there is a rather large conflict of interest with me being stationed there."
The man looked at him curiously, "And that would be what, captain?"
The congenial conversation took a dramatic turn to formality.
"Sir, no military personnel can be stationed in the direct chain of command as a family member."
The dramatic turn to formality took another turn to sheer discomfort, as the man walked straight into his face. Merlin stiffened, waiting for the arsenal to begin.
"Are you suggesting, captain, that I have not been doing my job? That I had accidentally, or through negligence, over-looked that small fact in your file?"
"No, sir."
The man showed his military ferocity very well, "So, pray tell me exactly what the problem is then?"
He swallowed again, this time having no idea what the hell he was supposed to say to that... he thought that 'you see, sir, my father and I haven't talked in a few years and we don't exactly get on very well, so it is probably not a good idea for the two of us to be in that close a proximity,' was not something acceptable. Instead, he said nothing.
"Nothing to say? You aren't going to tell me that you cannot handle being in the direct chain of command of your father, are you? Because if you do perhaps you aren't the man I thought that you were."
"No, sir, hadn't crossed my mind."
Then he thought to himself, 'Shit!'
"Good, because this mission is more important than any stupid regs about being in the chain of command of a family member. This mission, captain, calls for the best of all fields, regardless of who the hell is related to whom."
"Yes, sir."
He faded back out of the memory scowling like he hadn't remembered scowling in a long time, probably since his father had argued with him about going to the Air Force Academy while he had wanted to go to a 'civilian' university. Yanking his helmet on, he growled and muttered obscenities, and the lack of sleep didn't help his mood at all. By the time he got where he was going and underwent all the necessary ceremony and introduction, he could hopefully get some sleep if he didn't end up in a holding cell for indecorously knocking his father out cold.
A/N
This starts off a little rough, jumping around a lot, but it was necessary to not drag the beginning out too much. We'll see what happens at the SGC next.
For those of you who do not know, and if you are reading Stargate fanfic you probably do, here is the meanings of all the military terms:
RIO – Radar intercept officer – the person in the backseat of the jet that tells the pilot where stuff's at.
CO – Commanding officer
SIC – Second in command (this is for future reference)
On my/your Six – this basically means 'on your ass' or 'following your plane' generally refering to enemy aircraft or enemy fire.
Merlin/Skates etc – These are pilots' call signs, which means that this is what they call each other over the radio. Basically nicknames.