StarGate Command, May 2002
There was a single sheet of paper held in Major General George S. Hammond's hand and a perplexed expression on his face when Jack entered the office. That single, unassuming piece of paper didn't look important, in fact when Jack had written it he'd tried to make it look as unimportant as possible. Nevertheless, on that paper rested the fate of someone very important, not perhaps to the world although that remained to be seen, but definitely to Jack. In fact, that paper held the key to the safety of one of the few surviving people not on base that Jack cared about. With that in mind he covered his concern with a whole bushel of insubordinate charm and raised a querying eyebrow at his superior.
Hammond handed the paper over with an enquiring look of his own and with his tone hovering somewhere between a question and a statement asked, "This is from you?" Jack perused the sheet, which contained an interesting mix of military jargon and intelligence community double speak, before finally replying, "That's me sir. O'Neill, two L's".
He returned the paper to Hammond and awaited judgement. "You want to use codenames?" In truth the idea had presented itself to Jack when they had first began to have trouble with the NID. It was a way to protect the identities of the SGC personnel. Now that 2nd Lieutenant Dean Winchester was finally getting assigned to Cheyenne he had a little more incentive to make sure his plan was actually implemented. Besides, Jack kind of missed having a call-sign, although his suggestion of random, computer generated codenames probably meant that returning to his previous handle was unlikely. Still, maybe he'd get something cool this time around.
He should have known better. No sooner had the memo been sent than the SGC grapevine had been hard at work. The Naming Ceremony had been reinstated before Jack had had a chance to walk down the corridor. A week later and he was, once again, the proud bearer of "Tools", a badge of honour he'd carried since his first enemy contact.
Most of the Air Force personnel had regained their former call-signs, which meant that Carter had returned to "Cosmo" and General Hammond to "Torch". A circumstance which had led to more than a few hurriedly concealed sniggers.
Still, the new rule had been implemented and there were now no personnel names used on Earth outside of the mountain and everyone in the SGC purportedly worked elsewhere, on paper at any rate. Hopefully it would be enough to obfuscate any Hunter on Dean's trail, at the very least it was some protection against the ever present threat of The Trust.
The master list of call-signs was buried deep within the mountain's archives, where even the hardiest of pencil pushers feared to tread.
SG-1 was gathered in front of the gate, readying the gear for a routine mission to P5S-138, when the orientation tour of new personnel came through. Daniel busied himself checking his equipment, there were some interesting ruins that he intended to explore. The layout was fascinating, suggesting more ruins to be discovered if he could figure out where to look. Another paper I'll never publish.
The ten new arrivals milled about the gate room, looking at the giant metal ring with mingled curiosity and awe. A young marine stepped onto the ramp, skirting the heavily loaded field remote expeditionary device. The influx was all military, a fact that Daniel had lamented bitterly when he'd seen the staffing list. Despite nearly five years working almost exclusively with military personnel he still didn't really get on with the command structure of the SGC. Sure he liked them individually, well, most of them anyway, okay less than half, and he was smart enough to know that Jack and Sam shielded him from the majority of their more belligerent compatriots. Of course it didn't help that there was a preponderance of arrogant, self-important, as-, "Hey Pyro!"
Daniel looked up in time to see Jack smile in welcome and step away from the F.R.E.D, clapping the young marine on the shoulder. "How's the family?" The young man shrugged, his own return smile not reaching his eyes, "Fine sir, Thank you." He was too young to have served with O'Neill before, Daniel decided, not to mention a marine, which was odd because Jack's friends in the military seemed to be almost exclusively people from his black ops days.
Jack didn't seem to notice the marine's cool response because he kept right on talking, asking if the marine had been introduced to his team yet (no sir), whether he'd completed his simulated off-world training (yes sir), and whether he knew that his team was assigned to come to P5S-138 with them (yes sir). Since the gate room was the last stop, and Jack had absconded with one of their number possibly to find SG-15 since that was the team that was accompanying them off-world, the rest of the tour group also scattered to their duties, or whatever.
Daniel returned to his packing with a frown, a glance at Carter satisfying him that, whoever this knuckle-dragger was, she didn't know either. "Ah Digger, there you are." Stupid codenames! Daniel looked up into the brown eyed gaze of Major Ben Pierce. He was smirking, presumably enjoying Daniel's disgruntlement at the now ubiquitous call-signs. "Is everything ready to go?"
Daniel took advantage of his height for once and forced Pierce to look up at him, "Yes Major. We're ready whenever you are. Although I still don't know why you're coming with us." The major gave up trying to stretch his deficient height and conceded defeat, becoming the first soldier to use Daniel's name since they'd found out that he hated his call-sign. "Well Dr Jackson, since I have two new team members to train for off-world travel a nice little sightseeing trip is just what SG-15 needs. Besides, you don't expect Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter to fetch and carry for you do you? Not when I've got a nice green marine lieutenant to break in." Daniel returned the man's grin, "I guess that explains it then." Maybe he could cope with the extra military presence on his dig if he had some help with the heavy lifting.