JANUARY 5th, 2010:
I sat down to continue the movie marathon I'd started the other day. It was around midday, and I'd only just woken up, so I was fairly sleepy. My two dogs were sleeping on the couches, and both didn't look like they were going to wake up any time soon. I grabbed the DVD remote and was just about to hit play when both dogs woke up, and Rusty, my red heeler started barking his head off.
"Shut up!" I yelled. Rusty bowed his head submissively and moved away from the window. I opened the curtains and looked outside, just as a big, black SUV pulled up outside the house.
What the…? I thought. Two people in blue dress uniforms, both of them with a ridiculous amount of medals got out of the truck. I gulped, all the while wondering what I'd done to attract the attention of the military.
The doorbell rang, and I walked to the front door to open it. When I did, I almost fell over backwards about ten seconds later as I read the name tags.
The first one, a six foot four man with salt and pepper hair, had the tags MJR. GEN. J. O'NEILL. At first, I thought it was a hoax, but it was the second one that almost floored me.
She was standing about 5'11", with shoulder length blonde hair. The tags shown on the right side of her dress uniform blazer said LT. COL. S. CARTER.
"Kieren Gallagher?" the general asked.
"Yeah?" I responded, still slightly shocked by what I was seeing.
This time, Colonel Carter spoke.
"We've received intelligence that you have knowledge of a top secret military installation operating under NORAD in the Cheyenne Mountain complex in Colorado. We've come to give you the opportunity to join that program," she said.
I raised an eyebrow, to which O'Neill raised both eyebrows.
"You mean the Stargate Program?" I asked.
The two USAF officers glanced at each other, before both nodded. I mentally jumped for joy, remembering all the times I'd dreamed of joining the SGC.
"Well… ever since I discovered it, I've wanted to join, so… where do I sign up?" I asked.
This caused Sam to smile.
Twenty minutes later, the GMC SUV left the house with only dogs and a sleeping girl inside. Inside the GMC, I was signing all the necessary paper work that would place me in the USAF and the SGC. When I'd finished, they gave me a PDA-like device, which activated the moment it touched my skin. This caused both air force officers to almost jump for joy.
We all knew the help I could be to the program, with my knowledge of the Ancients and the Stargate itself. I was looking forwards to this.
An hour later, a C-5 Galaxy lifted off from the RAAF base in Fairburn, near the Canberra Airport. At almost the same time, a Boeing 737-330 touched down. Inside the arrival and departure lounges, people watched as the big military jet climbed into the sky on a one way direct route to Colorado Springs.
Two people in particular, didn't know that their son was on his way out of the country. When they got home, they saw a note addressed to them.
Dear mum and dad,
I'm sorry I wasn't there to welcome you back
Home, but something came up and I'm on my
Way to the US.
I can't tell you where I'm going, or what I'm
Going to do once I get there, all I can tell you
Is that you probably won't see me for a while.
Don't worry, I'll be fine.
Love your son
Pvt. 2nd class
Kieren Gallagher
EIGHT MONTHS LATER:
"Incoming traveller!" Sergeant Walter Harriman said into the P.A.
The Stargate roared into life, ejecting the unstable vortex into the air, before stabilizing.
"Close the iris," Brigadier General Hank Landry ordered. The trinium-naquadah alloy iris slid closed with the sound of a hundred swords sliding against one another.
Suddenly, the screen in front of the tech sergeant changed to the I.D.C. screen.
"Receiving IDC…" he started, as the bar that crossed the screen went jagged. A second, identical jagged line appeared, and the two merged, before the bar flashed green and the words 'IDC CODE ACCEPTED: SG-1' appeared below it.
"It's SG-1, they're under heavy fire from Ori forces."
"Open the iris," Landry said as he left the control room. The iris slid open a second later. The heavy steel blast door on the right side of the room opened and Landry entered the gate room just as the first of six members of SG-1 came rolling out of the event horizon with a gurgle.
Lieutenant Colonel Cameron "Shaft" Mitchell got up off the metal ramp just as the second team member, Colonel Samantha "Sam" Carter, came through, closely followed by a hail of blue plasma bolts. Both team members, the general, and the Marines in the gate room dove for cover.
Just after the storm ended, Teal'C hurried out of the 'gate, carrying in his arms the youngest member of the team. Lieutenant Kieren Gallagher was holding his side, a nasty burn from a grazing shot covering his side.
Landry turned to the control room.
"Get a medical team to the 'gate room!" he ordered.
Walter picked up the phone on his desk and called for a med team just as Dr. Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran came through the wormhole backwards.
"Close the iris!" Mitchell yelled.
The iris slid shut again, and just in time. A series of loud thuds resonated through the gate room and the iris shuddered as Ori soldiers following SG-1 through the 'gate slammed into it. Everyone flinched at the last one, and the iris bulged outwards about four inches before the 'gate shut with a snap. The iris slid open again, revealing the empty void which moments ago held the event horizon.
The blast doors opened again and four medics pulling a stretcher between them entered the room. Teal'C placed the el-tee on the stretcher, while the seventeen year old groaned in suppressed pain.
Landry watched as the teenager was wheeled away, before turning to the rest of SG-1.
"What happened?" he asked.
"We were ambushed on our way back to the 'gate. Apparently, the people of the planet rejected the Ori, and because of some kind of orbital mine fields, the Ori took the 'gate. They came through just before the 'gate came into view," Sam said, getting up from the place she dove into.
Landry nodded. "Alright. Get yourselves cleaned up. Debrief is at 1900 hours," he said, before leaving the 'gate room.
SGC INFIRMARY: Sept. 17th, 2010; Two days after the Ori Ambush:
I opened my eyes, and was almost blinded by the infirmary lights. I groaned and covered my face with an arm.
"Glad to see you awake," a female voice said.
I opened my eyes again and looked over to see Sam sitting in a chair next to my bed.
"What? No hello?" I asked sarcastically. Sam smiled.
"It's also good to see your back to your normal self. It was getting kind of quiet without you."
"I learnt from Jack," I said, flopping my head into the pillow. "How long was I out?"
"Two days. The burn's healed up nicely. Dr. Lam said you should be outta here by the end of the week."
"That's good."
"Still, she said you should take a week off."
"And do what?" I asked.
Sam shrugged.
"Whatever you want," she said.
"Cool, I can visit my girlfriend," I said happily.
Sam smiled at that.
"Ahhh, young love," she said, trying to hold in laughter. I was half-tempted to grab the pillow under my head and throw it at her, but that would only make her laugh harder, and give her the utmost pleasure of seeing me embarrassed.
"Shut up," I groaned.
Thankfully, the infirmary doors opened to admit the rest of SG-1, excluding Daniel, who was in Washington, and Vala, who'd gone with him. No-one, not even me, knew what her fascination with Daniel was.
"Hey kiddo," Mitchell said, pulling up a chair and sitting down.
"Cam," I said, smiling at O'Neill's secret son. Everyone except Vala and Cameron himself knew about it.
"It is good to see you are well, LieutenantGallagher," Teal'C said, bowing his head.
I nodded my head.
Soon, the four of us were catching up on things I'd missed since the ambush. We continued like this until Dr. Lam interrupted us and said I had to rest.
Sept. 23rd, 2010:
"This is your captain speaking. We will be arriving in Canberra momentarily. The temperature on the ground is twenty three degrees and the time is 12:31p.m."
The seatbelt sign pinged on, and people moved to put on their seatbelts. Up in first class, riding there only because it was arranged by Barack Obama, a seventeen year old had just gotten off the phone with his parents, telling them he was on his way home, but that he couldn't stay longer than a week.
But before he saw them, his first order of business was a little more personal.
Several hours after I'd arrived back in Canberra, my girlfriend and I were sitting at a secluded clearing on the edge of Lake Burley Griffin, catching up on eight months of separation. The reason it was secluded, was that we both wanted privacy. At the moment, we were both heavily involved in a make out session, and it was starting to push the fifteen minute mark, and probably a new world record if we kept it up.
"I missed you," Rachel whispered in between kisses.
"I missed you too," I whispered back, capturing her lips with mine once again.
Rachel moaned into the kiss, and her nails scratched at my back. I could tell from the way she shuddered that she as getting excited, but neither of us were willing to go that far just yet, so I stopped kissing her. She huffed and pouted her lips, but smiled again when I kissed her forehead lightly.
We lay in the grass, holding ourselves against each other. Rachel had grown even more beautiful than she was when I left, so I wouldn't be surprised if while I was out of the country that others tried to go out with her. It also wouldn't've surprised me if one guy actually did get her attention, but both of us knew who her heart belonged to.
"What have you been doing these past months?" Rachel asked, looking up at me.
I smirked and reached into my pocket, pulling out a velvet case and opening it, revealing the gleaming polished Purple Heart. Next to it, overlapping with the heart, was one of the two most valued medals on the planet: the Congressional Medal of Honour.
Rachel gasped at the two gleaming medals.
"How…" she started, before I placed a finger on her lips. I handed the case to her. She held it reverently, in awe of the two medals.
"I got the Purple Heart for extreme bravery under fire, and the Medal of Honour for rescuing a team member and getting both of us out alive against almost impossible odds. Well… actually, it was all of my team members who I rescued. They were captured while I managed to escape and free them," I said. "Now that I think about, Cam still owes me his blue Jell-O, Murray owes me a close-combat training session, Daniel owes me, well, can't tell you, and Sam owes me new sidearm. I really want something better than the M9."
Rachel giggled.
"Good you're having fun," she whispered into my ear.
I chuckled. "Fun? You haven't learnt the meaning of the word fun until you've flown at Mach 2 and had you body squashed by g-forces."
This brought more giggles from Rachel.
We kissed again, but five minutes later, a loud humming filled the air, and the next thing I knew, I was looking at the Earth.
Rachel gasped when she saw Kieren enveloped in a blue light and disappear into thin air. She shot up from the ground, looking around, and saw the velvet case that held his two medals lying on the ground nearby. She picked it up and opened it. Both medals were still gleaming.
She looked into the sky.
Where are you Kieren? she thought.
EARTH ORBIT:
I looked out the window at the glowing blue-green globe that was the Earth. I looked around at my surroundings, noticing the alien design.
The humming ring of an Asgard transporter beam sounded again and a throne-like chair, with an Asgard sitting in it appeared at the other end of the room.
"Greetings," the Asgard said.
"Thor?" I questioned.
The Asgard nodded.
"Yes. I am Thor."
I raised an eyebrow. "Care to explain why I'm here instead of on vacation?"
"I apologize for interrupting your recreational period," Thor started, to which I raised my other eyebrow and gave the small, grey alien a questioning look. "But the Asgard require your assistance."
"Why me?" I asked, now very confused. "Why not General O'Neill? Or Colonel Carter?"
"While O'Neill and Samantha Carter would be appreciated, neither one possesses the required gene to activate the machine which could save both the Asgard, and Earth," Thor explained.
I suddenly realized that things for me had gotten extremely complex. And so, I asked the one question that would be going through anyone's mind in this situation.
"Why me?"
Thor blinked once, then said; "You are the last surviving direct descendant of the Ancients. In effect, you are an Alteran."
It felt like a massive burden had just settled on my shoulders. My heart clenched, and my lungs tightened. I gulped.
"I'm an Ancient?"
Thor bowed his head, and sealed my fate with the words that I knew were coming.
"Yes. You are the last surviving un-Ascended Alteran in the Milky Way."