Author's note: So, it's been a while since the last update and I'm sorry about that. I've received a few bad comments for 'Around the regs' and I just needed a few days to gain a bit distance from all that. While I'm usually grateful for criticism, because it helps me improve, people just ranting about how they don't like what I do or how they don't like my style give me nothing concrete to work at. So while I'm sorry you don't like how I do things, I also don't force you to read it.
I won't abandon 'Around the regs' as long as there are people who like reading it (and I'm not yet done), but maybe I'll reconsider about posting something else…
So, since I am in the mood for it, this time we'll do a little bit more action! Also, another third person view, this time from someone very well-known.
Around the regs
Chapter Fourteen – Attack
"I'm sorry, Major Carter, it's not working…", Harriman reported.
The Chief Master Sergeant saw the Major nod absentmindedly, but knew immediately that she was not really listening. From her expression however, he could tell, she was aware that it was not going as she had imagined it. The red warnings flashing from the computer monitors would tell her as much.
"Major Carter?", General Hammond's voice now asked from his position behind the Sergeant's chair.
Major Carter gnawed on her lip and Harriman could practically see her thoughts racing. Sighing, the Sergeant contemplated their situation. What could have gone wrong? Just an hour ago SG-17 had returned from a routine recon mission and the 'Gate had worked just fine. They even had a few off-world activations today and there hadn't been a semblance of a problem. And now, when SG-1 was about to depart, nothing was happening. Quite literally, even. The Stargate wasn't even uttering a sound anymore, nothing to indicate it was willing to rotate for them.
Major Carter punched another series of codes into the computer keyboards, hoping to elicit a reaction from the controlling computers. But, again, nothing was happening. The Stargate was acting as if it wasn't hooked up to their controlling systems at all. As if her commands weren't getting through at all…
"Carter?", Harriman heard Colonel O'Neill growl now and the Sergeant saw her flinch, as if she suddenly remembered that the General was most likely still awaiting an answer. She straightened up from her bent over position, her equipment weighing heavy on her. Seeing that SG-1 had been about to depart, she was in full combat gear and currently worked around the P90 clipped to her chest, but even though Harriman thought it to be surely hindering, Major Carter didn't seem to notice. Then again, she would probably have to make do somehow off-world all the time…
SG-1, General Hammond and all technicians in the control room were looking at her expectantly, but the brilliant Major only heaved an exhausted sigh.
"I'm sorry, sirs.", she said, her eyes switching between the General and the Colonel. "I can't say what's wrong with the Stargate. All I can say, is that it's refusing any and all orders. It could be possible, there's a malfunction somewhere in the system–"
Harriman could pinpoint the exact moment, the Colonel was losing his patience once more at one of his genius team mate's explanations. "Bottom line, Carter?", he interrupted.
She switched tracks in an instant, knowing the Colonel by heart. "I won't be able to fix it now. I'll have to run a diagnostic to see, where the fault is and how I can repair it."
Harriman could see the Colonel's face fall at that. "So I take it, we're not going on that mission, are we?"
"Well, certainly not now.", Major Carter confirmed.
"Alright.", General Hammond cut in. "Then remove your gear. Your mission's postponed. Doctor Jackson, see if you can help Major Carter–"
The General couldn't end his sentence, when suddenly the Stargate behind them began spinning in its familiar way. Harriman all but jumped in his seat, when the alarms began sounding out, coupled with the chevrons locking in place. From the corner of his eyes, the Sergeant saw Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter exchange a quick glance, the Major looking as uncomfortable as possible.
"Um… off-world activation…!", Harriman announced, more out of habit than necessity.
Automatically, security teams swarmed the 'Gate room, guns at the ready, while the blast doors closed after them securely. The wormhole kawooshed to life and Harriman stood up. He could see General Hammond straighten in alarm and Colonel O'Neill step forwards, coming to stand right behind his 2IC, looking over her shoulder down to the Stargate.
And the next thing, Harriman noticed was straight out of a nightmare. Suddenly, and completely unexpected, Jaffa began to swarm through the Stargate! Momentarily frozen in shock, Harriman saw one Jaffa after the other march out of the engaged wormhole, blazing staff weapons at the ready.
"Oh… god!", Daniel Jackson groaned, when shooting erupted down in the 'Gate room.
"The iris! Close the iris!", Major Carter ordered resolutely.
Harriman immediately smashed his hand down on the hand scanner that would activate the iris, but: "No reaction, Major!"
Swearing under her breath, Major Carter jumped for the controls, hacking agitatedly onto the keyboards to force a reaction if necessary.
"These are Ba'al's Jaffa!", Doctor Jackson reported with a hasty glance down into the 'Gate room.
"That was a trap!", Major Carter ground out tense. Slightly confused, Harriman turned over to the blonde Major, taking in her grim expression.
"Care to explain?", Colonel O'Neill asked strained, switching off the safety of his weapon, while looking towards General Hammond for further orders, but the General waited, wary of Major Carter's explanation.
Major Carter reached over the keyboards and Harriman shuffled back to give her room. "I'm pretty sure, Ba'al infected our computer system with a virus to cut our Stargate off from our controlling computers! We can't control it anymore, so he can use it to send his Jaffa here! And without the iris, we can't stop him! He must have used one of the off-world activations today, or maybe all of them, to plant a virus into our Stargate system!"
"Great…", O'Neill stated sarcastically, but General Hammond cut in: "Can you get us online again, Major?"
Harriman could see her working frantic, but he knew from her tense expression that whatever she was trying wasn't working out in her favor. "Not so fast, General.", she confirmed his concerns. "This may take a while and I fear we don't have the time to wait, until I have found a way to counteract the virus…!"
The General nodded in understanding, before turning towards the Chief Master Sergeant. "Lock down the Mountain!", the General ordered and Harriman complied immediately. As soon as the order was typed into the computer, all security doors closed and locked and all over the base the klaxons began to blare, announcing the foothold situation. SF's began to rush for the 'Gate room, coming to the defense and help of the security teams that were currently engaging the Jaffa warriors in a shooting match. Harriman could see plasma beams from the staff weapons crashing into the blast doors and the walls, ripping holes into the concrete. More and more Jaffa were coming through the engaged wormhole with each passing second, filling up the 'Gate room.
"Carter!", Harriman heard O'Neill yell impatiently. "Get the damn wormhole closed!"
The Major shook her head. "Sorry sir, I can't!", she shouted back. Suddenly she straightened, her eyes looking at something unsteadily. Harriman thought of calling out to her, when she just stopped working abruptly, but then realized, she was thinking something through. Something that was most likely the solution to their predicament.
But before she could come up with some ingenious solution to their problem, all of a sudden a sequence of explosions rang out from the 'Gate room. The whole control room shook despite being made of concrete and built into a Mountain and Harriman could feel himself lose his footing. He crashed down onto the floor together with Doctor Jackson. Colonel O'Neill and General Hammond had to steady themselves by grabbing onto the equipment, but Major Carter, who was still standing leaned against the Stargate's controls and Teal'c managed to stay upright.
A crackling sound made Harriman look up and suddenly, he saw that a wayward Jaffa bomb had managed to smash into the control room's window. It exploded violently and the glass shattered into million pieces, flying everywhere. Sergeant Harriman paled. Major Carter stood exactly in front of the window! The Sergeant saw that she was closely observing some warning flash on the monitors in front of her and knew instinctively, she wouldn't notice what was headed her way right away! He could hear her gasp surprised, when she finally looked up at the shattering sound and saw the glass flying everywhere, her body tensing up in expectation of getting hurt, but the second it took her to comprehend what had happened made her unable to react in time.
"CARTER!", O'Neill's voice cut through the sound of glass clashing and Harriman saw him surge forwards. The Colonel grabbed onto his blonde 2IC and hauled her backwards against him. Almost routinely, the black ops soldier let himself fall backwards onto his back, crashing onto the hard floor with his 2IC on top of him, before he rolled automatically, pushing her under him so he could shield her with his body. Harriman closed his eyes and shielded his head with his arms, when glass rained down onto them, cutting into his uniform. When he looked up again, Colonel O'Neill had just sat back on his heels, offering a hand to Major Carter, who was still lying underneath him. She let him pull her up and shot him a small, secret, grateful smile that Harriman had a feeling he so shouldn't have seen.
And then Major Carter proceeded to unclip her equipment. Her backpack fell onto the ground unwatched and the next things she laid down to the side, rather carefully, were a few of her precious measurement tools she had packed for SG-1's initial mission.
"Carter?", O'Neill said suspiciously, observing her closely. "Whatcha doin'?"
She looked up at him in a determined way that told Harriman that the Colonel would downright hate the next thing she was going to say. "Sir, I have to get the iris closed or we will get overrun by Jaffa!", she stated confidently.
"Yeah. So?"
She shook her head slightly, while standing up. The Colonel followed her and Harriman did, too. Down in the 'Gate room, complete chaos had ensued. The blast doors were now opened widely to allow reinforcements through. Dead Jaffa littered the ramp leading to the Stargate and heavily armed SF's shielded the medical personnel that pulled wounded and possibly dead out of the overcrowded 'Gate room.
All at once they had to duck, when wayward plasma beams shot through the now wide open window of the control room.
"Sir, I can't do it from here anymore! None of the controls is reacting anymore!", Major Carter shouted over the battle sounds.
"Then how?", the Colonel shouted back, while absently brushing shards of glass from his camouflage BDUs.
"Manual control!", she yelled, pointing down to the 'Gate room. Harriman and O'Neill followed the direction she pointed, their eyes finding the control panel installed at the wall of the 'Gate room, right next to the Stargate!
"Are you kidding me?!", the Colonel roared.
"Sir, there's no other possibility!", she screamed back. Harriman was about to protest, but he shut his mouth firmly. He didn't have any authority to deny the Major, that was the Colonel's job. But seeing that the man normally had a keen sense of what needed to be done, Harriman was pretty sure that he would agree. Right now, the Jaffa were in the better position. They could just send more and more through the wormhole, but some time, Cheyenne Mountain would have reached its limits. Surely, the wormhole would disengage when it would have exceeded the time limit, but until Major Carter had gotten rid of this virus that cut them off from their own controlling devices Ba'al could just continue to dial Earth and establish one wormhole after the other to send his Jaffa through to attack Earth. And sometime they would get overrun. They wouldn't get reinforcements here fast enough to counter their enemies. So they desperately needed to shut the wormhole off or close the iris to stop the inflow of hostile warriors. Harriman knew this, and if he knew then there was no chance in hell Colonel O'Neill was unaware.
The Colonel stared down at his Major, his glowering eyes searching her determined ones.
"Oh, for cryin' out loud!", he cursed, before grabbing his Major quite roughly at her protection vest. Walking her to the stairs, he ordered, beyond gruff: "Stay behind me!"
Harriman couldn't hear if or what Major Carter answered, because in this instance, heavily armed SF's were storming into the control room, curtesy to General Hammond's order, no doubt. The SF's took position at the shattered window, positioning guns to shoot at the Jaffa below. Harriman gripped his own hand gun and together with Doctor Jackson, Teal'c and General Hammond, who took a weapon from one of the heavily armed SF's, he began firing down into the 'Gate room. Then Harriman could see Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter. They had rounded the 'Gate room and now were entering through the left blast doors, which were closer to the control panel at the wall. The Colonel made his way through the SF's, P90 raised high and firing relentlessly, while shielding Major Carter, who walked behind him, with his larger frame. Together they made their way along the wall, the Colonel felling every Jaffa that took an interest in them. Immediately Doctor Jackson and Teal'c began covering for them, shooting with unerring aim from above.
Down in the 'Gate room, the Colonel ducked behind the stationary Browning M2HB, using the machine gun's large shield for protection, and pulled Major Carter along. Together, they waited for a second, until the Colonel gave her the go and then she jumped for the control panel not far away. Harriman saw her activate the manual control, but, much to everyone's dismay, nothing happened. Major Carter's face scrunched up displeased and then she hurried back to where the Colonel stood. Harriman could see her talking to the Colonel and although he was still firing away he was clearly listening, nodding to her, when she had finished. Obviously there was some problem with the manual control as well…
Sighing, Harriman observed Major Carter separate from the Colonel once again and return to the manual control to work on it. Colonel O'Neill swung the machine gun around so that she was still protected by the large shield and continued firing over it with his P90. Major Carter had to work with her back pointed towards her enemies and she did so, completely trusting the Colonel to keep them off of her back.
The Colonel pumped his whole magazine into the approaching Jaffa, but when his P90 finally ran out of ammunition, he didn't bother reloading, but merely grabbed the fire-ready machine gun and continued on.
"Under all circumstances, cover Major Carter!", General Hammond yelled over the chaos and Harriman could see a few SF's down in the control room nod in response. And immediately Harriman understood, why the General had ordered it. The Jaffa seemed to have picked up on what Major Carter was doing, because they were rounding in on her and the Colonel, only kept at bay by the Colonel's precise handling of the M2HB.
By now plasma beams from various staff weapons were blowing up all around Major Carter, while she worked frantically at the control panel. She was just reaching over to pull down the switch to close the iris, when Harriman saw a plasma beam finally connect with her. Smoldering white smoke rose from her shoulder, when she was thrown forwards and Harriman could see her knock against the concrete wall, before she slumped to the ground. The Sergeant winced sympathetically at the pain she had to feel by this blow. And she had been so close!
"Sam!", Doctor Jackson next to him called out worried, while Teal'c shot down the Jaffa that had wounded her.
Down in the 'Gate room, the Chief Master Sergeant could suddenly see Colonel O'Neill abandon his weapon. With a few quick steps he hurried over to his 2IC and Harriman briefly wondered, how the man could even know she had gotten hurt. It had to be impossible to hear anything in the chaos unfolding down there…
The Colonel slid down next to her, grabbing her shoulders and turning her towards him. To his relief, Harriman instantly saw that Major Carter was still conscious, her hand holding her shoulder with a pained expression on her face. She motioned something and with a quick movement, Colonel O'Neill reached over her to pull the switch down. The iris slid close over the engaged wormhole and Harriman could hear several clangs reverberate behind the closed iris, telling him that the enemy's backup finally ran into closed doors. For the first time since the unexpected attack, Harriman felt the SGC exhale metaphorically. Now all they had to do was to take out the remaining Jaffa. And this they could do. They had lots of practice, after all.
Harriman took a second, when he had to reload a new mag, to glance down towards the Colonel. He was sitting in front of his injured Major, shielding her with his body. Her good arm was slung over his shoulders, but currently the Colonel had to hold back the Jaffa, firing at them with his Berretta, so they couldn't escape from their hiding point. Harriman could see Colonels Dixon and Reynolds working to free their way over to them and Major Ferretti down a few Jaffa from the other end of the room to help his former CO.
Lastly, finally, complete silence descended in the 'Gate room. SF after SF stormed for the fallen bodies to kick away the staff weapons. Harriman and the team up in the control room all stopped firing at the same time. And the Chief Master Sergeant hadn't even blinked, before Daniel Jackson and Teal'c were gone from the room, heading down to their friends.
Harriman glanced down to the 'Gate room. Colonel O'Neill had hoisted himself to his feet, pulling Major Carter along. She leaned heavily onto him, while he stashed his weapon away. As soon as he had his hands free, he held onto her and then began to half-drag her towards the exit. Sergeant Harriman was seriously astounded. He couldn't help but admire SG-1 anew, while he watched the Colonel ignore every help he was getting offered, only intend to help his 2IC to the infirmary, so she could get patched up. Harriman saw all SG teams on a regular basis and he knew that most of them were tight-knit units, little families even. Still, whenever he watched SG-1, he always had the feeling they were simply more. More than family, more than merely in tune with each other. They seemed to be able to foresee the other's actions, appeared to know instinctively what the other would do or need. They trusted each other with their lives, relying on the fact that their friends would rather die themselves than let any harm get to them.
Harriman watched when Doctor Fraiser rushed into the 'Gate room, followed closely by Daniel Jackson and Teal'c. Colonel O'Neill stopped immediately, when the Doc approached them, and cautiously let go of his 2IC. Janet Fraiser didn't even wait for Major Carter to get transported to the infirmary. In the middle of the 'Gate room she began treating her. Major Carter let her proceed exhausted, with the Colonel hovering close by. Doctor Jackson and Teal'c shielded them from the hectic events taking place around them. Harriman saw Fraiser shed Major Carter's protection vest and then cut off the sleeve of her BDU jacket and shirt underneath, revealing a nasty burn wound. When she began treating Major Carter with what seemed to be antiseptic liquid, Harriman saw the steadfast Major sway with the unexpected pain that rushed through her. Immediately, the Colonel had stepped up to her once more and she bumped back into his chest. Unnoticed by all around them, Harriman saw the Colonel put his hands on her waist gently to hold her stable against him. Major Carter let her head fall back against his shoulder, her shaky breathing fanning in and out of her opened mouth. For a second, missed by all but Harriman himself, the Colonel lowered his head almost unnoticeably, pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered something to her. Harriman saw Major Carter nod tightly in response and wondered, what the Colonel could have said.
Fraiser wrapped up the Major's shoulder and when she lastly stepped back, Doctor Jackson instantly jumped forwards. With simultaneous movements, he and the Colonel drew Major Carter's arms around their shoulders, cautious of her injury, and then walked her out of the room, Teal'c taking lead and clearing their way. Harriman turned back for the chaos that had spread in the control room, when SG-1 had finally left the 'Gate room. Looking down on the million sharp glass splinters, the empty mags littering the ground and the innumerable ball linings strewn around, he knew they were safe for now, but they had a lot of cleaning up to do…
Lost in thoughts, Harriman all but jumped in surprise, when he turned and came face-to-face with the General.
"General Hammond!", he said surprised, but caught himself before saying something along the lines of 'I had totally forgotten, you're also still here'.
"Sergeant.", the General acknowledged uncharacteristically still, not taking his eyes off what he was observing in the 'Gate room. Harriman followed the other man's eyes to see what held his interest and noticed that he looked over to the blast doors SG-1 had just disappeared through.
A sinking feeling travelled through the Sergeant's stomach. Had the General witnessed what had just passed between Colonel O'Neill and his 2IC? Oh please no! Harriman had a fleeting suspicion that there was more between the Colonel and Major Carter than there should be considering their work relationship, but the Sergeant was a hundred percent sure, that neither would act on it as long as there were certain regs standing in their way. So he sincerely hoped the General hadn't witnessed something and misunderstood…!
"General…!", he began pleadingly in defense of two of the best officers the SGC had ever seen. "You have to understand! This isn't what it seems…!"
The General looked back at him, a small, secretive smile playing upon his lips. "No words needed, Sergeant.", he assured the other man.
And with this, the General turned and headed for the 'Gate room. And Sergeant Harriman stood dumbfounded, silently berating himself how he could have believed he'd noticed something that the General might have missed. Nothing went past the General!
And if he was okay with this, then Harriman decided, it truly was okay.