Proving Ground

It was perfect timing, they made use of O'Neill's own scenario. According to O'Neill it was supposed to be a ploy to make the recruits believe there was a foothold situation at the SGC. So instead of a side arm with a blank round the unsuspecting officer was given a weapon with a live round. If it all went to hell their hands were clean. They could either blame the dupe or claim an error by the armorer, obfuscating the event. If everything worked well O'Neill would no longer be their problem. As it happened the SUV's arrived right on time, O'Neill approached and their pigeon shot him point blank.

The recruits who were loafing in the background discussing their afternoon took notice of the arrival of the cars and officers lining up to talk to the Colonel. Then there was gun fire and O'Neill went down hard.

The recruits regrouped and took cover. At first Elliot, the team leader, thought it was more of O'Neill's games but he could see the officer horrified at what he did. The ringleader of the group went to O'Neill as he lay bleeding on the ground, picked up O'Neill's side arm and shot the unsuspecting assassin and then the other two officers who were not in the plot.

Then the rest of the conspirators armed themselves and went to hunt down the raw recruits.

Elliot recovered immediately, snapped his shocked team into action, dividing his forces. He and Haley would retreat into the testing site, luring the attackers. Satterfield and Grogan were to evade the attackers and see to the wounded. They would keep radio silence, couldn't be too careful.

Elliot learned his lesson well from O'Neill. His plan was to shoot first and ask questions later, after all there were only 2 of them. The conspirators were loud and cocky, dismissive of the young recruits' expertise. Elliot and Haley took them down with their intars, trussed them up and gagged them. Then they reconnected with Satterfield and Grogan. Of the three officers shot, only O'Neill was still alive.

Jack had been prepared for the cars to arrive, to react to the "foothold" fabrication and to play out his part as the wounded officer that reacted immediately by taking out all of his assailants. Only that's not what happened. He was hit by a live round, falling to the ground before he could fully wrest his side arm from it's holster. As he lay bleeding he felt his side arm pulled from his limp hand. He saw the horrified confused officer, as well as the other two, mowed down. He played dead, he didn't have much of a choice.

Satterfield managed to get a sloppy but efficient compression bandage on the Colonel. He was teetering on the edge of consciousness yet managed to carp at her the entire time. His prearranged assailant, as planned, shot him in the side. Jack's tac vest took some of the punch out of the bullet. Yet the wound had bled profusely, not the red dyed corn syrup but his own blood, and it seriously impaired the Colonel. Elliot needed to get O'Neill medical care but was worried the SGC was compromised.

O'Neill figured it must be a rogue element of the NID or someone allied with the Goa'uld. He wondered if Kinsey or Simmons could be behind this, that would be hard to believe. What he could believe was whoever they were, they must have someone on the inside, someone in the SGC.

Haley had to come clean about the second half of their test and how it had gone horribly wrong. Haley used O'Neill's cell phone to call Major Carter who only believed what happened when she heard O'Neill's voice. She had expected the recruits' incursion an hour ago. Since the Colonel knew they were on a tight schedule she had become concerned when they were late. Sam charged them with defending the Colonel and transporting him to the base as soon as it was safe. She immediately rallied SG-1 to the observation room with General Hammond and General Kerrigan, and together they planned the sweep of the base.

After the SGC was thoroughly investigated only two other conspirators were found. The plan had been to eliminate O'Neill, the biggest thorn in their side and thus hoped to destroy the cohesiveness of SG-1. The plot was to claim the duped shooter was taken down by O'Neill and the others were collateral damage of the shoot out. What the conspirators hadn't planned on was O'Neill's well trained recruits. In fact O'Neill owed his life to them. Needless to say they passed with flying colors.

A/N: I'd love to do these in order but then it would take forever.