Admiral Chegwidden called Sarah Mackenzie to his office. She was grateful for the distraction. For a couple of days she had tried unsuccessfully to come up with a useful angle on a desertion charge that she was obliged to defend. The case looked hopeless but she intended giving the man the best possible defence, if only for pride's sake.
Any interruption to her ruminations was welcome. Gratefully, she placed the file back onto her desk, checked the state of her uniform in the reflection from the back of the door and hustled into the corridor.
The hallway was essentially empty. Her heels click-clacked on the hard tiled floor and the sound echoed through the emptiness. The story of how hush-hush the case was had echoed throughout the corridors as well. Chewidden's secretary had spoken with the canteen staff who had relayed the information to the desk Sergeant who had told the janitorial staff who had… Beyond that point the causal chain got rather confused. By the time Sarah Mackenzie knocked on the Admirals door she was probably the only person in the building who was unaware that a real doozey had dropped itself on the Admiral's lap.
Chegwidden's secretary waved her through the open door with a cautious smile. Mackenzie returned the grin and stepped through the door. She closed it behind her. Within minutes the canteen staff would know that it was Mackenzie that was handling the case and so on through the grapevine once again.
The Admiral stood behind his desk, making a display of his old-fashioned courtliness that was both out of line and out of date. In this man's navy (and again we have an example of political incorrectness) he was restrained from making any distinction between the male and female members of his staff. His actions, in rising to greet her entrance, was not high on her list of sexist slights and therefore not commented-on at this stage of her career. Perhaps later on, we shall wait and see what happens.
He waited for Colonel Mackenzie to stride across his office floor. Her step was forced into mincing fussiness by the cut of her uniform skirt. Only a catwalk model had a hope of walking in one of those things and we all know how they walk (strut, sashay, whatever). The sort of way they carry themselves doesn't look like it's good for long life of the hip joints. Orthopaedic surgeons are probably looking forward to the upsurge of hip replacements among the emaciated, drug riddled and wealthy.
Sarah Mackenzie reached out one neatly manicured hand, took one of the chairs from beneath his desk and seated herself. She crossed her legs primly, arranged her skirt, so the pleat was neat and waited intently.
Chegwidden resumed his seat moments after Mackenzie. He was a kindly faced man of late middle years, balding and cropped pate, his physical fitness obvious in his bearing, and obviously good for any age, not just his own. He waited a moment before speaking. Sarah Mackenzie waited patiently for him to open the conversation.
Outside his office window, the snow was floating ground-ward. The fall that began a day or two earlier showed no signs of abating. It was the season's first fall (although it seemed intent on being a good one), and added the first traces of yule-tide to proceedings (that is to say it was already bitterly cold). Mackenzie watched it for a moment, getting her thoughts into order, clearing her mind for a briefing. The conversational delay was suitably long; enough to suggest Admiral Chegwidden was struggling to come up with the best slant on what he had to say.
"We have a unique situation here Mac," he said finally. He folded his hands on the desk. "An old acquaintance of mine has asked a favour. I wish I could tell you about it properly. I just don't have enough detail to be able to describe the case to you." He shrugged. "It's one of those slit your own throat before reading security issues."
That was not good news to Sarah Mackenzie. Cases of that type had 'nasty compromise' and 'messy politics' written all over them in large type. You won no friends, you alienated many people and you accumulated enemies that you often couldn't identify after the dust settled. Well, that is not always the case. Usually the enemy is the one holding the handle of the (insert weapon of choice here, the default choice is knife) that is embedded up to the hilt in the flesh of your back.
"Yes sir," she agreed. "Is it urgent?" What she really meant was, is there some chance I could resign before the excrement lands on the ventilation impeller.
He nodded grimly. "They're looking for an immediate start. Can you travel?"
OK, this wasn't good. In fact it had gone from bad, through to worse and was hovering just short of Armageddon. "Now?"
He nodded. How could such a kindly-looking man take on the aspect of an executioner just by a simple gesture like a nodded head? "Within the hour."
She thought about all the ways she could say no. There was the time honoured and elegantly simple 'no' or the classic avoidance type response of 'can I think about it?' or even the subtle such as 'are you sure I'm the best choice for this?' piece of responsibility avoidance. What she actually said was; "Should be possible. I have a bag ready, we all do."
He knew that, it was standard procedure for their office. They all waited for the chance to serve.
"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't know that already," he said.
"Thank you sir."
"You have an hour before your flight." He pushed a file across to her. The folder was depressingly thin.
*
Sarah Mackenzie stepped from the staff car and straight into the knife edged wind that blew in across the snow. She wrapped her jacket more tightly around herself and stepped carefully away from the car while the driver fussed with her luggage in the trunk. The helipad was occupied. The idling rotor blew the thin snow off the pad and whipped her hair around.
With any luck this assignment might be in sunnier climes, she speculated. Florida would be nice, or perhaps Tijuana, although on second thoughts, Sydney might be the best option. There had been no mention of location in the file, precious little of anything useful as a matter of fact. The file had contained just a letter advising who would meet her, and a few declaration-of-secrecy forms to be filled out in quintuplicate, endorsed by God before being witnessed by seven Archangels and two Muses.
She noted the obvious presence of a warm and running chopper that was obviously waiting for her, and searched the shadows that it cast for her contact. Ah, there he was. A man stepped from the shadow of the chopper and strode across to intercept her.
"Colonel Jack O'Neill, SGC," her escort introduced himself. That was almost the same as the name in the file. It explained what the "J" stood for anyway.
US marine Corp, she read from his shirt. He was a career soldier from the looks of him. Obviously ten years or more older than her and still only at the same rank, one step down from a Generalship. It was obvious to her that he would only ever achieve that promotion in the event of a war. Something that required a field officer, so he could go out and order lots of boys and girls to shoot at someone else's boys and girls with big guns and get the field promotion. At the moment, with peace essentially (and inconveniently) broken out throughout the US sphere of influence, the military was best served by the peacetime officers - bureaucratic diplomats rather than active field officers. And it's probably just as well for the rest of us. Imagine leaving someone like Colin Powell in charge of a key portfolio during peacetime. I mean the mind boggles. What do you mean, they have? Oh, dear…That's… a cause for… concern? Is there space in a fall out shelter somewhere?
Sarah Mackenzie summed Jack O'Neill up with a glance. His hair was a peppering of sandy grey. His face was square-jawed and craggy, dimples had become creases, crows feet had become permanent. His eyes seemed set into a fixed squint, as though he was sighting at the world over the barrel of an AK-47. His voice was dry, virtually without inflection, although his accent placed him as slightly south and well to the west of where she had met him. He was no Ivy League graduate, but possessed a measured, and she suspected sardonic, intelligence that looked out at her from beneath those lowered brows. He carried himself with the stride of a combat veteran, square shouldered and straight backed.
"Colonel Sarah Mackenzie, Judge Advocate General's department," she shouted over the whine of the Apache's turbines and the howl of the wind. She took a flake of snow into her mouth for good measure.
"I know colonel," he shouted in return. "If you will follow me please?" He escorted her to the awaiting Apache Blackhawk. The aircraft had been stripped of armament, she noted, and fitted with long range tanks. He gestured toward the open door to the chopper as though to welcome her aboard. This close to the chopper, speaking was a waste of time, the noise of the turbine and the chop of the blades made the whole concept of speaking to be vaguely ludicrous.
She hesitated a moment at the entrance to the chopper's passenger compartment. Her hand secured her cap to her head when the gale kicked up the chopper threatened to blow it into Chesapeake Bay. She pointed to the insignia on his shirt. "SGC?" she bellowed into his face, bothered by the implications of the embroidered letters of the insignia that identified him as belonging to Earth. It seemed a pretty vague designation to her.
"I'll explain it later," he cried back at her, neutrally. "Let's get aloft first."
The staff driver finished placing her bag aboard, leaving her hesitation as the only impediment to lift off. She shrugged and hoisted herself into the steps leading into the passenger compartment, fighting the constrains of her skirt the whole time.
The interior of the plane was spartan. Plastic seat cushions exposed buttressed framework and seat belts seemed to be all of the internal decorations. A pair of headset microphones/ear muffs hung from one wall. They were already jacked into the communications console.
Ahead of Mackenzie, the pilot was revealed. She appeared to be a youngish female. He rank bars suggested airforce Major. The face that peeked out from beneath the flight goggles, and surrounded by the headphones, was young, smiling and dimpled. She would have been slightly younger than Sarah Mackenzie was. As a pilot and major at her age and with her gender, it was quite an achievement.
"Major Samantha Carter," the pilot introduced herself. They shook hands awkwardly over the back of her flight seat. "I know who you are," she said before Mackenzie could say anything. Mackenzie was slightly put off by the brush off, but it had been delivered good-naturedly. She regarded her pilot for a moment trying to work out what she was about and how they should interact. It was no use trying to make judgements about the woman; she just gave the impression of good-natured competence and that was far too little information to use in forming an opinion. Mackenzie finished clambering into the passenger compartment, struggling with the confining hem of her skirt. She experienced a trace of envy, the heavy combat fatigues worn by their pilot were so much more practical than the uniform she was obliged to wear in JAG. When she got back to the office she was going to take that up with the Admiral, and see if she could get that changed. And like that was any possibility. She had been to court in Canada, and Australia, and had seen the gowns and the powdered wigs. Perhaps there were more ridiculous outfits inflicted on the legal fraternity.
The Marine Colonel boosted himself into the plane with an athletic grace and began fussing with his seat harness. Mac had already secured herself, the moment she had hit the seat. "All set Sam," O'Neill called forward.
"Lifting in thirty," the pilot called back over her shoulder. She pulled the microphone around to cover her mouth and began speaking in low tones to someone outside of their noisy little cocoon.
"Sorry about the rush," O'Neill called across to Mackenzie. His voice was barely audible over the growing whine of the turbine engine and the moving volume of air disturbed by the idling rotors. The rotors accelerated. The aircraft bobbled on the ground momentarily. O'Neill handed Mackenzie a set of headphones with integral microphone and went about donning a pair himself. Mackenzie placed the head set over her hair, seated it against her ears and manipulated the microphone so that it sat adjacent to her mouth. "Am I coming through clearly?" she asked.
Samantha Carter threw an OK-gesture over her shoulders and, fed more power to the rotors. The helicopter wallowed above the pad, pivoted on its axis and began climbing away the middle of Washington. Carter arrowed the aircraft inland. They accelerated as only a combat craft can.