Chapter 3
{ Pre-Mission }

I arrived at the mountain bright and early the next day. We had a day to drill for a multiple-entry storming of a naquadah warehouse in hostile territory by seven USAF teams and the USMC defense teams.

Sam's parking space is empty, I pull into it out of habit before I remember why it's empty. I peel out immediately, and spend a few minutes searching for another.

"Hi, Sergeant!" I handed the man my pass. "You coming?"

"Yes, sir." He returned my card. "The General plans to strip the base bare, sir, and let NORAD hold the fort."

I nodded and moved on through. We were literally in NORAD's basement, so it made sense.

Although I wondered how Hammond was going to explain that they not only had to hold the entrance, they also had to stop any big heavily-armored guys carrying laser-shooting staff weapons and screaming "kree!" all the time coming from the lower SGC levels as well.

It just made me glad I was only 2nd in command.

Whistling a jaunty tune, I rode the elevator down.

* * *

"All right, people, that was pathetic! I've got half a mind to send you all back to boot camp and get some Baby Flight recruits up here! SG-2, where the hell were you when SG-5 blew the door? Support each other, for ----'s sake!"

I paused, and tried to remember how we'd divided the Marines up. The plan called for a bunch of independent and mobile teams storming the warehouse from multiple points on the perimeter, getting in in thirty seconds flat, and running simultaneous uncoordinated search-and-destroy through the area, so our one defense was too big to get in through a single entry fast enough, and too unwieldy to split and sweep through without falling into some predictable pattern that'd allow the snakes to set up a measured defense.

Marine Assault Group! Right-o!

"Mag-4, you're wearing combat boots! If the door isn't blown cleanly, just kick the thing off its hinges! Let's try this again, and I'd better not see this sort of screw-up this time! We're doing it for real tomorrow, and I don't need to remind you what happens if anybody screws up!"

I paused a moment to let them think it over. They were all veteran troops; they knew if anybody screwed up people were gonna die.

"All right, let's withdraw. Siler, get those doors out!"

Siler and his team had worked their typical miracle. They'd constructed a scale replica of the warehouse overnight. There was no single space large enough, of course, so Siler had knocked down the walls and corridors, and joined four of the larger storage rooms. There had, incidentally, been a problem about the walls, which were reinforced concrete. Major Pierce had solved it neatly by turning Siler around and pointing out the contents of Storage 12 with the bark of, "Lieutenant! Did you or did you not receive the inventory for this room? Now do I need to call my team down here to unpack and set these umpteen tons of C-4 or do you think you can manage it?"

Siler and the airmen rushed out. With hammers and chisels they knocked out the little balsa-wood doorframes, dragged in new ones, and bolted them in neatly. Whereas the frames were wood for easy removal, the actual doors and all load-bearing members were steel, to simulate the actual thing.

Using these, and the intar weapons, Siler had designed a live-fire house that could be used indefinitely as long as we had new doors and the guys didn't get too tired of charging in and shooting each other.

I rejoined my team, tucked under a balsawood "hill", passing the megaphone to an airman. "Three, two, one, mark!" I counted. Teal'c and I picked up the ladder and charged forward, Carter and Jonas running along to provide cover fire. We smacked it on the wall, and pulled our P90s from the chest cords with one hand, holding the ladder steady with the other. Sam and Jonas reached down and scooped away two little divots of earth. We thumped the ladder down securely, seating the "feet" in the indentations.

"Go, go!" The major scrambled up, with Teal'c and I on her heels.

A string of four explosions signaled SG-3, 4, 5, and MAG-2's entries. Perfect. We'd get there just in time to catch the Jaffa blazing away with those nice, bright staff weapons.

Gunfire rang out.

Crap!

I debated whether or not to halt the sim. The thought of screaming, "Congratulations, people! Somebody's just murdered another team!" was extremely appealing. Those numskulls weren't supposed to open fire until they'd gotten inside, popped a few grenades to liven things up, and, more importantly, provide the light needed to determine the locations of the crates. Shooting into a crate of naquadah was guaranteeing a crap load of ricochets, which could shred a team faster than those staff weapons. And if the fire reached across the warehouse and hit somebody else's entry point

No, I'd see where this led.

Carter scrambled down a few rungs, trailing bright red wire.

"Fire in the hole!" she called, probably just for the heck of it.

The C-4 blew, and the flaming remains of a door soared over our heads. We scrambled through.

Master Bra'tac's renegade Jaffa were blazing away with their little intar weapons, sending staff and zat blasts all over the place. Hammond had somehow gated him in during the night, and he was happy to give us some help. Although I suspect Hammond reporting only about five-sixths of the estimated naquadah had something to do with it.

We hunkered down on the little ledge and shot away.

More rectangles of fire and dusty light appeared in the upper walls, and the Jaffa spared a few shots upward, but nobody came through. Instead, another three teams rushed in from the previously made ground-floor entries. These, however, didn't shoot, but instead sneaked in, holding their weapons low and heading for their more beleaguered comrades.

Looked like Master Bra'tac's managed to marshal some of his forces into MAG-2's sector. He was putting up a fairly good fight, even considering that he'd already been through this battle once.

Crap! Somebody down on the floor had just run themselves into a dead end and gotten shot by a bunch of Jaffa running along the tops of the crates. Master Bra'tac was a smart little man.

By now the firefight was so loud I can't hear the jackhammers of the last of the marine defense team drilling through the ceiling.

"Let's move!"

We covered our advance to the ladders. The other upper-level teams were starting to go down as well.

I dropped to the ground, swapping magazines hastily.

A Jaffa turned toward me. I raised my half-loaded rifle, but Carter shot him first.

"Jaffa, kree!"

"Geeeer-ronimooooo!" replied the marines as they fast-roped in, guns already shooting.

The simulation was over in two minutes.

It wasn't good yet, not with the shooting problem and that bunch of idiots not noticing half an army of hulking guys with 6-foot poles right on top of them, and then the roof people coming in shooting before they'd even figured out who they should be shooting and where those people were, but it was certainly better than the first.

SG-2 had decided to follow MAG-3 up ladder, and use explosives to blow a hole into the roof (the piece of roof only wrecked a few crates, thank god!). MAG-2 had delayed almost a minute because their munitions specialist had made his "frame" too wide and just gouged a furrow into the wall next to the hinges. SG-5 blew the door successfully but got turned in the warehouse and started a firefight with us. Then half the roof assault team, probably because of SG-2, came in the wrong places and made some very painful landings on the crates.

The first run through we'd used a bunch of Hershey's Cookies'n'Cream White Chocolate Nuggets to simulate the ingots (they were identical in size), but about half of them disappeared, and Carter started to get rather overexcited and white around the mouth, so that was scrubbed.

Now I just pulled out and waited a few minutes until everybody had woken up, and then started my post-simulation spiel.

I hadsix more hours, minus a lunch break, to get this show straight.

I did have one thing working for me, though. Carter was on the other side of the room, working her way back chewing people out. They'd shape up. Carter PMS'ing was no laughing matter.

Now all I needed to do was make sure some smartass didn't piss her off and give the term "chewing out" a much more literal meaning.