Exactly a week later and a total of three months since John's accident, Jack Crichton stood in the control room along with Colonel O'Neill and his team as they watched the first test of the secondary power unit. Major Carter had suggested that they kill two birds with one stone with this test so a MALP unit and a UAV both stood at the ready below them in the gate room.

"Chevron Seven engaged," Simmons reported as he worked the controls in front of him. "Wormhole will reach its destination in...five...four...three...two...one. Wormhole engaged!" he cried.

Sam worked the controls of the MALP bringing it closer to the 'Gate as Simmons launched the UAV through the event horizon. They didn't have to wait more than a minute before the UAV began sending back images and instrument readings from its destination on PF2-4A1.

"Ruins," Daniel murmured as they watched the feed from the UAV's camera. "I don't recognize it as an Earth-based civilization."

"Infra-red shows nothing moving," Simmons reported.

"Should I send the MALP through now, General?" Sam asked.

For a moment, Jack didn't realize she spoke to him. He thought he'd put it behind him after his meeting with the President, but this feeling of falling through the looking glass kept returning. He'd been surprised when he got the papers reactivating him to note that he'd also been given a promotion to general for his service with NASA and IASA. He didn't know if he truly felt he'd earned that rank, but he knew better than to protest. Pulling strings was so much easier when you outranked the person whose string you were pulling, and he'd pulled quite a few in the past week since returning from Washington. "Yes, Major" he answered.

Sam maneuvered the MALP through the 'Gate and began the ground exploration as Simmons continued his aerial reconnaissance of the first of their seven potential base locations. A little more than thirty minutes later they lost the signal from both instruments as the 'Gate shut down. "That's it," Sam announced.

"Let's start going over this data with a fine tooth comb," O'Neill said. "I want to be as prepared as possible when we get out there."

"You don't want to check any of the other locations, Jack?" Hammond asked.

"We'll do a recon of Happy when the second unit is ready to be tested," the colonel told his CO, "Sleepy there looks to be living up to its name, though. I'll want to send another UAV through before we leave, but unless something comes up in the data, I see no reason why we can't 'Gate out to Sleepy once everything else is in place." Each potential location had been given an easily remembered code word as well as the usual alpha-numeric designation. Earth had been designated 'Snow White' and each of the seven worlds had been given the name of one of the dwarves. Thor hadn't been able to give them much information on their seven choices, but there had been some information, mainly about atmospheric conditions. Individual plans were being created for the seven planets. The planets code named Sleepy and Happy appeared to be the most Earth-like of the seven with different climate zones spread across the planet. No planning had so far taken place for either of those planets. They would need to know what the climate was like at the location of the Stargate before making decisions. Doc appeared to be a desert planet similar to Abydos. Grumpy and Sneezy were listed as ice planets. Dopey was covered in one giant swamp. The worst possibility by far was Bashful, which according to Thor's information had no atmosphere at all. At this point Sleepy was the most likely of the seven candidates for the secondary base.

Hammond nodded. "Get to work then, Colonel" he ordered before turning to Crichton. "Jack, I've got some more personnel files for you, and Sgt. Atkins tells me we've received the HMV's." Once his reactivation and assignment had become official, he began working with Colonel O'Neill and General Hammond putting together the materiel, equipment, and personnel for his new base. The materiel and equipment list had been fairly easy. O'Neill and Hammond already had a preliminary list completed from their first proposal. They would need more than what had been originally planned, more of everything. Every piece of equipment they would need would have at least two back ups. For critical equipment it would be at least three. They would need months of supplies, shelters, fuel for the vehicles they were taking, and ammunition. Lots of ammunition, and the list kept growing. Gathering the materiel had been turned over to the SGC quartermasters.

The quartermaster's job was further complicated by the fact that everything they were taking had to go through the Stargate in thirty-eight minutes. It was that thirty-eight minutes that had the quartermasters panicking. An entire lower level of storage space had been turned over to them as they began the monumental task of triaging the equipment for packing. Every moment and every inch would count in bringing through materiel and personnel. In the last three days as the equipment and materiel began arriving the quartermaster and his subordinates had devised a system. The largest of the storage areas had been set aside for the things that would go no matter where they ended up. Smaller storages areas had been designated for each of the possible sites where items specific to that site would be stored. The arctic winter wear had been placed inside the storage areas marked with the cartoon faces of Grumpy and Sneezy while the more light weight jungle fatigues had gone into the room graced with Dopey's image. Dopey and Doc got the boxes of ointment for heat rash, and Grumpy and Sneezy had stacks of heat packs and vitamin D supplements. Doc got case upon case of sunscreen and boxes full of desert fatigues. Sleepy, Happy, and Bashful's storage rooms so far remained empty although some joker had painted a space suit onto the blushing face of Bashful. With the data they now had from Carter's test, Sleepy's storage area would soon begin to fill.

Once the second unit was ready for testing in another week or two, they would repeat their long distance look, this time sending a UAV and MALP to Happy. They would then need to wait while both units recharged before SG-1 could even consider starting their leap frog mission. O'Neill and his team would not leave for their month long recon of the 'seven dwarves' until every piece of materiel, every member of the new base's personnel, and every piece of equipment had been assembled. There could be no mistakes and no delays when the time came to move out. In the meantime, Jack had dozens of personnel files to go through. Taking the stack that General Hammond handed him, he headed down to the large conference room he had commandeered as his office.

His first task was finding a good second in command. It was a task made more difficult by the constraints he was under. There was no time to get someone from outside the SGC up to speed, but he also couldn't take anyone in a critical role within it. This of course, meant that SG-1 would be remaining at Cheyenne Mountain. Although they were without a doubt the best and most experienced of the SG teams that expertise could not be wasted by sending them to such a remote base on a permanent basis. He had decided not to make any final decisions about other personnel until he'd chosen his 2IC. Every man and woman would have to be chosen carefully because unlike at the SGC these people would have to be together 24/7 for months at a time. More like a Navy ship or submarine than an Air Force base. He set the stack of files he'd brought with him down and picked up the three files that he had spent the last two days memorizing. He read over the notes Jack O'Neill and General Hammond had made concerning each officer's qualifications yet again. "Santos!" he yelled for the young Marine private who'd been assigned to him as a secretary/aide.

"Sir?" Miguel Santos asked standing in the doorway.

"Find Commnder Tannen and tell her I want to see her at her earliest convenience," Crichton order.

"Yes, sir" Santos said before firing off a snappy salute and backing out the door.

Crichton allowed himself a small chuckle. 'The kid really wants to go,' he thought. 'I'll have to put him out of his misery soon. He's earned a place on the team already.' Santos had proven to be a genius at organization and scrounging. If you needed something he could get it for you or find someone who could. He'd also been working with the quartermasters organizing the materiel and equipment. It had been Santos' idea to break the equipment into general and specific groups. Crichton had a feeling he'd need both those abilities once they got out there. Hopefully at least one of the seven 'Gate locations would prove to be inhabited. Santos would be invaluable in bargaining with the locals. He sighed and turned back to the work at hand. The preliminary report on Sleepy wouldn't be complete for at least another two days. In the meantime, he needed to work on pushing through his equipment requests. He picked up the phone to dial the depot where one of his shipments of equipment sat languishing.

Three hours later he was still screaming into the phone about the same shipment, but he was finally being assured that the equipment would be in Colorado within 24 hours. A knock on the door interrupted his tirade against the hapless lieutenant at the other end of the line. "Enter!" he barked barely pausing before he continued his harangue. "If I don't see that equipment here in 24 hours your ass is mine, lieutenant. You read me?"

"Yes, sir!" he heard through the telephone. "It'll be there, sir."

Crichton didn't bother with a farewell before disconnecting the call. He wanted that lieutenant to live in fear of another call from General Crichton concerning his equipment. More shipments for the base would be going through that depot after all. He looked up to see Commander Tannen standing at attention before his desk. Jack waved her to a seat with a command to sit. "Do you know why you're here, Commander?" he asked her.

"I'm being considered for a position in 'The Mine' sir?" she asked. 'The Mine' was the code name assigned to the forward base, whatever its location ended up being.

"That's right, Commander" he agreed. "Now tell me why I should take you with me." Jack noted that Commander Tannen took a moment to consider the question before answering. Hammond and O'Neill had both noted that Sara Tannen was a thinker. She'd originally been loaned to the SGC by the Navy for an exploration mission to a world where the 'Gate rested on a very small island. Exploration with UAV's had shown that the Stargate's island was a mere twenty miles from the mainland, but it was a twenty miles that would require someone with real experience at sea to navigate. Tannen had been tapped for the mission because she fit all the official and unofficial requirements of SGC personnel. Officially she'd had the correct security clearance from her work as an intelligence officer at the NMCC and the right skills at sea as a fourth generation Navy brat. She'd learned to read the sea before she learned to read a word. There wasn't a black mark against her officially. Unofficially she was known to step quite close to the line, but she never crossed it. If Tannen thought you were doing something wrong she'd tell you, but never in such a way that would get her in trouble officially. Unofficially, she'd been labeled a maverick. Someone who thought on her feet and was willing to bend or break the rules if need be to do what was right. In short, she was just the kind of soldier that did well in the SGC.

The mission had gone about as well as could be expected for one involving SG-1. The UAV's exploration had stopped at the village on the coast. So SG-1 plus Commander Tannen had been totally unprepared for the Goa'uld palace another mile inland. After escaping their Goa'uld captors they'd humped it back to their hidden boat and roared back out to sea. The four members of SG-1 had only managed to hold on as Commander Tannen maneuvered their high-powered speed boat in a complicated zig-zag pattern as they were chased by death gliders back to the island Stargate. She'd laid down cover fire with Teal'c as Jackson and Carter dialed in Earth's address and half carried half dragged an injured Colonel O'Neill to the 'Gate. As soon as the other three had gone through the Stargate, she'd sent two bullets into the highly flammable gas tanks of the speed boat. The flames and smoke from the explosion had masked Tannen and Teal'c as they'd made a mad dash for safety.

When O'Neill limped from the infirmary he'd gone to General Hammond with a recommendation, and Commander Tannen hadn't gone back to the Navy. Instead she'd been offered command of one of five new SG teams being formed. It was an opportunity she would have to be stupid to turn down, and Sara was not stupid. She'd been with the SGC for a year now, and in that time compiled an impressive record. Jack was brought out of his reverie as Commander Tannen told him just that. "Because I use my brain as well as brawn when commanding my team. I'm well respected by team members. I've never had a beef with someone on base who didn't deserve it," she said. Jack allowed himself a small smile at her qualification of that last statement. "I get the job done, sir."

Jack put her through her paces for another hour asking questions and proposing scenarios before he was satisfied. He rose and extended his hand to her which she took. "Congratulations, Commander" he said. "You're my new 2IC. Now let's get down to business choosing the rest of our team."

"You're taking Santos right?" she asked after quickly concealing the shock she felt at being chosen 2IC to the new base.

"Yeah, the kid's a brilliant scrounger" he said.

"How much time do we have?" Tannen asked as she began to rifle through the stack of files on the edge of the desk.

"Tannen, before we leave this room I want to have a rough list of personnel requests for General Hammond," Crichton told her. "We don't have a lot of time to work with here. The key positions will need to be filled by SGC personnel. We just don't have time to get an entire crew up to speed. I would like to have the majority of our people coming out of Cheyenne Mountain, but that's not going to be possible. So the slots we can fill from inside need to count. Once we've got those made we can begin thinking of personnel from outside."

"Santos!" she barked.

"Ma'am?" he asked as he appeared in the doorway.

"The general and I are going to need some coffee," she told him without looking up from the files.

"Yes, ma'am" Santos replied.

"Bring yourself a cup, too" Jack called after him.

"I want to bring my team," Tannen said bringing Jack's attention back to her. "I've already spoken with them, sir. Prine, Keegan, and North all want to go" she told him though he wasn't surprised. The new base had been the talk of the SGC from the moment General Hammond had announced it. Hammond was in agreement with Jack that only volunteers would be considered for 'the Mine.' The possible payoff for exploring Peacekeeper Territory was indeed huge as they'd told the President and his staff, but the dangers were even bigger. Whoever went was likely to become a hero. The problem with that was they were likely to be dead heroes. Jack wanted a bit of maverick in his people, but he also needed to know they could be counted upon to use their heads as well as their cajones. Tannen's SG-14 had quickly gained the reputation over the last year as the SGC's second best exploration unit for doing just that.

Each of Tannen's teammates brought a wide array of skills to the team as a whole. Tannen, North, and Keegan were each part of the military. Captain John Keegan was a Marine transferred over from SG-5 when the new teams were forming. He was an expert at all manner of weapons and munitions. Sergeant Isaac North came from the Air Force and was their technical and scientific expert. Dr. Lynn Prine was an anthropologist recruited straight out of her graduate work on the recommendation of Katherine Langford who had met her after a lecture she'd given at the University of Chicago. By necessity, she was also quickly becoming a damned good medic.

Santos returned with the coffee in time to hear Jack say, "Alright, Commander. I think I can talk General Hammond into letting me have your entire team." Santos poured each of them a mug of coffee from the carafe he had brought back with him before pouring himself a cup and turning towards the door. "Sit, Santos" Crichton ordered him.

"Yes, sir." the young man said turning so sharply that he almost burned himself as his coffee nearly sloshed out of the cup. He sat down in the seat next to Tannen and took a tentative sip of his coffee more to have something to do with his hands than anything else.

"Santos, I'm going to request that you be assigned to 'the Mine' unless you have some objection," Crichton said.

"I have no objection, sir!" Private Manuel Santos assured the general.

"I didn't think you would," Jack smirked. "Commander Tannen and I were just discussing what other SGC personnel we should bring with us. Do you have any suggestions, son?"

Santos looked from one officer to the other before deciding they were serious. Deciding they were, he nodded and began rattling off names and reasons. The three worked through the rest of the day and into the night dissecting the qualifications of the available personnel. They didn't even stop to eat. Instead they merely migrated their discussion to a quiet table in the commissary where they wouldn't be disturbed. Others eating in the commissary took note of their presence though and the intensity of the discussion if not the subject. Within the hour rumor went around the base that General Crichton had chosen his second in command.

As Miguel returned to the table with a fresh pot of coffee late into the night, Jack Crichton told them, "That's it for the SGC personnel. The rest of our people are going to have to come from off-base."

"We still need someone to head the science department," Tannen reminded her commanding officer.

"I've got that taken care of," Jack said. "D.K.'s getting his commission re-activated as we speak."

"D.K.?" Miguel asked.

"D.K. Moore, my son's research partner" Crichton told him. "He was a captain in the Air Force reserves."

Miguel commented, "We gotta find a good CMO."

Crichton nodded. "I've got an idea, but I'm going to need Jacob Carter's help to pull it off," he said.

"How's that?" Tannen asked.

"I know of a trauma physician who applied to NASA. He was going to make it into the program, but then pulled out due to family obligations," Jack explained to her.

"What makes you think he'd be willing to take on a top secret assignment for the Air Force then?" Tannen protested.

"He's got terminal cancer," General Crichton added. "To save his own life, I think he might do it. Don't you?"

"You want to take a Tok'ra with us," Tannen accused her new commander as the light began to dawn.

"Might come in handy," Miguel agreed.