Chapter 15 - Home and Welcome to It

O'Neill and Grogan had to be hounded out of the showers by the complaints and later, threats of other SGC staff. An officer's rank has always meant little when one is naked. Even so, real or imagined, and despite the antiseptic soap and shampoo issued to them, they both thought that they still carried the odour of that sulphurous planet whose name they never did know. Jacob Carter had been singularly vague about that when they had been landed there by ring transporter: Sam of course would have known nothing of the olfactory delights that awaited them on the surface, but Jack suspected that Jacob had in some way staged a bout of 'pre-emptive retaliation' as a warning to him to be good to her. Paranoia comes easily to the empty man who cannot believe that he's on his way to winning the prize of his life.

Their medical examinations seemed never-ending and of course were extremely thorough after their long absence, culminating in a night spent under observation in the infirmary. The doctors had commented though on how fit Jeff Grogan and Jen Hailey were, apart from the burns on her hands that had given her so much trouble in her shower, but she too had luxuriated in the sensation of being clean again and had ignored the pain. Jeff's hearing was degraded as a result of the exposure to severe pressure waves when he was rescued from the ferry, but hopefully not permanently.

Jack was a slightly different story, and he knew what the doctor was thinking without saying it. The chest burns and slow-to-heal knife wound in his side were irritating but treatable, and nothing new in his life. But his knee was wrecked, and even an operation would not return him to combat fitness. The niggling, irrational thought that his uneven gait would reduce his stature in people's eyes, and especially in Sam's, just would not go away, although there were times when it would get pushed to the back of his mind. Especially when an orderly brought three warm meals to the infirmary, their first real reminder of what they'd missed for much of the time they had been away. The last week on Jacob's Tok'ra-prepared survival rations had been a challenge both on board the Tel'tak and the planet. He sat at the small table with erstwhile 'family' and they tried to remember that manners still counted.

'Thank God for the chef.' thought Jack. Despite the fact that it was late afternoon, the man had shown enough initiative to ask around about their favourite dishes and had not stinted in preparing them. Jack would thank the man personally as soon as he got out. Just as he was tempted to lick the last of the gravy from his plate of roast beef with all the trimmings, he glanced up at Hailey and Grogan and saw that they were eyeing theirs in the same way, each with an expression of total satisfaction.

"At least we're not arguing over who washes the dishes any more... Sir." grinned Hailey.

A sudden pang of loss came over them all. Jack stirred uncomfortably in his chair as they contemplated what they had been through together. Noticing that they were alone in the infirmary for the time being, he said quietly, "Don't ever forget this, you two. None of us would have survived without each other. In all my years of ops, I never had a better team with me." He looked both of them in the eyes. "It's been an honour."

"Thank you, Sir." they both murmured, going red in the face.

"You too, Sir." said Grogan. "I know I wasn't..."

"Agh!" said Jack sharply. "I know you were. Still are. Have faith in yourself, Jeff. The rest of us do." Grogan stared down at the table top and didn't move for quite a while. A sly grin formed and wouldn't quite go away until he fell asleep later. As Jack got up to go to his bed, Jen reached across and squeezed his hand in a last gesture of kinship before they returned to their normal lives in the Air Force. He squeezed back and they stared at each other for a long while before moving.

He hoped that Carter would drop by before the evening was out, but the lure of sleep in comfort for the first time in over a week was too much for any of them, and they were not long conscious.

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At 07:30 hours, the briefing room was sealed and a guard placed outside the door. With General Hammond presiding, O'Neill, Hailey, Grogan and Carter sat either side of the highly-polished table, while Major Davies, acting as Liaison Officer with The Pentagon, sat at the far end.

Hammond was brief and to the point right from the start of their first debriefing session. "Colonel, I do not know how far we will get under Air Force jurisdiction before this activity is taken over by Washington and The State Department. As your commanding officer, I will do anything that I can to maintain your debrief as a purely military matter. However, it is only fair to warn you that the request by the Andan Ambassador to have the three of you returned to his homeworld to face trial on charges of unlawful, murderous acts against their State may at some stage be translated into your arrest and interrogation by other government agencies."

"In that case, Sir, I wish to state for the record that Captain Hailey and Lieutenant Grogan acted at all times under my orders." stated Jack in his best formal voice. "In that capacity they fulfilled their appointed tasks according to the highest traditions of the Air Force."

"Duly noted, Colonel." said Hammond. "Now just relax, all of you. I give you my word that we will do our best to look after our own, provided of course that your testimony and any evidence can substantiate that no criminal acts of the type that they have accused you of took place during your mission. I want to use this first session to allow you to tell me informally what took place during your six and a half month absence from the SGC. Just where we go from there depends on what transpires. Understood, Colonel?"

Again Jack responded formally. "Yes, Sir. Understood. But I repeat, any and all responsibility for what took place is mine and mine alone." He glared at Hailey and Grogan to make sure that they would not try to object to this. It had the desired effect: an O'Neill glare had that certain quality about it.

In the three and a half hours that followed, Jack described how his mission to assassinate a rebel leader had gone awry, and how he had found out that he had been used by the rebels. When her turn came, Sam described the abortive negotiations and their flight to the Andan Stargate Island, leaving behind two of their party with the Colonel. She gave an account of how Jack had disabled the pursuing Andan boats and their subsequent fire fight at the island and escape through the gate.

Then Hailey and Grogan joined in with Jack's report of their long, arduous journey hiding in the jungle and then living off the land before they obtained work as itinerant labourers. The others sat engrossed as Hailey described the lives they led in the city of Jobe as Jack the beggar, Jeff the dock labourer and Jen the bar-girl cum cleaner cum spy. Jack and Jen spent some time detailing the role of the Safety and Health Bureau as the Andan government's instrument of control and suppression of the population.

As the morning session drew to a close, Jack outlined his contacts with the smugglers and the deal he had made to get his two junior officers through the Stargate. But his time as an objective witness ran out at the point where he was shot by the Andan guards, and Jen took over the narrative.

"We saw the Colonel being surrounded and the guy with him shot, so we decided to give counter-fire and used our side arms firing through the air holes in the crate." she explained. "Then Lieutenant Grogan managed to break open the lid and we stood up, aiming to disarm the guards. However, there were more than we could see from inside the box and Colonel O'Neill was hit by the blast from two of their guns. The impact knocked him over the side of the dock, so Jeff ran over and dived in to the water to try to save him."

"We could see he was knocked out by the double blast." Grogan chimed in. "So I went straight over the side to rescue him. But before I got out of the water, a Tel'tak appeared from nowhere and ringed up Jen... Sorry, the Captain and the Colonel. The Andans got me out of the water, beat me up and shot me as well. The next thing I knew I woke up on board the Tel'tak with the others."

"Who was piloting the Tel'tak?" asked Hammond.

"A Tok'ra, Sir." Jack cut in. "Apparently they had an agent on Andar keeping an eye on traffic through the Stargate who warned him that we might be coming through. When I came to on board his ship, the Captain and he were discussing how they might return for Lieutenant Grogan."

"Who was the Tok'ra?" asked Hammond.

"Do you know, in all the fuss and action, I never did ask his name." said Jack, truthful to the letter but not the spirit of the investigation. He decided to continue the narrative quickly to avoid further immediate questioning, but he knew that this was the weak point of their cover story. "Anyhow, he returned to the Stargate and saw that a ferry was leaving, with a high probability that Grogan was on board. He buzzed it at low level at over Mach six and the shock waves disabled it completely. Hailey and the Tok'ra got him off the boat." That was his first deliberate mini-untruth, but years of subterfuge meant that he carried it off effortlessly. He hoped that the others would be as convincing when this came up again. He hadn't dared to look at Sam's expression, knowing that she was living the bigger lie.

"And then?" Hammond persisted.

"Well that pretty much is it, Sir." said Jack. "He dropped us on the smelliest planet in the Universe and we made our way back here."

The General thought for a while. Then, seemingly coming to a decision, he called a halt to the meeting. "We'll continue in here in one hour's time. Dismissed."

As the others left for the canteen, Hammond re-entered his office and picked up the red telephone. When he was eventually connected to his Commander-in-Chief, he merely said "Phase Two, Mr. President. Yes, Sir. I understand." But another thought was becoming dominant in his mind, and his second call was to the Head of Base Security.

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In the mess hall, Sam and Major Davies has sat back, slightly amused at the way the other three hadn't just used this break for coffee and Danish like the rest, but had each ordered a full meal and were now savouring the delights just as though this were a high-class restaurant serving *haute cuisine*.

"So they don't do fries on Andar then?" laughed Paul Davies. "Ketchup neither, by the look of it."

"That's right, Sir." said Grogan, but it didn't come out like that through a full mouth. He looked up and found himself receiving a glare from Jen, who likewise had her mouth full but knew better than try to speak.

What none of them had noticed was several members of the base security detachment sitting at adjacent tables, supposedly drinking coffee but in fact keeping a close eye on Jack's group. As they got up to leave to return to the meeting, the security men did likewise, and started to follow at a distance through the corridors to the elevator. Jack observed them from the corner of his eye, but could do nothing with the information.

When they left the elevator again and walked back to the briefing room, another group of guards seemed to be following on this level too. They stood by their chairs waiting for General Hammond to reappear. As soon as he came into the room, Jack took his chance. "Sir, why are we under observation by Security?"

To his surprise, the General motioned for the guards to enter the briefing room, their weapons drawn and pointing at the three recently-returned officers. "What the?........" cried Jack.

"Carter, Davies - move away from the table now!" commanded Hammond, and they automatically complied. He looked at O'Neill, Grogan and Hailey quickly in turn. "I'm sorry, Colonel, but you force me to act on the possibility that the person you described as a Tok'ra may in fact have been a Goa'uld, and that the three of you may now be Za'tarcs!"

"What?" cried the three of them together.

"You heard me." said Hammond. "I have no choice but to have the three of you held in close custody until such time as we can have tests carried out to prove otherwise." He glanced at the security officer. "Captain! Have them escorted to secure quarters! No contacts."

"General!" cried Jack, making a move towards him and then freezing as several guns were trained on him. "This is nuts! We're..."

"Silence, Colonel!" yelled Hammond. "Take them away."

All heads except for the guards turned at the sound of the next voice.

"Sir, that won't be necessary." said Sam calmly. "My father was flying that Tel'tak, and I was.."

"The person who asked him to do it!" Jack interjected, staring hard at her.

She looked calmly back at him. "And I was with him on the rescue, during my period of leave." Jack closed his eyes and his head drooped.

After the shock started to dissipate, the General ordered the guard to stand down and dismissed them. Without being told to, everyone resumed their seats and waited for his next statement. He looked up at Sam.

"You realise, Major Carter, that whatever happens now to these three will include you as well. Just tell me why you did it."

Sam looked down and swallowed. "Because no-one else would, Sir. Whatever orders you've been acting under from the Chiefs of Staff, leaving people behind isn't an option, and certainly wasn't for me in this case. I accept full responsibility for my actions, and I don't regret a single one of them." she added defiantly, staring back at Jack.

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