One of Us - Chapter 2
By CuppaJo
General Hammond gaped at his rather disheveled looking 2IC.
For his own part, Jack was trying to figure out whether he should be proud or pissed. This odd mixture of emotion gave his expression the disconcerting appearance that vaguely resembled a friendly grin, but more than not gave him a slightly psychotic look. The mud on his face and twigs in his hair did little to discourage this.
"But no one's done it before. Even the Marines haven't done it before."
"Did you know that Sgt. Kasagawa could fit into one of those packaging boxes? The ones we use to carry artifacts?"
The general did some quick calculations in his head. "Those can't be more than 6000 cubic inches."
"Less, actually - about 5800. And she had the emergency oxygen tank with her. Apparently her parents are circus clowns. Barnum and Bailey - ride around in one of those little cars. She did a stint as a contortionist for a while with them. Odd background for a Marine, wouldn't you say?" Jack grinned, his mind suddenly wandering to a vision of Makepeace in a tiny clown car.
General Hammond interrupted his reverie. "So Crosby shoved one of her team members into a box and the mock Jaffa just carried her right into the compound with all of the other equipment. How did she get out once she was in?"
"Well, as you know, there are three points of entry. Ten armed guards cover the front. The back is covered by four guards and an encrypted lock. The walls can't be scaled without some heavy-duty equipment and the roof entrance is covered by Teal'c and another Jaffa. Mau' kin, I think his name is. To date, everyone has tried going in the front or the back."
"But not this team."
"No. They reprogrammed the UAV."
The general stared at him skeptically. "To do what, exactly?"
"Crosby rode on it."
"*Rode* on it? How did she stay on?"
"She was duct taped to it; they launched it. She took out Mau' kin before Teal'c managed to disable it. Then they fought hand to hand. Teal'c is in the infirmary. I've never seen him with a fat lip before. It's quite an extraordinary sight. Oddest shade of purple."
General Hammond stared at him in disbelief. "She took out Teal'c in hand to hand?"
"Well, sir, to his credit she had crashed into him with the UAV first, and she still had pieces of it taped to her hands when she hit him, but yes, she took out Teal'c." Jack looked sheepish. "I told them that this was a no holds barred sim. The only things that they weren't allowed to use were real bullets and staffs. Teal'c woke back up in about five minutes. Of course, by that time he had been hog-tied. Apparently we not only hired a former circus contortionist, but a junior rodeo champion too. Crosby got in through the roof, crawled over the grid that holds up the dropped ceiling, got Kasagawa out of the box and together carried the artifact out."
General Hammond blinked disbelievingly at Jack. "They just carried it out? No one stopped them? And was the rest of the team doing at this point?"
"Well, no one knew they were *in.* As you said, no one has ever gotten into the compound, at least without making a hell of a lot of noise, so they didn't initially arouse any suspicion. They made it into a secondary communications station and managed to convince half of the guards at the back door to go and assist the guards at the front door to chase the cadets through the woods. The guards at the front thought the guards at the back were the cadets and half of us gave chase. When we caught the back-door guards, we thought they must have been used as a decoy to lure them away from the back door so they could attack there." Jack drew a breath before continuing. "We staged an attack on the back door ourselves."
"You attacked your own base?" General Hammond couldn't believe his ears.
"Well, sir, we didn't really attack so much as surround and threaten. We knew that they had hacked into the communication system somehow so we really couldn't trust the radios and we thought that the guards at the back must have been Kent and Mercredi, two of the recruits posing as the guards. They of course weren't, which we soon discovered."
"Dare I ask where Kent and Mercredi were then?"
"Well, let's just say that we now have a side door."
"They blasted through the wall?"
"Burned, if you want to be specific. Mercredi is quite the chemist, you know. He signed out a few extra supplies from the lab before the mission."
General Hammond shook his head in disbelief. "So they went out the side of the building, through a hole they had burned into the wall and went back to the Stargate, which I'm sure that you had guarded."
"Of course it was guarded. We had six on it, which is the standard for a Goa'uld gate, but O'Malley had been fiddling with the gate while the others had attacked the compound."
"He *fiddled* with it? In what way, exactly?"
"Well, Dr. Felger had come up with some kind of remote access to the DHD."
"Felger? What does he have to do with any of this?"
"O'Malley was a student of his before he transferred from the academy and will be working with him as his assistant, so they have a bit of a rapport. Anyway, Felger's remote doesn't really work the way it's supposed to. It spins the gate to dial up, but only gets to the third or fourth chevron before it shuts down. The range is pretty limited too. The kid was hiding not eight feet from the gate the entire time. O'Malley kept turning it on and off. The guards got nervous and called base camp, but by the time they did, Crosby and Kasagawa had tapped into the comms and diverted the call, telling them that it was a normal self-diagnostic and to ignore it, which they did.
Just before the recruits got to the gate, they dialed up to the fourth chevron, then went in for a swift attack with smoke and a, well, with a tree."
"A tree?"
"Yes sir. They knocked a couple of trees down about twenty feet behind the gate using some small explosives. Three of the guards went to check it out, which is when the smoke canisters were brought in. Because they only had to dial three more chevrons, and because there was so much confusion, what with the trees and all they got through the gate quite easily once the guards had been tackled."
"Do I want to ask?"
"A circus performer, a rodeo champ, two high school fullbacks, and a black belt certainly make tackling seem easy."
"I assume from your report that you'd like move on to the next step and assign the recruits to temporary team assignments."
"Damn straight. . . uh, sir."
"Very well, assign Kasagawa to SG-3, Kent to SG-5, O'Malley to SG-11, and Mercredi to SG-9."
"And Crosby?"
"If she can organize all of that, I'd like to see what else she can do. Tell her that she's on SG-1."
General Hammond gaped at his rather disheveled looking 2IC.
For his own part, Jack was trying to figure out whether he should be proud or pissed. This odd mixture of emotion gave his expression the disconcerting appearance that vaguely resembled a friendly grin, but more than not gave him a slightly psychotic look. The mud on his face and twigs in his hair did little to discourage this.
"But no one's done it before. Even the Marines haven't done it before."
"Did you know that Sgt. Kasagawa could fit into one of those packaging boxes? The ones we use to carry artifacts?"
The general did some quick calculations in his head. "Those can't be more than 6000 cubic inches."
"Less, actually - about 5800. And she had the emergency oxygen tank with her. Apparently her parents are circus clowns. Barnum and Bailey - ride around in one of those little cars. She did a stint as a contortionist for a while with them. Odd background for a Marine, wouldn't you say?" Jack grinned, his mind suddenly wandering to a vision of Makepeace in a tiny clown car.
General Hammond interrupted his reverie. "So Crosby shoved one of her team members into a box and the mock Jaffa just carried her right into the compound with all of the other equipment. How did she get out once she was in?"
"Well, as you know, there are three points of entry. Ten armed guards cover the front. The back is covered by four guards and an encrypted lock. The walls can't be scaled without some heavy-duty equipment and the roof entrance is covered by Teal'c and another Jaffa. Mau' kin, I think his name is. To date, everyone has tried going in the front or the back."
"But not this team."
"No. They reprogrammed the UAV."
The general stared at him skeptically. "To do what, exactly?"
"Crosby rode on it."
"*Rode* on it? How did she stay on?"
"She was duct taped to it; they launched it. She took out Mau' kin before Teal'c managed to disable it. Then they fought hand to hand. Teal'c is in the infirmary. I've never seen him with a fat lip before. It's quite an extraordinary sight. Oddest shade of purple."
General Hammond stared at him in disbelief. "She took out Teal'c in hand to hand?"
"Well, sir, to his credit she had crashed into him with the UAV first, and she still had pieces of it taped to her hands when she hit him, but yes, she took out Teal'c." Jack looked sheepish. "I told them that this was a no holds barred sim. The only things that they weren't allowed to use were real bullets and staffs. Teal'c woke back up in about five minutes. Of course, by that time he had been hog-tied. Apparently we not only hired a former circus contortionist, but a junior rodeo champion too. Crosby got in through the roof, crawled over the grid that holds up the dropped ceiling, got Kasagawa out of the box and together carried the artifact out."
General Hammond blinked disbelievingly at Jack. "They just carried it out? No one stopped them? And was the rest of the team doing at this point?"
"Well, no one knew they were *in.* As you said, no one has ever gotten into the compound, at least without making a hell of a lot of noise, so they didn't initially arouse any suspicion. They made it into a secondary communications station and managed to convince half of the guards at the back door to go and assist the guards at the front door to chase the cadets through the woods. The guards at the front thought the guards at the back were the cadets and half of us gave chase. When we caught the back-door guards, we thought they must have been used as a decoy to lure them away from the back door so they could attack there." Jack drew a breath before continuing. "We staged an attack on the back door ourselves."
"You attacked your own base?" General Hammond couldn't believe his ears.
"Well, sir, we didn't really attack so much as surround and threaten. We knew that they had hacked into the communication system somehow so we really couldn't trust the radios and we thought that the guards at the back must have been Kent and Mercredi, two of the recruits posing as the guards. They of course weren't, which we soon discovered."
"Dare I ask where Kent and Mercredi were then?"
"Well, let's just say that we now have a side door."
"They blasted through the wall?"
"Burned, if you want to be specific. Mercredi is quite the chemist, you know. He signed out a few extra supplies from the lab before the mission."
General Hammond shook his head in disbelief. "So they went out the side of the building, through a hole they had burned into the wall and went back to the Stargate, which I'm sure that you had guarded."
"Of course it was guarded. We had six on it, which is the standard for a Goa'uld gate, but O'Malley had been fiddling with the gate while the others had attacked the compound."
"He *fiddled* with it? In what way, exactly?"
"Well, Dr. Felger had come up with some kind of remote access to the DHD."
"Felger? What does he have to do with any of this?"
"O'Malley was a student of his before he transferred from the academy and will be working with him as his assistant, so they have a bit of a rapport. Anyway, Felger's remote doesn't really work the way it's supposed to. It spins the gate to dial up, but only gets to the third or fourth chevron before it shuts down. The range is pretty limited too. The kid was hiding not eight feet from the gate the entire time. O'Malley kept turning it on and off. The guards got nervous and called base camp, but by the time they did, Crosby and Kasagawa had tapped into the comms and diverted the call, telling them that it was a normal self-diagnostic and to ignore it, which they did.
Just before the recruits got to the gate, they dialed up to the fourth chevron, then went in for a swift attack with smoke and a, well, with a tree."
"A tree?"
"Yes sir. They knocked a couple of trees down about twenty feet behind the gate using some small explosives. Three of the guards went to check it out, which is when the smoke canisters were brought in. Because they only had to dial three more chevrons, and because there was so much confusion, what with the trees and all they got through the gate quite easily once the guards had been tackled."
"Do I want to ask?"
"A circus performer, a rodeo champ, two high school fullbacks, and a black belt certainly make tackling seem easy."
"I assume from your report that you'd like move on to the next step and assign the recruits to temporary team assignments."
"Damn straight. . . uh, sir."
"Very well, assign Kasagawa to SG-3, Kent to SG-5, O'Malley to SG-11, and Mercredi to SG-9."
"And Crosby?"
"If she can organize all of that, I'd like to see what else she can do. Tell her that she's on SG-1."