"Okay, so what the hell is the delay?" Colonel Anthony Roland demanded, climbing up the stairs to join his fellow Marine colonels at the doorway to the troop ship they were escorting back to California. There they would pick up the second half of a load of Marines due to head to the front lines in Iraq so that another battalion could come home for some leave. "Granted I'm the last one here, but why isn't this plane ready to fly?"
"We'll be taking a short detour, sir, to drop off a spare passenger in Colorado," the pilot replied. "Order just came through about an hour ago, sir. We'll be making a fast stop at Peterson Base."
"There goes the poker game," one of the other marines growled, brushing his hand back through his short cut gray hair. "Nothing like having a damn brass on board to ruin a four hour flight."
Two of the others agreed, but the third marine, a man much younger than any of the others, looked more curious. In spite of their near equal rank, he was at least a decade younger than the youngest of the entire group. "Jim, they tell you who was coming?" Lieutenant Colonel Lou Ferretti asked the pilot, leaning against the door frame to take the strain off his bad leg. "I know a lot of the brass in Colorado Springs."
The pilot shook his head, his short blond hair rather shocking against his dark tan skin. He'd just gotten back off of a two week vacation, and the tan hadn't started to fade yet, and neither had his good humor. "Just someone from the Mountain, was what I was told," he stated with a grin. "We're making a short stop at Peterson to let him off, shouldn't add more than a half hour to the flight, tops, since we'll have to pick up some fuel before we leave."
"Wonder if it's the General?" Ferretti half mused to himself. "Must be, coming from the mountain, unless it's the upper base. The Colonel would be flying himself home."
"Who are you talking about, Ferretti?" one of the other men asked, his look changing from annoyance to curiosity. "Which Colonel?"
"I worked a few years with Jack O'Neill, enough to know that he tends to do his own flying," Ferretti explained as he spotted a car heading out to meet them. "Letting other pilots fly tends to make him rather nervous." He nodded towards the approaching vehicle. "Well, we'll soon see, here they come."
The military limo pulled up near the stairs to the plane, and two airmen got out of the front, one turning to open the door while the second went around to get a bag from the trunk. Ferretti grinned at the heavy set man who got out of the back seat, the evening sun adding more pink to his bald head. "Evening, General. Glad you could join us," he called as the second airman carried the bag up the stairs.
Hammond traded salutes with the group up at the plane's door, pausing to let the airman come back down the stairs before he headed up to board the plane. He nodded to the group, but clasped forearms Jaffa-style with Ferretti with a smile. "Lieutenant Colonel Ferretti, it's good to see you again. It's been a few years since I last heard from you. You should keep in touch better."
"Spent a year hoping the leg would heal up enough to come back to work for you, sir, but I guess that just wasn't meant to be," the younger man admitted as they all turned inside and the pilots headed to start the engines up. He and Hammond took seats near the front of the planewith it's more comfortable seating, while the other officers took seats in the regular area, settling about half way back in the plane and obviously still hoping to have their card game. Feretti was more than happy to leave them to it, and knew that Hammond wouldn't care; the betting pool at the SGC was legendairy. "The limp's permanent, but with a special compensation from the Pentagon, not bad enough to take me out of the military," he continued as they both got settled into the 'first class' area. "I've been working with new recruits since I got done with the PT, with special orders to keep an eye out for anyone that might be useful to your project."
"We always need good people," Hammond agreed. "Especially in the science fields. Do you have anyonein mindto send on to us at this point?"
"Two or three. I heard about you guys losing Dr Jackson a couple years back. That had to have been a major blow."
"Oh, so you hadn't heard about his return then?" Hammond asked, his eyebrows arching as he smiledwith ammusement. "He's up to three canceled death certificates now."
"What?" Ferretti exclaimed, catching the other men's attention in therear area, then lowered his voice again as the plane started taxiing around for take off. "The colonel told me what happened with that bomb mishap, it sounded pretty damn final to me. And Jack told me he was gone for good; that he wasn't exactly dead, but as good as and definitely gone."
"There's a quote I think Mark Twain made that is appropriate for Dr Jackson," Hammond told him with a chuckle, his own voice a soft murmur. "He left yes, but apparently the lifestyle didn't appeal. They found him, amnesiac, about eight months ago. He's recovered most of his memory at this point, except for the time he was gone. He gets some odd flashes through meditating but for the most part, that part of his past is closed off to him. It's frustrating for him, to say the least."
Ferretti nodded in agreement, remembering Jackson's insatiable curiosity very, very well. The conversation came to a short stop as the plane revved up to start it's take off run, but resumed once it was up in the air. "So, you're looking for assistants for him now? For at the base, or on the teams?"
"Both," Hammond replied. "We've lost a lot of good people the last year or two. We just discovered that only twenty-seven people are handling those three divisions, and I suspect they're working themselves into the ground. We need people and need them ASAP. But we need the right people, people who are open minded enough not to give Dr Jackson trouble, but good enough to actually be of some help."
Ferretti nodded. "I know of one you would definitely want, but you need to grab him fast, he's heading for Iraq in two days. Anthropologist, linguist and geologist, I know he reads and writes ancient Egyptian, I've seen him write letters to his friends and he does them in hieroglyphs. His clearance is decent, and I've definitely come to trust his judgment and his good sense out in the field. He would need some experience before turning him loose completely, but I'm sure he'd do well on an SG field team. In fact, his file and two others should be on Davis' desk at the Pentagon about now."
"How does he do dealing with non-Marines and civilians?" Hammond asked.
"Just fine. He's got three good friends, one's a civilian Archeologist, the second's a navy pilot and the third's in the Army branch of the USACE. I don't know their names, or where they're stationed, but I do know he's one of the boys we're picking up in the morning." Drawing out a pad of paper from his breast pocket, he wrote down a name and unit number, then handed it over to Hammond. "I think he'd do just fine with you, sir, and his skills would wind up unappreciated and wasted in Iraq."
"You still going on about Heasley, Ferretti?" demanded an irate voice from behind them. "General Arrington already told you he was going to the front lines same as everyone else. We need those men in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Ferretti turned to look at the man in the aisle beside him, scowling a bit in irritation at the interruption. "Major General George Hammond, may I introduce you to Colonel Anthony Roland, he's senior officer for this trip. Colonel, General Hammond was my CO at my last posting until injury forced me out."
Roland narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the younger Lieutenant Colonel. "An injury none of us have ever seen, except that convenient limp you got, Ferretti. And I have yet to hear a plausible story as to how you got that 'injury' to begin with."
"Classified, Colonel. And you don't have the clearance or the need to know," Hammond told him, his voice rather sharp to warn the man off. "From your attitude, I would guess you think the Lieutenant Colonel is faking his injury. As his former CO, I know he's damn lucky to have kept his lower leg, our CMO was afraid she was going to have to amputate the limb at the knee. Now, I don't suppose that you have any reason to suspect that I'm telling you stories, do you Marine? If you do, I'd like to hear them."
The man came to stiff attention, realizing that he'd just been reprimanded. "No, sir," he stated crisply. "No reason at all, sir."
"Good. Dismissed, Colonel," Hammond told him, and then turned his attention back to Ferretti, fully expecting his order to be followed. It was, the man quickly retreating back down the aisle to join his fellow officers.
"Been having trouble with people thinking you're faking the injury, I take it?" Hammond questioned, shaking his head. "Fraiser had doubts that you'd ever walk again, much less manage to stay in the military."
"If it wasn't for the part of the job about looking for personnel for you, I probably wouldn't have been able to," Ferretti admitted. "My wife and I live on the base, and I don't use the barrack's showers, so other than the base's CMO no one has ever seen the chunk that missing out of my calf. And he doesn't have a clue as to what did that kind of damage, every time he's asked and tried to guess I've told him it's a classified matter and I can't talk about it. What's worse is that the base CO doesn't have the clearance to know about my last posting either, and he's not happy about that. My even still being in the military says there's some kind of 'favoritism' going on, and he's not the kind of person who's willing to put up with that. Especially when the person isn't a favorite of his."
"Is he giving you trouble as well? I can put in a word for you in the upper ranks if it's becoming a growing problem. And what happened to your cover story?"
"He's tried twice to order me to tell him about my last posting. If it wasn't for the fact that I know there's a gag order from the President and Joint Chiefs in my record, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on if he tried to bring me up on insubordination charges for refusing to answer. Which he did threaten to do the second time he confronted me on the matter. As for my cover, someone apparently screwed up. Somehow they missed putting all the information in the system to back it up, they left a hole that was big enough for it to be spotted if you knew what to look for. The first person who checked my background found out it was a just that, a story. And unfortunatelythat was the General."
"What exactly happened?" Hammond questioned.
"He ordered me to tell him about the posting. I told him it was classified. He pointed out he was a Brigadier General, and that he'd looked at my record, knew someof the informationin itwas false. I asked him what his security rating was and what was his need to know. His rating is three levels too low to know about the project. He was about as un-amused as you can get at this revelation."
"Brigadier General David Arrington, right?" Hammond questioned, writing the information down as well. "I'll have a word with General Ryan and General Maynard about him and see what can be done to get him off your back. You don't need that kind of harassment on top of other problems, and they can move you to a different posting if it looks like there's no way to get him to back off. Now, how about those other people you think may work out for us?"
They talked through the three-hour flight until the plane landed in Peterson base, where a helicopter waited to take Hammond to the mountain. Armed with a series of notes to his old friends from Ferretti, Hammond wished him a good journey, thanked the pilots, and headed back to his posting to get some late evening work done.
He had the names of some potential people to bring in before they lost the chance to get them.
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Taking a break from Daniel-sitting, O'Neill had just gotten comfortable in his on-base quarters when the red light signaling an off-world activation started flashing, letting him know there was an incoming visitor. Rolling over with a groan, he reached for the phone just as it rang. "O'Neill," he snapped. "Who is it, Simmons?" he demanded.
"We're getting General Carter's IDC, sir," came the immediate answer.
"Let him in, I'm on my way," O'Neill told him, rising and slipping on his shoes as he hung up the phone, then grabbing his shirt on the way out the door.
He found the gate was already shut down and Jacob was talking with Siler when he arrived, the Master Sergeant being currently on night duty while they did some work on the gate's bracing and support system. Both men turned as he came in, and Jacob gave him a concerned look. "Jack, I didn't get your message, sorry. The sergeant was just telling me what happened to Daniel. I do have my gear with me, so Selmak and I can see what we can do to help."
"Quite a bit of gear from the looks of things," O'Neill stated, looking at the rucksack at Jacob's feet. "Planning on staying a while?"
"You could say that. Let's head up to medical, and I'll fill you in on the way," was the reply as Jacob bent to open up a side pocket and remove the familiar healing device from it. "Sergeant, is there a room available to me right now?" he asked Siler.
"Of course, sir," the man assured him, motioning one of the airmen forward to take Jacob's bag. "Level 22, room B-23," he told them both. "Your usual room when you're staying here, sir."
"Ah, thank you," Jacob stated, and followed the impatient O'Neill out of the gate room. "How bad is Daniel's condition?" he asked.
"He was hit with a contact poison that caused a couple of heart attacks. He was lucky. He was with a team that had a good enough medic to keep him alive until they could get him home. We brought in a specialist, and she thought she'd isolated the drug used and countered it, but now she's not so sure. His condition is still getting worse. The docs have been saying something about his blood slowly thickening up."
Jacob's head dipped, and Selmak took over as they entered the elevator. "Do you believe the assassin had access to offworld poisons?" she asked.
O'Neill started, then nodded as he realized the change. "We're thinking it was that rogue element of the NID behind this," he admitted. "So yeah, it's possible they might have something they brought back when they were running the second gate."
"Then it's possible that we may know what he's been hit with, Colonel," Selmac told him. "It's likely a poison called 'Inkartra', and it's a slow killer. While it's treatable with the hand device, it's not something quickly dealt with. It leaves behind weakness that can take months to recover from. It'll take several healing sessions to cure it if it's had time to get deep into the body and if it's caused damage to the heart already."
"He got hit a little over two days ago, and yes, the heart attacks have caused damage. But if you guys can help him, we can deal with the slow recovery," O'Neill assured him as they exited.
Entering medical, the first thing they bothnoticed was how quiet it was, the single patient still in residence was fast asleep and no other personnel around. However, that wasn't very unusual, the staff was smaller at night right now since there was only the one large group off world, so neither man took any real notice of it. Motioning Jacob to follow him, O'Neill led the way to the room where Daniel was staying.
A loud crash was the first indication that something was wrong…
The gunshot was the second…
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Okay, I'm back for a bit. Don't worry, I have been working on things, but I have one scene coming up that has just been driving me nuts! Rather than keep delaying things further, I decided to divide the chapter and give it to you as two parts. After this, in fact, I may make the chapters shorter in hopes of getting them out a bit faster.
Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, and most especially the few people who have talked to me about the story and offered suggestions and encouragement. It's nice to know that all this work is really being appreciated. Please, reviews really are nice, and they let us writers know if we're turning out something good, or just something to yawn over. Conductive criticism is welcome, but no flames, please, I get enough of that at work. Thanks, Nighshae.