Chapter 4

Location: For Jacob Carter Training Reserve, Air Base Alpha Three

Date: February 7, 2025

Time: 0730 Zulu

The screaming of the engines of an F/A-302B Banshee were among the most intoxicating noises that one could hear when on Terra Nova. By now there was an almost constant drone of these extremely versatile craft. The trainees were now taking their first solo flights in these state of the art aircraft. To even get this far they'd had to pass basic flight training first in propeller driven training aircraft back on Earth, then in two seater training aircraft that were basically the original incarnation of the Banshee that was now a dedicated EDF training aircraft designed and produced for that purpose. But the first classes of pilots had gotten through the crucible of training, lectures, exams, and everything in between with a surprising attrition rate of only fifty percent dropping out. A huge factor was that the vast majority of them had been active duty pilots or had already been in flight school within their own respective national air forces.

This was a massive disparity when you compare the ratio of civilian-to-military in the rest of the EDF. The EDF's ground forces were about half and half civilian and military, give or take. However the numbers that they had started with were closer to three civilians volunteering to every volunteer with previous military experience. But these dropouts were however encouraged to work on what caused them to drop out and try again, as a planetary defense force could always use every volunteer it could get its hands on. After all there was still a need for crews for the fleet, more combat troops, more pilots, more officers, and everything in between. In fact well over three quarters of Earth's fleet was sitting empty in vast orbital shipyards, and of the quarter left only a handful of those ships were active, with the rest of them still training their crews on their relatively complex systems. These were the closest of the branches to be ready for activation with only another week or so left until the ships themselves were deemed semi-operational with the ground forces being behind them by a couple weeks and the pilots by a month. And it was the pilots that were the crucial factor.

It would be the pilots that would fly the swarms of attack fighters and gunships into the teeth of any foe. It would be the pilots that would land Earth's future armies on remote hostile worlds and support them with airstrikes from the Banshees, Mohican Gunships, Comanche Attack Helicopters, and Redtail Utility Helicopters. The helicopter pilots were off in their own training, having been singled out for this specific training back on Earth. But the craft every pilot wanted to fly was the F/A-302B Banshee, which was happening for the first time.

And for General Mitchell this was a momentous day, as his pilots, having mastered flying the Banshees and having their solo flights and basic weapons training several weeks ago it was time for combat training, and that meant dogfighting, and to start out Mitchell himself wanted the first batch of fliers to face him. So for his first opponent the pilot who'd drawn the long straw was Patricia "Midas" Sinclair, who was a previously in training naval aviator and fancied herself the best pilot that had ever lived. To be fair, she hadn't met anyone who she hadn't beaten in simulations aside from her own instructors. But today was what every pilot lived for, it was time to prove what they were able to do while everyone watched from the squadron briefing rooms that were now packed with every pilot not busy watching one of their own face someone who was effectively a legend throughout the base.

"Nugget One this is tower, you are clear for takeoff, good hunting,"

"Copy that tower, Nugget One taking off," the words almost stung they were so patronizing as Patricia smoothly pushed the throttle forward.

She felt very little as her Banshee's inertial dampeners responded to the acceleration of her fighter's twin engines. The massive airbase flew by in her peripheral vision as the aircraft came off the ground and she pushed her throttle all the way forward and pulled the stick back and began to climb and climb quickly to get to her operating altitude, preferably way, way above the hard deck, or the minimum safe altitude. The minimum altitude was six thousand feet, and twenty miles north of base, Patricia, or Pat as her closest comrades knew her as, planned on getting to fifty thousand feet before she entered the operating area where she knew the General in another Banshee was waiting, somewhere in the thick towering clouds.

"Nugget One to control, radio check," Pat said as the Banshee rolled lazily, allowing her to do a quick controls response check.

"Nugget One, this is control, we read you."

"Very well control, Nugget One proceeding to angels five zero," she said as she started to level out once she had reached forty thousand feet but kept on a climbing turn making her way to the east edge of the combat zone.

"Copy Nugget One, new orders are to proceed to angels six zero, aggressor aircraft is waiting in the combat zone. Angels five five, thirty miles and circling," the voice of one of the also in-training air controllers echoed in her sealed helmet's speakers.

"Copy control Nugget One has sensor acquisition, climbing to angels six zero."

Pat saw the classic red diamond of a confirmed hostile aircraft show up on her HUD with the abbreviated three characters denoting it as a fellow three oh two. She cranked her engines to send her fighter right over the sound barrier with an exhilarating rumble that she felt ripple through the aircraft. She saw the demarcation line on her HUD approaching her rapidly, and as that happened she checked her weapons, which were all just dummies meant to simulate weight and weren't able to physically launch. Seeing that everything was green and ready she looked up to see the demarcation line disappear from her line of sight and passed into the combat zone.

"We're on!" she said with glee and gripped the stick with a bit more force as she started closing with her opponent.

"Bogey is turning into you Nugget One, closing fast."

She gave a quick acknowledgement to the controller, not paying it any mind now that she could see that for herself. The hostile Banshee came screaming in at her, but not supersonic. At mach one point eight she knew she was going to pass him very quickly and would need her reaction to be exceptionally fast if she were to get on his tail. But first she tried for a missile lock, she saw the pipper lining up on her foe and but it wouldn't lock. They were closing too fast so she prepared for a very snappy maneuver to come back around.

And then they passed, a blot of jet black snapped by her on her left side, and even before they'd passed Pat had rolled left ninety degrees and then yanked the stick back hard after cutting to one fourth power. Her aircraft skidded in the air, buffeted by the friction of so much air colliding with the massive flying wing body of the aircraft. It was in effect a Pugachev's Cobra except better. By rolling onto her side Pat was able to keep the stick back as both the ailerons and the nose mounted thrusters spun the Banshee around until it was nearly at a complete stop. But stalling was no issue as Pat pushed her throttle back to accelerate back at General Mitchell.

But there was one problem, General Mitchell hadn't been nearly as fast going into the attack as Pat had, and was already bearing down on her from above after performing a half cobra to cut airspeed and rolled over the top coming right at her.

"Oh shit!" Pat screamed, as was usual of her when she was in the cockpit, seeing her quarry was out for blood.

She pitched left hard, almost pivoting on the spot, causing Mitchell to overshoot. But he was still in control, and the speed and ferocity of Pat's maneuver ended up putting her on the defensive. She dove for airspeed as Mitchell looped right, sliding in on her six o'clock.

"Midas defensive!" she declared on instinct, as was procedure to alert friendly fighters that she was in trouble. But it was no good, but instinct was instinct.

She tossed her aircraft into a tight right turn as she tried keeping from getting locked on, performing a rolling scissors trying to get Mitchell off her tail as soon as she knew what had happened. In fact she reacted before Mitchell could get into a solid position on her six and about overshot her. To counter he too rolled over the top, and had to fight back the startle that he got as he flew through a cloud of flares launched from Pat's Banshee in a good second long stream. The two Banshees plummeted in air speed, and their twisting maneuvers landed them canopy to canopy, barely thirty feet away from one another as they descended downwards.

"Enough of this!" Pat growled, and once more hit her course thrusters and yanked back on the stick as her Banshee got directly above her opponent's, "Fox four!"

As she did this she squeezed the trigger on her quadruple simulated rail guns. She'd always bragged how she was going to try this and make it work but here, the simulated rounds that went downrange on her HUD weren't exactly proving her right. The burst missed but the alert of the simulated fire and blanks going off in the Banshee's guns got Mitchell's attention if it wasn't there already. And now, she was on his tail, and the two of them began to twist and turn, spiraling amongst the clouds. Mitchell popped off several stings of flares, rolling around a tall cumulonimbus cloud bank. But the trainee pilot hung on to her commanding general's tail like a tick, matching him move for move, but the pipper just wouldn't get to the right place. So she switched to short ranged Sidewinders, and tried pulling back to get enough space to launch safely. But to do that she was going to need to lose air speed.

However Mitchell knew that too and was going to get her to overshoot so he could get a shot off. So he continued his erratic maneuvers and then took a sharp right turn and banked back left in the aerial equivalent of a juke and simply dove headfirst into the clouds. Pat followed, being as aggressive as she was, and to her shock found herself coming out of the clouds a second later with nothing in front of her.

"Dammit, where'd he go?" Pat gasped out loud, but it was more to herself and didn't broadcast it.

She knew that the General was good, and knew that he would most definitely try to slip in a shot at her in this moment of confusion. So she pitched up, rolling as she hit the throttle to look around, seeing nothing. As her Banshee continued to climb she continued her steady roll, wrenching her neck side to side, desperate for any sign of her foe. What he'd done to elude her in that cloud she didn't know, but she wasn't going to get pounced on again. But suddenly her speakers lit up with the warning alert for a missile lock on her aircraft and taking a sudden evasive maneuver Pat hit her thrusters again, going completely belly-up, stopping her climb instantly, and lit off a string of flares. Continuing her move she dove, turning into the direction that the missile had come from. On her HUD she saw the simulated digital missile streak out from above, and now took her most extreme maneuver yet to keep the digital weapon from taking her down.

She hit her centerline engine, and felt the extreme acceleration send her Banshee flying well past the sound barrier. The missile wasn't fast or maneuverable enough to keep its track on the Banshee and zipped away, a clean miss. Continuing her acceleration Pat climbed to sixty thousand feet, and leveled out, cutting out the big jet and rolled onto her back to look below to find where Mitchell was. But another missile lock sounded off in her headset and she knew by this one that the missile was already airborne, she saw, thanks to her HUD, it was coming from below and behind her. She tried popping off flares and chaff, hoping that whichever type of missile it was wouldn't get through her countermeasures.

But her headset told her a different story. A simulated explosion and a subsequent message etched itself onto her HUD: MISSILE STRIKE, KIA.

"No! Dammit!" she screamed, throwing her head back against the seat. She'd lost in her first ever dogfight, and she now knew she'd never live it down after being so confident in being able to win against General Mitchell.

"Nugget One return to base," the voice of a somewhat disappointed controller said over the comms as another voice came over.

"Not bad Nugget One, better luck next time."

It was General Mitchell himself saying that to her as he came up parallel to her Banshee, looking out from his own aircraft.

"Thank you sir," she said, not really having anything else to say. She wanted to say, 'Next time your ass is grass' but you don't trash talk your commanding officer after getting beaten by him.

"Alright then, this won't be the last time we tangle so don't worry, you'll have another shot at it."

With that Mitchell banked left as Nugget Two lifted off to meet the next aggressor aircraft flown by their usual combat instructor. She kept a lid on her own disappointment for the rest of the flight, going through the usual routine of landing her aircraft like she had done without flaw many times before. As usual she caught the second tail hook upon landing, and was quickly taxied back to her fighter's new parking spot on a block of tarmac underneath a tall steel open hangar lined up in several rows of the same buildings with aircraft underneath each one. They were just roofs with four concrete posts and a steel roof big enough for a single Banshee and there were a several hundred of them in just this one air base.

They were lined up row after row, near the maintenance hangars where there were several large elevators that would be able to take these aircraft into the deep fortified bunkers where new or inactive Banshees were kept by the thousands. Nearby were ready rooms where a squadron's worth of pilots were usually kept at standby. But few pilots aside from the trainees and their instructors were available and so only a handful of pilots were really able to take to the sky to meet a threat. But with the hundreds of defensive weapons dug in and scattered around the massive base and around the civilian city there was enough firepower to defend the colony. But from what the briefings and course work here had taught them, there was no single civilization left that could attack Terra Nova, much less the exponentially better protected fortress that was now Earth.

"How'd you do Midas?" the crew chief for their squadron asked as she opened the canopy as her engines shut down and the crew got to work and took off the life support connections.

"He's good," Pat growled, popping the seal of her helmet and yanked it off.

"The General got you huh?"

"What was your first clue Chief?" she responded after straightening out her blonde ponytail.

As she grumbled to herself, much to the ground crew's amusement, they began to secure the aircraft after it had shut down. One of them began helping her out of the cockpit as a second man ran a cable into the cockpit and plugged it in behind her seat. It was a data bank that would give the engineers an idea of what the fighter did in a mechanical sense. But it also told the instructors what she had done in the course of the dogfight. She felt that she had done everything possible, but then again she was facing someone with far more experience than she did.

"Well how did our great golden girl do?" one of her fellow trainees said with no small amount of smugness as several of them were waiting outside of the squadron ready building for their section.

"You know exactly how it went!" she growled at them yanking open the door.

"It was the fucking General, what'd you expect PMS?" another one of the other pilot trainees said using her full initials, which included her call sign which was chosen on purpose.

"Say that again and you won't get off the ground," Pat growled to him as she plopped down on a cushioned seat.

"What happened, take us through it," one of her friends asked.

"You've all seen it. I don't wanna talk about it."

"Alright fair enough, something tells me we'll all get beaten several times in the next month or two."

Pat grunted with a smirk, knowing she wouldn't lose to any of them. And she sure as hell wasn't going to lose to General Mitchell again.

Location: Earth Defense Research Division Corps, Terra Nova

"Preparing for Module Construction," the voice of one of the engineers in this particular lab control room called out, tapping in the command codes.

"All parameters are in the green," another engineer called out.

"Execute."

Lieutenant General Samantha Carter knew this was going to work, they'd done it several times in the past few months, and had gotten a number of new Earth-made ZPM's out of this one room and its massive reinforced cylinders which had a blue conical crystal inside that had been made of the same stuff as the original ZPM's.

The exact science was known to only a few, and understood by even fewer. But there only needed to be a few in order to crank out these powerful, in effect, batteries that were meant for use within the planet-bound defensive mechanisms ranging from shield generators to anti-orbital energy beam weapons copied from the Ancients' weapons satellites in the Pegasus galaxy.

But there were always uses to be found for these devices, and many different projects and devices were being designed with an EM-ZPM Mark I in mind. There were military projects on Earth that would have wanted a ZPM for a planetary shield exponentially more powerful than anything the Ancients had ever created. There were also civilian projects that wanted to create new ships, new environmental terraforming devices to "stop climate change" being one idea that had gone the way of the Death Star idea that a popular application with over a million signatures had put on Carter's desk, a cabinet she wanted to label as "Stupid".

However it wasn't like Carter was going on to work a dozen projects like she one was able to as a Colonel when their resources were just a fraction of what they had today. And to be honest she missed that a lot. Much of her time was spent on desk duty, going over, clearing, or denying new research projects and tests for new weapons, equipment, and devices for not only the military field but the civilian field. But that didn't stop her from starting her own projects, one of them being the incredibly successful subspace communications devices that linked Earth to Terra Nova allowing every aspect of TV and the internet to flow between the two planets. It was with this device that quite a bit of money was being made which was helping to pay the nearly one million men and women of the EDF. But that had been mere child's play for her, and she'd quickly made her way to a very big, and very complex new project.

This new project was to dig up the old Pioneer Class Mobile Colony designs and build on the foundation and the idea of a self-sufficient and mobile colony like the Ancients' city-ships. But the Earth-made versions were going be several times the size of Atlantis, with everything built into it that it would need. It was called Project Noah's Ark and was still in its planning and design stages with several weeks to go before it was even able to have a scale model built for testing purposes. Their to-do-list was still rather enormous, with tasks including designing the city's plumbing, water purification systems, electrical feeds, power routers and breakers, and the overall structural integrity which would allow it hold, sustain, and allow a massive amount of trinium-carbon-steel alloy, concrete, water, soil, people, and every little thing that a city of a planned size exceeding a quarter of a million with all walks of life being included. And that included a large ring of farm land and suburbs which was the cause of a lot of headaches due to the sheer size of these additions.

So something like this was easily keeping Carter's mind occupied. The sheer scale of engineering this task was taking on was unlike anything Earth had done before. It was bigger than even the Wraith Hive Ships, and had to accomplish a much more taxing series of jobs such as entering atmosphere in absolute control, while maintaining its shield strength over a much larger area than Atlantis did with a much bigger mass. It also needed to sustain this population the whole time, which meant farms, water supplies, a working space port, a working subspace communications device, and all the comforts of home. Yet all this needed to be able to protect itself. That meant a massive defensive network of railguns and missile launchers was built into the design. But the most important thing built into this was the cloaking system that was able to function in tandem with their shield generators.

However, none of this was really ready yet, and Carter didn't have much else to do aside from the usual day-to-day work. But she had been able to start one thing that no one really suspected. Her and General Jack O'Neill had started seeing one another after hours for the past year, and to say the least it was a bit of a no-no. Fraternization protocols were the same in the EDF as they were in most major militaries, which meant that dating between officers and enlisted within units, and with a superior officer was looked down upon with few exceptions made. Theirs was not one that would normally be construed as an exception. She was CO of the Research and Development, and he was the overall commanding officer of the entire EDF.

One could make the argument that there was another reason for her to be with Jack, such as future promotion to overall commander herself. This was the problem they faced, and had to hide it. She had to be careful with each facial movement she showed whenever the two of them met on the job, and he or she was usually somewhere together having so much overlap in terms of areas of responsibility. So it was no surprise when the steel door into the lab hissed open and there was O'Neill, his own aide in tow.

"General sir," Carter said, snapping off a salute to him as he entered. She caught a quick tug on the corner of his lips, a smile pulling its way forward.

"Carter, another batch of ZPM's?" O'Neill asked, peeking in and taking in the controlled process.

"Yes sir, three more. It'll be enough to power three new Battle Carriers."

"Or a Super Carrier," O'Neill suggested slightly.

He'd been doing little things like this for several weeks now, ever since the fleet had finally started taking shape and the BCV-308 Enterprise Class Battle Carriers had started stacking up in numbers. So naturally he was now wanting a ship even bigger than the mainstay of Earth's battle fleet, of which Earth had thirty of them. So for the past few weeks he'd been hinting and suggesting, even in bed, at the prospect of a flagship several times the size of the Battle Carriers. Of course the prospect of such a ship intrigued her, but she personally didn't believe that such vessels were even needed. Nothing that Earth had ever encountered, save the Asgard's O'Neill class Battleships and the Wraith Super-Hive could stand toe-to-toe with even their Battlecruisers, much less ships nearly five times their size.

"Sir we've got the designs in the making but the fleet hasn't expressed any interest in needing such a ship."

"Well I'm expressing interest, doesn't that matter?"

"Yes sir it does matter. You're the overall commanding officer."

Carter gave him a classic look out of the corner of her eyes that said "Really, you're pulling rank?"

"Ma'am, ZPM power-up sequences are complete," Carter's technicians alerted her, making certain that she was paying attention to the process at hand.

"Very well, move them to the test and stabilization stage. As usual if there's any spike in power kill it and alert me. Sir, would you like to talk in my office?"

"Lead the way Carter," O'Neill smiled, stepping aside and offering her the lead out of the secure lab.

The two of them, with their aides right behind them, walked out into a large, tall hallway with a handful of technicians, engineers, and every fifty feet was a guard in full combat armor with their rifles slung over their shoulders. This facility was separated from the other underground facilities of the EDF due to its classified nature and the fact it was on its own separate island with a single monorail tunnel connecting it to the rest of the EDF's bases. A huge number of labs, testing areas, offices, independent power generators, computer cores, and as experience had taught, damage control facilities were built into this underground maze. The halls themselves were built differently than those of the old SGC on Earth, being bigger overall with screens feeding a live feed of the outside from a wide variety of locations from cameras placed around their tropical island that acted like windows. The floors weren't the bland concrete gray, but were a bright blue carpet or patterned tiles with painted walls with stripes on them indicating what floor and what section of the base someone was in. The ceiling was sectioned off with the foam-like panels hiding the numerous pipes, power mains, and comms cables that would have been an eye sore and a constant reminder that these people were several hundred beneath solid granite, concrete, and trinium.

Carter soon found O'Neill at her side, and felt the usual need to move in close, but knowing that their aides were literally a few steps away she controlled herself. O'Neill well understood their situation, being a career soldier himself. So he decided on making small talk.

"The first of the pilots had their first dogfights today."

"I saw one furball earlier on my way out of the house. It was quite impressive watching those Banshees maneuvering like that," Carter noted, "Wasn't Cam going to be flying aggressor today?"

"He did, and went undefeated today. Although he did say he came close to losing a few but a lot of his instructors ended up losing. So it's a good sign our pilots are getting there."

"What about the ground troops?" Carter asked, "I heard you observed a war game last night. How'd they do?"

"Not too bad, although I'm not certain it's a good or bad sign that seventy percent of all troops involved were casualties of some kind."

"Well if the steroids that are seeded through the troops' food and water is working I'm not complaining. No adverse effects have been reported I hope?" Carter asked, referring to a family of biologically engineered foods that were seeded with a brand new steroid that allowed for a much improved rebuilding of muscle tissue to aid in recovery from the incredibly tough training that the EDF's troops were going through.

These steroids were controversial for certain, but the EDF made certain every man and woman was told what it was that they were going to be taking. There was always the concern that the troops would start to become addicted to the stuff, or some physical or mental altering would occur that wouldn't serve the military's purpose. But thus far several different and extended periods of weaning the troops off of the steroids had seen nothing pop up that was to be worried about. So the borderline special operations intensity training continued to run its course.

"Nothing to be worried about Carter, no one has had a bad medical report and the results have been according to expectations. In fact we could deploy these troops tomorrow if we had to and we'd wind up winning against all comers."

"Well I can't tell you otherwise," Carter replied, "There's no single entity that we've encountered that can face us in an even fight and have a chance at winning. Or that we've met thus far."

"It's a big galaxy Carter, we've still got what? Two, three hundred thousand planets that we can still explore?"

"Probably more sir, and we haven't met several advanced species we know exist. The Furlings are one species in particular we haven't come into contact with. There's also the species I encountered when the Prometheus was attacked, the people who created that weather control device are another."

"I know, I know," O'Neill said, "And that's why we've got all these ships, weapons, and equipment."

"It's also to deal with the Lucians, the Wraith, and act as a deterrent against any other entity that we know poses a danger like pirates, rogue semi-advanced humans, or anyone we may have pissed off. Like the Colonials from a few years ago for instance."

"Or their Cylon buddies," O'Neill responded, "Although the Colonials seemed to have kicked their ass without much trouble and have pretty much settled in where they are."

"No word on what they've been doing?"

"We're keeping a subspace sensor nearby to keep an eye on them. They've been pretty quiet lately, nothing really to worry about and it's been several years I think we can assume that they've cooled their jets about us."

"Needless to say sir they were an interesting find, a powerful fleet and an interplanetary sphere, it's a wonder they made it that far into their development."

"Without getting wiped out by the Gou'ald?"

"Or the Ori, or the Replicators for that matter. It is quite remarkable how isolated they had ben. It makes me wonder what else is out there."

"You miss SG-1 don't you?" O'Neill asked sensing what she was getting at.

"Yes sir, things were just so much simpler then. It was also more challenging and we had the constant underdog factor on our side. But now we're the big dogs of this galaxy, and no one we know of can really do a thing to threaten us."

"I'm bored too, as bad as it sounds I wish something would just happen already."

Location: Stargate Command, Terra Nova

The team was getting together in full for the first time today, and that was worrying for Colonel O'Neill. He hadn't met any of the civilians in person quite yet, and neither had his all-military portion of the team. But here they were at the large rec room made especially for SG-1, in its own separate office complex.

The new SGC facility was simply massive and nothing about it had been skimped out on. Each team had its own area where its scientists could work in peace within close proximity to their other team mates, helping to aide in the process of creating the sense of comradery that all of the SG Teams needed. Their area was the complete package, a locker room for them complete with showers and a large bathroom, offices for everyone to work, although the offices for the military component were mostly a place for privacy and writing up reports. There was a briefing room in the middle surrounded by the offices for obvious reasons with a projector screen and dry erase board, and comfortable auditorium style seats. They shared a gym with SG Teams Two, Three, and Four that was just as complete with all manner of equipment and even had a basketball court and pool. And for just chilling out the team had its own rec room with several TV's, a few old style arcade games, a kitchenette, a few tables and comfortable couches. And even this wasn't skimped upon, with an Xbox One, Playstation 3, Netflix, and dozens of movies, games, and TV shows to choose from. There were also numerous labs for each scientific specialist to work in complete peace with state of the art equipment right at their fingertips. Hell they even had two secretaries, one civilian and one military, to see to the usual clerical paperwork. The only thing that these SG Team sections didn't have was an armory, for obvious reasons.

The entire team was now in their new briefing room, sitting in their own chairs, talking with one another, meeting and exchanging little tid bits of small talk. The briefing room was separated into two three by three sections of seats built on an incline. A few stairs in the middle let everyone ascend their way upwards without having to climb over each other. And standing at the lead was supposed to be Colonel O'Neill and Brenda Jackson, the two sub-team leaders, but O'Neill was the overall commander.

Although at the moment the two of them weren't in the briefing room, themselves finishing a briefing with General Landry going over the mission set forth for the planet their first outing had them going to. That left Major Steven Blanton in charge, the team's XO and muscle head, who had joined the SGC a month before the program had been declassified. He was a former SEAL, with years of experience and a Navy boxing championship under his belt. He was an intimidating man, chosen by O'Neill for partly that reason but also his unique and varied skillset when it came to deep strike missions.

His civilian counterpart was Dr. Bruce Walt, their cultural expert and translator. He'd been in the SGC for quite some time, having joined a few months after Anubis's failed invasion and acted as a desk jockey going over translations and writing reports on different civilizations. But now he was, for the first time, able to get out into the field, having been on a workout regimen to get into shape enough to be cleared for SG-Team duty. Although he wasn't unlike the others on the team and was barely cleared. And he himself had an intriguing oddity, he spoke with a British accent, yet he himself was an American citizen. So O'Neill was definitely going have a fit when he heard him speak.

"So how long are we gonna be gone?" one of the civilians, their technological expert, Dr. Michael Underwood, asked.

He was a brilliant man, but had a bit of a childish streak in him. He was quite disorganized, and he routinely made a mess, being incredibly wrapped up in either his work or games or movies. The man was the exact opposite of O'Neill's pick for tech expert, Captain Jennifer Hailey, the same Hailey who'd caught Carter's attention a long time ago. She'd continued her streak of brilliance and tactical professionalism on several SG-Teams, transferring back and forth, mostly due to the team leaders not liking her rather snobbish attitude. But Colonel O'Neill knew he'd be able to rein in the near insubordinate officer.

"A few days, maybe a week. It depends on what we find my dear Michael," Dr. Walt responded.

"What could we possibly find out there that we haven't already encountered?"

"Please don't ask that," Hailey responded, not bothering to look up from her work tablet where she was working on some research project that she refused to talk about, lest the time spent talking about it and explaining it would fall into time spent not working.

"She's right, you can never truly know what we can encounter, a planet's big enough, but an entire star system is even bigger, and a galaxy, infinitely times larger and diverse," Major Blanton responded calmly.

"Hmph, infinitely," Hailey smirked, catching Blanton's attention.

"What was that Captain?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It's impossible for any solid piece of matter to be infinitely anything."

"Well technically," Dr. Underwood's own assistant, Dr. Ruby Ellis, piped up.

"Girl, please don't start again, it is too early for your science crap," Lieutenant Reese Baker, a long-time Air Force Pararescue operator, replied rubbing his head, knowing what might happen next.

Hailey just grunted lowly, retraining her attention on her work as the door into SG-1's briefing room opened and the two senior members of the team walked in. At the entrance of their CO the military members stood up to attention, including Hailey of course. Not even she was able to be insubordinate all the time.

"Ah, Brenda, your timing is impeccable. And Colonel O'Neill I presume?" Dr. Walt asked, extending his hand to the CO.

"Yeah, and you are…" O'Neill asked…fishing around for a name.

"Dr. Bruce Walt, a pleasure."

"Yeah," O'Neill said, giving his XO a confused look which was responded to with a shrug.

"Go ahead and sit down everybody," Brenda said calmly, walking over to the computer that controlled the projector, "We've got a briefing to conduct."

"Why are you leading the briefing?" O'Neill asked, crossing his arms over his chest, a little taken back by the sudden takeover by Brenda.

"Oh I'm sorry, did you miss the briefing with the general? I could've swore you were there. This is an exploratory mission, which means I have lead."

"Oh here we go," Underwood whispered to himself, seeing the headbutting already starting.

"And I'm commander of this team," O'Neill responded testily.

"Overall you're commander but when it comes to my team's jobs I'm in charge. Seriously what do you really have to say anyway aside from protect the civilians?"

"Lots," O'Neill responded, "But yeah, keep an eye on the civvies. We'll split into teams once we get there."

"Sounds good, now," Brenda continued, pulling up the MALP imagery onto the projector for all to see, revealing a wet rocky landscape, "The MALP has been on station for a while now, and this planet is, from all of the data we've gotten, uninhabited. Sorry Bruce."

"Well one must take a first step right?" the man said with a humble shrug.

"Any plant or animal life Brenda?" Dr. Harold White, the team biologist, asked.

"Only a few small grasses and what might have been some small birds. Hard to tell, that's what you're there to find out. Now we'll be taking a few immune boosters as per Dr. Lawson's suggestion," Brenda said, motioning to the team medical expert, who gave her a smile, "So if you have anything medical to report at any point, no matter how small it might be, please don't hesitate to talk to her or Dr. Tew, her assistant."

"And it will also go without saying that you do not do anything stupid once we're out there, the military component is there to protect you but it makes our job damned difficult if you're putting a bulls-eye on your chest," O'Neill interrupted.

"Anyway, it's gonna be kinda cold out there and the MALP's rain gauge overflowed after twenty-four hours so choose your equipment and clothing accordingly. We're gonna be offworld for three days, supplies are already being prepared on the transport MALP's, my team, go ahead and see to your own equipment in the garage and meet back here in full gear in one hour. Dismissed," Brenda ordered, finishing out the briefing as the civilian portion of the team began to get up and head for the door.

This left the military portion of SG-1 somewhat confused. They'd been under the impression that Colonel O'Neill was in charge, and didn't get up.

"Damned civilians," O'Neill grumbled.

"Would it make you feel any better if I accidentally broke her nose sir?" Major Agnes Rosario, the third in command, piped up with no small amount of sarcasm.

"Only for a few seconds," O'Neill shrugged, "She'd find a way to twist it back on me."

A few chuckles from his team came from that.

"Alright for real now, you guys lead the civilians wherever they go. One of us goes along with them no matter what. It's dangerous out there, keep your heads on a swivel. And rules of engagement are simple, if it looks dangerous back off and fall back to base or call for support. If something or someone comes at you and you can't avoid confrontation you kill it. Understood?"

"Yes sir," the team sounded off in tandem.

"Okay then, SG-1, gear up."

And there we are, managed to finish this one before heading off to my late night class. As usual I hope you guys enjoyed it, leave any thoughts, questions, or suggestions you might have in a review and I'll get back to you on any direct notes ASAP.

I read a lot of reviews that suggested doing away with the casting actors as my characters or at the least moving the casting choices to the bottom so they don't interrupt the reading flow. And I decided to do the latter suggestion, as I really like the casting thing and do challenge any other writers to do the same thing as a challenge to see how it works for them. So here's the character chart added in this chapter.

Lieutenant Patricia "Midas" Sinclair: Scarlett Johansson

Major Steven Blanton: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

Major Agnes Rosario: Michelle Rodriguez

Lieutenant Reese Baker: Tyrese Gibson

Dr. Michael Underwood: Anthony Anderson

Dr. Bruce Walt: David McCallum

Dr. Catherine Lawson: Pauley Perrette

Dr. Karl Tew: Chris Hemsworth

Dr. Harold White: Ioan Gruffudd

Dr. Ruby Ellis: Rachael Taylor

Next Chapter Preview: SG-1's off to another planet, what shall they find I wonder? And now it's time for the village idiots of the EDF to meet the students with no sense of danger in a rather dangerous jungle.