Chapter 12

Location: P5X-359

Date: February 8, 2025

Time: 1030 Hours

"They've got a lot of troops deployed from those craft," Hailey grumbled under her breath.

"Now they're on a search pattern, looking for us," Major Blanton noted, "This won't be easy."

"Way to inspire confidence," O'Neill said with a roll of his eyes.

"Or we can, I don't know, talk to them?" Brenda suggested once again.

"Give it a rest Jackson," Rosario growled with a snide tone over her shoulder.

SG-1 was in a pickle. They were on some high ground amongst the stone pillars, waiting for a plan to be put into action. However there was a problem here that didn't have an easy solution. They couldn't engage these Colonials, lest they start up a war that no one wanted. But the Colonials had created a thick net sweeping forward with more coming up in a hurry. On top of that they had no air cover and no clearance to do anything about it.

"Blanton, how many Intar rounds do we have?" O'Neill asked.

"We've each got a two magazines and Newbold and Gibson each have a full belt," Blanton responded.

"Change mags," he ordered, "Jackson, drop your magazine in your pistol and switch on your stunner.

"What're you thinking?" Brenda asked, curiosity evident in her tone.

"We're moving, and if needed we'll incapacitate any threats so we can get past them and make a break for the Stargate."

"I hate to poke holes in your plan but the Colonials don't have stun weapons like ours and don't know we mean no harm."

"Well no permanent harm anyway," Lieutenant Holden chuckled as she locked and loaded a fresh Intar loaded magazine.

At that moment a Raptor's searchlight flooded the area to the left of SG-1, the loud engine of the craft quite loud as it hovered around in their search pattern. They all did a quick double take at their HUD's which had the clearly marked life signs of the Colonials advancing on them. Each of them ducked down behind some form of cover, weapons aimed at the craft as it passed harmlessly over them.

"We need to get going sir," Rosario suggested.

"Roger that," O'Neill nodded, "We're going through the middle, weapons hot. I don't want us to be cornered against that cliff."

"We'll lead," Major Blanton volunteered, "Gibson, Hailey, on me. Underwood, distance?"

"Colonials are fifty meters and closing," Dr. Underwood replied from the cave where he was keeping careful track of the ground while their other tech specialist Dr. Ellis watched the skies, "Better hurry guys, they've got forty more guys coming up on foot."

"Alright copy that Underwood," O'Neill responded, "Captain Pauley."

"Yes sir."

"If we're compromised and can't rendezvous with you return to the SGC and report. We've got the word out and the Challenger Battle Group is mustering and awaiting an emergency signal," he ordered his subordinate, "Don't worry about us."

"If we've got a Battle Carrier on standby why haven't they showed up?" Brenda asked.

"We don't want to make things worse," O'Neill responded, "The Colonials are on high alert and are in no mood to make peaceful contact. Protocol with these guys is to effectively catch them in a good mood."

"So we're leaving?"

O'Neill hesitated a bit, his eyes wandering off as he thought about it before responding.

"Yeah."

Brenda pursed her lips as she fumed through her nostrils. This was clearly not what she wanted to have happen. Her job was to lead SG/E-1, the civilian portion of the team, in scientific, cultural, and diplomatic missions. To her this was a diplomatic matter that needed to be handled with kid gloves but needed to be handled all the same. So the fact that Colonel O'Neill was saying run away was not sitting well with her.

"Fine, but I want a shot at these guys. I know I can help make things right," Brenda growled.

"You won't if you get yourself shot," O'Neill snapped as he looked up as a second Raptor made another slow moving pass nearby and turned her around and pushed her forward, "Now move it."

He shoved her forward behind Lieutenant Holden who was right behind the walking wedge with Major Blanton in the lead with Lieutenants Gibson and Captain Hailey to his right and left. They knew that there might be some flare up here and at any moment they'd be in contact with the Colonials who were closing the distance between them. The military portion of the team knew this was a particularly dangerous situation but with the element of surprise and knowledge of the Colonials positions they felt confident enough to move forward to sneak past them.

"Distance twenty meters," Blanton whispered.

Each of them was now on a heightened state of awareness. All of their senses were carefully tuned, their eyes were carefully tracking the IFF's of their friends and the red signals of their hunters. Their ears were tuned to every footfall, extremely uncomfortable with any noise that they perceived themselves to be making. They even glanced a look down to make sure they didn't step on anything loose or slick, lest they fall and give away their positions.

"Eyes on two to the right," Gibson whispered all of a sudden.

Indeed he did. What he was seeing was a pair of Colonial troops creeping forward, their postures rigid and alert. Their short carbines were tucked tight to their shoulders, carefully sweeping back and forth, one behind the other as they moved off to the right of the SG Team.

"Stay down," O'Neill barely breathed, gently pushing Brenda down against a stone pillar.

"Three on our left," Hailey said, ducking down with her rifle aiming at the silhouettes of three more Colonials moving in a line moving forward on their left.

"Two in front," Blanton called out lastly, seeing two more Colonials come around a column less than ten meters ahead of them.

The distance was extremely uncomfortable for the Earth team. They'd seen them coming all the way in but they hadn't really seen them. The fog was as thick as it could be and masked them so well that it was almost a burden as they themselves couldn't actually see the line of Colonials until they were just about on top of them. However this gave them the head start to duck into cover and disappear into the dark shapes of the stone pillars.

SG-1 was split into two parts right now. One part, with Major Blanton, Captain Hailey, and Lieutenant Gibson, was out front, with Hailey split off, hiding behind a smaller pillar in a low crouch. Blanton and Gibson were both behind a large wide stone formation that was like a table, with two pillars holding up a large flat table-like bed of stone above them. Gibson had his M-506 SAW ready to fire downrange with Blanton and Hailey likewise ready to fire with their own Intar loaded M-501's. The other half of SG-1, with Colonel O'Neill hovering protectively over Brenda was immediately behind Major Rosario and Lieutenant Newbold, with his M-506, who were all taking cover behind their own pillars with weapons aimed out. Each was ready to support the forward three members of the team.

The whole attitude of the terrain was sloping downhill towards the Colonials, with a gentle flow with some steps in the rocks that required careful negotiation as there were sometimes puddles and slick moss that might cause a slip or fall and potential injury or worse, audible disturbance.

O'Neill knew this situation was bad. The Colonials were spaced quite tightly, within visual range of one another all along their steadily progressing front. They wouldn't be able to sneak past them. Somehow SG-1 would have to disrupt and open up a hole in their front without alerting their hunters. But time to do this was running short, as Major Blanton and his team were able to hear the carefully measured footfalls of the advancing Colonials and even hear the shuffling of the gear on their chests.

Hailey sneaked a peek at the three Colonials to their left, seeing only two of them this time. This alerted the young Captain instantly. She knew the other one was somewhere, but the life sign was not in visual range. Before she could look around the corner of her piece of cover the muzzle of the silenced carbine of a Colonial Commando came around the corner above her barely six feet away from her nose. The weapon swept around the corner, and Hailey shuffled carefully away, trying to stay small. The Colonial was so close that Hailey could see each detail on the man. She saw the chest pockets holding spare magazines on his vest, the slight bulges of magnets in the fabric holding them closed. She even saw the hand-painted balaclava over his face that created a whitish colored skull over his nose to his mouth with a pair of goggles strapped over his eyes and helmet. The two were so close that she even heard the radio piece in his ears and the whisper of the lone Colonial as he responded to something into the thin mouth piece near his lips that started from one of the ear pieces covering his ears.

"Skull-Six, Skull-Two, no eyes," was what she heard, "We haven't seen anything yet."

Brenda could see just how close they were now. Hailey was only feet from a Colonial Commando who was sweeping ahead of the rest of his comrades. At any moment he'd turn and look down to see Hailey, who would get the first shot off with a fully-charged Intar round. But the discharge of that would set off a firefight.

At that moment O'Neill took action. He tossed a rock, hoping the cliché would actually work. It somehow did. The clacking of the rock hitting a stone pillar way off to their left got the attention of the Colonials, who jerked their weapons in the direction of the disturbance and the ones on the left rushed forward to cover from the source of the disturbance.

"Can't believe that worked," O'Neill chuckled quietly.

"Glad it did," Brenda agreed, allowing the breath to leave her lungs as she realized she'd been holding her breath.

Captain Hailey sighed heavily, the possibility of her being discovered thankfully lessened. With a short salute she gave the Colonel her thanks and then moved back to cover. Lieutenant Gibson had watched the near-miss, and had been equally engrossed in the extremely tense encounter. But when he looked back he noticed a green line was coming from the rifle of one of the Colonials and it had come to rest on his arm. He saw that the two Colonials in front of he and Major Blanton had seen his outline as they'd gotten closer, and now had confirmation they were looking at something alive. Before any of SG-1 could do anything one came around the corner between he and the now alert Major Blanton, the silencer of his rifle to Gibson's face.

"Hands where I can see them," the Colonial Commando ordered Gibson, surprise not evident in his tone, but a terse sincerity was.

But Blanton came to his SAW gunner's defense, and tapped on the shoulder of the Colonial. The man turned his head, and saw the looming he-man like figure of Major Blanton right behind him.

"How's it goin'?" Blanton sarcastically asked before firing an Intar round from his rifle into the Colonial's back.

The powerful round struck the Colonial's Kevlar vest but still easily transferred its disabling energy into the man's nervous system. He tensed instantly, groaning painfully as he collapsed slowly to the ground. But Blanton knew there was another one coming and pulled out his M-502 Assault Pistol with right hand and as he pulled it out of its holster he brought up his elbow and popped the rushing Colonial in the face with it as he came around the corner. The blow was powerful, and thanks in part to the rush of the Commando coming around and the slick conditions the man was on the ground and easy pickings for Blanton to stun with the reverse engineered Wraith stunner attached under the end of his weapon.

As the man went rigid from the blast the Colonials came running to the sound of the guns and Earth unit knew they'd have to make a run for it.

"Go!" O'Neill ordered, pulling Brenda up and rushed her forward, seeing no hostile life signs ahead of them now that the two Blanton had taken care of were incapacitated. Then, he hit his emergency subspace transponder. Calling in help of a big kind.

"Cover fire!" Blanton ordered Gibson and Hailey who instantly opened up on the visible Colonials to their left and right.

Gibson fired at the two Colonials to his right immediately as they ducked into cover and fired at him. but he had the bigger gun and Major Blanton rushed forward, firing his own rifle at the two men as a third and a fourth rushed into view. But the Colonials didn't have a clue that the Intar rounds were nonlethal, and didn't dare poke their heads out.

At the order to fire Hailey stood up and aimed at the surprised Colonial who she'd come so close to coming face-to-face with just a moment ago. She fired three rounds into his chest as he raised his own carbine towards her and caused him to collapse as two more came into view and fired at her. The bullets snapped by her head as they slammed into the rock, sending chips out and puffs of water droplets to shoot away. But a burst of red Intar rounds from Lieutenant Newbold struck both of them as they fired and hit one in the shoulder and the other in the chest, causing his muscles to tense and the finger around the trigger pulled down, firing a full burst that sent one round right into Hailey's chest.

The low velocity round struck her full-on in her chest plate, throwing her petite frame back and sprawling onto the ground. The round didn't even come close to penetrating to her body, and she recovered quite quickly as Rosario rushed to the aid of the junior officer firing her rifle back towards where she could hear more Colonials moving towards them.

"First mission and you get shot Captain," Rosario taunted Hailey who regained her breath and aimed her rifle at the Colonials who were now visible and were trying to recover their down team mates.

"Lucky shot!"

"Move it people we have our opening," O'Neill snapped at them as he practically threw them forward and took their place and fired a few automatic bursts in the direction of the Colonials who were firing on them from the fog.

Brenda had been the first to run, partially for the reason that she had been ordered to do so, and partially out of the fact she was no soldier and this was soldier's work. Behind her the rest of SG-1 was peeling away from the fight in twos and threes. They were moving in a full-on sprint, eager to disappear into the fog and out of sight of their pursuers. But with the area not exactly being a safe are to walk, let alone run while under fire Brenda lost her footing fairly quickly.

As she jumped down a two foot drop she hit a slick bed of moss her feet went out from under her. She fell forward, and felt a sharp pain in her ankle but adrenaline drove her forward as she heard the pops of bullets around her. She could see two Colonial life signs moving quickly down the hill, almost in parallel with her, and caught sight of their silhouettes moving towards her through the fog. It was obvious they'd spotted her and were after her. And despite her vocal insistence that they needed to speak with them she had no intention of trying that out now.

So she ran, but realized something, she'd hyperextended her ankle or that's what she'd guess. Thankfully it wasn't bad, but it was the last thing she wanted right now. The terrain was starting to level out and become more exposed and that was really bad. This was especially true when she heard the snaps of passing bullets that hit the ground in front of her, strafing from left to right, kicking up water from puddles and pieces of rocks. This caused her to stop out of instinct, after all running towards where bullets hit is not natural. Turning she saw that the two Colonials behind her had closed the distance greatly, one was aiming his rifle at her, obviously the one who'd fired the burst in front of her. The other one almost made her panic, he was right behind her rifle in hand charging at her.

With this Colonial right behind her she remembered to try and pull out her pistol, but at the same time instinct told her to run. Her feet started backing away as she fumbled with her pistol in its holster but when she saw the guy's eyes behind his goggles she knew it was probably time to forget the gun and run. She turned as the Colonial closed and then felt an arm wrap around her waist and then around her right shoulder which shoved her down to the ground and into a puddle with a Colonial Commando on her back.

"Colonel!" she yelled into her radio as she struggled to grab for her pistol.

But against this opponent she was outmatched quite severely. Her right arm was wrenched back behind her back as the Colonial officer pressed his knee against her neck while another one was right on her left arm, effectively pinning her in place. The second Colonial rushed forward and she could see the flashlight in her face as she was looking over to the left and knew this was no time to negotiate.

"Don't move!" the second man said loudly.

Brenda didn't dare say anything, but she kept trying to fight, but it was absolutely useless. The rest of the SG Team was still not aware of the mess she'd gotten into. But she had gotten one cry for help out. Colonel O'Neill rushed to the aid of his civilian leader and saw the flashlight of the Colonials shining into her face with one trying to restrain her with a set of ziptie cuffs. He knew that she might be used as leverage to force them to surrender if they got her secured and aimed his rifle at the one aiming standing over her. He pulled the trigger and sent a burst of at least five rounds right into the upper body of his target who collapsed immediately in a convulsing wreck.

His commander was surprised at the fire, and brought his rifle around and aimed up towards O'Neill. Not a quarter of a second later a blue splash across his back hit him before O'Neill or this Colonial Commando could engage one another. He crumpled down and revealed Brenda Jackson holding her pistol, panting heavily at the feat she'd accomplished. O'Neill rushed down as she got up, a bit shaken, but no worse for wear.

"I'm okay," she responded before he could even ask, knowing what her counterpart was going to ask.

"I was gonna say good job but yeah glad you're alright," O'Neill responded with classic wittiness.

"You asshole," she sighed as he returned to the matter at hand.

"SG-1 fall back, we're pulling out."

"Roger that sir," Blanton called back out, and signaled for the rest of the team to make a break for it.

SG-1 peeled away, dropping several smoke canisters to cover their retreat as they took off and thankfully the Colonials refused to launch a pursuit as quickly as they'd retreated. The team was still a fair distance from the Stargate, but they had a clear road to it. And they took it and ran.

Immediately they noticed something, the Colonials had retreated.

EDFS Challenger, In Orbit Around P5X-359

The massive Battle Carrier had been waiting for the signal from Colonel O'Neill's SG-1 to come through. Brigadier Abraham Ellis had been waiting for it and so had his crew. He'd taken command of the Challenger upon its commissioning, passing on command of the Apollo to his XO, Major, now Lieutenant Colonel Marks. He'd then spent several years training up the first crewmen and women from across the English speaking world. With this new vessel he had seven hundred and fifty Americans serving right alongside Brits, Australians, New Zealanders, and Canadians on this powerhouse of a vessel.

"Sir, SG-1's emergency transponder has activated!" his XO called out.

"All ships to follow us into hyperspace," Ellis ordered, "Go to battle stations. Make it no drill Major."

"Yes sir."

The officer went over to the ship comms station and picked up the phone and held his finger over the general quarters button.

"This is not a drill, this is not a drill, general quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations. Pilots man your planes, prepare for mass scramble."

The bonging noise of the battle stations alarm echoed across the ship as stations burst into action. The lights in bridge went red, signaling things were about to get hot.

Across the radio several of Ellis's bridge crew were sending out the orders to the rest of the Challenger's escort group. Three Battlecruisers and six Destroyers were in an arrowhead formation around the Battle Carrier, their hyperdrives spooled up and had their coordinates plugged in. More than three hundred fighters and gunships were loaded up and fueled for potential combat as they always were in the Earth battle groups that patrolled Earth's claimed territory. However these were alert fighters, this time each and every one of them was ready and waiting for things to go south.

The fleet jumped right as the ship reported ready for battle stations. They'd been on alert, with all crewmen and women up and ready, wearing their full-bodied, zero-atmosphere armored suits. The pilots were also ready and waiting in their ready rooms just off of the hangars with their F/A-302B Banshees in the launch bays below the main hangars. The pilots in the first wave of Banshees were strapped into their birds, and the engines of the fighters were warmed up and the weapons systems were activated.

Challenger was the second of the Enterprise Class Battle Carriers, and inherited some design enhancements that Enterprise hadn't been built with. The Challenger had side-facing launching bays large enough for three squadrons from each hangar nacelle to be launched at once. It was a shameless rip-off from the experience of seeing how quickly the Colonials' Battlestars could scramble large numbers of fighters. For rapid recovery Earth's premiere warships a very complex tractor beam system had been installed in their hangars that could literally bring in a hundred and sixty Banshees and their thirty-two Mohican gunships, and sixteen Ghost recon ships.

Every one of them was prepped and ready along with her vast weapons systems. Some of the upgrades Earth warships had received included two new types of point defense and anti-fighter/anti-missile weapons. The first and more numerically prolific was a CIWS thirty millimeter rotary cannon. Over twenty had been installed aboard the new Battle Carriers alongside eighteen SpaceRAM missile launchers. It was an upgrade of a naval weapon, the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile, used for space operations and was meant to fill in the gap for anti-fighter missiles that was such a crucial element of Earth's terrestrial navies. In tests both weapons systems had proved effective, allowing the rail gun batteries to be focused on long range fire while the RAM missiles covered the medium range and the CIWS covered short range. It was a powerful weapons platform, and it wasn't alone and the Colonials would figure this out shortly.

The fleet of eight Earth ships emerged from hyperspace quickly with the image of a classic planet's image to the left of them. Instantly Banshees began to scramble from the hangars of the Battlecruisers. Ellis had already given the command for his wings to launch upon their arrival and soon the squadron formations were in line in front of the warships. With his forces effectively on auto-pilot he decided to call in to Colonel O'Neill, and check his status.

"Major," he said, calling out to his lead comms officer, "Get us into contact with SG-1."

"Yes sir," the man responded and began to call into SG-1's signal.

He had his bridge set up quite simply, in fact this too was a shameless rip-off of a primary source. There were two places down below a walkway in the middle of the bridge where on one side he had his communications, primary and secondary sensors operations and on the other he had weapons. His helmsman was situated right in front of the window in a seat with his controls being basically the same as any other ship.

"Lieutenant, where's the Colonial fleet?"

"Other side of the planet sir, stationary orbit over SG-1's transponders. I read…one Battlestar, one heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, eleven destroyers, three replenishment ships, and two civilian ships in formation with a lot of fighters flying around on CAP. There's also an assault ship descending into the atmosphere."

"SG-1 reported that there were several Gou'ald vessels that had arrived in orbit. Any sign of them?"

"There's a lot of wreckage sir, I'm reading two crippled Alkesh hulls in orbit and a third intact one on the ground."

"Very well, do they have any idea we're here?" Ellis asked.

"Negative sir," the man responded, "They're still recovering their formation from around the Gou'ald ships with some Raptors heading back to their own positions away from the main formation. Must be working on salvage operations."

"Their sensors can't see us…" Ellis mumbled under his breath, "Do we have contact with SG-1?"

"Yes sir," his comms officer responded.

"Patch it through to me," Ellis commanded, somewhat relieved that they were responding immediately, "Colonel O'Neill, do you copy?"

"What took you so long General Ellis? Kinda odd having to call you that," the response came from the planet-side team.

"Had to finish my coffee," Ellis chuckled, glad to hear the humor in his voice so couldn't have been too bad, "What's your status Colonel?"

"We've broken contact and are en route back to the gate. But the Colonials are right behind us. We could use a hand if you've got a minute."

"We'll see if we can get the Colonial forces to back off for you Colonel," Ellis said.

"That would be nice."

"Helm, all ahead full, bring us around the planet. Let's make ourselves known."

The massive engine banks of the Challenger drove the ship forward, with the escorting battlecruisers and destroyers right alongside her. The Banshees flew alongside them in their four-ship formations, with the Mohicans loaded down heavily with missiles, rockets, and rail guns mounted under their wings. It was a massive force of firepower that the Colonials had no idea was there.

"They see us sir," his sensor station called out, "Colonial traffic just picked up. They're going to battle stations. Looks like one of their Raptors got a look at us when they came around the planet."

Ellis nodded, "Bring us to a stop once we're in visual contact. Patch us into their frequencies and keep track of their orders."

After a few more seconds the Earth formation was able to see a larger force of Colonial ships in front of it. The group was charging towards them, their vast Viper formations moving in line with their Battlestar leading the way forward with the destroyers in close and the cruisers out on the flanks. They'd come about and were aiming right at them, and were still coming on.

"Hail the Battlestar," Ellis ordered.

"Yes sir…you're on."

"Attention Colonial warships. This is Brigadier General Abraham Ellis, commander of the Earth Defense Force Ship Challenger. Be advised you are engaging Earth military personnel on the planet. Please order your forces to stand down immediately."

There was a hesitation on the Colonials' part as the message was received. Ellis watched the mass of stationary warships carefully as they came to a stop, facing off with his own battle group.

"This is Rear Admiral Helena Cain, commander of the Pegasus Battlestar Group. Our forces are engaging pirates and terrorists that raided Colonial civilian vessels and took our people hostage. We will not stand down," came the terse reply.

"You were engaging pirates. But they're gone, the threat is eliminated. We know because we had a team observing your operations on the planet. They are not hostiles, I will ask again that your ground troops disengage and allow our people to pull out and leave the planet."

"General, I find it odd that your people just so happen to be here when our ships are raided. I also find it odd that your ships are so close and so knowledgeable about this situation. Forgive me if I seem forward, but considering the facts of the situation I don't think you or your people are entirely innocent here."

Ellis had to hesitate before speaking to that accusation. This was a bad situation and anyone could have come to that conclusion with the facts available.

"Then you'd be wrong. Admiral those ships, and those pirates have no connection whatsoever to Earth. Our team on the ground was there a day ago on a routine scientific reconnaissance mission. This battle group is assigned to patrolling this area and to deal with threats to other worlds and Earth's own interests."

"And what would be your interests?"

"The protection of our team. I highly recommend you back off, my ships have every ability to accomplish that directly if need be," Ellis growled, growing impatient with these accusations and then he saw some notecards next to the helmsman's station used for writing down anything in a hurry.

That's when he got an idea.

"Is that a threat general. We don't respond well to threats, as the wreckage behind us will show."

"We know. Like I said, piracy is something we both hate passionately. But I must warn you against forcing our hand," Ellis said calmly, writing down something on the note and then gave it to his beaming station officer and held his mike with his hand, "Send this to the Battlestar's bridge."

"Yes sir," the man said with a grin when he read what was on it.

"This is the last time I'll ask Admiral."

"Note is away sir," the enlisted man at the controls said calmly and proudly as he sent away the note to arrive on the Battlestar's CIC.

The impact it had was immediately evident.

"Well played General. Well played," Cain responded, her tone not at all fearful, but more surprised and actually impressed.

"Like I said, we just came to do the same thing you're doing: Protect our people. The wreckage and spoils are yours. I won't dispute that," Ellis replied, knowing he had the high ground.

"We appreciate that actually," the Colonial officer growled indignantly, not very happy with the high and mighty tone that had been taken with them now that they'd backed down and conceded the day.

"Sir, Colonial ground forces are being ordered to disengage," the sensor station called out.

"Excellent," Ellis chuckled, looking out at the ships of the Colonial fleet which were still facing his own.

The battlestar was in the middle, facing off with its smaller Earth counter-part. If it weren't for the beam weapons and shields Ellis wasn't so sure his ship could handle a slugging match with such a monster. He was however glad for one thing that was not a weapon and yet was the most powerful tool today. His note was the key difference in him having to engage these people and them backing down. Thankfully for all parties however the Colonials had flinched. There would be no war today.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking what did you tell them on that note?" one of his officers asked.

Ellis just smiled and looked at the man.

"I wrote; 'This could be a nuke'."

Terra Nova, Terra Nova University

It was well past sunset at the large university campus when an unarmed Wolverine L-ATV parked out in front of one of the dorm's parking lots. The campus was loud, parties were being had all along the beach as music thundered out loud enough to be heard across the strait at the larger military-owned island it had just come from.

Commanding this vehicle was Staff Sergeant Jason Hanson, now in fresh fatigues with only a pistol and a privately owned switch blade as his weapons. It was very different from the armor and full combat loadout he'd on a few hours ago in the deep caves of Terra Nova, where he and his young female passenger had just arrived from. Alongside him was a member of his squad, Corporal Lily MacFierce. She was driving the vehicle in her usual place, which greatly weirded out her civilian passenger.

Jason and Hannah had been rushed out of the caves and the underground facility fully secured by military intelligence. From there they'd received proper medical treatment for a few scrapes and bruises and some mild dehydration. After a period of a few hours once blood work was completed both had been debriefed and hurriedly signed two non-disclosure agreements. Hannah hadn't expected to be treated this way, her own expectations had dictated that she be cooped up and interrogated thoroughly by men in black suits. But that's not at all what happened, as her experiences hadn't been deemed that great of a security risk and they had been in that facility for all of a few hours and hadn't seen much at all. So, after twelve hours of being gone from campus Hannah was back, escorted by Jason himself, who'd been assigned to do so as she was still his responsibility as her military escort.

"Here we are," he said calmly as they pulled up.

Many different students within sight of the vehicle slowed their pace or just openly stopped at the sight of a EDF Wolverine on campus. This hardly ever happened and it was worth observing.

"Th-thanks," she said calmly as she went to open the door and got out with her backpack in hand.

Her clothes were clean now after being covered in mud and sweat and some cave spider blood, but they were now clean, dry, and sanitary thanks to the EDF sanitizing sprays and radiation treatments they received shortly before being returned to her after her debriefing. As she got to the ground from the high vehicle she saw that Jason was right behind her in getting out of the vehicle.

"Hold on," he said with a grin, and pulled out his phone, "Never got your number."

"What?" she asked, and then remembered, "Oh yeah!"

"You did say you were free tomorrow," Jason chuckled, and held up a piece of paper, "And this three-day pass says I'm free for three days."

"I did, didn't I?" she said with a laugh, "here, I'll put it in."

Taking the phone she quickly typed in her number and then handed it back to him.

"Hope you like seafood Texas boy," she called out to him as she turned around and went back to her dorm and waved goodbye.

Jason couldn't help but beam in pride at getting a date with her with so many people watching and hopped in where a smile was plastered on the face of his driver.

"Well…" she cat-called smoothly, "Very nice…"

"I've got a sushi date and a three-day pass. This EDF thing is shaping up," he laughed once he buckled up and the vehicle started moving out.

"Sushi?" MacFierce laughed, "But you can't stand fish."

"I do tomorrow."

Isn't that the truth guys? The things we do for girls.

Alright that's that. Sorry for the delay guys but school's back in session, and I've got a concerted effort being put into my original fic, Warriors of the Arctic. I'll be posting the story in a few hours on Fiction Press, this site's sister version for original stories. My pen name there is the same as it is here so it should be easy to find.

Back to this. As usual, hope you guys enjoyed, leave any thoughts, suggestions, or whatever in a review and I'll get back to you when I can to address anything you want addressed.

Next Chapter Preview: SG-1 meets Recon One.