Chapter 14 - A typical SG1 SNAFU
"I landed on Earth on February 17th, 2020. Jack's inauguration day was February 20th, and I got myself a visit to some previously unknown planet for 48hs," Sam huffed.
"48hs," Malcolm frowned. "That would bring you back to Earth exactly for the 20th."
"Well, no," Jack grinned. "Exactly for lunch on the 20th adding the briefings and all," he shrugged
2020
As the Deep Space Radar Telemetry facility that it is, the Cheyenne Mountain complex has a steady group of people coming in and out of there and the utmost weird times. However, this group of officers had never seen someone passing the first gate control with little but a blink of an eye.
The person in question was a bike rider, which at the first checkpoint, just passed and id and lifted the eye protection out of the helmet. The guard didn't have much more time than to read the name on it before the gates opened.
The officers who were entering the complex in a car weren't happy about the quick way the biker accessed. Not when they had to go through a full car inspection adding to the previous 15 minutes that took to check their IDs.
On the second checkpoint, the thing got even worse. The biker only flashed the id, and the guards lifted the security bar, flashing huge enamored smiles to the biker.
The officers in the car found a spot right next to where the rider had left the bike. It was evident that it was a female, and as she made her way to the entrance, the group couldn't help but admire her. Not everyday hot blondes in tight jeans strolled into the bowels of the mountain.
They almost ran to the entrance to take a glimpse and try to learn the name. When they got in, she was nowhere to be seen.
"Hey Johnson, what's up with the blonde who was coming here?"
"Went to the Bathroom," the airman grinned.
"So… who is she?"
"If you don't know, I ain't the one to tell you who she is," the airman said, looking up and spotting her. Sam heard him and gave him a satisfied smile.
"Thanks, Brent. How's Gina? And the kids?"
"Excellent, Ge..." he was about to say, but she shook her head quickly. "ez, Sam! They are good. It's been a long while since we last saw you. Can you sign this for me, please?"
"Of course, Brent. I'll need the other one too," she said.
Airman Brent Johnson handed her another bunch of papers, smiling dumbly at her before he checked the foursome that waited in line. Sam was finishing singing the documents when she was reminded that every group has an ass.
"So, someone will have fun today? How much do you get? Is it like cash or something else?" Major Starring said, looking up and down to the woman. Johnson looked at Sam with widened, scared eyes, but she shook her head and ignored him.
"Starring! Can't you stop yourself? Sorry, ma'am, he can become an ass when he spots a hot girl, and you look great," a male of the group said apologetically.
"Geez, guys, if you finished making a fool out of yourselves, we better go in," said a young Captain, she was wearing a lovely shade of crimson red on the face.
"Can you hold the elevator for me?" Sam grinned, her clear voice filling the space while she looked not bothered at all by their comments.
Johnson, who worked at Cheyenne long enough to know Sam since her days as Captain, knew the woman was not only the former SGC Commander and former HWS CO, but that she was the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He looked curiously at her, and the moment she winked at him, he knew she was planning something, and hoped he could find out what it was from the guys at the low-level checkpoint.
The group moved down following the white stripe on the floor and waited for the elevator to get to them. By the time it got to the main floor, the foursome plus Sam squished themselves into the cart.
"Ma'am?" One of them asked.
"Sub-level 11, please."
After saying that, she could hear them whispering about how a civilian could go down so quickly inside a supposedly super-secret facility. So when the doors finally opened, she was about to kill someone… and it wasn't a first on that day. If she didn't ride to Cheyenne, she would have done it already.
At the checkpoint there, the officers fought themselves to keep straight faces when looking at the group. But when they got a glimpse of her, smiles blossomed out of nowhere.
"Ge...ez, Sam!" both guards, said changing fast when she said no with her head.
"How long are you going to be here, Sam?" One asked as he presented her with more papers.
"I'll here for some hours, and then back home. Did he let you know I was coming?" she asked, with a big smile on her face.
"Yes, ma'am. I know someone already got your room set for you. Should we let him know you are here?"
"Nah, I'll find him. Don't worry," Sam winked at them.
"See! I was right; she is someone's whore," one guy whispered.
She gave them a sweet smile at the guards and headed to the second shaft. The group was behind her soon, and once again, they squished inside; this time, they asked her for the sublevel 22, so she snorted. It was clear they were going to the commissary, and as she marked the sublevel 25, they gasped. Twenty-five housed the room of few people; the Jaffa Teal'c, General Mitchell, and a couple more reserved rooms, not even one of them associated with a woman. Or so they thought.
2050
"It was a funny briefing though, I just came off a babysitting mission, and someone would take a babysitting mission now with me as 'the baby'"
2020
After a quick stop in her room to get into a sweet and not skin tight BDU's, Sam saved her badges in one pocket and went to find Mitchell.
"Cam," she said, entering General Mitchell's Office. He stood up and saluted her, and she just laughed, "oh, come on, Cam."
"Sam, it's good to see you," he embraced her as he usually would, "I thought at least would make you smile. Are you still mad? "
"Kind of, but not at you… it's just the situation. I mean, we are supposed to be there for his Inauguration day. You know, being one of his closest friends and all. Teal'c is there, and I'm here and going out," she whined.
"Should I tell you I never saw a General whine before?" Cam grinned.
"I am not whining," she said.
"Yeah, sure."
"I'm not," she added firmly, he just smiled, "Oh, come on, what's the situation?"
"Your babysitters should be here in 1 hour." She grimaced, "Hey! Don't kill the messenger. It is the protocol, and you know that! Besides, can you imagine what would happen if the current Chairman of the Joint Chief gets lost under my watch?" She rolled her eyes.
"I'm sure they will find a replacement for me, Cam. I know it is the protocol; it doesn't mean I have to like it. Don't worry. I'll be there. I'm sure Siler and Harriman will love to see me and will find me a computer soon enough," she grinned.
"Don't you want to know more about the situation?"
"I will. I assume I have the previous mission report sitting on my email?"
"Oh, crap! Yes… that you do," she laughed and left the room, leaving a frantically typing Cam behind. Sam made her way down to the control room, and 45 minutes later, with a computer in one hand and a cup of coffee on the other, she sat comfortably at the far end of the table, enjoying her last minutes of solitude for the foreseeable future.
Loud voices came from the corridor, and she sighed; just her luck that the team in charge of babysitting her, was the one she encountered earlier.
"Ma'am? Are you lost?" She looked up to Captain Harris, according to his badges.
"Are you?" she smiled, raising a brow.
"Ma'am, with all due respect, you can't be here," Major Starring informed her.
"Now you remember something about respect, it's nice to see they still teach it to the Officers," she rolled her eyes.
"Do you know that impersonating an officer can be punished, ma'am?" Major Samuelson said to her, and Sam looked at her disbelievingly.
A quick assessment told Sam that the woman was with SG21, and that was a diplomatic team. The naïve look and the way she stood, said much more, Sam tilted her head, noticing that said woman had never seen combat up close.
"You seem to keen on prejudices to be part of a Diplomatic team, Major. And answering your question, yes, I know full well what impersonating someone could do. The real question is, do you?"
"Sam? Is everything okay?" Mitchell asked, entering the room. Immediately, the team straightened and saluted him, while Sam remained seated in her chair.
"Peachy! Just peachy," she huffed. "SG-12 and SG-21. I presume?" She asked. Cam nodded, and to end their exchange, she sighed. "Welcome to babysitting 101 introductions. I'll be joining your teams on this lovely 48hs ride," she said sarcastically.
"Sorry, ma'am? I thought General Carter was joining us? According to the mission report, he is the one they are waiting for," one young Captain said. Sam raised her eyebrow and didn't look amused.
"Let's play pretend he is here," she said with a smile and looked at Cam as if daring him to call her bluff. "Don't worry; HE knows the drill, any chance we can start now, General?" Cam smiled and shook his head before the lights went out.
"A month ago, SG-2 scheduled trip was to X8P3JL …"
2050
"But they knew who you were; I take reputation precedes you?"
"They learned who I was in the embarkation room; two minutes before we left."
2020
At the embarkation room, SG21 and SG12 waited for 'Blondie' and the General to appear and point the start of the 48hs. SG-18 joined them for gatekeeping purposes. Sam finished doing a last check-up of the systems, grinned at the technicians, took a deep breath, and nodded to Cam, and then she joined all the teams down at the embarkation room.
"Good Luck, SG21, SG12, SG18," and then with a smile added, "and SG1." Sam turned to the control room, smiling at Cam before she placed her attention back at the gate process.
"Sir? What about General Carter? Is he late?" One member of SG12 asked Cam.
"Uhm, General Carter is down there," Harriman answered, pointing to Sam, who was attaching her SG-1 badge and her name badge to her BDU.
"Sam?" Mitchell's voice cut the silence.
"Well, more than the ten minutes walk to my room to get the brown wig," she said, pointing to her head. "I have been here the whole time. I guess they jumped to the wrong conclusions," she shrugged; now that her badges were all in place, three teams stood firmly, and she walked in front of them. The wormhole engaged then.
"Congratulations, kids, you failed lesson one," Sam grimaced. The members of the three teams exchanged confused glances.
"Lesson 1?" Mitchell asked, "I thought that was ingrained into them already."
"Cam, if this is 'ingrained' then I hope this isn't a SNAFU SG-1 mission," she said and went through the wormhole
"What's lesson 1?" Samuelson asked. All personnel in the embarkation room answered her in unison: "Never judge a book by its cover."
"Should I even bother to ask what SNAFU is?" whispered Richards, the only civilian of the team; before she disappeared through, she heard someone said the answer, and she gasped.
2050
"I served under a Lieutenant Colonel Harris some time ago," Terran said, "He said there was one mission of his career which marked him as an officer. It was his first babysitting mission; he was supposed to lead the Security team to protect a renowned General, and at the end, he ended up learning a thing or two about being a good Commanding Officer," Jack smiled at this and Sam blushed. "That General was my mom."
"So something happened?" Malcolm asked.
"Well, sometimes we came closer to believe that SNAFU was a synonym of SG-1."
2020
"SG-18 gatekeeping duties. SG-12 take the back; SG-21, take the middle, I'm taking point. According to the provided Intel, we need to walk ten clicks before we get to them, so let's get going," Sam ordered quickly.
As they walked, Sam made a note to check what was going on at the SGC training facility. The two teams were chatting and rather loudly. It surprised her when they stopped talking as soon as the edges of civilization appeared.
With no words, they walked into the city which looked like a modern old Rome, and to the main temple like structure which was pointed as the Senate building by SG-2 reports. Before they could enter, two guards stopped them.
"Weaponry of any sort is forbidden inside. Leave it here if you want to enter," Sam nodded and unclipped her bag.
"Shouldn't we oppose to this?" Starring asked
"No, you wouldn't be able to bring any weaponry to the Senate at DC either. Just surrender your weapons," Richards said.
Soon everyone unclipped their bags and zats and gave them to the Guards. A sigh coming from the General made them turn on her direction.
Her bag, P-90, and zat were already in the hands of the guard. She presented him a second zat, then she reached her back and took out a knife that was hidden in her belt, then lifted her leg, and out of her boot, she took another knife. She opened her BDU jacket, and apart from the nice view, she gave the guard six shuriken's that hung on the insides of her coat and a 9mm pistol; she fished her leg pockets for a couple of magazines and took a step inside.
Sam was about to step further in before she remembered something and returned to the guard. Taking a small blade out of her sports bra and a swiss knife out of her top pocket, she smiled at the guard, and he smiled back.
"I guess at least one of you knows its way around the Galaxy," the guard said to the group looking at Sam appreciatively.
"I have some experience," the now brunette say before disappearing inside.
The room looked like an amphitheater; the center was more transparent and was covered by some translucent ceiling. On the back of the chamber, twenty-four white-eyed humanoids looked their every movement.
"Tau'ri's," one said.
"I'm General ..."
"We asked for Sam Carter, SG-1."
"I am General Samantha 'Sam' Carter," she said confidently.
And that caused the debacle; she saw a couple of guys launching themselves at her. She kicked and hit them; she got a hold of the metal staff that one of them was holding. Her attackers were on the floor, all 10 of them knocked out.
"Well done, 'Sam Carter,'" one humanoid said.
"I guess all that training with Teal'c and Ish'ta paid off," she smiled graciously.
"Yet, you should consider surrendering yourself," another said, pointing behind her.
She turned around, and she regretted the protocol once again. All the eight members of SG12 and SG21 were being held by two guards each. The only free human was her.
"Only if you let them go."
"Will do, once you have proved yourself."
The last thing SG-12 and SG-21 heard Sam say was 'oh crap,' before she surrendered in front of two men that quickly restrained her hands, and when they saw their charge being escorted out of the room.