I know, I don't post anything for months and then two posts come along in two days. Blame it on the global conspiracy to stop my having a lie in, some genius decided to dig up the road outside my house at eight o'clock this morning! So, once again I've put my efforts into writing, I've pretty quickly managed to olish off a chapter of this. I got back into it a lot easier than I thought I would, especially as this is the first chapter I've posted of it for over a year (has it really been that long? Time really flies, huh?). Hopefully it won't be as long before the next chapter, if I went about it that way, I would finish this story by the time I'm ready to draw a pension!
Once again, this is totally unbetaed, please forgive me any mistakes.
Anyway, I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!
This action finally encouraged Daniel to act, he swung a fist around and caught Jack square in the jaw. It was not an action of aggression, more self defence as Jack began to attack him. Even after Daniel's punch had landed, Jack continued his attack.
Sam went to try and pull the two men apart, instead of resolving the conflict she ended up becoming embroiled in the fight. Of the three of them, none of them actually knew who they were hitting and none of them knew why they were fighting anymore.
It was only when five SF's ran into the room that the fight ended, it took two men to keep Jack away from the others, while Sam and Daniel were each being restrained by an SF. The fifth man and the most senior of them surveyed the scene for a moment. Three of the most senior and respected members of the SGC were being restrained, with the second in charge of the base still struggling to attack his team mates.
After surveying the scene for a moment, he quickly realised that this was a situation which was totally out of his realm of understanding. He quickly called for a medical team and General Hammond, as well a back up.
Everyone was there quickly, Janet took one look at the situation and immediately ordered all three of them to be sedated, they all fought it, particularly Jack. Eventually though, they all succumbed to calming effects of the sedative.
"I want all three of them secured, separately," Janet ordered.
Three gurneys were brought and took them away to holding cells, each flanked by two SF's, their guns out and the safeties off.
"What are we going to do Doctor? The EMP didn't do anything," Hammond asked.
"I can't quite believe I'm suggesting this but what if they went back?"
"I'm not sure that's a good idea."
"I don't know what else to suggest, the only other options as far as I see it are to either lock them up on their own for the rest of their lives or to operate on their brains and try and remove the implant without killing them. I don't like either option."
"Maybe you are right. We need to get this matter resolved Doctor."
"I agree Sir. They shouldn't come round for a while and it's going to be hours before they're in any state to go off world in any case."
"That leaves us some time to come up with some other options in that case," Hammond said finally, it was clear that he was still unconvinced that sending SG-1 off world in their current state was a bad idea
In the end no one could come up with any other suggestion for what to do with SG1 and Dr Fraiser managed to convince Hammond that allowing them to go back was best and only solution to try and resolve the situation but he attached a list of provisos including SG1 going unarmed and with SG 2 and 3 for backup.
Once Hammond had made his decision he went down to the holding rooms were SG1 were secured. He found Jack stretched out on the small bed, he was noticeably subdued once again, whether it was from the sedative or because of what had happened recently Hammond couldn't tell.
"What are you going to do with us Sir?" Jack asked, without looking up.
"I've decided that SG1 are going are going back to P2X-739."
Jack swung his legs off the bed and sat up quickly. He looked closely at Hammond and realised that he wasn't joking.
"Really, Sir?"
"Yes. You go unarmed and with SG 2 and 3, who will be armed. I'm sorry Colonel but Major Griff will be ranking officer on the mission, what he says, goes. And I know you have no control over your behaviour but you need to be aware that if it comes to it, I'm giving SG 2 and 3 permission to shoot to kill."
Jack nodded soberly, he knew that the General wasn't talking about Alamagor or Malatesar.
"They will have zats though, right?"
"Yes Colonel."
"That's mildly reassuring, only mildly. When do we ship out."
"In an hour. Get your team prepared, Colonel."
"Yes, Sir," he replied, with more buoyancy than he had shown previously.
Hammond relayed the same message to both Carter and Daniel, who took the news in much the same way that O'Neill had.
Within the hour SG-1 were geared up and ready to go, they stood waiting in the gate room, still flanked by their usual guards, waiting for their back up. SG 2 and 3, along with Teal'c entered the gate room, they were all armed, Teal'c with his staff weapon.
Jack noted that they were all carrying zat guns as their side arms with a mixture of relief and unease that the situation had come to this. It felt strange to Jack to be going off world without being armed, he barely went anywhere without a gun close to hand, let alone to a potentially hostile planet.
He did, however accept the need to return to P2X-739 and he realised that it was the only way he was going to be allowed off-world. He was trying not to get his hopes up but he saw this has his only chance to get this sorted out, if they couldn't reach a resolution, if they couldn't sort this out then there was a chance he would never go off world again, there was a chance he would never leave the base again.
There was something that seemed to be drawing him back to the planet, it wasn't a compulsion he could not fight but there was something there, in the back of his mind, which just wouldn't go away. He knew going back was the right thing, which is why he had been fighting to be allowed off world for so long.
Sam was waiting at the bottom of the ramp, she was shuffling nervously. She had barely been so nervous about a trip through the gate since her first mission to Abydos. She knew she was being irrational, she had been on countless numbers of missions which were considerably more dangerous than this one but although she too felt a pull towards P2X-739 she felt some definite concerns about the mission.
Maybe it was something to do with the situation that this mission had come about or maybe it had something to do with the fact that her friends, the people she served with on SG 2 and 3 were under orders to kill them if necessary. That didn't sit well with her and she knew that it wasn't sitting well with Daniel or O'Neill.
The MALP was sent through the gate ahead of them, the area around the gate was clear and so Hammond ordered them to deploy. SG-2 went first, scanning the area before sending a message back that it was safe to proceed. SG-1 came through next, with Teal'c, followed by SG-3.
As SG-1 arrived they saw that SG-2 were scanning the tree line for any threat, they quickly moved towards the trees as there was no sign of anything threatening. They moved quickly across the terrain, lead by Major Griff. He was leading in the general direction of where SG-1 had been discovered on the original mission.
It didn't take them long to find the compound again, despite the indirect route they had taken both from and to the compound. Although they found the compound easily enough, getting in was another matter.
The exit that had been so easy to find from inside was alluding them from the outside, there seemed to be no markings on the walls, no doors, no windows. It was made up of countless panels, which were all identical, there were no distinguishing marks that they could see anywhere.
"Colonel? Do you know where the door is?"
"Can't say I do. Carter, Daniel, any suggestions?"
"No, Sir," Carter said, apologetically.
"It was around here somewhere," Daniel offered.
"Anything more specific than that Daniel?" Jack asked, with definite exasperation in his voice.
"I think I remember seeing that tree when we came out of the building," he said, pointing at the edge of the forest.
Jack looked at where he was pointing, the tree he was indicating looked, to him, just like every other tree on the planet and in the universe.
"That tree, you remember that particular tree?" Jack asked shortly.
"It does look different to others before you get snippy with me."
"Snippy, I'm getting snippy. At least I'm not being flaky."
"Flaky?"
"You just said that you recognised a TREE," Jack said, clearly losing his patience.
"Colonel, this isn't getting us anywhere" Griff shouted, putting himself between O'Neill and Daniel, who had slowly been getting closer to each other.
Jack turned his back on everyone else and walked a few paces away from the group. After a few seconds he turned back.
"We need to get this sorted out and quickly," Daniel observed, rubbing his head slightly.
"Daniel?" Griff asked with concern as an expression of pain appeared on his face.
"Just a bit of a headache is all," he replied offhandedly.
"Colonel, Major, you feeling okay? Any headache?"
"Not really," Jack replied quickly.
"Maybe a little," Sam replied. She turned to O'Neill and raised an eyebrow at him.
"Fine, I have a slight headache. Happy?"
"And this has just come on?" Griff asked.
"Yeah, while we've been standing here."
"Maybe we should go back to the SGC," Griff suggested.
"We're staying here. We need to sort this out."
"I'm sorry Sir but General Hammond made me ranking officer here. If you're all having headaches then you really should be looked at by Dr Fraiser. Let's head back to the gate," he ordered the group, before turning towards the forest and starting to head off.
"Come on Major, we need to be here," Daniel pleaded.
Griff turned back as though to make another order when the argument was quickly settled.
A door had opened in the wall of the compound while they had been discussing whether to stay. Standing there was Alamagor, Malatesar and fifteen armed men.
So what do you think of my return to this story? Review and let me know!