The Tegan Chronicles

Thicker than Blood 3

"General Hammond will see you now."

Tegan stepped into the doorway.

"What can I do for you Major?" General Hammond looked up shocked to see her in her basic blues including a skirt and not her normal BDUs. Not to mention the fact that she was standing there saluting him. He loosely saluted and pointed to the empty chair facing his desk.

Tegan closed the door and crossed the small space. Instead of sitting she removed her prosthetic arm which held a sealed envelope in its grasp and laid it on the desk.

"What's the meaning of this?"

"It's a request to resign my commission sir."

"Does this have anything to do with my assigning SG3 to the mission?"

"No sir." She'd anticipated the question.

"Then what? Why resign?"

"Just trying to beat the military to the punch, sir."

"Elaborate." He pointed to the empty chair.

"I'd rather resign then be medically discharged sir." She sat, carefully crossing her thin legs.

"I don't fore see that happening."

"You won't let SG1 go after Nirrti, and you send me off on some test mission to get me back in the saddle." She didn't ask permission to speak freely, at this point she didn't care.

"You just told me this didn't have anything to do with that, and my not sending SG1 on that mission has nothing to do with your abilities."

She stared quietly knowing he wouldn't share his rationale, or rather that it hadn't changed from the previous afternoon. She used his silence on the matter to justify her own reasoning.

"I think you need to take some time off Major. You've got over sixty days of leave accumulated, maybe you should take a few weeks. Go somewhere. Get away. Clear your mind."

"I don't need to clear my mind, sir." She grumbled.

"You're sure?"

Tegan nodded.

"This is what you want? You're positive?"

"One hundred percent sir."

He plucked the envelope from the fingers of the bio-mechanical fingers and without opening it fed it neatly into his shredder. "Request denied, return to your post Major Kiser."

"Sir." She protested, her chair sliding back as she stood.

"We've been over this once before, and 'they' haven't changed their stance and neither have I. So unless you want to reconsider that vacation, I suggest you return to work."

She sighed and picked up her prosthetic. Without a word she marched out of his office.

"Looking sharp today." Jack commented as she passed him and Daniel in the hall. When she continued on her way he turned to Daniel. "Did she just growl at me?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "I believe she did."

"Was it something I said?"

Daniel shrugged again.

"Hey Doc." Jack found her just after she'd finished a physical in the infirmary.

"Yes Colonel?" She turned to face him.

"What's up with Kiser?"

"What do you mean?" She asked for clarification.

"She just growled at me in the hall."

"Oh?" Her brow furrowed. "I don't know."

"Yes you do." He called her bluff.

"You would have to ask her Colonel, I really can't speak for her."

"Mmmmhmmm." He turned to leave and almost ran right into Sam who was coming in. "Carter."

"Colonel." She smiled. "General Hammond's looking for you."

"Bet he didn't think to look here." He looked over at Janet who pretended to be absorbed in her work. "Guess I should go see what he wants."

"What was he doing here?" Sam mumbled to herself as she shook her head.

"You wanted to see me sir?"

"Come on in Jack. Have a seat."

Jack closed the door and dropped unceremoniously into the chair. "Does this have to do with Major Kiser?"

"How'd you know?"

"I saw her in the hall a little while ago and she seemed off." He sat up straight now, all business. "You're not thinking of having her discharged are you?"

"No, your mission report didn't give me any indication to think I should even consider it." He paused. "Unless there's something you left out."

"No sir." Except how Tegan had bitched about the mission being farce.

"Good."

The room fell silent for several minutes, finally General Hammond pulled a file from the stack on his desk. He turned it around and offered it to Jack. "It's your next mission, SG1 is jumping tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Jack scanned the single sheet of paper in the file. Nothing jumped out at him as urgent. "You're not sending another team out first?"

"Is she up to task or not Jack?"

"She is, I just don't see why this is so important to send us right back out." He pointed to the file.

"Because she wants to quit Jack, and if the wrong person catches wind McKenzie just mind find some strings to start pulling."

"I thought we had that in the bag."

"The review board has no intention of letting her go, she's too valuable to the military."

"Yeah." Jack thought back to how he was pulled out of retirement because of the Stargate Project.

"Another boring mission." Tegan commented as she kicked a rock. They'd traveled about a mile from the gate. "How far out did the team search this time?"

"They didn't." Jack adjusted his army green baseball cap.

"Bullshit." Tegan grumbled.

Jack turned and stepped into her space, his nose only a few millimeters from hers.

"Do you have a problem Major?" He barked.

She felt like she was in boot camp with a drill Sergeant riding her. "This is crap sir, going behind another SG team just so we can pretend we were on a real mission."

"I told you no one's been on this planet yet, so you'd better drop whatever shit you're carrying on your back before I have you reassigned."

"Scrubbing toilets in Antarctica?"

"Try a communications outpost in Turkey, isolated tour."

Everyone knew the conditions there were bad. They wanted the US military there about as much as most people wanted to be stationed there. You had to check your windowsills for homemade bombs every night.