Sam leaned her head back in the seat, took a breath to clear her head and switched off the ship-to-ship comm.
"You do that again and you'll fry the inertial dampers and we'll both black out," she said.
His reply was short. "Everything still online?"
Sam checked the array of lights and switches in front of her. All green and go.
"Yes," she answered.
There was a pause, a heartbeat of silence broken only by the sound of their breathing. Jack set the 302 up for another strafing run at an enemy ship. Sam took the shot and Jack deftly ducked the debris, wrenching the stabilizers in opposite directions to spin them out of the way.
When he spoke his voice was gruff and tinted with concern. "You okay?"
"Yes," she answered again.
There was another pause, then he said, "You are a rock. My rock. You know that. Right?"
He had turned his head slightly when he spoke and she could see the shadowed planes of his ruggedly beautiful face. Sam swallowed the sudden tightness in her throat. Jack rarely let his guard down and when he did it was in the abrupt, offhand way he had just used.
He was such a guy sometimes – all right, all the time. She had always somehow thought that would make him arrogant and thoughtless in bed, lost in his own virility and driven by it. But he wasn't. He was attentive, utterly focused on her, his own pleasure sometimes an afterthought - and she loved that about him.
And damn the man could fly. He flew as if he was a part of the ship, locked in like one its integral systems. He flew like he did this every day; not like he had been walking his missions for the last eight years and now flew a desk.
"Jack, there's two on our six!"
"I see them."
An enemy fighter was right behind them and gaining. Jack banked hard to starboard and flipped them upside down and back towards Prometheus. He streaked towards the 304 with weapons fire ripping past them, barely missing.
"Sir!"
"Hold fire!" Jack ordered.
Sam understood. What he was doing required a precision that couldn't be tampered with. Firing from the 302 right now was a very bad idea.
He waited until they were nearly on top of the Prometheus and then waited a second longer. They were so close now that Sam swore she would see personnel inside the Prometheus through the windows. The ship's designation – painted high on its side – loomed before them like a wall. Jack hit the reverse thrusters, dove and banked starboard again.
The 302 nearly stalled, dropping like a stone for a gut-wrenching moment before Jack got it leveled out. The closest enemy fighter had no time to respond to the maneuver and it rocketed over them into the side of the Prometheus, exploding against the shields in a brief flare of fire and sparkling metal parts.
"Take the other one!" Jack shouted.
Engaging the forward thrusters, Jack wheeled the ship around and raced along the top of the Prometheus, darting from side to side and letting the bigger ships shields absorb the weapons fire. When he reached the tail of the ship he pulled up into a steep skyward climb. As they broke away Sam blasted the other fighter into very small hot pieces.
He set her up for another strafing run and shot between two enemy fighters with only a handful of air molecules between them. They were so taken by surprise that the few shots they got off were ineffective. A moment later there was a brilliant double flash and they were out of the fight for good, thanks to Sam's hand on weapons' control.
Jack abruptly tipped the fighter on its starboard side. Three sizzling blades of energy shot by the 302 a hairs' breadth away, one nearly taking their portside engine. He dropped the 302 into a series of stomach-twisting spirals as withering patterns of overlapping weapons fire lit up the air they had just vacated. The fighters following them vanished in a blast of fire from the Uhane.
Damn, Sam thought, the man could fly.
"Sam?"
"Yes," she answered as she gave her inner ear a stern mental dressing down. This was really not a good time to get dizzy. "I'm okay. Ummm, where are we going?"
For the first time she noticed that Jack now had them on a trajectory that would take them back out into space. They were screaming towards the void.
"We get out there will you recognize the ship that attacked us – this Makani?"
She hated it when he started answering her questions with his own questions. It meant she wasn't going to even get a clue what he was thinking.
"Yes."
"Is it the same class as the ship you toured the other day?"
"Kekao-class heavy cruiser. Yes."
"Do you remember how to get to the Bridge?"
"They didn't show us the Bridge."
"That's not what I asked, Colonel."
"Yes I can get to the Bridge."
"Good."
"So where are we going?"
"Hang on."
"Jack!" She protested.
"Welcome to Special Forces, Colonel," said Brigadier General Jack O'Neill.
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