Chapter 1
"I'm sorry, General. Could you repeat that? I could have sworn you just said that the newest member of my team was named 'Buffy.'"
General Hammond's eyes narrowed but Colonel Jack O'Neill could see the smile the General tried to hide behind his raised hand.
"You heard correctly, Jack," Hammond said, handing his second-in-command a slim file folder with the few details he'd been given about the new addition. "Buffy Summers. She's a civilian, but holds the honorary rank of captain despite her youth. She's the president's personal pick."
Jack didn't pick up the file, but instead pressed his pointer finger against it to drag the file around Hammond's polished desk in a spiral. "I see," he drawled in a tone that most generals would consider insolent. "And what skills, exactly, does Buffy Summers bring to the table?"
Hammond coughed. "I'm not entirely clear on that myself, son," he said. "According to President Hayes, Ms. Summers is an incredible fighter, a brilliant tactician, and—I'm quoting here—'the greatest hero the Earth has ever known.'" Hammond looked embarrassed by the overdone praise.
"Uh-huh," Jack said. He paused. "Did you tell him about the time when we blew up Apophis's mother ships as they were about to attack Earth? Because I think that earns us the 'greatest hero' title."
Hammond spread his palms, his expression making it clear that he agreed. "I have my orders, Colonel. My hands are tied. Certain people in the Pentagon are unimpressed by how long it's taking you to find a replacement for Dr. Jackson. For God's sake, Jack, you've gone through seven of the world's brightest already and no one's been good enough for you."
Jack's normally cheerful face was closed. "Daniel was irreplaceable," he said stonily.
Hammond closed his eyes. "I know, son," he said softly. There was a moment of silence, one of many tributes paid to the fallen archeologist. "Listen, Jack. We don't have a choice here. This comes directly from the president. He asked Ms. Summers to do this, and is paying for her relocation to Colorado Springs. She arrived in town a few days ago, from what I understand."
Jack swept the file under his arm, standing. "You do know that I'm going to boot her after one mission, don't you sir?" he said. "That is, if I still have command over SG-1." His brown eyes were challenging.
Hammond smiled. "Give her a chance, Jack. Maybe she'll surprise us all."
"Buffy? That's her name, sir?" Despite himself, Jack was amused by the astonishment in Major Samantha Carter's voice. She seemed to be choking on her jello.
"That's right, Carter. Buffy." Jack took a large bite out of his sandwich.
"Should you not call Buffy Summers by her surname, O'Neill?" Both Air Force officers looked at the last member of their team, Teal'c, who raised his eyebrow unconcernedly.
"Are you kidding, T?" Jack said. "And miss the opportunity to call her…'Buffy'?"
"Sir," Carter said, "maybe Teal'c is right. We don't want Buf—Summers to feel like we're laughing at her."
He blinked. "But we are laughing at her, Carter. Or maybe at her parents, for naming her that. The point is, we don't want her on our team, right? I mean, can you imagine someone named Buffy striking fear into the hearts of the Goa'uld?"
"I once knew a Jaffa whose name was Raz'garn," Teal'c interjected.
Jack and Carter stared at each other, both trying not to look at the empty space across from Jack where Daniel should be sitting. He would have been able to explain the joke. If joke it was.
After an uncomfortable pause, Teal'c explained, "It means, 'one who bathes under waterfalls and dances in the summer breeze.' Nevertheless, he was a fearsome warrior, and those who mocked him often regretted it swiftly."
Carter smiled. "I think what Teal'c is saying, sir, is…maybe we should give her a chance. When's she coming, anyway?"
"Today."
"Today?"
"Yes, Carter, today! I think they didn't want to give me a chance to find a way to scare her away."
"Er, what time is she coming, sir?"
"1200," Jack said. "Why?"
"Uh, you do know that it's 1230, right Colonel?" she answered, staring at the clock on the wall behind him.
He blinked in the slow, deliberate way that meant he was trying to appear dumb. "Really?" he asked, his eyes dancing with faint humor. "You don't say. Well, I guess I'd better go find her, huh?"
"That won't be necessary, Colonel," he heard from behind him.
Knowing he'd been caught, Jack turned to find Hammond standing behind him, his arms crossed and an annoyed expression on his round face.
"Miss Summers has been waiting in the briefing room for thirty minutes," Hammond said. "Are you trying to piss off the president, Jack?"
"The president?" Carter said. "You didn't mention that, sir."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well…Don't suppose you want to come greet our guest, do ya Carter? Teal'c?"
"I'd like to meet her," Carter said.
"As would I," Teal'c intoned. "I would like to see whether this Buffy Summers is as impressive as Raz'Garn."
Jack led the way to the briefing room, his two teammates close behind. He paused outside the door, preparing himself. He didn't know what to expect. Some sort of 7'2" wonder woman?
"Sir? What are we waiting for?" Carter said.
"Just…preparing," Jack said, turning the handle and opening the door.
Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw inside. Except maybe reading the file that Hammond had given him several hours ago, of course.
Buffy Summers was barely over five feet tall—about the same height as Jennifer Hailey—with shoulder-length blonde hair. She was dressed in stylish yet affordable clothing that was certainly not appropriate for a military installation like this one, and she was staring through the briefing room window at the stargate.
For a moment Jack allowed himself to appreciate the familiar view—the massive gray ring with its arcane symbols that had come to mean purpose and home for him after his own life had fallen to pieces. He cleared his throat. "It's something, isn't it?"
She didn't spin around, which meant that either she had already known they were there, or she was very good at controlling her reactions. Either were a good sign. Instead she turned slowly.
He heard Carter let out a gasp when they got a glimpse of her face. She was lovely, with a pixyish face, except that she was also gaunt, her blue-green eyes shadowed as if by some terrible pain. She also couldn't be more than 21 years old. Barely more than a kid.
She shrugged, tossing a glance at the stargate again. "I've seen more impressive things," she said.
He raised an eyebrow. "Just wait'll you walk through it," he said. "It's a doozy."
She smiled faintly. "I'm sure."
He hesitated, then walked forward and extended his hand. "Jack O'Neill," he said.
She shook his hand, her grip exactly as firm as his. "Buffy Summers," she replied. Her voice was tired.
"Oh, I know," he grinned. "Buffy." Her return glare said that she was unimpressed.
"I'm Major Samantha Carter," Carter said, walking around him to shake the girl's hand.
"Nice to meet you," Buffy said.
"And I am Teal'c," Teal'c said, nodding gravely. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Buffy Summers."
Buffy nodded in return, but she seemed distracted, her eyes going unerringly to his stomach. "You're an alien, right? One of those…gaffers?"
Jack snorted a laugh. Sam looked away to hide a smile.
"I am a Jaffa of Chulak," Teal'c replied. "Formerly First Prime to the false god Apophis."
"Right," Buffy said. "Jaffa. That's what I said. I'm, uh, Buffy Summers. Of Sunnydale, California. Former fry cook."
"Care to tell me why the president insisted you join SG-1, Buffy?" Jack said, taking a seat at the conference table and leaning back in his chair. "Not that we don't always need more…fry cooks."
Her lips quirked as she sat as well, Teal'c and Carter following suit. "I guess he just likes my work," she said. "Trust me, this whole thing came as a surprise to me too."
"I believe that Colonel O'Neill is trying to ascertain what skills you are bringing to this team, Buffy Summers," Teal'c said.
"Daniel was a linguist and diplomat," Carter added, trying not to sound doubtful and failing. "Are you…either of those things?"
Buffy frowned. "I speak pretty good French, and a smattering of Ancient Latin, Greek, Sumerian, and a couple of other esoteric languages. I've been studying Goa'uld for the past few days, but it's going to be a while before I have a grasp of it—I'm really not a linguist. As for diplomat? I don't think anyone's ever called me 'diplomat.' I think 'antagonist' was the word used."
Carter coughed, remembering those exact words being applied to Colonel O'Neill back when the Asgard had chosen him to represent Earth in the Asgard-Goa'uld treaty negotiations.
"If that's true, then what good are you to us?" Jack demanded. "The three of us are fighters ourselves, and it's not like we kept Daniel around for his military expertise. How exactly are you supposed to replace him?" There was veiled hostility in his eyes.
Her own eyes blazed to life and she stood abruptly, surprisingly intimidating for one of her stature. "Listen to me very carefully," she said in a low, deadly voice that shouldn't have been possible in one so young. "I'm not here to replace anyone. There's a hole left in your team with Dr. Jackson's death, and I'm here to try to fill that hole as best I can, with the skills that I have. I'm not Dr. Jackson, and I never will be. But I'm loyal, dedicated, experienced, incredibly strong, and really, really someone you'd like to have on your side. I'll prove that to you in the field, or on the sparring mat. Your choice. You don't want me here? Tough. Hank—the president—does want me here, so deal with it. You're not getting rid of me without giving me a fair chance."
A muscle leapt in Jack's jaw as he stared back at her, their eyes locked, neither willing to back down. Finally Carter broke the silence. "We'll be able to get a glimpse of your skills during your qualification tests," she said, trying to cut the tension.
Buffy shook her head, never looking away from Jack. "I'm not doing any tests," she said. "Dr. Frasier has been provided with all of my hospital records, but due to some prior experience I've had with the military, the president—and a Major Davis—agreed that I don't have to prove my qualifications. I guess you're just going to have to see how I fare on our first mission together."
Steepling his fingers, Jack looked away at last, not liking this one bit. Everyone at the SGC went through training. No exceptions. Yet somehow, this little girl was being tossed straight into the field in her first week there? He muttered, "I guess so. Buffy."
"Would you like us to show you around the base?" Carter offered. "I know it can be pretty intimidating at first."
Buffy shook her head, all of the intensity gone from her so completely that he wondered whether he'd just imagined it. "Thanks for the offer, Major, but I really need to finish unpacking some boxes in my house. I want to get it into some semblance of order, since we're going off-world tomorrow."
"Call me Sam," Carter said with a smile. Jack suspected that Carter was just glad that one of the replacements they'd be trying out was female. She didn't often complain about the gender inequality on the team, but he was sure she felt it.
"Well, in that case, we'll leave you to your unpacking," Jack said. "Tomorrow should be… interesting."
Buffy nodded faintly before returning her gaze to the stargate, pensive.
SG-1—the original SG-1—wandered out of the briefing room and to Carter's lab.
"What do you think, sir?" Carter said.
"I dunno. What do you think, Teal'c?"
"It is difficult to believe that one so small could be an effective weapon in battle," Teal'c said stoically. "However, she spoke with great poise."
"Well, I'm worried this is some sort of NID plot to bring SG-1 down," Jack said. "I mean, for crying out loud, she's probably the youngest person on this base. Younger than those kids we put through training exercises, that's for sure. Carter, I want you to check her out. Find anything you can."
Carter bit her lip. "Yes, sir." She paused, waiting for the men to leave, only to realize that they were going to stay. Shaking her head with a sigh, she turned to her computer. "This could take a while, sir," she pointed out.
"We'll wait," Jack said, picking up a piece of very expensive, complicated equipment and fiddling with it.
Teal'c raised his eyebrow.
Thirty minutes later Carter said, "I've got it, sir."
"All right," he said, dropping the yo-yo that she kept in her office just to amuse him. "Let's hear it."
"Okay. Buffy Anne Summers. Buffy's really her first name," she said, forestalling the question he was about to ask. "21 years old. She's the guardian to a younger sister, Dawn. Mother is deceased, father absent. Burned down her high school gym when she was fifteen, then moved from LA to Sunnydale. Her grades were pretty bad in high school, and it looks like she was a bit of a troublemaker. A couple of hospitalizations." She blinked. "Woah. Accused of homicide when she was 17, but the charges were dropped. Her high school then exploded at graduation, killing the mayor, principal, and nearly a quarter of the students. She went to UC Sunnydale, where her grades improved dramatically, until she dropped out to take care of her dying mother." Her typing increased in pace. "Woah," she said again.
"What?" Jack said.
"In her first year at college, Buffy got a top level security clearance. As high as yours, sir."
"For what?"
She shrugged. "I don't know, sir. It's classified." She frowned. "Huh. There's one more weird thing."
"Cut the suspense, Carter. What is it?"
"Well, according to these records, Buffy was dead."
"Dead? As in…heart stopped, brought back with CPR, dead?"
"No sir. Dead as in, buried, her will executed, dead. Then suddenly she reappears four months later and reacquires guardianship of her sister. That was just a few months ago."
"That's not possible," Jack said.
"Here IRS file has a note to explain the inconsistency. The note just says, 'Sunnydale.'"
"Have we not seen people come back from the dead many times?" Teal'c said.
"Yeah, but this is different," Jack said. "It's not like she'd have access to sarcophaguses…sarcophagi." His brow furrowed as he tried to figure out which was the correct word.
"I can't explain it, sir," Carter said helplessly. "That's what her records show. If we want to know more, I suggest that we ask her."
SG-1, plus its newest member, prepared to embark through the stargate to a planet labeled PX4-822 the next morning. Jack couldn't fault Buffy's timing; she'd arrived in the gate room twenty minutes early, tugging uncomfortably at her BDUs and hefting a P90 that looked nearly as large as she was.
"You okay there, kid?" Jack said, half-expecting her to tip over at the weight of her weapons and pack.
She frowned at him, which only made her look cute. "What? You think I need more weapons?" she asked. From what he could see, in addition to the P90 and a sidearm she was carrying at least six knives, as well as what looked like a sharpened stick. Who knew what was in her pack.
"I just don't want you to fall over walking up the ramp to the gate," he said. "It'd make us look bad."
She huffed. "Let's arm wrestle when we get back," she said. "Then we'll see whether you're gonna insult my strength."
He grinned. "You're on. Buffy."
"$20 on Buffy," Carter called as she entered the gate room with Teal'c at her heels.
"Carter!" Jack whined, betrayed.
"Sorry, sir," she said unrepentantly.
"Well, Teal'c?" Jack said, turning an expectant eye on his Jaffa friend.
"Yes, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked, his face blank.
"Aren't you gonna bet on me?"
"Such a bet would seem unwise, O'Neill," Teal'c said. "Having not seen Buffy Summers in action, I do not feel prepared to judge her strength. Additionally, it would disrupt the unity of our team to place bets against our new member."
"Thank you, Teal'c," Buffy said, smiling faintly at the Jaffa.
"You are welcome, Buffy Summers."
"SG-1, you have a go," Hammond announced from the control room. "Remember, this is a simple meet and greet."
"Chevron one encoded," Sergeant Walter Harriman announced as the gate began to spin.
Buffy watched the device with interest.
"Chevron seven—locked!" Harriman announced as the gate finished dialing, an enormous wave of bluish light exploding from the center before subsiding into what looked like a glowing, vertical pool of water.
"Ladies first," Jack said, gesturing for Buffy to lead the way.
She snorted, hiking her pack up her back and climbing the ramp, stepping through the gate without hesitation. Jack and Carter exchanged a glance, then went after her.
"Godspeed, SG-1," Hammond murmured.
Jack came out on the other side to find that the planet was full of…trees. Lots and lots of trees.
"Oh, good," he said. "Trees."
No one reacted; he wished Daniel were there. Danny-boy had always been good for a childish back and forth about the annoyances of planetary flora.
With a disgruntled sigh, he shook his head. "I'll take point. Teal'c, you watch our six. Carter, Buffy—follow me."
They tromped through the woods for a couple of hours, Jack stopping to consult a compass occasionally. Buffy kept their pace with no complaint, which did impress him. A little. Most people didn't handle their first trip through the stargate so gracefully. Didn't keep him from wishing he knew a hell of a lot more about her, though. Despite the way he tended to act, he was very serious when it came to his job and he hated to be uninformed. When he'd complained to Hammond that he needed to know more about his new team member, though, the General had just said that his hands were tied but that he'd been told that Buffy would be incredibly valuable in a fight.
When he'd asked Buffy about it, she'd just looked at him with those haunted eyes and said that he'd have to see her in action to believe it, so why bother wasting both their time before that?
"Carter, how far away are we?"
"The UAV showed a settlement less than a mile from here, sir," Carter said.
There was a gradual incline as they continue to walk, until they reached the crest of the hill and the tree line of the forest. Jack felt the rest of his team come abreast to him as they looked down at a small village.
"Looks Nordic," Buffy said. "Check out the helmets."
It was true. The men were all wearing pointed helmets, reminiscent of those worn by the Vikings.
"I don't suppose you speak…Nordic?" Jack said.
"Um, just a bit," she replied. "A friend of mine is fluent, and she taught me a few phrases."
"So you'll communicate for us," he clarified.
"Well, I can say, 'Gentle stranger, have you seen any rabbits in the immediate vicinity' and 'May your nether regions be cursed with oozing pores,'" Buffy said. "I don't think either phrase would be very helpful."
"Okay, Plan B," Jack decided, sending her a dirty glance. "Let's see if they speak English."
"Yeah, I don't get that," Buffy said. "How can anyone off world speak English?"
"I've never understood it either," he said with a shrug. "Whenever I ask Carter or Dan—whenever I ask Carter, she acts like it'd be over my head. I think that means she doesn't know either."
The foursome headed down the hill towards the village. "Hi folks!" Jack said once they reached the center of town. "Does anyone understand me?"
"We understand you," a man said, coming forward. He was massive, and actually looked a lot like Thor's hologram representation that he'd used to convince people he was a god. Which, Jack supposed, made sense if they were descended from a Norse culture. "What is it you wish to say to us?"
"We're peaceful explorers from Earth," he said, remembering Daniel's old spiel. "We've come to learn about your culture."
"You came through the Chappa'ai?" the man pressed.
"The chap-what?" Buffy whispered to Carter.
"It's Goa'uld for the stargate," Carter whispered back.
"Right. I knew that," Buffy said.
"Yes," Jack told the villager.
The villager nodded. "Then you are the ones we were meant to look for." Suddenly he raised his voice. "Jaffa! Jaffa of Isis! Come now!"
Before Jack could react further than putting his hand on his P90 and stepping closer to Carter and Teal'c, Jaffa were pouring out of the woodwork, staff weapons at the ready. Their foreheads bore a sigil he didn't recognize, some sort of flower.
"Surrender!" the leader of the Jaffa shouted, aiming his staff weapon at Jack. "Surrender, and be brought before your god."
"Hey, I don't have a god," Jack protested, even as a staff weapon was jabbed into his back by a Jaffa behind him. "Oh, fine," he grumbled, dropping his P90 and listening as Carter and Teal'c did the same. "We surrender. Take us to your leader."
It was only as he, Carter, and Teal'c were rounded up, disarmed, and prodded away from the town—and the stargate—that he suddenly realized that one of his team was missing.
Where the hell was Buffy?