III. Jack
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Jack O'Neill was starting to hate his email. No, scratch that. Jack had always hated his email. He was just starting to hate it more. When most people received a new message, their computers beeped. When a smaller, more unfortunate, portion of the population received a new message, a generic male voice said "You've got mail!"
Jack O'Neill was not that lucky. No, he had friends (strike that) tormentors (strike that) malicious subordinates with disgustingly effective computer hacking skills and horrid taste in pop culture. His computer not only played customized sound clips when he received a new message, but they varied depending on which folder the arriving email was filtered into. It was awful.
Although he had to admit, there was something fitting about having the "Imperial March" play every time he received a note from the IOA. That wasn't the sound clip that bothered him. It wasn't even that the "Wormhole X-Treme" theme played whenever he got an email from SG-1 (although someday, he was seriously going to kill Carter for this). It was the "Atlantis" folder that bothered him. The folder that played the "Charge" fanfare every single time he got notification that an Atlantis veteran had been logged into a medical or judicial computer system. Daniel had muttered something about it being only fitting, but Jack didn't see the humor. Watching out for the Atlantis kids was an obligation, and had absolutely nothing to do with needing to occasionally bang heads in the name of righteousness and adjustment disorders. It wasn't like anyone else was going to look out for them.
Thus, when the well-known fanfare came blasting out of his speakers, he gave serious thought to throwing his laptop out the window. Only two things stopped him. The first was that Carter would just reprogram any new issue with the same damned defaults. The second was that he didn't actually have a window in his office at the Pentagon; in that way, it was strangely similar to being at the SGC.
Resigned to his fate, Jack clicked on the new message, and prepared to be amazed with the newest misadventures of the formerly-Atlantis-based military personnel. He wasn't disappointed.
2 Judicial System entries match notification criteria
Kitterman, Saul J. Lieutenant First Class (USAF). Stationed: Okinawa.
Charges: Violation of Don't Ask, Don't Tell regulations
Wolinsky, Christopher T. Gunnery Sergeant (USMC). Stationed: Seoul.
Charges: Violation of Don't Ask, Don't Tell regulations.
1 Medical System entry matches notification criteria
Wolinsky, Christopher T. Gunnery Sergeant (USMC). Stationed: Seoul.
Nature of Entry: Cranial Trauma. Spiral Fracture of the Tibia & Fibula, Left Leg
Jack groaned, and reached for the phone sitting on the far corner of his desk. It was going to be a long day.
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Three hours later, Jack had a better idea of what was going on, and the beginnings of an absolutely stellar migraine. This was the fourth time in six months that he'd been notified of Don't Ask, Don't Tell violations by Atlantis veterans. It was the third time that he knew for a fact one of those being charged was straight. He could sympathize with both sides of the mess, to a degree. It wasn't normal to have someone of the same gender, whose only connection to you was that they happened to have been assigned to your last posting, listed as Next-of-Kin. Especially not someone in another branch of the military, or when there were living relatives. Depending on how the AE vets phrased their leave requests, any number of things could be inferred. There were certain things you just didn't do in this man's Marine Corps.
At the same time, if it were Daniel or Sam who'd been injured, Jack knew that he'd pull every string he could to hop the next flight out. But the Atlantis vets as a group took it a few steps further, and it was putting them dangerously close to serious repercussions. Like Lt. Kitterman, who'd filed a request for compassion leave following the injury of one of his former team members, but referenced only his position as next-of-kin and his 'responsibility' for the gunny, a man seven years his senior. The boy was damn lucky he wasn't being brought up on charges for going AWOL in addition to the investigation opened by Wolinsky's CO.
Another two hours, six emails, and four aspirin later, Jack had things taken care of, and just in time. Moments after clicking 'send' on the last email, the Imperial March began to blare from his speakers. He was behind on his revisions of the current resolution regarding Human-Asgard Relations. Again. There were days that he hated being one of the most influential men in the United States. A lot of them.
Needing something to keep his mind off of the weasels in business suits who called themselves politicians, Jack instead pulled up a blank word document and began drafting a note to be placed in the files of all military personnel who had served on Atlantis. He was getting sick of having to deal with these little problems every few days, and it would be nice to be proactive for once, instead of merely handling the damage control. He might not be able to fix everything, but he could certainly insure that the Don't Ask allegations ceased. He had a sneaking suspicion that the allegations were being filed out of spite because the Atlantis vets weren't playing well with others just as frequently as the vets themselves were doing anything questionable. There were perks to being a general, and he had a feeling that these men and women were dealing with enough as it was.
Finis