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* TITLE: Prologue: 1969 Prime-Minus-One
* AUTHOR: Redbyrd
* EMAIL: redbyrd (at) mindspring (dot) com
* RATING: PG
* CATEGORY: drama
* SUMMARY: Prequel to 1969 Prime.. Hammond sent a note because he received a note.. but there must have been an original timeline before he knew what was coming- before he met time travelers from the future.
* SPOILERS: COTG, 1969
* AUTHOR'S NOTE: When I posted 1969 Prime, someone (if you see this, remind me who you are, because I didn't save my note!) commented that they'd felt a little cheated to find out that Hammond had known what was coming, and wondered what his life was like the first time, when he had no idea.
* WARNINGS: Prolonged contemplation of time loops and alternate timelines can leave you with a splitting headache and an irresistable urge to go watch all your Stargate DVDs again instead of writing. You heard it here first.
* DISCLAIMER:
The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.
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Brigadier General George Hammond, retired, stood beside his wife's grave. He wouldn't have given up the chance to spend this last year with Ellie for anything, but now that she was finally gone, he felt adrift, at a loss what to do with himself. His daughter Deborah stood beside him, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I miss her already, Dad," she whispered.
"I know," George said. He turned to look at his elder daughter, talking politely to some of the people who had come to the burial, and his two grandchildren standing unnaturally quietly beside her, bewildered and oppressed by the sad occasion.
It seemed to go on for days, but really it was only three before Debbie had gone back to her job in St. Louis and he had convinced Liz she didn't need to hover over him. Without the extra people, the house seemed enormous. George Hammond looked out over the sunny yard to the flowers that Ellie had loved and realized that he couldn't do nothing. He'd toyed with the idea of writing a book, but honestly couldn't see that yet another set of dry reminiscences by an old soldier would hold much interest for anyone. The Air Force was the only thing he'd ever done, the only thing he'd ever wanted to do and it had treated him well. He might even have retired with a second star if it hadn't been for Ellie's illness.
Almost without thinking, he turned to the antique rolltop desk and the functional rolladex it concealed. There was a stack of cards and letters of condolence waiting for him to answer them. The top one was from an old buddy from Nam, Jake Carter. He briefly stopped to calculate how many years it had been since he'd seen Jake, but winced and resumed flipping cards. Too long. The organized habits of a lifetime let him quickly find the number he wanted. "Hello, may I speak to General Ryan?"
#
"Mike, good to see you," George said, shaking Ryan's hand.
"And you, George," Ryan replied cordially. "I'm very sorry to hear about Ellie-"
"We knew it wouldn't be long-" George said.
"I still wish you'd taken leave instead of retiring," Ryan chided gently.
"I didn't want there to be a time limit on my attention," George said quietly. "But I'll admit I'm somewhat at a loss what to do with myself right now."
"Ah, yes," Ryan gave him a shrewd look, which sat oddly on his round cheerful features. "Actually, if you're interested in coming out of retirement, I might have a little job for you."
Hammond supposed he shouldn't be surprised. Ryan wouldn't have called him in to his office just to shoot the breeze. "Oh?" he said. "Well, I'm probably interested, sir." The honorific formally acknowledged the change of topic back to business.
"It's not a long assignment," Ryan warned. "That's part of the problem. And the subject is very classified, even though it's over."
"What are we talking about?" Hammond asked. It wasn't like Ryan to beat around the bush.
"I'm assigning you to Cheyenne Mountain, taking over command from the late General Andrew West," Ryan told him. "I need someone to finish closing down the project he was working on."
"NORAD, sir?" Hammond asked with just a trace of puzzlement in his tone. He could see the thick file under Ryan's hand. "I didn't realize West was there. And when did he die?" He certainly would have heard about it if it had happened before his retirement.
"He wasn't exactly assigned to NORAD. He was working on a project based at Cheyenne Mountain," Ryan told him, "until he had an unexpected massive heart attack about three weeks ago."
"Ah," George said. He tried to think of what kind of project West might have been closing down at Cheyenne and came up empty. "Some kind of reorganization?"
"Not exactly," Ryan chuckled appreciatively. "You're going to love this, George." He slid the thick file across the table. "Would you believe the Air Force has sent an expedition to another planet?"
#
Hammond sat in his new office, twenty-seven floors below the surface, feeling completely astounded. He was a little surprised West hadn't had to face an inquiry. He wondered how he'd explained the requisition and subsequent disappearance of a nuclear bomb. The reports read like the wildest kind of science fiction.
Actually, he thought, rereading the names of the deceased, it had been incredibly screwed up and only just missed being a complete disaster. O'Neill's report made it clear that the alien they had encountered had intended to send the bomb back to Earth. He frowned, and looked at the officer's blank face in the attached photo. Even through the stiff military language of the report, a sense of the desperation of the moment came through. Colonel Jack O'Neill must be a military hardass of the most rigid sort, to have agreed to West's request to lead what was essentially a suicide mission.
His eye was caught by a notation at the end of the report. Or maybe he was just suicidal. Why else would he have come out of retirement for this mission and quit again immediately afterward? The personnel file had enough blacked out periods- some of them years long- to tell Hammond that O'Neill had spent much of his career in special operations, most of it highly classified. He wouldn't be the first or the last to be badly damaged by that kind of service.
He glanced briefly through the other files. Kawalsky and Ferretti had both been promoted following the mission. Not surprising, they'd evidently behaved courageously under circumstances far beyond what their country would normally ask of them. The several deceased soldiers' records he only glanced at. The last file was much thinner than the others. Jackson, the civilian. Hammond turned over the few pages, wondering what on earth West had told his family. With the notation, 'no next of kin', several things became clearer. "Andy, you insufferable bastard," Hammond growled under his breath. He'd never liked West, but he wouldn't have thought the man would have sent a civilian into harm's way. That he had callously assured that there was no family to make a fuss if something went wrong only made George more disgusted.
No mystery why the young man had volunteered, either. The military photo had captured the intelligence and curiosity in his eyes. Had West bothered to explain to the young man that it could be dangerous? They hadn't even sent animals through to ensure that live creatures would survive the trip before sending the human team.
There was a knock on the door. Hammond flipped the file closed and looked up. "Come in."
Sergent Harriman stuck his head in. "Sir? Um, Supply had a question about the disposition of these?"
Hammond took the envelopes that the man handed him. They were patches. Earth against a black field, surrounded by stars and superimposed on it the last stargate symbol, the one that the file described as the 'point of origin'. The symbol for Earth, he realized. "What are these?" he asked. "Something left over from the first mission?"
"No, sir," Harriman said. "They were designed when they put forward the exploration team proposal after the first mission returned. Of course the proposal never came to anything when they couldn't reach any other worlds through the gate."
Hammond looked at them. The design was attractive, if enigmatic. He looked at Harriman. The sergeant was unabashedly fascinated by the stargate and had learned everything he could about it. "What's the question?"
"I have a request from supply to scrap these," Harriman said, with a slightly wistful look at them. He passed the requisition to Hammond.
Hammond took it and looked it over consideringly. "Request denied," he said. "Tell them to keep them a while longer." He smiled at the sergeant. "They're not marked, perhaps on the last day we'll let people have them as souvenirs."
The sergeant brightened. "Yes, sir," he said, and closed the door after him.
Hammond put aside the personnel files, and started reading through the post-mission technical reports. They were heavy going. The last reports were from a Captain Carter at the Pentagon. He had been lobbying hard for the stargate program to be reinstated and was looking at possible alternate applications. Hammond glanced down the list and shrugged. No doubt it was interesting to the scientists, but this project was shutting down. It would be up to the ongoing research labs to decide if they cared to fund additional work. He set it aside.
This medical equipment, now. That was valuable and useful. Some of it could probably be transferred straight back to the Academy Hospital, but there was a note to contact supply to see what facilities around the world had requests in for similar units. He picked up the phone suppressing a sigh. Ryan had warned him this wasn't going to be an exciting job.
#
Hammond was looking at his calendar. Ten months to retirement. Probably another five of that to close this base, and another to finish the paperwork. Then the stargate would be dead and buried. It seemed rather a shame. Logically the gate ought to go to other places, but the number of combinations was so great they could dial for years and never find any.
The whoop of the siren caught him completely by surprise. As he popped out of his office, he realized that it was the alarm in the gate room. The gate room! Hammond ran for the stargate, wondering what the hell was going on.
He hustled after the guards, hearing gunfire as they approached the gate room. As he entered on their heels, he saw an enormous black man with a gold emblem on his forehead, holding a female sergeant hostage before the shimmering blue wormhole. Several fantastical figures in armor were standing in front of the gate, before the blue surface. One of them held a young female sergeant as a shield in front of him. Hammond yelled, "Hold your fire!" and surveyed the group. The man in golden armor appeared to be the one in charge. His eyes glowed momentarily. Then his helmet snapped shut, and he wheeled and strode through the wormhole, followed by the man holding the sergeant hostage. The wormhole shimmered and shredded into wisps of mist, then vanished.
Hammond walked slowly up the ramp, staring at the alien device, his mind working furiously. That was the glowing-eyed alien of the Abydos report. If he was still alive and the gate was still open, then O'Neill was a goddamned liar. He turned to see Major Samuels coming in, well after the firing had ceased, the toad. "Samuels!" he barked. "Sir?" Samuels said.
"Find me Colonel Jack O'Neill, and bring him here. I want to have a little talk with him."
#
Hammond composed himself behind his desk before he responded to Samuel's knock, "Come."
Samuels showed him in. O'Neill was dressed in civvies with a very non-regulation haircut. "General Hammond, Colonel Jack O'Neill."
"Retired," O'Neill qualified, with a laconic inflection that fell just short of insolence.
Hammond studied him. Intelligence he'd expected, but this wasn't the damaged self-destructive paranoid he'd visualized. He decided to start slow, "I can see that. Me, I'm on my last tour; time to start getting my thoughts together. Maybe write a book. You ever think about writing a book about your exploits in the line of duty?"
O'Neill responded laconically, "Thought about it. But then I'd have to shoot anyone who actually read it." After a moment of unresponsive silence from Hammond and Samuels, he continued. "That's a joke, sir. Most of my work for the past ten years has been classified."
Hammond said, "Yes, of course." There'd been nothing in the file to indicate a sense of humor. Actually, knowing West, he'd have thought a sense of humor would be a positive detriment to anyone serving under his command.
O'Neill was evidently not very patient, either. He asked into the silence, "Major Samuels mentioned something about the stargate?"
Hammond gave him a brief smile and kept his tone genial. "Down to business. I can do that." He rose and led the way out of his office. "This way." He had a few surprises for O'Neill, and he was interested to see how the man would react.
In the infirmary, he studied O'Neill's face as the doctor pulled back the sheet from the corpse of the dead alien. "Anyone you know, Colonel?"
The doctor offered, "They're not human."
O'Neill gave him a sarcastic look, "Ya think?"
Warner pointed out the slits on the alien's abdomen. "Best we can tell, these slits are actually a pouch similar to that found in a marsupial."
"Like a kangaroo," Samuels clarified unnecessarily.
The doctor said, "We haven't done an autopsy yet."
Hammond said, "These people - or aliens, whatever you want to call them - came through, killed four of my people and kidnapped another using advanced weapons."
"Weapons, sir?" O'Neill asked.
One of the officers handed the long stafflike weapon to Hammond, who passed it to O'Neill.
Samuels said, "We can't figure out how to operate it."
O'Neill turned it end for end, flipping a switch in the middle with his thumb. The ends of the staff snapped apart and crackled with energy. He flipped it back and the weapon shut off. Hammond was irritated that he had jumped as much as Samuels, "Seen one of those before, I take it?" He didn't remember reading about these in the reports.
"Yes, sir," confirmed O'Neill quietly, handing the weapon back.
#
Hammond's irritation was growing the longer he talked with O'Neill. By now he was positive that the colonel had lied, and that it was somehow connected to the three dead bodies in the morgue and the missing sergeant. He wondered if Kawalsky and Ferretti knew the truth, and if so, why they had gone along with it. Somewhere in this ball of lies there was a string that he could pull to unravel the whole mess. Perhaps the civilian was the key. Hammond asked, "Tell me about Daniel Jackson, Colonel."
The colonel wandered over to the window, looking at Kawalsky and Ferretti sitting down with another officer. "Why are they questioning my men?" he asked.
Hammond couldn't help respecting him for caring about his people, but he didn't let it show in his tone. The evasion did encourage him that he was pursuing the right line of questioning to get to the truth. "They're not your men anymore, Colonel. You retired. Daniel Jackson?"
"You read the report?" O'Neill said uncomfortably.
Hammond said, "Yes." He felt another unwilling flicker of respect. The man was clearly unhappy about lying to a superior officer.
"It's all there." O'Neill said.
"Is it?" Samuels said rather insultingly.
O'Neill ignored him, "What's this all about, General?"
"You didn't like Daniel Jackson, did you?" There was a chink in O'Neill's lies somewhere, and Hammond was sure it was Daniel Jackson. Losing men in battle was tragic, but went with the territory. The kind of man he was coming to see O'Neill as, would have taken the death of a civilian under his protection hard.
"Daniel was a scientist. He sneezed a lot. Basically, he was a geek, sir." Hammond's eyes narrowed. O'Neill sounded uncomfortable all right, but not guilty. Not angry at the loss of a man under his command. This was more like his evasion about the report. O'Neill was lying. So what? Jackson wasn't a geek? Why-Hammond felt a little light go on. The alien with the eyes wasn't dead. Suppose Jackson wasn't either? But surely O'Neill wouldn't have left him behind.. it must have been voluntary. Hammond suppressed a whistle of surprise. No wonder O'Neill was uncomfortable calling Jackson a geek. A man who'd spend four days on an alien planet and choose to stay there forever had guts.
"So you didn't have a lot of time for him." Samuels was saying. He might be a weasel, but he had his uses, Hammond reflected. He'd picked up the general's implication that O'Neill had failed his responsibility toward the civilian, and was using it like a chisel.
O'Neill responded defensively, "I didn't say that. He also saved my life and found a way home for my men and me. A little thing like that kind of makes a person grow on you, you know what I mean?"
O'Neill didn't sound like he was lying about that either. Hammond was beginning to get a glimmering of why he might have covered for Jackson. Hammond switched tactics. "According to the mission brief, your orders were to go through the Stargate to detect any possible threat to Earth and if found, to detonate a nuclear device and destroy the Gate on the other side."
"Yes." Hammond wondered again why O'Neill had volunteered for that mission. He wasn't striking Hammond as unbalanced, rather the reverse.
But if Jackson was alive, as Hammond was coming to suspect, then O'Neill couldn't have detonated the bomb. Hammond pressed, "But that's not what you did, is it?"
O'Neill said, "Not right away. Ra's forces overpowered my team and took the weapon before I could arm it."
"But with Dr. Jackson's help, you eventually regained control and did in fact detonate the weapon, yes?" Samuels asked.
"Yes." True. Hammond thought.
"So to the best of your knowledge, Daniel Jackson and everyone else you knew on Abydos is dead. Correct?" Hammond asked.
"That's correct." O'Neill confirmed. False. The longer the conversation went on, the more certain Hammond was he was reading O'Neill right.
Hammond could see this was going nowhere. Time for another change of tactics. He was glad he had had the bomb sent over from Petersen. "Good," he said, rising. "Then you won't mind if I authorize a go-ahead on our plan."
Minutes later, he achieved the result he had wanted. "General, you can't do that," O'Neill protested, staring at the bomb.
"Countdown's already started," Hammond said. "Unless you have something to add." 'No, colonel, I'm not bluffing.'
O'Neill stared at him for several moments, gauging his sincerity, then squared his shoulders and came to attention beside the general, "General Hammond. Sir."
Hammond turned and looked at him expectantly.
O'Neill confessed in a rather pained tone. "I regret to inform you that my report was not entirely accurate."
Hammond turned on him with a half-smile of triumph. "You didn't detonate the bomb."
O'Neill shook his head, "Oh, I did detonate the bomb, sir. It was aboard Ra's spacecraft, so it did kill him and eliminate the risk to Earth."
"However...?" Samuels prompted.
"However, Ra's ship was in orbit above the planet at the time. Neither the Gate nor anything else on the planet was destroyed. Daniel Jackson is alive and living with the people on Abydos."
Hammond could feel a slow burn of anger in his gut. All this time, they'd thought the Abydos gate had been neutralized and Earth was safe, when actually they'd been vulnerable. The front line of defense for the planet had been an illegal poker game. He demanded, "You violated direct orders! Why?"
O'Neill argued, "Because the people of Abydos are no threat to us. They deserve to be left alone."
Hammond told him, "That's not up to you."
#
Through his office window, Hammond could see through O'Neill sitting at the big table, slouching in a deliberately unmilitary posture in one of the chairs. It was after midnight, and they were still waiting for some response to the colonel's kleenex box. The phone rang. "Base security here. We have a Captain Carter here, from Washington."
Carter. That was the expert on the Stargate the Pentagon was sending. "Tell him I'll be right there."
"Yes, I'll tell her, sir," the guard replied neutrally.
Hammond flipped open the file and double checked. Air Force Captain and doctor of astrophysics Samantha Carter was indeed female... He reminded himself to check who the guard was. He'd discreetly saved Hammond from minor embarassment.
The young woman waiting on Level 11 could have been- and probably was- a poster child for the Air Force's best and brightest. She was obviously tired from having jumped on a plane with zero notice but she was still a tall good-looking blonde, trim in her uniform. "Captain Carter?" Hammond said.
"Sir, yes, sir." She saluted smartly. "Captain Samantha Carter reporting for duty, sir."
"I'm afraid I've only just barely got the news you were coming, Captain." Hammond said. "But I understand you're here to study the gate, now that it's operating again."
The young woman stiffened. "Sir, I'd like to respectfully request permission to join the next team going through the stargate. I should have been on the first team."
"Why weren't you?" Hammond asked bluntly, wondering what she'd say.
"Sir, I received orders transferring me to the Pentagon before the mission departed." There was a glint of righteous anger in the blue eyes.
"West's orders?" If she'd served under West for any length of time, it wasn't surprising she was angry. The man was an ass at the best of times. Hammond wondered if he'd transferred Carter out of some kind of twisted chivalry.
"Yes, sir," Carter replied.
Hammond frowned. There was something naggingly familiar about her, not the face, but her posture, manner of speaking.. "Have we met before, Captain?"
She froze warily. "Yes, sir."
"I'm sorry, Captain, I don't recall the circumstances," Hammond said.
"It was a long time ago, sir, I wouldn't expect you to remember," she said.
"I'm afraid you'll have to remind me, Captain," Hammond asked.
Reluctantly she replied. "I was just a child. You were acquainted with my father- "
"Jake Carter's daughter!" Hammond got it suddenly. He did remember the occasion. He'd just come back from Nam and he and Ellie had been visiting with Jake and his wife. Young Sam had been playing with model rockets. "Do you still go by Sam?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," there was a curious twist to her mouth, like she was partly impressed that he remembered and partly sorry that he had.
Hammond realized why West had transferred her. "So General West didn't want you anywhere near his little mission to blow up another planet, is that it?" Hardly surprising she'd a bit of a chip on her shoulder. She'd probably been in the shadow of her father her whole career.
Her eyes widened slightly, but she replied noncommittally. "I can't speak to General West's motives, sir."
Hammond nodded sharply, and thought about her record. She'd served in the Gulf and gotten the same training that all officers who might be in danger of capture received. She had been a key part of the team that analyzed the gate, and the only USAF officer on the project who was also a first-rate theoretician. If he remembered correctly, much of the dialing computer was her design. Certainly she knew more about the gate than anyone else they had available. "I think you'd be a fine addition to the team, Captain. I'll see that it happens."
She blinked in surprise, then smiled radiantly. "Thank you, sir!" Before his eyes, the tiredness faded and she almost bounced with excitement.
"Do you have somewhere to stay, Captain?" Hammond asked.
"I planned to stay in the bachelor officer's quarters at Petersen, sir. If as I expect, I'll be transferring back, I can stay there until I find a place to live," she replied.
"Very good," Hammond said. "Right now, we've sent a message through to Abydos and we're waiting for a reply. But the mission briefing won't be any earlier than 0800 hours, so you have time to get checked in and get some rest. I'll arrange for you to collect your new Cheyenne ID when you come back."
"Yes, sir," she said, saluting again. "Thank you, sir."
He returned the salute, smiling a little at her enthusiasm. "Dismissed."
#
Hammond stood at the window of the gate room, wondering if he'd done Andrew West an injustice. The first Abydos team had been gone four days. He was ready to chew his fingernails up to the elbow in only forty-eight hours. They were right on top of the deadline and hadn't heard a word from the teams.
His XO, Samuels came up behind him. "Sir, the deadline has been reached. Standing by to seal off Stargate, sir."
Hammond ignored him, willing the gate symbols to light up, the inner ring to start turning. At least West had gotten half his team back. If SG-1 and 2 didn't return they wouldn't have any idea what had happened. He'd sent people out on dangerous missions before, but never into this kind of uncertainty.
Samuels prompted him impatiently, "Awaiting your order, sir." Samuels had been a tolerable administrator, but he wasn't the man Hammond would choose to have around when there was real work to be done.
"In a minute, Major," Hammond said, a note of warning in his voice. He visualized the two teams. Kawalsky, Warren, Casey, Miller- good officers all. O'Neill and Jackson, each passionately committed to the mission for their own personal reasons. Sam Carter, Jake's daughter. He was going to give them a few more minutes. It didn't materially increase the danger to Earth, and it let him hope for a just a bit longer he wasn't going to be writing official letters to Jake and the other families of those fine young men.
#
Hammond poured a cup of coffee and sat back at his desk. At this hour of the morning, he could enjoy an uninterrupted hour or two to think before other demands were made on his time. Thousands of stargates, a galaxy spread out for them to explore-- and an implacable enemy. He was still pissed with O'Neill for the lies in his report, but there was no denying the man had handled himself well in the field. As much as part of him would like to toss the man out of the USAF so hard he bounced for lying in his report, he couldn't afford to waste that kind of talent. Though if the aliens had come through the Abydos gate, nothing would have saved the colonel from the wrath of Hammond.
He'd gotten access to a bunch more of O'Neill's records, and was unwillingly impressed. The man had a history of insubordination and - creative- interpretation of orders, it was true. He also had a reputation for courage and fast thinking under fire, and an almost pathological stubborness. He could use that. O'Neill would continue as commander of SG-1.
He looked at Samantha Carter's photograph in the corner of her file and wondered what his old buddy Jake Carter would say if he knew. He was conscious of feeling a tiny bit of extra reluctance about sending her into the line of fire, but knew it was because she was Jake's daughter, and nearly of an age with his own two girls. He was suddenly grateful that neither Liz nor Debbie had followed him into the service. Sending other people's daughters and sons out there was hard enough.
He looked at her record, her doctorate, the work she'd already done for the program. There was no doubt she deserved to be here, and that she'd never choose to stay behind. This was her life's dream. No doubt that putz West had transferred her before the first mission because he didn't want to have to deal with Jake if she hadn't come back. And then there was possibly her most impressive accomplishment- O'Neill had reversed his position on their return from Chulak and requested that she stay on the team. Hammond knew he couldn't pull her off now.
Jackson, the civilian. Hammond shook his head. He wasn't sure what O'Neill was thinking wanting to keep him on the team, but it was clear he couldn't allow it. He'd gotten them captured on Chulak, and that wasn't even taking into account the offering-himself-to-the-aliens incident. Far safer to keep him at the SGC, even if he did itch with impatience to be out looking for his wife. Hammond felt sorry for the young man, but he wasn't going to allow him to endanger himself or others in the field.
And then Teal'c, the unknown quantity. O'Neill put a lot of faith in him. Carter had argued in his favor. For him to be some kind of double agent would require a lot more subtlety than the enemy had shown thus far. And he had knowledge they could use, in and out of the field. He spoke the languages, had visited many planets. He'd provide the cultural and technical knowledge of the enemy they needed. Hammond nodded decisively. It would take a lot of arguing with the Joint Chiefs, but he'd go to bat for Teal'c.
O'Neill would have to select a fourth team member from among the new transfers. He scribbled a signature approving two-thirds of his team selections and called Harriman in to take the memo and pile of personnel folders back to O'Neill.
#
The brisk rap on the doorframe didn't sound like Walter, and Hammond looked up to see O'Neill at the door. A glance at his watch confirmed it had only been five minutes since he'd sent the memo back. He sighed, "Come in, Colonel." He had a premonition that he was going to spend as much time finding O'Neill's undoubted initiative irritating as useful.
"General, it's about Daniel," O'Neill said without preamble.
"Colonel, Dr. Jackson is a civilian. You said yourself that he got you captured on Chulak," Hammond pointed out.
"I think that was inevitable, sir," O'Neill said bluntly. "And without him making peaceful contact with the priests we first encountered, I think we might well have wound up in a firefight that would have gotten us either killed or driven back to the gate, with no chance to gather intelligence."
Hammond blinked at how O'Neill neatly turned the argument on its head. "And his offer to join the aliens?"
O'Neill shrugged. "He wanted to be with his wife, sir, and he'd have had a better chance of rescuing her if they were together. He didn't know at the time that the personality of the host is completely suppressed. He won't do it again."
Hammond switched to offense. "So what makes you feel that he would be an asset, Colonel. You'll have Teal'c, who knows the language-"
"One or two of them," O'Neill said. "He's already told us there are others that he's not familiar with, but Daniel thinks he recognizes. Also, he may know about the goa'uld, but he doesn't have the kind of broad knowledge of ancient Earth cultures that Daniel does. The Goa'uld may have better tech than we do, but they deliberately restrict knowledge of their society. The people on Abydos were actually forbidden to read or write, to prevent them from learning their own history. Teal'c isn't a substitute for Daniel, sir."
O'Neill stopped to breathe, then plowed on determinedly. "Remember what he said in the briefing? He figured out that the Goa'uld were pretending to be gods, and that they were still taking hosts like Ra did. And he was right."
"He guessed," Hammond said.
"Deduced," O'Neill insisted. "Seriously, sir. He thinks outside the box. They had a team of scientists, including Carter, working on the gate for two years. Daniel figured out how to make it work in two weeks, despite having most of the crucial information withheld from him for security reasons. Carter and her team spent months trying to make the gate go other places when they got back. One conversation with Daniel and they've figured out this stellar drift theory. Daniel's idea, sir, and he's not even an astrophysicist.
"You can't tell me I'll find his brand of smarts in some shiny-bright lieutenant fresh out of OCS. Or Teal'c or anyone else. I need him in the field." O'Neill half-smiled. "Not to mention the fact that all other things being equal, Daniel is a hell of a lot less threatening face to put in front of new folks when we're trying to convince them we come in peace."
"A good point," Hammond conceded. It was hard to conceive of anyone less threatening than the archeologist. "But there is a good chance of you running into trouble out there, Colonel. You can't want to take a civilian into a combat situation. You were lucky not to lose him on Chulak."
"With respect, sir, no I wasn't," O'Neill contradicted. "He went where he was told, and helped keep the refugees calm and got them through the gate. And that wasn't a fluke. Don't forget, we were under fire on Abydos, more than once. Daniel did fine. Better than fine. He took down one of those friggin' enormous armored guards with a handgun and when he ran out of ammo, he picked up a staff weapon and used that.
"I'll want him to have some actual training, but I already know ninety percent of what I need to- he won't freeze or panic, he will take effective action to defend himself and others, and he can think on his feet." O'Neill shook his head. "Boy, can he think on his feet. He's gonna scare the crap out of me, sir, but he's also going to be a hell of an asset."
Hammond couldn't help but notice that O'Neill was assuming his eventual agreement to this plan. Not that he wasn't impressed at the colonel's vehement defense of the scientist. "It doesn't bother you that he lied about being able to get you home on the Abydos mission?" he asked.
O'Neill half-grinned, "West and I had a pretty good idea that he was bullshitting, sir. We wanted to know what was out there- almost as bad as he did. And he didn't lie- he did get us home." He looked Hammond in the eye. "Daniel won't let us down, sir."
"I'll take it under consideration," Hammond said finally. But they both knew he was going to agree.
#
Hammond went downstairs a little later than was his wont to see off SG-1 to their diplomatic follow-up on P2X-555. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he loved to watch the gate activate and establish a wormhole to another planet. He'd have wanted to see off his teams anyway, but watching the gate was a bonus he never tired of. He was a little surprised to find Carter in the control room with the gate already turning. "Shouldn't you be with your team, Captain?" he asked.
She said, "Yes, sir. On my way," and plunged down the stairs.
"Carter?!" O'Neill bellowed from the gate room. "Sometime before we all die of old age would be good."
"The wormhole will be passing very close to the sun, sir," Harriman explained. "Captain Carter was updating the drift calculations to compensate."
Hammond nodded, watching her walk out to join her teammates looking a bit ruffled. The cut on her hand still looked very red and painful, but Fraiser had cleared her for duty. It seemed like it was too much to hope that all the members of SG-1 would stay uninjured for more than a couple of weeks at a time. Three weeks ago it was Teal'c taking a knife in the chest from Jaffa-hating natives, before that Daniel and Machello's body-switching matchine and before that O'Neill had been on medical leave for almost two weeks after the whole black hole business.
On the ramp, Carter was exchanging some low-voiced comments with O'Neill and Hammond felt a warm rush of affection for all four of them. Gating all over the unknown galaxy, quite possibly into deadly danger and they acted like they were commuting to work. Coming up on two years, and if he'd occasionally wondered if he was doing the right thing sending them out there, he was far more often grateful that he had. He couldn't have been prouder of them if they were his own.
O'Neill and Jackson disappeared into the event horizon, followed by Teal'c and Carter. O'Neill had been right- only it wasn't just Jackson who thought on his feet, it was all four of them. And they scared the heck out of him on a regular basis.
As the wormhole dissipated, Hammond was struck by a powerful sense of deja-vu, enough to make him sway dizzily. Today was.. was.. Hadn't he done this before?
*end
Go on to 1969 Prime