Not that she had any reason to think it. Probably she was just being over-protective. Suspicious. Possibly, maybe, insubordinate.
But even if I am, so what? It doesn’t count when it’s only in my head. And anyway, I’m the doctor. Jack’s one of my patients. Being protective comes with the territory
.
The memorial service concluded. The wormhole was disengaged. Shaking herself free of sorrow, Janet got back to work.
“Colonel Dixon?”
Wrenched from the sour memories of Frank Cronwell’s memorial service, Dixon turned. “General. Yes, sir?”
Hammond had himself well in hand, but what that was cost
ing him showed in his light blue eyes. What had McCreary said?
Hammond’s a good man. One of the best
. It was the impression he’d got reading all those mission reports full of unconscious heroism and ruthlessly restrained humanity. At the heart of each and every one, even O’Neill’s, was the need to satisfy General George Hammond; every officer, noncom and airman on this base, so eager not to let the man down. Of course it was possible he’d misread the reports. Few C.O.s could inspire that kind of loyalty.
Looking in Hammond’s weary face now, though, after hearing him speak, he realized he hadn’t misread anything. Now he’d seen the general in action it was clear the reports had told only half the tale.
He
’s one hell of a leader. This base, this program, hell, this planet, is lucky to have him.
“If you have a moment, Colonel?” said Hammond, his Texas twang muted, his courtesy distinct. A real Southern gentleman… but nobody’s fool.
They’d not spoken since he’d arrived on the base. Hammond had been caught up with Pentagon business, and then there was the matter of settling into his quarters, the flap and crap of yet another full-scale physical — the most rigorously thorough he’d ever endured, which was saying something — and last of all getting ready for the memorial service. Acutely aware of O’Neill and his people filing out of the gate room, he focused his attention on his temporary commanding officer.
“Of course, General. All the moments you need.”
“Your quarters satisfactory?” said Hammond, leading the way to his office.
“Yes, sir.”
“Anyone given you the ten cent tour yet?”
“Of the base? No, sir.”
They’d reached the general’s sanctum. Waving a hand at the nearest empty chair, Hammond’s lips quirked in a brief smile. “I can fix that.”
Dixon sat. “Yes, sir.”
“It’s a bit of a maze but you soon get used to it. Just watch out for doors opening unexpectedly. You’d be surprised how often that happens.”
Doors? Okay… “Yes, sir.”
Hammond slid into his own chair, a large man dominating the available space. The desk he sat behind was neat and gleaming with polish. A shiny red phone sat to one side. Hotline straight to the President, just like in the movies.
I wonder if they’re on a first name basis? Rumor has it O’Neill a
nd the President are. But then rumor has O’Neill doing a lot of things, doesn’t it
?
“I appreciate you being here, Colonel,” said Hammond. “The whole base appreciates it. And I understand from General McCreary that three of your team have also agreed to help us out.”
Logan, Chagall and Aikeman. They’d be arriving sometime within the next twenty-four hours. Davies had declined. His mother was in hospital with complications from diabetes. Gangrene or something, and he was an only child. Sometimes life sucked.
“Yes, sir. They’re good men. You won’t be disappointed.”
Hammond nodded. “I’m sure that’s the case.” He sat back, his narrowed gaze intent. “You and your team are meeting us at a particularly difficult time, Colonel Dixon. We’ve lost too many good people — too many friends — of late. It’s very hard. The nature of this command, the work we do here, means my
people form uniquely close bonds. Coming from Special Forces
I imagine you can understand that.”
“Yes sir, I can.”
“You ready to step through the Stargate, Colonel?”
“Yes, sir. I’m looking forward to it.”
“I thought you might be,” said Hammond, smiling sharply. “After a while, reading the mission reports is like showing a starving man a menu and telling him,
Gee there’s some fine food in the world, ain’t t
here
? Comes a time when a starving man wants to sink his teeth in the steak for himself.”
And it wasn’t until Hammond said it that Dixon realized it was true.
Huh. All this time I’ve been friggin’ jealous…
“But for all its miracles the Stargate has its downside,” Hammond added. “As I’m sure you know. Colonel, I need to ask you a blunt question.”
He knew what was coming before Hammond said another word. “Ask away, General.”
“Given the circumstances of Colonel Cromwell’s death last year, is it going to be a problem if I assign you to SG-1?”
A problem? Hell no. He had his fingers crossed for exactly that. But he had no intention of saying so to Hammond. Instead he shook his head. “Sir, as far as I’m concerned there were no ‘circumstances’.”
Hammond’s narrowed gaze was piercing. “Cards on the table, Colonel. I’m aware you and Cromwell were good friends. I’m also aware he and O’Neill were not. At least not at the time of his death. I take it you know that?”
He nodded, his expression severely blank. “Yes, sir.”
“So I’ll ask you again, Colonel Dixon: is this going to be a problem?”
He shook his head. “Due respect, General Hammond, the relationship between Colonels Cromwell and O’Neill is in the past. Furthermore it’s none of my business. I’m just here to do a job. You can trust me to do it.”
Hammond’s expression didn’t change but a shadow of tension in his eyes faded, slowly. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m sure I can.” His gaze shifted, then, focusing on something beyond the glass window in his office wall. His pale eyes narrowed again, briefly, and his hand came up in a beckoning gesture.
The general’s other office door opened, and Jack O’Neill walked in from the briefing room.
“You hovering out there for a reason, Colonel?” said Hammond, genially enough… but with the faintest hint of a bite.
“Hovering?” said O’Neill, sounding faintly shocked. “Was I hovering, sir? I had no idea.”
So. O’Neill was going to play the clown, was he? Dixon considered him, changed out of his dress blues into rumpled, well-worn fatigues.
Frank had always said,
If you’re not careful he’ll have you thinking he’s auditioning to play Ronald McDonald. But the goofier he is, the closer he’s studying you
.
Hammond just shook his head. “Since you’re unlikely to be of any help to Major Carter, Colonel, perhaps you’d care to show Colonel Dixon around his home away from home.”
An explosive silence. Dixon, chagrined, saw the echo of his own feelings reflected in O’Neill’s suddenly opaque eyes. He turned to Hammond.
“There’s no need, sir. I’m sure Colonel O’Neill — ”
“Would be happy to oblige,” said O’Neill, just as suddenly expansive. “Come on, Dixon. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard my tour guide spiel. In fact I’m thinking of taking it up as a second career.”
Crap
. He’d been hoping for a little more time to observe O’Neill from a distance before engaging with him one-on-one. Neatly corralled, Dixon stood. Nodded at Hammond.
“Thank you, General.”
Hammond offered him a genial smile. “Enjoy the tour, Colonel Dixon. Though I will add this — if you’ve any questions pertaining to the Stargate and its physics I recommend you ask Major Carter for enlightenment. She knows pretty much everything there is to know about it.”
“Whereas what
I
know,” said O’Neill, “beyond the fact it’s a honking big metal circle that chews up a ton of power and spits you out on the other side of the galaxy, isn’t worth writing on the back of a used stamp. Eh, General?”
Hammond just waved a hand. “Colonels, you’re dismissed.”
“And
here
,” said Jack O’Neill, “is the most important room in the base.”
Dixon nodded, looking around the concrete-walled commissary. The functional tables were covered in Air Force blue tablecloths. There were a few cheerful posters of dolphins on display. A handful of SGC personnel paid attention to their meals, breakfast or lunch or even dinner, depending on what kind of roster they were following and what time it was they’d recently left behind them
out there
. He sucked in a deep, scented breath. “Pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy. Smells good.”
“If you say so,” said O’Neill, indifferent. “Personally I can recommend the cherry pie. Also the pumpkin. The pecan’s not bad either. I still say the lemon meringue could do with a bit of work but so far they’re not listening. I’m thinking of staging a protest. Are you in?”
Dixon looked at him. O’Neill hadn’t been kidding about the
tour guide spiel. Jovial, expansive, and underneath that… what?
If Frank had told him once he’d told him a hundred times, as they discussed the mission reports fed through from the SGC:
The thing is, with Jack: there’s what you see and there’s what you get and the biggest mistake you’ll ever make in your life is thinking those things are one and the same
.
He smiled. “Sorry, Jack. I’ve never been a fan of lemon meringue.”
“Really, Dave?” said O’Neill, his eyebrows lifting. “Well, I guess nobody’s perfect. Okay. So now you’ve seen the boring crap and the beating heart of the base let’s go check out my other favorite place, the armory.”
The trick was to play along until he had his bearings. Until the time was right to talk of Frank Cromwell. “Sure,” he said. “Whatever you say.”
“Cool!” said O’Neill, with spurious enthusiasm. “Let’s go.”
Hammond had called it, all right. The SGC was a rabbit warren, all narrow corridors, abrupt ninety-degree turns, unexpected doors and functional laboratories crammed full of equipment and scientists. It never ceased to amaze him, the sheer number of people required to support the Stargate program.
I don’t
want to think about how much this place costs.
They reached the armory eventually, where he was greeted by an impressive array of weaponry and a few bits and pieces he’d never met before.
“Staff weapons,” said O’Neill, pointing, “and zat’ni’katels. Zats. I guess you’ve read about them.”
Dixon looked at the stockpile. “Once or twice. Doesn’t look like you’ll be running out of inventory any time soon.”
O’Neill smiled, briefly. “We tend to pick ’em up off-world where and when we can. The staff weapon’s whacky glowy green power supply’s got some interesting applications and then, of course, there’s Teal’c. He keeps losing his. So careless. As for the zats, well, they’re handy in a tight spot. Grab one of each and we’ll take ’em for a spin on the firing range. Never too soon to learn how to handle these babies.”
Dixon grabbed a staff weapon and a zat and followed his fellow colonel into the adjacent firing range, where somebody with a sense of humor had dressed the various target dummies as Jaffa in drag.
“So, first the zat,” said O’Neill. “Pressing this glyph
here
opens it for business — ” He demonstrated with a flick of his forefinger. The alien technology made a whirring sound and sprang open.
Dixon stared. “You know, now I look at the thing a bit closer it kind of reminds me of — ”
“Yeah,” said O’Neill. “We don’t talk about that. So. Once you’ve opened it, you hit the same button again and — ”
A surge of blue electrical-type energy burst from the zat and hit Dixon square in the chest. He crashed to the floor before he even realized he was falling. It was like being tasered, only twenty times worse. Scarlet pain danced through his body, his nervous system going up like a roman candle. Blue lights exploded in front of his eyes. His limbs spasmed, his teeth chattered, he could breathe… but only just.
Eventually the zat-induced seizure passed, leaving him limp and disoriented. He stared up at O’Neill, gasping.
The thing about Jack
, Frank had also told him,
is
he never does anything without a reason. Even when he’s bei
ng a bastard, when he’s completely outrageous, there’s always a reason. After a while you just start to trust that
.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” O’Neill said cheerfully. “Hurts like a bitch. But the thing is, if you have to you can work through it. And sometimes you have to. Believe it or not after the first few times you can even sort of get used to it.” He held out his arm. “Upsadaisy.”
Dixon grasped O’Neill’s arm and let himself be hauled to his feet. Random nerve-endings were still firing, still lighting him up with squibs of pain. “How many times have you taken a zat hit?”
O’Neill shrugged. “God knows. I’ve lost count. All that matters is not getting hit twice within fifteen minutes.”
“Yeah. Two strikes and you’re dead. I know. How’d you come up with the fifteen minute window?”
This time O’Neill’s brief smile was bleak. “We… experimented.”
“Ah.” Not quite sure what he thought about that, or what he was feeling aside from the lingering pain, he looked O’Neill up and down. “You know, you could’ve given me a heads-up.”