03 - The First Amendment Read online

  It saved time to do that initial review in the same room where the team commanders met. The wall of windows looked out over another room, three stories tall, at the far end of which a huge shape, flat and round like a pancake set on end, focused the eye. A shallow steel grid ramp led up to the disk, which consisted of two concentric rings inscribed with alien symbols, surrounding a gleaming iris of overlapping steel plates that completely covered the center. Ramp and disk were set off from the rest of the room by a wide painted border of yellow and black stripes alternating with the legend keep clear.

  This was the Stargate—the portal to alien worlds, the gateway through which Hammond’s teams ventured forth to gather intelligence and possibly find new weapons to fight the Goa’uld, an alien menace that had already visited Earth, taken samples of human populations and cultures, and seeded them on distant worlds for the purpose of harvesting them later as hosts for their larvae.

  The rest of the room was taken up with computer consoles and wires and very busy personnel, deciphering signals sent by probes, running programs to try to determine how much the original coordinates of the Gate had been thrown off by galactic drift in the millennia since the Gate was placed on Earth; more busy personnel preparing those probes; and still more trying to keep the computers running instead of crashing from the glut of alien data. And it truly was “alien”—from far more distant stars than NORAD dreamed.

  In those early hours, the room was quiet and peaceful, and he always got more done than in his own office. Master Sergeant Harriman, his aide-decamp, knew Hammond well, and always had a summary and a cup of coffee waiting for him at his place at the end of the long polished table. He settled in to read until his command staff—leaders of the teams on standby, the medical staff, logistics support, and the various analysis teams—showed up.

  He had no patience with commanders who made grand entrances when everyone else had already seated themselves. Besides, he liked to see who came in prepared and who had to fumble in briefcases for papers. Harriman, prepared as always, took out copies of all the most current updates to the various reports already supplied, ready to slide them under Hammond’s eye as each individual spoke. Shortly thereafter, the rest of his command staff entered and took their places.

  There was O’Neill, practically bouncing as he came in. Energy levels too high—the tall colonel needed another mission. He was a good officer but tended to be impatient. “Good morning, sports fans!”

  “Morning, Colonel,” Harriman acknowledged.

  A few of the others, not as inclined to be cheery in the morning, glared at him. Hammond, remembering his dream, could not prevent a chill from traveling up his spine as he observed them. O’Neill, getting himself coffee from the table in the back, was bantering with some of the other team commanders.

  Nearly everyone in the room had been in his dream, he realized. Plus many others who weren’t at command level. And they’d all looked at him for direction, just as they did in real life.

  Rusalka sat on the other side of him from Harriman. They were both well aware of his little idiosyncrasies by this time and had all their ducks in a row. Her tapping of her papers into an obsessively neat, perfectly squared-off pile served to distract him. It had only been a dream, after all. A nightmare. He dismissed the memory.

  Assorted other SG commanders, in various stages of readiness, took their places. The Medical staff arrived, looking concerned but not worried, if that distinction could be drawn from across a crowded room. Logistics. Security.

  Neither NORAD nor USSPACECOM knew anything at all about the Goa’uld. It was part of Hammond’s mission to keep it that way. Putting the briefing room in a position to overlook the Gate served to keep his team’s minds firmly on their mission—as if they needed any reminder.

  That mission was clearly understood and defined by presidential directive: “to perform reconnaissance, determine threats, and if possible make peaceful contact” with as many worlds as possible. His people, gathering and settling in at their places around the table, were the best of the best from all U.S. military services. They used some of the most powerful computing hardware in the world to calculate the proper sequence of signals to find new Gates and new worlds. Alien worlds.

  There was nothing in all of the country, probably in all of the world, more secret than the work they did right here. These missions were necessary reconnaissance to ensure Earth’s survival in an undeclared war against the Goa’uld, a race of parasitic aliens who had borrowed—or stolen—the Gate technology to make travel between worlds easier by opening wormholes between predetermined coordinates. Thousands of years in the past, one of the Goa’uld had set a Gate in ancient Egypt and used it as a base to kidnap humans and seed them all over the galaxy. Now humans used the Gates to try to restore contact with those scattered populations and, to the best of their ability, to find weapons that would enable them to meet the Goa’uld on equal terms.

  It wasn’t the kind of war that required divisions in the field. It wasn’t the kind of war that required propaganda to engage public opinion. It was a desperate, tiny, minute kind of war waged by a handful of men and women who dared not admit to the human race just how dreadful the consequences of failure, of losing, might be.

  The first report was always Captain—Dr.—Janet Frasier’s. As head of the Medical Department, she had the responsibility to oversee the health of the teams, monitor casualties, and, perhaps most important, to ensure that no one brought back anything insidious or contagious. Warner, her second-in-command, was present at this meeting, somewhat to Hammond’s silent relief. Warner was the surgeon, and if he could be spared from the operating theater, it meant that no one needed what they’d come to call, in the gruesome humor typical of people trying to deal with the sometimes unspeakable “body work.”

  “The bacteria carried back by SG-3 seem to have died off almost immediately,” Frasier summarized. “We conclude—provisionally—that the bug is native to M70619, and therefore not well adapted to attack the human species.” She slapped the folder shut with something resembling relief. “SG-3 should be ready for return to full duty in less than a week.” Putting the first of her manila folders down, she opened the second. “As you are aware, sir, SG-2 suffered severe casualties, but all of those who got back are expected to survive.” She frowned at little at the case reports in her hand. “We’re seeing some new kinds of injuries, not consistent with earlier experience, and we’re wondering if we can get more information on the weapons used. But I emphasize that we do expect recoveries.”

  There was a little silence, and an ostentatious not-looking at one of the officers seated midway down the table.

  “Good news,” Hammond nodded, as if there had never been an awkward pause. He went on to the next subject on the agenda automatically, and Frasier sat down again with obvious gratitude.

  The morning briefing always followed the same pattern: Frasier’s casualty reports and medical updates; reports on which teams were out among the stars; potential new destinations; problem areas; and basic housekeeping. It was one of those reliable things in the universe.

  So next Harriman stood up.

  “Currently we’ve got five teams out, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Fourteen. SG-6 and -7 are both on P3X-1492, working on the Tecumseh Codex. They report excellent progress.

  “SG-8 is doing some follow-up scientific studies on P5R-221. They still haven’t found any sign of human survivors there, but they’re not sure whether that’s due to climatic changes or if the seed stock they brought with them wasn’t able to adjust to the new world. It looks like they managed to last maybe three or four generations before they died out.”

  Hammond shook his head, wondering how many worlds had been like twenty-two-one, how many human lives had been wasted by a profligate parasite. Let them die, he could imagine the Goa’uld saying. Earth will make more.

  “Nine hasn’t reported back yet. We don’t expect to hear from them for another eight to ten hours. We know that th
ere has been recent Goa’uld, or at least Jaffa, activity on Tinkerbelle—er, P3R-620. We aren’t sure whether they’re coming back or not. The Jaffa, I mean. To P3R.” Harriman swallowed, probably hoping he hadn’t managed to ill-wish the team.

  “SG-14’s mission was to destroy a newly discovered Goa’uld hatchery. Initial reports indicate success, but that was six hours ago. We haven’t heard anything since.”

  Janet Frasier sighed and made a note, passing it to her chief surgeon. He nodded grimly.

  “Keep me posted on all of them,” Hammond said unnecessarily.

  “Shouldn’t we at least send a follow-up probe on a couple of those?” O’Neill asked.

  “We’re running out of probes,” Harriman responded. “You need to bring them back whenever possible. We can’t keep up with the combinations team. They’re finding new places to go faster than we can build probes to check them out.”

  “We’ve still got people out there—”

  Harriman lifted one hand helplessly and turned to the head of the table.

  “We’ll give them another day, at least. How many new destinations do we have probe reports on?” the general asked, making a command decision to move on.

  “Seven,” Rusalka responded promptly. “Of those, four don’t look like any place we want to visit soon. Three may be possibles.” Harriman sat down with relief.

  “Oh?” O’Neill challenged. “Who made that determination?” The leader of SG-1 was feeling restless, Hammond could tell. Jack O’Neill didn’t like not hearing from teams, and didn’t like missions that hadn’t gone well. This was a particularly bad day on both counts. As the leader of SG-1, which normally made first contact, he sometimes acted a little proprietary about “his” new worlds. Hammond kept giving him new ones so the colonel wouldn’t get in the way of the follow-up teams. O’Neill hadn’t been out for a while. It was time to give him fresh meat to chew on, and Rusalka wasn’t being very encouraging.

  Rusalka shrugged. Part of the duty of the research section of SGC was deciphering new Gate combinations and sending out probes to see what was on the other side before the human teams actually ventured forth. Her group was also responsible for assessing the risk to the first team through. That usually put her in conflict, to one degree or another, with O’Neill.

  “Well, we lost three of the four probes immediately, and the fourth one melted in a pool of lava,” she responded. “I didn’t think you’d want to go wading in that, although it does give new meaning to the concept of a hot tub.”

  “Well, no wonder we’re running out of equipment.”

  Hammond just barely managed to keep from rolling his eyes in exasperation. He couldn’t keep O’Neill from making wisecracks, he’d realized long ago, and he couldn’t keep Rusalka from trying to set him down a notch. He wondered if Rusalka considered the colonel a challenge of some kind. Maybe he should ask Frasier to have a little woman-to-woman talk with the major. Maybe get Sam Carter into it, too.

  For an instant he toyed with the idea of asking Carter to set up a formal female-only staff briefing on How to Handle O’Neill, but it would be useless anyway. Incorrigible.

  Besides, they were adults and they’d damn well work it out on their own time. Or else.

  Incorrigible took up the report. “The rest of our teams are twiddling their thumbs, ready to go,” O’Neill said. “SG-1 is more than ready for its next assignment—as soon as we can find someplace other than a lava pool to dip our toes in.”

  “We still have three possibles,” Rusalka continued grimly as though she hadn’t been interrupted, “although I don’t like the atmospheric readings on two of them. We haven’t finished interpreting the data.”

  “Standing by.”

  “If you really want to use total environmental suits for your next mission, my team should have a report by the time we finish up here, Colonel. If you’d care to stop by the labs we’ll have the lists for you.”

  O’Neill grunted and waved his hand as if to say, I’ll wait.

  The reports went on, a smooth flow of information, comments, suggestions, decisions. Hammond orchestrated it all, watching as his command team worked together, letting them sort through options, goals, plans. They were good at what they did.

  Usually.

  But every once in a while, things went rather horribly wrong, and they weren’t able to blame the Goa’uld.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I’d like to hear now from SG-2 about the details of their last mission,” Hammond said at last. “I believe that’s the world you called Etaa, Jack.”

  “That’s what the inhabitants called their city, yes.”

  The officers around the table looked at each other uncomfortably, then directed their gazes to the major sitting halfway between Hammond and O’Neill.

  “Major Morley?” Hammond prompted, his voice oddly gentle.

  Morley cleared his throat and looked down at the papers carefully squared on the table in front of him. His face was heavily bruised along the left side, the entire left eye surrounded by black markings; a pattern of stitches along the cheekbone held together a raw gash. When he moved his arm along the table it was clear that he was favoring it. The end of a bandage peeked out from under the cuff of his jacket.

  When no one broke the silence, he sighed, sharply catching his breath halfway through the exhalation. “Yes, sir.”

  Without looking up, he continued, pitching his voice just loud enough to be heard clearly by all those at the table, “As you are aware, sir, our assignment was the recovery of SG-4 personnel captured by the Goa’uld on P7X-924.”

  Piece of cake, Morley thought, as his squad formed up for one last weapons check before going through the Gate.

  He hadn’t actually been to P7X-924 before, but he’d spent hours poring over the probe reports, lie knew everything there was to know about the Goa’uld, everything that had ever been reported by O’Neill and his hotshot team. This was going to show just how good he really was. That downcheck on his last evaluation would be wiped away as if it had never happened. Hammond would see that O’Neill just didn’t want the competition, didn’t want anybody who could maybe take his place one day as the leader of SG-1. O’Neill had told the boss that Morley was the wrong choice, he had no experience.

  The hell he didn’t. Maybe he’d never been through the Gate before, but he’d been on plenty of recoveries on Earth. It wasn’t any different just because the sky was a different color. And he deserved the chance. What happened last time, in Iraq, well, that wasn’t his fault, and anybody who wanted to give him a fair shake knew it. The temporary vacancy in the command position for SG-2 was a godsend.

  He’d argued long and hard for this assignment, and it was all going to go perfectly. Perfectly. Hammond thought so too, or he wouldn’t have let Morley go.

  The reports all said that the wormhole was cold. At first he’d figured that was just more bull—making it look harder than it was. But it had come up again and again, in all the reports from all the teams.

  And whaddaya know, they were right. Damn. For those long minutes—or was it only seconds? Impossible to tell—he was frozen right down to his guts. He hoped he still had his weapon—all his weapons. Couldn’t feel anything.

  But then they’d come out the other side, and for the first time ever, Morley was on an alien world.

  The first thing he did, as soon as he could feel anything, was spin around and count his men to make sure they’d all come through okay, make sure the F.R.E.D. with all their weapons and supplies was there. And the DHD. Had to make sure they weren’t trapped. Of course, there had been at least two teams through this Gate already, and the very first probe had verified, but it never hurt to check.

  O’Neill had gotten caught that way; it wasn’t going to happen to him.

  Yeah, all twenty of them present and accounted for. And there was the DHD. It looked just as they described it in the reports, a wide round platform with squares marked by the Goa’uld coordinate symbols, with a big re
d dome in the middle, the whole thing standing about a yard high and a yard wide, including the base column. The face was angled to allow easy access to the thirty-nine glyphs that surrounded the activating dome.

  That took care of the first two things. The third was detecting the presence of hostiles. He could afford to make that number three in his hit parade because he had recent intelligence from the probe. Sure enough, the area around the Gate was quiet.

  And then he could afford to take a deep breath of the alien air of an alien world.

  It smelled funny. Like a bowl full of nuts.

  The air was the wrong color, too. Well, not that air could have color, really, but the sky was a peculiar reddish blue, and he had the feeling he was looking at things through pink-violet-tinted lenses. At least it was warm, much warmer than the wormhole; he could feel his face tingling in response to the higher temperature. His men were looking around, blinking, trying to adjust, and stumbling their first few steps in a new and heavier gravity. One point two times Earth, the report had said. Morley had trained with extra weights to prepare for it.

  But none of that mattered. He’d told Hammond that, and he believed it. What mattered was the mission.

  “Okay, let’s move out!” His voice sounded different in this air, too, but that was something else that didn’t matter. His men responded exactly as they were trained.

  Four members of SG-4 had made it back from P7X-924. They said they’d lost fourteen more in a pitched battle with Jaffa and natives. There were still at least three men, last seen being dragged into a native stronghold, whose current status was unknown. That was the same native stronghold that O’Neill had rhapsodized about being so friendly and cooperative. Hah.

  SG-1 had made first contact with this world and came back with the message that all was well, the people of this world were ready and eager to cooperate, with Earth in the battle against their common enemy. So when SG-4 had gone in with a full research team, they’d expected to find allies, not a trap. They were easy pickings. O’Neill felt guilty about it, of course—he’d screwed up royally, not that anybody would ever admit it. That was another reason why O’Neill had tried to take over this assignment. But it was SG-2’s job to do the dirty work, and they were here to do it. Under a competent commander, dammit.