He ran through some possibilities, but one name came consistently at the top of the list: Colonel Robert Makepeace. He was a good man, a good soldier. Solid in the field and dedicated to Stargate Command and everything for which it stood. He was no Jack O’Neill, of course, but he was a damn fine officer and he’d pulled O’Neill’s butt out of the fire more than once. And Hammond had to trust someone.
So, Makepeace it would have be and if the Curia didn’t like it then they were out of luck. It wasn’t that he distrusted the Tollan, but he’d certainly feel more comfortable with someone watching his back while he broke the bad news. If nothing else, they could discuss tactics.
With that decision made, he turned back to his in-tray. But before he could so much as reach for the next report, his phone rang. With none of his aides on duty, the call came straight through to his desk. It was Dr. Fraiser’s number and he picked up immediately.
“What can I do for you, Doctor?”
“Sir,” she said, “I have the results of the tests on the field dressing Colonel Makepeace retrieved from P5X-104.”
Her tone of voice settled a heavy weight in his chest — this wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have over the telephone either. “I’ll be right up, doctor.”
At that time of night the elevator ride to the infirmary didn’t take long and Hammond was walking into Fraiser’s office just a couple of minutes after she’d called. He wasn’t surprised to see Colonel Makepeace already there, perched on one of the plastic chairs with his hair still damp from the shower.
“Sir,” Makepeace said, getting to his feet.
Hammond waved away the formality. “As you were, Colonel. Thank you for coming so promptly. It’s been a tiring day.”
Makepeace shrugged. “Daresay I’ve not had the worst of it, sir.”
On the other side of the desk, Fraiser sat with a single sheet of paper in front of her and a serious look on her face. Hammond took a seat. “Doctor, what have you got?”
Fraiser kept her fingers pressed lightly on the desk, taking a breath before she slid the paper toward Hammond. “Well, for a start,” she said, “I can tell you that the blood on the dressing belongs to Dr. Jackson.”
Hammond gave a curt nod. There’d been a chance that his team had been treating someone else, but it had always been more likely that one of their own had been wounded. “Is there anything else?”
“Not much,” she admitted. “From the volume of blood and the fact that the dressing had been removed — I assume in order to replace it — it looks like a severe wound, possibly arterial. I can’t say for sure, of course; there are a number of reasons why he might bleed heavily.”
None of which were good, Hammond supposed. “Very well. Thank you, doctor.”
“Sir?” Makepeace shifted in his chair; he looked too big for the small room, like he was chafing at being so tightly confined. “It’s significant that they were changing a wound dressing in front of the Stargate. O’Neill would never do that if they were about to gate home.”
Hammond couldn’t argue with him. “Then the question is, if they weren’t about to gate home, where were they about to go?”
Makepeace scratched his head. “Maybe they were captured, sir, and held there while the Jaffa decided what to do with them? If Dr. Jackson was wounded they might have taken the opportunity to change his dressing.” He frowned. “There was a lot of spent ordinance there, General. Whatever happened, they put up one hell of a fight at the gate.”
“And yet,” Hammond said, “when your team examined the DHD they found that the last address dialed was Earth.”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“But the gate here didn’t open.”
“I can’t explain it, sir. Maybe something happened before it could connect? There was a lot of damage close to the gate, some impacts that look like they came from a staff-cannon or a glider. Maybe that interfered with the wormhole? It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen something like that.”
“No,” Hammond agreed, “it wouldn’t.” He thought for a moment. “Colonel, can you identify which Goa’uld we’re dealing with here?”
“I made a note of the,” he gestured toward his forehead, “marking on the bodies, sir. I didn’t recognize it, but I’ve taken it up to Dr. Rothman and he’s looking into it.”
It was a pity, Hammond thought, that Dr. Jackson wasn’t here to look into it himself. Instead, it was his blood that had been spilled on a distant world and Hammond’s job to get him home. He sighed, feeling helpless in the face of so many dead ends. “Then we’re at an impasse,” he said. “Colonel, do you have any suggestions? I’m open to ideas.”