SG1-25 Hostile Ground(5)

Anyway, it was stupid to put that much faith in such tenuous relationships with creatures that weren’t even human. Worse than that, it was damn dangerous. And he wasn’t the only one who thought so.

Now, he was no fan of Harry Maybourne — he didn’t even like the guy — but one thing Maybourne could do was make things happen. And Makepeace could get behind that. Besides, Maybourne had some good people working for him off-world, clear-sighted people who understood the brutal choices they faced. There’d be time enough for ethics when the planet had the weapons it needed to defend itself against the enemy, when the balance of power had shifted in their favor. Until then he intended to do everything he could to make sure that Earth was ready for the assault when it came, even if that meant breaking a few rules.

That’s why he felt no compunction when he reached into the dusty alcove and picked up the package, wrapped in cloth and left there for him to retrieve. His team was still exploring, spread out and kicking up dust in yet another abandoned temple on a world destroyed by the enemy. There was nothing there of interest except the Tollan device — a phase-shifter, apparently — that he tucked carefully into the inner pocket of his jacket.

“Colonel?” Major Wade said, closer than Makepeace had thought.

He zipped his jacket closed and turned. “Major, what you got?”

“A whole handful of nothing, sir,” Wade said. “This place is a washout.”

He squinted up through the roofless temple, slipped on his sunglasses. “Yeah, I’m gonna call it. No point in wasting any more time here.” He toggled his radio. “Johnson, Bosco — head back to the gate. We’re moving out.”

He jerked his head to Wade. “Dial it up.”

As he watched the gate spin, watched clouds scudding over an alien sky, he resisted the temptation to pat his pocket. The tech was there, something concrete to help the fight against the enemy, something to make the eight hours they’d spent tramping about this dustbowl worthwhile.

“What’s got you smiling, Colonel?” Wade said.

Makepeace shook his head, watching the gate open and the event horizon settle. “Just happy in my work, Major,” he said and gestured toward the Stargate with his weapon. “Let’s go home.”



General George Hammond was not, by and large, a coffee drinker. After some repeated mutterings from Dr. Fraiser about blood cholesterol, he’d decided he was better off switching to fruit tea, both for his health and to avoid the stern gaze of the good doctor.

Yet here he was, in the SGC control room, watching a silent gate and holding his third cup of coffee in an hour. In all honesty, it was more about giving his hands something to do than the need for a caffeine hit. This job was usually enough to keep him up at night after all, the current situation being a case in point. It was just gone 2000 hours and there had been no radio contact from SG-1 since they’d left on what was supposed to be a standard recon to P5X-104. He shouldn’t be worried. They weren’t due back for another hour and, after all, this was SG-1. A little bit of off-world trouble often found them, but just as often the team would find their way out.

So why was he so antsy?

Maybe it was that word: team. SG-1’s greatest strength could potentially become a weakness this time around. Hammond wasn’t at all comfortable with the background to this mission, or the events which had preceded it. First of all, there had been those circumstances outside of his control: Edora, and all that had happened in the three months Colonel O’Neill had been MIA. Like everyone else, Hammond had feared the worst and SG-1’s desperate efforts to reach their CO had been all the more painful to watch because there was no way to know if he’d even survived the fire rain. They were acting on faith alone, and on the principle they all lived by: no one gets left behind.

But bringing O’Neill back had turned out to be just part of the challenge. Hammond hadn’t missed the tension strung out like barbed wire between the team on their return from Edora, most noticeably between O’Neill and Major Carter. Strange, after all she’d done to bring him home. Jack too had been strange, distant and somber in his rough-spun tunic and pants. At the time, Hammond had wondered what the hell had happened on that planet.

He’d found out later of course. Disclosure meant that O’Neill’s report gave full details of his relationship with the woman from Edora, Laira. Then, of course, there was all that hadn’t been written down. The lines of black and white text were narrowly spaced, but Hammond still managed to find plenty in between them. Turned out Jack had been ready to settle down, only to find himself pulled back into a life he’d started to accept was over. What would that do to a man’s head? What would it do to the team he led?