Part One: Head 'Em off at the Pass
This was the last stretch of grey corridor before freedom, just past
the last security checkpoint before the last elevator to the surface
for all personnel who worked in Stargate Command (Project Blue Book to
everyone without top level security clearance). Just like the rest of
the facility, it was decorated (or rather not decorated) in steel grey
and cement, still resembling the old missile silo that it had been in
the '60's. Pipes and vents ran along the ceiling, covered sconces
showered the dull floors with florescent light. Coloured lines on the
floor mapped the corridors to help personnel find their way through the
identical passages and bottle-neck intersections. Jack knew his way
around with his eyes closed, but some of the people who worked in the
Mountain still relied on these lines to keep from getting lost. Jack
had tried to re-paint them once, as a practical joke, but the security
cameras had foiled him.
This last corridor measured a mere twenty feet from the security desk
to the plain metallic doors, but it was sometimes the longest, most
treacherous distance that any airman had ever crossed, including
Colonel Jack O'Neill, USAF. He had just spent a long week exploring
off-world stargates, making first-contact encounters with long-lost
races of humans, dickering in diplomatic double-talk to keep his team
in one piece and open tentative alliances with the peoples they
encountered, and of course endless hours of baby-sitting scientists as
they poked around in piles of ancient wire and tumbled stones. That was
all behind him now, and ahead of him there would be a weekend of
stargazing, a fishing-pole, and a iced six-pack-- if he was lucky. All
he had to do was cross that endless corridor without someone paging him
and dragging him back into the bowels of Cheyenne Mountain.
Jack gave the sergeants sitting behind the desk one of his lop-sided smiles as he scratched his signature on the clipboard.
"Have a nice weekend, sir," said one of the men, shooting a grin at his
partner. "How big did you say those trout are in that pond of yours?"
Jack was already walking toward the elevator doors. He turned back and
held his hands apart. "This big. Even bigger! I'm tellin' ya, you ain't
never seen fish so big. And ornery. You never seen anything so ornery!"
One step at a time, backward, closer and closer to escape. "Ask me how
ornery, airman."
The sergeant grinned, tapping his pen on the desk. Colonel O'Neill was
well known for his snarky sense of humour. "How ornery are they, sir?"
"Ornerier than General Hammond before his first cup of coffee. Ornerier
than Doc Fraiser whenever I hide her stethoscope in the mashed
potatoes. Ornerier than Daniel when I stuck that rubber chicken in that
Egyptian canopic jar and left it for him to dig up. Ornerier than Major
Carter when when I stole her microscope and replaced it with an
Easy-bake Oven. Ornery. Evil." Five steps away from freedom.
The telephone on the sergeant's desk rang. Jack waved his hands and
turned, bolting to the elevator door. He slapped the button and cursed
as the doors failed to open immediately.
"Colonel O'Neill. General Hammond--"
"Ah-ah!" Jack put his index fingers in his ears, protesting loudly, "I
can't hear you! I'm not here! I already left!" He prodded the button
with his elbow. The elevator doors remained stubbornly closed.
"Colonel, sir," the airman said apologetically, returning the phone to its cradle. "He said to have you meet him in his office."
Jack pounded his forehead against the closed doors. "So close! So
close!" He strode up to the security camera that was pointed toward the
elevator doors, a small red light blinking smugly. "Why? Why do you
wait until I am almost home free before you do this?" Jack waved down
the sergeant as he began to apologize again. "Forget it, airman. Tell
the General that I'm on my way back down."
What could possibly be the problem now? Jack asked himself as he
returned to the SGC. He walked along with his long-legged stride, his
hands in his pockets and his head slightly down. He looked exactly like
a frustrated AF Colonel on his way to get into a verbal duel with his
commander. And he was, but he was also carefully listening and watching
for any unusual activity or danger. Strange things happened in the
heart of Cheyenne Mountain, and though Jack fussed and fumed, he knew
Hammond wouldn't be calling him back to duty if it wasn't very
important.
"It better be, anyway," Jack muttered softly.