“You’re a little overdressed for a briefing Carter.” Colonel Jack O’Neill said as his 2IC Major Samantha Carter entered the briefing room dressed in her blue dress uniform. “Or is someone coming to visit and I didn’t get my memo?” He noticed the Lieutenant stood behind Sam. “You can go now Lieutenant, we’ve got a briefing about to start.”
“Actually she’s here for the briefing. Take a seat Lieutenant. As for being overdressed, I have to go to a meeting at the Pentagon, I have to leave as soon as I’ve briefed you.”
“You’re not coming to M3…”
“X492.” Sam supplied. “No sir. I’ve got to be in Washington for a few days. It only came up a few hours ago, that’s why the briefing was brought forward.”
“Okay. People lets get this briefing started, Major Carter needs to leave as soon as possible. Lieutenant Sebastian, it was good of you to join us on such short notice.”
“Glad to help sir.” Lieutenant Helen Sebastian replied. “Major Carter has already caught me up to speed on most of what I need to know.”
“Good. Major if you’ll start the briefing.”
~ ~ ~
“You’ll leave at 1300. You’ll have 72 hours to complete your mission.” Hammond informed them.
“Yes sir.” Jack replied.
“Major, there is a car waiting on the surface and the transport leaves in thirty minutes.”
“Yes sir. Thank you.”
“Dismissed.” Hammond concluded the meeting.
“Have fun guys and don’t get into too much trouble and Daniel try not to do anything to end up in the infirmary again. If you spend anymore time in there Janet’s going to have a plaque put up over your bed.”
“Have a good time in Washington Sam. We’ll bring you back a souvenir.” Daniel replied ignoring Sam’s comment.
“You’d better go Carter, don’t want to keep the boys at the Pentagon waiting.” Jack advised.
“Good luck Major.” Hammond added.
“Thank you sir. Bye guys.” With that Sam left.
“Lieutenant go and check the MALP has all the equipment Major Carter listed.”
“Yes sir.” Lieutenant Sebastian left.
“General?” Jack questioned.
“Colonel, Dr Jackson, Teal’c if you’ll take a seat I’ll explain why Major Carter has gone to the Pentagon.”
“It’s not one of their usual ‘come and explain this alien doohickeys to us’ things?”
“No Colonel. Major Carter has been asked to justify her position on SG-1.”
“Justify her position?” Daniel repeated.
“General, Carter’s been on the team for more than 3 years. She’s saved the world on more than one occasion, comes up with solutions to impossible problems. She deserves to be on SG-1 more than I do.”
“Major Carter is the up most authority on the Stargate and in the area of astrophysics, she also has great technical abilities with alien devices…”
“We know that sir.” Jack replied. “Why does she need to justify her position?”
“The Pentagon feel that Major Carter’s abilities mean that she shouldn’t be in the field, they’re worried about the amount of times you’ve all died or been captured, they don’t want to risk losing.”
“General, Sam’s an important member of the team, as well as our friend. We need her in the field.” Daniel protested.
“I know son.”
“General, permission to postpone the mission and go to Washington to convince the powers that be they’re wrong.” Jack demanded.
“I’m sorry Colonel, Major Carter has known this was coming for a while now, she wants to handle this by herself and I am going to honour her request.”
“I’m her CO, shouldn’t I have been informed if they want to take a member of my team away?” Before Hammond could reply Daniel asked.
“How long has Sam know about this?”
“The Pentagon first mentioned it after the first time you saved the world, but they have become more insistent since she built that particle beam accelerator. They finally decided they wanted to talk to her at 0600 this morning. She’s been briefing Lieutenant Sebastian since, she wants this mission to go ahead. We should know something by the time you get back.”
“Can’t you do anything General, call the President or something?”
“The President has been helping me hold them off for a while now, but he knows the decision rests with the Pentagon. It’s all up to Major Carter now.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Jack asked.
“No I’m sorry Colonel.” Jack put his head on the table.
“Jack she’ll convince them, she likes us too much to leave us alone.”
“Major Carter’s diplomatic skills are most advanced O’Neill.” Teal’c added.
“And if diplomacy doesn’t work maybe she’ll take a step out of your book when deal with them.”
“Carter’s too good a soldier to do anything to harm her career like yell at the big boys.”
“Colonel you have a mission in a few hours you need to focus on that right now.” Hammond instructed.
* * *
Forty-eight hours later there was a knock on General Hammond’s office door.
“Come.” Hammond instructed.
“General.” Sam greeted him.
“Major. How did your meeting go?”
“I can stay on SG-1 sir.” Sam replied.
“How did you manage to convince them they seemed pretty adamant?”
“Probably best if you don’t know sir. But let’s just say working with Colonel O’Neill had rubbed off a little more than I thought.”
“Yes Major. Do you wish to join SG-1 on their mission, make sure they are conducting the tests correctly?”
“Yes sir.” Sam smiled.
“Gear up to leave in 15 minutes. Dismissed.”
“Thank you sir.”
* * *
“Jack, the gate just activated.” Daniel yelled.
“Take cover.” Jack ordered.
“Colonel O’Neill?” Sam questioned over the radio as soon as she exited the gate.
“Carter?” Jack said as he jumped out from his hiding place. “Carter.” He smiled and pulled her into a bear hug.”
“Nice to see you too sir.” He released her.
“Sam, how did it go in Washington?”
“Good actually. I thought since I got back earlier than expected I’d come and make sure you were all safe and not ruining my experiments.”
“Hey Sebastian go put the coffee on.” Jack instructed.
“Yes sir.” The Lieutenant scurried off.
“So you’re allowed to stay on SG-1 then?”
“Ah, General Hammond told you then. It looks like your stuck with me for the foreseeable future.”
“This is good news Major Carter.” Teal’c stated.
“So what did you have to say to convince them?” Daniel asked as they made their way towards where they had set up camp.
“Only that I need to be on SG-1 and couldn’t do my best work if I was constantly worried you were all going to be injures without me. That we’re a family and they shouldn’t split families up. That I needed you guys to help me work. That I needed the Colonel to come and interrupt me to talk about something totally off topic, that gives me a change to think about something else, which usually gives me a different perspective.”
“All part of the service.” Jack smiled.
“That I needed Daniel to come and drag me off for coffee breaks to talk about ancient cultures and to translate things for me. And that I needed Teal’c to help make sure I didn’t exhaust myself and to help Janet enforce the order to go to bed. I told them that we’re only as good as we are because we have each other. And when that didn’t work…” She trailed off at the end.
“When that didn’t work?” Daniel continued for her.
“Let’s just say I’m not the Pentagon’s favourite person at the moment.”
“What did you do Major? I’m ordering you to tell us.”
“I kinda, sorta, threatened to resign from the Air Force. But they said they’d take me on as a civilian consultant. I told them thank you for the offer but I felt the sudden urge to go backpacking around Africa.”
“You blackmailed the Pentagon? Sweet.” Jack replied.
“Not so much blackmailed sir, I just used the diplomacy skills you taught me and reminded them of the basic survival skills. They had a gate and lots of alien technology, they need me to work them out and I wanted to stay on SG-1. So we came to a deal, I stay and do the work they want and I get to go off world with you and don’t quit.”
“I like your attitude Major. Now about that spectro-thingy.” Jack patted her on the back. “You weren’t too attached to it were you?”
“What did you do to it?” Sam asked curiously.
“Accidentally dropped it on a rock.” He waited for Sam to scold him but she didn’t.
“Helen, did you pack that yellow crate I asked you too?”
“Yes ma’am. The backup equipment is still on the MALP.”
“Back up equipment?” Daniel questioned.
“You really didn’t think I’d send you to do scientific tests with only one set of equipment did you? I mean come on guys you always break something.”
“It’s good to have you back Carter.”
“It’s good to be back sir.”
THE END
Story Notes: E-mail: shazbucket101@aol.com
Season: Late season 3
Spoilers: None
Feedback: sure
Archive: SJD
Season: Late season 3
Spoilers: None
Feedback: sure
Archive: SJD
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]