MEMOIRS OF
BRIGADIER GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Retired)
Part V
Chapter One
By Arrietty
2006
They were the silent type. They gestured with their rifles for me to move to the side. I complied very quickly. I heard the inner ring moving around the Stargate as it started to rotate.
The leader, for want of a better word, asked one short question, “You! Are you Tau’ri?”
I nodded and waited for more, but nothing was forthcoming. The event horizon burst into life and whooshed out into the room. I involuntary moved back out of the way, even though I was quite safe where I’d been standing. ‘Just a natural reaction I suppose.’
The leader waved his rifle in the general direction of the Stargate for me to go through.
“No way!” I stood my ground.
“You go!” He gestured with his rifle again towards the Stargate opening. “We don’t want any Tau’ri here.”
I moved forward slowly. “Okay, I don’t mind going to Tau’ri-land, but there’s something I need or I’m gonna go splat.”
“What, this?” He pulled out a GDO from one of his voluminous pockets and waved it under my nose. With an almost malicious grin, he punched in a code. I had no idea if it was the right one or not, so I stayed put.
It didn’t work, as four large Kelownan’s grabbed hold of me. I heard the satisfying loud, “Oomph!” as my elbow connected with someone’s stomach. Then two large arms coming from behind me wrapped themselves around my chest, effectively pinning my arms to my sides. This didn’t stop me, I pushed back with my legs and swung them up, kicking one of the men in front of me in the nose. I could hear the sound of bone crunching on impact. Blood spurted out in a rush while he clutched his face with his hands as he rolled on the floor. My pleasure didn’t last long as they bodily lifted me up and threw me through the Stargate. The landing was no better than my delivery as I bounced once, twice, and then rolled to a stop in an ungainly crumpled heap at the bottom of the ramp at the SGC. ‘At least I didn’t go splat.’
I cautiously opened my eyes, and the first object to fill my vision was a pair of highly polished Air Force issue boots. In fact they were so shiny I could see the movement of my head reflected in them. Slowly, my gaze traveled up the crisply pressed trousers to a ‘starched’ shirt, my eyes took in the two bright shiny stars, two on each shoulder and they finally settled on the spotless tie that was perfectly placed around the neck. ‘I have landed into an alternate universe where they have a by-the-book, stuffed-shirt.’ I lifted my head to see General Perfect’s face and groaned. There was no way this was going to work between us and he’d most probably take great pleasure in making my life totally miserable.
Grimacing, I shut my eyes tight. Maybe I’d hit my head and it was all a hallucination. I opened my eyes again. ‘Crap!’ Nope, I’d been right the first time.
I gave a quick grin and waved one hand from my lowly position on the floor. “Hi, Jack.”
He did not look amused.
“By chance is your name spelled with only one ‘L’?” I asked as I clambered painfully to my feet.
He looked at me in disdain, then turned and walked slowly away. I couldn’t see him give directions, but the outcome was clear as four large SF’s walked up to me and relieved me of my weapons and backpack.
“Don’t forget the knife in his boot,” floated back the comment from the stuck up general as he marched ‘perfectly’ from the room.
I asked questions as I was escorted through the corridors, but they were the strong silent type. I was fast getting fed up with the lack of information in this reality. Though at least I knew where I was going. It looked like they checked out all new arrivals in the infirmary here too.
I walked through the large double doors into the main room. It was empty. Not a soul in any bed as far as I could see. In fact there were only two beds in the room. I heard a sound and a diminutive form came out from an office.
“Put him there.” Doctor Fraiser pointed to one of the beds.
“Hey, Doc. How are ya?” I smiled.
It didn’t work.
Fraiser grabbed a small cart of weird looking torturous instruments and pulled it along behind her as she walked towards where they had pushed me not so gently onto the hard bed.
‘Yup, it happens every time.’ She pulled out the little flashlight and shone it into each eye. I watched every movement she made as she scratched her findings onto a chart.
“Remove your clothing,” she ordered, ‘now that doesn’t happen every time.’ And then pulled some more unusual looking instruments off the table. Things I had not seen before.
“Why?” I asked softly.
“Oomph!” ‘Okay... don’t ask question’s. I get the idea.’ I held up my hands in defense to the guards and then I cautiously and painfully undid the buttons to my shirt. If I was going to get bruised ribs, at least I was in the right place.
I pulled my shirt back over my arms. It was almost as though Fraiser was waiting for me to reveal my upper arms as she took that moment to jab a needle hard into my arm. I felt the painful liquid being pushed into the muscle, then the room began to spin and I was aware of falling to the floor, but I don’t remember hitting it.
~*~
As I woke up, the sound that battered my ears was familiar to me as we underwent this every time we came back from a mission. They were checking to see if there was a snake in my head. My clothing had been removed, and I was down to my boxers. The cold from the hard table I lay on seeped into my bones, chilling me through. The only difference was my eyes were firmly covered over by a mask of some kind. But then there was a lot different about this SGC compared to my own, including the pompous general in charge.
It went quiet, they had finished. I felt cool air waft over my body as I came back out into the room, just what I needed on my already shivering body.
Someone removed the mask from my eyes; the light blinded me for a second and reminded me that I had a drug-induced headache that pounded at the back of my eyes. If a Goa’uld was in there, he would be mighty uncomfortable that was for sure.
With a groan, I started to roll off the table into a sitting position. This of course did not go down well with the SF’s. Once again, my stomach was used as a punching bag, but this time with the butt of a P-90 or was it two? I seemed to be seeing double of everyone.
“What is it with you guys? I’m not likely to rush off out the door dressed like this, now am I?”
The four SF’s merged into two as they reached forward and roughly seized hold of my upper arms and yanked me off the table.
“Where are your friends?” I asked, not expecting nor receiving a reply.
Contrary to my belief that they wouldn’t think that I would run around the corridors in my underwear, they firmly gripped my arms as they led me out into said corridors.
“Okay now guys, this is a bit much, you know,” I looked at each of my captors in turn. Their faces were set like stone. This did not bode well for my health. “Remember, I look like your General, and if anyone sees me… well they see him,” I pointed out recklessly.
The world spun around, as they slammed me against the wall face first. My nose and forehead took the full force of the collision with the wall. My head echoed with the pain as it bounced around my skull, and then a sharp pain in my kidneys told me that they had given up on punching me in the stomach.
Now unsupported, I could see the trail of blood from my nose make an unsightly streak down the wall as I slid to the floor. The pain from one of my kidneys was sharp and dull at the same time as it traveled through my innards, up my back and once again attacked my already aching head. I closed my eyes to the fuzzy sight of familiar grey walls and lay still. ‘They can carry me to wherever they want me now.’
I vaguely remember being dragged down the corridor and flung into a small room, not sure where, but I remember the bang of the door and the click of the lock as they secured it from the outside.
~*~
I must have rolled over in my sleep as sharp pain in my lower back woke me up. I slowly sat up, and groggily looked around the room. Yes it was a small room. In fact it looked a little like the nonexistent office that Carter had insisted that I had when I was a colonel, but there was no desk in this room. In reality, there was nothing in the room, except a camera in each of the four upper corners, all pointing straight at me. Still cold and shivery, I stood up and hobbled over to the door and peered through the reinforced window. One empty corridor was all that I could see, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone out there though.
Hugging myself to try and keep what little of my body heat there was, I wandered over to one of the cameras.
“Hey!” I paused, and then stepped to the right. The camera followed my movements. They either had motion sensitive cameras or someone was watching, “How about some breakfast?” I waited. Nothing, “Lunch? Dinner? A snack?” Glancing around the small interior of the room, another urgent message had reached my brain, something way more important than food.
“I need the facilities,” I yelled into the camera. “NOW!” The more I thought about it the worse it became. I was hoping that it was just the normal need, not that one of my kidneys had been seriously damaged.
I could hear a faint noise of a radio outside, then the click of the lock on the door just before it swung open.
The two SF’s that came into the room were unfortunately the same ones that had redecorated the walls of the SGC with my face earlier. Before I had a chance to move through the door, they once again grabbed my now bruised arms and shoved me through. I wasn’t sure if it was good that we met no one on the way to the latrines or if it was bad. Maybe if someone saw me they might get me out of there, but somehow I doubted that.
Afterwards, they brought me back to the room. This time Fraiser was there with Daniel, waiting for me.
“Hey, Danny,” The relief that flowed through me was almost palpable. After I had taken only two steps towards him, that familiar sinking feeling traveled down through me. He did not return my smile. He was watching me like I was a lab rat, waiting to see how I would react. “Daniel?” I asked cautiously, stopped and waited for him to respond.
He turned to Fraiser and spoke quietly, “Yes, the resemblance is amazing. What about DNA; is it the same?”
Fraiser referred to her notes. This I was interested in hearing, because there was no way that stuffed shirt and I could be the same person.
“Apart from the obvious difference,” she said looking straight at Daniel, then back down at her notes, “there is only a slight abnormality. Here.” She placed the notebook in Daniel’s hands and pointed to somewhere near the bottom of the page.
I found myself leaning forward to see what she had written, but before I had a chance to see anything, I found my knees knocked from behind and fell crashing to the floor. I let out a yell as the pain exploded in my knees and traveled down my shins into my ankles. Leaning over onto my hands, I stayed still, trying to control the pain and ride above it. Drawing in a deep breath, I slowly and painfully climbed back to my feet and glared at my two watchdogs.
An orderly stepped into the room and handed Fraiser some blue clothing, which looked like overalls. She nodded to the orderly then threw the overalls onto the floor at my feet and looked straight at me.
“Put those on,” she ordered. She then pulled out a large plastic bag, opening it in front of me. “You can put those in there.” She nodded to my last vestige of dignity. ‘Not on your Nelly. Nope, never, absolutely not.’ She must have read my mind, because she nodded to the two ever present watchdogs and they pushed my still sore face up against the wall.
“Okay! I surrender,” I quickly yelled.
“I am glad you see it our way.”
As I handed them over, I quickly pulled the overalls on and zipped them right up as high as they would go. This was one experience that I was not enjoying in the slightest.
Fraiser and Daniel stared at me for a short while before they walked out through the door.
“No starch, but nicely pressed please,” I called after them. I quickly moved back out the way, as one of the SF’s stepped menacingly towards me. Fortunately for me, they left too.
On the bright side, I was not so cold anymore. Of course on the flip side, I was still very hungry and thirsty. Thankfully, I did not have to wait long.
I was sitting up against the wall under one of the cameras. Okay they could still see me, but only three out of four could. I heard the lock click and the door opened slowly. I was pleased to see that the Neanderthals stayed outside.
“Siler?” I asked as I carefully stood up, leaning against the wall for support.
He walked over to the middle of the room and placed a tray of food and a bottle of water on the floor, then stepped back away from it. He quickly looked behind him at the closed door, glanced at his watch, and then spoke very quickly.
“Eat ALL of it, every drop.” He backed up towards the door and banged on it. The door opened, and he slipped out.
I cautiously walked over to the tray and painfully sat down in front of it. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual with it, just some sort of unrecognizable meat casserole, mashed potatoes and sludgy looking green stuff. Yup, looked like normal commissary food to me. The bottle of water had been opened and then done back up again. I could see the seal had been broken. ‘Every drop of it,’ echoed in my head as I remembered Siler’s words. I was thirsty, so I really had no choice. Trusting Siler, I opened the bottle of water and downed the contents in one hit. It didn’t taste any different to normal water; maybe I was just being paranoid.
My stomach rumbled with hunger reminding me that there was hot food sitting there waiting to be consumed. Picking up the only implement to eat my meal with, I spooned some of the mashed potato onto it and started to eat.
~*~
They came for me four hours later. I could hear yelling and shouting coming down the corridors towards my room as they opened my door. Apparently, I wasn’t the only unwilling guest and whoever they had, they sure weren’t cooperating. The SF’s that pushed me out of the door were ones that I had not seen before. They were just as big as the other SF’s, but there was no history here, so I obediently went with them.
I was taken down two levels by the stairs; these were cold and uncomfortable to my bare feet. Shivering slightly in the unheated and dim corridors, they pushed me along to the storage rooms. Using a pass card, one of my guards swiped the lock and pushed me inside one of the storerooms. The door slammed shut behind me.
The room was sparsely furnished; a military cot was placed against one wall and a table against another. The only other piece of furniture was the remains of a wooden chair that lay scattered across the cot and along the floor. I just managed to note that there were no cameras in the room, when a screaming form launched itself at me, banging my already damaged head against the door.
A sharp pain flared across my arm and ribs as the assailants arm connected with my body. With a speed that I hadn’t seen in a long time, my attacker spun around on one leg brought back the other leg and kicked out towards my neck. It stopped just before breaking my larynx; I could feel the skin of the bare foot touching my Adams apple. The foot was steady, not moving as my assailant stared straight into my eyes.
~*~
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