“You wanted to see me sir?” Carter asked, standing in Landry’s doorway.
“Yes, Colonel, please come in.” Carter entered the office and stood in front of her CO’s desk, waiting for him to speak. “How soon can you get your team together?” Landry asked her.
“Well, all of us save Vala are on base right now, so it shouldn’t take too long.”
“Yes, that’s right. Vala is taking some personal time right now, isn’t she? Off doing god knows what with god knows who.” Sam smothered a smile and simply waited for Landry to continue. “I have a mission for SG-1. Gather your team, Colonel, we brief in one hour.”
“Yes, sir.”
An hour later, SG-1 minus Vala was gathered in the briefing room waiting for Landry to emerge from his office.
“What’s this all about, Sam? We weren’t scheduled to go offworld again for another couple of weeks or so.” Mitchell asked.
“You know as much as I do, Cam. General Landry just asked me to get us all together for a briefing. He didn’t look very happy about it, though.” She stopped talking as Landry came into the room.
“Alright, SG-1, I’ve got an assignment for you.” he said shortly, sitting at the head of the table. “We’ve just received intel that the Ori have begun building a shipyard here in our galaxy.”
Teal’c quirked an eyebrow and Daniel leaned forward, lacing his fingers together. “A shipyard? Here? Why would they do that if they can just build them in their own galaxy and send them through the supergate?” Then he thought a second and amended, “Oh, right. That whole black hole thing.”
“Looks like they found a way around it.” Mitchell drawled lazily.
“Looks that way.” Landry said. “Anyway, intel says that a new ship, one far more massive than the battle cruisers we’ve encountered, entered our galaxy two weeks ago and landed on a world not more than a few hundred light years from here. Evidently the ship was carrying troops and supplies, because as soon as it landed it began to disgorge thousands of people and containers, along with no less than seven priors, presumably to oversee the construction and activation of the new ships.
“Your mission is quite simple, although it is in no way easy. You are to go in and figure out how to shut down this operation once and for all. There are currently four ships in various stages of construction in the area. They all need to be permanently disabled, or destroyed, along with the means for constructing more.”
“Why don’t we just send a naquadah bomb through the stargate and blow them all to hell?” Mitchell asked.
“The building site is too far from the gate, and there are too many innocent lives at stake. The world the Ori chose is one that they have already converted, and the building site is on the outskirts of a city that houses over a million people.”
“Let me guess” Carter said. “Those people are now working as slave labor on the ships being constructed.”
“You guess right.” Landry said. “I’m not going to lie to you, people. This is probably the most dangerous mission we’ve ever sent you out on. You’ll be completely on your own. The pentagon doesn’t want us sending more than four people because more would just attract attention that we don’t want.”
“Well then, let’s go.” Mitchell said, jumping up—and immediately falling on his butt. “OW!” he yelled as Teal’c reached down to pull him to his feet.
“Colonel Mitchell, I believe you have forgotten something.” Teal’c said.
“Ya think?” Cam groaned.
“That’s the other issue I wanted to discuss with you.” Landry said as Mitchell lowered himself gingerly back into his seat. “Since Colonel Mitchell is not yet recovered from the twisted knee he got on your last mission, I’m afraid he’ll be sitting this one out.”
Mitchell grimaced. “This really sucks, you know that?”
Landry smiled sympathetically at him before continuing. “Another officer will be assigned to replace him.”
Carter inwardly groaned, wondering who they would be stuck with. “Will this officer have field training, sir? It’s probably not a good idea to stick us with …. I mean to send someone out who hasn’t even stepped foot through the gate.”
Landry grinned. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll have a problem with this guy.”
He glanced at the door as if waiting for someone to walk through. When nothing happened, he cleared his throat. “General, if you’d care to join us?”
“Oh,” came a very familiar voice from the hallway. “Was that my cue?”
“Yes, Jack.” Landry said, and General Jack O’Neill strode into the room to the delighted grins of the faces seated around the table.
“Jack!” Daniel said. “You’re coming with us?”
“Is that alright with you, Daniel?”
“Well, of course. It’s good to see you!”
“I too am gratified to see you, O’Neill.” Teal’c affirmed.
“Well, thank you, Teal’c. I’m gratified that you’re…uh…gratified.”
Jack looked at Sam. “Carter, you mind if I horn in on your command?”
Carter glanced quickly at Mitchell. “Well, it’s not exactly my command, sir, but you’re more than welcome to it.”
“Good. We leave in 24 hours, people, and we have a lot to do before then. Get to work, all of you.”
Sam looked up from her work when a shadow fell across her table. “Oh, hello, General.”
“Carter.” O’Neill stood close behind her, looking over her shoulder. “Watcha doin’?”
Sam grinned to herself, enjoying his proximity. “I’m working on the cloaking devices we borrowed from the Sodan.”
“You’re working on them? Are they broken?”
“Um, actually, no sir. They’re working fine. I just wanted to, uh, figure out how they functioned exactly.”
“I see. Just don’t go taking them apart in the process, okay? We’re going to need them where we’re going.” Jack put a friendly hand on her shoulder and surreptitiously brushed his thumb across the back of her neck before turning and walking out of her lab. Sam took a deep breath after he left, squashing the heat rising in her face. They’d had a “thing” going for several months, but they still needed to be careful here in the SGC. As far as she knew, only Daniel and Teal’c had any idea what was going on, and for now it needed to stay that way. She felt a little guilty about it, but she was glad Mitchell and Vala would be sitting this one out.
“Okay, people, here we go.” O’Neill bounced on his toes, enjoying the anticipation permeating the gateroom. He had missed this. “Dial it up, chief”, he called up to the control room. Jack looked at his team. Carter was fussing with the armband that controlled her cloaking device, Daniel was fidgeting with his pack, and Teal’c simply stood there like he wasn’t carrying a bag full of rather heavy explosives, waiting for the mission to begin. “Everybody got everything?” Multiple nods. “You sure we’re not forgetting anything?” Multiple headshakes. “Anyone gotta pee before we do this, cuz we’re not stopping once we get moving.” Multiple eye rolls. “All right, then campers. Let’s do this. Activate cloaks.” They all pressed the buttons on the armbands and disappeared from view.
“SG-1, you have a go.” Landry said via the intercom. “Good luck.”
The only evidence of their departure through the gate was several slight ripples in the surface of the event horizon before it shut down.