Sheppard’s face looked gray. “Ronon’s good,” he said. “He’d do something. We’ve got to get back and search the debris field.”
“As soon as the Hammond has shields again, we’ll do that,” Sam said. She made her voice hard. “But I can’t jump into a Wraith held system with no shields. Right now we’re working around the clock on the repairs.”
Sheppard swallowed. For a moment Sam thought he was going to protest, but he didn’t. “I know,” he said, and from Sheppard that was a concession of almost unimaginable trust. He knew she’d do her best.
And she would. “I’ll go see how the repairs are coming,” she said. “And put the priority on the shields. We may be able to get underway in a few hours.” She looked at Zelenka. “Dr. Zelenka, are you able to assist?”
“Absolutely,” Zelenka said, handing his weapon and tac vest off to Cadman. “I will help.”
“I’ll go tell Woolsey,” Sheppard said, and strode off toward Woolsey’s office. Cadman hovered uncertainly in his wake.
“You can stand down,” Sam said to Cadman. “Go clean up and report to me for debriefing in two hours. I want to hear what happened, but it can wait until you’ve had a few minutes and I’ve checked on the repairs.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cadman said, looking relieved.
Sam glanced down at Radek. “Let’s go fix the Hammond.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Again.”
“Somehow it never stays fixed.”
Laura Cadman, clean and smelling like Satsuma shower gel rather than hive ship, found Colonel Carter upside down in the crawl space on deck E. “You asked me to report in two hours, ma’am,” she said to her colonel’s rear end. Carter was lying over a strut working on something beneath it, occasionally bumping heads with Dr. Kusanagi, who was also upside down on the other side of the hole.
“Cadman?” Carter righted herself, shoving her bangs back from her eyes and looking at her watch. “Two hours already?”
“I can come back, ma’am,” Laura said, though she hoped she didn’t have to. She’d really like a good night’s sleep in her own bed, but if Carter was busy she’d have to stay up and come back when it was convenient for her. Captains waited on colonels, not the other way around.
“No, it’s fine.” Carter got up. “Miko, are you good for a few minutes? I need to talk to Cadman.”
“Of course,” the upside down Dr. Kusanagi replied. “I will have this rewired before you return and then I will move on to section twelve.”
“Ok.” Carter dusted off her hands on the legs of her flight suit. “Let’s go have a chat.” She gave Laura a disconcertingly perky smile, the kind that made Laura wonder what bad news was supposed to follow it. “We can talk in my quarters.”
Worse, Laura thought. A private conversation that wouldn’t be overheard by anybody. She’d done ok on the hive ship, she thought. Well, except for not rescuing Dr. McKay who was probably dead, and managing to lose Ronon and Dr. Keller in the process. Yes, it had been Colonel Sheppard’s mission, but if she’d done something brilliant maybe they wouldn’t have gotten separated. Or maybe it was about the bears. She hadn’t meant to drop the ceiling on Dr. Robinson! That was definitely her fault. Though what was she was supposed to have done with no ammunition left and a pile of polar bears charging her, besides use a grenade? Trip them? Somebody better at this would have thought of something.
Oh God, with the gate working two ways she’d be lucky if she wasn’t on her way home tonight! She’d probably be back in Colorado Springs before breakfast. Washed out.
“Think we’re going to wash out?” The other Marine was tall and lanky, black hair barbered so ruthlessly he was almost bald, Lt. Aidan Ford, age twenty three, one year out of Georgia Tech. She was one year out of Florida State.
Two Marines, two Air Force. That was how it worked. Four lieutenants who had been given a shot at a program so top secret they hadn’t even known what it was about when they’d reported to Colorado Springs. She’d been sitting with Ford on the plane, and they’d traded snacks and speculations. Peterson Air Force Base? Why did they need two Marines? NORAD?
“Maybe it’s some kind of ceremonial duty,” Ford hypothesized. “Like the White House guards or something.”
“In Colorado Springs?” Laura looked out the window at the endless Great Plains. “Maybe they need some Marines for Air Force Academy kids to beat on.” They were kids, of course, twenty-one, not twenty-three. It made all the difference in the world.
Ford shrugged. “Maybe it’s good. Ever consider that?”
And it was. It was better than they’d ever dreamed.
They were going to other planets. They were going to other planets now, without a space ship, to battle real aliens that wanted to conquer Earth. They were going places they could never talk about, seeing things that maybe no human being had ever seen. If they didn’t wash out of training.
“Sixty-five percent of you do,” Colonel O’Neill said. He had steel gray hair and deeply graven lines on his face though he couldn’t have been fifty yet, a ramrod straight bearing even in slightly oversized battle dress and a unit baseball cap with the SGC patch embroidered on it. Laura coveted that cap. Those were special perks, special unit designations for the ones who had made it. “Sixty-five percent of you walk out of here and go back to your normal lives,” O’Neill said. “And let me tell you that you don’t get any points for being the best and the brightest here. I’ve seen a lot of smart kids.”
Standing at attention next to her in the second row of trainees, Ford frowned. He looked really worried. “Guess I don’t have anything to worry about, “ Cadman whispered. “Nobody said I was smart.”
Ford’s mouth twisted in a suppressed smile.
“You have something to say, Lt. Cadman?” O’Neill barked.
“No, sir!” Back straight, eyes front, nice and loud.
O’Neill shook his head. “Don’t shout, Lieutenant. I’m standing right here.” He went down the row. “And you may wish you’d washed out. Because if you do, your chances of being alive in two years are a lot greater. So if any of you want to voluntarily withdraw at this point, there will be no mark on your record.”
Ford’s brows twitched. As if, Laura thought. You’re going to tell me everything I ever read about is real and think I’m going to walk away?
Afterwards, in the hummer on the way out to the first proving ground, Ford drew her and the two Air Force guys who they were assigned with into a huddle. “We’ve got to stick together,” Ford said. “That’s the key. Teamwork. They didn’t assign us in four man units randomly. They think we’ve got complimentary skills. So we need to put our stuff on the table and work it out. What do you do, Cadman?”
“I blow things up,” she said.
They spent the next three days screwing up a variety of scenarios. There was a hostage rescue in which they were supposed to save this guy named Quinn from aliens, only Ford shot him instead.
“Lieutenant Ford,” O’Neill said with scathing sarcasm, “Your peerless brilliance has just resulted in the death of the man you came to save. Any questions?”
“No, sir!” Ford replied, eyes front.
“And stop shouting.”
There was an ambush scenario in which the Jaffa, Teal’c, wiped the floor with all of them except Laura, who blew herself up. Accidentally.