Big Bang Fiction Preview: Emergence (or, Lorne, This is Your Life)
Hey everyone, sorry for being a bit late. There's...well, family disaster going on, so I've been distracted. Anywho, here's a preview for my Big Bang. I'm still working on a title, and any, any suggestions are welcome. Enjoy!
Forming a Team
I finally get a nice bit of vacation about two years after joining the SGC. I head back to San Fran, kick it with my nephews, mess around with some guy with fantastic cowlicks, and come back in time to reassemble SG-7.
Yes, reassemble. My team history with the SGC is laudable and renown. With SG-1 I helped settle four mining planets, nearly got Teal’c executed off-world, helped a race call the Tollan escape, slept with Carter, and nearly blew up Earth trying to stop Apophis. And despite rumors to the contrary, I did not give General Bauer that aneurysm. My art work does not try to kill people, as Teal’c can attest.
Well, okay, so he’s Teal’c, but I stand by my statement.
My first year commanding SG-7, I have three fresh recruits, the first non-gay or women personnel allowed back on base other than the General. Aiden Ford, a marine; Jay Elliott, fellow flyboy; and Doctor Robert Rothman, an archeologist. Carter becomes the temporary head of base and Teal’c forms a new SG-1 with some of the older members of the SGC. And I get that promised promotion to Major well ahead of schedule.
This team lasts two years, in which I disobey orders and stay with a girl who would go nuclear (Cassie, same age as my nephews, I couldn’t leave her), we discover a second Stargate on Earth (damn cold, I can tell you), meet the advanced race of the Furlings (Native American spirits, apparently), kidnap Apophis’ baby, and later Apophis himself (separate times, not so clean results either time), and travel back through time (I rock as a hippie).
I lose Aiden Ford first to sarcophagus addiction. He had a taste of it off-world by some deranged princess. He nearly died getting weaned off it, but he seemed to be fine. What we didn’t know is that he used the one on-base without our knowledge. Sokar, the goa’uld pretending to be the Devil, used it on him on our last mission, and that was apparently the breaking point. When we found him…well, I wasn’t going to leave Ford to be any snake’s puppet. We brought his body back, and I personally gave the folded flag to his sister.
Elliott gets taken over by a goa’uld called Jolinar, only it’s part of a resistance cell called Tok’ra. A goa’uld assassin kills the snake, but the memories remain. We’re allies with the Tok’ra, now, after Elliott offered himself as a host to the snake Selmak. We still see him, occasionally, but he gets to fly spaceships instead of planes. It’s not exactly rocket science to figure out he isn’t going to come back just to be on my team.
I don’t loose Rothman to alien technologies or aliens themselves. He gets offered the job to be head of archeological studies on-base. Better pay, and while he misses the field, he loves his new position. He’s still around, joining me for lunch occasionally and helping Carter with the more anthro-related issues.
Carter sends me out after that to work with the mining sites. I come back to System Lords, Asgard, and finally, some form of orbital protection that we just haven’t been able to get since the program started. Asgard, by the by, have strange mouths. Other people can’t stand the eyes, or the nakedness, but for me, the mouths are just…weird.
And now, finally, after some rest and relaxation, I get to build my team again. Carter-now full-bird Colonel Carter-is officially in command of the SGC, reporting to an unknown General in Washington. I already know one member of my team is a Rodney McKay, someone she pulled from Area 51 for his expertise and to prevent…issues, back there. I haven’t yet met him, but it’ll definitely make things interesting.
I’m sitting in my office looking over dossiers when Colonel Feretti strolls in, a set of folders under his arms. Grinning like crazy, he takes a seat and puts his feet on my desk and crosses his ankles. Feretti’s a bit of a legend. He was off-world during the Foothold Event-now a part of every introduction packet for those joining the SGC-and is head of the “Dream Team”, also known as SG-2. Every week is another adventure for them, and while I’ve had a few with my own team, theirs never seem to end with lost teammates.
After the Foothold, he was able to come out. When I first made Major, he took me to a bar, got me shitfaced, then told me I sucked cock like a woman. I made sure he couldn’t walk straight for a week, and since then we’ve been pretty cool. When I brought Aiden back, it was his couch I crashed on. When Cassie stopped thinking I was a cool uncle, he got me a Playstation to distract me.
And when he ran into Jack O’Neill, his ex-CO and once best friend, in a goa’uld ambush, I was there when they had to cut off his arm so the sarcophagus would heal him properly. That night he told me the story, the true story, of going to Abydos, defeating Ra, and about O’Neill, who now apparently works against the SGC, though he still, for some reason, wears the uniform. “It’s shit,” he had said, “he fucking hates those snakes. And now he’s her fuckin’ plaything!”
He recovered, of course. They all did. But since then SG-2 is at the forefront of the effort to bring those missing members home, even against their will.
Right now, SG-2 is recuperating from their last big adventure involving Sokar and his Hell moon exploding. Elliott was a part of it, but since I was away… Well, Carter probably had a good reason for not calling me in.
When he starts slapping the folders against his knee, I sigh and look at him. “Alright, Lou, what’s this one gonna cost me?”
He places a hand over his heart. “You wound me, E-man. Here I am, to help you out of the generosity of my heart-“
“Bull, Lou. I know that grin.” I do. It’s ear-to-ear showing his slightly crooked teeth. He had that grin in the bar, right before we went into the alleyway and he told me to blow him. “And get your crap-encrusted boots off my desk.” I whack the edge of one with a stapler, and get a bit of mud on my paperwork as a reward.
He laughs, loud and stringy. “Alright, alright. Look, I’m bringing in this flyboy, Mitchell. Got this gut feeling he’d be wild behind the controls of a ship.”
I raise my eyebrow at him. “And you think he’d be a good fit for my team?”
“Hell no! I want him for SG-2! Think he’ll make a damn fine team leader some day.”
I close the file I was looking at, a Lieutenant with a lot of accolades and no personality, from the gist of it. Not sure that’s the sort of guy I want watching my back. Personality makes the team, sometimes. “I told you after last time, I’m not going on another of your blind dates.”
“How was I know it was a goa’uld in disguise? Seriously, what were the odds.”
“He told us to bow down and kiss his feet!”
“We were in a leather club!”
I resist the urge to bang my head against the desk and instead cradle it in my hands. “Lou…”
“Alright, alright, listen.” He jerks his feet back and slides a folder to me all in one move. “Mitchell knows a guy, about to ship out to Afghanistan again. Great pilot, bit of a recluse. But definitely one of ours.”
I look at the edge of the folder. “John Sheppard?”
“Look at the hair and tell me he’s not gay.”
Ignoring Feretti’s crude mannerisms, I flip open the folder. Deliberately avoiding the picture, I glance at his service record. Excellent scores, bit of a problem with authority figures, and who feels a little out of place with everyone on Earth. That’s actually a great sign, something I look for in psych reports. Where better to fit in than a place that travels to other worlds? The mountain isn’t just a haven for homosexuals. I’ll look deeper into that one reprimand, but it takes more than a black mark to keep someone from joining SGC.
And then I look at his picture. “Oh fuck me.”
“Cock’s a bit sore right now. Rain check?”
I do let my head fall to the desk this time. “Shut up.” I tap the picture, even as my forehead rests against the re-fabricated tabletop. “He’s one of us.”
“That sure-oh shit! You’ve slept with him!”
A week ago in a lovely hotel suite not a mile away from my sister’s house. A bit hairy, but very flexible with pointed ears that turn red as his neck’s being nibbled on.
“Well then,” and I can just hear the elation in his voice, “now you definitely have to pull him in. He’ll be perfect!”
My head snaps up. “Ferretti!”
He shrugs. “What? SG-2 was part of an orgy.”
“SG-2 is a chevron short of a full address!” He snorts at that. “I, however, have a personal code! And number three of that code is ‘don’t fuck your team mates!’” Number two is ‘never paint someone you love’ and number one is ‘no one touches The Hat.’
I got that hat from Harrison Ford himself on the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark. That hat got me in the Force and my second night with the Mizuki twins. No one, absolutely no one but me touches it. Also, I look fucking fantastic wearing it. But that’s beside the point.
“He wasn’t part of your team then.” Ferretti leans forward and taps the folder, grin gone for a moment. “He’s got potential, Lorne, but he won’t last, not with that attitude, not out there. Here,” he thunks his finger against the desk, “here, he’ll become a damn fine officer.”
The ‘like you did’ floats unspoken between us. I glance at the picture, then to Sheppard’s history, and finally, I settle my gaze on Ferretti. “It’s that important to you, Lou?”
“Damn right it’s that important, Ev.” He leans back into his chair, sliding down so he’s slightly slouched. “Look, O’Neill was a pain in the ass and a right bastard. But I wouldn’t be half the officer I am today if he didn’t pull me from that shithole in the desert and whip me into shape.” He snaps his fingers. “No smartass comments.”
“No sir,” I say.
“And it would be a disservice to his memory if I didn’t follow in his footsteps. Didn’t do half bad with you. Now,” he holds up the other folder in his hands, “I got a new one. And you owe it to me, and to this facility, to do the same.”
I close Sheppard’s folder and pick it up, eyeing the front of it. “SG-7 isn’t a premier team.”
“Like hell it’s not. Me and Teal’c may be the stars of the show, but everyone knows if we’re gone it’s your team who pulls asses out of the fire.” He sits up again. “You and me, we shape the future of this facility. SG’s three through six? They’re field teams. They train the muscle, or scientists. The two of us, Ev? The two of us train team leaders.”
And really, what can I say to that? It’s unofficial, but definitely the highest praise I’ve had since joining the SGC. Not even Carter’s said that much before. Nodding slowly, I put Sheppard’s folder on top of McKay’s. “Alright, Ferretti. I’ll give Sheppard a go.”
And like that, all tension is gone. Ferretti’s grin is back, and I feel myself starting to relax. At least, until I look at the pile on my desk again and let out a dejected sigh. “I still need a fourth. And Carter’ll insist on a woman.” Which, sadly, doesn’t cut my work down.
Ferretti tilts his head to the side, and finally says, “What about that Teyla chick who came back with SG-1?”
Forming a Team
I finally get a nice bit of vacation about two years after joining the SGC. I head back to San Fran, kick it with my nephews, mess around with some guy with fantastic cowlicks, and come back in time to reassemble SG-7.
Yes, reassemble. My team history with the SGC is laudable and renown. With SG-1 I helped settle four mining planets, nearly got Teal’c executed off-world, helped a race call the Tollan escape, slept with Carter, and nearly blew up Earth trying to stop Apophis. And despite rumors to the contrary, I did not give General Bauer that aneurysm. My art work does not try to kill people, as Teal’c can attest.
Well, okay, so he’s Teal’c, but I stand by my statement.
My first year commanding SG-7, I have three fresh recruits, the first non-gay or women personnel allowed back on base other than the General. Aiden Ford, a marine; Jay Elliott, fellow flyboy; and Doctor Robert Rothman, an archeologist. Carter becomes the temporary head of base and Teal’c forms a new SG-1 with some of the older members of the SGC. And I get that promised promotion to Major well ahead of schedule.
This team lasts two years, in which I disobey orders and stay with a girl who would go nuclear (Cassie, same age as my nephews, I couldn’t leave her), we discover a second Stargate on Earth (damn cold, I can tell you), meet the advanced race of the Furlings (Native American spirits, apparently), kidnap Apophis’ baby, and later Apophis himself (separate times, not so clean results either time), and travel back through time (I rock as a hippie).
I lose Aiden Ford first to sarcophagus addiction. He had a taste of it off-world by some deranged princess. He nearly died getting weaned off it, but he seemed to be fine. What we didn’t know is that he used the one on-base without our knowledge. Sokar, the goa’uld pretending to be the Devil, used it on him on our last mission, and that was apparently the breaking point. When we found him…well, I wasn’t going to leave Ford to be any snake’s puppet. We brought his body back, and I personally gave the folded flag to his sister.
Elliott gets taken over by a goa’uld called Jolinar, only it’s part of a resistance cell called Tok’ra. A goa’uld assassin kills the snake, but the memories remain. We’re allies with the Tok’ra, now, after Elliott offered himself as a host to the snake Selmak. We still see him, occasionally, but he gets to fly spaceships instead of planes. It’s not exactly rocket science to figure out he isn’t going to come back just to be on my team.
I don’t loose Rothman to alien technologies or aliens themselves. He gets offered the job to be head of archeological studies on-base. Better pay, and while he misses the field, he loves his new position. He’s still around, joining me for lunch occasionally and helping Carter with the more anthro-related issues.
Carter sends me out after that to work with the mining sites. I come back to System Lords, Asgard, and finally, some form of orbital protection that we just haven’t been able to get since the program started. Asgard, by the by, have strange mouths. Other people can’t stand the eyes, or the nakedness, but for me, the mouths are just…weird.
And now, finally, after some rest and relaxation, I get to build my team again. Carter-now full-bird Colonel Carter-is officially in command of the SGC, reporting to an unknown General in Washington. I already know one member of my team is a Rodney McKay, someone she pulled from Area 51 for his expertise and to prevent…issues, back there. I haven’t yet met him, but it’ll definitely make things interesting.
I’m sitting in my office looking over dossiers when Colonel Feretti strolls in, a set of folders under his arms. Grinning like crazy, he takes a seat and puts his feet on my desk and crosses his ankles. Feretti’s a bit of a legend. He was off-world during the Foothold Event-now a part of every introduction packet for those joining the SGC-and is head of the “Dream Team”, also known as SG-2. Every week is another adventure for them, and while I’ve had a few with my own team, theirs never seem to end with lost teammates.
After the Foothold, he was able to come out. When I first made Major, he took me to a bar, got me shitfaced, then told me I sucked cock like a woman. I made sure he couldn’t walk straight for a week, and since then we’ve been pretty cool. When I brought Aiden back, it was his couch I crashed on. When Cassie stopped thinking I was a cool uncle, he got me a Playstation to distract me.
And when he ran into Jack O’Neill, his ex-CO and once best friend, in a goa’uld ambush, I was there when they had to cut off his arm so the sarcophagus would heal him properly. That night he told me the story, the true story, of going to Abydos, defeating Ra, and about O’Neill, who now apparently works against the SGC, though he still, for some reason, wears the uniform. “It’s shit,” he had said, “he fucking hates those snakes. And now he’s her fuckin’ plaything!”
He recovered, of course. They all did. But since then SG-2 is at the forefront of the effort to bring those missing members home, even against their will.
Right now, SG-2 is recuperating from their last big adventure involving Sokar and his Hell moon exploding. Elliott was a part of it, but since I was away… Well, Carter probably had a good reason for not calling me in.
When he starts slapping the folders against his knee, I sigh and look at him. “Alright, Lou, what’s this one gonna cost me?”
He places a hand over his heart. “You wound me, E-man. Here I am, to help you out of the generosity of my heart-“
“Bull, Lou. I know that grin.” I do. It’s ear-to-ear showing his slightly crooked teeth. He had that grin in the bar, right before we went into the alleyway and he told me to blow him. “And get your crap-encrusted boots off my desk.” I whack the edge of one with a stapler, and get a bit of mud on my paperwork as a reward.
He laughs, loud and stringy. “Alright, alright. Look, I’m bringing in this flyboy, Mitchell. Got this gut feeling he’d be wild behind the controls of a ship.”
I raise my eyebrow at him. “And you think he’d be a good fit for my team?”
“Hell no! I want him for SG-2! Think he’ll make a damn fine team leader some day.”
I close the file I was looking at, a Lieutenant with a lot of accolades and no personality, from the gist of it. Not sure that’s the sort of guy I want watching my back. Personality makes the team, sometimes. “I told you after last time, I’m not going on another of your blind dates.”
“How was I know it was a goa’uld in disguise? Seriously, what were the odds.”
“He told us to bow down and kiss his feet!”
“We were in a leather club!”
I resist the urge to bang my head against the desk and instead cradle it in my hands. “Lou…”
“Alright, alright, listen.” He jerks his feet back and slides a folder to me all in one move. “Mitchell knows a guy, about to ship out to Afghanistan again. Great pilot, bit of a recluse. But definitely one of ours.”
I look at the edge of the folder. “John Sheppard?”
“Look at the hair and tell me he’s not gay.”
Ignoring Feretti’s crude mannerisms, I flip open the folder. Deliberately avoiding the picture, I glance at his service record. Excellent scores, bit of a problem with authority figures, and who feels a little out of place with everyone on Earth. That’s actually a great sign, something I look for in psych reports. Where better to fit in than a place that travels to other worlds? The mountain isn’t just a haven for homosexuals. I’ll look deeper into that one reprimand, but it takes more than a black mark to keep someone from joining SGC.
And then I look at his picture. “Oh fuck me.”
“Cock’s a bit sore right now. Rain check?”
I do let my head fall to the desk this time. “Shut up.” I tap the picture, even as my forehead rests against the re-fabricated tabletop. “He’s one of us.”
“That sure-oh shit! You’ve slept with him!”
A week ago in a lovely hotel suite not a mile away from my sister’s house. A bit hairy, but very flexible with pointed ears that turn red as his neck’s being nibbled on.
“Well then,” and I can just hear the elation in his voice, “now you definitely have to pull him in. He’ll be perfect!”
My head snaps up. “Ferretti!”
He shrugs. “What? SG-2 was part of an orgy.”
“SG-2 is a chevron short of a full address!” He snorts at that. “I, however, have a personal code! And number three of that code is ‘don’t fuck your team mates!’” Number two is ‘never paint someone you love’ and number one is ‘no one touches The Hat.’
I got that hat from Harrison Ford himself on the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark. That hat got me in the Force and my second night with the Mizuki twins. No one, absolutely no one but me touches it. Also, I look fucking fantastic wearing it. But that’s beside the point.
“He wasn’t part of your team then.” Ferretti leans forward and taps the folder, grin gone for a moment. “He’s got potential, Lorne, but he won’t last, not with that attitude, not out there. Here,” he thunks his finger against the desk, “here, he’ll become a damn fine officer.”
The ‘like you did’ floats unspoken between us. I glance at the picture, then to Sheppard’s history, and finally, I settle my gaze on Ferretti. “It’s that important to you, Lou?”
“Damn right it’s that important, Ev.” He leans back into his chair, sliding down so he’s slightly slouched. “Look, O’Neill was a pain in the ass and a right bastard. But I wouldn’t be half the officer I am today if he didn’t pull me from that shithole in the desert and whip me into shape.” He snaps his fingers. “No smartass comments.”
“No sir,” I say.
“And it would be a disservice to his memory if I didn’t follow in his footsteps. Didn’t do half bad with you. Now,” he holds up the other folder in his hands, “I got a new one. And you owe it to me, and to this facility, to do the same.”
I close Sheppard’s folder and pick it up, eyeing the front of it. “SG-7 isn’t a premier team.”
“Like hell it’s not. Me and Teal’c may be the stars of the show, but everyone knows if we’re gone it’s your team who pulls asses out of the fire.” He sits up again. “You and me, we shape the future of this facility. SG’s three through six? They’re field teams. They train the muscle, or scientists. The two of us, Ev? The two of us train team leaders.”
And really, what can I say to that? It’s unofficial, but definitely the highest praise I’ve had since joining the SGC. Not even Carter’s said that much before. Nodding slowly, I put Sheppard’s folder on top of McKay’s. “Alright, Ferretti. I’ll give Sheppard a go.”
And like that, all tension is gone. Ferretti’s grin is back, and I feel myself starting to relax. At least, until I look at the pile on my desk again and let out a dejected sigh. “I still need a fourth. And Carter’ll insist on a woman.” Which, sadly, doesn’t cut my work down.
Ferretti tilts his head to the side, and finally says, “What about that Teyla chick who came back with SG-1?”