[Stargate: Fiction] "KIA" [SG-22, PG]
Title: KIA
Prompt: writerverse challenge #23 it’s the end of the world (literal or figurative)
Word Count: 1,282
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Stargate SG-1 ( SG-22, original characters)
Warnings: AU! character death, non-graphic violence
Summary: Five weeks and six days after SG-22 fails to report in, Igraine Gryffydd comes back to Earth. Alone.
Note(s): originally posted to the writerverse wv_library
KIA
Five weeks and six days after SG-22 had missed their check-in from P4X-917, the stargate sprang to life.
“It’s SG-22’s ID code,” said the sergeant, hopefully.
General Hammond was already on his way out of the Control Room. “Open the iris!” he called back, as SG-1 joined him on the stairs down.
The wormhole rippled for a long moment, then Igraine Gryffydd stepped through into the Gate Room.
Alone.
Her left arm was clearly broken, cradled awkwardly against her chest. A ragged, dirty bandage covered her right knee, and she limped with every step. Her usually pale skin was sunburned and dirty, covered in scratches and cuts, and her hair hung in a bedraggled braid down her back.
“Captain?” said Hammond softly.
Gryffydd opened her broken left hand, holding up two sets of bloodstained dog tags and a cracked eyeglass lens. She swallowed hard, and when she spoke, her voice came out in a painful-sounding rasp, “Sir, SG-22 didn’t make it.”
They had been ambushed, Gryffydd explained later, sounding better after a few hours in the infirmary.
Janet Fraiser had set her broken arm, and stitched up the worst of her cuts. Two of her nurses, with strong arms and gentle hands, had helped Gryffydd wash off the grime, change into clean clothes and re-braid her hair, but there was nothing any of them could do for the way the light had gone out of her eyes the second the wormhole had shut down behind her.
SG-22 had been captured the moment they arrived on P4X-917, but the Goa’uld who held power there didn’t operate a naquadah mine. Instead, they had been sent several miles inland from the stargate, clearing land for the huge palace he was planning to build. The planet had no human population, so the pace of their work was set by the Goa’uld’s Jaffa laborers. It was too much for Levi Flannigan, who got steadily weaker, until he finally became too sick to continue working.
They lost Jason Vicks in the fight to escape. It was greater odds than they’d faced before, but they had to try. Gryffydd couldn’t remember all of the details, but somehow, they’d overpowered the guards and gotten away. Or, they’d tried to. Levi was still too weak to be much use. Gryffydd and Tobias had practically carried him into the safety of the woods, leaving Vicks to cover their retreat. He’d almost made it after them when he was hit by a staff weapon blast and went down, hard. Gryffydd snagged his dog tags, before they were forced farther into the trees.
She wasn’t sure, either, how they made long trip back to the stargate, then snuck into the Goa’uld compound to steal back their equipment. Walter Tobias died getting them to the ‘gate, leaving bloody fingerprints on the DHD as he keyed in the final symbols. Gryffydd was at his side, barely noticing as he pressed his dog tags into her hand, as he made her swear to go on without him.
Without the time to send an IDC, Tobias had dialed an uninhabited planet they’d been to several weeks before, and Gryffydd and Levi made it through the wormhole with a dozen Jaffa still on their tail. That planet, too, was heavily wooded, and they managed to evade them long enough to locate a GDO.
But by that time, it was too late. Despite Gryffydd’s best efforts, Levi had died in her arms. She’d patched herself up, then painstakingly buried her last teammate in a rock cairn. With a GDO in hand, she grabbed a stolen staff weapon and blasted her way back through to the ‘gate, and back to Earth.
There was absolute silence in the briefing room as Gryffydd finished speaking. Hammond poured her a glass of water, and watched worriedly as she took tiny sips.
“We’re so sorry, Gryff,” said Daniel, reaching out to rest a hand on her un-casted arm. She stiffened, as though she couldn’t bear the touch.
“There was nothing you could have done, captain,” added Jack.
Hammond nodded. “The colonel is right. Take some time and heal, captain.”
“Yes, sir,” said Gryffydd, then hesitated. “Sir… I’d like to speak to my team’s families myself. I know I can’t tell them how they died, but I want to tell them how much… how brave they were.”
“Of course, Gryff,” said Hammond, and she flinched as though he’d shouted. It wasn’t her fault, but the deaths were still rough- kindness was the last thing she would want to hear, and he purposely adopted a more authoritative tone, “Captain, get some rest. That’s an order.”
She nodded, straightening to attention. “Yes, sir.”
They thought she was handling it well. In the days after Gryffydd had returned, she spent several days sleeping, and several more getting back up to a healthy weight. As soon as she was able to move around, she started working in the base library, which had always been secondary to her off-world missions.
She was always happy to talk to people when they came by, and Sam and Daniel both stopped in often. When she could walk without a limp, and most of her cuts had faded, Gryffydd left to see Tobias’s, Vicks’s and Flannigan’s families, and when she returned, she seemed in no worse spirits than before.
Occasionally, she was heard talking when she was the only person in the library. Under the neck of her t-shirt, there were three chains instead of one, and her hand often strayed to her left-hand pocket, but there was nothing to suggest she wasn’t, slowly, coming to terms with the loss of her team.
Until every alarm in the base started going off.
“We’re locked out, sir!” said the sergeant, surprised and concerned. “Every system, every- The ‘gate just activated!”
“Off-world?” Hammond asked.
“No, sir, it’s… it’s us, sir. But I didn’t-”
Below, a lone figure walked into the Gate Room. Igraine Gryffydd wore her standard off-world gear, and carried a large container over her shoulder. She turned, looking back up at the control room, and Hammond realized it wasn’t a container, but one of the small, Mark III naquadah-enhanced nuclear bombs.
Gryffydd stopped at the top of the ramp. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. For a moment, they could see the utter despair she had been hiding, etched deep across her face. Then, her emotionless mask sliding back in place, she turned and stepped through the wormhole.
All of the lights went out, and immediately snapped back on. “Systems are running normally,” the sergeant reported. “But the last address dialed has been wiped from the computer memory.”
“General!” All of SG-1 came running into the Control Room. “What-?”
“Captain Gryffydd,” said Hammond, softly.
“Gryff?” Daniel repeated. “But she was fine. She… she was fine!”
“No, she wasn’t,” said Jack. “She said so herself, the minute she walked through that ‘gate.”
“Sir, SG-22 didn’t make it,” Sam repeated. “She was right.”
Later, they would discover that when Gryffydd had packed up her teammates’ belongings at the Frat House, she’d also packed her own. She’d updated her will, neatly tied up all her affairs- and done all she could to make sure no one suspected a thing.
A week later, they received a frantic transmission from the Tok’Ra, with reports from a dozen operatives that naquadah mines and shipyards along the outskirts of Goa’uld space had been mysteriously sabotaged. And just a few hours earlier, a single redheaded human in a torn and bloody SGC uniform had walked into a meeting of a dozen minor Goa’uld, before the entire compound was blown to smithereens.
SG-22 were listed as killed in action- all four of them.
THE END
Current Mood:
clean
Prompt: writerverse challenge #23 it’s the end of the world (literal or figurative)
Word Count: 1,282
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Stargate SG-1 ( SG-22, original characters)
Warnings: AU! character death, non-graphic violence
Summary: Five weeks and six days after SG-22 fails to report in, Igraine Gryffydd comes back to Earth. Alone.
Note(s): originally posted to the writerverse wv_library
KIA
Five weeks and six days after SG-22 had missed their check-in from P4X-917, the stargate sprang to life.
“It’s SG-22’s ID code,” said the sergeant, hopefully.
General Hammond was already on his way out of the Control Room. “Open the iris!” he called back, as SG-1 joined him on the stairs down.
The wormhole rippled for a long moment, then Igraine Gryffydd stepped through into the Gate Room.
Alone.
Her left arm was clearly broken, cradled awkwardly against her chest. A ragged, dirty bandage covered her right knee, and she limped with every step. Her usually pale skin was sunburned and dirty, covered in scratches and cuts, and her hair hung in a bedraggled braid down her back.
“Captain?” said Hammond softly.
Gryffydd opened her broken left hand, holding up two sets of bloodstained dog tags and a cracked eyeglass lens. She swallowed hard, and when she spoke, her voice came out in a painful-sounding rasp, “Sir, SG-22 didn’t make it.”
They had been ambushed, Gryffydd explained later, sounding better after a few hours in the infirmary.
Janet Fraiser had set her broken arm, and stitched up the worst of her cuts. Two of her nurses, with strong arms and gentle hands, had helped Gryffydd wash off the grime, change into clean clothes and re-braid her hair, but there was nothing any of them could do for the way the light had gone out of her eyes the second the wormhole had shut down behind her.
SG-22 had been captured the moment they arrived on P4X-917, but the Goa’uld who held power there didn’t operate a naquadah mine. Instead, they had been sent several miles inland from the stargate, clearing land for the huge palace he was planning to build. The planet had no human population, so the pace of their work was set by the Goa’uld’s Jaffa laborers. It was too much for Levi Flannigan, who got steadily weaker, until he finally became too sick to continue working.
They lost Jason Vicks in the fight to escape. It was greater odds than they’d faced before, but they had to try. Gryffydd couldn’t remember all of the details, but somehow, they’d overpowered the guards and gotten away. Or, they’d tried to. Levi was still too weak to be much use. Gryffydd and Tobias had practically carried him into the safety of the woods, leaving Vicks to cover their retreat. He’d almost made it after them when he was hit by a staff weapon blast and went down, hard. Gryffydd snagged his dog tags, before they were forced farther into the trees.
She wasn’t sure, either, how they made long trip back to the stargate, then snuck into the Goa’uld compound to steal back their equipment. Walter Tobias died getting them to the ‘gate, leaving bloody fingerprints on the DHD as he keyed in the final symbols. Gryffydd was at his side, barely noticing as he pressed his dog tags into her hand, as he made her swear to go on without him.
Without the time to send an IDC, Tobias had dialed an uninhabited planet they’d been to several weeks before, and Gryffydd and Levi made it through the wormhole with a dozen Jaffa still on their tail. That planet, too, was heavily wooded, and they managed to evade them long enough to locate a GDO.
But by that time, it was too late. Despite Gryffydd’s best efforts, Levi had died in her arms. She’d patched herself up, then painstakingly buried her last teammate in a rock cairn. With a GDO in hand, she grabbed a stolen staff weapon and blasted her way back through to the ‘gate, and back to Earth.
There was absolute silence in the briefing room as Gryffydd finished speaking. Hammond poured her a glass of water, and watched worriedly as she took tiny sips.
“We’re so sorry, Gryff,” said Daniel, reaching out to rest a hand on her un-casted arm. She stiffened, as though she couldn’t bear the touch.
“There was nothing you could have done, captain,” added Jack.
Hammond nodded. “The colonel is right. Take some time and heal, captain.”
“Yes, sir,” said Gryffydd, then hesitated. “Sir… I’d like to speak to my team’s families myself. I know I can’t tell them how they died, but I want to tell them how much… how brave they were.”
“Of course, Gryff,” said Hammond, and she flinched as though he’d shouted. It wasn’t her fault, but the deaths were still rough- kindness was the last thing she would want to hear, and he purposely adopted a more authoritative tone, “Captain, get some rest. That’s an order.”
She nodded, straightening to attention. “Yes, sir.”
They thought she was handling it well. In the days after Gryffydd had returned, she spent several days sleeping, and several more getting back up to a healthy weight. As soon as she was able to move around, she started working in the base library, which had always been secondary to her off-world missions.
She was always happy to talk to people when they came by, and Sam and Daniel both stopped in often. When she could walk without a limp, and most of her cuts had faded, Gryffydd left to see Tobias’s, Vicks’s and Flannigan’s families, and when she returned, she seemed in no worse spirits than before.
Occasionally, she was heard talking when she was the only person in the library. Under the neck of her t-shirt, there were three chains instead of one, and her hand often strayed to her left-hand pocket, but there was nothing to suggest she wasn’t, slowly, coming to terms with the loss of her team.
Until every alarm in the base started going off.
“We’re locked out, sir!” said the sergeant, surprised and concerned. “Every system, every- The ‘gate just activated!”
“Off-world?” Hammond asked.
“No, sir, it’s… it’s us, sir. But I didn’t-”
Below, a lone figure walked into the Gate Room. Igraine Gryffydd wore her standard off-world gear, and carried a large container over her shoulder. She turned, looking back up at the control room, and Hammond realized it wasn’t a container, but one of the small, Mark III naquadah-enhanced nuclear bombs.
Gryffydd stopped at the top of the ramp. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. For a moment, they could see the utter despair she had been hiding, etched deep across her face. Then, her emotionless mask sliding back in place, she turned and stepped through the wormhole.
All of the lights went out, and immediately snapped back on. “Systems are running normally,” the sergeant reported. “But the last address dialed has been wiped from the computer memory.”
“General!” All of SG-1 came running into the Control Room. “What-?”
“Captain Gryffydd,” said Hammond, softly.
“Gryff?” Daniel repeated. “But she was fine. She… she was fine!”
“No, she wasn’t,” said Jack. “She said so herself, the minute she walked through that ‘gate.”
“Sir, SG-22 didn’t make it,” Sam repeated. “She was right.”
Later, they would discover that when Gryffydd had packed up her teammates’ belongings at the Frat House, she’d also packed her own. She’d updated her will, neatly tied up all her affairs- and done all she could to make sure no one suspected a thing.
A week later, they received a frantic transmission from the Tok’Ra, with reports from a dozen operatives that naquadah mines and shipyards along the outskirts of Goa’uld space had been mysteriously sabotaged. And just a few hours earlier, a single redheaded human in a torn and bloody SGC uniform had walked into a meeting of a dozen minor Goa’uld, before the entire compound was blown to smithereens.
SG-22 were listed as killed in action- all four of them.
THE END
Current Mood:
clean