[Stargate: Fiction] "Captain & Sergeant" [SG-22, PG]
Title: Captain & Sergeant
Prompt: writerverse challenge #20 timey wimey stuff (a story set before/after previous ones)
Word Count: 2,290
Rating: PG
Fandom or Original: Stargate SG-1 ( SG-22, original characters)
Warnings: slight violence
Setting: pre-series (also, this is set during the First Gulf War, which I don’t really know that much about, so…)
Summary: There’s a reason that Jason calls Gryff ‘sir’.
Note(s): originally posted to the writerverse wv_library
Captain & Sergeant
Newly-minted Air Force Captain Igraine Gryffydd wasn’t sure what she had done in a past life to get her assigned as secretary/aide de camp/general lackey to General Paul Rodriguez, but it must have been awful.
When she’d gotten the orders, she’d thought it was going to be a step up in her career, to go along with her promotion in rank and the move from file clerk to the head of a general’s personal staff. But the reality was a run-down office building on the outer edge of the occupied zone in Kabul, Afghanistan, and a self-important commanding officer whose staff consisted of a perpetually-nervous young sergeant and an airman who had been refused promotion half a dozen times but seemed unable to take the hint. Gryff did her best, as always, but it seemed that she spent half her time running useless errands and fielding calls about why nothing in their area ever seemed to get done and the other half trying to keep her hard-working but usually non-regulation staff from their CO’s attention.
“Captain!” bellowed Rodriguez, from his office.
Gryff saved the report she’d been typing and headed for his door. “Yes, sir?”
He held out a file, not even looking at her. “Have this sent to General Alderfer by tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rodriguez never called her by name. Gryff was sure he hadn’t actually noticed that his previous secretary had been sent back to the States, as long as somebody responded to that rank and continued to do his bidding. But that suited her just fine- hopefully, he wouldn’t notice when she got a better assignment, hopefully in a less-sunny part of the world.
The phone rang, and Gryff answered it. Less than a minute later, she was back in Rodriguez’s doorway. “Sir,” she said, “we’ve been ordered to evacuate.”
He looked up at her. “Evacuate, captain?”
“There’s a group of insurgents headed this way, sir. The Marine platoon assigned to this area says they’ve set several buildings on fire, and they probably have heavy artillery, as well. All nonessential personnel have been ordered to relocate to Admiral Forester at the main headquarters.” She paused a moment, and when Rodriguez didn’t say anything, she added, “Sir?”
The general scowled. “Nonessential personnel, captain, does not include me. This office is one of the most essential and secure places in this entire godforsaken hellhole, and we will not be evacuated for something as ridiculous as some irate locals with popguns.”
Their office was neither essential nor secure, and the last she’d heard, the insurgents were not that local and better armed than most Army units, but Gryff knew better than to tell him that.
“Yes, sir,” she said, instead, and closed the door behind her.
Sergeant Cole and Airman Manning looked up at her, questioning. Gryff knew what Rodriguez had meant, that he expected his entire staff to stay until he dismissed them. But he’s only said ‘we’, with only himself and Gryff in the room, and she could choose to interpret that differently.
“Both of you are to report to Admiral Forester,” she said, “at the Navy office, main headquarters.”
Cole frowned. “The general ordered that?” she asked.
“Yes,” Gryff lied. “Get there quickly, don’t stop anywhere in between. Report to the admiral and do whatever he says.”
For a moment, it looked like they would argue, then Manning said, “Yes, ma’am,” and they left.
Gryff sank into her desk chair with a sigh. She tuned the radio on her desk to the lowest volume and the general frequency, waiting.
*
Marine Gunnery Sergeant Jason Vicks followed the rest of his unit down another deserted street. There were several military offices in this neighborhood and they were all supposed to have been evacuated, but the Marines had to make sure.
“Clear,” said Walker, ducking back out of a building along the street. Bernetti came out of the next one down, “Clear.”
The building on the corner was an Air Force office, where Jason could see the glow of a computer monitor in an upstairs window. “Looks like somebody’s still home,” said the lieutenant. “Albertson, Vicks, Kransky, check it out.”
The first floor was only an entranceway, with a series of bulletin boards and a single set of stairs leading up. Jason kept his gun at the ready as he followed Kranksy up, listening hard, but he couldn’t see any signs of life. At the top of the stairs, a door opened into an open space with three empty desks. The computers were powered down, and there wasn’t anybody in sight.
“Is that an office?” Albertson asked, just as the stutter of machine gun fire sounded from outside, much too close for the three Marines’ liking.
“I’ll check the office,” said Jason, looking back at the other two. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Albertson looked like he wanted to argue, but he clapped Jason’s shoulder. “Five minutes?”
“Not even that.”
He and Kransky headed back down the stairs, and Jason made a careful sweep of the empty office. It was clear.
A sudden clatter made him raise his gun, and burst through the door to the far office. “U.S. Marines!”
“U.S. Air Force,” said the woman standing behind the large wooden desk. She wore a captain’s rank on her dress uniform, with a battered leather satchel over one shoulder, into which she was stacking papers from an open wall safe. “Are they getting close out there?”
Jason blinked. “Ma’am,” he said, a little more sharply than he’d intended, coming around the side of the desk, “there was an evacuation order-”
“Stop!” the woman cried.
Jason froze, only just missing the body of an older man in an Air Force uniform lying on the floor. “What the hell? Is he-?”
“He’s dead,” said the captain, heavily. “Heart attack, I think. I tried to help, but I… I’m not a doctor.”
She turned, fastening the clasp on her bag, and Jason could read the name plate on her jacket, something unpronounceable that thought ‘y’ was a vowel.
“Ma’am,” he repeated. “There was an evacuation order.”
“Yes, there was,” the captain agreed. “And General Rodriguez believed that his office was too essential to obey it. But as I am now the senior officer here, I’m ordering the evacuation. You have plenty of bullets in that thing?”
Jason blinked again. “Ma’am-”
“They’re getting closer, right? The insurgents? I need to secure this place before we go. I’ve got all the general’s classified files, and I’ve scrambled the radio frequencies, but I need you to put a couple of bullets in each of these CPUs.”
“I- Yes, ma’am.”
His radio crackled. “Vicks, report.”
Jason stepped away. “The office building has two occupants, sir. One is deceased, one is uninjured. We are securing the office and will be able to rejoin the unit in a few minutes.”
“Negative,” said the lieutenant. “Our position has been compromised, six blocks from your location. Stay with the officer and get him back to headquarters. That’s an order.”
Outside, the sounds of gunfire were almost too far away to be heard. “Yes, sir,” said Jason, and shut off his radio. He turned back to the office, “Captain-”
“Yes, yes, I heard,” she said, “Fire at the black marker crosses, please.”
Jason took a deep breath and reminded himself that she was a superior officer. He put six clean shots into the computer tower, then four more into the three in the room outside. With a smile, she gestured for him to lead the way downstairs, but Jason had only just stepped out into the street when he was grabbed by the back of his tac vest and hauled him backwards. Jason stumbled back, ready to growl at her, superior officer or not, when a shot ricocheted off the doorframe beside them.
“Are you armed?” he asked, instead.
The captain snorted. “I’m a secretary, sergeant.”
Jason handed her his pistol, which she took carefully. He leaned back out of the doorway to fire back at their attacker. He heard a cry and the crack of a fallen weapon, and gave the captain a nudge toward the other end of the street. “This way, ma’am.”
*
Counting today, Gryff had held a loaded firearm a total of three times and until now, no one had ever been shooting back.
She followed the Marine- his name started with a V, according to his name patch, but she couldn’t read the rest of it- down the street. Behind them, there was a sudden boom, and Gryff looked back to see her office building burst into flame.
Gryff’s hand went to her shirt pocket, where she had General Rodriguez’s dog tags. She might not have liked the man, but his family deserved to have them.
Her Marine escort led them down another side street, trying different frequencies on his radio. “Nothing,” he said.
“Then we have to assume they’ve been compromised,” said Gryff. “And get back to headquarters on our own. Were there many enemy units between here and there?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Keep up.”
*
The captain was out of breath by the end of three blocks, but she didn’t fall behind. They ran into two more firefights after that- she was a bad enough shot that Jason didn’t think she’d hit anyone, but not so bad that he regretted giving her a gun.
It was just starting to get dark when they took a shortcut through an empty market, and stopped to make sure they had shaken their pursuit. The captain plopped onto an empty crate, breathing hard, and started rooting through her pockets, coming up with a lumpy package.
“Want one?” she asked.
They were root beer barrels, and he took one, smiling. “I’m Vicks, by the way. Jason Vicks.”
The captain smiled back. “Igraine Gryffydd.” She pronounced both Ys as short Is and the double D as a TH, but winced at her first name. “I know, it’s horrible. Who would name their kid Igraine? Most people just call me Gryff.”
“That’s King Arthur’s mom, right?”
She looked pleasantly surprised. “Not many people know that.”
“Hey, we’re not all dumb grunts.”
The captain laughed. “True.” She paused, listening. “I think we’re okay. We should keep moving.”
Jason glanced sideways at her. Unlike him, she wasn’t dressed for this- her uniform was wrinkled and dirty, and there was a bloody tear in the knee of her dress pants that he was surprised to realize he hadn’t noticed before.
“Ma’am,” he said, with a lot more respect than he’d been using up to that point. Because he could have been stuck with some other zoomie officer, who whined and moaned and expected him to do everyone, but he’d gotten this one instead. “Your knee…?”
“My…?” she glanced down, then rolled her eyes. “I’ve done worse tripping over my own feet. Come on.”
*
Even later, Gryff had no idea how she’d spotted the second shooter. She’d been half a step behind Vicks when he’d dropped the first man shooting at them, and she’d simply reacted.
She saw the flash of the gun going off as her shoulder collided with the side of the Marine’s tac vest, knocking them both backward. There was a closer flash of Vicks’s own weapon as he returned fire, then the shock of them hitting the ground. Gryff felt the breath knocked out of her as they hit, then a sharp pain she thought was Vicks’s elbow hitting her ribs.
“Ma’am?” he said, sounding worried.
Gryff didn’t have enough breath to speak, but she nodded, sitting up with a wince. She heard the sound of running feet and looked up just in time to see a unit of Marines race into the alley behind them.
“Vicks!” cried the first man, a Marine lieutenant. “We’d just about given up on you.”
“Never, sir,” Vicks replied.
Gryff took the hand he offered to pull herself to her feet, but the world tilted suddenly and he had to catch her. “Oh,” she breathed.
“Ma’am?” he asked.
She put a hand to her ribs, to ease the ache where his elbow had hit her, and it came away bloody. “Oh,” she repeated. “Well, that’s not good.”
“Ma’am?” Vicks repeated, voice getting fainter, even though it sounded like he should have been shouting. “Ma’am? Captain? Sir?”
“I’m okay,” she tried to say, but she wasn’t sure she’d gotten it all out before everything went dark.
*
Jason crossed the open deck of the C4-Galaxy to the cot up against the far bulkhead, a battered satchel clutched in both hands. “Hey,” he said.
The captain, sitting cross-legged on the cot, smiled at him. “Hey. You don’t need to look so worried, sergeant. The doc says it was the cleanest shot he’s seen. I didn’t even need any stitches.”
“Still, it looked bad,” said Jason. “But I wanted to give you this.”
“Oh, my satchel!” Gryffydd took it, popping it open to rifle through the folders inside. “All here, good,” she said, then offered a sly smile. “You didn’t peek, did you?”
“No, sir!” said Jason, indignant.
She arched an eyebrow. “Sir?”
“I…” he said, then sighed. He didn’t know exactly how to explain it. “Yes, sir.”
To his surprise, Gryffydd smiled. “Thank you. But do you know what?”
“What, sir?” he asked.
She slid over on the cot. “I’ve been shot, that gives me some leeway, right? I’m going to read these. Want to join me?”
“I-” Jason began. He looked toward the rear of the cargo hold, where the rest of his unit were all sitting. “Absolutely, sir.”
She held out an innocuous-looking manila folder. “Good. Now, let’s find out what this ‘Stargate Program’ is all about…”
THE END
Current Mood:
busy
Prompt: writerverse challenge #20 timey wimey stuff (a story set before/after previous ones)
Word Count: 2,290
Rating: PG
Fandom or Original: Stargate SG-1 ( SG-22, original characters)
Warnings: slight violence
Setting: pre-series (also, this is set during the First Gulf War, which I don’t really know that much about, so…)
Summary: There’s a reason that Jason calls Gryff ‘sir’.
Note(s): originally posted to the writerverse wv_library
Captain & Sergeant
Newly-minted Air Force Captain Igraine Gryffydd wasn’t sure what she had done in a past life to get her assigned as secretary/aide de camp/general lackey to General Paul Rodriguez, but it must have been awful.
When she’d gotten the orders, she’d thought it was going to be a step up in her career, to go along with her promotion in rank and the move from file clerk to the head of a general’s personal staff. But the reality was a run-down office building on the outer edge of the occupied zone in Kabul, Afghanistan, and a self-important commanding officer whose staff consisted of a perpetually-nervous young sergeant and an airman who had been refused promotion half a dozen times but seemed unable to take the hint. Gryff did her best, as always, but it seemed that she spent half her time running useless errands and fielding calls about why nothing in their area ever seemed to get done and the other half trying to keep her hard-working but usually non-regulation staff from their CO’s attention.
“Captain!” bellowed Rodriguez, from his office.
Gryff saved the report she’d been typing and headed for his door. “Yes, sir?”
He held out a file, not even looking at her. “Have this sent to General Alderfer by tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rodriguez never called her by name. Gryff was sure he hadn’t actually noticed that his previous secretary had been sent back to the States, as long as somebody responded to that rank and continued to do his bidding. But that suited her just fine- hopefully, he wouldn’t notice when she got a better assignment, hopefully in a less-sunny part of the world.
The phone rang, and Gryff answered it. Less than a minute later, she was back in Rodriguez’s doorway. “Sir,” she said, “we’ve been ordered to evacuate.”
He looked up at her. “Evacuate, captain?”
“There’s a group of insurgents headed this way, sir. The Marine platoon assigned to this area says they’ve set several buildings on fire, and they probably have heavy artillery, as well. All nonessential personnel have been ordered to relocate to Admiral Forester at the main headquarters.” She paused a moment, and when Rodriguez didn’t say anything, she added, “Sir?”
The general scowled. “Nonessential personnel, captain, does not include me. This office is one of the most essential and secure places in this entire godforsaken hellhole, and we will not be evacuated for something as ridiculous as some irate locals with popguns.”
Their office was neither essential nor secure, and the last she’d heard, the insurgents were not that local and better armed than most Army units, but Gryff knew better than to tell him that.
“Yes, sir,” she said, instead, and closed the door behind her.
Sergeant Cole and Airman Manning looked up at her, questioning. Gryff knew what Rodriguez had meant, that he expected his entire staff to stay until he dismissed them. But he’s only said ‘we’, with only himself and Gryff in the room, and she could choose to interpret that differently.
“Both of you are to report to Admiral Forester,” she said, “at the Navy office, main headquarters.”
Cole frowned. “The general ordered that?” she asked.
“Yes,” Gryff lied. “Get there quickly, don’t stop anywhere in between. Report to the admiral and do whatever he says.”
For a moment, it looked like they would argue, then Manning said, “Yes, ma’am,” and they left.
Gryff sank into her desk chair with a sigh. She tuned the radio on her desk to the lowest volume and the general frequency, waiting.
*
Marine Gunnery Sergeant Jason Vicks followed the rest of his unit down another deserted street. There were several military offices in this neighborhood and they were all supposed to have been evacuated, but the Marines had to make sure.
“Clear,” said Walker, ducking back out of a building along the street. Bernetti came out of the next one down, “Clear.”
The building on the corner was an Air Force office, where Jason could see the glow of a computer monitor in an upstairs window. “Looks like somebody’s still home,” said the lieutenant. “Albertson, Vicks, Kransky, check it out.”
The first floor was only an entranceway, with a series of bulletin boards and a single set of stairs leading up. Jason kept his gun at the ready as he followed Kranksy up, listening hard, but he couldn’t see any signs of life. At the top of the stairs, a door opened into an open space with three empty desks. The computers were powered down, and there wasn’t anybody in sight.
“Is that an office?” Albertson asked, just as the stutter of machine gun fire sounded from outside, much too close for the three Marines’ liking.
“I’ll check the office,” said Jason, looking back at the other two. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Albertson looked like he wanted to argue, but he clapped Jason’s shoulder. “Five minutes?”
“Not even that.”
He and Kransky headed back down the stairs, and Jason made a careful sweep of the empty office. It was clear.
A sudden clatter made him raise his gun, and burst through the door to the far office. “U.S. Marines!”
“U.S. Air Force,” said the woman standing behind the large wooden desk. She wore a captain’s rank on her dress uniform, with a battered leather satchel over one shoulder, into which she was stacking papers from an open wall safe. “Are they getting close out there?”
Jason blinked. “Ma’am,” he said, a little more sharply than he’d intended, coming around the side of the desk, “there was an evacuation order-”
“Stop!” the woman cried.
Jason froze, only just missing the body of an older man in an Air Force uniform lying on the floor. “What the hell? Is he-?”
“He’s dead,” said the captain, heavily. “Heart attack, I think. I tried to help, but I… I’m not a doctor.”
She turned, fastening the clasp on her bag, and Jason could read the name plate on her jacket, something unpronounceable that thought ‘y’ was a vowel.
“Ma’am,” he repeated. “There was an evacuation order.”
“Yes, there was,” the captain agreed. “And General Rodriguez believed that his office was too essential to obey it. But as I am now the senior officer here, I’m ordering the evacuation. You have plenty of bullets in that thing?”
Jason blinked again. “Ma’am-”
“They’re getting closer, right? The insurgents? I need to secure this place before we go. I’ve got all the general’s classified files, and I’ve scrambled the radio frequencies, but I need you to put a couple of bullets in each of these CPUs.”
“I- Yes, ma’am.”
His radio crackled. “Vicks, report.”
Jason stepped away. “The office building has two occupants, sir. One is deceased, one is uninjured. We are securing the office and will be able to rejoin the unit in a few minutes.”
“Negative,” said the lieutenant. “Our position has been compromised, six blocks from your location. Stay with the officer and get him back to headquarters. That’s an order.”
Outside, the sounds of gunfire were almost too far away to be heard. “Yes, sir,” said Jason, and shut off his radio. He turned back to the office, “Captain-”
“Yes, yes, I heard,” she said, “Fire at the black marker crosses, please.”
Jason took a deep breath and reminded himself that she was a superior officer. He put six clean shots into the computer tower, then four more into the three in the room outside. With a smile, she gestured for him to lead the way downstairs, but Jason had only just stepped out into the street when he was grabbed by the back of his tac vest and hauled him backwards. Jason stumbled back, ready to growl at her, superior officer or not, when a shot ricocheted off the doorframe beside them.
“Are you armed?” he asked, instead.
The captain snorted. “I’m a secretary, sergeant.”
Jason handed her his pistol, which she took carefully. He leaned back out of the doorway to fire back at their attacker. He heard a cry and the crack of a fallen weapon, and gave the captain a nudge toward the other end of the street. “This way, ma’am.”
*
Counting today, Gryff had held a loaded firearm a total of three times and until now, no one had ever been shooting back.
She followed the Marine- his name started with a V, according to his name patch, but she couldn’t read the rest of it- down the street. Behind them, there was a sudden boom, and Gryff looked back to see her office building burst into flame.
Gryff’s hand went to her shirt pocket, where she had General Rodriguez’s dog tags. She might not have liked the man, but his family deserved to have them.
Her Marine escort led them down another side street, trying different frequencies on his radio. “Nothing,” he said.
“Then we have to assume they’ve been compromised,” said Gryff. “And get back to headquarters on our own. Were there many enemy units between here and there?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Keep up.”
*
The captain was out of breath by the end of three blocks, but she didn’t fall behind. They ran into two more firefights after that- she was a bad enough shot that Jason didn’t think she’d hit anyone, but not so bad that he regretted giving her a gun.
It was just starting to get dark when they took a shortcut through an empty market, and stopped to make sure they had shaken their pursuit. The captain plopped onto an empty crate, breathing hard, and started rooting through her pockets, coming up with a lumpy package.
“Want one?” she asked.
They were root beer barrels, and he took one, smiling. “I’m Vicks, by the way. Jason Vicks.”
The captain smiled back. “Igraine Gryffydd.” She pronounced both Ys as short Is and the double D as a TH, but winced at her first name. “I know, it’s horrible. Who would name their kid Igraine? Most people just call me Gryff.”
“That’s King Arthur’s mom, right?”
She looked pleasantly surprised. “Not many people know that.”
“Hey, we’re not all dumb grunts.”
The captain laughed. “True.” She paused, listening. “I think we’re okay. We should keep moving.”
Jason glanced sideways at her. Unlike him, she wasn’t dressed for this- her uniform was wrinkled and dirty, and there was a bloody tear in the knee of her dress pants that he was surprised to realize he hadn’t noticed before.
“Ma’am,” he said, with a lot more respect than he’d been using up to that point. Because he could have been stuck with some other zoomie officer, who whined and moaned and expected him to do everyone, but he’d gotten this one instead. “Your knee…?”
“My…?” she glanced down, then rolled her eyes. “I’ve done worse tripping over my own feet. Come on.”
*
Even later, Gryff had no idea how she’d spotted the second shooter. She’d been half a step behind Vicks when he’d dropped the first man shooting at them, and she’d simply reacted.
She saw the flash of the gun going off as her shoulder collided with the side of the Marine’s tac vest, knocking them both backward. There was a closer flash of Vicks’s own weapon as he returned fire, then the shock of them hitting the ground. Gryff felt the breath knocked out of her as they hit, then a sharp pain she thought was Vicks’s elbow hitting her ribs.
“Ma’am?” he said, sounding worried.
Gryff didn’t have enough breath to speak, but she nodded, sitting up with a wince. She heard the sound of running feet and looked up just in time to see a unit of Marines race into the alley behind them.
“Vicks!” cried the first man, a Marine lieutenant. “We’d just about given up on you.”
“Never, sir,” Vicks replied.
Gryff took the hand he offered to pull herself to her feet, but the world tilted suddenly and he had to catch her. “Oh,” she breathed.
“Ma’am?” he asked.
She put a hand to her ribs, to ease the ache where his elbow had hit her, and it came away bloody. “Oh,” she repeated. “Well, that’s not good.”
“Ma’am?” Vicks repeated, voice getting fainter, even though it sounded like he should have been shouting. “Ma’am? Captain? Sir?”
“I’m okay,” she tried to say, but she wasn’t sure she’d gotten it all out before everything went dark.
*
Jason crossed the open deck of the C4-Galaxy to the cot up against the far bulkhead, a battered satchel clutched in both hands. “Hey,” he said.
The captain, sitting cross-legged on the cot, smiled at him. “Hey. You don’t need to look so worried, sergeant. The doc says it was the cleanest shot he’s seen. I didn’t even need any stitches.”
“Still, it looked bad,” said Jason. “But I wanted to give you this.”
“Oh, my satchel!” Gryffydd took it, popping it open to rifle through the folders inside. “All here, good,” she said, then offered a sly smile. “You didn’t peek, did you?”
“No, sir!” said Jason, indignant.
She arched an eyebrow. “Sir?”
“I…” he said, then sighed. He didn’t know exactly how to explain it. “Yes, sir.”
To his surprise, Gryffydd smiled. “Thank you. But do you know what?”
“What, sir?” he asked.
She slid over on the cot. “I’ve been shot, that gives me some leeway, right? I’m going to read these. Want to join me?”
“I-” Jason began. He looked toward the rear of the cargo hold, where the rest of his unit were all sitting. “Absolutely, sir.”
She held out an innocuous-looking manila folder. “Good. Now, let’s find out what this ‘Stargate Program’ is all about…”
THE END
Current Mood:
busy