Fic: Minor Characters I: Odd Man Out (1/19)
Title: Minor Characters I: Odd Man Out (1/19)
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: T
Genres: action/adventure
Summary: Everyone knows SG1... but what about the other teams on the roster? Here's one of them. Meet Major Thomas Moore, Captain Laura Greenspan, Lieutenant Maureen Reece and Master Sergeant Simon DeLisle - also known as SG10 - and accompany them on the mission that made them a team.
A/N: A little conversation with anuna_81 reminded me of the fact that I'd been meaning to post this story for ages and she (unknowingly ;)) gave me the last push to finally start. I already did intorductional pieces for each character (fic index for that is here) and here's the first story for SG10 as a team. It takes place a year before the Atlantis Expedition takes off (and I might have taken a few liberties with canon timeline *coughs) and I honestly hope there will be people interested in these characters (because let's be honest, I do have a soft spot for all of them, but especially for Major "I'm a stupid brickhead and why yes, I do like to be one, why do you ask?" Moore ;)). Like all my early stories, this one is not betaed by mackenziesmomma, so every mistakes is my own and cannot be blamed on her. Anyway, on with the story. (also... I forgot I had a banner for this series *rolls eyes)
Minor Characters I: Odd Man Out
"We will rise and we will fall
We will laugh, we will stand tall
Turning people into numbers
And numbers into more."
Runrig, "The Numbers Game"
One
Moore
Okay, so I hadn’t exactly planned to let the mission go like this. Honestly, I hadn’t planned to let Reece end up in the infirmary again or to let Laura almost getting kidnapped or to let DeLisle almost blow up the team instead of the enemy. But it had been one of those days. You know, those days were you get up on the wrong foot and just about everything goes wrong at some point? Right, this was one of “those”.
First the SGC gave us mission specs they could have spared us the time reading because the information we got out of them was near to nothing. Then the first thing we saw emerging the ‘Gate was a zat-gun pointed to each of our heads by the not so friendly locals of P4X-639. On top of it all it turned out that our target - a secret bio-weapon lab set up by Maybourne - was abandoned. Meaning we could well have saved us the whole fucking trip. Instead we got into serious trouble, had to do a lot of shooting, shouting, running and all the other stuff you normally work very hard to avoid during a covert op.
And now, in the end, I’m sitting again in the infirmary at the bed of my youngest team member, First Lieutenant Maureen Reece, USMC, called “Mouse” during our missions, and not what I would call a poster girl for the Marines. Don’t get me wrong; she’s neither stupid nor lazy - in fact she is one hell of a linguist - but I truly wonder how she ever made it through boot camp and OCS and to the SGC.
Reece didn’t get her call sign out of nothing. She truly appears like a mouse. Not from her outward appearance, mind you - those fire-red locks and green eyes are an asset - but from her whole demeanor. Always shy and quiet. And a bit of clumsy. Which makes her the one destined to usually end up in the infirmary when a mission goes awry. Only this time it wasn’t her fault. It was mine.
I should have seen that guy coming from behind. And I should have seen the knife in his hand. I should have…
“Beating yourself up again, flyboy?” Laura’s voice cuts through my musings. I turn around and give her a slight grin.
“No use pretending anything, is it?” She grins back. “I know you inside out, and you know I do.” My 2IC’s right. We’ve known each other since being toddlers, we practically grew up together, with me being two years older than her. And whatever we did, even if we decided doing it completely independent from the other, we ended up together. Which I don’t complain about since Laura is kind of like a little sister to me.
She sits down beside me. “Go to bed, Tom. Reece is a tough girl, and you know it. She’ll pull through even without you exhausting yourself like that.” I look again at the woman on the bed. She’s pretty small, and in the big hospital bed she looks frail. The copper hair makes her face seem even paler and the circles under her eyes even darker than they actually are.
“As much as I normally agree with you, this time I don’t. Reece is anything but a tough girl. C’mon, Germs, you and I both know that she’s not born to be an officer, that she shouldn’t be here.” Uh-oh. Laura’s dark eyes light up and get this fierce glance they always get when she becomes agitated.
“Macho bullshit. I’ve told you before and I’ll tell again. There’s more to Maureen Reece than meets the eye. Granted, she’ll need some time but I’m sure she’ll develop just fine. But only if you let her.” She gives a slight huff. Laura usually doesn’t get angry all too fast but when it’s about woman soldiers and everything that’s connected with it you can get her up a soap box pretty fast.
“Germs…” She glares at me.
“Don’t you “Germs…” me. That one,” she points to Reece, “is a fighter. She just doesn’t know it yet.” I’m still not convinced. I’ve seen Reece’s files, and that girl’s never been in combat before joining the SGC. They sent her here right after graduating OCS, because of her linguistic degrees and abilities, I guess. There’s nothing else indicating she could be fit enough to serve with us. No extraordinary combat scores, no especially high marks in leadership - everything average.
I still haven’t found out why they decided to place her with a covert ops unit instead of a research or back-up unit. Why they placed her in any team at all. “I can see your thoughts working again, Tom. Quit it already. Besides, it wasn’t your fault she got hit. If it you want to blame someone, blame that guy with knife that sneaked up on her. Or O’Neill for ordering us to that stupid planet. Or those idiots at intelligence who fucked up those mission specs. Just don’t blame yourself. And go get some sleep.” With the she pads my shoulder and gets up again, tossing me one last salute before she leaves for her quarters.
I turn back to Reece again. She’s not only the youngest and most inexperienced member of the team but also the last one who came to the team. Laura and I, we know each other since early childhood, and I’ve served with Dee, or Master Sergeant Simon DeLisle for a seeming eternity now, even before the SGC. In fact he came here with me.
I can’t think of anyone more skilled with everything that has to do with blowing up things than him. Then again, I don’t know that much of people. Anyway, Reece had the bad luck to come to a unit which had already formed strong bonds with each other, and I guess for someone with her personality it’s not easy making a stand. I do cut her some slack because of this, no matter what Laura says. But I wish the woman would open up finally and stop building all those walls around her. I wish…
”Sir, I have orders from Captain Greenspan. You are to leave and catch up on sleep. Lieutenant Reece will be taken care of,” a voice behind me says. It’s one of the nurses. Damn Laura who always uses her right as a medical officer to order me around even if I outrank her.
Defeated I nod. “It’s all right. But notify me if anything in the Lieutenant’s condition changes.” The nurse nods, and I finally make my way to my sleeping quarters.
~*~
TBC in Chapter Two.
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: T
Genres: action/adventure
Summary: Everyone knows SG1... but what about the other teams on the roster? Here's one of them. Meet Major Thomas Moore, Captain Laura Greenspan, Lieutenant Maureen Reece and Master Sergeant Simon DeLisle - also known as SG10 - and accompany them on the mission that made them a team.
A/N: A little conversation with anuna_81 reminded me of the fact that I'd been meaning to post this story for ages and she (unknowingly ;)) gave me the last push to finally start. I already did intorductional pieces for each character (fic index for that is here) and here's the first story for SG10 as a team. It takes place a year before the Atlantis Expedition takes off (and I might have taken a few liberties with canon timeline *coughs) and I honestly hope there will be people interested in these characters (because let's be honest, I do have a soft spot for all of them, but especially for Major "I'm a stupid brickhead and why yes, I do like to be one, why do you ask?" Moore ;)). Like all my early stories, this one is not betaed by mackenziesmomma, so every mistakes is my own and cannot be blamed on her. Anyway, on with the story. (also... I forgot I had a banner for this series *rolls eyes)
Minor Characters I: Odd Man Out
"We will rise and we will fall
We will laugh, we will stand tall
Turning people into numbers
And numbers into more."
Runrig, "The Numbers Game"
One
Moore
Okay, so I hadn’t exactly planned to let the mission go like this. Honestly, I hadn’t planned to let Reece end up in the infirmary again or to let Laura almost getting kidnapped or to let DeLisle almost blow up the team instead of the enemy. But it had been one of those days. You know, those days were you get up on the wrong foot and just about everything goes wrong at some point? Right, this was one of “those”.
First the SGC gave us mission specs they could have spared us the time reading because the information we got out of them was near to nothing. Then the first thing we saw emerging the ‘Gate was a zat-gun pointed to each of our heads by the not so friendly locals of P4X-639. On top of it all it turned out that our target - a secret bio-weapon lab set up by Maybourne - was abandoned. Meaning we could well have saved us the whole fucking trip. Instead we got into serious trouble, had to do a lot of shooting, shouting, running and all the other stuff you normally work very hard to avoid during a covert op.
And now, in the end, I’m sitting again in the infirmary at the bed of my youngest team member, First Lieutenant Maureen Reece, USMC, called “Mouse” during our missions, and not what I would call a poster girl for the Marines. Don’t get me wrong; she’s neither stupid nor lazy - in fact she is one hell of a linguist - but I truly wonder how she ever made it through boot camp and OCS and to the SGC.
Reece didn’t get her call sign out of nothing. She truly appears like a mouse. Not from her outward appearance, mind you - those fire-red locks and green eyes are an asset - but from her whole demeanor. Always shy and quiet. And a bit of clumsy. Which makes her the one destined to usually end up in the infirmary when a mission goes awry. Only this time it wasn’t her fault. It was mine.
I should have seen that guy coming from behind. And I should have seen the knife in his hand. I should have…
“Beating yourself up again, flyboy?” Laura’s voice cuts through my musings. I turn around and give her a slight grin.
“No use pretending anything, is it?” She grins back. “I know you inside out, and you know I do.” My 2IC’s right. We’ve known each other since being toddlers, we practically grew up together, with me being two years older than her. And whatever we did, even if we decided doing it completely independent from the other, we ended up together. Which I don’t complain about since Laura is kind of like a little sister to me.
She sits down beside me. “Go to bed, Tom. Reece is a tough girl, and you know it. She’ll pull through even without you exhausting yourself like that.” I look again at the woman on the bed. She’s pretty small, and in the big hospital bed she looks frail. The copper hair makes her face seem even paler and the circles under her eyes even darker than they actually are.
“As much as I normally agree with you, this time I don’t. Reece is anything but a tough girl. C’mon, Germs, you and I both know that she’s not born to be an officer, that she shouldn’t be here.” Uh-oh. Laura’s dark eyes light up and get this fierce glance they always get when she becomes agitated.
“Macho bullshit. I’ve told you before and I’ll tell again. There’s more to Maureen Reece than meets the eye. Granted, she’ll need some time but I’m sure she’ll develop just fine. But only if you let her.” She gives a slight huff. Laura usually doesn’t get angry all too fast but when it’s about woman soldiers and everything that’s connected with it you can get her up a soap box pretty fast.
“Germs…” She glares at me.
“Don’t you “Germs…” me. That one,” she points to Reece, “is a fighter. She just doesn’t know it yet.” I’m still not convinced. I’ve seen Reece’s files, and that girl’s never been in combat before joining the SGC. They sent her here right after graduating OCS, because of her linguistic degrees and abilities, I guess. There’s nothing else indicating she could be fit enough to serve with us. No extraordinary combat scores, no especially high marks in leadership - everything average.
I still haven’t found out why they decided to place her with a covert ops unit instead of a research or back-up unit. Why they placed her in any team at all. “I can see your thoughts working again, Tom. Quit it already. Besides, it wasn’t your fault she got hit. If it you want to blame someone, blame that guy with knife that sneaked up on her. Or O’Neill for ordering us to that stupid planet. Or those idiots at intelligence who fucked up those mission specs. Just don’t blame yourself. And go get some sleep.” With the she pads my shoulder and gets up again, tossing me one last salute before she leaves for her quarters.
I turn back to Reece again. She’s not only the youngest and most inexperienced member of the team but also the last one who came to the team. Laura and I, we know each other since early childhood, and I’ve served with Dee, or Master Sergeant Simon DeLisle for a seeming eternity now, even before the SGC. In fact he came here with me.
I can’t think of anyone more skilled with everything that has to do with blowing up things than him. Then again, I don’t know that much of people. Anyway, Reece had the bad luck to come to a unit which had already formed strong bonds with each other, and I guess for someone with her personality it’s not easy making a stand. I do cut her some slack because of this, no matter what Laura says. But I wish the woman would open up finally and stop building all those walls around her. I wish…
”Sir, I have orders from Captain Greenspan. You are to leave and catch up on sleep. Lieutenant Reece will be taken care of,” a voice behind me says. It’s one of the nurses. Damn Laura who always uses her right as a medical officer to order me around even if I outrank her.
Defeated I nod. “It’s all right. But notify me if anything in the Lieutenant’s condition changes.” The nurse nods, and I finally make my way to my sleeping quarters.
~*~
TBC in Chapter Two.