Free 03 - The First Amendment by Ashley McConnell - (ebook by Undead)

Force Bases and
Fort Carson, and, of course, to Cheyenne Mountain Air Station. Pretty big
responsibility for a pretty little town.
    Well, maybe not that little. The metropolitan area, spread out under the
benign, ever-snowcapped guardianship of Pikes Peak, was nearly half a million
strong. There had to be something besides the military and unsolved
murders keeping Colorado Springs thriving.
    They got into the rental car and started the drive up to the mountain,
leaving the pretty, peaceful little company city behind.
     
    Teal’C had never been to Roswell, though O’Neill thought he might take the
Jaffa there sometime, just for the hell of it. Then he could claim there really had been an alien in the little New Mexico town, at least once. It was
the kind of in-joke that appealed to him. Maybe he’d suggest it to the whole
team, though Carter would argue about it. Carter always argued. It was one of
the delightful aspects of her personality.
    He was getting a case of pre-mission nerves again, he could tell. It had been
too long since SG-1 had actually been through the Gate—at least two weeks. He
wanted to get out and do something. Scrabbling in his desk, he found a
cache of rubber bands and began firing them at the poster on the opposite wall.
    Carter and Jackson might view the down time as a great opportunity to extend
their studies in astrophysics and anthropology, respectively, but O’Neill was
sure that Teal’C, at least, shared his need to be active, to actually accomplish
something. Every day that went by was one more day his people, his family were
held in slavery by the Goa’uld.
    Stacked on his desk were volumes of reports, the printed version of several
CDs’ worth of accumulated information on the Goa’uld, the Nox, the crystals of
P3X-562, and all the other worlds, races, and entities they’d met so far. SG-1
was responsible for most of that information. O’Neill wanted to go get more
information, and let the desk pilots like Randolph and Rusalka scrabble through
it day in and day out.
    From his point of view, the most fruitful mission would be one to the
location he had mentally dubbed the “war world.” It held the possibility of
finding new allies and new weapons they could use against the Goa’uld. The Goa’uld might be one side of the war, in fact, and if that
was the case he wouldn’t mind joining in a firefight or two. Strictly in the
course of achieving his mission’s primary goal, naturally.
    Squinting, he incorporated a worn-down pencil into his artillery. It bounced
harmlessly off Antares. He huffed out an exasperated breath. He wanted to move, dammit, and trying to push Rusalka into making a recommendation before
she was ready was an exercise in futility.
    Maybe he could pick up something from Morley. He’d buy the poor guy a drink
in the canteen, pump him about the tactics the Jaffa had used to lure him in. He
had a feeling that Morley knew more than he was telling—the report was curiously
flat, without much substance to it. It was a little mystery, what had gone so
thoroughly wrong on Etaa. Maybe Teal’C could get something out of the major—no,
bringing the Jaffa along, with his forehead brand marking him as the property of
Apophis, was probably a bad idea. Morley wouldn’t want to deal with him. In
fact, it was his attitude toward the other man that had led to O’Neill’s
negative recommendation in the first place.
    Although, dammit, Teal’C was on their side, and he might have some valuable
insights. Morley was going to have to learn to deal with the Jaffa
eventually. Hammond had wanted to give Morley a chance, despite O’Neill’s views
on the subject, and had allowed him to command SG-2 for the Etaa recovery. And
look where that led.
    Spilled milk buttered no parsnips. O’Neill bounced to his feet. This time of
day Teal’C was probably in either the armory or the gym. He’d go find him and
then they’d hunt down Morley, find out whatever it was