When the klaxon for an unscheduled off world gate activation sounded, Technical Sergeant Smith was in the middle of the daily armament inventory. He took off at a run, dropping his clipboard on a table and yelling for his partner.
"Let’s go, bro!"
"On your six!" His partner TSgt. Wesson barreled around a corner behind him as they ran for the Gate Room. As they stood outside the closed blast doors with their other team members and waited to see if they were needed, Sergeant Smith’s thoughts drifted back to recent complaints he’d heard from his subordinates in the armory.
"Why do we have to help carry all this stuff back, anyway?" an airman had groused as the last SG-7 team member had finished crossing his t’s and dotting his i’s and left the Armory. "Not only do we have to sign the stuff in and out, but we get to help carry it as well? It’s us that has to do all the work!"
"Yeah!" piped up another airman. "We have to clean and repair everything! How hard is it to keep sand out of the action, for crying out loud! Don’t they know what sand does to these weapons?"
"What was it that we had to clean up last week?" sang out yet another young airman. "Slug goo? Larvae? Crap?" This last was said as they shifted the weapons and gear to the various work tables scattered around the outer room.
TSgt. Smith had been in his office doing the usual triplicate paperwork when they arrived, but as their words filtered in he raised his head and listened.
"Which team do you reckon’s the worst?" asked an unseen airman. Someone snorted.
"SG-1, hands down!"
Amid the accompanying hoots and hollers, a quick knock sounded on TSgt. Smith’s outer door and who but Colonel O’Neill popped his head in. As he opened his mouth, Smith motioned him into the room and held a finger to his lips. O’Neill gave him a funny look, but silently complied.
"How about that Major? Is she hot or what?" Smith pegged the voice to the newest airman, only assigned to his outfit just that week.
"You mean Sophie?" Some wit spoke up. The sounds of P80’s being broken down for cleaning filled the air behind the words.
"Sophie?" Puzzlement colored the newest airman’s voice. "I thought her name was…uh, Samantha!"
"It is," agreed the wit. "But Sophie stands for Seat Of Her Pants, which is how she usually ends up saving the day. The ‘ie’ at the end was just added cause she’s female."
"Cool!" responded the newbie. "Do you have nicknames for everyone?"
Back in Smith’s office O’Neill quietly pulled a chair out and made himself comfortable, interlocking his fingers across his stomach as he stretched his long legs out in front of him. Smith gave him a grin. With names like Smith & Wesson, and working in the Armory, he’d heard his and Wesson’s nicknames and thought the guys were quite inventive.
"Sure!" Someone else in the outer room called out. "Guess what Teal’c is called!"
"No clue," responded the newbie.
"Mount Rushmore!" Snickers and snorts sounded from various tables in the room at the joke. Everyone knew he only had two expressions: serious and serious with an eyebrow in the "up" position.
"Ok. What about Dr. Jackson?"
"You mean Grave Digger Dan?"
"Oh, man! That’s just cold!" The newbie protested.
"Waitilya hear Colonel O’Neill’s nickname," the wit said proudly.
"I’m not sure I want to."
O’Neill sat forward, waiting to hear it himself.
"Jack-in-the-box!"
Another voice called out. "Or Dope-on-a-rope. We can’t decide!"
O’Neill was startled by the sudden movement of Sergeant Smith as the man practically exploded from his chair. Face livid, the sergeant loomed in the doorway from his office to the breakdown room. Silence, and fear, filled the room at his appearance and, as one, the airman jerked to attention.
Smith stalked slowly around the room, drawing every eye as he moved from table to table.
"Just who do you sanctimonious dumb-asses think you are?" he barked, making the newbie jump in his boots. "You dare to make fun of the men and women who go out to fight for us? You dare mock the ones who are making sure your butts are kept safe from goa’uld advances?"
One soul, either brave or completely stupid, opened his mouth.
"But Sarge. We were just goofing! No one else will ever hear the nicknames!"
"Hel-loooooo." The cheerful singsong tones drew all eyes to see Colonel O’Neill standing in the NCOIC’s doorway. "Just me. Dopey." He gave a waist-high two-fingered salute to the room.
A collective groan filled the air, and TSgt. Smith smirked.
"Oh, no," he mimicked with wide eyes, "no one will ever hear the nicknames."
"I have something I’d like to point out," O’Neill started, but stopped as Smith rounded on him.
"All due respect, sir, but keep out of this!"
Both of O’Neill’s eyebrows went up as he blinked, but he leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms, waiting to see how this would play out.
"Now you listen to me, you bunch of small-minded pantywaists!" The sergeant grabbed everyone’s attention by thumping a fist on a table top, making the pieces of a P80 dance. He raised a hand and pointed to O’Neill. "That man standing there is the best one here on this base. He is a Colonel. That means he survived being an idiot Lieutenant through a Major pain." He shook his arm in emphasis.
"That man has been through hell time and time again, and has saved our home planet those same countless times, along with his team." He dropped his arm and strode over to stare into the face of the now speechless wit. "If you would take the time to read the declassified reports, you’d know exactly what these teams do."
Smith thumped a fist against his chest. "I’ve read them, and reviewed what video I could get my hands on as well. I’ve seen things that curled my stripes! Yet these teams voluntarily risk walking into this kind of stuff every time they go through the gate."
He backed up and covered them all with a glare. "Do you people think the SG teams roll around in sand and sludge and crap just to tick you off and make you work? They are fighting for lives: yours, mine, theirs."
TSgt. Smith walked to the newbie, speaking the next words directly to him.
"Teal’c is a very complicated man who was shown there was danger in displaying emotions by his goa’uld masters. He risked not just his life but the lives of his entire family when he came over to our side. He has more honor than I do in my pinkie!" He stepped to the next man.
"Sophie? Major Carter is Sophie? She hosted a worm, people! Be it goa’uld or Tok’ra, it was a worm, inside her, and yet with the knowledge she received from that little jaunt, she has saved your butts more times than Carter has liver-pills!"
At the blank expressions, he paused. "Ok," he glanced at the Colonel who grimaced, feeling his pain. "Bad choice."
"Dr. Jackson," he jumped right back into full battle roar, "can speak 100 different languages. Not dialects, like Northern Maine verses Texan, but whole languages. And not just from Earth, but alien. Hell," he snorted. "Most of you yahoos can’t even speak the language you were born into correctly!"
He stood glaring at them as only a sergeant can. "Half the time there is nothing exciting going on when the teams return. The other half they come rolling in hot, with enemy fire on their tails. Once in a while they don’t come back at all."
He marched around the room, looking into the eyes of every single airman standing there. "We are doing them a service by acting as personal stevedores as well as our regular duties. The teams are sometimes so beat they can’t put one foot in front of the other. Can you think of another way to thank the folks who put their butts in a sling so you don’t have to? Taking 60 pounds of gear off their shoulders for the short walk down a hallway is so hard." He spoke that last sentence in a mocking whine.
No one spoke, but eyes shifted back and forth, and some of the expressions told him he was starting to get through to them.
"Agh!" He waved a dismissive hand at the people around him. "You people make me sick!"
He stalked back to his office doorway, noticing that O’Neill had disappeared. He turned to face the room one last time. "Get back to work!" The command snapped out just before he slammed his door.
The grate of the opening blast doors brought TSgt. Smith back to the present and he stood at attention as General Hammond and Colonel O’Neill entered the hall. The Colonel glanced at TSgt. Smith, then assured Hammond he’d be in the briefing room as soon as he hit the Armory.
Hammond nodded and walked away as O’Neill started removing gear and armor, handing it to Smith as they walked down the hall. Wesson stepped forward to help Dr. Jackson as he came into the hall, and two more NCO’s hurried to assist Major Carter and Teal’c. Smith noticed a new hole burnt into the pack as O’Neill handed it to him, but made no comment.
"Just another day at the office," O’Neill quipped as he looked around. He noted there were no ranks present below the 4 stripes and a star of Staff Sergeant.
"So, Sarge, where’s the usual airmen?" O’Neill’s query was casually asked as he slipped off the plated vest and handed it to the waiting man.
"Sir, I consider giving you and your team this service a privilege. Those airmen will have to earn this privilege now."
O’Neill gave him a sideways look, then clapped a hand to the sergeant’s back in a man-to-man gesture.
"So, Tech Sergeant Smith. How do you feel about fishing in Minnesota?"
© December 2004 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.