STARGATE SG-1: Do No Harm Read Online Free PDF

“I’m sure they’re fine, Colonel,” she said quietly. “Sam, Daniel and Teal’c are the best. And given everything that’s gone wrong around here lately it’s easy to spook ourselves, or start believing that off-world missions can’t be anything but dramatic and dangerous. That’s not the case.” She nodded at his paperwork. “You’re not dragging your heels on those reports because you’re inefficient or undisciplined. You’re dragging them because the missions aren’t any fun to write about. They were
boring
. We can do boring here, too. Don’t forget that.”
    He watched her leave the commissary, his jaw metaphorically dropped. She had the most uncanny knack for sticking her finger right on a pulse…
    Suddenly he was exhausted. Home. Home and pizza. Home and Chinese. Home and anything not cooked by the Air Force or himself. Home and something mindless on the idiot box. And beer. Cold beer.
    After calling ahead to place a late order with the Dragon Palace he changed into civilian camouflage of jeans and sweat shirt, signed himself off-base and escaped into the normal world. Sometimes it made him feel like the alien. All those people with no idea what was happening in the great big scary, incredible, amazing galaxy. Tonight, though, all he could feel was relieved beyond measure that the regular world was there, still there, and bumbling along in its glorious innocent ignorance.
    Just as he was diving headfirst into sauce-soaked potstickers someone uninvited knocked on his front door.
    “Oh, for crying out loud!” he muttered, and went to see who’d so lost interest in living that they were on his doorstep harassing him at 2207. PM. At night.
    “Sorry, Jack,” said General Hammond. “I know it’s late, but can you spare a few minutes?”
    Oh crap. Oh crap
. “SG-1, are they — ”
    “No!” said Hammond, lifting his hands. “I’m sorry. The team’s fine. Major Carter radioed in before I left the base to say they were staying a few more hours to get soil and plant samples. Everything’s fine. The mission’s going to plan.”
    As the potstickers stopped doing the rumba in his stomach, he stepped back. “Oh. Good. Then — come in, sir. Want Chinese?”
    “Chinese?” said Hammond vaguely, as though he wasn’t entirely familiar with the concept.
    O’Neill waved the general down the stairs into the living room.
God, he looks beat
. “Yes, sir,” he said, heading for the kitchen. “You’d better. I always order too much. Carter’s renamed my fridge the The O’Neill Laboratory. She says I should apply for funding.”
    “Ha,” said Hammond, wearily amused, and lowered himself into an armchair, still in uniform but looking crumpled. Not a good sign. Hammond was Old School; probably he really did spit on his shoes when he polished them.
    O’Neill shoved a bit of everything into a bowl, finished it off with a splosh of dipping sauce, shoved a fork in it and joined Hammond.
    “Here you go, sir. Dig in. Did you want a beer to wash it down?”
    “Thanks,” said Hammond. “And yes. A beer would be appreciated.”
    They ate in companionable silence, with a re-run of Cheers droning in the background. Eventually Hammond put his emptied bowl to one side and relaxed against his armchair’s cushions.
    O’Neill considered him. “Better?”
    “Better,” Hammond acknowledged. Then he balanced his beer bottle on his knee and sighed. “Jack, the SGC is in a tight spot.”
    “We’re going through a rough patch, sir, yes,” he said, chasing the last stubborn grains of fried rice with his chopsticks. “But we’ll survive. We always do.”
    “We might not this time,” said Hammond. “Not without taking a few drastic steps.”
    To hell with the fried rice. He put aside his bowl. “What kind of drastic steps, sir?”
    Instead of answering, Hammond took refuge in his beer. O’Neill felt his skin prickle.
Oh, crap. I’m not going to like this
.
    Hammond put down the emptied beer bottle.