Send off and greetings

Posted on Sun Oct 24, 2021 @ 5:12pm by Sergeant Lacey Burkett & Sergeant George Bernard
Edited on on Mon Dec 19, 2022 @ 9:57pm

Mission: Phone Home
Location: Beta site

At least the base was fairly set up. All the personnel either hadn't gotten there yet or escaped. Captured was also a possibility. He drove the thought from his mind. He started to come up with a plan of attack.

First things first. He dialed Earth.....the gate refused to lock. It had happened before. He tried to not think of the worse case scenario. Just busy he hoped. He needed to secure the gate. The nearby ammo depot held a few goodies. Backing up a Humvee pickup, he grabbed a variety of things. Anyone trying to surprise him would be sorely disappointed.

He rigged a trip wire with a high explosive grenade. Placing it far enough that it wouldn't kill any friendly troops coming through the gate, but would alert him within a few seconds. Next went claymore mines. He only had two but placed them into a crossfire so anything that came through would not be having fun. Lastly he found a few M72E10 LAW rockets with fragmentation warheads. Setting up a few, he surveyed the work and pulled out an MRE and a canteen.

After the meal, the real work began. Taking a deuce-n-half, the laborious work began. He was doing this for several reasons. The largest one was morality. It was something that had to be done. Proper disposal was also a highly sanitation issue. Wild animals and disease followed if not done properly. Gathering the human personnel first, a nearby clearing was ideal. It would have been nice to farther away but this needed to be expedient. Since the site was still expanding, George was able to grab an nearby excavator. Having worked on a farm, he was very used to all the machines. He dug two slit trenches about 1 meter wide and 10 meters long. The humans in one and after that was done, the Goa'uld in the other. Covering it up, he placed a quick cross in front of the human lined trench.

George hadn't been done a minute when the clunks of chevrons activating on the Stargate began. A few seconds later blue liquid billowed from the ring and it deposited Lacey Burkett on to the ground in front. She looked like shit. She looked like she felt. Her bunned-hair was starting to come loose, she was dirty, covered in mud, dirt and some blood and had a kind of wildness in her eyes that she had observed in the eyes of others occasionally during her time in Afghanistan. Her eyes stung, it was still light at the alpha site, she had come from pitch black.

M9 in hand Lacey moved forward slowly peering this direction and that direction looking for any signs of activity and walked straight into George's trip-wire, stumbling and almost ending flat on her face as she did. Lacey had time to realise what had happened and process the implications but hadn't quite gotten to doing anything about them when the grenade went off, the loud thud adding to the other sounds of Stargate activity that were, together, about as subtle as an air-raid siren. Trip wires and grenades certainly were not the style of the Goa'uld, not H.E. grenades anyway and Lacey knew this, but she was still frazzled, on high alert and not about to wait around to see who had set the trap. Shoulder screaming at her she sprinted for the nearest undergrowth and quickly deployed her rifle with a good view of the area. It wasn't ideal, depending on where a target came from she may have to alter her arc a little, but it was good enough for now. Lacey lay flat behind the rifle, her ears full of the sounds of her own breathing and waited, her heart racing once again.

Even driving the excavator back, the engine couldn't begin to mask the sound of a grenade going off. He moved into a dead run, the M249 swinging in his arms after dismounting. Reaching the side of the small hut, he switched to the FN MAG medium machine gun. George didn't see anyone. Had it been more Jaffa, there would have been a squad. There was a chance that an animal tripped it. Not taking any chances, George held the GPMG closer into his shoulder and called out. "This is Sgt Bernard of SG19. Advance and be recognized."

Lacey watched the man through her scope. Lacey recognised the face, the build, the predisposition for heavy weapons. She didn't know George Bernard well, but they had spoken occasionally at the SGC, usually on the subject of Weapons. George knew a lot and Lacey was happy to listen when she got the opportunity. He was certainly more adventurous than she with weapon choices.

Still uncertain and running on adrenaline Lacey scanned the direction from which Sergeant Bernard had approached. An excavator sat running, small amounts of black diesel smoke coming from the exhaust. In the distance beyond a cross marked what was probably a grave. Given all of the signs of battle and what she knew of the alpha site Lacey put two and two together. A Goa'uld wouldn't dig graves. A Goa'uld wouldn't even begin to care.

"Sergeant Burkett, SG21" Lacey hollered. "I'm comin' out." The M24 was scooped up again and Lacey trudged with it out of cover and into view.

Once the approaching figure walked a few more yards, George recognized her. He scooped the Minimi, leaving the M240 in place. As he got closer, he saw she was injured. He'd seen enough staff wounds to know one from sight. Slinging the SAW over a shoulder he took her weapon. "Come on, let's get you fixed up. I imagine you and I have some stories to swap." Lacey nodded.

"Only one and it don't got no happy ending," she told him wearily. Lacey wasn't her usual bubbly self. George imagined it was a combination of the injury, shock, the wearing off of adrenaline. Setting the weapons down, he guided her to one of the nearby examination beds. He was no doctor. Not even a medic. He helped her out of her tunic, then cut away all the left shoulder to expose the wound. He broke the lock on the medical cabinet. Picking it would have taken time and tools he'd have to scrounge up.

"I'm no medic but I've taken a few courses and helped out some." He uses a swap and disinfected her right arm. "This is gonna pinch." He injected 10mg of morphine into her system. As he waited for it to take effect. He assessed her condition. Nothing else was broken and while wasn't a doctor, she seemed in fairly good shape. He gave her a canteen. "Drain it." He also gave her snack bar. "You need the energy."

"Yes, sir," Lacey replied with a slight smile. She carefully opened the canteen and took a long drink, always using her right hand for anything above chest level. She paused for a moment to adjust to the rush of the morphine. Despite everything that had happened she couldn't help but smile. That was one hundred percent the morphine. She had never had it before, but could see how people could become addicted.

"Thank you. Maybe you ain't no medic," she commented, "but at least you can see what you're doing back there. You ever tried dressin' a wound on your own back?" She sighed. "I think that staff melted some on my clothin' on me, it sure feels weird back there."

"No, I haven't had to dress a wound on my own back. This is gonna hurt. I have to debride the wound. You're going to be real thankful you're high soon." Using forceps and a scalpel, George was careful to mechanically remove matter. Lacey was thankful she was high. It still hurt and felt very strange. Lacey sucked air through her teeth with each little piece making a ew choice expressions of pain, most of which didn't involve any actual words.

Next George removed any foreign or necrotic tissue. Hoping he got it all, he applied some burn gel. Liberally. If he knew more, he could have given her a general or local anesthetic. He needed her at least a little lucid. "Looks like you won't be a sniper for a while. At least not a very mobile one." George said. Lacey took a deep breath. Her shoulder stung like hell.

"There anyone else here?" She asked quietly as he finished up. "You been able to dial Earth? I tried it from two places, gate just does nothin'."

George shook his head. "I had no luck getting through. Our game plan is for you to get some rest. I'm resetting the trap to the stargate and tomorrow, we are out of here in case the Snakes some looking for us."
Getting Lacey settled, the sun was setting fairly quickly. He was only a sergeant but if they survived this, he would be making some recommendations. In the interim, he found a humvee pickup and loaded an M2 flex .50 Browning machine gun. Making sure the gun was functional, George added all the ammo he could find. It amounted to just over 900 rounds. Not insignificant. Nothing he knew of would withstand that kind of punishment. He aimed the gun so that it had the entire field of the stargate covered. If he had to use it, any misses would travel back through the stargate to the point of origin. To that end, he reset the grenade trip alarm.

Back in the motor pool. George drove one of the ambulances closer to the gate. He moved Lacey inside and let her sleep. If she awoke later, he'd see if she could let him sleep for an hour. In the interim, he kept himself busy loading two trailers they would tow behind the humvee and ambulance. He retrieved his personal stuff. Including a modified AR-10, the bigger older brother to the M16/M4.

After he got a few things settled, George started pillaging. This was survival. First up was a big bad and he grabbed things he new fromt the medical pharmacy. Normal things like tylenol and aspirin, antihistamines as well as more exotic things such as painkiller and antibiotics. He didn't exactly know what he was looking at, which slowed him down. That went into a recovered now empty rucksack along with two medics bag, sutures, scalpels, bandages, antiseptics and other items.
Next was the kitchen. MRE's were a good start, but he also grabbed spices for things they could get along the way. They could fish and hunt, somethings he had experience in. Also some kitchen tools, frying pan, medium stock pot, Knives and spoons.
Next up was the ammunitions storage. He had to carefully crack the door open so he couldn't just shoot it or use a torch. Inside were muntions small and large. Backing up the humvee, he loaded all the things he knew he'd need. Ammo for both machine guns, as well for the m4 carbine and M203. The M203 could use smoke, white phosphorous and other rounds, not just HE and Fragmentation.

An interesting find was a near lot of 5.7x28mm ammo. That meant there should be something nearby that shot it. A step up from the M9, though he grabbed some for those pistols as well. Lasted a case each of fragmentation, High Explosive grenades along with a mix of smoke, marking and thermite versions. He also spotted his own personal ammo. Beginning a student of history, months ago he remember that the special operations group during the Vietnam War using a bolt action rifle that had a large rifle cartridge with a very heavy bullet. So heavy that when it was subsonic where most guns were far faster but could be completely silent when fired. He adopted something similar but used a partially destroyed M24 with an internally suppressed 22 inch barrel. Using a modified 7.62x 51 case it was made a straight wall case that carried a bullet that weighed 325 grains, nearly double the weight of the 7.62x 51mm. The hold over was a bit tricky since it dropped 30cm at 200 meters. It also hit like a the proverbial Mack truck. Anyone past 100 meters wouldn't hear it and would be impossible to tell where it came from even if they were close enough.

His last stop before resting was the armory. Grabbing spare M240 and M249 machine guns, Two SR-25 rifles, and a M4/M203 combos. Fresh boxes for the FN five seven and P90 weren't even uncrated. . He grabbed 4 of each in case he needed spares. Two pistols he boxed immediately. Going through a function check, George loaded two and pulled the holster from the box swapping it into his equipment.
Driving back to Lacey, he drained a canteen and popped open one of the few cans of stew he found in the mess hall. They would be sick of MRE's soon. He passed one to Lacey and handed her a spoon. He long ago stopped caring about hot meals. He needed the energy more than the comfort of a few degrees of warmth in his dinner.

Lacey on the other hand found the hot stew gave her a real boost in mood. The injury was a new experience for her. It had thrown her off balance somewhat, and this was made worse by there being no doctor or medic to consult. Lacey found great comfort in having experts around her who could tell her what the deal was with anything that wasn't her own speciality. She had taken a look at the wound with a convenient mirror in the ambulance after she had woken. It looked bad.

Lacey hadn't slept well. She couldn't move onto her back or her left side, and having to stay on her right side had caused her neck to ache. Still, while she couldn't match the the work output of her colleague she tried to be useful. After waking she made her own way to the pharmacy hunting for various hygiene products, sending up praise when she found them and filling the bottom third of a duffle Bag. Stores were next, such as they were and she was able to find a set of fatigues that fit and didn't have staff holes in them. Bonus. Next she grabbed spares for both of them, warm jackets and pullovers and extra boots and socks. All of this was topped with as many waterproof ponchos as she could fit. In the end pockets she stuffed sewing kits, para chord, and wool. Another duffel bag was filled with sleeping bags, canteens, all-weather matches and a tool kit and these two duffels of goodies were hauled over and placed inside the ambulance. Lacey was trying to be careful of her injury, she didn't know how far she should push. At the back of her mind was the possibility of infection, made much more likely in her opinion by the the dirt that had rained down on top of her from staff blasts at the alpha site. All of this was very unsettling but the hot stew was a nice moment of comfort.

"Y'all got some M24 ammo in there?" She asked. The rifle had barely been touched since she had come through the gate but now was sat on its bipod next to her for no other reason than it gave her comfort.

George chuckled. "I have presents", he said smiling. "Also we need to keep ahead of the pain and get some antibiotics in you. Digging into a nearby day pack, he dug out a pain pill. "We're going to start small. I need you lucid until we can get to a safer area."

"Aight. Makes sense. Y'all don't want me drivin' nothin' into a ditch instead of the Stargate now do ya?" Lacey responded with a grin as she took the meds. Normal Lacey was working her way back to the surface.

Getting up George loaded a few small rocks into the now empty stew can so it would land farther away. He passed Lacey a set of earplugs. "New FN pistol. Smaller caliber but great penetration. Should make short work of Jaffa armor. 20 round magazines." Tossing the can, he sent a few double taps. Both landing close enough that even the ones that didn't hit it square would easily land inside the center mass of an enemy. He passed her the pistol. A small grin on his face, then stood clear.

"Uhuh?" Lacey took the firearm, did a quick safety check and took her own shots at the can, which ended up with two more holes in it than before. "Nifty," she commented. "Light."

As she got used to the pistol George grabbed the P90 and SR-25. "Until you recover, the P90 and pistol is going to be a good idea. I even have a Zat around somewhere. I even managed to dig up another NVD for it. The SR-25 is half a kilo lighter, and I imagine working the bolt on the M24 is going to be less fun for awhile. This was a good point that Lacey hadn't had an opportunity to consider.

"Guess I always stick with what I know," she told George. " 'Tween you and me? Sometimes I worry I'll miss som'th' if I switch. Some shots I taken wouldn't, have got no second chance. Got a lot of hours on that M24 you know. I'll try 'em though." She took the offered P90, did a quick safety check and and put another three experimental holes into the can as if it were nothing at all. If there was one thing that Lacey could never be accused of it would be being prone to missing. "Stoner's probably more my style," she grinned, referring to the sr-25, but kept the P90 anyway and began to rig up the sling. The lightweight weapons had been a good shout and Lacey commented as such as she stowed the her M24 and M9 with the kind of care normally reserved for newborn babies.

Daylight started to creep in on the horizon. Picking up Thumper, he loaded the 10 round detachable magazines. He took a large #10 can of tomato sauce from the kitchen for effect and walked out 100 meters. Loading the fat 44-308 wildcat, he took aim and let the heavy fly. The 325 grain steel tip bullet hit the can and turned it into twisted shrapnel as the red sauce flew several directions at once traveling about 10 meters in fountain pattern.

This time the grin was ear to ear. "Hammer time." George joked. Lacey grinned.

"Any Goulds in places they shouldn't be they won't be lasting long, huh?" She said as she stood. "Talkin' o' which, if you're ready I vote we get the hell out of here before them sumbitches come back."

"Your mouth to God's ears. I agree. We probably have too much gear. One can only hope." George had been writing things down since there would be too much to remember. Between the battle on PXwhatever to the more recent battle here, in addition to Lacey's view, it was quite a few pages to compile. Not even mentioning enemy strengths.

"My plan so far was a neutral world, since we've managed to strike out with our own, or even a friendly one. Some place where we can regroup, rest and figure out where and what to do next." George added. "Ideas for possible locations? Gate addresses aren't very memorable to me. Plus are you up to driving the ambulance?" I'd like to take both vehicles. We can sleep in the ambulance easily enough."

"Figured we would," Lacey came back quickly, referring to the ambulance. "We could start at P3X-277, where I came from yesterday? Aint no people there, just plants an' stuff. Don't know why they even built a gate there. Where we can go from there..." Lacey's voice trailed off and she looked at George suddenly with surprised anticipation, as if she had just had a rather good thought. "Maybe... jus' maybe... hang on!"

Lacey took off at a jog towards what was left of the command tent. Fires had burned out the walls and roof and now just charred superstructure and some of the internals remained. Upon arriving the sniper unclipped her P90 and clicked on the flashlight. "I know I saw one... where are you... ah!" Lying on the remains of a collapsed desk was a chunky military grade laptop with 'Panasonic' emblazoned on the closed lid. Lacey knelt careful to avoid putting anything but her boots on the hot Ash and, P90 stowed again , scooped it up.

Lacey jogged back on over to George, shielding her eyes from the rising sun. "Saw this las' night in the command tent, didn't dare go near 'cause of the fires," she explained. Sitting quickly the computer was placed on her lap and, excitement building, she opened the lid.
"Yes!"
Lacey's face was flooded with the light from the screen. "Guess they call 'em tough books for a reason, huh?" She grinned at George. "If this was the command computer there should be a gate directory on here."

"Then let's look for a spare. Something to charge them with and get out of here. The longer we stay the more reason for the Jeff the Jaffa to come back through the gate." George said.

"On it." Lacey stowed her find in the ambulance and with George went to retrieve a spare, the power supply and and a small generator she had spotted from the Infirmary. The pair were properly tooled up now and Lacey felt a sense that they might actually be alright for a while as the Sergeants headed quickly back towards the vehicles and the Stargate. But that feeling quickly subsided with a jolt and was replaced by something much darker as the first orange light of the Stargate clunked into life.

"Tool up!" Lacey threw her items into the open doors of the Ambulance and sprinted for the DHD. If she could dial out before whoever was dialling in (presumably Goa'uld at this point) could dial in she could block them from coming through. Her hands flew over the symbols and she pressed the large red activator as the last symbol of the incoming dial lit up. The gate billowed into life and Lacey darted to the side of the open wormhole, her new P90 in hand.

"I don't know if it's ours or theirs, be ready!" She yelled to George, taking up a firing stance and waiting with pounding heart and heavy breath. They had lingered too long at the beta site.

George sprinted the M2 Browning machine gun. Pulling the charging handle twice to get the first round into the chamber, he steadied himself for whatever came through. Tense moments crept by. “I’ll cover you, go closer and see if it’s our symbols or something else.” George advised. With a nod Lacey crept over to the DHD.

"It's ours! Our gate!" She hollered with relief. "I thought we was cooked then. C'mon, let's get."

Relaxing a bit, George stood up and walked slowly to the M1038A1 truck. He climbed in, then slung the M249 Minimi SAW out the driver’s door propping it on the side view mirror. “Wait one minute then follow me. If I come barreling back through. Bad news.” George said. Lacey nodded.

He eased the truck and trailer up the cement ramp pausing for a moment. Going through the gate, he looked around in all directions before turning the truck around just in case. In stark comparison to the alpha site, P3X-277 was a calm and placid sort of place. The Stargate was placed in the middle of what must have been a Lake many hundreds or thousands of years before. Now it was a small plain. Hills to George's right after coming through with trees around and on top were the nearest cover, the place where Lacey had set herself when she had come here before the alpha site. To his left a vast Forest that almost met with the Forest on the right dead in front of him save a gap of a couple of hundred metres that led to a clearing and after what was left of the lake, now a smaller version of what it had been before. Behind George and the gate forested lowlands led into hills and the peaks of small mountains could be seen in the far distance.

Pulling the M9 out of his pack, he fired a double tap....there was no response. He waited for Lacey to come through the gate. It would be time to change her bandage and check the wound.

After a minute the M997 Humvee ambulance and trailer materialised. Lacey look uncomfortable as hell behind the wheel, leaning forward away from the seat for the sake of her wound. But being away from the beta site clearly suited her. She took a breath as the gate closed behind her, closing her eyes for a minute. They were safe again.

"Scouted round the gate few clicks each way, there's a spot over by the lake, got good cover from the Gate, fresh water... C'mon follow me," Lacey called from the seat of the vehicle and set off at a measured pace.
Placing the SAW down in the passenger seat, George followed the ambulance through the forest. Some of areas were tight, he was jostled a bit and could only imagine what Lacey was going through. Finally the reached the area. He pulled the truck into a spot that was several meters above the shoreline. The last thing they needed was a flash flood or other weather event to carry away them and their gear.

They started to settle in. He checked her wound. It would be something they would have to attend to every few hours as the dead tissue needed to be removed or healing would stop. Once done, he built a small rock pit, then built a small heat reflector out of foil emergency blankets and some small branches. Dialing Earth, the gate still refused to connect.

“We can sleep in the ambulance for now. Hopefully we won’t need anything too permanent past that.” George offered. Lacey nodded and looked back towards the gate.

"I sure hope so..."