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

waved back; Teal’C nodded briefly. The two of them scanned the rest of
the place, and O’Neill’s eyes lit up at the sight of the other occupant of the
place.
    Morley was seated at the bar, glumly picking at a bowl of peanuts. He
flinched when Teal’C appeared beside him, only to find O’Neill sliding onto the
stool on the other side. The major looked at the two of them and closed his eyes
in misery.
    “So, Dave,” O’Neill began, not bothering with preliminaries. “Tough mission.
But you know, I was thinking, we need a little bit more information. These Jaffa
you ran into, and that force field you say they had—”
    Morley spun around on his barstool, nearly knocking the colonel down. “You
weren’t there!”
    O’Neill paused, then carefully moved the glass bowl of peanuts to the middle
of the polished surface of the bar, his sharp brown eyes never leaving
Morley’s. The glass made a scraping sound against the wood. “No,” he said
quietly. He dropped all vestiges of casual hail-fellow-well-met, and his voice
became serious, his manner intent. “I wasn’t there. Not this time, at least.
    “So tell me about it. You had no reason to expect trouble. You didn’t see
anything? No hints at all?” His tone was conversational. On the other side,
Teal’C somehow managed to give the man more room without perceptibly moving.
    “They pulled us in. They flanked us. How was I supposed to know they were
there?”
    “The Jaffa have set traps before.” Teal’C’s voice was a rumble.
    O’Neill barely flicked a glance at his teammate, and the Jaffa subsided.
“That’s the thing about traps,” he agreed. “You don’t know they’re there.”
    “We saw the stuff originally reported,” Morley went on. “The buildings. The
towers. But no sign of Jaffa. Not even in the, the, the compound where they rounded everybody up. We thought we could—”
    “They’re beginning to expect us,” O’Neill interrupted Morley’s rising,
increasingly agitated rant. “We’re moving to a new level now. They figure when
we come through we’ll come through again. They’re setting traps for us.”
    He shifted his gaze to Teal’C. “Do you think this is a general plan? Or do we
have one bright Jaffa on P7X-924? Whaddaya think, Teal’C?”
    Teal’C frowned even more deeply than usual. “It is possible that this is an
innovation by a single squad leader,” he said. “We have not seen this response
before. Usually, a compound is emptied quickly and the Jaffa leave.”
    “They trapped us,” Morley said. “They know how to beat us. Every time
we go through the Gate they’re going to kill us.” He gripped his glass hard, his
fingers white and red against the glass. “We’ve got to stop. We have to shut it
down.”
    “No can do, Major,” O’Neill said, still using the calm, uninflected tone with
which he might address a frightened animal or an irrational officer. “We’ve got orders.”
    “Fuck orders!”
    “Now that wouldn’t be any fun at all,” O’Neill said evenly. “Besides, Morley,
we’ve got people back there. And we don’t leave people behind.”
    The officers across the room were watching them openly now, attracted by
Morley’s raised voice.
    “You don’t understand,” he said, even louder. “They were my people.
The ones we went in there to save, they were all gone already. So it’s my
people—they were my—Not yours! And they’re dead. They’re all dead by now. And
you know we can’t win. We can’t possibly win.” Rivers of tar. Beating of
wings. The Jaffa screamed too, like human beings. “People need to know.
They’re going to come and kill us all—”
    “That’s defeatism, son,” O’Neill said mildly. “And besides, I don’t believe
it.” The glass bowl rotated against the bar, scraping gently against the wood.
Morley jerked at the sound, and O’Neill’s long fingers paused in response.
    “I don’t care what you believe!” the major snapped. “I’m telling