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

you the
truth. We’ve got no choice.” He made as if to get up. The colonel rose more
quickly, forestalling him.
    “Major”—there was a razor edge to O’Neill’s voice now—“you’d better care. I’m
putting you under house arrest. Report to your quarters until further notice.”
    “You can’t—”
    O’Neill smiled without humor and lifted one hand to tap the silver eagle
perched on his right shoulder. “Yes, I can. Colonel, see?” He pointed at the
gold oak leaves that adorned Morley’s. “Major.”
    Morley stared at him, licked his lips, and glanced at Teal’C. “You. You’re
one of them. You’re part of it.”
    “That will be enough, Major!” O’Neill’s voice was a whiplash. The
officers across the room decided that elsewhere was a very good place to be.
     
    “Well, that’s settled,” O’Neill said as the two men walked out of the club.
    “What is settled?”
    “Where we’re going next. We’re going to finish the job.” O’Neill’s tone was
still quiet and conversational. Teal’C thought he detected a layer of seething
rage beneath it.
    “You do not believe, then, that the members of SG-2 left behind are all
dead.” The two men walked shoulder to shoulder down the hall, taking up most of
the space between the walls.
    “I believe that Dave Morley isn’t giving us the whole story, and if there’s
more to Jaffa tactics, we’d better know about it.”
    “Do you think General Hammond will approve such a mission for SG-1?”
    “I think he might, yeah.”
    And if he didn’t? Teal’C wondered. He decided to prepare himself for
travel anyway, just in case.

 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN
     
     
    Dad thought that shock of white hair reminded his constituents of Edward
Everett Dirksen. He didn’t care whether they’d liked Dirksen or not; the name
and the white hair were famous, and had clout, and that was all he cared about.
    They were in the study of the Georgetown place, sharing brandy and cigars
after a good meal. Mother had rolled her eyes and gone elsewhere when Dad had
suggested “a little postprandial treat.”
    It wasn’t a bad cigar. Not Cuban, but not bad. Frank leaned back in his
leather chair and looked up through the cloud of aromatic smoke to the shelves
of books behind his father. At least they weren’t all the same color and size—Mother probably had something to do with that—but he was willing to
bet that his father the senator hadn’t opened one since his parents had moved in
three terms ago. Strictly for show, strictly to impress the voters. He’d become
resigned to knowing that about his father long ago.
    “So, boy, I read your little piece in the Post,” his father grinned,
swirling dark amber liquid around in the globe glass. “Taking your old dad to
task again, are you?”
    He smiled to disguise his sigh. It was always like this. He kept coming to
dinner to please Mother, and every time, Dad tried to bait him about something.
    “It wasn’t directed specifically at you,” he pointed out. “I just think this
whole isolationist trend is damaging in the long run.”
    “Humph.” Senator Kinsey sipped, holding the liquor in his mouth, savoring it.
“Keeps our boys from getting killed.”
    “While a lot of other people die.”
    “They don’t pay taxes here.”
    And they don’t vote, Frank added mentally.
    “Well, be that as it may.” A billow of smoke issued from the old man’s mouth,
on either side of the cigar he held between his teeth. “There are some things
you just don’t want following you home, boy. There are limits.”
    “Refusing to open our borders to people in need—”
    “We’ve got enough problems right here! Those folks will come in and take our
jobs, use our resources—”
    “Like Grandpa did when he came over from England?”
    A moment later he was sorry he’d snapped at the old man. The senator was
staring at him almost malevolently. He’d have to apologize to Mother before he
left. Again. The leather of his chair