The Discovery

Author: BadgerGater

Category: Humor, at least attempted

Season: 3-4, but anywhere really

Pairing: None

Warnings: None

Summary: Daniel and Sam learn something shocking about their CO

Rating: G

Disclaimer: I don't own them, none of them, but if I did, I'd take really good care of them, all of them. Promise. Until then, they still belong to Showtime, MGM, Gekko, and all those important people in really nice suits.

Author's Note-- See I *can* write a story where O'Neill does not get sick, injured, wounded, attacked, angsted or physically or mentally abused in any form. And I bet you thought I couldn't do it!

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Daniel Jackson sat at his desk, stunned beyond belief.

He didn't think there was anything left in the universe that could surprise him. He was after all, an interstellar traveler and explorer/archaeologist/linguist/sometime warrior and Goa'uld mothership pilot. He'd lived on another planet for a year and worked every day with an honest to goodness alien, for crying out loud 'Oh, God,' he thought, 'I have to stop hanging around Jack. I'm beginning to sound like him. Arrrggghhh.'

No. He'd thought there was not the smallest possibility that a single, solitary thing remained in the vastness of the universe that could stun him, surprise him and stop him in his virtual tracks, leaving him speechless.

But this had done it.

Oh my.

Jackson stared again at his computer screen, scrubbing a hand across his eyes in disbelief. Okay, this had to be a joke, another one of O'Neill's bad practical jokes, or a scam. Or someone else with the same name. It couldn't be, could it? Nah.

He had to find Sam. Sam would know. And if she didn't know, she would leave no stone unturned until she found the truth.

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Daniel left his office and hurried through the hallways of the SGC. It was late, nearly midnight, but he was confident he'd find Sam still in her lab. She was the one person among the day-shift personnel who kept longer hours that he did, totally absorbed in her work to the distraction of all else; who ignored life outside her work; who seemed in fact to *have* no life outside the base, this job and the Stargate.

He was right, of course. Sam was busy in the lab, mysterious machines humming and blinking, her brow furrowed as she worked to puzzle out a problem. He and Sam might have nearly similar IQs, it was true, but they didn't think alike. They didn't understand each other's work any more than Jack O'Neill understood them. Or they him. At least that was the truth as far as Daniel was concerned. Sam at least had the advantage of knowing the military, growing up in a military household. Still, Daniel and Jack had always had that friendship thing going, the ability to if not understand each other, at least the willingness to trade perspectives, on occasion. Or maybe it was just a guy thing, or Jack insisting on being big brother and demanding he have fun. No, for some odd reason Daniel and Jack, total opposites in all ways, were friends.

Just like Daniel was friends with Sam, except in a totally different way. They were the two people who understood what it meant to be the outsiders, the brainy ones in every group, the so much smarter than the average kid wunderkinds who didn't fit in with anyone else.

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Daniel was still shaking his head in amazement as he stepped into Sam's lab. "Hi Sam."

She looked up from the experiment she was conducting. "Oh, hi Daniel. What brings you here?"

"Well, ah, I found something fascinating. I was on the internet, and found my way into this military database. I got in with my password, and well, I found something odd. Thought maybe you could explain it."

"Me? Explain something to you?"

"Well, it's military, sort of. You're much better than I am at the military stuff."

"Well, I'll try," she offered. "Just a minute while I shut off this equipment." She bustled around the room turning off power buttons and shutting down banks of blinking lights. "Okay. Ready."

They walked through the nearly deserted hallways in companionable silence for several minutes before she asked, "so, Daniel, what is it that's got you wondering?"

"Let me show you, that's easier than trying to explain," he answered cryptically as they reached his office. Shoving aside stacks of Journals of the American Society of Archeology, Archeology Today, The Field Anthropologist, and Anthropology in the New Millennium, Jackson cleared a place for Sam to sit beside him and view his computer.

"I was browsing through some military databases, actually looking to see if there was any record of the military finding artifacts that could be linked to either the Stargate, the Goa'uld or the Asgard, when I came upon this list, and well, frankly, the name caught my eye."

There on the page was a long list of Ph.D. dissertations, including one titled "Military Applications for Space Travel and Exploration: Presenting a Plan for the Distribution, Manufacture and Use of Alien Weapons Technology: A Statistical Analysis of the Probabilities and Possibilities of Encountering Hostile Aliens and Recovering Advanced Weaponry" by Col. J. O'Neill.

"You don't think this is..." Daniel asked, incredulous.

"No, I doubt it. I don't think the Colonel even knows how to conduct a statistical analysis of anything." Sam shook her head. "It's probably just someone else with a similar name. There's at least one other Colonel Jonathan O'Neill, although I think he's a Marine, and he spells the name with only one L. O'Neill is a common name, and this just has the initial, could be James or Jerry or even Jill." Carter's fingers flew over the keyboard as she accessed the database, and searched for the paper. "Hmm, this is Classified Top Secret. Very top secret. Even I can't get in. Hmmmm." She raised her eyes from the keyboard to meet Daniel's gaze. "It couldn't be, could it?"

"Jack is the most unscholarly person I know. Writing a paper with a title like that?" Daniel raised his eyebrows skeptically. "No way. He's never even said where he went to college, *if* he went to college."

"Well, actually, he does have to have a college degree," Sam looked up from the computer monitor to see Daniels' stunned face.

"He does?" asked Daniel, surprise in his voice.

"Oh, yes, in fact, to be a Colonel, he has to have earned a Master's Degree."

"No way!"

"Yes. It's true. Of course, what his Master's is in, that's always the question."

"Do they give one in hockey analysis? Beer tasting? Bad puns and worse jokes? Sarcastic comments for all occasions? Oh puleeze tell me Jack doesn't have a Masters, much less a Ph.D.."

Sam was thinking again. "Well, hmm, we may not be able to get into that Ph.D. file, but I do have enough clearance to look at personnel files..." Carter's fingers were once again flying across the keys.

"Sam, ah, isn't that against regulations or something, to be checking out your commanding officer's personnel file?"

"Well, some sections of the Colonel's file would definitely be off limits, based on his Special Ops background, sure, but most of it is probably right here in the open base files. I've been reviewing personnel records in search of a new lab assistant, so I've got a password for records. Here," she grinned in triumph as a personnel file appeared on screen.

Daniel began reading it with wonder. "Wow, I thought he was older than that. The gray hair, I guess," Daniel mumbled. "And what are all these blank spaces?"

"Classified assignments. All that stuff he told us once he couldn't ever tell us about because if we knew about it, he'd have to kill us."

Jackson shuddered. "I thought he was just kidding."

"Not about something like that. The Colonel's done some hush-hush under the table stuff, Daniel, that's for sure. See this?" she pointed to a small flashing red icon on her screen. "It's the Air Force's highest top secret classification. The General knows what's in there, Janet maybe knows some of it, but that's all."

"What about the papers?"

"Oh, yeah, right," said Carter, scrolling back several pages. She gasped and heard Daniel do the same.

"Oh my God, it really is him," the Major whispered.

"No. No. No.." Daniel refused to believe it. "This can't be. It says this Colonel Jack O'Neill, USAF, not only has a Master's Degree but he has a Ph.D. as well? No. No way. This must be the wrong Colonel O'Neill."

"Daniel, at the Academy, I read some of the papers written by a J. O'Neill. I had no idea..." her voice trailed off as she continued reading down the page. "Holy Hannah!"

"What?"

"*The Colonel* wrote 'Analysis of Intuitive Tactical Decision Making Under Field Conditions'? I-I-I... Daniel, that was the best paper I've ever seen about the parameters for using field observations to make tactical decisions in combat. My God, Daniel, it's considered *the* most important work in tactical combat threat assessments and field decision making. The Academy does a whole semester course based just on that paper."

Daniel took off his glasses and pinched his nose. "Now, wait a minute, Sam. You're telling me that the Air Force Academy teaches a class based on a paper Jack wrote for his, uh," Daniel consulted the screen, "for his Master's Degree in Weapons and Warfare? Wait a minute. Who gives Master's Degree in a topic like Weapons and Warfare?"

A voice from behind them answered. "The Air Force Academy, that's who..." Jack O'Neill stepped into the room, hands shoved deep into his pockets, an innocent who-me look on his face. "So, hey, what 'cha doin' kids?"

Both Sam and Daniel stared at him with new appreciation. "Ah, just ah...surfing the net, Sir."

Jack peered past them to the computer screen. "Checking up on me, are you?"

"Well, ah, Sir, we ah," Carter babbled, blushing.

O'Neill leaned over and hit the Alt F-4 keys, shutting down the connection. "Personnel files are not to be accessed without official reason." He raised an eyebrow inquisitively. "*Do* you have a reason?"

"Well, there was a paper I wanted to read," said Daniel.

"Really? A paper? In *my* file?"

"Yeah. I heard you wrote something about Tactical Decision Making," Daniel said slowly. "Thought I might learn something by reading it. Gain a better understanding of the military mind, and, uh, a, uh, a little insight into your command style."

O'Neill was still not grinning, at least not outwardly, though inside he was desperately battling to keep the smirk off his face, and was very afraid he was about to lose the fight. "That old thing? Wrote that years ago. Probably outdated by now."

"Oh, no Sir. It's the most brilliant work on the subject and..." Carter stopped.

"And?" O'Neill cocked his head and stared at his 2IC.

"And studied everywhere."

"Not *quite* everywhere, Major. I doubt the Goa'uld read it."

Daniel suddenly realized how odd it was that O'Neill had shown up in the archaeologist's office just when he did. "Ah, Jack, how did you know we were looking at your file?"

"Computers, Daniel, computers. The Air Force likes them and has lots of them, connected to other computers in far away places, computers that notice when classified files are accessed by people who really don't have a reason to be accessing them."

"Oh."

"You kids should be more careful." O'Neill tried to display his stern commander's face, and just barely succeeded.

"Ah, yes, Sir, sorry, Sir." Carter, at least, had the good grace to look embarrassed.

O'Neill turned to leave, then paused at the door to look back at the two junior members of SG-1. "I know it's labeled classified, but I think I can get you a copy of 'Military Applications for Space Travel and Exploration: Presenting a Plan for the Distribution, Manufacture and Use of Alien Weapons Technology.' If you really want to read one." O'Neill's smirk finally broke through. "All you had to do was ask the doctor." With that, he turned away, hands stuffed into the pockets of his Air Force blue BDUs, and sauntered nonchalantly down the hallway, whistling.

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