Unexpected Impact
Author: BadgerGater
Email: [email protected]
Category: Drama, word-a-month
Pairing: None
Rating: G, blood, violence
Season/Sequel: Anywhere, actually
Summary: Jack's POV
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions; all the powers that be, not me; This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement intended. The story is the property of the author and may not be posted without the author's consent.
Authors Notes: For the word-a-month Impact
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They say you don't *hear* the bullet that gets you, but I'll tell you what, you feel it.
Impact.
Tiny lead particle, only a few ounces, but it hits like a ton of bricks.
I know.
The force of it, enough to knock you off your feet, even with a glancing blow.
This was no glancing blow.
Impact.
Like a kick in the gut, a roundhouse right to the point of the chin, like a, hell, like a ton of bricks landing on your chest, knocking the wind out of you, knocking you off your feet.
One minute you're upright, the next you're wondering who punched you, and why, and how you got down on the floor.
I didn't hear the damn bullet, but I sure as hell felt it punch into me, spin me around and take me down.
Stunned, I lay on the ground.
It takes a moment for the pain to start. Doc could explain why, I'm sure, about how the nerve endings trigger other nerves to tell the brain, 'lie down you fool, you've been hurt.'
Now, I've been taken down by a zat, a staff weapon, even a stun grenade, but I tell you, in my experience, there's nothing quite like the plain old Earth-made gunpowder powered bullet to put a man on the floor, or the ground.
Stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I shouldn't even have been there, in that place, to get in the way of a bullet. Hammond was off at some meeting with a bunch of the brass, which meant I was the senior officer on base. So when the Stargate activated, truth was, I welcomed the chance to get away from that stack of paperwork on my desk and hike on down to the gateroom. Never know what's going to come through the gate.
And why I went on down to the gate, and not up in the control room, hell, I don't even remember. I think it was because I bumped into Doc in the hallway, and decided to walk with her. Or maybe just because I like to be in the middle of things.
I ought to know better.
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Wormhole activated.
GDO code confirmed.
Iris opened.
It was another SG team returning home. Ordinary. Or it should have been.
The four members of SG-11 came stumbling back through the gate looking a little, uh, bedraggled. Off kilter. Crazy, if we'd had the time to notice. Which we didn't.
Lt. Col. Prochak walked through the gate, followed by his team, and they started shooting.
No rhyme, no reason, just bullets flying everywhere. Ever hear one? You'll never forget the sound, the snap of displaced air, the wind of its passage as it zips past your head. You'll duck involuntarily, even though you know that by the time you hear it, it's too late. Can't stop yourself, though. Instinct takes over.
Why? We didn't know then, only knew our own people were shooting at us. Doc explained later that it was something weird in the air, bad air, on PD5-386, that did something strange to the hormone levels in their brains. Turned them all from normal, ordinary, completely under control Air Force officers into flaming, er, shooting, maniacs. Doc fixed them all up, eventually, thank God, but not, of course, in time to prevent what happened.
SG-11 simply walked down the ramp, lifted their weapons and emptied the clips.
Chaos.
Bullets bouncing off concrete, crazing bullet proof glass to the control room, making dents in unwary Colonels.
The SFs, thank God, all come into the gateroom in full battle gear including helmets and bullet proof vests. Unlike bored, sick of paperwork Colonels who walk into a firestorm wearing nice, neat blue shirts and trousers.
Even the best Air Force issued cotton cloth can't slow down a bullet.
Bloodstains sort of ruin my day, you know?
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It feels like a punch in the gut, and you find yourself suddenly down on the floor, your cheek touching the cool concrete wondering what happened. And then you try to move, and the pain hits and you know you're having a really bad day...
Agony screaming along torn nerves and punctured muscles provoking waves of pain as your body frantically sends messages to your brain. "Keep down! Lie still! Stop the bleeding!' If you're lucky you'll pass out quick and miss most of the excruciating bits. I didn't pass out, of course, which meant I didn't miss a single minute, agonizing detail of my shoulder telling my brain that a bullet through the flesh is not a good thing.
It was Teal'c who saved the day, saved me and quite a few others; Teal'c who kept his head, grabbed a zat, and zatted SG-11. Course, their guns were empty by then, but we didn't know if they'd have the wherewithal to reload, as far gone off the deep end as they were.
Doc and her staff were pretty frantic. Eight men down; six of them SFs who were fortunately wearing protective gear and suffering nasty but non-life threatening bruises, praise be to the inventor of Kevlar; one SF not so fortunate, took a bullet above the vest and below the helmet, through the throat, dead before he hit the floor; one middling fortunate Colonel, no vest, no helmet, no holes in vital organs, just one nasty hole through his shoulder.
Hurts like hell, once the numbness wears off. Sitting up, back resting against the wall, biting my lip until that's probably bleeding, too. Blood running down my shoulder, staining the pale hand that's covering the wound, as if my fingers could stop the pain or halt the bleeding. Red blood, blue shirt, white hands. Pushing myself to my feet, Teal'c's hand steadying me, gasping for air, pushing the pain aside because I've got work to do.
The adrenaline has stopped pumping. I'm feeling a little shaky, and a little sick and really quite wobbly and a medic wants me to lie down on a stretcher. Instead, I stagger toward the wounded, making sure everyone is all right before I give in to Doc's insistence that I'm the one who's not all right, and that stretcher is waiting for me. Only after they've taken away SG-11, and I know the SFs and the techs are okay, then I can give in to the shaking knees and the blackness hovering at the edge of my vision and make a graceless landing on the gurney.
It's a familiar trip down the hallway, one that I've walked a thousand times. This time I close my eyes because lying on my back and looking up from the swaying stretcher makes me dizzy. I can feel Doc's reassuring hand on my arm, and then a pinprick of the needle, and everything goes soft and mellow and the pain goes away.
Another visit to Doc's world of meds and therapy. Another lecture from General Hammond about when and where bored Colonels belong during a gate activation. Another scar for the collection.
Another lesson on the impact of the Stargate project.
FINISH