The First Amendment

177 Pages·2016·0.65 MB·English

by  Mcconnell Ashley

THE FIRST
AMENDMENT
Stargate SG-1 - 03
Ashley McConnell
(An Undead Scan v1.0)
This book is dedicated
…to Ed Cassidy, for whom I had the privilege of working for six years. He’s not
Canadian, he’s not a Brigadier, but he’s gleefully Tuckerized herein. Thank you,
Ed, for everything…
…and to SG-1.net, whose comprehensive site helped tremendously in the
details. The stuff I got wrong is All My Fault, naturally.
And I’d like to acknowledge tremendous moral support from Dori, Jenn,
Jennifer, OzK, and an unbelievably patient meerkat. Thanks, guys.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
government for a redress of grievances.
—First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America
“The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely
shouting ‘fire’ in a theater and causing a panic.
The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such
circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger
that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to
prevent.”
—Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Schenck v. United States (1919)
CHAPTER ONE

Command, George Hammond often thought, just wasn’t what it was cracked up
to be.
Things were coming through the Gate.
Apophis, wearing the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, but the uraeus, the
Sacred Serpent on his crown, was alive, with venom dripping from its fangs. His
eyes glowed, and beams of light flashed from the palms of his avatar’s hands,
and where the light touched, man and metal melted.
Monsters. Crystals that walked. Giant lizards from Earth’s Jurassic past, fangs
gaping, saliva dripping. Floods of wormlike larvae that wriggled and hissed and
devoured whatever they touched. Poisonous fog the color and consistency of
cotton candy, wrapping itself around his people and smothering them where they
stood.
And his people, dying of the very air they breathed. Their faces twisting,
changing as he watched, foreheads flattening, brow ridges and jaws thickening,
becoming coarse. And the running sores and pestilence, at first only tiny
disfigurations and barely noticeable marks, but then growing, widening,
covering flesh, leaving holes you could see bone through, weeping yellow pus,
and nothing could stop them.
His people, fighting.
Fighting the best they knew how, with guns and explosives and what science
they could muster; fighting and dying to defend their site, their nation, their
world.
His people were the only ones standing between the horror and the rest of the
planet.
Jack O’Neill firing steadily, using one of the Jaffa energy staffs. It was having
a marginally better effect on the cotton candy than the Earth weapons were.
Teal’C, beside him, using a zat gun.
Janet Frasier was using a Supersoaker to spray antibiotics in a nauseating
yellow-green mist.
Daniel Jackson was reading aloud, very seriously, from the Book of the Dead.
Samantha Carter kept yelling, “I’ll show you guts!” and kicking a blob of…
something.
Dozens of others from the various teams were using machine guns, offworld
weapons, sticks, clubs, anything at all to defend themselves. They were beating
the invasion back, forcing Apophis to reopen the Gate to retreat.
And then they all stopped what they were doing, every one of them, Apophis
included, and turned around and looked at him, waiting to be told what to do
next.
He woke up feeling very annoyed about it.
Most people his age got up on Fridays looking forward to a relaxing weekend,
maybe a little golf, some work in the yard, going to church, watching the games.
Or at least they were close enough to retirement to think about what a nice day
Friday would be, sometime soon. That was nice and normal and made sense.
Of course, in this man’s Air Force, that would be tooooo easy. Particularly in
this particular man’s Air Force.
So instead, he got up at 0400 hours and did a brisk couple of miles on the
treadmill while watching the latest world crises on CNN, looked over some
paperwork, made a few phone calls to Washington, and by the time his driver
showed up he had half a day’s work done before he’d even gone into the office.
You could do that when the house was spacious and empty, and you were the
only one rattling around in it.
And besides, keeping busy kept him from thinking about how very quiet the
house was. He and Margaret had bought it planning to retire at the end of this
last tour of duty: the first house the two of them had ever owned. It was a simple
three-bedroom brick ranch style in the suburbs of Colorado Springs, with a
swimming pool, drained now for the winter, and a study with all of George’s
citations and recommendations lovingly framed, and a fireplace they could sit in
front of and share a glass of white wine. She’d been so happy with it, planning a
garden of perennials, planting trees in the backyard and talking about watching
Tessa and Kayla, their granddaughters, climbing them one day.
It was almost like a brand-new start to their marriage, a new beginning after
thirty years of transfers from one assignment to the next, ever upward on the
promotion ladder. They’d had a daughter who grew up a typical military brat,
learning how to blend in to every new situation, knowing that it never lasted
long and the next duty station would always be new schools, new friends. When
she left to go to college, and then to get married, it was almost as if she’d just
had yet another transfer.
But the house in Colorado was going to be the very last time they moved, the
very first time they could finally unpack all the knicknacks and souvenirs they’d
picked up from the tours in Turkey, Germany, England, Japan. Finally, Margaret
Hammond could be something other than the perfect officer’s lady.
Then the cancer had gotten her. She hadn’t even had a chance to see him
retire. It had been quick and shocking and even now it hurt terribly to think
about.
And of course, once she was gone there was no point in quitting. He wasn’t a
quitter. He might write a book about all their travels, all his assignments—if
only to dedicate it to her.
He tugged the visor of his cap down hard and nodded abruptly to the wedding
portrait that graced the front hall. Hard to remember he’d ever been that young.
Hard to imagine Margaret had ever been anything other than that beautiful. The
train of her wedding gown, a froth of lace, swirled around her feet, and her arm
curled around his as she looked up at him, smiling with such incredible
happiness, while he looked straight into the camera, awkward and stiff in his
second lieutenant’s uniform, ridiculously happy too. At the end, frail and bald
from chemotherapy and radiation, Margaret still smiled when their daughter
came home to help them both through her mother’s last days.
Stepping out his front door, he tugged it shut and locked the portrait and the
empty house away, and turned his attention to the dark blue sedan pulled up to
the curb in front of the house. The neighbor’s dog barked sharply, and
Hammond nodded to it as well.
The driver, a stolid sergeant who never said anything except “Yes sir,” handed
him a selection of newspapers and held the door of the staff car for him.
Hammond returned the salute and got in, skimming the headlines even as he
fastened his seat belt. They were a varied bunch: the Washington Post. The
Times of London. The Wall Street Journal. The Los Angeles Times. Margaret
had enjoyed discussing current events with him, and he’d had to keep sharp to
keep up with her. She would have loved his current assignment.
But even if Margaret were still alive he couldn’t have told her anything about
his work. He’d rarely been able to. She wouldn’t have minded—all career
military spouses got used to not knowing things—but he would have, knowing
how she would have loved hearing about the wonders, the possibilities that lay
so close at hand.
He wouldn’t have told her, either, about the threat that lay equally close.
Scanning the headlines, absently noting information about the wobbling
economy, the latest isolationist edicts from Washington, the threats of terrorism
and the anguish of natural disasters, he couldn’t find anything at all about the
increased activity at Cheyenne Mountain, home of the North American
Aerospace Defense Command. That was just fine with him, and it would be just
fine with General Austin Pace, Commanding, too.
One of the less wonderful things about Friday was his regular meeting with
Austin Pace. Another skirmish in the turf war. Not his favorite thing, though he
had to sympathize with the other general. The Mountain was supposed to be
Pace’s baby, and no commander worth his salt appreciated being saddled with
some mysterious black project smack in the middle of his very own base, and
then being told he didn’t have a high enough clearance or a Need to Know to be
briefed on it, but keep those supplies coming and that infrastructure steady,
thank you very much. “Project Blue Book.” Was anyone really fooled by that?
It was a relatively long drive out to the Mountain from Colorado Springs,
through the south end of town and Fort Carson, but at least it hadn’t snowed yet.
The trees were beginning to turn; aspens were slender white columns crowned
with gold, brilliant against the bright-blue mountain sky. There was a snap in the
air; there would be snow by the end of the month. Margaret had liked snow,
talking about going on sleigh rides like the ones she’d gone on as a child in New
Hampshire. Once, before she’d gone, he’d found someone who gave rides, and
with the first snow that year he had taken her out, wrapped in yards upon yards
of Polarfleece blankets, and they had ridden in the snow behind a pair of big
black horses in red harness with jingling bells. She’d had that look again, that
incredible happiness as she tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue.
His driver had slowed down, as if to give him a chance to savor the view and
the memories, but in truth it was the traffic that was holding them up. As they
came off State Road 115 onto NORAD Road, a white van up ahead of them,
bristling with antennae, was listing heavily to one side with a flat rear tire; there
was no place for it to go on the narrow, curving mountain road. Hammond’s
sedan jolted as the van veered wildly across the narrow road and then back into
its own lane, scraping antennae against pine branches as it did so.
“Sir, please ensure your seat belt is fastened,” the sergeant said flatly, slowing
down to a crawl. Hammond’s eyes narrowed. As they came around one more
curve, the road straightened and the shoulder broadened, and the van limped
over immediately to take advantage of the room and shudder to a relieved halt.
The sedan growled and leaped past, leaving the other vehicle well behind. It
looked as if it belonged to the local news media—he caught sight of a local
station’s logo as they passed.
“Inform the state police that there’s a driver in trouble,” Hammond said,
pleased that his voice was steady. He had been in situations before where a
“crippled” van on a remote road could have been real trouble. Ranking
American military personnel had been kidnapped and killed by terrorists. Even
though this was Colorado, U.S. of A. and definitely not Izmir, Turkey, or
Palermo, Italy, the lessons learned about potential ambushes and kidnappings
could never be unlearned. A news van had no place on a military reservation,
and they were on Fort Carson property here.
He let go a deep breath and thought again, yearningly, about retirement. Once
he finally retired, he wouldn’t have to worry about such things anymore.
All he’d have to do is stay home and remember.
Active duty was still better than that.
“Yes sir,” the sergeant acknowledged. Before he could pick up the car phone,
however, it rang, causing both men to jump, then settle back self-consciously.
“Hammond.”
The voice at the other end of the line was instantly recognizable as his latest
right-hand man, Major Marie Rusalka. Right-hand woman, he amended. Rusalka
served as his command team coordinator, and worked remarkably well with his
ADC, who was a noncommissioned officer. “General, you asked me to remind
you about the tourist briefing scheduled for 1000 hours today.”
“Thank you, Major.”
As the command center for North American air and space defense, Cheyenne
Mountain was a popular destination for visitors, who invariably thought they
would get a guided tour of the guts of the mountain, an up-close-and-personal
look at the Operations Center, Space Control, Systems, and the other centers of
activity that provided surveillance and protection for the U.S. and Canada. The
fact that they had to book their visits well in advance probably enhanced their
expectations of all the highly technical, highly classified Stuff they were going
to get to see.
Invariably, the guests were disappointed to discover that all they were really
going to get was a presentation in the Visitors Center. They could have saved
themselves the feeling if they’d only read the information handed out ahead of
time, or investigated the extensive Website that the Air Force Space Command
provided, but no. Every single time someone would stick his hand up in the air
and ask the ever-patient officer of the day, “When do we get to go inside and see