NORAD Tracks Santa
By Teri

Summary: Daniel finds a very interesting memo on Jack's Desk. (Season: Any; Spoilers: None)

Disclaimer: I don't own them, but they are on my Christmas list! Hopefully, Santa will remember me. NORAD information and websites belong to NORAD and the Santa Tracking Project team. For more information on this topic visit the NORAD tracking site.

"Hey Jack?" Daniel called out as he knocked on Jack's office door.

He walked in the office to see if Jack was there. Of course, Jack wasn't. As he turned around to leave, he knocked a huge pile of papers on the floor. Daniel knelt down to pick them-up. He smirked to himself when he noticed that all of the papers fell out of Jack's in-box. So, he began to clean them up when he took notice of an odd looking memo.

He really couldn't help himself so he began to read it:

NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND

NORAD CONFIRMS SANTA SLEIGH TEST FLIGHT

North Pole and NORAD officials have reached an unprecedented agreement allowing the men and women of NORAD to conduct a full-blown test flight with Santa and all nine reindeer on December 18, 2002. . . .

The NORAD Santa sleigh-test flight will begin with lift off at the North Pole; NORAD radar will detect Santa mere seconds after his lift off. After that, Santa will zip over the Northwest Territories to the Yukon. About 200 miles (320 kilometers) from the Yukon-Alaskan border, two CF-18s from Canada's Air Force will intercept and escort Santa to Alaska where they will hand off to two American F-15s. The F-15s will fly with Santa for 200 miles, at which time Santa will increase his speed to Christmas-Eve-Velocity en route back to the North Pole. From lift off until Santa's return to the North Pole, NORAD will test the satellite systems to track the infrared signature of Rudolph's bright nose. The famous fourth method of Santa Tracking - SantaCams - will not be used in the Santa sleigh-test as they are currently being deployed around the world in preparation for Christmas Eve.

Daniel noticed at the bottom of the memo was a hand written note, "Jack, I'll need you in operations for the test flight."

Daniel looked at his watch. The date was December 23, 2002. He knew that Jack had disappeared last week for a while. He had said it was personal and no one questioned him. "Could he have been at this test?" He wondered.

"Is this some kind of joke?" He muttered to himself, "of course, Daniel, Jack planted the memo on his desk, in a pile of papers, just in case you knocked it over.

Having more questions than answers, Daniel really wanted to look through more papers. However, he didn't want to invade the Colonel's privacy more than he already had, so he decided to finish cleaning up the papers then he would go find Jack.

Of course, if he found another memo while cleaning. . . .

A few minutes later, he found another memo dated in October. "The Santa tracking team for 2002 will include . . . . Colonel Jonathan O'Neill, USAF . . . and the Men and Women of the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado."

Daniel just stood there, "Santa, isn't real. I don't understand any of this. This has to be a joke."

Daniel finished picking up the papers and left to find Colonel O'Neill.

Just a quick little Christmas Tale to wish you all

MERRY CHRISTMAS * HAPPY HOLIDAYS * SAFE NEW YEAR

Teri 12/23/02 (Updated 6/12/04; 12/23/06; 12/17/09)

Keep reading to see all of the possible endings to this story. Each chapter is a different way this story could end. I try to post a minimum of one new ending a year on December 23rd.

Note: the memo quoted above was originally found at the NORAD site; however, the text no longer appears there.