Author's Note: This is yet another installment in the Mini-Jack series that I have been writing, which picks up after Friends and Enemies. Please let me know what you think, good or bad. Thanks!
As an aside, I am still working on Gemini Crossings; in fact I have three more chapters written. I just need to make a few minor adjustments on Chapter 25 and I'll be sending them off to my beta so that she can do her magic.
He had a dartboard in his mind's eye. He supposed he could come up with something more sinister, but the dartboard was the easiest to conjure up at any given time. A dartboard that had a picture of the one person, or alien in this case if one wanted to get technical, that he hated more than anything else he had ever encountered. A picture of a particular Asgard named Loki.
Jack Gallagher stood in the hallway outside of his Chemistry classroom, his fists clenched, as he listened to an Upper Classman berate him royally over a simple little misjudgment on his part. So, he had stepped out of line, what's the big deal?
Jack knew what the big deal was, it just grated on his last nerve that it was a Cadet who was yelling at him. He hadn't been in the best of moods as it was and now here was this fired up yahoo yelling at him over a simple little mistake. It's not like it had been his first.
He focused on the dartboard in his mind, throwing several darts at once. Loki was the one who had grabbed him out of his bed one night to experiment on his DNA in hopes of coming up with a solution to the Asgard problem of creating more clones to keep their race going. In order to conduct his experimentation without anyone knowing he was doing it, he created temporary clones of the unfortunates he snatched, leaving the clones to go on about their business with no one being the wiser until the original was returned safe and sound.
Normally this worked very well for Loki. However, Loki hadn't realized that the marker placed in the DNA of the original Jack, would create problems with the clone. Jack O'Neill had gone to bed as a 50 year old Colonel in the United States Air Force and woke up the next morning as a 16 year old version of himself.
Whoosh! Another dart landed right between the eyes. The Cadet was still yelling and Jack was still standing there throwing darts at the imaginary dartboard. He hated that bastard! Although, he had to admit that there was a fine line between which bastard he hated at that moment, Loki or the Cadet.
The dartboard still had the picture of Loki, however, and Jack mentally threw another dart at the bulbous head of the Asgard. The Air Force had jumped in to help Clone Jack create a new life after the original O'Neill convinced Thor, the Supreme Commander of the Asgard, to spare the clone's life. He changed his last name to Gallagher, his mother's maiden name, and enrolled in a local high school in order to live his life as normal as possible.
He was determined to get back the life he had left behind though, which is why he was standing here taking the heat from this Cadet. He graduated from high school and enlisted in the Air Force so that he could join the ranks of the SGC to battle the Goa'uld, an enemy far worse than any other. An enemy with technologies that were far beyond Earth's capabilities to even understand, although a certain Lt. Colonel named Samantha Carter was giving the Goa'uld a run for their money.
"Gallagher!" Cadet Grady's voice brought Jack's attention back to the here and now. "Are you even listening to me?"
"Yes I am," Jack responded. "You were telling me what I should have done and how I should have done it, not to mention why I should have done it your way. I was listening," he insisted.
"Cadet…" the Upper Classman snarled.
"It was all very interesting too," Jack continued. "Very educational, and judging by the looks of your audience, very entertaining." Several other Cadets were standing by watching the scene with various looks of interest. Three of those in attendance were friends of his and he grinned at them to let them know he was all right.
"You think you are so great, don't you?" Grady said with a great deal of anger behind his words.
"No sir," Jack said with a sigh. Here we go again.
"Just because you spent the summer at Cheyenne Mountain, you think you are better than the rest of us," the Cadet told him for what seemed like the thousandth time since Jack had come back to the Academy in January to rejoin his classmates. "Well, you're not. You know, don't you, that you won't be going back there. Getting your face smashed in on a mission you messed up has to be a bad mark on your record. Hell, you'll be lucky if they give you a desk job in the Pentagon when you get out of here."
Jack wasn't the least bit surprised by the misinformation the Cadet was spewing. In fact, the story had changed with each telling. The Cadet seemed to think that if he mentioned his lies out loud everyone would believe him, including General O'Neill, who just happened to be the commander at Cheyenne Mountain. Jack wasn't too worried about what O'Neill thought when it came to him, he had a good idea of what was going through the General's mind most of the time, seeing as he used to be O'Neill.
"Why don't you put this to rest?" Jack told Grady. "Jealousy doesn't become you. We all know that I have no say so whatsoever in where the Air Force sends me. If they want me at Cheyenne Mountain, I better get my ass to Cheyenne Mountain."
"Like I said, they won't want you back there again," Grady insisted. "You messed up that mission pretty badly," he smirked.
"Oh for crying out loud!" Jack exclaimed. "Why don't you tell us all how I messed up 'that mission'? You don't even know what the mission was." God, Grady was such a jerk.
"I have my sources, Gallagher. You went out on a mission and half of your team came back wounded because of your stupidity."
"Whatever!" Jack said dismissively. "When you finally get the story straight…,"
"Gallagher!" someone called out from the end of the hallway. Jack knew that voice and he smiled at her as she made her way down the hallway to him.
"Colonel Carter, ma'am," he said, smiling at her as he came to attention along with the rest of the Cadets. "What brings you to the Academy?"
"I'm scheduled to give a lecture on Theoretical Astrophysics for Professor Monroe. I try to help out occasionally. Will you be joining us?" she asked.
"Do I have to?" Jack grimaced. He fell into a stupor if she so much as started in on a light discussion of how the Stargate operates. He could just imagine what he would have to go through if he had to sit through an entire lecture. He shuddered at the very thought.
Carter laughed at his words, though. "It would be a perfect opportunity for you to take a nap," she said conspiratorially.
He grinned back at her. It was so good to see her again. "How have you been?" he asked her, totally forgetting about his audience.
"I'm doing well," she replied. "I see you have recovered from your little 'mishap'," she said as she stared at his altered face. He had undergone minor plastic surgery to alter his looks in order to fool anyone who would possibly put two and two together and figure out he was General O'Neill's clone. It was for his own well being that no one find out he was a clone, not to mention the fact that the future of the SGC depended on it. He'd had the surgery to make sure he didn't end up looking like his counterpart as he got older. They had worked out a cover story that he had suffered an accident while on the mission to Ba'al's fortress, giving them the perfect opportunity to account for the reason he was changing his looks.
"Yes ma'am," he said, still smiling at her. "I was a little worried for awhile there that I would end up looking like something the cat didn't finish eating."
"Just as handsome as ever," she teased, "maybe even better than the original."
"Really?" Jack said, not missing the double meaning. "I was thinking that maybe I should have had the Doc redefine my nose, you know, add a nip here and a tuck there…"
"Cadet," she said to stop him from going on. "You look great. Would I lie to you about this?" she added with a secret smile as she started to walk away.
Wait a minute, Jack thought with a start. "Colonel?" he growled as she moved down the hallway. She turned to give him a smile and a small wave before vanishing around the corner.
He found himself grinning back at her. Her attitude toward him had changed drastically since he had come back to the SGC as a young Cadet. They had maintained a professional stance when he had been her commanding officer, keeping their positions in the Air Force between them to avoid violating any regulations. Carter had always treated him with a respectful attitude, calling him 'Sir' and following his orders with no questions asked. Her determination to be the best officer, at least to the best of her ability, kept her from showing the side of her that he got to see all the time now.
Now that he was no longer her commanding officer, in fact the tables had been turned and she was his commanding officer, she seemed to be more relaxed around him, teasing him and occasionally calling him Jack, versus Cadet or Gallagher. She was more playful and less serious around him. He liked this side of Samantha Carter, a side that he was sure General O'Neill rarely saw, if ever.
Bradley Craddock came up and grabbed his arm. "Jack, wasn't that your CO while you were at Cheyenne Mountain?" he said, making sure Grady overheard the statement.
Jack grinned at his friend, knowing exactly what he was doing. "Yep," he said. "I wonder if she was one of the team that came back wounded," he continued, not able to resist the dig.
Cadet Grady didn't say anything. He just glared at them both before turning to walk down the hallway, the opposite way Colonel Carter had taken.
Revenge is sweet, Jack thought as he and his friends turned to follow Grady, his mood having improved greatly.