“Lieutenant Rosenberg, reporting for duty, sir…s!” Willow inwardly winced as she saluted.

It was good to know that sounded as lame here as it had last night when she practiced it in front of the mirror. Thankfully, none the three men standing around the briefing room table laughed at her.

“At ease, Lieutenant,” Major Kawalsky greeted her.

She lowered her arm but there was no ‘at ease’. Being at ease was physically impossible at this moment. She was standing so rigid that if she tried to bend over, she was sure she’d snap in half. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long, sir.”

She still harbored some the hope that this was a practical joke, but doubts were beginning to creep in. On the table were five folders marked classified, along with notepads and pens. Including, by the looks of it, one for her.

“No. We’re still waiting for General Hammond to join us,” Kawalsky told her. “But while we’re waiting, Lieutenant Rosenberg, I’d like you to meet the rest of your team.”

Her heart jumped into her throat and the butterflies in her stomach started having a party.

It was weird but it felt as though she was standing on the edge of a cliff and she was about to jump off. In a way, she was. This was the first day of her military career. Everything she did from here on in counted. All of her efforts weren’t for the highest marks in her class, but for people’s lives.

It wasn’t make believe anymore.

Gee, she was getting really good at making herself nervous. She was so scared she thought she was going to pee her pants.

Wouldn’t that make a great first impression?

“This is Captain Christian Hayes and Lieutenant Josh Grogan.”

At first glance they seemed almost like brothers. Both had brown hair, though Captain Hayes had flecks of gray scattered through his. Their eyes were almost identical, the same shape and color but, on closer inspection, she found that was as far as the comparisons went.

Captain Hayes was more physically imposing than his teammate. He stood a foot taller than the younger man. His harsh face was lined with two scars, one on his forehead and the other on his chin, and the expression on his face wasn’t quite unfriendly but definitely intimidating.

There was nothing intimidating about the man standing across from him. Lieutenant Grogan looked about her age, thin build and not physically imposing at all. He had no obvious scars though his face nicely tanned. He was cute, but not the type of guy Willow would date. He seemed a lot more friendly than Hayes.

This… This was her team.

The people who she would rely on to keep her alive and the people who would be relying on her for the same.

Despite her nervousness, she felt a small thrill. This was the moment she had been working towards for six years. All the hard work, the arduous training, and the abuse she had put her body through… It had all been for this.

Well not this exactly, but it was close to what she had fantasized about so many times. Willow had always known, even early on at the Academy, that she wanted to do this kind of work. It surprised her a little. Logically, she should have chosen a field that would have had her working behind a desk. It was a hell of a lot safer than this. The chances of her running into the supernatural would be next to zero if she had decided to become a doctor or something but…

Willow liked combat, fighting.

Loved it.

Given her state of mind when she joined the academy, it would have been safe to assume she’d hate it. She’d already seen more than enough combat by the time she finished high school. But this was different.

She loved pushing her body to the brink of exhaustion in order to complete a mission. She loved the discipline it took to keep herself unnatural still as she waited for her ‘enemy’ to pass her by. She had tuned her body into a weapon and it was a feeling that she hadn’t expected she would like so much.

And then, of course, there was flying…

Flying left her more breathless than any man could.

Willow had fallen in love with flying the first time she looked down from her cockpit.

She had tried to explain her feelings about her job to Giles, when they had a little heart to heart three days ago, but she hadn’t been able to find the words. This job, the flying… the danger… it made her feel alive.

It probably should have bothered her that it took that much to remind her she was still alive, but it didn’t. She had long since grown accustomed to the knowledge that she needed adrenaline to function.

Fast planes, fast bikes, defying the forces of nature… It was a rush she couldn’t live without.

And if she had said that to Giles she’d still be in LA, probably tied to a chair.

They really wouldn’t approve of this. They didn’t approve of her career choice, that hadn’t change, but they wouldn’t approve of her posting either. In fact, she was pretty sure they’d be downright terrified if they knew the military had access to this sort of technology. Giles and the others had made it clear, in the subtlest way they could, that they didn’t want to military knowing about vampires. Angel and Giles had told her, unnecessarily, that it would be disastrous if they did. They didn’t trust the military. And since aliens were essentially the same as demons… This program was the equivalent to having access to a trans-dimensional portal.

Come to think of it, they would probably never forgive her for not telling them about this.

“Welcome to the team, Lieutenant,” Captain Hayes said, bringing her out of her thoughts.

“Thank you, Captain,” she said awkwardly.

“This wasn’t the first day I had planned for you, Rosenberg,” Kawalsky told her in way of an apology.

“No,” Grogan agreed, dryly “We had a fun day of orientation planned and an exciting trip to the Tok’ra home-world.”

“I look forward to meeting the Tok’ra after we finish this mission,” she replied dutifully, not entirely sure if he was serious.

Grogan looked at her as though she was insane. “And I look forward to being sick that day.”

She bit back a smile as Kawalsky shot him an unimpressed look.

“I’ll make sure to tell Janet to expect you,” Kawalsky said in a tone that told them the conversation over. “Now that we have that out of the way, I’ll see if General Hammond is ready for the –” The Major’s voice was drowned out by a loud siren.

All four of the froze.

“Unscheduled Off-World activation.”

Definitely not a joke.

Willow stood in the control room, hands behind her back, watching the Stargate spin while trying to listen to everything Kawalsky was saying.

“SG-3 went to P3X-258 three days ago and met up with some locals who seemed like the kind of people we wanted to get to know,” he began, stopping momentarily when the technician announced chevron one had been encoded.

Willow let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Although it had been unlikely, Willow had been a little worried that the missing team was SG-1. Dr Jackson had told her last night that they were going on a short mission first thing this morning and even though it was highly improbably they’d get into trouble this fast… Willow figured that with the bad luck she had, the first team she would have to rescue would be Dr Jackson’s.

“While they didn’t have any obvious technology,” Kawalsky continued. “SG-3 discovered that the people of that world had apparently faced and defeated the Goa’uld.”

“Chevron two encoded.”

Willow dragged her eyes away from the gate long enough to see if he was serious. Oh yeah, he was serious.

Obviously Lieutenant Grogan was as surprised by the Major’s words as she was. “They defeated the Goa’uld?” he exclaimed.

“One of the worst, apparently,” the Major confirmed. “The General gave SG-3 the go ahead to stay a couple of days and make friendly with the locals on the provision that they check in every twelve hours.”

“How long ago was their last check in?” Hayes wanted to know.

“Three hours.” It was General Hammond who replied.

“We were trying to contact them when Rosenberg arrived,” the Major said. “When we got no response I sent the call for you two over the PA and…”

He called the gatehouse and the rest was history. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Nothing was history. Just a short while ago someone from the missing team had tried to return home to Earth. They got as far as dialing the gate and sending through their IDC, but the gate had shut down a minute after the wormhole engage.

Hence this impromptu briefing in the control room.

God, Kawalsky had warned her that some rescue missions moved fast but she hadn’t been prepared for things to move this fast.

Normally, Hayes had told her before the ‘briefing’ began, they took their time in planning a mission. When a team went missing they held a pre-mission briefing, where they tried to determine what kind of rescue was required. Once that had been decided, the team on call would then start to plan. They would go over the previous mission reports, if any, study the telemetry of the planet in question, any maps, interview any teams who had visited planet.

And then they would get to the point where they were at now.

But sometimes, when it seemed like a team was in immediate danger, they didn’t follow standard procedure. They skipped briefings and some of the planning stages and moved right to trying to contact the team a final time before attempting a rescue. It was more risky than usual, at the SGC it was a rare occurrence, but they did it if they had to.

Time was vital in a rescue.

And this rescue was no exception. If they failed to make contact with SG-3, and MALP telemetry came back favorable, SR-1 would go to P3X-258 and assess the situation. They would go through the gate alone, initially, and report back in three to six hours.

Basically, it was recon only.

They didn’t know what had happened to the missing team and, since the locals had defeated the Goa’uld, the last thing they wanted to do was go charging in with a small army and offend someone.

No, they were going to slip in and slip out… hopefully with SG-3 in tow. It was why Search and Rescue teams trained so hard. They were trained to go into situations without back up. They were the people you risked when you didn’t know what the hell was going on, at least here at the SGC anyway.

They never left their people behind.

Willow took a deep breath.

Now she was wigged.

There was well and truly no chance to back out now. If she even tried to… her career would be over before it had begun. She’d never make Colonel. Suddenly her love of combat was beginning to diminish. It wasn’t combat she loved, it was mock combat. Willow hadn’t seen any real action in… six years.

“Chevron seven is locked.”

Willow jumped when the wormhole sprang to life and, even though she had seen it before, she found herself mesmerized by the sight. It was surreal, when she really thought about it. She was staring at a gate that allowed people to travel to other planets.

It was a lot prettier than the other ‘gate’ she had seen back home.

“Receiving MALP telemetry,” the tech announced.

She looked up at the screen to her right. The MALP, which had been sent through while she had been getting dressed, was situated only a few feet from the Stargate, giving them a clear view of the immediate area. All there was to see was a clearing and then, beyond that, trees. She studied the image closely.

“No obvious signs of battle.” Hayes remarked, leaning in closer. “It looks normal,”

She frowned. She didn’t like normal. It was never what it seemed.

“Grogan? Rosenberg? See anything unusual?” Kawalsky asked as the MALP zoomed in on the forest.

Willow narrowed her eyes. “No, sir.”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Sir, may I?” Kawalsky asked the General, motioning towards the microphone. The General nodded once. “SG-3, this is Major Kawalsky from Search and Rescue One, please respond.”

Silence.

“I repeat, this is Search and Rescue One, over.”

Damn.

“Colonel Reynolds, please respond.”

Kawalsky waited several minutes before shaking his head and the wormhole disengaged. “General?” He looked up at his superior.

“Have your team ready to go in thirty minutes.”

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