Top Gun (1/1)
Top Gun
Older Kids
Genre: Gen, Episode-Related
Synopsis: Cam and his buddy Red hit the town the weekend before the start of their new assignment.
Notes: Could be seen as Sam/Cam pre-ship, but really goes to establish the comfortable rapport--and obvious history--Sam and Cam have by the start of season nine. Written for sg-fignewton's "Cam Alphabet Soup".
Top Gun
"I mean, what are the odds of that, huh?"
Major Cameron Mitchell waved at the bartender, signaling for a beer for his buddy. "You got me, Red. Maybe the brass just decided to draw names from a hat, or threw darts at a personnel listing." He grinned to show he was joking, but the truth was, he didn't really care.
What indeed were the odds that they would end up being recruited for the same top-secret training mission in Colorado? Cam and James "Red" Redmond had been classmates in Joint Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance Air Force Base, and were fierce competitors in an already highly-competitive program. Adding to their rivalry were their differing branches: Red was Navy, while Cam was Air Force. By the time they'd earned their wings, the two men had become good friends, and celebrated their new postings by getting rip-roaring drunk the night before Cam left for advanced training in Arizona, and Red for the same in Mississippi. They didn't expect to see one another again.
A little over a year ago, Cam was involved in a mission over Afghanistan that had ended in disaster due to faulty intelligence. Having been the man to drop the bomb on a convoy later reported to have been full of refugees, Cam had been tempted to resign. After a long talk with his dad, he decided against leaving the Air Force outright, but put in a request to transition to a test pilot program.
A week later, Cam accepted a position in a new program codenamed "Kipling", but it was a year and a promotion later before his transfer orders came through, during which time he had been convinced funding had failed to surface. The same day his papers arrived, he received a call from Red, who'd tracked him down to tell him he'd been reassigned to Peterson Air Force Base "to show you plumbers what a real stick looks like." They compared notes and discovered they were both on Kipling, though neither pilot had been told anything about the new program other than when and where to report.
So, here they were, the Saturday before the start of Kipling, and both had already put away a number of drinks swapping stories. They were dressed in street clothes, but the bar they were recommended was a common hang-out for off-duty military personnel, and half the room had the sort of regulation haircuts that identified them to the mostly-female civilian barflys. With Red now plied with enough liquid courage to chat up the cute brunette who'd just squeezed in next to him, Cam slid off his stool to check out the action at the pool tables.
A statuesque blonde was holding court, with a stack of bills piled on the edge of the table while she bent over, carefully lining up a shot. Ignoring the leering comments her shapely posterior was earning her, she broke the rack expertly, sending both a stripe and a solid into pockets. With the table still open, she then lined up her next shot, pocketing two more stripes. Three decisive shots later, all of the striped balls were cleared, and she was calling a corner pocket for the eight ball, before banking it twice and sinking it, too.
"I should've known better," moaned one of the guys standing near the table, shaking his head and hanging up his own cue.
"I did warn you, Captain," the blonde grinned, folding her winnings and jamming the cash into her jeans pocket.
"Yes, ma'am," he answered meekly, letting his buddies lead him off with good-natured jibes.
Cam laughed, having had enough beer already he was feeling loose and comfortable. "Hustling the crowd?"
"Proving a point," the blonde answered. "Never challenge a physicist to a game of eight-ball."
"Well, I won't challenge you, then, but could I buy you a drink?"
She hung up her cue before turning around to look at him with her head cocked sideways. "My friend went to get drinks a few minutes ago, Mister...?" She trailed off, waiting for a name.
"Major, actually. Cam Mitchell."
"Sam Carter. Pilot?"
"How'd you guess?"
"You seem like the type."
"Charming? Good-looking? Won't take 'no' for an answer?"
Sam rolled her eyes. "I haven't said 'no' yet, have I?"
"Well, don't. If you say 'no' to a drink, then I might have to go all Top Gun on you and start singing. And trust me, nobody wants that."
She laughed at that, shaking her head and pushing away from the pool table. "How can I say 'no' now? "
Cam grinned, somehow certain that the beautiful woman didn't relax and have fun as often as she should. "After you, ma'am."
"Just 'Sam'... I get enough 'ma'ams' and 'majors' during the week."
He wasn't surprised to hear she was military, too, what with the assured grace with which she carried herself. "Yes, ma'am... er, Sam." They pushed their way back to the bar, where Cam discovered Red and the tiny brunette still chatting.
"Having a good time, Janet?" Sam teased, causing the short woman to look her way.
"Sam! Sorry, I got distracted." She smiled sweetly at Red, who looked positively smitten. "Lieutenant Commander Redmond here is a fish out of water."
"Don't let him fool ya," Cam chimed in, "Red loves hangin' with real flyboys."
"Ha ha," Red smirked. "Although, I have to hand it to the Air Force: their female officers are much prettier than the Navy's."
"Charmer," Janet scoffed playfully. "Well, once we're all acquainted, why don't we grab a table somewhere?"
Quick introductions were made between Sam and Red, and Cam was introduced to Janet Frasier. The tall Sam and her petite companion were as much the odd pair as rangy Cam and stocky Red. Cam ordered another beer for himself, promising to get Sam's next refill, then the quartet made their way over to an empty booth at the back of the bar.
"You ladies assigned to Peterson, Schriever, the academy...? Or Fort Carson, if I'm barking up the wrong branch?"
"Janet keeps an office at the Academy Hospital," Sam answered, shaking her head, "and I occasionally guest-lecture for the physics department, but we're both based out of Cheyenne Mountain."
"NORAD?" Red guessed.
"Deep Space Radar Telemetry."
Cam took a swig of his drink. "Whoa, like SETI?"
"Something like that."
Red looked skeptical. "No way."
"Well," Janet began, leaning in to the center of their group. "We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you."
She looked deadly serious, but her brown eyes twinkled with humor, and Cam gave a short laugh. "That line ever work for you?"
"Sometimes," she answered, grinning at Sam. "What about you boys? Passing through or settling in?"
Red shrugged. "We'll find out this week. Orientation's at Peterson on Monday, but then it's probably off to Nellis or Wright-Patterson."
"Nah, I'm thinking Edwards, first. I was applying for the test pilot program when I got picked up for this." Cam grimaced. "My dad was a test pilot."
"Really?" Sam asked, intrigued.
"A crash ended his career when I was a kid. Didn't stop me from wanting to fly, though, and didn't stop him from encouraging me to get up there."
Their talk went from there, hitting on childhood dreams and the differing places they'd all grown up. Janet was the only one of them who wasn't a military brat through-and-through, but her family had moved quite a bit anyway as her father set up stores for a retail chain. In swapping stories, it turned out her family had been in Sumter, South Carolina at the same time Cam's dad was working out of Shaw AFB. At around the same time, Sam's dad was stationed at McGuire AFB in New York, while Red's Army dad was assigned to neighboring Fort Dix.
The drinks kept flowing as the conversation did, and Cam had the opportunity to buy Sam more than just the one he initially promised. Finally, as Cam was starting to feel he was dangerously on the border between buzzed and stupid, Janet--who'd stuck to iced tea the whole evening--announced she had a teenager she needed to make sure made it to bed before the sun rose, and the two women bid their farewells, but not before giving the men their phone numbers. Cam and Red hung around a little longer to finish their drinks, then took a cab back to their hotel.
The next morning, after showering and getting his fuzzy head clear, Cam briefly considered calling Sam to see if she wanted to hang out again. When a few of the other Kipling pilots threw together a game of basketball, though, he decided to hold off on trying to get in touch until he knew whether or not he'd be transferring to another base. He'd liked Sam, and was hoping for at least a few months in Colorado to try to get to know her a little better.
Oh-eight-hundred sharp Monday morning found Cam, Red, and the rest of the Kipling pilots in Peterson's in-processing. Unlike most transfers Cam had been through, this one involved a full physical and enough blood drawn to start a Red Cross chapter. From getting photographed for their new ID badge to lunch at the Aragon DFAC, the pilots were escorted by armed guards at all times, which drew some curious looks from the airmen regularly stationed at the base.
After lunch, they were ushered onto a bus along with the gear they had been permitted to bring with them, and the ride was a surprisingly short one, ending at the Air Force Academy. Their gear was packed off to a small bunkhouse on the base, while the pilots--ten men and two women--were led off to a classroom building nearby. Just as curiosity was beginning to win over their ingrained hesitancy to question orders, a mousey-looking civilian entered the classroom and introduced himself as Doctor Lotus.
"'Lotus' isn't actually my real name" he confessed as he began to arrange his papers on the lectern, "but it was chosen because the planet I'm from actually uses a much more complex family-name system."
It took a moment for what he'd said to actually sink in, but then the snickers and guffaws started. Cam couldn't help himself, either, and coughed an "E.T." under his breath that had Red snorting.
The projector screen abruptly changed from the standard Air Force Academy seal to a video of the President of the United States. "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," the President began, "and thank you for your service and dedication to our country. Doctor Nyan Lotus is, in fact, from another planet--one we call 'Nefertem'--and from a country called Bedrosia. I trust that he now has your full and undivided attention, and I wish to welcome you all to Stargate Command orientation."
From there, it was a whirlwind of information, history, language, and science, most of which made Cam's head hurt like an ice cream headache. A space-travel device underneath Cheyenne Mountain? Parasitic snakes that could take over a person's body? Ancient societies from Earth that had been transplanted across the galaxy?
The cherry atop the whole cake was when the pilots were told to what they had applied: Earth's first-ever squadron of space-fighters. On top of the packets of classified data they'd already received regarding Stargate Command itself, the pilots were handed another folder containing information on the F-302 "Mongoose", then dismissed for the day.
Dinner was served in a small mess hall within the bunkhouse, and their orientation leader--a limping semi-retired colonel named Feretti--insisted they were free to talk and ask questions. The first question asked, of course, was something along the lines of "Are you kidding me?!" to which Feretti aired his own bona fides as one of the only three remaining survivors of the initial Abydos mission.
The colonel paused in his retelling, then added with a grin, "Well, I'm not sure if Doctor Jackson counts as a ‘survivor’, since we only just got him back from the dead. Again."
Again? Cam mouthed to Red, still unsure if this whole thing wasn't some big elaborate joke.
"...all of his memory back yet, so he won't be leading any of your briefings," Feretti was saying. "However, Colonel O'Neill will be heading up your F-302 orientation tomorrow, so you'll meet him then."
"Darn," muttered Red. "I was hoping for a Top Gun moment."
Cam blinked. "What?"
"Cheyenne Mountain, Cam... it's where Sam and Janet said they work." He grinned. "There you were, chatting up the pretty blonde in the bar, and it turns out she's Kelly McGillis, and she'll be teaching our class?"
"Funny, Red. Real funny."
The next morning, the pilots were given unit patches that identified themselves as the "1st SFW"--Cam's guess was that it stood for Space Fighter Wing--and herded onto yet another bus, this time taking them to Cheyenne Mountain itself. Colonel Feretti handed them off to an energetic young airman, who gave them a tour of the facility. Feretti excused himself from the tour on account of his bad leg, but promised to meet up with them again for lunch.
To Cam and Red's delight, Doctor Fraiser was in the infirmary when they made their stop there, but other than a small smile in their direction, she otherwise didn't acknowledge she knew them. Her part of the tour apparently involved telling them about some of the more bizarre medical afflictions the SGC had encountered since their inception, and followed it up with a frank accounting of the base's casualties over the years. It was a sobering and staggering number, which she then softened by adding that the effective casualty rate was much lower now than it had been in their earliest years, thanks to better medical technology, intelligence, preparation, and training.
Their tour hit all of the important locations: the science labs, where they were treated to a demo of Goa'uld weapons technology by Doctor Lee; the anthropology department, where Doctor Lindsey explained the importance of her team's work in everything from translating historical documents to establishing long-term relationships with alien cultures; and the gym, where they met their second alien and first non-human, the Jaffa Teal'c. Their last stop was the Stargate itself, and watching a team embark on a mission had Cam pretty well convinced that this place was well worth having stuck around in the Air Force for the last year.
After lunch in the base's commissary, Feretti led them to a small classroom, then apologized for a change in plans. "Colonel O'Neill had a, um, an incident over the weekend, and is unable to lead the briefing. However, his co-pilot on the F-302's most-recent mission, Major Samantha Carter, will be heading up the briefing in his stead."
Red sniggered and started to sing, "You've lost... that LOVing FEEling..."
"Shut up, Red," Cam groaned.
Older Kids
Genre: Gen, Episode-Related
Synopsis: Cam and his buddy Red hit the town the weekend before the start of their new assignment.
Notes: Could be seen as Sam/Cam pre-ship, but really goes to establish the comfortable rapport--and obvious history--Sam and Cam have by the start of season nine. Written for sg-fignewton's "Cam Alphabet Soup".
Top Gun
"I mean, what are the odds of that, huh?"
Major Cameron Mitchell waved at the bartender, signaling for a beer for his buddy. "You got me, Red. Maybe the brass just decided to draw names from a hat, or threw darts at a personnel listing." He grinned to show he was joking, but the truth was, he didn't really care.
What indeed were the odds that they would end up being recruited for the same top-secret training mission in Colorado? Cam and James "Red" Redmond had been classmates in Joint Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance Air Force Base, and were fierce competitors in an already highly-competitive program. Adding to their rivalry were their differing branches: Red was Navy, while Cam was Air Force. By the time they'd earned their wings, the two men had become good friends, and celebrated their new postings by getting rip-roaring drunk the night before Cam left for advanced training in Arizona, and Red for the same in Mississippi. They didn't expect to see one another again.
A little over a year ago, Cam was involved in a mission over Afghanistan that had ended in disaster due to faulty intelligence. Having been the man to drop the bomb on a convoy later reported to have been full of refugees, Cam had been tempted to resign. After a long talk with his dad, he decided against leaving the Air Force outright, but put in a request to transition to a test pilot program.
A week later, Cam accepted a position in a new program codenamed "Kipling", but it was a year and a promotion later before his transfer orders came through, during which time he had been convinced funding had failed to surface. The same day his papers arrived, he received a call from Red, who'd tracked him down to tell him he'd been reassigned to Peterson Air Force Base "to show you plumbers what a real stick looks like." They compared notes and discovered they were both on Kipling, though neither pilot had been told anything about the new program other than when and where to report.
So, here they were, the Saturday before the start of Kipling, and both had already put away a number of drinks swapping stories. They were dressed in street clothes, but the bar they were recommended was a common hang-out for off-duty military personnel, and half the room had the sort of regulation haircuts that identified them to the mostly-female civilian barflys. With Red now plied with enough liquid courage to chat up the cute brunette who'd just squeezed in next to him, Cam slid off his stool to check out the action at the pool tables.
A statuesque blonde was holding court, with a stack of bills piled on the edge of the table while she bent over, carefully lining up a shot. Ignoring the leering comments her shapely posterior was earning her, she broke the rack expertly, sending both a stripe and a solid into pockets. With the table still open, she then lined up her next shot, pocketing two more stripes. Three decisive shots later, all of the striped balls were cleared, and she was calling a corner pocket for the eight ball, before banking it twice and sinking it, too.
"I should've known better," moaned one of the guys standing near the table, shaking his head and hanging up his own cue.
"I did warn you, Captain," the blonde grinned, folding her winnings and jamming the cash into her jeans pocket.
"Yes, ma'am," he answered meekly, letting his buddies lead him off with good-natured jibes.
Cam laughed, having had enough beer already he was feeling loose and comfortable. "Hustling the crowd?"
"Proving a point," the blonde answered. "Never challenge a physicist to a game of eight-ball."
"Well, I won't challenge you, then, but could I buy you a drink?"
She hung up her cue before turning around to look at him with her head cocked sideways. "My friend went to get drinks a few minutes ago, Mister...?" She trailed off, waiting for a name.
"Major, actually. Cam Mitchell."
"Sam Carter. Pilot?"
"How'd you guess?"
"You seem like the type."
"Charming? Good-looking? Won't take 'no' for an answer?"
Sam rolled her eyes. "I haven't said 'no' yet, have I?"
"Well, don't. If you say 'no' to a drink, then I might have to go all Top Gun on you and start singing. And trust me, nobody wants that."
She laughed at that, shaking her head and pushing away from the pool table. "How can I say 'no' now? "
Cam grinned, somehow certain that the beautiful woman didn't relax and have fun as often as she should. "After you, ma'am."
"Just 'Sam'... I get enough 'ma'ams' and 'majors' during the week."
He wasn't surprised to hear she was military, too, what with the assured grace with which she carried herself. "Yes, ma'am... er, Sam." They pushed their way back to the bar, where Cam discovered Red and the tiny brunette still chatting.
"Having a good time, Janet?" Sam teased, causing the short woman to look her way.
"Sam! Sorry, I got distracted." She smiled sweetly at Red, who looked positively smitten. "Lieutenant Commander Redmond here is a fish out of water."
"Don't let him fool ya," Cam chimed in, "Red loves hangin' with real flyboys."
"Ha ha," Red smirked. "Although, I have to hand it to the Air Force: their female officers are much prettier than the Navy's."
"Charmer," Janet scoffed playfully. "Well, once we're all acquainted, why don't we grab a table somewhere?"
Quick introductions were made between Sam and Red, and Cam was introduced to Janet Frasier. The tall Sam and her petite companion were as much the odd pair as rangy Cam and stocky Red. Cam ordered another beer for himself, promising to get Sam's next refill, then the quartet made their way over to an empty booth at the back of the bar.
"You ladies assigned to Peterson, Schriever, the academy...? Or Fort Carson, if I'm barking up the wrong branch?"
"Janet keeps an office at the Academy Hospital," Sam answered, shaking her head, "and I occasionally guest-lecture for the physics department, but we're both based out of Cheyenne Mountain."
"NORAD?" Red guessed.
"Deep Space Radar Telemetry."
Cam took a swig of his drink. "Whoa, like SETI?"
"Something like that."
Red looked skeptical. "No way."
"Well," Janet began, leaning in to the center of their group. "We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you."
She looked deadly serious, but her brown eyes twinkled with humor, and Cam gave a short laugh. "That line ever work for you?"
"Sometimes," she answered, grinning at Sam. "What about you boys? Passing through or settling in?"
Red shrugged. "We'll find out this week. Orientation's at Peterson on Monday, but then it's probably off to Nellis or Wright-Patterson."
"Nah, I'm thinking Edwards, first. I was applying for the test pilot program when I got picked up for this." Cam grimaced. "My dad was a test pilot."
"Really?" Sam asked, intrigued.
"A crash ended his career when I was a kid. Didn't stop me from wanting to fly, though, and didn't stop him from encouraging me to get up there."
Their talk went from there, hitting on childhood dreams and the differing places they'd all grown up. Janet was the only one of them who wasn't a military brat through-and-through, but her family had moved quite a bit anyway as her father set up stores for a retail chain. In swapping stories, it turned out her family had been in Sumter, South Carolina at the same time Cam's dad was working out of Shaw AFB. At around the same time, Sam's dad was stationed at McGuire AFB in New York, while Red's Army dad was assigned to neighboring Fort Dix.
The drinks kept flowing as the conversation did, and Cam had the opportunity to buy Sam more than just the one he initially promised. Finally, as Cam was starting to feel he was dangerously on the border between buzzed and stupid, Janet--who'd stuck to iced tea the whole evening--announced she had a teenager she needed to make sure made it to bed before the sun rose, and the two women bid their farewells, but not before giving the men their phone numbers. Cam and Red hung around a little longer to finish their drinks, then took a cab back to their hotel.
The next morning, after showering and getting his fuzzy head clear, Cam briefly considered calling Sam to see if she wanted to hang out again. When a few of the other Kipling pilots threw together a game of basketball, though, he decided to hold off on trying to get in touch until he knew whether or not he'd be transferring to another base. He'd liked Sam, and was hoping for at least a few months in Colorado to try to get to know her a little better.
Oh-eight-hundred sharp Monday morning found Cam, Red, and the rest of the Kipling pilots in Peterson's in-processing. Unlike most transfers Cam had been through, this one involved a full physical and enough blood drawn to start a Red Cross chapter. From getting photographed for their new ID badge to lunch at the Aragon DFAC, the pilots were escorted by armed guards at all times, which drew some curious looks from the airmen regularly stationed at the base.
After lunch, they were ushered onto a bus along with the gear they had been permitted to bring with them, and the ride was a surprisingly short one, ending at the Air Force Academy. Their gear was packed off to a small bunkhouse on the base, while the pilots--ten men and two women--were led off to a classroom building nearby. Just as curiosity was beginning to win over their ingrained hesitancy to question orders, a mousey-looking civilian entered the classroom and introduced himself as Doctor Lotus.
"'Lotus' isn't actually my real name" he confessed as he began to arrange his papers on the lectern, "but it was chosen because the planet I'm from actually uses a much more complex family-name system."
It took a moment for what he'd said to actually sink in, but then the snickers and guffaws started. Cam couldn't help himself, either, and coughed an "E.T." under his breath that had Red snorting.
The projector screen abruptly changed from the standard Air Force Academy seal to a video of the President of the United States. "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," the President began, "and thank you for your service and dedication to our country. Doctor Nyan Lotus is, in fact, from another planet--one we call 'Nefertem'--and from a country called Bedrosia. I trust that he now has your full and undivided attention, and I wish to welcome you all to Stargate Command orientation."
From there, it was a whirlwind of information, history, language, and science, most of which made Cam's head hurt like an ice cream headache. A space-travel device underneath Cheyenne Mountain? Parasitic snakes that could take over a person's body? Ancient societies from Earth that had been transplanted across the galaxy?
The cherry atop the whole cake was when the pilots were told to what they had applied: Earth's first-ever squadron of space-fighters. On top of the packets of classified data they'd already received regarding Stargate Command itself, the pilots were handed another folder containing information on the F-302 "Mongoose", then dismissed for the day.
Dinner was served in a small mess hall within the bunkhouse, and their orientation leader--a limping semi-retired colonel named Feretti--insisted they were free to talk and ask questions. The first question asked, of course, was something along the lines of "Are you kidding me?!" to which Feretti aired his own bona fides as one of the only three remaining survivors of the initial Abydos mission.
The colonel paused in his retelling, then added with a grin, "Well, I'm not sure if Doctor Jackson counts as a ‘survivor’, since we only just got him back from the dead. Again."
Again? Cam mouthed to Red, still unsure if this whole thing wasn't some big elaborate joke.
"...all of his memory back yet, so he won't be leading any of your briefings," Feretti was saying. "However, Colonel O'Neill will be heading up your F-302 orientation tomorrow, so you'll meet him then."
"Darn," muttered Red. "I was hoping for a Top Gun moment."
Cam blinked. "What?"
"Cheyenne Mountain, Cam... it's where Sam and Janet said they work." He grinned. "There you were, chatting up the pretty blonde in the bar, and it turns out she's Kelly McGillis, and she'll be teaching our class?"
"Funny, Red. Real funny."
The next morning, the pilots were given unit patches that identified themselves as the "1st SFW"--Cam's guess was that it stood for Space Fighter Wing--and herded onto yet another bus, this time taking them to Cheyenne Mountain itself. Colonel Feretti handed them off to an energetic young airman, who gave them a tour of the facility. Feretti excused himself from the tour on account of his bad leg, but promised to meet up with them again for lunch.
To Cam and Red's delight, Doctor Fraiser was in the infirmary when they made their stop there, but other than a small smile in their direction, she otherwise didn't acknowledge she knew them. Her part of the tour apparently involved telling them about some of the more bizarre medical afflictions the SGC had encountered since their inception, and followed it up with a frank accounting of the base's casualties over the years. It was a sobering and staggering number, which she then softened by adding that the effective casualty rate was much lower now than it had been in their earliest years, thanks to better medical technology, intelligence, preparation, and training.
Their tour hit all of the important locations: the science labs, where they were treated to a demo of Goa'uld weapons technology by Doctor Lee; the anthropology department, where Doctor Lindsey explained the importance of her team's work in everything from translating historical documents to establishing long-term relationships with alien cultures; and the gym, where they met their second alien and first non-human, the Jaffa Teal'c. Their last stop was the Stargate itself, and watching a team embark on a mission had Cam pretty well convinced that this place was well worth having stuck around in the Air Force for the last year.
After lunch in the base's commissary, Feretti led them to a small classroom, then apologized for a change in plans. "Colonel O'Neill had a, um, an incident over the weekend, and is unable to lead the briefing. However, his co-pilot on the F-302's most-recent mission, Major Samantha Carter, will be heading up the briefing in his stead."
Red sniggered and started to sing, "You've lost... that LOVing FEEling..."
"Shut up, Red," Cam groaned.