Dr. Sandburg Finds a Sentinel

[lit_gal]

Dr. Sandburg Finds a Sentinel
Gen/Pre-slash


Dr. Sandburg has a good life working on alien contact at Stargate Command; however, now he has news that his holy grail might just be out there in the strangest place possible--earth. Even worse, James Ellison has become the center of a vicious race that has pit Blair and the Stargate command against a rogue CIA operative, the NID, and the Chinese government.  And Blair is not sure how to convince Ellison that he's with the good guys.


( Dr. Sandburg of SG-16 gets some news... )

( Dr. Sandburg gets his first look at his Sentinel, but Jim Ellison is not going down that easily )

( When O'Neill doesn't move fast enough, the spirit world gets involved )

"You do know this is kidnapping," Blair pointed out as Ellison led him out of the clearing and into the woods.

"There's a warrant out for me on espionage and treason charges. I don't think a little kidnapping is going to make a difference. However, if you can find me this easily, I need to make sure I keep you out of the game."

That sent a little shiver of fear through Blair. Yeah, under normal circumstances, Ellison was an ethical man. These were not normal circumstances. "Man, you are totally wrong. Finding you was luck."

"Chief, you're standing in the middle of millions of acres of undeveloped forest, and you just happen to find the one spot where I'm standing. If that's luck, I'm keeping you as my good luck charm."

Blair snorted. "Trust me, good luck is not the kind I normally have." Blair went where Ellison guided him. Four times, Blair's group had been taken hostage because of some cultural misunderstanding. Getting weapons pointed at him was practically in the job description, but Ellison's hands were too careful to guide him around roots, and the man stood too close to maintain his own security. Okay, Blair was starting to assume that being kept out of the game did not include dying... not unless Ellison was really backed into a corner and it was Blair's job to make sure that didn't happen.

"Colonel O'Neill isn't going to spend much time trying to track me. His best tracker is not on the mission," Blair blurted out.

"That was poor planning."

"He didn't think you'd head for the woods. He said that the escape paths were too limited and that you'd stick to the city where you could vanish into a million different directions. The unit's tracker is a little on the conspicuous side in a city."

"Then why'd he come up here?" Ellison asked. A silver glint through the trees caught Blair's attention.

"I said you'd try to escape the noise of the city. Being a sentinel, there would be too much going on down there, and you'd find it too easy to lose your concentration."

"So I have you to thank," Ellison said dryly, but he didn't sound particularly angry.

"Considering that the NID had already beaten us up here, I'm not feeling guilty." The silver was a truck with a camper shell on the back. Jim walked him over to the side and pushed him into the cold metal.

"Stay."

"Woof."

"Smartass."

Blair couldn't argue with that. "O'Neill asked for satellite tracking of all vehicles in the area."

"So, you're assisting in your own kidnapping?" Jim opened the back of the truck and raised the camper shell hatch.

"Not really. I just think if O'Neill did that..."

"That others did too," Ellison finished. "Yeah, I know. There's some big hippy convention about a hundred miles south, so we're going to try and get lost in that. They can't track all the cars, and those people are Earth First nuts carrying enough dope to make all of New York City happy. Whoever is after me is going to be facing hundreds of cars all trying to evade them at once."

"Whoa. Manipulative, but smart."

"I'm glad you approve." Jim was doing something in the truck. "How are your shoulders?"

"Hurting like hell," Blair admitted. Jim looked at him out the side window.

"O'Neill really has no business taking you into a combat zone."

"O'Neill usually doesn't. I normally work with Colonel Reynolds."

"Colonel Eric Reynolds?" Ellison asked in surprise. Blair could have cheered. Getting a captor to make personal connections was step one in getting out alive.

"Oh man, now that guy has no sense of humor and he does know how to fill out paperwork. That might explain why I am still second from the low-man on the anthropologist's totem pole despite the fact that I have done some very impressive work."

"I hate to point this out, but I don't think any military commander is going to appreciate your version of following orders, Chief."

"The general will understand," Blair said with some confidence. "Well, as long as I don't get myself or you killed or get you caught by the NID, he'll understand."

"And if you're here when I escape for good?" Ellison asked.

"No way man. You have no idea the resources that are after you."

"Enlighten me."

Blair opened his mouth, not sure what he should tell and what really would be going too far. Then again, maybe if Jim knew just how many resources were coming at him, he would think twice about being able to do this on his own. "MTAC tasked a satellite for O'Neill to use during the pursuit, so that's twenty-four hour satellite coverage of the entire area. The local Air Force base is on alert, and they scrambled fighters to get Brackett's helicopter out of the air. There are also several officers on the road, each with a car at a predetermined point so that we can meet up with transportation as soon as we figure out which road you're on. O'Neill wants to keep pretty low profile on the ground. He doesn't want the local police getting involved because he doesn't have the highest opinion of them. He also thinks that if the military turns out in force that we're just going to put the rest of the world on alert, which would not be good. He's still pissed that the Chinese found out about you somehow."

"I went to the hospital." Ellison sounded exhausted. "I thought I was going crazy, and I was about ready to let them put me in the nuthouse when one of the doctors did a hearing test to see if hearing loss was leading to some weird version of phantom limb syndrome."

"And he found out that you could hear more than you should," Blair finished. He'd read the report.

"Yeah. The doctor did an online search of medical databanks, so they probably picked up my trail from there. Then Brackett shows up at my loft. He says that he saw signs of hyperactive senses back when he debriefed me after Peru, but then I seemed to lose everything. He announces that he has some job that I would just be perfect for. That's when I tossed him off my balcony and ran for it."

"O'Neill thinks that the APB caught people's attention, so it was probably more Brackett than the medical database search that got all the little spooks stirred up."

"Is that what caught your group's attention?" Ellison demanded, and that hard edge was back in his voice. Whoa. Blair did not normally think of himself as one of the little stirred up spooks, but he kinda was. Today was not a good day for his self-image.

"Man, I have no idea. I only know that without help, you are going to get caught. Yeah, O'Neill would offer you a job and do his best to convince you that we were the right people to work for, but if you turned us down, he'd help you stick it to the NID and Brackett. No way would he do what they're trying to do."

"Kid, you're too naïve to be in this game. Giving the target this much information—this reaches the level of aiding and abetting a criminal. And considering what they're charging me with, that puts you right in line for treason charges, which is a capital offense."

"And if my people are willing to have someone as naïve as me, that has to mean they aren't like Brackett—they aren't like the NID. Trust me, I am going to tell the general all of this, and he's going to give me this look like he isn't entirely sure my logic circuits have all grown in yet, and then he's going to let it go. Man, I have flexibility with how I handle situations in the field. If the military wanted military regulations followed all the time, they so would not be hiring archeologists and anthropologists to handle the civilian side."

"So, you've done something this stupid before?" Jim summarized.

"Totally. This isn't even the first time I surrendered as step one in the negotiating process. Colonel Reynolds accuses use me of trying to give him ulcers. But listen to me. You have no idea the resources that are out there, so let us help."

"You have no idea what I’m capable of," Jim countered. He backed out of the camper, a rope in hand. "Do I need to put you on your knees again?" he asked.

"Okay, that is a stupid question. What am I going to say? Yes, I really plan to attack you the second you untie me? Besides," Blair added quickly as Jim's face darkened, "my arms hurt, the muscles are overstretched and the bloodflow is constricted, I'm unarmed and my captor is Special Forces trained. Trust me, Colonel Reynolds makes me train with him. I know just how many ways you can kick my ass without breaking a sweat."

Jim kicked his feet apart and pushed on Blair until he was leaning into the uncomfortably cold truck. "The point of training is learning how to not get your ass kicked."

"Reynolds hasn't gotten up to that lesson yet," Blair said as Jim untied his hands. Pins and needles ran up and down the nerves. "Can I just rub them for a second? I just want to pull them in front and get the blood going again," Blair asked. Jim already had hold of his one wrist, and Blair waited. He couldn't physically fight this guy, but he was starting to think he could talk him around a few corners. Jim slowly let go of his wrist. When Blair pulled his hand up, a cold gun muzzle pressed against his neck again.

"I've been tricked into trusting people before, Sandburg. You do not want me to catch you lying to me." Jim backed off several steps, the gun still pointed at Blair's head. Blair rubbed his arms. Standing up straight, he hugged himself to get the twinges of muscle cramps in his shoulders to stop, but he left his legs spread uncomfortably wide.

"Man, you already said I was not good with lying. And can I just point out that you are probably doing some sentinel thing because most people think I'm a terrifyingly good liar. I once convinced a whole tribe that I was a national treasure and that my w-country would declare war if they didn't give me back to Colonel Reynolds."

"Eric must have been amused," Jim said with a small smile.

Blair smiled back. "Man, he gave me shit for the next six months."

"Lose the jacket, the boots and the socks," Jim said, gesturing with the gun.

Blair hesitated.

"Standard operating procedure, Chief. It's cold and rainy, so if you don't have shoes or a jacket, you're going to think twice about trying to make a run for it, and a gravel road is going to be a pretty significant obstacle for you to get past.

"Man, this sucks," Blair said as he sat on the ground to unlace his boots. Jim held the gun right at his head.

"Next time, stick with your colonel," Jim suggested. Blair flipped him off.

"Chief, you are either pretty damn brave or the stupidest man I've ever met."

"A little of both, maybe," Blair admitted as he put his boots to one side and then stripped off the socks. Shit the ground was cold. Standing up, he dropped his jacket on top of his boots and then danced a bit on the cold ground. "Okay, can we maybe do whatever we're going to do before I get frostbite?"

"Not cold enough for that," Jim said without much sympathy. "Face the truck, same position I had you in before."

With a sigh, Blair faced the camper and spread his feet. On television, people always leaned on their hands, but Blair let his hands hang loose while he leaned on his chest. "Cold, cold, cold," he chattered. A large hand pushed at his back, but Blair already had all his weight into the truck. Jim quickly tied one of Blair's wrists before looping the long rope around his waist and tying the other wrist. Blair was pretty effectively tied, but at least now his arms didn't hurt because his hands were tied down to his sides.

"Let's get you up on the tailgate," Jim said, urging Blair to the back and half-lifting him up. He pulled another rope out and started winding it around Blair's ankles. After one loop, he shook his head and reached in for a sweatshirt, wrapping it around Blair's feet before he finished tying them. "I assume you usually work in hot regions."

"When I can swing it," Blair agreed. No way was Jim going to guess he normally tried to claim the hotter planets when doing treaty work and cultural anthropology. Pulling out a sleeping bag, Jim tucked him into it and zipped up the side so that Blair was warm and very much not going anywhere. Then, getting in the bed of the truck, Jim pulled him up onto a mattress that was just behind the driver's seat.

"Sleep tight. I'm going to try to outrun your Colonel O'Neill before he figures out he lost his anthropologist," Jim suggested with a sort of cheerfulness that was really annoying.

"He's your best bet, Jim. I promise you that Jack O'Neill would never do anything unethical." Blair thought about that for a second. "Almost never."

"I just don't want to get caught in the 'almost' part of that," Jim said. He got out of the back and closed the tailgate and the camper lid. Well crap. O'Neill was going to kill him.