Work Text:
We were on hold. The gate stood, fuming slightly, with two of its markers lit.
The hold stretched on and my team started to fidget. I looked up and saw Major Carter entering the control room. Good. "Settle, kids, it's getting sorted."
Mead Kroeber, our anthropologist, whistled and waved the "V for victory" sign at the Major, which she returned with outer fingers extended, as if warding off the Evil Eye.
Like everyone else I’d thought she'd be the first woman to lead an SG team, but two months ago I was tapped for this one, reformed again from scratch.
Power ramped up, loudly, and the gate began to spin and clunk until the event horizon fountained and stabilised.
Our motto (we've got the t-shirts) is "Nos morituri te salutamus"; my aim as CO is to prove the first half wrong. Mead is a couple of inches shorter than I, and lightly built, but he has a deep bass voice and a creditable German accent. He turned to the control room and ritually intoned, "We'll be back!" and I led SG-11 up the ramp again.
Note: Nos morituri te salutamus, “We who are about to die salute you”, has long been assumed to have been the gladiators’ greeting to the Emperor before the Roman games.