A/N: Some might recall reading a previous version of this story. It was previously listed as 'What For'. Reviewers had some minor complaints, and it was taken down for revisions. Hope you enjoy the revised version, and please, leave feedback.

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate franchises, they belong to MGM, I do not own JAG, NCIS and the Unit, they belongs to CBS. There is no money involved.

Seeking Judgment

Prologue

Judge Advocate General
Falls Church, Virginia
0700 Zulu (0200 Local)

He sat in his office and pondered the twists of fate that had brought him to this time and place. Somewhere, he'd read that each and every person in the world was alive so that they could be at one specific time and place when they were needed the most. He couldn't imagine that he'd been there yet. He'd been born in '63, to a naval family. There'd really been no other option for him than to follow in the footsteps of the men in his family and become a naval aviator like his father and grandfather before him. A grandfather that had been killed in '42 while flying off the USS Hornet; a father that had been shot down in '69 while flying an Iron Hand mission off the Ticonderoga. A family of heroes. Could he do no less than follow their example?

The Naval Academy at Annapolis had been a good place to start, and he'd graduated as Ensign Harmon Rabb, Jr. Then came flight school where he'd earned his gold wings. Then a slot in an operational squadron at sea. All in all, the makings of a promising career. A career tragically cut short by a ramp strike during night-time carrier operations that resulted in the death of his RIO (Radar Intercept Officer. Back-seater in an F-14), and his subsequent removal from flight status because of an undiagnosed night-blindness condition.

At a loss for what to do with himself, Harmon Rabb returned to school on the Navy's dime, and eventually graduated from Georgetown with a degree in law. Upon his successful graduation, the Navy assigned him to the office of the Judge Advocate General. Despite his new chance for a career, and despite the fact that he felt himself privileged to practice law and to solve the various mysteries of life, he still felt unfulfilled, like he had yet to find his one specific time and place in his life.

He sat in his office, drinking his third cup of coffee of the day, as he pondered life, and the current lack of a case load, as he watched HER walk off the elevator and into the office. He watched as one of the junior officers, Lt. Commander Bud Roberts approached the woman and greeted her like an old friend. She stood about five-foot-seven, and was slim, like an athlete. Commander Rabb dismissed her from his mind for the moment, and wondered when their new commanding officer, Major General Gordon Cresswell, would assign a case to him. He wondered, not for the first time, if the old adage about combat could be applied to the life of a JAG lawyer; 'Hours of boredom punctuated by mere seconds of adrenaline fueled action.'

"Commander Rabb." Lt. Roberts called my name.

"Yes, Bud.?" I replied as I took a sip of my coffee.

"I would like to introduce you to Ms. Melissa Sumner."

Commander Rabb approached the young woman and shook her hand. "What can I do for you Ms. Sumner?" He asked her as he walked back to the printer, on a pretense of grabbing something vaguely work related

"I want to press charges on an Air Force Lt. Colonel by the name of John Sheppard." She said as she opened her handbag and grabbed a picture of Lt. Colonel Sheppard wearing a gray flight suit.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Sumner, but you'll have to direct your request to the Air Force JAG. We only service the Navy and Marine Corps here." Rabb knew whatever was troubling wouldn't go away that easily, but it had been worth the shot.

"Lt. Colonel Sheppard killed my father Commander. He was a Colonel in the United States Marine Corps. Does that change the jurisdiction?"

"Yes ma'am. It does. How can I help you?" said Commander Rabb as he pulled a fresh legal pad from the stack behind him and began to write down details.

"Where was your father stationed?"

"Cheyenne Mountain."

"NORAD? What was a Marine Colonel doing at NORAD?"

"I don't know, but that's where he was killed by Sheppard. He told me once it was Deep Space Radar Telemetry, but I think it was a cover story. My father knows very little about astronomy."

"Alright. Give me a few minutes while I pull up his file?"

"Of course, Commander."

Commander Rabb keyed in his access code to the personnel database and pulled up the file on one Marshall Sumner. It was the standard record of a long career, but as he came to the most recent posting, he found his computer locked out and red flags dancing across his screen. 'Uh-oh', he thought. 'The General is not going to like this.'

Less than five minutes later, Lt. Commander Roberts poked his head into the Commander's office and politely informed him that the General wished to see him.

"Sir! Commander Rabb reporting as ordered!"

"As you were, Commander. What have you done this time, Rabb?"

"Sir?"

"I just got a call from a rather angry Lieutenant General at JSOC, telling me I should keep a tighter leash on my officers. What the hell were you doing, Commander?"

"Looking up information on a Marine Colonel by the name of Sumner sir."

"Marshall Sumner?"

"You know him, sir?"

"We walked some of the same paths in Iraq. Why are you looking into his record Commander?"

"His daughter is here, wanting to file charges against the man who killed him."

"Melissa is here? Sumner's dead? I think you need to start at the beginning, Commander."

"Yes sir. Melissa Sumner walked into our offices just a short while ago and said she wanted to press charges against an Air Force officer. When I told her of the separation of JAG jurisdictions, she told me the Air Force wouldn't take her case, and that the officer in question killed her father, a Marine Colonel. So I asked her the basics, and then tried to pull up his record, and set off a few flags when I did so."

"More than a few flags Commander. But continue."

"All I found is that Colonel Sumner was stationed at NORAD before to his death during a 'training accident'."

"NORAD? Training accident? What sort of training at NORAD gets a highly decorated Marine force recon Colonel killed?"

"I don't have the answer to that one sir. But I will."

General Cresswell pressed the button on his intercom and spoke rapidly into it. 'Tiner! Ask the young woman in Commander Rabb's office, Ms. Melissa Sumner, to join us in here!'

The young woman in question walked in a few minutes later and was surprised by the man behind the desk, but held her cool until the young Petty Officer left the office.

"Uncle Gordie!"

"Melissa. It's been such a long time. You don't write, you don't call. And now I hear your dad is dead?"

"I'm sorry, Uncle Gordie. I thought Mom had called you. When I didn't see you at the funeral, I just figured you were out of the country somewhere."

"Even if I had been in a prison somewhere, I would have made it to your Dad's funeral, Melissa. I never forget a man who saved my life."

"Then you can help me?"

"I'll look into it, Melissa. That's all I can promise. Why don't you come back in a week, and we'll see what we have then. I'll assign my best team to it. Commander?"

"Right away sir!"