Title: What Makes a Soldier
Rating: G
Character: Lorne, Ellis
Genre: General
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Disclaimer in profile. Please R&R, I have been getting many hits on my stories but it is always nice to get reviews-I like to see what people think.
As of 11/5/10 this is the edited and hopefully better written version of WMaS. Edited Chp. 2 to follow. I would love feedback to see what you all think. Thank you!
Major Evan Lorne did not like, nor trust the Commander of the Apollo. It had been a long time since someone this arrogant had come through the SGC, let alone survived this long. McKay did not count, he was a civilian and despite how irritating he could be and that with his mistakes people were liable to die-he had earned the right to be arrogant. Colonel Ellis had not.
He could not figure out why Ellis was here and why the Apollo was given the mission and not the Daedalus. Ellis and the Apollo had no loyalty to Atlantis or her people; they were there on orders and because of that safety net, Ellis chose not to listen. Lorne knew from experience as any good SGC officer did, that you listened to the Scientists even if you did not want to. You listened to the people with experience whoever they might be. Ellis might be career Air Force and clearance to know about the Program but he was not an SGC field officer. Ellis would not survive long at the SGC, at least not on an off world team-his attitude would get him and more than likely his team killed. Lorne had seen that happen often enough to know that it was not impossible.
When Lorne reported to the Apollo to carry out Sheppard's orders, that everyone once again agreed was crazy, he wished that Caldwell and the Daedalus were there instead. He knew that crew he had trust in them. The same could not be said for the Apollo or her captain. The disdain Ellis showed for everyone in Atlantis was no more obvious than when he deliberately ignored both Weir and McKay in the city. The equivalent to that back at the SGC was dismissing Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson and anyone who deliberately did that had a death wish and often would meet it. It wasn't done period and Lorne did not understand why Ellis thought he could get away with it.
Ellis was a stickler for regulations, it was readily apparent in the way his crew acted, and Lorne knew that if Ellis ever got any type of command in Pegasus; beyond that of Apollo that people would be in danger. Pegasus was different, it was not the Milky Way and it sure as hell was not Earth. Colonel Caldwell had long since realized that. He too was a stickler for regulations but also accepted that his way was not what was best for Atlantis, let alone all of Pegasus. Caldwell would leave the city to them, even when he thought they were mistaken because he understood that difference, and because he did not have the experience that those before him had. Ellis did not accept this unspoken r rule. He believed that everyone and everything should bend to his orders and to that of his superiors because they want them to. While it might work on Earth, it did not however work in the galaxy, in either Pegasus or the Milky Way.
Caldwell, despite how he first arrived in Atlantis and his clashes with Sheppard and Weir, was more a part of Atlantis than Ellis ever would be. Lorne respected Caldwell because he knew that Caldwell respected Sheppard- did not always like the man, but respected him and the same could be said for Doctor Weir. Caldwell and by extension the Daedalus and her crew, in turn had been accepted as being part of the city. They would protect her and her inhabitants, already had and with consequences to themselves but without questioning whether or not the need to help.
For that fact alone, he wished that the Daedalus were there. That in the after math of the disaster , the loss of Doctor Weir, that Caldwell and his crew were there to protect the city and her inhabitants, because in their grief and pain and exhaustion they could not rely on just themselves. However, they had to because they would not rely on the Apollo and her Captain. On people who did not care about them or how deeply painful their loss was, only the fact that their plan failed, which in Ellis's mind was because Weir had no right to sacrifice herself to save the expedition, that she was in fact a danger to them because of it.