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Sheppard POV
I am not having a good day.
Getting kidnapped and tortured by a crazy space dwelling lady is never fun, trust me on this I have way too much experience with getting kidnapped and tortured.
For some insane reason Larrin actually expected me to cooperate with her and was surprised and pissed when I tried to escape, though yes calling the Wraith was a mistake but how was I supposed to know they monitor that frequency? Thankfully she agreed to let me help fight the Wraith and ran to the chair room.
As soon as I get in the chair a strange feeling goes through me, like I've used this chair many times before and it knows me. Then the ship gets hit and the chair goes offline.
Once I've fixed the chair (ha! And Rodney thinks I'm a idiot!) I get back in the chair.
As soon as the Hive is destroyed I feel the chair scan my mind, then a download into my head.
Commander Iohannes Tallis, second in command battleship Borealis. Born in Atlantis, joined the military as soon as possible, last memory scan minutes before the crew abandon the ship because of radiation…. the chair scans memories as a backup in case of a accident or a record if they need to be investigated. The chair recognised me as Iohannes without those memories and automatically downloaded them.
"What the hell?!" I mutter blinking, the chair thinks I'm Iohannes the second in command of this ship, who left the ship only a week before everyone on Atlantis was evacuated back to earth and probably went with them and ascended.
The memories…. fit, like they're meant to be in my head, growing up during the war with the Wraith, visiting human planets as a teenager for school, joining the fight.
I'm Iohannes descended I can feel it in every cell of my body, I don't know why I took human from and have no memory of it, but I can guess; I got sick of watching people get killed by the Wraith, had some sort of future knowledge and knew what earth would be doing so became one of them.
I get out of the chair, I don't have time for this. I'm still kidnapped, I'll deal with this later.
I go straight to the exhilarate control room and check the systems; the forward section is depressurised, no life sighs. Scanning the whole ship… one human Larrin and four others Wraith, cause that is exactly what I needed right now!
I put shields up in the section Larrin's in, locking her in. then lock the room I'm in and decompress the rest of the ship.
Once that's done I wait a hour, doing all the repairs I know how to do from there then re-fill the ship with air and go to the armoury before going to where the Wraith life sighs where and shooting the bodies (just to be sure they're not hibernating, learned from experience not to think they're dead that easy in the war.) before going back to the control room.
Just in time to detect three Traveller ships drop out of hyperspace.
"Oh crap" I sigh before bringing weapons (you can use weapons from other places than the chair but it's not as accurate and you can't control how they move) and the shields online, then answer when one of the ships hail.
"Larrin, what's the situation?" a guy asks as soon as I answer.
"Larrin's not here right now can I take a message?" I ask with a smirk.
The glares at me, "What did you do?"
"She's fine" I tell him, "Just locked up. Can't say the same for the other two, died when the Wraith shot at the ship."
"Release Larrin at once and hand over our ship!" he demands.
I glare, "In case you forgot you kidnapped me. I'll send her back to you cause I'm a nice guy, but this ship is mine not yours."
I served on this ship for 6 years, through space and time anomalies, viruses, alien incursions, more Wraith attacks than I can count. I'm not giving up my ship now.
They charge weapons, "Your outnumbered Sheppard. Surrender now."
I fire a warning shot, "In case you forgot this ship is way more powerful than all three of yours put together, even damaged. Now I get that you need more ships, big population and all that. But the Borealis is mine" he keeps glaring but deciding to be nice (and get him to leave) I transmit coordinates.
"What is this?"
"If you had checked the logs you would have never kidnapped me" I snort, "Two months before the ship was damaged they had a mission helping your people hide and secure ships; they were planning on being Travellers at that point but knew one day they would run out of resources to build ships. That is the coordinates for 8 hidden cashers of ships and supplies your ancestors left" I should know, I spent weeks working with those people to hide those ships. I promised those people I would help them; their descendants might be awful but I'm going to honour that promise.
He looks at me in surprise.
I roll my eyes and send the log, so he can check for himself, "Now take Larrin and go. Before I change my mind about being nice."
"If this is a trick-"
"I live to regret it blah blah blah, heard it before" I roll my eyes, turning off the call.
Now do I go down there and escort her to the hanger bay and tell her to take a Dart to her people's ships, or remove air from her section just enough to knock her out then go now there and stun her (just to be safe) before putting her in the Dart and setting the autopilot to take her there?
Knowing her if I walk her there she'll try and take the ship again, better safe than sorry.
I send them a quick message, telling them Larrin will be coming in a Dart before going ahead with my plan.
Once they have her they send one more message of promised vengeance if I'm lying before leaving.
Seconds after they're gone the sensors alert me the Jumpers decloaking nearby and one of them hailing.
I put it up on screen and see my team and Lorne, "Sheppard!"
"Rodney, right on time" I say sarcastically.
"What's the situation sir?" Lorne asks.
"Got grabbed by a group called the Travellers cause they needed the gene to active this ship. They're gone now, and the ship is mi-ours" I explain. "We should probably get out of here, the Wraith showed up earlier or the Travellers might come back" I open the hanger bay.
10 minutes later my team walks onto the control room.
"Where's Lorne?" I ask them.
"Went off to secure the ship or whatever" Rodney rolls his eyes going straight for the consul.
"How are you John?" Teyla asks walking over to me looking at my jaw.
I shrug, "Nothing I haven't had before."
"I need to do a few repairs before we can jump into hyperspace, but there's a lot that needs to be fixed once we get back to Atlantis" Rodney tells us not looking up from the screen.
"Good" I nod, "After you do that I got something to tell you guys."
"What?" Rodney asks now looking at me.
Shouldn't have said that, now he won't leave me alone til I tell him. I go to the consul and bring up my personnel file with a photo.
"He looks just like you" Ronon notes.
"You and this Commander Tallis are identical" Teyla agrees, "Is it possible he is your direct ancestor?"
"I don't think there's such thing as direct when there's 10000 years between them" Rodney points out.
"The Wraith showed up earlier, I used the chair to fire back. After the chair recognised me as Tallis and downloaded all of Iohannes Tallis memories into my head, as it is programmed to if a crew member loses their memories" I tell my team.
Everyone stares.
"The ship thinks your Tallis and gave you his memories?" Rodney asks in disbelief.
"Are you Tallis?" Ronon asks looking at me.
Teyla looks at me too, "We have known Ancestors to retake human form. And you do have the strongest gene that we know of."
"Yeah I think I am" I admit.
"Wonderful" Rodney groans, "Just what I needed. Our team leader is a member of one of the most arrogant and obnoxious races to ever exist! You going to start looking at all of us like where bugs now?"
"Shut up McKay!" I whack him in the head lightly, "Just cause I'm Alteran doesn't mean I'm gonna turn into a jackass."
"Why did you take human form?" Teyla asks me.
"Too fight" Ronon answers for me, "If he used to be anything like he is now, Sheppard wouldn't sit and watch the Wraith kill people."
I nod, "I don't remember being ascended, just up to the week before we evacuated back to earth. But I know I wouldn't have been able to put up with watching all my people's mistakes kill people forever."
"What do you mean?" Rodney frowns.
"We made the Wraith" I tell my friends, "The Ori were a separate group of my people, who we knew where enslaving people and forcing to worship them as gods-even before they ascended. After the Asurans we sent a team back to the Milky Way to continue the experiment away from the war, which ended in the bug like Replicators and war they were having with the Asgard, which we didn't help them fight. We knew the Goa'uld had found our technology, but the council declared that helping the humans in the Milky Way or stopping the Goa'uld was beneath them. A lot of this happened before I was born but the Replicators and Goa'uld happened while I was serving, I fought these decision, which is why I never made it past the rack of commander."
Teyla shakes her head, "It is shameful to think my people worshipped such a cruel people."
Ronon nod in agreement.
Before Rodney can say anything, the radios buzz and Lorne speaks through them, "Ships clear. What's the damage to the ship McKay?"
"It's bad" Rodney tells him, "I can do a quick patch for now on the hyperdrive to get it back to Atlantis, but it's going to take months to get this ship fixed."
"Wonderful" Lorne sighs, "Alright, do what you need to do Doc."
Rodney looks to me with a gleam in his eye.
"Sorry Rodney" I tell him before he can voice his thoughts, "Just cause I'm Alt-an Ancient doesn't mean I know how to build all my peoples stuff, I'm a flyer always have been."
He looks disappointed, "But you have to know something?"
"I know a few things" I agree, "I can show you the filing system for the database, you've been yelling about how unorganised that is forever, I know a lot of planets where we had bases and research stations, some of them I think had ZPM's…..I'll have to think on what I know" I tell him, trying to think of what I can tell him.
He nods before going to fix what he can.
Three hours later we're approaching Atlantis.
"They're hailing us" Rodney tells me.
"Send your identification code and answer" I nod back.
"I see you have been busy" Sam notes when her face pops up on screen.
I nod, "Ships called the Borealis. Its badly damaged, but Rodney thinks he can have her fixed up in a few months."
Sam smiles, "That's great. I look forward to hearing how you go that ship when you land."
The call ends.
"What are you gonna tell her?" Ronon asks.
"The truth" I sigh, "Keller will know somethings weird with me when she does the scans and sees how active my brain is. I'm probably going to spend the next six months at area 51 being questioned."
Teyla looks at me, "Who you use to be does not give them the right to do that. We will not let them."
Ronon nods in agreement, looking ready to fight if he has too.
"We're with you John" Rodney tells me, "You have to know that by now."
I smile, I have the best team and friends, "Yeah I know."
ONE-SHOT.