A/N:
Unexpected meetings part 2
John went through the gate twenty minutes later hoping that he didn't miss Ford. He left Jinto and went into the forest. He must have been watched because as soon as he got onto the clearing the dark skinned man stepped in front of him.
"Ford!"
"When I saw this kid dial Atlantis I knew you'd be here shortly."
"What happened with your eye?" Asked John noticing that the man had both normal eyes, unlike the last time they'd sen him.
"You know, new friends, with nice healing powers…"
"What new friends?"
"Borealis and its crew, of course." Laughed Aiden. "When you meet them you'll know they're great folks."
"You know more about them?"
"Yup, everything I need to know. I saw their commander, it's enough." Then Aiden just started to smile like a madman. "You'll be sooooo surprised…"
"I guess we know her?"
"Oh yeah…" The man admitted. "Now, I have to go back to my business, so…"
"Wait, Ford, maybe you can go back to Atlantis, we can help you…"
"Help in what?" Interrupted Ford. "If you mean weaning me off the enzyme, then you're a little late, sir. It's done."
"Borealis?"
"Yup. And I really have to go now…" And then Ford shot John with a stunner. "Sorry, really sorry I had to do this.
Steven looked at the woman before him and finally got back his speech.
"What is happening here?" He asked eventually.
"You were lucky we picked up the situation on our comeback from another fight." Answered Maia. "We are now affecting repairs to your ship. It was damaged."
"My people…"
"We scanned your ship and beamed out every life sign we could find. We accessed your database and I'm afraid according to your passenger manifest we've been unable to locate three people. I'm greatly sorry, colonel, but it seems they didn't make it through the attack."
"What?"
"I believe interfacing our shields is already done and my crew started repairing your life support and hull already. It should not be much longer until you can come back there if you wish."
Then they heard the child wailing quietly from the crib.
"I'm sorry, colonel" said Maia, "but apart from a battle my child is my absolute priority." And with that she stepped towards her offspring and took him into her arms. She was smiling warmly and seemed to be suddenly uninterested in the rest of the world. The child, on the other hand, stopped making noises immediately.
"Looks like your child missed you…" Caldwell commented loosely.
"I need to leave him for the time of battle." She said turning to Steven. "I needed to do this since he was born, he needed to learn that he has to wait sometimes."
"It's a boy?" Steven more stated than asked.
"His name is Mercury."
"Mercury…?"
"It was proposed by Janus and Chaya, actually" Maia smiled. "I think they planned it from the moment they learned I was pregnant. And since they were the ones closest to family I decided to honor their wishes."
"Seems appropriate." Commented Caldwell coming closer and looking into the infant's face. "The name I mean. In our mythology there was a goddess, Maia, her son was Mercury."
"I know."
"You do?" Asked Steven. "I was under impression that you didn't remember…"
"What?"
"Nothing. Just a slip of the tongue."
"Please, don't treat me as if I am a fool." Her expression stiffened a little and Caldwell suddenly saw something familiar in it. "I am not a fool."
"No, you are not."
"Merc, honey…" Maia started noticing her kid started to pull her hair with his little fist and got some of it wrapped around his little fingers. "Oh sweety, this hurts" she whispered.
"Let me help" said Steven and gently started to unwrap the hair. He noticed to do it with as little harm to Maia as it was possible. "Here. It's done."
"Thank you" she mouthed with a smile.
"You're welcome." Said Steven with a smile. "At least I could do something for you."
"Maia…" said Chaya entering the room. "You're needed on the bridge." Then she looked briefly at Caldwell and then back at Maia. "And Janus reported that the crew of the Daedalus is being beamed back to their ship as we speak since the life support is repaired and the hull and the shields are back needing just some more work."
"Is she able to make it to Atlantis in one jump?" Asked Maia. "And is there still much to repair?"
"Janus seems to think they will be perfectly safe during trip home and that the repairs that are left are minor even without our resources, although need a lot of people and attention."
"Does this mean I can go back to my ship with my people?" Asked Caldwell.
"Yes." Answered Maia with a sympathetic smile.
"There are two women that need a short treatments from our healers." Informed Chaya. "They will be beamed in a few minutes."
When Caldwell was taking his leave from Maia Lindsey Novak was being checked for the last time by one of the Healers. She noticed Janus entering the room and coming towards her.
"You are one of the engineers from the Daedalus, right?" Asked the Ancient.
"Yes. And you are Janus, right?" She replied with a hiccup.
"You know me?" He was curious. "You seemed sure."
"I" a hiccup "looked through the profiles of Ancients that left Atlantis, and" a hiccup again "I remember your face from there." A hiccup.
"Let me help" said a little Ancient woman putting a small hand on Lindsey's chest. The hiccups stopped immediately. "Here" the little woman smiled and left.
"It doesn't matter, doctor." Said Janus reaching into one of his pockets and taking out a small device. "I want you to take this" he gave it to Novak "and keep it safe and secret until you use it."
"What is it?"
"It's a communication device. It was modified to fit into your ports."
"Still…"
"It's for your protection." Janus started to explain. "If you have trouble with the Wraith, and you will, you need just to connect it into your navigation computer. We will know where you are and that you need help."
"You want to protect us?"
"Yes. But you need to keep it secret, I don't think your superiors would appreciate our offer."
"Why me?" Asked Lindsey studying the device in her hand. "Maybe someone else would be better…"
"I got my orders." Janus smiled. "Maia chose you specifically."
"Sounds like a big honor…"
"It is. Maia seems to know people inside out from the first glance."
Then Chaya entered the room. "Everything is set, Doctor Novak is the last one to be transported."
"I hope we see each other in a better circumstances next time, doctor." Said Janus just before Lindsey was transported to the bridge of the Daedalus.
Novak looked at all the other people that were going their separate ways to get to their responsibilities. Some of them wore their usual clothes and some, like she herself wore white clothes of clearly Lantian design. The latter were, just like her, those who needed a lot of medical attention after the battle.
"Are you okay, doctor Novak?" Asked Caldwell when she fingered the device that was safely put into one of the pockets in the white gown.
"Yes, yes, colonel, I'm okay."
"Good. You think you can go to the engine …" he wanted to send her to her duties but she just interrupted him.
"Yes. On it, sir."
The Daedalus made it to Atlantis in two days, one jump only. It seemed there were a lot of repairs to be made but it seemed a lot of systems worked better, faster after the basic repairs done by the Ancients. However, the ship still needed massive amount of work to be fully functional again, including all the job on the weapons. When the ship entered Lantia's atmosphere Steven had to talk a lot to convince Sam that he is in fact who he claimed to be.
The first thing that was done was a meeting of all the head personnel in Sam's office. Steven, Sam, Richard, John and McKay sat down trying to assess the situation even before reporting it to Earth. There were other people brought in to provide additional counsel – Teyla, Jack, Ronon and Beckett. Jack brought Daniel with him as well, to get an expert on the Ancients. Jack willed the glass to blur, a possibility they learned about after Jack badly wanted a moment of privacy with Sam a few days ago. The City gave him just that.
"So, colonel" started Woolsey. "What was so important that it could not wait?"
"We were attacked by the Wraith, that's why we came back." Answered Steven. "We suffered some damage."
"We could see that, Steven" chided Jack. "Get to the funny part."
"There were three hives attacking us, Jack." Said Steven. "And they knew where to hit. We were overwhelmed within minutes. We were losing hull integrity, Jack, the life support failed, it looked hopeless." He looked at O'Neill and then at Sam, who knew best from the whole group how those vessels were constructed and how they operated.
"Doesn't look that bad to me, Steven." Commented Sam looking at him suspiciously. "And you managed to get back using hyperspace…"
"Because we had help." Said simply Steven. "We were saved by Borealis and returned to the state where we could travel back safely. They even took care of the wounded on their own accord."
"Wait" interrupted Daniel "didn't you say that all the intelligence suggested the ancients are the crew?"
"They are, doctor Jackson." Said Steven with a forced smile. "I can assure you that they're in fact the Ancients."
"They can be pretending to be…" started Daniel.
"You may be familiar with the first officer aboard Borealis. His name is Janus." Caldwell silenced him. "He matches the image from the database." Then he turned to John and his team. "And you should be familiar with the second officer and personal attendant of the capitain. Her name is Chaya and she didn't want me speaking to her commander."
"Chaya?" Spoke unexpectedly Beckett. "Lass was not a solider, colonel."
"But she is an officer on the battleship. Ancient worship, better to say. And as much as I can tell it has a lot of Asgard features."
"You were onboard?" Asked Woolsey.
"We all were. Me and my whole crew. I told you Dedalous was not fit for carrying people at the time. We were beamed up to their ship. They healed all injured, at least to the state where there was no risk. They repaired most of our systems and said we will be okay getting back here."
"How much casualties?" Asked Sam.
"None." Informed Steven. "I was informed that they compared the rescued personnel with our passeneger manifest and lacked some. They were certain that those were dead and so, not detectable by their scanning systems. We checked after we rested a little. Those people never made it on board, they decided to stay in the last moment and I allowed that but didn't record it. Means they saved my whole crew."
"Almost two hundred people saved." Whispered Teyla. "As well as my people and countless people from some other planets that had recently became a refuge for those who want to hide from the Wraith. All that because of a single ship…" she mused.
"It's huge, Teyla, and they have superior weaponry as well as shields."
"Exactly how huge, colonel?" Asked Rodney.
"It's at least several times bigger than Aurora class battleship, McKay." Said Steven. "Or at least that's what we were able to say from the very brief readings that were recorded before all our systems malfunctioned."
"They must have the ZPMs to power such a ship and…"
"They must, McKay" said John "but I guess they would not share." Then he added a little more quietly "they need it more right now it seems…"
"We'll need go through any data that may be still in our computers" said Caldwell. "Novak will be on it as soon as Beckett checks her out, just like the rest of the people treated by the healers."
"I'm coming back to the task right after the meeting" interrupted Carson.
"I'll try to find anything on this 'Borealis' in the Ancient database" said Daniel. "Would be helpful to have Elizabeth, she was just great with the thing."
Sam saw something strange on the face of Caldwell but it was gone before she could examine it further. "Okay. I guess that's all we need to share right now." She stated. "Thank you, Steven, for this briefing so soon. We'll need to get this situation under control as much as possible before the scheduled dial to Earth and every hour counts." She concluded. "Carson, would you be so kind to get me all the data from the checkups of Daedalus personnel when you finish your examinations? Sheppard, I would like you to contact our allies and see if you can get any more info on Borealis, Teyla, would you like to help him? And Rodney, help doctor Novak with the data. Everyone has their own piece, dismissed." Sam directed and stood to signal the end of the meeting.
"Sam, Jack, can I talk to you for a moment?" Asked Steven and stayed with them in the office.
