I do not own Stargate, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, nor do I own any of its characters. I make no profit off this story excepting in my own personal pleasure of writing it. This is set AU after the end of Season Five of Stargate Atlantis. It completely disregards the Legacy book series, so please no flames that it's ignoring those. Also a few characters may go a bit OOC, because I feel like it. If you don't like it, don't read it.
AN: Trigger warning, there is some implied abuse evidence, though it isn't directly spoken of. There is also mentions of slavery. This chapter will be upsetting for anyone with those traumas.
Chapter 20: The Breeding Colony
As Todd had predicted, the very hour after O'Neill had been sworn into his seat as Military head, he had told John if he had a unit of thirty people on his desk by day's end, John would have a green-light for the mission to taking down the breeding colony the next day. John had, in hopes of this very thing, prepared his top fifty list of the SpecOps. The top thirty, including himself, Teyla, and Ronon were submitted to O'Neill fifteen minutes later.
O'Neill gave him a raised eyebrow, "I think that is the fastest you have ever completed paperwork for me, Sheppard. Hell, I think that's the fastest anyone has ever completed paperwork for me."
"I already had the list, up to fifty. Technically we have 74 who could handle these kinds of missions, but the last 24 have less experience and I want them to wet their toes a bit more on smaller missions than this one," John shrugged.
Jack sighed as he looked at the list, "Right, well, that's an awful lot of Wraithkin names I'm seeing here."
"They're all sires, like me. The very idea of enslaving carriers like this… it is as repulsive as it gets. They won't have any issues cutting down the Wraith responsible for this breeding colony or any of the others," John's voice was stone cold, he knew that. He sure as hell wasn't going to hesitate to kill every bastard that mistreated a carrier for their own personal profit. It was an affront to his very nature, as a military man, as a sire, and as a father.
"If you had told me that six months ago, I would have called you insane, now… Well I actually enjoy watching the little rugrats running around all happy and such. It reminds me what I have to look forward to in a few months. Honestly, if I weren't so damned old and on the stupid council, I would probably want on that list too," O'Neill admitted.
John smirked in agreement about that, "Yeah, well, according to Keller, I get a boost from my bond with Todd."
"Oh, yeah, that weird chemical that's created from the bond, she finally figure out what it does?" O'Neill asked.
"It makes me more durable. Literally. Apparently, it acts as a steroid-like substance to accelerate healing and promotes significant neurological maintenance. In a Wraith Carrier, that keeps their brains from degrading into mush. In wraith sires, it boosts their healing capabilities, so they are tougher to kill. In human sires, or at least in me, it means a major mental development boost, hence the telepathy, and she believes it will slow the aging and cellular degeneration and cut my healing time in half. It's like a steroid on steroids without any negative side-effects. So, that means I might live to see 150," John smirked pleased with this.
He wasn't going to bitch about getting a longer life and getting to see grandkids and great-grandkids and possibly even great-great-grandkids before he died. Truth was, Keller had speculated that it might cause a near halt to John's aging, but he wasn't spreading that information about just yet. He didn't want it going around until they had a decade or so to test that theory. As it was Jack glared at him and grunted, "Lucky bastard."
"Yeah, just think about how many kids I could have in another hundred years," John teased. He kind of loved the idea of a big family, which was a good thing what with a kid coming every five years for the foreseeable future.
"Yeah, I'll stick with the one that Carter has incubating for me. I think that's going to be our only kid," Jack shrugged. "Rikki will have plenty of younger siblings from you, she doesn't need a whole hoard of cousins too."
"Well, with your one, she will be up to five. Dave and Julia have their four and I'm not entirely certain they're done yet," John rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I need to go get my people prepped for the mission tomorrow."
"Yeah, you go do that. And do me a favor and don't get injured seriously. I really don't want to handle an angry, pregnant Todd," Jack shuddered at that.
John snorted laughter as he left. There had been a couple of incidents over the past few months that some of the male human scientists had implied that Todd wasn't capable of handling the science of human tech because he wasn't human and was incubating a baby. If John hadn't picked up on Todd's building irritation and gone to resolve the issue, it was entirely possible that one of those scientist would have lost a limb or three. The funny part was that it wasn't Todd that would have done it though. Vala had taken to hanging out around the labs with Todd and Carter, now that she was grounded due to her pregnancy, and if Todd and Carter got pissed-off, and Carter had gotten pissed-off at the comments, than Vala turned virtually feral.
The first incident had resulted in Vala decking the scientist in question before John got there to defuse the situation. Vala had received two weeks of community service as punishment. The three subsequent events he had averted disaster thanks to Carter being prepared for it and diverting Vala's attention before she could attack until John got there. Vala's community service had been spent helping oversee Ronon's kiddy martial arts classes. Todd had found Vala's reactions predictably hilarious.
That didn't mean, however, that the word hadn't gotten out to not piss-off Todd or Carter unless you wanted a woman with raging pregnancy hormones who was at 28 weeks pregnant now, coming for you. She had a tactical advantage too since no one would be willing to face Mitchell or Jackson if their partner or unborn child were harmed. It was also true for Todd and John, no one was that stupid after the attempted coup. So, instead, they moronically mocked Todd, or mostly Tunney did.
John stopped musing about the idiot science thief, as Rodney called him, and went to collect his thirty men and women. Mehra was practically bouncing for some action when John told her to get her ass to the core room. Teldy looked virtually predatory when she arrived. He also had Rikki meet him there, along with the troops. John informed his daughter that they were the first thirty to be getting the new uniform as they were going on their mission the next day.
Rikki hadn't put up a protest, just got the measurements for each person and input them into the system. Each person got 10 shirts and pants. Rikki told them that she didn't want to hear about their clothing needing replacement for at least a month and not to shoot each other because they weren't blaster or lightsaber proof. Before John could lead his team out, however, Rikki stopped him.
"There's one more thing that your people should take with you. I only just finished developing it and testing it," Rikki explained and led them to her lab. "I knew that as soon as you got word of a colony, you would be going for it, so I rushed completing it. Don't worry, they will work perfectly, but they have a collective fifteen-minute power life span before the power source needs to be replaced."
John eyed what looked to be the handle of a thin knife hilt as Rikki held it up and then pressed the knob and twisted it, to activate what looked like a plasma knife, "These are for either cutting through stuff like the bars of cells or they can be used as a dagger. However, since the hilt is so small, I couldn't fit the Mini ZPMs. Instead, I created a specialized power core. It only provides enough charge for fifteen minutes of collective use, mind, so you'll want to take a few cores with you. Bring them back and they can be recharged."
Rikki showed him how to turn off the laser knife, twist off the bottom, which could only be done when it was off, and then what the power core looked like. It was designed for speedy replacement. The core slid out and then you could slide another one in in seconds. Rikki handed over a box of the laser knives and a much bigger box that held a pouches with five cores each, "There are fifty pouches and fifty knives, so you there are enough for everyone and you will, with the cores already inside the knives, have a collective hour and a half each for the blades per person. The new uniforms already have a slot for the pouches." Rikki grabbed one of John's pants and showed them that the pouch fit perfectly into a secondary pocket in the front of his BDUs on the right side. There was also a hoop that the laser knife could clip onto.
"Neat. Are these going to be standard issue?" John asked.
"Eventually, but I wanted to make sure your people had it first," Rikki shrugged. Ronon took the box of cores while Teyla seized the laser knives.
"Well, I'm not complaining about these. Can you imagine how much faster escaping from a cell would be with these things?" Ronon asked.
"You won't need to carry your personal armory of knives on you anymore, Ronon," John joked as they departed after John gave Rikki a thank you hug.
Mehra looked at the knives and smirked, "It's like we've got our own Q for Atlantis, with your kid. I swear, I've never had so many fun weapons before this. Lightsabers, laser knives, blasters, staff weapons, bullet proof shirts, talk about the good equipment."
Ronon chuckled at that, "If Sateda had this kind of equipment, we would have wiped the plate with the Wraith. I have to wonder why the Ancients got their asses handed to them if they were anywhere near as smart as your kid."
"Lack of imagination. They were so focused on the science that they didn't understand that being innovative can often be more effective than building a bigger gun," John shrugged. "Just look at project Arcturus. They literally destroyed the planet they were trying to defend with their defunct weapon. Sometimes having the bigger stick doesn't work. Sometimes you need to stick with the most versatile and flexible stick. Arcturus would have blasted a hole through Hive without any ability to disable. But us, we can fire two drones, one takes out the hyperdrives, the other the sub-light engines and now that hive is a sitting duck that we can rescue humans, kids, and converts off of."
"Mercy is our greatest weapon against the Wraith. I am certain that it is only a matter of time before the Queens realize they have an alternative to death, if they wish it," Teyla observed sagely.
"It is more a matter of how long that is up for debate," Hawk spoke up. He rarely added to a conversation, but it was clear that he hoped to see the day when his people didn't destroy themselves just as much as Todd did.
"Right, well tomorrow definitely qualifies as a mercy mission, so everyone take it easy today. I want everyone in top shape. Make sure if your Wraithkin that you're eating plenty. I don't want anyone fainting on the mission," John ordered.
He followed Ronon and Teyla to the SpecOps's armory where they stored the equipment for their unit. The wall was lined with rows of lightsaber hits, singles or in doubles. No one in SpecOps used the staff variation. Another wall had the racks of their blasters. The place even contained their practice weapons, since those were considered somewhat dangerous. There was also the tack gear, though that would be getting replaced as soon as Rikki' people could manage the designs for it with the new material. The boxes of laser knives and their power cores were set to the side and then the armory was sealed shut.
Only members of SpecOps had access to the room. John watched Teyla and Ronon head off to, most likely, spend time with their kids. John would have loved to spend time with Rikki or Todd but that wasn't an option. The pair of them were busy working with Bran and Arthur to ensure that the Apollo was prepared for it's trip to the Milky Way. If the cloaking on the Apollo failed, or the shields, it could spell death for the entire crew if it occurred at the wrong point. The ship needed to be in pristine shape before it left for its mission.
Instead, John went to work on the paperwork that he normally avoided. It mostly consisted of his portion of handling the division of units. He and Jack had figured that it was going to be one of them on the Military seat and this had split the work, agreeing the other person would be their second in command. John was personally hoping that Jack lived a long, long time. Long enough to see his own grandchildren if fact. After several hours of sorting out military troops in terms of their occupational specialties and where they would be stationed rather than their initial countries of origin or military branches, John called it quits, and went to eat dinner. Todd sent John a mental assurance that he had eaten when he was supposed to, so John instead ate at the table with the Dex and Emmagan clans.
Since Rodney and Jenn were working still, William was with them as well. It was amusing to see how relaxed the boys had gotten over the past few months. William, Cooria, and Liam were joking around while the Teyla's boys were all happily eating their meals. He glanced at Teyla and she smiled at her boys before turning to John, her expression hardening a bit. They both knew that when they went to the colony, they had no idea how many children they would find, how many enslaved carriers, or even how many Wraith Worshippers.
They had spent the past months working out various plans depending on the size of the place. They didn't know anything beyond what the scout had provided. Given the fact that they hadn't known if the Wraith would use multiple gates to various dead worlds, which was what Atlantis had done, the scout who was on look out for the Colony Wraith messenger was to follow the messenger in a cloaked Jumper. This had proven to be a wise decision as the messenger went through two different dead worlds before going back to his colony.
Once they had arrived, Major Brown had sent an encrypted sub-space signal to Atlantis with the gate address and how far the gate was from the colony. Apparently, there was a light guard at the stargate, but it was on the planet. This meant that there would be no opportunity for a MALP. They would go in on three jumpers, piloted by John, Lorne, and Major Nakamura. Lorne and Nakamura had volunteered to join the to join SpecOps which had thrown John a little, but in a good way.
Lorne had proven capable, despite his naturally soft-spoken demeanor. It just meant that people underestimated him. Nakamura, much like his cousin, Dr. Kusanagi, had a killer instinct. If they started taking scientists on future SpecOps missions, McKay and Kusanagi were John's first picks. They, however, wouldn't be joining on this mission. John had two Wraithkin, Euthymius Wiseman and Meinrad Natureborne who were former Hive Clevermen turned SpecOps and they knew Wraith systems in and out. Even if somehow the colony used different technology, it should be similar enough for them to handle the differences. Meinrad was over seven thousand years old and John suspected that he was the one who would be the most familiar with the tech found on the colonies.
That night, when Todd curled in the bed John ran his hand over the baby bump and reminded himself that this was what he fought for. His mate, his children, the one almost grown, the one still developing, and those who would come in the future. He fought for something that to him was as tangible as the bed he lay on and as intangible as the heat from the star they orbited. The future was something not yet set in stone, which made it something he could carve for his family. It was, in John's opinion, his job to carve it into a path that provided safety to those who lived within Pegasus, his family was just a part of that.
The next morning, John was up early and just after eating and kissing Todd good-bye, he met the team going on the mission in the Jumper bay. He looked at them all. Each and every one present had hard, somber faces. After taking the group in, he spoke, "Alright, everyone knows their groups, you take orders from your group leader and you have your objectives. Remember, stun any Worshippers, kill any mature sires, locate the kids and carriers, and gather what intel they have on hives and other colonies. There's no point in keeping radio silence once we're in. If your group needs help, call for it."
"And one more thing," Keller spoke up as she entered the Jumper bay. "I would like for you to collect the enzyme sacks of the Wraith you kill. We need them to synthesize a treatment for those who are addicted to it."
There were a few rounds of winces from the reminder. A lot of the Worshippers they had retrieved from the hive ships were addicted to the enzyme. While those who survived proved reasonable once they recovered, few had survived the process of coming off the drug. John nodded, "As morbid as it sounds, Keller's right, if we don't want those that we've rescued from the Wraith to die of withdrawal, we need a treatment plan for them."
The Wraithkin among the team looked particularly grim, but John knew it was more that they understood the distain for the enslavement of Worshippers at all. Still, everyone nodded in understanding, "Right, everyone make one last check of your group's gear. As soon as you're good, head to your Jumper."
There was a rustle of noise as everyone ensured that their group's gear was all present and positioned correctly. Teyla went over John's before he returned the check. Ronon was with Lorne and John saw Hawk finishing his check of Nakamura. John entered his Jumper and began the initiation sequence as the others began filing onto the ship. John tapped his radio to connect to the other group leaders. They were in six groups of five, two groups to a Jumper, "This is Jumper One we are prepared for gate travel."
"Jumper Two is ready," Lorne's voice came over the radio.
"Jumper Three is also ready," Nakamura was the last to make the call, though it was just a pace behind Lorne.
"Roger that. SpecOps, you have a go. Make sure you signal us when you're ready, we have the Phoenix and the Terra waiting on stand-by to transport all your rescues. Good luck," O'Neill's voice cut in, telling John he had been listening in.
John didn't comment, he just piloted the Jumper down the hole that was now in the floor and watched as Teyla dialed the gate. The moment after the wormhole stabilized, John activated the ship's cloaking and sent them through the gate. On the other side, he could see two confused looking Wraith staring at the gate. Once the communications system indicated that the other Jumpers had gotten past the event horizon, John grimly launched three drones, two to take out the guards and one to take out the dialing device.
The only way off the planet now was using the Jumpers' dialing systems and without someone with an ATA gene in the pilot seat, the DHD on the Jumpers didn't work. John locked onto the location of the scout Jumper and the three Jumpers moved to join it. Once they set down, John followed the rest of the people off the ship and shut and cloaked it. He had a sensor on his arm band that would let he locate the ship later, as it did all the Jumpers.
This was, in fact, not an invention of Rikki's but rather one of the discoveries made when the tablets in Klingon gave instructions on how to use the provided crystals to set the Archival systems in Atlantis to rights. As it turned out, the Ancients had intentionally scrambled the systems, as well as removing a sub-routine that allowed for new languages being uploaded into the systems and using them for translation purposes. His mother had just given the keys to how to fix it to the Daganians. If they had passed the first test, Atlantis would have had years of far easier situations than they had endured. The archives even contained the exact details of how to create and charge ZPMs.
The two scouts joined them and filled everyone on what little intel they could get in the days they had been on the planet. The intel consisted of the information that the majority of the Worshippers, and there were hundreds of them, didn't appear to be on the enzyme, but rather intimidated into serving the Wraith. The scouts suspected that if the Worshippers saw that they were there to break them free, they wouldn't put up resistance. Then again, there were also Wraithkin in their group which would cause some confusion.
The hope though, was that the Worshippers would scatter rather than fight. John wasn't pinning much on that hope. Other than that, the only information that was avalible was that the Worshippers lived scattered about in the surrounding areas, farming food. The scouts had the suspicion that the Wraith had removed the control crystal from the DHD to prevent any escape attempts from the Worshippers.
The Wraith themselves were located in an underground compound. Given that it was dug into a mountain, John suspected that the place would be a catacomb. Meinrad confirmed that it was most likely the case. Once they had gotten the intel, John ordered the scouts to stick with the Jumpers and told them they would radio once they finished clearing the place of Wraith. The scouts could then signal the two Lantean ships to join them for clean-up.
With that, they moved out. One group went to the gate to ambush any Wraith attempting to flee the action, if they escaped. The rest stuck together as they headed to the entrance of the compound. As luck would have it, no Worshippers needed to be worried about as they seemed to completely evade the locations they lived by dumb luck on their way to the entrance to the compound. John signaled for Ronon and Lorne to take the lead into the underground complex.
Next, his group followed and then the rest entered. At the first split, Ronon's group took one other group with them, while John's had two following them. They encountered two individual Wraith, both going down quickly with the blasts through their upper torsos being lethal. Then, there was another split and John signaled to Nakamura to take his group down that route. Another Wraith and a split later and it was just John, Teyla, Meinrad, Mehra, and Teldy. John smirked at the knowledge that Teldy and Mehra had enough respect for the new unit to want to be part of it.
The next split, John noted that Teyla was cataloguing that they took a right on a hand-held device in case they had to double back at any point. The device was designed to track their movements, number of steps, changes in altitude, and such, all for the purpose of mapping out the complex for later use. Granted, this was just a prototype, but they had to field test it somehow. Six dead Wraith, two stunned and secured Worshippers, three double backs at dead ends, and they finally found one of their objectives.
They entered a hall lined with cells. Inside each cell, laying on a bed in what looked to be comatose states were pregnant Wraith, "Sheppard to group leads, we have located a set of cells containing pregnant carriers. I'm going to assess their conditions."
John got a series of rogers to the information and he pulled out the nifty little laser knife, since there were no obvious means of opening the cells. It was the work of half a minute for John to get into the first cell. He approached the carrier slowly, uncertain about the mental state John would find him in. He frowned as he took in the detail that the carrier's hair contained only about four inches of white hair, the rest was a vibrant green.
"Hey, we're here to rescue you," John cautiously attempted to wake him with a shake to the carrier's shoulder but got no response.
John frowned and then placed his hand on the carrier's forehead and entered his mind only to immediately jerk back and out of his mind. He felt sick to his stomach, and barely contained his urge to throw-up. He knew his horror had to be written on his face as he turned to Teyla and the others, "There's nothing there… His… his mind… there's no… nothing, no consciousness. It's… it's just empty… He's not alive… not really. That's just a shell, the body's barely functioning."
He saw the looks of horror on the others faces. He quickly went on to the other cells, and though it sickened him each time, he checked, just to be certain and found the results were all the same. While the bodies were still functioning, the consciousness was completely gone, regardless of the amount of white in their hair. John knew that Keller would still want to test her new drug on them, to see if the damage could be repaired, but he likewise knew that it would be futile. The carriers were all functionally brain dead.
Teyla, John realized, was double checking and had turned ashen in color even as she checked the last one after John. She then spoke the fact that John hadn't brought himself to admit yet, "None of carriers can be more than thirty years old. Not with their hair color still being so visibly present with the white being such a short length. All the carriers on Atlantis that I have spoken with told me that while they were still in transition, their hair grew at what would be a third of our speed of our hair growth."
"Right, well, place the beacons. We may not be able to help these guys, but… their babies… those we might be able save at least," John felt the bile rise in his throat at the thought of these poor creatures, twenty-six to be exact, had never gotten a chance at living any sort of life.
They were just turned into living incubators for the profit of the sires that controlled the colony. It was less of a colony and more a horror show. John pulled the first small beacon and tucked it into the carrier's hand before the others broke off to follow his orders. The beacon was tiny, but powerful, a creation of Zelenka's after the man had learnt about what was happening on the colonies. The signal was sufficient to punch through miles of rock. Once their ships were overhead, the carriers could be beamed directly into the infirmaries on them as the beacon was turned to the red position, indicating critical condition.
Ronon radioed at that point "Dex to group leads, we just found the carrier kids. They look to range from toddlers up to about fourteen, so, they are pre-feeding. We count roughly twenty-nine." John relaxed a little at the information. That was twenty-nine kids who were about to face a radical change in they lives, but who would have the freedom to mate and love where they wanted. Their fates would not be the same as those within the cells his group had found.
John's team moved on once they finished placing the beacons. If they were a little more vicious with killing the Wraith that they found present and a little heavy-handed with restraining the worshippers, John didn't mention it. After all, this mission might not be having any major hitches, but every instinct in John screamed that he had failed those brain-dead carriers in their cells. The next team to report in, announced they had located the nursery, which was tended to by a group of worshippers and contained twelve infants, five carriers, six sires, and one girl.
Ronon's group found the girls between ages one and six shortly after finding the carrier boys, there were nine. Nakamura's group got lucky and found the lounge that had six sires relaxing in it all at once. John felt an almost vicious envy of Nakamura's groups that they got to kill the lot. After that, one of the other groups found the cells containing the sire children ranging in age between one and ten, at their best guess, there were sixteen.
The hall John's group had taken after the carrier cells led them to hibernation pods, fifteen of them, all of them contained girls who looked to be around age six. That explained what happened to the girls once they hit age six. They were stored, to be held until they could be sold off for profit, at least the ones allowed to live that long. John could only guess how many were killed as soon as they were born, or had the pregnancy terminated as soon as the sires detected a female fetus. Still, twenty-four girls alive was far better than John had anticipated, given the information given.
The teams all double backed and checked every hall they found, ensuring the place was mapped and cleared thoroughly. The rooms where the sires slept were found, though none were in any of them. They also found a single computer terminal however it didn't contain anything beyond basic maintenance records of the complex. John sighed and relaxed as he realized they got the place cleared without any injuries, even minor ones. Hawk looked at John with a haunted expression, it was the first time that John really saw the guy show something he was feeling so blatantly.
"Please tell me you didn't go double check the hall with the carriers in them," John practically begged Nakamura to deny it.
However, his own grim expression told John that they had, "Hawk wanted to confirm what you found… I think he didn't want to believe…"
"None of us wanted to believe that they would be in a vegetative state," John growled out. "They're dead shells. There's nothing that can be done about that."
He then radioed the gate group who confirmed that there had been no activity around the gate at all. The scouts were next and within minutes, John was getting confirmation from the Phoenix and the Terra were in orbit. Once the ships reported that they had beamed up all life-signs surrounding the beacons, John had the groups make another search of the complex the ensure that no one was left behind. They also used this time to retrieve the requested enzyme pouches for Keller.
While they did that, the ships scanned the planet surface and beamed all non-Lantean life-signs remaining into holding cells on the ships. The Worshippers would be given the option of returning to the planet, with its non-existent DHD, they could be returned to their homeworld if they had one, or if not, they could be given their own unoccupied world.
John suspected that there would be a mixture of responses given when the ships reported that the planet surface was clear and that they had beamed over a thousand humans into the holding cells. He doubted any or many of them would want to come back here though They had caught another two Wraith sires that John suspected had likely been enforcing the sires' control over the worshippers. John ordered his team and the scouts to move out. He couldn't help the hollow anger at the shear emptiness he had found in the carriers' minds.
By the time they were back through the gate and getting off the Jumper's, John knew that most of the city had been aware of the mission's success, though John could hardly count it as such. He also realized that Todd had, of course, noticed John's anger and horror from the mission. His mate, husband, and love was waited in the Jumper bay. John threw any sense of caring about PDA to the wind and gave into his first instinct of hugging and then kissing Todd hard. In any other kind of situation, his behavior would have earned him wolf-whistles and jokes from the team.
When John pulled out of the kiss, he explained his anguish mentally, 'I get what you mean by carriers being unable to survive without their sires now. Their bodies… they were still breathing… but they were just shells…'
Todd's response was a wave of absolute understanding. John couldn't guess how many Wraith carriers Todd had watched degrade in such a manner before putting them out of their misery. He suspected he didn't make them endure the loss of themselves for long though. Todd was honestly too compassionate for that. Todd clung tight to John before he sent his mental query, 'How many?'
'Twenty-six dead carriers, eighty-one kids, twenty-nine of them were carriers,' John answered. He couldn't think of the empty shells as anything other than dead now. Yes, they would likely keep the bodies alive, if they could, until the babies inside them were to term or far enough along to deliver, but there was nothing that could be done for the carriers.
John went with everyone else for their post mission check-up, for a team that had a mission run almost too smoothing, they all wore grim expressions. John noticed that Keller, Beckett, and Lam weren't present, leaving the check-ups to the general doctors and nurses. Of course, that made sense given that they would want to first examine the carriers and then the children. John felt Todd following behind him, a silent wall of emotional support after his check-up to find Keller and her team of medical personnel.
He found them in the room they had set up to be a medical ward specifically for the carriers rescued from the colonies. Keller looked startled as she took in John's forced blank face. He spoke almost immediately, "They're dead. Yeah, the bodies are technically still alive, but they're brain dead. There's nothing there. If you can manage to transition them and keep them alive until the babies are born, I think that's all that is possible with this group. Once that's over, you have to cut life-support Jenn."
She looked positively horrified by the suggestion, "I have a drug, one synthesized from the research I did into the changes in chemistry brought on by the bond. You know it's effects. It can help them."
"If they had just lost their mate a few days or even weeks ago, yeah, I'm sure your drug would work wonders to help them… but Jenn… there's nothing left in these guys. I checked, Teyla checked, Hawk checked. They are barely alive as it is. I don't even… I know you want to test the drug on them to see if it will help, but I don't want you to think it doesn't work when its being used on shells that are functionally dead and it doesn't work for them," John knew his own horror and anguish was clear on his face now.
"You really don't think there's any hope for them?" Beckett asked softly.
John shook his head, "If I thought there was a sliver of a chance to help them, I wouldn't be telling you this. They're already dead. Focus on saving the babies. If the baby is close enough to term, deliver them now, before attempting to transition them. If it isn't, transition and hope the carrier survives, but I don't… they're bodies are already failing. Just save the babies if you can. It's the best you can do for them now."
Lam looked torn at the idea of having to choose to do such a thing. Jenn instead ordered one of the nurses to get her a portable scanner. John and Todd watched as the three doctors scanned all the dead carriers, horror becoming written on their faces the longer they examined them. John knew that the results were unlikely to be pretty. Keller ordered John and Todd to leave once the scans were done. John suspected that the people working in this ward weren't going to be sleeping tonight.
John called over the comms for all team members to report for a debrief. Jack was waiting in the war room when John got there and didn't comment on Todd's presence. Together they watched as the team arrived. John could see the haunted expressions on there faces as the two commanders of the ships arrived, Lt. Col Henri Bisset, the younger brother of the late Col. Bisset and the only person on his list, as the commander of the Terra, and Lt. Col. Huang Wu, as the new commander of the Phoenix, had done an excellent job of getting the jobs they were assigned finished swiftly and efficiently.
They looked as grim as everyone else present. Jack looked to John to start the meeting, "First off, I'm starting on the most important topic, I'm ordering everyone present here to have three sessions with a Nox therapist. If you fail to comply with this order, you will not be put back on active duty until the Nox say that you have attended those sessions and are cleared for active duty. After that, if the Nox recommend further sessions, I expect you to attend them. None of this bottling it up crap. Internalizing what we saw today is a bad idea. Yes, we all made it through the mission unscathed, but that place makes haunted houses look like happy, pleasant places to live."
There wasn't so much as a murmur of protest at the order, so John knew that everyone present had realized how much this was going to get to them if they didn't talk about it with the Nox therapists. It would likely still haunt them even after they had. The nice thing about the therapists was they were the Fort Nox of maintaining patient confidentiality, unless the patient was a threat to themselves or others, and thus virtually everyone in the city had come to rely on them for their emotional needs.
After giving that order, John went on to have everyone start listing numbers of the Wraith sires killed, Worshippers captured, kids rescued, and so forth. Bisset and Wu reported that the Worshippers taken from the planet were a mixture of terrified and absolutely relieved. Relieved to have been rescued by the Lanteans from their perpetual horror, but also terrified to learn that some Wraith had become Wraithkin and were now working with humans, therefore they weren't certain they could truly trust them.
John shrugged, it wasn't as if there was much that could be done about their fears until the people got back to their homes or found that they could live peacefully on a new world. John still doubted anyone would want to go back to the one they were rescued from. There was also the information that some of the Worshippers were, in fact, addicted to the enzyme. This made some sense to John, given that the sires would hardly allow uncertain or untrusted slaves handle the babies and young when those were their most valuable trading commodity.
When the numbers were all totaled, in addition to the twenty-six brain-dead carriers, there were 81 kids, 1,034 worshippers, 19 of which were addicted to the enzyme, 35 now dead sires, and the two living ones. John wasn't going to concern himself too much with the two living ones. That would be up to Jack to handle and John made that clear. He seriously doubted that the two sires were just going to turn over a new leaf, accept the retrovirus, and live peacefully with everyone. Once the debrief was done, John ordered the group leaders to have a report of their part of the mission by day's end the next day.
Once they left, Jack told John that he would have to have the therapy sessions too. John glared at Jack for that, "You really think I wasn't going to talk with a Nox therapist? I can't afford not to. My husband is pregnant and I'm not going to put undue emotional stress on him through the bond by failing to get what I saw off my chest. However, I'm going to do that tomorrow. Tonight, I'm going to snuggle with my husband and thank every fucking lucky star in the sky that that wasn't his fate."
With that, John left, he knew that Todd was following him back to their suite. Once they were there, Todd got John to sit down on the couch present, and the moment Todd was sitting next to him, John's head was in his lap, nuzzling the baby bump. Todd didn't comment as he felt John's emotions slowly settle a bit even though John was basically swamping Todd with his sense of love and affection for him and the baby.
AN: Yes, I know this chapter is super depressing and a bit dark. I always intended for it to be that way. Sorry if I upset anyone. The next chapter will be much more upbeat, well once you get past the first part. Yes, the carriers were essentially drugged and raped.