Central Command Center
Terra Atlantus
Antarctica
John was just finishing his cup of what felt like the best coffee in the world after spending 12 days cooped up healing inside a stasis pod, according to the cute nurse who got him breakfast. He was only allowed a bowl of warm oatmeal and a glass of juice, but he managed to charm Natalie enough to take pity on him and smuggle him a coffee. He was sworn to secrecy on the pain of death. John had taken the oath solemnly.
The wave of urgency came from nowhere and everywhere at once and he was off the infirmary bed and running towards the centre of the building before it even registered he was moving. A startled nurse yelped and jumped out of his way and he hastily threw an apology over the shoulder, but didn't break stride.
He barreled into the control room with the Chair, without really realizing the mounting dread and chaos in the atmosphere. Nobody even noticed the scrubs clad Major until he was right in front of the Chair and focused on the petrified doctor who was clutching onto the Chair for his dear life. The people around Carson were shouting at him urgently to shut it the hell down.
"Get off the Chair. Now Doctor!" The barked command brokered no argument and Carson flew off the chair as if he was thrown off by an invisible force.
John was seated on it the moment doctor came off. The Chair brightened and inclined all the way like it had never done before since it was discovered. The whole platform was bathed in a shimmering blue as the space above their heads was transformed into a translucent holographic display of the immediate vicinity outside the facility.
John had his eyes closed in concentration. In his mind's eye, he saw the scene of the impending doom of one General Jack O'Neill and his pilot inside the approaching Black Hawk. He stared in amazement at the amount of clear and precise details he was provided through his link to the Chair that housed the control core of the facility. The identities of the life signs, the flying object, speed, height, wind conditions, temperatures and all sorts of other minute data streamed into his mind, all neatly labeled. The warmth he had gotten very much familiar with during his days in the pod was insistent and apologetic in the back of his mind. John spared a second to send reassurance that it was not its fault and John was going to take care of it.
He focused on the squid-like missile that was on its way to annihilate the oncoming intruder. The missile was confident in the live lock it had on the intruder and was cheerfully informing Sheppard that the kill will be confirmed in 6.342 seconds.
John thanked the missile for its bravery and told it sternly to stand down now because this was not an intruder; but most certainly the leader of the Outpost. Therefore they needed to keep him alive and grant him unhindered entry.
The squid missile was skeptical. John was the princeps/primaria (leader/ primary), not the life sign inside the incoming flying object; the missile was quite sure.Ok! John spent another half a precious second to digest that bit of news and went back to his mental link to the missile. He confirmed that yes he was sure and the little missile must ABORT and RETURN TO BASE right now. No, it was not in trouble for anything and yes, John promised it would be sent out first the next time any invader showed up because it was a perfect little missile with top notch performance.
He let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding when he felt the squid missile change course in an elegant, sweeping turn mid air, barely 10 yards from the chopper, and started a sedate run back towards the Outpost. He kept his mental link, sending praise and encouragement towards the little ball of destruction as he guided it back inside the building through the roof door and to the cradle on the platform. Then he gently laid it down as if it were a sleeping baby.
He disengaged from the Chair the moment he felt the missile go dormant and reclined it to a sitting position. He had been reacting on reflex until that point and as the surrounding glow and the last of the shimmering lights were fading away, he became aware that he had made a bit of a spectacle of himself.
Dr. Carson, Dr. Rodney the Hurricane and five other doctors and a few shell shocked Marines were all staring at him with their mouths half open and eyes bugging out their sockets. He gave them all a sweeping glance from left to right and broke into an abashed lopsided grin.
"The chopper is fine, it didn't crash or anything- The General should be here in about 6 minutes or so. And the missile won't take off again by accident if you want to keep studying it. I made sure of it," he reported to Dr. Carson because he was the only person he had spoken to before. He hoped that the Marines who were still staring at him in shock wouldn't come to their senses and arrest him for trespassing or something.
Dr. Hurricane managed to break away first from his astonishment and started grinning from ear to ear in a disturbing way.
"Of course! This is why it went through all those tantrums to get you here. That was quite good. You think maybe you made a record of it so I can study it frame by frame? Later of course, maybe as a side project." He gushed at John.
"See now I can start on these re-calibrations and run the diagnostics on the side at the same time. Oh yes, maybe get the crazy Czech to upload his maintenance wish list as well." He started clicking his fingers to himself and started to type at light speed on one of his laptops, muttering about the Lists and Schedules.
Carson recovered quickly upon hearing this and came instantly to his patient's defense once again. "Absolutely not, you daft bugger, the lad is still not released for duty and I need to keep him under observation for at least 12 more hours in the infirmary."
"Aye you look a bit pale already lad." The last comment was directed at John and if he was honest, John could feel a slight pressure build up behind his eyes and temples already.
He stood from the Chair and Carson moved to help him on reflex. That was a good thing because John swayed slightly on his feet and the doctor steadied him.
"Hello, Major Sheppard, I'm Dr. Elizabeth Weir. I'm the head of admin here and I would love to speak to you when Carson allows you visitors." John carefully shook the offered hand of the beaming and replied an affirmative politely.
And then he let himself be herded away by Carson, to the relative safety of the infirmary. where John could hide away from the gleaming eyes and beaming smiles that were pointed at him from everywhere.
He heard one of the Marines finally letting out a loud relieved sigh and announcing that he was going to update McMurdo about the timely averted disaster, before walking away towards a phone mounted on a wall.
Defense Outpost
Antarctica
General O'Neill found himself inside the elevator, slowly grinding downhill to the central command of the Ancient Outpost not quite dead, as yet. He had left his shaken pilot above ground to collect himself and regroup. O'Neill hoped one of the soldiers above would give him a proper meal and may be some Valium. There were a few times that O'Neill had been concerned the kid might just finish the job the alien missile started; by the wobbly way he piloted the bird the rest of the journey. He was going to have to get someone else to chauffeur him back, he sighed to himself.
The elevator door opened down below to reveal the ecstatic and excited frame of Dr. Daniel Jackson. He was beaming from ear to ear and grabbed the General by the shoulder and propelled him along towards the inner building when the General did not move fast enough for him.
"Oh Jack, That was just brilliant! We got this bright and live holo-display on the ceiling and we saw everything! I mean everything with sound effects to boot! It even had your weight and the pulse rate on display -it was crazy- One moment this bad boy was zooming in on you to blow you up and then it just turns around, cool as you please and just comes strolling back in! You just had to see it Jack. I think McKay was asking for a recording, so you might just get to see it!"
"Gee Daniel, I'm so glad my imminent death was such a source of entertainment for you." Said the General mildly.
"Oh no. I mean, no it wasn't. Of course not." Jackson fidgeted, pushed his glasses up his nose briefly and looked appropriately contrite for about a half a second.
"But Jack, you didn't die and the Major saved you just in time! You know what this means, right? Think of the treasure trove of data he can dig up for us! Finally we can make some meaningful headway in locating Atlantis!" And he was back to bright-eyed bushy-tailed Fan-Girling excitement.
"We will let the man recover and talk to him first before we go hard wiring his ass to an Ancient thing-a-ma-jig, eh Jackson?" He patted the overly excited scientist on the shoulder and continued sedately towards the people who were waiting to give him a proper report. He hoped.
He went around the central command and continued his way towards the bigger and open area they had converted to a conference room. As predicted, , Dr. McKay, Lt. Ford and Sergeant Marks were waiting for him. Jackson went around O'Neill to join the expectant and beaming faces and turned towards him, completing the united front.
This should be good, Jack O'Neill mused privately.
"Welcome to Terra Atlantus General O'Neill-I would ask how your journey here was, but we all know that it was eventful. It was a genuine accident and we managed to avert the disaster in time thanks to our newest addition, Major Sheppard. I do apologize on behalf of the team for the scare, General."
Ever the diplomat, Weir didn't waste time extending her warm and happy welcome, heartfelt apology and the main objective of this little meeting all in one breath, punctuated with a warm toothy smile.
He nodded at her but turned his attention to the young Lieutenant who was holding himself at painfully rigid attention.
"Please unlock yourself from that painful stance and tell me what happened, Ford?" He waved a hand at the Marine and took the seat at the head of the long table, signaling everybody to sit and get on with it.
The Lieutenant went to a parade rest and relaxed marginally.
"Sir, the Drs McKay and Beckett were attempting a system check with the Chair and the Drs. Gordon and Sommers were occupied with the inert missile. Then the missile went online and took off through the roof. According to Dr. McKay, this was probably due to poor or confusing mental link generation. Then the Major intervened and managed to recall the bogey back to base and store it. He informed us that it was safe from any unscheduled flights again. Sir." He sat down ramrod straight, once finished with the succinct account.
"Yes, yes, I have told him many times to concentrate properly. But seeing as he was the only one who could make the thing work, I had to get him on it. Those power readings were all over the place and I had to make sure we didn't blow up or implode. If he had just given me the Major instead of himself, I'm sure we wouldn't have launched a live missile at you-" added McKay impatiently.
"-Accidentally." He remembered to tag in.
"Are they stable now? Are we about to explode or implode?" At McKay's confused look O'Neil sighed to himself.
"The power readings you were just now worried about Doc? It is still wonky or stable?" He asked with great patience.
"What? Wonky? Of course they are stable now. In fact, the power levels throughout the whole structure have leveled out and distributed for maximum efficiency."
"Huh, I wonder if he did it on purpose or if the system just did it by itself after recognizing his presence." The doctor muttered the last to himself; promptly getting busy on the laptop he had in front of him.
Concentrating only on the fact that they were not about to go boom in the near future for the moment, Jack turned his attention towards the head of admin.
"So tell me , how goes the life here?" He settled comfortably into the chair, draping his arm over the back rest. By experience, he knew this would take time. The Sergeant placed a steaming mug of coffee in front of him and he gave the man a smile. There are still some kind and humane people around here Jack, he told himself.
"Oh everything has been wonderful of course. The excavation team's last report stated with confidence that we will be finished with the final bit of discovery of the complex by the end of the week. We shall be able to send a team for exploration to that area soon. They are saying that they may have unearthed a lab area and what looks to be a closed up storage area of some kind. The exploration team is quite excited that it could be more drones or maybe even the gate ships the data-base mentioned."
"Doctor Beckett and his team are ready to proceed with the animal trials for the artificial gene therapy. He is confident that his serum will manipulate the junk DNA in a human into a maximum level IV ATA capability. This will work on about 75% of non ATA gene population according to his latest report. Once we are through the trials and upon a peer committee approval, we could move to the clinical trials and then start the distribution among the SGC personnel-" Weir said before pausing for breath and taking a sip of her tea.
Just as well, because O'Neill was beginning to wonder if she was hiding an extra pair of lungs on her somewhere.
"Also, the translation of the initial data transfer we got from the Ancient depository is going well. We have had two more data transfers from engaging the Chair since then. We are getting all kinds of information about the Outpost, its capabilities, hints of other possible structures located around the galaxy even. But the translation is slow going since we only have three people who are proficient in the Ancient language, but it all looks quite promising."
She gave the General a winning smile before continuing.
"This is exactly why the Major will be invaluable right now. He will be able to sort the whole database into a coherent entity with an accessible index for us to study it efficiently. Not to mention all the help he can provide with the hard science projects around all Ancient equipment and of course the offense and defense capabilities of Terra Atlantus itself."
She finished her spiel without failing to enforce that they already had their greedy mitts wrapped tightly around poor Sheppard.
Not that Jack objected. He didn't. He could appreciate the value of having a close copy of an Ancient to run all things Ancient. He was quite sure the Ancient Outpost did not go through all the trouble of almost taking the entire nation hostage and demanding the life sign designated 'P1' be found and delivered to Antarctica, post-goddamn-haste, just to give him up. No, they needed him alright.
He had seen the kid's military jacket and was suitably impressed. The kid could pilot all the choppers on active service and a couple of fighters and even some of the heavy birds. He did have the odd remark or two made by his more sedate COs (read: desk jockeys) about following orders and maverick tendencies. But this was on a par with black ops requirements and they needed intelligent, quick thinking, cocky pilots who treated orders a bit like guidelines sometimes to get the job done. O'Neill would know, because he was not that different from this kid not too long ago. That was until someone at the head of the food chain decided to give him stars on the shoulder in the vain hope that it would make him more of a level-headed, responsible drone person.
Therefore he was convinced that this kid needed a proper and thorough orientation into the world of Stargate Command. This included the trip to Cheyenne mountain; the home of Stargate Command. The kid would get the full briefing of the program including its history, introduction to the planet-hopping through the gate, a thorough education on all things Ancient, the menace of the Wraith and a proper introduction and integration to the military contingent of the SGC.
And since he was the reason Jack wasn't dead and buried under burning wreckage, he would also get the kid into Area 51 where they designed their coolest toys to date. Time spent among the F-302 fighter interceptors and even cooler Ancient/Asgard hybrid X-13 fighters would do him good. Jack would also throw in the mandatory tours in their five active duty warships in orbit, as the cherry on top.
It had obviously nothing to do with the fact that Jack might be able to coax the kid into flying him back to McMurdo on the way back and continue the journey to the mountain with him in the luxury of the SGC private jet. Of course not; Jack was quite sure the Richardson kid was quite capable of flying him back. Maybe…
All this and more would take time. Jack was determined to get the kid through due process before this lot buried him here under the ice in the name of research, never to be seen again. Jack knew from experience that the scientists of all kinds generally lost touch with reality when they got their way. They all needed careful handling and management. And Jack was not about to release John Sheppard in-to their well-meaning yet disastrous clutches without proper training on geek-handling as well. This was the main reason he made this unscheduled visit in the first place. When he had seen the latest update the day before that the Major was out of the pod, he had made arrangements to be here when he woke up.
"I have been digging through the archives on all things Atlantis Jack - I think I'm quite close to figuring out the last recorded gate address to where the Ancients took off to. I have a feeling it might be in a different galaxy- Andromeda or probably Pegasus. And we will be another step closer to the Lost City. We'll need to focus on acquiring a ZPM because I think we might need extra power to dial this one. I just need to decode the final bit of the chevrons and we will be good to go." Jackson added his two cents to the cause.
Dr. McKay piped up when he heard the magic word.
"A Zero Point Module, often abbreviated Zed Pee Em, or for you Americans Zee Pee Em, is a power source, created by the Ancients, capable of supplying tremendous amounts of energy. It is one of the most formidable power sources known to exist, having been developed by the Ancients of course, kind of like a miniature universe in a bottle-oh, we could really use one more of those."
"-Why, thank you for the waste of that perfect explanation McKay," O'Neill sniped at the unhealthy excitement pouring out of the chief of science. He then looked around and added-
"Well, since everything seems to be more or less on track and in all of your capable hands, I would like to meet Sheppard now."
With that he rose swiftly from his chair and exited the conference room without giving anyone the chance to regroup and start making demands. When Daniel and Weir started to follow, he gently but firmly informed them he wanted to see the Major by himself.
He found the kid sitting cross legged on a bed at the far end of the infirmary, hunched over a PDA Carson had kindly given him. It dawned on him then, seeing the still white scrubs-clad figure, that it wasn't that long ago Marshall found him half dead in a cell in Afghanistan. The stasis pod had done a good job, he thought to himself.
Carson was hovering nearby over the medical paraphernalia surrounding Sheppard. When the Major saw the one star general ambling towards him, he automatically started to stiffen up to attention. O'Neill casually waved a hand at him to stay put and went to sit comfortably on the bed next to Sheppard. His ass was numb from having to sit on that metal chair at the conference room for a half an hour.
"So, you're the hot shot who saved my ass just now, hah? Thanks for that. So how's it going? You are feeling alright after your little stay in the pod?"
John Sheppard was eyeing him warily. He was sure he was the first superior officer the kid had to report to, who was sitting on a bed nearby dangling his legs over the edge with no apparent concern in the world. Well, he was secure in his position enough he didn't have to play power games with a subordinate. Besides, proper military procedures sometimes gave him heart-burn. He preferred to avoid them both when he could.
"Carson tells me I'm quite well healed physically. Thank you, Sir. And he says that I'll need to go for a psych evaluation before he can release me for active duty. I'm not quite sure where to go from there, Sir?"
The kid managed to end the statement in a question and gave him an expectant stare.
"You're in luck because that is why I am here. Well, that and to make sure people here are behaving themselves in general."
Expectant stare turned into a slightly bewildered expression.
"If you are up to it, I will take you back with me to civilization to get you up to date in the know-how of things and what you have tangled yourself up in. Also you can tell us what happened to you back in Afghanistan, before we found you. You know-a proper debrief and such. We can take care of your psych evals there and whatever follow-ups Carson will insist on. I'll be here overnight and be leaving at noon tomorrow. So what do you say?"
The kid agreed politely because O'Neill wasn't really asking. Dr. Beckett gave his grudging consent to release him after extracting promises of getting Sheppard a full medical evaluation the moment they reached the mountain. The doctor also had some budding aspirations about getting Sheppard wrangled in his gene therapy research. Jack took an inordinate amount of pleasure squishing those at the neck. While he was sure that the good doctor would never cross any lines into human experimentation, he always felt that Carson could be quite intense when it came to his gene therapy research.
Feeling quite satisfied about the good deed he had done for the day, namely rescuing Sheppard, he left the infirmary in search of food. Near death experiences always left him starving and he needed ample sustenance before he had to break the news to the natives that he was taking their prize away for a while...