AN: Thanks everyone for the encouraging reviews!

Chapter 2

John nodded tightly at Reynolds as the other man left. Still mulling over the situation, he turned to his team and started rattling out instructions,

"Tamara, I need you and Scott to get to the Security and CCTV bunker at level 16. It's – look you need to make it look like that's not what you're aiming for."

"The secondary armouries are on level 16 and 19…. Sir."

The belated sir normally wouldn't make John pause, but in this situation not following orders was liable to get people killed. And it wasn't just the green members of his trainee team that he was concerned about. Scott had picked a hell of a moment to gain an attitude,

"Yes Scott, I know. Everyone here is a friend or colleague, we don't want to kill either our friends or our colleagues, do we?" Sheppard peered at the kid meaningfully, Scott quickly looked away, his ears flushing pink. Satisfied, John continued, "Since we already had them, stick with the Intars. They fire non-lethal incapacitating shots which is what we want."

James rolled her eyes. Ah, he'd been expecting that from her at least,

"James. What do we want?"

"Non-lethal incapacitating shots sir!"

"Good. I'm glad we're all on the same page."

John couldn't help the sarcastic tone that slipped into his voice, he could see TJ hiding a grin. At least she understood,

"Now there's an access shaft that lets you get around every level of the SGC in the hall – it's behind the hatch marked Silo CMC987. Scott, Johansen I want you to go to the security bunker. Double time it, for all that it gives you easy access to every level, it also provides whatever we're up against the same advantage - it's effectively one long vertical shooting range. Level 16 is only two levels up, so I think it's worth the risk."

James exchanged another look with TJ. John took a moment to let a wave of pure exhaustion wash over him, he wished he'd gotten more than two hours of sleep last night. John continued in a more emphatic tone,

"Look, I need you two to make your way up to the security office so we can get a good idea of what we're up against. Tamara, I want you to trigger the secondary lockdown protocol that can be set-off from that location." John met both Johansen's and James' eyes, "If necessary, you may have to leave us down there. Tamara I'll trust your judgement call on this one. Here are my command codes."

Sheppard leant over and rattled off the string of letters in the Nato phonetic alphabet under his breath for TJ's ears only. Johansen levelly met his gaze, she at least seemed to grasp the severity of what they might be dealing with,

"Got that?"

"Yes sir."

Sheppard made her repeat it back to him before he was satisfied.

"Good. Now, switch to channel 76c."

With quizzical expressions his team all did so, John took a moment to be grateful that he was a paranoid bastard; he'd habitually packed his tac vest full of Rodney's hub capable radios. Twiddling the relevant knob on his own altered gear, he took the time to explain,

"That's the encrypted Lantean command channel. With any luck whoever's in charge down there won't know to look for it. But maintain radio discipline. Scheduled check-in in fifteen."

Scott looked naively confused,

"Sir?"

Sheppard hoped to god his impatience wasn't showing, it wouldn't help anyone,

"Yes Scott?"

"What will you and James be doing?"

"Going to see what there is to see Lieutenant, just like you."

"But sir!"

"No buts LT, there's blind spots down there. The cameras won't show us everything."

"Then we should back you up!"

"You will be, from the security bunker. Where you and" John deliberately used the nickname as he nodded towards her, "TJ will gain control of the base from a position of safety."

"But!"

"No buts Lieutenant. If anything happens, we'll need you two to make sure it goes no further."

John met James' gaze again, her face was grimly blank, yeah, she knew the stakes alright.

Whilst half of his team used the access hatch to go up, Sheppard and James went down. Down to level 19, and the armoury. Despite what he'd pointedly said to the greener members of his team Sheppard wanted to pick up a few things.

Glad of the Intars they'd all been carrying in preparation for more exercises on the Alpha Site, Sheppard made quick work of the two SFs who'd been guarding the corridor. Checking that they were otherwise healthy, Sheppard took a moment to be grateful that he was fully geared up - in his Pegasus kit too. He quickly bound the pair with plastic cuffs, and with James' help shoved them into a supply closet before unlocking the armoury.

"Sir? I thought we were sticking with non-lethal means?"

John met her questioning gaze; it was a fair question.

"Yes James, we are." Shep gestured towards the shadowy shelves, "There's a few more non-lethal items in there, that I don't make a habit of carrying on my person."

Explanation dealt with; John quickly looked around until he found what he was searching for. He grabbed a handful of Wraith stunners, and a few more choice items from Pegasus, before locking the armoury. John was surprised his access code still held - he'd half expected Landry to revoke it the moment this training thing became official. Still, it meant he'd been right to send TJ up to initiate the lockdown. The other two would be more than just safe up there, they'd be genuinely useful.

"Here, take these." Sheppard passed two wraith stunners over to James, and palmed one for himself, stuffing the other items in the numerous pockets in his tac vest and BDUs.

"Sir?"

"Wraith stunner." John's explanation was short and to the point, "Even set on maximum, the Intars don't pack that much of a punch. If you're not used to it Wraith tech can put you down for hours. We might need those hours Lieutenant."

James' response was grim and understanding,

"Yessir."

They made their way back to the service hatch, and promptly got caught up in a firefight with five SGC personnel. James more than held her own - she took out three of them with her Intar even as John was forced to duck back to the cover of a particularly lumpy section of piping. John sniped at the final airman in their way from his position, and grimaced as he realised just how many sets of restraints he was making his way through. They moved the soldiers to a room where they'd be unlikely to get trampled and moved on. John nodded at James when she signalled that they should keep moving. It seemed the explanation for James' slightly subpar performance during exercises was one John could sympathise with, the situation needed the frisson that came with a real fight for his 2nd lieutenant to take it seriously. Suddenly after a month of working side by side with her, there was a competent AFSOC officer staring back at him.

John grimaced and handed over a pair of Wraith stun grenades, whilst he didn't want to expose these kids to the realities of combat sooner than he had to, a guilty part of him was glad that they would see what life at the SGC could be like before they'd committed themselves life and soul to making a living going off world. Guarding the access panel John observed as James carefully made her way down to the floor below.

TJ followed on Scott's six, they'd taken care to make it look like they were on their way to the armoury and had deliberately taken the long route around to make any observers think they'd just gotten lost. It was disturbing shooting at people wearing the same uniform they were, even with the Intars. TJ wasn't very good at it either which didn't help, but the Intars didn't require accuracy, a glancing shot was enough.

She ducked back around the corner as Lt Scott took down the soldiers in the corridor ahead of them. In about thirty seconds they'd be at the secondary security bunker - hopefully in charge of the whole base. That's if the codes Colonel Sheppard had given them were valid as he'd claimed they were.

The door to the bunker ponderously slid open. The bulkhead looked like a junction box. Tamara wouldn't have known it was there if Sheppard hadn't told them. It certainly hadn't been in the base layout they'd been told to memorise.

TJ crossed the threshold, keeping an eye on the corridor.

The first thing that clued her in that there might be something wrong was the silence. TJ risked turning to see what the problem was, using the movement to sweep a long curl of blonde hair that had gotten loose out of her eyes. She was completely stunned when she spotted General O'Neill, General Landry, Colonel Mitchell, Vala Mal Doran, and General Kerrigan - the man who'd first briefed her about the programme.

"What the hell is going on here?" Scott was angry, at a quelling look from Landry he blanched and quickly added, "Uh, sirs?"

TJ hovered in the hatchway. From her position awkwardly guarding the door she watched as General O'Neill turned an ironic look on General Landry,

"Hank, I told you this was a terrible idea. We should have just had a cook off."

Kerrigan, the only face TJ was personally familiar with shot O'Neill a look of fond amusement. TJ found the cognitive dissonance of that mildly disturbing, even as her subconscious chewed over what was going on and spat out an answer that she didn't much like. There was training, and then there was being played for a fool.

The SF manning the security station let out an exclamation. As one, everyone in the room turned to watch the monitor screens in a sort of passive horror, as several cameras briefly whited out. TJ gave into the inevitable and stepped through the metres-thick doorway into the bunker. She watched in frightened awe; when the picture came back Sheppard and James were working their way through what had previously been a crowded set of labs. Scientists and soldiers were scattered all over the floor, lying like broken dolls throughout the level. Sheppard was tying up everyone with plastic handcuffs systematically as James kept watch. Tamara thought she recognised something in Sheppard's movements that spoke of the same Special Forces training that she knew Lt James was so proud of, but she didn't want to voice the opinion in the stunned silence. A silence that deepened as the two figures on the screen started efficiently mowing down more SGC military staff when they got to a corridor. Jack started to slow clap,

"Well done Hank. Excellent work."

Sheppard pocketed the Wraith stun grenade, regretting the necessity of using the tech, but when it was impossible to separate friend from foe… Well the thoroughly non-lethal tech that Wraith preferred, in order to keep their food fresh, was more efficient, and much less likely to do harm than anything Shep knew of in the Milky Way.

Sheppard navigated his way towards the surveillance room, he wanted a sitrep on the situation down below before blindly charging in. Besides, if he remembered correctly the surveillance room held the emergency cache for level 20. Sheppard knew there were caches hidden around the base, he just couldn't remember what was supposed to be in each of them. He hoped his guess about the contents of this one was accurate.

Casually ducking down to avoid a volley of bullets Sheppard stunned the soldiers guarding the corridor and answered his LT's unvoiced question,

"James when we get in there grab anything that's marked RG003. Let's see what we've got."

"Sir?"

"The SGC got a bulk order of crowd control gear in, just in case they had another mind control incident."

"Does that sort of thing happen a lot around here?"

John grimaced and skirted around the question, he'd leave that one for the SGC guys to field,

"Never hurts to be prepared Vanessa."

They were gradually making their way towards the secondary surveillance room, the corridors here were tight enough that the stun grenades were a no go – they'd only take themselves out. The soldiers around the area were putting up quite the resistance, as if they knew what Sheppard was targeting. Even with the Wraith stunners speeding things up, progress was painfully slow going. John stunned the latest airman who'd been unfortunate enough to walk into their path. The guy went down like a sack of logs. John checked he was okay, tied him up, and moved on.

In the back of his mind Sheppard was painfully aware that he'd be getting an earful from Landry about this, but, well, all the personnel were knocked out with tech that had been proven time and again to be safe. Wraith really did like their food fresh. Besides, it a was sound tactical decision, this way there'd be no one to sneak up behind them, and hopefully with Tamara under orders to put everything into lockdown, no way for the enemy to get to everyone above the mountain either.

John looked up at James and realised she was now textbook perfect in her duties. She had his six alright. Feeling proud of his team's progress Shep checked in with TJ, TJ even a month into training with her every day he still wasn't quite able to bring himself to call her by that nickname without hesitating - that was Torren's name, much as the kid was still in San Francisco. John was getting worried, the other team weren't late for their check in yet, but… That sixth sense that all old soldiers developed was prickling. There was something else going on here.

Precisely on the time the radio crackled,

"Colonel Sheppard?"

John recognised the voice but exercised caution, "Tamara, how's things going?" Inserting a phrase he'd had them all practice during his time in charge, John added their pre-agreed 'are you under duress?' code. She responded in the negative, skilfully disguising it as medic to commander chatter. He liked her. Feeling like a class traitor Shep used the dreaded nickname,

"TJ sitrep."

"We're monitoring your progress from the security bunker sir. Using your codes we've gotten the base into lockdown."

"Yeah, I heard the alarms, excellent work Lieutenant."

"…Thank you, sir."

Johansen still sounded slightly off to John's ears, John hoped she'd get the message he was trying to convey. He repeated another of their 'are you under duress?' codes, again she replied in the negative.

"TJ – how's the situation up top going? Update on the foothold and Mitchell? You're our eyes and ears."

He exchanged a serious look with James, even as they finally got to the surveillance room and Sheppard's code got them inside. John didn't sigh to himself, but it was a close thing, there was something off about TJ's responses he knew it. But right now, he couldn't afford to think about it, he stunned the handful of SFs in the foyer of the monitoring station with his Wraith stunner, made sure James was still holding her own, and headed for the inner hatch. Using hand signals, they crept their way into to the surveillance room proper. John was going to check out the monitors for himself; he wasn't entirely convinced he trusted Tamara's assessment of the situation on level 28.

Mitchell, supposedly holed up in Landry's office, with most of the senior staff as hostages in the gate room? Now admittedly he'd seen stranger things in Pegasus. But he'd believe it when he saw it with his own eyes. Sheppard had to admit, as he stunned the last of the guys manning the room, that he was glad he'd spent so many hours, days… weeks… over the years stuck in a puddlejumper with his team, and by extension, McKay. They'd whiled away the time on some of those interminable journeys playing such classic games, as "How would you survive in a zombie apocalypse?" and other such classics as, "How would you take over the SGC?", and "Which IOA representative would you kidnap, assassinate, or employ?" Between Ronon's ruthlessness, Teyla's knowledge of the human psyche, and McKay's encyclopaedic knowledge of the layout of Stargate Command, John felt he had a fair to middling shot of getting out of this alive.

Cameron listened to Lieutenant Johansen hesitantly feed Sheppard false information, turned to Landry, and taking his career in his hands said,

"Sir, I told you this was a bad idea."

He probably wouldn't have worked up the courage to stand up to the brass, but Landry was an alright sort. Besides, O'Neill had said the exact same thing a few minutes before. From the sour expression on his face General O'Neill was on the verge of saying it again, just much less diplomatically. Mitchell was proven right a moment later,

"Oh for cryin' out loud! It's a terrible idea! I said so! Several times!"

"Jack…" Landry growled.

"Hank." Jack replied in a supercilious tone. "I take it you only skimmed the Atlantis expedition reports?"

Landry flushed, Cam tried not to cringe in sympathetic embarrassment,

"What's your point?"

Jack gestured at the monitors, and the tiny figures of Sheppard and James advancing through the base,

"That's John 'I killed sixty Genii in an evening' Sheppard. Mr 'I rode a nuke into a Wraith Hive, blew it up, and survived, twice!' The man, who, if you'd bothered to read his full jacket…" Landry opened his mouth as if to interrupt, O'Neill mowed straight over him, "you'd know that when he was still a Captain, he walked out of a secret enemy base in the Balkans, with all the intel his mission needed after being MIA for three months. He near singlehandedly prevented an escalation to nuclear war. That's despite having been far too close to a 20-kiloton test explosion himself. Sheppard walked several hundred miles to get us that intel, with a broken collarbone, having spent three months as a POW in the care of people to whom the Geneva Convention was a pleasant fairy-tale. When a team was sent in to investigate the situation, they found everyone in the base who could get word out to the other side about the leak dead. Killed with a US-issue ka-bar. Sheppard's ka-bar. Need I continue?"

Landry scowled.

"Besides, his tactics have blown the whole point of this exercise anyway! Half of his damned team now know that it is an exercise. And what about the lockdown? This is a bit more disruptive than asking everyone to stay out of a few corridors Hank."

O'Neill whipped a neon green yoyo out of his pocket and proceeded to play with it as though he didn't have a care in the world. Behind O'Neill, Lt Scott squirmed embarrassedly, like a child watching his parents fight for the first time. Cam hoped like hell that he'd never been that young, though he had a sinking feeling most of the SGC thought he was still that naive.

O'Neill started doing tricks, Cam thought he recognised walk the dog… Scott's eyes all but bugged out of his head. Lt Johansen was faring better; she'd taken the initial confusion in stride and was quietly, if pointedly, following instructions. Cam could see the beginnings of an alarming hero-worship glinting in Scott's expression. Though to be fair, Cam hadn't been aware of that bit of history – Shep had been involved in the Balkans mess? He'd never worn the chest candy for it.

Cam eyed up Shep and James' progress through the SGC on the security monitors, well, what they could see of it. O'Neill didn't seem surprised, though Cam certainly was, but the man seemed to have an uncanny knack for finding blind spots that should not be there. No one had expected Sheppard to send his team to the Security Bunker with his lockdown codes. They really should have known better.

"Well Hank," O'Neill's voice was so sarcastic you could practically feel the ice dripping from it, "What do you want to do now?"

Landry glared as O'Neill nonchalantly started spinning the yoyo like a top from his finger. Vala was looking far too interested in what the senior general was doing for anyone's peace of mind, but Mitchell was trying to ignore that. Cameron wanted to hold his head in his hands and groan. The SGC was currently crippled. Sheppard's command codes had put the base into full lockdown, which meant override codes were required to move between each level, let alone get to the surface. It was an effective tactic, only a handful of people on base had the required rank to do anything about the doors, let alone enter the lockdown override. From what Lt Johansen had nervously stated, Sheppard had told her how to initiate the self-destruct from here too.

The SF manning the security station was fielding complaints from all over the base.

Mitchell had to admit, if only to himself, that he agreed with O'Neill's assessment.

Landry wanted him to go up against that?

As the villain of the piece?

Oh boy… He was not getting paid enough for this crap.

The only sound in the surveillance bunker for the next few minutes was the quiet swish of the yoyo.

O'Neill and Landry were still arguing. Scott couldn't believe that the two generals were fighting like small children. It was alarmingly like watching pre-schoolers fight over who got to play with the finger-paints (Scott should know, his extended family back in Texas had more than enough pre-schoolers spread out amongst his numerous cousins' and aunties' kids), not least because the senior general had started playing with a yoyo of all the darned things.

"Sirs?"

That was Mitchell, Landry scowled,

"Yes Mitchell? Have you got something constructive to add to this oh so enlightening conversation?"

Landry's frustration was blatant from his snappish response, Scott felt embarrassed that he was witnessing this.

"Uh… Nossir, only, well, Sheppard is heading for the security station on level 20."

"Crap." General O'Neill turned to Landry, and gestured at the screen, "This is FUBAR."

"Not yet it isn't. We were prepared for this." Landry looked pleased with himself, he nodded to the SF manning the station, "Turn on the footage."

General O'Neill raised a quizzical eyebrow, Scott still couldn't quite believe how rude the generals were being to each other. Landry's tone was so smug. O'Neill was still doing tricks with that yoyo; he had the puck swinging from a frame formed from out of the string. Landry nodded to the SF who pressed a button,

"We've played out these scenarios often enough that we've got pre-prepared tapes to play the training scenarios on the screens the trainees will have access to."

"Yes trainees Hank. Trainees." General O'Neill gestured angrily at the screen as Lt Colonel Sheppard and 2nd Lieutenant James swiftly knocked out everyone in the corridor leading to the security station, and then just as efficiently, took down everyone inside the room. "Do they look like trainees to you?!"

General Landry seemed to puff up at that, whilst General Kerrigan looked on, amused.

"Oh, to hell with it!" O'Neill abruptly pocketed the yoyo and turned to Mitchell, "Let's get down there and finish the damned training exercise."

Mitchell hesitated, Scott got it, Landry was Mitchell's CO, not O'Neill. Landry nodded,

"Go ahead Colonel. We'd better take the elevator Jack, they're moving quickly."

Landry, Mitchell, Vala and O'Neill filed out. Mitchell was on the radio the whole time, coordinating with other people on base. The whole procession rapidly disappeared, leaving Scott and Lt Johansen alone with a still amused looking General Kerrigan, and the SF; who'd begun to sweat.

Sheppard eyed up the personnel from the security station on level 20. Huh, okay then. Mitchell was currently holed up in Landry's office, and level 28 was indeed a mess. But at least the lockdown procedures were in place. The base was clamped down tight, hopefully that would prevent the brass from blowing a crater the size of a city in the middle of Colorado. He tried to swap between cameras in the office, but the system was being glitchy. Giving that up he swapped to the gate room – the iris was firmly shut. Nothing else would be dialling in to surprise them. His codes had been good for that much at least.

The camera finally cooperated, giving Shep a view of the conference room. There was… something, angular yet disturbingly organic sat in the middle of the large mahogany table. It wasn't any tech that Sheppard recognised, but then again, he knew that didn't mean much – after all, his expertise, such as it was, was in turning on Ancienty stuff, and killing Wraith.

"James, any idea what we're looking at here?"

Lt James squinted at the screen, "Nossir."

"Yeah… Me neither."

He took a moment to regret that his team of trainees didn't contain McKay. Eyeing up the worried, yet eager expression on her face, Sheppard decided then and there that he wasn't going to risk James' life against whatever this was.

John made sure that they raided every hidden locker in the surveillance station. He hit pay dirt with the next crate, it was full to the brim with riot gear, there was tear gas, tasers, body armour. It was the exact sort of general crowd dispersing kit that he'd been hoping to get his hands on at the armoury.

John was picky about what he took from the cache, he was already carrying what many would deem to be an excessive amount of gear. His hard-earned Pegasus instincts didn't allow him to feel anything but naked unless he was carrying something about his person. In this case something happened to consist of the wraith tech he'd picked up at the armoury, a zat, an Intar, and his standard Pegasus kit. Which included several knives, the standard issue 9mm Beretta that he habitually kept in an ankle holster ever since he'd upgraded his main hand weapon to a double-stack magazine, .45 Para-Ordnance P-14 (which sat in a left-hand draw thigh holster, with the Intar in the P-14's usual spot), and a whole load of other miscellaneous objects that didn't look like weaponry but would more than make do in a pinch. (He'd well learnt his lessons there, even though in Pegasus that sort of preparedness didn't always help.)

However, the crowd dispersal measures in this glorified footlocker were the real goldmine. They cautiously started packing up as much of the equipment from the cache as John reckoned, they could carry without it becoming an encumbrance. Sheppard handed over several smoke grenades.

"James, I want you to take out Mitchell." He saw the feral gleam in her eyes and added, "Nonlethal means only LT. Trust me, you don't want to be responsible for killing SG-1's team leader."

James gave him a pleased little smile, clearly happy with the excuse to take down the leader of SG-1. Good. If she was thinking about that she wouldn't be thinking too hard about what he'd have to do. John wasn't sure yet what the plan was, but he knew he'd have to come up with it quickly.

"Okay then, let's move out."

John slid down the access ladder, he halted his progress at level 27, throwing up sparks as the grommets on his boots scraped the metal. Crap, he hoped no one spotted them cos of his haste.

He made it to the designated spot, and James' six. He dropped the wraith stun grenade in her wake, the thing detonated just as she barged her way into Landry's office. Following her progress from his perch on the spiral staircase above her. There was a cry of "Hey!" and a thump, followed by James locking Mitchell into the office, taking the red phone outside with her. She looked up to where she knew Sheppard would be perched and nodded.

They both eyed the device sat plum in the centre of the conference room table.

Feeling petty John shot the thing two times with the zat. Its calibration was for shit, but this close he couldn't miss. He'd been tempted to go straight for that third shot, but they might need the device intact to undo whatever the hell it had done. Gingerly Sheppard hefted it up and tried to work out if it was dead. Nothing seemed to be happening.

As a precaution Sheppard signalled that James should hold her position, and stay the hell away from the creepy doohickey, before using the spiral stairs to drop down to the control room on level 28, which, unlike the conference level didn't have the blast shield down. Through the window that overlooked the gate room from the control level Sheppard saw that contrary to the all-clear from the camera footage Harriman, and bizarrely Sgt Siler were sat in the centre of the gate, blocking the event horizon in such a way that John wasn't sure a connection could even be made. Would a person sat bang in the middle of the central hole prevent a connection forming in the same way burying the gate would? Or would they just get disintegrated like someone standing in the path of an unstable vortex?

James clicked to let John know that she was in position, John clicked back a request for a headcount. She clicked off two hostages and seven hostiles. Crap. That was two more than he'd spotted. He took a steadying breath and jinked around the short gap of corridor to the doorframe, rattling off three shots with the wraith stunner. Three bodies fell to the ground.

That left four.

"Sheppard! Give it up! You'll never shut off the device in time!"

O'Neill!? They had O'Neill.

Why was he even here?!

Was… Was that a cup of tea he was holding?!

Wait, another device?

Crap.

"You'll never win! We'll blow the mountain to kingdom come before letting you take it back!"

There was maniacal laughter.

What the hell.

This was completely illogical.

No forget illogical, they'd bypassed that some time ago and come out the other side into completely fucking batshit insane.

Sheppard had the control room. He could do this.

When he glanced back from doublechecking that the lockdown was holding, Harriman and Siler had joined O'Neill in whatever the hell he was doing. They all had creepy as all hell space spider crabs on their heads, their expressions were unnervingly gleeful all things considered. Somehow the little mug of tea made it all worse. It was so incongruous. Sheppard could see the paper tag from the teabag dangling down over the older man's knuckles.

John dashed back to the control room overlooking the gateroom and tried not to make it too obvious that he was panicking.

From his slightly elevated position he could see O'Neill fiddling with the whatever the hell it was that had been hidden behind the gate, casually leaning over, mug in hand as if he hadn't just declared that it was capable of blowing the whole mountain to itty bitty pieces. It kinda resembled the Omega 13 device, all blue glowy lights and twinkly bits. It hung ominously in mid-air like the creepy Dalek sphere thingy in the most recent Doctor Who finale they'd gotten in Lantis.

How the hell was he going to get all the way back there before O'Neill hit the hostages?

It was pure dumb luck that he hadn't taken umbrage when John had taken out those thralls of his.

Heh. Thralls.

If he weren't quietly freaking out about a foothold situation involving his boss, Shep would be geeking out about Half Life – oh who was he kidding he was geeking out. John was a modern kinda guy, he could multitask.

Oh wait.

That just might work.

Sheppard cautiously entered his command code into the control room console and was pleasantly surprised when both blast doors clanged shut cutting off the gateroom from the rest of the base.

They still worked then.

Why the hell hadn't they worked?

It made no sense. The CCTV footage had shown everything was locked down. For security purposes there was no way to override a lockdown from within the gate room. Mitchell certainly hadn't been screwing around with anything from the way he'd been sat in the office like a fat cat at an all-expenses paid for business retreat.

Making sure to wave his most infuriating wave, with a cheeky little flourish John entered the code that dealt with the iris (again) and watched with satisfaction as it shut just slowly enough that he could see their expressions of astonishment as it was too late to do anything about it.

That just left the Omega 13 thingy. Even though he'd shot the mind control device, and Mitchell was bewilderedly asking "What in the hell is going on?!" through the door of Landry's office, proving that the thing in the conference room had stopped whatever it was doing. John needed to get his people to safety and get to the thing in the gate room.

Sheppard hauled ass back up to the conference room level and started setting things up with Lt James' capable assistance. Sheppard put the plan together from the scraps of Rodney's rants about Carter's dangerous workarounds to compensate for the lack of a DHD, and his grumbling about the inadequacy of the 24-hour quarantine protocol at Midway given the SGC's woeful gate room security. If it were Lantis he'd have five or six solutions that didn't involve dangerously playing chicken with the gate, but this wasn't Lantis. That had been made painfully obvious several dozen times over by now.

He started hastily gathering the up canisters of smoke grenades and tear gas into groupings that would best circulate into the gate room. Oh, John knew that if he asked, James would readily take his place in this madness, but he refused to ask something so dangerous of someone so young. Her life was only just beginning. Shep, well, it might just help Atlantis's case if he managed to save the brass from whatever the hell situation had led to this.

James was a terrific soldier, after conferring in hand signals they split up and set up the equipment he'd need for this little standoff. It was a good thing he'd picked up several wraith stunners, the firing pins were just what he needed to keep the blast door air seals from fully forming.

Sheppard stepped into the corridor, used his code on the blast door, and prepared to duck.

Trying not to laugh O'Neill called out,

"Sheppard! Give it up! We know you're there! You're outmanned and outgunned!"

O'Neill had no clue what the colonel was doing, but he had a feeling Landry wouldn't like the result all that much. Sheppard was a fellow alumnus of the kind of wet works ops that officially didn't exist. Like recognised like.

He took a sip of the herbal tea he'd made in Landry's office; it was the little things. Hank couldn't discipline him for showing his displeasure with this whole affair. There was a damned good reason they'd moved these exercises off world, Jack did not like the way Hank was trying to play politics with this little attempt at lesson teaching. Jack shot Landry a quelling glare from his position at the foot of the ramp. He nodded calmly to Colonels Dixon and Ronson; they were good sports, agreeing to join in with the wargames at the eleventh hour like this.

The small blast door to the left-hand side whooshed open, Jack nearly sloshed hot lemon verbena everywhere, what the hell did Sheppard think he was doing? A round of anti-riot ammunition shot through the door in Sheppard's direction. Siler and Harriman were both far too into these little exercises. What was it with the normally timid sergeants and the fake footholds?

The other blast door opened, this time Siler and Harriman's shots were joined by a volley of rounds from Colonel Dixon and Colonel Ronson. The theoretically nonlethal rubber bullets were much more realistic than the blanks they'd used when O'Neill had first dreamed up the graduation scenario, he had to admit. However, given that Sheppard had frequently proven he had the survival instincts of a lemming when it came to protecting his people, Jack was a bit worried the colonel would test that theory to breaking point,

"Sheppard! Final warning!"

He looked around meeting Siler and Harriman's gazes from underneath the ridiculous rubber hats they were all wearing, the thick silence in response was gradually becoming more and more alarming. Jack took a large gulp of his tea, and grimaced at the taste, doctor's orders or no, he missed coffee. Herbal tea just wasn't the same. Admittedly, lack of caffeine did help him patiently wait and see how this would play out.

Sheppard appeared in the corridor for a moment, perfectly outlined and a prime target.

What the hell?!

The guy was usually a better soldier than that.

They all went for it.

Rubber bullets flew towards the figure outlined in the doorway.

Sheppard back peddled wildly and vanished around the corner, the blast door ponderously drawing closed behind him.

What?

Jack shared a look of disbelief with Dixon. The others probably didn't see it, given that they'd never been ground pounders, but that had been a ridiculously idiotic move on Sheppard's part. What was going on in the man's head?

Jack risked a glance at everyone else, Landry was looking vindicated, as if the apparent impasse proved some sort of point. The expression looked especially conceited from underneath the rubber chicken hat. Jack took a large gulp of herbal pondwater, scratched absently at the sweat building up under his own stupid headgear, and tried not to look like he was waiting for something to happen.

A huge bang echoed through the gate room from the sealed off corridor beyond.

The room reverberated with the force of it.

Jack sent a glare Hank's way; this was getting out of hand.

Cloying whiffs of teargas wafted in from the gap between the blast doors, which was alarming on several levels. The things were supposed to be airtight, and it was coming in from both directions. What the hell was going on?!

The gate started dialling.

As one they all turned to look at it.

The iris was still shut so. Crap, was a team coming in hot? They'd all been warned to dial the Alpha Site today, hadn't they? Jack shot a panicky look in Landry's direction. He did not want to be responsible for someone getting trapped in a firefight off world. They'd moved most of these exercises out of the SGC for a damned good reason.

The gate dialling sounded louder than usual.

The tear gas that was still seeping into the gate room had them all tearing up, the air was getting thick and choking. Oh, through the tears in his eyes Jack realised that it wasn't just the corridors outside, thick smoke was leaking in through the air vents too.

There was movement from the control room.

Lieutenant James waved cheerily at everyone from behind the safety of the toughened glass.

What the hell.

The iris opened ponderously. Screeching loudly.

In the control room James was setting up what looked like the entire contents of the crowd control section of the SGC armoury. Even as O'Neill stared admiringly at the portable blast shields, he had to wonder. How the hell had she gotten access to that? Why was she setting it up?

The fifth chevron locked.

It was weird seeing that without Walter announcing it, Jack had the feeling the guy might have started doing it automatically regardless, the habit long ingrained by years manning the gate. But… Well, it was getting difficult to breathe without coughing.

Wait hadn't that blast shield up there been shut a minute ago?

The sixth chevron lit up.

There was a crash from above, Sheppard fell through the observation window, shards of supposedly bullet-proof glass raining down around him. He'd chosen the conference room level to drop down from. Jack heard Landry and Dixon both exclaim loudly in disbelief; it was like hearing in stereo when one of the speakers had a slight lag. Sheppard tumbled down from the story above, blood smearing the glass behind him.

Jack saw it all as if it was slow motion. Deadly shards shattered on the concrete. Sheppard rolled on landing and came up firing. Landry went down, Dixon was next. Sheppard was scrambling towards them – he ran through the arc of the gate just as it connected.

Holy fu- had he just? No. Death by disintegration over something so… No. No!

Jack was relieved when three more shots rang out even as he was frustrated by the kawoosh blocking his sightline. There was a grunt of exertion. The splashback finally – finally – settled back to a stable wormhole before the distinctive blarting noise of disconnection echoed loudly in the quiet.

By the time Jack spun around to face the back of the room again, everyone else was down and Sheppard was pointing his gun at him, blood dripping steadily down between the grate of the ramp to the concrete floor below. That was going to be an absolute nightmare to clean up.

"Sheppard stand down! This was all an exercise!"

John blinked at the General. As if he'd believe that. He wasn't born yesterday. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder, James was there in the control room, hand hovering threateningly over the self-destruct console.

O'Neill looked vaguely concerned, as well he should be given he'd just tried to blow up the whole blasted mountain. He was still holding that damned mug of tea. John kept his wraith stunner pointed steadily in the three-star general's direction, even as he kept half an eye warily on the downed men that surrounded him.

Considering that he'd been maniacally cackling only a few minutes before suddenly the man looked remarkably sane, well, if you ignored the head crab. Sheppard tried not to let the fact that the world was tilting nauseatingly show in his stance, the stunner was rock steady even as his sense of balance took an impromptu vacation. O'Neill gestured impatiently to the blood gushing down John's arm,

"What is it with you and Plan F Sheppard?"

Christ, he felt exhausted all of a sudden. The adrenaline must have called in its credit, and his body was discovering that it couldn't afford to pay the cheques it had cashed. John locked his knees; his legs were busy rifling for change under the sofa,

"Prove that you're you. How do I know you aren't still under the influence of that thing?"

John gestured at the smoking remains of the Omega 13 device regretfully, even McKay wouldn't be able to get anything out of that kind of half-melted wreckage. He hadn't expected a glancing brush from a stunner beam to do anything like that, but Landry had been positioned over the object as if to activate it.

Improbably, given the sealed blast doors, and tear gas still wreathing the air, footsteps sounded behind him. Without taking his aim off O'Neill Sheppard turned his head to assess this new threat, ignoring the headache that was blooming behind his eyes. It was Vala. The blast doors were open, he hadn't even heard it. Given the shards of pseudo-organic Wraith metal now embedded in the mechanism he should have heard it.

John blinked at her, she authoritatively held out one of those weird landline phones that looked more like a cell,

"Darling, it's all an exercise. I've got Colonel Reynolds on the phone for you. "

Sure enough, Reynolds was on the other end of the line,

"Colonel?"

"Colonel."

John cautiously drawled,

"How do I know you're yourself?"

"Oh for! Vala, I told Hank this was a bad idea! Didn't I? I distinctly remember telling him that. Now we've got a Mexican standoff in the gateroom!"

John was still waiting for a response from Reynolds. O'Neill casually pulled the head crab thingy off his head, it rolled up into a rubbery sheet,

"You know Mal Doran, I'm beginning to see why Thor always looked like he thought us humans are just monkeys playing with microwaves I really am."

John cautiously lowered the stunner. Reynolds was babbling something about broken arms, training exercises, and passing grades. O'Neill passed the head crab over to a shell-shocked looking airman who'd nonthreateningly edged his way towards the general

"I'm sorry I shot everybody!"

Sheppard grimaced down at the still unconscious figure of General Landry sacked out on the gate room floor. He was so far up the creek without a paddle...

O'Neill shot him an amused look; he was still clutching that mug. Sheppard hated the older man in that moment, three-star general or not, the temptation to punch him in that smugly grinning face was high enough that he had to shove his hands behind his back.

Abruptly the gate room was swarming with people. James was smirking right back at O'Neill, Christ did his 2nd Lt have no sense of self-preservation? Scott looked about as terrified as it was possible to be outside of active combat, and most worryingly of all, Johansen looked nervous.

SFs busied themselves sorting out the aftermath, and the chaos that was the gate and conference rooms. As if on cue Landry groaned loudly as he was stretchered away. John tried not to think too hard about what that might mean for his continued existence at the SGC, O'Neill's tacit approval or no, and the fact that the man now outranked Landry notwithstanding… John was really feeling the bite of regret here.

There was a dripping noise.

John looked down.

Oh wait, no, that was blood loss.

John suddenly felt the urge to sit down.

"Oh for cryin out loud! Sheppard stop dripping blood all over my base!"

A darkly amused voice interrupted,

"Your base?"

Vala gave O'Neill a sultry grin.

"Oh, all right, Hank's base. But he's only minding it for me."