CHAPTER 18

Just as John was resigning himself to yet another day without any of the training he had been sent to receive there was a knock on the door to his quarters.

He had been mentally calculating the likelihood that a brief escape to Las Vegas proper, and, more specifically, the Strip, would be possible, since he wouldn't mind getting a bit of money of his own in savings in the States—most of his own money, the income he got from the Air Force, was either invested in long-term investments or used to pay for the hanger his plane, leaving him very cash-poor while on Earth—and he had yet to encounter a casino that could catch his innate card-counting abilities so the four hundred he had reluctantly borrowed from Sam before leaving Colorado Springs could easily turn into a couple of thousand in an hour or so if he played it right.

If the person at the door didn't have good news on the training-front, John decided, he was going to see about getting out of Nellis and Area 51 for a few hours—it wasn't like it was unheard of for officers and enlisted personnel stationed at Nellis to hit the casinos when they were off-duty, and, after a few days of basically staying in the same BOQ room, John was positive that he couldn't get much more 'off-duty'. He made a mental note to avoid Caesar's, though, because he remembered Sam mentioning someone they had served with during the Gulf War, who knew him pretty well, well enough to know about his card-counting skills (having lost more to John than he could really recall before John was basically banned from all of the regular games where ever he was based) was heading up security there lately. Surveillance and security was a private sector job that a lot of ex-service men and women got into after leaving the armed forces.

Rolling off of the bed John opened the door. A female officer in a flightsuit stood on the step that led up to his temporary quarters. Quickly reading her name and rank off of the leather nameplate on her flightsuit and taking in the patch indicating that she was a member of an X-302 squadron, John felt a tiny flash of hope that, not only would he finally get the training he had been ordered to get, but that he might also, finally, be able to get the hell out of Nevada.

He hated Nevada.

"What can I do for you, Captain Conway?" John inquired.

"Not destroy my ride, sir," the Airwoman replied. John smirked in response, liking the Captain's attitude instantly. "Hangar Bay 3 in half an hour work for you, sir?"

Though he could easily get ready and make it to Hangar Bay 3 in half that time, John simply nodded. Dismissing the Captain who took off at a light jog back toward the hanger bays, John went back into the depths of his quarters, hopping on one foot while struggling to untie the laces on the other boot while moving toward his flightsuit that had been sitting on the top of the dresser since he arrived.

Twenty five minutes later John entered Hanger Bay 3, easily spotting Conway running through the external pre-flight on one of the X-302's about halfway toward the back of the building. He walked over to join her, noting that, while Conway ran her external pre-flight check on the 302, a thoroughly disgruntled man in a pristine lab coat watched her every move. When he got close enough John heard the lab coat guy complain loudly that he had already done everything that Conway was doing and she should really start trusting the people that built the damn thing to know if it was in any way damaged before sending it out. The scene was familiar enough—Rodney or Zelenka in the roll of the lab coat guy, John in Conway's position—that John had to bite his lip to keep from laughing aloud at how universal—literally, apparently—the scientist-versus-military squabbles could be.

"I don't get why you're so protective of this particular one, anyway. How can you even tell them apart?" the scientist groused to Conway.

"This baby got me through Anubis and Antarctica, Morris, and I was on the team that developed the 302's for a year before you were even read in on the project so don't get all bitchy about me going over your cursory glances," Conway said while running her fingertips over the nose of the ship. She noticed John and her spine straightened a little. "Major Sheppard, this is Doctor Morris. He's under the mistaken impression that because he didn't see a gaping hole in the side of my ride he knows how to run a pre-flight."

John smiled at that. He liked Conway, and not just because she was going to get him off Terra Firma for a little while. Shaking Morris' hand, John stood back and let Conway go through her pre-flight check of the 302. He knew that pilots had their own systems they liked to go through before a flight—he was a pilot, too, and he knew that pilots, as a group, were superstitious types. They didn't advertise that fact, but it was, nonetheless, all too true.

A few minutes later Conway motioned for him to climb the mobile staircase up to the cockpit of the 302. "Take the forward seat, sir. From your record I doubt I'll have to retake control once you get a feel for her."

John nodded and got into the front seat, allowing a flight captain to help him with his helmet and the restraint system that was more complicated than he'd ever experienced before—he assumed it was because the alien hybrid part of the fighter made for some complications that weren't found on F-22 Raptors, which the X-302's most resembled. Once both he and Conway were strapped in the canopy was lowered and John started going through the in-plane pre-flight checklist, Captain Conway mentally checking off every step that John made.

All pre-flight checks complete, they began taxiing out of the hanger and Flight Control's no-nonsense representative began droning in John's ear over the radio in his helmet. Telling him he had a go for take-off, to use a certain runway, to avoid a certain vector, warning him about the potential weather problems he could run into at a certain altitude, and, finally, reminding him that his flight plan was clearly outlined on the screen in front of him—something that wasn't regular Air Force issue, at least it hadn't been the last time John was in a fighter jet, which, he had to admit, was at least six months before leaving for Atlantis nearly eleven months earlier—and that he was to stick to it without deviation.

Flying jets wasn't supposed to be like riding a bike. There was a reason pilots had to re-qualify regularly, why they constantly trained and ran simulations and drills and practised formations and attack vectors and everything they could possibly have to know if they found themselves in a combat situation, why the training was so rigorous, why the standards were so incredibly high for acceptance into any flight training program, let alone passing said program. And it had been a long time since John had flown jets. Being out of a cockpit for fifteen months was a lifetime for a pilot. And it wasn't like he had even really had to test his piloting abilities, his physical reaction time, while flying in Pegasus. The Puddle Jumpers required more directed thought patterns and less physical direction than anything the Milky Way had to offer. And the X-302's weren't exactly an assembly-line standardized ride to begin with.

Which, really, was what made it easier to figure everything out. No preconceived notions about what should be where, or how something should look. He'd read the manuals, the literature, and listened to Sam and the techs talk about the features, the Goa'uld 'improvements' and alterations. He'd sat through Conway's pre-flight, allowing her checklists to direct him to where everything was in reality as opposed to on a diagram or in a description given by memory. And, as always seemed to happen when he was put in front of a new flying machine, his intuition had kicked in, filling in the gaps, either with assumptions, educated though they may be, or simple rational thought about how, if he were designing a plane, it would be set up, because most pilots thought along the same lines when it came to that, and John knew that no plane or helo or anything was created without a team of actual pilots working with the techs and designers and everyone else involved to make sure that everything would work from a pilot's point of view. He'd done that once, briefly, recommended by a CO who knew he could fly anything and had mathematical skills beyond what most pilots had, which was saying something because math and flying went very much hand in hand, despite what some people might think. Math and instincts one of John's earliest flight instructors had said, math and instincts are all you need to survive in the air. John could vaguely recall hearing that that instructor had gotten shot down by a Serbian MiG near the very end of the Bosnian conflict, cementing what John had always thought was the flaw in the man's logic. Math and instincts, for sure, but also skill and, oftentimes, dumb luck were what a pilot needed to survive. There were too many X-factors, really, to quantify exactly what a pilot needed to survive. But math and instincts and skill and luck would definitely be on the list, should one actually be compiled.

Taking off was easy. Get up to speed down the runway, pull the stick back with the right amount of pressure, continually check items A through N on mental list of things involved in properly taking off, climb to the elevation outlined in the flight plan that was staring him in the face, and level out once he reached that elevation. The alien parts of the jet didn't kick in until later, John knew, until he broke through the limits of Earth flight technology and entered the part of space that only a select few astronauts and cosmonauts and whatever else they went by in other countries had gone before.

"Ever dream of being an astronaut?" Conway asked.

"Never did much in the way of dreaming, full-stop," John admitted, "but no, not really an aspiration of mine."

"Me neither. And yet… this is what we're doing," Conway said.

"And yet," John agreed.

Landry hung up the red phone on his desk and sighed. "She's right. The reason that Elizabeth Weir was selected to lead the expedition is that she's liked and trusted by every single country in the alliance. And, since they trust her, they trust Major Sheppard and distrust you by extension," Landry said. Caldwell groaned loudly, his shoulders sagging. "Look, obviously you're not going to Atlantis. There is nothing that I can do about it right now. But the Daedalus does need a battle-ready Skipper and you've already proven yourself. You want the job, it's yours."

"Fine," Caldwell said, though it was clear that he was not happy about it.

"So did you save General O'Neill's life or something?" Conway asked as John got a feel for the 302's handling in low Earth orbit.

"Not really," John said honestly. The thing with the drone in Antarctica aside—and, really, that had been just as much about saving his own ass as the General's—his interaction with Jack O'Neill was limited to a few of the debriefs the General had attended, a few phone conversations regarding Elizabeth while she had been in DC, and one slightly awkward moment when he and Sam had been sparring in the SGC's gym and it had turned into more of a tickle fight than anything else and O'Neill had walked in on them prompting Sam to turn redder than he'd seen in years and leaving John to attempt to explain exactly why it was that he and Sam were acting so familiar with each other while, technically, on duty despite the fact that his duty station was in another galaxy. John got the impression that General Jack O'Neill wasn't quite sure what to make of him, but that the fact that Elizabeth was fighting for him meant something to the former leader of the legendary flagship team of the SGC. "Why?"

"Well, it's not every day Two-Stars in the E-ring make personal requests to push something through around here; at least outside the labs," Conway commented. "Your training wasn't scheduled to start for another week—a lot of us wondered why you were here so early—but the General called and ordered that someone get on it A-SAP."

John frowned. Elizabeth had been just as confused by the interminable delays as John, himself, was, but Landry had made it sound like his training was supposed to start right away when he sent him down to Nevada.

Something wasn't right in the state of Colorado, John mused, and he had a feeling it had something to do with the fact that he'd seen a few crew members he recognized from the Daedalus gathering up tools and spare-parts-ish things for the past few days.

"Huh. Guess I know who's gonna replace me," John muttered, his mind putting two and two together easily. Landry didn't like him, Caldwell was historically power-hungry and command of a massive base looked better on a resume than commander of what amounted to a Tender Ship making supply and mail runs between Atlantis and Earth, and the fact that he was just a Major, a Major with a questionable record and the death of the man whose job he currently held on his hands at that, made everything suddenly become perfectly clear. John wasn't sure what to do with the information about General O'Neill ordering his training pushed up immediately, but it did indicate that O'Neill, at least, was, if not on John's side, then at least wanted him to be at the SGC to maybe have a say in what happened to Atlantis once he was stripped of his command.

"What was that, sir?" Conway asked.

"Nothing," John replied. "Tell me about Antarctica," he said, hoping to distract himself from what was suddenly less of an abstract notion—a worst case scenario he felt obligated to point out to Elizabeth because, as much experience as she had in dealing with the military, she still didn't really understand the way it worked, the way the politics worked, though she would deny it to her dying breath, saying that she was the politician, not him, so she should know the way politics worked better than he did—and more of a very real probability: his removal from command on Atlantis. "I've read some basic reports, but, going by how it looked and felt from McMurdo, not to mention some of the casualties that came in after the fact; no written report could possibly cover it."

"That's the truth, sir," Conway agreed readily. "I've never seen anything like it. There's no reference I can think of to describe what that dogfight was like. I mean, I knew I'd end up in crazy-ass—uh… alien situations when it got into the 302 program, but… Antarctica was… beyond everything even the training at Area 51 prepares you for."

Though he didn't care whether Conway said 'ass' or not in his presence, John noted her not-so-quick censoring of what seemed to be her normal speech patterns in front of him, a superior officer; it was something that was generally pushed aside on Atlantis. He knew he was a fairly relaxed commanding officer. He doubted the next guy would be the same, especially if he ended up being Caldwell. A lot of the unspoken rules would have to snap back to Earth military standard, fast, when the new sheriff came to town. That thought made John's gut clench painfully—the thought of someone else, someone like Caldwell who didn't understand Atlantis the way he did, being in charge of what, John knew, would end up being about half the expedition's personnel once all was said and done. Atlantis would rebel, John was almost certain of it. He loved the City dearly, but he knew she had a personality all her own, and it was one that could best be described as temperamental. In the first weeks, maybe even months, of their inhabitation of the City things had been rocky, not just because they were all such ingénues when it came to Atlantis, but because Atlantis didn't understand them, their motivations, their purposes, their emotions and needs. There was definitely a learning curve involved in dealing with the mythic City.

"I don't think it's even possible to train for something like that. It was just… act and react, act and react," Conway continued, unaware of the thoughts flying through John's head.

John smiled behind his mask. Everyone he'd talked to about the battle with Anubis—which he still couldn't really wrap his head around; Anubis was supposed to be some mythological thing, a fairy tale dealt with in a Literature course or a grade school report on Ancient Civilizations, not some half-Ascended Goa'uld-Ancient hybrid bent on galactic domination or whatever—over Antarctica had, in their own way, said basically the same thing.

You had to be there.

It wasn't like John didn't get that. The needing to experience something firsthand to fully understand it thing. He, better than most, knew what that meant. The whole first year on Atlantis—not even a year; ten months, eleven tops—was time he could never fully articulate to anyone who hadn't been there, who hadn't witnessed what he'd witnessed, who hadn't survived what he had survived. How could you hope to explain what it was like, watching a Wraith Queen literally suck the life out of your commanding officer with the touch of her hand to his chest? How could you explain the look in his eyes when he finally noticed you were there, begging you to take the shot, knowing it would kill him, because the end was what he was praying for, the alternative too agonizing to contemplate? How could you describe the desperation of people searching for a way to avoid being culled, the duplicity they were capable of to keep any tiny shred of hope to themselves, not necessarily because they wanted other planets to suffer the fate they were trying to avoid, but because they couldn't afford to care about people they'd never meet on planets they'd never go to, not when there were men and women and children all sharing a nightmare scenario that struck with generational regularity? How could you describe the Athosians, the mist things that made them think they'd gotten home, the Genii who were enemies that started as potential allies and were maybe once again potential allies after the bomb-trade Elizabeth brokered, the Manarians who were deep in the Genii's pocket and who gave Kolya the GDO and codes that allowed them to attempt the seizure of Atlantis during the storm, the kids on M7G-677 who killed themselves to control populations and sent their own children to other villages to ensure continued propagation, the Hoffans who had all but wiped themselves out with their wing-and-a-prayer miracle drug that ended up doing more damage than a culling could, the Daganians who double crossed them because of legends and beliefs that had all-but died out long ago on Earth, or about all the other cultures they'd encountered in their short time in the Pegasus Galaxy? How could you describe the visions brought on by the nanovirus before it caused your brain to suffer a fatal aneurysm or the images the Wraith were capable of making you see or the crushing feeling of guilt when you had to raise the shield over the Stargate causing at least forty men to simply cease to exist? There was just no way to properly convey what it was like. John got that.

The problem was, like his time on Atlantis was to the young Sergeant who had driven him from the SGC to his military transport, the battle over Antarctica had captured John's interest.

So John's finally gotten in the air. I put this chapter off for as long as I could because I've been waiting to hear back from an ex who is a pilot about protocols for pre-flight checks and what the tower would say before and during take-off, and how casual I could get John and Conway to be conversationally while flying, but the trouble with ex-boyfriends is that they don't always return your calls in a timely manner, so... well, I watched a bunch of re-runs of uJAG/u and tried to keep away from the details that I'd planned this chapter to be filled with.

The next chapter is almost finished, so it should be up in a few days.

Please let me know what you think. Reviews are my ambrosia.

Manic Penguin