Disclaimer: Welcome all those who have expressed an interest in this piece of fiction. Stargate, and anything related to it, belong to MGM and company. However, any names you don't recognise come from my own (brilliant) mind, but I can't tell you any of the names because I don't want to spoil the story.
Read on, if you dare, to find out more.
John Sheppard was bored, which never ended up being a good thing for anybody, the scientists who liked to pester everyone else, the marines who complained they had nothing to do, (he made them help Kavanaugh), and Rodney, who was so easy to annoy sometimes, but every once in a while, Rodney's acerbic wit would come into play, and he would be bored no more.
The downside to annoying Rodney was that this was the man who knew how to manipulate the Atlantian systems without using his gene, so every once in a while, John ended up with his bedroom covered in the foam suppressant the Atlantians had used to put out fires.
Good side – once it dried, nothing ended up being damaged, and it dried remarkably quickly. Downside – once it dried, nothing ended up being damaged, and it dried remarkably quickly, therefore, no evidence of Rodney using the suppressant could be found. Trying to discover that it was Rodney who had set of the foam in the first place through the computer was equally as hard, because the man knew how to cover his tracks.
But, suffice to say, John Sheppard was bored out of his mind.
Why on Earth, well Atlantis really, did Elizabeth expect him to listen to all of this scientific mumbo-jumbo? It wasn't like he understood any of it. Math, yes. Science, exceptionally big no-no.
He wished to be just about anywhere but briefing room two at that moment.
A few seconds passed. His eyes closed momentarily. Apparently no shooting stars were firing at that moment, and no Vengeance Demons were in the area. Damn!
His fingers began tapping out a beat on the surface of the table in front of him. One, two, three, four, lather, rinse, repeat. He could feel Elizabeth's stare trying to obliterate him on the spot. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for her, she hadn't gained that super power since the last meeting they'd had to have, which had been earlier that morning, where he'd pretty much done the exact same thing. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Becoming bored with the beat alone, he began to rotate the chair side to side slightly, which began to squeak as the turns became longer.
It wasn't just Elizabeth looking at him now, he caught a few glances from those who had been unfortunate enough to sit beside him. Hey, even he knew he was a pain to sit next to in meetings!
He knew they wouldn't say anything though, after all, he was Major Sheppard, head of the military contingent on Atlantis. All the science geeks knew that if they annoyed him, he passed on the annoyance to his underlings, a.k.a. he ordered them to help out the science geeks. This more often than not, resulted in broken feelings, broken beakers/vials/other important scientific glassware, and completely destroyed experiments.
So, by following the formula: annoying Sheppard annoyed scientists destroyed experiments; leaving Sheppard alone happy scientists finished experiments. Everyone won out when they left Sheppard alone.
Looking at Elizabeth, he saw her stare had been upgraded to a glare, and barely caught the wince before it managed to show itself upon his face. He downgraded the now frantic tapping to a slow, steady beat, and the sweeping chair slowed down and ceased its wide, expansive movements. The ultra-hot death-glare downgraded to just a regular death-glare.
They seemed to be having more and more meetings recently, about how their food stocks were dwindling, about how the latest search for a planet with a ZPM had failed, and everyone was getting increasingly more bored by the monotony of saying the same thing over and over again. He just wanted something exciting to happen.
"Off world activation!" Oh joy!
Peter's voice came over the radio, and as the room was remarkably close to the control room, he also heard it over what passed as the Ancients version of a tannoy. Even though he was one of the furthest from the door, he was the first one out, jogging across the walkway outside Elizabeth's office to the control room, his chair spinning rapidly in his wake.
By the time he entered the control room, five out of the standard seven chevrons were locked, and the sixth was circling the gate.
Reaching Peter's workstation, he leaned over Peter's shoulder, checking the panels, what little he understood of the scientific Ancient terminology, and then he remembered, "We don't have any teams out right now! Make sure the shield is up!"
Peter, the appointed Gatekeeper for this shift, nodded, and the golden iris, the only thing separating Atlantis from all her potential invaders, was raised.
He heard McKay, Ford, Teyla, and Elizabeth come up behind him, and spared a moment to ask them, though mainly Rodney, "What took you so long?"
Through the open space before him, (there were no barriers between the control room and the rails), he could see the Marines surrounding the embarkation area, just in case the shield failed, which hadn't happened yet, but you know what happens when things get old, they tend to break more easily.
Everyone in the control room who had nothing to do, which seemed to increase by the second, watched the gate and its shield, and those who had overheard Sheppard's announcement were seen removing handguns from beneath desks. Wow, they're learning!
They were all noticeably shocked when a group of children came through the barrier, some wounded, most not. He vaguely heard a muffled call for Beckett and a med-team to head for the control room.
The children's clothes seemed to be mainly Athosian, although he could definitely see some Earth materials and designs amongst the bunch, which was extremely perplexing, as a) all the Athosians (barring Teyla) were on the mainland, (a quick side glance to Teyla and her responding shake of the head confirmed that thought), and b) they were the only people from Earth in the Pegasus galaxy right now.
Various crates and boxes on wheels of all shapes and sizes came sliding through the gate, and equally the barrier, coming to a halt when they hit the wall, and began creating a line of containers all the way back to the gate.
Those who were able, excluding one or two who were beginning to perform some sort of first-aid on the wounded, managed to stack some of the crates and boxes on top of each other, so that there was room for the seemingly constant flow of containers.
A few extra large, military issue, green duffle bags came flying through the gate, to crash land at the feet of a young wiry teenager with extremely long dark green hair. He lifted one of the bags onto his shoulder but dragged the other heavy looking bag away to the wall as though they were full of feathers, proving that looks can be deceiving, though whether it was the bags or the boys looks that were deceiving was debatable. Another teenage boy came and retrieved the other two, although he had to drag both of them.
A few more older children, teenagers really, came through with a man who looked no older than Ford, who then proceeded to walk to the nearest wall, and wave his hand over a small section of it.
Sheppard, like everyone else, had probably walked past that section dozens, if not hundreds of times, and at least twice a day, and nothing had ever happened or been found by anyone!
So, his shock was further increased when the panel seemed to fold away into the wall and the man pulled out a medium-sized container from the space revealed.
It was silvery-blue, typical of the Ancients, covered in the scripts of the Ancients, although he couldn't even begin to decipher it at this distance. A little trick he'd been working on in his spare time, but was definitely keeping to himself. He was already called on enough by the scientist just for his gene, he couldn't bear to imagine what would happen if they found out about his little secret.
He heard McKay, who was standing to his left; mutter under his breath, "I didn't know that was there!"
John managed to work his way through the shock of the still appearing children, (though most were teenagers now), his (ever so) little fear about McKay finding out about his secret, and the fold-away panel, to think to himself, "WOW, something's wrong with the resident genius/know-it-all! Someone call a medic, I think McKay's going to have a heart attack! Better yet, call the press, the papers will all sell out in five minutes!" He could see the headlines now, 'McKay Knows Nothing!', or 'Someone Knows Something McKay Doesn't!' "
The man who had removed the container opened it, again by some hand motion, removed what looked like a life-signs detector and some sort of pen-like instrument, and proceeded to treat a little girl who had a large gash across her right arm.
A mumble from Ford, standing to his right but behind Elizabeth, earned a small scoff, as he had distinctly heard, "Cool, we got ourselves a medical tricorder!" Another Fordism, no, wait! That one was from Star Trek. Ford watched Star Trek?
His attention was recaptured as before his eyes, the wound sealed but the blood remained, leading the girl to use her sleeve to scrub away at where the wound had once been. The man moved away and began treating someone John couldn't see from this angle.
"Some sort of dermal regenerator?" Ford, again, he watched Star Trek?
More people were coming through the gate some as old as the man, but most were much smaller than him, and all were toting large bulging duffle bags, or had jam packed backpacks hanging off one shoulder.
All of them were wounded in some manner, cuts and bruises seemed to be the majority, although he thought he could see a broken arm there for a second before the little boy it belonged to was found by the man who had healed the wound earlier.
Two more men came though, dragging a man and a woman, the man completely unconscious, although the woman was starting to move a bit. They were both pulled over to a nearby wall; the two who had pulled them collapsing next to them, sweat trickling down their faces and necks.
After the man had caught his breath, he tried to shout something, but he obviously didn't have the strength. A tall, gangly looking preteen standing nearby watching over a small silver haired girl as she was being healed obviously heard her, as he immediately bellowed, with a strength that was well hidden, "Clear the embarkation area! Prep for blasts!"
The area pretty much cleared in a second, miscellaneous crates that hadn't been moved now seemed to magically appear in front of the two unconscious people, forming a barrier of sorts, but the containers which had arrived earlier had already been stacked and loaded into defensive positions. He also noticed that a large majority of the marines were protected as well, though whether that was intentional or accidental he didn't know.
Another person came through the gate, wearing a military uniform, with (were those silver eagles on the jacket?), a P90 attached to his flack jacket, and a Wraith stun weapon in his right hand.
He held his left wrist up to his mouth, where he shouted through a small round device attached to a leather bracelet, "Disengage wormhole!"
There was movement behind him as a Wraith came flying through the barrier, prior to the wormhole disengaging. The soldiers around the room immediately opened fire, the sound covering the small screams and yelps that came from the newcomers.
Yeah, that much firepower will drop that sucker in no time. Right?
It was the marines and everyone that were baffled when the weapons had no effect.
The newest visitor just turned around, and fired both the P90 and the Wraith stun weapon. The Wraith flew back through the gates opening, towards the wall behind the gate, and smashed into it, before sliding down to collapse face up on the floor, leaving series of spider-web indents where his body had impacted.
The male speed walked up to the Wraith, and in two quick movements, had smashed the locater beacon on it's wrist with the heel of his boot and had drawn the dark-bladed knife from a sheath on his left thigh.
"For my Ancestors," (you could tell Ancestors was supposed to be written with a capital letter), were the only words he spoke as the knife was speedily sheathed in the Wraith's left eye, going straight to the brain, swiftly removed, jabbed into the eye, removed once more, and thrust into the Wraith's chest.
John, and everyone around him, could only watch as the Wraith's body seemed to collapse in on itself, leaving only a pile of ash.
The only time he'd seem something like that had been when he'd been forced to watch "Interview With A Vampire" with one of his girlfriends, the part where Louis touches the little girls body after she'd been fried by the sun in that death chamber.
He'd thought that things like that could only happen in the movies. Guess not.