You're Just Pissing Me Off (The Siege 2)


"Major, dial the Alpha site," Colonel Everett repeated his order, only to be met by Sheppard's silence and inaction that made him think about the 'Chair Force', the 'Zoomies', the 'Wing Wipers', and other, less pleasant nicknames the Marines called the Air Force people. He came to the conclusion that a different approach was necessary to ensure obedience among the military personnel that was commanded by this poor excuse for an officer for the better part of a year.

"Doctor Weir, will you give us a minute?" Everett finally asked, still looking into Sheppard's eyes without so much as batting an eyelash.

Elizabeth didn't want to leave John in one room with a man looking at him like this, but she had no choice except to leave the two officers alone to what would probably be a heated argument. Leaving the room, she headed for Rodney and Radek, who looked like they were arguing about something.

Once Elizabeth left the room, Everett looked over at Captain Ragnar, who, nodding in understanding, gathered everyone else in the room and left, closing the door and leaving his commanding officer alone with Sheppard.

"Major, I am ordering you one last time: Dial the Alpha site," Everett spoke once more, his voice calm, his eyes determined.

"With all due respect, Colonel, I am refusing your order until you explain your plans for defending this city to Doctor Weir!" Sheppard retorted, his voice showing a bit of rage at the stubbornness of his new commander.

The next second happened both too fast and too slow for both of them. Everett took his nine-millimeter pistol from the holster, aimed it at Sheppard's head and squeezed the trigger before the Major could react.

John's last thought was that Einstein was right: time is relative to the observer. As he looked down the barrel of Everett's pistol, time slowed down and his whole life flashed by in fast forward. Then came the muzzle flash ejecting the small copper-coated piece of lead into the space between the two men with a thundering noise.

In a mere fraction of a second, the projectile hit John in the middle of the forehead, cracking his skull open before making its way into the depths of the man's head. The soft tissue didn't offer much resistance to the dense projectile that was mincing the brain matter it came across. A blink of an eye later, the bullet reached the skull plate on the back of John's head. His skull cracked open, causing blood and brain to explode onto the wall behind Sheppard, whose body was already falling to the floor like a puppet with cut lines.

Everett watched the Major's body falling backwards with mocking satisfaction in his mind. At last, he had revenge for the death of his best friend. Sheppard's body hit the floor with a soft thud-like noise. The Colonel looked at it one last time before the door opened.

Rodney was just explaining to Elizabeth why he should be in the meeting when the thundering sound of a pistol shot echoed through the gate room and the adjacent corridors. Quickly forgetting everything, she ran to the conference room, wondering what had happened inside. Within moments, the door opened to reveal the horrible sight. Everett was standing over Sheppard's corpse with a light grin in his face.

Elizabeth knelt down beside the dead body of her friend and took his head into her hands. Somewhere away, Everett was giving his orders: "Lieutenant Ford, dial the Alpha site! Recall all military personnel! Also, all civilians who would like to help defending this city as damage control teams are welcome to do so! Jennings, Mendez, clean this mess!" The Marines acknowledged their respective orders and moved to obey.

Elizabeth looked at her hands that were drenched in blood from Sheppard's head when the Marines took the body away to the morgue. In the course of her duties as a UN negotiator, she had already seen many dictators who had people executed. But to see her friend being executed for not obeying the will of his new commanding officer gave her a new reason to fight against the ultimate penalty everywhere.


AN: Once again, a big Thank you to Reiko for betaing this for me.