The Stars My Destination (SGA, ensemble) 7/17
Title: The Stars My Destination (7/17)
Author:
mad_maudlin
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis/Star Trek 2009 (mashup)
Length: 91,750 (total); 6,212 (this part)
Characters: All of them!
PairingS: Canonical levels of Elizabeth/Simon, Teyla/Kanaan
warnings: Graphic violence
Summary: When a terror from out of time threatens the heart of the Federation, the crew of the USS Atlantis must band together in order to stop it. But can they overcome their own demons to stop the greatest threat they'll ever face?
Seven
The cadet dress uniform involved a stiff, hip-length jacket with a high collar, and Jonn had to fight the urge to keep tugging on it. He was waiting in the entryway of Archer Hall, a spacious, airy building with a delicate glass facade that contrasted oddly with the heavy bronze statues of famous ships and officers of Starfleet's past. The rest of the accused were grouped loosely near the doors of Room 145, where the hearing was scheduled to take place; Mitchell was talking quietly to Tobias, Ruu was reading, and Emmagen appeared to be meditating-well, either that or she'd fallen asleep standing up. Rodney had disappeared from the dorm while Jonn was indulging in an early-morning burn-off-the-nerves run, and at five minutes till there was still no sign of him. He's gonna come storming in here talking about a mile a minute and set the record straight, Jonn told himself. He's had all week to work on it. If anybody can do it, McKay can.
The sound of footsteps on the glossy tile floors preceded the board members; Admiral Nixon was in the lead, flanked by Hammond and Admiral T'Liir from the medical school. Jonn recognized O'Neill from their brief conversation, along with Carnahan and Markov from previous disciplinary actions, but there was another officer he didn't recognize-a human man, captain's braids, a little on the short side but with small, sharp eyes. He and O'Neill were standing about as physically far apart as they could in the narrow corridor.
Jonn snapped to attention, along with the others, as the officers filed past them. As they opened the door to enter Room 145, Jonn heard a low rumble of noise from inside-he made out Elizabeth Weir's voice, and a few others, observers or assistants. It was a mind game, making the cadets wait outside until the last minute, and one Jonn was intimately familiar with; that didn't necessarily mean it didn't work.
Where the hell was McKay, anyway?
"It is most unusual for a board of seven to hear a disciplinary case," Emmagen said. Even though she was murmuring, her voice seemed to carry to every corner of the hall.
"We did lose a whole shuttle," Mitchell said with a wince.
"Besides," Jonn added from experience, "Nixon doesn't actually get to vote except to break a tie." And that was cold comfort, because Jonn knew Markov and Carnahan didn't like him any more than Nixon did. He'd met Admiral T'Liir approximately twice, and one of those times was a mandatory meeting regarding telepathy protocols and Ponn Farr that Jonn was never speaking to anyone about ever again. It hadn't been the best first impression, but Jonn had made worse.
Hammond and O'Neill were there, though, and that last, unknown officer, who could've been another of Hammond's plants or a friend of Nixon's or someone else entirely. Two for, two against, two unknown. Given the odds, he'd rather be crash-landing a shuttle.
Someone opened the door for them, the signal to get underway. The desks in the room had been rearranged, creating a row of five-five?-at the front, directly in front of the table where the board members sat. Holocameras stood in all four corners to record the proceedings, and name plates had been set up: Captain Jonathan J. O'Neill at one end, and Captain Harold Maybourne at the other, with Nixon in between. Jonn lingered at the back of the line, taking the last seat on the right-definitely only five chairs set up. "Let's get this over with," Nixon said loudly, toying with the padd in front of him. "Commander Weir, if you're ready?"
"Excuse me, sir," Jonn protested, as Weir was about to open her mouth. "Cadet McKay isn't here yet."
"Cadet McKay has been excused," Carnahan answered.
"What?" Jonn blurted. It felt oddly like he'd been punched in the stomach.
"You heard him," Nixon said sharply. "Now, if we have your permission to continue, Cadet Sheppard?"
Jonn bit down hard on three different retorts that came to mind; Emmagen put one hand on his forearm under the table, though whether it was supposed to be reassurance or a warning, he wasn't sure. After a tense pause, Nixon nodded at Weir, who began to read the charges off her own padd. "We've assembled here today to hear evidence in the case of Cadets Second Class Teyla Emmagen, Rodney McKay, Cameron Mitchell, Ruu, Jonn Sheppard, and Claire Tobias in connection with the events of stardate 2257.107 which resulted in the loss of a Tereshkova-class transport shuttle and minor injuries to four cadets. The cadets stand charged with careless destruction of Starfleet property, gross recklessness, and disregard of simulation protocol."
"Thank you, Commander," Nixon said. He turned to one of the holocameras. "Let the record show that as Commander Weir has been the lead investigator of this incident, she has been chosen to conduct the bulk of the questioning."
Now that was more than Jonn could stomach. "With respect, Admiral," he said, coming to his feet. "Commander Weir isn't exactly an unbiased observer in this, is she?"
"This board has the utmost faith in Commander Weir's ability to conduct a thorough investigation, Cadet," Nixon said acidly. "Unless you've got a better idea?"
Jonn glanced at the rest of the board members, looking for any sign of dissent; O'Neill had raised his eyebrows, but he seemed to be absorbed in his padd, and Markov's lips had thinned considerably. Admiral Hammond met Jonn's eyes, and he gave a very, very small shake of the head. Jonn could imagine the drawling advice. Pick your battles, son. "My apologies, sir," he ground out, and dropped back into his chair.
Nixon set his padd flat on the table with a click. "Now, if Cadet Sheppard has nothing more to say-you may begin, Commander Weir."
"Thank you, Admiral," she said. "I'd like to ask Cadet Ruu to answer a few questions..."
A few questions turned out to be over an hour's worth, for each of them: long, detailed questions about who said what to whom, who did what, how the situation on the shuttle evolved. Weir was cool as a damned cucumber, and she wasn't asking anything particularly loaded: it honestly seemed like she was just trying to establish the facts. Occasionally she played back some of the comm recordings from inside the shuttles, asking them to confirm that they were accurate. A couple of times she entered data from the lost shuttle's engineering logs.
"Did you at any point have misgivings about Cadet Sheppard's plan to evacuate the shuttle?" she asked Ruu.
"I did not," he answered.
Of Tobias, she asked, "Did you at any point feel the midflight engine restart maneuver constituted an unnecessary risk to the safety of your shuttle and those aboard it?"
"No, ma'am," Tobias said.
"At any point," she asked Mitchell, "did you feel undue pressure from your fellow cadets to conform to Cadet Sheppard's advice regarding the thruster malfunction or the evacuation plan?"
"No, ma'am, I did not," he said.
Emmagen got a particularly close grilling, for some reason. Weir played out a clip from the shuttle's comms, of her saying, Cadet McKay, that is expressly against the terms of the simulation. "Was this the only time you reminded your fellow cadets of the protocols of the simulation?"
"I believe it was, yes," Emmagen said.
"And what was Cadet Sheppard's response to that?"
Emmagen hesitated slightly. "He responded that the shuttle designated Red Zero Seven needed to take immediate action to correct the thrust problem."
"Did you understand this to implicitly advocate action outside the protocols of the simulation?" Weir asked.
Jonn wanted to ask just what the hell that even meant, but Emmagen responded smoothly. "My understanding of Cadet Sheppard's meaning was that the situation was serious and called for swift and direct action."
"Your verbal response to Cadet Sheppard was, I quote, 'Is there not another way to override the failsafe?'" Weir said, referring to her padd. "Is that correct, Cadet?"
"That is correct, ma'am."
"And Cadet Tobias responded by proposing the engine restart."
"That is correct, ma'am."
Weir looked at her padd again. "Let the record indicate that during this time, both shuttles were flying within two and a half kilometers of the perimeter of the simulation zone."
Jonn curled his fingers into fists under the table. So that was her tactic-that Red Zero Seven should've just quit the simulation and let the evaluators mark them down for it. Did Nixon actually buy that line? That they should've blown the rest of their careers because of a stupid glitch?
Weir was now asking Emmagen, "You indicated verbally on the record that you disagreed with Cadet Sheppard's evacuation plan, did you not?"
"I believe I informed him he was 'a crazy son of a bitch,' in Cadet Mitchell's terms, yes," Emmagen said straight-faced. Up at the table, O'Neill smothered a snicker.
"But you didn't attempt to prevent Cadet Sheppard from acting," Weir said. "In fact, you assisted him."
"That is correct, ma'am," Emmagen said.
"Why was that, Cadet?"
She didn't glance at Jonn, but he recognized more or less the same words she'd given him last week. "Because, given the situation as we knew it at the time, his plan was not unreasonable, and because I judged that to not act or to delay action any further would only endanger the cadets aboard the other shuttle."
Weir didn't react one way or another, so Jonn had no way to tell if that was the answer she'd wanted. "I see. Thank you, Cadet Emmagen, you may sit."
Jonn braced himself for his turn under questioning, but Nixon suddenly leaned forward and said, "I think we could all use a break for lunch right about now. We'll reconvene in thirty minutes." The board stood up and filed out in a group, along with Weir; Jonn kind of wished he could pull Hammond aside and ask him how it was going, what Weir was playing at, but he knew the rules too well from too many board of conduct hearings. And god forbid we throw in any more breaches of protocol, he thought bitterly, kicking at the leg of the table.
"That went...not awful," Tobias said, grabbing a bottle of water off a side table.
"Could've gone better," Ruu grunted.
"We lost a shuttle," Mitchell repeated. "I'm counting it as a win if we don't fail the sim altogether."
Emmagen was looking at Jonn speculatively. "She seemed quite focused on your conduct during the simulation," she said slowly.
What did I tell you? Jonn wanted to ask; instead, he pulled his communicator out of his pocket and brought up Rodney's name. "I did kinda take the blame in public, remember?" he said.
Mitchell blinked. "You don't think they're serious about pinning the whole thing on you, do they?"
"Hey, if Weir takes her share of the blame, I'll gladly take the rest," Jonn said. He could hear the channel connect, but it rang out. Damn it. "Anybody seen McKay today?"
"I have not," Emmagen said. "Is he not your roommate?"
"That's what I'm trying to work out," Jonn muttered. He tried to call again and still got no answer, and McKay didn't call back before the hearing reconvened.
Once everyone was settled back in and the holocameras were recording. Nixon made a small gesture at Weir, who crossed the room to stand directly in front of Jonn, hands folded demurely behind her back. "Cadet Sheppard, I have a few questions for you."
Jonn stood up: he was maybe a hand span taller than Weir, but looking down at her didn't make him feel any better. "I kinda figured that," he said, and suspected that the loud cough that immediately followed had come from Hammond.
"Cadet Sheppard, your time here at Starfleet Academy has been rather...colorful, isn't it?" she started off.
"Is that a question or a statement, ma'am?" Jonn shot back.
One of her eyebrows went up slightly. "If you think it's inaccurate, Cadet, you seem to have no trouble offering corrections. But it's a matter of official record that you've stood before the board of student conduct no less than thirteen times in three years for offenses ranging from insubordination to fighting on campus..." Her eyes flicked to the remnant of the bruise around his eye. "And that's just the times you were caught, of course."
"Still waiting for an actual question, ma'am," Jonn growled.
"All right. Were you at any time designated with a command position during spring simulation?"
"I-no," he said, wrong-footed. "It's a matter of record."
"Yet during the simulation, you issued a direct order to Cadet McKay," Weir said. When Jonn didn't respond to that quickly enough, she asked, "Would you like to hear the official recording?"
"No," Jonn said. He could feel an angry flush building in the back of his neck already. "No, I don't need to hear the recording."
"So you admit that you said, I quote, 'McKay, that's an order. Get up here?'"
"I needed him to stay on task," Jonn protested.
"That wasn't the question posed, Cadet."
He clenched his fists. "Yes, that's what I said."
Weir consulted the notes on her padd. "Do you believe that was a lawful order, Cadet?"
"I don't know," Jonn said, "I'm not a lawyer."
Hammond interrupted Weir before she could respond to that, the first time any of the board members had said intervened. "Commander, I'm afraid I'm not seeing the relevance of this line of questioning."
"Allow me to restate the question," Weir said. She turned back to Jonn. "Cadet Sheppard, did you believe yourself to be in a command position over Cadets McKay and Emmagen?"
Aha. Here it was. "Somebody had to show some leadership, ma'am, and we didn't exactly have time for a vote," he said.
"And it was because of this command position that you verbally accepted sole responsibility for the loss of the shuttle designated Red Zero Seven?"
"I accepted responsibility because it was my idea," Jonn said.
Weir nodded. "Your idea, yes. Did you solicit any others?"
"Like I said, not a lot of time for voting," Jonn pointed out.
"Let the record show," Weir said, raising her padd in one hand, "that until the midflight engine restart, the shuttle's greatest mechanical difficulty was the disabling of the maneuvering thrusters. They had more than sufficient power to continue cruising at altitude until the end of the simulation period, if need be."
"Assuming your simulation didn't throw anything worse at them," Jonn shot back.
Weir's back stiffened slightly. "Let the record show that the simulation was operating within normal parameters before the engine restart."
"Then why don't you let Cadet McKay have a look at the code and prove it?" Jonn demanded.
"Commander Weir doesn't have to prove anything to you, Cadet," Nixon cut in angrily. "She is not the one under investigation here."
"And whose fault is that, sir?" Jonn asked.
Hammond was looking at Jonn with something like despair; Jonn found it hard to care. Nixon's face flushed, and he leaned forward over the table. "Cadet, unless you'd like to add another count of insubordination to your record, I strongly suggest you consider your position. Commander Weir, please continue."
"Thank you, Admiral," Weir said. There was nothing demure about her now: a sense of calm had settled in like a suit of plate mail. "As we're on the subject of insubordination, Cadet Sheppard, may I ask how many times you were penalized for insubordinate behavior while serving with the Mars Defensive Perimeter?"
You may, Jonn wanted to ask, but that was just petty, and he had no doubt that Nixon would find some way to follow through on the threat. "Three," he answered.
"Four, officially," Weir said. "And how many times for dereliction of duty?"
Jonn swallowed, seeing where this was going. "Twice."
"Intoxication?"
"Six times," Jonn admitted.
Weir scrolled through her notes. "According to a report filed by Group Captain Siranoush Bedrosian, then-Flight Officer Sheppard was, I quote, 'immature, irresponsible and occasionally prone to needless risk-taking.' She recommended against further promotion."
Hammond folded his arms across his chest. "Again, Commander, I'm having difficulty seeing the relevance of all this."
In response, she pulled up another document and sent it to every padd in the room. "Perhaps this will make it clear. In 2246 Jonn Sheppard was seen by Dr. Euh-Na Park, a xenopsychiatrist who specializes in the psychopathology of interspecies patients. Her diagnosis at the time was that the Vulcan aspects of his neurophysiology leave Sheppard exceptionally vulnerable to extreme mood swings and deficits in executive function, resulting in impulsive and irrational behavior."
Jonn felt his face flame, as the memory of that meeting rushed back to him: Dr. Park had been friendly enough, cheerful, chatting about his troubles in school while she scanned him with a tricorder. At least his Vulcan relatives never pretend to like him before telling him he was a half-breed freak, and they didn't dress it up in medical jargon like he was supposed to be grateful for it.
At the board's table, Admiral T'Liir leaned forward slightly. "How did you obtain these records, Dr. Weir?"
"They're part of Cadet Sheppard's permanent file, ma'am, just like his MDP service jacket," Weir said.
"I am certain you are aware of the controversy surrounding Dr. Park's research methods," T'Liir said. "Particularly when the subject is a pubescent male."
"I have to agree with Admiral T'Liir here, Commander," Hammond cut in. "If Cadet Sheppard cleared medical and psychiatric upon admission, there's no reason to bring up a diagnosis that's over a decade old."
"I'm merely attempting to establish a pattern of behavior, Admiral," Weir said. "Cadet Sheppard has a long and detailed history of conduct unbecoming to an officer in Starfleet. Yet despite this, he willingly assumed a command position, through which he directly and indirectly pressured his fellow cadets into taking recklessly irresponsible actions that disregarded the context of the simulation."
"Funny," O'Neill suddenly piped up. "I don't recall any of them saying they felt pressured."
"This is not the time or the place, Captain O'Neill," Nixon said sharply. He turned back to Weir. "Do you have any other questions for the cadets, Commander Weir?"
"Just one." Weir turned back to Jonn. "Cadet, after the simulation you offered to accept full responsibility for the incident. Do you still stand by that claim?"
"I'll take my responsibility if you take yours, too, ma'am," Jonn said just as flatly, staring her down.
"Then we're finished here," Nixon said. "Cadets, please wait in the hallway while we come to a decision."
Jonn stalked out, and ignored Mitchell and Emmagen calling after him. He went straight into the nearest restroom and splashed some water on his face, which did nothing to cool the hot green flush there. What he really wanted to do was hit something, and the mirrors looked nice and breakable...but of course, that would be impulsive and irrational, wouldn't it? Wouldn't Weir just love it if he came back in with lacerated knuckles to match the remnants of the black eye?
Emmagen surprised him by storming into the bathroom; she planted herself in front of him, arms crossed, chin raised. "You should not have lost your temper," she said firmly.
"Yeah, sorry about that," Jonn said. "Guess it just slipped out. Poor executive function, you know."
"Do not be foolish, Sheppard," she said. "Elizabeth did nothing but give you rope enough to hang yourself. If you anticipated a personal attack you should have prepared yourself better."
"So this is all my fault, is it?" Jonn demanded. "I thought you didn't disagree with me."
"You are impossible," Emmagen said with a shake of her head, and stormed back out.
They ended up loitering back in the hallway outside Room 145, the same place they'd started, though by this point the sun was westering and filling the corridor with light. Jonn checked his communicator, but no, no contact from Rodney. Figured. There was no sound, no sign of life from inside the room, no clue whether they were having a vicious argument or already drafting a conclusion. Hammond's got O'Neill on your side, he told himself, but that wasn't enough, not when Nixon was the tie-breaker...T'Liir had seemed sympathetic, except Vulcans weren't sympathetic, and Markov and Maybourne hadn't spoken up at all...
He passed nearly an hour like that, thoughts chasing themselves in circles, until the door opened. Weir came out, and stood by the door. "The board has reached a decision," she announced, and gestured for them to go in. Jonn did his best not to look at her as he went past.
Nixon waited until they had all shuffled back into their seats before he started reading out the verdict. "This board has considered all the available evidence, and come to a conclusion," he said. "You all demonstrated a serious deficit of judgment when you chose not to exit the simulation safely and immediately. I cannot over-emphasize this. All of your subsequent actions merely serve to compound this initial mistake. However, as to the specific charges, this board finds the greatest culpability rests on the shoulders of Cadets Tobias and Sheppard."
Tobias made a choking noise; Jonn, numbly, wondered if she'd thought she'd get off easy since they were so obviously scapegoating him. He looked at O'Neill, who wasn't making eye contact with anyone, and then at Hammond, who looked irritated and tired. What had they even said in his defense?
"Therefore, Cadets Tobias and Sheppard will remain on disciplinary probation for the next hundred and eighty days," Nixon continued. "In the event that this interferes with required coursework, the instructor may petition on a case-by-case basis for an exception. Any violation of the terms of probation will automatically trigger a far more serious punishment. In addition, a letter of censure will be placed in Cadet Sheppard's permanent record, detailing his role in the incident and this board's findings. Cadets dismissed."
And there it was. As sure as he'd been that this would be the outcome, Jonn still found himself numb with shock. He didn't care about probation; he'd been on and off probation for most of the past three years. But that letter of censure was a black mark that would follow him for the rest of his career...if he even still had a career...
"I'm sorry, Sheppard."
He started, and realized that the room was half-empty, and Hammond was standing across the row of desks from him. He really did look sorry, too, a little grimace written into the corners of his mouth. "That's nice, sir," Jonn said. "I'm sure that'll help a lot."
"I did everything I could," Hammond insisted. "But I'm afraid this time there were things going on behind the scenes beyond my control."
"And over my pay grade?" Jonn asked tartly.
"Over both of us, son," Hammond replied, and sighed. "I'm just sorry you got caught up in it."
And a couple years ago, that kind of cryptic bullshit had been just entrancing enough to get Jonn to take a gamble on the entrance exam. Now it just pissed him off. "Either way, future with Starfleet isn't looking so rosy now, is it, sir?" he asked. "I might've been better off staying on the Perimeter."
Hammond's brows lowered. "Don't do anything rash, Jonn. This isn't the end of anything."
"No," Jonn said, "no, sir, this was just the organization that I'm supposed to trust with me life stringing me up because they couldn't admit that one of their favorites screwed up. Now what the hell am I supposed to do about that? I'll say one thing about the Perimeter, I always knew exactly where I stood with them, even if it was in the gutter."
Hammond tried to put a hand on his shoulder, saying "Jonn-" but Jonn wasn't interested. He turned and walked out of the classroom, putting as much distance between himself and George Hammond as he could.
-\-\-\-\-\-
It should've been a relief, and Elizabeth supposed it was, sort of: the inquiry was over, and she could get back her real work. She'd been so busy during the past week preparing for the hearing that she'd gotten behind on marking papers, and if she didn't finish those soon she'd be reduced to showing a holo in class to kill time. She had correspondence to answer. She owed Simon a call, or at least a letter.
Dear Simon, I am not proud of what I did today...
"Doctor Weir?"
She paused on the pathway back to her office, and turned. Captain Maybourne was coming up behind her; he'd been a late addition to the board, someone Nixon had found, and she wasn't certain what his assignment was. He hadn't spoken during the board's deliberation, and voted to censure Sheppard but not Tobias-the deciding vote, in fact. He flashed a small smile at her as he caught up. "Sorry, make that Commander Doctor Weir. We didn't have much of a chance to get acquainted back there, did we?"
"No, we didn't, sir," Elizabeth said. "And there's no need to use the honorific, 'Commander' will suffice."
"Of course it will," he said indulgently, in a way that instantly put her off. "Listen, I wanted to commend you on how you handled Cadet Sheppard back there. You'd have every right to press another charge of insubordination on him."
"I think I've had my fill of Cadet Sheppard for now, sir," Elizabeth said. I'll take my responsibility if you take yours. Except she wasn't responsible, dammit, she'd already proven that....
Maybourne shrugged, accepting this. "Well, with any luck he'll keep running his mouth off and get run out on a rail before the rest of the fleet has to deal with him. That's actually not want I wanted to talk about, anyway."
"Oh?" she asked. Maybe now she'd find out what interest he'd had in the case in the first place.
He slowed to a stop at a bend in the path, near a thorn tree bedecked with wind chimes; their soft tinkling was almost musical. "I've been admiring your work from afar, Commander. You could've ridden your father's coattails into some cushy desk job, but you didn't. You took chances, and I respect that."
Elizabeth studied him carefully, but no, he seemed completely sincere. Obsequious as hell, but sincere. "Thank you, sir."
"There are some people I'd like to introduce you to," he continued. "I think you'll find what they have to say intriguing, and I'm positive they'd like to get to know you. Not a lot of people see things our way, you know."
"What way is that, exactly?" Elizabeth asked, trying not to betray her suspicions.
Maybourne laughed. "Oh, you know-pragmatically, I suppose you'd say." He pulled out his communicator and tapped out a message. "Councilor Kinsey is having a dinner at his house in Virginia in a couple of weeks. He'd love to meet you."
Elizabeth fought the urge to repeat the name like an idiot. Why exactly did a single board of conduct hearing merit a meeting with Earth's senior representative on the Federation Council? "I'm flattered, sir. Though it might be difficult to clear my schedule on such short notice."
"Oh, I'm sure something will work out." Maybourne closed his communicator with a snap. "I've sent you all the details. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a shuttle to catch. A pleasure, Commander."
"Captain."
She watched him walk away, wondering what exactly she'd just gotten herself into.
-\-\-\-\-\-
Crater Ridge had apparently once been a military base, back in the days of the last World War; that was how it had ended up a string of bomb craters in the first place. Rodney stumbled uphill, slipping on loose leaves and pine needles, and periodically he had to squint at the dim display on his tricorder to make sure he was on the right track. He'd waited half the night back in their dorm room, before it had dawned on him that Jonn might not be planning to come back; it had taken another couple of hours to triangulate his coordinates from the ping on his communicator, and over an hour of deliberation over whether he actually ought to go all the way down the south end of campus and find him. Ultimately, the odds of getting punched in the face weren't enough to outweigh the fear that Jonn might be planning to do something incredibly stupid, and Rodney had put his boots on and set off into the chilly spring night.
The sun was rising now on the other side of the ridge, leaving stains of gold and pink on the thin clouds overhead. Rodney paused for a minute to catch his breath and check his tricorder, but no, Jonn still hadn't moved...hadn't moved for quite a while, in fact. If he'd somehow left his communicator up here as a diversion and run off somewhere else, Rodney was going to kill him.
He finally crested the ridge, and found himself looking down a steep slope at misty, golden meadows; the highway out of town was a shimmering ribbon on the horizon, sparsely populated with trucks and buses. Jonn was, thankfully, exactly where the tricorder said he'd be, sitting on a flat rock and watching the scenery with a kind of thousand-yard stare; he'd brought a small backpack with him, and he was absently playing with one of the straps.
He also had to have heard Rodney coming from about a mile away-possibly literally a mile, given how quiet and still the woods on this end of campus were-but he didn't say anything to him, didn't even turn around and acknowledge him until Rodney cleared his throat. "So, um...yeah."
Jonn still didn't move. Bastard.
"My father's dying," Rodney blurted, because he was exhausted and suddenly outraged that Jonn could just sit there and presume to dictate how this conversation was going to go. Because the past week had happened and Rodney was done. He flopped down on the ground next to Jonn's rock and picked at a loose seam on the knee of his pants. "Xenopolycynthemia."
Jonn finally looked at him; he looked as exhausted as Rodney felt, with greenish-brown smudges under his eyes and even crazier cowlicks than usual in his hair. "I'm sorry," he said awkwardly, before glancing away again."
"Benjamin Ingram. The greatest physicist of his generation." Rodney wasn't exaggerating, either-he knew exactly who his father was, had never been allowed to forget it, had changed his name to get away from it. And yet- "He wasn't even going to tell me. My sister had to sneak out of the house and call me from the neighbors' to let me know."
Jonn kept playing with his backpack, and the traffic on the highway carried on as if nothing was wrong. As if people died every day-as if his father was just people and not the grim-faced ogre in the study who'd made Rodney's life a living hell. And now...now...
"I didn't...I ran away from home to come here," Rodney confessed; he'd always sort of figured that Jonn knew, but Jonn looked up sharply like this was brand-new information. "Forged the paperwork and everything. At first I was afraid he'd follow me and try to bring me back, but when he didn't come I decided he just didn't care enough to look...turns out he knew the whole time, though. Knew and didn't bother getting in touch with me anything." And now he was dying and Mum had told Rodney in no uncertain terms that he wasn't welcome, and damn it, Rodney had always thought this would be such a relief...
"I'm sorry," Jonn said again, lamely.
Rodney pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, which where sore and gritty from lack of sleep and...other things. "So, that's why I skipped the hearing. I chickened out on you again. I didn't have anything ready and I couldn't just stand in front of all those officers and just...I couldn't. Sorry."
Jonn sighed, like he didn't have enough energy to respond properly. "S'alright," he said, nudging Rodney's arm with one elbow. "Don't think it would've have made any difference anyway."
"Yeah. Still." Rodney scrubbed at his face with the back of one hand, then ruffled futilely at his hair-he probably looked like some unwashed crazy person, which was exactly what he was. "At least we didn't get kicked out, right?" he tried, aiming for the only sliver of hope he could see in the situation.
"Doesn't mean we can't still walk away," Jonn said ominously.
Rodney just blinked at him. "What do you mean, like, quit? Are you serious?"
"I don't know if I'm serious or not," Jonn said lislessly, eyes on the horizon. "I can still go back to the Perimeter. Probably get the same posting, even."
"That's stupid," Rodney said bluntly, stomach twisting with anxiety. "That's exactly what Nixon wants you to do."
"I don't give a shit about Nixon," Jonn snapped. He rubbed his own eyes, just as Rodney had. "If he wants to chase me out of the fleet, let him. It's not worth it to fight him."
"No. Jonn, no, Look." Rodney put a hand on Jonn's shoulder, then realized he had no idea what to do with it and pulled it back. "You can't give up now. This is stupid. You can't let a couple of assholes like Nixon and Weir stand get in your way." He racked his brain for something else to say. "Wow, I'm really bad at this."
"Yeah, you are." Jonn dropped the backpack strap and leaned back on his elbows, stretching his legs out in front of him. "I just need some time to think, Rodney. Figure out my priorities."
"What, beyond 'fly spaceships, score with aliens'?" Rodney asked.
"I can do that anywhere in the galaxy," Jonn pointed out.
Rodney shrugged, feeling helpless. "Yeah, but...but, um...anywhere isn't here," he stammered. "Which is, well, this is kind of all I've got, now, without-you know. And I...that is, I think...I think I'd miss you. If you were anywhere. As opposed to here. Oh, God, I'm shutting up now."
He looked at the wet leaves under his boots, willing his blush to go down, until Jonn nudged him with an elbow and said, "Thanks."
"Yeah. I mean right. I mean let's never talk about this again," Rodney said emphatically, before a yawn took him by surprise. Possibly he'd been sitting awake just a little too long.
Jonn nudged him again, as if he'd read Rodney's mind. "You look like shit, McKay. You should get some sleep."
"Yeah, probably," he said, as if he was actually going to get any sleep if he laid down again. He stood up, and spent a minute trying in vain to brush the mud and rotten leaves off his ass before giving it up as futile. Jonn seemed to have slipped back into the mysterious depths of his own brain, and Rodney felt another stab of anxiety, because if there was one other thing just couldn't deal with right now... "Just...don't do anything stupid, okay, Sheppard?" he asked. Pleaded, really.
"Trying not to," Jonn assured him.
Which was the best Rodney was going to get out of him, probably. With one more backwards glance, he set off back down the hill, to lay awake in bed and try to convince to figure out how he was supposed to grieve for the man he hated more than anything in the world.
-\-\-\-\-
Jonn waited until Rodney was out of earshot-out of Vulcan earshot-before he let out another bone-deep sigh. Don't do anything stupid, right-because Rodney couldn't just come out and say Don't leave me. Jonn knew he wasn't thinking too clearly, especially not after spending half the night wandering around the woods, but there was a part of him inclined to think that the smartest thing in this situation was to cut his losses-to his pride, and to his future prospects. Rodney would just have to learn to deal.
Because Jonn couldn't stay in Starfleet just to stick it to Nixon and Weir and everybody else who didn't think he could cut it. He couldn't do it just because Hammond wanted him around to play whatever fucked-up games he had going on behind the scenes. He couldn't do it for Rodney's peace of mind. He'd never been a big believer in revenge, and it wasn't like he'd never let anyone down before.
He'd had a lot of practice walking away from people and things that pissed him off. Not so much at toughing it out.
Jonn dug around in the front pouch of his backpack, looking for something he could use as a coin. He came up with a stray isolinear crystal-Rodney had probably brought it back to the room for something, who knew how it had ended up in Jonn's bag. There was a deep scratch in one side from where it had been knocked around by other things, so he called that heads. "Stay or go," he muttered under his breath, and flipped the crystal into the air, where it spun and caught on the light.
Chapter One
Chapter Six
Chapter Eight
Author:
mad_maudlin
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis/Star Trek 2009 (mashup)
Length: 91,750 (total); 6,212 (this part)
Characters: All of them!
PairingS: Canonical levels of Elizabeth/Simon, Teyla/Kanaan
warnings: Graphic violence
Summary: When a terror from out of time threatens the heart of the Federation, the crew of the USS Atlantis must band together in order to stop it. But can they overcome their own demons to stop the greatest threat they'll ever face?
Seven
The cadet dress uniform involved a stiff, hip-length jacket with a high collar, and Jonn had to fight the urge to keep tugging on it. He was waiting in the entryway of Archer Hall, a spacious, airy building with a delicate glass facade that contrasted oddly with the heavy bronze statues of famous ships and officers of Starfleet's past. The rest of the accused were grouped loosely near the doors of Room 145, where the hearing was scheduled to take place; Mitchell was talking quietly to Tobias, Ruu was reading, and Emmagen appeared to be meditating-well, either that or she'd fallen asleep standing up. Rodney had disappeared from the dorm while Jonn was indulging in an early-morning burn-off-the-nerves run, and at five minutes till there was still no sign of him. He's gonna come storming in here talking about a mile a minute and set the record straight, Jonn told himself. He's had all week to work on it. If anybody can do it, McKay can.
The sound of footsteps on the glossy tile floors preceded the board members; Admiral Nixon was in the lead, flanked by Hammond and Admiral T'Liir from the medical school. Jonn recognized O'Neill from their brief conversation, along with Carnahan and Markov from previous disciplinary actions, but there was another officer he didn't recognize-a human man, captain's braids, a little on the short side but with small, sharp eyes. He and O'Neill were standing about as physically far apart as they could in the narrow corridor.
Jonn snapped to attention, along with the others, as the officers filed past them. As they opened the door to enter Room 145, Jonn heard a low rumble of noise from inside-he made out Elizabeth Weir's voice, and a few others, observers or assistants. It was a mind game, making the cadets wait outside until the last minute, and one Jonn was intimately familiar with; that didn't necessarily mean it didn't work.
Where the hell was McKay, anyway?
"It is most unusual for a board of seven to hear a disciplinary case," Emmagen said. Even though she was murmuring, her voice seemed to carry to every corner of the hall.
"We did lose a whole shuttle," Mitchell said with a wince.
"Besides," Jonn added from experience, "Nixon doesn't actually get to vote except to break a tie." And that was cold comfort, because Jonn knew Markov and Carnahan didn't like him any more than Nixon did. He'd met Admiral T'Liir approximately twice, and one of those times was a mandatory meeting regarding telepathy protocols and Ponn Farr that Jonn was never speaking to anyone about ever again. It hadn't been the best first impression, but Jonn had made worse.
Hammond and O'Neill were there, though, and that last, unknown officer, who could've been another of Hammond's plants or a friend of Nixon's or someone else entirely. Two for, two against, two unknown. Given the odds, he'd rather be crash-landing a shuttle.
Someone opened the door for them, the signal to get underway. The desks in the room had been rearranged, creating a row of five-five?-at the front, directly in front of the table where the board members sat. Holocameras stood in all four corners to record the proceedings, and name plates had been set up: Captain Jonathan J. O'Neill at one end, and Captain Harold Maybourne at the other, with Nixon in between. Jonn lingered at the back of the line, taking the last seat on the right-definitely only five chairs set up. "Let's get this over with," Nixon said loudly, toying with the padd in front of him. "Commander Weir, if you're ready?"
"Excuse me, sir," Jonn protested, as Weir was about to open her mouth. "Cadet McKay isn't here yet."
"Cadet McKay has been excused," Carnahan answered.
"What?" Jonn blurted. It felt oddly like he'd been punched in the stomach.
"You heard him," Nixon said sharply. "Now, if we have your permission to continue, Cadet Sheppard?"
Jonn bit down hard on three different retorts that came to mind; Emmagen put one hand on his forearm under the table, though whether it was supposed to be reassurance or a warning, he wasn't sure. After a tense pause, Nixon nodded at Weir, who began to read the charges off her own padd. "We've assembled here today to hear evidence in the case of Cadets Second Class Teyla Emmagen, Rodney McKay, Cameron Mitchell, Ruu, Jonn Sheppard, and Claire Tobias in connection with the events of stardate 2257.107 which resulted in the loss of a Tereshkova-class transport shuttle and minor injuries to four cadets. The cadets stand charged with careless destruction of Starfleet property, gross recklessness, and disregard of simulation protocol."
"Thank you, Commander," Nixon said. He turned to one of the holocameras. "Let the record show that as Commander Weir has been the lead investigator of this incident, she has been chosen to conduct the bulk of the questioning."
Now that was more than Jonn could stomach. "With respect, Admiral," he said, coming to his feet. "Commander Weir isn't exactly an unbiased observer in this, is she?"
"This board has the utmost faith in Commander Weir's ability to conduct a thorough investigation, Cadet," Nixon said acidly. "Unless you've got a better idea?"
Jonn glanced at the rest of the board members, looking for any sign of dissent; O'Neill had raised his eyebrows, but he seemed to be absorbed in his padd, and Markov's lips had thinned considerably. Admiral Hammond met Jonn's eyes, and he gave a very, very small shake of the head. Jonn could imagine the drawling advice. Pick your battles, son. "My apologies, sir," he ground out, and dropped back into his chair.
Nixon set his padd flat on the table with a click. "Now, if Cadet Sheppard has nothing more to say-you may begin, Commander Weir."
"Thank you, Admiral," she said. "I'd like to ask Cadet Ruu to answer a few questions..."
A few questions turned out to be over an hour's worth, for each of them: long, detailed questions about who said what to whom, who did what, how the situation on the shuttle evolved. Weir was cool as a damned cucumber, and she wasn't asking anything particularly loaded: it honestly seemed like she was just trying to establish the facts. Occasionally she played back some of the comm recordings from inside the shuttles, asking them to confirm that they were accurate. A couple of times she entered data from the lost shuttle's engineering logs.
"Did you at any point have misgivings about Cadet Sheppard's plan to evacuate the shuttle?" she asked Ruu.
"I did not," he answered.
Of Tobias, she asked, "Did you at any point feel the midflight engine restart maneuver constituted an unnecessary risk to the safety of your shuttle and those aboard it?"
"No, ma'am," Tobias said.
"At any point," she asked Mitchell, "did you feel undue pressure from your fellow cadets to conform to Cadet Sheppard's advice regarding the thruster malfunction or the evacuation plan?"
"No, ma'am, I did not," he said.
Emmagen got a particularly close grilling, for some reason. Weir played out a clip from the shuttle's comms, of her saying, Cadet McKay, that is expressly against the terms of the simulation. "Was this the only time you reminded your fellow cadets of the protocols of the simulation?"
"I believe it was, yes," Emmagen said.
"And what was Cadet Sheppard's response to that?"
Emmagen hesitated slightly. "He responded that the shuttle designated Red Zero Seven needed to take immediate action to correct the thrust problem."
"Did you understand this to implicitly advocate action outside the protocols of the simulation?" Weir asked.
Jonn wanted to ask just what the hell that even meant, but Emmagen responded smoothly. "My understanding of Cadet Sheppard's meaning was that the situation was serious and called for swift and direct action."
"Your verbal response to Cadet Sheppard was, I quote, 'Is there not another way to override the failsafe?'" Weir said, referring to her padd. "Is that correct, Cadet?"
"That is correct, ma'am."
"And Cadet Tobias responded by proposing the engine restart."
"That is correct, ma'am."
Weir looked at her padd again. "Let the record indicate that during this time, both shuttles were flying within two and a half kilometers of the perimeter of the simulation zone."
Jonn curled his fingers into fists under the table. So that was her tactic-that Red Zero Seven should've just quit the simulation and let the evaluators mark them down for it. Did Nixon actually buy that line? That they should've blown the rest of their careers because of a stupid glitch?
Weir was now asking Emmagen, "You indicated verbally on the record that you disagreed with Cadet Sheppard's evacuation plan, did you not?"
"I believe I informed him he was 'a crazy son of a bitch,' in Cadet Mitchell's terms, yes," Emmagen said straight-faced. Up at the table, O'Neill smothered a snicker.
"But you didn't attempt to prevent Cadet Sheppard from acting," Weir said. "In fact, you assisted him."
"That is correct, ma'am," Emmagen said.
"Why was that, Cadet?"
She didn't glance at Jonn, but he recognized more or less the same words she'd given him last week. "Because, given the situation as we knew it at the time, his plan was not unreasonable, and because I judged that to not act or to delay action any further would only endanger the cadets aboard the other shuttle."
Weir didn't react one way or another, so Jonn had no way to tell if that was the answer she'd wanted. "I see. Thank you, Cadet Emmagen, you may sit."
Jonn braced himself for his turn under questioning, but Nixon suddenly leaned forward and said, "I think we could all use a break for lunch right about now. We'll reconvene in thirty minutes." The board stood up and filed out in a group, along with Weir; Jonn kind of wished he could pull Hammond aside and ask him how it was going, what Weir was playing at, but he knew the rules too well from too many board of conduct hearings. And god forbid we throw in any more breaches of protocol, he thought bitterly, kicking at the leg of the table.
"That went...not awful," Tobias said, grabbing a bottle of water off a side table.
"Could've gone better," Ruu grunted.
"We lost a shuttle," Mitchell repeated. "I'm counting it as a win if we don't fail the sim altogether."
Emmagen was looking at Jonn speculatively. "She seemed quite focused on your conduct during the simulation," she said slowly.
What did I tell you? Jonn wanted to ask; instead, he pulled his communicator out of his pocket and brought up Rodney's name. "I did kinda take the blame in public, remember?" he said.
Mitchell blinked. "You don't think they're serious about pinning the whole thing on you, do they?"
"Hey, if Weir takes her share of the blame, I'll gladly take the rest," Jonn said. He could hear the channel connect, but it rang out. Damn it. "Anybody seen McKay today?"
"I have not," Emmagen said. "Is he not your roommate?"
"That's what I'm trying to work out," Jonn muttered. He tried to call again and still got no answer, and McKay didn't call back before the hearing reconvened.
Once everyone was settled back in and the holocameras were recording. Nixon made a small gesture at Weir, who crossed the room to stand directly in front of Jonn, hands folded demurely behind her back. "Cadet Sheppard, I have a few questions for you."
Jonn stood up: he was maybe a hand span taller than Weir, but looking down at her didn't make him feel any better. "I kinda figured that," he said, and suspected that the loud cough that immediately followed had come from Hammond.
"Cadet Sheppard, your time here at Starfleet Academy has been rather...colorful, isn't it?" she started off.
"Is that a question or a statement, ma'am?" Jonn shot back.
One of her eyebrows went up slightly. "If you think it's inaccurate, Cadet, you seem to have no trouble offering corrections. But it's a matter of official record that you've stood before the board of student conduct no less than thirteen times in three years for offenses ranging from insubordination to fighting on campus..." Her eyes flicked to the remnant of the bruise around his eye. "And that's just the times you were caught, of course."
"Still waiting for an actual question, ma'am," Jonn growled.
"All right. Were you at any time designated with a command position during spring simulation?"
"I-no," he said, wrong-footed. "It's a matter of record."
"Yet during the simulation, you issued a direct order to Cadet McKay," Weir said. When Jonn didn't respond to that quickly enough, she asked, "Would you like to hear the official recording?"
"No," Jonn said. He could feel an angry flush building in the back of his neck already. "No, I don't need to hear the recording."
"So you admit that you said, I quote, 'McKay, that's an order. Get up here?'"
"I needed him to stay on task," Jonn protested.
"That wasn't the question posed, Cadet."
He clenched his fists. "Yes, that's what I said."
Weir consulted the notes on her padd. "Do you believe that was a lawful order, Cadet?"
"I don't know," Jonn said, "I'm not a lawyer."
Hammond interrupted Weir before she could respond to that, the first time any of the board members had said intervened. "Commander, I'm afraid I'm not seeing the relevance of this line of questioning."
"Allow me to restate the question," Weir said. She turned back to Jonn. "Cadet Sheppard, did you believe yourself to be in a command position over Cadets McKay and Emmagen?"
Aha. Here it was. "Somebody had to show some leadership, ma'am, and we didn't exactly have time for a vote," he said.
"And it was because of this command position that you verbally accepted sole responsibility for the loss of the shuttle designated Red Zero Seven?"
"I accepted responsibility because it was my idea," Jonn said.
Weir nodded. "Your idea, yes. Did you solicit any others?"
"Like I said, not a lot of time for voting," Jonn pointed out.
"Let the record show," Weir said, raising her padd in one hand, "that until the midflight engine restart, the shuttle's greatest mechanical difficulty was the disabling of the maneuvering thrusters. They had more than sufficient power to continue cruising at altitude until the end of the simulation period, if need be."
"Assuming your simulation didn't throw anything worse at them," Jonn shot back.
Weir's back stiffened slightly. "Let the record show that the simulation was operating within normal parameters before the engine restart."
"Then why don't you let Cadet McKay have a look at the code and prove it?" Jonn demanded.
"Commander Weir doesn't have to prove anything to you, Cadet," Nixon cut in angrily. "She is not the one under investigation here."
"And whose fault is that, sir?" Jonn asked.
Hammond was looking at Jonn with something like despair; Jonn found it hard to care. Nixon's face flushed, and he leaned forward over the table. "Cadet, unless you'd like to add another count of insubordination to your record, I strongly suggest you consider your position. Commander Weir, please continue."
"Thank you, Admiral," Weir said. There was nothing demure about her now: a sense of calm had settled in like a suit of plate mail. "As we're on the subject of insubordination, Cadet Sheppard, may I ask how many times you were penalized for insubordinate behavior while serving with the Mars Defensive Perimeter?"
You may, Jonn wanted to ask, but that was just petty, and he had no doubt that Nixon would find some way to follow through on the threat. "Three," he answered.
"Four, officially," Weir said. "And how many times for dereliction of duty?"
Jonn swallowed, seeing where this was going. "Twice."
"Intoxication?"
"Six times," Jonn admitted.
Weir scrolled through her notes. "According to a report filed by Group Captain Siranoush Bedrosian, then-Flight Officer Sheppard was, I quote, 'immature, irresponsible and occasionally prone to needless risk-taking.' She recommended against further promotion."
Hammond folded his arms across his chest. "Again, Commander, I'm having difficulty seeing the relevance of all this."
In response, she pulled up another document and sent it to every padd in the room. "Perhaps this will make it clear. In 2246 Jonn Sheppard was seen by Dr. Euh-Na Park, a xenopsychiatrist who specializes in the psychopathology of interspecies patients. Her diagnosis at the time was that the Vulcan aspects of his neurophysiology leave Sheppard exceptionally vulnerable to extreme mood swings and deficits in executive function, resulting in impulsive and irrational behavior."
Jonn felt his face flame, as the memory of that meeting rushed back to him: Dr. Park had been friendly enough, cheerful, chatting about his troubles in school while she scanned him with a tricorder. At least his Vulcan relatives never pretend to like him before telling him he was a half-breed freak, and they didn't dress it up in medical jargon like he was supposed to be grateful for it.
At the board's table, Admiral T'Liir leaned forward slightly. "How did you obtain these records, Dr. Weir?"
"They're part of Cadet Sheppard's permanent file, ma'am, just like his MDP service jacket," Weir said.
"I am certain you are aware of the controversy surrounding Dr. Park's research methods," T'Liir said. "Particularly when the subject is a pubescent male."
"I have to agree with Admiral T'Liir here, Commander," Hammond cut in. "If Cadet Sheppard cleared medical and psychiatric upon admission, there's no reason to bring up a diagnosis that's over a decade old."
"I'm merely attempting to establish a pattern of behavior, Admiral," Weir said. "Cadet Sheppard has a long and detailed history of conduct unbecoming to an officer in Starfleet. Yet despite this, he willingly assumed a command position, through which he directly and indirectly pressured his fellow cadets into taking recklessly irresponsible actions that disregarded the context of the simulation."
"Funny," O'Neill suddenly piped up. "I don't recall any of them saying they felt pressured."
"This is not the time or the place, Captain O'Neill," Nixon said sharply. He turned back to Weir. "Do you have any other questions for the cadets, Commander Weir?"
"Just one." Weir turned back to Jonn. "Cadet, after the simulation you offered to accept full responsibility for the incident. Do you still stand by that claim?"
"I'll take my responsibility if you take yours, too, ma'am," Jonn said just as flatly, staring her down.
"Then we're finished here," Nixon said. "Cadets, please wait in the hallway while we come to a decision."
Jonn stalked out, and ignored Mitchell and Emmagen calling after him. He went straight into the nearest restroom and splashed some water on his face, which did nothing to cool the hot green flush there. What he really wanted to do was hit something, and the mirrors looked nice and breakable...but of course, that would be impulsive and irrational, wouldn't it? Wouldn't Weir just love it if he came back in with lacerated knuckles to match the remnants of the black eye?
Emmagen surprised him by storming into the bathroom; she planted herself in front of him, arms crossed, chin raised. "You should not have lost your temper," she said firmly.
"Yeah, sorry about that," Jonn said. "Guess it just slipped out. Poor executive function, you know."
"Do not be foolish, Sheppard," she said. "Elizabeth did nothing but give you rope enough to hang yourself. If you anticipated a personal attack you should have prepared yourself better."
"So this is all my fault, is it?" Jonn demanded. "I thought you didn't disagree with me."
"You are impossible," Emmagen said with a shake of her head, and stormed back out.
They ended up loitering back in the hallway outside Room 145, the same place they'd started, though by this point the sun was westering and filling the corridor with light. Jonn checked his communicator, but no, no contact from Rodney. Figured. There was no sound, no sign of life from inside the room, no clue whether they were having a vicious argument or already drafting a conclusion. Hammond's got O'Neill on your side, he told himself, but that wasn't enough, not when Nixon was the tie-breaker...T'Liir had seemed sympathetic, except Vulcans weren't sympathetic, and Markov and Maybourne hadn't spoken up at all...
He passed nearly an hour like that, thoughts chasing themselves in circles, until the door opened. Weir came out, and stood by the door. "The board has reached a decision," she announced, and gestured for them to go in. Jonn did his best not to look at her as he went past.
Nixon waited until they had all shuffled back into their seats before he started reading out the verdict. "This board has considered all the available evidence, and come to a conclusion," he said. "You all demonstrated a serious deficit of judgment when you chose not to exit the simulation safely and immediately. I cannot over-emphasize this. All of your subsequent actions merely serve to compound this initial mistake. However, as to the specific charges, this board finds the greatest culpability rests on the shoulders of Cadets Tobias and Sheppard."
Tobias made a choking noise; Jonn, numbly, wondered if she'd thought she'd get off easy since they were so obviously scapegoating him. He looked at O'Neill, who wasn't making eye contact with anyone, and then at Hammond, who looked irritated and tired. What had they even said in his defense?
"Therefore, Cadets Tobias and Sheppard will remain on disciplinary probation for the next hundred and eighty days," Nixon continued. "In the event that this interferes with required coursework, the instructor may petition on a case-by-case basis for an exception. Any violation of the terms of probation will automatically trigger a far more serious punishment. In addition, a letter of censure will be placed in Cadet Sheppard's permanent record, detailing his role in the incident and this board's findings. Cadets dismissed."
And there it was. As sure as he'd been that this would be the outcome, Jonn still found himself numb with shock. He didn't care about probation; he'd been on and off probation for most of the past three years. But that letter of censure was a black mark that would follow him for the rest of his career...if he even still had a career...
"I'm sorry, Sheppard."
He started, and realized that the room was half-empty, and Hammond was standing across the row of desks from him. He really did look sorry, too, a little grimace written into the corners of his mouth. "That's nice, sir," Jonn said. "I'm sure that'll help a lot."
"I did everything I could," Hammond insisted. "But I'm afraid this time there were things going on behind the scenes beyond my control."
"And over my pay grade?" Jonn asked tartly.
"Over both of us, son," Hammond replied, and sighed. "I'm just sorry you got caught up in it."
And a couple years ago, that kind of cryptic bullshit had been just entrancing enough to get Jonn to take a gamble on the entrance exam. Now it just pissed him off. "Either way, future with Starfleet isn't looking so rosy now, is it, sir?" he asked. "I might've been better off staying on the Perimeter."
Hammond's brows lowered. "Don't do anything rash, Jonn. This isn't the end of anything."
"No," Jonn said, "no, sir, this was just the organization that I'm supposed to trust with me life stringing me up because they couldn't admit that one of their favorites screwed up. Now what the hell am I supposed to do about that? I'll say one thing about the Perimeter, I always knew exactly where I stood with them, even if it was in the gutter."
Hammond tried to put a hand on his shoulder, saying "Jonn-" but Jonn wasn't interested. He turned and walked out of the classroom, putting as much distance between himself and George Hammond as he could.
-\-\-\-\-\-
It should've been a relief, and Elizabeth supposed it was, sort of: the inquiry was over, and she could get back her real work. She'd been so busy during the past week preparing for the hearing that she'd gotten behind on marking papers, and if she didn't finish those soon she'd be reduced to showing a holo in class to kill time. She had correspondence to answer. She owed Simon a call, or at least a letter.
Dear Simon, I am not proud of what I did today...
"Doctor Weir?"
She paused on the pathway back to her office, and turned. Captain Maybourne was coming up behind her; he'd been a late addition to the board, someone Nixon had found, and she wasn't certain what his assignment was. He hadn't spoken during the board's deliberation, and voted to censure Sheppard but not Tobias-the deciding vote, in fact. He flashed a small smile at her as he caught up. "Sorry, make that Commander Doctor Weir. We didn't have much of a chance to get acquainted back there, did we?"
"No, we didn't, sir," Elizabeth said. "And there's no need to use the honorific, 'Commander' will suffice."
"Of course it will," he said indulgently, in a way that instantly put her off. "Listen, I wanted to commend you on how you handled Cadet Sheppard back there. You'd have every right to press another charge of insubordination on him."
"I think I've had my fill of Cadet Sheppard for now, sir," Elizabeth said. I'll take my responsibility if you take yours. Except she wasn't responsible, dammit, she'd already proven that....
Maybourne shrugged, accepting this. "Well, with any luck he'll keep running his mouth off and get run out on a rail before the rest of the fleet has to deal with him. That's actually not want I wanted to talk about, anyway."
"Oh?" she asked. Maybe now she'd find out what interest he'd had in the case in the first place.
He slowed to a stop at a bend in the path, near a thorn tree bedecked with wind chimes; their soft tinkling was almost musical. "I've been admiring your work from afar, Commander. You could've ridden your father's coattails into some cushy desk job, but you didn't. You took chances, and I respect that."
Elizabeth studied him carefully, but no, he seemed completely sincere. Obsequious as hell, but sincere. "Thank you, sir."
"There are some people I'd like to introduce you to," he continued. "I think you'll find what they have to say intriguing, and I'm positive they'd like to get to know you. Not a lot of people see things our way, you know."
"What way is that, exactly?" Elizabeth asked, trying not to betray her suspicions.
Maybourne laughed. "Oh, you know-pragmatically, I suppose you'd say." He pulled out his communicator and tapped out a message. "Councilor Kinsey is having a dinner at his house in Virginia in a couple of weeks. He'd love to meet you."
Elizabeth fought the urge to repeat the name like an idiot. Why exactly did a single board of conduct hearing merit a meeting with Earth's senior representative on the Federation Council? "I'm flattered, sir. Though it might be difficult to clear my schedule on such short notice."
"Oh, I'm sure something will work out." Maybourne closed his communicator with a snap. "I've sent you all the details. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a shuttle to catch. A pleasure, Commander."
"Captain."
She watched him walk away, wondering what exactly she'd just gotten herself into.
-\-\-\-\-\-
Crater Ridge had apparently once been a military base, back in the days of the last World War; that was how it had ended up a string of bomb craters in the first place. Rodney stumbled uphill, slipping on loose leaves and pine needles, and periodically he had to squint at the dim display on his tricorder to make sure he was on the right track. He'd waited half the night back in their dorm room, before it had dawned on him that Jonn might not be planning to come back; it had taken another couple of hours to triangulate his coordinates from the ping on his communicator, and over an hour of deliberation over whether he actually ought to go all the way down the south end of campus and find him. Ultimately, the odds of getting punched in the face weren't enough to outweigh the fear that Jonn might be planning to do something incredibly stupid, and Rodney had put his boots on and set off into the chilly spring night.
The sun was rising now on the other side of the ridge, leaving stains of gold and pink on the thin clouds overhead. Rodney paused for a minute to catch his breath and check his tricorder, but no, Jonn still hadn't moved...hadn't moved for quite a while, in fact. If he'd somehow left his communicator up here as a diversion and run off somewhere else, Rodney was going to kill him.
He finally crested the ridge, and found himself looking down a steep slope at misty, golden meadows; the highway out of town was a shimmering ribbon on the horizon, sparsely populated with trucks and buses. Jonn was, thankfully, exactly where the tricorder said he'd be, sitting on a flat rock and watching the scenery with a kind of thousand-yard stare; he'd brought a small backpack with him, and he was absently playing with one of the straps.
He also had to have heard Rodney coming from about a mile away-possibly literally a mile, given how quiet and still the woods on this end of campus were-but he didn't say anything to him, didn't even turn around and acknowledge him until Rodney cleared his throat. "So, um...yeah."
Jonn still didn't move. Bastard.
"My father's dying," Rodney blurted, because he was exhausted and suddenly outraged that Jonn could just sit there and presume to dictate how this conversation was going to go. Because the past week had happened and Rodney was done. He flopped down on the ground next to Jonn's rock and picked at a loose seam on the knee of his pants. "Xenopolycynthemia."
Jonn finally looked at him; he looked as exhausted as Rodney felt, with greenish-brown smudges under his eyes and even crazier cowlicks than usual in his hair. "I'm sorry," he said awkwardly, before glancing away again."
"Benjamin Ingram. The greatest physicist of his generation." Rodney wasn't exaggerating, either-he knew exactly who his father was, had never been allowed to forget it, had changed his name to get away from it. And yet- "He wasn't even going to tell me. My sister had to sneak out of the house and call me from the neighbors' to let me know."
Jonn kept playing with his backpack, and the traffic on the highway carried on as if nothing was wrong. As if people died every day-as if his father was just people and not the grim-faced ogre in the study who'd made Rodney's life a living hell. And now...now...
"I didn't...I ran away from home to come here," Rodney confessed; he'd always sort of figured that Jonn knew, but Jonn looked up sharply like this was brand-new information. "Forged the paperwork and everything. At first I was afraid he'd follow me and try to bring me back, but when he didn't come I decided he just didn't care enough to look...turns out he knew the whole time, though. Knew and didn't bother getting in touch with me anything." And now he was dying and Mum had told Rodney in no uncertain terms that he wasn't welcome, and damn it, Rodney had always thought this would be such a relief...
"I'm sorry," Jonn said again, lamely.
Rodney pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, which where sore and gritty from lack of sleep and...other things. "So, that's why I skipped the hearing. I chickened out on you again. I didn't have anything ready and I couldn't just stand in front of all those officers and just...I couldn't. Sorry."
Jonn sighed, like he didn't have enough energy to respond properly. "S'alright," he said, nudging Rodney's arm with one elbow. "Don't think it would've have made any difference anyway."
"Yeah. Still." Rodney scrubbed at his face with the back of one hand, then ruffled futilely at his hair-he probably looked like some unwashed crazy person, which was exactly what he was. "At least we didn't get kicked out, right?" he tried, aiming for the only sliver of hope he could see in the situation.
"Doesn't mean we can't still walk away," Jonn said ominously.
Rodney just blinked at him. "What do you mean, like, quit? Are you serious?"
"I don't know if I'm serious or not," Jonn said lislessly, eyes on the horizon. "I can still go back to the Perimeter. Probably get the same posting, even."
"That's stupid," Rodney said bluntly, stomach twisting with anxiety. "That's exactly what Nixon wants you to do."
"I don't give a shit about Nixon," Jonn snapped. He rubbed his own eyes, just as Rodney had. "If he wants to chase me out of the fleet, let him. It's not worth it to fight him."
"No. Jonn, no, Look." Rodney put a hand on Jonn's shoulder, then realized he had no idea what to do with it and pulled it back. "You can't give up now. This is stupid. You can't let a couple of assholes like Nixon and Weir stand get in your way." He racked his brain for something else to say. "Wow, I'm really bad at this."
"Yeah, you are." Jonn dropped the backpack strap and leaned back on his elbows, stretching his legs out in front of him. "I just need some time to think, Rodney. Figure out my priorities."
"What, beyond 'fly spaceships, score with aliens'?" Rodney asked.
"I can do that anywhere in the galaxy," Jonn pointed out.
Rodney shrugged, feeling helpless. "Yeah, but...but, um...anywhere isn't here," he stammered. "Which is, well, this is kind of all I've got, now, without-you know. And I...that is, I think...I think I'd miss you. If you were anywhere. As opposed to here. Oh, God, I'm shutting up now."
He looked at the wet leaves under his boots, willing his blush to go down, until Jonn nudged him with an elbow and said, "Thanks."
"Yeah. I mean right. I mean let's never talk about this again," Rodney said emphatically, before a yawn took him by surprise. Possibly he'd been sitting awake just a little too long.
Jonn nudged him again, as if he'd read Rodney's mind. "You look like shit, McKay. You should get some sleep."
"Yeah, probably," he said, as if he was actually going to get any sleep if he laid down again. He stood up, and spent a minute trying in vain to brush the mud and rotten leaves off his ass before giving it up as futile. Jonn seemed to have slipped back into the mysterious depths of his own brain, and Rodney felt another stab of anxiety, because if there was one other thing just couldn't deal with right now... "Just...don't do anything stupid, okay, Sheppard?" he asked. Pleaded, really.
"Trying not to," Jonn assured him.
Which was the best Rodney was going to get out of him, probably. With one more backwards glance, he set off back down the hill, to lay awake in bed and try to convince to figure out how he was supposed to grieve for the man he hated more than anything in the world.
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Jonn waited until Rodney was out of earshot-out of Vulcan earshot-before he let out another bone-deep sigh. Don't do anything stupid, right-because Rodney couldn't just come out and say Don't leave me. Jonn knew he wasn't thinking too clearly, especially not after spending half the night wandering around the woods, but there was a part of him inclined to think that the smartest thing in this situation was to cut his losses-to his pride, and to his future prospects. Rodney would just have to learn to deal.
Because Jonn couldn't stay in Starfleet just to stick it to Nixon and Weir and everybody else who didn't think he could cut it. He couldn't do it just because Hammond wanted him around to play whatever fucked-up games he had going on behind the scenes. He couldn't do it for Rodney's peace of mind. He'd never been a big believer in revenge, and it wasn't like he'd never let anyone down before.
He'd had a lot of practice walking away from people and things that pissed him off. Not so much at toughing it out.
Jonn dug around in the front pouch of his backpack, looking for something he could use as a coin. He came up with a stray isolinear crystal-Rodney had probably brought it back to the room for something, who knew how it had ended up in Jonn's bag. There was a deep scratch in one side from where it had been knocked around by other things, so he called that heads. "Stay or go," he muttered under his breath, and flipped the crystal into the air, where it spun and caught on the light.
Chapter One
Chapter Six
Chapter Eight