The Stars My Destination (SGA, ensemble) 8/17
Title: The Stars My Destination (8/17)
Author:
mad_maudlin
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis/Star Trek 2009 (mashup)
Length: 91,750 (total); 4,660 (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?
Part III: deep space is my dwelling place
Eight
Even in summer, Colorado Springs had cool, breezy nights that invited long walks and open windows. With the end of the academic year upon them, many of the cadets were indulging in celebration, particularly the fourth-years who were so tantalizingly close to their commissions. Teyla passed plenty of revelers as she slipped out of her residence hall, their loud laughter filling the evening air. For some, the last exams were already over; she herself had only to deposit her undergraduate thesis, a task that could be completely nearly at her leisure. Starfleet Command had already issued deployment papers for the graduating cadets, contingent upon the completion of their coursework, and everything else increasingly seemed to be a mere formality.
Just thinking of her deployment papers set her teeth on edge, though. Teyla knew that she was near the top of her class in all subjects, and she had seen her own service jacket: excellent physicals skills for her size, technically adept, conversational mastery of a half-dozen languages. She had expected an assignment on a starship, perhaps even one of the new Constitution-class ships that would launch within the month; at the very least she would have thought she would merit placement on one of the larger stations such as Starbase Eight or Deep Space Two.
She had brought her papers to Elizabeth, barely able to contain her anger, and all but thrown the padd on the desk. "Why have I been assigned to Starbase Seventeen?"
Elizabeth had paused in the process of packing up her office, looking shocked that Teyla would storm in so abruptly. "I take it you're dissatisfied with the appointment?"
"I am far too qualified for a mere listening post," Teyla said bluntly, because it was true. "You know I am capable of a more challenging assignment."
Elizabeth had gone still and quiet, which was typically a sign that she was irritated or upset herself. "I'm quite aware of your capabilities, Teyla. That's why I recommended you personally for the Starbase Seventeen assignment, in fact."
Teyla had felt as if the ground beneath her shifted in that moment; as if there were dark fissures beneath her feet that she had only just become aware of. "I do not understand," she confessed, after a moment.
"Until you receive your security clearance for the assignment, there isn't a lot I can tell you," Elizabeth had said, but she also circled around the side of her desk to stand face-to-face with Teyla, put her hands lightly on her shoulders. "But believe me when I say that Starbase Seventeen is no mere listening post. In fact, it may be the most important installation in Federation space after Clarke Station. This posting is a real opportunity for you, and I'll admit I had to pull some very long strings to make it happen."
Teyla still did not understand what a listening post in a classified system had to do with a nearly obsolete space station in Sol; but she also still trusted Elizabeth, despite the strain caused on their friendship by the disciplinary hearing the year before. She had little choice but to trust her, when it came to matters of such high security clearance. So she had sighed, and submitted, telling herself that it would only be a matter of days before her security clearance was approved and she could be fully briefed on the posting. Only a matter of days, and she could be patient that long, at least.
She paused to trace the pendant under her shirt, the one she still wore after four years of sneers and blank looks from other students. Ancestors grant her patience, because otherwise she might explode from the frustration of not knowing.
Teyla's path took her at length to the shadows of Odhiambo Hall, around the west side where there were no windows or doors. She found one of the many secluded benches set along the path, place of peace and quiet...well, quieter than her own room, at any rate, and with the libraries and lounges tightly packed with studying students she had few other options to pursue. She made herself comfortable, with her padd in her lap, and opened the latest message from Halling, the one marked Urgent. At least, until she received her security clearance, she would have something with which to distract herself...
-\-\-\-\-\-
Jonn dodged out of the way of a laughing gaggle of cadets-science division, he thought, but he couldn't be sure-spilling out of a cafeteria on a tide of laughter. Lucky bastards must've been done with their last exams already; probably heading for the bars now, or a party in a rented apartment off-campus. Jonn himself still had a couple of finals, and technically he should've been studying for them, but with Rodney working on his thesis half the room had been swallowed up by a jumble of dirty laundry, food debris, hard copies of charts and graphs, hand-scribbled equations, and reference books hauled all the way from the main library and heavily bookmarked in multiple colors. And of course not a single piece of it could be touched without disturbing the order of the known universe and potentially costing Rodney his degree. This was like the apotheosis of every pre-final panic and mid-project psychotic break combined, and Jonn was fairly sure that if he did or said the wrong thing at any moment Rodney would either take a swing at him or burst into tears; thus he didn't intend on spending any more time in the room than he absolutely had to until Rodney had deposited, defended, and, ideally, showered. There was a reason the guy was already starting to lose his hair.
But that still left Jonn at loose ends, because he'd never really been able to concentrate well in a public place and at the moment, any place on campus that didn't have a lock on the door counted as public. That left the option of finding a party-not exactly a difficult achievement this week-and he had to admit that a couple of drinks sounded good right about now, even if the company didn't. Dozens of cadets celebrating the start of their glorious futures, and here he was, getting ready to drown his sorrows instead...
A big group of students-science students, based on the few Jonn recognized-tumbled out of Tucker Hall on a tide of laughter. To avoid them, Jonn veered onto the footpath between Tucker and Odhiambo, winding his way around the back of the residential quad. The winding path was lined with tall, dense stands of false indigo, as high as Jonn's shoulder in places and topped with long spikes of white or purple flowers; every ten meters or so a cozy little bench was tucked away, swallowed up by the dark leaves. The sounds of celebration from the main quad receded as he walked, and as they did he was able to pick up the much fainter sounds of the crickets and night birds, the subtle hum from the dorms' environmental units, and, very faintly, somewhere ahead, a voice.
He thought for a minute it might be someone studying-it might be dark, but Starfleet took all kinds, and some people were desperate for a quiet spot-but as he got closer he recognized the tinny overtones of a speaker. His next guess was someone watching a movie or making a call from their room, but there were no windows on this side of Odhiambo and all the ones he could see on Tucker were closed tight against the breeze. Without consciously thinking about it, he slowed down and listened, trying to make out the exact words.
"...detected by a Genii listening post crossing the Burill system thirteen hours ago..."
He slowed to a stop. Was this a news report? He hadn't heard anything on the news...though if they were talking about the Genii Confederation, that was light years away, in the Pegasus quadrant. Not the kind of thing that made headlines here on Earth.
"...complete destruction of the ship. A scavenging crew arrived within an hour to recover bodies and sensor records, but indicated there was little left to recover. The final transmission was decoded by the Genii shortly thereafter, describing a craft with the appearance of a 'flying mountain' which deployed squadrons of fighters in addition to the energy discharge detected. This message was relayed to us this morning under the terms of the Proculus Accords, and the council is about to go into debate-"
The recording suddenly switched off; the crickets sounded that much louder in comparison. Jonn waited to hear more-there was something about the message, something that sounded familiar-but a moment later, a voice he recognized called out from amidst the indigo. "It is impolite to eavesdrop."
Jonn approached the source and found another of the little benches hidden in the bushes. Teyla Emmagen was sitting cross-legged, with a padd in her lap (tilted conveniently away from Jonn) and her expression tensed slightly when she recognized him. "Letters from home?" he asked, hands in his jacket pockets.
"Confidential communications from my proxy on the Athosian Council," Emmagen said a bit stiffly, almost scolding.
"Not the best place to listen to confidential communications," Jonn said, making a point to look around the wide-open path. True, it was nearly deserted, but if he could wander by, so could anybody else.
Emmagen's mouth thinned briefly, and she averted her eyes. "My roommates have already concluded their last exam, and they are celebrating. Together. With...ah, volume."
"Aha. Say no more." Jonn probably should've left at that point, continued his search for a place to get loaded, except he hadn't seen much of Emmagen over the past year-not since the board of conduct hearing, really-and he was mildly curious about how she'd fared, whether she'd been tainted by association or worked her connection with Weir into some amazing opportunity. He leaned against the side of a conveniently-placed lamppost and crossed his arms. "So, did you get your deployment papers already?"
"Of course," Emmagen said. She could've brushed him off, if she'd really wanted to-he'd have taken the hint-but instead she blanked her padd and set it aside on the bench. "I have been assigned to Starbase 17 as a communications analyst."
Jonn's eyebrows went up. Starbase 17 was on the perimeter of Area 52, a border zone so heavily classified that nobody around the Academy would even admit to knowing its proper name. The starbase itself orbited Abydos, but rumor had it that the surface was off-limits without a boatload of special permissions and security clearance on the level of the Federation Council. "Sounds like a fun place to hang out," Jonn said, imagining it for himself: cooped up on a tin can in the middle of nowhere with no way out.
"It is...not an ideal assignment," Emmagen admitted, as if this wasn't an understatement. But she tossed her hair and lifted her chin again. "But I have spoken to Commander Weir about it."
"Oh, you did, did you?" Jonn asked, and fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Bet that went well."
She frowned at him. "Do you still hold a grudge against her, even after all this time?"
"I wouldn't call it a 'grudge,' exactly," Jonn muttered. For a while he hadn't even been able to look the woman in the eye, but fortunately they didn't see a lot of each other-less than he'd seen Emmagen, in fact. Jonn stayed out of political science courses and she had no business on the airfield. It was a good compromise. "But that letter of censure hasn't exactly done me any favors, you know?"
"I have not seen your name on any discipline lists this year," Emmagen observed with one eyebrow raised significantly.
Jonn huffed, and scuffed the walkway with his toe. "Yeah, I'm a changed man. Too bad the rest of the fleet didn't get the memo." She just watched him, quiet and waiting, and eventually the silence got uncomfortable enough that he elaborated. "I'm being 'deployed' right back to Mars. Seems Utopia Planitia had an opening for a test pilot."
"Evidently they think quite highly of your flying skills," she said, which was probably the most diplomatic spin you could put on the thing.
"And they don't trust me in the wild, or with anything bigger than a shuttlecraft." He wouldn't even be doing that much flying, if he'd understood the paperwork correctly-there would be hours of simulators and collaboration with the design teams, but the number of actual prototypes in testing was tiny-one, maybe two at any given time, and there were other pilots with more seniority. He'd logged more flight time on the Perimeter in the middle of a haboob.
He'd cleaned up his act since the hearing, mostly, but he knew his academic work had been hit or miss; it always had been, really, but he'd let too many classes get away from him just because he'd rather be logging cockpit hours. That had been the whole reason he'd come here, of course, and the main reason he'd stayed: He wanted to fly, not make friends or influence people. He wanted to fly and Starfleet was supposed to let him.
Except apparently they wouldn't, and he only had himself to blame. Well, himself and Elizabeth Weir, since without that letter sitting on his file, he might've at least gotten the benefit of the doubt...but it was too late to do anything about that now, wasn't it?
Emmagen flinched a little, and looked like she was on the verge of saying something else; but in the end she just stood up and collected her padd. "I should be studying, as I imagine you should be as well," she said, not exactly meeting his eyes. "Good luck with your finals, Cadet Sheppard."
It was as she was standing up that he noticed something strange. "Hey, what happened to your little-?" He fingered his own shirt, at the equivalent spot where her wooden pendant used to hang.
Emmagen's hand went up, and he saw her trace the approximate outline of the the pendant with one finger. "I have found it is...easier...not to wear it so openly," she said quietly, and gave him a look that just about dared him to argue with her.
But he'd seen what kind of ass-kicking she was capable of before, so he just shrugged. "Your decision, I guess," he muttered. "See you around, maybe."
"Perhaps," she said. "At graduation, at the very least."
"Yeah, see you then," he said vaguely, but he stayed under the lamppost for a while, watching moths buzz around the bulb, as she took off in the same direction he'd come from, head held high.
-\-\-\-\-\-
Jonn found his party, eventually, following a couple of guys he knew from Stellar Cartography to someone's off-campus apartment, and made his way back to the dorm with a nice, vague buzz but no danger of a hangover-the Vulcan genes gave him a ridiculously high tolerance. The residential quad had gone quiet, finally, but plenty of windows were still lit up, and he was far from the only person still walking the grounds in spite of the chill. He wondered vaguely how many people were planning to go straight to an eight o'clock exam without heading to bed first.
His own window wasn't dark, but that was hardly a surprise; he assumed either Rodney was still hard at work or he'd passed out face-down at his desk. But as he made his way up the stairs, he nearly collided with a statuesque second-year cadet in her pajamas, holding a large stuffed bear by the leg. "You're Room 429, right?" she demanded.
"Depends on who wants to know," Jonn replied, confused.
She brandished the bear in his direction, scowling. "Go and tell your damn roommate to shut up or I swear to God I'm going to pull his digestive tract out through his oral cavity," she said firmly, and then stomped back down the hall.
"I'll take that into consideration," Jonn called after her, bemused.
He made it to the next floor, and realized something of what she was talking about as soon as he opened the door; he could hear Rodney yelling from this end of the corridor, though he couldn't make out the words. One of the guys from the room next door was already poking his head out to stare around myopically in search of the disturbance, and Jonn gave the rest of the building thirty seconds at best before they decided to break down the door and shut Rodney up by force. He sprinted down the hall, Rodney's shouting resolving into a semi-incoherent mix of idiot and irresponsible and something like mother.
There was a pause, while Jonn reached the door and fumbled with the lock, followed by a distinct, "Fine! See if I care!" and a little later, "Well, don't come crying to me about it, you little-!"
Jonn got the door open just as Rodney was slamming his communicator down on the desk; the effect was somewhat spoiled, since it landed directly in a slice of cheese pizza. "Jesus, McKay, can you keep it down in here?" Jonn hissed, shutting the door again behind him.
"No, I cannot keep it down, thank you!" Rodney shot back at top volume. He'd taken off his pants at some point, revealing boxer shorts printed with cartoon planetoids, but left his uniform shirt on. With his hair sticking up and his chin raised, the overall effect was somewhere between mad scientist and crazed vagrant.
"It is three o'clock in the goddamned morning," Jonn told him, wading into the debris field to get in his face. "People have exams. You want them to turn up at the door with torches and pitchforks?"
"I have got an emergency, Sheppard!" Rodney shot back, although thankfully at a more reasonable volume. "This is no time to worry about other people's delicate sensibilities!"
"How about your delicate ass, where I'm about to kick it?" Jonn asked.
Rodney rolled his eyes and huffed pizza-breath into Jonn's face. "Oh, yes, very clever. How many beers did it take you to come up with that one?"
"Seriously, McKay," Jonn said, "you need to-"
At that moment, the train of thought was blasted from Jonn's head by a piercing whistle. For one stupid moment he thought it somehow had to do with Rodney's yelling-maybe somebody had decided to get revenge by air horn? But then he recognized the melody of the whistle and the flashing lights up near the ceiling, and realized it was a red alert. A goddamn red alert. In the middle of the night during finals week.
"What the hell?" Rodney whined, face going from red to ashy far faster than could possibly be healthy.
"Get your pants on," Jonn said, reaching for a jacket that didn't smell like beer and fake tobacco. If they were lucky, this was the worst-timed drill in Starfleet history. And if they weren't...well, Jonn couldn't think of an emergency big enough to turn out the whole Academy in the middle of the night. Maybe a declaration of war? With who, though?
The main quadrangle was lined with officers-faculty and staff and visitors-a lot of whom looked like they'd been turned out on equally short notice, hair sticking up or uniform askew. There were plenty of lampposts and the lights over the doors of the buildings, but even so, the whole area seemed too dark and too cold, every shadow ominous and sharp. Even as the students assumed a ragged formation, a couple of petty officers were setting up a microphone and speakers on the front steps of Cochrane Hall, just so they'd be framed by the giant arch of the main doors.
Jonn waited, shivering a little in the breeze, while next to him Rodney got his breath back. There was a low general murmur of people whispering back and forth to one another, trying to work out what was going on, but Jonn couldn't hear anything specific that also made sense. Natural disaster? Political crisis? Some kind of elaborate prank gone disastrously wrong?
Eventually Nixon climbed up to the microphone, though from where Jann was standing he was almost impossible to see behind the speakers. The assembled cadets went to attention immediately, a deep and almost eerie silence settling over the quad. Hardly seemed to even be breathing. Nixon talked quietly with somebody out of sight for a few minutes before clearing his throat loudly into the mic. "Cadets, at ease," he called, though not one person actually relaxed all that much. Nixon seemed to hesitate for a minute, before finally announcing, "You have been called to duty tonight because, forty minutes ago, Starfleet Command received a report of an ongoing attack on the planet Vulcan."
"What?" Rodney blurted; fortunately he wasn't the only one. He met Jonn's eyes, but Jonn couldn't exactly offer him any kind of answers, because, well-Vulcan? Vulcan was in the Federation's heartland, there shouldn't be any way for a ship to get across the border and into a developed system, not without somebody seeing them coming-and it should take a hell of a lot more than one ship to threaten a whole planet, given the amount of traffic in the system, its perimeter defenses...
"The system perimeter defenses have, at last report, been completely disabled," Nixon continued over the rumble of reactions. "The threat level is considered extremely high. The Federation Council has authorized Starfleet to respond with all available force. However, a large number of our Federation- and Saladin-class vessels are currently on a sensitive assignment in the Vorash system and cannot be diverted."
Jonn glanced at Rodney again, but Rodney just shook his head. Where the hell was Vorash? And what could possibly be so important there that ships couldn't be recalled for an attack on a founding member of the Federation? Something about this was fishy...
Nixon plowed ahead without bothering to clarify. "For this reason, in consultation with myself, the Academy faculty and the staff at the Utopia Planitia shipyard, Starfleet Command has authorized the launch ahead of schedule of three new Constitution-class ships currently in Mars orbit: the Apollo, the Daedalus, and the Atlantis. These ships are being prepared for launch as we speak, and will rendezvous with a task force of ships already en route to Vulcan to provide military reinforcement. In order to fully staff these ships on such short notice, all cadets first class and a selected group of cadets second class will receive brevet commissions, effective immediately. Certain Academy faculty and staff will receive brevet assignments, also effectively immediately, to accompany and supervise you. Once you receive your assignment, you will have fifteen minutes to report the airfield for staging and transportation. All three ships should be ready to depart within one hour."
Jonn had never heard such a large group of people go so quiet, quieter than they'd been even before Nixon started. A nervous kind of anticipation was clawing at him, equal parts anxiety and eagerness-because here was a way to get aboard a real starship, a real assignment, if only temporarily...with the catch that they were flying into the middle of a battle zone with an unknown enemy. Assuming the battle wasn't already over by the time they got there. Still, as little as he wanted to be happy about an attack, as terrifying as the prospect was of a one-starship army capable of challenging a whole star system...this was an assignment that mattered, and if it was the only one he ever got, he'd do his damnedest to make it count for all it could.
Nixon had hesitated for a minute, but now he continued: "This isn't the triumphant sendoff I know most of you were envisioning. It certainly isn't the one I was planning for you. But know that you deploy today with the full confidence of myself and the faculty of the Academy. We have chosen to charge you with a precious mission, perhaps the most precious mission you will ever undertake. You carry our trust and our hopes. Officers, prepare to take your stations."
Some of the officers who had been standing on the sidelines began distributing padds down the rows of cadets-no-longer. Rodney jolted out of some kind of terrified stupor when one of them was shoved into his face; Jonn took the next one, and scanned his thumbprint to access his new orders. Sheppard, Jonn - Lieutenant, the header read, and his heart gave a little jump, even knowing it was a brevet promotion as likely as not to be revoked within twenty-four hours. Still, full lieutenant was nothing to sneeze at...
Just as quickly, though, his insides turned to lead. Burroughs Station - Phobos.
"Atlantis," Rodney whimpered, as cadets began to push past them towards the airfield. "They're putting me on the Atlantis as the engineer's mate. I'm going to be in charge of people! Have they met me?"
"Trade you," Jonn said numbly. Words like liaison officer and combat readiness jumped off the screen at him but didn't really register. All this time, all this frustration, and they weren't just sending him back to Mars, oh no-when the Federation came under attack, when they needed people the most, they were sending him right back to the goddamned Perimeter. The irony made him want to choke.
Rodney's eyes, however, got huge when he wrestled Jonn's padd away to see his assignment. "They're mobilizing the Perimeter?" he said, with a definite squeak in his voice. "Oh my god, is Earth next?"
"Who the hell knows?" Jonn asked, snatching it back. "It might just be a precaution. Spend three days playing canasta in the officer's mess." He wasn't screwed-up enough in the head that he'd wish for any kind of attack on Earth, of course. But he might be spending the next few days sitting on this thumbs on Burroughs while everyone else threw themselves into the line of fire. The thought of it made him a little sick.
Rodney seemed to suddenly make the same connection, looking at his padd and Jonn's and back again quickly. Something in his face hardened, somehow, and that stubborn jutting chin came back in full force as he took several quick, deep breaths. "Right," he said with a savage certainty that he usually reserved for mathematical proofs. "Okay. First things first, we're taking care of this."
"Of what?" Jonn asked bitterly, but Rodney had suddenly seized his arm and was pulling him along with the tide of cadets. "Where the hell are we going, McKay?"
"If you think, for one minute," Rodney said distinctly, walking fast enough that Jonn actually had trouble keeping up, "that I'm going to get aboard that ship and go sailing into the middle of a battle zone without somebody suicidally self-sacrificing to hide behind, you clearly have not been paying attention for the better part of four years. Come on, keep up."
"What are you talking about?" Jonn asked, totally bewildered.
"I," he announced, voice almost lost in the crowd, "am getting you aboard the Atlantis."
Jonn dug his heels on instinct, pulling Rodney up short. "No way," he said, trying to wrest his arm away, because-no, he wasn't even going to let himself think it, not even imagine it, not if it was impossible. " You're out of your damned mind."
"I know," Rodney said mournfully, but his grip didn't waver. "I think I caught it from you. Now come on, before either of us come to our senses or the spaceships leave."
There were a hundred perfect reasons for Jonn to tell Rodney to man up and leave him behind. There was pretty much just one reason to follow him. Nobody had ever commended Jonn's judgment, though. He stopped struggling, and let himself be pulled along in Rodney's wake, towards the airfield where their transportation awaited.
Chapter One
Chapter Seven
Chapter Nine
Author:
mad_maudlin
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis/Star Trek 2009 (mashup)
Length: 91,750 (total); 4,660 (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?
Part III: deep space is my dwelling place
Eight
Even in summer, Colorado Springs had cool, breezy nights that invited long walks and open windows. With the end of the academic year upon them, many of the cadets were indulging in celebration, particularly the fourth-years who were so tantalizingly close to their commissions. Teyla passed plenty of revelers as she slipped out of her residence hall, their loud laughter filling the evening air. For some, the last exams were already over; she herself had only to deposit her undergraduate thesis, a task that could be completely nearly at her leisure. Starfleet Command had already issued deployment papers for the graduating cadets, contingent upon the completion of their coursework, and everything else increasingly seemed to be a mere formality.
Just thinking of her deployment papers set her teeth on edge, though. Teyla knew that she was near the top of her class in all subjects, and she had seen her own service jacket: excellent physicals skills for her size, technically adept, conversational mastery of a half-dozen languages. She had expected an assignment on a starship, perhaps even one of the new Constitution-class ships that would launch within the month; at the very least she would have thought she would merit placement on one of the larger stations such as Starbase Eight or Deep Space Two.
She had brought her papers to Elizabeth, barely able to contain her anger, and all but thrown the padd on the desk. "Why have I been assigned to Starbase Seventeen?"
Elizabeth had paused in the process of packing up her office, looking shocked that Teyla would storm in so abruptly. "I take it you're dissatisfied with the appointment?"
"I am far too qualified for a mere listening post," Teyla said bluntly, because it was true. "You know I am capable of a more challenging assignment."
Elizabeth had gone still and quiet, which was typically a sign that she was irritated or upset herself. "I'm quite aware of your capabilities, Teyla. That's why I recommended you personally for the Starbase Seventeen assignment, in fact."
Teyla had felt as if the ground beneath her shifted in that moment; as if there were dark fissures beneath her feet that she had only just become aware of. "I do not understand," she confessed, after a moment.
"Until you receive your security clearance for the assignment, there isn't a lot I can tell you," Elizabeth had said, but she also circled around the side of her desk to stand face-to-face with Teyla, put her hands lightly on her shoulders. "But believe me when I say that Starbase Seventeen is no mere listening post. In fact, it may be the most important installation in Federation space after Clarke Station. This posting is a real opportunity for you, and I'll admit I had to pull some very long strings to make it happen."
Teyla still did not understand what a listening post in a classified system had to do with a nearly obsolete space station in Sol; but she also still trusted Elizabeth, despite the strain caused on their friendship by the disciplinary hearing the year before. She had little choice but to trust her, when it came to matters of such high security clearance. So she had sighed, and submitted, telling herself that it would only be a matter of days before her security clearance was approved and she could be fully briefed on the posting. Only a matter of days, and she could be patient that long, at least.
She paused to trace the pendant under her shirt, the one she still wore after four years of sneers and blank looks from other students. Ancestors grant her patience, because otherwise she might explode from the frustration of not knowing.
Teyla's path took her at length to the shadows of Odhiambo Hall, around the west side where there were no windows or doors. She found one of the many secluded benches set along the path, place of peace and quiet...well, quieter than her own room, at any rate, and with the libraries and lounges tightly packed with studying students she had few other options to pursue. She made herself comfortable, with her padd in her lap, and opened the latest message from Halling, the one marked Urgent. At least, until she received her security clearance, she would have something with which to distract herself...
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Jonn dodged out of the way of a laughing gaggle of cadets-science division, he thought, but he couldn't be sure-spilling out of a cafeteria on a tide of laughter. Lucky bastards must've been done with their last exams already; probably heading for the bars now, or a party in a rented apartment off-campus. Jonn himself still had a couple of finals, and technically he should've been studying for them, but with Rodney working on his thesis half the room had been swallowed up by a jumble of dirty laundry, food debris, hard copies of charts and graphs, hand-scribbled equations, and reference books hauled all the way from the main library and heavily bookmarked in multiple colors. And of course not a single piece of it could be touched without disturbing the order of the known universe and potentially costing Rodney his degree. This was like the apotheosis of every pre-final panic and mid-project psychotic break combined, and Jonn was fairly sure that if he did or said the wrong thing at any moment Rodney would either take a swing at him or burst into tears; thus he didn't intend on spending any more time in the room than he absolutely had to until Rodney had deposited, defended, and, ideally, showered. There was a reason the guy was already starting to lose his hair.
But that still left Jonn at loose ends, because he'd never really been able to concentrate well in a public place and at the moment, any place on campus that didn't have a lock on the door counted as public. That left the option of finding a party-not exactly a difficult achievement this week-and he had to admit that a couple of drinks sounded good right about now, even if the company didn't. Dozens of cadets celebrating the start of their glorious futures, and here he was, getting ready to drown his sorrows instead...
A big group of students-science students, based on the few Jonn recognized-tumbled out of Tucker Hall on a tide of laughter. To avoid them, Jonn veered onto the footpath between Tucker and Odhiambo, winding his way around the back of the residential quad. The winding path was lined with tall, dense stands of false indigo, as high as Jonn's shoulder in places and topped with long spikes of white or purple flowers; every ten meters or so a cozy little bench was tucked away, swallowed up by the dark leaves. The sounds of celebration from the main quad receded as he walked, and as they did he was able to pick up the much fainter sounds of the crickets and night birds, the subtle hum from the dorms' environmental units, and, very faintly, somewhere ahead, a voice.
He thought for a minute it might be someone studying-it might be dark, but Starfleet took all kinds, and some people were desperate for a quiet spot-but as he got closer he recognized the tinny overtones of a speaker. His next guess was someone watching a movie or making a call from their room, but there were no windows on this side of Odhiambo and all the ones he could see on Tucker were closed tight against the breeze. Without consciously thinking about it, he slowed down and listened, trying to make out the exact words.
"...detected by a Genii listening post crossing the Burill system thirteen hours ago..."
He slowed to a stop. Was this a news report? He hadn't heard anything on the news...though if they were talking about the Genii Confederation, that was light years away, in the Pegasus quadrant. Not the kind of thing that made headlines here on Earth.
"...complete destruction of the ship. A scavenging crew arrived within an hour to recover bodies and sensor records, but indicated there was little left to recover. The final transmission was decoded by the Genii shortly thereafter, describing a craft with the appearance of a 'flying mountain' which deployed squadrons of fighters in addition to the energy discharge detected. This message was relayed to us this morning under the terms of the Proculus Accords, and the council is about to go into debate-"
The recording suddenly switched off; the crickets sounded that much louder in comparison. Jonn waited to hear more-there was something about the message, something that sounded familiar-but a moment later, a voice he recognized called out from amidst the indigo. "It is impolite to eavesdrop."
Jonn approached the source and found another of the little benches hidden in the bushes. Teyla Emmagen was sitting cross-legged, with a padd in her lap (tilted conveniently away from Jonn) and her expression tensed slightly when she recognized him. "Letters from home?" he asked, hands in his jacket pockets.
"Confidential communications from my proxy on the Athosian Council," Emmagen said a bit stiffly, almost scolding.
"Not the best place to listen to confidential communications," Jonn said, making a point to look around the wide-open path. True, it was nearly deserted, but if he could wander by, so could anybody else.
Emmagen's mouth thinned briefly, and she averted her eyes. "My roommates have already concluded their last exam, and they are celebrating. Together. With...ah, volume."
"Aha. Say no more." Jonn probably should've left at that point, continued his search for a place to get loaded, except he hadn't seen much of Emmagen over the past year-not since the board of conduct hearing, really-and he was mildly curious about how she'd fared, whether she'd been tainted by association or worked her connection with Weir into some amazing opportunity. He leaned against the side of a conveniently-placed lamppost and crossed his arms. "So, did you get your deployment papers already?"
"Of course," Emmagen said. She could've brushed him off, if she'd really wanted to-he'd have taken the hint-but instead she blanked her padd and set it aside on the bench. "I have been assigned to Starbase 17 as a communications analyst."
Jonn's eyebrows went up. Starbase 17 was on the perimeter of Area 52, a border zone so heavily classified that nobody around the Academy would even admit to knowing its proper name. The starbase itself orbited Abydos, but rumor had it that the surface was off-limits without a boatload of special permissions and security clearance on the level of the Federation Council. "Sounds like a fun place to hang out," Jonn said, imagining it for himself: cooped up on a tin can in the middle of nowhere with no way out.
"It is...not an ideal assignment," Emmagen admitted, as if this wasn't an understatement. But she tossed her hair and lifted her chin again. "But I have spoken to Commander Weir about it."
"Oh, you did, did you?" Jonn asked, and fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Bet that went well."
She frowned at him. "Do you still hold a grudge against her, even after all this time?"
"I wouldn't call it a 'grudge,' exactly," Jonn muttered. For a while he hadn't even been able to look the woman in the eye, but fortunately they didn't see a lot of each other-less than he'd seen Emmagen, in fact. Jonn stayed out of political science courses and she had no business on the airfield. It was a good compromise. "But that letter of censure hasn't exactly done me any favors, you know?"
"I have not seen your name on any discipline lists this year," Emmagen observed with one eyebrow raised significantly.
Jonn huffed, and scuffed the walkway with his toe. "Yeah, I'm a changed man. Too bad the rest of the fleet didn't get the memo." She just watched him, quiet and waiting, and eventually the silence got uncomfortable enough that he elaborated. "I'm being 'deployed' right back to Mars. Seems Utopia Planitia had an opening for a test pilot."
"Evidently they think quite highly of your flying skills," she said, which was probably the most diplomatic spin you could put on the thing.
"And they don't trust me in the wild, or with anything bigger than a shuttlecraft." He wouldn't even be doing that much flying, if he'd understood the paperwork correctly-there would be hours of simulators and collaboration with the design teams, but the number of actual prototypes in testing was tiny-one, maybe two at any given time, and there were other pilots with more seniority. He'd logged more flight time on the Perimeter in the middle of a haboob.
He'd cleaned up his act since the hearing, mostly, but he knew his academic work had been hit or miss; it always had been, really, but he'd let too many classes get away from him just because he'd rather be logging cockpit hours. That had been the whole reason he'd come here, of course, and the main reason he'd stayed: He wanted to fly, not make friends or influence people. He wanted to fly and Starfleet was supposed to let him.
Except apparently they wouldn't, and he only had himself to blame. Well, himself and Elizabeth Weir, since without that letter sitting on his file, he might've at least gotten the benefit of the doubt...but it was too late to do anything about that now, wasn't it?
Emmagen flinched a little, and looked like she was on the verge of saying something else; but in the end she just stood up and collected her padd. "I should be studying, as I imagine you should be as well," she said, not exactly meeting his eyes. "Good luck with your finals, Cadet Sheppard."
It was as she was standing up that he noticed something strange. "Hey, what happened to your little-?" He fingered his own shirt, at the equivalent spot where her wooden pendant used to hang.
Emmagen's hand went up, and he saw her trace the approximate outline of the the pendant with one finger. "I have found it is...easier...not to wear it so openly," she said quietly, and gave him a look that just about dared him to argue with her.
But he'd seen what kind of ass-kicking she was capable of before, so he just shrugged. "Your decision, I guess," he muttered. "See you around, maybe."
"Perhaps," she said. "At graduation, at the very least."
"Yeah, see you then," he said vaguely, but he stayed under the lamppost for a while, watching moths buzz around the bulb, as she took off in the same direction he'd come from, head held high.
-\-\-\-\-\-
Jonn found his party, eventually, following a couple of guys he knew from Stellar Cartography to someone's off-campus apartment, and made his way back to the dorm with a nice, vague buzz but no danger of a hangover-the Vulcan genes gave him a ridiculously high tolerance. The residential quad had gone quiet, finally, but plenty of windows were still lit up, and he was far from the only person still walking the grounds in spite of the chill. He wondered vaguely how many people were planning to go straight to an eight o'clock exam without heading to bed first.
His own window wasn't dark, but that was hardly a surprise; he assumed either Rodney was still hard at work or he'd passed out face-down at his desk. But as he made his way up the stairs, he nearly collided with a statuesque second-year cadet in her pajamas, holding a large stuffed bear by the leg. "You're Room 429, right?" she demanded.
"Depends on who wants to know," Jonn replied, confused.
She brandished the bear in his direction, scowling. "Go and tell your damn roommate to shut up or I swear to God I'm going to pull his digestive tract out through his oral cavity," she said firmly, and then stomped back down the hall.
"I'll take that into consideration," Jonn called after her, bemused.
He made it to the next floor, and realized something of what she was talking about as soon as he opened the door; he could hear Rodney yelling from this end of the corridor, though he couldn't make out the words. One of the guys from the room next door was already poking his head out to stare around myopically in search of the disturbance, and Jonn gave the rest of the building thirty seconds at best before they decided to break down the door and shut Rodney up by force. He sprinted down the hall, Rodney's shouting resolving into a semi-incoherent mix of idiot and irresponsible and something like mother.
There was a pause, while Jonn reached the door and fumbled with the lock, followed by a distinct, "Fine! See if I care!" and a little later, "Well, don't come crying to me about it, you little-!"
Jonn got the door open just as Rodney was slamming his communicator down on the desk; the effect was somewhat spoiled, since it landed directly in a slice of cheese pizza. "Jesus, McKay, can you keep it down in here?" Jonn hissed, shutting the door again behind him.
"No, I cannot keep it down, thank you!" Rodney shot back at top volume. He'd taken off his pants at some point, revealing boxer shorts printed with cartoon planetoids, but left his uniform shirt on. With his hair sticking up and his chin raised, the overall effect was somewhere between mad scientist and crazed vagrant.
"It is three o'clock in the goddamned morning," Jonn told him, wading into the debris field to get in his face. "People have exams. You want them to turn up at the door with torches and pitchforks?"
"I have got an emergency, Sheppard!" Rodney shot back, although thankfully at a more reasonable volume. "This is no time to worry about other people's delicate sensibilities!"
"How about your delicate ass, where I'm about to kick it?" Jonn asked.
Rodney rolled his eyes and huffed pizza-breath into Jonn's face. "Oh, yes, very clever. How many beers did it take you to come up with that one?"
"Seriously, McKay," Jonn said, "you need to-"
At that moment, the train of thought was blasted from Jonn's head by a piercing whistle. For one stupid moment he thought it somehow had to do with Rodney's yelling-maybe somebody had decided to get revenge by air horn? But then he recognized the melody of the whistle and the flashing lights up near the ceiling, and realized it was a red alert. A goddamn red alert. In the middle of the night during finals week.
"What the hell?" Rodney whined, face going from red to ashy far faster than could possibly be healthy.
"Get your pants on," Jonn said, reaching for a jacket that didn't smell like beer and fake tobacco. If they were lucky, this was the worst-timed drill in Starfleet history. And if they weren't...well, Jonn couldn't think of an emergency big enough to turn out the whole Academy in the middle of the night. Maybe a declaration of war? With who, though?
The main quadrangle was lined with officers-faculty and staff and visitors-a lot of whom looked like they'd been turned out on equally short notice, hair sticking up or uniform askew. There were plenty of lampposts and the lights over the doors of the buildings, but even so, the whole area seemed too dark and too cold, every shadow ominous and sharp. Even as the students assumed a ragged formation, a couple of petty officers were setting up a microphone and speakers on the front steps of Cochrane Hall, just so they'd be framed by the giant arch of the main doors.
Jonn waited, shivering a little in the breeze, while next to him Rodney got his breath back. There was a low general murmur of people whispering back and forth to one another, trying to work out what was going on, but Jonn couldn't hear anything specific that also made sense. Natural disaster? Political crisis? Some kind of elaborate prank gone disastrously wrong?
Eventually Nixon climbed up to the microphone, though from where Jann was standing he was almost impossible to see behind the speakers. The assembled cadets went to attention immediately, a deep and almost eerie silence settling over the quad. Hardly seemed to even be breathing. Nixon talked quietly with somebody out of sight for a few minutes before clearing his throat loudly into the mic. "Cadets, at ease," he called, though not one person actually relaxed all that much. Nixon seemed to hesitate for a minute, before finally announcing, "You have been called to duty tonight because, forty minutes ago, Starfleet Command received a report of an ongoing attack on the planet Vulcan."
"What?" Rodney blurted; fortunately he wasn't the only one. He met Jonn's eyes, but Jonn couldn't exactly offer him any kind of answers, because, well-Vulcan? Vulcan was in the Federation's heartland, there shouldn't be any way for a ship to get across the border and into a developed system, not without somebody seeing them coming-and it should take a hell of a lot more than one ship to threaten a whole planet, given the amount of traffic in the system, its perimeter defenses...
"The system perimeter defenses have, at last report, been completely disabled," Nixon continued over the rumble of reactions. "The threat level is considered extremely high. The Federation Council has authorized Starfleet to respond with all available force. However, a large number of our Federation- and Saladin-class vessels are currently on a sensitive assignment in the Vorash system and cannot be diverted."
Jonn glanced at Rodney again, but Rodney just shook his head. Where the hell was Vorash? And what could possibly be so important there that ships couldn't be recalled for an attack on a founding member of the Federation? Something about this was fishy...
Nixon plowed ahead without bothering to clarify. "For this reason, in consultation with myself, the Academy faculty and the staff at the Utopia Planitia shipyard, Starfleet Command has authorized the launch ahead of schedule of three new Constitution-class ships currently in Mars orbit: the Apollo, the Daedalus, and the Atlantis. These ships are being prepared for launch as we speak, and will rendezvous with a task force of ships already en route to Vulcan to provide military reinforcement. In order to fully staff these ships on such short notice, all cadets first class and a selected group of cadets second class will receive brevet commissions, effective immediately. Certain Academy faculty and staff will receive brevet assignments, also effectively immediately, to accompany and supervise you. Once you receive your assignment, you will have fifteen minutes to report the airfield for staging and transportation. All three ships should be ready to depart within one hour."
Jonn had never heard such a large group of people go so quiet, quieter than they'd been even before Nixon started. A nervous kind of anticipation was clawing at him, equal parts anxiety and eagerness-because here was a way to get aboard a real starship, a real assignment, if only temporarily...with the catch that they were flying into the middle of a battle zone with an unknown enemy. Assuming the battle wasn't already over by the time they got there. Still, as little as he wanted to be happy about an attack, as terrifying as the prospect was of a one-starship army capable of challenging a whole star system...this was an assignment that mattered, and if it was the only one he ever got, he'd do his damnedest to make it count for all it could.
Nixon had hesitated for a minute, but now he continued: "This isn't the triumphant sendoff I know most of you were envisioning. It certainly isn't the one I was planning for you. But know that you deploy today with the full confidence of myself and the faculty of the Academy. We have chosen to charge you with a precious mission, perhaps the most precious mission you will ever undertake. You carry our trust and our hopes. Officers, prepare to take your stations."
Some of the officers who had been standing on the sidelines began distributing padds down the rows of cadets-no-longer. Rodney jolted out of some kind of terrified stupor when one of them was shoved into his face; Jonn took the next one, and scanned his thumbprint to access his new orders. Sheppard, Jonn - Lieutenant, the header read, and his heart gave a little jump, even knowing it was a brevet promotion as likely as not to be revoked within twenty-four hours. Still, full lieutenant was nothing to sneeze at...
Just as quickly, though, his insides turned to lead. Burroughs Station - Phobos.
"Atlantis," Rodney whimpered, as cadets began to push past them towards the airfield. "They're putting me on the Atlantis as the engineer's mate. I'm going to be in charge of people! Have they met me?"
"Trade you," Jonn said numbly. Words like liaison officer and combat readiness jumped off the screen at him but didn't really register. All this time, all this frustration, and they weren't just sending him back to Mars, oh no-when the Federation came under attack, when they needed people the most, they were sending him right back to the goddamned Perimeter. The irony made him want to choke.
Rodney's eyes, however, got huge when he wrestled Jonn's padd away to see his assignment. "They're mobilizing the Perimeter?" he said, with a definite squeak in his voice. "Oh my god, is Earth next?"
"Who the hell knows?" Jonn asked, snatching it back. "It might just be a precaution. Spend three days playing canasta in the officer's mess." He wasn't screwed-up enough in the head that he'd wish for any kind of attack on Earth, of course. But he might be spending the next few days sitting on this thumbs on Burroughs while everyone else threw themselves into the line of fire. The thought of it made him a little sick.
Rodney seemed to suddenly make the same connection, looking at his padd and Jonn's and back again quickly. Something in his face hardened, somehow, and that stubborn jutting chin came back in full force as he took several quick, deep breaths. "Right," he said with a savage certainty that he usually reserved for mathematical proofs. "Okay. First things first, we're taking care of this."
"Of what?" Jonn asked bitterly, but Rodney had suddenly seized his arm and was pulling him along with the tide of cadets. "Where the hell are we going, McKay?"
"If you think, for one minute," Rodney said distinctly, walking fast enough that Jonn actually had trouble keeping up, "that I'm going to get aboard that ship and go sailing into the middle of a battle zone without somebody suicidally self-sacrificing to hide behind, you clearly have not been paying attention for the better part of four years. Come on, keep up."
"What are you talking about?" Jonn asked, totally bewildered.
"I," he announced, voice almost lost in the crowd, "am getting you aboard the Atlantis."
Jonn dug his heels on instinct, pulling Rodney up short. "No way," he said, trying to wrest his arm away, because-no, he wasn't even going to let himself think it, not even imagine it, not if it was impossible. " You're out of your damned mind."
"I know," Rodney said mournfully, but his grip didn't waver. "I think I caught it from you. Now come on, before either of us come to our senses or the spaceships leave."
There were a hundred perfect reasons for Jonn to tell Rodney to man up and leave him behind. There was pretty much just one reason to follow him. Nobody had ever commended Jonn's judgment, though. He stopped struggling, and let himself be pulled along in Rodney's wake, towards the airfield where their transportation awaited.
Chapter One
Chapter Seven
Chapter Nine