Fic: Aleatoric Life 22/25: Posato
Title: Aleatoric Life 22: Posato
Author: SGAtlantisLight
Characters: McKay, Sheppard, Beckett, Stackhouse, Zelenka, Dex, Emmagan, Lorne, Parrish
Relationships: Beckett/McKay/Sheppard, Dex/Zelenka, Corrigan/Stackhouse/2 OCs, Lorne/Parrish if you want to read it that way
Rating: R, though the series as a whole is NC-17
Warnings: Mention of non-con, post-culling creepiness, references to euthanasia.
Spoilers: None this part
Summary: They had rescued him, but they had yet to truly bring him safely home. Part of the Aleatoric Life series.
Disclaimer: Undoubtedly I own them, and a whole lot of other things, in some universe, but not this one.
"Come in!" John called to the knock at his door, looking up from going over the new, official protocols to see who it was. "Sergeant Stackhouse, what can I do for you?"
The young Marine cleared his throat nervously. "Well, sir... uh... now that... um... the new marriage protocols are in place... I... Well, I need to fill out some paperwork regarding my... uh... family."
John considered him. "When you say family, how many people are we talking about?"
"Um, well, me and three others."
"And are these three others all spouses?"
Stackhouse's face turned red. "Um. Yes, sir. And there's one child on the way."
"Ah." He couldn't be certain, but it sounded like Stackhouse might have been the man responsible for Elizabeth's move to invoke some protocols honouring local marriage customs. He pulled out a blank piece of paper. "Give me their names, please."
Stackhouse turned redder, if that was possible. "Um. Liata Isharom, Adeka Isharom, and Doctor Harry-- well, Henry, I guess, is his real name-- Doctor Henry Corrigan."
John sighed. Oh, yeah, this was going to be interesting.
***
"No, no, no!" Rodney exclaimed. "You can't do it in this order or it'll blow up in your face."
"You are not understanding what I am saying," Radek said, pointing to the data pad. "Now, look here. If you--"
"What'd you do to your hand?"
"What?"
"The huge bandage on your left hand, Radek. What did you do to get it?"
"Oh. I... cut it working."
"When? You left before me last night and I got here before you this morning."
"Ah... I... I was experimenting with something in my quarters," Radek said, looking away from Rodney.
"Your quarters? You know that's not safe. You never know what these Ancient--"
"I was... I was looking at plumbing!"
"The plumbing? Oh. Well. I suppose that's okay." Rodney said. "What's wrong with it?"
"Please, Rodney. You are distracting from what we were doing."
"Right. Sorry. You were going to blow us all up."
"This will not blow up anything. If you would just look..."
***
"How does that feel?"
"Fine."
Castillon glared at the military man. "Colonel, please, I need to know the truth."
"Okay, okay. The left one still hurts with a hard grip. The right one's just fine."
"Is there pain at any other time in the left?"
"It sometimes aches at night or right before storms."
Castillon nodded. "Well, we can run some tests and see if there's anything to be done, but the odds are good that there's nothing we can improve and you'll just have to live with the pain."
"Is that going to affect my ability to go off-world?"
"From the grip tests, I see no reason you can't resume off-world duty. Unless you think the pain is too bad?"
Sheppard gave him an offended look. "No! It's not too bad at all. It's just, you know, a pain in the ass. Or, well, I guess it's a pain in the hand."
"Yes. I understand."
The colonel considered his hands for a moment and sighed. "You know, this really hasn't been a good year. It seems like no one's escaped unscathed."
Castillon mulled this for a while, knowing what he knew about the man before him, then gently squeezed the colonel's shoulder. "But there have been good things as well. Sometimes it takes a difficulty to see the joys right in front of us and to reach out our hands and take hold of them."
The colonel smiled quietly. "Yeah. I suppose so."
***
"McKay," John greeted, nodding as Rodney sat down.
"Colonel. Teyla. Ronon." Rodney glanced at his food. "What is this meat?"
"Something like a nutria," John said.
"Nutria?"
"Gigantic guinea pig."
"So we're eating rodents now?" Rodney asked, shifting it to the side in disgust.
"It's pretty good," Ronon said, reaching across the table to take the slab of meat.
"Huh," Rodney said, looking at Ronon's white-bandaged hand. "Radek had a cut on the exact same hand. Right across the palm, too."
Ronon smiled, strangely shy. "Yeah. He did."
The table fell silent for a moment.
"I believe congratulations are in order," Teyla said, smiling gently at her teammate.
"Oh," John said.
"Well..." Rodney said. "I... uh... Yes. Congratulations."
"It's temporary," Ronon said. "Good for a year."
"I see. So, uh, do you have to renew or something..."
"After a year, we decide whether we want to stay together or go our separate ways. If we stay, it's till death."
"Well, still, it's a big step," John said. "We wish you the best."
***
John dumped his tray and walked toward the cafeteria exit, shaking his head. It seemed like everyone was pairing off-- or, in some cases, grouping off, he supposed.
He stopped and let Lorne, carrying a tray of food, go out ahead of him.
Speaking of pairing off...
"Eating in-quarters today, Major?"
Lorne's eyes flicked to his face. "No, sir. I just had my lunch. But Doctor Parrish is down with a flu bug, probably brought in with the Daedalus. I'm bringing him lunch."
John nodded. "Did you see the paperwork on Sergeant Stackhouse?"
"Yeah. It's going to be complicated to sort through."
"So, ah... Are there any other military people involved in any... ah, local marriages I should know about?"
"I wouldn't know, sir,"
"So, you don't know of any?"
Lorne's eyes flicked to his face again. "No, sir."
"And you haven't heard of anyone considering it."
"No, sir."
"What's your take on the new protocols?" John asked.
"Honestly, sir? The paperwork's a pain in the ass, but it seems a necessary step if we're planning to be here for a while."
"And personally?" John pursued.
Lorne gave him a blank look. "I don't know, sir. I'm not involved with any indigenous people."
"Ah. I see." John stopped and watched as his XO hit the panel for Parrish's door.
"Hey, doc, how are you feeling?" Lorne asked as he walked in.
Parrish's reply was muffled, but plaintive and then the door slid shut, with John none the wiser on where his XO's relationship to Parrish, or anyone else, stood.
***
Sergeant John Stackhouse walked toward the cafeteria, a smile on his face. He'd just returned from the Mainland with Doctor Beckett, who'd given Liata and their unborn daughter a clean bill of health. He couldn't wait to tell Harry the news.
"... know, Stackhouse just seems so innocent," a female voice said.
Stackhouse froze, just outside the cafeteria doors.
"Oh, I know," another female voice said. "But she was pregnant, so what was he going to do?"
"Yes, but two wives?" a third woman interjected.
"And Doctor Corrigan, too," the first voice said.
"Well, yeah, but there's parity there-- two husbands, two wives," the second voice said.
"So you don't think there's anything going on between him and Corrigan?" number three asked.
"No. I mean, there doesn't have to be, right?" two said.
"Honey, I have it on good authority that Harry Corrigan swings both ways, if you know what I mean." Third voice.
"That doesn't mean that Stackhouse does," the first voice said.
"Oh, well, it's not like I think they have a real relationship," number three said. "I mean, you never see any real affection between them and I doubt Stacks does anything much for Corrigan beyond, you know, maybe a handjob now and again. But I'll bet he's perfectly happy to let Corrigan play on his flute, if you know what I mean. He's got it good-- two wives and a bisexual co-husband. He ain't no innocent. He's a pig."
***
Dr. Harry Corrigan leaned back in his seat, stirring his after-dinner coffee thoughtfully. "I'm still not following how your experience in military intelligence gets you a spot on the Atlantis expedition with a mere master's degree when there are people with two doctorates who can't get in. No offense, meant."
Former Lieutenant Robert Jovanovic sat forward. "It's simple, really. We use some of the military intelligence analysis techniques to gain insight into cultures before we approach them. We send a cloaked jumper through the gate, take some aerials, come home and analyse them before we make contact.
"It's the analysis where military intelligence and anthropology can work hand-in-hand," Jovanovic continued. "As well as determining level of technology, military readiness, and so on, we can apply some of our techniques in reverse. For instance, in analysing the number of able-bodied people in a village, say, we have to know something about the culture. In the United States, a large house may only have one or two people living in it because we're a monogamous society, with small nuclear families, rampant divorce rates, and a lot of elderly and never-married adults who live alone. Compare that to some other societies, where a man may have two or three wives, a dozen children, a couple of unmarried adult siblings and his parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles living with him in a house the size of, oh, your mother's kitchen on Earth. Obviously, if we were to apply what we know about U.S. culture to our analysis of a village in Afghanistan, the results could be catastrophic. So, we have to know a lot about the culture-- marriage practices, common living arrangements, life-span-- to get good intelligence.
"In the case of the Pegasus Galaxy, however, we can often have a good idea of the number of people living in a village and the break-down in ages and gender, can see the number of buildings, but we're clueless as to marriage customs and so on. So, we look at our photos, and take what I know, combine it with intelligence from people like Miss Emmagan, filter it through what you know, and come up with a better idea of the culture we're approaching before we ever say, 'Hi.'"
Corrigan considered him. "Fascinating idea. I'm not sure how well it would work in practice, though."
Jovanovic pointed. "I knew you were going to have reservations, so I've got an example, using a culture you know." He dropped a set of prints on the table. "These are weather satellite images of the Mainland. Here you can see the Athosian settlement. They're obviously involved in some sort of ritual that includes pretty much the entire village population. Out of curiosity, what is this, do you know?"
Corrigan squinted at the blurry image. "Looks like a bonding ceremony-- a wedding. You see the three figures in the stone circle there? They're all in gold robes, which are only worn at weddings by the brides and grooms-- no other time."
"Ah! Interesting. I'd forgotten they have polygamous marriages. At any rate, I can count the number of people in this picture, estimate the ratio of men to women to children--"
"It's a tad blurry for that."
"Well, aerial shots would be cleaner. This is just what I could come up with on short notice. Anyhow, as I was saying... And then I look at these shots where we can see the number of buildings. We can eliminate some of them as having different functions from the majority of the buildings-- military intelligence training can help with that. What we have left is family housing. Now, we take the number of adults, divide by the number of family houses and come up with an average of... 3.9 adults per household. I can do the same thing with the number of children, ratio of men to women, elderly to younger adult, and so on. And, with your expertise, we can come up with some likely scenarios for our first contact teams."
"All well and good," Corrigan agreed. "But you're not always going to luck out and get a village-wide ritual like this."
"Right. But military intelligence training can help with estimating the number of people in a settlement. And we can always do a couple of flyovers at different times to help with that."
"Huh. All right. I think you've convince--" Suddenly, a hand gripped his arm and he was being pulled from his seat. He looked up into John Stackhouse's hazel eyes, flashing with anger. "J-John?"
His husband's arms slipped around him, one hand cupping his ass while the other pressed into the center of his back, pulling him forward and into a kiss. His thoughts stuttered to a stop and all he could do was slip his arms around his husband and hold on, while John plundered his mouth. When they broke apart and his thoughts finally coalesced into something more than "hot... sex... more..." he raised his eyebrows. "Um... wow! Can I ask what brought this on?"
"I'll tell you back in our apartment... afterwards."
Corrigan grinned. "I like that idea. Let's go."
Neither man noticed, as they walked out amidst whistles and catcalls, Jovanovic watching them, his eyes narrowed, and then carefully gathering up the satellite images on the table.
***
Radek stood at the front of the conference room. "I was able to access the dart's jump drive storage device and from there backtrack and hack into the hive ship's computer core. Contact has been hit or miss, however."
"Well, at least we got something out of it, even if you couldn't recover anyone from the transport device," John said.
Radek nodded, looking saddened. "Though I am trying some data enhancement algorithms." He turned back to the display, which showed a path through a sector of the Pegasus. "I've been tracking the progress of the hive ship, which has been confirmed through our intelligence network. We believe the next target is..." He pressed a button to change the display to a single planet's data. "... M7R-225."
"M7R-225?" John asked, fists clenching.
"Yes."
"And this concerns us how?" Rodney asked.
"I realise this planet doesn't exactly qualify as favoured nation," Elizabeth said, "but there are thousands of people there who were not in any way responsible for what happened to Carson, including hundreds of men and women... and children who may have been victimised in the same way. We need to warn them. I'm sending Major Lorne's team."
"Fine," John said, standing up and heading for the door. "Just don't expect us to break open the champagne on this one."
***
Parrish bent down and checked another body. He shook his head. "Dead."
Lorne looked up from where he was kneeling. "Mine, too."
"How long ago do you think this happened?" Parrish asked, smoothing down the white hair on the corpse.
"Hours at most. Some of these bodies are still warm."
The botanist pushed a door open and entered a dwelling, glancing around. A small sound caught his attention. He followed the noise into a bedroom, where a wizened figure lay on the bed.
The head turned and the dying man met his eyes. "Help me."
Parrish crossed the room and examined the man closer. "I'm sorry, friend. I'm afraid we've no way to help you except to ease your pain."
The man's eyes slid to the gun in Parrish's hand and then back to his face. "Help me."
Parrish sighed and nodded, placing the gun against the man's temple. He looked away as his finger started to tighten, and then froze. A black jacket hung on a peg on the wall, with Velcro patches on the shoulders-- one rectangular and one in the familiar shape of the Atlantis patch. "Where did you get that?"
The man's rheumy eyes shifted to the jacket and back to Parrish. "Took it from an off-world slave." He closed his eyes. "Ah, sweet memory."
Parrish stood in shock, his blood running cold. There was silence for a moment.
The man opened his eyes and shifted to place his head back against the barrel of the gun. "Go ahead. Please..."
"Hey, doc?" Lorne's voice called. "Everything okay?"
Parrish stepped back from the man, his eyes shifting to the jacket. "Everything's fine, Major. No one in here."
The man's eyes widened. "Please!" he gasped.
Parrish shook his head. "The man you raped is a friend of mine. Enjoy the rest of your life."
And he turned and walked out, ignoring the gasping cries behind him.
AN: Posato is a musical term meaning "settled"
Next part
Author: SGAtlantisLight
Characters: McKay, Sheppard, Beckett, Stackhouse, Zelenka, Dex, Emmagan, Lorne, Parrish
Relationships: Beckett/McKay/Sheppard, Dex/Zelenka, Corrigan/Stackhouse/2 OCs, Lorne/Parrish if you want to read it that way
Rating: R, though the series as a whole is NC-17
Warnings: Mention of non-con, post-culling creepiness, references to euthanasia.
Spoilers: None this part
Summary: They had rescued him, but they had yet to truly bring him safely home. Part of the Aleatoric Life series.
Disclaimer: Undoubtedly I own them, and a whole lot of other things, in some universe, but not this one.
"Come in!" John called to the knock at his door, looking up from going over the new, official protocols to see who it was. "Sergeant Stackhouse, what can I do for you?"
The young Marine cleared his throat nervously. "Well, sir... uh... now that... um... the new marriage protocols are in place... I... Well, I need to fill out some paperwork regarding my... uh... family."
John considered him. "When you say family, how many people are we talking about?"
"Um, well, me and three others."
"And are these three others all spouses?"
Stackhouse's face turned red. "Um. Yes, sir. And there's one child on the way."
"Ah." He couldn't be certain, but it sounded like Stackhouse might have been the man responsible for Elizabeth's move to invoke some protocols honouring local marriage customs. He pulled out a blank piece of paper. "Give me their names, please."
Stackhouse turned redder, if that was possible. "Um. Liata Isharom, Adeka Isharom, and Doctor Harry-- well, Henry, I guess, is his real name-- Doctor Henry Corrigan."
John sighed. Oh, yeah, this was going to be interesting.
***
"No, no, no!" Rodney exclaimed. "You can't do it in this order or it'll blow up in your face."
"You are not understanding what I am saying," Radek said, pointing to the data pad. "Now, look here. If you--"
"What'd you do to your hand?"
"What?"
"The huge bandage on your left hand, Radek. What did you do to get it?"
"Oh. I... cut it working."
"When? You left before me last night and I got here before you this morning."
"Ah... I... I was experimenting with something in my quarters," Radek said, looking away from Rodney.
"Your quarters? You know that's not safe. You never know what these Ancient--"
"I was... I was looking at plumbing!"
"The plumbing? Oh. Well. I suppose that's okay." Rodney said. "What's wrong with it?"
"Please, Rodney. You are distracting from what we were doing."
"Right. Sorry. You were going to blow us all up."
"This will not blow up anything. If you would just look..."
***
"How does that feel?"
"Fine."
Castillon glared at the military man. "Colonel, please, I need to know the truth."
"Okay, okay. The left one still hurts with a hard grip. The right one's just fine."
"Is there pain at any other time in the left?"
"It sometimes aches at night or right before storms."
Castillon nodded. "Well, we can run some tests and see if there's anything to be done, but the odds are good that there's nothing we can improve and you'll just have to live with the pain."
"Is that going to affect my ability to go off-world?"
"From the grip tests, I see no reason you can't resume off-world duty. Unless you think the pain is too bad?"
Sheppard gave him an offended look. "No! It's not too bad at all. It's just, you know, a pain in the ass. Or, well, I guess it's a pain in the hand."
"Yes. I understand."
The colonel considered his hands for a moment and sighed. "You know, this really hasn't been a good year. It seems like no one's escaped unscathed."
Castillon mulled this for a while, knowing what he knew about the man before him, then gently squeezed the colonel's shoulder. "But there have been good things as well. Sometimes it takes a difficulty to see the joys right in front of us and to reach out our hands and take hold of them."
The colonel smiled quietly. "Yeah. I suppose so."
***
"McKay," John greeted, nodding as Rodney sat down.
"Colonel. Teyla. Ronon." Rodney glanced at his food. "What is this meat?"
"Something like a nutria," John said.
"Nutria?"
"Gigantic guinea pig."
"So we're eating rodents now?" Rodney asked, shifting it to the side in disgust.
"It's pretty good," Ronon said, reaching across the table to take the slab of meat.
"Huh," Rodney said, looking at Ronon's white-bandaged hand. "Radek had a cut on the exact same hand. Right across the palm, too."
Ronon smiled, strangely shy. "Yeah. He did."
The table fell silent for a moment.
"I believe congratulations are in order," Teyla said, smiling gently at her teammate.
"Oh," John said.
"Well..." Rodney said. "I... uh... Yes. Congratulations."
"It's temporary," Ronon said. "Good for a year."
"I see. So, uh, do you have to renew or something..."
"After a year, we decide whether we want to stay together or go our separate ways. If we stay, it's till death."
"Well, still, it's a big step," John said. "We wish you the best."
***
John dumped his tray and walked toward the cafeteria exit, shaking his head. It seemed like everyone was pairing off-- or, in some cases, grouping off, he supposed.
He stopped and let Lorne, carrying a tray of food, go out ahead of him.
Speaking of pairing off...
"Eating in-quarters today, Major?"
Lorne's eyes flicked to his face. "No, sir. I just had my lunch. But Doctor Parrish is down with a flu bug, probably brought in with the Daedalus. I'm bringing him lunch."
John nodded. "Did you see the paperwork on Sergeant Stackhouse?"
"Yeah. It's going to be complicated to sort through."
"So, ah... Are there any other military people involved in any... ah, local marriages I should know about?"
"I wouldn't know, sir,"
"So, you don't know of any?"
Lorne's eyes flicked to his face again. "No, sir."
"And you haven't heard of anyone considering it."
"No, sir."
"What's your take on the new protocols?" John asked.
"Honestly, sir? The paperwork's a pain in the ass, but it seems a necessary step if we're planning to be here for a while."
"And personally?" John pursued.
Lorne gave him a blank look. "I don't know, sir. I'm not involved with any indigenous people."
"Ah. I see." John stopped and watched as his XO hit the panel for Parrish's door.
"Hey, doc, how are you feeling?" Lorne asked as he walked in.
Parrish's reply was muffled, but plaintive and then the door slid shut, with John none the wiser on where his XO's relationship to Parrish, or anyone else, stood.
***
Sergeant John Stackhouse walked toward the cafeteria, a smile on his face. He'd just returned from the Mainland with Doctor Beckett, who'd given Liata and their unborn daughter a clean bill of health. He couldn't wait to tell Harry the news.
"... know, Stackhouse just seems so innocent," a female voice said.
Stackhouse froze, just outside the cafeteria doors.
"Oh, I know," another female voice said. "But she was pregnant, so what was he going to do?"
"Yes, but two wives?" a third woman interjected.
"And Doctor Corrigan, too," the first voice said.
"Well, yeah, but there's parity there-- two husbands, two wives," the second voice said.
"So you don't think there's anything going on between him and Corrigan?" number three asked.
"No. I mean, there doesn't have to be, right?" two said.
"Honey, I have it on good authority that Harry Corrigan swings both ways, if you know what I mean." Third voice.
"That doesn't mean that Stackhouse does," the first voice said.
"Oh, well, it's not like I think they have a real relationship," number three said. "I mean, you never see any real affection between them and I doubt Stacks does anything much for Corrigan beyond, you know, maybe a handjob now and again. But I'll bet he's perfectly happy to let Corrigan play on his flute, if you know what I mean. He's got it good-- two wives and a bisexual co-husband. He ain't no innocent. He's a pig."
***
Dr. Harry Corrigan leaned back in his seat, stirring his after-dinner coffee thoughtfully. "I'm still not following how your experience in military intelligence gets you a spot on the Atlantis expedition with a mere master's degree when there are people with two doctorates who can't get in. No offense, meant."
Former Lieutenant Robert Jovanovic sat forward. "It's simple, really. We use some of the military intelligence analysis techniques to gain insight into cultures before we approach them. We send a cloaked jumper through the gate, take some aerials, come home and analyse them before we make contact.
"It's the analysis where military intelligence and anthropology can work hand-in-hand," Jovanovic continued. "As well as determining level of technology, military readiness, and so on, we can apply some of our techniques in reverse. For instance, in analysing the number of able-bodied people in a village, say, we have to know something about the culture. In the United States, a large house may only have one or two people living in it because we're a monogamous society, with small nuclear families, rampant divorce rates, and a lot of elderly and never-married adults who live alone. Compare that to some other societies, where a man may have two or three wives, a dozen children, a couple of unmarried adult siblings and his parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles living with him in a house the size of, oh, your mother's kitchen on Earth. Obviously, if we were to apply what we know about U.S. culture to our analysis of a village in Afghanistan, the results could be catastrophic. So, we have to know a lot about the culture-- marriage practices, common living arrangements, life-span-- to get good intelligence.
"In the case of the Pegasus Galaxy, however, we can often have a good idea of the number of people living in a village and the break-down in ages and gender, can see the number of buildings, but we're clueless as to marriage customs and so on. So, we look at our photos, and take what I know, combine it with intelligence from people like Miss Emmagan, filter it through what you know, and come up with a better idea of the culture we're approaching before we ever say, 'Hi.'"
Corrigan considered him. "Fascinating idea. I'm not sure how well it would work in practice, though."
Jovanovic pointed. "I knew you were going to have reservations, so I've got an example, using a culture you know." He dropped a set of prints on the table. "These are weather satellite images of the Mainland. Here you can see the Athosian settlement. They're obviously involved in some sort of ritual that includes pretty much the entire village population. Out of curiosity, what is this, do you know?"
Corrigan squinted at the blurry image. "Looks like a bonding ceremony-- a wedding. You see the three figures in the stone circle there? They're all in gold robes, which are only worn at weddings by the brides and grooms-- no other time."
"Ah! Interesting. I'd forgotten they have polygamous marriages. At any rate, I can count the number of people in this picture, estimate the ratio of men to women to children--"
"It's a tad blurry for that."
"Well, aerial shots would be cleaner. This is just what I could come up with on short notice. Anyhow, as I was saying... And then I look at these shots where we can see the number of buildings. We can eliminate some of them as having different functions from the majority of the buildings-- military intelligence training can help with that. What we have left is family housing. Now, we take the number of adults, divide by the number of family houses and come up with an average of... 3.9 adults per household. I can do the same thing with the number of children, ratio of men to women, elderly to younger adult, and so on. And, with your expertise, we can come up with some likely scenarios for our first contact teams."
"All well and good," Corrigan agreed. "But you're not always going to luck out and get a village-wide ritual like this."
"Right. But military intelligence training can help with estimating the number of people in a settlement. And we can always do a couple of flyovers at different times to help with that."
"Huh. All right. I think you've convince--" Suddenly, a hand gripped his arm and he was being pulled from his seat. He looked up into John Stackhouse's hazel eyes, flashing with anger. "J-John?"
His husband's arms slipped around him, one hand cupping his ass while the other pressed into the center of his back, pulling him forward and into a kiss. His thoughts stuttered to a stop and all he could do was slip his arms around his husband and hold on, while John plundered his mouth. When they broke apart and his thoughts finally coalesced into something more than "hot... sex... more..." he raised his eyebrows. "Um... wow! Can I ask what brought this on?"
"I'll tell you back in our apartment... afterwards."
Corrigan grinned. "I like that idea. Let's go."
Neither man noticed, as they walked out amidst whistles and catcalls, Jovanovic watching them, his eyes narrowed, and then carefully gathering up the satellite images on the table.
***
Radek stood at the front of the conference room. "I was able to access the dart's jump drive storage device and from there backtrack and hack into the hive ship's computer core. Contact has been hit or miss, however."
"Well, at least we got something out of it, even if you couldn't recover anyone from the transport device," John said.
Radek nodded, looking saddened. "Though I am trying some data enhancement algorithms." He turned back to the display, which showed a path through a sector of the Pegasus. "I've been tracking the progress of the hive ship, which has been confirmed through our intelligence network. We believe the next target is..." He pressed a button to change the display to a single planet's data. "... M7R-225."
"M7R-225?" John asked, fists clenching.
"Yes."
"And this concerns us how?" Rodney asked.
"I realise this planet doesn't exactly qualify as favoured nation," Elizabeth said, "but there are thousands of people there who were not in any way responsible for what happened to Carson, including hundreds of men and women... and children who may have been victimised in the same way. We need to warn them. I'm sending Major Lorne's team."
"Fine," John said, standing up and heading for the door. "Just don't expect us to break open the champagne on this one."
***
Parrish bent down and checked another body. He shook his head. "Dead."
Lorne looked up from where he was kneeling. "Mine, too."
"How long ago do you think this happened?" Parrish asked, smoothing down the white hair on the corpse.
"Hours at most. Some of these bodies are still warm."
The botanist pushed a door open and entered a dwelling, glancing around. A small sound caught his attention. He followed the noise into a bedroom, where a wizened figure lay on the bed.
The head turned and the dying man met his eyes. "Help me."
Parrish crossed the room and examined the man closer. "I'm sorry, friend. I'm afraid we've no way to help you except to ease your pain."
The man's eyes slid to the gun in Parrish's hand and then back to his face. "Help me."
Parrish sighed and nodded, placing the gun against the man's temple. He looked away as his finger started to tighten, and then froze. A black jacket hung on a peg on the wall, with Velcro patches on the shoulders-- one rectangular and one in the familiar shape of the Atlantis patch. "Where did you get that?"
The man's rheumy eyes shifted to the jacket and back to Parrish. "Took it from an off-world slave." He closed his eyes. "Ah, sweet memory."
Parrish stood in shock, his blood running cold. There was silence for a moment.
The man opened his eyes and shifted to place his head back against the barrel of the gun. "Go ahead. Please..."
"Hey, doc?" Lorne's voice called. "Everything okay?"
Parrish stepped back from the man, his eyes shifting to the jacket. "Everything's fine, Major. No one in here."
The man's eyes widened. "Please!" he gasped.
Parrish shook his head. "The man you raped is a friend of mine. Enjoy the rest of your life."
And he turned and walked out, ignoring the gasping cries behind him.
AN: Posato is a musical term meaning "settled"
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