Control and Destroy - August 5th
Twisted Shorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge - Day 5
Title: Control and Destroy
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/SG:A
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Stargate people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Faith finds her skillset is a little different in a space battle.
Notes: Part 36 of Faith Sheppard - Links Page
Seasons: Post-series/Season 2
Word Count: 2425
Faith exhaled.
“Are you sure?” Caldwell asked.
She grinned. “Not even a little, but what other options do we have?”
“Exiting hyperspace in ten seconds,” Kleinman informed them.
“Launch the moment the target is acquired,” Caldwell replied. “Don’t wait for my order.”
“Five, four, three…”
Faith slipped into a position and forced her mind to focus. But her part in this could not begin until Evan and the Orion arrived. She remained in pose and waited, ignoring the conversation and the battle.
She felt the Orion arrive. None of the Drones took flight. In fact, nothing happened like it was supposed to. It took a solid minute - stretched like an eternity - for the bright little things to takeoff.
Faith felt herself with them. She dodged and skipped along, leading a large group for the undamaged Hive. They tore through it, explosive decompression. Her connection with launched Drones ended as they were destroyed.
She was distantly aware of the Orion being destroyed. She knew the team had been beamed off. But the unlaunched Drones had been sent spinning off in a thousand directions. She could feel them, undamaged. But they would not activate.
She had deactivated them before, controlled them, flown among them, but she had never activated them. You would think it was like turning a light off and back on, but it was never that simple. Maybe it was something in the Ancient tech that allowed it to activate. That was the reason she had had a Jumper brought with them. She reached for the Jumper.
The sound of Asgard beaming right in front of her threw her off. She windmilled in surprise. Someone grabbed her arm, pulling her upright.
“Ronon,” she said in surprise, then she looked to the side. “John, Rodney, Michael.”
“You said something about a plan?” Caldwell demanded.
“I’ve disabled their jamming code,” Michael told them. “But it’s only a matter of time before they realize.”
“All you have to do is send over a nuke,” John said.
“We deployed all our warheads in the first attack,” Caldwell barked.
“The hive is launching Darts, sir,” Kleinman reported.
Faith dropped into position again and reached for the Jumper in the starboard F-302 bay. She felt it align with her. “Wake!” she ordered. She the Drones come to life. She directed the ones closest to the Hive to go straight through the hull and bays. The explosion shook the Daedalus a bit.
She directed two dozen of them to take out the Darts.
“Railguns, help her out,” Caldwell ordered.
“They’re coming in, looks like a ramming run,” Kleinman said.
“Faith?” John asked, anxious.
She made a fanning motion, the formation of Darts were destroyed by six Drones charging back and forth in front of the Daedalus.
“Where do you want them?” Faith asked as the remaining Drones circled together in front of the ship.
“Want what?” Caldwell asked.
“The Drones,” John explained. “She can land them in the F-302 bay.”
“Do it.”
“The bays,” John told Faith.
She nodded and twisted her body. She lined up the remaining ones and had them file into the bay. When all of them were stacked in she barked: “Sleep!”
Then she went boneless on the bridge.
Ronon snatched her up and swung her into his arms.
Caldwell stood. “Report?”
“Hive and Darts destroyed,” Kleinman said. “We lost communications and hyperdrive is damaged. Repair crews are already dispatched. Shields are at twenty-five percent. Sublight is working minimally. Life support is stable. Pilots are reporting hundreds of Drones in the bay, they appear intact and dormant.”
“Good. Get us turned towards Atlantis.” Caldwell approached Ronon. “Is she okay?”
John was already looking Faith over. “Alive, just passed out. Take a bit before she’ll be awake.”
“What the hell was that?” Caldwell demanded.
John had no answer.
88888888
Ronon sat on one bunk, watching where Faith slept on the other. It had been more than eight hours. The Wraith was locked up somewhere on the ship. Radek and Rodney were heading teams repairing various systems on the ship. John was overseeing the storage of the Drones.
“Oh,” Faith moaned.
Ronon shifted across the room to sit on the edge of her bunk. “Hey,” he said.
Dark eyes opened and stared up at him. “Ronon?”
“Yeah.”
She reached up and touched a hand to his chest. “Oh good,” she said softly, “thought it was a dream.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“You, John, and Rodney are alive and you brought Michael back with you,” she pointed out. “It was more like to be a dream.”
“How’s your head?”
“Attached,” she replied. She pushed upright until her face was level with his. “As glad as I am to see you, did you bring me food?”
He picked up a large water container from the floor. “I couldn’t find your protein powder.”
Faith reached into her messenger bag, pulling out a reusable zipper packet. Ronon opened the water container. She poured in the powder and put the empty packet in her bag.
Ronon closed the water and shook it, his attention on her bag.
“Magic,” she explained. “Next time I go to Earth, I need to have Willow do some kind of ‘add user’ feature for me.”
He handed over the shake and helped her to sit up all the way. She didn’t complain, just opened the container and started drinking. It tasted like a citrusy milk. The color was normally pretty green due to the Pegasus plant used for the dried protein. She was halfway through before she came up for air. She returned the lid and took several deep breaths.
It was ten minutes before she opened it and took another sip. Then she stood and stretched a bit. She put her bag on her shoulder, grabbed the protein shake, and left the bunk. Ronon followed.
Faith made her way straight for Colonel Caldwell’s most likely position - the bridge. She found him looking over a tablet.
“Colonel,” she said, coming around in front of him.
His gaze shot to hers. “Miss Sheppard.”
“We win?”
“We didn’t lose,” he offered. “Which was more than we expected. McKay and Zelenka are working with my teams to oversee repairs. They should have hyperdrive back in another couple hours.”
“Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for,” he told her. “Your trick with the Drones…saved our asses and destroyed the second Hive. Even after the loss of the Orion.”
She sighed. “Yeah, kinda glad I insisted on the Jumper before we left Atlantis.”
A slight smile softened his expression for just a moment. “Jumper in that bay any time you want to tag along with a dozen Drones.”
She grinned. “Appreciate it.”
“I know your brother wanted to see you,” he checked his watch. “I believe everyone was headed for a meal, if you want to check the mess.”
Faith nodded and left the bridge. Ronon was still staying just behind her. She stopped in an empty hall and turned to him. “Are you following me?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She patted his chest before continuing on. They entered the mess to find John, Evan, and Rodney sitting at a table.
Faith plopped down between John and Evan, leaving Ronon to take a seat next to Rodney. She immediately placed her head on Evan’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
“Really prefer you not do that,” Evan said suddenly.
“Saved ship, Caldwell gave me leave to do what I want,” she replied.
“Be that as it may, if looks could kill.”
She opened her eyes and saw the Ronon was looking…more than a little disgruntled. She shifted and tilted to the other side, setting her head on John’s shoulder instead. She raised an eyebrow in Ronon’s direction and while he still looked annoyed, it had calmed from murderous.
John tilted his head to tap hers. “How are you?”
“Five by five,” she replied. She opened her protein and drank it down to the dregs, then put it on the table. She closed her eyes again, leaning on John’s shoulder.
“Do you know how many Drones you controlled?” Rodney suddenly burst out.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Fifty.”
“We’ve only finished cataloguing one bay,” John told her. “There were more than two hundred Drones.”
“Cool,” she muttered sleepily, “more stock.”
Evan got up suddenly and walked away.
“He still glaring?” Faith asked John.
John glanced at his sister, finding her nearly asleep against him. He looked at Ronon, studying his guarded countenance. “No more than normal.”
“Hmm.”
Evan sat down again a moment later. He set something down in front of her. Faith blinked a few times, focusing. She grinned. It was a tray filled with foods. There was two bottles of water, two sandwiches, a slice of cake, and a plate of fries.
“Eat,” he told her, “your protein keeps you alive but you still need actual food.”
She reached out and snaked a couple of fries. Only once she ate them did the gnawing hunger prove that the while the protein had taken the edge off, it had not done everything she needed after what she had done. It was not helped by the fact that she had not eaten since sometime before she left Atlantis. Oops.
Faith straightened and focused on the food. After a sandwich, a bottle of water, and half a plate of fries, she felt much less sluggish.
“More awake?” Evan asked.
“Yeah.” She reactively slapped a hand that reached for her fries. John pulled his hand back, shaking off the sting. “Too slow.”
88888888
Faith walked past several guards and knocked on the clear door. Michael remained at his position looking out at the dark ocean of Lantea. He waved a hand.
Taking that as a signal to enter, she pulled the door open and entered his room. She crossed to the window and looked out. She could hear the waves lapping against the City below them.
“Even though I saved Colonel Sheppard’s life and helped him stop the hives from reaching Earth,” Michael hissed, “you still place me under guard.”
“Ronon spent several days with guards,” she replied. “He had held Teyla at gunpoint while I dug a Wraith tracker out of his back.”
Michael made a snorting noise. “A Runner - that explains many things.” He looked at her. “Yet you stand within arm’s reach of me.”
“You don’t scare me, Michael, nor does your existence cause me anger or guilt.” She looked at him. “You’ve caused Haly no end of confusion.”
“She was in the hall when we were initially escorted in,” he observed. “She recognized me.”
“My daughter is no fool, she said there was little difference between your human and Wraith - save some coloring and little things like your teeth.”
“I am a prisoner here,” he told her.
“That depends on you.”
“I’ve been among them as a human,” he told her, “they didn’t trust me then, why would they now?”
“They aren’t the ones you need to convince,” Faith told him.
“I couldn’t be accepted by my own kind, why would I expect anything different here?”
She chuckled and sat down on one of the chairs. “If you’re going to whine about it, I may reconsider my stance.”
He slowly sat on the couch across from her. “Your stance?”
“If I had been around when they decided to do this…let’s just say there is no way in hell I would have let it go down the way it did.”
“You would have stopped them?”
“We needed to test the viability of the retrovirus,” she said apologetically. “But treating you like a human…that was cruel and selfish.”
“Would I have been caged in the brig for the entirety of my stay?” he asked heatedly.
She shook her head. “I would hope not.” She gestured to the guards outside his door. “The best way to stick it to them…become more than they thought you could be.” She watched him with knowing eyes. “If you let that anger and bitterness fester and drive you to hate us, to make destroying us your only goal - they were right. But if there is something in you as a Wraith, a human, or whatever you want to call yourself now that knows his worth, that his contribution could be more than a footnote in our medical findings. Then…then I hope you stick around and prove it.”
He frowned at her. “You want me to stay?”
“We played Doctor Frankenstein,” she told him. “Sending you out alone leaves us vulnerable. Keeping you here as a prisoner, punishing you for something we did…Well, if that’s their decision, they should pack up the scientists and declare this a military outpost - because at that point we aren’t explorers.” She sighed and placed her hands on her knees, slowly pushing to stand. “I’m afraid I have to go, it’s Haly’s bedtime.”
“Who is Doctor Frankenstein? I did not meet them when last I was here.”
Faith reached into her messenger bag, coming up with a thin book. “Classic English literature,” she said. “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. This book is almost two hundred years old.” She smirked. “Young to you, old to me.” She held out the book. The paperback cover was well-worn, the storm-painted cover ominous.
Hesitantly, he took the end of the book, making sure not to touch her as the guards raised their weapons.
“Goodnight, Michael,” she said, heading for the door.
“Faith,” he said, coming to his feet.
She paused, looking back at him. But at a lost for what to say, he simply gave her a slight bow - a show of respect. She gave a nod of acknowledgement and walked out.
88888888
John and Carson exhaled at the same time, standing upright. They had spent the last ten minutes hunched over the monitor, watching Faith interact with Michael.
“What do you think?” Carson asked.
“Did you really want to fight her on this?” John replied.
No. None of them really did. They were all arguing about what to do with Michael. Ronon was aiming for any excuse to kill him, Teyla just wanted him gone, and some thought the only answer was to try the retrovirus again. John just wanted a decision. Carson was torn but refused to offer an opinion. Faith had had no such trouble.
So it was decided that she would be allowed to interact with him. To prove whatever point she had - or have the others’ opinions justified.
88888888
Michael turned on the small table lamp. He opened the cover of the book to find an inscription.
Faith -
Try not to identify too much with the Monster.
He frowned at the words, wondering what someone like Faith would find in common with a monster.
Title: Control and Destroy
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/SG:A
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Stargate people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Faith finds her skillset is a little different in a space battle.
Notes: Part 36 of Faith Sheppard - Links Page
Seasons: Post-series/Season 2
Word Count: 2425
Faith exhaled.
“Are you sure?” Caldwell asked.
She grinned. “Not even a little, but what other options do we have?”
“Exiting hyperspace in ten seconds,” Kleinman informed them.
“Launch the moment the target is acquired,” Caldwell replied. “Don’t wait for my order.”
“Five, four, three…”
Faith slipped into a position and forced her mind to focus. But her part in this could not begin until Evan and the Orion arrived. She remained in pose and waited, ignoring the conversation and the battle.
She felt the Orion arrive. None of the Drones took flight. In fact, nothing happened like it was supposed to. It took a solid minute - stretched like an eternity - for the bright little things to takeoff.
Faith felt herself with them. She dodged and skipped along, leading a large group for the undamaged Hive. They tore through it, explosive decompression. Her connection with launched Drones ended as they were destroyed.
She was distantly aware of the Orion being destroyed. She knew the team had been beamed off. But the unlaunched Drones had been sent spinning off in a thousand directions. She could feel them, undamaged. But they would not activate.
She had deactivated them before, controlled them, flown among them, but she had never activated them. You would think it was like turning a light off and back on, but it was never that simple. Maybe it was something in the Ancient tech that allowed it to activate. That was the reason she had had a Jumper brought with them. She reached for the Jumper.
The sound of Asgard beaming right in front of her threw her off. She windmilled in surprise. Someone grabbed her arm, pulling her upright.
“Ronon,” she said in surprise, then she looked to the side. “John, Rodney, Michael.”
“You said something about a plan?” Caldwell demanded.
“I’ve disabled their jamming code,” Michael told them. “But it’s only a matter of time before they realize.”
“All you have to do is send over a nuke,” John said.
“We deployed all our warheads in the first attack,” Caldwell barked.
“The hive is launching Darts, sir,” Kleinman reported.
Faith dropped into position again and reached for the Jumper in the starboard F-302 bay. She felt it align with her. “Wake!” she ordered. She the Drones come to life. She directed the ones closest to the Hive to go straight through the hull and bays. The explosion shook the Daedalus a bit.
She directed two dozen of them to take out the Darts.
“Railguns, help her out,” Caldwell ordered.
“They’re coming in, looks like a ramming run,” Kleinman said.
“Faith?” John asked, anxious.
She made a fanning motion, the formation of Darts were destroyed by six Drones charging back and forth in front of the Daedalus.
“Where do you want them?” Faith asked as the remaining Drones circled together in front of the ship.
“Want what?” Caldwell asked.
“The Drones,” John explained. “She can land them in the F-302 bay.”
“Do it.”
“The bays,” John told Faith.
She nodded and twisted her body. She lined up the remaining ones and had them file into the bay. When all of them were stacked in she barked: “Sleep!”
Then she went boneless on the bridge.
Ronon snatched her up and swung her into his arms.
Caldwell stood. “Report?”
“Hive and Darts destroyed,” Kleinman said. “We lost communications and hyperdrive is damaged. Repair crews are already dispatched. Shields are at twenty-five percent. Sublight is working minimally. Life support is stable. Pilots are reporting hundreds of Drones in the bay, they appear intact and dormant.”
“Good. Get us turned towards Atlantis.” Caldwell approached Ronon. “Is she okay?”
John was already looking Faith over. “Alive, just passed out. Take a bit before she’ll be awake.”
“What the hell was that?” Caldwell demanded.
John had no answer.
88888888
Ronon sat on one bunk, watching where Faith slept on the other. It had been more than eight hours. The Wraith was locked up somewhere on the ship. Radek and Rodney were heading teams repairing various systems on the ship. John was overseeing the storage of the Drones.
“Oh,” Faith moaned.
Ronon shifted across the room to sit on the edge of her bunk. “Hey,” he said.
Dark eyes opened and stared up at him. “Ronon?”
“Yeah.”
She reached up and touched a hand to his chest. “Oh good,” she said softly, “thought it was a dream.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“You, John, and Rodney are alive and you brought Michael back with you,” she pointed out. “It was more like to be a dream.”
“How’s your head?”
“Attached,” she replied. She pushed upright until her face was level with his. “As glad as I am to see you, did you bring me food?”
He picked up a large water container from the floor. “I couldn’t find your protein powder.”
Faith reached into her messenger bag, pulling out a reusable zipper packet. Ronon opened the water container. She poured in the powder and put the empty packet in her bag.
Ronon closed the water and shook it, his attention on her bag.
“Magic,” she explained. “Next time I go to Earth, I need to have Willow do some kind of ‘add user’ feature for me.”
He handed over the shake and helped her to sit up all the way. She didn’t complain, just opened the container and started drinking. It tasted like a citrusy milk. The color was normally pretty green due to the Pegasus plant used for the dried protein. She was halfway through before she came up for air. She returned the lid and took several deep breaths.
It was ten minutes before she opened it and took another sip. Then she stood and stretched a bit. She put her bag on her shoulder, grabbed the protein shake, and left the bunk. Ronon followed.
Faith made her way straight for Colonel Caldwell’s most likely position - the bridge. She found him looking over a tablet.
“Colonel,” she said, coming around in front of him.
His gaze shot to hers. “Miss Sheppard.”
“We win?”
“We didn’t lose,” he offered. “Which was more than we expected. McKay and Zelenka are working with my teams to oversee repairs. They should have hyperdrive back in another couple hours.”
“Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for,” he told her. “Your trick with the Drones…saved our asses and destroyed the second Hive. Even after the loss of the Orion.”
She sighed. “Yeah, kinda glad I insisted on the Jumper before we left Atlantis.”
A slight smile softened his expression for just a moment. “Jumper in that bay any time you want to tag along with a dozen Drones.”
She grinned. “Appreciate it.”
“I know your brother wanted to see you,” he checked his watch. “I believe everyone was headed for a meal, if you want to check the mess.”
Faith nodded and left the bridge. Ronon was still staying just behind her. She stopped in an empty hall and turned to him. “Are you following me?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She patted his chest before continuing on. They entered the mess to find John, Evan, and Rodney sitting at a table.
Faith plopped down between John and Evan, leaving Ronon to take a seat next to Rodney. She immediately placed her head on Evan’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
“Really prefer you not do that,” Evan said suddenly.
“Saved ship, Caldwell gave me leave to do what I want,” she replied.
“Be that as it may, if looks could kill.”
She opened her eyes and saw the Ronon was looking…more than a little disgruntled. She shifted and tilted to the other side, setting her head on John’s shoulder instead. She raised an eyebrow in Ronon’s direction and while he still looked annoyed, it had calmed from murderous.
John tilted his head to tap hers. “How are you?”
“Five by five,” she replied. She opened her protein and drank it down to the dregs, then put it on the table. She closed her eyes again, leaning on John’s shoulder.
“Do you know how many Drones you controlled?” Rodney suddenly burst out.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Fifty.”
“We’ve only finished cataloguing one bay,” John told her. “There were more than two hundred Drones.”
“Cool,” she muttered sleepily, “more stock.”
Evan got up suddenly and walked away.
“He still glaring?” Faith asked John.
John glanced at his sister, finding her nearly asleep against him. He looked at Ronon, studying his guarded countenance. “No more than normal.”
“Hmm.”
Evan sat down again a moment later. He set something down in front of her. Faith blinked a few times, focusing. She grinned. It was a tray filled with foods. There was two bottles of water, two sandwiches, a slice of cake, and a plate of fries.
“Eat,” he told her, “your protein keeps you alive but you still need actual food.”
She reached out and snaked a couple of fries. Only once she ate them did the gnawing hunger prove that the while the protein had taken the edge off, it had not done everything she needed after what she had done. It was not helped by the fact that she had not eaten since sometime before she left Atlantis. Oops.
Faith straightened and focused on the food. After a sandwich, a bottle of water, and half a plate of fries, she felt much less sluggish.
“More awake?” Evan asked.
“Yeah.” She reactively slapped a hand that reached for her fries. John pulled his hand back, shaking off the sting. “Too slow.”
88888888
Faith walked past several guards and knocked on the clear door. Michael remained at his position looking out at the dark ocean of Lantea. He waved a hand.
Taking that as a signal to enter, she pulled the door open and entered his room. She crossed to the window and looked out. She could hear the waves lapping against the City below them.
“Even though I saved Colonel Sheppard’s life and helped him stop the hives from reaching Earth,” Michael hissed, “you still place me under guard.”
“Ronon spent several days with guards,” she replied. “He had held Teyla at gunpoint while I dug a Wraith tracker out of his back.”
Michael made a snorting noise. “A Runner - that explains many things.” He looked at her. “Yet you stand within arm’s reach of me.”
“You don’t scare me, Michael, nor does your existence cause me anger or guilt.” She looked at him. “You’ve caused Haly no end of confusion.”
“She was in the hall when we were initially escorted in,” he observed. “She recognized me.”
“My daughter is no fool, she said there was little difference between your human and Wraith - save some coloring and little things like your teeth.”
“I am a prisoner here,” he told her.
“That depends on you.”
“I’ve been among them as a human,” he told her, “they didn’t trust me then, why would they now?”
“They aren’t the ones you need to convince,” Faith told him.
“I couldn’t be accepted by my own kind, why would I expect anything different here?”
She chuckled and sat down on one of the chairs. “If you’re going to whine about it, I may reconsider my stance.”
He slowly sat on the couch across from her. “Your stance?”
“If I had been around when they decided to do this…let’s just say there is no way in hell I would have let it go down the way it did.”
“You would have stopped them?”
“We needed to test the viability of the retrovirus,” she said apologetically. “But treating you like a human…that was cruel and selfish.”
“Would I have been caged in the brig for the entirety of my stay?” he asked heatedly.
She shook her head. “I would hope not.” She gestured to the guards outside his door. “The best way to stick it to them…become more than they thought you could be.” She watched him with knowing eyes. “If you let that anger and bitterness fester and drive you to hate us, to make destroying us your only goal - they were right. But if there is something in you as a Wraith, a human, or whatever you want to call yourself now that knows his worth, that his contribution could be more than a footnote in our medical findings. Then…then I hope you stick around and prove it.”
He frowned at her. “You want me to stay?”
“We played Doctor Frankenstein,” she told him. “Sending you out alone leaves us vulnerable. Keeping you here as a prisoner, punishing you for something we did…Well, if that’s their decision, they should pack up the scientists and declare this a military outpost - because at that point we aren’t explorers.” She sighed and placed her hands on her knees, slowly pushing to stand. “I’m afraid I have to go, it’s Haly’s bedtime.”
“Who is Doctor Frankenstein? I did not meet them when last I was here.”
Faith reached into her messenger bag, coming up with a thin book. “Classic English literature,” she said. “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. This book is almost two hundred years old.” She smirked. “Young to you, old to me.” She held out the book. The paperback cover was well-worn, the storm-painted cover ominous.
Hesitantly, he took the end of the book, making sure not to touch her as the guards raised their weapons.
“Goodnight, Michael,” she said, heading for the door.
“Faith,” he said, coming to his feet.
She paused, looking back at him. But at a lost for what to say, he simply gave her a slight bow - a show of respect. She gave a nod of acknowledgement and walked out.
88888888
John and Carson exhaled at the same time, standing upright. They had spent the last ten minutes hunched over the monitor, watching Faith interact with Michael.
“What do you think?” Carson asked.
“Did you really want to fight her on this?” John replied.
No. None of them really did. They were all arguing about what to do with Michael. Ronon was aiming for any excuse to kill him, Teyla just wanted him gone, and some thought the only answer was to try the retrovirus again. John just wanted a decision. Carson was torn but refused to offer an opinion. Faith had had no such trouble.
So it was decided that she would be allowed to interact with him. To prove whatever point she had - or have the others’ opinions justified.
88888888
Michael turned on the small table lamp. He opened the cover of the book to find an inscription.
Faith -
Try not to identify too much with the Monster.
- Spike
He frowned at the words, wondering what someone like Faith would find in common with a monster.