Peg² (9/?)
Title: Square Peg, or, Peg² (Pegasus Squared) [A sequel to Full Circle, set in the Epic Crossover ‘Verse]
Chapter: 9 of ?
Author: neensz
Word Count: ~2,300 this part [18,900 total so far]
Fandom(s): Leverage, Psych, SG:A
Pairing(s): Eliot/Shawn, McShep preslash
Rating: PG-13
General Warnings: language (warnings for cussing and also for crappy internet translation), violence, kid!fic, un-beta’d
Beta: None, so please point out errors
Disclaimer: Psych and Leverage and SG:A (as well as any other television show, movie or book in existence) do not belong to me, nor do any of the characters or places or quotes I'm borrowing for my nefarious slashing purposes. I make no profit from the aforesaid borrowing, or only in the currency of squeeing fangirly joy.
A/N: So, yeah. I'm a horrible person. Also, LJ has been retarded at me today, so sorry if you saw it when it was all weirdly formatted. (Why do the servers always choose to go down when I'm trying to update?? [Because repeatedly in only one day obviously constitutes a trend.] I might have to pick a different update day [or time not in the middle of the night when the servers are obviously overclocked]. Though, for once, it's nice that the delay in posting wasn't actually on my end...)
Summary: The requisite Dramatic Rescue of our intrepid heroes (as well as most of the Athosians) continues.
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine
Of Course the Rescue goes Exactly as Planned, because What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
JOHN
John spared one look at Jesse being carried down the hall by Ronon before turning back to his task of searching for the rest of the people the Wraith had culled from Athos mark 3. It was the hardest thing he’d done in a long time, not sticking right by his side until Carson reassured him Jesse was fine, but he did it because he had to. Jesse going back now meant that if he needed medical assistance, he’d get it as soon as possible. John needed to stay because he’d had the most experience of anyone on the expedition when it came to infiltrating Wraith ships, and with him there to add his knowledge to the pool his men would be more likely to survive the mission. He nodded at Teyla when he caught her looking after Torren with much the same expression he’d felt on his face a moment ago. Of course she’d make the same decision he had-her people needed her there when the Marines opened the cocoons to reassure them that it really was real and not some Wraith-sent hallucination. After some time and some really surprising and devious PR spin on Rodney’s part, the Athosians had come to view the fact that Teyla had Wraith DNA as an asset to be lauded and not a flaw to be loathed, and as a whole her people now had more faith and trust in her than they had had before the information had gotten out.
It was a good thing Woolsey hadn’t made any noise about the wisdom of Atlantis’s military commander leading the rescue mission, because John thought he just might have tried to kill him if he’d tried to stop John from going after his boy. Not only had John led the mission, he’d returned to Atlantis long enough to strip her of her entire command structure, excluding Woolsey and Carson (Atlantis’s new/old Chief Medical Officer, now back in Atlantis for his encore performance after Keller’s transfer). He’d tapped both his 2IC and 3IC, Lorne and Morris, and their teams, one of whose members was Atlantis’s Chief Science Officer-McKay-so he belatedly hoped to god the Wraith wouldn’t pick now to find and attack Atlantis. If they did, the city would burn-he’d left no one to protect her, aside from McKay’s 2IC. But Radek Zelenka was scrappy, and he’d served his years in the Czech army back when it was still compulsory, so he had that to fall back on if things got hairy. Zelenka would take care of his city, he had to trust that and focus on the mission.
Turning away from the corridor Jesse and Torren had been taken down was almost physically painful, but John managed it. He held up the Life Signs Detector and saw only the life signs of his team in his immediate vicinity, and so rounded up his people and led the way deeper into the Wraith cruiser in search of the rest of the people they’d come to rescue.
ELIOT
Eliot regained full consciousness in the middle of a forced march down a dark and reeking hallway. His first reaction, striking out at the ones who were pretty much carrying him, was checked by the fact his limbs weren’t responding like they should. His punch at the soldier to his right and kick to the soldier on his left resulted in a weak flail of the arm draped across the right-hand soldier’s shoulders and a twitch in his feet as they dragged along the ground slightly behind him. “The Corporal’s waking up, Colonel,” the right-hand soldier called ahead in a low voice, and Eliot relaxed minutely. Rescue mission, must be.
“The others?” Eliot quietly asked the Marines hauling him down the corridor. He almost recognized them now-he’d sparred with the one on his left yesterday. Well, the day before they’d visited the Athosians, anyway. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, yet. It could have been hours or days or even weeks, the cocoons could have had some sort of drug in them or something to keep their occupants out for the count, which only made sense when you were transporting living livestock looking to escape.
“You, the psychic, and the Colonel’s and Teyla’s sons were the first we found. We’re taking you back to the Jumper and straight back to Atlantis while Colonel Sheppard and the rest keep looking for survivors,” the Marine on his left informed him quietly. Eliot could almost remember the soldier’s name, it was on the tip of his tongue; started with a W. Williams, Wilkes, Werner… Something like that.
Eliot opened his mouth to ask if the rest of them were okay, but Captain W-something hushed him with a quick hand sign, and his two supports-along with the rest of the group-melted silently against the walls of the corridor as the muffled sound of multiple feet marching in step echoed quietly down the corridor before fading away again. A patrol must have passed an entrance to this corridor somewhere down the line.
A few more turns and one more terrifying near-brush with a patrol and they entered an echoingly large bay whose walls were honeycombed with tiny holes. Looking closer, Eliot was able to make out the indistinct shapes of darts inside a few of the holes, and had to suppress the fission of fear that chilled his spine at the realization of exactly how large the bay was and how many darts it held-and how many Wraith that meant were on the ship. And fuck, this was only a cruiser, and not one of the giant Hive ships.
Lorne murmured something indistinct into his radio, and waved them forward. Eliot’s handlers stepped forward into an empty and non-descript patch of floor and the Jumper materialized around Eliot. Captain W and Major Smith set him down on one of the benches along the back walls of the Jumper’s rear bay and strapped him in, other Marines doing the same for Shawn, and Dex took the kids up to the front and strapped them into the more secure webbing on the jump-seats in the cockpit. Captain Wentrcek-it was light enough in the Jumper to read the tags glinting over his tac vest-stripped off his tac vest and took the pilot’s seat while the rest of them filed back out of the Jumper with Dex at the rear. “Going back to help Sheppard,” he grunted when he noticed Eliot watching. “Keep them safe,” he added before taking the final step off the Jumper’s ramp. The or I’ll kill you, seemed to be implied, but that was something Eliot understood. Jesse wormed his way into your heart until you’d do anything to keep the kid happy. He didn’t actually know if Dex had been talking to him or Wentrcek, but he was going to do his best regardless.
“Atlantis, here we come,” Eliot heard Wentrcek say softly in the cockpit, and the corner of the viewscreen that Eliot could see from his position lit up with HUDs and diagrams as Wentrcek powered up the Jumper and got it in the air. When Eliot felt the inertial dampeners kick on-his stomach lurched every time they initialized, something to do with Eliot’s over-sensitive proprioception, Doctor Beckett had told him-Eliot suddenly realized they were actually going to make it out of this hell hole.
JOHN
Seventeen Athosians and two desiccated corpses later, all of the people the Wraith had culled from Athos had been accounted for. Horrible as it was, John was relieved that only two of the people culled from the settlement had been fed on. The horrible part was, he was glad that the Wraith had fed on them rather than on Jesse. What made it worse was he’d recognized the wristband Jinto’s friend Sathem had taken to wearing in imitation of John when he’d first met the kid, back when the kid had still been a kid. He’d also recognized the necklace Elizabeth had gifted Wehn with, so many years ago. He’d known these villagers, known them for years, since before he’d even known Jesse’s mom, and while he grieved the fact that they were dead, he couldn’t help but be thankful. Whether it had been intentional or not, the fact that they’d died meant his son hadn’t, and he’d never forget that. Or them.
They didn’t have the luxury of taking the bodies back with them, not when they had seventeen living civilians in the middle of a Wraith cruiser to get to the docking bay, protected by only two teams, minus Lorne’s fourth and plus John. John carefully removed Sathem’s wristband and Wehn's necklace while it was quiet and the LSD was dark, stowing them in one of his tac vest’s many pockets as something to give to their families. Almost as soon as he’d velcroed the pocket closed, the LSD lit up with the red markers it tagged the Wraith with. A team of four was heading their way down the corridor-and it was coming from the direction of the docking bay. Which is where the Jumpers were waiting for them.
“Shit!” John muttered under his breath, echoed a moment later by Lorne. Lorne had disobeyed John’s semi-implied order to take Jesse and the rest back to Atlantis, stating simply that he must have misunderstood and wouldn’t it be something better discussed while not in the bowels of a Wraith ship with patrols wandering the halls, sir? Honestly, right now John couldn’t really blame him. He’d be up shit creek without a paddle with only three others and seventeen civilians, and he knew it. If he’d been thinking straight, he’d have ordered Lorne to do exactly what he’d done, and sent only a single Marine with the ATA gene to fly them back to Atlantis. Hell, if he’d been in Lorne’s position, he’d have done exactly what his 2IC had-and had, in fact, done just that in the past. It got him… nevermind what it had gotten John. Lorne was gonna get a verbal reprimand for disobeying orders and a pat on the back for keeping his head on straight. He didn’t need anything in his file to fuck up his career.
Speaking of keeping his head on straight, “Sir, they’re coming straight for us and the LSD doesn’t show any branching corridors ahead that we can duck down. We can take the risk they’re not going to the pens and hide down thataway, but it’s further to get back there than it is to the Jumper,” Lorne muttered in his ear via the radio in a harsh whisper.
“Goddamn madar gai, chocheh sag haramzadeh!” John spit out under his breath, forgetting that he wasn’t the only one who’d spent time in Afghanistan until Morris made a strangled choking sound that suspiciously resembled muffled laughter. “Fuck! It’s true, stop laughing Morris. Lorne, we’re heading for the Jumpers, look alive and try to stay that way-you’re on point. I’ve got your six. Ronon, Morris, Smith, Teyla; your jobs are to keep the civilians alive. Rodney, Parrish; you keep them heading for the Jumpers, no matter what.”
Lorne acknowledged him with a brief, faint smile and a quiet, “Sir,” and ghosted off ahead, towards the four Wraith approaching them. The four he’d set to guarding the Athosians edged near the front of the group and started forward slightly slower than Lorne had been moving, Morris taking the time to let John know over radio in a quiet voice that was still shaking fairly suspiciously, “Sir, your accent sucks. Rather a lot.”
“I could say the same to you, Wiltshire,” John growled back absentmindedly, under his breath, provoking another quiet ‘coughing’ fit from Morris’s direction. It looked like McKay and Parrish-and really, why Lorne felt he had to bring a botanist, of all things, on a rescue mission to a Wraith cruiser, John had no clue-were having success with the Athosians. Parrish seemed to be getting through to them without any problem, communicating urgency but not hysteria, and the civilians were moving after the guards at a nice quickstep with little to no panic visible. McKay didn’t seem to be doing much chivvying of his own, but then again, knowing McKay, that was probably a good thing. Instead, he seemed to be watching everywhere at once while he stayed near the back of the group of civilians, one hand holding his datapad up where he could see it but where it wouldn’t obscure his view, and the other resting on his P-90 in such a way he’d be able to bring it up and fire in less than a second. It was almost like he’d assigned himself the rearguard position. John took a moment to glance at Parrish before turning back to keep an eye behind them, and Parrish was displaying the same behavior, except without the datapad and with his P-90 raised and aimed off to the side, away from the Athosians, so casually it looked like habit. The two scientists almost looked like soldiers, strangely enough.
It took John longer than it should have to realize that there was a perfectly valid reason they looked like soldiers, and the only excuse he could think of was the fact that he was on a mission in the bowels of a Wraith star-cruiser, compounded by the fact his son had been culled in order to be some alien’s main entrée and had been only recently rescued. Which, granted, was a pretty good excuse, as excuses go. But the reason his scientists looked like soldiers was because they were soldiers. McKay had been on the front lines of an interstellar war for going on ten years now, and Parrish was less than a year behind McKay in experience. John felt his heart practically burst with a strange sense of pride for his scientists’ military prowess, not something he’d ever thought he’d feel.
And that, of course, was when the Wraith found them.
Ten -->
Chapter: 9 of ?
Author: neensz
Word Count: ~2,300 this part [18,900 total so far]
Fandom(s): Leverage, Psych, SG:A
Pairing(s): Eliot/Shawn, McShep preslash
Rating: PG-13
General Warnings: language (warnings for cussing and also for crappy internet translation), violence, kid!fic, un-beta’d
Beta: None, so please point out errors
Disclaimer: Psych and Leverage and SG:A (as well as any other television show, movie or book in existence) do not belong to me, nor do any of the characters or places or quotes I'm borrowing for my nefarious slashing purposes. I make no profit from the aforesaid borrowing, or only in the currency of squeeing fangirly joy.
A/N: So, yeah. I'm a horrible person. Also, LJ has been retarded at me today, so sorry if you saw it when it was all weirdly formatted. (Why do the servers always choose to go down when I'm trying to update?? [Because repeatedly in only one day obviously constitutes a trend.] I might have to pick a different update day [or time not in the middle of the night when the servers are obviously overclocked]. Though, for once, it's nice that the delay in posting wasn't actually on my end...)
Summary: The requisite Dramatic Rescue of our intrepid heroes (as well as most of the Athosians) continues.
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine
Of Course the Rescue goes Exactly as Planned, because What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
JOHN
John spared one look at Jesse being carried down the hall by Ronon before turning back to his task of searching for the rest of the people the Wraith had culled from Athos mark 3. It was the hardest thing he’d done in a long time, not sticking right by his side until Carson reassured him Jesse was fine, but he did it because he had to. Jesse going back now meant that if he needed medical assistance, he’d get it as soon as possible. John needed to stay because he’d had the most experience of anyone on the expedition when it came to infiltrating Wraith ships, and with him there to add his knowledge to the pool his men would be more likely to survive the mission. He nodded at Teyla when he caught her looking after Torren with much the same expression he’d felt on his face a moment ago. Of course she’d make the same decision he had-her people needed her there when the Marines opened the cocoons to reassure them that it really was real and not some Wraith-sent hallucination. After some time and some really surprising and devious PR spin on Rodney’s part, the Athosians had come to view the fact that Teyla had Wraith DNA as an asset to be lauded and not a flaw to be loathed, and as a whole her people now had more faith and trust in her than they had had before the information had gotten out.
It was a good thing Woolsey hadn’t made any noise about the wisdom of Atlantis’s military commander leading the rescue mission, because John thought he just might have tried to kill him if he’d tried to stop John from going after his boy. Not only had John led the mission, he’d returned to Atlantis long enough to strip her of her entire command structure, excluding Woolsey and Carson (Atlantis’s new/old Chief Medical Officer, now back in Atlantis for his encore performance after Keller’s transfer). He’d tapped both his 2IC and 3IC, Lorne and Morris, and their teams, one of whose members was Atlantis’s Chief Science Officer-McKay-so he belatedly hoped to god the Wraith wouldn’t pick now to find and attack Atlantis. If they did, the city would burn-he’d left no one to protect her, aside from McKay’s 2IC. But Radek Zelenka was scrappy, and he’d served his years in the Czech army back when it was still compulsory, so he had that to fall back on if things got hairy. Zelenka would take care of his city, he had to trust that and focus on the mission.
Turning away from the corridor Jesse and Torren had been taken down was almost physically painful, but John managed it. He held up the Life Signs Detector and saw only the life signs of his team in his immediate vicinity, and so rounded up his people and led the way deeper into the Wraith cruiser in search of the rest of the people they’d come to rescue.
ELIOT
Eliot regained full consciousness in the middle of a forced march down a dark and reeking hallway. His first reaction, striking out at the ones who were pretty much carrying him, was checked by the fact his limbs weren’t responding like they should. His punch at the soldier to his right and kick to the soldier on his left resulted in a weak flail of the arm draped across the right-hand soldier’s shoulders and a twitch in his feet as they dragged along the ground slightly behind him. “The Corporal’s waking up, Colonel,” the right-hand soldier called ahead in a low voice, and Eliot relaxed minutely. Rescue mission, must be.
“The others?” Eliot quietly asked the Marines hauling him down the corridor. He almost recognized them now-he’d sparred with the one on his left yesterday. Well, the day before they’d visited the Athosians, anyway. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, yet. It could have been hours or days or even weeks, the cocoons could have had some sort of drug in them or something to keep their occupants out for the count, which only made sense when you were transporting living livestock looking to escape.
“You, the psychic, and the Colonel’s and Teyla’s sons were the first we found. We’re taking you back to the Jumper and straight back to Atlantis while Colonel Sheppard and the rest keep looking for survivors,” the Marine on his left informed him quietly. Eliot could almost remember the soldier’s name, it was on the tip of his tongue; started with a W. Williams, Wilkes, Werner… Something like that.
Eliot opened his mouth to ask if the rest of them were okay, but Captain W-something hushed him with a quick hand sign, and his two supports-along with the rest of the group-melted silently against the walls of the corridor as the muffled sound of multiple feet marching in step echoed quietly down the corridor before fading away again. A patrol must have passed an entrance to this corridor somewhere down the line.
A few more turns and one more terrifying near-brush with a patrol and they entered an echoingly large bay whose walls were honeycombed with tiny holes. Looking closer, Eliot was able to make out the indistinct shapes of darts inside a few of the holes, and had to suppress the fission of fear that chilled his spine at the realization of exactly how large the bay was and how many darts it held-and how many Wraith that meant were on the ship. And fuck, this was only a cruiser, and not one of the giant Hive ships.
Lorne murmured something indistinct into his radio, and waved them forward. Eliot’s handlers stepped forward into an empty and non-descript patch of floor and the Jumper materialized around Eliot. Captain W and Major Smith set him down on one of the benches along the back walls of the Jumper’s rear bay and strapped him in, other Marines doing the same for Shawn, and Dex took the kids up to the front and strapped them into the more secure webbing on the jump-seats in the cockpit. Captain Wentrcek-it was light enough in the Jumper to read the tags glinting over his tac vest-stripped off his tac vest and took the pilot’s seat while the rest of them filed back out of the Jumper with Dex at the rear. “Going back to help Sheppard,” he grunted when he noticed Eliot watching. “Keep them safe,” he added before taking the final step off the Jumper’s ramp. The or I’ll kill you, seemed to be implied, but that was something Eliot understood. Jesse wormed his way into your heart until you’d do anything to keep the kid happy. He didn’t actually know if Dex had been talking to him or Wentrcek, but he was going to do his best regardless.
“Atlantis, here we come,” Eliot heard Wentrcek say softly in the cockpit, and the corner of the viewscreen that Eliot could see from his position lit up with HUDs and diagrams as Wentrcek powered up the Jumper and got it in the air. When Eliot felt the inertial dampeners kick on-his stomach lurched every time they initialized, something to do with Eliot’s over-sensitive proprioception, Doctor Beckett had told him-Eliot suddenly realized they were actually going to make it out of this hell hole.
JOHN
Seventeen Athosians and two desiccated corpses later, all of the people the Wraith had culled from Athos had been accounted for. Horrible as it was, John was relieved that only two of the people culled from the settlement had been fed on. The horrible part was, he was glad that the Wraith had fed on them rather than on Jesse. What made it worse was he’d recognized the wristband Jinto’s friend Sathem had taken to wearing in imitation of John when he’d first met the kid, back when the kid had still been a kid. He’d also recognized the necklace Elizabeth had gifted Wehn with, so many years ago. He’d known these villagers, known them for years, since before he’d even known Jesse’s mom, and while he grieved the fact that they were dead, he couldn’t help but be thankful. Whether it had been intentional or not, the fact that they’d died meant his son hadn’t, and he’d never forget that. Or them.
They didn’t have the luxury of taking the bodies back with them, not when they had seventeen living civilians in the middle of a Wraith cruiser to get to the docking bay, protected by only two teams, minus Lorne’s fourth and plus John. John carefully removed Sathem’s wristband and Wehn's necklace while it was quiet and the LSD was dark, stowing them in one of his tac vest’s many pockets as something to give to their families. Almost as soon as he’d velcroed the pocket closed, the LSD lit up with the red markers it tagged the Wraith with. A team of four was heading their way down the corridor-and it was coming from the direction of the docking bay. Which is where the Jumpers were waiting for them.
“Shit!” John muttered under his breath, echoed a moment later by Lorne. Lorne had disobeyed John’s semi-implied order to take Jesse and the rest back to Atlantis, stating simply that he must have misunderstood and wouldn’t it be something better discussed while not in the bowels of a Wraith ship with patrols wandering the halls, sir? Honestly, right now John couldn’t really blame him. He’d be up shit creek without a paddle with only three others and seventeen civilians, and he knew it. If he’d been thinking straight, he’d have ordered Lorne to do exactly what he’d done, and sent only a single Marine with the ATA gene to fly them back to Atlantis. Hell, if he’d been in Lorne’s position, he’d have done exactly what his 2IC had-and had, in fact, done just that in the past. It got him… nevermind what it had gotten John. Lorne was gonna get a verbal reprimand for disobeying orders and a pat on the back for keeping his head on straight. He didn’t need anything in his file to fuck up his career.
Speaking of keeping his head on straight, “Sir, they’re coming straight for us and the LSD doesn’t show any branching corridors ahead that we can duck down. We can take the risk they’re not going to the pens and hide down thataway, but it’s further to get back there than it is to the Jumper,” Lorne muttered in his ear via the radio in a harsh whisper.
“Goddamn madar gai, chocheh sag haramzadeh!” John spit out under his breath, forgetting that he wasn’t the only one who’d spent time in Afghanistan until Morris made a strangled choking sound that suspiciously resembled muffled laughter. “Fuck! It’s true, stop laughing Morris. Lorne, we’re heading for the Jumpers, look alive and try to stay that way-you’re on point. I’ve got your six. Ronon, Morris, Smith, Teyla; your jobs are to keep the civilians alive. Rodney, Parrish; you keep them heading for the Jumpers, no matter what.”
Lorne acknowledged him with a brief, faint smile and a quiet, “Sir,” and ghosted off ahead, towards the four Wraith approaching them. The four he’d set to guarding the Athosians edged near the front of the group and started forward slightly slower than Lorne had been moving, Morris taking the time to let John know over radio in a quiet voice that was still shaking fairly suspiciously, “Sir, your accent sucks. Rather a lot.”
“I could say the same to you, Wiltshire,” John growled back absentmindedly, under his breath, provoking another quiet ‘coughing’ fit from Morris’s direction. It looked like McKay and Parrish-and really, why Lorne felt he had to bring a botanist, of all things, on a rescue mission to a Wraith cruiser, John had no clue-were having success with the Athosians. Parrish seemed to be getting through to them without any problem, communicating urgency but not hysteria, and the civilians were moving after the guards at a nice quickstep with little to no panic visible. McKay didn’t seem to be doing much chivvying of his own, but then again, knowing McKay, that was probably a good thing. Instead, he seemed to be watching everywhere at once while he stayed near the back of the group of civilians, one hand holding his datapad up where he could see it but where it wouldn’t obscure his view, and the other resting on his P-90 in such a way he’d be able to bring it up and fire in less than a second. It was almost like he’d assigned himself the rearguard position. John took a moment to glance at Parrish before turning back to keep an eye behind them, and Parrish was displaying the same behavior, except without the datapad and with his P-90 raised and aimed off to the side, away from the Athosians, so casually it looked like habit. The two scientists almost looked like soldiers, strangely enough.
It took John longer than it should have to realize that there was a perfectly valid reason they looked like soldiers, and the only excuse he could think of was the fact that he was on a mission in the bowels of a Wraith star-cruiser, compounded by the fact his son had been culled in order to be some alien’s main entrée and had been only recently rescued. Which, granted, was a pretty good excuse, as excuses go. But the reason his scientists looked like soldiers was because they were soldiers. McKay had been on the front lines of an interstellar war for going on ten years now, and Parrish was less than a year behind McKay in experience. John felt his heart practically burst with a strange sense of pride for his scientists’ military prowess, not something he’d ever thought he’d feel.
And that, of course, was when the Wraith found them.
Ten -->