FIRST CONTACT MISSION TO M57-112 by pentapus
Title: FIRST CONTACT MISSION TO M57-112
Author: pentapus
Disclaimer: SGA is not mine.
Notes: Follows Planet Megalodon Wraith Defense Force. Thanks to monanotlisa and siriaeve for reading it over.
CLASSIFIED SGC CLEARANCE REQUIRED
SGA-62-001
SUBMITTED BY LT COL JOHN SHEPPARD
FIRST CONTACT MISSION TO M57-112
CONDUCTED ON 9-18-2004
KEYWORDS: FIRST CONTACT
TITLE:
OBJECTIVE
First contact mission to search for a possible ZPM, based on intel from Dr. Weir’s alternate self. Secondary objective: to establish friendly relations with any peoples living on the planet.
SUMMARY
SGA-1 did not establish friendly relations with the inhabitants of M57-112. No further contact with the inhabitants is recommended due to probable hostility. A non-functioning ZPM was recovered from an abandoned Ancient facility.
DISCUSSION
The inhabitants of M57-112 avoid full scale culling by erecting a decoy farming community in the archipelago around the Stargate. The locations of their more permanent settlements or the extent of their technological capabilities is not known.
I arrived with SGA-1 in the middle of construction and evacuation of the non-essential Laterian personnel from the area around the gate and attempted to open discussion between Atlantis and the Latere, who seemed open to trade. Teyla Emmagan returned through the gate to report on the mission’s progress to Dr. Weir.
Which was when the Latere realized that opening trade relations with a group of people currently at war with the bad evil aliens wasn’t the greatest tactical decision for a group of people whose entire plan for survival is based on hiding from the bad evil aliens. From there, it went pretty much as you’d expect except we didn’t die horribly or, in fact, at all. The end! Cake for everyone!
“Jesus, Rodney,” Sheppard swore, throwing back the bed sheet.
“What? I’ve included all the necessary information. I don’t see why you’re wasting your time with this anyway. Here, look, that woman in the cafeteria gave me a smoothie with those dwarf oranges from the mainland. You drink it so I won’t die.” He shoved a plastic cup in Sheppard’s direction, frowning at the screen. “Why don’t you have a title? Can’t you think of a title? That’s the easy part--”
He typed:
CLASSIFIED SGC CLEARANCE REQUIRED
SGA-62-001
SUBMITTED BY LT COL JOHN SHEPPARD
FIRST CONTACT MISSION TO M57-112
CONDUCTED ON 9-18-2004
KEYWORDS: FIRST CONTACT
TITLE: THAT CRAZY SHARK PLANET
OBJECTIVE
Rodney started scrolling through Sheppard’s start menu. “I need your solver program--Maple, Mathematica, even Excel would work at this point, I just--is this the XP default theme? You’re wasting processing power animating all the stupid buttons and--look at that! I don’t care if I can watch the start menu pop up. Here, I’ll--”
“Jesus Christ, McKay!” Sheppard said again. Rodney looked over blearily. In the dark, Sheppard’s eyes glittered with the reflection of the computer screen. Finally, Sheppard sighed, reaching gingerly with his sore arm to flick on the small bedside lamp. Rodney winced at the light. “What are you doing in here?”
“I was--” Rodney trailed off, his eyes fixed on biscuit crumbs and the smears of Pegasus Galaxy Hollandaise sauce on his mess tray. “I was working on the puddlejumpers, and then my food alarm went off so--”
“Rodney,” Sheppard said. He sounded like he was grating his teeth. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
Rodney scoffed, waving a hand airily. “Colonel, I always know what time it is.”
“Well, great, Rodney. That’s spectacular.” He ran a hand over his eyes; stopped. “Uh--what time is it?”
“2:00 pm, Atlantis standard time. Does your clock work?” Rodney looked around. “Do you have a clock? It probably needs reprogramming anyway. Most of them are still on last year’s system. Unless you wanted our best guess at current earth time? Hmm. That would be--sometime around 7:00 pm, September 20, 2004. Which tells you nothing, since two weeks ago, 7:00 pm was 4:15 in the morning. It’s funny. If you think about it--”
Sheppard shot an incredulous glance at his dark windows. “It’s 2:00 pm? I had--”
“Senior staff meeting,” Rodney said. He hummed happily. “Yes, I know. Canceled. Well, for you. And me too, actually. Do you know I’ve been working on the puddlejumper systems for three days now? Carson won’t even give me any--”
“2:00 pm?” Sheppard repeated hoarsely. He jerked another glance at his windows--still black as midnight--and jerked back, growling, “Carson better not give you anything! This is not--”
“Of course this is an emergency! With the cloak up, we have no shield. With no shield, our best defense against any stray Wraith that pop in are the super advanced, mind controlled spaceships the ancients left behind, and in case you’d forgotten, they are all grounded in order that our pilots don’t suddenly start re-enacting A Beautiful Mind--”
The opaque black of the windows abruptly dissolved, and brilliant sunlight burst in across the room. Sheppard winced away from it, dazed. “What the heck--”
“Gah!” Rodney flailed. “Violent assault on my optic nerves is not a valid counterargument!”
Sheppard glared. “You’re the one that came in to steal my computer, Rodney. And I didn’t do that!”
“Of course you did that, Colonel. Let’s not forget the out-of-body, remote-controlled puddlejumper moment, complete with language download--oh, wait, hmm.”
He clicked back to the word processor.
Emmagan returned through the gate to report on the mission’s progress to Dr. Weir.
Which was when the Latere realized that opening trade relations with a group of people currently at war with the bad evil aliens wasn’t the greatest tactical decision for a group of people whose entire plan for survival is based on hiding from the bad evil aliens. Luckily, as a matter of course, better termed a matter of brilliance, Dr. McKay discovered the true purpose of UAO 002-34-1, a.k.a. the “datasquare” allowing SGA-1 to take advantage of the extensive Ancient technology on the planet.
“Yeah, Rodney,” Sheppard said, “Good job with that.”
“What? Oh fine. You helped.”
“datasquare” which was advantageous because Sheppard is easy, allowing SGA-1 to take advantage of the extensive Ancient technology on the planet.
Sheppard groaned, face down in his pillow.
“Easy with the technology. Although, actually--”
“Rodney,” Sheppard said, muffled, “if you really thought I was getting all this action, why’d you just waltz in here thinking I’d be, you know, alone?”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because it’s two in the afternoon.”
Sheppard lifted his head an inch from the pillow, eyeing the sunlight streaming through his clear windows. He dropped his head back down with an explosive sigh. “Right.”
“Seriously, where are you keeping your solver program?”
Sheppard made an indistinct sound. Rodney looked over to see his shoulders shaking. “I’m the military commander,” Sheppard mumbled. “I don’t need to solve multivariable differential equations.”
“Yes, yes, you write riveting mission reports instead.”
Sheppard held up a finger. “Technically, we call them AARs,” he said informatively, sounding almost intoxicated through the pillow.
“Aardvarks Articulate Readily,” Rodney said.
“Makes a kind of interesting plural,” Sheppard muttered and pushed himself up, wandering into the suite’s private bathroom. “Whatever happened to that ZPM?” he called over the sound of water running. “Did you and Zelenka figure out how to fix it?”
Rodney huffed a laugh. “Ha! I’m sorry, were you under the impression that things worked out for us in this galaxy?”
Sheppard came out minus a shirt, wiping water off his face with one hand. He had the bandages off, and the abrasions around his right wrist were scabbed over and dark. “I’ll try to remember that,” he said sarcastically. “Hey, and while I appreciate the thought, could you hold off on writing my reports for me while you’re sleep deprived?”
“You know, you need to stop taking my selfless contributions--” Sheppard made a kind of choking sound. “--my selfless contributions for granted. The Ancient research you recovered? Suggests that in 10% of cases, the schizophrenia caused by the EC system in the puddlejumpers appeared after puddlejumper use had been discontinued. What if I’m already doomed? You’re the one that insisted I practice flying--I mean, that--that could be it.” He stared in horror at his hands. “They’re a little blurry. Do they look blurry to you? Why am I asking you? Maybe you’re not even there--What if this is all some mad hallucination--”
Sheppard didn’t say a word. When Rodney looked up from his--blurry! Mirage-like!--hands, Sheppard was watching him blankly.
“What? What?” Rodney demanded, panicked and mentally composing a eulogy for his brain. If anybody’s brain deserved its own funeral--
Sheppard threw his damp hand towel at Rodney’s head.
“Oh, hey, hey, don’t push me--I’m right on the edge. I could snap at any time!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sheppard said. “It’s not my fault if in your crazyness--” he tapped a finger against his temple, making what was probably supposed to be a sympathetic face, “you can’t see the milk and cookies I brought you or the beautiful women I found to rub your feet.”
And he sat down on the bed, smiling smugly.
“You just--you know what,” Rodney lifted his chin defiantly. “I’m not fixing your jumper.”
Sheppard gaped at him. “You are so fixing my jumper.”
“I am not.” Rodney crossed his arms, lifting his chin.
Sheppard leaned forward, speaking in a low, dangerous voice. “Yes. You are. Because if you don’t fix my jumper, Zelenka will, and you’ll never live it down.”
Rodney swallowed, eyes twitching towards the exit. “Don’t be ridiculous. Radek? Ha! There’s no way he could--he would take at least twice as long. Especially not without the very important breakthrough I made this morning and--Fine. Fine! But I will take longer to fix your jumper than my genius strictly requires. I will take so long that he will almost catch up.”
Sheppard was giving him a suspicious, slitty-eyed look, which was not intimidating in the least, despite the inflated egos of certain--when the door slid open with a hiss. Teyla stepped through, hair in some disarray. Though she sometimes went days without visiting the mainland, she had not enjoyed being told she could not go, even if she had wished to. Her eyebrow looked already half-arched in her quiet kind of skepticism, and Rodney didn’t want to tell her no, he really couldn’t let any puddlejumpers be used without a Marine to hide behind.
Teyla looked between them: Sheppard sitting bent forward and bare-chested next to Rodney in a kidnapped desk chair. Something in her posture, which had been stand-offish at best since the return from That Crazy Shark Planet, slumped back into harmlessness. “Am I... intruding?”
“Nah,” Sheppard said. “Just a little drunken orgy. With Aardvarks.”
“You really need more than two people for that,” Rodney said absently, proving he really had gone mad. He immediately regretted it when Sheppard blinked in surprise and lifted both eyebrows at him.
“Guess we need Teyla after all,” Sheppard said.
“And Ard-Varks,” Teyla agreed. She was even smiling. “Is this a tool I am unfamiliar with? Used in... certain circumstances?”
Now Sheppard regretted it. “Ah... no. It’s not a--you know--thing for that.” He waved a hand inexplicably from his own chest to Rodney, hunched over the laptop a few feet away. “It’s an animal--”
Teyla looked a little startled. John turned red, ducking his head like a shy school boy.
“Crap,” he muttered. “This is why I never tell dirty jokes.”
Rodney threw up his hands. “No, this is why people on other planets end up trying to kill us! We should just gag you--”
Teyla bit her lip. The door slid shut.
“Ha!” Sheppard pointed triumphantly.
“‘Ha’? I’m sorry, are we keeping score? And if I start shouting sex toys, do I win or lose?”
Sheppard dropped his head into his hands, laughing and shaking his head.
“What are you doing in here?” Teyla asked, rescuing the conversation from its descent.
“Elizabeth stole my laptop and told me to sleep. So I had to steal Sheppard’s.” Rodney gestured at the open laptop.
“Don’t you have like five of them?” Sheppard asked, still casting betrayed looks through his fingers at the sun outside his window.
“Hm. Yes,” Rodney batted at the keys, frustrated. “But she made eyes at Radek, and the sneaky little rodent hid my backups.”
“So now you are... using John’s?” Teyla said diplomatically. She sat down on the bed next to Sheppard, brushing her hair out of her eyes and looking otherwise exhausted. Rodney stopped to frown at her. He had a vague idea that he didn’t usually notice that sort of thing.
“No,” Sheppard said, resting his forearms on this knees. “My computer doesn’t have the program he wants to use. So he’s been writing my AAR instead.”
“That’s very kind of him,” Teyla said in that suspiciously mild, probably Pegasus-style sarcasm way of hers.
“Yeah,” Sheppard agreed dryly. “Except the sleep dep is showing.”
Teyla looked over Rodney’s shoulder. “Have you included the fainting? It was... memorable. If this is your history, you should record it.”
Sheppard rolled his eyes. “Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem,” Sheppard said in Ancient, and went to get dressed.
“What? What was that? What did you say?” Rodney demanded, craning his neck.
Sheppard’s hand popped out of the bathroom, closed into a fist except for one finger. Teyla smiled.
“Well, that is just--hmph,” Rodney said.
CLASSIFIED SGC CLEARANCE REQUIRED
SGA-62-001
SUBMITTED BY LT COL JOHN SHEPPARD
FIRST CONTACT MISSION TO M57-112
CONDUCTED ON 9-18-2004
KEYWORDS: HOW NOT TO NEGOTIATE
TITLE: THAT CRAZY SHARK PLANET
OBJECTIVE
First contact mission to search for a possible ZPM based on a tip from Dr. Weir’s alternate self. Secondary objective to establish friendly relations with any peoples present on the planet.
SUMMARY
SGA-1 did not establish friendly relations with the inhabitants of M57-112. No further contact with the inhabitants is recommended due to probable hostility. A non-functioning ZPM was recovered from an abandoned Ancient facility.
DISCUSSION
The inhabitants of M57-112 avoid full scale culling by erecting a decoy farming community in the archipelago around the Stargate. The locations of their more permanent settlements or the extent of their technological capabilities is not known.
I arrived with SGA-1 in the middle of construction and evacuation of the non-essential Laterian personnel from the area around the gate and attempted to open discussion between Atlantis and the Latere, who seemed open to trade. Teyla Emmagan returned through the gate to report on the mission’s progress to Dr. Weir.
Which was when the Latere realized that opening trade relations with a group of people currently at war with the bad evil aliens wasn’t the greatest tactical decision for a group of people whose entire plan for survival is based on hiding from the bad evil aliens. It was my pleasure to be the guide on the path to enlightening the Latere of this helpful fact, and to accept their thanks by allowing myself to be thrown off a terrifying, rickety bridge of death as a sacrifice to the locally worshipped behemoth du jour.
Luckily, despite being oversexed, I am unpalatable to giant Ancient-engineered psychic Wraith sharks, possibly due to smell.
However, as a matter of course, perhaps better termed a matter of brilliance, Dr. McKay discovered the true purpose of UAO 002-34-1, a.k.a. the “datasquare” which was advantageous because I’m easy, allowing SGA-1 to take advantage of the extensive Ancient technology on the planet.
LESSONS LEARNED
I will never negotiate a first contact with paranoid isolationists without Teyla again. I will never negotiate a first contact with paranoid isolationists without Teyla again. I will never negotiate a first contact with paranoid isolationists without Teyla again. I will never negotiate a first contact with paranoid isolationists without Teyla again. I will never negotiate a first contact with paranoid isolationists without Teyla again.
RECOMMENDED ACTION
Dr. McKay, as the on-site and all around stand up guy, should be allowed any time he needs to study the data files I unlocked on the datasquare regarding the crazy-making puddlejumpers. And Teyla deserves an extra ration of brownies this week for punching a shark and also those bad guys.
The end. Cue cake. Hoorah.
Elizabeth blinked--once, twice, while the report on her tablet screen refused to change--and rubbed her fingers over her temples. “John, this is-- a very interesting report.”
Across the desk, Lt. Col. John Sheppard shrugged. “I have my moments.”
**
Report format extrapolated from a random page I found with google. The insult John says in Ancient is actually Latin, from http://www.insultmonger.com and supposedly means "In the good old days, children like you were left to perish on windswept crags."
Author: pentapus
Disclaimer: SGA is not mine.
Notes: Follows Planet Megalodon Wraith Defense Force. Thanks to monanotlisa and siriaeve for reading it over.
CLASSIFIED SGC CLEARANCE REQUIRED
SGA-62-001
SUBMITTED BY LT COL JOHN SHEPPARD
FIRST CONTACT MISSION TO M57-112
CONDUCTED ON 9-18-2004
KEYWORDS: FIRST CONTACT
TITLE:
OBJECTIVE
First contact mission to search for a possible ZPM, based on intel from Dr. Weir’s alternate self. Secondary objective: to establish friendly relations with any peoples living on the planet.
SUMMARY
SGA-1 did not establish friendly relations with the inhabitants of M57-112. No further contact with the inhabitants is recommended due to probable hostility. A non-functioning ZPM was recovered from an abandoned Ancient facility.
DISCUSSION
The inhabitants of M57-112 avoid full scale culling by erecting a decoy farming community in the archipelago around the Stargate. The locations of their more permanent settlements or the extent of their technological capabilities is not known.
I arrived with SGA-1 in the middle of construction and evacuation of the non-essential Laterian personnel from the area around the gate and attempted to open discussion between Atlantis and the Latere, who seemed open to trade. Teyla Emmagan returned through the gate to report on the mission’s progress to Dr. Weir.
Which was when the Latere realized that opening trade relations with a group of people currently at war with the bad evil aliens wasn’t the greatest tactical decision for a group of people whose entire plan for survival is based on hiding from the bad evil aliens. From there, it went pretty much as you’d expect except we didn’t die horribly or, in fact, at all. The end! Cake for everyone!
“Jesus, Rodney,” Sheppard swore, throwing back the bed sheet.
“What? I’ve included all the necessary information. I don’t see why you’re wasting your time with this anyway. Here, look, that woman in the cafeteria gave me a smoothie with those dwarf oranges from the mainland. You drink it so I won’t die.” He shoved a plastic cup in Sheppard’s direction, frowning at the screen. “Why don’t you have a title? Can’t you think of a title? That’s the easy part--”
He typed:
CLASSIFIED SGC CLEARANCE REQUIRED
SGA-62-001
SUBMITTED BY LT COL JOHN SHEPPARD
FIRST CONTACT MISSION TO M57-112
CONDUCTED ON 9-18-2004
KEYWORDS: FIRST CONTACT
TITLE: THAT CRAZY SHARK PLANET
OBJECTIVE
Rodney started scrolling through Sheppard’s start menu. “I need your solver program--Maple, Mathematica, even Excel would work at this point, I just--is this the XP default theme? You’re wasting processing power animating all the stupid buttons and--look at that! I don’t care if I can watch the start menu pop up. Here, I’ll--”
“Jesus Christ, McKay!” Sheppard said again. Rodney looked over blearily. In the dark, Sheppard’s eyes glittered with the reflection of the computer screen. Finally, Sheppard sighed, reaching gingerly with his sore arm to flick on the small bedside lamp. Rodney winced at the light. “What are you doing in here?”
“I was--” Rodney trailed off, his eyes fixed on biscuit crumbs and the smears of Pegasus Galaxy Hollandaise sauce on his mess tray. “I was working on the puddlejumpers, and then my food alarm went off so--”
“Rodney,” Sheppard said. He sounded like he was grating his teeth. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
Rodney scoffed, waving a hand airily. “Colonel, I always know what time it is.”
“Well, great, Rodney. That’s spectacular.” He ran a hand over his eyes; stopped. “Uh--what time is it?”
“2:00 pm, Atlantis standard time. Does your clock work?” Rodney looked around. “Do you have a clock? It probably needs reprogramming anyway. Most of them are still on last year’s system. Unless you wanted our best guess at current earth time? Hmm. That would be--sometime around 7:00 pm, September 20, 2004. Which tells you nothing, since two weeks ago, 7:00 pm was 4:15 in the morning. It’s funny. If you think about it--”
Sheppard shot an incredulous glance at his dark windows. “It’s 2:00 pm? I had--”
“Senior staff meeting,” Rodney said. He hummed happily. “Yes, I know. Canceled. Well, for you. And me too, actually. Do you know I’ve been working on the puddlejumper systems for three days now? Carson won’t even give me any--”
“2:00 pm?” Sheppard repeated hoarsely. He jerked another glance at his windows--still black as midnight--and jerked back, growling, “Carson better not give you anything! This is not--”
“Of course this is an emergency! With the cloak up, we have no shield. With no shield, our best defense against any stray Wraith that pop in are the super advanced, mind controlled spaceships the ancients left behind, and in case you’d forgotten, they are all grounded in order that our pilots don’t suddenly start re-enacting A Beautiful Mind--”
The opaque black of the windows abruptly dissolved, and brilliant sunlight burst in across the room. Sheppard winced away from it, dazed. “What the heck--”
“Gah!” Rodney flailed. “Violent assault on my optic nerves is not a valid counterargument!”
Sheppard glared. “You’re the one that came in to steal my computer, Rodney. And I didn’t do that!”
“Of course you did that, Colonel. Let’s not forget the out-of-body, remote-controlled puddlejumper moment, complete with language download--oh, wait, hmm.”
He clicked back to the word processor.
Emmagan returned through the gate to report on the mission’s progress to Dr. Weir.
Which was when the Latere realized that opening trade relations with a group of people currently at war with the bad evil aliens wasn’t the greatest tactical decision for a group of people whose entire plan for survival is based on hiding from the bad evil aliens. Luckily, as a matter of course, better termed a matter of brilliance, Dr. McKay discovered the true purpose of UAO 002-34-1, a.k.a. the “datasquare” allowing SGA-1 to take advantage of the extensive Ancient technology on the planet.
“Yeah, Rodney,” Sheppard said, “Good job with that.”
“What? Oh fine. You helped.”
“datasquare” which was advantageous because Sheppard is easy, allowing SGA-1 to take advantage of the extensive Ancient technology on the planet.
Sheppard groaned, face down in his pillow.
“Easy with the technology. Although, actually--”
“Rodney,” Sheppard said, muffled, “if you really thought I was getting all this action, why’d you just waltz in here thinking I’d be, you know, alone?”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because it’s two in the afternoon.”
Sheppard lifted his head an inch from the pillow, eyeing the sunlight streaming through his clear windows. He dropped his head back down with an explosive sigh. “Right.”
“Seriously, where are you keeping your solver program?”
Sheppard made an indistinct sound. Rodney looked over to see his shoulders shaking. “I’m the military commander,” Sheppard mumbled. “I don’t need to solve multivariable differential equations.”
“Yes, yes, you write riveting mission reports instead.”
Sheppard held up a finger. “Technically, we call them AARs,” he said informatively, sounding almost intoxicated through the pillow.
“Aardvarks Articulate Readily,” Rodney said.
“Makes a kind of interesting plural,” Sheppard muttered and pushed himself up, wandering into the suite’s private bathroom. “Whatever happened to that ZPM?” he called over the sound of water running. “Did you and Zelenka figure out how to fix it?”
Rodney huffed a laugh. “Ha! I’m sorry, were you under the impression that things worked out for us in this galaxy?”
Sheppard came out minus a shirt, wiping water off his face with one hand. He had the bandages off, and the abrasions around his right wrist were scabbed over and dark. “I’ll try to remember that,” he said sarcastically. “Hey, and while I appreciate the thought, could you hold off on writing my reports for me while you’re sleep deprived?”
“You know, you need to stop taking my selfless contributions--” Sheppard made a kind of choking sound. “--my selfless contributions for granted. The Ancient research you recovered? Suggests that in 10% of cases, the schizophrenia caused by the EC system in the puddlejumpers appeared after puddlejumper use had been discontinued. What if I’m already doomed? You’re the one that insisted I practice flying--I mean, that--that could be it.” He stared in horror at his hands. “They’re a little blurry. Do they look blurry to you? Why am I asking you? Maybe you’re not even there--What if this is all some mad hallucination--”
Sheppard didn’t say a word. When Rodney looked up from his--blurry! Mirage-like!--hands, Sheppard was watching him blankly.
“What? What?” Rodney demanded, panicked and mentally composing a eulogy for his brain. If anybody’s brain deserved its own funeral--
Sheppard threw his damp hand towel at Rodney’s head.
“Oh, hey, hey, don’t push me--I’m right on the edge. I could snap at any time!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sheppard said. “It’s not my fault if in your crazyness--” he tapped a finger against his temple, making what was probably supposed to be a sympathetic face, “you can’t see the milk and cookies I brought you or the beautiful women I found to rub your feet.”
And he sat down on the bed, smiling smugly.
“You just--you know what,” Rodney lifted his chin defiantly. “I’m not fixing your jumper.”
Sheppard gaped at him. “You are so fixing my jumper.”
“I am not.” Rodney crossed his arms, lifting his chin.
Sheppard leaned forward, speaking in a low, dangerous voice. “Yes. You are. Because if you don’t fix my jumper, Zelenka will, and you’ll never live it down.”
Rodney swallowed, eyes twitching towards the exit. “Don’t be ridiculous. Radek? Ha! There’s no way he could--he would take at least twice as long. Especially not without the very important breakthrough I made this morning and--Fine. Fine! But I will take longer to fix your jumper than my genius strictly requires. I will take so long that he will almost catch up.”
Sheppard was giving him a suspicious, slitty-eyed look, which was not intimidating in the least, despite the inflated egos of certain--when the door slid open with a hiss. Teyla stepped through, hair in some disarray. Though she sometimes went days without visiting the mainland, she had not enjoyed being told she could not go, even if she had wished to. Her eyebrow looked already half-arched in her quiet kind of skepticism, and Rodney didn’t want to tell her no, he really couldn’t let any puddlejumpers be used without a Marine to hide behind.
Teyla looked between them: Sheppard sitting bent forward and bare-chested next to Rodney in a kidnapped desk chair. Something in her posture, which had been stand-offish at best since the return from That Crazy Shark Planet, slumped back into harmlessness. “Am I... intruding?”
“Nah,” Sheppard said. “Just a little drunken orgy. With Aardvarks.”
“You really need more than two people for that,” Rodney said absently, proving he really had gone mad. He immediately regretted it when Sheppard blinked in surprise and lifted both eyebrows at him.
“Guess we need Teyla after all,” Sheppard said.
“And Ard-Varks,” Teyla agreed. She was even smiling. “Is this a tool I am unfamiliar with? Used in... certain circumstances?”
Now Sheppard regretted it. “Ah... no. It’s not a--you know--thing for that.” He waved a hand inexplicably from his own chest to Rodney, hunched over the laptop a few feet away. “It’s an animal--”
Teyla looked a little startled. John turned red, ducking his head like a shy school boy.
“Crap,” he muttered. “This is why I never tell dirty jokes.”
Rodney threw up his hands. “No, this is why people on other planets end up trying to kill us! We should just gag you--”
Teyla bit her lip. The door slid shut.
“Ha!” Sheppard pointed triumphantly.
“‘Ha’? I’m sorry, are we keeping score? And if I start shouting sex toys, do I win or lose?”
Sheppard dropped his head into his hands, laughing and shaking his head.
“What are you doing in here?” Teyla asked, rescuing the conversation from its descent.
“Elizabeth stole my laptop and told me to sleep. So I had to steal Sheppard’s.” Rodney gestured at the open laptop.
“Don’t you have like five of them?” Sheppard asked, still casting betrayed looks through his fingers at the sun outside his window.
“Hm. Yes,” Rodney batted at the keys, frustrated. “But she made eyes at Radek, and the sneaky little rodent hid my backups.”
“So now you are... using John’s?” Teyla said diplomatically. She sat down on the bed next to Sheppard, brushing her hair out of her eyes and looking otherwise exhausted. Rodney stopped to frown at her. He had a vague idea that he didn’t usually notice that sort of thing.
“No,” Sheppard said, resting his forearms on this knees. “My computer doesn’t have the program he wants to use. So he’s been writing my AAR instead.”
“That’s very kind of him,” Teyla said in that suspiciously mild, probably Pegasus-style sarcasm way of hers.
“Yeah,” Sheppard agreed dryly. “Except the sleep dep is showing.”
Teyla looked over Rodney’s shoulder. “Have you included the fainting? It was... memorable. If this is your history, you should record it.”
Sheppard rolled his eyes. “Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem,” Sheppard said in Ancient, and went to get dressed.
“What? What was that? What did you say?” Rodney demanded, craning his neck.
Sheppard’s hand popped out of the bathroom, closed into a fist except for one finger. Teyla smiled.
“Well, that is just--hmph,” Rodney said.
CLASSIFIED SGC CLEARANCE REQUIRED
SGA-62-001
SUBMITTED BY LT COL JOHN SHEPPARD
FIRST CONTACT MISSION TO M57-112
CONDUCTED ON 9-18-2004
KEYWORDS: HOW NOT TO NEGOTIATE
TITLE: THAT CRAZY SHARK PLANET
OBJECTIVE
First contact mission to search for a possible ZPM based on a tip from Dr. Weir’s alternate self. Secondary objective to establish friendly relations with any peoples present on the planet.
SUMMARY
SGA-1 did not establish friendly relations with the inhabitants of M57-112. No further contact with the inhabitants is recommended due to probable hostility. A non-functioning ZPM was recovered from an abandoned Ancient facility.
DISCUSSION
The inhabitants of M57-112 avoid full scale culling by erecting a decoy farming community in the archipelago around the Stargate. The locations of their more permanent settlements or the extent of their technological capabilities is not known.
I arrived with SGA-1 in the middle of construction and evacuation of the non-essential Laterian personnel from the area around the gate and attempted to open discussion between Atlantis and the Latere, who seemed open to trade. Teyla Emmagan returned through the gate to report on the mission’s progress to Dr. Weir.
Which was when the Latere realized that opening trade relations with a group of people currently at war with the bad evil aliens wasn’t the greatest tactical decision for a group of people whose entire plan for survival is based on hiding from the bad evil aliens. It was my pleasure to be the guide on the path to enlightening the Latere of this helpful fact, and to accept their thanks by allowing myself to be thrown off a terrifying, rickety bridge of death as a sacrifice to the locally worshipped behemoth du jour.
Luckily, despite being oversexed, I am unpalatable to giant Ancient-engineered psychic Wraith sharks, possibly due to smell.
However, as a matter of course, perhaps better termed a matter of brilliance, Dr. McKay discovered the true purpose of UAO 002-34-1, a.k.a. the “datasquare” which was advantageous because I’m easy, allowing SGA-1 to take advantage of the extensive Ancient technology on the planet.
LESSONS LEARNED
I will never negotiate a first contact with paranoid isolationists without Teyla again. I will never negotiate a first contact with paranoid isolationists without Teyla again. I will never negotiate a first contact with paranoid isolationists without Teyla again. I will never negotiate a first contact with paranoid isolationists without Teyla again. I will never negotiate a first contact with paranoid isolationists without Teyla again.
RECOMMENDED ACTION
Dr. McKay, as the on-site and all around stand up guy, should be allowed any time he needs to study the data files I unlocked on the datasquare regarding the crazy-making puddlejumpers. And Teyla deserves an extra ration of brownies this week for punching a shark and also those bad guys.
The end. Cue cake. Hoorah.
Elizabeth blinked--once, twice, while the report on her tablet screen refused to change--and rubbed her fingers over her temples. “John, this is-- a very interesting report.”
Across the desk, Lt. Col. John Sheppard shrugged. “I have my moments.”
**
Report format extrapolated from a random page I found with google. The insult John says in Ancient is actually Latin, from http://www.insultmonger.com and supposedly means "In the good old days, children like you were left to perish on windswept crags."