DVD Commentary: Praxis, by miss-porcupine, Part 2
Part Two
When he came to, it was inside -- maybe the farmhouse they had been sitting behind judging by the windows he could see. He was tied to a chair by his ankles and wrists, a rope thrown around his middle for good measure. He jostled at his bonds, but they were efficient and effective and not going to budge. Marines knew their knots.
"Fuck," he muttered.
"You with us, sir?"
Lorne turned his head as far as he could and at the edges of his peripheral vision saw both Wrubelski and Osgeny, one on each side. Osgeny's head was still bowed, but Wrubelski seemed to be looking at him. It was hard to tell -- they were far enough apart and at such an angle that eye contact was impossible and even a decent look was a guarantee for eye strain. "More or less," he replied.
"Captain Radner's directly behind you, sir," Wrubelski went on. "We're all facing out from a square."
Under the circumstances, it wasn't necessarily a relief to be with the others. Lorne alone or Lorne with Booger would have been a sign that this was all about the Ancient gene, which while unpleasant (extremely) was at least limited in scope -- and left Radner and Wrubelski to manage Bravo Company toward a rescue and escape. But that it was all four of them together meant that this was about Atlantis and that never turned out well.
"We the only ones up?" Lorne asked. He felt surprisingly good all considering; he had a quick metabolism and processed drugs faster than most, although he had yet to find a good use for that trait beyond imprisonment situations.
*snerk*
"No, sir," Osgeny said, sounding a little hoarse. "Skipper's still out, though."
"How are you feeling, Lieutenant?" Lorne asked.
"I think I've revisited every meal since we left home, sir," Osgeny admitted wryly. "But I'm feeling better now."
Lorne smiled. It was... not comforting, but at least vaguely amusing that he'd ended up with another puker since Reletti wasn't here. "What kind of marine can't hold his liquor?"
"Out of practice, sir," Osgeny replied. "Dry expedition."
They all knew that it wasn't the alcohol and that Earth wasn't the last time Osgeny had had a drink, but going along with the joke eased the tension just a tiny little bit.
"Sir, what do they want with us?" Wrubelski asked. "And where are our marines?"
"The usual," Lorne answered with a sigh. "Where we come from, how do they get there, what we're up to. And I have no idea. Probably not too far from where we left them -- that's a lot to carry any kind of distance."
"What about mine?" Osgeny half-croaked.
"Same," Lorne said. "Although it makes sense to keep them all in one place. Depends on what kind of capabilities they have."
"And how they got the jump on two platoons," Wrubelski added. "If they drugged them, too, then why didn't they warn us? They wouldn't have all gone down at once."
"Radios were out," Radner said groggily, sounding far away from Lorne's ears.
The next steps were to see if anyone could get free or if, cumulatively, they could at least put together a picture of what sort of bindings held them. Lorne knew from past experience that it would only be a matter of time before someone came for them, either to talk or threaten or to bring them to wherever the hard sell would take place. Unfortunately, he got the order of events wrong.
So this is what it feels like, Lorne thought. His skin, from the top of his head to the bottom of his soles, felt like it was being burned, like he was lying full-body on a smoking frying pan. It was distracting and it hurt -- not the worst he'd ever felt, not by a long shot, but enough that he wanted it to stop as soon as possible and he tried to wriggle free, to tip his chair over, to do something, anything to get away from the pain. But there was nowhere to go -- the bonds held fast and the chair was bolted to the floor.
OMFG PAIN RAY. *whimper*
As suddenly as it started, it stopped and Lorne gasped for cool air. He opened eyes he hadn't realized he'd closed to find Yoni standing in front of him, looking at him like he was a specimen in the lab. Lorne turned to see Clayton in front of Osgeny and Abelard, sans pitchfork, in front of Wrubelski. He wondered if Rosmanova had left her cow and was by Radner or if it was someone else.
"They created you in their own image, as they did us," Yoni said in a flat voice. "But you were their beloved pets and we were merely their weapons."
"Ten thousand years ago," Lorne replied, accepting that this was the Replicator scenario and the pain ray had been in lieu of mind probing. "Kind of a long time to hold a grudge."
He'd had iterations of this discussion so many times, with both friend and foe, that the answers were almost rote by this point. Except for the fact that part of him hadn't forgiven the Ancients yet, either.
"Time does not heal all wounds," Yoni said. "What the Wraith could not finish, we will."
This part, too.
"You'll be killing innocents."
A derisive snort from Yoni and Lorne realized, all of a sudden, what most of Atlantis saw when they looked at Jonathan Safir. He'd never borne the full brunt of Yoni's ire before, never had the sharp tongue or casual derision aimed at him without Yoni holding back because they were, if not friends then something close enough. At least not before now.
Yeah. Usually when we see Yoni, he's grumpy but not actively scary--we kind of hear about how people don't want to be on his bad side or how only a couple of people can handle him, but we usually don't see him being mean. Which, now that I see it, is scary. And makes me bite my lip.
"'Sins of the father' -- is that not the expression from Earth?" Yoni asked rhetorically, one eyebrow arched. "There is no position for you to argue from here. You yourself are testament to how clearly their traits have bred through -- you seek to make yourself closer to your erstwhile parents than even nature intended. Gene therapy."
Lorne shook his head. "It's not that you can't understand. It's that you won't. We just want to learn, to stop the Wraith, to save our own planet."
Yoni shook his head in disgust and left him then, followed out by Clayton, Abelard, and Rosmanova. Mental probe or not, this had been the soft sell, the warning. Next would come the actual threats, specific and scary. Lorne didn't know what would get them free here -- Sheppard and company had been sprung by a curious and softhearted Replicator they betrayed. He didn't know if that would work again.
"Everyone okay?" Lorne asked once they were alone again.
"Peachy, sir," Radner replied. "Apart from the mental probing."
Oh, okay, so pain ray = mental probe. Which I hadn't quite connected before; I thought that a pain ray was kind of an end in itself. Although I think I missed at least one of the Replicator episodes, so that's probably why I'm confused.
"They have enough to take Atlantis, sir?" Osgeny asked.
"Maybe," he answered, suspecting that the answer was 'yes.' "I'd rather not stick around to find out."
"I'm not sure they're going to let a SAR team through, not if they've got two platoons prisoner by the gate," Wrubelski said.
There were provisions for a 'rescue', but it came with a penalty in addition to forfeiting the objective from this planet. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that.
Lorne didn't have access to his watch, so he didn't know how long it had been since he'd passed out or how long since they'd had their little 'interrogation.' He didn't know how long they'd have to wait until the next round. The sun was on the other side of the building from their windows, so beyond being able to see that it wasn't night yet, there was little way to judge the passage of time.
While they waited for the Replicators to return, they worked on their bonds; most possible escape scenarios pretty much demanded that their hands be free and working on that had the added bonus of keeping the circulation in their arms from going completely.
Nonetheless, Lorne's fingers were still cold and tingly when the door opened and Clayton entered with a dozen marines dressed in some amalgam of cammies and Athosian clothes. She said nothing as the marines undid their bindings and led them, stumbling, into a smaller windowless room. Four covered trays and a pitcher of water were in the middle of the floor.
"You don't expect us to eat after last time, do you?" Lorne asked ruefully.
"There's nothing in it this time," Clayton replied flatly. "You are of more value to us alive than dead, so you must eat. You won't eat if we drug your food. Therefore, your food is safe."
It was dubious logic, but Lorne had nothing witty to say in return, so he said nothing. The marines emptied out of the room and they heard a lock click.
Yeah, that's totally Pegasus galaxy logic.
Lorne crossed to the far side of the room and sat down heavily; the others followed. "Might as well work the kinks out now," he said, rolling his wrists and flexing his elbows.
"Should we, sir?" Wrubelski asked, gesturing at the trays.
"We should probably all drink water," Lorne said. "Whatever they gave us doesn't seem to have too many aftereffects, but water never hurts. Except when it's used to drug us, but I think we're past the deception part of the program. If she said it's good, then it probably is."
Wrubelski poured four glasses of water and handed them out. They all drank and Wrubelski refilled the glasses.
"You should try to eat something, Mark," Radner told Osgeny. "See if there's some bread or something bland."
Osgeny didn't look overjoyed at the prospect, but picked up one of the tray lids hesitantly and found a roll and a pear, which he took back with him to the wall he'd been sitting against. Unlike Reletti, who usually pretended to eat, Osgeny actually did finish both.
Lorne looked at his watch. It had been five hours since they'd gotten up from the table in the back of the farmhouse. Not enough time to have triggered the rescue scenario mechanism, but they were 'overdue' and it would only be two more hours before they lost the objective and whatever else the penalty was.
Hrm. So I wonder who gets to play the rescuers. It'd have to be the guys who were playing the bad guys, right?
Thankfully, they never got that far. About a half-hour later, when Lorne had closed his eyes and started to doze, he heard a loud noise in the distance. It sounded familiar and comforting in a way that the cacophony of a large group of marines not trying to be subtle never really was -- except if they were coming to help you.
"Hello? Major? Captain?"
"We're in here," Radner called out.
"Stay back, sir," came the warning.
Lorne dropped his head down and covered himself in a protective crouch, relieved when the door didn't shatter into thousands of high-velocity splinters. Marines -- Osgeny's, from the few faces Lorne recognized -- poured in and Lorne and the others were helped up and half-dragged from the room and then the building. Lorne was used to this part, had been since before he'd gotten to Pegasus, and rode out the sharp orders and rough treatment, bracing for the moment when he'd be left to stand on his own and everyone remembered he was the ranking officer.
I get the feeling that Lorne spends a lot of time doing that in non-rescue situations, too.
When that happened, Lorne took a deep breath and a moment to savor his freedom, then thanked the grinning marine next to him.
Wrubelski greeted one of Osgeny's marines with gruff cheer nearby and Lorne watched as the big first sergeant made a big show of being just fine, of them all being just fine. "Where the fuck were you boys? Jerking off?"
"We had to shake off the mickey they slipped us, sir," GySgt Jenkins apologized to Lorne as he watched marines fall into position to move out. "They made the mistake of only taking our rifles and packs. Marines have done more with less for more than two hundred years. That, and we kind of charmed the girl a little -- Marta? She wants to come with us."
I . . . I feel like there should be some heroic USMC song playing as they ride to the rescue; in the absence of this, I am humming the Indiana Jones theme.
"You do realize she's a machine, right?" Lorne asked, looking around to see where Marta was. She was standing near a few marines, looking hopeful. "Her and the others?"
"Better tell her that," Jenkins said, shaking his head as he followed Lorne's glance. "A bit young for me, but the boys liked her well enough and she them."
Lorne chuffed a laugh. It was a long deployment and there weren't that many women around. The marines were pretty much fond of anyone with the right anatomy. Even if, in this case, Teyla would squash their balls with teaspoons if they so much looked at Marta the wrong way.
Which--yes, she would, and I would wonder why there isn't more fic of Teyla dumping guys on their asses for saying something untoward, except I assume that they are all too scared to do so.
"We have to haul ass, sir," Jenkins warned. "Still haven't hooked up with Joker Two or Three yet and the bad guys have to notice by now that we're loose."
They started off, Jenkins keeping an eye on Osgeny, who was still pale but otherwise seemed fine, moving in the general direction of the stargate and trying to stay out of sight of a village that was a lot more populated (by Replicator marines) than it had seemed before.
Radner sent marines in search of their gear and the rest of Bravo Company as they moved out; they found the marines first -- Eriksson and Kagan and their men had managed to get free of the pen they were kept in ("they built it around us while we were out, sir") -- and then they found their gear. Marta, eager to prove her worth, led them through trees and fields toward the gate until she suddenly stopped and froze, like her battery had died. Lorne knew what this meant -- she'd been found out and rebooted -- and he yelled for the marines to haul ass double-time back to the stargate, not even bothering to return fire when the Replicators (in the form of Cardejo's platoon) chased them because they needed to save their bullets for things that would stay down when hit by them. On the DHD was the chit for meeting the objective.
They go back to the planet they had rested on and, as soon as the wormhole closed behind them, dialed Alabamastan to keep their stargate busy for 38 minutes of peace, during which they intended to figure out where the hell to go next.
Oh, hey, look! Tactics! Let's just assume that they do things like this on the actual show.
The first fifteen minutes were spent sprawled indelicately on the ground, catching their breaths, drinking water, and figuring out what the hell had just happened. They would have to warn Atlantis about the compromised security, but there was precious little that could actually be done with the knowledge that the Replicators were gunning for them. At least nothing that they weren't doing already.
The next twenty-three minutes plus were spent with Lorne and Radner going off a little bit into the woods to plan the next steps -- Wrubelski hovering just far enough away to maintain plausible privacy while keeping the officers safe.
"We should have saved Hoth for later, sir," Radner said with a bemused shake of his head. "Ruck through the snow sounds like a picnic just about now."
"I'm not making any suggestions, Captain," Lorne said with a shake of his head. "Last two times you let me choose, we ended up with Wraith."
Radner smiled. "Third time's the charm, sir?"
If Dave only knew, Lorne thought to himself. "If that's the case, then it's supposed to be nice on MP4-5G3 this time of year."
MP4-5G3 was a very nice planet when it wasn't going to be used for a training exercise. Lorne had no idea what it was like now.
The thought occurs--how do they remember all of these random number-letter strings? I do like that they tend to use planet names (or made-up names) whenever possible, because I feel like names would be easier to remember than the random strings. (Although I think I remember reading something once that said that Canadians were better at remembering number-letter strings than Americans, since Canadian postal codes are number-letter, as opposed to American ZIP codes. So it could be Canadian bias, or it could just be the magic of television.)
"Well, worse comes to worse, sir," Radner said, "it probably won't be Replicators again."
"Don't jinx me," Lorne said, turning and walking a few steps so that the noise of the zat opening wouldn't be too loud. He tried to time it with snapping a branch, but he needn't have bothered -- some mild ruckus among the marines distracted them both.
Lorne-gone-bad is awesome. Just sayin'. No one would ever expect it--it's Lorne! He's so . . . short and capable.
"Just a near-deer, sirs," Wrubelski said over the radio. "Told the boys to stick to their MREs."
Lorne shielded the gun from Radner's view with his body, walking back a little toward where Wrubelski was. Radner had his back to Lorne and was looking up at the sky through the trees. He sighed, but it turned into a groan when he tried to roll his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Dave," Lorne said and Radner turned, surprised by both the sentiment and the use of his first name. His eyes widened, but he didn't get a chance to say anything before Lorne shot him with the zat. Radner fell with a muffled thump, rolling down a short hill before coming to rest by the foot of a big tree, and Lorne came as close as he dared to make sure that he was out cold before turning back.
"Hey, First Sergeant!" Lorne called over his radio. "C'mere for a second, please?"
Wrubelski appeared a few moments later. "Sir?" he prompted, looking around for Radner.
"Pee break," Lorne explained, gesturing with his free hand toward where Radner had fallen. Wrubelski made a face because Radner was out of eyeshot when he shouldn't have been -- and crossed past Lorne to be a little closer. Once he was past, Lorne shot him, too, with the zat and then closed the weapon, putting it back in his tac vest pocket. Then he went back to the marines, who were all drinking water and exchanging bemused stories.
This is all kinds of awesome. I mean, scary too, because it's way too easy for Lorne to go bad, and it really shows that there's no way to prepare for something like that, but yes: awesome.
"Okay, gentlemen," he began, clapping his hands for attention. "Our timeout is over. Onward and upward. Next stop, MP4-5G3."
"Where's Captain Radner, sir?" Eriksson asked.
"Gone to explore the wonders of nature," Lorne replied with a wry grin. Everyone chuckled, getting the euphemism. Lorne looked around. "Captain Radner's the one with the cheat sheet, isn't he?"
"Yes, sir," Kagan admitted wryly.
All of the squad leaders, platoon sergeants, and lieutenants had a weirdass decoder wheel that allowed them to translate alphanumeric planetary designations into gate symbols, but Radner was the only one who had done the 'translation' for every possible planet in the exercise beforehand. Lorne had known this already, but it hadn't come up before now.
. . . so he could be taking them anywhere. Again, frighteningly easy.
"Never say the Air Force isn't good for anything," Lorne warned them as he went to the DHD and dialed as the marines chuckled and got themselves up off of the ground and into some sort of formation. The wormhole opened and Lorne looked around.
"Lieutenant Eriksson, volunteer a scout team, please?"
Eriksson nodded and called out names. Three marines moved up and toward the wormhole, going through. Everyone waited for them to radio back, which they finally did, informing them that the area around the stargate was clear and the weather was fine.
"Let's start moving out," Lorne announced, nodding to Eriksson, who was still closest.
"Should we wait for Captain R and First Sergeant Wrubelski, sir?" Kagan asked as he jumped up and down to re-settle his pack. Next to him, his gunny rolled his eyes and yanked on the top of the pack, fixing whatever was bothering the lieutenant. Kagan grinned at him.
"The man has been shot with a Wraith stunner, drugged, and nailed by pain rays in the last thirty-six hours and doesn't even get to take a leak in private," Lorne replied. "I don't think he wants an audience waiting for a report on a successful piss. Besides, it'll take enough time to get all of you water buffalo herded through the gate that he can join in on the end of the queue."
That seemed to be a sufficient answer, at least in terms of getting everyone in motion. But when neither Radner nor Wrubelski appeared as the last platoon was preparing to leave, Lorne asked for and received a team to go look for the missing men.
"We'll dial in once they're back," Lorne told Osgeny. "In the meanwhile, see if someone can't get us oriented and make sure everyone's good to go. Canteens full, injuries taken care of, the usual shit."
"Aye aye, sir," Osgeny said, then followed his platoon through the wormhole, which closed behind him.
"All right," Lorne sighed. "Let's go follow the yellow brick road."
The marines grinned and started off in the direction Lorne pointed them in, leading the way because one missing officer was enough. It gave Lorne enough time and space to pull out and charge the zat gun and wait for his opportunity. Which came when Sergeant Wiebler half-slid down the slope Radner lay at the bottom of. Lorne got O'Conner and Shultz first, from the rear, and then Wiebler in the chest as he ran back up the hill with his rifle up. It was all pretty easy and Lorne was sure it was more from something other than his own quick-draw skills.
He had been mildly surprised when Polito had given him the assignment; it was very much an out-of-the-blue kind of betrayal, although in hindsight Caldwell's had been just as random. He'd been told that he would be a Goa'uld agent and given a short list of suggestions for how to sabotage Bravo Company, since there would be no way to assure than any particular method would be available. He probably could have chosen a different means earlier in the exercise, but that would have defeated the purpose of the exercise even as it would have saved him a couple of very unpleasant afternoons.
By sending them to Planet Nowhere, the world his own team had been lost on for almost a month, instead of MP4-5G3, he had effectively ended Bravo's week -- they weren't getting off of that (very nice) planet until someone came for them because the DHD was busted. He wanted to give them as much opportunity to train and learn as possible before sabotaging their chances of winning, although maybe he'd have done so before getting smacked with the pain ray were he to do it all over again.
I wonder how long they'll be on the planet before they realize something's wrong? And, actually, how long they'll be on the planet before they're told what happened?
The marines on Planet Nowhere would be fine; the Wraith had no knowledge of the planet and, between the MREs they were carrying and the ample supply of near deer and flora, they weren't going to starve. It really was a nice place, although he expected that Bravo would be less than thrilled about their three-day vacation there. McKay had been working on a portable DHD since Lorne's team had been rescued and, if for some reason that didn't work, the Daedalus would be in the area by the end of the week.
Lorne looked at his watch. He needed to be gone before anyone woke, but he didn't want to leave the five marines defenseless, either. The Wraith had no knowledge of this place, either, but those weren't the only fish in the sea. He waited as long as he dared, but when he thought that Radner might be starting to stir, he beat a hasty retreat back to the stargate and dialed Atlantis.
Sheppard and Polito were waiting for him when he returned.
"How'd it go?" Sheppard asked. "Was being evil fun? Do I have to start worrying about you now?"
"It went," he replied with a shrug. "Nobody saw it coming."
"They never do, sir," Polito said with perhaps a little too much cheer. "How'd you like Alabamastan?"
"Doctor Safir and I are going to be having a long talk," Lorne said sourly, then yawned. "After I shower and then sleep for maybe a week."
"Not for a week," Sheppard told him as they started to walk toward the door. "We have a command staff meeting on Thursday."
Lorne cocked an eyebrow. "If I turn evil, do I still have to go?"
"Believe me, I've pondered trying it," Sheppard sighed.
I do love that they have such great dark humor about the whole thing. Because, really, how else would you deal with Pegasus?
Round Two: Predator
"So can you do it?"
Captain Polito tapped the spot on the map where the Ancient artifact was. Along with Polito, Lieutenants Patchok and Gillick, Gunny Cole, 1stSgt Backman, and Ronon were all watching him with various degrees of hopeful expressions and AJ hated having to give anything but an affirmative answer.
Yay Reletti! I will admit now that this is the part of the show where there will be a certain amount of undignified squeeing over miss-porcupine's OC marines.
"Can I fuck it up?" he asked with a frown. "Yes, sir. At least enough to make it annoying. Can I hold it against the Colonel? Probably not. We haven't met anything the Ancients built that doesn't like him best."
Well, duh. This makes me think about how interesting it is to see Sheppard from the perspective of the marines; he's, you know, weird, plus nobody really knows much about him, plus the only things they would have seen of him would be the big, episodic stuff he's done since coming to the Pegasus galaxy, and--oh yeah, he's magic.
He couldn't imagine winning a mental tug-of-war against Sheppard. He could usually override Spelcher, but that was because Spelcher never practiced unless he had to -- none of the marines with the ATA gene did, at least not beyond tuning out Atlantis and not accidentally setting shit off on other worlds. Which they all did anyway, even Sheppard. Among marines, the joke was that if you couldn't eat it, kill it, or fuck it, then it didn't have a point. AJ was the freak for working on it anyway, had gotten into fights because of it (no big deal; marines fought over everything, mostly just to keep themselves amused) even though everyone knew why he needed to.
Polito nodded, already considering the next six options. He'd written the rules, but that meant that he was in a good position to come up with ways to bend them. "How much time will you need?"
"Depends on the device, sir," AJ replied. "It's kind of like dealing with a woman -- there're the ones who expect dinner and conversation first and the ones who... don't."
A chuckle from the group around the map. "Understood, Sergeant," Polito said dryly. "Thank you."
It was a dismissal, more or less, and AJ caught Patchok's eyes to get confirmation. When Patchok nodded, AJ left the command group and returned to where his squad was waiting. He'd hear about the orders when the rest of the platoon did. In the meantime, chow.
It was a long walk back to where First Platoon had made their home at the edge of the clearing. Halfway through the week and Polito was rotating the platoons through the objectives depending on skill set and who was most rested, but between missions Charlie Company was using this planet as a home base and the platoons had their own areas. Gunny could always spec out the best holes, so First Platoon's space was the furthest from the stargate, which allowed them to not be woken by boots walking by at whatever hour everyone else got in or went out.
"So?"
AJ shrugged as he sat, catching the MRE Suarez threw at his head. Cheese tortellini, which meant that Suarez had gotten lucky on the draw. They usually picked MREs by random and Suarez had had to take for both of them since AJ had been summoned by Polito. It was understood that AJ would end up with whichever was the less appealing of the two -- a favor AJ would and did return when the situations were reversed -- so Suarez must have scored something good since he actually liked the tortellini one.
"We're going to keep some Ancient toy away from Batman," AJ said as he opened the package and shook the contents out in front of him. He tossed the MRE's pound cake at Ramirez, who tossed back chocolate chip cookies and a packet of powdered milkshake.
Choreography! Also, cute.
"Which means you're gonna go up against Batman," Garrotte corrected, not looking up from his construction of a sea pie from among his MRE parts. "The rest of us are going to end up standing around like a fucking Greek chorus while you two do your zen mind thing."
[pause to google "sea pie"]
Garrotte had been a history teacher before he enlisted and sometimes it showed.
. . . because being shot at is less scary than seventh-graders?
There was murmured resentful agreement and AJ knew better than to try to deny it or point out that Spelcher would probably help, too. Because nobody cared and Spelcher wasn't going to be much help.
"Fuck if you all are gonna sit around with your hands on your dicks while Obi-Wan here does his thing," Gunny said as he strolled up. "Whole company's going out and it ain't as fucking farmers again."
That improved everyone's mood and AJ felt relief as the collective pissiness of the platoon shifted off of him and dissipated. While Gunny wasn't above saying shit just to quell a mutiny, Gunny also had very good hearing and if Patchok had said or heard something, then he'd know about it.
AJ was relieved, too -- scuttlebutt was that that the most of their assignments were going to be more role-playing than action, something that seemed likely to be true after their most recent scenario had been to be villagers wary of technology. The first task they'd gotten had been to go out with Ronon as Wraith -- a return engagement from their first exercise and the one everyone wanted -- and everyone in First Platoon had assumed that the rest of the choice assignments would be distributed around to the others out of fairness. Especially after Third Platoon got to spend the night in a firefight with the Major and half of Weapons Company.
"We goin' out against Batman?" Gallitan asked, mixing something awful-looking in a bowl. AJ thinks one of the ingredients is a fruit cup, but the whole thing looks like puke. After too much Jager.
"How many other HVTs we got?" Gunny asked in response and everyone else grunted and laughed. Sheppard hadn't gone out on every mission over the course of the exercise, not this time and not the round before, but everyone on both sides fought a little harder when they knew he was out there. Everyone wanted to beat him or impress him or both, even AJ a little and he'd had more than enough opportunities over the years to make an impression. But Sheppard's their leader and while most of them could take him in a one-on-one match-up of combat skills, that wasn't the point.
[pause to google "HVT"]
Gunny's inside info was at least partially confirmed when Patchok returned and said that they were going out at 1500 AST.
Out of the target sights of the rest of the platoon and fed, AJ got down to the business of weapons maintenance. He stripped down, cleaned, and reassembled his pistol, taking a quarter of the time that Suarez did because Suarez was OCD about shit like this and kept stopping and re-starting when he found something he didn't like. AJ would have appreciated this attention to detail except for the fact that Suarez did this every fucking time and he'd already seen this show once already today. Ortilla finally threatened to do it himself if Suarez didn't hurry the fuck up, so AJ got to watch Chris pout and then put his M9 back together with a speed and grace unmatched by anyone in the platoon -- all while glaring at Ortilla.
[pause for minor flail re: Suarez.] I mean, a) cleaning his pistol; b) pouting; c) "speed and grace." Seriously.
"Fucking showoff," Gunny grunted. He was sitting across from them, next to Patchok. The LT was trying to maximize the ability of one hot sauce packet to cover up the hideous taste of an entire Black Bean & Rice Burrito entree. Officers ate last in the Marines, which meant that Patchok (and Gunny, as platoon sergeant) were stuck with whatever was left over after everyone else had drawn their MRE. Which were invariably the ones that tasted like week-old unwashed ass. Not that AJ had any actual knowledge of the accuracy of the comparison.
Eventually, 1stSgt Backman called everyone over to the platform near the stargate. They hadn't had a company briefing since the beginning, when Polito had explained the rules -- which ones could be broken and which ones could not, basically. Since then, assignments and instructions had been for individual platoons and Polito had come by to each unit's area to give the orders and answer questions in person. Polito had been going out on some of the missions -- not the Wraith one, although AJ knew that that had been a sacrifice on Polito's part -- but he always made sure to do each briefing himself. It wasn't that he didn't trust the platoon commanders, just that each one was so fucking weird that there was really no other choice.
But, here and now, they were one unit again, whole and ready to fight. Polito waited for everyone to get settled (Patchok shamelessly hid behind Ortilla so that he could finish wolfing down his burrito; Gunny was short enough to hide behind pretty much anyone, but pointing that out was hazardous to your health) before beginning with a review of their recent activities.
Their opponents would be slightly tenderized coming in to this round, Polito explained, but the whole point of the exercise was to wear them down until they started getting stupid and getting picked off. While First Platoon had been pretending to be simple farmers for Lieutenant Murray, most of the rest of Weapons Company ("Lanteans" in the terminology of the exercise) had been chased around some random planet by Halling and the Athosians posing as villagers eager to collect on the Genii's bounty; AJ ignored the meaningful looks and not-so-gentle elbow jabs from the marines surrounding him. He remembered the original incident just fine, thanks.
AJ wasn't sure how Polito knew which planet the Lanteans were going to be on and which scenario got used when, but apparently he did and the details, as per usual, were not deemed essential grunt knowledge. Nonetheless, there were theories and rumors, some practical and a few completely off the wall, although most of the guys didn't seem to care too much what the actual answer was. AJ did want to know, but he'd probably have to wait until the exercises were over and they were on a mission with the Major before he could get an answer. This was why he wanted to get a commission, why he was grateful that he was on an off-world team -- he wanted to be in a position where details weren't deemed a impediment to him doing his job.
I really, really hope to see Reletti back on Atlantis as an officer. I get the feeling we won't see it, because it's an extremely unlikely thing to have happen, but still. Reletti's one of those people who just seem to belong in Atlantis, and I hope he comes back when he's commissioned.
"We've done admirably so far," Polito was saying when AJ realized that he was perhaps not paying full attention. Which happened to coincide with when Ortilla realized and stepped on his foot accidentally on purpose. "I'm sure Robin Hood and his Merry Men will hurt a few, but this next action is going to be key. This is a major objective for them -- the artifact is supposed to be some sort of device that Doctor McKay can turn into a weapon that will be effective against the Wraith. They get this, they get another objective for free. Needless to say, we don't want that."
As Polito went on, it became clear just how much he was willing to assure that that didn't happen. While most of the actions so far had been platoon-sized movements, this was going to be all of Charlie Company on one planet as part of the same force. It was a risk, although Polito didn't frame it as such. But it was obvious to everyone that whoever came out of this encounter the winner was going to have the upper hand for the rest of the week.
It was equally obvious that this was going to be a close fight -- Mad Matt didn't usually talk about rally points and fall-back plans when they were supposed to be only on offense.
Pretty much all of the marines in Atlantis were first rate -- even guys like Gallitan and Booger, the ones who made NCO by virtue of a combination of luck and bravery overcoming a startlingly small portion of intelligence -- and all of the companies were good at what they did. But Charlie was best and they had a reputation to maintain, even if that reputation was largely self-perpetuated (not like anyone else was going to concede inferiority). These exercises had scores attached and they could only laugh at Bravo Company for getting duped by the Major until they failed to meet (and beat) Bravo's score. They could only lord the current score over Weapons until they got their asses kicked by them and Batman.
Fuck if anyone in Charlie was going to allow that to happen. Fuck if Mad Matt was going to let them fail.
The briefing was less actual passing on of information than pep rally; Polito would have given his orders to Patchok, who'd explain them to the marines in turn. Mad Matt reinforced the Commander's Intent ("they are not walking off that planet with any prize") and left the lieutenants (and Gunny Cole, since nobody had replaced Nagley yet) to hammer out the details.
AJ didn't get his part of the puzzle until later on, after they'd returned to their space and Patchok had met with the squad leaders while the rest of them were left to dick around with the Wraith stunners they'd be using.
More than two years and it still burned a little not to be in that particular pow-wow anymore; the ache of leadership lost hadn't gone away completely. He'd led a squad in fucking Recon and now he wasn't even a team leader here and the fact that every other E-5 in Little Tripoli was in the same boat (except for the Recon part) didn't make it sting less. Just made him sure not to open his yap and say as much. He got respect within the squad and within the platoon -- Recon counted, as did his spot on the Major's team -- and he was maybe a little embarrassed that it bothered him as much as it did, this ego problem. It wasn't as if they got treated like privates or anything like that.
Why I Love Reletti: because he's too smart to be where he is, even when he's being kind of a flake; he's got a drive to do more, and he will, and it will be awesome to see him in the briefing room on Atlantis. Some day. Even if that is only in my head. Also, he's a just big enough dork with the Ancient technology.
"Alright, here's what's going on," Ortilla began even before he sat down. "Rourke, pull out that map."
Rourke, assistant squad leader, dug out the pile of laminated maps they were using for squad meetings and fished out the one for M94-G32.
The entire map looked, to AJ's eyes, very much like almost every other planet in this galaxy. The route from the stargate to the building where the device was located was more or less a straight line cutting through some obstacles of various difficulties. There was a road and trees on one side and rocks on the other; the building was the ruins of some Ancient lab and even Suarez wondered aloud if they'd been here before, it all looked so familiar.
While the objective for the Lanteans was to get the Ancient device and get out, Polito and then Patchok had explained that Charlie's scenario was that the planet's residents were an advanced society with no love of strangers. Certainly not those who wanted to poke around on their planet and look for toys left behind by the Ancestors. The Lanteans thought that the planet was uninhabited and would find out differently -- the hard way. It meant that they had to let the Lanteans try to get the device first, then hammer them on the egress and now Ortilla was filling in the details on their part in the show. Which, until everyone else showed up and got in position, was to scout the planet and fuck around with the Ancient device.
One of the things AJ had noticed early on, even before they'd left Earth for Atlantis, was that Ortilla was really good at allowing everyone to have their say while still not giving away any of his authority -- making them feel like their experience wasn't being ignored just because they weren't in command of marines anymore. It was a neat trick; they'd all been squad leaders, but Ortilla'd been a platoon sergeant and it showed. Today, that meant he let Suarez and Figeroa bitch at each other over which route the Lanteans were likely to take before putting his two cents in and his foot down.
"Skipper thinks they're gonna diddy bop up the road until they've got an actual reason not to," he began, pointing to the red-colored line on the map. "They know it's an exercise and they're gonna be eyes-open, but they gotta play like this is just any other uninhabited planet until they don't have a choice."
Because AJ "had to do his thing with the thing," First Platoon left early for M94-G32. Personally, he didn't think he'd need as much time as Polito had given them, but he wasn't in a position to either complain or criticize and so he didn't. He packed his shit, camoed up, waited as Ortilla growled at Suarez for being a girl for taking so long with his makeup, and then followed his unit to the stargate.
Why I Love Suarez: because he doesn't belong in the Pegasus galaxy. So many of the Atlantis characters are given this sense of Atlantis=home, from the scientists who are involved in literally the most important work of their lives to Sheppard who belongs in Atlantis in a fairy-tale way.
Suarez, though, is someone who is not very excited about being on alien planets; he's there to do his job and if going a little OCD over things he can control is the way he does it, more power to him. I get the sense that he'll finish his tour on Atlantis, go home, and get another job, and one day when they declassify and he gets his Pegasus Galaxy Service ribbon, maybe he'll tell his kids about Atlantis. Or maybe he'll just put it away and go grill some hot dogs for dinner, look out over his backyard and the swingset, and think about life on Earth.
When he came to, it was inside -- maybe the farmhouse they had been sitting behind judging by the windows he could see. He was tied to a chair by his ankles and wrists, a rope thrown around his middle for good measure. He jostled at his bonds, but they were efficient and effective and not going to budge. Marines knew their knots.
"Fuck," he muttered.
"You with us, sir?"
Lorne turned his head as far as he could and at the edges of his peripheral vision saw both Wrubelski and Osgeny, one on each side. Osgeny's head was still bowed, but Wrubelski seemed to be looking at him. It was hard to tell -- they were far enough apart and at such an angle that eye contact was impossible and even a decent look was a guarantee for eye strain. "More or less," he replied.
"Captain Radner's directly behind you, sir," Wrubelski went on. "We're all facing out from a square."
Under the circumstances, it wasn't necessarily a relief to be with the others. Lorne alone or Lorne with Booger would have been a sign that this was all about the Ancient gene, which while unpleasant (extremely) was at least limited in scope -- and left Radner and Wrubelski to manage Bravo Company toward a rescue and escape. But that it was all four of them together meant that this was about Atlantis and that never turned out well.
"We the only ones up?" Lorne asked. He felt surprisingly good all considering; he had a quick metabolism and processed drugs faster than most, although he had yet to find a good use for that trait beyond imprisonment situations.
*snerk*
"No, sir," Osgeny said, sounding a little hoarse. "Skipper's still out, though."
"How are you feeling, Lieutenant?" Lorne asked.
"I think I've revisited every meal since we left home, sir," Osgeny admitted wryly. "But I'm feeling better now."
Lorne smiled. It was... not comforting, but at least vaguely amusing that he'd ended up with another puker since Reletti wasn't here. "What kind of marine can't hold his liquor?"
"Out of practice, sir," Osgeny replied. "Dry expedition."
They all knew that it wasn't the alcohol and that Earth wasn't the last time Osgeny had had a drink, but going along with the joke eased the tension just a tiny little bit.
"Sir, what do they want with us?" Wrubelski asked. "And where are our marines?"
"The usual," Lorne answered with a sigh. "Where we come from, how do they get there, what we're up to. And I have no idea. Probably not too far from where we left them -- that's a lot to carry any kind of distance."
"What about mine?" Osgeny half-croaked.
"Same," Lorne said. "Although it makes sense to keep them all in one place. Depends on what kind of capabilities they have."
"And how they got the jump on two platoons," Wrubelski added. "If they drugged them, too, then why didn't they warn us? They wouldn't have all gone down at once."
"Radios were out," Radner said groggily, sounding far away from Lorne's ears.
The next steps were to see if anyone could get free or if, cumulatively, they could at least put together a picture of what sort of bindings held them. Lorne knew from past experience that it would only be a matter of time before someone came for them, either to talk or threaten or to bring them to wherever the hard sell would take place. Unfortunately, he got the order of events wrong.
So this is what it feels like, Lorne thought. His skin, from the top of his head to the bottom of his soles, felt like it was being burned, like he was lying full-body on a smoking frying pan. It was distracting and it hurt -- not the worst he'd ever felt, not by a long shot, but enough that he wanted it to stop as soon as possible and he tried to wriggle free, to tip his chair over, to do something, anything to get away from the pain. But there was nowhere to go -- the bonds held fast and the chair was bolted to the floor.
OMFG PAIN RAY. *whimper*
As suddenly as it started, it stopped and Lorne gasped for cool air. He opened eyes he hadn't realized he'd closed to find Yoni standing in front of him, looking at him like he was a specimen in the lab. Lorne turned to see Clayton in front of Osgeny and Abelard, sans pitchfork, in front of Wrubelski. He wondered if Rosmanova had left her cow and was by Radner or if it was someone else.
"They created you in their own image, as they did us," Yoni said in a flat voice. "But you were their beloved pets and we were merely their weapons."
"Ten thousand years ago," Lorne replied, accepting that this was the Replicator scenario and the pain ray had been in lieu of mind probing. "Kind of a long time to hold a grudge."
He'd had iterations of this discussion so many times, with both friend and foe, that the answers were almost rote by this point. Except for the fact that part of him hadn't forgiven the Ancients yet, either.
"Time does not heal all wounds," Yoni said. "What the Wraith could not finish, we will."
This part, too.
"You'll be killing innocents."
A derisive snort from Yoni and Lorne realized, all of a sudden, what most of Atlantis saw when they looked at Jonathan Safir. He'd never borne the full brunt of Yoni's ire before, never had the sharp tongue or casual derision aimed at him without Yoni holding back because they were, if not friends then something close enough. At least not before now.
Yeah. Usually when we see Yoni, he's grumpy but not actively scary--we kind of hear about how people don't want to be on his bad side or how only a couple of people can handle him, but we usually don't see him being mean. Which, now that I see it, is scary. And makes me bite my lip.
"'Sins of the father' -- is that not the expression from Earth?" Yoni asked rhetorically, one eyebrow arched. "There is no position for you to argue from here. You yourself are testament to how clearly their traits have bred through -- you seek to make yourself closer to your erstwhile parents than even nature intended. Gene therapy."
Lorne shook his head. "It's not that you can't understand. It's that you won't. We just want to learn, to stop the Wraith, to save our own planet."
Yoni shook his head in disgust and left him then, followed out by Clayton, Abelard, and Rosmanova. Mental probe or not, this had been the soft sell, the warning. Next would come the actual threats, specific and scary. Lorne didn't know what would get them free here -- Sheppard and company had been sprung by a curious and softhearted Replicator they betrayed. He didn't know if that would work again.
"Everyone okay?" Lorne asked once they were alone again.
"Peachy, sir," Radner replied. "Apart from the mental probing."
Oh, okay, so pain ray = mental probe. Which I hadn't quite connected before; I thought that a pain ray was kind of an end in itself. Although I think I missed at least one of the Replicator episodes, so that's probably why I'm confused.
"They have enough to take Atlantis, sir?" Osgeny asked.
"Maybe," he answered, suspecting that the answer was 'yes.' "I'd rather not stick around to find out."
"I'm not sure they're going to let a SAR team through, not if they've got two platoons prisoner by the gate," Wrubelski said.
There were provisions for a 'rescue', but it came with a penalty in addition to forfeiting the objective from this planet. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that.
Lorne didn't have access to his watch, so he didn't know how long it had been since he'd passed out or how long since they'd had their little 'interrogation.' He didn't know how long they'd have to wait until the next round. The sun was on the other side of the building from their windows, so beyond being able to see that it wasn't night yet, there was little way to judge the passage of time.
While they waited for the Replicators to return, they worked on their bonds; most possible escape scenarios pretty much demanded that their hands be free and working on that had the added bonus of keeping the circulation in their arms from going completely.
Nonetheless, Lorne's fingers were still cold and tingly when the door opened and Clayton entered with a dozen marines dressed in some amalgam of cammies and Athosian clothes. She said nothing as the marines undid their bindings and led them, stumbling, into a smaller windowless room. Four covered trays and a pitcher of water were in the middle of the floor.
"You don't expect us to eat after last time, do you?" Lorne asked ruefully.
"There's nothing in it this time," Clayton replied flatly. "You are of more value to us alive than dead, so you must eat. You won't eat if we drug your food. Therefore, your food is safe."
It was dubious logic, but Lorne had nothing witty to say in return, so he said nothing. The marines emptied out of the room and they heard a lock click.
Yeah, that's totally Pegasus galaxy logic.
Lorne crossed to the far side of the room and sat down heavily; the others followed. "Might as well work the kinks out now," he said, rolling his wrists and flexing his elbows.
"Should we, sir?" Wrubelski asked, gesturing at the trays.
"We should probably all drink water," Lorne said. "Whatever they gave us doesn't seem to have too many aftereffects, but water never hurts. Except when it's used to drug us, but I think we're past the deception part of the program. If she said it's good, then it probably is."
Wrubelski poured four glasses of water and handed them out. They all drank and Wrubelski refilled the glasses.
"You should try to eat something, Mark," Radner told Osgeny. "See if there's some bread or something bland."
Osgeny didn't look overjoyed at the prospect, but picked up one of the tray lids hesitantly and found a roll and a pear, which he took back with him to the wall he'd been sitting against. Unlike Reletti, who usually pretended to eat, Osgeny actually did finish both.
Lorne looked at his watch. It had been five hours since they'd gotten up from the table in the back of the farmhouse. Not enough time to have triggered the rescue scenario mechanism, but they were 'overdue' and it would only be two more hours before they lost the objective and whatever else the penalty was.
Hrm. So I wonder who gets to play the rescuers. It'd have to be the guys who were playing the bad guys, right?
Thankfully, they never got that far. About a half-hour later, when Lorne had closed his eyes and started to doze, he heard a loud noise in the distance. It sounded familiar and comforting in a way that the cacophony of a large group of marines not trying to be subtle never really was -- except if they were coming to help you.
"Hello? Major? Captain?"
"We're in here," Radner called out.
"Stay back, sir," came the warning.
Lorne dropped his head down and covered himself in a protective crouch, relieved when the door didn't shatter into thousands of high-velocity splinters. Marines -- Osgeny's, from the few faces Lorne recognized -- poured in and Lorne and the others were helped up and half-dragged from the room and then the building. Lorne was used to this part, had been since before he'd gotten to Pegasus, and rode out the sharp orders and rough treatment, bracing for the moment when he'd be left to stand on his own and everyone remembered he was the ranking officer.
I get the feeling that Lorne spends a lot of time doing that in non-rescue situations, too.
When that happened, Lorne took a deep breath and a moment to savor his freedom, then thanked the grinning marine next to him.
Wrubelski greeted one of Osgeny's marines with gruff cheer nearby and Lorne watched as the big first sergeant made a big show of being just fine, of them all being just fine. "Where the fuck were you boys? Jerking off?"
"We had to shake off the mickey they slipped us, sir," GySgt Jenkins apologized to Lorne as he watched marines fall into position to move out. "They made the mistake of only taking our rifles and packs. Marines have done more with less for more than two hundred years. That, and we kind of charmed the girl a little -- Marta? She wants to come with us."
I . . . I feel like there should be some heroic USMC song playing as they ride to the rescue; in the absence of this, I am humming the Indiana Jones theme.
"You do realize she's a machine, right?" Lorne asked, looking around to see where Marta was. She was standing near a few marines, looking hopeful. "Her and the others?"
"Better tell her that," Jenkins said, shaking his head as he followed Lorne's glance. "A bit young for me, but the boys liked her well enough and she them."
Lorne chuffed a laugh. It was a long deployment and there weren't that many women around. The marines were pretty much fond of anyone with the right anatomy. Even if, in this case, Teyla would squash their balls with teaspoons if they so much looked at Marta the wrong way.
Which--yes, she would, and I would wonder why there isn't more fic of Teyla dumping guys on their asses for saying something untoward, except I assume that they are all too scared to do so.
"We have to haul ass, sir," Jenkins warned. "Still haven't hooked up with Joker Two or Three yet and the bad guys have to notice by now that we're loose."
They started off, Jenkins keeping an eye on Osgeny, who was still pale but otherwise seemed fine, moving in the general direction of the stargate and trying to stay out of sight of a village that was a lot more populated (by Replicator marines) than it had seemed before.
Radner sent marines in search of their gear and the rest of Bravo Company as they moved out; they found the marines first -- Eriksson and Kagan and their men had managed to get free of the pen they were kept in ("they built it around us while we were out, sir") -- and then they found their gear. Marta, eager to prove her worth, led them through trees and fields toward the gate until she suddenly stopped and froze, like her battery had died. Lorne knew what this meant -- she'd been found out and rebooted -- and he yelled for the marines to haul ass double-time back to the stargate, not even bothering to return fire when the Replicators (in the form of Cardejo's platoon) chased them because they needed to save their bullets for things that would stay down when hit by them. On the DHD was the chit for meeting the objective.
They go back to the planet they had rested on and, as soon as the wormhole closed behind them, dialed Alabamastan to keep their stargate busy for 38 minutes of peace, during which they intended to figure out where the hell to go next.
Oh, hey, look! Tactics! Let's just assume that they do things like this on the actual show.
The first fifteen minutes were spent sprawled indelicately on the ground, catching their breaths, drinking water, and figuring out what the hell had just happened. They would have to warn Atlantis about the compromised security, but there was precious little that could actually be done with the knowledge that the Replicators were gunning for them. At least nothing that they weren't doing already.
The next twenty-three minutes plus were spent with Lorne and Radner going off a little bit into the woods to plan the next steps -- Wrubelski hovering just far enough away to maintain plausible privacy while keeping the officers safe.
"We should have saved Hoth for later, sir," Radner said with a bemused shake of his head. "Ruck through the snow sounds like a picnic just about now."
"I'm not making any suggestions, Captain," Lorne said with a shake of his head. "Last two times you let me choose, we ended up with Wraith."
Radner smiled. "Third time's the charm, sir?"
If Dave only knew, Lorne thought to himself. "If that's the case, then it's supposed to be nice on MP4-5G3 this time of year."
MP4-5G3 was a very nice planet when it wasn't going to be used for a training exercise. Lorne had no idea what it was like now.
The thought occurs--how do they remember all of these random number-letter strings? I do like that they tend to use planet names (or made-up names) whenever possible, because I feel like names would be easier to remember than the random strings. (Although I think I remember reading something once that said that Canadians were better at remembering number-letter strings than Americans, since Canadian postal codes are number-letter, as opposed to American ZIP codes. So it could be Canadian bias, or it could just be the magic of television.)
"Well, worse comes to worse, sir," Radner said, "it probably won't be Replicators again."
"Don't jinx me," Lorne said, turning and walking a few steps so that the noise of the zat opening wouldn't be too loud. He tried to time it with snapping a branch, but he needn't have bothered -- some mild ruckus among the marines distracted them both.
Lorne-gone-bad is awesome. Just sayin'. No one would ever expect it--it's Lorne! He's so . . . short and capable.
"Just a near-deer, sirs," Wrubelski said over the radio. "Told the boys to stick to their MREs."
Lorne shielded the gun from Radner's view with his body, walking back a little toward where Wrubelski was. Radner had his back to Lorne and was looking up at the sky through the trees. He sighed, but it turned into a groan when he tried to roll his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Dave," Lorne said and Radner turned, surprised by both the sentiment and the use of his first name. His eyes widened, but he didn't get a chance to say anything before Lorne shot him with the zat. Radner fell with a muffled thump, rolling down a short hill before coming to rest by the foot of a big tree, and Lorne came as close as he dared to make sure that he was out cold before turning back.
"Hey, First Sergeant!" Lorne called over his radio. "C'mere for a second, please?"
Wrubelski appeared a few moments later. "Sir?" he prompted, looking around for Radner.
"Pee break," Lorne explained, gesturing with his free hand toward where Radner had fallen. Wrubelski made a face because Radner was out of eyeshot when he shouldn't have been -- and crossed past Lorne to be a little closer. Once he was past, Lorne shot him, too, with the zat and then closed the weapon, putting it back in his tac vest pocket. Then he went back to the marines, who were all drinking water and exchanging bemused stories.
This is all kinds of awesome. I mean, scary too, because it's way too easy for Lorne to go bad, and it really shows that there's no way to prepare for something like that, but yes: awesome.
"Okay, gentlemen," he began, clapping his hands for attention. "Our timeout is over. Onward and upward. Next stop, MP4-5G3."
"Where's Captain Radner, sir?" Eriksson asked.
"Gone to explore the wonders of nature," Lorne replied with a wry grin. Everyone chuckled, getting the euphemism. Lorne looked around. "Captain Radner's the one with the cheat sheet, isn't he?"
"Yes, sir," Kagan admitted wryly.
All of the squad leaders, platoon sergeants, and lieutenants had a weirdass decoder wheel that allowed them to translate alphanumeric planetary designations into gate symbols, but Radner was the only one who had done the 'translation' for every possible planet in the exercise beforehand. Lorne had known this already, but it hadn't come up before now.
. . . so he could be taking them anywhere. Again, frighteningly easy.
"Never say the Air Force isn't good for anything," Lorne warned them as he went to the DHD and dialed as the marines chuckled and got themselves up off of the ground and into some sort of formation. The wormhole opened and Lorne looked around.
"Lieutenant Eriksson, volunteer a scout team, please?"
Eriksson nodded and called out names. Three marines moved up and toward the wormhole, going through. Everyone waited for them to radio back, which they finally did, informing them that the area around the stargate was clear and the weather was fine.
"Let's start moving out," Lorne announced, nodding to Eriksson, who was still closest.
"Should we wait for Captain R and First Sergeant Wrubelski, sir?" Kagan asked as he jumped up and down to re-settle his pack. Next to him, his gunny rolled his eyes and yanked on the top of the pack, fixing whatever was bothering the lieutenant. Kagan grinned at him.
"The man has been shot with a Wraith stunner, drugged, and nailed by pain rays in the last thirty-six hours and doesn't even get to take a leak in private," Lorne replied. "I don't think he wants an audience waiting for a report on a successful piss. Besides, it'll take enough time to get all of you water buffalo herded through the gate that he can join in on the end of the queue."
That seemed to be a sufficient answer, at least in terms of getting everyone in motion. But when neither Radner nor Wrubelski appeared as the last platoon was preparing to leave, Lorne asked for and received a team to go look for the missing men.
"We'll dial in once they're back," Lorne told Osgeny. "In the meanwhile, see if someone can't get us oriented and make sure everyone's good to go. Canteens full, injuries taken care of, the usual shit."
"Aye aye, sir," Osgeny said, then followed his platoon through the wormhole, which closed behind him.
"All right," Lorne sighed. "Let's go follow the yellow brick road."
The marines grinned and started off in the direction Lorne pointed them in, leading the way because one missing officer was enough. It gave Lorne enough time and space to pull out and charge the zat gun and wait for his opportunity. Which came when Sergeant Wiebler half-slid down the slope Radner lay at the bottom of. Lorne got O'Conner and Shultz first, from the rear, and then Wiebler in the chest as he ran back up the hill with his rifle up. It was all pretty easy and Lorne was sure it was more from something other than his own quick-draw skills.
He had been mildly surprised when Polito had given him the assignment; it was very much an out-of-the-blue kind of betrayal, although in hindsight Caldwell's had been just as random. He'd been told that he would be a Goa'uld agent and given a short list of suggestions for how to sabotage Bravo Company, since there would be no way to assure than any particular method would be available. He probably could have chosen a different means earlier in the exercise, but that would have defeated the purpose of the exercise even as it would have saved him a couple of very unpleasant afternoons.
By sending them to Planet Nowhere, the world his own team had been lost on for almost a month, instead of MP4-5G3, he had effectively ended Bravo's week -- they weren't getting off of that (very nice) planet until someone came for them because the DHD was busted. He wanted to give them as much opportunity to train and learn as possible before sabotaging their chances of winning, although maybe he'd have done so before getting smacked with the pain ray were he to do it all over again.
I wonder how long they'll be on the planet before they realize something's wrong? And, actually, how long they'll be on the planet before they're told what happened?
The marines on Planet Nowhere would be fine; the Wraith had no knowledge of the planet and, between the MREs they were carrying and the ample supply of near deer and flora, they weren't going to starve. It really was a nice place, although he expected that Bravo would be less than thrilled about their three-day vacation there. McKay had been working on a portable DHD since Lorne's team had been rescued and, if for some reason that didn't work, the Daedalus would be in the area by the end of the week.
Lorne looked at his watch. He needed to be gone before anyone woke, but he didn't want to leave the five marines defenseless, either. The Wraith had no knowledge of this place, either, but those weren't the only fish in the sea. He waited as long as he dared, but when he thought that Radner might be starting to stir, he beat a hasty retreat back to the stargate and dialed Atlantis.
Sheppard and Polito were waiting for him when he returned.
"How'd it go?" Sheppard asked. "Was being evil fun? Do I have to start worrying about you now?"
"It went," he replied with a shrug. "Nobody saw it coming."
"They never do, sir," Polito said with perhaps a little too much cheer. "How'd you like Alabamastan?"
"Doctor Safir and I are going to be having a long talk," Lorne said sourly, then yawned. "After I shower and then sleep for maybe a week."
"Not for a week," Sheppard told him as they started to walk toward the door. "We have a command staff meeting on Thursday."
Lorne cocked an eyebrow. "If I turn evil, do I still have to go?"
"Believe me, I've pondered trying it," Sheppard sighed.
I do love that they have such great dark humor about the whole thing. Because, really, how else would you deal with Pegasus?
Round Two: Predator
"So can you do it?"
Captain Polito tapped the spot on the map where the Ancient artifact was. Along with Polito, Lieutenants Patchok and Gillick, Gunny Cole, 1stSgt Backman, and Ronon were all watching him with various degrees of hopeful expressions and AJ hated having to give anything but an affirmative answer.
Yay Reletti! I will admit now that this is the part of the show where there will be a certain amount of undignified squeeing over miss-porcupine's OC marines.
"Can I fuck it up?" he asked with a frown. "Yes, sir. At least enough to make it annoying. Can I hold it against the Colonel? Probably not. We haven't met anything the Ancients built that doesn't like him best."
Well, duh. This makes me think about how interesting it is to see Sheppard from the perspective of the marines; he's, you know, weird, plus nobody really knows much about him, plus the only things they would have seen of him would be the big, episodic stuff he's done since coming to the Pegasus galaxy, and--oh yeah, he's magic.
He couldn't imagine winning a mental tug-of-war against Sheppard. He could usually override Spelcher, but that was because Spelcher never practiced unless he had to -- none of the marines with the ATA gene did, at least not beyond tuning out Atlantis and not accidentally setting shit off on other worlds. Which they all did anyway, even Sheppard. Among marines, the joke was that if you couldn't eat it, kill it, or fuck it, then it didn't have a point. AJ was the freak for working on it anyway, had gotten into fights because of it (no big deal; marines fought over everything, mostly just to keep themselves amused) even though everyone knew why he needed to.
Polito nodded, already considering the next six options. He'd written the rules, but that meant that he was in a good position to come up with ways to bend them. "How much time will you need?"
"Depends on the device, sir," AJ replied. "It's kind of like dealing with a woman -- there're the ones who expect dinner and conversation first and the ones who... don't."
A chuckle from the group around the map. "Understood, Sergeant," Polito said dryly. "Thank you."
It was a dismissal, more or less, and AJ caught Patchok's eyes to get confirmation. When Patchok nodded, AJ left the command group and returned to where his squad was waiting. He'd hear about the orders when the rest of the platoon did. In the meantime, chow.
It was a long walk back to where First Platoon had made their home at the edge of the clearing. Halfway through the week and Polito was rotating the platoons through the objectives depending on skill set and who was most rested, but between missions Charlie Company was using this planet as a home base and the platoons had their own areas. Gunny could always spec out the best holes, so First Platoon's space was the furthest from the stargate, which allowed them to not be woken by boots walking by at whatever hour everyone else got in or went out.
"So?"
AJ shrugged as he sat, catching the MRE Suarez threw at his head. Cheese tortellini, which meant that Suarez had gotten lucky on the draw. They usually picked MREs by random and Suarez had had to take for both of them since AJ had been summoned by Polito. It was understood that AJ would end up with whichever was the less appealing of the two -- a favor AJ would and did return when the situations were reversed -- so Suarez must have scored something good since he actually liked the tortellini one.
"We're going to keep some Ancient toy away from Batman," AJ said as he opened the package and shook the contents out in front of him. He tossed the MRE's pound cake at Ramirez, who tossed back chocolate chip cookies and a packet of powdered milkshake.
Choreography! Also, cute.
"Which means you're gonna go up against Batman," Garrotte corrected, not looking up from his construction of a sea pie from among his MRE parts. "The rest of us are going to end up standing around like a fucking Greek chorus while you two do your zen mind thing."
[pause to google "sea pie"]
Garrotte had been a history teacher before he enlisted and sometimes it showed.
. . . because being shot at is less scary than seventh-graders?
There was murmured resentful agreement and AJ knew better than to try to deny it or point out that Spelcher would probably help, too. Because nobody cared and Spelcher wasn't going to be much help.
"Fuck if you all are gonna sit around with your hands on your dicks while Obi-Wan here does his thing," Gunny said as he strolled up. "Whole company's going out and it ain't as fucking farmers again."
That improved everyone's mood and AJ felt relief as the collective pissiness of the platoon shifted off of him and dissipated. While Gunny wasn't above saying shit just to quell a mutiny, Gunny also had very good hearing and if Patchok had said or heard something, then he'd know about it.
AJ was relieved, too -- scuttlebutt was that that the most of their assignments were going to be more role-playing than action, something that seemed likely to be true after their most recent scenario had been to be villagers wary of technology. The first task they'd gotten had been to go out with Ronon as Wraith -- a return engagement from their first exercise and the one everyone wanted -- and everyone in First Platoon had assumed that the rest of the choice assignments would be distributed around to the others out of fairness. Especially after Third Platoon got to spend the night in a firefight with the Major and half of Weapons Company.
"We goin' out against Batman?" Gallitan asked, mixing something awful-looking in a bowl. AJ thinks one of the ingredients is a fruit cup, but the whole thing looks like puke. After too much Jager.
"How many other HVTs we got?" Gunny asked in response and everyone else grunted and laughed. Sheppard hadn't gone out on every mission over the course of the exercise, not this time and not the round before, but everyone on both sides fought a little harder when they knew he was out there. Everyone wanted to beat him or impress him or both, even AJ a little and he'd had more than enough opportunities over the years to make an impression. But Sheppard's their leader and while most of them could take him in a one-on-one match-up of combat skills, that wasn't the point.
[pause to google "HVT"]
Gunny's inside info was at least partially confirmed when Patchok returned and said that they were going out at 1500 AST.
Out of the target sights of the rest of the platoon and fed, AJ got down to the business of weapons maintenance. He stripped down, cleaned, and reassembled his pistol, taking a quarter of the time that Suarez did because Suarez was OCD about shit like this and kept stopping and re-starting when he found something he didn't like. AJ would have appreciated this attention to detail except for the fact that Suarez did this every fucking time and he'd already seen this show once already today. Ortilla finally threatened to do it himself if Suarez didn't hurry the fuck up, so AJ got to watch Chris pout and then put his M9 back together with a speed and grace unmatched by anyone in the platoon -- all while glaring at Ortilla.
[pause for minor flail re: Suarez.] I mean, a) cleaning his pistol; b) pouting; c) "speed and grace." Seriously.
"Fucking showoff," Gunny grunted. He was sitting across from them, next to Patchok. The LT was trying to maximize the ability of one hot sauce packet to cover up the hideous taste of an entire Black Bean & Rice Burrito entree. Officers ate last in the Marines, which meant that Patchok (and Gunny, as platoon sergeant) were stuck with whatever was left over after everyone else had drawn their MRE. Which were invariably the ones that tasted like week-old unwashed ass. Not that AJ had any actual knowledge of the accuracy of the comparison.
Eventually, 1stSgt Backman called everyone over to the platform near the stargate. They hadn't had a company briefing since the beginning, when Polito had explained the rules -- which ones could be broken and which ones could not, basically. Since then, assignments and instructions had been for individual platoons and Polito had come by to each unit's area to give the orders and answer questions in person. Polito had been going out on some of the missions -- not the Wraith one, although AJ knew that that had been a sacrifice on Polito's part -- but he always made sure to do each briefing himself. It wasn't that he didn't trust the platoon commanders, just that each one was so fucking weird that there was really no other choice.
But, here and now, they were one unit again, whole and ready to fight. Polito waited for everyone to get settled (Patchok shamelessly hid behind Ortilla so that he could finish wolfing down his burrito; Gunny was short enough to hide behind pretty much anyone, but pointing that out was hazardous to your health) before beginning with a review of their recent activities.
Their opponents would be slightly tenderized coming in to this round, Polito explained, but the whole point of the exercise was to wear them down until they started getting stupid and getting picked off. While First Platoon had been pretending to be simple farmers for Lieutenant Murray, most of the rest of Weapons Company ("Lanteans" in the terminology of the exercise) had been chased around some random planet by Halling and the Athosians posing as villagers eager to collect on the Genii's bounty; AJ ignored the meaningful looks and not-so-gentle elbow jabs from the marines surrounding him. He remembered the original incident just fine, thanks.
AJ wasn't sure how Polito knew which planet the Lanteans were going to be on and which scenario got used when, but apparently he did and the details, as per usual, were not deemed essential grunt knowledge. Nonetheless, there were theories and rumors, some practical and a few completely off the wall, although most of the guys didn't seem to care too much what the actual answer was. AJ did want to know, but he'd probably have to wait until the exercises were over and they were on a mission with the Major before he could get an answer. This was why he wanted to get a commission, why he was grateful that he was on an off-world team -- he wanted to be in a position where details weren't deemed a impediment to him doing his job.
I really, really hope to see Reletti back on Atlantis as an officer. I get the feeling we won't see it, because it's an extremely unlikely thing to have happen, but still. Reletti's one of those people who just seem to belong in Atlantis, and I hope he comes back when he's commissioned.
"We've done admirably so far," Polito was saying when AJ realized that he was perhaps not paying full attention. Which happened to coincide with when Ortilla realized and stepped on his foot accidentally on purpose. "I'm sure Robin Hood and his Merry Men will hurt a few, but this next action is going to be key. This is a major objective for them -- the artifact is supposed to be some sort of device that Doctor McKay can turn into a weapon that will be effective against the Wraith. They get this, they get another objective for free. Needless to say, we don't want that."
As Polito went on, it became clear just how much he was willing to assure that that didn't happen. While most of the actions so far had been platoon-sized movements, this was going to be all of Charlie Company on one planet as part of the same force. It was a risk, although Polito didn't frame it as such. But it was obvious to everyone that whoever came out of this encounter the winner was going to have the upper hand for the rest of the week.
It was equally obvious that this was going to be a close fight -- Mad Matt didn't usually talk about rally points and fall-back plans when they were supposed to be only on offense.
Pretty much all of the marines in Atlantis were first rate -- even guys like Gallitan and Booger, the ones who made NCO by virtue of a combination of luck and bravery overcoming a startlingly small portion of intelligence -- and all of the companies were good at what they did. But Charlie was best and they had a reputation to maintain, even if that reputation was largely self-perpetuated (not like anyone else was going to concede inferiority). These exercises had scores attached and they could only laugh at Bravo Company for getting duped by the Major until they failed to meet (and beat) Bravo's score. They could only lord the current score over Weapons until they got their asses kicked by them and Batman.
Fuck if anyone in Charlie was going to allow that to happen. Fuck if Mad Matt was going to let them fail.
The briefing was less actual passing on of information than pep rally; Polito would have given his orders to Patchok, who'd explain them to the marines in turn. Mad Matt reinforced the Commander's Intent ("they are not walking off that planet with any prize") and left the lieutenants (and Gunny Cole, since nobody had replaced Nagley yet) to hammer out the details.
AJ didn't get his part of the puzzle until later on, after they'd returned to their space and Patchok had met with the squad leaders while the rest of them were left to dick around with the Wraith stunners they'd be using.
More than two years and it still burned a little not to be in that particular pow-wow anymore; the ache of leadership lost hadn't gone away completely. He'd led a squad in fucking Recon and now he wasn't even a team leader here and the fact that every other E-5 in Little Tripoli was in the same boat (except for the Recon part) didn't make it sting less. Just made him sure not to open his yap and say as much. He got respect within the squad and within the platoon -- Recon counted, as did his spot on the Major's team -- and he was maybe a little embarrassed that it bothered him as much as it did, this ego problem. It wasn't as if they got treated like privates or anything like that.
Why I Love Reletti: because he's too smart to be where he is, even when he's being kind of a flake; he's got a drive to do more, and he will, and it will be awesome to see him in the briefing room on Atlantis. Some day. Even if that is only in my head. Also, he's a just big enough dork with the Ancient technology.
"Alright, here's what's going on," Ortilla began even before he sat down. "Rourke, pull out that map."
Rourke, assistant squad leader, dug out the pile of laminated maps they were using for squad meetings and fished out the one for M94-G32.
The entire map looked, to AJ's eyes, very much like almost every other planet in this galaxy. The route from the stargate to the building where the device was located was more or less a straight line cutting through some obstacles of various difficulties. There was a road and trees on one side and rocks on the other; the building was the ruins of some Ancient lab and even Suarez wondered aloud if they'd been here before, it all looked so familiar.
While the objective for the Lanteans was to get the Ancient device and get out, Polito and then Patchok had explained that Charlie's scenario was that the planet's residents were an advanced society with no love of strangers. Certainly not those who wanted to poke around on their planet and look for toys left behind by the Ancestors. The Lanteans thought that the planet was uninhabited and would find out differently -- the hard way. It meant that they had to let the Lanteans try to get the device first, then hammer them on the egress and now Ortilla was filling in the details on their part in the show. Which, until everyone else showed up and got in position, was to scout the planet and fuck around with the Ancient device.
One of the things AJ had noticed early on, even before they'd left Earth for Atlantis, was that Ortilla was really good at allowing everyone to have their say while still not giving away any of his authority -- making them feel like their experience wasn't being ignored just because they weren't in command of marines anymore. It was a neat trick; they'd all been squad leaders, but Ortilla'd been a platoon sergeant and it showed. Today, that meant he let Suarez and Figeroa bitch at each other over which route the Lanteans were likely to take before putting his two cents in and his foot down.
"Skipper thinks they're gonna diddy bop up the road until they've got an actual reason not to," he began, pointing to the red-colored line on the map. "They know it's an exercise and they're gonna be eyes-open, but they gotta play like this is just any other uninhabited planet until they don't have a choice."
Because AJ "had to do his thing with the thing," First Platoon left early for M94-G32. Personally, he didn't think he'd need as much time as Polito had given them, but he wasn't in a position to either complain or criticize and so he didn't. He packed his shit, camoed up, waited as Ortilla growled at Suarez for being a girl for taking so long with his makeup, and then followed his unit to the stargate.
Why I Love Suarez: because he doesn't belong in the Pegasus galaxy. So many of the Atlantis characters are given this sense of Atlantis=home, from the scientists who are involved in literally the most important work of their lives to Sheppard who belongs in Atlantis in a fairy-tale way.
Suarez, though, is someone who is not very excited about being on alien planets; he's there to do his job and if going a little OCD over things he can control is the way he does it, more power to him. I get the sense that he'll finish his tour on Atlantis, go home, and get another job, and one day when they declassify and he gets his Pegasus Galaxy Service ribbon, maybe he'll tell his kids about Atlantis. Or maybe he'll just put it away and go grill some hot dogs for dinner, look out over his backyard and the swingset, and think about life on Earth.