Missing - August 24th
Twisted Shorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge - Day 24
Title: Missing
Author:hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/SG:A
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Stargate people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Atlantis frantically searches for Sheppard’s team.
Notes: Part 24 of Faith Sheppard - Links Page
Seasons: Post-series/Season 2
Word Count: 2755
The hoods were removed from John, Teyla, Rodney, and Ronon’s heads. They blinked and looked around.
“Where are we?”
“Among friends,” a familiar voice told them.
“You!” Ronon roared lurching with a chair still attached to him.
One of the men forced him back down.
“Unbelievable,” John muttered.
“You don’t sound happy to see me, Colonel,” Aiden said.
“Why would he be?!” Rodney squeaked. “You shot Faith!”
“It was an accident!” Aiden snapped. Then he tried to smooth his features. “I assume with Slayer healing there was no lasting damage.”
88888888
“Well, that was a bust,” Purell said.
“Bust may not be the right word,” Stevens argued.
“Bust would require us to know we could have gained something,” Evan said. “This was just being blocked.”
Faith had her face turned away as she scanned their surroundings. The weather reminded her of mild California days. In the end, their mission had resulted in northing more than a couple hours walk through pretty fields and twenty minutes of being politely told to go away.
“These walks are a lot longer than they are in the Milky Way,” Evan told them. “Just walking through the Gate dropped us in a village ninety percent of the time.”
“That’s depends on the origin,” Faith said.
“What?” Purell asked.
“There are two databases for Milky Way Stargates - the Abydos Cartouche and O’Neill’s Ancient device. The Abydos Gates were generally places where the Goa’uld ruled. The Gates were made centerpiece to the inhabitants’ religion when their ancestors were brought through the Stargate. Like Earth’s Stargates they were sometimes buried to keep the Goa’uld from coming back. By contrast, the Ancient database had people who viewed the Gate as a relic or tool and tended to live far from it. Some Gates were even on planets that may have been just for research, as they would have been inhospitable thousands of years ago.”
“I swear she looks normal,” Stevens said.
“Have you been reading technical manuals?” Evan asked.
“Haly met Dr. Jackson when we were on Earth. When she found out there were things actually written by him…” She shrugged.
“And you just read them to her?” Purell said in disgust. “For fun.”
“Hell no, they put me to sleep,” she replied. “They are bedtime stories.”
“Sure,” Stevens said incredulously.
88888888
Elizabeth was waiting by the Stargate when they came through.
“You’re back early,” she noted to Evan.
“Jenev’s kind of a closed society,” he explained. “Very polite and very courteous, but completely uninterested in having anything to do with us.”
“Well, better that than hostile, I suppose.”
Faith used her elbow to tap Evan’s. “I told you she would say that!” She looked at Elizabeth. “I’m of the opinion, I like openly hostile people - at least I know where the knife is.”
Elizabeth’s mouth tilted up in humor for a moment before straightening. “Colonel Sheppard’s team is three hours overdue.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Evan said. “Any radio contact?”
“None since they left.”
Evan smiled benignly. “Well, you know those guys.”
“What do I know about those guys?”
“Just that they tend to get all caught up in whatever it is they’re doing, and sometimes they don’t check in. They forget how much you worry.” He blinked realizing his mistake. “That we worry. Collectively, I mean…”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said with a bit of pressure, “we do.”
“Yeah…we do,” Evan turned to the team. “Okay, guys, looks like we’re heading back out.”
“Thank you, Major,” Elizabeth said.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, moving towards the Stargate.
“Gotta learn to stop digging the hole, Major,” Faith told him.
“If we went to retrieve them every time they didn’t call in on time that would be all I ever did,” he hissed back.
“Put down the shovel,” she said.
“Shut up.”
She grinned.
88888888
Faith followed Stevens through the thick woods.
“What do you think?” Purell asked. “Wraith, natives, genii, or new enemy?”
Faith shook her head. “Maybe they’re helping someone we like,” she suggested.
Lorne actually stopped at that and turned to look at her. “Really?”
“No, I don’t believe a word of it,” she admitted. They cleared the forest where a small river ran. “This should be where they were meeting the contact.”
“Let’s have a look around. Faith with me, Purell and Stevens that direction.” He checked his watch. “Radio check in every twenty minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” Stevens responded. They started on their way.
Faith and Evan moved the opposite direction. They were quiet for a ways, both looking for any signs of AR-1.
“Any insight?” Lorne asked.
Faith shook her head as her gaze stayed fixed on the ground around them. “What was the tip about?”
“ZPM.”
“Which is why they went.” She came to a stop. “Gut feeling - trap for John’s team.”
“Why?”
“What’s the only thing everyone who ever learned about Atlantis knows we need?” Then she remembered he had not been there the previous year. “ZPMs. The Genii know they’re important to us, so do any race that we met in the last year. We were especially desperate early in our arrival on Atlantis.”
“But why Sheppard’s team?”
“A ZPM - even the rumor of one - is still considered Atlantis’s priority. And who do we send priority more than any other because their scientist is the only leading ZPM expert on Atlantis?”
“Them.”
“Exactly…” she was distracted by something she had seen in her peripheral vision. She turned again, trying to figure out what it was.
“What?” Evan said, his gun trained in the direction she was looking.
Faith took several steps, gently moving the toe of her boot through the foliage.
Clink!
She bent down and gingerly picked up a blade about four inches long. She turned it over in her hands. “Damnit.”
“What?” Evan asked as he stepped towards her.
“This is Ronon’s.”
“How do you know?”
“It sits on his left hip.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look,” she turned the hilt towards him, “It’s a Satedan symbol.”
“You sure?”
“Weapons are something I always appreciate.”
“And how do you know where this was on Ronon?”
“Because I pay attention. And I stole it from him during one of our matches. He’s always got a dozen on him. It’s impressive.”
“Maybe he just dropped it.”
Faith tapped the tip against her palm. “Everything for a reason.”
“What?”
“The knives. Each one has a purpose and they would never just fall out. I overheard him saying something to a Marine about how he had changed the positioning of some of them. I never got the full details as to why. This one…turn around.”
“What?”
“Just turn.”
He looked at her strangely but turned his back to her. Faith tried to recall how the knife was normally positioned. Back of the hip, left side - non-dominate hand, why? Slightly tilted to be easy to grab. But why would it fall out?
Her eyes went to the ground around them. She spun slowly in a circle.
“Drag marks,” Evan realized.
“Someone tried to cover it up. Only one set,” she said. “But look here, heel drags.”
“Ronon weighs over two hundred pounds.”
“And he’s tall, moving him would be a hassle - even if you knocked him out.”
“But for all of the team?”
“It’s easily means a six-man job.”
“At least.”
“Which means they were kidnapped.”
“Mostly likely human, not Wraith.”
88888888
“I don’t understand what the problem is,” Evan said to Radek.
Radek sighed from where he knelt in front of the DHD with a tablet. He looked at Faith and rattled off in Czech.
Faith shrugged, responding in kind.
“Hey,” Evan cut in, “that’s not fair.”
“Imagine someone took a picture and printed it in strips and just handed you a stack of strips,” she said. “They tell you what you’re looking for is in there, with fifty other pictures cut into strips.”
“Okay…”
“That’s as analog as I can describe the problem.”
Evan considered her, wondering if that was how she understood the problem.
“It’s too bad you can’t just talk to it,” Stevens said.
Faith tilted her head. She looked back at Radek.
Radek shook his head. “It couldn’t be as simple as asking. The DHD technology predates the Jumpers and ATA interfaces. And it’s not meant to store it…”
“Is there any interaction between the Jumper and a planet’s DHD?”
“We’ve never consider it.”
Evan looked around them. “It would be impossible to get a Jumper through here.”
“Communication doesn’t necessarily require proximity,” Radek suggested. “An open wormhole should be enough, if it’s possible.”
“Dial it up,” Evan told Radek. “Faith, you’ll go through while I explain it to Weir.”
She nodded.
“IDC received,” Chuck announced through the radio, “Shield down.”
Faith ran through. She took the steps three at a time, dashed across the control room, and up the stairs to the Jumper bay. She ran for the closest Jumper and sat down at the controls. She felt the Jumper respond to her. She closed her eyes and tried to nudge it to talk to the DHD.
“Come on,” she whispered. “You’re both Ancient tech, there’s no risk.”
She flexed her fingers. Then the HUD beeped.
Her eyes opened but she frowned. She tapped her com. “Faith to Radek.”
“Any luck?”
“I’ve got forty-eight unique addresses, no time stamps. Or order. They seem to be stored non-linearly.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Still better than we were an hour ago,” Evan told them. “We’re heading back now.”
88888888
“Well?” Elizabeth asked looking between Evan and Radek.
“From what Faith and I can decipher, the Jumper was able to pull these Stargate addresses based on a sequence of six and the origin. But the DHD doesn’t really save dialed addresses - it’s not meant to.” He sighed. “Our best guess is that these are just the forty-eight addresses residually burned on the dialing crystal.”
“But they have no way to know when they were dialed?”
“No.”
“Then we should get moving,” she turned to Evan. “How long?”
“To search each planet with a four to six man team takes time. A thorough search of each planet and the sheer number of planets…that’s months.”
“We can’t afford months, Major.”
“I know.”
“I want everyone who’s cleared for off-world activity to help with the search. The Daedalus is on its way from Earth and they’ll be able to help, but until they get here, it’s up to us.”
Evan nodded.
88888888
Faith made her way through the thin brush. Evan was only steps behind her. They were at a punishing pace. The planet - moon really - had the distinct advantage of being cold and dark.
“I don’t envy anyone being here,” Stevens said.
“I don’t envy us being here,” Purell snapped.
Faith realized it wasn’t their fault. They had finally finished surveying this one small moon, with no result. It was little more than a frozen wasteland. There had been some promising caves but no sign of John or his team.
“Oh, thank god,” Stevens muttered as the Stargate came into view. It was at the mouth of an icy valley.
“Why would anyone even come to this planet,” Purell complained.
“May just be the wrong season,” Faith suggested, tired.
Evan sighed when they reached the Stargate, dialing as soon as he could. He sent his IDC through and got confirmation from Chuck that they were clear.
They stepped through the Stargate and found Elizabeth waiting for them.
“What happened?” Faith asked as she pulled the parka off.
“Rodney came through the Stargate about twenty hours ago.”
“That’s why you recalled us,” Evan guessed.
“He’s in no position to be able to tell us anything. But I wanted you back here and ready to go when he can.” She looked at them. “Get cleaned up and checked out, debrief in an hour.”
88888888
Faith stood on the bridge of the Daedalus, staring at the two Wraith hive ships. According to Rodney, Aiden had recruited and drugged the team, except John, with Wraith enzyme to prove how effective it was. Aiden’s plan had been to take them aboard one of the ships with John piloting a Dart and destroy the hive with C4. There weren’t supposed to be two of them.
“Our people have been in Wraith custody too long,” Caldwell said. “We cannot consider rescue against two hive ships.”
“I’m sorry,” Evan said from her right.
“It’s not over,” she told him. “Not yet.”
Rodney looked around Evan to see her. “Do you have a feeling?”
Faith shook her head. “Just a history of John getting outta things.”
Suddenly, there were explosions along the side of one of the hive ships. “Look,” Rodney said, drawing everyone’s attention to it. “You see that?”
“What is it?” Evan asked.
“It’s a Dart firing at the hive ship.”
“Why?” Caldwell asked.
“Sheppard!” Rodney said in delight.
Faith grinned as the single Dart got the others to fire on each other and then the hives.
“Sheppard actually got them to fire on each other,” Evan said with a grin.
“Well, his diplomacy did always leave something to be desired,” Faith noted.
The hives started to do damage to each other. Then in a wave of blue energy one of them exploded. They were so close together it took out the second.
Rodney ran to a display. “The explosions took out everything in a fifteen-thousand-meter radius.”
“Any sign of a Dart?” Caldwell asked.
“No…”
Faith’s jaw ached. She swallowed.
“Map it,” Caldwell ordered one of his men.
“Yes, sir.”
“Search pattern from the last point we saw the Dart outwards.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is going to take some time,” Caldwell advised. “Find a place out of the way to hunker down.”
Evan worried for a moment that Faith would shift into a stance he had learned to recognize, a sign she was just going to become stubborn and argue. But she nodded and left the bridge. He looked at McKay but he was oblivious, already looking for some angle to start the search.
After a second of indecision, he followed. She didn’t run and she wasn’t even moving very fast. He assumed she was heading to the gym or guest quarters. She turned into the mess and grabbed a bag of chips from the sideboard before taking a seat at a table, facing the large observation window. Evan sat down on the same side.
Faith opened the bag of chips and left them sitting on the table.
“I'm sorry,” he said after several minutes.
“For what, Major?” she tilted her head. “I know how hard you were pushing teams to do full surveys of a dozen worlds.” She kept her gaze on the window. “John was supposed to be the clear headed one and he agreed to Ford’s stupid plan.”
“McKay made it sound like there wasn’t much choice.” He glanced at her. “Not for any of them.”
She nodded a bit.
“I am sorry that you have to go through this,” he said.
“I’d rather destroy the wall than add his name to it,” Faith whispered.
“You never added Lieutenant Ford.”
“John had hope.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t know.” She absently turned the chip bag around.
88888888
John looked up from where Ronon and Teyla were being cleared by Beckett. Caldwell, Rodney, and Evan were walking towards him. He had heard the announcement that the Daedalus had landed only a few minutes before.
“Why aren’t you dead?” Rodney demanded.
“It’s good to see you, too, Rodney,” John said, but his gaze went past them.
Faith stepped around Evan. She crossed to John, stopping right in front of him. “Close call,” she commented.
“Once the hives started shooting at each other, I knew it was just a matter of time before they blew each other up. So I headed straight for the space gate and dialed an address where I could land safely,” John said. “I didn’t think the Dart could fit in our gate room.”
“The Colonel was kind enough to make us whole again,” Teyla said, “and we returned home.”
“I’m curious, Sheppard,” Caldwell said. “How did you know the Wraith would fight each other?”
“Uh, a little intel from Ford and the gang, plus I kind of goosed things along with the queen.”
“It would appear the Wraith are becoming more territorial than we had thought,” Teyla explained. “There is definite tension building among them.”
“Which is good for us,” Ronon told them.
Faith’s gaze went to Teyla and Ronon. “I’m glad you’re all safe.” She left the infirmary.
Title: Missing
Author:hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/SG:A
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Stargate people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Atlantis frantically searches for Sheppard’s team.
Notes: Part 24 of Faith Sheppard - Links Page
Seasons: Post-series/Season 2
Word Count: 2755
The hoods were removed from John, Teyla, Rodney, and Ronon’s heads. They blinked and looked around.
“Where are we?”
“Among friends,” a familiar voice told them.
“You!” Ronon roared lurching with a chair still attached to him.
One of the men forced him back down.
“Unbelievable,” John muttered.
“You don’t sound happy to see me, Colonel,” Aiden said.
“Why would he be?!” Rodney squeaked. “You shot Faith!”
“It was an accident!” Aiden snapped. Then he tried to smooth his features. “I assume with Slayer healing there was no lasting damage.”
88888888
“Well, that was a bust,” Purell said.
“Bust may not be the right word,” Stevens argued.
“Bust would require us to know we could have gained something,” Evan said. “This was just being blocked.”
Faith had her face turned away as she scanned their surroundings. The weather reminded her of mild California days. In the end, their mission had resulted in northing more than a couple hours walk through pretty fields and twenty minutes of being politely told to go away.
“These walks are a lot longer than they are in the Milky Way,” Evan told them. “Just walking through the Gate dropped us in a village ninety percent of the time.”
“That’s depends on the origin,” Faith said.
“What?” Purell asked.
“There are two databases for Milky Way Stargates - the Abydos Cartouche and O’Neill’s Ancient device. The Abydos Gates were generally places where the Goa’uld ruled. The Gates were made centerpiece to the inhabitants’ religion when their ancestors were brought through the Stargate. Like Earth’s Stargates they were sometimes buried to keep the Goa’uld from coming back. By contrast, the Ancient database had people who viewed the Gate as a relic or tool and tended to live far from it. Some Gates were even on planets that may have been just for research, as they would have been inhospitable thousands of years ago.”
“I swear she looks normal,” Stevens said.
“Have you been reading technical manuals?” Evan asked.
“Haly met Dr. Jackson when we were on Earth. When she found out there were things actually written by him…” She shrugged.
“And you just read them to her?” Purell said in disgust. “For fun.”
“Hell no, they put me to sleep,” she replied. “They are bedtime stories.”
“Sure,” Stevens said incredulously.
88888888
Elizabeth was waiting by the Stargate when they came through.
“You’re back early,” she noted to Evan.
“Jenev’s kind of a closed society,” he explained. “Very polite and very courteous, but completely uninterested in having anything to do with us.”
“Well, better that than hostile, I suppose.”
Faith used her elbow to tap Evan’s. “I told you she would say that!” She looked at Elizabeth. “I’m of the opinion, I like openly hostile people - at least I know where the knife is.”
Elizabeth’s mouth tilted up in humor for a moment before straightening. “Colonel Sheppard’s team is three hours overdue.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Evan said. “Any radio contact?”
“None since they left.”
Evan smiled benignly. “Well, you know those guys.”
“What do I know about those guys?”
“Just that they tend to get all caught up in whatever it is they’re doing, and sometimes they don’t check in. They forget how much you worry.” He blinked realizing his mistake. “That we worry. Collectively, I mean…”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said with a bit of pressure, “we do.”
“Yeah…we do,” Evan turned to the team. “Okay, guys, looks like we’re heading back out.”
“Thank you, Major,” Elizabeth said.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, moving towards the Stargate.
“Gotta learn to stop digging the hole, Major,” Faith told him.
“If we went to retrieve them every time they didn’t call in on time that would be all I ever did,” he hissed back.
“Put down the shovel,” she said.
“Shut up.”
She grinned.
88888888
Faith followed Stevens through the thick woods.
“What do you think?” Purell asked. “Wraith, natives, genii, or new enemy?”
Faith shook her head. “Maybe they’re helping someone we like,” she suggested.
Lorne actually stopped at that and turned to look at her. “Really?”
“No, I don’t believe a word of it,” she admitted. They cleared the forest where a small river ran. “This should be where they were meeting the contact.”
“Let’s have a look around. Faith with me, Purell and Stevens that direction.” He checked his watch. “Radio check in every twenty minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” Stevens responded. They started on their way.
Faith and Evan moved the opposite direction. They were quiet for a ways, both looking for any signs of AR-1.
“Any insight?” Lorne asked.
Faith shook her head as her gaze stayed fixed on the ground around them. “What was the tip about?”
“ZPM.”
“Which is why they went.” She came to a stop. “Gut feeling - trap for John’s team.”
“Why?”
“What’s the only thing everyone who ever learned about Atlantis knows we need?” Then she remembered he had not been there the previous year. “ZPMs. The Genii know they’re important to us, so do any race that we met in the last year. We were especially desperate early in our arrival on Atlantis.”
“But why Sheppard’s team?”
“A ZPM - even the rumor of one - is still considered Atlantis’s priority. And who do we send priority more than any other because their scientist is the only leading ZPM expert on Atlantis?”
“Them.”
“Exactly…” she was distracted by something she had seen in her peripheral vision. She turned again, trying to figure out what it was.
“What?” Evan said, his gun trained in the direction she was looking.
Faith took several steps, gently moving the toe of her boot through the foliage.
Clink!
She bent down and gingerly picked up a blade about four inches long. She turned it over in her hands. “Damnit.”
“What?” Evan asked as he stepped towards her.
“This is Ronon’s.”
“How do you know?”
“It sits on his left hip.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look,” she turned the hilt towards him, “It’s a Satedan symbol.”
“You sure?”
“Weapons are something I always appreciate.”
“And how do you know where this was on Ronon?”
“Because I pay attention. And I stole it from him during one of our matches. He’s always got a dozen on him. It’s impressive.”
“Maybe he just dropped it.”
Faith tapped the tip against her palm. “Everything for a reason.”
“What?”
“The knives. Each one has a purpose and they would never just fall out. I overheard him saying something to a Marine about how he had changed the positioning of some of them. I never got the full details as to why. This one…turn around.”
“What?”
“Just turn.”
He looked at her strangely but turned his back to her. Faith tried to recall how the knife was normally positioned. Back of the hip, left side - non-dominate hand, why? Slightly tilted to be easy to grab. But why would it fall out?
Her eyes went to the ground around them. She spun slowly in a circle.
“Drag marks,” Evan realized.
“Someone tried to cover it up. Only one set,” she said. “But look here, heel drags.”
“Ronon weighs over two hundred pounds.”
“And he’s tall, moving him would be a hassle - even if you knocked him out.”
“But for all of the team?”
“It’s easily means a six-man job.”
“At least.”
“Which means they were kidnapped.”
“Mostly likely human, not Wraith.”
88888888
“I don’t understand what the problem is,” Evan said to Radek.
Radek sighed from where he knelt in front of the DHD with a tablet. He looked at Faith and rattled off in Czech.
Faith shrugged, responding in kind.
“Hey,” Evan cut in, “that’s not fair.”
“Imagine someone took a picture and printed it in strips and just handed you a stack of strips,” she said. “They tell you what you’re looking for is in there, with fifty other pictures cut into strips.”
“Okay…”
“That’s as analog as I can describe the problem.”
Evan considered her, wondering if that was how she understood the problem.
“It’s too bad you can’t just talk to it,” Stevens said.
Faith tilted her head. She looked back at Radek.
Radek shook his head. “It couldn’t be as simple as asking. The DHD technology predates the Jumpers and ATA interfaces. And it’s not meant to store it…”
“Is there any interaction between the Jumper and a planet’s DHD?”
“We’ve never consider it.”
Evan looked around them. “It would be impossible to get a Jumper through here.”
“Communication doesn’t necessarily require proximity,” Radek suggested. “An open wormhole should be enough, if it’s possible.”
“Dial it up,” Evan told Radek. “Faith, you’ll go through while I explain it to Weir.”
She nodded.
“IDC received,” Chuck announced through the radio, “Shield down.”
Faith ran through. She took the steps three at a time, dashed across the control room, and up the stairs to the Jumper bay. She ran for the closest Jumper and sat down at the controls. She felt the Jumper respond to her. She closed her eyes and tried to nudge it to talk to the DHD.
“Come on,” she whispered. “You’re both Ancient tech, there’s no risk.”
She flexed her fingers. Then the HUD beeped.
Her eyes opened but she frowned. She tapped her com. “Faith to Radek.”
“Any luck?”
“I’ve got forty-eight unique addresses, no time stamps. Or order. They seem to be stored non-linearly.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Still better than we were an hour ago,” Evan told them. “We’re heading back now.”
88888888
“Well?” Elizabeth asked looking between Evan and Radek.
“From what Faith and I can decipher, the Jumper was able to pull these Stargate addresses based on a sequence of six and the origin. But the DHD doesn’t really save dialed addresses - it’s not meant to.” He sighed. “Our best guess is that these are just the forty-eight addresses residually burned on the dialing crystal.”
“But they have no way to know when they were dialed?”
“No.”
“Then we should get moving,” she turned to Evan. “How long?”
“To search each planet with a four to six man team takes time. A thorough search of each planet and the sheer number of planets…that’s months.”
“We can’t afford months, Major.”
“I know.”
“I want everyone who’s cleared for off-world activity to help with the search. The Daedalus is on its way from Earth and they’ll be able to help, but until they get here, it’s up to us.”
Evan nodded.
88888888
Faith made her way through the thin brush. Evan was only steps behind her. They were at a punishing pace. The planet - moon really - had the distinct advantage of being cold and dark.
“I don’t envy anyone being here,” Stevens said.
“I don’t envy us being here,” Purell snapped.
Faith realized it wasn’t their fault. They had finally finished surveying this one small moon, with no result. It was little more than a frozen wasteland. There had been some promising caves but no sign of John or his team.
“Oh, thank god,” Stevens muttered as the Stargate came into view. It was at the mouth of an icy valley.
“Why would anyone even come to this planet,” Purell complained.
“May just be the wrong season,” Faith suggested, tired.
Evan sighed when they reached the Stargate, dialing as soon as he could. He sent his IDC through and got confirmation from Chuck that they were clear.
They stepped through the Stargate and found Elizabeth waiting for them.
“What happened?” Faith asked as she pulled the parka off.
“Rodney came through the Stargate about twenty hours ago.”
“That’s why you recalled us,” Evan guessed.
“He’s in no position to be able to tell us anything. But I wanted you back here and ready to go when he can.” She looked at them. “Get cleaned up and checked out, debrief in an hour.”
88888888
Faith stood on the bridge of the Daedalus, staring at the two Wraith hive ships. According to Rodney, Aiden had recruited and drugged the team, except John, with Wraith enzyme to prove how effective it was. Aiden’s plan had been to take them aboard one of the ships with John piloting a Dart and destroy the hive with C4. There weren’t supposed to be two of them.
“Our people have been in Wraith custody too long,” Caldwell said. “We cannot consider rescue against two hive ships.”
“I’m sorry,” Evan said from her right.
“It’s not over,” she told him. “Not yet.”
Rodney looked around Evan to see her. “Do you have a feeling?”
Faith shook her head. “Just a history of John getting outta things.”
Suddenly, there were explosions along the side of one of the hive ships. “Look,” Rodney said, drawing everyone’s attention to it. “You see that?”
“What is it?” Evan asked.
“It’s a Dart firing at the hive ship.”
“Why?” Caldwell asked.
“Sheppard!” Rodney said in delight.
Faith grinned as the single Dart got the others to fire on each other and then the hives.
“Sheppard actually got them to fire on each other,” Evan said with a grin.
“Well, his diplomacy did always leave something to be desired,” Faith noted.
The hives started to do damage to each other. Then in a wave of blue energy one of them exploded. They were so close together it took out the second.
Rodney ran to a display. “The explosions took out everything in a fifteen-thousand-meter radius.”
“Any sign of a Dart?” Caldwell asked.
“No…”
Faith’s jaw ached. She swallowed.
“Map it,” Caldwell ordered one of his men.
“Yes, sir.”
“Search pattern from the last point we saw the Dart outwards.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is going to take some time,” Caldwell advised. “Find a place out of the way to hunker down.”
Evan worried for a moment that Faith would shift into a stance he had learned to recognize, a sign she was just going to become stubborn and argue. But she nodded and left the bridge. He looked at McKay but he was oblivious, already looking for some angle to start the search.
After a second of indecision, he followed. She didn’t run and she wasn’t even moving very fast. He assumed she was heading to the gym or guest quarters. She turned into the mess and grabbed a bag of chips from the sideboard before taking a seat at a table, facing the large observation window. Evan sat down on the same side.
Faith opened the bag of chips and left them sitting on the table.
“I'm sorry,” he said after several minutes.
“For what, Major?” she tilted her head. “I know how hard you were pushing teams to do full surveys of a dozen worlds.” She kept her gaze on the window. “John was supposed to be the clear headed one and he agreed to Ford’s stupid plan.”
“McKay made it sound like there wasn’t much choice.” He glanced at her. “Not for any of them.”
She nodded a bit.
“I am sorry that you have to go through this,” he said.
“I’d rather destroy the wall than add his name to it,” Faith whispered.
“You never added Lieutenant Ford.”
“John had hope.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t know.” She absently turned the chip bag around.
88888888
John looked up from where Ronon and Teyla were being cleared by Beckett. Caldwell, Rodney, and Evan were walking towards him. He had heard the announcement that the Daedalus had landed only a few minutes before.
“Why aren’t you dead?” Rodney demanded.
“It’s good to see you, too, Rodney,” John said, but his gaze went past them.
Faith stepped around Evan. She crossed to John, stopping right in front of him. “Close call,” she commented.
“Once the hives started shooting at each other, I knew it was just a matter of time before they blew each other up. So I headed straight for the space gate and dialed an address where I could land safely,” John said. “I didn’t think the Dart could fit in our gate room.”
“The Colonel was kind enough to make us whole again,” Teyla said, “and we returned home.”
“I’m curious, Sheppard,” Caldwell said. “How did you know the Wraith would fight each other?”
“Uh, a little intel from Ford and the gang, plus I kind of goosed things along with the queen.”
“It would appear the Wraith are becoming more territorial than we had thought,” Teyla explained. “There is definite tension building among them.”
“Which is good for us,” Ronon told them.
Faith’s gaze went to Teyla and Ronon. “I’m glad you’re all safe.” She left the infirmary.