Fic: Ordinary Nations (2/3)

[melyanna]

Continued from Part I.


The White House

Jed got the wake-up call in the middle of the night. He was a little glad that Abbey was out of the country, because she would have been pretty irritated when his chief of staff, the CIA director, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs showed up in the Residence.

After pulling his robe on, he opened the door to see the three men waiting outside. “This is a fun group,” he said, standing aside to let them in.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir,” Leo said. “There was a development in Peru that the director thought you needed to hear about now instead of waiting for the morning security briefing.”

“Well, let’s hear it,” Jed replied, sitting down in one of the room’s armchairs.

The other three men followed suit. “Sir,” Director Rollie said, “our agent with the UN team missed her scheduled contact six hours ago.”

“Six hours ago?” Jed repeated. “Why am I just now finding out?”

“There are a lot of reasons why she could have missed the contact,” the director replied. “We wanted to make sure something was wrong before bringing it to your attention.”

“Has this agent ever missed a contact?”

“No, sir,” Admiral Fitzwallace replied. “Though admittedly, she hasn’t been in the field that long.”

“So what are the possibilities?” Jed asked, stifling back a yawn. It coudn’t have been more than two in the morning.

“There’s any number of things that could have happened,” Fitzwallace said. “Could be as simple as her radio being broken, or as serious as the group having been kidnapped or killed. The most likely in my opinion is that they’ve had some contact with the Shining Path, and she’s decided to maintain radio silence in order to avoid detection.”

“Director Rollie, do you agree?”

“The admiral knows this agent rather well, so I’d be inclined to agree with him,” Rollie replied. “Besides, we have some sources on the ground telling us that there’s some kind of movement going on near Caylloma.”

“You’re going to have to come up with something better than that,” Jed replied, getting up. The others stood with him. “And I certainly hope you have something more for me in a couple hours when I come down to the office.”

“Yes, sir,” Rollie said, nodding as he left.

The other two lingered behind. “You know the agent?” Jed asked of Fitzwallace.

“Lieutenant Harper? Yes, sir,” the admiral replied. “She was my aide straight out of the Academy. And I understand from Leo that one of the UN diplomats worked on your campaign.”

“Doctor Weir,” Jed said. “She did some low-key advising on foreign policy matters, but I’ve known her a lot longer than that. Probably about as long as you’ve known Lieutenant Harper.”

“I wish I’d been here, sir,” Fitzwallace replied. “This basic plan has been on the books for far too long. When the director informed me in Manila of the situation, I strongly advised him not to recommend it to you.”

“How much trouble is it going to cause if I ask you to take over this operation, Fitz?”

“Well, Director Rollie won’t like it, but as the agent is a Navy officer, I do have some claim to jurisdiction,” said the admiral.

“Good.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Fitzwallace left, and as the door closed Leo said, “Sir, this is more than just a woman you brought into the campaign going missing in the Amazon.”

“Elizabeth’s a good friend,” Jed replied. “She has been for a while. I met her when she was just a lobbyist, before she got to work for the UN. And in the years I’ve known her, she’s never once asked me for a political favor.”

“Ethics in a lobbyist,” Leo remarked. “I never thought I’d live to see the day. But you should get some sleep, sir. Looks like we’ve got a long day coming.”

Leo left, and Jed went back to bed. But sleep didn’t come easily, as images of his friend and the horrors of the Amazon refused to stay buried for long.

Almost two days passed before the prisoners saw anyone but each other.

As the hours passed, the men traded war stories. They’d all been in this kind of situation before, it seemed. Elizabeth had too, more than once, but usually the cavalry had arrived within a day. Not to mention, this was the first time it had happened since her children had been born. She didn’t even want to think about what John was going through.

Light was seeping in through a tiny window high above them when Lorne came over to her side, his jacket in his hand. “You look cold,” he said.

Under other circumstances she might have refused, as she generally liked the cold, but she was grateful enough for his consideration that she took the jacket and draped it over her legs. “Thank you,” she said.

“No problem,” he replied. Then, in a lower voice, he said, “It’s been two days. Are they just going to starve us to death?”

“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said. “Something’s not adding up here.”

No sooner had she said that than a loud clanging echoed through the cell, startling Elizabeth so badly that she jumped. There were footsteps, and Lorne got to his feet, standing between Elizabeth and the cell door. The others on his team got up too. “Doctor Weir,” said a deep, booming voice.

She got to her feet slowly, holding Lorne’s jacket over her arm. “Why are we being held?” she demanded.

“For questioning,” the intruder replied.

“Without food or water?”

“That will be rectified shortly,” he said. “If you would come with me, Doctor.”

“No,” Lorne said, before Elizabeth could even open her mouth. “Talk to me first.”

“Colonel,” she said, sternly. He looked over his shoulder, and she had to bite her tongue. She wasn’t sure what Lorne was doing, but he was clearly determined to do it.

“Doctor?” said their captor, drawing her attention away.

After a moment of hesitation and another glance at Lorne, Elizabeth nodded. “Take him,” she said, quietly.

It was unnecessary, but the man grabbed Lorne and handed him off to two guards standing behind. As Lorne was taken away, a fourth person came in with a canteen and a bag. “Make this last, Doctor,” the first man said. “It may be some time before you see anyone else again.”

Elizabeth waited until their captors had left before she opened the bag, half-expecting to find an alien snake inside. But there was only some kind of bread. It wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t rock-hard either. There was more than she had anticipated, too, and she handed the bread out to her hungry men.

As she passed the canteen around, Ackerman said, “Ma’am, permission to speak freely?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Permission granted, Lieutenant.”

“Why’d you let the colonel go?”

She was grateful that he didn’t phrase it the way it was in her head - why’d you let them take him? - but it was still a hard question to answer. They were all going to get a turn at this unless they were rescued soon, so she wasn’t quite sure why Lorne had seemed so insistent. But he had insisted, and therein lay her answer.

She thought of so many times when she’d had to give orders she didn’t want to give, or let people go when she knew death was the most probable outcome. There were still nights when John would be off-world and her dreams would be haunted by letting him go on a suicide mission eight years earlier. She’d come so close to losing so much, but it had been the right decision in the end.

“Sometimes the hardest thing to do as a commander is to trust your men,” she finally replied. “But it’s crucial. Your men have to know that you’ll entrust them with the critical task, and that when they come to you, you’ll trust their ideas. Lorne had his reasons, and I trust him.”

“Besides,” said Sergeant Zane, “it’s not like any of us are getting out of it.”

Unnerved by what she would not voice, Elizabeth got to her feet and stood at the cell door with her fist at her mouth. “John will find us.”

“Ma’am,” Sergeant Rocca said, “that’s not going to be easy.”

“John will find us,” she repeated. She had to believe it, even if her men wouldn’t.

Several hours later, they dragged Lorne back with a bloody nose and an assortment of other injuries. In the dim light, Elizabeth’s stomach turned over at the sight of all the blood and bruises. She didn’t want to think about what it looked like under better lighting conditions, and a selfish part of her mind was pointing out that it could have been her.

“Marcus,” she said, rolling up his jacket and placing it under his head. “Marcus, say something.”

He opened one eye - the one that wasn’t swelling up - and replied, “You’ve never called me that before.”

“You’ve never scared me like that before,” she said. “Lieutenant, the water.”

The canteen was passed over, and Elizabeth pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, wetted it slightly, and started cleaning the blood off Lorne’s face. “I didn’t tell them anything you hadn’t already said,” he offered.

“I’d like to think they wouldn’t beat someone this badly for cooperating.”

“This was nothing.”

Elizabeth licked her lips, pushing back the images that provoked. Unfortunately she’d been with John long enough that she knew how bad it could be.

“Colonel,” she said softly, even though the others could have heard her whisper, “why did you do this?”

“You’re not trained to take this,” he replied immediately. “Besides, if Colonel Sheppard is going to rescue us soon, I figured the woman with two children ought to be spared this kind of beating.”

Elizabeth had to swallow hard to accept that kind of loyalty, but she kept her reservations to herself, and instead began to fear the sound of footsteps outside.

The next time, they came for her.

She could hear John’s voice in her head, telling her to note the route they took (fifty eight steps, up a staircase, left, seventy-nine steps. . .), to keep her eyes open for doors and windows, anything that might lead to the outside (three doors, no windows), to keep track of security (four guards, all armed). When she saw a rather portly man standing guard at the room she was led to, she had to suppress the urge to smile at the joke she imagined John would make.

The room, unlike the rest of the building that she’d seen, was lit with harsh light not unlike that of fluorescent bulbs. Elizabeth had to squint before her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room. Inside, she saw a chair and two men, one who had led her there and another who had first come to visit them a few days earlier.

“Ah, Doctor,” said the man who seemed to be leading this capture and interrogation venture. “So good of you to join me.”

He nodded to the man who’d brought her, who left them alone. “And what do I call you?” she asked as the door closed.

“Magister.”

Magister and Doctor, Elizabeth thought. Quite the pair.

“Your civilization is more advanced than you led us to believe,” she said.

He shrugged. “Other races have done so,” he replied. “It seems to be a benefit to us if we attempt to better ourselves technologically. Every man, woman, and child on Mabirra learns the sciences. Those left behind when the Wraith strike must be able to carry on.”

“And you don’t worry about the Wraith detecting your underground activity?” she asked. “I have heard of some civilizations who-”

“We are not so foolish as the Genii,” the Magister interrupted. “Perhaps we’ve been luckier than they were, but we have learned from what we know of their mistakes.”

Elizabeth wished she had a Geiger counter.

“Will you sit?” he asked.

“I prefer to stand.”

“I thought you might.” He took the chair instead. Elizabeth’s eyes seemed to have finally adjusted, and she took in her surroundings, noting the door on the other side of the room. At this point she was positioned such that if she tried to make a run for it, the Magister would be able to catch her. And then there was the matter of the armed guard outside.

“Why are you holding us?” Elizabeth demanded.

“You, we believe, were involved in the disappearance of the population of Tradan,” he replied. “You knew this before you asked.”

She swallowed. “You’ve yet to show any proof.”

“The proof is in your face, Doctor,” the Magister said. “You blanche when the planet is mentioned. A guilty conscience? Did you give that order? Were you there yourself?”

Elizabeth closed her eyes. There were a good many things she did not want this man to know, so she started with the smallest thing. “We were there,” she said softly. “My people had managed to hide in a small craft with stealth capabilities as the attack began.”

“And you didn’t try to help them.”

“We did,” Elizabeth argued. “There wasn’t much we could do.”

“Then what did you do, Doctor?” the Magister asked.

“There was a baby,” she said, reluctantly. “He was born just moments before the Wraith arrived. We got a couple minutes’ warning from my team, and his father begged me to take the baby with me to safety.”

The Magister was silent for a long while, before pulling an object from his coat. Elizabeth didn’t recognize it, but it had two prongs on it. She suspected it was the same thing that had been used on her and her team back on Mabirra, and she tried not to shudder. The man got to his feet and started to circle her. Elizabeth stood her ground. “So you tell me now that a Tradanian survived,” he said. “Where is this child?”

As he passed, Elizabeth looked him in the eye. “I kept my promise to his father,” she said. “He’s my child now, just as much as the son I gave birth to.”

“The Tradanians had a proverb,” the Magister said. “That when a child was born in a stranger’s presence-”

“He would never come to harm,” Elizabeth finished. “I know. That’s why I was present at his birth.”

“There was another proverb,” he replied. “That one’s brother is he whom one cares for when all hope is gone.”

“What are you saying?” Elizabeth asked, feeling cold.

“That this child is the responsibility of Tradan’s brothers, not a stranger,” the Magister said. “He should be on Mabirra.”

She stood up a little straighter. “You might as well kill me now,” she said, “because you are not taking my son.”

The Magister stood behind her and laughed. “I’m not going to kill you over this child, Doctor,” he told her. “First, I need to determine your complicity in the downfall of our allies. Then, I will kill you.”

He jabbed the prod into her back and she screamed, blinding pain surging through her before she collapsed into darkness.

Near Caylloma, Peru

Elizabeth woke up just as the clouds were clearing, and in the hour or two before sunrise, Kate pulled her back to the trail. She could tell that Elizabeth was uncomfortable, but to the diplomat’s credit, she didn’t complain. Kate was glad of that.

As they walked together, Kate thought a few times about explaining to Elizabeth everything that was going on, including the fact that she was there to assassinate a man named Brizuela, not to rescue the hostages. That part of the mission she’d settled into second priority. Those lives were valuable, but if push came to shove and her options were to save a handful of lives now or save hundreds of lives in the long term, she’d opt for the latter. There was only so much she could do.

The sun was rising when Elizabeth finally spoke, and Kate had to wonder if the other woman was reading her thoughts. “Can we continue the sociopolitical ramblings now?” she asked.

Kate tried not to laugh. “Sure.”

“What’s wrong with letting a country work out its own problems?”

“What’s wrong with letting a three-year-old pick out his own diet?”

“Well, I don’t believe the two are comparable,” said Elizabeth. “We’re talking about adults capable of reasoning.”

“And that’s where it gets sticky.” Kate sighed. “The natural argument is that we’re talking about people who are largely uneducated and easily swayed. At that point, either I’m a neo-imperialist at best or xenophobic at worst.”

“They are largely uneducated and easily swayed,” Elizabeth conceded. “But all civilization rises first from a group of uneducated people. Uneducated doesn’t mean less capable of making intelligent decisions.”

“So your question is a bad way of going about the subject.”

“No, our opinions just aren’t ever going to coincide,” she said. “I think that when we talk about self-determination of nations, we should mean it for all nations, not just white Europeans.”

“Wait a minute-”

“And your opinion isn’t the opposite of that,” Elizabeth continued calmly. “You think that any nation with a history of brutal dictatorship needs protection from itself. It’s like the abortion debate. Pro-life and pro-choice aren’t exactly two sides of the same coin, but people in both camps like to talk like it is because it oversimplifies an enormously complicated issue.”

Kate shouldn’t have been surprised by the ease with which Elizabeth articulated this, but she was. “So what’s your solution?” she asked.

“That we’re both right,” Elizabeth replied. “That yes, a nation with a history of following brutal and corrupt dictators needs to be protected from itself, but also that those people have the right to determine their own government in the end.”

“What’s your problem with the CIA, then?”

“I don’t like secrecy,” she said, quite simply. “I don’t like that we can’t seem to do this openly and without violence. My father always said that you can do more good by offering help openly than by threatening privately.”

Kate paused. “There’s something else.”

“You guys keep screwing up.”

Elizabeth said this with such a deadpan tone that Kate barely held in her laughter. Unfortunately, there was a lot of truth to Elizabeth’s assertion.

For her part, Elizabeth seemed not to notice. “The poorer the people, the more unstable the government,” she continued. “When you help people raise themselves up from poverty, you cease to allow a country to harbor drug traffickers or terrorists or the kind of corruption we see in Latin America now. And you do it while acknowledging that the country has its own body of laws that may not coincide with your own and while respecting that country’s autonomy, and not inciting its citizens to hate America and everything we touch.”

“I can’t really argue with that logic,” Kate replied, after a long pause.

“The next time I’m on Capital Beat to talk about globalization and American intervention, I want you on opposite me,” Elizabeth said. “That’s the fastest I’ve ever gotten anyone to say that.”

Kate smiled. “The CIA’s kind of fussy about undercover agents going on television.”

Elizabeth sighed. “I knew there was a catch somewhere.”

Three days after her first interrogation, Elizabeth was taken back to the Magister. She was taken via a different route to the same room, which gave her a perspective on how large this place was. She wondered to herself if the point of this was to show her how vast the building was, or if it was simply that the guards didn’t understand the danger in showing her more of it.

When she arrived in the white room, she began to suspect it was the latter. The Magister opened another door and led her up a flight of stairs that brought them to a rooftop garden. Elizabeth made a show of inhaling the fresh air deeply and enjoying the sunlight, but she was careful to note everything she could. There were six other people on the roof, all of them guards. The building was nestled into the foot of a mountain range, and around them was a forest. In the distance, where the elevation was rising again, she thought she saw the curve of the Stargate rising above the trees.

“Will you walk with me?” the Magister said.

Elizabeth said nothing, but fell in step with him.

“I’ve been considering our last conversation,” he said, “and my conversations with your men. They are exceptionally loyal.”

“It’s a useful trait,” she replied neutrally.

“To you, perhaps,” said the Magister. “To them, it is proving most dangerous.”

“I’ve seen what you’ve done to my men,” Elizabeth said, working to keep her voice calm despite her anger. “Among my people that would never be tolerated.”

“Then your people are not very realistic,” he replied. They stopped walking near a bubbling fountain, which was several feet deep. “How long have you been in this galaxy, Doctor? I can tell you were not born here, or you were born on a planet untouched by the Wraith.”

Elizabeth hesitated. “By my planet’s reckoning, it’s been eight years since I left my homeworld with my men.”

“And by your planet’s reckoning, is eight years a long time?”

“It can be,” she replied.

“Careful there, Doctor,” he said. “A day can be a long time if you’re being held captive. A minute can be a long time, if I hold your head under the water here.”

Elizabeth stiffened slightly. “Do you enjoy this?” she asked, and wished the words unsaid a moment later.

“You and your people are of interest to me,” said the Magister, with a smile that made her very uncomfortable. “You’re of a curious race. From our conversation before I can tell that you have a great capacity to love, and your men love you as well. Yet you’re also capable of great cruelty.”

She knew he was talking about Tradan, accusing her yet again of a crime she didn’t commit. But she couldn’t bring herself to deny what he’d said. Over the course of seven years she had changed considerably. Some of those changes were good ones, personal and professional, but there were some she regretted. She hated that she could give an unpleasant order without feeling sick about it. She hated that she could let her husband go off into danger. She hated that she could violate the Geneva Convention and justify it to herself and others.

And sometimes, she hated that she no longer had nightmares, even of a night in Peru.

The Magister took her silence as assent. “You won’t deny it?”

“We’re human,” Elizabeth replied. “We’re all capable of horrible things.”

“But you are a leader, Doctor,” he said, his voice almost sing-song. “Should you not rise above such petty concerns of mere mortals?”

He was mocking her now, and Elizabeth made little attempt to cover her disgust. “You don’t believe that any more than I do,” she countered. “Being a leader makes you accountable for more, but that doesn’t make you less likely to make mistakes.”

“So is that what Tradan is to you?” he asked, his tone now cold. “A simple mistake?”

“No,” Elizabeth replied. “Tradan was - and still is - a tragedy. But it was no more my fault than yours.”

“Ah, yes, you were there to rescue the lone survivor and raise him as your own,” the Magister said. “Do you make a habit of that? Is such a child a trophy among your people, or just a quirk of your clan?”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes, trying very hard not to say anything that might jeopardize her safety now. “What is it about these people?” she asked.

“They were our brothers,” the Magister replied. “Many years ago our people had grown too large for our farming land to sustain, and a small group set out to Tradan. For a long time they considered themselves a colony of Mabirra, but after the last great culling, they became their own people. After that, we were always friends and allies.”

“You have long memories,” Elizabeth observed.

“Yes,” said the Magister, “we do.”

She waited a long moment before speaking again. “So when does the torture start today?”

“What makes you ask that?”

Elizabeth raised a brow. “You didn’t bring me up here for the view.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then why am I here?”

“What did you do to Tradan?” he asked, his voice now quite cold.

Staring up at him defiantly, she replied, “I’ve already told you.”

The Magister backhanded her across her jaw, making contact with a crack. She lost her balance, falling backward into the frigid water of the fountain and flailing to get back up again. But there was a current pulling her down, and in her terror she let her foot get caught on something. It seemed an eternity before strong arms pulled her free, and she blacked out with John’s name on her lips.

She awoke back in the cell as someone moved her head. “Elizabeth?” said someone above her.

Elizabeth blinked a few times and saw Lorne hovering over her. She tried to smile. “You’ve never called me that before,” she said.

“I hate to resort to cliché,” the colonel replied, “but you’ve really never scared any of us like that before. What happened?”

She licked her lips and found they were cold. Someone had removed her jacket, too, as it was probably drenched. “They took me to the top of the building,” she said. “There’s a garden up there with a fountain. I don’t think the Magister meant to push me in, but I don’t think he was in much of a hurry to help me.”

Lorne made a disgusted sound, and Ackerman said something particularly crude in response. “What does this guy want from us?” the lieutenant asked.

“That’s a good question,” Elizabeth replied. “I think he’d tell you he’s looking for justice, but he’s out for revenge.”

She sat up, and Lorne wrapped his jacket around her, not letting her protest. “We don’t have a way of getting you dry,” he said. “All we can do is try to keep you as warm as possible.”

“Ellie’s rubbed off on you,” she remarked, as he took her hand in his and began rubbing up and down her arm, trying to warm her skin.

“She’d say it’s about time,” he replied. “Do you still think Sheppard’s going to find us?”

Elizabeth nodded. “He always does.”

“I’m worried about Ellie,” he quietly admitted, after a moment’s pause.

“She has John with her,” she replied. “They’ll make it through and find us.”

But as their captivity dragged on, Elizabeth found herself voicing this belief less and less, though she still meant it whenever she said it. Days turned into weeks, and each of them got new bruises and cuts, proof of their captor’s cruelty. And Lorne, who had stood up for her so bravely that first time, was still paying the price for it.

On the morning Lorne started coughing up blood, Elizabeth finally asked aloud, “What the hell is taking John so long?”

It was fortunate, then, that they had already started planning an escape.

Near Caylloma, Peru

“You seem awfully calm,” Kate remarked as they crested a peak, a few hours after dawn.

And it was true. Elizabeth was feeling a lot calmer about things than she probably had any right to. “I think I’m in some stage of nervous breakdown,” she replied. “Denial or something.”

“That’s trauma, not nervous breakdown.”

“I suspect the two kind of go hand in hand.” Elizabeth sighed. “Losing my calm won’t help matters any.”

“Very true,” Kate replied absently. Then she pointed to her right. “That way.”

Elizabeth followed behind as she had since the previous evening. “So,” Kate said, “you knew I wasn’t what I said I was because of my shoes?”

“That was part of it,” Elizabeth replied. “The demeanor just didn’t work for me either. But I knew to look for someone, so that’s probably why you stuck out.”

Kate shook her head. “I had a feeling a few days ago that my cover was going to be blown,” she said. “The CIA seriously underestimated you.”

“That’s ironic,” said Elizabeth. “The CIA tried to hire me when I was a senior in college.”

“Fluent in Russian?”

“Can pass for native,” she said. “Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and. . .”

“You weren’t useful anymore.” Kate shook her head. “The State Department and the CIA have both done some dumb things about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not like the Soviets were all magically gone,” Kate said. “Do you know how many nuclear warheads are lying around the former Soviet states with little supervision because the infrastructure collapsed? Besides, the communists still run large parts of the country. Just because the Politburo disbanded doesn’t mean those people aren’t still influential to some degree.”

“I know,” Elizabeth replied. “I just wasn’t sure you did.”

“I know a lot of things.”

They continued on in silence for a while, and Elizabeth brought her hand up to her shoulder, rubbing at tense muscles. Her neck had been sore for hours. Very close by, a bird swooped between trees very close to them and screeched so loudly that Elizabeth jumped. “It’s a carrion eater,” Kate said. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Carrion?” Elizabeth repeated, her eyes wide. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Kate looked at her and frowned for just a moment before seeming to realize what Elizabeth was trying to say. She veered off to the right, following the bird. Elizabeth followed hesitantly, figuring that this wasn’t the direction Kate had originally intended.

The smell hit Elizabeth first, the rancid stench of decay, and her throat started to constrict. Smelling this once in twenty-four hours was more than enough. It wasn’t long before she saw the birds descending on the body of Jan Sirenko, a Ukrainian from her team. He’d been stoned.

She rushed toward him without thinking, but Kate grabbed her arm, whirling her around, and she held her in place, facing away from the body. “You can’t do anything to help him, Elizabeth,” she said. “We’ve got to keep going.”

“This isn’t a rescue mission, is it?” Elizabeth asked, not sure why the thought had come into her head.

Kate hesitated. “No. I will if I can, but. . . no.”

Tears in her eyes, Elizabeth fought the urge to look back at Jan’s corpse. This was the fate that awaited the rest of her team. The lucky ones had died in the gunfire hours before. Even though much of what Kate had said to any of them had been false, Elizabeth believed her this time, that if she could, she would rescue the hostages. But she also believed that Kate was prepared to sacrifice them if she couldn’t accomplish her primary goal.

For the first time since all of this had started, Elizabeth thought about turning back. She knew Kate had a radio, and Elizabeth could call someone to get her out while Kate went on her way. She didn’t want to stand in the jungle anymore with a gun strapped to her body and the smell of rotting flesh in her nostrils. She wanted to go home and cry herself to sleep. But there was Jan, and there were others still alive, she hoped, and she felt an obligation to them.

“Elizabeth, I’m going to break radio silence in a couple minutes,” Kate said, her arm still around Elizabeth. “There’s a team stationed in Caylloma to extract us. It was part of the plan. I can get them in here to get you out, but I think your colleagues have more of a chance of getting out too if you come with me. Then the team can get here and extract all of us at once.”

Slowly, Elizabeth nodded, knowing that Kate was sacrificing a lot in making that offer, but knowing she couldn’t take it. “You’re right. I should stay with you.”

Kate released her, and Elizabeth started back toward the path they’d been on, careful where she turned so she didn’t look at the body again. Kate was just a step behind.

Ellie spent much of the next few days pacing in Elizabeth’s office, whether there were people with her or not.

She’d sent out a cloaked jumper a few hours after returning from Mabirra, as John had suggested. He’d also offered to fly the mission himself, but given his lack of protest when she told him no, he didn’t seem to have expected her to let him. The search yielded nothing except more evidence to support Ellie’s two suspicions: first, that the Mabirrans were more advanced than they let on, and second, that the team was no longer there. Sending scientists to take apart the DHD and examine the crystal for the latest addresses dialed probably wouldn’t be the best of ideas, as their best guesses could only tell them that the Mabirrans were probably hostile, and that they had no idea how advanced those potential hostiles were.

By the fourth day, they’d heard nothing, and Ellie made a second trip to the planet, this time with an even larger armed escort. Surrounded by Marines and their guns, she felt so small. The meeting proved fruitless, except that it reinforced her instinct that the leader of the Mabirrans was lying about something. From John she kept hearing about a will to act. If something didn’t change soon, she was going to end up with problems from him as well.

The next morning was their scheduled contact with Atlantis, and she stood in Elizabeth’s office with the door closed for the first time that she could remember. “Atlantis, this is Admiral Harper,” said the commander of the SGC over a radio on Elizabeth’s desk.

“Admiral, this is Doctor Bartlet,” Ellie replied.

“Hello, Ellie,” Kate said. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for Ellie to handle contact with Earth, so there was no reason for the admiral to be suspicious. “What news do you have?”

“Not good news, I’m afraid,” Ellie said. “Doctor Weir and the team that was accompanying her went missing five days ago.”

There was a moment of silence. “And you didn’t contact me before now?”

“I’ve been to the planet in question twice since they disappeared,” she replied. “I’ve followed standard procedure in this.”

“Ellie, the leader of the expedition is missing,” Kate said, disbelief in her voice. “That doesn’t warrant standard procedure.”

“It’s my boyfriend’s team that’s with her, Kate,” Ellie said quietly. “I had to follow standard procedure.”

“I’m sorry,” Kate replied. “What kind of leads do you have?”

“Not many,” said Ellie. “I’m sending Teyla this afternoon to see if she can find anything. She’s rather good at infiltration.”

“So I’ve heard.” There was another pregnant pause, and Kate asked, “Ellie, how’s Colonel Sheppard taking this?”

“About as well as you’d expect,” Ellie admitted. “He’s getting pretty withdrawn. Spending all his off-duty time with the boys. I don’t blame him.”

“Ellie,” Kate replied, “I meant what’s he advising you to do.”

“He wants me to do something,” Ellie said. “I asked for military options the first day. His retaliation plans are pretty severe. But at this point we don’t have any solid proof that the Mabirrans are lying to us and they’re holding our people hostage. It’s just a gut feeling.”

“He’s not wrong,” said Kate. “If they really are holding Doctor Weir and the others, you can’t let the kidnapping of diplomats go unpunished. The precedent that sets is far too dangerous.”

“I know,” Ellie replied. “But I can’t attack people on the information I have.”

“No, you can’t.”

There was a long silence, and Ellie found herself thinking about her father, and how many horrible decisions like this he’d had to make over the course of his Presidency. She remembered thinking on occasion that he was too prone to use the military as the arm of justice around the world, but now she found herself understanding a little of how he’d gotten there.

“Kate,” she said, “what would my father have done?”

“What do you think he’d do?”

She thought about it for a minute. “He’d sit still for now and make everyone else sit still too,” she said. “And pray.”

“Sounds about right.” Kate cleared her throat. “The Daedalus should be there in a few days. I imagine that will be helpful to the search and rescue efforts.”

Ellie nodded. “I imagine it will.”

“And Ellie?” Kate said. “If there are any major developments between now and the next scheduled contact, contact me immediately. I know what procedure says and I know why you were concerned about overriding that, but this is Doctor Weir. I need to be informed so I can keep President Santos in the loop.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ellie replied. “Atlantis out.”

With a nod at a technician in the control room, the gate was shut down and Ellie left the office, heading for John and Elizabeth’s quarters. When she got there and knocked on the door, it was Peter who opened it. “Hi, Ellie,” he said before getting back to playing with cars on the floor. Josiah ran up and hugged her leg, and then rejoined his brother.

“Is your dad here?” she asked. Siah pointed at the door to the bathroom, which opened momentarily. “Colonel,” she said.

He looked at her in surprise. “Anything?”

Ellie shook her head minutely. “I just talked with Admiral Harper.”

“Oh yeah?”

She glanced down at the boys, and John seemed to understand her hesitation. “Come on,” he said, leading her to the door to the boys’ bedroom. “What is it?”

Ellie folded her arms across herself. “She agrees with you to a point,” she explained. “She says that if this turns out to be a kidnapping, we have to act.”

“But?”

She bit her lower lip. “I can’t do this on a guess, John,” she said. “I don’t want to jeopardize innocent lives and be wrong.”

“You’re not wrong,” John pressed.

“But I need proof,” Ellie replied, shaking her head. “Something to tell me that the Mabirrans are lying to us. I’m sending Teyla in an hour.”

“Good,” he said. Then he looked down for a moment. “You look exhausted.”

“I’m not sleeping well,” she confessed.

He touched her arm awkwardly, and much to her surprise. “Go see Beckett,” he said. “He can give you something to help that. You need to be clear-headed.”

Ellie looked up at him, biting her lip again. “You?”

“I’ll be okay.” Then John pulled his hand away, as though not knowing what he needed to do. “Do you need me to come in now?” he asked.

She shook her head, taking a step back toward the door. “No,” she replied. “Spend the time with your children. They need you too.”

The White House

Jed spent most of his morning frustrated beyond belief with everything that was going on around him. After the wake-up call and the bad news from Rollie, he’d been wary, expecting everything else around him to go wrong. His staff was on edge, and on more than one occasion he’d nearly yelled at a couple of them. It had not been a pleasant morning. He kept waiting to hear the worst.

His midday meeting with the senior staff was interrupted quite suddenly by the appearance of Margaret at the door to Leo’s office. “Excuse me, President Bartlet,” she said, walking up to Leo and adding something in a whisper.

“Right,” Leo replied. “All right, everybody, let’s get back to work.”

The staffers exchanged glances with each other as they exited. Jed knew there would wild speculation going on in the outer office once the door was closed behind them, but he focused his attention on Leo. “What is it?” he asked.

“We’re needed in the situation room.”

To the basement they headed, and in the sit room, the usual suspects were already gathered. “Keep your seats,” he ordered when they all stood up, but none of them sat until he’d taken his place at the head of the table. “What’ve you got?”

“Mr. President,” said Admiral Fitzwallace, at his right, “we’ve received a communication from Lieutenant Harper.”

“They’re still alive?” Jed asked.

“From several of the key code phrases she’s used, we’ve ascertained that most of the delegation is being held hostage,” said Director Rollie. “There was an ambush. We believe there are some casualties, and we also think that she has Doctor Weir with her.”

It was the first good news Jed had heard all day, and he sat back in his chair, feeling some small amount of relief. “I’m hearing a lot of uncertainty.”

“Well, it’s not as though she could come out and say all this,” the director said.

Though Jed detected some amount of patronizing in the CIA director’s voice, he looked at Fitzwallace. “How sure are we?” he asked instead.

“We’re as sure as we can be in this kind of situation,” Fitzwallace replied. “Our sources in this part of the world aren’t the best.”

“Which explains why I sent Doctor Weir and her delegation into an ambush.”

“Sir, we acted on what intelligence we had,” Rollie said. “We knew the basics-”

“A fact which you failed to inform me of when you recommended this mission.”

“Sir, the hostages-”

“Are probably dead, or will be soon, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. I’m not convinced you ever wanted to do anything about it,” Jed interrupted, getting to his feet. Everyone else followed suit. “Fitz, what are my options?”

“We’ve got a CIA team waiting in Caylloma,” Fitzwallace replied. “We’ve triangulated the origin of Lieutenant Harper’s transmission, and we can have the team over the area within ninety minutes. They can extract Harper and any survivors at that time.”

Jed hated the rather clinical way in which Fitz had explained it, but decided that that was probably for the best. He glared at the CIA director one last time, wondering if it would be worth it to raise suspicions by firing the man. “Go,” he said, and the room sprang into action.

Leo followed him out of the room. “You were quiet back there,” he commented.

“You had it under control,” Leo replied. “Figured I wouldn’t mess with a good thing.”

“I hate that room,” Jed said, almost to himself. “I hate the decisions it represents.”

“You knew that was part of the job when you took it.”

“Yeah, but when I took it, I was thinking more about the fun stuff.”

“The fun stuff?”

“You know, fixing education. Social Security. Medicare. Right to privacy.”

Leo looked at him oddly. “You’ve got a screwy definition of ‘fun stuff’, you know that, sir?”

“Yeah, I do.”

It was late in the evening when Teyla returned from her mission to Mabirra, and she wasn’t smiling. Ellie and John were both in Elizabeth’s office when the Athosian returned, and they hurried into the gate room to meet her. “Teyla,” John said, “tell me something good.”

Teyla looked between them and settled her gaze on Ellie. “Doctor Bartlet,” she said, “I believe this might be of interest to you.”

She opened her fist to reveal a simple key chain, and Ellie’s eyes widened. It was nothing much, just a thick plastic tab over a picture of Curious George, but it was obviously an object from Earth. Moreover, Ellie recognized it immediately. It belonged to Marcus.

“I believe this is a ‘bread crumb’,” Teyla continued. After a rash of teams going missing for one reason or another, Elizabeth had ordered that everyone going off-world carry some object from Earth as a kind of marker, to be dropped, like Hansel leaving bread crumbs in the forest, as a trail for search and rescue efforts. Each was unique, but not something sentimental.

Ellie took it from Teyla’s open palm and turned it over. “It is,” she said. For the first time since all of this began, a quiet anger was building in her. “Where did you find it?”

“I was taken to the great hall of the Mabirrans. I saw this in a corner and took it when no one was looking,” Teyla explained. “But there is something else.”

“What?” John asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I mentioned the possibility of trading with them for belkan grain,” she said. “They told me they hadn’t seen that grain since one of their allies vanished. They were friends of the Tradanians.”

“Peter’s home planet?” John said. “Tradan?”

Teyla nodded. “I am afraid so.”

Ellie turned around and headed up the stairs, somehow sure that John and Teyla were following her. “We know the Mabirrans were lying now,” she said as they walked through the control room. “Colonel Lorne was there, at the very least. We know now they have a motive for harming our people. And we know it’s likely that our people are no longer on the planet.”

“But why did they not also take you when you were off-world?” Teyla asked as they entered the office once more.

“The first time they wouldn’t want to rouse even more suspicion,” John answered. “The second time Ellie was heavily guarded.”

“What do we do from here?” Teyla was shaking her head slightly as she asked.

Ellie walked behind Elizabeth’s desk and looked at them. John seemed surprised by the move. “We attempt to contact them via radio,” she said. “The first contact team left them one, and besides, we have pretty good reason to believe that they have radio technology anyway. We tell them we know they’re lying and give them one last chance to tell us the truth.”

“And if they do not?”

Ellie looked at John. “We strike. We can’t allow this kind of offense to go unpunished.”

John nodded, a hardness setting in on his features. “Teyla, tell them to dial P77-469,” he said. As Teyla walked away, he came over to the desk and pulled a radio from a drawer. “Which plan are we going with?”

“The first one you gave me,” Ellie replied. “The air strikes.”

“Do you want me to get ready with my men?”

She shook her head. “It’s bad enough that one of us has to make this decision. You don’t need to pull the trigger.”

He tapped his earpiece. “Major Clark, this is Colonel Sheppard. Report to the control room,” he said.

Teyla came back into the office then as the gate down below established a wormhole. “They are ready,” she said.

Ellie flipped a switch on the radio. “Mabirran control, this is Doctor Bartlet of Atlantis,” she said. “Please respond.”

After a few seconds of light static, a male voice answered, “Doctor Bartlet, to what do we owe the honor?” She recognized the voice as that of the Mabirran leader.

“You are holding five of my people hostage,” she said. “I have proof that they were there, in contact with your leadership, before they failed to contact us. You have a motive, namely that you suspect our involvement in the disappearance of the population of Tradan four years ago.” The last part was mostly conjecture, but if she’d learned anything from a lifetime around politicians, it was to say things with confidence in the hope that others would fall for it. “I’m giving you one last opportunity to retract the blatant lies you’ve told to my face and return my people to me, before I rain down calamity on you and your people.”

Through the glass walls she saw that Major Clark had arrived in the control room. Over the radio, the Mabirran said, “I’m sorry, Doctor Bartlet. My people cannot concede this.”

Ellie let out a long, steady breath to calm herself down as much as possible, not wanting to know what had caused his hesitation. She supposed that at this point, whether he was just sticking to his guns or assuming she wouldn’t go through with it didn’t matter. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said. “Atlantis out.”

Clark came into the office as the gate shut down. “Ma’am,” he said, nodding to Ellie. He’d heard the whole conversation from within the control room. “Colonel?”

“Gather your squadron in the jumper bay,” John ordered. He picked up the file from Elizabeth’s desk and handed it to the major. “This is your mission plan.”

The man took the file and snapped to attention. “Yes, sir,” he said, saluting.

John saluted in return and dismissed him. A few moments later, Teyla excused herself as well. With them gone, Ellie sank into the chair behind her. “You did well,” John said.

“I want to throw up,” she replied.

“Like I said, you did well.”

Near Caylloma, Peru

They reached another camp an hour after finding Jan Sirenko’s body.

This one seemed more permanent, or as permanent as one could expect when dealing with a group of terrorists and drug lords. Though Elizabeth had little doubt that their operations were high enough in revenue that they could afford cushier surroundings, there was a certain advantage to being in this jungle. There probably weren’t that many people in the world who could have tracked through the Amazon to find this place.

Night was falling as they circled around the camp, looking for a way to infiltrate one of the buildings. All of the structures here were larger than the previous camp, leading Elizabeth to think that the Shining Path probably ran a great deal of its drug trafficking through this place. As Kate had instructed her earlier, she had the gun in her hand.

“Won’t that make me more of a target?” she’d protested. “Isn’t it better to at least have the appearance of a peaceful mission?”

“Elizabeth,” Kate had said, looking at her like she’d lost her mind, “this isn’t the UN. They don’t need a Security Council resolution to kill you.”

After that, Elizabeth had decided to stop arguing the point.

The insects all around were almost deafening, masking the sounds of their footsteps as they entered the clearing. Unfortunately it would also make it more difficult for them to hear someone else, but it was a risk they had to take. They moved slowly, quietly, reaching the door after a few heart-stopping near-misses. The door creaked as Kate opened it, but Elizabeth could just hope that it had sounded like one of the bugs that was screeching in the night.

They stepped into a hallway with a linoleum floor and a sickly incandescent bulb, almost burned out, hanging from wires down the way. Elizabeth had started thinking a few days earlier that she’d never get used to wearing hiking boots, even if she started wearing them all the time, and now they made her feet feel even heavier than before. They certainly didn’t seem to lend themselves to stealth, but she followed Kate’s lead anyway.

Kate paused at a door that was partly open, looking inside. Elizabeth suddenly heard footsteps coming down the hall and smacked Kate’s arm. She’d heard it too, and grabbed Elizabeth’s arm to drag her inside and under a table.

The stench was awful, and Elizabeth held her free hand over her nose. She wondered for a moment if they’d just come upon yet another corpse, but bizarrely, it smelled more like seafood gone bad. They were at least a hundred miles from the Pacific Ocean, so that didn’t make much sense.

After a few moments, the footsteps passed the door, and Kate crawled out from under the table. “What is that smell?” Elizabeth asked, following her.

Kate sniffed the air. “Smells like fish.” Then she looked around a little and said, “Someone gutted a giant squid in here.”

Elizabeth looked at the table they’d been under and saw a pile of guck on top. “Why in the world do you know what that is?”

Kate shrugged. “There was an incident about six months ago where some Peruvian drug dealers tried to smuggle cocaine into the U. S. inside a frozen giant squid.”

“You have a really odd knowledge base.”

“I read a lot.” And they headed back into the hallway.

After ordering the air strike, Ellie had to run to the bathroom and throw up.

She’d had the stomach flu when she was eight, after her sister Liz caught it from a boyfriend who didn’t last long. She’d spent most of the night in the bathroom kneeling in front of the toilet, and her father had spent hours sitting with her, and she was pretty certain that he’d carried her back to bed. Her mother had been performing an emergency operation at the hospital that night, so it had fallen to her father to try to distract her from the waves of nausea and to hold her hair back. Now, she’d never wanted to be with her father so much since coming to Atlantis.

There were other reasons, too. He’d explain to her that she’d done the right thing, that she’d weighed her options appropriately and that she had made her decision with as little partiality as anyone could. And he’d give her a hug, which was what she most wanted now.

Coming back into Elizabeth’s office, she found John still standing there, hands on his hips as he paced. Ellie sat down on the couch, her arms tight to her stomach as she leaned forward. “You going to be sick?” John asked.

“I just was.”

There was a long silence in which John paced back and forth, but then he came over to the sofa and sat down at the other end. “The waiting’s the worst part,” he said.

“What?”

“When you give an order like this,” he clarified. “The waiting’s the worst part.”

That much she was beginning to understand all too well.

An hour later, Major Clark returned with the news that the strike had been successful. Ellie had to cover her mouth with her hand while Clark reported to her and John. The Mabirrans were indeed more advanced than they had first claimed, but not so advanced that they could defend themselves against this. John’s plan was to strike the Mabirrans’ great hall, from which all their government was conducted. They had also hit a water wheel not far away, as Ellie suspected it had something to do with power generation.

Clark had also done more sweeps of the area, both before and after the strike, but there was still no evidence that Marcus and Elizabeth and the others were there.

When Clark left, Ellie was reeling, and John put his hand on her back. “You all right?” he asked.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she shrugged a little. “I’ll be fine.”

“Hey.”

She looked up at him, and before she could say anything, he was hugging her. It was a little awkward at first, but eventually Ellie hugged him back, grateful that he’d let the shield over his own vulnerabilities down long enough for them both to catch their breath. It was just about all they had time for.

Within the hour, she ordered McKay and a Marine team to Mabirra to retrieve data from the planet’s DHD. Back in Atlantis, evening had fallen by the time the lengthy process had finished and McKay returned. They immediately began cross-referencing the addresses with their database, looking for potential enemies in the list, and in the morning, Ellie sent the first teams out to search for Elizabeth and the missing Marines.

Three weeks later, there was still nothing.

Somewhere along the way she started working out of Elizabeth’s office all the time out of convenience. John had looked at her oddly when he realized what she was doing, but he seemed to understand. When he would stop by in the evenings, he never questioned her about it.

He brought her coffee one evening. “You looked tired,” he said, without a greeting as he entered the office.

“I am a little,” Ellie admitted, taking the cup from him. “What brings you here tonight?”

“Lund’s team struck out on P48-9X9,” John explained. “Well, the people there seem interested in trading, but they’ve never seen Elizabeth. Said they’d keep an eye out for her, though.”

“I know. She stopped by here to explain before heading to the armory,” she said. “How are the boys? I haven’t seen them much lately.”

“They’re worried,” he said simply, fidgeting a bit before sitting down in one of the chairs in front of the desk. “You know, I’d never let Elizabeth do this. Never let her admit defeat.”

“Are you?” Ellie asked, alarmed.

“No,” he said. “Just. . . admitting the possibility.” He cleared his throat and leaned forward. “Look, Ellie, you know if. . . the worst happens, I’m not staying here.”

“What do you mean?” Suddenly she had visions of John heading off through the wilderness, seeking revenge for his wife’s death.

“Elizabeth and I have a hard enough time managing our family and our jobs at the same time,” he explained. “I can’t do that alone, and my kids will come first.”

Ellie nodded. “I understand.”

“Good.”

As he sat back, Ellie looked up to see that Laura and Kate were coming over the catwalk, talking to each other. John turned around when he heard them, and they slowed. “Sorry,” Kate said, “are we interrupting?”

“We were just finished,” John replied, getting up. “Ladies.”

He left, squeezing past Laura and Kate to pass through to the control room. “Hi, Ellie,” Laura said. “Kate wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“This trip was your idea,” Kate protested.

“We agreed to, okay?”

“Girls,” Ellie said, silencing them. As much as she loved her friends, she wasn’t really feeling up to their usual antics, not after what John had said. She’d known John a long time, and the idea of him admitting that defeat was the most likely scenario was unsettling, to say the least.

Then she noticed that Laura was holding a white plastic bag. “Laura, what have you got?”

“Care package,” Laura replied, “since you seem to be sleeping here.”

“I’ll have you know, I’ve slept in a bed every night for the last month,” she countered. “What’d you bring?”

Laura set the bag down on the desk, and Kate said, “Ice cream and pudding cups.”

“And cookies,” Laura added.

Ellie could smell them. “Macadamia nut?”

“Yep. And chocolate chip. Mom knows you like those too,” said Kate. She pulled out a clear plastic bag with the cookies inside, the pudding cups, a pint of ice cream, and a spoon. “Cookies and cream.”

Ellie smiled, almost wistfully. It was actually Marcus’ favorite flavor - hers didn’t show up with the Daedalus very often unless someone brought it for her. She took it anyway and tried to really smile for her friends. “Thanks, you two,” she said.

“There’s a movie tonight,” Laura said. “Night of the Lepus.”

Ellie shook her head. Laura had been put in charge of movie night a very long time ago, for reasons no one could quite remember, and once a month she scheduled a movie that no one in his right mind would want to see unless it were to mock the movie. And mock they did. This wasn’t going to be a good night for it, though. “I’ve got a lot of work to get finished, and not a lot of time to do it in,” she said.

“Oh, come on,” Laura said as Ellie pulled the lid off the ice cream. “It’ll be fun!”

“Laura, let’s leave her alone,” Kate said. “She’s had a rough couple weeks.”

“Which is why she should come to movie night.”

“Which is why she’s entitled to some peace and quiet if she wants.”

“Oh, fine,” Laura said. “If you change your mind, Ellie, I’ll have a seat saved for you.”

“I’ll catch up with you, Laura,” Kate said, as the redhead began to leave.

“Okay.”

With Laura gone, Kate turned her full attention back to Ellie. “I keep expecting you to talk to me,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Kate,” Ellie said. “I hate that I’ve been ignoring you and Laura like this-”

“Ellie,” Kate interrupted, “I meant as Doctor Heightmeyer, not as your friend.”

“Oh.” In truth, she hadn’t really thought about it.

Kate sighed. “I usually let people come to me,” she said, “but I’m worried about you. As a psychologist and as your friend. It’s been almost a month since they went missing, Ellie. That’s a long time to have that kind of stress. I just want you to remember that you can come talk to me, as a professional as well as a friend.”

Despite a pang of guilt, Ellie asked, “Kate, how often does Doctor Weir talk to you?”

Kate gave her a slight smile. “Never. I do this to her about once every six months.”

“Well, I appreciate the thought,” Ellie replied. “When this is all over, you and Laura and I are getting very, very drunk.”

“Sounds therapeutic enough for me.”

Ellie opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment, the gate activated. She got to her feet and rushed down to the gate room as a team walked through. It was Captain Doyle’s team. “Captain,” she said, “anything?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied in his distinctive drawl. “We picked up Doctor Weir’s transponder frequency.”

“Oh, thank God,” Ellie said, and then she smiled. “Head to the conference room for debriefing. Colonel Sheppard and I will join you.”

Continued in Part III.