SG-1/SGA: There's No Such Thing as Daniel Jackson
This is my entry for the anotheratlantis challenge. I'm not late (THIS TIME), I swear. sheafrotherdon was nice enough to give me an extension after I whined to her about the state of my story. You can read my prompt here, or wait until you finish the story. It's spoilerly, though, as much as one can be spoiled for a fanfic.
This story involves both the SGA and the SG-1 casts, and a lot of stuff from SG-1 seasons six and seven. But I'm pretty sure you can read the story without knowing that much about SG-1. seperis didn't have a problem with it, at any rate.
There's No Such Thing as Daniel Jackson [Website version]
Summary: Six months after a devastating attack against Earth, Sheppard gets a promotion and a reassignment to Russia, where he encounters evil aliens, Rodney McKay, SG-1, a possible plot against him -- and a series of unexplained visions. Alternate Universe. McKay/Sheppard.
Spoilers: SG-1 5x21 Meridian, 6x01/02 Redemption, 6x21 Prophecy, 6x22 Full Circle, 7x01 Fallen, 7x21/22 Lost City, 8x19/20 Moebius, 9x01 Avalon; SGA 1x01/02 Rising, 1x08 Home, and 3x09 Phantoms.
Warnings: Contains Daniel Jackson. Kidding, kidding. This fic does not have anything in it that requires a warning.
*
Art by ciderpress.
December 2002
The first time John Sheppard ever laid eyes on a stargate, all he could say was, "Holy crap."
It was also his first day as a major, and the two were not all that unrelated. John had heard of the stargate plenty of times -- everyone had after Anubis, some crazy alien from outer space who really hated Earth, had blown up the US's gate and, by proxy, most of North America, including John's parents' home in LA -- but it was different seeing it in person. It was especially different when a guy only had a vague idea of what the hell a stargate was.
But John didn't begin his day in a newly-constructed underground facility in Siberia. He started it by dreaming of a city with high towers, surrounded by a wide, endless ocean. He was standing on some kind of balcony, and he could feel the breeze on his face and smell salt in the air.
Suddenly, he was in a white, windowless room. Another guy was there, dressed in a white sweater and jeans.
"Hello, John," said the guy with a squinty smile.
"This is the weirdest sex dream I've ever had," John said. He shrugged. "Oh well."
He was unbuckling his belt when the guy said, looking startled, "No! God, no. That's-- that's not why I'm here."
"So we're not having sex," John said disappointingly.
"No," said the man, drawing out the word. "I'm here to tell you something very, very important: you need to remember 'Atlantis.' That's it, just 'Atlantis.'"
John scrunched up his face. "Sure, okay, Atlantis. Got it." He glanced around the room, but there really wasn't much to see. "You sure this isn't a sex dream? You look like a guy I met once in Bermuda."
When John woke up, and pretty abruptly at that, he was the same place he'd been for the last six months: Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Someone was shaking him and saying his name. They sounded pissed. "Shep, I'm not telling you again, wake up!"
Groaning, John mumbled, "It's too early to have a snowball fight." Without opening his eyes, he pulled the covers over his head and rolled over.
He was warm and content for all of three seconds before Mitch yanked the blankets down over his feet, exposing him to the freezing air. "You need to get up right now, you lazy fucker," Mitch said. "The Colonel wants to see you in his office."
John sat up grudgingly. "What time is it?" he asked, rubbing his face.
"Almost ten. You didn't answer your door," Mitch explained when John gave him a curious look.
When John stood, fumbling for the pants he'd draped over his desk chair, Mitch glanced at his chest and looked away, face blank. It took John a second to remember he was wearing one of Holland's t-shirts. He'd hastily pulled it on the night before, praying on the jog back to his place that no one saw him and wondered just why he was sneaking out of Captain Holland's quarters at three in the morning. Again. Hopefully, that had nothing to do with why the Colonel wanted to see him.
"Why does he want to see me?" John asked. He slid his winter parka on over the t-shirt and shoved his bare feet into his boots. "If this is about the thing with the goat, I wasn't even there. Burns gave me his share because he's a vegetarian."
Mitch shrugged, scowling a little. John figured he was still irritated he hadn't gotten any of the goat meat. "Dunno. The Colonel saw me coming out the mess and told me to find you. It sounded urgent."
The ten minute walk from John's quarters to Colonel Newcombe's office was just this side of unbearably cold. The bottom of John's pants were soaked by the time he managed to find a hardened path, created by people moving back and forth over the same patch of snow for six months, leading to the office. Shivering, John shoved his hands into the pockets of his parka. Some of the guys who'd been on tour longer had told John the winters before the attack were plenty cold, but they were much worse now. It had been months since John had seen sunlight.
Colonel Newcombe was waiting behind his desk. The blast of heat that hit John in the face as soon as he entered the room reminded him just how cold it really was out there. "Sir," John greeted, brushing the snow off his shoulders with one bare, ice-cold hand. Damn nuclear winters. Maybe next time they'd get attacked by aliens with a heat ray.
"Captain Sheppard, you've been given new orders," Newcombe said, getting straight to the point.
John wondered why Newcombe was telling him this. "We have, sir?" he asked.
"No, you have."
Newcombe handed John a stack of papers. The words John Sheppard, report to the US-Russian Stargate Command Facility, and Siberia jumped out at him. And also Военно-воздушные cилы России, but he had no idea what that said. It was co-signed the US Chief of Staff of the Air Force and the Russian VVS Commander. John's stomach dropped.
"Am I being punished, sir?" he asked worriedly. He tried to think of what he'd done lately to piss off his CO. Okay, so he didn't always follow orders to the letter, and he didn't tuck in his shirt even though they always yelled at him for it, and maybe he'd missed a few briefings because he was busy playing Xbox, but he was pretty sure that wasn't enough to ground him. Oh, and there was that whole gay affair thing, but that was totally a secret. He zipped up his parka a little higher though, just in case.
Newcombe rolled his eyes. "It's a promotion, Captain. Or should I say 'Major'?"
Major. Major John S. Sheppard. Take that, Dad, he thought triumphantly. Then he remembered his dad was dead, and he felt kind of bad.
"Why me?" he asked.
"I guess they thought it was time you were promoted."
That left John feeling even more confused. He glanced back at the papers in his hands. "You're sure this was meant for me, sir?"
"Maybe they saw your Xbox scores," Newcombe said dryly.
"But... but what about the war?" John asked. He'd liked flying, even while being shot at; flying was the only thing in life he'd ever felt passionate about. But no one on the base had flown for months, and getting sent to Russia seriously lowered any chances John had of flying again.
Newcombe sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Son, with the end of the world and all, I don't think the war against terrorism is all that important anymore. It's been months since I've received orders. Besides, the Taliban have probably frozen to death by now."
"But--"
"You've been given an order, Major," Newcombe snapped.
John grimaced. "When do I leave?"
The Colonel glanced at his watch. "In about fifteen minutes."
"What?" John asked.
He clapped John on the shoulder. "Merry Christmas, Major."
*
The elevator ride to the centre of the Earth was long, cold, and unnervingly quiet. They were playing Britney Spears over the speakers.
After a flight that had felt longer than his entire Afghanistan tour, John had been dropped off, alone, on a landing strip in the middle of a snow-covered field. The only signs of life in the area were a locked private hanger and a one-story building that sort of resembled a park restroom. The air was cold enough to freeze the inside of his nose and mouth, and his eyes stung.
"This is bad," John said to himself, after he'd waited five minutes and no one had come to meet him. The plane was long gone by then.
After ten minutes, he thought, I'm fine. This is great. I'm totally fine. So cold he was shaking, he pulled his hood down over his forehead and wondered how long he should wait before he tried to build an igloo, and whether or not he had the guts to kill a Siberian wolf with nothing but his trusty Swiss Army knife. Finally, just when John began feeling antsy, the thick metal door to the restroom slammed open. A man in a fuzzy, fur-lined hat poked his head out. "Major John Sheppard?" he asked in a heavily-accented voice.
"That's me," John replied with relief.
"This way to the Stargate Command, please."
He'd given his coat, gloves, and scarf to the man and was escorted, none-too-gently, into an enormous elevator. By now, he'd been inside for a good ten minutes, and he wasn't much warmer than he'd been on the outside; John's bare fingers felt stiff and frozen, and the skin on his face -- the only part of him that had been exposed to the Siberian air -- burned. He was pretty sure his toes were numb, even through three layers of wool socks. He wondered if Russia was any colder now than it had been before the nuclear winter.
When the elevator reached level eight, it paused long enough to let on two burly guys with identical sour expressions. They flanked John on either side without saying a word. John wondered if all the guys at the SGC were this huge; he'd been pretty sure this place was run by the Air Force, not the Marine Corps, but now he wasn't too sure.
"Hey there," John said.
The man on John's right quietly reached over and pressed the button for the twenty-fourth floor.
"It's my first day," John said, smiling at one, and then the other. He had to lean back and up to see them. Neither of them reacted. "Don't speak English, huh? Are you Russian? Ru-skee?"
The time, the one on his left glanced down at John. The look on his face was anything but inviting.
"I get it," John said, turning to stare at the door. "Playing it cool, huh?"
At level fifteen, ten floors above where John was supposed to get off, the elevator stopped again. A guy wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and BDU pants stepped on. He had a book in one hand and a peeled banana in the other, and he started humming along to the music, which had rolled over from Britney Spears to something John vaguely recognized.
"Words can't keep me do-- Oh, hey, you must be the new guy." The man tucked his book under one arm and held out his free hand. "Jonas Quinn, SG-1."
John had no idea what an SG-1 one was, but he shook Jonas's hand anyway, glad someone was being friendly towards him. "Major John Sheppard." He couldn't help but puff out his chest a little when he said it. "What gave me away?"
"The only people here who wear a dress uniform are the liaisons and General Landry," Jonas replied, gesturing to John's chest with his banana.
"Are there other liaisons?" John asked. He hadn't put much thought into what exactly it was he was doing here. He hadn't really had time, in between the promotion and the flying across the entire continent of Asia and the waiting in the snow for someone to get him. Maybe they'd left him outside on purpose. Maybe he was just one more interloping officer the SGC had to deal with, butting into their business and telling his bosses every move they were making. They probably hated him for it. He kind of hated himself, just thinking about it. At least in Afghanistan everyone had left him alone.
"Just the Russian liaison, Major Damurchiev," said Jonas. "The Americans haven't had one since Anubis attacked." He glanced away, looking sad. "Poor Major Davis. He never saw it coming."
As John contemplated what exactly it was that had happened to Major Davis, klaxons went off. He immediately tensed. He'd thought the one perk of being assigned a desk job was not worrying about being attacked without warning. "Unscheduled offworld activation," said a voice over the intercom.
"Uh-oh," Jonas muttered.
"What's going on?" John asked. "Did he just say 'offworld'? Is it Anubis?"
Jonas handed his book and banana to John and hit the number twenty-eight on the elevator keypad, followed by a red button that said 'override.' The two Russian guys started rapidly talking to each other. "Everything's fine, yes, and probably," Jonas said, glancing back over his shoulder with a grin.
"Great, attacked by aliens on my first day," John muttered.
Floor twenty-eight was a long corridor leading to a blast door and a smaller, person-sized door. John followed Jonas through the latter and up a set of stairs into some kind of control room, where the atmosphere was thick with tension. Among the people there was a guy about John's age with a receding hairline yelling at a hot blonde in fatigues, who kept trying to direct a bunch of people on computers. Both of them looked furious. One of the techs kept repeating, calmly, "Gate will not deactivate," and a shorter man in full uniform paced between the computers and the arguing couple. While John stood there goggling, a man with greying hair and a big dude with a gold thing on his forehead pushed past him to dash out the door. It was a lot more chaotic than anything John had ever imagined happening at an intergalactic command base. Everyone on Star Trek was always really calm.
That was when John noticed it: the huge, round stone standing behind the glass. The middle of it was lit up, and there were a bunch of officers pointing guns at it. It was like a beautiful, terrible alien creature.
"Holy crap," he said without thinking.
It seemed like the entire room stopped to look at him.
"Uh, hi," he said, raising his hand for a wave.
All at once, everyone in the room went back to what they were doing. The man with the receding hairline, however, gave John a look of disgust and turned back to the female officer. Belatedly, John noticed he was still holding onto Jonas's banana. This was officially the worst first impression ever.
"Well, that could've gone better," John said to Jonas.
"Most of them are really nice people," Jonas said. "It took them a while to warm up to me too. Just be glad you're not replacing someone they loved and admired. Duck."
John, intrigued, started to ask, "You replaced a guy named Duck?" when Jonas grabbed his arm and pulled him down -- just as something whizzed over his head; whatever it was had gone through the bullet-proof glass and into a computer, right where John's chest had been. John could hear gunfire on the other side of the glass, and when he stood back up, a bunch of armour-plated men -- women? aliens? -- were running through the blue watery circle and being shot down by the airmen. The two guys who had passed John earlier were taking down most of them. It would've been a lot cooler if ten aliens weren't running through the circle every time one was shot down by the SGC's people.
"That's it!" he heard the blonde woman exclaim. He tore his eyes away from the scene below in time to see her hurry over to the computers; one of the techs offered her his seat, and she started typing away.
Seconds later, the giant stone circle appeared to... shut down, or turn off, maybe, just as the last alien had a bullet put through its head.
"Unbelievable," said the balding man, drawing the word out. There were a few, "Good job, Major Carter"s and, "I knew you could do it"s, but instead of congratulating her like the others, the guy pushed her aside to check what she had done, scowling. What a jerk, John thought, just as the older man in uniform stepped forward to get John's attention.
"Major Sheppard," he greeted John, his thick Southern accent polite despite the smirk on his face. John had a feeling this was the General Landry Jonas had mentioned in the elevator. It was more than the uniform; he had that kind of assholish air of authority John was used to from his commanding officers. "How do you like our facility so far?"
John was covered in glass shards, his dress uniform was singed where he'd brushed against the computer that had shattered when a spear went through it, and he had no idea what was going on. Yeah, he was having a blast. "Does this kind of thing happen to you guys often, sir?" he asked.
"A little too often, if you ask me," said a new voice. It was the grey-haired officer who'd blown the shit out of those aliens, looking like he wasn't even breaking a sweat. He must've come back in when John hadn't been paying attention.
"Indeed," said the tattooed guy behind him.
General Landry gestured towards them. "This is Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c." John waited for a last name, but Landry didn't offer one. "Major Carter is over there. And I see you've already met Jonas Quinn." Landry nodded at Jonas, who was picking his squished banana up off the floor. John must've dropped it when he'd been knocked over. "SG-1, this is Major Sheppard."
"Sorry about your banana, buddy," John said to a disappointed-looking Jonas.
"This is Sheppard? Hmm," O'Neill said. He critically dragged his eyes from the tips of John's boots to the top of his head. But then he slapped John on the back, surprising him. John squirmed awkwardly at the unexpected show of affection. "Looking forward to getting out there?" O'Neill asked.
Confused, John asked, "Out-- out where?"
"We'll get your team set up in the morning, Major," said Landry.
"My team," John repeatedly blankly. "But I thought I was a liaison. Shouldn't I be liais... ing?"
"I have direct orders to put you in the field, son," Landry said gravely.
"You want me to go through that?" John asked. He gaped at the huge, alien ring.
He was pretty sure his orders hadn't said anything about going through stargates or fighting bad guys in space; that was where everyone had said Anubis was, in space, with a huge fleet of ships ready to attack at any moment, but John had had problems believing that even after the stargate had exploded. All he wanted to do was fly planes. John didn't know what any of this stargate stuff had to do with him -- or more importantly, why the Air Force had chosen him, of all people. Maybe Newcombe was right and the they had seen his Xbox scores. This was what he got for playing so much Jedi Starfighter.
But then again, being able to explore other worlds -- that was a big deal. He already knew there were aliens, but there could be things out there he had never even imagined. He could be the real life Captain Kirk, or John Sheridan, or Phillip J. Fry. He could boldly go where no man had gone before.
"Cool," John said.
*
The next few hours were filled with paperwork. On top of the normal stuff, John was instructed to sign a series of confidentiality agreements. It seemed awfully redundant; the whole world knew about the SGC and the stargate by now. It was kind of hard to miss, what with North America being destroyed and all. Six months ago, John had crowded around the tv with the rest of the people on base at Bagram, trying to make sense of what the BBC reporter had been saying: "The US was in possession of a device called a 'stargate,' which allows people to travel to other planets via a 'shortcut' through outer space. It was this device the alien warlord Anubis detonated. Many of the personnel of this 'Stargate Command' were able to escape the destruction -- but unfortunately, most of the people of Canada, the United States, and Mexico were not so lucky." Those had been some rough days.
He also had to sign a document about what was to be done if he died in battle (against aliens! he thought wildly). It had one part for if they had a body, and one part for if they didn't. That one made him uneasy. He'd known what he was signing up for when he'd entered the Air Force; filling in forms for what to do if his body was "misplaced offworld" or "lost in an incident involving alien or experimental technology" was an entirely new experience. One that he wasn't sure how he felt about.
There was one thing definitely bothering him, however. "Sir, you said you were given orders to put me on a team?" he asked, signing his name on the final paper.
Landry simply smiled and collected the documents into a folder marked SHEPPARD, JOHN SEAMUS. "Walter will help you with whatever you need, Major," he said, ignoring John's question. "You can leave your jacket here; we have plenty of extras."
He left John alone with a beaming Sergeant Harriman. "If you'll let me give you the tour, sir?" Harriman said, clutching his clipboard to his chest.
Not seeing much of a choice, John stood and draped his ruined uniform jacket over the back of the chair. A second later he popped open the first two buttons of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. "Where to first, Airman?"
"Oh, no, sir, we're not going anywhere," said Harriman, before launching into a lengthy description of the entire facility. "You can go anywhere but levels six and twenty-three. You need special clearance for those. The mess is located on level ten; personal quarters are on levels eleven through fifteen..." He went through the entire base like that, although there were some things John didn't understand -- what the hell a Kelnorim room was for, for instance, or why the infirmary needed two whole floors. There were twenty-eight floors, total, stretching miles and miles underground, with laboratories, living quarters, offices, power generators, and training facilities. From what it sounded like, the SGC was bigger than the nearest town, Alzamay.
When he was done, Harriman looked at his watch and said, "You have twelve hours until your briefing with General Landry. What would you like to do?"
Normally, when John landed on a new base he either went directly to his own quarters or to the hangers to check out the aircraft. He wasn't really a social guy. At the SGC, he only had two real options: either going to his room and hiding from the big, scary aliens, or staring at the stargate some more. He had to admit, both had their appeal.
As if sensing his indecisiveness, Harriman said, "You could go get something to eat at the mess. Or you could go to the fifteenth floor lounge and meet some of the other officers. Or," he suggested brightly, "you can go to bed."
John checked his watch. It was five PM Irkutsk Time (two back at Bagram; two in the morning, the day before, in Pacific Time). "How about I don't. What do you guys do for fun around here?" he asked, heading for the elevators without any real place in mind. He'd made up his mind; he had nothing to do until tomorrow, and he was in a base full of alien things. Maybe there were even aliens walking among them. There was no way he was going to go sit in his room for the rest of the night.
Harriman trotted after him. "Fun, sir?" he squeaked.
John pressed the 'up' button. "You know, that thing you do in your off time?"
"We don't really get off time, sir," Harriman explained. The elevator arrived, and he followed John inside. But before John could touch anything, Harriman hit the key for level twelve. "Some of the guys and I play Magic: The Gathering between shifts sometimes," he said as they started moving.
"No thanks, I gave that up," John said.
The elevator stopped on level eighteen. Once again, Jonas stepped on. This time he was wearing camo pants and a black t-shirt. He was also carrying a green apple. John wondered where he was getting all this fruit from. Last he'd heard, Earth was in short supply.
"Hey there," Jonas said with a wide, sparkling grin.
John couldn't help but grin back. "Hey."
"Mr Quinn," Harriman said, standing tall, "if you don't mind--"
"You want to meet some people?" Jonas asked John slyly, interrupting Harriman.
John left the stammering sergeant to follow Jonas back down, this time to level nineteen, a long, cold hall of locked doors with strange sounds coming from behind them. "These are the labs," Jonas explained, as they passed a door with blue smoke billowing out from under it. The corridor didn't look all that different from the other ones John had seen, but it felt different; there was a definite air of cautiousness. These labs were serious business.
"I remember what it was like being the new guy," Jonas said as they turned a corner. He tossed his apple from hand to hand. "Unfamiliar people, unfamiliar place... they all call you 'hey you'... you miss those little cakes your mom used to make..."
"Mostly I miss being warm," John said truthfully. He hated being pasty. Belatedly, he realized he should probably have said the thing he missed the most were his parents.
"I miss Colorado," Jonas said wistfully. "One of the women anchors on the local news channel was very, uh, impressive."
They stopped outside one of the doors, behind which John could hear arguing. "Who exactly am I meeting?" he asked.
Jonas made a grand gesture of opening the door. "You, my friend, are about to meet the SGC's best and brightest."
Inside the room were at least twenty people. Some were dressed in white lab coats; some were arguing over various equations scribbled onto a large white board; others were typing rapidly onto clunky laptop computers. It was some kind of meeting room, although it looked more like the scientists were going to beat each other senseless rather than share ideas.
The people who took notice of John and Jonas fell quiet. Others started following their lead, until John had a silent room staring at him. He was experiencing a keen sense of deja vu.
"This is Major Sheppard," Jonas said cheerfully, not looking or sounding uncomfortable at all. "He's been outside." He put his free hand on John's shoulder and pushed him forward.
"Oooh," said one of the scientists, and John found himself crowded by a bunch of eager brainiacs.
"What's it like up there, on the surface?" someone asked.
"Cold," John replied.
"I knew I should've bought that cottage in Aruba," mumbled a crazy-looking guy with glasses.
John looked around at everyone's pale skin and dark under-eye circles. They all had them except for Jonas, who was as tanned and polished as a movie star; the perks of being on SG-1, John guessed. "You don't go outside? Most of Moscow and St Petersburg are still standing. You could take a week off."
"You're assuming," came a sneering voice, "that we'd want to go up into that frozen wasteland."
Several of the scientists ducked out of the way of the sneering guy's wrath, clearing a path between him and John. It was the same man from the Embarkation Room, the balding one who had looked at John like he was something he'd stepped on. This time he was wearing a green t-shirt that said 'My Other Ride Is Your Mom' and khakis. Up close he was taller than John had thought, almost John's height, with wide shoulders and an angry, crooked mouth. He looked like the kind of guy who'd been on one too many caffeine benders.
"So you would rather be stuck down here for the rest of your life?" John asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
"No," the guy said, sounding like John has just asked him the stupidest question he'd ever heard. "Just until the SGC can find us a safe place to move to. I'm not freezing my nuts off trying to see the last vestiges of human civilization." Jonas cleared his throat, and the man rolled his eyes. "Fine, Tau'ri civilization, are you happy?"
"You want to leave Earth?" John asked. It hadn't occurred to him that that was what people might be using the stargate for.
"Hello, nuclear winter, North America blown to bits, farmlands devastated, aliens bent on our destruction -- haven't you been paying attention?"
"Come on, it's not that bad," John said defensively.
The cranky guy gave him a look. "Kevin Costner is the president of Kevin Costner Presents the People's Republic of South Florida."
"It could be worse," John pointed out. "He could be wearing a postal worker's uniform. Besides, where would you go?"
"Anywhere not populated by Goa'uld, Replicators, or, I don't know, disgusting, goopy aliens who eat human brains."
John thought he understood most of that sentence, but he glanced over at Jonas for support, who was listening to all of this intensely. "Goa'uld?"
A hush fell over the lab. "You don't know what the Goa'uld are?" one of the scientists asked, her eyes wide.
They were all looking at him like he was nuts. Cranky Scientist Guy had a tight, pinched expression on his face, like he wasn't sure whether or not he believed him. John didn't care what he thought right now, but he hated being left in the dark. "Hey, I just got here," he replied, putting his hands on his hips. "One minute I'm in Afghanistan running drills, the next I'm being flown up here to do some liaising."
Someone muttered, "Poor Major Davis." John really had to get the story on that.
"The Goa'uld," Cranky Guy began, drawing himself up straight, "are a race of parasitic aliens who rule entire star systems as gods. They pilfer technology from older, more advanced races, and use it to conquer planets and enslave the people. We, by which I mean the SG teams and myself, from a classified, secret location--" A scientist in the back coughed, and John spotted at least two of them rolling their eyes. "--have been fighting them for years."
"So they're aliens with super powers," John deducted, beginning to realize what exactly he'd gotten himself into.
"And Anubis is one of them," said Jonas.
John looked around the lab, at the cheap, bulky computers sitting in the underground bunker that looked straight out of one of those PSAs from the 60s, and thought about all the science fictions shows he'd loved, and how the people of Earth still used fossil fuels and called technical support whenever their printers ran out of ink.
"How advanced are we talking about?" he asked.
The geek squad looked shifty. Jonas picked at the skin of his apple.
"I think I need to sit down," John said.
He wasn't sure whether it was better to know what was out there or to live in ignorance. It sounded like the SGC had been fighting these Goa'uld for years while John had been playing video games and flying Apaches. His life would've been completely different had he known what was going on. Probably. Even worse, the Air Force wanted him to go out there and fight them -- fight this alien race that had essentially destroyed the planet Earth. John was a pretty optimistic guy, but the odds were really not stacked in his favour here. He'd been expecting bad guys with a level of technology along the lines of their own, when in reality Earth was getting its ass kicked.
By the time he got over the initial shock, it was time for his meeting with Landry to discuss the formation of his team. Being Air Force, John wasn't a stranger to new places, but he hadn't slept much the night before; every creak and ping had jolted him awake, reminding him he was miles under the surface. The room they'd assigned him was cold and dark, with a video camera in the corner -- which meant John was never, ever jerking off again -- and the kind of decorations he was used to seeing in cheap motels. He'd stayed awake most of the night while his stomach churned as he thought about alien invasions.
Morning came all too soon, and John walked into the briefing room feeling completely unprepared. He figured everything was fine as long as he stayed cool, despite the nauseating pit in his stomach that had been there since yesterday. It worked up until the moment he saw SG-1 sitting alongside General Landry, already deep in conversation. They fell quiet when he got close enough to be spotted.
John acknowledged them with a nod. "General. Sirs." He didn't know what to call the others. "You guys."
Along with SG-1 and General Landry, there were two people he didn't recognize at the table, sitting across from each other: a terrified-looking kid with huge eyes, and a handsome guy around John's age. Everyone was wearing the black t-shirt, green camo pants ensemble John had found waiting for him when he'd opened his door several hours ago. John took the seat between General Landry and the guy about his age. At the other end of the table, Jonas flashed him a grin, but the rest of SG-1 didn't acknowledge him.
Landry greeted him with, "You're looking a little pale, Major."
Bitterly, John wondered how relaxed Landry had looked when he'd found out there were evil aliens bent on enslaving mankind. "Just so we're clear, sir," John asked, "you want me to go through the stargate and fight Goa'uld on other planets?"
"That sounds about it," Landry replied with a smile.
John licked his lips nervously. "Do I have any choice in this?"
The smile stayed on Landry's face, but it grew cold. "Not really."
"Don't worry, you'll love it," said O'Neill, but John couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or sincere.
"Can I pick my own team?" John asked.
"No," said Landry.
"Can Jonas be on my team?" John asked.
"Yes," said Colonel O'Neill.
Landry and Major Carter both glared in O'Neill's direction. "No, Major Sheppard, I'm afraid Mr Quinn is already on a team," Landry said. "I've already decided on a team for you. In fact, we're waiting for Doctor McKay right--"
He was cut off when an all-too familiar voice drifted into the room, from the direction of the stairwell: "What's this meeting about, exactly? I cannot begin to describe how much work I have to do -- work that, if you'll remember, you assigned me so I can-- oh, hello, Major Carter." He sent her a smarmy smirk before locking eyes with John, who was trying really hard not to smack himself in the forehead.
Doctor McKay, it turned out, was Cranky Scientist Guy.
"Nice of you to join us, Doctor," Landry said dryly.
"What's this about?" McKay demanded. He pointed at John. "Why is Captain Newbie here?"
"Major Newbie," John corrected. He glanced over at Landry. "Sir, no offence, but are you serious? I can't have this guy on my team."
"I'll have you know, I'm extremely competent in high-stress situations. And 'team'? What team?" McKay looked John up and down and made a face, like he didn't like what he saw. "I thought he was a liaison," he said accusingly to Landry.
"You know what they say about assumptions, McKay," O'Neill said breezily. Major Carter ducked her head, smirking, and the kid looked back and forth between John and SG-1 like he couldn't believe where he was.
Grumbling, McKay took the seat beside the young officer -- putting him directly across from John. "What team?" McKay asked again, while John avoided eye contact.
"The team I'm putting you on," Landry replied. He folded his hands and set them on the table. "Major Sheppard, let me introduce you to Doctor Rodney McKay, Second Lieutenant Aiden Ford, and Captain Cameron Mitchell. The four of you are about to make up our newest gate team, SG-13."
"But--" John and McKay began simultaneously.
"Major, Doctor, I know neither of you have gate experience," Landry continued, raising his voice. "However, both Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Ford do. I'm sure they'll be happy to teach you everything you need to know about interplanetary travel."
The kid -- Ford, John guessed -- swallowed thickly. Mitchell puffed up like Landry had said he was the best officer on base. McKay stared at both of them with obvious disdain.
Knowing there were two people on his team who had done this before made John feel a little better. He started to mention as much when McKay stabbed a finger in Carter's direction and shouted, "You! I knew you were up to something. All those compliments you were giving me on my ability to stay alive despite my numerous enemies -- you were just waiting to put me on one of your death teams!"
"I wasn't complimenting you," Carter said to McKay, sounding agitated. "I was calling you a cockroach."
"Your mouth says 'cockroach,' but your eyes say 'sexy man beast,'" said McKay smugly.
"'Death team,' that doesn't sound like fun," John said, trying to bring the conversation back around to the part he cared about.
"Only one guy's ever died on this team," said Jonas, in a light, teasing tone. Carter blanched, and Teal'c and O'Neill looked uncomfortable. Realizing his mistake, Jonas's eyes went wide. "Oh. Ah. Is it too soon?"
Landry raised a hand to his temple. "Doctor McKay, no one's trying to kill you. Mr Quinn, yes, it's too soon to make that joke. And, Major Carter, as much as your hate for Doctor McKay is justified--"
"Hey!" McKay said.
"--can you save those comments for outside the briefing room?"
"Yes, sir," Carter said sheepishly, staring down at the table.
Standing abruptly, Landry said, "Well, I'm going to give y'all a few minutes to get to know each other while I take some Aspirin. Suddenly I have a headache."
He went into his office but left the door open. SG-1 immediately launched a conversation between themselves. Or continued one, from the sound of it. "I don't care how much you pay me, sir, I'm not helping you cheat at a crossword puzzle," Carter was saying, and O'Neill whined, "Come on, Carter."
The first person to break the ice on John's side of the table was McKay, who eyed the top of John's head and sneered, "Nice hair, Sonic the Hedgehog."
John narrowed his eyes. "Nice bald spot, Captain Picard."
Mitchell hastily reached across the table and stuck his hand out at John. "Captain Cameron Mitchell," he announced, cutting off McKay's angry sputtering. He had a drawling Southern accent, but not the same accent as Landry's. "General Landry wants me to keep an eye on you."
From the direction of Landry's office came a low grumbling sound. John had a feeling Mitchell wasn't supposed to tell him that. He was glad Mitchell had, though; it was better to get these things out in the open. John didn't particularly like surprises.
"John Sheppard," he said with a handshake.
"I really wanted to be on SG-1," Mitchell added loudly, throwing a glance in SG-1's direction. At the far end of the table, O'Neill rolled his eyes. "I applied, but they turned me down. I guess this'll have to do for now."
"I think this is awesome, if you don't mind me saying so, sir," Ford cut in. He gave John a big, toothy smile, but he was still looking nervous. "I was on SG-8, but my team leader, Colonel Betton, didn't make it off the Mountain when Anubis attacked. I'm the last one from my team to be reassigned."
"How old are you?" McKay demanded. John was wondering the same thing, but he still didn't like McKay's tone. He couldn't believe this creep was going to be on his team.
"Twenty-two. I was recruited straight out of TBS."
The kid was a Marine. John raised his brows in surprise, and even McKay looked slightly taken aback.
"So I'm on a team with a snitch, a guy who just saw his first stargate, oh, yesterday, and a twenty-two year-old who can kill me with his pinkie," McKay said, ticking the items off with his fingers. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Oh, this is fucking great. Why don't I just shoot myself in the head now and get it over with?"
"Yeah, why don't you?" Mitchell muttered under his breath.
"Wait a minute," John protested, lightly hitting a fist on the table to get their attention. "Where's this negativity coming from? We haven't even had our first mission yet. I don't see why we can't be the first team to kill some of these Goa'uld whatchamicallits."
"SG-1 has killed sixteen," Mitchell pointed out.
"Well, hey, that means we have a chance," John said enthusiastically. He beamed at his new teammates, at Ford, who was wincing, at Mitchell, who had a frown on his face, and at McKay, whose contemptuous expression still had not changed.
That was when Landry returned to the meeting. Taking his seat at the head of the table, he said, "I hope everyone has had a chance to talk. Now, Major Sheppard, let's discuss the dangers you're going to face on this mission," and John felt his grin fade.
*
SG-13's first mission was to escort a group of diplomats, ambassadors, and world-building UN types to a secure location on another planet. John had soon discovered the reason SG-1 had been at the briefing was because they had some experience with the people who currently inhabited the world; apparently the natives (aliens!) were happy and peaceful and not at all dangerous, according to Jonas and Major Carter, something which John was looking forward to (Mitchell had been disappointed). All his team had to do was make sure their group got to the pre-determined location without any scary bad guys getting them. As far as first missions went, it sounded like a walk in the park.
John could barely hold down his jittery excitement as he dressed in his gear and mozied over to the Embarkation Room. McKay was already there when he arrived, staring at the stargate with a look of dread on his face. His tac vest and camo gear looked out of place, and the pristine black cap on his head was obviously brand new. When he noticed John he looked like he wasn't sure if he was relieved or worried.
"Nervous?" John asked.
McKay's mouth flattened into an even thinner line. "No, of course not. Just because I'm a scientist and shouldn't be going on an away mission in the first place doesn't mean I'm nervous." He shuffled his feet. "Are you?"
John gazed up at the stone ring that was about to send him via an artificial wormhole halfway across the galaxy. "Nah," he said.
"How nice it must be, being you," McKay said with a glare.
John smirked. He was about to reply when the doors opened, and in walked General Landry, Mitchell, Ford, and five people John didn't know. "Major Sheppard will personally ensure you reach your destination safely," Landry was saying, indicating John.
All of them looked petrified, with the exception of a tall, thin woman with wavy hair, who was gazing at the gate, clearly awed by what she was seeing. John definitely understood how she felt. He smiled at her, and she smiled back shakily.
Even though he had already seen the stargate in action, when it was activated, his breath caught. He stared at the rippling wormhole a long time before he realized the other people in the room were looking at him expectantly. Landry raised his eyebrows and cocked his head at the gate, and John grimaced.
"Right," he said, trying to smile, "let's get this show on the road."
He walked up the platform, Ford at his heels. Up close, the wormhole looked solid, not at all like something he could pass through. It was terrifying.
"Does it hurt?" John asked quietly. Ford had been through the gate plenty of times; it couldn't have been that bad if people did it every day.
"Like hell, sir," Ford said, face grim, bursting John's bubble.
"You're sure you want to do this?" he heard McKay ask, but when he turned McKay was talking to Landry, arms crossed over his chest. He didn't look happy.
John swallowed thickly and closed his eyes, taking a step forward. He felt the rest of his body tugged through the event horizon, and a disorienting moment later, a cool breeze ruffled his hair. When he opened his eyes, the dirt path and rolling hills in front of him told him he was definitely not at the SGC anymore.
He was still gaping when the rest of his team and the diplomats came through. McKay was the last person to arrive, stumbling out of the gate like he'd been pushed from the other side.
"--Dim-witted cretin!" McKay was shouting. He stopped and looked around, blinking rapidly. "Huh."
John's first alien planet was disappointingly similar to Earth, from the clear blue skies to the boreal trees. But still, there he was, on another planet light-years away from the one he'd been standing on just minutes before. The future was awesome. Already, he knew the stargate was going to be his favourite new way to travel. He heard a low murmur coming from the diplomats; out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ford and Mitchell exchange grins.
Ford walked up beside John. "The beta site's on the other end of this path, sir."
John sucked in a deep breath, trying to quell the butterflies in his stomach. He nodded. "Right," he said. "This way, folks."
The trail followed the natural shape of the terrain, which meant they zigged and zagged through the woods for a good while. The sun on his face felt great; John hadn't been in weather this nice for nearly a year. At one point, they passed a large, metal box that reminded John of electrical boxes people had on their lawns, except he couldn't figure out what it was doing in between two trees. McKay eyed it as well, narrowing his eyes, but he didn't try to stop and look at it.
Not long after, John heard a series of strange, unfamiliar sounds in the distance. He signalled for his team to halt.
"Goa'uld staff weapons," Mitchell said in alarm. He and Ford raised their P-90s, looking in every direction.
"I thought there was a shield around the gate and compound," John said.
McKay blanched. "The shield must be down. That was probably the thing we passed earlier." He swung his backpack around to his chest and rummaged inside before pulling out a tool kit. "I can fix it."
"You can?" John asked worriedly. McKay had to be pretty smart to work at the SGC, but this was alien technology they were talking about here. "Are you sure?"
McKay glared. "I realize we don't know each other very well, Major, but trust me, I can fix anything."
"Major Sheppard," asked one of the diplomats, "are we safe?"
John looked at the terrified faces of the people he was supposed to protect. He made up his mind. "Lieutenant Ford, go with McKay," he ordered. "The rest of us will head towards the beta site. You get in any trouble, call us."
"Sir, yes, sir," Ford said enthusiastically.
With John in front and Mitchell in the rear, the group headed towards the drop off point. John kept his eyes and ears out for anything suspicious, but the only thing he knew to look for were armoured guys holding big sticks. If the Goa'uld were as advanced as McKay had said they were, then they probably had a few more surprised up their sleeves.
"Major Sheppard?" came McKay's voice from John's walky-talky. "I need-- ow! I need an assistant."
"What's going on?" John asked, coming to a stop.
"I'm at the shield generator. I need someone to hold the front panel open while I work. I'd ask the Lieutenant to do it, but it's very crucial right now that he protect me. I'm an invaluable member of the SGC."
John couldn't afford to leave the diplomats unprotected like that. Dividing his team in half was bad enough; he didn‘t think it was a good idea to let Mitchell go as well. While he tried to think up something, the thin, dark-haired woman who'd smiled at him earlier stepped forward. "I'll do it," she said, raising her chin high.
"Dr Weir, I must protest!" one of the men exclaimed.
"The sooner we get the generator fixed, the sooner we'll be safely indoors, Simon," she said fiercely. "We're sitting ducks out here."
"I can't let you do that," John said. She was a civilian, for crying out loud.
Weir stiffened. "Major, I assure you, I‘m--"
"Y'all," Mitchell said abruptly, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but…" He pointed at the sky over John's shoulder. "Deathgliders."
John braced himself and turned, afraid of what he was about to see. It was just as bad as he'd expected; he had always thought his first time seeing a spaceship would be a happy one, but when he saw four small, sleek, and definitely deadly ships running a patrol, he had a sinking feeling.
"You don't have much of a choice," Weir said to him. She put her hand on his arm, expression softening. "I'll be fine."
"I guess you don't want this shield fixed," McKay butted in impatiently.
Angrily, John snapped at McKay, "Dr Weir's coming, hold your horses."
Weir took off down the path, while John and Mitchell hurried the rest of the diplomats in the opposite direction. Moments later, the Deathgliders were back, except this time one of the them broke away and headed in John's direction. They were busted. He thought, Shit, and said, "McKay, we've been spotted."
"I'm working on it," snapped McKay.
John looked at Mitchell. "Do bullets have any effect on these things?"
"If they fly low enough, yeah," Mitchell said, but he didn't look confident.
Together, they pushed the civilians back into the trees and aimed at the ship. But it was no use; she soared overhead, firing lasers directly at them. The ground shook where the lasers hit it, puffs of smoke rising from each new hole in the ground. The ship disappeared, probably to swing back around and finish them off, and that was when John saw the three other ships, most likely having been alerted to their location by the first one, coming straight for them.
"McKay, we need that shield up now," he shouted into his walky-talky.
"I've just about-- Aha!" McKay exclaimed, and just in time, too: two of the ships fired at once, and it bounced harmlessly off an invisible bubble over their heads. John heard a few relieved gasps from the civilians behind him. He was pretty relieved himself.
"Good work, McKay," he called.
"Yes, of course. Genius here." There were the low sounds of talking, and then McKay added, grudgingly, "And I suppose some credit goes to Dr Weir and Lieutenant Ford for assisting me."
They made it to the beta site in record time, where Ford suddenly and astonishingly took out every single enemy combatant. John finally got why Landry had put Ford on his team; in the time it took him and McKay to get rid of the Jaffa standing guard over the local military officers, Ford had made it through all three levels of the stone fort.
John and Mitchell stared. "You got all of them?" John asked, a little strangled.
"Yes, sir," Ford said cheerfully. He casually brushed something off his sleeve that looked like brains.
"Jarheads," Mitchell said, shaking his head.
The local general took Ford's hands. "You have our thanks, young man," he cried. He was an older man with a deeply lined face. Like the rest of his people, he was wearing a high-collared robe that belted at the middle. For an alien, he looked surprisingly human. John was pretty disillusioned by the whole thing.
"I'm the one who fixed your shield," McKay said cheekily. "And I shot somebody!"
"We will escort your people to our capitol city, where they will be quite safe," said the general, still addressing Ford.
McKay looked pissed. "Must be tough, not getting the recognition you deserve," John said dryly.
Sniffing, McKay replied, "Exactly. You'd think, as the smartest person in the galaxy, I would-- Oh, I see what you're doing. Very funny, Major."
On the way out, John caught a glimpse of Weir deep in discussion with one of the native officers and another diplomat. He caught her eye and flashed a smile; she waved back.
Halfway back to the gate, Mitchell said, "Good work, sir."
John looked for a sign Mitchell was pulling his leg, but, surprisingly, he looked sincere. Nodding, John said, "You too, Captain."
"Did you see me back there?" he heard McKay ask Ford. "I shot one of the Jaffa in the leg. How much of a badass does that make me?"
Part Two
This story involves both the SGA and the SG-1 casts, and a lot of stuff from SG-1 seasons six and seven. But I'm pretty sure you can read the story without knowing that much about SG-1. seperis didn't have a problem with it, at any rate.
There's No Such Thing as Daniel Jackson [Website version]
Summary: Six months after a devastating attack against Earth, Sheppard gets a promotion and a reassignment to Russia, where he encounters evil aliens, Rodney McKay, SG-1, a possible plot against him -- and a series of unexplained visions. Alternate Universe. McKay/Sheppard.
Spoilers: SG-1 5x21 Meridian, 6x01/02 Redemption, 6x21 Prophecy, 6x22 Full Circle, 7x01 Fallen, 7x21/22 Lost City, 8x19/20 Moebius, 9x01 Avalon; SGA 1x01/02 Rising, 1x08 Home, and 3x09 Phantoms.
Warnings: Contains Daniel Jackson. Kidding, kidding. This fic does not have anything in it that requires a warning.
*
Art by ciderpress.
December 2002
The first time John Sheppard ever laid eyes on a stargate, all he could say was, "Holy crap."
It was also his first day as a major, and the two were not all that unrelated. John had heard of the stargate plenty of times -- everyone had after Anubis, some crazy alien from outer space who really hated Earth, had blown up the US's gate and, by proxy, most of North America, including John's parents' home in LA -- but it was different seeing it in person. It was especially different when a guy only had a vague idea of what the hell a stargate was.
But John didn't begin his day in a newly-constructed underground facility in Siberia. He started it by dreaming of a city with high towers, surrounded by a wide, endless ocean. He was standing on some kind of balcony, and he could feel the breeze on his face and smell salt in the air.
Suddenly, he was in a white, windowless room. Another guy was there, dressed in a white sweater and jeans.
"Hello, John," said the guy with a squinty smile.
"This is the weirdest sex dream I've ever had," John said. He shrugged. "Oh well."
He was unbuckling his belt when the guy said, looking startled, "No! God, no. That's-- that's not why I'm here."
"So we're not having sex," John said disappointingly.
"No," said the man, drawing out the word. "I'm here to tell you something very, very important: you need to remember 'Atlantis.' That's it, just 'Atlantis.'"
John scrunched up his face. "Sure, okay, Atlantis. Got it." He glanced around the room, but there really wasn't much to see. "You sure this isn't a sex dream? You look like a guy I met once in Bermuda."
When John woke up, and pretty abruptly at that, he was the same place he'd been for the last six months: Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Someone was shaking him and saying his name. They sounded pissed. "Shep, I'm not telling you again, wake up!"
Groaning, John mumbled, "It's too early to have a snowball fight." Without opening his eyes, he pulled the covers over his head and rolled over.
He was warm and content for all of three seconds before Mitch yanked the blankets down over his feet, exposing him to the freezing air. "You need to get up right now, you lazy fucker," Mitch said. "The Colonel wants to see you in his office."
John sat up grudgingly. "What time is it?" he asked, rubbing his face.
"Almost ten. You didn't answer your door," Mitch explained when John gave him a curious look.
When John stood, fumbling for the pants he'd draped over his desk chair, Mitch glanced at his chest and looked away, face blank. It took John a second to remember he was wearing one of Holland's t-shirts. He'd hastily pulled it on the night before, praying on the jog back to his place that no one saw him and wondered just why he was sneaking out of Captain Holland's quarters at three in the morning. Again. Hopefully, that had nothing to do with why the Colonel wanted to see him.
"Why does he want to see me?" John asked. He slid his winter parka on over the t-shirt and shoved his bare feet into his boots. "If this is about the thing with the goat, I wasn't even there. Burns gave me his share because he's a vegetarian."
Mitch shrugged, scowling a little. John figured he was still irritated he hadn't gotten any of the goat meat. "Dunno. The Colonel saw me coming out the mess and told me to find you. It sounded urgent."
The ten minute walk from John's quarters to Colonel Newcombe's office was just this side of unbearably cold. The bottom of John's pants were soaked by the time he managed to find a hardened path, created by people moving back and forth over the same patch of snow for six months, leading to the office. Shivering, John shoved his hands into the pockets of his parka. Some of the guys who'd been on tour longer had told John the winters before the attack were plenty cold, but they were much worse now. It had been months since John had seen sunlight.
Colonel Newcombe was waiting behind his desk. The blast of heat that hit John in the face as soon as he entered the room reminded him just how cold it really was out there. "Sir," John greeted, brushing the snow off his shoulders with one bare, ice-cold hand. Damn nuclear winters. Maybe next time they'd get attacked by aliens with a heat ray.
"Captain Sheppard, you've been given new orders," Newcombe said, getting straight to the point.
John wondered why Newcombe was telling him this. "We have, sir?" he asked.
"No, you have."
Newcombe handed John a stack of papers. The words John Sheppard, report to the US-Russian Stargate Command Facility, and Siberia jumped out at him. And also Военно-воздушные cилы России, but he had no idea what that said. It was co-signed the US Chief of Staff of the Air Force and the Russian VVS Commander. John's stomach dropped.
"Am I being punished, sir?" he asked worriedly. He tried to think of what he'd done lately to piss off his CO. Okay, so he didn't always follow orders to the letter, and he didn't tuck in his shirt even though they always yelled at him for it, and maybe he'd missed a few briefings because he was busy playing Xbox, but he was pretty sure that wasn't enough to ground him. Oh, and there was that whole gay affair thing, but that was totally a secret. He zipped up his parka a little higher though, just in case.
Newcombe rolled his eyes. "It's a promotion, Captain. Or should I say 'Major'?"
Major. Major John S. Sheppard. Take that, Dad, he thought triumphantly. Then he remembered his dad was dead, and he felt kind of bad.
"Why me?" he asked.
"I guess they thought it was time you were promoted."
That left John feeling even more confused. He glanced back at the papers in his hands. "You're sure this was meant for me, sir?"
"Maybe they saw your Xbox scores," Newcombe said dryly.
"But... but what about the war?" John asked. He'd liked flying, even while being shot at; flying was the only thing in life he'd ever felt passionate about. But no one on the base had flown for months, and getting sent to Russia seriously lowered any chances John had of flying again.
Newcombe sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Son, with the end of the world and all, I don't think the war against terrorism is all that important anymore. It's been months since I've received orders. Besides, the Taliban have probably frozen to death by now."
"But--"
"You've been given an order, Major," Newcombe snapped.
John grimaced. "When do I leave?"
The Colonel glanced at his watch. "In about fifteen minutes."
"What?" John asked.
He clapped John on the shoulder. "Merry Christmas, Major."
*
The elevator ride to the centre of the Earth was long, cold, and unnervingly quiet. They were playing Britney Spears over the speakers.
After a flight that had felt longer than his entire Afghanistan tour, John had been dropped off, alone, on a landing strip in the middle of a snow-covered field. The only signs of life in the area were a locked private hanger and a one-story building that sort of resembled a park restroom. The air was cold enough to freeze the inside of his nose and mouth, and his eyes stung.
"This is bad," John said to himself, after he'd waited five minutes and no one had come to meet him. The plane was long gone by then.
After ten minutes, he thought, I'm fine. This is great. I'm totally fine. So cold he was shaking, he pulled his hood down over his forehead and wondered how long he should wait before he tried to build an igloo, and whether or not he had the guts to kill a Siberian wolf with nothing but his trusty Swiss Army knife. Finally, just when John began feeling antsy, the thick metal door to the restroom slammed open. A man in a fuzzy, fur-lined hat poked his head out. "Major John Sheppard?" he asked in a heavily-accented voice.
"That's me," John replied with relief.
"This way to the Stargate Command, please."
He'd given his coat, gloves, and scarf to the man and was escorted, none-too-gently, into an enormous elevator. By now, he'd been inside for a good ten minutes, and he wasn't much warmer than he'd been on the outside; John's bare fingers felt stiff and frozen, and the skin on his face -- the only part of him that had been exposed to the Siberian air -- burned. He was pretty sure his toes were numb, even through three layers of wool socks. He wondered if Russia was any colder now than it had been before the nuclear winter.
When the elevator reached level eight, it paused long enough to let on two burly guys with identical sour expressions. They flanked John on either side without saying a word. John wondered if all the guys at the SGC were this huge; he'd been pretty sure this place was run by the Air Force, not the Marine Corps, but now he wasn't too sure.
"Hey there," John said.
The man on John's right quietly reached over and pressed the button for the twenty-fourth floor.
"It's my first day," John said, smiling at one, and then the other. He had to lean back and up to see them. Neither of them reacted. "Don't speak English, huh? Are you Russian? Ru-skee?"
The time, the one on his left glanced down at John. The look on his face was anything but inviting.
"I get it," John said, turning to stare at the door. "Playing it cool, huh?"
At level fifteen, ten floors above where John was supposed to get off, the elevator stopped again. A guy wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and BDU pants stepped on. He had a book in one hand and a peeled banana in the other, and he started humming along to the music, which had rolled over from Britney Spears to something John vaguely recognized.
"Words can't keep me do-- Oh, hey, you must be the new guy." The man tucked his book under one arm and held out his free hand. "Jonas Quinn, SG-1."
John had no idea what an SG-1 one was, but he shook Jonas's hand anyway, glad someone was being friendly towards him. "Major John Sheppard." He couldn't help but puff out his chest a little when he said it. "What gave me away?"
"The only people here who wear a dress uniform are the liaisons and General Landry," Jonas replied, gesturing to John's chest with his banana.
"Are there other liaisons?" John asked. He hadn't put much thought into what exactly it was he was doing here. He hadn't really had time, in between the promotion and the flying across the entire continent of Asia and the waiting in the snow for someone to get him. Maybe they'd left him outside on purpose. Maybe he was just one more interloping officer the SGC had to deal with, butting into their business and telling his bosses every move they were making. They probably hated him for it. He kind of hated himself, just thinking about it. At least in Afghanistan everyone had left him alone.
"Just the Russian liaison, Major Damurchiev," said Jonas. "The Americans haven't had one since Anubis attacked." He glanced away, looking sad. "Poor Major Davis. He never saw it coming."
As John contemplated what exactly it was that had happened to Major Davis, klaxons went off. He immediately tensed. He'd thought the one perk of being assigned a desk job was not worrying about being attacked without warning. "Unscheduled offworld activation," said a voice over the intercom.
"Uh-oh," Jonas muttered.
"What's going on?" John asked. "Did he just say 'offworld'? Is it Anubis?"
Jonas handed his book and banana to John and hit the number twenty-eight on the elevator keypad, followed by a red button that said 'override.' The two Russian guys started rapidly talking to each other. "Everything's fine, yes, and probably," Jonas said, glancing back over his shoulder with a grin.
"Great, attacked by aliens on my first day," John muttered.
Floor twenty-eight was a long corridor leading to a blast door and a smaller, person-sized door. John followed Jonas through the latter and up a set of stairs into some kind of control room, where the atmosphere was thick with tension. Among the people there was a guy about John's age with a receding hairline yelling at a hot blonde in fatigues, who kept trying to direct a bunch of people on computers. Both of them looked furious. One of the techs kept repeating, calmly, "Gate will not deactivate," and a shorter man in full uniform paced between the computers and the arguing couple. While John stood there goggling, a man with greying hair and a big dude with a gold thing on his forehead pushed past him to dash out the door. It was a lot more chaotic than anything John had ever imagined happening at an intergalactic command base. Everyone on Star Trek was always really calm.
That was when John noticed it: the huge, round stone standing behind the glass. The middle of it was lit up, and there were a bunch of officers pointing guns at it. It was like a beautiful, terrible alien creature.
"Holy crap," he said without thinking.
It seemed like the entire room stopped to look at him.
"Uh, hi," he said, raising his hand for a wave.
All at once, everyone in the room went back to what they were doing. The man with the receding hairline, however, gave John a look of disgust and turned back to the female officer. Belatedly, John noticed he was still holding onto Jonas's banana. This was officially the worst first impression ever.
"Well, that could've gone better," John said to Jonas.
"Most of them are really nice people," Jonas said. "It took them a while to warm up to me too. Just be glad you're not replacing someone they loved and admired. Duck."
John, intrigued, started to ask, "You replaced a guy named Duck?" when Jonas grabbed his arm and pulled him down -- just as something whizzed over his head; whatever it was had gone through the bullet-proof glass and into a computer, right where John's chest had been. John could hear gunfire on the other side of the glass, and when he stood back up, a bunch of armour-plated men -- women? aliens? -- were running through the blue watery circle and being shot down by the airmen. The two guys who had passed John earlier were taking down most of them. It would've been a lot cooler if ten aliens weren't running through the circle every time one was shot down by the SGC's people.
"That's it!" he heard the blonde woman exclaim. He tore his eyes away from the scene below in time to see her hurry over to the computers; one of the techs offered her his seat, and she started typing away.
Seconds later, the giant stone circle appeared to... shut down, or turn off, maybe, just as the last alien had a bullet put through its head.
"Unbelievable," said the balding man, drawing the word out. There were a few, "Good job, Major Carter"s and, "I knew you could do it"s, but instead of congratulating her like the others, the guy pushed her aside to check what she had done, scowling. What a jerk, John thought, just as the older man in uniform stepped forward to get John's attention.
"Major Sheppard," he greeted John, his thick Southern accent polite despite the smirk on his face. John had a feeling this was the General Landry Jonas had mentioned in the elevator. It was more than the uniform; he had that kind of assholish air of authority John was used to from his commanding officers. "How do you like our facility so far?"
John was covered in glass shards, his dress uniform was singed where he'd brushed against the computer that had shattered when a spear went through it, and he had no idea what was going on. Yeah, he was having a blast. "Does this kind of thing happen to you guys often, sir?" he asked.
"A little too often, if you ask me," said a new voice. It was the grey-haired officer who'd blown the shit out of those aliens, looking like he wasn't even breaking a sweat. He must've come back in when John hadn't been paying attention.
"Indeed," said the tattooed guy behind him.
General Landry gestured towards them. "This is Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c." John waited for a last name, but Landry didn't offer one. "Major Carter is over there. And I see you've already met Jonas Quinn." Landry nodded at Jonas, who was picking his squished banana up off the floor. John must've dropped it when he'd been knocked over. "SG-1, this is Major Sheppard."
"Sorry about your banana, buddy," John said to a disappointed-looking Jonas.
"This is Sheppard? Hmm," O'Neill said. He critically dragged his eyes from the tips of John's boots to the top of his head. But then he slapped John on the back, surprising him. John squirmed awkwardly at the unexpected show of affection. "Looking forward to getting out there?" O'Neill asked.
Confused, John asked, "Out-- out where?"
"We'll get your team set up in the morning, Major," said Landry.
"My team," John repeatedly blankly. "But I thought I was a liaison. Shouldn't I be liais... ing?"
"I have direct orders to put you in the field, son," Landry said gravely.
"You want me to go through that?" John asked. He gaped at the huge, alien ring.
He was pretty sure his orders hadn't said anything about going through stargates or fighting bad guys in space; that was where everyone had said Anubis was, in space, with a huge fleet of ships ready to attack at any moment, but John had had problems believing that even after the stargate had exploded. All he wanted to do was fly planes. John didn't know what any of this stargate stuff had to do with him -- or more importantly, why the Air Force had chosen him, of all people. Maybe Newcombe was right and the they had seen his Xbox scores. This was what he got for playing so much Jedi Starfighter.
But then again, being able to explore other worlds -- that was a big deal. He already knew there were aliens, but there could be things out there he had never even imagined. He could be the real life Captain Kirk, or John Sheridan, or Phillip J. Fry. He could boldly go where no man had gone before.
"Cool," John said.
*
The next few hours were filled with paperwork. On top of the normal stuff, John was instructed to sign a series of confidentiality agreements. It seemed awfully redundant; the whole world knew about the SGC and the stargate by now. It was kind of hard to miss, what with North America being destroyed and all. Six months ago, John had crowded around the tv with the rest of the people on base at Bagram, trying to make sense of what the BBC reporter had been saying: "The US was in possession of a device called a 'stargate,' which allows people to travel to other planets via a 'shortcut' through outer space. It was this device the alien warlord Anubis detonated. Many of the personnel of this 'Stargate Command' were able to escape the destruction -- but unfortunately, most of the people of Canada, the United States, and Mexico were not so lucky." Those had been some rough days.
He also had to sign a document about what was to be done if he died in battle (against aliens! he thought wildly). It had one part for if they had a body, and one part for if they didn't. That one made him uneasy. He'd known what he was signing up for when he'd entered the Air Force; filling in forms for what to do if his body was "misplaced offworld" or "lost in an incident involving alien or experimental technology" was an entirely new experience. One that he wasn't sure how he felt about.
There was one thing definitely bothering him, however. "Sir, you said you were given orders to put me on a team?" he asked, signing his name on the final paper.
Landry simply smiled and collected the documents into a folder marked SHEPPARD, JOHN SEAMUS. "Walter will help you with whatever you need, Major," he said, ignoring John's question. "You can leave your jacket here; we have plenty of extras."
He left John alone with a beaming Sergeant Harriman. "If you'll let me give you the tour, sir?" Harriman said, clutching his clipboard to his chest.
Not seeing much of a choice, John stood and draped his ruined uniform jacket over the back of the chair. A second later he popped open the first two buttons of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. "Where to first, Airman?"
"Oh, no, sir, we're not going anywhere," said Harriman, before launching into a lengthy description of the entire facility. "You can go anywhere but levels six and twenty-three. You need special clearance for those. The mess is located on level ten; personal quarters are on levels eleven through fifteen..." He went through the entire base like that, although there were some things John didn't understand -- what the hell a Kelnorim room was for, for instance, or why the infirmary needed two whole floors. There were twenty-eight floors, total, stretching miles and miles underground, with laboratories, living quarters, offices, power generators, and training facilities. From what it sounded like, the SGC was bigger than the nearest town, Alzamay.
When he was done, Harriman looked at his watch and said, "You have twelve hours until your briefing with General Landry. What would you like to do?"
Normally, when John landed on a new base he either went directly to his own quarters or to the hangers to check out the aircraft. He wasn't really a social guy. At the SGC, he only had two real options: either going to his room and hiding from the big, scary aliens, or staring at the stargate some more. He had to admit, both had their appeal.
As if sensing his indecisiveness, Harriman said, "You could go get something to eat at the mess. Or you could go to the fifteenth floor lounge and meet some of the other officers. Or," he suggested brightly, "you can go to bed."
John checked his watch. It was five PM Irkutsk Time (two back at Bagram; two in the morning, the day before, in Pacific Time). "How about I don't. What do you guys do for fun around here?" he asked, heading for the elevators without any real place in mind. He'd made up his mind; he had nothing to do until tomorrow, and he was in a base full of alien things. Maybe there were even aliens walking among them. There was no way he was going to go sit in his room for the rest of the night.
Harriman trotted after him. "Fun, sir?" he squeaked.
John pressed the 'up' button. "You know, that thing you do in your off time?"
"We don't really get off time, sir," Harriman explained. The elevator arrived, and he followed John inside. But before John could touch anything, Harriman hit the key for level twelve. "Some of the guys and I play Magic: The Gathering between shifts sometimes," he said as they started moving.
"No thanks, I gave that up," John said.
The elevator stopped on level eighteen. Once again, Jonas stepped on. This time he was wearing camo pants and a black t-shirt. He was also carrying a green apple. John wondered where he was getting all this fruit from. Last he'd heard, Earth was in short supply.
"Hey there," Jonas said with a wide, sparkling grin.
John couldn't help but grin back. "Hey."
"Mr Quinn," Harriman said, standing tall, "if you don't mind--"
"You want to meet some people?" Jonas asked John slyly, interrupting Harriman.
John left the stammering sergeant to follow Jonas back down, this time to level nineteen, a long, cold hall of locked doors with strange sounds coming from behind them. "These are the labs," Jonas explained, as they passed a door with blue smoke billowing out from under it. The corridor didn't look all that different from the other ones John had seen, but it felt different; there was a definite air of cautiousness. These labs were serious business.
"I remember what it was like being the new guy," Jonas said as they turned a corner. He tossed his apple from hand to hand. "Unfamiliar people, unfamiliar place... they all call you 'hey you'... you miss those little cakes your mom used to make..."
"Mostly I miss being warm," John said truthfully. He hated being pasty. Belatedly, he realized he should probably have said the thing he missed the most were his parents.
"I miss Colorado," Jonas said wistfully. "One of the women anchors on the local news channel was very, uh, impressive."
They stopped outside one of the doors, behind which John could hear arguing. "Who exactly am I meeting?" he asked.
Jonas made a grand gesture of opening the door. "You, my friend, are about to meet the SGC's best and brightest."
Inside the room were at least twenty people. Some were dressed in white lab coats; some were arguing over various equations scribbled onto a large white board; others were typing rapidly onto clunky laptop computers. It was some kind of meeting room, although it looked more like the scientists were going to beat each other senseless rather than share ideas.
The people who took notice of John and Jonas fell quiet. Others started following their lead, until John had a silent room staring at him. He was experiencing a keen sense of deja vu.
"This is Major Sheppard," Jonas said cheerfully, not looking or sounding uncomfortable at all. "He's been outside." He put his free hand on John's shoulder and pushed him forward.
"Oooh," said one of the scientists, and John found himself crowded by a bunch of eager brainiacs.
"What's it like up there, on the surface?" someone asked.
"Cold," John replied.
"I knew I should've bought that cottage in Aruba," mumbled a crazy-looking guy with glasses.
John looked around at everyone's pale skin and dark under-eye circles. They all had them except for Jonas, who was as tanned and polished as a movie star; the perks of being on SG-1, John guessed. "You don't go outside? Most of Moscow and St Petersburg are still standing. You could take a week off."
"You're assuming," came a sneering voice, "that we'd want to go up into that frozen wasteland."
Several of the scientists ducked out of the way of the sneering guy's wrath, clearing a path between him and John. It was the same man from the Embarkation Room, the balding one who had looked at John like he was something he'd stepped on. This time he was wearing a green t-shirt that said 'My Other Ride Is Your Mom' and khakis. Up close he was taller than John had thought, almost John's height, with wide shoulders and an angry, crooked mouth. He looked like the kind of guy who'd been on one too many caffeine benders.
"So you would rather be stuck down here for the rest of your life?" John asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
"No," the guy said, sounding like John has just asked him the stupidest question he'd ever heard. "Just until the SGC can find us a safe place to move to. I'm not freezing my nuts off trying to see the last vestiges of human civilization." Jonas cleared his throat, and the man rolled his eyes. "Fine, Tau'ri civilization, are you happy?"
"You want to leave Earth?" John asked. It hadn't occurred to him that that was what people might be using the stargate for.
"Hello, nuclear winter, North America blown to bits, farmlands devastated, aliens bent on our destruction -- haven't you been paying attention?"
"Come on, it's not that bad," John said defensively.
The cranky guy gave him a look. "Kevin Costner is the president of Kevin Costner Presents the People's Republic of South Florida."
"It could be worse," John pointed out. "He could be wearing a postal worker's uniform. Besides, where would you go?"
"Anywhere not populated by Goa'uld, Replicators, or, I don't know, disgusting, goopy aliens who eat human brains."
John thought he understood most of that sentence, but he glanced over at Jonas for support, who was listening to all of this intensely. "Goa'uld?"
A hush fell over the lab. "You don't know what the Goa'uld are?" one of the scientists asked, her eyes wide.
They were all looking at him like he was nuts. Cranky Scientist Guy had a tight, pinched expression on his face, like he wasn't sure whether or not he believed him. John didn't care what he thought right now, but he hated being left in the dark. "Hey, I just got here," he replied, putting his hands on his hips. "One minute I'm in Afghanistan running drills, the next I'm being flown up here to do some liaising."
Someone muttered, "Poor Major Davis." John really had to get the story on that.
"The Goa'uld," Cranky Guy began, drawing himself up straight, "are a race of parasitic aliens who rule entire star systems as gods. They pilfer technology from older, more advanced races, and use it to conquer planets and enslave the people. We, by which I mean the SG teams and myself, from a classified, secret location--" A scientist in the back coughed, and John spotted at least two of them rolling their eyes. "--have been fighting them for years."
"So they're aliens with super powers," John deducted, beginning to realize what exactly he'd gotten himself into.
"And Anubis is one of them," said Jonas.
John looked around the lab, at the cheap, bulky computers sitting in the underground bunker that looked straight out of one of those PSAs from the 60s, and thought about all the science fictions shows he'd loved, and how the people of Earth still used fossil fuels and called technical support whenever their printers ran out of ink.
"How advanced are we talking about?" he asked.
The geek squad looked shifty. Jonas picked at the skin of his apple.
"I think I need to sit down," John said.
He wasn't sure whether it was better to know what was out there or to live in ignorance. It sounded like the SGC had been fighting these Goa'uld for years while John had been playing video games and flying Apaches. His life would've been completely different had he known what was going on. Probably. Even worse, the Air Force wanted him to go out there and fight them -- fight this alien race that had essentially destroyed the planet Earth. John was a pretty optimistic guy, but the odds were really not stacked in his favour here. He'd been expecting bad guys with a level of technology along the lines of their own, when in reality Earth was getting its ass kicked.
By the time he got over the initial shock, it was time for his meeting with Landry to discuss the formation of his team. Being Air Force, John wasn't a stranger to new places, but he hadn't slept much the night before; every creak and ping had jolted him awake, reminding him he was miles under the surface. The room they'd assigned him was cold and dark, with a video camera in the corner -- which meant John was never, ever jerking off again -- and the kind of decorations he was used to seeing in cheap motels. He'd stayed awake most of the night while his stomach churned as he thought about alien invasions.
Morning came all too soon, and John walked into the briefing room feeling completely unprepared. He figured everything was fine as long as he stayed cool, despite the nauseating pit in his stomach that had been there since yesterday. It worked up until the moment he saw SG-1 sitting alongside General Landry, already deep in conversation. They fell quiet when he got close enough to be spotted.
John acknowledged them with a nod. "General. Sirs." He didn't know what to call the others. "You guys."
Along with SG-1 and General Landry, there were two people he didn't recognize at the table, sitting across from each other: a terrified-looking kid with huge eyes, and a handsome guy around John's age. Everyone was wearing the black t-shirt, green camo pants ensemble John had found waiting for him when he'd opened his door several hours ago. John took the seat between General Landry and the guy about his age. At the other end of the table, Jonas flashed him a grin, but the rest of SG-1 didn't acknowledge him.
Landry greeted him with, "You're looking a little pale, Major."
Bitterly, John wondered how relaxed Landry had looked when he'd found out there were evil aliens bent on enslaving mankind. "Just so we're clear, sir," John asked, "you want me to go through the stargate and fight Goa'uld on other planets?"
"That sounds about it," Landry replied with a smile.
John licked his lips nervously. "Do I have any choice in this?"
The smile stayed on Landry's face, but it grew cold. "Not really."
"Don't worry, you'll love it," said O'Neill, but John couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or sincere.
"Can I pick my own team?" John asked.
"No," said Landry.
"Can Jonas be on my team?" John asked.
"Yes," said Colonel O'Neill.
Landry and Major Carter both glared in O'Neill's direction. "No, Major Sheppard, I'm afraid Mr Quinn is already on a team," Landry said. "I've already decided on a team for you. In fact, we're waiting for Doctor McKay right--"
He was cut off when an all-too familiar voice drifted into the room, from the direction of the stairwell: "What's this meeting about, exactly? I cannot begin to describe how much work I have to do -- work that, if you'll remember, you assigned me so I can-- oh, hello, Major Carter." He sent her a smarmy smirk before locking eyes with John, who was trying really hard not to smack himself in the forehead.
Doctor McKay, it turned out, was Cranky Scientist Guy.
"Nice of you to join us, Doctor," Landry said dryly.
"What's this about?" McKay demanded. He pointed at John. "Why is Captain Newbie here?"
"Major Newbie," John corrected. He glanced over at Landry. "Sir, no offence, but are you serious? I can't have this guy on my team."
"I'll have you know, I'm extremely competent in high-stress situations. And 'team'? What team?" McKay looked John up and down and made a face, like he didn't like what he saw. "I thought he was a liaison," he said accusingly to Landry.
"You know what they say about assumptions, McKay," O'Neill said breezily. Major Carter ducked her head, smirking, and the kid looked back and forth between John and SG-1 like he couldn't believe where he was.
Grumbling, McKay took the seat beside the young officer -- putting him directly across from John. "What team?" McKay asked again, while John avoided eye contact.
"The team I'm putting you on," Landry replied. He folded his hands and set them on the table. "Major Sheppard, let me introduce you to Doctor Rodney McKay, Second Lieutenant Aiden Ford, and Captain Cameron Mitchell. The four of you are about to make up our newest gate team, SG-13."
"But--" John and McKay began simultaneously.
"Major, Doctor, I know neither of you have gate experience," Landry continued, raising his voice. "However, both Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Ford do. I'm sure they'll be happy to teach you everything you need to know about interplanetary travel."
The kid -- Ford, John guessed -- swallowed thickly. Mitchell puffed up like Landry had said he was the best officer on base. McKay stared at both of them with obvious disdain.
Knowing there were two people on his team who had done this before made John feel a little better. He started to mention as much when McKay stabbed a finger in Carter's direction and shouted, "You! I knew you were up to something. All those compliments you were giving me on my ability to stay alive despite my numerous enemies -- you were just waiting to put me on one of your death teams!"
"I wasn't complimenting you," Carter said to McKay, sounding agitated. "I was calling you a cockroach."
"Your mouth says 'cockroach,' but your eyes say 'sexy man beast,'" said McKay smugly.
"'Death team,' that doesn't sound like fun," John said, trying to bring the conversation back around to the part he cared about.
"Only one guy's ever died on this team," said Jonas, in a light, teasing tone. Carter blanched, and Teal'c and O'Neill looked uncomfortable. Realizing his mistake, Jonas's eyes went wide. "Oh. Ah. Is it too soon?"
Landry raised a hand to his temple. "Doctor McKay, no one's trying to kill you. Mr Quinn, yes, it's too soon to make that joke. And, Major Carter, as much as your hate for Doctor McKay is justified--"
"Hey!" McKay said.
"--can you save those comments for outside the briefing room?"
"Yes, sir," Carter said sheepishly, staring down at the table.
Standing abruptly, Landry said, "Well, I'm going to give y'all a few minutes to get to know each other while I take some Aspirin. Suddenly I have a headache."
He went into his office but left the door open. SG-1 immediately launched a conversation between themselves. Or continued one, from the sound of it. "I don't care how much you pay me, sir, I'm not helping you cheat at a crossword puzzle," Carter was saying, and O'Neill whined, "Come on, Carter."
The first person to break the ice on John's side of the table was McKay, who eyed the top of John's head and sneered, "Nice hair, Sonic the Hedgehog."
John narrowed his eyes. "Nice bald spot, Captain Picard."
Mitchell hastily reached across the table and stuck his hand out at John. "Captain Cameron Mitchell," he announced, cutting off McKay's angry sputtering. He had a drawling Southern accent, but not the same accent as Landry's. "General Landry wants me to keep an eye on you."
From the direction of Landry's office came a low grumbling sound. John had a feeling Mitchell wasn't supposed to tell him that. He was glad Mitchell had, though; it was better to get these things out in the open. John didn't particularly like surprises.
"John Sheppard," he said with a handshake.
"I really wanted to be on SG-1," Mitchell added loudly, throwing a glance in SG-1's direction. At the far end of the table, O'Neill rolled his eyes. "I applied, but they turned me down. I guess this'll have to do for now."
"I think this is awesome, if you don't mind me saying so, sir," Ford cut in. He gave John a big, toothy smile, but he was still looking nervous. "I was on SG-8, but my team leader, Colonel Betton, didn't make it off the Mountain when Anubis attacked. I'm the last one from my team to be reassigned."
"How old are you?" McKay demanded. John was wondering the same thing, but he still didn't like McKay's tone. He couldn't believe this creep was going to be on his team.
"Twenty-two. I was recruited straight out of TBS."
The kid was a Marine. John raised his brows in surprise, and even McKay looked slightly taken aback.
"So I'm on a team with a snitch, a guy who just saw his first stargate, oh, yesterday, and a twenty-two year-old who can kill me with his pinkie," McKay said, ticking the items off with his fingers. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Oh, this is fucking great. Why don't I just shoot myself in the head now and get it over with?"
"Yeah, why don't you?" Mitchell muttered under his breath.
"Wait a minute," John protested, lightly hitting a fist on the table to get their attention. "Where's this negativity coming from? We haven't even had our first mission yet. I don't see why we can't be the first team to kill some of these Goa'uld whatchamicallits."
"SG-1 has killed sixteen," Mitchell pointed out.
"Well, hey, that means we have a chance," John said enthusiastically. He beamed at his new teammates, at Ford, who was wincing, at Mitchell, who had a frown on his face, and at McKay, whose contemptuous expression still had not changed.
That was when Landry returned to the meeting. Taking his seat at the head of the table, he said, "I hope everyone has had a chance to talk. Now, Major Sheppard, let's discuss the dangers you're going to face on this mission," and John felt his grin fade.
*
SG-13's first mission was to escort a group of diplomats, ambassadors, and world-building UN types to a secure location on another planet. John had soon discovered the reason SG-1 had been at the briefing was because they had some experience with the people who currently inhabited the world; apparently the natives (aliens!) were happy and peaceful and not at all dangerous, according to Jonas and Major Carter, something which John was looking forward to (Mitchell had been disappointed). All his team had to do was make sure their group got to the pre-determined location without any scary bad guys getting them. As far as first missions went, it sounded like a walk in the park.
John could barely hold down his jittery excitement as he dressed in his gear and mozied over to the Embarkation Room. McKay was already there when he arrived, staring at the stargate with a look of dread on his face. His tac vest and camo gear looked out of place, and the pristine black cap on his head was obviously brand new. When he noticed John he looked like he wasn't sure if he was relieved or worried.
"Nervous?" John asked.
McKay's mouth flattened into an even thinner line. "No, of course not. Just because I'm a scientist and shouldn't be going on an away mission in the first place doesn't mean I'm nervous." He shuffled his feet. "Are you?"
John gazed up at the stone ring that was about to send him via an artificial wormhole halfway across the galaxy. "Nah," he said.
"How nice it must be, being you," McKay said with a glare.
John smirked. He was about to reply when the doors opened, and in walked General Landry, Mitchell, Ford, and five people John didn't know. "Major Sheppard will personally ensure you reach your destination safely," Landry was saying, indicating John.
All of them looked petrified, with the exception of a tall, thin woman with wavy hair, who was gazing at the gate, clearly awed by what she was seeing. John definitely understood how she felt. He smiled at her, and she smiled back shakily.
Even though he had already seen the stargate in action, when it was activated, his breath caught. He stared at the rippling wormhole a long time before he realized the other people in the room were looking at him expectantly. Landry raised his eyebrows and cocked his head at the gate, and John grimaced.
"Right," he said, trying to smile, "let's get this show on the road."
He walked up the platform, Ford at his heels. Up close, the wormhole looked solid, not at all like something he could pass through. It was terrifying.
"Does it hurt?" John asked quietly. Ford had been through the gate plenty of times; it couldn't have been that bad if people did it every day.
"Like hell, sir," Ford said, face grim, bursting John's bubble.
"You're sure you want to do this?" he heard McKay ask, but when he turned McKay was talking to Landry, arms crossed over his chest. He didn't look happy.
John swallowed thickly and closed his eyes, taking a step forward. He felt the rest of his body tugged through the event horizon, and a disorienting moment later, a cool breeze ruffled his hair. When he opened his eyes, the dirt path and rolling hills in front of him told him he was definitely not at the SGC anymore.
He was still gaping when the rest of his team and the diplomats came through. McKay was the last person to arrive, stumbling out of the gate like he'd been pushed from the other side.
"--Dim-witted cretin!" McKay was shouting. He stopped and looked around, blinking rapidly. "Huh."
John's first alien planet was disappointingly similar to Earth, from the clear blue skies to the boreal trees. But still, there he was, on another planet light-years away from the one he'd been standing on just minutes before. The future was awesome. Already, he knew the stargate was going to be his favourite new way to travel. He heard a low murmur coming from the diplomats; out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ford and Mitchell exchange grins.
Ford walked up beside John. "The beta site's on the other end of this path, sir."
John sucked in a deep breath, trying to quell the butterflies in his stomach. He nodded. "Right," he said. "This way, folks."
The trail followed the natural shape of the terrain, which meant they zigged and zagged through the woods for a good while. The sun on his face felt great; John hadn't been in weather this nice for nearly a year. At one point, they passed a large, metal box that reminded John of electrical boxes people had on their lawns, except he couldn't figure out what it was doing in between two trees. McKay eyed it as well, narrowing his eyes, but he didn't try to stop and look at it.
Not long after, John heard a series of strange, unfamiliar sounds in the distance. He signalled for his team to halt.
"Goa'uld staff weapons," Mitchell said in alarm. He and Ford raised their P-90s, looking in every direction.
"I thought there was a shield around the gate and compound," John said.
McKay blanched. "The shield must be down. That was probably the thing we passed earlier." He swung his backpack around to his chest and rummaged inside before pulling out a tool kit. "I can fix it."
"You can?" John asked worriedly. McKay had to be pretty smart to work at the SGC, but this was alien technology they were talking about here. "Are you sure?"
McKay glared. "I realize we don't know each other very well, Major, but trust me, I can fix anything."
"Major Sheppard," asked one of the diplomats, "are we safe?"
John looked at the terrified faces of the people he was supposed to protect. He made up his mind. "Lieutenant Ford, go with McKay," he ordered. "The rest of us will head towards the beta site. You get in any trouble, call us."
"Sir, yes, sir," Ford said enthusiastically.
With John in front and Mitchell in the rear, the group headed towards the drop off point. John kept his eyes and ears out for anything suspicious, but the only thing he knew to look for were armoured guys holding big sticks. If the Goa'uld were as advanced as McKay had said they were, then they probably had a few more surprised up their sleeves.
"Major Sheppard?" came McKay's voice from John's walky-talky. "I need-- ow! I need an assistant."
"What's going on?" John asked, coming to a stop.
"I'm at the shield generator. I need someone to hold the front panel open while I work. I'd ask the Lieutenant to do it, but it's very crucial right now that he protect me. I'm an invaluable member of the SGC."
John couldn't afford to leave the diplomats unprotected like that. Dividing his team in half was bad enough; he didn‘t think it was a good idea to let Mitchell go as well. While he tried to think up something, the thin, dark-haired woman who'd smiled at him earlier stepped forward. "I'll do it," she said, raising her chin high.
"Dr Weir, I must protest!" one of the men exclaimed.
"The sooner we get the generator fixed, the sooner we'll be safely indoors, Simon," she said fiercely. "We're sitting ducks out here."
"I can't let you do that," John said. She was a civilian, for crying out loud.
Weir stiffened. "Major, I assure you, I‘m--"
"Y'all," Mitchell said abruptly, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but…" He pointed at the sky over John's shoulder. "Deathgliders."
John braced himself and turned, afraid of what he was about to see. It was just as bad as he'd expected; he had always thought his first time seeing a spaceship would be a happy one, but when he saw four small, sleek, and definitely deadly ships running a patrol, he had a sinking feeling.
"You don't have much of a choice," Weir said to him. She put her hand on his arm, expression softening. "I'll be fine."
"I guess you don't want this shield fixed," McKay butted in impatiently.
Angrily, John snapped at McKay, "Dr Weir's coming, hold your horses."
Weir took off down the path, while John and Mitchell hurried the rest of the diplomats in the opposite direction. Moments later, the Deathgliders were back, except this time one of the them broke away and headed in John's direction. They were busted. He thought, Shit, and said, "McKay, we've been spotted."
"I'm working on it," snapped McKay.
John looked at Mitchell. "Do bullets have any effect on these things?"
"If they fly low enough, yeah," Mitchell said, but he didn't look confident.
Together, they pushed the civilians back into the trees and aimed at the ship. But it was no use; she soared overhead, firing lasers directly at them. The ground shook where the lasers hit it, puffs of smoke rising from each new hole in the ground. The ship disappeared, probably to swing back around and finish them off, and that was when John saw the three other ships, most likely having been alerted to their location by the first one, coming straight for them.
"McKay, we need that shield up now," he shouted into his walky-talky.
"I've just about-- Aha!" McKay exclaimed, and just in time, too: two of the ships fired at once, and it bounced harmlessly off an invisible bubble over their heads. John heard a few relieved gasps from the civilians behind him. He was pretty relieved himself.
"Good work, McKay," he called.
"Yes, of course. Genius here." There were the low sounds of talking, and then McKay added, grudgingly, "And I suppose some credit goes to Dr Weir and Lieutenant Ford for assisting me."
They made it to the beta site in record time, where Ford suddenly and astonishingly took out every single enemy combatant. John finally got why Landry had put Ford on his team; in the time it took him and McKay to get rid of the Jaffa standing guard over the local military officers, Ford had made it through all three levels of the stone fort.
John and Mitchell stared. "You got all of them?" John asked, a little strangled.
"Yes, sir," Ford said cheerfully. He casually brushed something off his sleeve that looked like brains.
"Jarheads," Mitchell said, shaking his head.
The local general took Ford's hands. "You have our thanks, young man," he cried. He was an older man with a deeply lined face. Like the rest of his people, he was wearing a high-collared robe that belted at the middle. For an alien, he looked surprisingly human. John was pretty disillusioned by the whole thing.
"I'm the one who fixed your shield," McKay said cheekily. "And I shot somebody!"
"We will escort your people to our capitol city, where they will be quite safe," said the general, still addressing Ford.
McKay looked pissed. "Must be tough, not getting the recognition you deserve," John said dryly.
Sniffing, McKay replied, "Exactly. You'd think, as the smartest person in the galaxy, I would-- Oh, I see what you're doing. Very funny, Major."
On the way out, John caught a glimpse of Weir deep in discussion with one of the native officers and another diplomat. He caught her eye and flashed a smile; she waved back.
Halfway back to the gate, Mitchell said, "Good work, sir."
John looked for a sign Mitchell was pulling his leg, but, surprisingly, he looked sincere. Nodding, John said, "You too, Captain."
"Did you see me back there?" he heard McKay ask Ford. "I shot one of the Jaffa in the leg. How much of a badass does that make me?"
Part Two