Pegasus Ethics, by the_drifter (criminal challenge)
Title: Pegasus Ethics
Author: the_drifter (fiercelydreamed)
Summary: Survival is a criminal act. Seven people, six conversations.
Notes: 5300 words, spoilers through S3, mild language. Many thanks to secrethappiness for betaing.
1.
Two nights after Richard Woolsey gated back to Earth to give his report to the I.O.A., Elizabeth turned to John and asked, "Have you ever read the Geneva Conventions?"
"Yeah," he said, after a pause. They were standing at the far, dim end of the balcony overlooking the gate-room. He'd run into her at the tail end of a long walk through the city, the unofficial late-night patrol he found himself doing at least once a month. She hadn't said what she'd been doing, and he hadn't asked. "What about them?"
"Article 2 of the Third Convention," she said, and then quoted, "'Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.'" Elizabeth wove her fingers together and braced her hands on the railing. "I was sixteen the first time I read that, and when I realized what it meant -- that prisoners of war have no intrinsic rights assured to them as human beings -- I was appalled."
John had read the full text of the Conventions his first year in Basic Officer Training. He hadn't looked at them since his tour in Afghanistan, which had ended any illusion that knowing how the rules worked could change his feelings about the outcome. Still, he knew most of the key sections by heart. "And now?"
Her face hardened. "We've defended this city against an enemy set to the destruction of our species. Each and every member of this expedition has risked their lives in the last two years, and every day I mourn those we've lost. The realities of war are a lot less abstract to me now."
John nodded once and then -- because she was up here after midnight for a reason -- he said, "But?"
She turned her head in a slow scan of the room below, the quiet activities of the third-shift skeleton crew. "Since I walked through that gate, I've broken alliances and used civilians as hostages. I've authorized the torture of our own personnel. We just conducted medical experiments on two hundred prisoners and then killed all of them. And I somehow doubt the decisions are going to get easier."
"You're not the only one responsible here," he said, slowly but with an edge. They'd been side by side at the helm for all of that, and if she thought he didn't understand what they'd been doing, then she didn't know him as well as he'd started to think she did.
This whole thing pissed him off -- the I.O.A. trying to hand her the blame, the imposition of bureaucratic abstractions on survival, the idea that hindsight could tell you anything meaningful at all. Either you lived through something or you didn't. That was as real as it got, and talking about it later wasn't going to get you any closer to some greater truth. It was too late to get out of the conversation now, so he cut down to the heart of it. "Are you saying you think we were wrong?"
Elizabeth's mouth tightened down at the corners as her eyebrows winged up. "By whose standards?" she fired back, and now she sounded angry too. "There's no textbook on the morals of intergalactic conflict -- and when they write one, it'll be our lives they dissect to come up with the rules. By the time there's been that kind of public debate, we'll already have won or lost this fight."
She pushed herself back from the railing. "'Civilized war' has never been more than a gentlemen's agreement, John, and it's those with the power who get to say what's civilized. You know that as well as I do. Am I worried that one day they're going to call us war criminals?" Her voice went harsh on the last two words, and John felt his spine stiffen. He kept his expression flat as he turned to look at her, and she met his eyes in a hard stare. "I'm worried about what it means for humanity that I'm fairly sure they won't."
Without waiting for a reply, she turned and made her way past the unlit consoles. John watched as she moved into the corridor and receded out of sight.
2.
"I'd like more information before anyone starts working with that equipment. See what you can find out from the database and bring me a memo later this week," Elizabeth said, and she clicked off the radio before Rodney could launch into his counter-argument.
Across from him in the lab, Sheppard spread his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture. "Sorry, McKay," he said, dryly, "I know you've been itching to take out another planet or two, but I guess Elizabeth plans for us to keep living on this one."
Heat surged through Rodney's face. He snapped his mouth shut, grabbed his laptop off the console and stormed out into the hall. That was it, the final fucking straw, that marked exactly how much he could take. Yes, he'd been overconfident, yes, he'd made a mistake, but he'd spent the last three weeks paying for it, and now this -- this asshole--
Sheppard came jogging up behind him, looking disgruntled. "Hey. That was a joke."
"I have a very highly-developed sense of humor, Colonel, and I assure you that wasn't remotely amusing." Rodney picked up the pace, which made his blood pressure spike higher but did absolutely nothing to deter Sheppard. "So if that's your idea of hilarious, why don't you go sign up for open-mic night at the comedy club on Planet Wraith-Ate-My-Baby? Maybe they can help you work out some new material."
"Sounds like I'm not the only one who needs it," Sheppard retorted. Rodney palmed open the door to the transport chamber and ducked inside, trying to reach the touchscreen before Sheppard had a chance to follow him in. It didn't work. "You know, you really need to lighten up."
"What I need--" Rodney bit off, and then the doors opened on the third floor of the north tower. Splendid, he'd hit the wrong spot on the screen. Rather than admit it, he strode out into the hall, laptop still clutched to his chest and Sheppard following right on his heels. "What I need is to keep working, only everyone seems determined to slow all my projects to a crawl. Now, unless you've got a brilliant solution to that problem--"
"For crying out loud, Rodney! Collins is dead and you blew up a solar system--"
"--It was five-sixths--"
"--and you're pissed because Elizabeth wants a memo and I cracked a joke?" Sheppard finished as they rounded a corner and came out onto the deck above the desalinization tanks.
"Yes!" Rodney yelled, and set his laptop down hard on the console. "No! I'm pissed because if everyone keeps harping on it, we're all going to get killed!"
Sheppard didn't drop the glare, but his expression shifted. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Rodney ran a hand over his face and started to pace. "Look, I am willing to admit that I am very occasionally wrong--"
"How modest," Sheppard said, rolling his eyes.
"Shut the hell up, you asked me a question and I'm trying to answer it." He took a deep breath. "Yes, once in a blue moon I make a serious mistake, but statistically? We're a lot less likely to die because I fucked up than because I didn't have a chance to get to something fast enough." Sheppard opened his mouth and Rodney threw a hand up to cut him off. "And yes, before you say anything, I have done the math on that."
Rodney gritted his teeth and kept moving. "Look, I know what you think, Colonel -- I know what Elizabeth thinks, what Zelenka thinks. You think I'm reckless, egotistical, and prone to experimenting with dangerous equipment I don't fully understand. Fine. I concede all that." The surprise on Sheppard's face went beyond comic and to the edge of insulting. "But the guys at the Manhattan Project had five and a half years to get their work off the ground. I usually get hours -- at best, days."
"When it's a crisis, sure," Sheppard countered, arms crossed over his chest. He looked angry but attentive, which was better than the blank insincerity Rodney had been getting from him since they got back from Doranda. "But the rest of the time -- would it be that big a deal to do a little more homework first? Spend another half a day running simulations--"
"Yes," Rodney snapped. "Yes, it would. Look, theory is great, I adore it. It'd be the cream in my coffee if it weren't heresy to drink coffee any way but black." He slumped back against the console and pressed his fingertips into the middle of his forehead, trying to find the right way to explain. "You wouldn't recruit some idiot, give him a piloting manual and an afternoon playing Halo, and tell him he was ready to go on combat missions, would you? Everything I learn here, the odds are we're going to have to use it, soon, so no, I can't wait for an IRB or interdepartmental hand-holding or for Elizabeth to decide it's time to take the training wheels off."
He looked up to find Sheppard staring at him. Suddenly Rodney realized just how bone-tired he felt, ground down by the last year and a half. "People die when I'm wrong," he said quietly, and he was thinking of Acturus, but also of the lower-level lab where they'd lost five people to the nanovirus, and of the defense satellite where they'd left Grodin. He was thinking of the display that had tracked Sheppard's jumper as it arrowed toward a hive ship, that desperate suicide run. "But they die a lot faster when I'm slow."
3.
Teyla had a great deal of respect for Ronon, and she truly valued the skills and knowledge he had brought to the team in just the month since he came to Atlantis. However, after their third nearly-disastrous trade mission in a row, she was starting to wonder if it wouldn't be wiser to invent excuses for him to remain behind.
She considered how best to approach the subject as they walked through the snowy woods and back to the jumper. The negotiations with the Gulaia had been a marginal success, which was something of a miracle, considering that they'd almost been imprisoned not a half an hour after greeting the high elder. Ronon had refused the ceremonial sharing of tea and then displayed a weapon when an attendant had overzealously tried to force it on him. It had taken all her skill and John's charm to repair the offense, and they'd still had to send Ronon to the outskirts of town for the duration of the talks. (Rodney had accompanied him, though that was less to keep him company than to preempt the likelihood of further diplomatic missteps.)
"Ronon," she said, picking her way over a fallen tree. "I do not wish to trespass, but if I may make an observation ...?"
Ronon glanced over his shoulder at her and shrugged. Up ahead, John and Rodney appeared to be arguing about something, going back and forth in the easy antagonism that marked their friendship. Like children, almost. There were times she envied their thoughtlessness. "I know it must be difficult for you," she continued, "after so many years alone, to have to adapt your habits to suit the customs of others--"
"Not hard," he interrupted without looking back.
Staring at the uninformative width of his shoulders, Teyla pursed her lips. "Tiring, then, and I can imagine how it might seem unnecessary--"
"No. Not that either." He planted a hand on a large rock and swung himself over it with no apparent intention of saying anything further. As she skirted the boulder, she silently debated whether it was worth the effort of continuing -- her patience was not currently what she could have wished -- but when she came around the other side, she found that he had stopped to wait for her.
"Dangerous," he said.
Teyla looked up at him for a long time before admitting, "I do not understand."
Ronon squinted out over the landscape, as though assessing it by some unknown criteria. With his blunt features and the snow lodged in his hair, he looked as if he could have blended into the background in the space of a breath. "My second year as a runner, I saw three villages get culled, one right after another. They'd stopped to say the sunset prayer to the gods."
It was too easy to imagine. She ducked her head for a moment in acknowledgment. "That is ... most unfortunate. Still, our traditions are what make us who we are, they make our lives worth living--"
"Not if you're dead." He slid one hand under the fabric of his long coat in a gesture that looked unconscious. She wondered if he was running his fingers over the hilts of his knives. "They slow you down. You get fooled into wasting time. Stupid. Can't afford that."
He was so young, she thought, not for the first time. He must have been barely out of boyhood when he joined Sateda's army, barely a man when he was taken by the Wraith. "You are not running now," she said, keeping her voice smooth and light. "Colonel Sheppard and his people have many resources, and the Wraith do not know Atlantis survives. You are safe, Ronon -- you need not limit yourself to what you can carry."
For the first time in the conversation, he turned his head and stared at her directly. "Safe?" he demanded, and the disbelief on his face was etched as deep as the scars she had seen on his back and chest. "How many people have you lost? And them?" He jerked his head down the hill to where John and Rodney walked side by side, shoulders bumping as they bickered. "They aren't from here. They don't get it. There's no safe, not while the Wraith are out there."
Ronon turned back to the woods around them, scanning the trees and rocks with a knowledgeable eye. "Wars don't stop between battles," he said grimly, and took a long stride forward as he started down the uneven slope. "You should pay attention to what you're carrying around."
4.
As one of the second wave of personnel to join the Atlantis expedition, Evan knew first-hand that newcomers adjusted in stages. Stage one was culture shock, where you learned the city and did your job with a constant low level of what the fuck in the back of your head, because this place was half-military, half-civilian, and a totally different animal from any base or outpost you'd ever seen. Not everyone made it past this stage, and those who didn't usually transferred back to Earth inside of six months. You reached stage two when you learned to hate the phrase unscheduled off-world activation and to love that purple cauliflower-parsnip thing from M4X-113. It was acclimation.
Then, just when you were good and comfortable, another wave of newcomers came in off the Daedalus to get lost in the corridors and have their sleep cycles rewritten by the twenty-six-hour solar days. They reminded you of all the ways this place was nothing like Earth -- but instead of getting sympathetic, you found yourself poised to defend the city and the people in it against any slight or criticism. Any threat from within.
That was stage three, and it was when you realized you belonged here.
Evan had been living with that knowledge for almost five months when SGA-6 blundered into a feudal war on M2H-815 and Dr. Rosen had to half-carry Captain Ensel through the gate while Martinez and Allerand gave cover fire. Right as Beckett and his staff were getting Ensel on the gurney, Dr. Firelli came clattering down the staircase with her face sheet-white, saying, "Oh my god -- Allison, Allison--"
When Ensel lifted one hand to brush Firelli's cheek, the blood on her fingers gleamed dark through the curtain of Firelli's pale hair. Evan looked away -- not out of discomfort, but in a rapid visual sweep of the gate room, checking for anyone military who'd been here less than six months. For a moment, he thought they were in the clear -- and then he spotted Lieutenant Horton, five weeks off the Daedalus and watching the two women with an unreadable expression, P-90 still cradled in his hands.
Well, shit, Evan thought.
It was three days before Horton showed up at his office door. By then, Evan'd had a chance to skim Horton's record (third generation USMC, first off-world posting, grew up in Missoula, fucking great) and polish up the line of argument he'd used before. But he didn't get farther into it than, "Regs are regs, Lieutenant, and I won't ask you to disregard them. Still, I'll tell you honestly that we need every good officer we can get, and to lose one for a reason as--"
"Sir," Horton cut in stiffly, "excuse me, sir, but you've got the wrong idea."
Evan raised his eyebrows. "How so, Lieutenant?"
"Permission to speak freely, sir?"
"Granted."
Horton's posture stayed tense. "I've known Captain Ensel since OCS, and I don't care what her preferences are. This isn't about the regs, sir."
Evan blinked, surprised, then settled the heels of his hands on his desk and leaned back a little. "Okay. So what is it about?"
"It's this whole damn city, sir," Horton said bluntly, his gaze traveling over the glass of the office wall. "Everyone's pairing off right and left. It's a bad idea, sir."
Christ. Evan wondered if Sheppard got this kind of thing. Then he decided he didn't want to know. "I agree that fraternization poses problems," he said, after a pause, "but there's no way to prevent our personnel from getting involved with the civilian population."
"No, I know that, sir," Horton replied in obvious frustration. "But this isn't a stable base -- if it was, they'd be letting people bring families on deployment, not looking for unattached volunteers. It's an isolated outpost in a highly volatile region, and it's asking for trouble to form these kinds of ties out here."
Evan drummed his fingers on the desk and then took a slow breath. "You know the expedition's history?" Horton nodded cautiously. "Then you know they were pretty much cut off for the first year. I got here right after the Wraith siege, and I can tell you that before the Daedalus showed, most of the people here didn't think they'd ever make it back to Earth. Our position's more secure now -- especially once McKay finishes that gate bridge -- but still. We lose that, or the ZPM, or the Daedalus goes down ... wouldn't take much to strand us again." Not much at all, and Evan stared off into space for a minute, scenarios running through his head. Horton was watching him when he looked back up.
Evan shook his head. "Like it or not," he said, "I don't know that we can stop anyone from starting to make this home."
"But sir, that's it." Horton swept a hand out in a gesture that took in the city. "People here -- they don't act like coworkers, or even comrades. They're like a tribe." He grimaced, adding, "I mean no disrespect, sir -- I can see why. But one of these days, things are going to get bad, and this won't be a military base when that happens. It'll be a family." Horton turned his face toward the corridors, eyes flickering as he tracked the people walking past. Evan wished he'd paid better attention to Horton's record, because this wasn't just military training talking. This guy had a real mind.
"Families don't have 'acceptable losses,' sir," Horton murmured, as Evan started to wonder what it would take to get Horton to stage three -- to make him one of them. "And if these people aren't very lucky, or very careful, they'll lose it all."
5.
"He told you that?" Teyla asked, eyes wide as she set the bottle back down on the coffee table.
"Yes!" Elizabeth crowed, and pressed the back of her hand against her forehead as she laughed. "I swear, he was so bent on getting sympathy from someone, I think he honestly forgot that I was his supervisor and he was going to have to look me in the face afterwards!" Wiping the moisture from the corners of her eyes, she dropped back against the couch cushions, the knots in her shoulders finally unwinding after this unbearably long week. "I tell you, when I took this post, I never thought I'd be arbitrating lovers' quarrels between disgruntled scientists."
Elizabeth took another sip of wine and tucked one arm up behind her head, smiling at Teyla. She felt so grateful to have this -- one friend to commiserate with, someone with her own status outside the Atlantis chain of command. Someone who understood the weight this kind of responsibility could have. "It's a strange thing, you know, living with the people you're leading. On Earth, our civilian leaders tend to have a lot of gatekeepers, people assigned to deal with the public. But here, there are so few of us -- anytime something goes wrong, I'm right there." She swirled her glass, watching the deep red liquid circle around inside. "It's not like any other job I've had, but I can't imagine giving it up."
Across from her, Teyla had gone quiet, her hair screening her face as she gazed down at her own glass. Elizabeth frowned. "Teyla?"
Teyla shook her head slightly and glanced back up. "Forgive me," she said, pulling a smile onto her face. "I was lost in my thoughts. Please, you were saying?"
Elizabeth waved the courtesy off. "No, what were you thinking?"
After a few seconds silence, Teyla sighed. "You were speaking of leading your people. Lately, it has been harder for me to ignore my own shortcomings in this area."
Elizabeth set her glass on the table and sat up. The Athosians, she knew, were more deliberate in their use of body language than Americans were, and she wanted to signal her own concern and attention. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Has something happened?"
"No, everything on the mainland is fine." Teyla dropped her face toward her glass again, running one fingertip delicately over the rim. It was hard to read her when she got like this, and Elizabeth searched for a gentle way to prod her into continuing.
"The Athosians have always looked to you for guidance," she said, trying for neutral affirmation.
Teyla pressed her lips together quickly, then murmured, "How can they, when I am not in sight?"
Sweeping her hair back over her shoulders, she met Elizabeth's eyes. Elizabeth set a hand on Teyla's knee in a brief, encouraging touch. "When an Athosian goes to live with another people," Teyla explained, "we hold a ceremony to recognize their departure. It is a common custom in this galaxy; as uncertain as life can be, we have learned not to assume that travelers will find it easy to return." She took a breath. "I have not done this ceremony, but I have begun to wonder if I should."
"But you haven't left your people." Elizabeth let her confusion show on her face. "You're on the mainland several times a month, at least -- for births and deaths, for feast days--"
"Yes," Teyla interrupted irritably, "I am there for significant events, I am not entirely negligent. But I am absent from dealing with the day-to-day issues, and that is what a leader is -- one who lives among her people, as you said. By those standards, Halling is more leader than I, and has been since the Athosians left the city."
"Don't sell yourself short," Elizabeth insisted, disturbed. She'd never heard Teyla speak so critically of herself. "You stayed with us to help your people, to keep Lantea safe for them. You're a vital link between them and the rest of the galaxy."
Teyla looked helplessly toward the ceiling, her brows pulling together. "So I am a bridge," she said, tipping her hand upward in capitulation. "Very well, a bridge is a fine thing to be. But it has its feet in two places, Elizabeth, and it is forever going away from both." She closed her eyes and bowed her head again, face drawn and pained. "My people are kind and loyal, and they have yet to ask me to make an account for myself. But how many years of patience shall I ask from them? Three? Four?"
Both her hands had wrapped themselves around the bowl of her glass, and the skin across her knuckles was taut. "I do them a disservice by transgressing our customs -- them, and myself," she admitted. Elizabeth looked at her lovely face and tried to think of any words of comfort she could offer. Nothing came to her. Teyla bit her lip.
Their talk turned to other things, but an hour later, after Teyla pressed her forehead against Elizabeth's and headed out into the hall, Elizabeth found her quarters still resonant with a particular silence. It was the long, uneasy pause that had hung over them both after Teyla had said, "Someday, perhaps soon, I will have to choose."
6.
A week after they stole the city back from the Replicators and two days after General O'Neill gated back to Earth, John and Lorne met up to go over the post-crisis security report. Of John's administrative responsibilities, this one at least had some practical value. Also, Lorne had been his second long enough that he'd started doing about 75% of John's paperwork without being asked, so John supposed he didn't really have any grounds to complain. Still, there was nothing that made him wish he'd actually gone down in the fight quite like seeing its aftermath parceled out into checklists and repair requisition sheets and resource depletion charts. Invasions made for a crapload of paperwork.
"You know," John remarked as he shook the cramp out of his fingers and picked up the stylus to start initialing again, "not that I mind, but I really thought they were going to kick my ass to the curb this time. I mean, yeah, we saved Woolsey and O'Neill, so they were around to put a good word in, but still, there was insubordination, stealing a highly classified vessel, unauthorized intergalactic travel ... that's kind of a laundry list even for me."
The corner of Lorne's mouth twitched, but he only leaned over to point at the screen and say, "I think you missed a line."
"Of course I did." John grimaced and scrolled back up to make the correction. "Seriously, though, don't you ever wonder why they haven't given my post to Caldwell yet? Or hell, kicked you up a rank and given it to you?"
"No." Lorne frowned down at something on his own work tablet. "Actually, I don't."
John turned to look at him. "Why not?"
Lorne glanced up, looking mildly surprised. "Caldwell's a good commander, but he's by-the-book. And me -- well, I haven't had enough command experience in the field, I spent the last few years as an XO. Any kind of large-scale combat situation, I'd be falling back on training too, at least for a while." He shook his head and went back to the tablet. "Post like this, they need someone who's going to toss out the playbook, make it up as he goes along."
"Right." John sighed and pushed at his right eye socket, which had started to throb. "That way, when we do get blown up, they can blame it on my lack of discipline and disregard for proper procedure." Jesus, it was Elizabeth and the I.O.A. all over again, a bunch of goddamn bureaucrats hiding behind their desks so their asses stayed well-covered.
"Is that really why you think you got this post?" Lorne asked. He was staring at John with a strangely incredulous expression.
John shrugged noncommittally. "I think when Sumner got killed and we got cut off, the SGC couldn't really do anything about it for a while. And then I'm pretty sure Elizabeth pulled most of the strings she had to keep me in command. After that ..." He tabbed to the next form with a closed-lipped smile. "I guess they went with the devil they knew."
"All due respect, Colonel," Lorne told him in a tone that was dry even by his standards. "But that's the first really stupid thing I've ever heard you say."
That got John's attention. Not because of the insult -- after two and a half years of McKay, it took a lot more than that to even make it on his radar -- but because Lorne never went that close to the line with him, even though John would be the last guy in the USAF to punish a subordinate just for taking a crack at his ego. "Okay, I kind of doubt it's the first," he said, setting the stylus and tablet down on the desk, "but how do you figure?"
"They need you out here." John's eyebrows jumped, but Lorne didn't look like he was kidding. His usual sardonic manner had dropped away sometime in the last five seconds, like someone had wiped it straight off his face. "And not because of the gene, or because you've got the right record for a scapegoat, though I'm not going to say they didn't take those things into account. But this is one hell of a dangerous post, and basic officer training didn't come close to covering the stuff we're dealing with. The only way to keep this city is to give it to someone who's going to make the hard calls in the first thirty seconds, who won't waste time on protocol or standard tactics that aren't going to get it done."
Lorne shifted his grip on the tablet so that he had it balanced on his flattened hand, like he was trying to test its weight. "The brass back home may not like you," he said. "They may not like the calls you've made. But their rules don't work out here, and a lot of us are still alive because you didn't stop to follow them." It wasn't anything that John hadn't thought before, but it was different to hear someone else say it out loud -- especially someone like Lorne, who was exactly what the USAF looked for in an officer. What they'd probably thought John would be, back before he started breaking ranks and fucking up. It was like hearing your footsteps echo in a dark building and realizing the place was a whole lot bigger than you'd first thought, feeling the magnitude of the space around you increase.
"At the end of the day, I think they know that," Lorne told him, and tapped his stylus against the edge of the tablet as if in punctuation of that conclusion. "And it could be they're gonna crucify you for it later, but they sure as hell need you now."
Author: the_drifter (fiercelydreamed)
Summary: Survival is a criminal act. Seven people, six conversations.
Notes: 5300 words, spoilers through S3, mild language. Many thanks to secrethappiness for betaing.
1.
Two nights after Richard Woolsey gated back to Earth to give his report to the I.O.A., Elizabeth turned to John and asked, "Have you ever read the Geneva Conventions?"
"Yeah," he said, after a pause. They were standing at the far, dim end of the balcony overlooking the gate-room. He'd run into her at the tail end of a long walk through the city, the unofficial late-night patrol he found himself doing at least once a month. She hadn't said what she'd been doing, and he hadn't asked. "What about them?"
"Article 2 of the Third Convention," she said, and then quoted, "'Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.'" Elizabeth wove her fingers together and braced her hands on the railing. "I was sixteen the first time I read that, and when I realized what it meant -- that prisoners of war have no intrinsic rights assured to them as human beings -- I was appalled."
John had read the full text of the Conventions his first year in Basic Officer Training. He hadn't looked at them since his tour in Afghanistan, which had ended any illusion that knowing how the rules worked could change his feelings about the outcome. Still, he knew most of the key sections by heart. "And now?"
Her face hardened. "We've defended this city against an enemy set to the destruction of our species. Each and every member of this expedition has risked their lives in the last two years, and every day I mourn those we've lost. The realities of war are a lot less abstract to me now."
John nodded once and then -- because she was up here after midnight for a reason -- he said, "But?"
She turned her head in a slow scan of the room below, the quiet activities of the third-shift skeleton crew. "Since I walked through that gate, I've broken alliances and used civilians as hostages. I've authorized the torture of our own personnel. We just conducted medical experiments on two hundred prisoners and then killed all of them. And I somehow doubt the decisions are going to get easier."
"You're not the only one responsible here," he said, slowly but with an edge. They'd been side by side at the helm for all of that, and if she thought he didn't understand what they'd been doing, then she didn't know him as well as he'd started to think she did.
This whole thing pissed him off -- the I.O.A. trying to hand her the blame, the imposition of bureaucratic abstractions on survival, the idea that hindsight could tell you anything meaningful at all. Either you lived through something or you didn't. That was as real as it got, and talking about it later wasn't going to get you any closer to some greater truth. It was too late to get out of the conversation now, so he cut down to the heart of it. "Are you saying you think we were wrong?"
Elizabeth's mouth tightened down at the corners as her eyebrows winged up. "By whose standards?" she fired back, and now she sounded angry too. "There's no textbook on the morals of intergalactic conflict -- and when they write one, it'll be our lives they dissect to come up with the rules. By the time there's been that kind of public debate, we'll already have won or lost this fight."
She pushed herself back from the railing. "'Civilized war' has never been more than a gentlemen's agreement, John, and it's those with the power who get to say what's civilized. You know that as well as I do. Am I worried that one day they're going to call us war criminals?" Her voice went harsh on the last two words, and John felt his spine stiffen. He kept his expression flat as he turned to look at her, and she met his eyes in a hard stare. "I'm worried about what it means for humanity that I'm fairly sure they won't."
Without waiting for a reply, she turned and made her way past the unlit consoles. John watched as she moved into the corridor and receded out of sight.
2.
"I'd like more information before anyone starts working with that equipment. See what you can find out from the database and bring me a memo later this week," Elizabeth said, and she clicked off the radio before Rodney could launch into his counter-argument.
Across from him in the lab, Sheppard spread his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture. "Sorry, McKay," he said, dryly, "I know you've been itching to take out another planet or two, but I guess Elizabeth plans for us to keep living on this one."
Heat surged through Rodney's face. He snapped his mouth shut, grabbed his laptop off the console and stormed out into the hall. That was it, the final fucking straw, that marked exactly how much he could take. Yes, he'd been overconfident, yes, he'd made a mistake, but he'd spent the last three weeks paying for it, and now this -- this asshole--
Sheppard came jogging up behind him, looking disgruntled. "Hey. That was a joke."
"I have a very highly-developed sense of humor, Colonel, and I assure you that wasn't remotely amusing." Rodney picked up the pace, which made his blood pressure spike higher but did absolutely nothing to deter Sheppard. "So if that's your idea of hilarious, why don't you go sign up for open-mic night at the comedy club on Planet Wraith-Ate-My-Baby? Maybe they can help you work out some new material."
"Sounds like I'm not the only one who needs it," Sheppard retorted. Rodney palmed open the door to the transport chamber and ducked inside, trying to reach the touchscreen before Sheppard had a chance to follow him in. It didn't work. "You know, you really need to lighten up."
"What I need--" Rodney bit off, and then the doors opened on the third floor of the north tower. Splendid, he'd hit the wrong spot on the screen. Rather than admit it, he strode out into the hall, laptop still clutched to his chest and Sheppard following right on his heels. "What I need is to keep working, only everyone seems determined to slow all my projects to a crawl. Now, unless you've got a brilliant solution to that problem--"
"For crying out loud, Rodney! Collins is dead and you blew up a solar system--"
"--It was five-sixths--"
"--and you're pissed because Elizabeth wants a memo and I cracked a joke?" Sheppard finished as they rounded a corner and came out onto the deck above the desalinization tanks.
"Yes!" Rodney yelled, and set his laptop down hard on the console. "No! I'm pissed because if everyone keeps harping on it, we're all going to get killed!"
Sheppard didn't drop the glare, but his expression shifted. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Rodney ran a hand over his face and started to pace. "Look, I am willing to admit that I am very occasionally wrong--"
"How modest," Sheppard said, rolling his eyes.
"Shut the hell up, you asked me a question and I'm trying to answer it." He took a deep breath. "Yes, once in a blue moon I make a serious mistake, but statistically? We're a lot less likely to die because I fucked up than because I didn't have a chance to get to something fast enough." Sheppard opened his mouth and Rodney threw a hand up to cut him off. "And yes, before you say anything, I have done the math on that."
Rodney gritted his teeth and kept moving. "Look, I know what you think, Colonel -- I know what Elizabeth thinks, what Zelenka thinks. You think I'm reckless, egotistical, and prone to experimenting with dangerous equipment I don't fully understand. Fine. I concede all that." The surprise on Sheppard's face went beyond comic and to the edge of insulting. "But the guys at the Manhattan Project had five and a half years to get their work off the ground. I usually get hours -- at best, days."
"When it's a crisis, sure," Sheppard countered, arms crossed over his chest. He looked angry but attentive, which was better than the blank insincerity Rodney had been getting from him since they got back from Doranda. "But the rest of the time -- would it be that big a deal to do a little more homework first? Spend another half a day running simulations--"
"Yes," Rodney snapped. "Yes, it would. Look, theory is great, I adore it. It'd be the cream in my coffee if it weren't heresy to drink coffee any way but black." He slumped back against the console and pressed his fingertips into the middle of his forehead, trying to find the right way to explain. "You wouldn't recruit some idiot, give him a piloting manual and an afternoon playing Halo, and tell him he was ready to go on combat missions, would you? Everything I learn here, the odds are we're going to have to use it, soon, so no, I can't wait for an IRB or interdepartmental hand-holding or for Elizabeth to decide it's time to take the training wheels off."
He looked up to find Sheppard staring at him. Suddenly Rodney realized just how bone-tired he felt, ground down by the last year and a half. "People die when I'm wrong," he said quietly, and he was thinking of Acturus, but also of the lower-level lab where they'd lost five people to the nanovirus, and of the defense satellite where they'd left Grodin. He was thinking of the display that had tracked Sheppard's jumper as it arrowed toward a hive ship, that desperate suicide run. "But they die a lot faster when I'm slow."
3.
Teyla had a great deal of respect for Ronon, and she truly valued the skills and knowledge he had brought to the team in just the month since he came to Atlantis. However, after their third nearly-disastrous trade mission in a row, she was starting to wonder if it wouldn't be wiser to invent excuses for him to remain behind.
She considered how best to approach the subject as they walked through the snowy woods and back to the jumper. The negotiations with the Gulaia had been a marginal success, which was something of a miracle, considering that they'd almost been imprisoned not a half an hour after greeting the high elder. Ronon had refused the ceremonial sharing of tea and then displayed a weapon when an attendant had overzealously tried to force it on him. It had taken all her skill and John's charm to repair the offense, and they'd still had to send Ronon to the outskirts of town for the duration of the talks. (Rodney had accompanied him, though that was less to keep him company than to preempt the likelihood of further diplomatic missteps.)
"Ronon," she said, picking her way over a fallen tree. "I do not wish to trespass, but if I may make an observation ...?"
Ronon glanced over his shoulder at her and shrugged. Up ahead, John and Rodney appeared to be arguing about something, going back and forth in the easy antagonism that marked their friendship. Like children, almost. There were times she envied their thoughtlessness. "I know it must be difficult for you," she continued, "after so many years alone, to have to adapt your habits to suit the customs of others--"
"Not hard," he interrupted without looking back.
Staring at the uninformative width of his shoulders, Teyla pursed her lips. "Tiring, then, and I can imagine how it might seem unnecessary--"
"No. Not that either." He planted a hand on a large rock and swung himself over it with no apparent intention of saying anything further. As she skirted the boulder, she silently debated whether it was worth the effort of continuing -- her patience was not currently what she could have wished -- but when she came around the other side, she found that he had stopped to wait for her.
"Dangerous," he said.
Teyla looked up at him for a long time before admitting, "I do not understand."
Ronon squinted out over the landscape, as though assessing it by some unknown criteria. With his blunt features and the snow lodged in his hair, he looked as if he could have blended into the background in the space of a breath. "My second year as a runner, I saw three villages get culled, one right after another. They'd stopped to say the sunset prayer to the gods."
It was too easy to imagine. She ducked her head for a moment in acknowledgment. "That is ... most unfortunate. Still, our traditions are what make us who we are, they make our lives worth living--"
"Not if you're dead." He slid one hand under the fabric of his long coat in a gesture that looked unconscious. She wondered if he was running his fingers over the hilts of his knives. "They slow you down. You get fooled into wasting time. Stupid. Can't afford that."
He was so young, she thought, not for the first time. He must have been barely out of boyhood when he joined Sateda's army, barely a man when he was taken by the Wraith. "You are not running now," she said, keeping her voice smooth and light. "Colonel Sheppard and his people have many resources, and the Wraith do not know Atlantis survives. You are safe, Ronon -- you need not limit yourself to what you can carry."
For the first time in the conversation, he turned his head and stared at her directly. "Safe?" he demanded, and the disbelief on his face was etched as deep as the scars she had seen on his back and chest. "How many people have you lost? And them?" He jerked his head down the hill to where John and Rodney walked side by side, shoulders bumping as they bickered. "They aren't from here. They don't get it. There's no safe, not while the Wraith are out there."
Ronon turned back to the woods around them, scanning the trees and rocks with a knowledgeable eye. "Wars don't stop between battles," he said grimly, and took a long stride forward as he started down the uneven slope. "You should pay attention to what you're carrying around."
4.
As one of the second wave of personnel to join the Atlantis expedition, Evan knew first-hand that newcomers adjusted in stages. Stage one was culture shock, where you learned the city and did your job with a constant low level of what the fuck in the back of your head, because this place was half-military, half-civilian, and a totally different animal from any base or outpost you'd ever seen. Not everyone made it past this stage, and those who didn't usually transferred back to Earth inside of six months. You reached stage two when you learned to hate the phrase unscheduled off-world activation and to love that purple cauliflower-parsnip thing from M4X-113. It was acclimation.
Then, just when you were good and comfortable, another wave of newcomers came in off the Daedalus to get lost in the corridors and have their sleep cycles rewritten by the twenty-six-hour solar days. They reminded you of all the ways this place was nothing like Earth -- but instead of getting sympathetic, you found yourself poised to defend the city and the people in it against any slight or criticism. Any threat from within.
That was stage three, and it was when you realized you belonged here.
Evan had been living with that knowledge for almost five months when SGA-6 blundered into a feudal war on M2H-815 and Dr. Rosen had to half-carry Captain Ensel through the gate while Martinez and Allerand gave cover fire. Right as Beckett and his staff were getting Ensel on the gurney, Dr. Firelli came clattering down the staircase with her face sheet-white, saying, "Oh my god -- Allison, Allison--"
When Ensel lifted one hand to brush Firelli's cheek, the blood on her fingers gleamed dark through the curtain of Firelli's pale hair. Evan looked away -- not out of discomfort, but in a rapid visual sweep of the gate room, checking for anyone military who'd been here less than six months. For a moment, he thought they were in the clear -- and then he spotted Lieutenant Horton, five weeks off the Daedalus and watching the two women with an unreadable expression, P-90 still cradled in his hands.
Well, shit, Evan thought.
It was three days before Horton showed up at his office door. By then, Evan'd had a chance to skim Horton's record (third generation USMC, first off-world posting, grew up in Missoula, fucking great) and polish up the line of argument he'd used before. But he didn't get farther into it than, "Regs are regs, Lieutenant, and I won't ask you to disregard them. Still, I'll tell you honestly that we need every good officer we can get, and to lose one for a reason as--"
"Sir," Horton cut in stiffly, "excuse me, sir, but you've got the wrong idea."
Evan raised his eyebrows. "How so, Lieutenant?"
"Permission to speak freely, sir?"
"Granted."
Horton's posture stayed tense. "I've known Captain Ensel since OCS, and I don't care what her preferences are. This isn't about the regs, sir."
Evan blinked, surprised, then settled the heels of his hands on his desk and leaned back a little. "Okay. So what is it about?"
"It's this whole damn city, sir," Horton said bluntly, his gaze traveling over the glass of the office wall. "Everyone's pairing off right and left. It's a bad idea, sir."
Christ. Evan wondered if Sheppard got this kind of thing. Then he decided he didn't want to know. "I agree that fraternization poses problems," he said, after a pause, "but there's no way to prevent our personnel from getting involved with the civilian population."
"No, I know that, sir," Horton replied in obvious frustration. "But this isn't a stable base -- if it was, they'd be letting people bring families on deployment, not looking for unattached volunteers. It's an isolated outpost in a highly volatile region, and it's asking for trouble to form these kinds of ties out here."
Evan drummed his fingers on the desk and then took a slow breath. "You know the expedition's history?" Horton nodded cautiously. "Then you know they were pretty much cut off for the first year. I got here right after the Wraith siege, and I can tell you that before the Daedalus showed, most of the people here didn't think they'd ever make it back to Earth. Our position's more secure now -- especially once McKay finishes that gate bridge -- but still. We lose that, or the ZPM, or the Daedalus goes down ... wouldn't take much to strand us again." Not much at all, and Evan stared off into space for a minute, scenarios running through his head. Horton was watching him when he looked back up.
Evan shook his head. "Like it or not," he said, "I don't know that we can stop anyone from starting to make this home."
"But sir, that's it." Horton swept a hand out in a gesture that took in the city. "People here -- they don't act like coworkers, or even comrades. They're like a tribe." He grimaced, adding, "I mean no disrespect, sir -- I can see why. But one of these days, things are going to get bad, and this won't be a military base when that happens. It'll be a family." Horton turned his face toward the corridors, eyes flickering as he tracked the people walking past. Evan wished he'd paid better attention to Horton's record, because this wasn't just military training talking. This guy had a real mind.
"Families don't have 'acceptable losses,' sir," Horton murmured, as Evan started to wonder what it would take to get Horton to stage three -- to make him one of them. "And if these people aren't very lucky, or very careful, they'll lose it all."
5.
"He told you that?" Teyla asked, eyes wide as she set the bottle back down on the coffee table.
"Yes!" Elizabeth crowed, and pressed the back of her hand against her forehead as she laughed. "I swear, he was so bent on getting sympathy from someone, I think he honestly forgot that I was his supervisor and he was going to have to look me in the face afterwards!" Wiping the moisture from the corners of her eyes, she dropped back against the couch cushions, the knots in her shoulders finally unwinding after this unbearably long week. "I tell you, when I took this post, I never thought I'd be arbitrating lovers' quarrels between disgruntled scientists."
Elizabeth took another sip of wine and tucked one arm up behind her head, smiling at Teyla. She felt so grateful to have this -- one friend to commiserate with, someone with her own status outside the Atlantis chain of command. Someone who understood the weight this kind of responsibility could have. "It's a strange thing, you know, living with the people you're leading. On Earth, our civilian leaders tend to have a lot of gatekeepers, people assigned to deal with the public. But here, there are so few of us -- anytime something goes wrong, I'm right there." She swirled her glass, watching the deep red liquid circle around inside. "It's not like any other job I've had, but I can't imagine giving it up."
Across from her, Teyla had gone quiet, her hair screening her face as she gazed down at her own glass. Elizabeth frowned. "Teyla?"
Teyla shook her head slightly and glanced back up. "Forgive me," she said, pulling a smile onto her face. "I was lost in my thoughts. Please, you were saying?"
Elizabeth waved the courtesy off. "No, what were you thinking?"
After a few seconds silence, Teyla sighed. "You were speaking of leading your people. Lately, it has been harder for me to ignore my own shortcomings in this area."
Elizabeth set her glass on the table and sat up. The Athosians, she knew, were more deliberate in their use of body language than Americans were, and she wanted to signal her own concern and attention. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Has something happened?"
"No, everything on the mainland is fine." Teyla dropped her face toward her glass again, running one fingertip delicately over the rim. It was hard to read her when she got like this, and Elizabeth searched for a gentle way to prod her into continuing.
"The Athosians have always looked to you for guidance," she said, trying for neutral affirmation.
Teyla pressed her lips together quickly, then murmured, "How can they, when I am not in sight?"
Sweeping her hair back over her shoulders, she met Elizabeth's eyes. Elizabeth set a hand on Teyla's knee in a brief, encouraging touch. "When an Athosian goes to live with another people," Teyla explained, "we hold a ceremony to recognize their departure. It is a common custom in this galaxy; as uncertain as life can be, we have learned not to assume that travelers will find it easy to return." She took a breath. "I have not done this ceremony, but I have begun to wonder if I should."
"But you haven't left your people." Elizabeth let her confusion show on her face. "You're on the mainland several times a month, at least -- for births and deaths, for feast days--"
"Yes," Teyla interrupted irritably, "I am there for significant events, I am not entirely negligent. But I am absent from dealing with the day-to-day issues, and that is what a leader is -- one who lives among her people, as you said. By those standards, Halling is more leader than I, and has been since the Athosians left the city."
"Don't sell yourself short," Elizabeth insisted, disturbed. She'd never heard Teyla speak so critically of herself. "You stayed with us to help your people, to keep Lantea safe for them. You're a vital link between them and the rest of the galaxy."
Teyla looked helplessly toward the ceiling, her brows pulling together. "So I am a bridge," she said, tipping her hand upward in capitulation. "Very well, a bridge is a fine thing to be. But it has its feet in two places, Elizabeth, and it is forever going away from both." She closed her eyes and bowed her head again, face drawn and pained. "My people are kind and loyal, and they have yet to ask me to make an account for myself. But how many years of patience shall I ask from them? Three? Four?"
Both her hands had wrapped themselves around the bowl of her glass, and the skin across her knuckles was taut. "I do them a disservice by transgressing our customs -- them, and myself," she admitted. Elizabeth looked at her lovely face and tried to think of any words of comfort she could offer. Nothing came to her. Teyla bit her lip.
Their talk turned to other things, but an hour later, after Teyla pressed her forehead against Elizabeth's and headed out into the hall, Elizabeth found her quarters still resonant with a particular silence. It was the long, uneasy pause that had hung over them both after Teyla had said, "Someday, perhaps soon, I will have to choose."
6.
A week after they stole the city back from the Replicators and two days after General O'Neill gated back to Earth, John and Lorne met up to go over the post-crisis security report. Of John's administrative responsibilities, this one at least had some practical value. Also, Lorne had been his second long enough that he'd started doing about 75% of John's paperwork without being asked, so John supposed he didn't really have any grounds to complain. Still, there was nothing that made him wish he'd actually gone down in the fight quite like seeing its aftermath parceled out into checklists and repair requisition sheets and resource depletion charts. Invasions made for a crapload of paperwork.
"You know," John remarked as he shook the cramp out of his fingers and picked up the stylus to start initialing again, "not that I mind, but I really thought they were going to kick my ass to the curb this time. I mean, yeah, we saved Woolsey and O'Neill, so they were around to put a good word in, but still, there was insubordination, stealing a highly classified vessel, unauthorized intergalactic travel ... that's kind of a laundry list even for me."
The corner of Lorne's mouth twitched, but he only leaned over to point at the screen and say, "I think you missed a line."
"Of course I did." John grimaced and scrolled back up to make the correction. "Seriously, though, don't you ever wonder why they haven't given my post to Caldwell yet? Or hell, kicked you up a rank and given it to you?"
"No." Lorne frowned down at something on his own work tablet. "Actually, I don't."
John turned to look at him. "Why not?"
Lorne glanced up, looking mildly surprised. "Caldwell's a good commander, but he's by-the-book. And me -- well, I haven't had enough command experience in the field, I spent the last few years as an XO. Any kind of large-scale combat situation, I'd be falling back on training too, at least for a while." He shook his head and went back to the tablet. "Post like this, they need someone who's going to toss out the playbook, make it up as he goes along."
"Right." John sighed and pushed at his right eye socket, which had started to throb. "That way, when we do get blown up, they can blame it on my lack of discipline and disregard for proper procedure." Jesus, it was Elizabeth and the I.O.A. all over again, a bunch of goddamn bureaucrats hiding behind their desks so their asses stayed well-covered.
"Is that really why you think you got this post?" Lorne asked. He was staring at John with a strangely incredulous expression.
John shrugged noncommittally. "I think when Sumner got killed and we got cut off, the SGC couldn't really do anything about it for a while. And then I'm pretty sure Elizabeth pulled most of the strings she had to keep me in command. After that ..." He tabbed to the next form with a closed-lipped smile. "I guess they went with the devil they knew."
"All due respect, Colonel," Lorne told him in a tone that was dry even by his standards. "But that's the first really stupid thing I've ever heard you say."
That got John's attention. Not because of the insult -- after two and a half years of McKay, it took a lot more than that to even make it on his radar -- but because Lorne never went that close to the line with him, even though John would be the last guy in the USAF to punish a subordinate just for taking a crack at his ego. "Okay, I kind of doubt it's the first," he said, setting the stylus and tablet down on the desk, "but how do you figure?"
"They need you out here." John's eyebrows jumped, but Lorne didn't look like he was kidding. His usual sardonic manner had dropped away sometime in the last five seconds, like someone had wiped it straight off his face. "And not because of the gene, or because you've got the right record for a scapegoat, though I'm not going to say they didn't take those things into account. But this is one hell of a dangerous post, and basic officer training didn't come close to covering the stuff we're dealing with. The only way to keep this city is to give it to someone who's going to make the hard calls in the first thirty seconds, who won't waste time on protocol or standard tactics that aren't going to get it done."
Lorne shifted his grip on the tablet so that he had it balanced on his flattened hand, like he was trying to test its weight. "The brass back home may not like you," he said. "They may not like the calls you've made. But their rules don't work out here, and a lot of us are still alive because you didn't stop to follow them." It wasn't anything that John hadn't thought before, but it was different to hear someone else say it out loud -- especially someone like Lorne, who was exactly what the USAF looked for in an officer. What they'd probably thought John would be, back before he started breaking ranks and fucking up. It was like hearing your footsteps echo in a dark building and realizing the place was a whole lot bigger than you'd first thought, feeling the magnitude of the space around you increase.
"At the end of the day, I think they know that," Lorne told him, and tapped his stylus against the edge of the tablet as if in punctuation of that conclusion. "And it could be they're gonna crucify you for it later, but they sure as hell need you now."