Brothers & Sisters 2/2

[tzzzz]

Part 1

Jeannie reappeared in a flash of light not long afterwards.

“How’d it go?” Rodney asked, trying for nonchalant, unlike Elizabeth, who practically ran out of her office for the control room. “Where’s Captain Ahab?”

“Great skills as a brother, Mer. No ‘nice to see you, glad you didn’t die on a mission to destroy an army of highly intelligent robots?’”

Rodney waved away her concerns. “Please. I knew you’d survive. You’re like a cockroach. No matter how much one of your theories is discredited, you just pop back up.”

“When has one of my theories really been discredited?” Jeannie scoffed, ignoring Rodney’s protests and rounding the control counsel to pull him into a tight hug. “Believe it or not, Mer, I’m happy to see you. And for your information, the mission went wonderfully. The Replicators are no more. Which leaves me almost a full two weeks to see what my big brother is up to.”

“You mean spy on me for the IOA.”

“I mean find out what’s going on in your life.” She gave him another one of those surprisingly strong punches on the arm. “After you got drafted into the SGC, I’ve barely heard from you.” Before that, they hadn’t been close either, but Rodney elected not to remind her of that fact. When Rodney had been in academia, they saw each other at conferences and called to bicker about different theories, but once Rodney’s work had been classified, he’d only seen his sister at the Registration of her two children, when they were inducted into her husband’s Guild. Sometimes Rodney wondered if she’d only married him for his Guild status, but then again, Rodney had never gotten to know him well enough to tell.

“Well, I was busy.”

“Too busy to call?” Jeannie protested.

“Didn’t we have this conversation already?” Rodney complained. They’d had this conversation every Christmas when Rodney remembered to call and then they’d had it the last time Jeannie was here. Rodney didn’t want to see her any more now than he did then.

“Yes, we did. But just because we have different theories of, well, almost everything, doesn’t mean that I don’t love you.”

Rodney was not going to have a big gushy emotional moment in front of his staff. It was probably all part of Jeannie’s secret plan to undermine him. “Look, we’ll discuss this later. Right now, I think we should do the post-mortem on the mission. I’m sure Dr. Weir and the rest of the staff would much rather hear about that than our family history.”

“Actually,” Zelenka interrupted, but he didn’t get a chance to finish because a loud klaxon went off.

“What’s that?” Elizabeth demanded.

Chuck responded quickly. “Proximity alarm. Something’s entered orbit.”

Elizabeth quickly opened a channel to Colonel Ellis. “What is it?”

After a pause, Ellis began. “It looks like a stargate.”

“Dial the gate!” Jeannie ordered. Rodney took a second to think, but he had to agree with her. If it was close enough to the planet then activating the Atlantis stargate would keep it from activating and then give them at least 38 minutes to figure out its purpose.

“Where?” Chuck asked.

“Anywhere,” Rodney and Jeannie snapped in unison.

“Dialing the Alpha Site,” Chuck announced.

Rodney relaxed a fraction as the wormhole engaged. “Get a detailed scan of it,” he commanded Ellis.

Elizabeth didn’t seem to follow, but she quickly asked. “What’s happening?”

“Whatever it is, it clearly uses the stargate as part of its primary function,” Jeannie began.

After a quick look at the preliminary scans, Rodney agreed. “It’s basically just a gate with hyperdrive and maneuvering thrusters.”

“So, by dialing out,” Jeannie concluded. “We prevent it from dialing in and doing whatever it was meant to do. That gives us 38 minutes to figure out what that is and whether we want to stop it.”

“My lab?” Rodney asked Jeannie.

She nodded and they headed off.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this appeared in orbit immediately after we destroyed the Replicator homeworld,” Jeannie began.

“I don’t either.” Rodney let his anger take over. He’d softened during his time in Atlantis so that only true acts of stupidity would rile him up. But Jeannie had been pushing his buttons for years. He didn’t think he even knew how to restrain himself when she was involved. “I knew it was too good to be true. You always go for the Pie in the Sky option. And you can afford to, because up until recently the only consequences if you are wrong are reassignment of grant funding, a little public humiliation and some wasted paper. But you’re in my world now and if you don’t plan for the worst case scenario, people will die.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Jeannie protested. “Jesus, Rodney. I’m terrified. I can’t do what you do on a daily basis. I’m a professor. I work on whiteboards and take my kids to the beach on the weekends. I’m not cut out for this stuff! But the IOA told me it was a matter of homeworld security so I did this job for them. This one job before I can go back to my normal life.”

Rodney didn’t know if he believed her, but he did know that if he did, then her view of the world was painfully naive. Luckily, it was just as likely that she was lying and that she had asked for that contract just to get back into the cutthroat competitive game they’d been playing since they were kids, when their father would offer them prizes to beat each other at speed solving equations or take the one who came up with the best theory to get ice cream. “There’s no such thing as just one job with the military, Jeannie. We both know it.”

They made it the rest of the way to the lab in silence, then pulled up the more detailed scans that Colonel Ellis had provided. Unfortunately it turned out to be nothing more than a gate with flight capabilities and a shield system.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to figure out its purpose until we see it in action,” Jeannie finally admitted. “Whatever is meant to come through from the other side is what’s important.”

Rodney snapped his fingers in triumph. “But we can tell from the schematics that it’s nanite built. Look at the work. It’s one continuous body of metal - no welding, no screws.”

“So it comes from the replicators.”

“Or another incredibly advanced civilization that uses nanites to build things.”

“I hope that’s not the case, because then--”

“We’ll have yet another incredibly technologically advanced civilization out to get us.” One nice thing about working with Jeannie was that they rarely had to finish their own sentences.

“But how do we know that they’re out to get us?” Jeannie pondered. “Maybe this is a probe sent to communicate with us.”

“We already have a gate,” Rodney pointed out. “They could communicate with us through that.”

“And if it wanted to communicate, it wouldn’t need to be directly above the city.”

Rodney snapped his fingers. “Let’s try something.” He hit his comm. “Chuck, turn on the shipboard engines and give us a little nudge.” They’d just wait a few minutes for the city to move a discernible amount and see if the satellite followed. If it did, then they’d destroy it.

“Shouldn’t we, um, warn everyone first?” Chuck asked.

“Yes, yes, warn people. Move the City. Get on with it.”

After a brief announcement, they felt a slow move.

“Don’t you get sea sick?” Jeannie asked, not falling over in even her ridiculously impractical heals.

“Not since I met John. He tortured the motion sickness out of me.”

“Or maybe your hypochondria.” Jeannie paused a moment and then added. “Or maybe it wasn’t so much torture as enticement. He’s gorgeous.”

Rodney knew he hesitated too long by the predatory gleam in Jeannie’s eye, but managed to cover. “Yes, John Sheppard is, objectively, a fine figure of a man. But, then again, so am I.”

Jeannie snorted. “Yeah right, Mer. We both know you’re no John Sheppard. If I weren’t married, I wouldn’t mind carrying for someone like that.”

“Too bad he’s an Imperial,” Rodney crowed. “No babies for you.”

Jeannie shrugged. “I already did my duty to the lineage, if we even have a lineage. It’s you I’m worried about. You seeing anyone?”

Rodney winced. He could lie. Except he was a terrible liar and Jeannie was always the first to see through him. “Not exactly,” he hedged. It was the wrong tactic, considering that it only made Jeannie’s eyes light up with the thrill of a mystery.

“So who is it? C’mon, Mer, I’m your sister.”

Rodney stayed silent.

“Guy or girl? Because I heard a lot of things at the SGC about you chasing poor Colonel Carter, who is a lovely woman by the way, but so far out of your league it’s not even funny. You’ve had your fair share of girlfriends, but I’ve always thought that secretly you wanted a man.”

All those years of strained silence and she still knew him too well.

“I think it’s a man,” Jeannie declared. “And I think you must really like him or you wouldn’t bother with this ‘not exactly’ thing. You’re always the first to brag about meaningless things. It’s only things that mean something to you that you even bother to hide. And it has to be someone on this base because where else have you been to get serious with someone? Not the Gate tech, even though it would be good to stay in a Canadian Guild. And I doubt one of the Marines, despite your tendency to lust after jocks and cheerleaders. Ronon, maybe? He seems to put up with you.”

Jeannie knew that if she was just annoying enough, Rodney would eventually crack. He knew that she used it against him, but he couldn’t help from spluttering, “Ronon! You think I’d be involved with a man mountain who had to be coaxed into using a fork? Yes, he is absolutely the best guy to have around if you get captured by aliens or need someone to retrieve sharp objects out of his hair, or if you want to get into a bar fight, but seriously, Ronon?! He does share my love of mashed potatoes, and we do have a warrior’s bond in blood thing going, but what do you even think we talk about?”

Jeannie raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow at him expectantly.

“Fine!” He threw his hands up in the air in shear exasperation. “It’s Sheppard. I’m sleeping with John Sheppard.”

Rodney was expecting shocked silence, or maybe some excited girlish squeals, but not derisive laughter. “Yeah right, Mer. I’m serious. Who is it?”

“I told you. I’m sleeping with John. I know he’s an Imperial and I’m an unregistered royal carrier, but he doesn’t seem to care about that. And is it so hard to believe? I’m attractive. Maybe not as attractive as I used to be, but I run. I lift weights sometimes. I spar with Ronon.” Jeannie didn’t need to know how sparring with Ronon was basically practice getting beat up.

Jeannie eyed him critically. “You’re serious. Well, I guess stranger things have happened. We are in a floating city in an alien ocean a galaxy away from home. So, are you going to get married?”

She looked honestly hopeful and that hurt more than the derisive laughter ever did. Rodney just crumpled. He’d been holding it in these past weeks - all these doubts that he couldn’t voice to anyone, especially John. “He says we’re together. He cares about me. He must care about me.”

Jeannie took his hands, cradling them in hers, the compassion in her eyes cutting deep. “I’m sure he does.”

“But he’s carrying another man’s baby. He says it was just a one night stand, but they’ve known each other for years. He’s back on Earth with him right now for the Registration ceremony.”

Jeannie got that sharp look in her eyes, the one that generally preceded an explosive burst of anger. “He cheated on you.”

“No, no. He was already gestating when we got together. He was going to bind, but then he almost lost the neonate. Only Ancient technology saved it.”

“He had a change of heart, because of the donor.”

“I don’t know if it was only because of the donor. He’d lost a neonate before and it really screwed him up. I think he needs to see this through. And I didn’t want him to bind. It’s still his baby and I want him to have that.”

“Oh, Mer,” Jeannie whispered, reaching out and enfolding Rodney in a hug. With all the fighting he forgot how maternal she could be sometimes - warm and inviting, and every inch the perfect person that Rodney would never be. “You love him.”

Rodney nodded, aware that moisture was gathering at his eyes, but refusing to just let go. He still had his dignity. “I do love him. But things are complicated. He says that he’s not going to get together with the baby’s donor, but when it comes down to it, that might be the best thing for him. The donor is a colonel. He’s saved Earth more times than I can count. He’s attractive and fit and friendly. Everybody loves him. John cares about him and thinks he’d be a great parent and I can’t disagree. He’s the kind of guy who will play catch with his son and teach him how to be friendly and charming and popular and die for him if necessary and he loves John.”

“But John says he loves you?” Jeannie asked.

“I know he does. I just don’t know if he loves me enough.”

Jeannie’s arms tightened around Rodney and she whispered, “Don’t give up hope. Don’t stop fighting for him.”

Rodney nodded, but he had reached his limit of sappy sisterly love for the day and also, they were possibly under attack from a race of space robots. He pushed Jeannie back gently, pulling up the sensor readings. “It’s following us.”

“What do we do now?” Jeannie asked.

“We talk to Elizabeth.”

***

“So the Replicators are retaliating?” Colonel Ellis did not look happy. Rodney would never have thought that he missed humorless Colonel Caldwell, but at least Caldwell wouldn’t dawdle with recriminations. He’d just do what needed to be done.

“Assuming it’s the Replicators,” Jeannie added, going right back to her usual contrary self after only a moment of fraternal bonding.

“Who else would send a device, constructed by nanites, that follows the City around, just hours after we attacked the Replicator Homeworld?”

“I’m just saying that we don’t have definitive proof that they sent it, or any proof that it’s a weapon.”

“Okay,” Elizabeth interjected, “let’s assume that it is a weapon and it is sent by the Replicators. What can we do about it?”

“We can shoot it down,” Ellis replied calmly. “My crew has analysed its defensive capabilities and it has no offensive weapons capabilities without the gate activated. The shield is on the same level as the shields on the puddlejumpers, but repeated bombardment should weaken them enough for us to destroy it.”

“Do it,” Elizabeth ordered.

“But we don’t know what it does!” Rodney protested. He was all for destroying something that might lead to horrible, horrible death for them all, but he was also curious.

“And you just told me that we can’t know what it does until it opens a wormhole and then it might be a new kind of weapon that we have never seen. Destroy it.”

Ellis nodded, giving the order to his crew. Only moments later, he reported that the device had been destroyed.

“Well, that was easy,” Rodney remarked.

“Too easy,” Elizabeth agreed.

“They’re going to just keep sending things,” Jeannie said. “If even a small number of Replicators survived, then they are capable of rebuilding their entire civilization. You heard what Oberoth said - his mind is stored in a collective and can just be recreated at will. Even Microsoft knows to keep backup files in offsite storage, so I’m sure a race of super intelligent androids can figure out the same thing. We destroyed everything on that planet, but it’s foolish to assume that’s their only base of operations. They’re robots; I doubt they have any attachment to one world in particular. I have more data to go over before we can be certain, but I’m willing to bet that the Replicators are still a threat.”

“Great, and you didn’t see fit to mention this earlier when you and Colonel Boom Boom were determined to shoot first and ask questions later?”

“We only knew about one homeworld and we knew they were building ships, most likely to attack Earth. It was the right call, Mer. And we probably didn’t help things by warning them that we might try something like this.” Jeannie looked pointedly at Elizabeth.

“Well, what’s done is done,” Elizabeth said, though she also looked frustrated. “If they are just going to keep rebuilding and sending more weapons to target us, then what are we going to do?”

They both had a point. They couldn’t just sit there when the Replicators had near-infinite resources and were highly mobile. “That’s it!” Rodney exclaimed. “The Replicators don’t have any attachment to one particular planet and neither do we. So we move the City.”

“Can we do that?” Elizabeth asked.

“With three full ZPMs? It’s a piece of cake. Well, I have do some checks and maybe a few minor repairs to the stardrive, but we were already getting it up and running. We could move the City back to Earth if we wanted to.” Rodney saw the avaricious gleam in his sister’s eyes and quickly backpedaled. “Not that we should. Or could. I mean we’re stationed here for a reason and the Wraith are still a threat. Not to mention the duty we have to the people of Pegasus and--”

“We’re not moving the City back to Earth,” Elizabeth stopped him. “What we are going to do is make sure the Replicators can’t find us again. Then we can discuss strategy for how we’re going to deal with the Replicator threat in an offensive capacity.”

***

Moving the City turned out to be the easy part. Rodney was sorry that John missed flying it. He could just imagine the excited, Pavlovian response to getting to fly pretty much anything and a city would be a crowning achievement for any pilot. Still, Rodney had to admit that Lorne did a credible job of not killing them, even though he did break several valuable pieces of lab equipment and create a giant tsunami when he landed them in the ocean on New Lantia.

Rodney even managed another detente with Jeannie when they were doing the final work on the stardrive. She was a giant pain to be around, but Rodney had to admit that he could appreciate working with someone who was almost as smart as he was and could actually keep up with him on everything. And even after all these years, Jeannie’s rhythm hadn’t changed. They were just as in sync as they had been when they first deigned to collaborate on a science project competition as children. Even though they had different donors, they seemed to have inherited so many intellectual similarities from the man that raised them.

“Do you think I’d make a good donor?” Rodney asked, after it was all said and done and he and Jeannie were sitting together on a balcony overlooking the waters of the new planet.

Jeannie seemed to seriously consider it, pausing with a frown. “I think that anyone can be a good parent if they commit themselves to it.”

“So, no, in other words.” Rodney knew a non-answer when he heard one.

“No, Mer! God, you’re so sensitive. That’s not what I meant. I meant that some people are naturally child-friendly. They had wonderful, loving households where family meant everything.” Like Cameron Fucking Mitchell. “And the only model for parenthood they have is to be loving and supportive and interactive. Also, some people have more time to spend with their kids. They don’t have dangerous jobs. They aren’t prone to being controlling. They’re genuinely wholesome and nurturing.”

“So, basically, I’m doomed. Jeannie, I’m none of those things!”

“Neither am I!” Jeannie protested. “Dad had you as a bad business decision and he had me in order to open his pouch up again after that lab accident, because they didn’t have hormone treatments to do it at that time. He was distant. He constantly pitted us against each other. He withheld his affection unless we excelled beyond all reasonable expectation and he cared more about his work than he did about providing a good environment for two hyperintelligent young children. He didn’t show us how to be good parents.”

“So we’re both doomed.”

Jeannie glared, looking more determined and serious than Rodney had ever seen her, including the time where she bet Rodney that she could build a working model of a nuclear bomb faster than he could and they both got interrogated by the CIA. “No, Rodney. We have the deck stacked against us, but we are not doomed. I work all the time and let my husband run the household. I jet off to other planets because my brother needs me and when I am home, I would have no clue what to do with my kids if Kaleb didn’t help me, but when I’m there, I give them all my attention. I tell them that I love them every day and I do my best to be a good role model for them. And I think I’m a damn good mom for doing it and you will be a damn good deedee if you put your mind to it.”

“But I have a high stress, very time consuming job on a top secret military base in another galaxy. How am I supposed to do everything I do now and be a good parent too?”

Jeannie sighed, looking sad but no less determined. “Part of being a good parent means making sacrifices for your children, Rodney. To be honest, I don’t think you can keep your job here and be the world’s greatest parent.”

Rodney hung his head. He’d known it all along, but it hurt to hear Jeannie say it.

“So John is better off with Cameron Fucking Mitchell.”

“Colonel Mitchell is the donor?” Jeanie asked.

“Got it in one. You know him?”

“I met him briefly a few times when I flew in to the SGC to consult with Dr. Carter. He seemed nice.”

“So you’ve noticed that he doesn’t have any of the issues we were just talking about. He’s practically G-rated already. You could animate him and he’d be a Disney prince. This is what I’m up against.”

“You’re not ‘up against’ him, Mer. John isn’t a prize to be won and competed for. He’s a human being capable of making his own decisions for his own reasons - reasons which are probably beyond your control. You’re also talking about a child, who deserves the best, regardless of what you, John, or Colonel Mitchell wants. All three of you need to take a step back and decide rationally what makes the best sense for the kid and what the three of you can live with that won’t make all your lives miserable.”

Jeannie made a lot of sense. In fact, the ideas weren’t even new. They were things that Rodney had come up with himself, he just chose not to think about them. Now that Jeannie forced him to really consider it, Rodney knew what he had to do. He had to go back to Earth and tell John everything he felt, even if it might freak John out. John was going to be a father and while John and Rodney could afford to dick around doing their usual ‘emotions, what emotions?’ routine when it was just the two of them, they owed it to the baby to resolve their issues so that it came into a world with a stable home ready and waiting. That home might or might not include Rodney, but he owed it to them all to give John enough information to make the best choice possible.

Jeannie smiled hopefully at him, giving Rodney’s arm a squeeze. Stupid military maneuvers aside, he was glad she came. Not that he’d let her know she was any help. Her ego was big enough as it was.

***

Ellis wasted no time. The day after they had safely landed on New Lantia, he’d already called a meeting of the command staff to discuss the Replicator threat. Rodney was tempted to complain that they were safe for the near future and shouldn’t they wait for the dust (or in this case, the tsunami) to settle after their move? However, Rodney didn’t mind using the meeting as an excuse to delegate the organization of repair teams and the duty to rein in the biologists, who were already chomping at the bit to explore this new world.

After taking a nosedive in Lorne’s water landing, Jeannie had compromised on a more practical outfit: flats, suit pants, and a blue blouse that matched her pale blue eyes. She didn’t wait for Ellis to start the meeting. “When we were in orbit above the Replicator homeworld, I was able to take some very detailed readings. Specifically, using a modification to the Asgard sensors that I developed, we were able to do an inventory of the Replicator base code.”

“Really?” Rodney had to admit that he was a little impressed. He was busy, what with being on a field team, keeping a city afloat, and dealing with his hot but unstable boyfriend. He didn’t have time to go over Asgard sensors in depth, but what cursory looks he had taken of them didn’t immediately reveal Jeannie’s innovation, so it had to be clever.

“Really,” Jeannie replied, her voice gritty and determined. Rodney had to admit that maybe he was partially responsible for the bitterness he heard there. He had teased Jeannie relentlessly about not being as smart as him, right up until she proved she was, at which point, he teased her harder.

“As thrilling as your tinkering may be, it doesn’t matter if you didn’t find anything useful.”

“As a matter of fact, I did find something useful. Several useful things, in fact.”

“Useful as in the location of the other Replicators?” Rodney asked. He had allied himself with Elizabeth and the civilian powers on the expedition from the beginning because he hated getting pushed around by the military (except John, of course), but if he’d known that Jeannie would eventually be in the game, he might have picked the more powerful ally. He hated that Jeannie and Ellis could keep him in the dark and then spring things on him like this.

“I have their location at the time of the scan,” Jeannie replied. “Some of them will most likely maintain those positions, as they appear to be permanent bases. The warships will undoubtedly have scattered, however.”

“Well, that’s too bad, because with Replicators it does you no good to kill one unless you’ve killed them all.” It wasn’t as though Rodney wanted Jeannie’s information to be useless, because it was all they had at this point, but he had to admit that he’d like to see her flounder a little bit.

“That’s why I don’t want to kill them.” Jeannie grinned.

Even normally unshakable Elizabeth seemed surprised. “What do you intend to do?”

“This,” Jeannie turned her computer screen around, smiling triumphantly.

“Excuse me?” Elizabeth asked, but Rodney was too engrossed in the code to pay her questions any attention.

“That’s brilliant,” he had to admit.

Jeannie beamed, basking in triumph for a second before turning to Elizabeth. “This is an embedded code that has been deactivated. We suspect by the Wraith.”

“The Wraith were able to program the Replicators?”

“They were highly motivated,” Rodney interjected, “because this is an attack code. It makes it their operational objective to destroy the Wraith.”

“So what you’re saying, Doctors, is that we can kill two birds with one stone?” Ellis asked.

“If you must put it in the simplest way possible,” Rodney sneered. He found John’s deliberate oversimplifications amusing, but Ellis didn’t have a tenth of John’s charm.

“Sounds like a plan.” Ellis ignored the sarcasm entirely. “How soon can you implement it?”

Jeannie winced. “That’s a little more difficult. In order for it to get transmitted to the entire population of Replicators, it needs to be uploaded to one of the central data nodes that distributes network-wide data. So far as I can tell, the Replicators have various substations that update certain classes of information to different individuals. Not all of the Replicators are hooked up to each of these substations, basically for security purposes. Only a limited amount of data is transmitted system-wide by a small number of data nodes - basically only operational improvements and security measures are transmitted this way. And everything in the buffer undergoes a very strict review before it’s sent out.”

“Unless it’s urgent,” Rodney pointed out.

“Exactly.”

“So what does that mean?” Ellis asked. Rodney took a moment to wonder how frustrating it must be working around himself and Jeannie, who only needed a few words to communicate. Yet another loss for all those ordinary people who didn’t have the brains to keep up this them.

“It means, Colonel Ellis, that you need to lose a fight with the Replicators,” Jeannie replied with a shit-eating grin.

“See,” Rodney felt he needed to elaborate, considering that Ellis wasn’t even as smart as the CalTech undergrads Jeannie was used to dealing with, “if we let the Replicators figure out the key to our planet-wide ARG, that will be too big not to immediately transfer to the collective.”

“But if we let the Replicators figure out how to resist the PWARGs, then we’ve lost our main weapon against them.”

“A weapon we won’t need when they are dedicated to fighting the Wraith,” Jeannie grinned. “I admit it’s a gamble, Colonel, but my team at Area 51 is almost done with the second generation PWARGs, and the advantages if this works out are substantial.”

“But what are the consequences if we fail?” Elizabeth asked. She always liked to rain on Rodney’s parade.

“We’ve destroyed the Replicator fleet designed to attack Earth and the remaining ships the Replicators have are needed to defend their current bases. The PWARG mark 2 has been through testing and only needs about a week for manufacturing if we rush it,” Jeannie argued. “The Replicator ships do not have the capabilities to reach Earth in that time. Atlantis has enough ZPMs to relocate anywhere it chooses and to engage in direct combat with the Replicators if necessary. We have the advantage and it’s time we press it.”

“Don’t you think it would be wise to wait until the mark 2s are complete before engaging the Replicators?”

Ellis shook his head. “The longer we wait, the more out-of-date our intelligence becomes. We took out the main Replicator settlement. What’s left are scientific outposts, mining facilities, and a few mobile attack units. An enemy that could repair this very gateroom from a drone blast in under a day can do a lot to change the game in a week.”

“And you don’t have any problem with basically using a sentient species as cannon fodder to fight another enemy?”

Rodney rolled his eyes. He loved Elizabeth as a diplomat, a strong woman, and as a leader, but sometimes she needed to get off her high horse and face facts. “I’d rather they’re fighting the Wraith than us.”

“Besides,” Jeannie replied, “the Replicators were created to fight the Wraith. It’s in their nature, which is why the Wraith only switched off the protocol, not removed it from their base code entirely. Although creating a sentient race as weapon might be a moral failing, it was the Ancients who made the choice, not us. What we’re doing is no more immoral than using a dog to hunt. It might even make the Replicators happier, if they are even capable of happiness, to be fulfilling the central purpose of their base code.”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea. Colonel Sheppard would . . .”

“Colonel Sheppard is not here,” Ellis jumped in. Rodney felt a momentary pang, as he was reminded of all the reasons why John wasn’t here. “And even if he were, I would still be the ranking military officer dealing with what is clearly a purely military matter. Doctors McKay, tell me what you need to make this plan work.”

“The Apollo, obviously, and a puddle-jumper-based strike team to input the code. I’ll monitor things on the Apollo and my brother can input the data into the Replicator’s central database.”

“Major Lorne, have a team assembled as soon as possible,” Ellis ordered. Lorne had been so quiet that Rodney had completely forgotten his presence. He doubted that John would’ve held his tongue, even though he also doubted Elizabeth’s assertion that he wouldn’t approve of the plan. John was never one to shy away from a potentially huge victory because of a little thing called risk.

“We’ll need a few hours to prepare the activation code,” Jeannie replied, already standing to leave the meeting, without waiting for a dismissal.

Rodney trailed her, already typing on his tablet with one hand while demanding. “Are you sure you’re needed on the Apollo? The point of the mission is for the Apollo to eventually lose a battle. Colonel Ellis can do that on his own.”

“Rodney, you know as well as I do that timing is crucial on this. Somebody needs to analyze when the Replicators are close to building resistance to the PWARG and transmit the message to your team.”

“But couldn’t you do that from a cloaked jumper? Or better yet, from the City?”

Jeannie shook her head. “I’m not your baby sister anymore, Rodney. I can take care of myself.”

***

Normally, Rodney liked being right, but not when he predicted dire consequences and those consequences actually happened.

He came tumbling out of a puddlejumper with Ronon practically bouncing from the excitement of victory. Next to him, Teyla had that smug, regal grin on her face that announced pride in a job well done. There had been a few tricky moments - especially when the handheld ARGs stopped working just as they were diving back into the puddlejumper. But Rodney had the best team in the universe, even minus its fearless leader and they had just walked into an enemy stronghold and done what the US military had been trying to do for decades: win the hearts and minds of the enemy with a single keystroke.

“We did it!” he crowed, only to shy away from the look of regret and sympathy in Elizabeth’s eyes. “No, no, that’s not possible.” But that look could only mean one thing (actually two, but the other person that would merit such a look of pity directed at Rodney wasn’t here to be killed or gravely injured). “Jeannie?”

“There was an explosion,” Elizabeth replied. She looked remarkably calm, but then again, this was her job. “Carson has her in the stasis room.”

“Stasis?” Oh god, this was bad. Really bad. Rodney took off at a run, not even bothering to turn, but knowing that Ronon and Teyla were close on his heels. He even half convinced himself that he heard the ghost of John’s footfalls running along beside them.

Rodney skidded to a halt, the scene in front of him as devastating, yet underwhelming as expected. Jeannie was already frozen like sleeping beauty behind an ice-like force-field. She looked peaceful, not swamped by a medical team in surgery, or crying out in pain. Only the look in Carson’s eyes betrayed the severity of the situation.

“Is she...” Rodney didn’t know how to finish that sentence. She wasn’t dead, but there were far worse things, things that he wouldn’t say outloud about his baby sister.

“She hit her head,” Carson replied. For all his medical training, he seemed amazed that it could be something so simple. “She’s bleeding into the brain. The swelling is already at dangerous levels. We managed to get her into stasis before it could do any permanent damage to her tissues, but if we take her out, there is no way an injury like this wouldn’t lead to brain damage.”

“So she’ll live but she won’t be the same Jeannie or she rots away in stasis?” This was too much. Too much for the past two days of war and science on the brink. Too much to see and work with his sister again only to have her taken away like this.

“Rodney,” Carson sighed. Carson was terrible at this part of doctoring - every regret was etched deep into the lines of his sensitive face. “If we take her out, she won’t just be different. She’ll most likely lose all higher brain function.”

Rodney felt tears come to his eyes, the tightness in his chest that signaled a wave of overwhelming grief, Teyla’s comforting hand on his shoulder, but none of it sunk in past the layer of blatant disbelief that coated everything. “She’s my sister.”

“I know, lad.”

“There has to be something. I mean, we live in a city built by people who could heal using just their minds. I refuse to accept that this problem isn’t fixable. She’s in stasis. We have all the time we need to come up with . . . wait! I know, the Ascension machine. I healed Ronon when I used it. I can just use it again and heal Jeannie.”

“Rodney, that machine is dangerous. I don’t think it’s wise for you to let it alter your DNA for a third time. I’ve already found some slight deterioration in some of your stem cells as a result.”

“Then I will use it,” Teyla volunteered.

“That’s very kind of you, lass, but this isn’t a good idea for anyone. Not to mention your Wraith DNA.”

“I don’t have Wraith DNA,” Ronon pointed out. “I’ll use the machine.”

“Nobody is using the machine!” Carson yelled. “What happened to Jeannie is tragic, but there’s no guarantee that what happened to Rodney last time is even repeatable. You might not even get healing powers and you certainly might not be able to return to your former self and we can’t predict what will happen if you don’t have the ATA gene. I can’t allow it.”

“Who said we need your permission?” Ronon asked, twirling his blaster a little for emphasis, but looking to Rodney for the next move.

“He’s right,” Rodney sighed. He couldn’t ask Ronon to sacrifice himself for Jeannie. Jeannie had made the decision to go on the mission even though he’d cautioned her against it. She’d taken the risk and she wouldn’t forgive Rodney if someone else died trying to make up for her decision. “It’s too much of a risk.”

Except, Jeannie had nothing to lose at this point. She could use the machine. “The machine returned me to my original state without the loss of any of my memories. Why can’t it be reprogrammed to return Jeannie to when her brain was healthy?”

Carson looked hopeful for a second but then his eyes fell. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Rodney. We had multiple recent scans of you. The machine could use Jeannie’s DNA to essentially overwrite what’s there now, but it knows nothing about her development. Our bodies are more than just our DNA, but the expression of that code translated through years of developmental influences.”

“Rodney and Jeannie are siblings,” Teyla pointed out. “They had similar developmental influences and similar genetics. Could you not use Rodney’s scans to fill in the gaps?”

Teyla was surprisingly astute for someone raised in a culture that didn’t even have microscopes, but there was one problem with that. “Jeannie and I aren’t that closely related. We have different donors.”

Carson looked up for where he was working on his tablet, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Not according to this. You’re full siblings, no doubt about it. And I think Teyla has a point. It will take a few days, but I think that using Rodney’s gene expression patterns as a template and finding a way to isolate the cranial area, the machine can be programmed to repair the damage to Jeannie’s brain. It’s a shame. The Ancients clearly had the level of technology to heal injuries using genetic overwrites this way, but they must have evolved widespread healing abilities before this base was built, because we haven’t found any such machines.”

“Yes, yes, fascinating, tragic history, but we have my sister to save.”

Rodney tried to focus on that fact, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he and Jeannie were full siblings. That meant . . . he didn’t know exactly what it meant, other than that their father had lied to them. He’d said that Rodney had been the child of his first clients - a couple who couldn’t conceive, but they’d gotten divorced to find procreatively compatible spouses and abandoned Rodney with his father. Their father had said that Jeannie had been conceived to open his pouch again after surgery delayed taking a new neonate and his pouch had closed up. According to their father, Jeannie’s donor had donated anonymously and under contract through the Guild organization. But if their donors were one and the same, then one of those stories had to be a lie. And, if Rodney constructed the pedigree properly, then their donor must have been plebeian.

But first thing was first: make sure Jeannie was okay. Then he could return to Earth and wring the truth out of their father.

Next: Dominus, Secundus, Pleb