Charlie Foxtrot – 1 – Hazel

Reading Time:
21 Minutes

Chapter One:

No matter what his father thought about his choice of careers, John Sheppard was not a stupid man.  He could calculate complex equations in his head and hold off a half dozen enemy soldiers on his own, but as soon as he’d realized that Colonel Sumner had drowned and he was the ranking military officer on the rapidly uninhabitable city of the Ancients he’d known he was in way over his head.

And while John hadn’t spent much time at the SGC before leaving for Atlantis, he’d heard enough while he was there to be confident that the level of fucked up he was currently facing was also far beyond the capabilities of the political scientist that had been given civilian leadership of the expedition.  He’d stuck fairly close to her since they’d arrived because he felt responsible for her safety given her leadership status.  But with Sumner dead and the city shields literally folding under the pressure of several hundred feet of ocean, what they were doing wasn’t going to cut it.

Probabilities flashed through his mind in rapid bursts of numbers and ruthlessly suppressed adrenaline.  With a single deep breath John interrupted the continuous radio chatter of panicked scientists.  “This is Major Sheppard.  All security teams escort the civilians to the ship bay immediately.  I want a pilot in every ship that’ll open.  Markham, Stackhouse, double time it.”

After a short beat of silence a chorus of “yes sir” echoed back at him as he headed straight to the flight controls of the weird alien ship he’d been inspecting.  He didn’t bother listening to any of the civilians that had started protesting, simply clicked his radio again.  “Dr. McKay, that includes you.”

“I’m a little busy doing inconsequential things at the moment.  You know, like trying to get power to the gate so we can get off this city before we all drown.”

“Do it from here, Doctor.  I’m not risking the one person most likely to get all the fancy Ancient do-dads around here to work.  Sgt. Bates, I want the CSO in my line of sight in two mikes.”

Sumner’s unofficial right hand barked out an affirmative even as Weir stormed into the back of the little ship and demanded to know what he was doing.  “I’m doing my job, Dr. Weir.”

John rubbed a hand briefly over his face, finishing his statement under his breath as he internally cursed himself for not using his time in the mountain to pick up a little of the Ancient’s written language.  “Which would be a hell of a lot easier if I could at least figure out how to turn this thing on.”

The interior of the ship lit up.  “Was that me?”

Weir came further into the craft, arms crossed as Markham and Stackhouse confirmed over the radio that they’d arrived and were finding ships of their own.

“I’m in charge of this expedition, Major.  And in case you missed it, we have people trapped throughout the city and I need McKay working on opening those bulkhead doors so we can all get off this city safely.  I really don’t appreciate-”

“I’m well aware of the situation, Dr. Weir.”  John glanced back as Zelenka entered the small alien craft and began inspecting things.  “But it is a security situation, and I am the ranking military officer and I’ve determined these ships to be our best chance at saving as many of us as humanly possible.”

Weir made a sound not unlike a boiling kettle.  John glared over his shoulder before turning back to the array of buttons in front of what had to be the pilot’s seat.  “I realize you want McKay opening those doors and getting the gate operational and opening the bay door so we can use these ships but just because he’s a genius doesn’t mean the man isn’t still human, Dr. Weir.  He can’t do everything.”

“So you’re just going to force him to give up on everything and let all those people die?”

John spun in the chair to face the irate civilian.  “No one is giving up on anything.  He’s still going to be doing his damnedest to pull off a miracle here but he’s going to do it from the console in this bay.”  He shifted his glare over her shoulder where McKay was stomping towards him and pointed to the console on the nearest wall.  The scientist turned and headed for it without much more than a movement of his free hand that was either a wave of acknowledgement or an attempt at a profane gesture stymied by an armful of tablets and cords.

“He goes in a ship at the first sign, Sergeant.”  Bates gave a sharp nod as he followed in McKay’s wake, and John turned back to the ship controls.  “A user manual for these things wouldn’t go amiss,” he called out as a gaggle of scientists were herded into the bay by two security teams, “I want these things ready to fly ASAP people.”

Suddenly what looked like a schematic blinked to life in front of him.  “Now that’s more like it.”

“Major Sheppard!”

John turned, his expression clear enough to make Weir stop yelling as soon as he met her gaze.  “I’m not arguing with you, Dr. Weir.  This is what we’re doing and if you really want to help, get out there and make sure our people are all inside a ship.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned back to the projection while she left with a huff and clicked his radio.  At least there were pictures.  “Make sure there’s at least one gene positive person in each ship, Crown, these things apparently need some mental commands.  Start with telling it to get flight ready.  Then focus on shields, just in case.”

The images in front of him shifted, the flashing lights as what he assumed where some kind of external sensors started pinging everywhere.  “Asses in seats, people, we’re out of time.  Bates!”

“Yes sir,” the Marine called out just before the CSO was shoved unceremoniously through the back hatch of John’s ship.  Zelenka squawked as the other scientist tumbled into him.

At the sight of water rushing into the bay, John thought ‘close’ with as much urgency as he could.  The rear door of the ship closed obediently and he held his breath as he waited for confirmation from the other ships that they had done the same.  They were fully underwater by the time McKay and Zelenka joined him in the cockpit.

The sound of his radio in his ear was as much of a relief as having McKay not so gently pushing his way past Zelenka to sit in the copilot seat while insisting, “Even the Ancients must have needed a garage door opener in their vehicles.”

“This is Lt. Crown, sir, I’m in a ship with Sgt. Markham and Drs. Grodin and Parrish.”

“Stackhouse here, sir, I’m in another ship with Sgt. Campbell and Dr. Biro.”

“Bates.  I’ve got Miller, Kusanagi, Simmons, and Weir.”

Before he could respond, McKay made a loud exclamation in what sounded like French and thrust a hand in front of John’s face as the image shifted.  “There, Major.  Pod bay doors open.  You’re welcome.”

John let out a breath, then turned on his radio.  “Hold tight, campers.  McKay just opened our escape hatch so once we’re all up and running we’re going to fly out in a nice tidy line and meet up topside.”

A series of ‘yes sir’s followed, and he turned his attention back to the flight controls.  With another deep breath he reached for what he hoped was the proverbial ignition.  The moment he pressed it, there was a split second of stillness that left his breath catching in the back of his throat.

“What the hell!”  John instinctively grabbed the controls as space spread out before them, a blue planet nothing like earth far below.

“Major, watch out!”  The warning came as the HUD showed several small craft headed for them.

There was no time to grasp just how surreal it was to fly with his mind as he dodged fire from several of the incoming ships.  “McKay!  Find me some weapons on this thing!”

As soon as he said it, the ship was responding.  He was firing almost before he even realized he could.  “Never mind!”

The scientist didn’t respond, face buried in the tablet he’d plugged into something or other under the dash.  A harsh impact rocked the ship, making Zelenka curse as he fell forward into the seats.

McKay cursed as well when another shot followed.  “The shield is down to 60 percent!”

“What?”  John rolled the ship, barely moving out of the way of a third hit.  As soon as they were clear, he returned fire.  “Got one!”

“Don’t celebrate yet, fly boy, there’s two more headed right for us.”

John spared just a second to glare over at the man in his co-pilot chair.  “Thanks, McKay, that’s real helpful.  I never would have noticed them otherwise.”  He gritted his teeth as he pulled into another roll, hissing a breath when he managed to hit another one on the way.

The exchange continued for several minutes, but for every two he destroyed, three more seemed to appear in their place.  “Damn it, they’re like fucking cockroaches.  Where are they all coming from?”

“Just a guess, but I would bet on that big ugly thing over there,” Zelenka answered breathlessly.

“What the hell is that thing?” McKay’s voice rose, turning more than a little shrill.

John would have rolled his eyes if he weren’t concentrating so hard on watching for more hostile ships.  “How would I know, I just learned aliens were actually a thing a few weeks ago.”

“I wasn’t asking you, Sheppard!  Just watch where you’re going.”  The scientist braced himself against the dash with one hand and continued tapping his tablet screen ferociously with the other.  “Shield is at 50 percent.”

The entire ship shuddered in the wake of another impact and John grunted as he struggled to steer and focus on shooting at the same time.  Flying with his mind was a lot more physically taxing than he would have thought.

“Forty percent!”

“Shit!  We’re going down!”

“Wait what?  Down where?  We’re in space Sheppard there is no down!”

“I beg to differ.  Grab on to something Doc,” he shouted over his shoulder, hoping the yell Zelenka let out meant he’d managed to get into a seat of some kind as the planet’s atmosphere sped by in a disconcerting light show.

“Thirty percent!”

“Fuck the commentary McKay, and brace for impact.”

“Brace with what?”

The outraged demand was the last thing John heard as they hit the water.

— — —

Janus was the last through the gate.  The man stopped only briefly to glance behind him at where John and McKay were standing at the top of the stairs before stepping through the event horizon and following all the rest of the Ancients back to Earth.

The gate blinked out a few seconds later, leaving the two of them alone on an empty alien city at the bottom of an alien ocean in another galaxy, ten thousand years in the past.

He met McKay’s hard blue stare.  The scientist looked as pissed off as he felt.  They stared at each other in silence and after several seconds, John rubbed a hand over his face and let out a long, slow breath.  The anger and frustration and outrage bled out of him like an arterial wound and all that was left was a profound exhaustion.

“You know, I’m pretty sure there have been more than a few times I’ve said that I wanted to sleep for a lifetime or two but this was really not what I meant.”

McKay crossed his arms over his chest and scoffed.  “I’m not going to sleep, Sheppard.  Do you have any idea how much of a waste it would be for a certified genius to be here and just spend the whole time asleep?”

John blinked at the amused annoyance in that question.  “We know the ZPMs won’t last ten thousand years.  Do you expect me to take the stasis nap so I can change out the batteries while you gallivant around here playing with all the toys that don’t actually turn on for you?”

The man rolled his bright blue eyes like an unimpressed twelve-year-old.  “Please.  Neither one of us is going to slowly die in a damn stasis pod.  I’ve got a plan.  Genius, remember?”  McKay stabbed a finger towards his own chest and stomped off towards the command center near the dark gate.

John hurried to follow, ignoring the view of the retreating scientist like a pure dan professional.  “Well then genius, impress me.”  He raised a single brow in challenge when the other man looked up from the console he’d spent so much time working with when the expedition arrived.  “What’s this plan of yours?”

“Since the stingy assholes wouldn’t just give us an extra, the ZedPM’s do need to be changed out, but that doesn’t mean we have to do it.  At least not physically since a simple computer program could direct the power array housing the ZedPMs to draw power from one at a time.

“It just requires someone to write the program and upload it into the governance system that dictates power drain and distribution throughout the city.”  McKay waved one hand in the air in the general direction of the stargate as he started to type with the other.  “And obviously those twits couldn’t be bothered to do such a thing in their rush to tuck tail and flee their great enemy.  Because heaven forbid they loose their precious little lives before they have a chance to commit ritual suicide in the interest of spiritual enlightenment.”

The typing stopped for a moment, then picked back up at a faster pace as the scientist cursed under his breath.  “Oh for fuck’s sake.  Really?  The most technologically advanced race and they can’t even bother to shut shit down properly?”

“What’s the matter?”  John took a couple steps closer, propping himself up against a nearby wall as he watched McKay poke at the console in an irritated manner.

“I tried to pull up the power schematic in the database to reference for the program and the damn thing hasn’t been properly shut down with the rest of the nonessential systems.  It’s basically in standby mode, waiting for the command to either fully initialize or completely shut down.”  He waved again, this time at John.

“Here, use that supergene of yours and tell it to re-initialize the database access.”

Sheppard walked over and placed his hand where McKay pointed.  “How exactly do I do that?  There isn’t exactly an ‘on’ switch here.”

“Ancient tech has a mental component, remember?  Think at it.”

John took a deep breath and told the computer to turn on the database.  The lights on the console blinked a few times and then brightened.  He glanced over at McKay, then pulled his hand away when the man nodded at him.  “What exactly would have happened if it stayed in stand-by mode?”

McKay shooed him away and started typing again.  “It would have locked after a few days and only partially closed.  Think not turning off your old windows pc correctly for weeks and weeks and needing a full restart and a monumental de-frag.  Only the de-frag program needs a restart too and you can’t actually properly restart anything because the files are so fragmented you can’t find the command to do it.”

“Huh.  That probably wouldn’t have been good for the expedition.”

McKay paused to stare at him, huffed, and returned to typing.  “No.  Assuming we hadn’t all drowned again, I imagine using the database would have been a supreme pain in the ass.”

John watched McKay work in silence for a while, the man pausing every few minutes to cock his head to the side and mutter under his breath.  It wasn’t exactly scintillating and before long, Sheppard found himself walking listlessly around the command center just to do something.  The letters and words displayed as McKay worked meant nothing to John, but the numbers formed something familiar.  He looked at it in silence before the equation made sense.

“Eighty-three point seven.”  Sheppard spoke without thinking, startling the other man enough that he spun in his seat to face him.

“What?”  McKay spun back and looked at the projected information, then turned to John.  “Did you just solve that?”

John blinked.  “The equation?”  McKay huffed.  “Uh, yeah.  Sorry?”  John raised his brows at the last word, not sure if he was actually apologizing or asking if he should apologize.

The scientist regarded him with narrow eyes for a silent moment before waving him over.  “Well then, don’t just stand there.  If you can actually add and subtract get over here and work out these other equations for me so I can do the rest.”

“Gee, sure, McKay, I’d love to help.  Thanks for asking so nicely.”

“Whatever, flyboy.  Do the math, coding isn’t exactly my area so I have to actually think about this without you jammering.”

They worked in silence for probably another hour or two, though John ran out of math to do after about forty-five minutes and took to wandering the gateroom quietly while McKay finished.  Eventually, the man pushed back from the console with a gusty sigh.

“There.  Done.  Now the city will automatically rotate power sources without us having to manually switch out the ZedPMs every 3500 years so in case we both die tragically at the ass end of space and time, the expedition will still have a shot at not all suffering another watery death.”  He stood, grunting as he did so and making a face as he stretched his back a little.

“What?” John asked as he made his way back over to join his fellow time traveler, his foot catching on the last step as he tried to make sense of what McKay had said.

“Well, as brilliant as my plan is it’s always good to have a contingency plan.”  He waved at the console, presumably meaning the power rotation program.

“Then what, pray tell, is your actual plan, McKay?”

The other man tilted his head and looked at John with a slightly puzzled expression.  “We’re going to go get an extra ZedPM to use here.”  The ‘duh’ at the end was unspoken but loud all the same.

“Right.”  John pinched his nose briefly.  “Of course.  And where would we be going to do that?”

McKay pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it and waved it around a little.  “Janus gave me addresses, so let’s go.  We need a gate ship.  You’ll have to fly.  And probably do most of the talking or whatever and tell this Brotherhood group we want our fancy crystal back.”

McKay led John out of the gate room and towards the flight bay at a faster clip than he would have expected out of the scientist.   “Don’t forget to act extra Ancienty,” he said as they loaded into the small aircraft a few minutes later.  “I doubt they’d want to give up their special keepsake to just anyone.”

John sighed, but piloted the small ship out of the bay and through the stargate without protest.  He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to act like an Ancient, but the clothes the Alterans had given them and showing up in a cloaked Atlantian ship seemed to mostly do the trick.  That and not contradicting the weird priest guys when they assumed they were Atlantians.

Barely an hour after they left the city, they were returning with a ZPM.

McKay was all smiles the whole trip and continued to grin rather smugly as he set down the case with the Ancient battery and gave it a little pat.  “Perfect.  That should set the expedition up nicely even if we fail.”

“Fail what?”  John was getting the idea that he was going to spend most of his working relationship with the astrophysicist constantly two steps behind since the man never actually explained these things.

McKay turned, again looking innocently befuddled for a moment before his expression took on a clearly unimpressed edge.  “Traveling back to our proper time.  Seriously?  I’m a genius Sheppard, I’m going to science the shit out of this.  It’ll be your job to protect me of course, so I can get us out of this mess.  Maybe you can do some math too.”  Narrowed blue eyes looked him up and down.  “We’ll see.”

Sheppard went from staring at him with an attractive if stupid expression to looking somewhat offended.  That only lasted a second though, before the flyboy was asking the kind of question that would certainly lower his chances of being allowed to make any mathematical contributions to their escape from the past. “You want to fix the DeLorean and use it to go back to the future?”

Rodney crossed his arms and valiantly refrained from explaining how stupid that movie was.  “Of course I want to fix Janus’ time travel craft, how else would we get back to the proper time?”

“Right.  Okay.”  The soldier rubbed a hand down his face and nodded.  “If we’re going to be on the city and awake, I’m going to need to make a long term plan first.”

“What do you mean a plan?  I know what I’m going to do.  I’m going to get the time ship and I’m going to fix it.  How are you going to make a plan for that?”

Sheppard slumped into the nearest chair, clearly giving something some serious thought.  Hopefully the brain under that fluffy hair didn’t sprain something since Rodney really needed someone around to protect him while he worked.

“We need to assess and fortify our position.  Make a base of operations, a secure safe zone on the city for us to work in.  We need supplies.  We need to know what we have here and what we need so we can determine how and where we’re going to get it.”

Supplies.  He reached down to his side pocket and sighed when he didn’t feel the familiar shape of his backup snack stuffed in there.  Rodney sat down as well, not sure if he’d rather get his hands on Janus’ ship or a powerbar.  He sighed.  Damn it, why did the flyboy have to make sense?

He leaned back in his seat to try and relieve the ache in his back and looked over the solder again.  “You know, at the Outpost you looked more like a laid back, seat of your pants type.  I wouldn’t expect you to be such a gung-ho, type-A planner.”

Sheppard looked away for a moment, eyes scanning the room before he then turned back to him looking all manfully stoic.  “We’re alone here, McKay.  Literally.  And you said it yourself.  If we’re going to science our way out of this clusterfuck any such miracles are pretty much on you.  Our safety is on me and it’s going to require a more methodical approach.  There’s no one else to point out what I might have missed so I’m going to have to not miss anything the first time.”

If the man were any less pretty the apparently heartfelt speech would have been painfully depressing.  McKay let out a heavy sigh. “Okay, boy scout.  Let’s get prepared.  What do we need?”

Rodney let his head fall back against the wall and put his giant brain to good use.  “Food.  Food is important.

“I have hypoglycemia, you know, so lack of food has a tendency to bring the possibility of low blood sugar induced coma.  So lots of food.”  Rodney bit his lip, one hand automatically checking his other pocket for the two epi-pens he always carried with him.  “Citrus free since I don’t particularly want to go into anaphylactic shock on account of alien lemons.

He infused as much annoyance as possible in his voice, even as the panic began to creep up the back of his throat.  “I doubt the Ancients packed all their groceries since they couldn’t even turn off the database correctly but I’m not sure the genetically perfect bastards needed allergy warnings on their pantry goods.”

He’d gone over the allergen issues with Beckett a half dozen times leading up to the expedition’s departure.  He’d made sure there were plenty of epinephrine and glucagon shots packed and that all the medical staff knew how to handle his conditions.

He’d prepared for being in another galaxy but this was more than that and even the preparations he’d done meant nothing without the supplies and medical personnel he’d ensured came with him through the gate.  He didn’t even have powerbars or MRE’s or other nicely labeled premade food with no citrus and lots of carbs.  Rodney rubbed his thighs with his hands as he felt his breath start to speed up.

Just when his left leg started to bounce a little in place with his building anxiety, the feel of two warm hands on top of his had his attention snapping up to the too-pretty face of his personal military escort.  Sheppard pinned his hands to his thighs gently and knelt in front of his chair.

“Deep breath, Doctor.”

Rodney took a breath.  Then another.  For some reason his hands loosened their grip on his thighs and his leg stilled.

Sheppard nodded slowly and leaned back a little.  “Good.  Let’s take it one step at a time.  We keep possible future problems in mind but focus on our immediate needs first.”

Rodney nodded back.  Took another breath and let himself think.  Immediate needs.  Priorities.  “Right.  Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.”  This was normally the point where he would start pacing, but Sheppard still had a warm calloused hand atop each of his.

Rodney started bouncing.  The soldier placed a little more pressure on his hands.  Not enough to hold his leg in place, but enough that he stilled again as he continued to think aloud.  “Maslow.  Physiological needs, that’s safety requirements.  Air.  Water.  Food.  Shelter.  Sleep.  Security.  Protection from injury or illness.

“Right.  Okay.  So that’s a safe place, food, water, power and medical care.  We’re on a city.  A city they sank so there’s a good chance that they operated fairly self-sufficiently at the end, we should have most everything we need on site but where?  We need a map.  Maps should be in the database.”  He pushed himself to his feet but instead of moving out his way, Sheppard stood with him, hands still holding his.

“Before we do that, I want to make a quick sweep of this tower and the ones directly around it.  Even if they all left, we already know they didn’t close up shop as thoroughly as they should have so I want to make sure that nothing is going to bite us in the ass if we walk in the wrong room.”

Rodney knew the man was right to some degree.  He himself had listed a safe place first.  He himself had said that shelter, security, and protection were among the first items on the hierarchy.  But the need to dive into the database and get a full picture nearly vibrated through him.  A look at Sheppard’s face told him the soldier had his own list of things he was struggling to put off.  And since his safety was entirely reliant on that soldier, Rodney figured he could give in graciously just this once.

Team work was a pain in the ass.

“Fine.  Sweep away, but can’t I stay here and get started while you do your,” he waved a hand, encompassing the military paraphernalia Sheppard wore that testified to his function and priorities.

The man rose one brow, still not letting go of his hands.  “You’re saying nothing I come across is going to need your expertise to asses or deal with if the Ancients forgot to put the sheets over the scientific furniture?”

He felt his shoulders slump as he huffed, both vastly relieved and really annoyed that he’d ended up with a soldier boy that had an actual brain.  Sheppard smiled and finally released his hands.  The extra distance was good since the man was entirely too attractive when he smiled.

“Great.  Stay with me and let me know if you need to check something closer or you think I need to avoid anything we come across.  I’ll try not to think at anything too hard.”

Rodney sighed and set off in the man’s wake.