Casualties of War Read online

  S T A R G A T E

  CASUALTIES OF WAR

  "Don't just stand there and tell me it can't be done. Find a way!"

  Bristling, Rodney fired back. "What, so if I acknowledge reality, that somehow means I care about Ronon and Teyla less than you?"

  "Both ofyou, stop it," ordered Carson with a vehemence he rarely showed. It made an impact; Rodney's mouth snapped shut. With that hard set of his jaw, his own sadness and frustration became visible at last.

  The doctor finished bandaging John's forearm before speaking again, more gently. "Listen to yourself, John. What are you really hoping to find?"

  "I don't know! But what's our alternative? Just let them go, forget about them?"

  "Forget about them, certainly not," Carson replied, his voice solemn. "Let them go...aye, lad. I'm afraid so."

  John scrubbed a hand over his jaw, fast running out of rational points to make. Hell, he was starting to run out of irrational ones. All he had-all he knew-was the fact that his teammates were out there, and it went against everything he held fundamental to leave them, whether for an hour or forever, where they lay.

  Where his mistake had led them. He'd sent Rodney's group off unarmed, and this was the result.

  "God damn it," he whispered.

  S TA RGAT F

  CASUALTIES OF

  WAR

  ELIZABETH CHRISTENSEN

  For David, who would have gotten such a kick out of this.

  Many thanks to:

  • Sonny Whitelaw, for introducing me to this playground and for being an incredible mentor and friend every step of the way;

  • my family, for always being excited to see or even help with my work, regardless of whether or not they know what a Stargate is;

  • the U.S. Air Force, for giving me both my day job (by hiring me into its Engineering Directorate) and my night job (by authorizing the Stargate series);

  • and, most importantly, my husband James, for so very many things-among them, that evening up on the Boundary Waters when I said, "I'm trying to put together a plot for a new Atlantis novel," and he promptly came back with "What if there were these whips..."

  PROLOGUE

  'here were no letters to write. 1

  Elizabeth Weir had sat down at her desk, turned on her computer, and opened a new document before she'd realized that the entire sequence was unnecessary. The bleak custom had become so familiar that it now felt wrong to skip it. For an odd moment, she considered writing the letters anyway, as if committing the words to paper might ease her burden in some way.

  It was my great privilege to work with your son for the past ten months...

  Your daughters strength of spirit shone through in everything she did...

  This may be of little comfort, but his sacrifice saved more lives than you can imagine...

  She'd composed far too many such letters over the course of nearly three years. Each was unique and sincere, but at the core they all said the same things, and none of them fit this situation. Giving up, she closed the document and leaned her elbows on the desk, letting her head sink into her hands.

  A soft knock on the doorframe forced her to pull herself upright. John Sheppard stood there, looking about as tired and beaten as she felt. She wondered briefly if maybe she should write the letters and address them to him.

  "Got a minute?" he asked simply.

  "Of course." Elizabeth gestured toward the chair in front of her desk. Her military commander stepped into the office but didn't take the chair, instead standing with his hands clasped behind his back in a kind of parade-rest position. The stilted decorum of it looked strange on him, and it unnerved her.

  "How are you holding up?" she asked, because it was the only thing that came to mind.

  John offered a small shrug, barely detectable. "I don't know how to answer that question."

  She knew the feeling. "You went to the mainland before I got back."

  "I had to tell the Athosians what happened. It was... tough. They took it about like you'd expect-they're survivors. But it was tough."

  His features were controlled, as always, but it was clear that he was weighing a decision. At last he exhaled sharply. "Look, there's no easy way of doing this, so I'm just going to get it over with."

  Bringing his hands out from behind him, he took a step forward and laid a plain white envelope down in the center of her desk.

  Elizabeth realized what it contained almost before he pulled back his hand. That recognition only amplified the ache that had long since settled into her chest. She looked at the envelope for a long moment, then glanced up at him. "You can't really believe I'll accept this."

  "Half my team is dead." John's voice was toneless. "Two good people, people who followed me because they chose to, not because of a rank. They deserved better."

  She couldn't dispute his statement. "Yes, they did. But that doesn't mean that you failed them. You're blaming yourself for events that were beyond your control."

  For the first time since he'd entered the room, some of the tension in his frame seemed to abate, and his shoulders slumped. "Yeah, well, it's starting to look like I've let far too many things get `beyond my control' lately."

  "John, you're doing a very difficult job with a constantly changing rulebook," she said, doing her damnedest to sound unimpeachably reasonable. Though she knew-better than most-how difficult it could be to change this man's mind, she had to try. "All of us have made mistakes. Yes, these last few days have been an absolute nightmare, but do you honestly think that this expedition would be better off without you?"

  He didn't respond directly, his gaze straying to the window, where the control room personnel were maintaining some semblance of business as usual. "I've never doubted my instincts like this before," he said quietly. The admission surprised her into silence. "When I've improvised or gone against recommendations in the past, it's always been because I had a clear picture of how to resolve the situation, and the benefits were worth the risks. This time ...I got target-fixated. I lost sight of the big picture, and the expedition can't afford that."

  "So you're just going to give up?" Elizabeth demanded, startling herself with her vehemence. "Leave us to fend for ourselves? That hardly sounds like the John Sheppard I thought I knew."

  His eyes flared at her challenge, but too quickly he recognized the tactic. "There are a lot of officers better qualified for this position than I am, Elizabeth. Don't think I don't know how many times the SGC has told you that. Maybe it's time you listened to them."

  "Your instincts and your experiences are exactly why we need you here," she argued. "Do I have to remind you that, without your intervention a few weeks ago, a Wraith hive ship would have reached Earth?"

  "Of course not."

  "And more than that-" Rising, Elizabeth leaned forward on the desk. "We balance each other out, you and 1. We approach problems differently, and that's what allows us to arrive at the best course of action for Atlantis. Everything we've been through out here has been faced together. Don't ask me to bring in some new officer with no conception of that."

  They studied each other for an interminable time as she fervently hoped that she'd gotten through to him. More than anyone else, he'd been her anchor during her recent battle with the nanite infection, and she couldn't imagine taking on the unending challenges of life in the Pegasus Galaxy without his support.

  Finally, John dropped his gaze. "My decision's been made. I'll continue my responsibilities here until the SGC sends a replacement. I'm sorry."

  Elizabeth wasn't about to let him go quietly. Drawing in a breath, she played her ace. "There's just one thing, Colonel. As long as you wear the uniform of the U.S. Air Force, your duty station is their choice, not yours
. And your commander-in-chief has been known to take my calls. This has always been a voluntary assignment, but I can make your transfer options very limited."

  His eyebrow lifted. "More limited than Antarctica?"

  "Much more. Remember, there are Air Force bases without aircraft."

  There was no surprise in his expression; only resignation. "I had a feeling you'd say something like that."

  Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a small object and placed it on her desk beside the envelope.

  Elizabeth stared at it, her resolve wilting. "John, please."

  Defeat resonated through his voice. "I really am sorry, Elizabeth."

  He didn't have any more words, and neither did she. Helplessly, she watched him leave her office, then reached down and traced a finger across the gleaming silver wings.

  After allowing herself a few moments to mourn the end of something she couldn't quite define, Elizabeth sank back into her chair and opened a new document on the computer. Given this development, Stargate Command would need a full report on the disastrous events of the past few days as soon as possible. She might as well get started.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Six days earlier

  -o matter how far from home a person drifted-and this was a fair bit farther than John Sheppard reasonably could have expected to drift-some things remained constant.

  While the Ancient version of a washing machine bore little resemblance to anything Maytag had ever dreamed up, everyone agreed that it was awfully efficient. Still, there was only one room of the machines in the occupied section of Atlantis, and so laundry days often turned into a communal experience, much like in a college dorm or basic training.

  In one corner, Teyla primly folded clothes and stacked them in a woven basket. Radek Zelenka had his head partially inside a dryer, muttering something that had to be a series of Czech expletives.

  "Hate to break it to you, Radek," John remarked as he entered, "but there's nowhere in there for clothes to get stuck. If you're missing another sock, you'd be better off checking your quarters."

  From the scientist's glower, John inferred that any further cursing would probably be directed toward him.

  "Your input is most helpful, Colonel, thank you."

  Teyla watched her team leader dump the contents of a large, nearly overflowing gear bag into one washer. "Do you change clothing more often than I realized?"

  Her curious expression didn't fool John for a second. "Very funny. No, I stick to one uniform per day, except when something in Rodney's lab goes boom, or I have to crawl through ten thousand years of dust in the outer areas of the city, or-and I'm just picking an example at random- a recon mission turns into finger painting with six-year-olds."

  "The Rianns demonstrated deep trust by allowing you to interact with their young."

  "And I'm all warm and fuzzy about that, but even these spiffy Ancient washers took three cycles to get that green gunk out of my jacket." As he spoke, a pair of brightlypatterned boxers slipped out of his laundry pile and glided to the floor, proving once again that this galaxy really was out to get him.

  Eyes glittering behind his glasses, Radek peered down at the fabric. "Are those airplanes?"

  With reflexes that surprised all three of them, John snatched up the shorts and shoved them into the washer. "Some people have differential equations. I have airplanes. You want to put money on which one girls go for?"

  Radek was still searching for a response when Teyla offered, "I am not convinced that either design would have a noticeable effect on any interpersonal situations... at least, not a positive effect."

  Her sense of humor was becoming more Earth-like all the time. John flashed an approving grin at her.

  Swiftly changing the subject, Radek asked, "Daedalus has finished off-loading supplies, has she not?"

  Despite the innocence of the scientist's tone, John knew damn well what the real question was. The ship's arrival hadn't become a highly anticipated event because Hermiod's company was so enjoyable. "This morning," he confirmed. "Mail call will probably be tomorrow after dinner."

  Radek broke into a wide smile, but an announcement over the citywide communication system cut off any reply he might have made.

  "Unscheduled offworld activation."

  Not a big shock. These days they had more unscheduled activations than scheduled ones. The emergence of the Asurans had thrown a serious wrench into Atlantis's standard operating procedure, assuming such a thing had ever existed. Having demonstrated in short order that they were not to be taken lightly, the replicator bastards had been testing the waters on a number of planets. They didn't seem interested in conquest, just information- and the occasional opportunity to put some of their revitalized, hard-wired aggression to use. And if they ran into a team from the city they were so obsessed with commandeering, well, that was just convenient, wasn't it?

  John's team alone had run into them on three separate worlds and observed that their tactics had changed each time. He had a different word for the situation, and it wasn't family-friendly. On each mission, the team had hustled back home earlier than planned, often with weapons-fire singing past them all the way to the gate. He was willing to bet that Major Lorne's team had just found themselves the lucky recipients of the Asurans' attention this week. What fun.

  A low rumble sounded, reverberating through the floor strongly enough for John to feel a faint tremor through his boots.

  That, on the other hand, was not typical.

  Apprehensive, he cast a glance across the room at Radek, finding him equally startled and equally concerned.

  "That could not have been the jumper-could it?"

  "No," John replied, his resolve drawn less from what he knew to be true than from what he needed to be true. Granted, they were fairly close in the relative sense to the bay that housed Atlantis's "puddle jumper" spacecraft, but for anything happening in there to be felt this far out...

  The trio waited, all clearly hoping to hear a radio call that would reassure them. After a few seconds, the call came, but Lorne's ever-present calm had obviously been shaken.

  "Medical team to the jumper bay!"

  Everyone reacted in the same instant. Teyla was the first one through the door, but John's longer strides overtook hers halfway down the corridor. Adrenaline keeping his pace at something just below an all-out sprint, he barreled into the transporter at the end of the hall and reached for the control panel just as Teyla flung herself inside.

  Instantly they found themselves outside the jumper bay. With his teammate on his heels, John burst through the hangar's double doors and immediately was suckerpunched by a rush of smoke.

  Almost before he could grasp the implications of that, the haze began to clear, whisked out of the cavernous room by some kind of Ancient fire-suppression system. When he could see, he reflexively wished for the blindness back.

  Jumper Five, having returned from its first mission after a long grounding for maintenance, was now grounded in the ugliest sense of the word. John was surprised that the craft had made it back at all. One of its engine pods was now a blackened gash in the jumper's side.

  "Pro boha," murmured Radek from behind them, breathing heavily from the run.

  The jumper's hatch opened with a weary shudder. "Some help here!" yelled Major Lorne from the rear compartment, seemingly trying to perform triage on three of his men at once.

  Beckett would be here in seconds, no doubt, but seconds looked to be a precious commodity. John dashed up the ramp to one wounded Marine, Teyla to another. The Athosian smoothly took the field dressing out of Lorne's hand and knelt down to stanch the blood flowing from the sergeant's upper leg wound.

  "They reacted so freaking fast, sir." Shaking his head, Lorne addressed his CO while turning his attention toward a corporal with a messy laceration above his right eye. "It was almost like they were anticipating us. And that hit on the engine pod-Colonel, I swear to God that we did everything we could think of."

  "I don'
t doubt it, Major." Dropping to his knees with an inelegant thud against the unforgiving deck, John glanced at the remains of the jumper's first-aid kit and then at the face of the lieutenant lying beside it. Harper, he recalled. Matt Harper. Less than two years out of ROTC at Oklahoma-or was it Oklahoma State? Another mom-and-apple-pie kid, another officer who'd done everything ever asked of him and now had a hole in his chest to show for it.

  John swallowed a curse and leaned in to apply pressure to the wound. Time to be The Colonel. "No lying down on duty, Harper. That's strictly a commander's privilege."

  Harper blinked at him with unfocused eyes. "Sir," he managed. "Don't know. . .what happened."

  "Doesn't matter right now," he said, forcing himself to ignore the blood welling in the young man's mouth. "Just hang in there, all right? You're gonna be fine."

  Harper's response was a weak cough and an expression of growing fear. As he feebly reached out, John seized his wrist with one hand, maintaining pressure with the other. "Hey," he offered, aware that he sounded just a little desperate. "Remind me again where you went to school. Was it OU or OSU? It's almost football season back home, and I can't be mixing up my guys' loyalties when the game tapes start coming in." Even as he finished the sentence, the Marine's eyes were sliding shut. "Lieutenant! Stay with me here, damn it-"

  He felt Harper's breath stutter just as Carson Beckett and his team moved in to take over. As John got to his feet and climbed down from the hatch, Teyla came to stand beside him, her features deeply saddened. They watched the medics, hearing the eventoned instructions passed back and forth as if working on nothing more than a broken finger. John suspected Teyla wasn't convinced by the calm. Having flown his share of med-evac missions half a lifetime ago, he sure as hell wasn't.

  When Beckett finally sat back on his heels, exhausted and defeated, John felt a familiar numbness creep into his bones. Turning away, he stripped off his sweatshirt and let it fall from his hand, the garment stained beyond repair with Harper's blood.