Casualties of War Read online

  Although Rodney McKay's presence wasn't strictly required at the MIX-030 debriefing, he thought it prudent to show up anyway. For one thing, he wanted to know what had so thoroughly destroyed the jumper's engine pod. For another. . .well, it was an unwritten rule that no one skipped out on a debriefing after an expedition member had been killed. It would have been disrespectful, somehow, not to hear the report, even if Rodney had no desire to know the details of the lieutenant's demise.

  In the briefing room, Major Lorne sat ramrod-straight in his chair with a hardened stare. Rodney took a seat next to Colonel Sheppard, who was hunched over his coffee mug, giving off don't-mess-with-me-today vibes. It was a warning the scientist rarely heeded, but this morning he decided to be magnanimous and resist pointing out that the Colonel's hair was sticking up in back in ways that couldn't possibly be intentional, even for him.

  And people thought Rodney was incapable of tact.

  "I've scheduled the memorial service," Elizabeth began, sliding into her own chair. "Tomorrow, shortly before our scheduled check-in with the SGC, so we can send Lieutenant Harper's body back then. We'll also need to pack up his personal effects to send back for his family."

  "I'll take care of it," Sheppard said before she could turn to him, not looking up from the table. Of course he'd take care of it. He always did when they lost a Marine.

  "Thank you." Elizabeth leaned her forearms on the table. "Why don't you start at the beginning, Major?"

  "By now you probably know the basic story as well as I do, ma'am." Lome delivered his after-action report dispassionately. "The Asurans apparently have assembled a network of human intel. We'd barely been in the village half a day when one of our guides started getting twitchy around us. He tried more than once to get us to split up. When we finally called him on it, he took off. We tracked him into the ruins, and that's where the Asurans got the drop onus."

  "How many?" Elizabeth asked.

  "Three-two with weapons and one who looked like a scientist or a doctor. That one came at Sergeant Dunleavy. I'm pretty sure he was planning to do that hand-throughthe-forehead thing and drag Dunleavy's IDC out of him right then and there."

  Whatever else might be said about those sons-ofrobots, they were persistent. Unconsciously, Rodney slid his hand across his right forearm, where the scar from a similar interrogation had faded from everyone's sight but his. A Genii with a knife or an Asuran with a mindprobe-either way, it added up to bad guys who wanted their city, and he'd never been big on sharing.

  "They pursued us." Lorne seemed aware that he wasn't being blamed for the results of the mission. Still, his voice was taut, frustration barely held in check. "Lieutenant Harper was hit about a hundred yards out from the jumper, but he made it inside. I cloaked us as soon as the jumper powered up. I guess it wasn't fast enough, because they shot something big at us and clipped the engine pod. It lost power immediately. We're lucky the pod retracted for gate transit. As soon as we got back into the jumper bay, the engine blew."

  "Did you get a look at what they fired at you?" Rodney wanted to know.

  Lome shook his head. "Felt like a rocket-propelled grenade. It came from about the eight-o'clock position, so nobody saw it coming."

  Irritation prickled Rodney's skin. At least with the Wraith they'd been able to procure some of the enemy's technology for study. How was he supposed to counteract whatever the replicators were throwing at them if all he had was a charred husk of an engine pod?

  "You did well to get your team out of there, Major," said Elizabeth. "We'll have to reexamine our security posture before we undertake any more off-world missions. If the Asurans want Atlantis badly enough to canvass this many planets looking for our teams, we may need to find methods of being more covert."

  "Perhaps my people can assist," Teyla suggested. "There are still many trade worlds that may not know the Athosians have relocated to Lantea."

  "Thing is, these guys probably aren't going to quit." Sheppard pushed his mug forward and leaned on the table. "We need a better long-term strategy than ninjaMarines and Athosian stand-ins. What we need is a way to even the odds."

  "A weapon," Ronon said, making Rodney jump a little in his seat. The Satedan spoke so infrequently in these meetings that Rodney tended to forget he was even in attendance.

  Sheppard swung his chair around and pointed at his teammate. "Bingo."

  "The scientists have spoken of such a weapon in your people's possession," said Teyla. "Can the Daedalus not bring one here from Earth?"

  Rodney was already shaking his head before she'd finished the sentence. He'd considered that option on half a dozen occasions and rejected it as futile each time. "Based on the paltry effect our projectile weapons have had so far, it's a safe bet that the Asurans have strengthened the cohesive factors the disrupter would target. It was developed by the Asgard specifically to combat the replicators as encountered in the Milky Way Galaxy. While the Asurans may have started out their lamentable existence in that form, we have to face the fact that they have evolved significantly since the time of the Ancients-even more so than their Milky Way counterparts, which were infuriatingly adaptable in their own right. Should we be so fortunate as to surprise the Asurans with the disrupter once, their learning curve would render it obsolete immediately."

  "Which is why we need to come up with something better," Sheppard countered.

  "Oh, well, since you asked nicely," Rodney snapped back. "Look, we have a lot of very bright people in this city, many of them with a disturbing talent for spectacular destruction. The same goes for the researchers at Stargate Command and at Area 51, not the least of which is Colonel Carter. She's got a prototype of a new antireplicator weapon in development. Unfortunately, these projects don't provide instant results and, for better or worse, she has next to nothing to test it on. It's not like this problem slipped anyone's mind. We've been working on it, but occasionally even I have trouble saving the day on a deadline."

  "You could use a leg up?"

  "A leg, a big toe-I'll take what I can get."

  The Colonel swiveled back toward the head of the table. "Then I think it's time to reprioritize P7L-418."

  Elizabeth's somewhat shuttered expression now closed down completely. Rodney grimaced. This was bound to be interesting, and not in a pleasant way.

  A few weeks ago, the linguistics division had briefed the senior staff on a recently-translated historical record from the city database. The battle for PM-418 had been, up until the siege of Atlantis, the largest conflict of the Ancients' war with the Wraith. The planet had housed a facility that the Ancients had seen fit to defend with the full might of their fleet. Rodney had started to doze off when the head linguist had begun listing all the assets involved, but he understood that over the course of eight days a large number of ships, on both sides, had been destroyed or damaged beyond recovery.

  He'd snapped awake when the timid man had explained just what the Ancients had been protecting so fiercely.

  "We've been over this," Elizabeth said, her fingers tightening around a pen. "The records implied that the facility on 418 was used primarily for weapons development. It also implied that high-risk testing was conducted there. That could mean any number of things, many of which may involve extreme hazards to our personnel or others."

  "There's no way to know unless we take a look," Rodney pointed out. "If I can get my hands on a prototype weapon or even some of their notes, it might be enough to provide a jump-start on something we can use the next time any replicators come out to hassle us."

  "And if the research was flawed?" Elizabeth asked quietly.

  She didn't elaborate, but Rodney got the inference; it was the reason he'd agreed, however reluctantly, to steer clear of PM-418 during the first round of this debate. A year ago they'd thought the abandoned Ancient project on Doranda would solve all their problems, and that hadn't gone too swimmingly for them. Or for the better part of a star system.

  "We've learned that lesson," Sheppard rep
lied, making an obvious effort not to glance over at Rodney as he spoke. "We'll approach anything and everything with all due caution. If it's a dead end, it's a dead end. But how could we be better off just sitting back and hoping an easier solution presents itself?"

  Atlantis's leader had faced off against heads of state in two galaxies. She wasn't likely to simply cave in now. "The database is extremely vague about the aftermath of the battle. We know the Ancients drove the Wraith away from the planet, but a later record makes reference to the facility eventually being abandoned."

  "Because they were losing the war and the fleet had to be recalled to defend Atlantis."

  "We can't be sure that was the reason, John," Elizabeth maintained. "If the work being done there was so critical that the Ancients spent eight days and half a dozen ships protecting it, why would they then give it up?"

  Rodney fielded the question. "The obvious possibilities are that they either lost interest in the research or took everything useful with them."

  "Or something catastrophic happened." Elizabeth looked at him. "Did you get any details out of the database that even hinted at what they were working on?"

  "Only in the most general terms. As best I can tell, the facility was a directed energy lab, which means there's a chance it met some kind of nasty radioactive end."

  "Which is why the SGC keeps sending us shiny new MALPs," Sheppard insisted. "If the scan is clear, I don't see any reason why this mission should be more dangerous than any other, and there's an opportunity for a major gain. What am I missing here?"

  As much as it pained him to admit it, Rodney was in complete agreement with the Colonel. "This might give us the edge we need." When Elizabeth's eyebrows climbed in surprise at their tag-team approach, he explained, "I recognize and accept your points. I accepted them the last time we discussed this, but that was before we started running into firefights on every other planet. Circumstances have made it no longer advisable to ignore the potential of this facility. If directed energy research was conducted there, it's possible I'd be able to find something that would exploit the Asurans' molecular cohesion with more success than a standard disrupter."

  Sitting back in her chair, Elizabeth pinched the bridge of her nose. "I understand. I just hate the idea that this expedition seems to be turning into an arms race."

  "I'm not wild about it either." Sheppard held firm, as resolute as Rodney had ever seen him in a briefing. "But I'm really tired of giving eulogies."

  It all came down to that, didn't it? Rodney had a healthy sense of self-preservation, but even he could rationalize facing a potential hazard if it offered some hope of mitigating known hazards in the future. And the Asurans were a guaranteed hazard.

  "I believe the journey to be worthwhile," Teyla said. Ronon gave a curt nod of assent.

  "All right. P7L-418 goes to the top of the list." Elizabeth checked the calendar on her datapad. "Let's aim for the day after tomorrow. But if anything doesn't add up on that MALP scan, I'm scrubbing the mission."

  The Colonel nodded, already rising from his chair. "Pre-brief and MALP deployment at 0800," he instructed his team.

  Rodney followed him out when the meeting disbanded, the room's tinted wall panels rotating with graceful precision to offer them exit. "I assume you realize that we really don't have any idea what we'll find out there," he felt compelled to point out. "I mean, irrespective of the facility, we've got almost no data on the planet that houses it."

  Sheppard tossed him a smirk, though the humor looked a bit artificial. "In what way would that be different from usual?"

  He headed off down the corridor. Rodney sighed. "Depressing but true."

  "Attention to orders!"

  The military contingent of the Atlantis expedition came to attention as one, the unified clap of their boot heels reverberating through the gate-room. Lieutenant Laura Cadman stared straight ahead at the assembly of motionless gray figures, taking a kind of comfort in the formality. Atlantis was both the most intense and the most laid-back assignment she'd seen in her young career. Every one of her teammates was a consummate professional, and no one so much as blinked when stuff hit the fan-but it had been ages since she'd last seen anyone salute.

  Granted, their uniforms didn't have obvious rank insignia, so spotting senior officers in time to salute would have been a little tricky until the faces became familiar. But if Laura knew anything about the Corps, she knew that there was always a way to enforce protocol if desired. Their commanding officer just didn't seem interested in enforcing it.

  Even so, a little bit of military tradition never hurt anyone. Laura was damned proud of being a Marine, and of everything that came along with that title. She knew she wasn't alone in that belief. Every so often, it felt good to remind themselves.

  Colonel Sheppard seemed to get that, because he'd started calling the occasional formation. Back on Earth, government red tape was alive and well, and so the `administrivia,' as the Colonel often labeled it, tended to take a while to reach them. When it finally did, courtesy of a Daedalus run, there usually were a few promotions and commendations to hand out.

  "Citation to accompany the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross," Laura read aloud from the page on the podium. As she recited the description of the Orion's self-sacrificing battle with the Earth-bound hive ship, the men and women who had made up the Ancient ship's last, ragtag crew filed past her to face their CO and accept their medals.

  Colonel Caldwell stood in the front row, locked in at attention alongside the others. Although he was the rank ing officer present, Daedalus's commander wasn't presiding over the ceremony. The Atlantis detachment was Colonel Sheppard's command, and Caldwell appeared content to observe.

  Laura imagined that Sheppard must have had his work cut out for him when trying to match up his people's achievements with the appropriate commendations. Outer space conflicts generally weren't covered in the awards manual. Maybe the brass back on Earth had been flexible for a change.

  She moved on to the next citation, a Navy and Marine Corps Medal for a lieutenant who'd evacuated an injured Athosian hunter by jumper from a barely-accessible ridge on the mainland. After that, there were two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Meritorious Service Medal.

  Somewhere, buried in a file on Earth, there was an `official' citation for each of these medals. Those citations didn't mention spaceships or Athosians or Wraith. They contained vaguely-worded descriptions of generic heroism at a `forward operating location.' Anyone without clearance would see that phrase and assume Iraq or Afghanistan. It was less than honest, and it bugged all of them at one time or another, but that was life in the Pegasus Galaxy.

  Turning the page, Laura came to the last medal. "Citation to accompany the award of-"

  The name on the citation leapt out at her, and she halted, suddenly uncertain. She looked to Colonel Sheppard for guidance, and he responded with a small nod of encouragement.

  Dutifully, she continued. "-the award of the Bronze Star to Corporal Joshua Travis."

  No one spoke or even flinched, but she knew the reactions were there, hidden behind the impassive facades of her fellow Marines. The space between Laura and the Colonel remained empty as she read the citation.

  It made sense, she realized partway through. The Daedalus had left Earth with the medals over two weeks ago. The ship must have been at the edge of the galaxy when Travis was killed. Red tape never could keep up with the fickle hand of fate.

  It was a hell of a way to end a ceremony, but Travis had been a good guy and a good Marine. They owed him this much.

  Lifting her gaze from the podium, she finished the well-known citation from memory and refused to change it to the past tense. "The distinctive and life-saving actions of Corporal Travis reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Marine Corps."

  There was silence for a few seconds. It felt appropriate.

  After the Colonel dismissed the formation, the gateroom cleared out rapidly. "Nice job today," he to
ld Laura. "Sorry about that last one. I should have warned you it was in there."

  "No sweat, sir. I'm glad he got it."

  Sheppard picked up the small, flat case that held the unclaimed medal, weighing it in his hand. "Can't escape stuff like this, I guess, but damn if it doesn't drive me nuts."

  Whether he was referring to the posthumous commendation or the ugliness of the overall situation with the Asurans, Laura couldn't tell. Not sure how to respond to her CO's uncharacteristically somber mood, she searched for something innocuous to say. "So...when do we get to the fun part of mail call?"

  That seemed to do the trick. "Patience is a virtue, Lieutenant," Sheppard replied with a hint of a smile. "We just scheduled a new mission, so it'll probably be as soon as we get back. Unless everybody's in junk food withdrawal and can't suck it up for another day or two?"

  Exaggerating her sigh, Laura grinned back. "Anything for the Corps, sir..."

  "Beat it, Cadman."

  "Aye, sir." She took the stairs up past the control room and headed for her quarters, hoping that the strain she'd noticed in the Colonel was a temporary condition. He was a good commander, and she wouldn't have wanted to serve under anyone else, but all the rock-and-a-hard-place decisions and steady losses had to be tough to weather.

  Sometimes she was damn grateful to be a lowly lieutenant.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ise and shine, campers." Strolling into the control room, John dropped his field vest beside the dialing computer. "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood."

  "By whose criteria?" Rodney muttered, head propped on his elbow, which in turn was propped on the database console. Elizabeth hid a sympathetic smile, knowing it would only encourage him. She'd already heard his tale of woe regarding a power fluctuation in the labs that had taken, by his probably-inflated estimation, half the night to isolate and repair. But he'd gotten the mandatory eight hours of pre-mission `crew rest' and was bravely soldiering on. "And who put happy juice in your coffee?"

  "I'm high on life," John replied amiably. "It's mission day. I'm always in a good mood until somebody starts shooting at me."