Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 55

Chapter 55 - Triumphant Return

With Larrin handed off, Eventus had ended up following the two heads of the Atlantis expedition back to Doctor Weir's office where he was currently relaxing on the couch and regaling the pair with the story of why he had brought Larrin back to Atlantis.

“So in the end it was basically a choice between dumping her back on her ship, who's hyperdrive they may not have even been able to fix, or dragging her back here with us under slightly exaggerated charges.”

Weir was staring at him with a distinct look of disapproval, clearly trying to figure out just how to put a rebuttal of his choice without seeming like she was overstepping herself.

“You realize we're not actually a galactic peace keeping force, right?” Sheppard asked, preempting whatever it was Weir might have been planning to say.

“We were.” Eventus said, staring up at the ceiling and idly wondering if it might be a good idea to change the ceiling color to something a bit brighter than its current washed out green. 

“One group or another tried to use the Stargates for military expansion, we'd show up and move their Stargates into orbit. Space pirates reaching a point where they were anything more than a minor nuisance, we'd show up and drag them off for rehabilitation. Someone fucks a woman they shouldn't and the kid starts going around building up an empire as a godking, we'd show up to dissessemble the whole thing.”

Unfortunately those reactions had usually been years if not decades after the various problems had reached a point regular humans would likely have declared them disasters. But the galaxy was a large place, and what might be a well known problem locally was very rarely even noticeable at the scale his people operated at.

Letting out a sigh, Weir leaned back in her chair looking very much like she was about to admit some unfortunate truth. “We don't exactly have the resources or manpower to go around helping everyone in the galaxy who might need it.”

“Especially with the Wraith around.” Sheppard added in.

Eventus rolled his eyes. “You have an industrialized world with roughly seven billion people on it. Any problem you have with resources or manpower is the result of personal choice, maybe not by you directly, but by someone on Earth.”

“And yes.” He continued, holding up a hand to forestall the obvious rebuttal. “I'm aware of the various choices your world has made that limit your abilities to properly utilize those advantages.”

He was also aware that the longer their coverup of the Stargate program went on the more fucked their governments were going to be when everything eventually came out.

“But the Travelers aren't agrarian farmers in need of an entire industrial base, they're people with high levels of technical skills flying around in broken down starships that Earth might be able to enter into a mutually beneficial relationship with.”

“Which likely would have been easier to do if you didn't bring Captain Larrin here in cuffs.” Weir shot back in a tone that suggests she had already been considering that possibility.

“Trust me when I say it–

Sheppard held up a hand, and Eventus could just barely make out someone talking over his earpiece.

“--knocked out Doctor – and currently on – run – orders?”

“Sorry.” Sheppard apologized as he rose to his feet. “Seems our guest decided to try and make a run for it.”

“--was for the best.” Eventus finished with a sigh, palming his face in pure exasperation before focusing on Sheppard. “Please tell me at least you didn’t remove her cuffs?”

They had been set up to be removable by anyone with the ATA gene, mainly because he knew they would want to remove them eventually and hadn’t wanted to be bothered by having to go do it himself given just how annoying he found the woman.

“Not as far as I know.” Sheppard confirmed, and Eventus let out a sigh of relief before pulling the personal interface off his belt. A few swipes of his finger to bring up the restraint systems command program, followed by a quickly entered code, and the lockdown command was sent out.

“Tell your men to check the internal sensors for prisoner tracking signal alpha-one. They’ll find her magnetically locked to the nearest wall. From there anyone with the ATA gene can issue the verbal command ‘maglock release” to shut the magnetic lock down.”

“Handy.” Sheppard admitted, flicking on this radio and repeating the instructions Eventus had just given him, pausing near the end to glance over at the Ancient with a questioning look in his eyes. “There a command to reactivate the lock?”

“Maglock restrain.” Eventus told him before realizing they’d probably find the general instruction for the restraints more than a bit helpful. “I'll forward your people the full user manual later.”

“Thanks.” Sheppard returned with a nod before relaying the information back to his people. 

“Want me to go down and help out?” He asked Weir when he finished.

“Do you think you need too?” Weir returned, quirking an eyebrow questioningly at him.

Sheppard wiggled his hand in a so-so motion. “Could go either way, she was good enough to take down the guard on her, but they’ll know to double up after that.”

“Then it shouldn’t be needed.” Weir confirmed, and Sheppard nodded before returning to his seat.

“So how have things been going while I was gone?” Eventus inquired to change the subject away from their new Larrin problem. “I noticed on approach that you were able to get the defense satellite into orbit. And I haven’t seen any projections pop up, so I assume that got dealt with?”

“Our people were able to repair enough of the damage to get it partially operational.” Weir offered, something about her slightly annoyed tone suggesting there was a bit more to the story than she was admitting. “However it’s main reactor seems to be completely out of whatever fuels it, so we’re running it on one of our portable naquadah reactors for the time being.”

Which Eventus knew from the math would only be able to run the defense satellite for about two minutes if it came down to an actual fight.

“Heavy liquid naquadah.” He named the fuel for them. “The city has the facilities to produce more, but the naquadah supplies that would be needed to do it are currently reserved for producing secondary power systems for the city itself.”

Searching through various old supply depots and mining facilities for more of the mineral was of course on his list, but it was a very long list at this point.

“I can give you a list of planets that might still have supplies of either the HLN itself or the raw naquadah needed for the city to synthesize it.” He offered, figuring he might as well delegate that particular job now that it had reached a point of needing to be done.

“We can certainly see what we can do.” Weir said, exchanging a brief glance with Major Sheppard to which he responded with a nod of agreement. “And yes, the projection issue seems to have resolved itself for now. Though in turn we seem to have run into a somewhat larger mystery.”

Sheppard leaned forward with a hand on his knee as a complicated series of expressions seemed to flash across his features. “Did you guys have an Elf in cold storage?” 

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Author’s Notes: Well, that’s certainly a chapter ending question if I’ve ever seen one, tune in next chapter for the answer.