Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 28

Chapter 28 - Rolling Downhill

Walking into the conference room, John's eyes flicked from the bemused Colonel Caldwell, to the annoyed Colonel Everett, before finally settling on the clearly angry Doctor Weir.

“I thought you were supposed to be keeping the Ancient out of trouble Major?” Everett demanded as John took a position in the center of the horseshoe like table. “Not helping him conduct some sort of election that ended up with you in a position which sounds dangerously like the Ancient version of the Secretary of Defense?”

“It's not.” Weir corrected before John could defend himself. “Everything we've found so far about the Ancients governing structure paints the military representative as the position with the least actual authority on the Lantean council. A more accurate analogy for the position would probably be something like the United States Secretary of the Navy.”

“I gotta admit.” John began, hoping to defuse tensions if even a little with what he was about to say. “If I'd have known it was Navy I probably would have put my name in for the Exploration Councilor position instead.”

Caldwell let out an amused laugh at that as Everett leaned forward with a look of challenge on his face.

“The question of why you are now in the position however is a good one.” Weir put forward before the Marine could say anything more.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” John offered, fully aware that wasn't ever really that strong of an argument on its own. “I followed Evan to the hologram room, which he kept calling a core interface room by the way, figuring he maybe wanted to look something up. But we get there and the first thing he does is activate some sort of government continuation protocol.”

He visibly grimaced. “Which the Ancients apparently took pretty seriously, as even the suggestion that I was going to check with you about the whole thing was enough to make the hologram run some sort of coercion investigation on me.”

“And if it had found you were?” Caldwell asked, not even questioning the capability of the Ancients systems to actually do so. 

“Evan said it had a varying response level depending on the threats.” John said. “Might have been lying, might not. But given some of the things we've seen the city do I didn't want to chance it.”

Weir furrowed her brow in contemplation for a moment. “Did he say anything about why he decided to activate the contingency in the first place?”

“Something about needing the authorization to reactivate the city's production facilities.” John admitted, really hoping that was true given the currently limited everything they were working with. “True or not, I couldn't see the harm in it since he is the last Ancient and this is his people's city.”

“The bit about it being linked to authorization however got me thinking about something that has been bothering me since we arrived in Atlantis.” He continued as he focused on the two colonels in the room. “The Ancients had been fighting the Wraith for a hundred years, yet there’s barely anything in the database about them.”

“We’ve been fighting the Goa’uld for what, ten years?” 

“A little over seven.” Caldwell said.

“Okay, seven years.” John corrected with a nod of thanks. “And I’ve seen the files the SGC has on them. Multiple autopsy reports, genetic analysis, breakdowns of every bit of technology they’ve come across, even estimates of ship durability and firepower. Yet all the Ancients had about them was a record of ship types, some vague speculation about their telepathic abilities, and a thousand pages of theories about Wraith social structure?"

“I don’t buy it, especially with some of the things Evan has mentioned..”

“So you think they might have hidden most of their information on the Wraith behind an authorization level nobody in the expedition has.” Caldwell followed along with a nod.

“Exactly.” John agreed with a grin, glad at least one of the two officers was able to follow along.

Weir let out an annoyed sigh as she leaned back in her chair and began fidgeting with her pen. “While Rodney and the others certainly haven’t been able to locate anything that would suggest hidden partitions in the database, I’ll be the first to admit that means absolutely nothing given we’re dealing with Ancient computer systems.”

“However.” She continued as she set the pen down and glared at him. “We have an actual Ancient here we could have just asked about it.”

“We could have.” John acknowledged with a wince, knowing Weir wasn’t going to like what he said next. “But that wasn’t really the only reason I did it.”

“And that other reason would be?” Weir prodded when he didn’t immediately follow up on his statement.

“I kind of thought we should have at least some say in running the city, since, you know, we’re living here and all that.” John finally confessed, feeling just a tiny bit dirty at the nod of agreement he got from Everett at that.

“You think he might try and take full control then?” Everett asked.

John highly suspected Evan already had, but he’d also gotten enough of a read on the Colonel after spending a few days listening to him bark orders to everyone in Atlantis military and civilian alike to know that admitting that wouldn’t end anywhere good.

“I don’t think he has any plans to push the issue.” John deflected instead, fully aware Weir would likely catch the dodge for what it was. “But if that ship that showed up on the long range sensors when we finally plugged in the ZPM actually does have more Ancients on it, well, who knows what they’ll have to say about the issue.”

Caldwell gave a frown. “And you couldn’t have nominated, say, Doctor Weir instead? Because population of one or not, I don’t need to tell you how much trouble you suddenly being a member of another species's military command structure is going to cause with the suits back in Washington.”

“The city’s virtual intelligence only registered me and Evan as citizens.” John offered with an apologetic shrug. “I figured it’s either my unusually strong ATA gene or I accidentally married Chaya and she just forgot to mention it.”

Weir scowled at him. “This is not the time for jokes, Major.”

“I’m not joking.” John admitted as he let out an annoyed sigh. “I’ve gone over everything else, and they’re the only two things I can think of that wouldn’t apply to others here.”

“Remind me to forward you a copy of the general primer we’re putting together on Ancient cultural practices later.” Weir offered in a tired tone that suggested the day's events were rapidly catching up with her. “But unless you and her went to something called the pillar of records and recorded your vows, you did not accidentally get married.”

That was a moderate relief John thought to himself, though it did bring to mind the other bit of bad news he had to give their expedition's leader. “On the topic of records. Something Evan said about the virtual intelligence going over mine makes me think the city might be reading the stuff on our computers any time we connect one to it. So might wanna have McKay look into–

“Doctor Weir!” Beckett interrupted in a near panic as he rushed through the open doors of the conference room. “I know yer busy, but this could be a wee bit of an emergency, so I’m not sure it can wait.”

Weir gave him a brief look of apology before focusing on Beckett. “What kind of an emergency?”

John really hoped it wasn’t another plague, one of those had been more than enough to last him a lifetime.

“Evan’s offerin to make one of my people a doctor.” Beckett said, holding out his hands and waving them slightly to emphasize what he seemed to believe was the dire importance of his point.

Taking a deep breath, Weir let out a long and tired sounding exhale before turning to the two Colonel’s. “Can one of you finish up with Major Sheppard while I handle this?”

“I can handle that.” Caldwell offered as he got to his feet and motioned for John to follow him.

“I’m going to dial Earth to report our successful defense of Atlantis to General O’Neill.” Everett added in as he followed suit to a thankful look from Weir. 

“Everything permitting this may be the last you see of me since I was instructed to hand things over to Colonel Caldwell on his arrival.” He continued with a nod to the other officer who returned it with one of his own. “And if so, I just want to say it was good working with you Doctor Weir. Keep up the good fight out here.”

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Author’s Notes: Everett was a hammer O’Neill sent to get a specific thing done, he has now done that thing, so back he goes into the toolbox.

Poor Weir though, she hasn’t slept in nearly thirty six hours at this point, and more things just keep piling on. She really should take a page from Eventus’s book and learn to schedule proper down time.

Also, Merry Christmas!