Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 21

Chapter 21 - The Original Problem Solvers

“I know you said not to worry about it, Jack.” Daniel said as they hurried through the corridors of Cheyenne Mountain. “But the fish thing has been worrying me.”

“They’re just fish Daniel.” Jack told him tiredly, still more than a little surprised it was Daniel and not Sam worrying so much about the issue. “Everything else matched up, so it was probably just me messing with me.”

Which he knew was potentially problematic in its own right, but he’d watched enough Star Trek to know that close enough was the best you could get with time travel.

“But what about the versions of us that stayed in the past?” Danial pointed out as they rounded the corner and began up the steps. “They could have gotten married, had kids, there could be entirely new familial lines out there that didn’t exist before.”

“Or maybe we all hightailed it off to Oma’s old place and she helped us pity ascend.” Jack countered as they entered the control room to see Walter waiting with an already active video call for them.

“Walter.” He greeted the man with a curt nod as he took general’s privilege and slid into one empty chair.

“General O’Neill.” Walter returned, motioning to the screen where the previously lost Doctor Weir could be seen waiting patiently. “Their IDC checked out, but it’s been long enough someone else might have gotten their hands on it.”

They had known that might be a problem going in, so Weir was well aware they wouldn’t be opening the iris until they were absolutely sure she was who she appeared to be.

“She knows.” He told the Sergeant as he gave the camera a quick wave. “Flip the mic back on so we can see how fast we can work through everything we need to.”

Walter entered the command, and the telltale sounds of an active microphone echoed out from the nearby speakers. 

“Doctor Weir.” He offered, splitting his attention between the camera and screen in a way that really made him wonder how long it was going to take Sam to refit the SGC with those handy Asgard sensors that let you look anywhere. “Bit of a surprise to see you after all this time. Daniel was afraid you might have forgotten our address given you never call, or write, or send us care packages with those tiny little donuts that he pretends not to like.”

“General O’Neill.” Weir returned with a nod. “Give Doctor Jackson our apologies, we only just located a power source that would allow us to dial Earth. And I’m sorry to say there isn’t exactly a Dunkin' Donuts around here, so he’ll have to make due with a gift card.”

That was two cultural points and a last name, not impossible for an imposter to get, especially with how well heavily included Daniel would have been in the expedition's computers, but it moved the likelihood it was actually them up several degrees.

“So.” He put forward with a grin. “How’s it going over there in the flying horse galaxy?”

“I’m afraid to say history has somewhat repeated itself.” Weir admitted, looking more than a little ashamed as she did.

Jack frowned at that, because there were a number of things the woman could mean with that though the most obvious was… 

“Did you nuke an alien leader and drag us into a war with another galaxy spanning alien empire?” He asked in sudden suspicion, desperately hoping that wasn't actually what the expedition had done.

Weir grimaced, and Jack could all but feel the piles of paperwork in his near future. “Nuclear weapons weren't involved, and as far as I know she wasn't exactly their leader, but yes.”

“What about the Ancients?” Daniel interjected in a hopeful tone as he leaned over Jack's shoulder. “Did you find them?”

“Doctor Jackson.” Weir greeted him with a smile as Jack shot a slightly annoyed look at the archaeologist for interrupting. “And surprisingly, yes. A few days ago we discovered a single Ancient in stasis who was left behind when the rest of his people evacuated the city.”

He supposed that meant he owed Teal'c a beer the next time they got together, even if he was pretty sure the Jaffa had only made the bet in the first place to humor him.

“You did!?” Daniel exclaimed as his face lit up like a little kid on christmas. “Is he there now? Can I talk to him? Did he say anything about–

“Daniel.” Jack interrupted, knowing with absolute certainty that they were on a timer given the thirty eight minute window they could keep the stargate open. “Information about the new and terrible alien threat first, questions about the Ancient's favorite vacation destinations later.”

“They're called the Wraith.” Weir answered, thankfully taking the hint and focusing on the more important issue. “They're, well, I guess the closest analogy would be Vampires who feed on the life force of humans.”

“Oh for crying out loud.” Jack muttered as he imagined all the work it was going to take to convince the IOA and Joint Chiefs that space vampires were an actual thing now.

“Like Jiangshi?” Daniel inquired in interest, before clarifying once he saw the confused look Jack was shooting him. “Chinese vampires, said to absorb the life force of their victims. They're most often depicted with grayish skin and outstretched hands that have a rather distinct clawlike appearance. Though there's some question amongst academics if that was a feature of the original mythos or one that ended up being later adopted from western myths about similar creatures.”

“That's… Actually a pretty accurate description of them.” Weir offered, sounding moderately surprised about the fact herself. “You don't suppose we might be looking at a similar situation to the legends about Atlantis itself?”

“It's certainly possible.” Daniel returned in a contemplative tone that long association told Jack was going to end with the archeologist spending the next several days buried in old books.

“Doctors, focus.” Jack reminded the pair.

“We're sending you everything we've been able to put together so far.” Weir continued with an embarrassed flush, and a quick glance over to Walter got him a nod of confirmation from the sergeant that they were receiving it. “But we could really use some help out here. There's a Wraith fleet less then ten days away from Atlantis, and while Evan is attempting to take steps that will maybe allow us to fight them off, if he's not successful the most we'll likely be able to do is activate the city's shield and pray.”

Jack considered that for a moment, before a question hit him. “Who's Evan?”

“The Ancient.” Weir clarified. “Technically his name is Eventus Iuxta Devera, but almost everyone's taken to calling him Evan.”

“As you do.” Jack agreed with an acknowledging incline of this head, glad for once it wasn't him having to deal with the political aftermath of giving someone important an easier to keep track of nickname. “You were saying something about steps he was taking that might let you fight these Wraith off? Please tell me they involve big honking space guns?”

It never did, but he was holding out hope that maybe one day that might change and they would end up with weapons that would do more than just splash uselessly against the shields of their many varied enemies.

“It… Might?” Weir admitted somewhat uncertainly, leaving him blinking almost dumbfounded at the screen “He's attempting to reactivate a damaged Ancient warship that was secured at a still operational drydock that he was able to lead us to.”

“See now.” Jack told her as he recovered from his surprise, already working out how he would be able to convince the Joint Chiefs to double down on the expedition with something like that as an actual result. “You should have opened with that.”

“Hi Jack. How ya doing? Guess what? We found an Ancient warship in a still working Ancient shipyard.”

He let out an over exaggerated sigh. “You could have saved me a good ten minutes worrying how I was going to convince the Joint Chiefs to authorize usage of our newly discovered ZPM to send you help.”

“You found a–

The blue glow of the open wormhole emanating out from behind their closed iris abruptly cut off, the video connection instantly winking out alongside it. And Jack frowned, because they should have had another fifteen or so minutes before the wormhole hit the cut off point and automatically shut down.

“Walter?” He inquired, turning to the sergeant with a questioning look in his eye. “You didn't happen to discover some way to shut down an incoming wormhole since the last systems report, did you?”

“No sir.” Walters immediately rejected, not that Jack had thought it particularly likely, but he'd felt the need to ask.

“Jack.” Daniel began in an almost pleading tone that immediately told him what the man was planning to ask.

“Still no Daniel.” Jack told the archeologist as he pulled himself out of the chair. 

“But we know they made it now.” Daniel all but begged, following in lock step behind Jack as he started walking to his office to make the required call to the president.

“Yes.” Jack agreed, knowing with absolute certainty the man wasn’t going to like his answer. “And I’m already planning to send a support team through the gate with whatever we can scrounge up. But you continue to be too important for that. And the same holds true for when we hopefully get permission to send the Daedalus’s to back them up.”

“But they’re in the middle of being attacked by space vampires, and you’re too important to Earth to get eaten by space vampires. So you’re going to have to wait to go to Atlantis till the whole fleet of space vampires bearing down on them situation is dealt with.”

Daniel gave him an odd look as they stopped in front of the open door to his office. “You really like saying space vampires don’t you?”

“Little bit.” He admitted with a grin as he walked in and gave Daniel a jaunty wave goodby.

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Author’s Notes: And we begin the time skips. Because there’s only so much you can do with “Eventus sits on a chair and runs all the repairs while Shepherd’s team stands around awkwardly”. Which is what it is.