Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 11

Chapter 11 - A Little Bit Godly

“I’ll admit it was a great plan in theory.” Eventus told Allina as Ford and Shepherd did an admirable job of showing just why the Ancient was happy to have the Atlantis expedition around by digging out the buried entrance. “Nearly fifteen hundred Wraith hives were destroyed before they could get the word out to all their forces. But then the interference signal started to bleed into the same subspace bands utilized by this galaxy's stargate network and the gates started overloading any time someone tried to dial out.”

“We immediately shut down the interference generator of course so we could safely trigger a shutdown of the gate network.” He continued with a grimace. “Which was when we discovered that the Wraith had already utilized a virus to preemptively disable our ability to do that.”

“Makes sense.” Shepherd admitted as he took a brief break from digging. “They were probably afraid you’d shut it down as a final fuck you.”

“It was a tactic that was debated a few times during the war.” Eventus confessed, having followed those particular debates out of a morbid curiosity at just how his people had actually lost what should have been an easily winnable conflict. “But the gate network's value as an evacuation corridor was deemed too useful to write it off.”

The distinct plink of a metal shovel hitting stone rang out. 

“Found it!” Ford yelled out, taking the discovery as a chance to brace himself on his shovel and rest for a moment. “Looks like a cover stone of some kind.”

Shepherd walked over to where he’d set his pack and crochet down before pulling a collapsed rescue tripod out the black canvas bag. 

The Major turned a somewhat annoyed look to McKay, who had been engrossed in something on his tablet almost the entire time the pair had been digging. “You wanna help out a little McKay?” 

McKay looked up from his pad to meet Shepherd's look of annoyance with one of his own. “I'm busy working on something to disable the recall system Eventus warned us about. Unless you think helping dig a hole is more important than actually making sure we can use the ZPM without announcing our position to anybody in the galaxy who might be listening?”

Eventus didn’t think it was likely that McKay would be able to, but the attempt seemed to be keeping him focused on something other than complaining so the Ancient wasn’t going to rock the boat right now by mentioning the various measures in place to keep that particular function online.

Well, that and the fact he didn’t want knowledge of those measures to inevitably lead someone to the idea of just blowing up the city’s primary subspace transmitter. Which would actually work, in heavily blunting the signal since the secondary didn’t have the power draw to transmit for more than a couple hundred lightyears, but it would also make actually locating any still operating ships, satellites, or facilities an absolute pain in the ass.

Shepherd continued staring at McKay for a moment before letting out a tired sigh and continuing over to Ford with the tripod.

The interface pad on Eventus’s belt chose that moment to vibrate slightly, a physical call to attention for those times when someone wasn’t actively engaged in operating the neural link.

So he made the metal connection to see what was being reported before frowning and pulling the device off his belt so he could visually see the live video feed from the drone he had sent to watch the gate that was now running on screen. 

“Did you ask one of your people to dial the stargate?” He asked Allina with a frown as he watched the young woman touch the center interface to register the address.

Allina gave him a confused look for a moment before scooting a bit closer to him so she could see the video feed being displayed on the interface. “That’s Sanir. But what is she…

She trailed off as Sanir pulled out a hand sized brass and gray communications device and began silently speaking into it. 

Eventus tapped the unmute command with his thumb.

“digging it up now.” Sanir’s voice echoed out as Teyla turned an odd look to where the pair of them were seated from where she was keeping watch. “I’m not sure how long it will take them though.”

“I see.” A male voice replied, the drones audio sensors picking it up just as easily as it had Sanir's. “And you're sure it is Shepherd's team?”

“They introduced themselves as such and fit the description you sent out.” Sanir confirmed. “Though there's a fifth person with them now named Evan that they're claiming is one of the Ancestors.”

“It's likely a ploy.” The male voice returned after a moment. “Probably just one of their people they dressed up to play the part.”

“I'm not.” Eventus offered to Allina wryly, finding the whole situation more than a little amusing. “Stories aside, I literally have the mental abilities to prove it right this moment if you have an old injury or something that needs healing.”

“That's what I thought.” Sanir agreed. “Though I'm pretty sure they have Allina convinced.”

“It doesn't matter.” The voice said. “Try to keep them there as long as you can, and we'll see about sending a team. Command out.”

With that Sanir pressed the center control again causing the gate to shut down.

“That is a Genaii radio.” Teyla muttered as she stared down at the device displayed on the interface pad in worry.

“Still don't know who they are” Eventus said as he set an extra drone to watch the gate with an added bit of programing that would have it follow at high altitude any group that exited.

A conflicted look flashed across Teyla's face as the Athosian woman let out a soft exhale. “The Genaii are a… Complicated people. Now excuse me, I need to warn Major Shepherd that we will soon have unwelcome guests.”

With that she hurriedly made her way over to the small pit where Shepherd and Ford were carefully raising up a three foot by three foot stone slab.

He turned to Allina with a comforting smile. “If people with weapons show up just stand behind me, I'm a lot more study than your average person.”

“You,” Allina began as she stared intently at him only to pause and shake her head slightly as if she was internally arguing with herself about something he wasn't privy to. “I would not dare ask you to prove yourself in any such manner for my own gain.”

Which suggested to him that there had been something in what he'd idly offered that had actually tempted her, something that was interesting enough that he actually wanted to push the issue now.

“Sure you can.” He told her as he secured the interface pad back on his belt. “Unless you're actively dying of something it won't even put me out more than a snack and a few hours relaxing can't fix. And if you are dying of something, well, I'd want to heal that for you on principle.”

Mostly because she seemed like a generally nice person, even with the blatant flirting she'd directed his way. Not to say he didn't enjoy the flirting, because he absolutely did. But the rule of not sleeping with idolizing primitives existed for reasons not unlike the rule humans had about not sleeping with crazy. 

Allina looked like she was about to protest again despite what Eventus had just told her, so with an annoyed sigh he reached forward and grabbed the woman's hands with his own. Focusing, a light glow passed between them as he stretched his sixth sense out into her body, quickly zeroing in on a mass of scar tissue extending from her hip to upper thigh that had the distinct feeling of a burn of some kind.

He let go of Allina's hands, leaving the woman to stare dumbly in shock at her own hands as he reached over to lay a hand on her hip before focusing again. The sudden rush of energy leaving him as he removed the scarring and restored everything to what otherwise would have been its normal state was quickly over, and he pulled back his hand and gave her a mild nod.

“There you go, good as–

She collapsed sideways in a dead faint before he could finish, and he blinked in surprise, absolutely not having expected that of all reactions to be her response.

“Hey, could you–” Shepherd called out as he walked over, only to stop dead upon noticing the suddenly unconscious Allina. “Is she okay?”

“I think my healing was a bit much for her.” Eventus offered as he rubbed the back of his neck to cover up some of the awkward embarrassment. “Something you needed?”

“Yea…” Shepherd muttered as he glanced uncertainly between the two of them for a moment. “We got the thing opened up. And to speed things along we were hoping you could send one of those scan-orbs down to point out where the ZPM is.”

“Sure.” Eventus agreed as he sent the mental command that would instruct one of the drones to do that. “I set the scanning beam to show in the visible spectrum, so just look for where it's pointing.”

“Thanks.” Shepherd returned as he glanced a final time over at Allina before shaking his head and walking back over to the pit where Ford was already in the process of lowering himself down.

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Author’s Notes: Poor Eventus, he was just being a nice guy, and then next thing you know, bam, he’s accidentally gained an Ancestor cultist.