Reading Time: 133 Minutes
Title: Finding Justice
Series: Priceless
Series Order: 6
Author: SASundance
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, Criminal Minds; JAG
Genre: Crime Drama, Crossover, Family, Kid!fic, Science Fiction
Relationship(s): Gen, background pairings
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Rape/Non-con/Dub-con, Slavery, Torture, Violence – Graphic, Violence – Domestic and/or Against Children , Violence – graphic, offscreen torture, discussions of past and offscreen rape/non-con, issues around the loss of free will, loss of bodily autonomy, mind control, past murder of OC character, discussions of miscarriage and abortion, discussions of slavery and implications of mind control, non-consensual drug use, discussion of past domestic violence, discussion of canon vaccination and future vaccination programs, discussion of past canon unethical medical experimentation, character bashing (Elizabeth Weir and Ziva David). Not friendly to: McKay, Gibbs, Keller, McGee, Vance. (Note: slavery, mind control, autonomy issues are related to canon events)
Word Count: 108,153
Summary: The Interstellar Tribunal begins hearing the first of the two trials of Lucius Lavin for being an accessory to Col Sheppard’s abduction before he must finally answer to the Tribunal for his actions, seizing control of Atlantis and the sexual assault and rape of five Lanteans, six years ago. The survivors will get a chance to confront Lucius and tell their stories to the court, hopeful of finally seeing justice done and putting their demons to rest. Halling helps to outmanoeuvre the Winyan Elder Council, aided and abetted by Ishta, and the Tribunal agrees to hear an appeal to overturn the conviction of Winyan survivors. Meanwhile, Tony and his alter-ego, Thomas Magnum, track down the attacker of Leoosh Benn, who is still fighting for his life, uncovering even darker motives that will rock the villagers.
Artist: Angelicinsanity
“The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world.”
—Ayn Rand ~ Atlas Shrugged
Chapter 1
Today marked the day which the first of Lucius Lavin’s trials was due to begin. It had been slated to begin the previous day, but with Tulee Hano’s decision to serve as Lavin’s Paracletus instead of Richard Woolsey, everyone agreed that they push the start back for 24 hours. This would give Hano a little more time to settle into Atlantis and study the facts of the case against Filiya’s husband, Lucius. Providentially, Magistrate Drell had agreed to accompany Hano to Atlantis to provide moral support for his colleague. Alex Paddington had persuaded him into coming, saying he wanted Drell to bear witness that all of the members of the Atlantis contingent who were on Winya the day that Leoosh Ben had been attacked and left for dead were swabbed for DNA too.
Wodren Drell knew that the chances of any of the Lanteans being involved were small – after all, why would they offer to be tested if one of them was guilty? Still, the fact that Agent Alex insisted they be tested too helped Wodren sell the DNA testing to the Winyans who weren’t comfortable with the idea of being suspects. Mind you, neither was Drell either, he didn’t want any Winyan to be guilty of such a horrific act and he appreciated that Agent Paddington was also trying to track down the three traders who had come to Winyan on the day of the attack after he learnt of their presence. One had come to order leather pants and waistcoat from Heleen Upo, another came from Amullie to trade fresh meat for several barrels of teffa-ale and a female from a planet called Vaan Mef who had visited Willa Upo, wanting her to make her wedding garments for her betrothal next summer. The chief magistrate was pretty sure that none of them was responsible since all of them made regular trips to Winya in the past without incident, and he was pretty sure that Agent Alex didn’t think so either.
After all, he seemed to be an intelligent man and he worked with the ineffable Thomas Magnum, who did not strike Drell as someone who tolerated incompetent underlings. However, he was grateful for the fiction that the three outsiders were also being sought as suspects. Of course, the Winyan had no way of knowing that Agent Alex (Tony) wanted to catch up with the traders to rule them out as suspects because that was how crime investigations worked. He was also hoping that one of the three traders might have noticed something, seen Leoosh with someone, or even witnessed someone following him.
And not long after they had transported the Winyan elders to the famed City of the Ancestors which he’d never thought to have a chance of visiting, Wodren Drell and his fellow council member Tulee Hano had immediately been given a medical examination, along with the Lantean’s who’d been on Winya. Initially, he’d been offended, thinking they believed the Winyans might be harbouring diseases just because they didn’t live in a modern city like Atlantis. Agent Paddington must have read his mind though since he explained casually that coming from the Ancestors’ home after leaving Pegasus, the Lanteans found they had no immunity to even simple maladies such as Kirsan Fever, which affected everyone in the city except for Ronon Dex and Teyla Emmagan who were both natives of the Pegasus galaxy. The whole base would have perished if the Pegasus natives hadn’t saved everyone. Knowing that the Lanteans could be at risk from such a simple childhood malady had certainly mollified Wodren Drell’s ruffled feathers. Plus, it explained why they wanted to cultivate Enchuri – if they ever took Kirsan Fever back home, it could be a serious situation based on how many people they hinted lived back on their home planet.
When the two Winyans and the Lanteans who’d accompanied them had been cleared by the medicos, the two Winyan elders visited Leoosh to check on his progress. They talked briefly to Ota Benn and Heleen Upo, who was also there comforting her. The situation still looked grave and truly, there was not a lot they could say to the boy’s mother. Still, Wodren had not expected the lad to survive even this long, so they had the Ancestors’ wonderful infirmary and the Lantean’s superior skills as healers to thank for keeping the boy alive, despite the horrific injuries he had. After they’d checked up on Leoosh, the pair ended up being escorted to the ISBI conference room where Hotch, Thomas Magnum, Agent Paddington, Major Teldy and Captain Reddling’s teams were waiting for them.
The Lanteans were waiting for them to conduct the testing which would be carried out by Captain Cadman with the two Winyan Council Elders as witnesses. Both of the elders protested vehemently when Magnum (aka Dave Rossi) volunteered to go first. They deferentially insisted that Thomas Magnum had already demonstrated he was a man of upstanding character, and they bade him not to demean himself in this fashion. They were in no doubt that the honourable Thomas had not committed the heinous attack on young Leoosh Benn.
Dave looked impassive, “I thank you both for your confidence in me, but my honour demands that I be tested. I insist and that includes the rest of my people, since we were present on Winya on the day the unspeakable attack occurred. I do not want there to be a scintilla of doubt that I might have harmed that precious child in any way,” he insisted imperiously, turning to Cadman, and giving her a furtive winky before haughtily commanding her to begin.
Alex and Hotch barely managed to contain their eye rolls. Rossi, like Tony, was an inveterate flirt and clearly, he appreciated women who were beauties, despite them being younger than him. Tony noted automatically that Cadman, while not exactly encouraging Dave, didn’t protest at his antics either, probably because he wasn’t sleazy or inappropriate. Flirting could be fun if both parties welcomed it and it could boost self-esteem. Unlike Anthony DiNozzo Senior, who upon meeting Abby and Ziva had been practically drooling all over them and it felt creepy – although oddly, they both seemed to be flattered as opposed to repulsed by him, Dave was quite chivalrous.
With the DNA testing finally out of the way, they’d taken the two Elders to the guest quarters located near the VIPs who were taking part in Tribunals and the two men had then been given a short tour of the city. Thomas Magnum had asked Cadman to do the honours, a deliberate ploy they’d previously decided on to show the two men Atlantean females in non-traditional roles (at least by Winyan standards) hoping to change some of their attitudes about females while they were staying in Atlantis. Cadman made the first stop the gym where Teal’c, Ishtar, Teyla and Ronon were going at it in hand-to-hand combat before Teyla and Ronon switched to Bantos rods and fought in earnest. The Winyans looked conflicted – shocked, outraged, and scandalised when Teyla prevailed and then proceeded to scold the massive Satedan for becoming sloppy and failing to practise enough. When Ronon rather than seeming furious to be dressed down by a woman, laughed and admitted that he’d been getting soft, their eyes nearly bugged out of their heads.
Then the head of base security had led them down to the scientist domain, where Jeannie Miller had taken up residence as chief science officer. Right now, she was dressing down some arrogant jerk who was wanting to replicate her brother Rodney’s space-time bridge, arguing he knew a way to mitigate its negative effects and she was roundly telling him off about why it wasn’t happening on her watch. When Cadman led them away, she informed them of how dangerous the experiment he was proposing, and she reported they looked a little relieved that a woman might forbid that man from doing as he wished.
To break up the tour so it was less about bludgeoning them over the head, in between the stuff meant to make them question their preconception, Laura showed them innocuous settings, like the Mess, and the school rooms with the younger children, including the Winyans doing art and the older kids who were engaged in building a canine robot. The older kids’ class had seemed to unnerve them, or it might have been J.P., Cadman couldn’t be certain. After all, the holographic B’Elanna Torres‘ uniform left little to the imagination in terms of how it hugged the AI’s curves, particularly ‘her’ ass and breasts. Plus, B’Elanna’s physiognomy made it all too apparent that she was not fully human. If the Winyans were as xenophobic as Willa suggested, they would view J.P. as inferior, which was pretty amusing when you thought about it.
Finally, she arranged for Tulee Hano to meet with Lavin in the Brig while Magistrate Drell had a meeting with Commander AuClair before she assigned them both round-the-clock security escorts, consisting of both male and female guards. Afterwards, she reported back to their ad hoc committee who were all deeply committed to obtaining justice for the Lavin’s victims, on how the tour had gone. Jeannie, Miko, Ishta and Teyla had certainly shaken up the Winyan males’ views of world order and J.P. had perturbed them – whether it was in a good way or a bad way, only time would tell but J.P. could hardly be ordered around and wouldn’t understand even if they asked so there was no point in fretting about what effect he had. All in all, it had been an excellent beginning.
“Did they happen to notice that Shaelli and Edu were in Cassie’s class,” Tony asked anxiously. They were hoping to wrongfoot the Winyan elders tomorrow at the start of Lavin’s trial. Halling, the Athosian leader who had granted sanctuary to Lahn Yeeps and her children was going to petition the Tribunal in the morning, just before Lavin’s first trial commenced.
Cadman scrunched up her nose in thought, frowning as she reviewed their brief visit. “No, I don’t think so. They didn’t engage with any of the kids, the little ones, or the older kids. To be honest, I think the only reason they recognised Bale and Bada was, not to be blunt, because of their darker skin. Lahn’s two are fair-skinned and have light hair like she does, so they probably thought they were Athosians since they were dressed in clothes they got from New Athos.”
Tony looked relieved. “Good, that’s good, Captain. Teyla, is Halling here yet?”
“No, but Kanaan has gone to bring him here. They should be back soon.”
“Great, Admiral Chegwidden is going to meet with him and Yas Yeeps to go over the application for the tribunal to nullify the conviction of his daughter and her co-accused using Ancient laws and decrees.”
Hotch had suggested that if Halling in his capacity as leader had sponsored his new Athosians’ request of overturning one of their citizen’s convictions as a grievous miscarriage of justice, then it would be more difficult to blame Atlantis for their appeal. Halling had quickly agreed, and Teyla said that even before Michael had used his people as human experiments, she was certain Halling would have stood by the Yeeps because it was the right thing to do, and he was a fair man and honourable leader.
It was a good idea, and it just went to show the others that Aaron Hotchner could be a damned sneaky SOB. That said, Tony was finding it pretty difficult trying to keep the Winyan elders separated from the former Winyans who were now Athosian. He’d had Lavin transferred back to Atlantis today so he could consult with Tulee Hano who’d agreed to be his paracletus, but he was extremely anxious that one of the Winyan victims might try to attack him, with feelings running so high after Leoosh’s attack. Tony ended up doubling the guards inside and outside the brig and warned them to be extra cautious just in case.
~o0o~
Meanwhile, as the head of the ISBI was trying to make sure that things ran smoothly with the hearing and the Winyans, Aoife and Ronon were both in their own ways, bolstering Colonel Sheppard who seemed to be even more anxious than he had been facing the trials of Porteus Kolya and Duter Maden. Perhaps it was the long adjournment between the first two and this one or it might be that he hadn’t really known Kolya and his cohorts, despite regarding his uncle as a sworn enemy. John’s relationship with Lucius was far more complicated – more of a frenemy per se than sworn foe because he had helped Sheppard defeat Acastus Kolya and rescue John’s teammates back on Amullie, but Lucius also sold them out to save his skin.
Tony reckoned the only reason Lavin helped Sheppard had been because he realised that Acastus would own his ass for the rest of his miserable life. And that scheming sack of excrement was savvy enough to know that while AR-1 thoroughly despised him, the Lanteans had taken him back to Winya instead of charging him with insurrection, spying and rape. Of course, he probably already knew when they dragged him back home that the worst-case scenario he faced for drugging his fellow Winyans meant he would be looking at expulsion. Acastus on the other hand wouldn’t hesitate to kill him, as his attempt to drown Lucius in a barrel of water had surely demonstrated to the slimy Winyan.
Whatever it was that was making John so jittery, Ronon was steadfast in his support and Aoife was also watching him closely. Surprisingly, there was a third person who seemed to have the ability to calm him down. Monique Girard would deflect him by bullying him into watching Agatha Christie’s mysteries with her. Teyla had picked up on his stress too, bringing him Athosian dishes to keep his mind off of the trial, although John had been reluctant to eat her cooking. As a cook, Teyla made a magnificent warrior, but she was a mediocre chef. However, when she mentioned that Kanaan had cooked them, he decided to try them and was glad he did. Kanaan it turned out was very competent. Even Rodney in his way was helpful, albeit that his assistance was more of the clueless variety. It consisted of him quashing any attempts by Sheppard to discuss his fears with him, insisting John was making a mountain out of a molehill. Then he’d swiftly moved on to point out why he, Dr Rodney McKay had much more to be upset about because he was crushed that he had been replaced was by his little sister, who everyone LOVED!
With Aoife closely monitoring Sheppard, she’s asked Dr Nkusi to assume the role of supporting Ota Benn and the four other Winyan victims of Lavin. Leoosh was still sedated to allow him to heal but worryingly he was showing signs of developing a post-operative infection from the abdominal surgery. Although he’d been started on IV antibiotics, the infection didn’t seem to be responding and the doctors were going to try him on a different antibiotic if he didn’t start responding soon. General O’Neill had been asked to use the Goa’uld healing device and he’d done so several times, apologising profusely for not being more proficient with it. He’d also expressed the thought that now would be a good time for Vala to join the land of the living.
~o0o~
The Tribunal convened the day following Magistrate Drell and Tulee Hano’s arrival. After the preliminaries were taken care of, the tribunal duly recognised and thanked Hano for his offer to represent the Accused before making an announcement.
“The Tribunal has received an unexpected request from the Leader of the Athosian People to address this Tribunal. While unorthodox, I and my colleagues have agreed to hear his request which he assures me, shouldn’t take up too much time. I trust that the Paracletus Hano, Decerno Bra’tac and Persequor Hotchner have no objections to this short delay in the proceedings,” Jonas Quinn inquired as the three men shook their heads, Hotch having to school his features since he knew exactly what was about to occur.
“Very well, then, ask the Athosian Leader Halling to enter the chamber,” Jonas looked at one of the Marine MPs.
Halling made his way into the chamber and stopped in the space before the raised dais where the three Venerabiles Sodales of the Intergalactic Tribunal were seated. Behind him in a semicircle was the defence (Lavin and Hano) the arbitrator of points of law (Bra’tac) and on the right side of the arc, Hotch, leading the prosecution.
Halling bowed to the Tribunal members before bowing to the other members behind him. “I apologise in advance, I appear before this hallowed proceeding with little preparation. The Athosians on Atlantis informed me that these proceedings are being convened under the codes of laws as recorded by The Ancestors?”
Ishta smiled at the tall man, deciding that he was a leader not because he was arrogant and thirsted for power, but because he was wise and thirsted for justice. “Yes, Halling. This is so.”
“Then under the rules of Righting Acts of Grave Injustice of the Peoples residing in Pegasus Galaxy, I entreat you the Tribunal to re-hear the evidence which convicted one of my fellow Athosians resulting in her being found guilty and sentenced to death. I believe that she is innocent of the crimes she was convicted of and would hope the Venerabiles Sodales would acquit her.”
Ishtar looked appalled. “May we ask Halling, as leader of your people, why not simply pardon her yourself if you believe this woman to be innocent of the crimes she was convicted of?”
“Most Venerable Member…”
“You may call me Ishta,” she told him tolerantly.
Halling bowed again. “I would be highly honoured Most Venerable Ishta, but it was not my people who convicted her of crimes. It was the people of her birth, who caused her to flee her planet and seek sanctuary with the Athosians and we have welcomed her and her family, having judged her to be a good and hardworking individual. My people want nothing more than for her good name to be restored, thus I would beseech you to use the power and authority of the Ancestors’ laws to overturn an unjust and reckless verdict,”
“Is she here today, Halling?” Jonas had taken charge, having the best knowledge of the huge tome that was the Ancients’ Code of Law. The others had only skimmed cursorily through the section on the retrying of local cases.”
“She is not, Most Venerable Member Quinn. She is currently supporting a mother whose child is gravely ill, but her father is here and is entrusted to plead her case,” he said with appropriate gravitas.
“Then have him come in, so we may question him,” Jonas commanded as Halling exited the chamber to return with a sturdily built greying blue-eyed man, still considered by many to be quite handsome.
Tulee Hano leapt to his feet, although being rather portly in stature he stumbled and had to steady himself on the table. “You,” he shouted. “What are you doing here,” before attempting to collect himself.
Kalan asked, “Paracletus Hano, it would seem that you know this man.”
“He is a Winyan, and he is a fugitive.”
“That is not so,” Yas denied. “I was born on Winya, but I have never been convicted of a crime. After my daughter was wrongly convicted, we finally decided to leave Winya recently and asked the Athosians for asylum so that my daughter could live and raise her children. Hopefully to be free to find a mate and even have additional children, if that is what would make her happy.”
Jonas signed, realising this was nowhere near as simple as he thought. “For the record, please state your name.”
“My name is Yas Yeeps. I am Athosian and my occupation is a miller of grain. I am appearing before you to represent my daughter Lahn, an accomplished baker who has seen twenty-two Pegasus summers and for her children, Shaelli who has seen five Pegasus summers and Edu who has seen four Pegasus summers.”
Hano was bristling with indignation, managing to contain himself until Yas finished. “Venerable Members, Lahn Yeeps was convicted of adultery and committing acts of public lewdness and debauchery. She is a woman of ill repute and received a fair trial.”
Yas turned and scowled at Tulee. “How can you stand here before this Most Venerable Tribunal and speak such untruths, Elder Hano? She was charged with the same crimes as that man,” he growled, pointing at Lucius Lavin, “who drugged her and the other women who were his slaves, and he forced them to lay with him and carry his children. Yet HE was exiled from Winya for his crimes while they were punished with death, commuted because his children needed to be reared and no one would adopt them. All but one of his slaves, who had no children and was stoned to death,” he blurted out furiously. “How can you say that they received a fair trial?”
Hotch stood up but remained respectfully silent, waiting for the tribunal to recognise him.
“You have something to add to the discussion, Persequor Hotchner,” Ishta asked him courteously.
“I do, thank you, Venerabiles Sodales. Since this appeal by Yas Yeeps contains information about the Accused, Lucius Lavin that could be prejudicial to his hearing, I suggest that we postpone further discussion until after the Accused stands trial on the two cases already before the court,” he said.
Jonas Quinn nodded. “Yes, you are quite correct, Persequor Hotchner. We should not prejudice Lucius Lavin’s two hearings and I thank you for pointing this out to us, particularly as you are not his paracletus and it is not your job to protect him.”
Hotchner shook his head. “With utmost respect to the Venerabiles Sodales, I would disagree. As a persequor, I see my role as a pursuit of justice. Everyone is entitled to receive fair and equal treatment under the Code of Law left to us by the Ancestors,” he replied earnestly. “We need to apply the law without fear or favour, or it isn’t true justice.”
“Well stated,” Kalan said approvingly. Looking at his fellow members, he continued, “I vote that we accept the request to consider the conviction of Lahn Yeeps as petitioned by her father. That we should do so after the conclusion of both of the hearings against the Accusatus so that it doesn’t influence the deliberations of his hearings.”
Jonas nodded, “I also vote that we hear the petition after the conclusion of Lavin’s hearings. I also can confirm after studying the Ancestors’ Code of Law most thoroughly for the past month, that it does give us the authority to examine former findings in the Pegasus galaxy if we are requested to by those found guilty or by their kin.”
Everyone looked at Ishta expectantly. “Before I vote, I have concerns,” she said cautiously. “Is it ethical to consider overturning the conviction of one individual because their kin has petitioned us and ignore the plight of four other women in the same situation?”
Bra’tac rose from his seat. Kalan nodded. “Speak, Decerno Bra’tac.”
“I must agree with Ishta. What of these four other females and are we just supposed to ignore them? One has already paid with her life and if she has been wrongly convicted, that is a grave failure of justice.”
Jonas nodded. “I agree, but we are also bound by the rules of the Ancestors. Unless they request a retrial or one of their kin does, then we cannot overstep the bounds,” he said regretfully.
Yas bowed to the members. “May I speak?”
Jonas nodded. “As long as it does not prejudice the Accused you may speak, Yas Yeeps.”
“Then I respectfully entreat the Venerabiles Sodales to open up proceedings in the names of the rest of my family, Ota Benn, Willa and Heleen Upo and Neese Luta.”
Tulee lumbered back to his feet. It was very obvious to all present that there was no love lost between either of the two men. “That is absurd, Yeeps. Those harlots, those homewreckers are no relation to you.”
Yas looked at the tribunal members, tacitly requesting leave to answer the paracletus’ assertions. When they nodded, he proceeded to refute Hano’s contentions.
“With the greatest respect to Elder Hano, he is speaking out of his manure producer,” he said as Ishta smothered a smile. “Those four other women have all given birth to children fathered by Lucius Lavin, which makes them biological half-siblings to Lahn’s daughter Shaelli and son Edu. By Athosian tradition, not only are their half siblings considered to be my family, but their mothers are considered to be my adopted daughters, should I wish to accept them into my family. Since Willa, Ota, Neese and Heleen have no other family who would claim them or would speak for them, then I will claim them, and their seven children and I would speak for them.”
Halling, who had taken a seat in the audience rose to his feet to speak. “In Athosian culture, these women would be considered kin to each if they share a common father of their children. I, on behalf of my people, would reach out to offer them sanctuary on New Athos if they would wish to live with us,” he confirmed.
Ishta smiled. “The Athosians sound like highly admirable people, Halling. Thank you for your desire to see justice done.”
Halling looked sombre. “My people have always welcomed strangers into our midst, during the generations of the culling by the Wraith. More recently, our entire population apart from Teyla Emmagan were abducted and held hostage for many months. Many of our people were subjected to evil experiments turning us into chimera – half humans half monsters and forced to do terrible things. Although many but not all were rescued and the scientists and doctors on Atlantis were able to reverse the physical effects, I assure you that the mental pain and suffering are not so easily banished, Venerabiles Sodales,” he told them grimly.
“Unfortunately, we did not receive justice as the monster who did this to the Athosans escaped. He was eventually killed when he tried to steal the former leader’s child to continue his perversions. If we can help others to obtain justice, then that is a worthwhile goal. Plus, Lahn and her children are already highly valued members of my people, as is her father, Yas Yeeps, and not only for his skill in milling grain. We would be honoured to welcome Lahn’s extended kin to New Athos too.”
Quinn sought eye contact with Ishta. “Does this satisfy your concerns, Ishta?”
“Not wholly, I would seek assurances that the four Winyan females be granted sanctuary until we can hear the case against them. Since one female has already had her death sentence carried out, I would feel more reassured if the Winyan Elder Council were to undertake not to execute any of the other four women.”
Tulee snorted derisively. “I don’t think you need to be worrying yourself about that,” he told Ishta dismissively. The rather gormless man not seeming to realise he wasn’t doing himself any favours by acting like a patronising misogynist jerk.
“Mayuna Pavu miscarried her child, but the four other convicted adulteresses have children that by order of the Elder Council have required them to raise until they have reached fifteen years before their sentence is to be carried out. Unless someone steps forward and offers to rear their wretched spawn, and that is a very unlikely prospect seeing who birthed them, then they are all quite safe until you have reviewed the evidence,” he said scornfully. “Although, I’m sure that when you do, you will agree with our sage ruling,” he told the tribunal with a complacent smirk.
Wodren Drell was listening carefully to the discussion and heartily wished that he’d taken Agent Paddington and his team members’ advice and retried the case when they’d suggested it. If they had done so they would undoubtedly still have a miller and a baker on Winya. He stood up with a sigh. Not for the first time he was wishing that Hano would keep his lips closed for once, because his words were not making him look like a good or kind man. He was looking like a bucket of night excretions.
“Venerabiles Sodales of this Tribunal, may I be permitted to address this gathering.”
Kalan asked, “And who might you be?”
“I am Magistrate Wodren Drell, head of the Winyan Council of Elders. I wish to inform you that Tulee Hano is incorrect. Technically, Ota Benn could be in danger of being executed in the foreseeable future should her son, who was attacked and beaten several days ago, die. Frankly, I am amazed and grateful to the good people of Atlantis for the care they have given Leoosh Ben. Had he remained on Winyan he would have surely died, and many of our people would have demanded that Ota Benn be executed.”
Hotch nodded. “Leoosh Ben is currently in the Infirmary in Atlantis. We are hopeful that he will recover but the doctors cannot be certain at this time.”
Ishtar looked disturbed. “Then Magistrate Wodren Drell, unless you can give me an assurance that none of the four women will be executed before we examine the verdict then I will insist that we hear evidence immediately, even if it is prejudicial to the Accusatus’ cases.”
Hotch interjected. “If I may answer to that concern, the four women have already been placed into the protective custody of Agent Alexander Paddington of the Inter-Stellar Bureau of Investigation, which is our law enforcement agency on Atlantis. We had very serious concerns about their safety after the brutal attack on Leoosh and felt that they all needed to be under our protection until we identified who the attacker was. The investigation is ongoing but I’m sure that Agent Paddington and Commander AuClair would agree to them staying in protective custody in Atlantis until after this Tribunal has heard their appeal against the conviction,” he said firmly.
Jonas looked at his fellow tribunal members. “Does this address all of your concerns?”
Kalan nodded and Ishta said. “I am happy with that arrangement.”
“Then shall we adjourn this matter until a later time and resume preliminary statements by the persequor and the paracletus,” Jonas suggested.
Kalan shook his head. I think it might be wiser to have a short adjournment for refreshments so we can clear our heads of this matter and then give our full attention to this hearing.
~o0o~
John Sheppard didn’t know what was wrong with him. He was jumping at shadows, and his gut was doing backflips and when it wasn’t, it felt like he had a bad case of acid reflux. He met Monique at the Atlantis swimming pool on the north-eastern concourse because she was just starting to be permitted some autonomy. Two weeks ago, she’d finally been released from the Infirmary after Dr Ilsa Meier agreed she could stay with her. During the day Monique had a set routine of activities, tai chi, counselling, swimming, and chess and had agreed to wear a monitoring device to gain some self-sufficiency and not be watched every minute of the day.
The statuesque blonde was watching him closely, and at the end of their swim as they exited the pool, having finished swimming ten laps, he asked, “What’s up, have I got spinach stuck between my teeth or something?”
As she wrapped a towel around herself, Monique shook her head. “No, but you seem off somehow. Are you feeling okay?”
“I don’t know. I feel anxious, can’t seem to concentrate,” he shrugged because he wasn’t sure what was wrong.
He just knew that it had something to do with Lavin’s trial, which was dumb. The first one had gone off without a hitch – he’d testified and Kolya hadn’t even bothered cross-examining John, just used the time to harangue everyone about how they had no authority to detain him, much less try him. Deuter Maden’s defence person was one of Kolya’s thugs and he’d been an annoying little shit. Tried to make John seem that he was too fucked up to give evidence, but John had stared him down and the dick had backed off eventually. Both men had been found guilty and given the death penalty which had made him feel better. Not that he enjoyed the taking of a life but knowing how evil both men were, he felt a lot safer knowing he wasn’t going to be looking over his shoulder, wondering if they might be released or escape from prison and come looking for him.
He’d also been relieved by the fact that he didn’t have to testify about the sexual assaults he constantly endured because Aaron Hotchner and Alex Paddington had struck a deal with three of Porteus Kolya’s militia to testify about what had been done to him. In exchange for their testimony, Amis Lanko, Esto Badic and Keres Fortum would get a reduction on their sentences. It had also reassured Sheppard that the trials had been closed so he didn’t need to worry about the people under his command learning the gruesome details of his torture and abuse. He was certain if that had occurred, he’d never be able to resume command and he would have to transfer off Atlantis and he didn’t want to do that. He felt like he belonged here, and his team treated him like he was one of them, and John needed a sense of family. Apart from his brother David, who he wasn’t close to, he didn’t have anyone else – except an ex-wife with a new husband, and they definitely didn’t count.
He hadn’t even told his team about what happened to him, although Ronon knew. But he’d been with him when he was detoxing from that damned plant, so everyone who was around him at the SGC infirmary, Dex included had known. Hell, he’d embarrassed himself so badly with General O’Neill he could hardly bear to look him in the eyes, except luckily, the general told him he’d been raped when he was captured in Iran on a mission gone bad. And O’Neill and Ronon didn’t treat him any differently, thank heavens. He was also pretty sure that Teyla knew what had happened too; Ronon informed him that it was common knowledge in the Satedan military when he was serving. Recruits were warned that falling into the hands of the Genii was something to be avoided due to their methods of torture used to break their enemies which included torture, rape, and starvation, As the former leader of her people, he suspected she had learnt about their methods over the years, just as Ronon had but she never pressed him or asked questions, just offered him her calming presence and support.
John hadn’t spoken of it with Rodney because he suspected it would be extremely uncomfortable for both of them. McKay wasn’t good at expressing any emotions which weren’t connected to fear, anger, sarcasm or tooting his own horn, all of which he excelled at but other complicated emotions he sucked at. So, it seemed easiest not to talk to him about it. Okay, that wasn’t entirely true; a part of him was secretly afraid that Rodney might make light of it, tell him to suck it up and move on, although intellectually he was pretty sure even Rodney wouldn’t be that insensitive. And then there was the furious part of him that hadn’t yet forgiven the CSO for running his mouth off with all that trash-talking shit about John being a man-whore, bedding every female alien he encountered off-world, which was a big fat exaggeration. The truth was that Rodney had several sexual liaisons in the eight years he’d been on Atlantis, not just Jennifer and Dr Katie Brown but a couple of brief affairs with two or three NCOs and a nurse.
For John, the military commanding officer and number two in the chain of command in the Atlantis hierarchy, getting involved with anyone on Atlantis felt like an extremely bad idea since he was everyone’s supervisor. With the exception being the Atlantis Commanders: Weir, Carter, Woolsey and now AuClair who were in overall charge of the Expedition. The very last thing he wanted was to be accused of favouritism or forcing one of his subordinates into giving him sexual favours and that was why he avoided having relationships with anyone on Atlantis. Occasionally he was tempted to indulge when he was off-world, but yeah, was that so bad? He wasn’t a monk, he liked sex and it was always understood that any liaison was just sex, not a long-term emotional commitment, or like with Chaya Sar, not worth the emotional cost to either one of them. Not to mention the logistical impossibility of him being on Atlantis and Chaya living on Proculus and being in a relationship.
So, to be ragged on by his friend when he seized the chance for some rare physical and emotional pleasure and release with individuals who weren’t in his chain of command was extremely irritating. He entertained fantasies of bitch slapping his buddy, but of course, he couldn’t do that, so he tried to let it all just roll off his back. Then to find out recently that his friend’s ranting about John not being able to resist anyone who possessed ovaries had been what convinced some pathological whack job that John was having an affair with his girlfriend, and it was what had gotten him abducted by Kolya. Well, that burned.
Especially as it was bullshit! John resisted one hundred percent of the offers he got when he was on base and also most of the time when he was off-world on missions he refrained from sexual encounters. That said, John wasn’t asexual, he had a normal sex drive and need for physical and emotional intimacy, so occasionally he gave in to his desires. However, since Rodney was getting sex on the regular, Sheppard thought the CSO had one helluva nerve giving him shit over his rare casual sexcapades.
After Alex had briefed him about how Kolya’s militia had known where to find him, he’d talked it over with Dr O’Shea, and he finally had been able to admit that he was pissed off after a whole lot of denial. Yep, he was furious that some dipshit with pathological jealousy issues, who beat up his girlfriend believed that John had seduced her and decided to sell out his location to Kolya to get back at him. It had taken even longer for Sheppard to be able to admit to himself that he was unhappy and hurt at Rodney for starting the rumours that a good proportion of the base had bought into the lie too that he was a sex fiend that would hump anything that stood still too long.
Come to think of it, maybe it was why he’d been so desperate to avoid the rank and file of Atlantis knowing about him being sexually assaulted for months. He secretly feared they’d think that he’d brought it on himself because he was promiscuous. And, yes, there was the even worse fear that people would think that he enjoyed it or encouraged it because he was a sex addict. It would be like the ultimate betrayal since John was fairly sure that he was never going to let anyone get close enough to him again to have sex, just thinking about being touched, even in completely non-intimate ways, made him flinch and become anxious although he was finally able to tolerant his close friends and the young kids touching him and not feel threatened. Okay, he could deal with it on a good day, but he still had the odd bad day unfortunately, where he was easily spooked.
John was jolted out of his reverie when he was being nudged with a bottle of water. He was surprised to find that Monique had tied a sarong around her swimsuit, a basic black one-piece that was not particularly revealing, although it also didn’t hide the fact that she was tall and slender with curves in all the right places. He noted that she’d donned a lightweight muslin shirt to protect herself from getting sunburnt and was even more surprised to find that they were sitting down, legs dangling off the edge of the concourse a ways off from the swimming pool. He had no memory of how they’d come to be here – the last thing he recalled was getting out of the pool and Monique asking him if he was okay.
Taking the proffered bottle of water with a smile of thanks, he twisted open the cap and took a long swallow of the liquid.
Monique regarded him intently. “You seemed to be deep in thought, Colonel. Do you mind me asking what were you so focused on?
John felt a few brief seconds of panic. He fleetingly thought about making a joke but then he realised that wouldn’t have caused him to be so lost inside his head.
Instead, he found himself asking her, “What makes you so determined to testify against Lucius Lavin?”
Chapter 2
He’d been curious about that for the longest time but ever since the discussion with Alex, right before the Tribunal found Kolya guilty, Sheppard had done his best to stop thinking about it. When he sought the agent out due to his concerns…okay his curiosity about why Dr Girard was testifying and then had been metaphorically smacked over the muzzle with a rolled-up newspaper for prying into Monique’s business, John tried to rein in his prying. Especially when Alex pointed out his hypocrisy for not wanting people to know all the gory details about what happened to him yet wanting to know about her. Since it was a far cop, John avoided talking about her fervent desire to testify against Lucius, focusing on supporting her. Yet, out of nowhere, it popped into his mouth as a way to avoid getting into what he’d really been thinking about – how would people think of him if they knew what he’d allowed Kolya to do to him? He just blurted it out without thinking and Monique Girard flinched, looking visibly surprised.
“Ah, sorry, I shouldn’t be prying,” he told her.
“It’s okay. You just caught me off-guard, Colonel,” she told him, and the use of his title told him that she was uncomfortable.
The truth was that they’d gotten to know each other fairly well since they started exercising together – sometimes with Alex but increasingly going solo as he became occupied with investigations and the hearings. Sheppard knew about the hunt for Trust spies and possibly saboteurs on the city – Paddington had read him in on that one, and in the last couple of days, he’d heard on the grapevine that while visiting Winya for trade talks they’d found a young boy who’d been severely beaten, and they’d medivacked him back to Atlantis for emergency surgery. Now at the request of the Winyan elders, Paddington was investigating who was responsible for such a heinous crime.
Since spending so much time together, it had been some time since they’d tacitly dropped their formal titles, and just used Monique and John but in one dumbass moment he’d made her uncomfortable. To protect herself, she’d instinctively tried to insert some distance into their relationship, and he felt bad for doing that to her, even if it was purely unintentional.
That remorse might go some way to explaining why he said what he said next since he wasn’t even consciously aware of feeling like that, either. “Sometimes I feel like I got off too easy, not having to testify about the…torture during the incarceration.”
She considered that, and like the scientist she was, she didn’t rush to respond with a kneejerk reply.”
Finally, she asked, “Did you want to testify?”
John shook his head. “No, not really. I hate talking about it, and the tribunal ruled that the testimony of a couple of Genii’s who cut a deal for a reduced sentence was sufficient for their purposes.”
“It’s still too raw,” she observed. “You want it to just go away.”
“Kinda, but that’s dumb. It’s always going to be there.”
Monique breathed deeply. “Yeah, it will, but after six years, I’m starting to see that pretending it would go away if I didn’t talk about it somehow made it more real. That’s why I’m hoping that if I confront him and testify about what he did to me, it will help me to move on. I’ve spent so much energy trying to put it out of my mind, that I haven’t been able to live my life, hence my reputation as the Ice Queen,” she said with a bitter little smile.
“When I tried in a pitiful attempt to kill myself because of the anger and shame and every other negative emotion that was stalking me, I’d fooled myself into believing that if I killed Lucius I could die in peace and not have to deal with all these emotions anymore. That’s how I ended up hurting innocent people because I was too caught up in my own head and I physically wounded Alex who was trying to stop me. God only knows how he knew that I was in trouble, but he did, and he saved me. Plus, even though I wasn’t successful, I still hurt Felix, and this is not his fault,” she said vehemently.”
John was about to ask her what ‘this’ was before he restrained himself. Alex and Dr O’Shea both had warned him it was Monique’s story to tell or not. Just like his story was his to share with his team and closest friends and family or not.
“I’m glad that Alex stopped me,” she confessed. “If I’d been successful, Lavin wouldn’t get what’s coming to him. He would have gotten off far too easily and Felix would blame himself for the rest of his life and that would have been such a terrible thing to do to him. I also need to stand up to Lavin and tell that piece of shit that what he did to me was not okay and that he is a pathetic loser. I’m kind of hoping they decide to execute him but if not, hopefully, he’ll be locked up for the rest of his life and I’ll never see him again.
Monique took a long swallow of water and stared out over the distant horizon before she started to speak again. “ It feels like this is my last chance to tell him what I feel. I know it won’t change what happened in the past if I testify, but I hope it will change my future.”
For several minutes they sat, neither of them speaking. Finally, she said in a less serious tone, “So, did that answer your question, John?”
Grinning weakly, he replied, “Kinda makes sense, but it left me with a heap more though.” Picking the least contentious he asked her, “Like how did you manage to wound a trained federal agent?”
She smiled sadly. “With a razor-sharp blade that he was trying to wrest off me before I could use it on myself,” she admitted with a hitch in her breath, while she fought to get her breathing back under control.
And John could have kicked himself for ripping the top off such barely healed sores. Wow, what an insensitive oaf!
“I’m so sorry, Monique,” he told her regretfully.
She nodded. “I know, and one day, I might tell you what Lavin did to me but right now I’m not ready. Maybe after I testify, I don’t know. But even if I was ready to tell you, I wouldn’t because Alex and Aaron Hotchner have asked me not to speak of it. They don’t want the witness’s testimony to be compromised. And I’m not going to do anything to jeopardise him getting what he deserves. Justice demands it.”
He nodded, “You’re right. I don’t want him getting off or getting a day less on his sentence either because of a doubt that there was collusion.”
She rose, holding onto her empty water bottle to dispose of it later. “I’m sure someone who is as freaky smart as yourself knows this already, John,” she said with a secret smile since she’d long again sussed out the brilliance he tried to hide under a guise of insouciant self-deprecation. “The first stage of grief is supposed to be denial and anger is the second one. Maybe you weren’t ready to admit to what happened to you before but maybe you are ready to do it now, even though you don’t want to. Talk to Dr O’Shea and try to figure out if you need to testify or if you will be able to let it go. Everyone is different and just because I need to testify to move on doesn’t mean that anyone else should feel pressured to do the same.”
He stood up too, “You are pretty damned brilliant yourself, Monique. Thanks for the talk and I’ll check in with Dr O’Shea after lunch.”
As they walked back inside together, he realised that Monique might be onto something. Perhaps a part of him was ashamed that he’d taken the easy way out even though it was the last thing he wanted to do.
They parted company and Monique said, “Guess I’ll see you at Tai Chi tomorrow.”
John nodded. “Yeah, see you there.”
~o0o~
Monique hurried back to the temporary quarters she was sharing with Ilsa to have a quick shower and get changed into more appropriate clothing than what she had on now. After all this time, she still struggled with the fact that people checked out her body, making value judgements about her based on her looks. If she had spent hours in the gym honing her body or spent money having a cosmetic surgeon fashion her features, perhaps she might appreciate all of the attention, but the fact of the matter was that her looks had nothing to do with her. This was all just a quirk of nature that she looked the way she did, unlike the fact that she possessed an excellent brain which she had spent countless hours honing and educating over the years. She’d worked her way through University, at first living at home to save money so she could attend graduate school and scrimping and scrapping to get her PhD and felt justifiably proud of her achievements.
Plus, if it weren’t for her looks, Lucius Lavin would never have given her a second glance. He’d dismissed plenty of other women who were throwing themselves at him when he’d been on Atlantis, drugged them up to the gills on that damned mind control chemical. Sometimes she wished that she couldn’t remember any of the excruciatingly embarrassing details of her rape, wondering if it would be easier to deal with if MCD –238β had the same amnesiac effects as other date rape drugs such as GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyric acid), Rohypnol (otherwise known as roofies) ketamine or just plain old alcohol. Then she wouldn’t be forced to remember in high-definition technicolour every awful detail of the ordeal. How when he’d first hit on her, and she’d slapped him down hard, the oily obsequious creep had made her want to go shower just from being close to him.
To have to deal with the memories of how once she’d fallen under the influence of MCD –238β she’d turned into a spineless jellyfish, happy even to be used and abused by the piece of shit. The way he’d forced her to debase herself, ordering her to wash his feet and give him a foot massage had been a humiliation that she wished she could forget. Particularly when Dr McKay and Dr Beckett were breathing down her neck, bickering nastily about why they would be a better choice to attend to Lavin’s feet and she’d felt smugly triumphant that Lavin gave her the task. How utterly pathetic did that make her feel, remembering it? And it vied with the disturbing memory of her following him around like a lapdog while he raped other women, begging him to pick her, prompting him to become even smugger and rudely dismissive of her. So that she’d been so happy to finally be chosen by him, it still made her feel so dirty at how grateful she’d been.
And yet, as horrific as it was that he used her and the others like an inflatable sex doll, Monique knew what riled her even more, was that he’d been able to subjugate her mind and spirit was such consummate ease. She’d grown up with hippy parents who managed to fall under the spell of every damned religious and spiritual guru, every snake oil peddler, every half-baked celebrity or new-age expert pushing their philosophies on the regular. The result was that she’d become highly cynical and determine not to surrender her autonomy as they had. Her mother and father eagerly lapped it all up – crystal healing, macrobiotics, colloidal silver machines, chakra balancing, colonic irrigation, past lives regressing, and coffee enemas – always pitifully eager to achieve the promised nirvana, spiritual enlightenment and health and immortality.
Yet they never did but that never stopped them from chasing the next popular fad. Having most of the family’s disposable income thrown away on these charlatans didn’t stop them either. She often went to bed hungry and their staple diet most of the time was ramen noodles, and infrequently, vegetables if they were lucky enough to afford them. Most people assumed that Monique’s family were vegetarian by choice, but it was more of an economic necessity that made meat, eggs or even tofu, normally a staple of a healthy vegetarian diet, financially out of reach most of the time. It also made Monique naturally distrustful, and it developed in her a healthy scepticism which encouraged her to develop critical thinking skills quite early on.
At university, her childhood experiences encouraged her to call out wrong thinking when she encountered it, even when it meant going against her professors. That had tended to make her enemies, but it also earned her respect as someone who would examine every facet of the data to reach solid conclusions. When she had examined all the evidence and reached a conclusion, she was not one to be swayed by what others thought, unless they had logical reasons for her to change her stance. So, to know that her critical thinking ability was no match for the mind-controlling herb used by, yet another snake oil peddler had been a bitter pill to swallow. This was why she often wished that she couldn’t remember having fallen under his thrall but that was another nasty side effect of the drug, if anything, memories of that time under its influence seemed to be even more sharp and clear than normal.
Was it any wonder that the victims on Winya had been so easy to convince that they were to blame for what Lavin had done to them, when their own minds had betrayed them so badly, seeming to want to please Lavin no matter what perverted desires he had? He hadn’t just raped their bodies, he’d raped their minds too, leaving them with a legacy that was hard to reconcile, and Monique thought that was an even greater crime. In a nutshell, it was why she wanted to testify. For herself, for Felix who was an unwitting victim of all of Lavin’s abuse too, for Mayuna Pavu who was no longer alive to speak for herself and Willa, Ota, Heleen, Neese and their nine children.
Monique badly wanted to go and talk with Ota and the others, but like Teyla, had been cautioned that it could lead to accusations of collusion. As she dressed after her shower, she decided to go and talk to Alex to find out how Leoosh was doing since she was trying to avoid his mother.
~o0o~
“Dr Girard thinks that I’m done with denial and have moved on to the anger stage,” John replied when Dr O’Shea asked him how he was doing.
Well, that was unexpected. Aoife asked him, “What do you think about her theory?”
“Maybe, I don’t know.”
“It’s perfectly normal to feel anger and to deny your feelings after going through something life-altering like being incarcerated for months on end. For example, it’s okay for you to be angry that we took so long to find you,” Aoife said soothingly.
“What? No…I don’t blame anyone,” he said but the moment he spoke the words, he felt a jolt of anger. Why had it taken so damned long?
Watching the emotion play out on his face, Aoife challenged him gently. “Are you sure about that?:
He felt confused. “How can I be angry at Lanteans when it was my own damned fault that I was captured. I wasn’t paying attention and that’s how they drugged me and rather than fighting it, fighting back, I went with them like a trained monkey in a circus,” he blurted out angrily.
“The two are not mutually exclusive states of being you know. You can be angry that we didn’t find you a lot sooner and still be angry at yourself for making it easier for them to take you and harder for us to find.”
John looked at her surprised. “You’re not going to try to make me see that it wasn’t my fault that I succumbed to that damned plant?”
Aoife smirked. “Feelings are still real, whether or not they are true, Colonel. It doesn’t lessen their power. Besides, intellectually you already know that you didn’t stand a chance of resisting it, but we humans need to blame something or someone when it all goes wrong. Self-blame is safe and comfortable even when it isn’t warranted or logical, so, long answer short, I’m not going to try to argue with your feelings. They are what they are.”
“Then what are we doing here?”
“Hopefully helping you to acknowledge your feelings and emotions so you can examine if they are true or a device to avoid dealing with other issues.”
John looked frustrated. “I don’t understand.”
“By blaming yourself for getting captured, you avoid having to examine feeling angry that we didn’t find you sooner.”
Aoife decided to let that sit for a while. “Was there something specific that made Dr Girard think you were angry, John?”
He looked uncomfortable. “Um, yeah. I asked her why she was determined to testify against Lavin. And before you say anything about me prying and not having the right, I know. It just sort of popped out of my mouth when she asked me what I was thinking about because I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t mean to harass her, not after you and Alex kicked my ass about it.”
“Rather ironic, don’t you think?”
He looked at the Irish woman cluelessly. “How do you mean?”
“Well, you don’t want to share your thoughts, yet you deflect by wanting to know her reasons. Ironic!”
He sighed. “Yeah, it is. I get it, I do, and I apologised. Anyway, after she talked a bit about why she felt impelled to testify, she wanted to know if I was thinking about testifying against Lavin for his part in getting me captured and me almost dying.”
“And are you?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“Have you thought about why you feel differently about testifying in this trial,” Aoife asked.
“Maybe because I’ve gotten used to testifying and I feel more comfortable now.”
“That is true.”
“Or it could be that I feel guilty about not standing up to Kolya and Maden. That I feel like they won because I couldn’t face them.”
“That seems like a reasonable explanation under the circumstances. That doesn’t make it true,” O’Shea replied.
Seeing his questioning look, she explained. “Kolya was never going to have any epiphanies about the injustice he did to you. The man was a sociopath; he would have gotten an intense amount of satisfaction in forcing you to relive every last traumatic detail so he could gloat at what he would have seen as your weakness. He was incapable of experiencing empathy and it seems like in that regard, he was very much like his uncle. I’ve read the mission reports where you encountered Acastus Kolya, and Porteus seems to be cut from the same cloth.”
She paused, to evaluate his reaction. Seeing he was processing what she said, she continued. “Maden was too invested in his false rationale of ‘I was just following my superior’s orders’ to have been ready to process anything you said, particularly if it had an emotional element to it. Ronon and Teyla have both stated that the Genii have a reputation for torturing their prisoners, including the use of sexual abuse, so they would not see what they did as heinous acts either.”
John gave a rather deep sigh. “Okay, I can see that. But it still feels like I wimped out because I was weak and needed coddling.”
“Is that why you think that Alex and Aaron jumped through hoops, so you didn’t need to give anything but the barest of details confirming the three Genii who testified against their leaders?”
“Of course, what other reason could they possibly have had,” he questioned her in bemusement.
“Not knowing what their trial strategy was going to be – or in the case of Kolya, his lack thereof, they considered the possibility that if you were to give a detailed testimony, it might backfire. They could have manipulated it, exhibiting remorse – false remorse at the ordeal they put you through which might have subtly influenced the judges to be more lenient. Having the three Genii outline what was done to you prevented that from happening.”
“How did it do that? Couldn’t they have faked remorse still?”
“Aye, theoretically they could, John, but they were both too furious that their men betrayed them and threw them under the bus to get shorter sentences to be able to pull it off. Ego and anger would have made even the thought of them pretending to display contrition too hard for them to fake.”
John thought about the act of betrayal and realised she had a point. “Yeah, I hear you. But that isn’t going to be a factor in Lucius Lavin’s hearing, though. He won’t feel betrayed by Genii testifying against him.”
“No, it won’t but the first scenario might come into play. The profile that has been created by Alex and Aaron in consultation with SSA David Rossi indicates that Lucius fits the diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That makes it highly likely he would do or say anything to save his precious hide and the fact that so many people grossly underestimated him, letting him off scot-free for almost gaining total control over Atlantis demonstrates he is very good at conning people. He could gain total control over hearts and minds, even sans that stupid plant.”
The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he recalled that deeply disturbing conversation he had with Lavin in the Atlantis Brig when he’d managed to overcome John and Lucius thought he’d won, still made him shudder, and he knew she was correct. His visceral reaction of extreme repulsiveness to Lucius should have tipped him off to how dangerous he was.
“If I’d let Ronon kill him instead of letting him go back home, this never would have happened because I would have fought to the death before letting Kolya take me if not for Lavin’s damned herb. I should have listened to Teyla and Dex,” he blurted out explosively.
“It wasn’t just your call. Elizabeth Weir was the Commander of Atlantis so ultimately it was her call,” Aoife pointed out logically.
“I should have fought her harder, convinced her how serious it was.”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference. She had her own agenda for sending him back to Winya.”
He glared at her. “What reasons?”
“It’s been deemed classified right now,” she told him regretfully.
“I NEED to know,” he shot back furiously.”
“Yes, you do but unfortunately John, operational security takes precedence over your need to make sense of your post-traumatic stress. If you trust me, believe me when I say that short of overthrowing her appointment as the Commander, there was little to no chance you could have changed her mind,” O’Shea told him firmly. “And don’t you think that Ronon and Teyla are beating themselves up because they couldn’t make Dr Weir see how dangerous Lucius Lavin was to base security?”
He nodded looking incredibly irritated. “Yeah, you’re right. They’d be ropeable. As to the former, it seems like I have little choice but to accept what you say, but just answer me this. If this intel is as classified as you say, well no offence Doctor, but I’m sure my security clearance is a lot higher than yours is as a psychologist.”
“Undoubtedly it is, John. But I was involved in the investigation when the information was uncovered, which is the only reason I know about it.”
The colonel looked thoroughly confused. “Since when does a psychologist take part in investigations,” he whined, shaking his head.
“When there are victims involved,” she told him gently.
He facepalmed before dragging his fingers through what most Lanteans referred to as his bed hair or what diehard Potterheads sometimes called his James Potter hair and groan-moaned. “Uuugh! This is so frustrating. When will someone tell me what charges Lavin’s facing in his second trial.”
“Aaron Hotchner is planning on giving you a brief outline after you finish testifying in this hearing to avoid any accusations of you giving false testimony in this case because of the next one.”
And that made no sense to him. If the details were that horrific in the second trial, what was to stop him from being accused of lying in that case?”
When he asked her that, she just shook her head. “The second case against Lucius has a mountain of evidence and several victims are going to give evidence. And the evidence you will be asked to testify about is mostly corroborating reports and security footage. Honestly John, sometimes ignorance is bliss. You are better off not knowing all of the details,” she told him grimly.
“He scowled at her. “That’s what Alex Paddington told me about how I was taken by the Genii,” he muttered. “Said I’d be better off not knowing.”
“And?”
“And what?”
Sighing long-sufferingly, she said, “Was he right? Were you better off not knowing about how you were betrayed by L Corp. Favre?”
“It hurt to think one of my own had sold me out,” he admitted gruffly.
Aoife was detecting a ginormous ‘but’ hanging in the air. Clarifying, she asked, “Are we talking about Joseph Favre here or someone else?”
“Who else would we be talking about unless someone else helped him gain intel on AR-1’s assignments,” he said deliberately leaning back, his arms folded and a fierce glare on his face. Oh uh, the experienced psychologist recognised defensive posturing when it jumped up and bit her on the bum.
Taking a deep breath, she waded into the abyss, wishing she had a flak jacket at times like this or got combat pay.
“Oh, just a random guess here, nothing to do with my years of training or anything,” she said flippantly. “But maybe just maybe you might be feeling a tad bit peeved regarding the guy who was responsible for putting the thought into Favre’s head that you were shagging the shite out of his girlfriend.”
John exploded, “It is just a joke, okay? Why would I be pissed at Rodney? He’s my friend!”
“A joke isn’t a joke unless everyone knows it’s a joke, John. You’d likely be appalled at how many people in Atlantis believe that you sleep with every available female on the base and also some who aren’t available. Maybe when the joke first started, everyone here knew it wasn’t true but with the constant influx of new personnel over the years, and the departure of many of the original expeditionary force through attrition or reassignment, unequivocally that is no longer the case. As Alex points out to those claiming it was just a harmless joke, the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels said, ‘If you repeat the lie often enough it becomes the truth,’ and sadly for a lot of people, they’re convinced it is the truth.’”
Sheppard was clenching his fists at this point, staring at the ground as if he would find an answer there, lips thinned and jaw tense. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to hold himself back from fleeing their session or exploding in anger.
Keeping her tone calm and conversational rather than confrontational she continued, knowing that this had been festering under the surface ever since he’d been briefed on how he’d been captured. She was just lancing the carbuncle and that was too often very messy.
“When I try to repudiate the lie with someone who believes it’s true, they usually have two comebacks. Either they insist that they know someone who told them they slept with you, or they argue that McKay is one of your closest friends so why would he lie about it?”
“Honestly? They believe it’s true?” He sounded bleak, desolate.
“I’m sorry, John. I wouldn’t make this up.”
Not making eye contact he practically whispered, “How could we have missed this?”
“Unfortunately, none of the old-timers realised that the joke (and I‘ve got to say, I think it was a pretty lame joke, laddie) had entered into the accepted folklore about Atlantis’ hero and commanding officer. Evan and Ronon in particular blame themselves for not realising how dangerous it had become.”
Aoife rose and got them both a bottle of water from the bar fridge. They sat for several long minutes in silence as he thought about the irony that Girard had also handed him a bottle of water. Finally, John began to speak unbidden.
“When Monique asked me if I was alright, I was thinking about my team. Thinking how I was glad that the trials were secret so my sexual abuse would remain classified. How Ronon knew what happened to me because he had served in the Satedan Army and apparently for the Genii with prisoners, it was pretty much SOP to break them. And Dex was there when I was detoxing from the herb and was offering the infirmary staff sexual favours if they’d let me go back to Kolya,” he said full of self-disgust. “Hell… I even propositioned General O’Neill,” he admitted in shame. “But Ronon and the General don’t treat me differently.”
“What about the rest of the team?”
“I’m pretty sure that Teyla knows but she doesn’t treat me any differently, just mother hens me which is pretty par for the course.”
“And Rodney?”
“Nope, I don’t think he knows. He’s too busy trying to enlist me into getting him returned to duty and for the last few days he’s been ranting about getting stabbed in the back by his sister. He’s super riled up and I was thinking that I was glad he doesn’t know because he might make a joke about Karma.”
“You think he’d say you brought this on yourself,” Aoife clarified.
“Maybe, or other people might if they found out…because of his stupid joke. Why would he make a joke about me being Captain Kirk and broadcast it to the entire base? I’ve never been intimate with anyone on Atlantis and only indulged a handful of times with women from other planets who knew it was just casual sex. I don’t get why he made such a big thing out of it in the first place.”
“I guess you need to ask him, John,” O’Shea told him gently. “I have some theories but that’s all they are. I could be completely wrong and as I’m counselling him too, I really can’t comment. I could set up a session and mediate it for you if you want.”
“Maybe later. I guess I’m still feeling too angry to want to listen to him right now,” he admitted, wondering why it had been so fucking hard to say what he was feeling out loud.
Somehow it felt good to admit to someone other than himself that he was angry with Rodney about the stupid joke that contributed to his getting kidnapped. Dr O’Shea was right, the whole Sheppard is Atlantis’ Captain Kirk joke was always pretty lame. It had never sat well with him, but he’d tried to take it in good grace because…well Rodney was Rodney.
“Plus, I’m not too sure how he’d handle it,” he admitted half-heartedly.
Aoife, leaned in just a tad, “How so?”
“I guess you could say he has double standards sometimes. He’ll eviscerate his so-called idiot minions with his sarcasm, or yell at them until he’s about ready to have a stroke but if I treated him that way, he’d be massively offended. And when his sister Jeannie came to Atlantis that first time, she was regaling us with some stories about Rodney growing up. Since they had such a competitive sibling rivalry, the anecdotes embarrassed him but that’s kinda what siblings do, ya know”
“How did he react,” she asked curiously.
John looked a little sheepish. “Since he’s constantly tooting his own horn about how brilliant he is, we might have been enjoying hearing some less than flattering stories about him and he acted all wounded and hurt. But that never stopped him loudly ranting so that all and sundry could hear about me being like Capt. Kirk every time some attractive female started flirting with me off-world. Like it doesn’t matter if he denigrates me in front of the people I’m supposed to command. It’s a bit…”
“Hypocritical,” Aoife finished for him, pleased to have some solid information on McKay and his sister. From the superficial observations she’d made since Jeannie arrived, there seemed to have an adversarial side to their sibling relationship. She also seemed to have a lot better developed social skills compared to her brother.
“Yeah,” John grimaced. “Besides he doesn’t seem to have noticed that I’ve been stressed out – he is supposed to be a friend, but he’s completely obsessed with getting his job back and sending Jeannie and her family packing asap. And before she arrived he was completely obsessed with Alex Paddington, convinced that there’s a plot to get him off Atlantis and General O’Neill is a part of it too. So, I’m not sure how focused or receptive he’d be if we were to try to discuss my feelings.”
O’Shea nodded ruefully. “Okay, you might be right about that.” It wasn’t that McKay was completely incapable of having empathy, it was that most of the time he just wasn’t interested.
After an extra-long session, John emerged from Aoife’s domain feeling energised and yet exhausted. He was gutted from releasing all of that anger he’d been suppressing over Rodney’s inadvertent but dumb contribution to his getting ambushed. Yet, he was also feeling lighter by being finally able to unburden himself without feeling guilty about being a horrible friend for feeling that way and holding onto grudges. He was going to have a late lunch thanks to their extended session, because as he’d learnt the hard way not too long again, skipping meals wasn’t an option for him at this stage in his physical recovery.
As he made his way to the Mess that was almost deserted, Corporal Jemma Ryan grinned. “Thought you had decided to skip lunch today. Hang about for a few while I reheat it for you,” she told him.
He sighed. All of the Mess crew had turned into mother hens over his nutritional needs, and he knew they all meant well, but sometimes he longed for the days when he could grab a meal that hadn’t been chosen to pack in as much nutritional punch as was possible. Still, it wasn’t their fault he’d almost been starved to death. So, when the bouncy Corporal Ryan returned with his reheated lunch he smiled at her and thanked her politely. He wasn’t going to act like a childish boor, even if he longed to do just that.
As he ate his lunch on the balcony, he thought about the information Dr O’Shea had provided him with about Dr Nkusi’s plans to start setting up support groups for trauma survivors. She was setting up one for victims who’d been sexually abused or raped carrying out their duties. It sounded great in theory, but John couldn’t see him and General O’Neill sitting around willingly sharing their thoughts and feelings. When he’d expressed his reservations about it working with just two very stoic people, she gave him a rather enigmatic look.
“More than two, Colonel. At last count, we are talking about at least four, maybe five guys. And it could well be more but as most survivors, especially men tend to suffer in silence, afraid of people knowing, it’s hard to predict. It wouldn’t surprise me if there could be others out there who might be encouraged to join in. And I know that a significant proportion of our military on Atlantis have served in military conflicts, so there is a possibility others have gone through similar situations.”
And that had pulled him up sharply. Of course, people in the military wouldn’t be keen to share such an experience, just as he was desperate that Lanteans didn’t know the exact details of what his torture entailed. John’s greatest fear was that people would see him as weak or they would pity him and treat him differently; it would mean that ultimately, his captors had won.
Chapter 3
Monique decided to see if Alex had time to spare, inviting him to lunch so she could pump him for information about Leoosh Ben and the women from Winya. She felt a kinship with them, even though their circumstances were very different. When Alex said he had thirty minutes for lunch, she offered to get food for them both and meet him at his office. He’d accepted and suggested they use the interview room which had a small kitchenette attached and that meant proper coffee. Like most scientists, Monique had become addicted to caffeine over her years of study at university and time spent in the research lab, so she agreed eagerly. These days, with sleep issues she’d cut back a lot on her coffee consumption but a lunchtime coffee, a proper coffee, wouldn’t interfere with her sleep cycle.
Ducking down to the Mess, she grabbed a couple of plates of mixed sandwiches and a platter of various peeled and sliced-up fruit (shipped in on the Zephyrus and also traded from Pegasus food markets) and added it to their tray too. She didn’t bother grabbing water, knowing he kept the small bar fridge stocked and after looking at the cookies and knowing they were Felix’s favourites, popped them on too. She knew Alex would make sure her son got them later, even if it was a lame enough gesture.
By the time she carried the tray of food to the ISBI wing that now included their intelligence and analysis section plus the new area for ISBI agents who would be assigned over time but only housed Agent Fornell right now, Alex was already waiting for her inside, making their coffee.
“Hi Monique,” he said as she put the food down on the table. He noted the plate of double-chocolate chip cookies but didn’t comment.
“Hey Alex, how’s your day?”
“So-so. Paperwork is a curse!” he said with a grimace. Finishing off the two coffees he carried them to the table and sat down beside her, careful to give her space so she didn’t feel uncomfortable.
She sighed, knowing that they thought this was what she wanted. She remembered the night she’d made her ill-fated attempt to get to that evil SOB. She’d finally realised that it had more to do with wanting to end her suffering than an altruistic scheme to rid the world of a truly evil piece of trash. That night after Alex wrestled with her to get the knife off her, she collapsed sobbing in his arms and he’d held her, rocking her like a child. Like she did with Felix to console him when he was distressed. It had felt good to be held, to be contained by another and it had been the first time since Lucius Lavin fucked up her life that anyone had hugged her apart from her son Felix.
She realised that it was mostly her own doing, okay so maybe not mostly. She deliberately closed herself and her feelings off, pushing everyone away. Monique rejected anyone who’d asked her to go out with them and isolated herself from work associates, swiftly earning the moniker of the Ice Queen. Oh yeah, she heard the whispers – hard not to over the long, lonely years that followed. Until Alex Paddington arrived with his adorable daughter and started hosting movie nights for Belle and her friends and their parents.
Slowly he’d drawn her in too, even though Monique tried to resist the overtures of friendship but like his daughter, he’d managed to wear down her desire to close herself off to everyone. And then after he uncovered the whole Lavin debacle, he’d promised Monique he’d lift the lid on the corruption that had threatened her if she reported it, she felt grateful that someone would finally make Lucius pay. Learning that he’d done much worse to six other women on Winya, turning them into slaves for several years had been upsetting enough. But discovering that after the Lanteans helped free them from addiction, the Winyan people blamed the young victims and had killed a twenty-three-year-old was intolerable to her.
She wanted Lavin to pay but she also wanted her own pain to stop. However, with Felix as a constant reminder of what had happened, she couldn’t see how that would ever change. That was how she’d come up with her hare-brained scheme to kill Lavin and the part of that plan that she hadn’t acknowledged had been that one of the MPs guarding him would stop her. But Aoife had helped her acknowledge that killing herself had been the real outcome she was hoping for – just not by her own hand. Her failure to achieve that outcome had plunged her into a depression that she was still struggling with at times, but she was getting there. Although it forced her to examine her life and she realised that she was starved of simple affection and human touch.
She wished everyone would stop treating her like she was fragile and surrounding her in a bubble. She longed for Alex to hug her as he had the night she’d gone crazy, it had felt so good to be held and feel someone else’s heart beating. Not that she was looking for anything more than friendship from him and even if she were, she could see he was still getting over whatever had happened to Belle’s mother. She noted that he didn’t date, despite getting plenty of offers but while she shut herself off from everyone, he used affability and humour to wall himself off from forming any sexual relationships, despite having a lot of female and male friendships. And because of it, and their prior burgeoning friendship due to Felix and Belle, she figured that made him safe and comfortable but Alex, John, Ilsa and Teyla, despite all their support, friendship and emotional backing shied away from physical contact with her. They wrongly assumed that she would be triggered by it, since for so long she’d eschewed it.
As they ate, Alex looked at her. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“To be honest, what I wanted was to talk to Ota and the others, but especially Ota. How is Leoosh doing?”
Alex heaved a sigh. “He’s holding his own, probably due to the efforts of General O’Neill using the Goa’uld healing device on him, but he still has a low-grade fever and the doctors decided to change his antibiotics this morning. Vala regained consciousness a little while ago, but they won’t let her use the healing device until her brain swelling is resolved, so O’Neill is using the device on her too.”
“So, they won’t be sending them back to Winya just yet,” she clarified, since the thought of them going back there was giving her nightmares about a young woman called Mayuna who she’d never even met.”
Alex beamed at her, and she felt overwhelmed by his jubilation. “No, they aren’t going to be sent back. Hotch just sent me a message that Yas and Halling’s plea to the Tribunal to examine their conviction was heard. The Tribunal agreed to hear their case and Ishta insisted that they remained here under the ISIB’s protective custody. I’d kiss her for that, but Teal’c would probably kill me,” he joked.
“When will the Tribunal hear their case,” Monique asked smiling at the great news, which was a rare sight.
“After they hear Lavin’s two cases,” he told her.
“So, after that, Teyla and I can be there to support them during their hearing?”
“I don’t see why not. They don’t know that their kids have two more half-siblings, yet,” he said, referring to Felix and Torren and she could see he was also thinking about Kazumi Zelenka. She thought about Miko and Radek’s decision not to do DNA testing, not sure if, in their shoes she could stand not knowing if Radek or Lavin was the biological father of Kazumi. It seemed obvious however, that they could, so really it wasn’t anyone else’s business but their own.
“Good, they all need our support, especially Ota. Did you find out who attacked Leoosh yet?”
“Yeah, the DNA is in but I’ve kind of held off doing anything yet because I didn’t want Willa, Neese and Heleen to be forced to return. But with that impediment removed, I can interrogate him and find out if he was acting alone.”
Monique frowned at that. “How do you mean?”
He was silent for several seconds before he started to explain what Willa Upo had told him about the declining birth rate of females born on Winya. Monique was puzzled, like Alex. “That’s odd.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m wondering if something in their food supply is affecting foetuses.”
“Or their water,” she mused as the scientist in her started running through possible explanations before returning to the topic of Ota.
“Now that they are on Atlantis, Dr Nkusi is going to start working with them. She is an expert in working with survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence,” he told her. “She specialises in group work, particularly in setting up support groups, which is why she was contracted to work here.”
“You brought her here for the Winyans,” Monique asked surprised.
“No, not just the Winyans. For you, Miko, Teyla and for Radek, Kanaan and Ilsa too. Partners have been deeply affected by what Lavin did to you all,” he told her.
Monique realised it was true. Ilsa Meier was also an emotional mess after the revelations that Sofie had been poisoned, which was why Monique felt safe in her company. Ilsa didn’t expect her to behave a certain way, she simply accepted her, with no judgements and it cut both ways. Ilsa Meier was so grateful to have someone to talk to who knew about what had happened to Sofie as her murder was still highly classified to protect Ilsa’s safety.
“And there are others who have been victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse that have nothing to do with what happened during Lucius Lavin’s attempt to gain control of Atlantis.” He waved a hand at the room and the kitchenette. “Which is partly why the interview room is set up like this. It was always the plan to use this room after hours for support groups. Eventually, when our third psychologist arrives, we’ll have groups for PTSD and ACOAs.”
Monique seemed mystified. “ACOAs?”
Alex looked grim. “Adult children of Alcoholics. Living with alcoholic parents often has serious repercussions for children which continue to affect them even as adults,” he told her bleakly. “It’s the legacy that continues to provide.”
Monique had the distinct feeling he was speaking from experience but regretfully, he had to leave soon after, muttering something about an investigation. As she returned the empty tray to the Mess, she thought about what it might be like to talk about her feelings with Teyla, Miko and the other five Winyans. While it might be hard to open up, she desperately wanted to help the other women who surely must be feeling a lot of the same emotions as she was. Having hit rock bottom (at least she certainly hoped so) and beginning the slow rise again, she wanted to try to pay back the support that had been showered on her when she’d just given up and wanted to crawl away and die.
~o0o~
After they adjourned for the day, Chegwidden approached Hotch when the other members of the tribunal filed out of the chamber and Lavin had been escorted by six armed guards back to the Brig on the Odyssey. Hano was remonstrating with Wodren Drell so A.J. took advantage of the fact to enter a conversation with the persequor about the trial.
“It went well so far,” he said.
“Hotch smiled at him. “Yeah, I think so too but then Keres Fortum, Esto Badic and Amis Lanko are all fairly accustomed to testifying by now.”
The admiral agreed. “They are certainly credible in an appallingly amoral way. They don’t see that what they did was inherently wrong, the only reason they’ve thrown their colleagues under the bus is to get a better sentencing deal,” he said, his voice dripping with disgust. And Lavin is one creepy dude. He watches people like a hawk,” he said with a shudder.”
“He’s a con man. Pure and simple. He’s trying to figure out how to play everyone by studying them,” Aaron clarified. “Plus, you can practically see him having sick fantasies about Ishta,” Hotch said quietly.
“I don’t think that his ‘I was in fear of my life defence’ is going to cut much ice, do you?”
Hotch looked at the Winyan elders, still engaged in a vociferous interchange, with much gesticulating by Hano, who was no doubt strongly objecting to Yas and Halling’s sneaky little bait and switch this morning. When Tulee spat out something about harlots and tarts, he smirked. Yep, Tulee was quite a predictable guy, and he was so not happy with Yas Yeeps.
Chegwidden flicked a glance over at the pair, trying hard not to grin. “That move was so goddamned awesome today. It was unbelievably perfect that Ishta raised her concern about the other four females and how precarious it was. Yeeps didn’t even have to bring it up.”
“He’s got quite the Machiavellian bent for someone who is a miller. He would make an excellent politician,” the former leader of the BAU acknowledged and it wasn’t entirely meant as a compliment. Hotch was not a fan of politicians.
Although in this case, he wasn’t picking up negative vibes from the guy, just protectiveness towards Lahn and his grandchildren. Hotch could hardly fault him for that, and he’d stepped up and looked after the other children so the four women could support Ota in her bedside vigil.
Looking back at the two Winyan elders, A.J. changed the subject. “What do you think of the strategy of arguing that Lavin was in fear for his life and felt he had no choice but to do what they said?”
“I think it has a smidgeon of truth to it – Badic, Fortum and Lanko have already said Kolya intended on getting rid of him as he recognised the strategic importance of the herb and its potential for mass mind control. It makes Lavin look bad for volunteering information about the herb in the first place though, as they had no idea of its existence until he traded the information to save his own hide,” he said looking disapproving.
“But the biggest flaw with their defence is that if it’s true, then why after he managed to escape, didn’t he go straight to one of the many groups searching for Sheppard and alert them to where he was being held? Yet he chose to do nothing.”
Chegwidden nodded. “Yes, that’s an excellent point! And with Kolya and his men still out there, it would have meant that it was highly likely he was going to run into him again since Lavin appears to be singularly incapable of living out of the spotlight. It would have been self-serving to get rid of him by alerting the Lanteans.”
Hotch considered what his colleague had said. “Huh, that’s a damned good point. As a raging narcissist, the last thing he was incapable of doing was laying low somewhere to make sure they didn’t find him. If he’s foolish enough to decide to testify on his own behalf, I’ll be certain to ask him about that,” he vowed, looking over at the Winyan elders who seemed to have finished their discussion.
They strode over to the Winyan men, one tall and painfully thin, his face was gaunt and lined, while his companion was rotund, much shorter, with a florid complexion and very few lines.
Hotch addressed them respectfully, “Magistrate Drell, Elder Hano, are you ready to go back to Atlantis now?”
When they indicated that they were, A.J. said, “Right, well in that case, Aaron and I are heading back down there so we can escort you,” he said politely.
As they made their way to the Odyssey’s beam-down area near engineering, Drell asked, “Have you heard anything new about the condition of the boy, Leoosh Benn today? Or do you know if there have been any further developments regarding the investigation about who attacked him yet?”
Hotch shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything, but I’ve been focused on the Inquisito,” he pointed out. He looked over at his colleague. “What about you, Admiral?”
“Last I heard, after General O’Neill’s last healing session, the lad had shown some improvement, the fever was lessening, and they were hopeful that these antibiotics would be more effective. As for Special Agent Paddington and his superior, Thomas Magnum, I think they went back to Winya this afternoon to follow up on a lead because Paddington will be called to testify tomorrow,” he said.
Drell immediately asked, “Do you know what this lead might be?”
A.J. shook his head. “I don’t know any more than what I told you, Magistrate Drell. Perhaps when we get back to Atlantis we will learn more,” he said truthfully.
As they prepared to leave Odyssey, Aaron suggested to Tulee that he might want to leave his robe on board as he planned to do. As he spoke, Hotch shed the indigo robe with a sigh, not used to wearing such formal attire as a prosecutor. Still, he knew that other international courtrooms weren’t as informal as the US. The British courts required their solicitors to be attired not just in a gown but a wig as well.
~o0o~
Tony was ecstatic when he received word that the Tribunal had accepted Yas Yeep’s request to reconsider the verdict of the Winyan victims. Even better, Ishta (bless her) had been concerned about the safety of the women and that was without even knowing about the case that he was investigating. Somehow the Jaffa had managed to secure a concession from Magistrate Drell that Ota, Willa, Heleen and Neese could remain in protective custody until the Tribunal reviewed the case. That was an unexpected windfall and it meant he could speed up investigations rather than drawing them out to keep Ota and the others here in Atlantis. Knowing he would be called upon to testify tomorrow, he was eager to move things along with the investigation. Given the time constraints, it probably made better sense to question Ota about the sexual coercion he was fairly certain she was being subject to and Neese who he suspected was undergoing something similar, he decided that he wanted more information before he confronted them.
That meant going back to Winya and questioning the men from the tavern. For now, he would let Leoosh’s attacker think he was still waiting for test results and work on the others who were probably colluding with him or at least protecting him. They needed to try to figure out who was the most likely individual who would flip on their fellow scumbags and given that realistically, he only had half a day, he decided that he’d get Fornell to accompany him and ask Rossi if he wanted in on the questioning too. With three experienced investigators, they could get through a lot more interviews than if he was working alone.
Rossi’s reaction had been an emphatic, “Hell yes,” followed rapidly by a, “When do we leave?”
Tony explained he was going to talk to Lt Col Lorne about their escorts, so maybe Dave should grab a quick lunch if he hadn’t already eaten and be ready to go asap. He also clued in Fornell before checking with Laura if she could watch Belle after school. When Monique wanted to have lunch, he’d told her he could only manage a thirty-minute break and stopped off at Tali’s class to tell her that he was heading back to Winya soon and that Cadman was going to pick her up from school and hang out with her, since they were already supposed to be having a dancing class and then eat mac and cheese for dinner.
She frowned and then said, “Can Shaelli, Remae, Yaynor and Yashael come to dancing class with me and Kazumi, Papa?”
Tony shrugged. “It’s okay with me, Kiddo, but you need to check with Laura first before you invited them, and they need to get permission from whichever grownups are looking after them. And they might not want to come, so bear that in mind. Okay, hug me and I’ll see you tonight,” he said as she threw her arms around him and kissed him.
“Be careful, Papa. Catch the bad guys that hurt Leoosh,” she told him.
“That’s the plan, Poppet and I’ll be careful. Major Teldy’s team will have my six,” he said.”
“Yay! The Powder Puff Girls,” she cheered as he tried to keep a straight face,
“Ah, Belle hon, I don’t think her team would like to be called powder puffs,” he told her gently.
“They don’t mind, I call it to them lots and they laugh, especially Sergeant Dusty, Papa. She’s Buttercup, the tough tomboy because she likes to fight and has black hair just like Sergeant Dusty. Did you know she can curl her tongue for reals like Buttercup? I wish I could curl my tongue – it would be so cool.”
Tony had to admit that the Marine was a lot like Buttercup. Mehra loved nothing better than getting dirty, wasn’t big on doing a lot of planning, preferred to wing it and loved to be in the action. No doubt she would relish having the ability to create fireballs to lob at the enemy and with her background in martial arts would welcome being able to spin like a tornado. How funny that she could curl her tongue.
“And Major Teldy is like Blossom, she’s the leader and really really smart. The Major says she wishes she had ice breath and lightning bolts like Blossom, but she doesn’t have long red and orange hair like Blossom does.”
Somehow he didn’t think Anne Teldy’s favourite colour was pink though. More like khaki green or desert brown camo.
Tali continued her discourse about Teldy’s team. “Bubbles is Dr Alison, cuz they’re both soft and sweet but she doesn’t have blonde hair or pigtails like Bubbles does though, but she can speak several languages like Bubbles, and get this Papa, her favourite colour is blue too.”
Having seen Dr Porter train with her team a couple of times, Tony knew she was able to fight when required, even if she wasn’t into action like Dusty. And Bubbles might have been the sweetest of the three sisters, but she could produce a shockwave of thunder with one clap of her hands, which might make things dangerous if she ever went to a concert and applauded. Plus, she was capable of producing powerful sonic screams, so Bubbles was certainly able to look after herself too.
“What about Capt. Lopez,” he asked about the fourth member of Teldy’s team. “Which Powderpuff girl is she?”
Tail frowned at him. “I don’t know Papa. I think Professor Utonium needs to make a new Powderpuff girl. Maybe this one could be made with spice and all things nice mixed up together with Chemical X,” she said seriously. “I don’t want Capt. Xuela to feel left out, so maybe you can draw the new Powderpuff girl for her,” she told him hopefully. “What would be a good name for the new Powderpuff – her colour will be yellow,” she stated firmly, in her brook-no-interference manner and reminding him eerily of her mother, who’d never been big on compromise.
Tony tried not to wince when it also occurred to him that not only was his five-year-old pressing him into creating fanfiction for the Powderpuff Girls but also inventing an original character to boot. Shrugging philosophically since he’d long ago learnt to pick his battles with his stubborn offspring, he suggested, “ What about Sunny, Joy, Merry, Snowflake or Petal?”
“Petal, I think that’s a good name,” she told him with a familiar tone that told him she wouldn’t be changing her mind so don’t even bother trying.
“And Petal’s superpowers can be that she turns people into ugly toads by staring at them cross-eyed and she can make Brussels sprouts change into hippopotamus poop to throw at baddies by making clicking sounds,” she said with great enthusiasm.
Grinning at Tali’s Mary Sue character, most definitely the wish fulfilment of if not the average five-year-old, then certainly Tali DiNozzo’s dream come true since she hated Brussels sprouts with a passion. He was happy that Teldy’s team was coming to Winya today, he could hardly wait to share this embarrassing material with Teldy’s team. He gave his daughter a final hug and a kiss, apologising to Cassie for the interruption before heading back towards the ISBI conference room in the south tower. As he made his way back, Lorne contacted him to say that Sergeant Stackhouse’s team, AR-3 would be accompanying Major Teldy’s team to Winya and their estimated time of departure.
At the pre-mission briefing, Tony warned both teams to keep their eyes out for Kadin Imo, whose DNA had been found on Leoosh’s body but most damningly under his fingernails. They decided after a quick discussion that the three males on Stackhouse’s team would accompany each of the three agents as they questioned people at Madame Lavin’s tavern. Teldy’s team members and the female member of Stackhouse’s team would nose around in the village square talking to anyone willing to answer their questions without tipping off their suspect. Major Teldy ordered everyone to check in every thirty minutes and they decided to leave the jumpers cloaked, just in case anyone tried to sabotage them.
They spend just over two and a half hours on Winya questioning the locals, and Tony has once again relieved to have experienced agents helping with the interviews. It significantly cut down on the time it took to cover the main people he was interested in – anyone who they’d observed on previous visits sexually harassing Neese while she was working. Plus, having learnt about the issue of so few female children being born, he and Dave wanted to talk to anyone single – but not voluntarily so. Between them, they’d identified five men who they thought were likely gay or bisexual, so they would not be all that bothered by the lack of marriable females, although since Winyans frowned on same-sex relationships, none of these men felt free to declare their status.
After arriving back in Atlantis following the visit, they decided to meet and debrief once everyone had been medically cleared. Tony asked Nikki to join them to help collate the data, knowing that the analyst could also input data faster than any of them and had already begun compiling a database on Winya after their first 24 hours of investigating Leoosh’s attack. She added to it the data they’d already gathered over various visits, including their trips to interview Lavin’s five victims several months ago and Drs Porter and Jackson’s discussions with the town elders. Nikki even organised with the Mess to have a selection of snacks and pastries supplied to go with the massive amounts of ISBI’s excellent coffee that would be drunk, making her exceedingly popular with Teldy and Stackhouse’s teams.
After a couple of hours of sharing the intel they’d gathered today, Nikola gave a summary of what she saw as the main points.
“There are five younger Winyan men, aside from Kadin Imo who were close friends of his and they spent on average, several hours each day at the tavern, drinking and harassing Neese and the other barmaids. They were Goss Rao, Pato Arlis, Karn and Edano Wetz who are brothers, and Yek Imo who was Kadin’s cousin. All the suspects were aged between 20 and 33 years old. All, including Kadin Imo, were single, though not by choice.”
Dr Porter informed them that someone mentioned that Kadin Imo had been betrothed to Mayuna Pavo before Lucius drugged and raped her. Like the others in his coterie of young men who had no immediate prospects of pairing up with someone and having a family, they were trapped in a sort of limbo. Although they were adults, they were regarded more like adolescents, since they were from wealthy families and still mostly lived at their parent’s homes with their mothers continuing to look after them in lieu of them having a wife and moving out. It seemed that most of them felt it was beneath them to have to do their own housekeeping and cooking. While they did contribute, hunting animals or slaughtering domesticated stock, most of the time they hung out at the tavern, throwing themselves a pity party for not having any prospects of gaining respect or offspring as they saw it.
Major Teldy told the meeting that she’d learnt that their group was also extremely antagonistic to other unwed males, who they saw as potential rivals for the extremely limited number of unmarried Winyan women. The bad feelings had continued to grow in the six years since AR-1 had freed the Winyans from their addiction to Lavin’s herb. Dave commented that their rage had no doubt festered at what they saw as Lucius’ seduction of six eligible women. In their minds, he’d tainted them and made them untouchable. Captain Xuela Lopez and Sergeant Dusty Mehri had managed to dig up intel from some of the young mothers, who admitted that the unwedded males’ anger was escalating and several of Kadin Imo’s gang were proposing that they should only permit babies to live if they were female because so many men were still waiting to find a mate. Their agitating was having an impact on public sentiment, as more men faced the prospect of failing to secure a Winyan mate to bear their children and carry on their family line.
The anthropologist from Teldy’s team, Dr Porter theorised that Lavin’s six victims, (who the people saw as no longer marriageable) had been a stressor to the teetering structure of their society, which had already been highly stressed. Lavin had been the final straw that had pushed some of them off the cliff. Now a proportion of the population had come to believe that infanticide of male babies was a viable fix for the imbalance of the sexes. Seeing the looks of deep disgust and anger on people’s faces, Rossi quoted the French philosopher Voltaire, saying that this was a perfect example of his famous quote, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
At that point they took a break, needing to grab a coffee, tea or hot chocolate and raid the candy bars that Tony had hidden in the room to help comfort witnesses. As he rightly pointed out, the more they dug into the Winyan society that appeared to be a bucolically idyllic planet at first glance, the more it was turning out to be a festering sore and they could all do with some comfort, even emotional eating. Rossi concurred but pointed out that chocolate increased serotonin levels in the brain, so it was like an antidepressant. Stackhouse snarked that must be why chocolate helped victims who were unfortunate enough to get too up close and personal with Dementors. Dusty Mehri quipped that she felt like she’d come freakily close to having her soul sucked out by the Winyans, so that made chocolate purely medicinal. Thankfully, the combination of a hot drink and candy did its job of fortifying body and mind, and they resumed their debrief as they all took their seats again.
Next, they considered possible motives. Since Mayuna and Ota Benn were cousins, that seemed like a possible motive. Maybe Kadin blamed Ota for surviving when Mayuna didn’t. Major Teldy speculated that maybe he thought if Leoosh was dead, Ota would also have her sentence carried out. Dr Porter suggested that he may have seen Leoosh as a rival for his young cousin Nat Imo who was the same age. Tony thought these factors might be contributing, but he and Rossi were convinced it was more immediate. That he felt threatened by Leoosh who was trying to protect his mother. They were fairly sure that Neese, from what they’d seen in the tavern and probably Ota too, were being forced into having non-consensual sex with Imo and his cronies. It was crazy Imo’s gang didn’t go and find partners on other planets, but Winya (like the Pure Bloods in Harry Potter) seemed to be cursed with a raging case of racial purists, convinced of their infinite superiority to other races.
Certainly, their quick trip to chase down leads seemed to have given them some very promising ones to follow up. They would begin to investigate them properly after Tony finished giving evidence tomorrow. Before they concluded the briefing, he quizzed Fornell and Rossi to see if anyone they’d interviewed seemed like a promising candidate for flipping on the others. Pato Arlis was the youngest of Imo’s group and Rossi reported that he was jumpy and nervous, making him a possible weak link they might be able to exploit. Fornell felt that Edano Wetz was another distinct possibility since Tobias caught him out several times, changing what he told the experienced investigator, and it was obvious Edano was not an accomplished liar.
While Tony was anxious to wrap up the investigation, he also didn’t want to take anyone into custody without Wodren Drell present as Magistrate and he supposed that the other four members of the council should probably be there too. Plus, he wanted a chance to talk to them about the problem that they had with a disproportionate number of males being born over the last handful of generations. General O’Neill had authorised him to offer Atlantis’ expertise and research facilities to see if they could discover why it was happening. Tony was seriously going to think about asking for a day’s grace between Lucius’ first trial and the second where he faced charges of attempting to seize control of Atlantis and raping multiple personnel. He was also aware that the tribunal members were eager to go home asap and had already agreed to hear the extra case brought by Yas Yeeps to overturn the Winyan women’s convictions.
After everyone had left the meeting, except for Rossi, Tony looked at him inquisitively. “Something on your mind, Dave?”
“Just some good old speculation about Arlis, Alex. I mentioned he was jumpy and acting anxious. I could be wrong, but I’m not convinced that it was because of me. I kinda got the feeling that this was normal for the kid. Plus, I noted that Pato was something of a runt, no facial hair to speak of, extremely delicate features that could be described as feminine even.”
“So, are you thinking that Arlis is intersex?”
“I’m just raising the possibility. Given what we know about the dramatic changes in the Winyans’ population,” he pointed out. “It would explain why Pato involved himself in what smells like a forced prostitution situation – trying to fit in with his peers.”
Tony shrugged thinking that it was worth mentioning to whoever investigated why the birth rate patterns had changed so dramatically in the last three or four generations. The Winyans didn’t seem open to same-sex relationships, so he reckoned that transgender or intersex individuals would probably try to keep themselves hidden. Tulee Hano was hardly the epitome of enlightenment or compassion. He suspected that anyone failing to fit into their extremely narrow view of normality and morality was likely to get short shrift from the council elder and if those views were representative of others of his ilk, then it made sense that anyone who fell outside cisgender norms would keep a really low profile indeed.
It crossed his mind that whoever was going to research the Winyans’ lack of female babies being born should be informed. If there was an environmental issue that might be increasing the rates of intersex births, then a change in personnel might be wise. Dr Beckett’s paternalistic and less than empathetic attitude to Sofie Danziger and Monique Girard suggested he might struggle to deal with an intersex individual. And Jennifer Keller’s abhorrence when he suggested that Rodney and John Sheppard might be cheating on her behind her back had been rather ugly, making him wonder if she was homophobic.
“Well, it would surely go some ways to explaining why so few female babies were born there,” he commented dryly.
Chapter 4
Tony decided to go home rather than go back and fill in his paperwork. He would pick Tali up from her piano lesson with Aoife and spend some time with her before dinner, so he wandered back to the family wing with Dave. He’d been assigned quarters there, close to Hotch and Jack, who Tali was calling Petit Jack to distinguish him from General Jack who had become a substitute grandpa/uncle to her. Jack Hotchner was not wild about her nickname, even when Tony tried to explain that while he didn’t consider himself to be small, to Tali he was when compared to General O’Neill.
As they entered the first of the transporters, Tony looked at Rossi. “Thanks for all your help with this investigation, I appreciate it.”
Dave grinned at him. “It seemed like the least that Thomas Magnum would do,” he joked.
“So, no regrets about being read in and travelling to a new galaxy then?”
“Are you kidding? This is an incredible experience that I never dreamed of. I can see why Garcia was so excited to come here.”
Tony chuckled. “She told us about the touching intervention you guys held for her,”
Rossi grinned. “So glad our concerns about Our Pen were a source of amusement for you but we like to watch out for our family,” he smirked, “And Morgan is still not convinced that she hasn’t been brainwashed,” he said, shaking his head.
“Derek is one stubborn SOB,” Tony said without heat.
“Sounds like you know him?”
“Over the years he and I have played the odd pickup game of basketball between cases,” Tony told him.
“But you never worked together.”
Tony shook his head laughingly. “Nope. But I saw enough of his obstinance on the court to realise once his mind is made up, it’s practically impossible to change it.”
“Yes, especially when it comes to anyone who he regards as family, like Penelope. Clearly, you do know him. ”
“Yeah, they’re like a couple of siblings,” he said knowingly.
“And the Trust – they went to all that trouble to get hold of Penny?”
“Too right they did! If they’d managed to get hold of her it would not have been pretty. She is fortunate that Colonel Davis from Homeworld Command was on the ball. It’s why I ended up here with Belle. The Trust tried to abduct her twice because she has the ATA gene and they wanted to get their hands on her.”
“Those bastards! ” he swore, “But to what ends, though?”
“To have someone malleable enough for them persuade to use the Ancient tech they’ve acquired over the years – that’s the least horrific scenario. Although anyone who knows Belle would know that she’s not exactly malleable.”
“She is certainly quite the character – everyone seems besotted with her, Dave observed laughingly.
“Well apart from Jack Hotchner – she’s in his bad books at the moment,” her father commented. “Been embarrassing him by asking where do babies come from questions and she calls him Petit Jack to distinguish between him and O’Neill.”
Rossi laughed. “Ah, the fragile psyche of a fourteen-year-old teenager. What are the less savoury scenarios with the Trust regarding their plans for Petit Paddington?”
Tony scowled. “According to Homeworld Command – medical experiments…”
Dave interrupted. “Yeah, no need to finish that explanation. They are without a doubt sick MFs and that’s coming from an old profiler who’s seen way too many sick fuckers over the years.”
Tony nodded. “Too right. And once we learnt about their plot to acquire Penelope, we figured out that had they managed to abduct Belle, they would have probably used my daughter to blackmail her into doing anything to keep her safe.”
Dave was the one scowling now. “Damn it, you’re right about that! She would too!”
They were both silently contemplating what had very nearly come to pass and not liking it one little bit.
“Okay so looks as if Kitten is going to be trailing around with a bunch of Marines watching her six for the foreseeable future,” Dave observed.
“At least while she’s on Earth,” Tony wiggled his eyebrows. And don’t forget Paul Davis- the straight-laced lieutenant Colonel is quite taken with the lovely Penelope. General O’Neill has also raised the possibility that she might be able to spend a lot more time working from Atlantis and make DC her secondary base,” he said, neglecting to mention that the suggestion might have been prompted by Tony.
Rossi thought about that and realised it was an elegant solution but what did it say about the Trust that Kitten and Alex and Belle Paddington were safer in a military base in a far-flung galaxy amidst aliens and the odd Wraith wanting to suck the life force out of humans.
“You know Paddington, Maybe the Trust wanted Belle so they could coerce you into working for them, or so they could threaten to hurt you so she would cooperate. Belle very obviously adores her daddy and if anything could make her malleable it would be to hurt you,” Dave said grimly.
Tony realised that he was right – on both scores. He was protective by nature, which was the real reason he’d become a cop and even when he thought that Tali wasn’t his true daughter, he’d been overprotective of her. Now that he knew who she truly was, he was much worse. Helicopter parent extraordinaire – the B for Bastard’s rule 48 was assuredly applicable in this situation.
As they exited the second transporter and strolled down the hallway towards the family quarters, he sighed. “That is unfortunately all too likely. Thanks for adding to my nightmares, Thomas. And by the way, Mr Magnum, all of my team here know about Belle having the ATA gene, but it is restricted information, so please keep it to yourself.”
“Even on Atlantis, you suspect there are Trust spies?”
“Don’t just suspect. We have half a dozen already under surveillance. And there could be more. Plus, we have other agencies and governments spying on us too. ”
As they arrived in the large recreational space, Tony glanced around before deciding to take the conversation somewhere more private. “C’mon, I’ll make us another coffee,” he said, leading his way back to his quarters.
Rossi looked around and noticed this apartment was a lot larger than his temporary one. It was similar to Hotch’s but there were lots of indications that a small child lived here with stuffed toys and crayons, paper, and such. He followed Tony into the kitchen as he fired up his coffee maker – one that used pods.
“So, who are these spies,” he asked, picking up on their previous conversation.
“Aside from the trust? Well, there’s the CIA, other dubious security entities, various military, and governments from Earth,” he said. “Plus, we have people who conceivably might sell sensitive data to our enemies in the Pegasus galaxy. Colonel Sheppard, the base CO was abducted by a rogue militia, all thanks to intel from a disgruntled soldier who thought that the Colonel was having an affair with his girlfriend.”
“Okay, sounds like you’ve got your hands full,”
Tony shook his head. “You have no idea. In the nine months since Belle and I arrived here, I’ve been kept extremely busy. Until our arrival, there were no trained investigators here, which is insane.”
“Maybe the Powers That Be liked it that way – no one to notice all the spies.”
He noticed that Tony was making hot chocolate. “Can I have one of those too?”
Grabbing another pod, Tony put the coffee one back. “Of course. And that is a very astute observation, Thomas. Has anyone ever told you you’d make an excellent profiler,” he teased as he plonked Rossi’s hot chocolate down on the small eating bench where Rossi was sitting.
As they were drinking, Tony picked up a pad and pencils and started sketching something that looked like some sort of anime or a cartoon. A female with brown hair in braids and a yellow dress and exaggeratedly large eyes. Seeing Dave observing him, he smirked.
“Belle asked me to draw a picture of Petal – a fourth Powderpuff Girl she created so that Capt. Lopez didn’t feel left out.”
Having been an observer to the highly amusing conversation aboard the jumper with Major Teldy’s team, he couldn’t help chuckling. “So, this is Petal who can turn baddies into toads by staring at them cross-eyed?”
“Ugly, you forgot the bit about the ugly toads. And don’t leave out the best bit about her making Brussels sprouts change into hippopotamus poop to throw at baddies by making clicking sounds,” he admonished Dave.
“Sorry, how could I forget such an important detail? I take it that Belle is not a fan of Brussels sprouts?”
Tony shrugged, “Who is?”
~o0o~
After they’d finished their hot chocolate, Alex apologised, saying he had to go and collect Belle from her piano lesson with Aoife, so Dave decided to head back to his quarters for a shower before engaging in some deep soul-searching before dinner. After a nice hot shower that washed away all the grubbiness they’d encountered on Winya, he dressed in clean clothes and sat down to write a report on what he’d done during the mission. He recorded his observations and speculation that Pato Arlis might not be cis-gendered – but as to whether Arlis might be trans or intersex, he just wasn’t sure. It probably was a moot point, given the Winyan’s attitude that convicted Lavin’s sex slaves as adulterers; he doubted any of them would be accepting of intersex or trans individuals.
After completing his report and forwarding it to Alex, he took out his leather-bound journal. Every day, he’d chronicled all of the things he’d seen and done in this incredible city. He knew that he wouldn’t be allowed to return home with it, which was why he’d started a fresh one when he arrived here. Dave would turn it over to one of the scientists, maybe Dr Alison Porter or Col Davis at Homeworld, to be archived until sometime in the future, perhaps when the Star Gate Program was declassified. If Rossi were still alive and kicking when that happened, he could publish his memoirs or if he was pushing up daisies, then historians might find it useful. And speaking of Colonel Davis, Rossi now realised just how big of a freaking big apology they owed to the guy responsible for looking out for Penelope’s welfare. If he hadn’t been so on the ball, who knows where she might be by now? Nowhere good, that’s for certain, as Paddington had verified.
And wasn’t Alex’s story damned alarming? It broke Dave’s tender heart to think that his little girl, through a quirk of nature (just like Pato Arlis) could spend her lifetime being hunted down by a shadowy organisation wanting to get their hands on her to exploit her abilities. At least with Penny, she’d been able to grow up as a normal kid, so becoming a target of the Trust as an adult who’d achieved so much during her lifetime, somehow it seemed to be slightly more palatable. The bottom line was that the Trust needed to be shut down hard but that would be no easy task. According to Alex, numerous times Homeworld Command believed that they’d broken the back of the shadowy crime syndicate, with tentacles into multinational conglomerates, NatSec, militaries and governments around the globe.
It was a massive task to eradicate them but also the only acceptable outcome, which would not only mean freedom for Belle and Penny but security for Earth and her allies. And wasn’t that a head-spinning concept to have to wrap your head around? Even here in a galaxy far distant from the Milky Way, Rossi was still struggling with the reality that Earth wasn’t alone in the universe – that there were humans who were seeded all across the universe by aliens – and then there were non-humanoid aliens who were both benign and not so benign. Some were downright evil, amoral beings who had no difficulty pretending to be gods to take advantage of less advanced societies.
Part of the real concerns about the Trust was that they might decide to join forces with these Asshats and try to not just rule Earth but also other worlds like the insanely narcissistic Goa’ulds or Ori. In some ways, he could understand how ignorance is said to be bliss was most definitely a truism. Yet now that he knew about the Stargate program and all those other worlds, now that he knew about the Trust, now that he knew about the threat it posed not just to the world but to innocent individuals such as Garcia and Belle Paddington, he couldn’t unknow it.
While Dave was not entirely free of hubris and vanity, he still believed that he had something valuable to contribute to the effort to crush them into dust and make everyone’s lives safer. While he still fulsomely believed in the work of the BAU and was proud of what it had achieved and would continue to achieve, Rossi had his worldview seriously rocked. For the first time in forever (well at least since he returned to the BAU after retiring) the veteran profiler felt a deep urge to enlist in this new battle, despite the fact he was no longer a young guy. At heart, he was still a Marine. The question wasn’t whether could he contribute, because he believed that his profiling could help to track down the brains behind the Trust but what about his daughter and his grandson Jai? He’d missed so much time with them and here he was, contemplating the possibility of moving to another galaxy, and he felt incredibly conflicted about what to do.
Should he return to Earth and go back to his former life or stay and become an official part of the ISBI? Back at home was his family – both his work and biological families but here in Atlantis was one of his best friends, someone he’d resigned himself to not seeing, (at least until Jack Hotchner was at college) and his honorary nephew Jack. There was also the chance to be part of something deeply significant that Alex Paddington was building in this brand-new agency. The fact that they weren’t just maintaining law and order in Atlantis but had taken up the cudgel for less advanced societies like Winya, added a new level of challenge to the equation.
In a way, it was like the BAU who was called in to consult on serial murders by other agencies, police departments big and small, technologically savvy or equipped with the most basic accoutrements of the digital age was part of its charm. The Interstellar Bureau of Investigation was still a fledgling and yet Paddington as the sole investigator had done a sterling job of rooting out some serious crimes and villains in his short tenure in Atlantis. While his appointment had been happenstance, his achievements and convictions had been anything but. And Dave admitted that he wanted to be a part of creating something that could turn out to be an incredible force for good with people such as General O’Neill and Alexander Paddington at the helm. The fact that they were going to the trouble of establishing a universal code of law, which had Hotch enthused about practising law in a way he hadn’t been inspired to in a long time, was significant. It had even encouraged a former Judge Advocate General to come back from retirement and validated Rossi’s feelings that they were involved in something truly momentous.
The fact that Alex had implied that he considered Rossi part of his team was heart-warming and suggested that maybe he wouldn’t be averse to him joining the ISBI on a more permanent basis than the current ad hoc arrangement when they needed him to play the mysterious Thomas Magnum. The question remained, was he ready to leave behind his life on Earth – he wasn’t sure, but Dave was seriously considering it. Maybe he’d discuss it with Aaron tonight after dinner.
~o0o~
Aaron Hotchner was feeling reasonably satisfied. The persequor had just finished presenting their case against Lucius Lavin’s part in Col. John Sheppard’s capture and unlawful incarceration in offering Porteus Kolya the means of not only capturing him but keeping him docile and cooperative during his captivity. Of course, while Lavin had the knowledge of the herb and how to brew it, he still needed Kolya’s assistance to get access to it, but with so many men forming his militia they weren’t too worried that there had been collateral damage.
Kolya, as a trained soldier, had immediately grasped the strategic implications of having access to such a potent weapon. With it, he could seize control of spaceships, and people, and even overthrow Ladon Radim’s illegitimate regime. This was presumably why the head of the rogue militia had resisted the lure of using it to keep his soldiers under his thumb, but then he didn’t require it – they were all fiercely loyal to him anyway. In part due to their loyalty to his uncle and their grief over his death but also because he offered them the possibility of returning home to the Genii homeland as heroes, not the outlaws they had been labelled, after Commander Cowen’s defeat and Radim’s coup d’état.
Reviewing the case, Hotch acknowledged that Amis Lanko, Esto Badic, and Keres Fortum had done another excellent job of giving evidence to the tribunal. They’d earned the reduction in their sentences as negotiated during their own trials. The trio had testified to how Porteous planned to kill Lavin for his role in helping Sheppard kill his esteemed uncle Acastus Kolya, by using an Ancient personal shield device that resulted in his uncle’s demise. They relayed how the desperate and cowardly Winyan had shared massive quantities of Intel about the Atlantis Base, missions, and their personnel in his haste to save himself. And when that hadn’t been enough to save him, Lavin had betrayed his agreement with the former Commander of Atlantis, Dr Elizabeth Weir regarding the details of the mind control herb that he’d discovered. Weir had demanded that as a condition of being able to return to Winya after his overthrow of the Ancients’ city five years ago (that had almost succeeded, if not for a pesky rhinovirus) Lucius had to promise to never again discuss or use the herb.
Even without the luxury of hindsight, it was a punishment that seemed woefully inadequate, given the very serious nature of the crime. Frankly, Aaron was one of a rather large number of individuals who were downright scathing about her ridiculous decision to just let him go and her assumption that the grifter/sexual predator would keep his word. Evidently, Ronon Dex (who’d learnt the hard way that trust should not be blithely given) had been equally dubious at the time, voraciously threatening to track Lavin down and castrate him should he fail to uphold the agreement. However, Aaron felt that specific factoid was neither here nor there, with regards to sharing with the tribunal.
Lucius’ paracletus had tried to argue that Amis Lanko and Keres Fortum were trying to paint him in the worst possible light because they held a grudge over a job he’d hired them for where they’d been unfortunately injured. Plus, they claimed that he’d short-changed them in the coinage he’d paid them to pretend to threaten the lives of the people of Amullie. And while Lanko had indeed lost three teeth from the blow to his jaw, and Fortum had incurred a fractured wrist, Lavin couldn’t claim the same bias for the third Genii mercenary, Esto Badic. He had joined the Militia after Acasta Kolya’s death and his testimony of Lucius’ grovelling and willingness to save his miserable skin had been blistering.
Badic had also witnessed how Lucius had voluntarily identified the Ancient personal protection shields to the Genii and informed them that they needed to find someone who possessed the gene to activate them. He’d suggested going out and finding some random who possessed the gene, just like he did before but Porteus had decided that if they could capture Sheppard, rather than simply kill him in revenge for killing Acastus, they could use him to activate the shields or to use the Ancient tech or fly Ancient gate ships or larger vessels if they acquired them. Unfortunately for Lavin, Badic made a good witness and Paracletus Hano couldn’t impeach him, unlike Lanko and Fortum who had prior dealings with Lavin. So, his testimony went a long way towards verifying theirs since they were congruent.
Colonel Sheppard had raised the possibility of testifying about his captivity, but Aaron and Dr O’Shea had convinced him that having to be cross-examined was not something he was ready for, plus it would give Lavin the opportunity during his defence to try to mitigate the testimony by acting remorseful. Instead, he suggested that during the pre-sentencing stage, the Ancients’ Code of Law had a mechanism whereby the Agonium (the victim) was allowed to speak to the council – to tell them what punishment they felt would help them to recover or to express how the crime impacted their lives. It was sort of like a modern-day victim impact statement and neither Paracletus Hano nor the accusatus Lavin could cross-examine or dispute his statement of impact.
So, Colonel Sheppard had testified as to how he’d been captured by the rogue militia on a routine mission to Belkin. And the length of time he’d been held captive and how the Genii planned to use his ATA gene to take over Atlantis and overthrow Ladon Radim’s Genii government. John also testified that during Lucius Lavin’s attempt to take over Atlantis in the third year of Earth’s expedition to Atlantis, he’d shared with himself and their then Chief Medical Officer, two conversations that illustrated that he was aware that his drug not only caused people to become completely compliant, unable to refuse sexual advances. Hotch had shown the recording of the conversation between himself and Lucius which took place about the herb he discovered. It took place with him in the detention cell in Atlantis where at Lavin’s behest, Dr Weir had incarcerated him because Sheppard was trying to stop his coup to gain control of Atlantis.
The footage showed Sheppard as paced around the cell but stopped when the door opened and Lavin kitted out in an Atlantis comms mic, entered the brig. Sheppard rolled his eyes before plonking himself down in the middle of the cell, on the floor.
Lavin greeted him with his insincere bonhomie, “Good morning, Colonel., he chirruped as the usurper walked over to the cell, “I want to apologise for this harsh treatment,” he said gesturing to the prison bars. “I hate that Elizabeth had to do this.”
The colonel quite clearly was not buying what Lucius was selling. He admonished Lucius, telling him, “Cut the crap.”
Lucius grinned as he leaned on the bars of the cell. He could afford to be magnanimous towards his enemy since he’d so very successfully turned every other member of Atlantis against the CO.
Sheppard decided to embark on a fishing expedition. “So, that herb of yours,” he asked leadingly.
Lucius beamed, proudly declaring, “One of my greatest discoveries. Well, it’s my only great discovery, but you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty great,” he said gleefully.
“How did you get by before that?”
“I was a baker. Bread, mostly. The occasional muffin at festival time,” he said dismissively.
The colonel pressed him, “So that herb pretty much changed everything?”
Lucius cackled, “Yeah.” He pulled up a chair on the outside of the cell and sat down, obviously intent on an in-depth chat.
“Yeah, I baked it into my own bread. I like to experiment – and I noticed that people started to like me … well, hate me less,” he conceded, “but pretty soon it became like. So, I perfected a potion. It worked great for years. Then the Wraith set up an outpost on the only planet where I could get the herb. I knew I could never go back there,” he admitted candidly.
Sheppard snorted at that, “ ‘Til we showed up,’ he’d said sarcastically”
Lavin grinned at him beatifically, saying, “I’m telling you, it was fate. And everybody wanted to help, so I let them. See, that’s the great thing about this herb. Nobody gets hurt. They just want to help me all the time. What’s wrong with that?” he asked rhetorically before declaring, “ I’m a nice guy. I never make them do anything they didn’t wanna do.”
Sheppard immediately rebutted his declaration, mordantly pointing out, “Six wives.”
Lavin raising his eyebrows, leered at John in what he probably imagined was a ‘one man of the world to another’ roguish air but in truth was spine-chilling in its disturbingly psychopathic overtones, responded, “Sometimes all at once.”
Sheppard looked as if he wanted to be violently ill.
Aaron glanced around the tribunal chamber to assess the reception to Lavin’s glib response and the members of the tribunal were stony-faced, definitely not amused by him.
Decerno Bra’tac was stoic, but Aaron could feel his aversion. Tulee Hano and Woden Drell looked furious, and Lucius looked unconcerned, and he grinned.
Aaron refocused on the footage which showed Lucius standing up, “You know, when you get over this cold, you and I are gonna have a long chat, face to face, and I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna become the best of friends…And you’re gonna want to help me, too, all the time.” he grinned predatorily before promising, “And you’ll love it!”
Then he was called away by Dr Beckett who told him he was going to receive the modified gene therapy for the ATA gene that resulted in 47 percent of individuals being able to operate Ancient technology and the video ended.
Hotch turned to Colonel Sheppard. “So, there was no doubt in your mind that despite his protestation that no one did anything they didn’t wish to while addicted to his herb that he knew that to be a lie?”
“None whatsoever. Our chief medical officer documented a discussion that had taken place on Winya when he was sent to assess any possible therapeutic efficacy of Lucius’ so-called miraculous remedies. Lavin bragged to Dr Beckett that he’d concocted potions and unguents for almost every known ailment.
“What else did he tell Dr Beckett?”
“Lucius told Dr Beckett that nothing pleased him more than when someone came up to him to say, ‘Thank you, Lucius. You have cured me. You are a wise and kind man.’”
“In his report Carson had documented his scepticism over Lucius’ outrageous claims, stating he was undecided whether Lucius was lying, overly arrogant or just plain delusional.” As they’d rehearsed, John paused for about ten seconds before resuming.
“The CMO’s report documented that Lavin had continued with his spiel to convince him of his prowess with herbs, saying, ‘The young, old, women … Do you like women, Doctor Beckett,’ Lucius asked him coyly?”
John paused again, “Distracted by the seemingly sudden non sequitur, Carson reported that he’d done a double take before replying, “What? Yes, of course.”
Aaron frowned. “What does the report say happened next?”
“Dr Beckett reported that Lucius had said, “ Yeah, I have a potion that will have them lined up around the square, just waiting to be with you. You know what I mean when I say be with you, right?’”
Hotch asked, “And what did Beckett say his response was?”
“Dr Beckett stated that he was fighting not to laugh in Lavin’s face since he thought it was simply more grandiose boasting, but he responded that he thought he understood what Lavin was getting at.
“And what would that be,” Hotch pressed his witness.
“Dr Beckett believed that Lucius Lavin was referring to a potion that would render the person who came into contact with it unable to resist the sexual advances of the one who’d consumed it.”
Aaron flicked a glance at Magistrate Drell and Paracletus Hano to find their faces blanched by that statement.
“But at that time, Dr Beckett didn’t believe that the potion worked?”
Colonel Sheppard shook his head. “Unfortunately, no he didn’t even believe it existed. Otherwise, he would have hot-footed it out of there and Lavin would never have managed to inveigle his way onto Atlantis.”
“What happened next,” Aaron asked.
“Lucius wanted to trade Beckett the potion for what was inside his medical bag and Dr Beckett refused to trade with him since he had valuable medical equipment and drugs in his medical bag.”
“And what happened after he refused?”
“In his after-action report, Dr Beckett stated that Lavin laughed it off and insisted that he eat a meal with him. By which time Carson Beckett was exposed to the herb and brought Lavin to Atlantis which was strictly against Base security protocols.”
“At which time, he took over Atlantis and you had your talk with him when you were locked up in your cell?”
“That is correct.”
Aaron paused and looked around theatrically. “And was thereany further conversations with him that demonstrated that he understood that his so-called ‘special herbal potion’ forced people to obey him?”
John nodded, “There was also a conversation we had with him on Amullie.”
“That is the planet he was residing on after he was exiled by the Winyans?”
“Correct. We heard intel from several Athosians who traded with the Amullians about a protector with superhuman strength and we went to check it out.”
“That’s twice you’ve used the pronoun we. So, it would be fair to say that others witnessed this conversation?”
“That’s correct, Dr Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, Ronin Dex and Dr Carsen Beckett were all there during this conversation.”
Aaron paused just long enough for that to sink in before asking, “And what was said?”
“When we reached Amullie and headed to the centre of town and discovered that the superhero we’d been hearing rumours about was Lucius Lavin, naturally we were concerned that he was using the special herb to manipulate the people of Amullie. Carson insisted on testing his blood for traces of the herb.”
“You are referring to Dr Beckett?”
Sheppard nodded at Aaron. “I am. Lucius told us we weren’t going to find any trace of the special herb in his system. He said he’d learnt his lesson, thanks to us.”
Aaron nodded, “What happened then?”
“Well, Teyla was pretty cynical. She asked him, ‘You mean these people are not drugged – they simply adore you for who you are‽’ and he grinned at her.”
He claimed that was the case, and we kinda called him out, not believing it. He acted quite hurt that we wouldn’t take him at his word. When Dr Beckett informed him had a lab set up to run tests, Lavin told us, ‘You’re wasting your time. In all modesty, these people love me, pure and true,’ and I scoffed, telling him he was not capable of being modest.”
He took a breath. “That’s when he told us he saved the Amullians from a bunch of ruffians who come into town, causing trouble a couple of months ago. Lavin claimed to have beaten ‘em up then he’d chased them away, after which he became the town hero. He told us that the Amullians gave him gifts while the women had thrown themselves at him.”
“And you found this suspicious,” Aaron asked.
“Yes, we all did. When we got there he was telling the Amullians about saving some people while having an Erastus bug wrapped around his throat killing him – an incident that he’d borrowed from one of my mission reports about a situation that happened to me on one of the first missions after we arrived on Atlantis. He’d read all our confidential mission reports after he took over Atlantis and admitted to using various incidents gleaned from them to spice up the tales he told to the locals.”
Aaron having adroitly highlighted the point that Lavin was not truthful, now redirected the colonel back to the damaging admission he’d made. “So exactly what did he say that made you believe he understood that his herb forced individuals to obey him?”
“That having the Amullians gifting him stuff and females wanting to have sex with him was just like the old days, except better.”
“And why was that?”
“He said it was better, ‘because now they’re not drugged.’”
Aaron once again chose to pause to let that damning admission sink in
“So did Dr Beckett’s tests confirm that the people of Amullie weren’t drugged?”
“Yes he did,” Sheppard responded.
“So, Lucius Lavin had really beat up the ruffians and chased them away?”
“Apparently,” the colonel attested.
“How did he do that singlehandedly? Does he have advanced hand-to-hand combat training?”
Sheppard sighed heavily. “He found an Ancient Personal Shield Protector Device that made it appear that he had superhuman powers and made quite an impression on the Amullians.”
“Don’t you need the Ancient Technology Activation gene to be able to use the device,” Aaron asked.
“You need someone with the ATA gene to initialise it but after that, anyone can use it. He said he tried many people until some random with the gene initialised it for him just by touching it,” Sheppard answered Aaron’s question.
“I see, but how did he even know what it was?”
“He knew what it was because he went through all of our mission reports after he gained control over the Atlantis personnel.”
“Everyone except you? I’m curious. Were you immune to the drug?” Aaron asked.
“Yes, I was immune to it,” the colonel confirmed. “I had a bad head cold.”
“So pure luck that you weren’t affected and were able to thwart his attempt to become ruler of Atlantis. Pure luck you were able to prevent him from securing a permanent supply of his special herb, since he could always send Atlantis personnel out to procure it for him,” he pointed out.
“Yes, that is a true statement of the situation,” the colonel agreed, uncomfortably.
“A little too close for comfort, Colonel Sheppard,” Aaron asked the witness sympathetically.
“A lot too close for comfort,” Sheppard conceded.
“Okay, so let’s move along. After Acastus Kolya was informed that AR-1 was on Amullie, he turned up and attempted to take all of you hostage, but you managed to evade him?”
“Yes, he managed to capture Dr Beckett and the rest of AR-1, but I was able to give them the slip.”
“What was your intention?”
“To head back to the Stargate and organise reinforcements to help rescue my people and the Amullians.”
Aaron asked, “And were you alone?”
Shaking his head he said, “No, Lucius had managed to escape from Kolya’s men.”
“And did he support your plant to send for reinforcements?”
“No, not initially.”
“So, as the self-appointed Protector cum Hero of the Amullians, what was his preferred plan?”
“When I mentioned calling to get reinforcements, he said something along the lines of, “Reinforcements? What do you say we just get off this planet? So, I pointed out to him that my team was still being held captive by Kolya and I don’t leave my people behind.”
“And what was his response to that?” Aaron inquired curiously.
Sheppard looked disgusted. “When I said, ‘My team is back there!” he said, ‘Yeah, so is the guy who wants to bury me alive.”
“But didn’t he have the Ancient Personal Protection device to keep him safe,” Hotchner objected.
“Well… yeah but Kolya had quickly figured out that the device had flaws. It wouldn’t prevent drowning or asphyxiation if you are buried alive. Plus, I’d warn him that the shield would eventually burn out like the one we discovered had done.”
“So, I’m guessing that you didn’t react well to his suggestion that you should run away?”
“No, I didn’t. I told him that if he was tired of playing the hero he could leave as soon as we got to the gate.”
Hotchner was stern-faced. “Then what happened?”
When we reached the gate I realised that unfortunately, it was too heavily guarded to be able to dial Atlantis and call-in reinforcements – that we would have to save ourselves.”
Aaron asked the colonel, “So at that point, did Lucius Lavin offer to help you save your team and the Amullians?”
“That is correct. Kolya was insisting I give myself up or he was going to start shooting hostages. I used Lucius’ personal protection shield when the Genii militia, on Acasta’s order to kill me, emptied their weapons at me and the shield deflected them.” John grinned boyishly.
“They weren’t expecting that I would have the shield emitter and they’d used up all their bullets. In the meanwhile, Lucius had persuaded the Amullians that they needed to take responsibility for their own protection and not wait for him to save them every time. They came to the town square, armed with various weapons that ranged from rifles to pitchforks, which were no match for the Genii guns, but the thugs had already used up all the bullets and would have had to reload them.
Aaron asked innocently even though he knew, “So what happened next, Colonel?”
“It came down to a one-on-one shootout between Acastus Kolya and me. I drew my weapon a little bit faster than him. Kolya died, and I didn’t.”
Chapter 5
After Colonel John Sheppard described the shootout that occurred between Acastus Kolya and himself five years ago on the planet of Amullie, there had been a pregnant pause.
His stark, “Kolya died, and I didn’t!” comment left everyone imagining what had taken place.
“Sounds like a shootout at the OK Corral,” Aaron quipped to break the atmosphere so he could move on.
John shrugged looking self-conscious. “Yeah… nowhere near as suspenseful. It was blink and you missed it, moment,” he said modestly.
Aaron shook his head and said, “Oh, I don’t know about that. It sounds pretty heroic to me!”
After a few clarifying remarks, to round out what had occurred on Amullie which included the colonel providing background on Acastus Kolya’s failed attempt to execute Colonel Sheppard multiple times which had included, abducting him and torturing him by letting a starving Wraith Kolya had captured feed off Sheppard repeatedly, Aaron managed to close out John Sheppard’s testimony. The Persequor was happy that they’d neatly blocked what would undoubtedly have been Paracletus Hano’s tactic on cross-examining Sheppard by bringing up the hostage situation. Aaron knew that if he was Tulee Hano’s, he’d point out how Lucius assisted the colonel, helping to save AR-1 and the villagers and paint him as a good guy and a hero. By pre-empting them, Aaron was able to show that Lucius Lavin’s first instinct had been to save himself and damn everyone else. He wanted them to see that Lavin only helped to rescue the Lanteans and the Amulli villagers when he was faced with no other choice, and thereby making his bravery seem a lot less heroic and far more pragmatic.
Hotch was reasonably satisfied. It wasn’t in Aaron Hotchner’s nature to be complacent, as he was a cautious individual by nature. However, in this case, Hotch felt that between he and Sheppard, they’d had done a good job of disabusing people that Lavin was motivated by altruism, if that was going to be his defence, successfully illustrating how Lucius was motivated by what was best for Lucius. As Paracletus Hano rose to begin the task of trying to make Lavin’s actions and words seem less tawdry and change the contexts of the various conversations, Aaron felt a smidgeon of sympathy. In his estimation, Hano’s task was rather akin to the gods assigning Sisyphus the unenviable task of pushing a huge boulder up a hill for eternity.
Hano did try to pull a swifty though, asking John questions about his torture and sexual abuse at the hands of the Genii – no doubt, to spew the same sort of illogical BS that had seen the Winyan victims labelled as harlots and adulterers. Thankfully, the Most Venerable Jonas Quinn had been quick to shut down that avenue of questioning, noting that Colonel Sheppard had not testified about his abuse because his doctors deemed him too traumatised to do so. He pointed out that the three Genii witnesses had already given a fulsome account of what had occurred, and the paracletus should have raised any questions with them. Neatly stymied, Hano had subsided since he had nowhere to go.
Hotch then called Dr McKay and Ronon Dex to testify about the conversation they’d been privy to where Lucius Lavin had incriminated himself by admitting that he’d drugged his previous victims. Again, there was very little that he could do to mitigate such a disastrous admission and Hano was floundering. With the lunch break imminent, Aaron planned to finish up with Alex Paddington’s testimony of Lavin’s arrest and his subsequent interview before resting their case. Hotch was looking forward to the opportunity to cross-examine Lucius about why he assisted the Genii militia to abduct the Commanding Officer for the Atlantis expedition, an excuse which would no doubt consist of variations on the theme of ‘I was in fear for my life’.
The persequor in him had a couple of pointed questions for the Accusatus that Hotch hoped Lavin hadn’t already anticipated. He was looking forward to making that odious pile of excrement look bad.
Plus, there was the bonus of finishing up his case with Agent Paddington’s testimony, which he felt sure would go smoothly after working with him on the Kolya and Maden hearings. Hotch knew that the federal agent was a real pro, having worked as a cop and an agent but that wasn’t always enough to be able to testify effectively. Thankfully, Paddington was not only an excellent communicator but his experience as an undercover operator made him very adept at being able to slip into personas that the average Fed couldn’t. Being personable but genuine was a true gift when it came to giving testimony and apart from his ability to charm people, he and Hotch worked well together. The added bonus with Paddington testifying in Lavin’s hearing was that there was no prior history between him and the Accusatus. Lucius couldn’t claim Alex was biased due to his past encounters or because he’d drugged him.
Agent Paddington was calm and collected when he began his testimony by recounting how during his interrogations of Fortum, Badic and Lanko, they’d told him about Lucius Lavin’s part in the abduction of Colonel Sheppard. Alex then proceeded to testify about how he’d obtained DNA samples and fingerprints from the Mount Zeniche compound on the planet of Balara which confirmed that the Accusatus was indeed present on Balara, just as the rogue Genii alleged. He then explained the theory of DNA testing in a simplified but not patronising fashion and demonstrated fingerprint methods of solving cases by asking the three members of the tribunal to pick one of themselves to handle a plate after Alex left the chambers so he wouldn’t know who had done it.
When he returned, the ISBI agent then proceeded to dust the plate with black powder to reveal fingerprints which he then photographed and loaded onto a computer set up to display evidence on a large screen that was installed for the hearings. Then he fingerprinted all three judges to determine which of the Most Venerable Tribunal members had been the one to touch the plate. He used a digital fingerprint reading device, displaying the scanned fingerprints of Jonas Quinn, Kalan, and Ishta up next to the unknown print on the screen so everyone could compare them to the ones on the plate. Everyone could see fairly easily that it had been Kalan who had handled the plate and the three judges were very clearly interested in the technique.
Jonas Quinn, who’d lived on Earth for over a year and worked at the SGC was possibly already aware of the theory, if not the technique behind fingerprinting but he seemed as engaged as Ishta and Kalan. Even Decerno Bra’tac wanted to have his fingerprints taken – all ten fingers to confirm that each fingerprint was the same, regardless of which hand or finger left a print. As well as showing that Paddington was a cautious man, who didn’t just take the word of a bunch of Genii mercenaries, Hotch figured it was an excellent opportunity to educate Tulee Hano and Magistrate Woden Drell too. DNA and fingerprints would make up the bulk of the evidence against Kadin Imo proving that he’d assaulted Leoosh Ben.
Then Paddington proceeded to show all of the sites in the crime scene which he’d processed with the assistance of Capt. Cadman and explained how they’d had taken fingerprints and DNA samples they’d collected from all of the Genii for exclusionary purposes like he had for all three of the Venerable Members. He explained how they’d then compared the fingerprints and DNA to rule out the Genii, who they already knew were there since they’d captured them when they’d rescued Col Sheppard, leaving just one set of fingerprints and DNA samples that weren’t identifiable.
Hotch asked him, “And did you ever manage to identify them, Agent Paddington?”
“Yes, I did. Teyla Emmagan was a close friend of the former Commander of Atlantis, Dr Elizabeth Weir who was captured by the Asurans and presumed to be KIA,” Alex stated calmly.
Hotch stopped him, just like he knew he would, having deliberately used the acronym. Both men knew that having one person drone on too long caused people to zone out, so they had become adept at changing it up by having Hotch ask questions even when Alex was far too experienced to require it. With an inexperienced prosecutor, the agent wouldn’t dream of using military acronyms.
“Sorry, but what does KIA mean?”
Alex gave him a knowing smile that was in place of a wink, “My apologies, it is military speak – it is short for killed in action.”
“Right, so you were saying that she was captured and assumed to be dead.”
“Yes, but the Lantean’s didn’t want to believe it. When a new Commander was appointed to replace Dr Weir, Teyla packed up her belongings, including those things that were in her office and stored them away until she returned. And they’ve been forgotten until I remembered reading a report about Mr Lavin taking over Atlantis and how he’d given Dr Weir a candleholder made out of an indigenous gourd, and I went looking for it, hoping to find it.”
“Were you able to find it?”
“Yes, I was. I tested it for prints and found Dr Weir’s prints on it, along with two separate individuals’ fingerprints.”
“Could you identify them?”
“Yes, one set of fingerprints belonged to Teyla Emmagan, which made sense since she’d picked it up to pack it away. The second set of fingerprints belonged to the same individual as the unknown individual’s, who I found all over the Mount Zeniche Ancients’ compound,” Alex stated. “I even found them in the room where Sergeant Mehri and Captain Mendes and I located the badly injured Col Sheppard during the rescue.”
Aaron stopped him. “And after you’d arrested Lucius Lavin, did you take a scan of his fingerprints then?”
“Yes, I did. They were a perfect match. Lucius Lavin had been on Balara, inside the Mount Zeniche facility at some point before we arrived there and rescued Colonel Sheppard.”
“And you found Lucius Lavin’s DNA from skin cells on the gourd too that wasn’t Dr Weir’s or Teyla Emmagan’s? Is that right,” Aaron asked him.
“Yes, I did. We also took DNA samples after we arrested Mr Lavin that matched the gourd and the samples that Cadman and I collected in Mount Zeniche. That substantiates the information the Genii informants Keres Fortum, Amis Lanko and Esto Badic supplied to us before he was captured on Winya, confirming that Mr Lavin was present on Balara, and he collaborated with the rogue Genii mercenaries in the abduction and illegal incarceration of Col John Sheppard,” Alex Paddington stated.
It was at this point one of the tribunal members interrupted. The Most Venerable Kalan asked, “ How can you tell from this DNA and fingerprints that Lucius Lavin was there in Mount Zeniche at the same time as the Genii militia?”
“Because with the fingerprints collected, I found maybe a dozen – that is twelve which were laid down over the top of the Genii fingerprints so he must have been there with them since he was not there when we stormed the place.”
Kalan looked excited. “I see. Do you happen to have any examples on the device that we could see, he pointed at the laptop.
Agent Paddington grinned. “Let me check. Otherwise, the case file definitely will have them. He scrolled through before locating two examples. “You can see with Mr Lavin’s fingerprint overlaid over Duter Maden’s print of this one and Heynus Krebbs on the second one, so that we could only see what is called a partial print of the two Genii men, but it does establish that he was there after the Genii were there or at the same time. Since the Genii were still there after he left, and that’s when we staged our rescue, then the preponderance of evidence suggests that at one point he was there at the same time as they were.”
At this point, Jonas Quinn decided he wanted to ask a question. “Is it possible for two individuals to have identical fingerprints?”
“Anything is theoretically possible, but scientists believe the chances of it happening are 64 trillion. Even identical twins don’t have completely identical fingerprints,” Alex said, “So extremely unlikely.”
“And DNA,” Quinn quizzed him.
“Only identical twins have identical DNA because they were both from the same egg,” Alex replied.
Jonas nodded earnestly. “Thank you for that explanation. It was highly informative.”
Hotch resumed his questions. “So having confirmed the claims of the Genii that Lucius was also involved in Col Sheppard’s disappearance and torture, you then announced that Atlantis would pay a reward for information regarding Mr Lavin’s whereabouts?”
“Yes, we did, which ultimately proved successful in the capture of Mr Lavin on Winya after being inundated with information about sightings of him on many planets.”
“I thought he had been exiled from Winya as part of his punishment for drugging all of his people.”
“True but as the news of the reward for his capture spread, he turned to people Amullians and then latterly on Winyans, desperate and hoping they’d be loyal to him. But when I was on Winyan with a group of Lanteans, interviewing a group of female Winyans that were victims of his ‘special herb’ an informant told me Lucius Lavin sought refuge with Madam Lavin, his mother, who owns the Winyan Tavern.”
He went on to explain the sting operation he put in place, using three of his team of interviewers, plus Major Teldy’s team to trap him.
“And this was an all-female operation, is that correct?”
“Almost. Mr Lavin appeared to have an Ancient personal shield device which he took with him when he escaped from Mount Zeniche. It made it impossible for anyone to detain him and he managed to escape several times before we finally captured him. Since I possess the ATA gene, I could deactivate it, so I was also involved,” Alex explained.’
“Three of the ladies on my team, who were there conducting interviews offered to lure him out of where he was hiding, so I could switch off the personal shield device. Only someone with a naturally occurring ATA could reactivate it.”
“And as we’ve already heard from Colonel Sheppard, Lucius Lavin does not possess the ATA gene to reactivate it. Is that correct, Agent Paddington?”
Alex nodded at Hotch. “Yes, that is correct. Once he wasn’t being protected by the shield, Major Teldy’s team moved in and Vala Mal Doran stunned him with a Zat’ni’katel gun. He was handcuffed and I read him his rights when he regained consciousness.”
“I see, and when you say you read him his rights, could you explain what this means?”
Alex nodded at the Persequor. “Sure. Where we come from, justice dictates that a law enforcement officer cannot arrest someone and try them for a crime without sufficient evidence. It is not our job to judge or punish someone who we suspect of committing crimes, merely to investigate and then present that evidence to a judge or in this case, a tribunal of judges. It is the judge’s job to consider all the evidence, listen to both sides and then make an informed decision about whether the accused – the accusatus – is innocent or guilty. And if they are guilty, then the judges must decide the appropriate level of punishment for the crimes they were adjudged to have committed.”
“And what of the rights you referred to,” Aaron prompted.
“In our system of justice, we believe that people should be viewed as being innocent until a jury of their peers or a judge has listened to the evidence supplied by both sides and reached a decision about whether the evidence supports the charges. Part of the rights of someone who is accused of a crime and charged is that they have the right to not answer questions that may incriminate them. They also have the right to receive legal advice to help them to defend themselves.”
“And after you advised Mr Lavin of these rights, what happened then?”
“I escorted him under guard back to Atlantis, where I conducted a search of his person to ensure he wasn’t hiding anything that might be harmful to himself or anyone who was charged with his security.”
“Such as?”
“A weapon, anything toxic or something that could be used as a weapon. And then I doubled the security guard.”
“Did you consider Lucius to be a particularly dangerous prisoner,” Hotch asked him curiously.”
“Psychologically, I consider him to be highly dangerous, not a physical threat though,” Alex said with a dismissive air.
“So why did you double the guards then?”
“For Mr Lavin’s protection. Tempers were running hot since most of the military knew that the prisoner had already drugged the entire Atlantis base. They’d also been very distressed when Col Sheppard disappeared. Their CO had saved Atlantis on many occasions, several times he’d gone on what were considered to be suicide missions.” He looked at Decerno Bra’tac who didn’t understand the phrase, and clarified, “A suicide mission is a mission where the individual is expecting that even if they are successful at carrying out the objective, they will die during the mission.”
“So, you doubled the guards to protect the Accusatus’ life?”
“I did, and I reminded everyone most strongly that we were not judge, jury or executioners. I kept on reminding them that until he’d been tried and judged to be guilty, he was to be considered to be innocent, which meant no harm would come to him under my watch.”
When it was time to cross-examine the ISBI agent, Paracletus Hano tried several times to insinuate that Alex had it in for Lucius Lavin and he’d set out to fabricate evidence. Alex pointed out several times that he wasn’t on Atlantis five years ago when Lavin drugged people, plus he had never worked with Colonel Sheppard, so unlike other people who’d worked with Atlantis’ CO for years and respected him, he didn’t have any emotional attachment to the guy.
“Other than the fact that he was missing and Lanteans were upset and wanted to know what happened to him, it was just another investigation for me,” he rejoined.
“And how many investigations have you carried out,” Hano wanted to know.
“I can’t give you an exact number – I would have to go back and count them all, but it would likely range between 800 to 1000 cases over the years,” he said as Hano grimaced and backed away from that line of questioning.
“You claim that you were not emotionally motivated to pin the blame on Lucius, even though the victim was the second in command in the City of the Ancients?”
“No more than I would be for any other victim of a crime. I am motivated to see that victims of crime receive justice but if I charge the wrong person for the crime, it doesn’t give the victim the justice they seek because the guilty person gets away with it. Besides, if I was emotionally involved in the case, why would I go to the trouble of ensuring that everyone who guarded Mr Lavin was personally warned by me that he was not to be harmed in any way.”
As there was no way to dispute that, Tulee Hano had little choice but to move on. After a rather heated exchange with Lucius, his paracletus resumed questioning. “You claim that someone on Winya gave him up for a reward.”
“Yes, I did say that.”
“Winya is a close-knit community. Who would do such a thing? Surely not his mother, not unless you threatened her?”
“No, it was not Madame Lavin who informed me he was there. And no one was threatened. I honestly didn’t ever think that he’d dare to return to Winya after his exile. Our presence there wasn’t because we thought we might capture him. To the contrary, the task that we were carrying out was interrupted and we needed to return later on to finish it.”
“Then who was the informant?” Paracletus Hano demanded.
Aaron was surprised at the question since it was fairly common knowledge on Winya that Filiya Lavin had been the one to notify Paddington that Lucius had returned. Surely Tulee Hano knew it was his cousin? Had he not shared that info with Lucius or was this some strategy to vilify the informant? If so, he didn’t see the point.
Alex looked surprised but turned to the Venerabiles Sodales and said, “As an investigator of violent crimes, I often rely on receiving information about crimes from individuals who wish to remain anonymous. I am not comfortable revealing the identity of the person who provided the information, not without their permission. If you feel the information is relevant, then I would seek your leave to go back to Winya and get permission from the informant to reveal their identity. However, I fail to see what relevance that information would be,” he argued.
“Ishta looked at the two other hearing members and said, “I too am of the same mind. I do not see why it matters. The Accusatus had been exiled from Winya and so was there illegally.”
The two other tribunal members agreed with Ishta that Agent Paddington didn’t need to reveal Filiya Lavin’s identity – that it was immaterial to the case. Even Hano looked relieved, and Aaron figured that he also didn’t want Lucius to know that it was Filiya that turned him in. Interesting!
After that, Hano resorted to questioning how much experience Agent Paddington had in fingerprints and DNA testing, trying to imply that he might have made a mistake. Alex remained composed, and Hano seemed genuinely shocked when Alex informed him that practically all of the investigations he’d been involved in used either DNA, fingerprint evidence or both. Lavin’s paracletus seemed to finally realise he was out of his depth trying to trip up the seasoned federal agent and decided enough was enough. He informed the Venerabiles Sodales that he had no more questions for the witness.
Hotch briefly called Captain Cadman to verify Agent Paddington’s testimony regarding the collection of DNA samples and fingerprints from the Mount Zeniche site on Belara. His last witness was Major Teldy to corroborate Paddington’s testimony of Lucius Lavin’s arrest and verify that Paddington had indeed advised Lavin of his right to remain silent, had a right not to incriminate himself and lastly, that Atlantis would ensure he had legal representation. Both women gave succinct testimony and Hano didn’t bother to cross-examine either of them, so Aaron had concluded the persequor’s case, after which the Tribunal adjourned for lunch.
During the luncheon break, Aaron couldn’t help wondering why Lucius’ paracletus had tried to discredit Alex during his cross-examination about the fingerprints found at the Mount Zeniche complex. Were they trying to argue that Lavin hadn’t been on Balara during Col Sheppard’s abduction and incarceration and that Alex had planted evidence? Initially, they seemed to not be denying the fact that Lavin was there and participating. Their stated rationale had been that he had no other choice but to give Kolya the special herb since he was in fear for his life. Surely each strategy was mutually exclusive, or maybe instead of having a clear tactic, Tulee Hano had decided to throw everything at the wall and see what stuck. As he finished up his pasta salad, it occurred to Hotch that Tulee might be hoping to muddy up the waters to such a degree, praying that the Tribunal Members would muddle up all of the details of the evidence.
Even if that did occur, Hotch honestly couldn’t see it affecting the outcome. Lucius Lavin was a lame duck. He doubted that even the famed TV lawyer Perry Mason could get Lucius out of the mess he was in, and he always prevailed. Mind you, part of the reason Lavin faced such an uphill battle was because of the evidence that they’d used to build the case against him. The new Interstellar Bureau of Investigation was off to an exceptional start and not just with this case, all of the Genii had been convicted due to overwhelming evidence against them. It was a stunning effort by the nascent law enforcement agency. Of course, the ever-modest Aaron Hotchner didn’t credit his own exceptional contribution but his preparation and trying of cases matched the ISBI in terms of precision and attention to detail. Together, the new Atlantis enforcement and judicial branches were setting an exceptionally high standard for those who would follow in their footsteps over the decades to come.
~o0o~
After he’d finished up his own testimony, Tony had beamed back to Atlantis. And wow, that whole statement still left him feeling incredulous that he’d ended up in a job where he got to beam up and down, with a device like something akin to being in a Star Trek episode. It was something his former colleague Tim McGee would give his eyeteeth to be a part of – although that supposed he knew of its existence, which was extremely unlikely at this point in time. Tony was pretty sure that the people of Earth were simply not ready for the revelation that they weren’t alone in the universe.
Still, while the beaming technology had been a gift from an advanced race of beings who had cloned themselves into extinction as a parting gift, Star Trek could and did claim credit for the realisation of cell phones that were nothing more than a fanciful dream when Gene Roddenberry conceived the ground-breaking sci-fi show back in the late sixties. Tony’s inner child, alongside the part of him which revelled in the ridiculous, still grieved that they weren’t all using cell phones like Get Smart’s classic shoe phone. The idea of people having to remove a shoe to talk into it, nurtured something childish in his nature while recognising the impracticality of it. Not to mention the whole issue of foot odour that would have been a constant impediment. His inner child comforted him with the thought that at least Dick Tracey’s wrist phone had become a reality, even if Maxwell Smart’s leather Oxford never made the grade.
Still musing about sci-fi being a catalyst for technology, he stopped by the Mess to grab a bite to eat, bumping into Fornell who was also refuelling.
“How did it go,” Tobias asked him after he’d taken several mouthfuls of his pita bread stuffed with grilled vegetables.
“Fine. I almost feel sorry for Hano and then I remember that this is the guy who refused to reconsider their finding that six innocent sexual assault victims were guilty of committing adultery. “
Fornell chuckled rather cynically as he paused from shovelling in a forkful for rice salad. “Gotta say, I think there is a beautiful irony in you and Rossi conning him into defending Lavin. Karma’s a bitch,” he smirked.
“Originally we hoped to convince him of their inability to resist his predatory acts which I now realise was never going to fly with him, but it’s had a payoff that I never anticipated,” Tony admitted.
Fornell raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
“I was testifying about how I’d collected DNA and fingerprints placing Lavin at Mount Zeniche, corroborating the testimony of the three Genii that agreed to testify. I had to explain it all in layman’s terms since none of the tribunal members were familiar with the techniques.” He paused, “Okay… perhaps Jonas Quinn was – he spent a year living on Earth when he was in exile after the hoo-ha over Dr Jackson’s death. Pretty sure he already knew what I was talking about because he was supposed to be a voracious collector of knowledge during his time with the SCG. But Ishta, Bra’tac and Kalan knew nothing about DNA and fingerprinting and by explaining it to them, Tulee Hano and Magistrate Drell also got to hear the details about it too.”
As Tony was speaking, Tobias was tearing into his lunch with gusto. He smirked at the ex-Fibbie, “Hungry much?”
“Missed out on breakfast surveilling our friends,” he shrugged, referring to the spies they were keeping watch over. “What’s the big deal with the Winyans getting to hear about DNA and prints?”
“Think about it… what is the evidence we have on Kadin Imo identifying him as the man responsible for almost killing Leoosh Ben? We have prints on Leoosh’s clothes because we got good prints off his leather trousers and vest – thanks to the blood – probably from his split lip. We also got DNA from epithelial cells on Leoosh and his clothing. Plus, we have Imo’s blood and skin cells that Dr Biro found in Leoosh’s mouth when the boy managed to bite him,” he said with a look of approval.
“Smart kid,” Fornell agreed. “And great work on Biro’s part. Doubt if the other docs would have thought to swab his mouth.”
Tony agreed, but he knew that Barbara had been looking for something more sinister at the time. As a pathologist by training, she’d automatically checked the boy’s mouth and anus for signs of sexual assault and thankfully, Imo had spared the kid that horror. But her due diligence had discovered blood on Leoosh’s teeth that she’d quickly collected for analysis.
“Yeah, we certainly lucked out having Barb here. Anyway,” he continued, “we also got the rock that Imo used to cave in Leoosh’s skull, and it has the boy’s blood on it and Imo’s DNA too. So even if we never get a confession, there are no witnesses and Leoosh doesn’t remember the attack and can’t identify his attacker, as an experienced investigator Fornell, do we have him dead to rights,” he asked his colleague?
“Pretty much. And as to motive, we know Imo was going to marry Ota Benn’s cousin Mayuna and it is quite possible that he blamed Ota for his single status which is illogical. Plus, we suspect that he and his gang have decided that Ota and Neese are their whores, and they’ve raped them regularly. I’d say that most juries would convict without batting an eyelid,” Fornell concluded.
“Our juries, yeah but they are well educated about fingerprints and even DNA. Most people have an elementary albeit basic understanding of the science. But this is all new to the Winyans, and I got a chance to school them without seeming to do so or appear patronising. I think it will come in handy when we explain to them how we know that Kadin Imo was the person who almost killed an eight-year-old child.”
“Maybe you could get one of the scientists to show them their DNA profiles and how they don’t match the attackers and then demonstrate how Imo’s does,” Tobias suggested helpfully.
“Good idea,” Tony responded as he rose from the table they’d shared.
He was eager to get back to his office and start writing a report on the findings of the investigation. He assumed that the Winyans would want to try the crime themselves, and he just hoped that the Council of Elders would accept their findings.
~o0o~
Admiral Chegwidden arrived on the Odyssey, having just been beamed up from Atlantis to watch Aaron Hotchner cross-examine Lucius Lavin. As a fellow lawyer, Hotch had discussed the cross with him and they’d come up with several pertinent questions. Questions both men were hopeful that could help derail the narrative of having been coerced into assisting with Col Sheppard’s abduction and he wanted to see how Lavin responded. He almost ran into Hotchner who was on his way back to the chamber, looking rather preoccupied.
“Hey, Hotch, how are you doing?”
The normally serious man smiled at him. “Oh hi, Admiral. I didn’t see you there. Are you going to be watching the session?”
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing you crack his defence. Wouldn’t miss it,” A.J. grinned predatorily. Seeing Hotchner’s ambivalent expression, he looked worried. “Is something the matter?”
“I’m just wondering if asking Hano to defend Lavin was such a great idea. He seems to be all over the shop. One minute pursuing the ‘poor Lucius was coerced doctrine’ before flipping around to trying to challenge Tony’s evidence that Lavin was even there in Mount Zeniche at all. Maybe we should have got him a more competent paracletus,” he said conflictedly.
“As you know, Richard Woolsey and myself both offered to represent him and as hateful as I find the man, I would have done it to the best of my ability,” he said. “But he refused our overtures, saying we were out to get him. And anyone else who he requested, flat out refused to help him.”
Aaron nodded. What A.J. said was certainly true. Lavin thought everyone loved him, but he was such an obnoxious person that no one of his acquaintance was prepared to put themselves out there for him.
“Tulee Hano had to be guilted into it because he’s family and yes, I won’t deny that we wanted him to hear the evidence, Chegwidden argued gently. “Particularly for what happened nearly six years ago, but it was also because Alex wanted to be able to tell Adrexa and Jeroze that their father received a fair hearing of his crimes. Hano might not be a lawyer, but he was willing to represent him, if only because he loves Filiya’s kids.”
“Yeah, you are right I just wish he’d stick to one narrative. I was looking forward to demolishing Lavin on the stand and now I almost feel guilty.”
“And that there is what sets you apart from Lucius. Do you think he felt remorse for what he did to Colonel Sheppard or any of his other victims?”
Hotch smiled humourlessly at the admiral’s question. “I don’t think he’s capable of empathy, which is what would be needed to feel true remorse. I think his only regret is getting caught but blames everyone else for what happened. The Genii forced him to betray Sheppard, someone on Winya betrayed him while he was in hiding so that he was captured.”
“And we both know that it never occurred to him to take a stand and refuse to cooperate, even if it cost him his life, because he places no value on anyone else’s life but his own. He cares not a whit about any of the children he fathered, not even the two he lived with for years before he discovered his damned special herb,” A.J. reminded him. “Even in our own court system, unless the defence is demonstrably incompetent or acting in a way that is quite obviously corrupt, it isn’t our responsibility. It is up to the judge to act if they have concerns.”
Aaron sighed. “Yes, thanks for the pep talk. I know all that,” he told him gratefully.
A.J. grinned, “And I know you know but sometimes we just need to be reminded about what we know, hey?”
Hotch nodded and gave him a weak excuse for a smile. “True dat, as Jack would say. I need to remember if the shoe was on the other foot, Lucius Lavin wouldn’t hesitate to step on me,” he said.
“Too right, he’d squash you like a bug and tell himself it was your fault for waking under his shoe.”
As they entered the chamber, A.J. wished Hotch good luck but he didn’t think he would need it. He was pretty sure that Lavin hadn’t even considered the possibility that someone would dare to question his narrative so he wouldn’t be expecting those dynamite questions.
As the hearing resumed, Lucius Lavin made his way to the witness chair in the middle of the unoccupied space, facing the Members of the Tribunal. He looked supremely confident, exuding what he probably thought was bonhomie, but it just came across as being fake. A.J. wasn’t sure if he genuinely believed he was going to be able to walk away from this or if Lavin was just adept at putting on a good front, but anyone who had half a brain had to know that he was in deep shit.
Almost an hour later, having tried to listen to what Lucius had to say to justify his actions, the Judge Advocate General was glad he wasn’t presiding over this case because truthfully, he’d zoned out. The whiney tone of Lavin’s explanation had been anticipated but hearing him blame everything on everyone but himself was extremely aggravating, in AJ’s opinion. It was like listening to a child try to rationalise the irrational, not a supposedly mature adult who made appalling choices and acted reprehensibly trying to excuse himself after he got caught.
Personally, if he’d been presiding or even prosecuting the case, A.J. would have sought to kick things along because this self-indulgent blathering was not exactly pertinent to the case. Complaining that John Sheppard owed his life to Lucius for loaning the Colonel his Ancient personal shield device which he’d then ungratefully destroyed when all of Kolya’s men fired their weapons at him simultaneously – what purpose did it serve? Was he trying to intimate that it was Col Sheppard’s fault that Porteus Kolya attacked him because he didn’t have the device anymore? Was he trying to argue that Sheppard deserved what had happened to him just because the shield had served its purpose and saved his life from the Genii, only to fail because it was overloaded? Perhaps Lavin was saying that the colonel intended to break the shield as a way to get back at Lucius?
The only reason Chegwidden could think of that the tribunal members left him to rave on for such an excruciatingly long time was that they thought after the Persequor’s case had taken almost a day and a half to lay out, that they owed him the chance to present his defence. A.J. fervently hoped that if that was the case, they would not allow him to rant on for the rest of today and tomorrow. He was equally perplexed as to why Hotch hadn’t objected to the relevance of the exiled Winyan’s testimony. He could only think that Hotch was still feeling like he had an unfair advantage and was cutting the defence some slack. Either that or he had some strategy in mind and was letting Lucius hang himself.
Almost one and a half hours later, when even the earnest Kalan and the incredibly inquisitive Langaran, Jonas Quinn wore glazed expressions and Ishta and Bra’tac looked extremely irritated, Lucius finished up his testimony with a flourish, looking extremely satisfied with himself. A.J. wondered if Hano realised that his whiny testimony had done him no favours with the Members of the Tribunal and the admiral decided that maybe he did. He was getting the idea that Hano didn’t like Lucius all that much either.
Taking a long drink of water, Lavin smirked and said, “And that’s why I had no choice. I had to do what those horrible monsters made me do,” he finished sounding virtuous.
Hotch rose from his seat. “I just have a few questions for you, Mr Lavin,” he declared cordially. “In all of your testimony, you never once mentioned any regret on your part in abducting Colonel Sheppard, who during his incarceration was tortured and abused thanks to your special herb. Why is that?”
“I had no choice but to help Porteus Kolya, or he would have killed me,” Lavin replied pathetically.
“Maybe that is true, but if it is, then why didn’t you feel remorse for what happened to John She?”
“Of course, I feel sorry for what happened to him,” Lavin scowled.
“Then why didn’t you bother to mention it during your exhaustive testimony then,” Hotch asked him, sounding deeply sceptically.
Lucius was silent before finally responding, “I’m sorry that Sheppard was tortured, of course I am but he is a soldier, trained for war. I am not. Plus, Col Sheppard has no wife or children.”
“So, in essence, you decided that it was better that he suffer than you?”
“I’m sure he would agree that I had a family depending upon me.”
“Yet you left your wife Filiya and your son Jeroze and daughter Adrexa – you didn’t support them or any of the other children nine children who you fathered on Winya either,” Aaron argued as Lucius sat there speechless before he moved on.
“When you escaped from Porteus Kolya, how did manage to get away?”
“I waited until the middle of the night when they were mostly asleep and snuck out.”
“And did you take a personal shield device with you?”
Lucius smirked. “I took several. I traded one for a place to hide until someone put a bounty on me for my capture,” he said sounding wounded like it was a terrible thing to do to him.
“And you had managed to smuggle out a batch of the special herb, didn’t you,” Hotch questioned him, as Lucius looked surprised.
“No,” he finally replied.
“Fortum and Lanko reported that they were on guard duty, but you ordered them to let you escape and they obeyed you. You managed to hide a bottle when you were brewing the herb for Porteus Kolya.”
Knowing that they would be called back to testify about his escape, Lavin capitulated. “Okay, so I might have held back a small amount of my potion, just so I could escape,” he agreed. “Anyone in my situation would have done the same thing,” he whined like a child.
“So, if you had your special herb, why didn’t you help Col Sheppard to escape when you did,” Aaron demanded of the witness.
Lucius looked surprised by the question; he was not expecting that. “I…I was scared for my life. I didn’t think of it,” he replied, his expression shifty looking. “All I could think of was getting away before they killed me. I heard Kolya tell his men that he was going to kill me because he didn’t want anyone else to know about the special herb but himself. So, I ran.”
“Even if you weren’t able to rescue John Sheppard, which I have difficulty believing as you had the herb, why didn’t you go and alert the people from Atlantis after you escaped? Tell them where Colonel Sheppard was being held?”
Lucius was floored by Hotch’s query. He honestly had not been anticipating that line of questioning. Finally, he said, “They put out a bounty on my head. I was afraid and I was right – they locked me up like a criminal.”
“No, the reward for your capture didn’t take place for months after you ran away and left him there with Kolya and his men. Atlantis didn’t put out a bounty on your capture until after the Lantean’s rescued John Sheppard months after you ran away and left him there with the Genii to continue to torture and abuse him,” Hotch told him. “So why didn’t you tell anyone where he was being held?”
“Because I was too busy hiding from the Genii militia, scared that they’d find me and kill me.”
“I would contend Lucius Lavin, that you didn’t even think of letting anyone know about the Colonel because you were only concerned about yourself. Did you ever stop to think that if you’d helped to rescue him, Kolya wouldn’t be able to catch up with you to kill you,” Aaron pressed him sternly.
Lucius grimaced and shook his head. “No, I never thought of that. I was scared,” he declared.
“Because you only ever think about yourself. Like your first thought after escaping from Acastus Kolya on Amullie and his gang of Genii mercenaries was to run away through the Stargate and leave everyone else to fend for themselves?”
“I didn’t run away, I helped rescue the people of Amullie and Sheppard’s team,” he disputed.
“Only after you discovered that you couldn’t escape through the Stargate because Acastus’ men were guarding it too heavily. You had no choice but to throw your lot in with Sheppard if you didn’t want to die. But when you were on Balara it never entered your head to save him too, or failing that, to escape and could inform the Lanteans where he was being held in prison, did it?”
“I told you; I was in fear for my life,” he shouted, all signs of bonhomie had disappeared, leaving a truculence that felt much more authentic.
“Because you are a coward who is incapable of thinking of anyone else apart from yourself,” Aaron told him.
“If I don’t look out for myself, then no one else will,” Lucius demanded sullenly, reminded Hotch of Jack when he’d been at his sulky worst on the Zephyrus coming out to the Pegasus galaxy.
It was not a particularly good look on a teen. On someone of Lucius’ age, it was ugly considering the circumstances.
