Reading Time: 144 Minutes
Title: Seeking Truth
Series: Priceless
Series Order: 3
Author: SASundance
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, Criminal Minds; JAG
Genre: Crime Drama, Crossover, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Science Fiction
Relationship(s): Radek Zelenka/Miko Kusanagi
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, 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)
Beta: Aussiefan70
Word Count: 100,261
Summary: Now that Colonel John Sheppard, had been found and brought home, he faced a long and arduous recovery from his time in captivity. Meanwhile, during his search for the CO, Alex Paddington, aka Tony DiNozzo, uncovered a shocking crime that would rock the residents of Atlantis to its very core. With victims rising and an imminent threat to the safety of Earth’s inhabitants, the case would force him to confront some highly personal demons he wasn’t ready to deal with yet. He never expected that while working with the survivors, they would help him to begin his own healing journey as well.
Artist: AngelicInsanity
Chapter 7 A Magnificent Woman
AN: Mental communications between Tony and P.J. the AI program take place in this chapter which will be italicised and within brackets, e.g. (What are you doing?)
~o0o~
Tony was waiting for his escort to Amullie the next morning, feeling eager to get going. In a way, he felt like he was the cop back in Baltimore, diligently building up his network of snitches, criminal informants and concerned citizens wanting to help but wanting to remain anonymous. Even when he left Baltimore, devastated by his partner being a dirty cop, he’d still used his old information network on a surprising number of investigations during his time on Gibbs’ team.
He waited by the gate, gradually becoming more impatient. When then finally turned up eight minutes late, at a run and breathless, he scowled at them. “Morning Ladies. You’re late.”
Barnes grimaced. “Sorry Alex, late night. Vala Mal Doran sure knows how to party,” she winced.
He looked a little concerned. “Are you hung-over?”
“What? No! I’m exhausted. She found a bunch of guys and made them dance with us for a couple of hours and then she conned them into playing strip poker.”
Tony looked across at Laura.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t play. As head of base security – it was not conducive to my reputation, although I did boogie a little,” she executed a move or two briefly and grinned.
Amelia giggled, “OMG Vala is an awesome salsa dancer and her twerking? All her shirtless minions were having to constantly run off to the head to take care of business. She is so hot, if I wasn’t with Ronon and I swung that way, I might be tempted,” she told Tony, as Cadman cackled.
Laura rolled her eyes. “How was Cassie this morning?”
“A little tired but much happier. Thanks for the assist, you two.”
“She told us why she was feeling down, and with Vala around, she certainly can be distracting.” The Marine captain said as she handed over the personal shield generators to the others and yelled out to Chuck to dial the gate to Amullie.
Tony picked up the crate with the provisions which they’d assembled as payment for information about Lucius Lavin’s location. Then with a nod at his two attractive companions, they walked through the gate and out of the event horizon on Amullie’s stargate. Traversing the stone steps, they all switched on their personal shields, their weapons at the ready as they surveyed their surroundings to check for any dangers. They didn’t anticipate that this op was going to be dangerous, but Tony knew that you could never afford to be too careful.
Finding nothing threatening they proceeded half a klick north of the gate, the agreed-upon rendezvous. Moving at a brisk pace, once they were close, they became even more cautious in case it was an ambush. Everything seemed to be clear, although Amelia and Laura remained on guard, their weapons ready to fire while Tony knowing they had his six, went forward to greet Etar Mondu. He surreptitiously switched off his shield so he could shake hands with the itinerant worker who had a beaten air about him despite his polite greeting. Tony introduced himself as Thomas Magnum, one of his all-time favourite television characters.
His sources had said that Mondu was just another refugee whose family and almost all of his people on Kwame were culled by the Wraith. Many had died from the plague introduced by Michael the Wraith. Those who survived were killed by the Wraith as the survivors were now tainted, poisonous to any Wraith who fed off them. When Tony’s informant saw the number of provisions they’d brought, as Tony explained to him about the MREs plus the various foodstuffs and the bottle of moonshine, his eyes grew as big as headlights.
He kept saying, “Oh my,” over and over again. Finally, he said, “But why are you giving me so much. I did not earn it.”
Tony grinned at him. “Hey, it wasn’t your fault Lavin didn’t hang around, Mondu. I’m sure if he had, you’d have caught him and been handing him over to us by now. Better luck next time. Just tell anyone who wants to know that I may be new to Pegasus, but I will treat people fairly if they are honest and help me.”
“You are indeed an honest man, Thomas Magnum. I will pass it on.”
Ignoring the sudden choking from Amelia, Tony said, “Thanks Mondu. But warn people that while I am a fair man, if anyone tries to cheat me, they will regret it. My father is a con man and a swindler, so I can easily spot a liar. I hate liars and con men,” he growled, his previously bonhomie disappearing to be replaced by a dark hard exterior that was scary.
The itinerant gulped and nodded. “Considerate it done, Thomas Magnum.”
Tony nodded and like the chameleon he was when working, he shifted back into a genial employer once more. “Good, good. Perhaps in time if you prove to be worthy of my trust, you can work for me on a regular basis. Let me know if you have any more information about the con man Lucius Lavin,” he instructed his new informant.
As they made an uneventful trip back to the Amullie stargate, keeping their eyes open, Amelia giggled. “Thomas Magnum, Alex? What was that about,” she asked him jokingly.
“I prefer to stay under the radar, especially when I have a daughter who needs her father to stay alive to protect her. And when I was a kid, I loved Magnum P.I. so mystery solved.”
As they arrived at the stargate, Tony couldn’t help admiring both women – they were both remaining completely vigilant, watching out for him and themselves. Even though the distance was short – five hundred metres – he was still on tenterhook until Amelia dialled the seven chevrons of their home address. Then Cadman fished out her GDO a device so named because someone (in all likelihood, Jack) had dubbed it the garage door opener so she could send through their IDC (iris deactivation code) to Atlantic so Chuck would open the iris to let them gate back to base.
He appreciated that Cadman was last through to watch his six. Once upon a time, he would have insisted on being last through the wormhole to protect everyone else but that was before he had a five-year-old daughter to live for. The Major was an excellent Marine, but she’d also been a real help with his investigations so far. They worked well together, and he was pleasantly surprised by Amelia’s potential too. She was very capable. He wondered what were the odds of his poaching both of them as investigators for his fledgling law enforcement agency. If he did swing it, he’d sent them both off to FLETC for training.
He would talk to General O’Neill about it when he got a chance.
~o0o~
Having barely arrived back from his networking jaunt to Amullie which was an enormous success, Teyla and Kanaan had turned up at his office looking grave. He was surprised when they informed him that Teyla had decided to press charges against Lucius Lavin for raping her. He was thrilled but kept his cool. This wasn’t about him, it was about seeking justice for Teyla and her family who had been deeply impacted by the events during the foothold situation. He hoped that she was doing it for the right reasons, not because she felt pressured into it.
Sure, as someone who’d worked practically his entire adult life in law enforcement, he knew that the only way to stop a serial rapist was to lock them up or if they were dead. There was no middle ground when it came to protecting the larger community from a serial rapist’s predatory behaviour. They sought power and control over others to make themselves feel powerful and in control, but they needed the constant reinforcement that came from repeating the behaviour that gave them their fix. They didn’t just spontaneously decide to stop – they had to be stopped.
Which was why he was pleased that Teyla had decided to help him put Lavin away for the rest of his life if he could swing it. Sitting them both down he doubled checked that he hadn’t pressured her into doing something for which she wasn’t ready.
“You seemed very unsure when we spoke yesterday, Teyla. I hope that you didn’t feel like I bullied you into doing this?”
“No, Alex. The fact that you were so concerned about me, offering me the chance to confront Lavin even if I did not stand up publicly and make him pay for what he did to me, was what made me want to do the right thing.”
“But I don’t want to make you feel like you should do it. You are one of his victims and I don’t want to cause you more pain.”
“I know this, Alex but you also reminded me that I am a warrior at heart, and I think that for my own honour, I must speak up in my defence and for Sofie Danziger who can no longer speak for herself.”
She saw the doubt in his expression. “I know that you are concerned but I have meditated on this, and I am convinced that it will help heal us,” she smiled at Kanaan.
He echoed his partner. “I support Teyla on this decision. I think it is the right thing to do but it is not my decision to make. We are grateful to you for trying to keep our privacy but if the worst happens, we are prepared for that too. When the time comes to share the truth with Torren about his real father, I wish for us to tell him that he has paid dearly for the pain he caused us all. I want him to know that I stood up for him and his mother and other victims too.
“Okay, then, as long as you are both sure and you don’t feel pressured then the first thing to do is to take your formal statement about what happened Teyla. Kanaan, you didn’t witness what took place, but you can still give a formal statement about what Teyla told you. It isn’t as strong as firsthand testimony, but it still corroborates what Teyla will say.”
He called Laura, asking her to come to his office. “Okay guys, here is what we need to do. You each need to give a formal statement about what happened, but you need to do it independently. That means that you can’t be together because the defence would argue that we collaborated over your testimony. Do you understand?”
The Athosian couple both nodded. “We don’t want to do anything that would jeopardise Lavin paying for his crimes,” Teyla told him.
“Good. Okay, then if you are both agreeable, I am going to ask Captain Cadman to help take your statements. She has already been helping me investigate Dr Danziger’s rape and her death, plus she knows that there are more victims, although she does not know their identities. Is that okay with you both?”
Kanaan looked at Teyla. “I have no problem with the Captain. She has been very courteous to me since her arrival. She does not look sideways at me as some do when they think I am not aware of their doubts.”
Teyla nodded. “I agree, Kanaan. I have always found her to be an excellent warrior. The fact that you trust her makes me even more ready to work with her since I value your opinion, Alex.”
“Alrighty, she should be here in a minute or two. Last question, who would you prefer to take your written statement, Teyla? Would it be easier if it were another woman?”
She frowned as she considered the matter, it gave her a sense of control and for that she was grateful. “I think if it is up to me, I would feel more comfortable speaking with you, please. I have already been through it all with you once already, so it feels easier if that makes sense. I mean no disrespect against the Captain.”
What she was also not saying, because she was protecting his privacy, was that probably felt easier going through it in painful detail because she was more comfortable around someone who had also been raped.
He just nodded. “It is fine, whatever makes you feel the most comfortable, Teyla. We just want to support you as best we can.”
As she nodded gratefully, there was a knock on the door and Laura popped into the office when he called her to come in.
Cadman was a total pro, she didn’t act surprised when Tony revealed that Teyla and Kanaan had come in to give a written statement about a sexual attack on her by Lucius Lavin during his attempt to take over Atlantis. She just nodded seriously.
No, it was Teyla who gave an oof sound like someone had thrown her on her back and winded her.
Immediately solicitous, he handed her a bottle of water that he’d already twisted the top off. Kneeling beside her and thanks to Vala’s healing of his knee too, he could do that now without paying a heavy price for it later, he asked. “Hey, are you okay?”
She grabbed the water bottle and swigged down half the bottle. “Sorry, but when you just said that, it hit me that Lucius Lavin almost did singlehandedly what the Genii failed to do with over sixty soldiers. Everyone was so embarrassed that we’d been conned by him because he seemed so ridiculous, so non-threatening. Everyone just wanted to put the whole thing behind them, even Ronon was ashamed that he’d done things to threaten his friend John.
“Words matter, Teyla. Instead of calling him an insurgent, an invader, a predator, everybody referred to him as a sleazy con man, a ladies’ man. In my opinion, what he did was far worse than the Genii trying to attack the base. They at least came with guns and were upfront about what they planned, so you could shoot back at them.”
He leaned forward subtly to emphasise what he was about to say to Teyla but stayed far out of her personal space, so she wasn’t threatened by him. Five years ago, or five days ago, she was still a victim of a horrendous crime.
“Lavin’s weapon was mind control and there was no way to fight back because you didn’t know until it was too late to fight back. He was insidious and that’s what made him such a threat. One that shouldn’t have ever been treated as a harmless joke. But everyone was so ashamed of their loss of control that they minimised the threat that he posed, going along with his persona of the village idiot.”
Yeah, he had some insight into the harmless idiot mask. People underestimate you constantly.
“Tell me, you are an experienced warrior in your own right. Did you never stop to think about the ramifications of your mission with just Ronon, and Carson to gather more of the herb for him on M6H 491?”
She shook her head, “Not really. I try not to think about how gullible I was, how I fawned over him,” she admitted softly.
“And everyone else felt the same way. They just wanted to put it behind them,” he nodded as she looked down at her feet.
“Well let me just give you a hypothetical but hardly improbable scenario about what could have happened. The Wraith had set up a base on M6H 491 and they knew you were there because you came in hot. What if you dropped some of the herbs when you were trying to outrun them? What if they used it to find more of the plant that was growing all over the place according to Lavin and they figured out, like Lucius, how to use it. They could have turned every human in the galaxy into an utterly compliant dinner – no need to cull anyone – and no one would have been able to resist them.”
“They would have been able to gain the location of the Milky Way and Earth,” Cadman said in a horrified voice. “And they just let him go back home.”
“Yeah, because words matter, and everyone told themselves he was harmless.” Tony thought about the disagreement he’d had with Daniel the night before over language. He was a good guy, but he still was surprisingly naïve and idealistic after all he’d seen and done.
“He was also creepy, amoral, and self-involved but at the end of the day, everyone told themselves he wasn’t a real threat like the Genii or the Wraith. But in my opinion, Lavin is way more dangerous. The Genii and the Wraith or even the Asurans all believe in a cause, but Lavin is a narcissist who only cares about himself, so there is nothing and no one who has any influence over him. You can’t reason with a narcissist – trust me I know – I grew up with one.”
After that conversation killer, Captain Cadman took Kanaan back to her office to walk him through his statement, then sign it while Tony did the same for Teyla. Her formal statement took a lot longer, he was meticulous, obsessive even, making sure to clarify anything that was even the tiniest bit ambiguous. He knew that it was necessary, but he wished he didn’t have to be so pedantic. He also asked her why she wasn’t using birth control.
“I was not in my right mind. I take the Athosian herbal tincture every night without fail but for the duration of Lucius’ time on Atlantis, I did not think to take it. Once I was inoculated, I was already with child and the preparation is not effective at aborting a foetus,” she told him as he took notes. “Its purpose is to prevent life from starting.
“And Lavin didn’t ask if you had protection or offer to use a glove?” he asked, using the Pegasus term for a form of condom, which was made from the intestines of various feed animals. Gloves were considered more useful than sausages in this galaxy.
“No, he never brought it up.” She replied as he continued to ask questions.
“Did he send you to planet M6H 491 after he forced you to have sex with him, Teyla?”
“Yes, he did, I had not connected the two incidents. I was already pregnant when I ‘volunteered’ to undertake a dangerous mission to get him more of his herb.”
She looked shocked as she considered her answer. “I was flying as high as a bird in the sky and was not thinking rationally. It was basically what John calls a suicide mission but not for any noble cause like saving lives or rescuing people. Simply to resupply Lucius so he could keep on infecting people, forcing them to do his bidding,” she said scornfully.
After finishing up the interview and typing it and printing it out, he read it back to her. She made a few minor alterations before he reprinted the statement and had her sign it while he witnessed it. Even though she was exhausted from reliving the trauma, he could tell that she was fuming.
He asked, “Hey, are you alright?”
She shook her head. “I am very very angry, Alex. I feel like I have just woken up from a dream and realised how very wrong it was what he did to us all. I agree with you, he is dangerous and evil.”
She seemed to be debating if she should continue before taking a deep breath. “I do not wish for you to betray any confidences, but I realised that over the last number of years I have heard many disturbing stories about what Genii soldiers and mercenaries do to prisoners. The rumours are that they abuse them physically and sexually.”
“You are right. I do not betray confidences. I told General O’Neill and the others that there were victims on Atlantis, but I did not reveal who you were, Teyla.”
She nodded. “You are an honourable and kind man, Alex Paddington.”
She was silent but then observed, “John was at their mercy for months and he was on Lavin’s herb so he couldn’t fight back. I saw the way they beat him, but you were careful to shield his privacy and I suspect I know why. You were right before – Lucius isn’t the idiot of the village, he is evil,” she said, her anger fierce and righteous in defence of her good friend.
Tony regarded her with admiration. Despite reliving what must have been one of the worst experiences of her life just now, her concern and empathy were for Colonel Sheppard. She was a magnificent woman!
It was then that he had an epiphany. “John saved you from Lavin – that’s why you gave Torren his name as a middle one.”
She nodded assent. “John saved me from a life as a mindless slave and Torren would have been born and fallen under his thrall too. John Sheppard save both of our lives.”
There wasn’t a lot to be said to that statement, he could see why she had chosen to honour Sheppard the way she did. How sad that her gesture had somehow ended up adding fuel to the fire stirred up by McKay’s rants about John tripping across the galaxy like James T. Kirk. Calling her son after her father and her team leader but not Kanaan had led to speculation that he wasn’t Torrens father. Okay so, he wasn’t but it led to speculation by the bitch Jennifer Keller about John being the bio father. And like the CMO, Lance Cpl Favre managed to weave some elaborate and stupid conspiracy theory into Torren’s name as an excuse for selling out the military commander of Atlantis to the highest bidder.
As they were winding up, Teyla suddenly became uncomfortable. “Alex, I have not yet had a chance to do as you requested. But now that I have decided to fight for justice, I will approach the person who I believe may have also been a victim of Lucius. There was someone else I saw in his quarters that I wondered about, but she is dead to us now.”
Tony smiled. “It’s okay Teyla, I already know. And Dr Danziger claimed that Dr Weir was raped too. As for Monique Girard and Miko Kusanagi, once I learnt about Felix and Kazumi being born within days of Torren it was easy to connect the dots. Don’t approach them, I’ll have to do that, and I’ll probably ask Dr O’Shea to be there.”
Teyla looked shocked. “I had suspected that Lucius must have raped Monique too. She refused his clumsy come-on and soon after he had Carson hold her while he spoke to her, she was fawning at his feet. He made her wash them and massage them and everyone was jealous that she was getting all of Lavin’s attention. Meanwhile, Carson and Rodney were fighting over which one of them was more worthy to wash Lavin’s feet.”
He nodded. “That sounds like she fit the profile to a T. Like you and Sofie, a beautiful independent woman who dared to turn him down when you were all in your right minds and say no to him. Conventional wisdom is that Monique’s RAF boyfriend broke her heart which is why she refuses anyone who tries to ask her to go on a date. I’m fairly sure it’s because she’s never recovered from Lavin raping her. I’m hoping that him receiving justice, even if it’s well overdue might help with the recovery process,” he said soberly.
“Let us hope we all do.”
“I’ll second that. Our aggressors don’t deserve to have us waste some much time thinking about them, even to wish them ill.”
Teyla nodded. “No, they don’t but it is also not so easy to let the emotions go. Why do you think that Miko was also one of his victims?” she asked him, changing the subject.
“Why do you think she wasn’t. Kazumi was born nine months after the foothold situation?”
“Well, yes, but Miko and Radek are together,” she objected.
“Like you and Kanaan are together?” Tony prodded gently
Teyla nodded conceding he had a point. “But they were together before Lavin. They were trying to have a baby,” she countered, still not convinced by his logic.
“Is that what they told everyone?” he quizzed her calmly.
“Yes. Why?”
“Did they tell everyone that they were a couple before or after Lucius’ visit to Atlantis?” the investigator continued probing.
“I’m not sure. It was five years ago, Alex.”
“Hence why I am sceptical. Maybe Kazumi is Radek’s bio child but maybe she isn’t.”
However, it did change how he would approach the couple. Perhaps it would be better to get Aoife and Captain Cadman to do it, warning them that they were planning on charging Lavin with multiple counts of rape and that since Kazumi was born nine months after Lavin gained control over the entire base, people would likely start wondering if she was a victim too. Given his and Tali’s close friendship with Radek, Miko, and Kazumi he should probably not question them regardless.
~o0o~
After his talk with Teyla following her statement, he was really glad he’d already decided to bring Aoife in to help them with the victims. He had developed a good relationship with Teyla, and she had been comfortable talking to him – well, as comfortable as anyone could be discussing something so intimate. But he barely knew Monique and although he did know Miko, she was most definitely an introvert. He suspected that she was much less open to discussing sexual topics, even if they didn’t pertain to non-consensual sex.
Maybe he could prep Aoife and Laura to do the interviews with Drs Girard and Dr Kusanagi, and he could watch it via a computer monitor and get them to ask any questions or clarify details over comms. He wandered outside to stretch his legs and thought about how he would need to get an interview room set up with an adjacent room where he could watch interviews. Long term he needed to get a two-way mirror installed but for now watching over a screen would have to do.
He knew the NCIS OSP worked that way in LA. But it wasn’t Tony’s preference; you could miss micro-expressions and other nonverbal cues when working off of a screen. Still, these were victims, they weren’t suspects, he reminded himself.
“Well Anthony, perhaps it’s time you talked to Jack about setting up an interrogation room with recording equipment and a two-way mirror,” he said out loud. Wow, he was far gone to be talking to himself – wasn’t that the first sign that you were going crazy – or was that supposed to be an old wives tale?
(There is no need to ask General O’Neill about installing a two-way mirror/window, Defender. Atlantis can attend to any such changes you wish to make.)
(I’m sorry, what?) Tony spoke out loud to Janae Progenius.
(Atlantis is sentient as the fallen Ascended one explained to you all. With nanites, she can reconfigure anything that you wish to have changed.)
(The fallen Ascended one? Do you mean Chaya Sar?) he asked, getting a slightly arrogant sniff in assent.
(How come you never told me that Atlantis was an Ancient before she donated herself to create this flying city?)
(She did not wish it to be known, Defender. But since you brought Atlantis’ bonded back home and rescued him from the Genii, she is pleased with you and grateful. Also, you have brought to the city, your child, who, like yourself has a double gene. She looks upon your daughter as a distantly related grandchild many generations removed and is pleased. She wishes to reward you in your endeavours. Simply explain to her what you need.)
Tony was still attempting to come to terms with his new reality which had just had to undergo another moderate paradigm shift that was nowhere near as big as the others such as aliens, stargates, the lost city of Atlantis and the Trust, not to mention that he had a child, but it was all cumulative. Oh, and finding out that there was an AI in the city who’d been searching for a new calling and had decided that Tony was it. It was too damned much to take in that it made his brain ache. Sometimes it felt like it might explode.
(Dr O’Shea is approaching,) JP warned him as he slipped back into his office to greet her.
Aoife gave him a friendly grin and dumped some food on the desk. “Hi Alex, I brought tuna fish and turkey sandwiches, plus some fruit as requested. Do you want to eat first or talk and eat?”
Inviting her to sit down, he pulled his chair around, so he was sitting catty-corner to the psychologist. This was a collaboration (hopefully), so he wanted to engender a feeling of colleagues, not invoke power dynamics. He wasn’t like Gibbs who even in social situations always felt the need to be the alpha hound.
He retrieved a couple of bottles of water from his work fridge, wondering if Atlantis would provide him with an evidence refrigerator along with the interview room. Couldn’t hurt to ask. Theoretically, he could use the specimen fridge in the Infirmary but considering his slightly arctic relationship with the CMO he preferred not to. And yes, he didn’t currently have any specimens or evidence but sooner or later they would.
As they started eating, he chatted for a few minutes about Tali and her excitement about starting school, but he knew that Aoife’s time was limited, and he soon dispensed with the chit-chat.
“So, I wanted to ask you about how much experience you’ve had working with sexual assault survivors and the legal system?”
Looking like he’d caught her off guard she was silent as she considered the question. “Not a great deal of experience. I’ve supported several friends who were raped and one of my clients who decided partway through the counselling process to pursue her rapist and have him charged. I was her support through all the judicial procedures including the court case. Why are you asking?”
“I have a serial rapist case – it took place approximately five years ago.”
“Before my time,” she murmured.
“Yep, Dr Heightmeyer was here then. So, there are two confirmed cases, one is deceased. There are three other suspected victims – one who is not on the base and two who are still here. There may be more who may come forward when word gets around that we are charging the perpetrator but that is not a given. The two who I believe were victims, I am a little chary about interviewing seeing they are female, and their rapist is male.
“One of the victims is quiet, modest, and introverted and she is also a friend. So, I was hoping that you would consider doing an initial interview in conjunction with Captain Cadman. I can work with both of you to prep you if you’re willing. Then if my suspicions are confirmed you might agree to help them if I formally question them and take sworn statements if they decide to go down that path.”
“Of course, Alex. I’ll do my best to assist you and them. How are you dealing with this? It has to be hard.”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” he told her grimly. “But I want to help these women and make him answerable for all the pain he’s caused. Plus, I’m hoping that those people who have been affected by this creep will come to you for counselling,” he said with a heartfelt sigh that he only felt safe enough to do with Aoife.
“Don’t forget about yourself in that equation, Alex. Yes, I know you are an experienced copper and a federal agent, but this cuts a little too close to home for you, considering everything you discovered this year. So, no neglecting your own mental health, okay?”
He sighed. “I hear ya, Doc. No skipping out on sessions.”
The psychologist shook her head. “See that you do. Just remember that you can’t turn this case over to someone more objective, so to do right by the victims, you need to shore up your defences to achieve justice for these women. And don’t forget Belle, she needs you to remain in control so you can be her daddy and continue to support her. I saw her in the Mess last night and she is doing well.”
“Yes, she is but if I lose it, she will regress. I get it, I’ll be diligent, I swear.”
“See that you do, Agent Paddington,” she told him sternly before lightening up a little. “Alright Alex, tell me about the case you’ve unearthed,” she instructed him resolutely.
And so, he did.
Chapter 8 Reflections
General Jack O’Neill strode down the corridor to his office, relieved to be done with meetings for now. He’d just come from a meeting of the JCS to report on the location of the Ancient facility on Balar and the Drone Chair located there, along with various other bits of technology. They were pretty excited at the find since the Wraith had destroyed Earth’s chair when they attacked Earth more than three years ago. Now they had a possibility of replacing it, everyone was pretty pleased with the prospect.
Jack had withheld details of the Foothold Situation which occurred at the beginning of the third year of the Atlantis expedition’s occupation of the base by Lucius Lavin. Right now, his ad hoc team were in the middle of trying to figure out if someone on the IOA had worked in concert with Elizabeth Weir or she decided to ‘fix’ things off her own bat. Until Jack was satisfied that they didn’t have a full-blown conspiracy to murder Dr Danziger to keep Homeworld and Stargate Command from finding out about how close they’d come to losing the base and their people, he was going to stay mum about it, so he didn’t tip anyone off.
There was also the thorny issue of what to do about the mind-control plant that they found on Balar. He wanted to destroy it and nuke the damned planet where it grew – that herbal compound was dangerous. In the hands of power-hungry amoral individuals, it could be used to control people – essentially turning them into mindless individuals. Even when brutal dictators rule their troops through sheer terror and disinformation, there were always some who would choose to desert, disobey orders, or even overthrow the brutal regime – like Bra’tac and Teal’c had rejected their Goa’uld gods. But the keyword was they chose to; with the mind control drug, a choice was not even a remote possibility.
Frankly, the idea of the drug being used on a widespread basis in warfare or by dictators to rule countries or planets, or even on a more limited basis terrified him. What if the idiots in the US who conceived of the Frankenstein program of turning US Military personnel into paid assassins had been able to access the mind control drug? Of course, he still couldn’t credit that the person who came up with the program should still be running NCIS. What if the Trust or NID or the CIA or one hundred and one other shadowy groups knew about the drug or ever managed to get a sample and managed to synthesize it? Baal could have taken over the damned earth.
One thing was very clear to Jack, they needed to manufacture and stockpile the antidote to this invidious plant asap. A thornier issue, should they nuke the damned planet M6H 491 and hope it wasn’t growing elsewhere? He worried about how many people would want to study it and potentially have it as a secret weapon – he hoped that no one would, but Jack was a cynic. He knew that there would be more than a few in NatSec and the Military who would want to exploit it.
While he was on the fence over blowing up M6H-491 he knew that they desperately needed research into ways to eradicate it if it was growing on other planets. Especially if those planets were heavily populated. What if the plant was also in the Milky Way? He shuddered to think of the consequences.
He needed to form up a team and get them to do the research now so he could decide what to do before he briefed the JCS and the President. Perhaps he should visit Cheyenne Mountain, and have a heart-to-heart with Lam. She would understand just how dangerous that plant was. He could catch up with Carter at the same time.
Entering his officer, Colonel Davis was there waiting for him. The guy’s ability to anticipate his needs was incredible.
“How did your meeting go, General?”
“The JCS were over the moon at the prospect of replacing our lost drone chair, Colonel.”
“That’s good, General.”
“Yeahsureyabetcha,” he said rolling the words into one as he was frequently wont to do. “Meantime, see if you can find out when Bill Lee is due back from his vacation, will you. And after my meeting at 1600, cancel everything for the next 48 hours. I need to go to the mountain on urgent business.”
Paul Davis didn’t roll his eyes, but he was too professional. Jack also knew he wanted to. “Yes General, I take it you’ll want to beam there and back?”
“That’s why I like you, Paul. You anticipate all my needs and save me breath.”
~o0o~
As General O’Neill made his way down the corridor towards the infirmary to consult with Dr Lam, he thought about Colonel Sheppard. He had been getting regular updates since he’d around back on the planet, leaving Daniel and Vala behind to keep an eye on things for him. Of course, everyone assumed that Daniel was on Atlantis to check out the database that they’d found at the Mount Zeniche compound and Vala, their Space Pirate was there to snaffle up anything of value. It was a good cover story, in part because it happened to be true, but they were also there to keep an eye on the whole mess with the foothold situation and help run interference for Paddington since their whole, are they or aren’t they in a relationship, was always fodder for watercooler gossip.
The truth was Jack wasn’t even sure about the pair, if indeed they were a pair. Sometimes he thought they might be intimate as in a friends-with-benefits kind of way, because although he knew that Danny loved Vala, Jack wasn’t convinced it was romantically. Their light-fingered space pirate, on the other hand, wore her heart on her sleeve when it came to Dr Jackson. She was quite clearly head over heels for the archaeologist but after his heartbreak over Sha’re death, Daniel had never really managed to move on. Then there was the whole shit with his former colleague and lover from before Sha’re, Sarah Gardener who, like his wife had been host to a Goa’uld. Although this time they’d managed to save Gardner and expel the Goa’uld, the former lovers had never successfully rekindled their relationship, either.
And therein lay the crux of the matter, both Sarah Gardner and Vala Mal Doran had both been unwilling hosts to the Goa’ulds, like Sha’re who Daniel had never been able to save. Perhaps that was why he was unable to commit to either woman because their salvation was a constant reminder that Sha’re had not been free when she died.
Jack knew that much of the reason for him not being able to move on from her death was Daniel’s overwhelming guilt that he’d failed to save her. One night he’d gotten the younger man drunk, which wasn’t that hard – a couple of beers usually was all it took – and he’d confessed that he regretted how much time he’s spent on planets satisfying his archaeologic curiosity about the wonders they encountered. Planets such as the Land of Light where the inhabitants’ culture appeared to be Minoan based, had been irresistible to him, like so many others they’d encountered. Daniel told him being there was like a living, breathing snapshot of the Earth’s ancient culture when he should have been focused on finding Sha’re. Jack had pointed out to him that even had they found her sooner, at that point they still had no way to remove the symbiote from his Abydonian wife. They had yet to meet the Tok’ra and the Tollans had taken a long time to warm up to them, but Daniel refused to accept O’Neill’s logic and take comfort in it. He’d rebutted it by saying that if he had been less focused on studying new cultures, they may have run into the Tok’ra a lot sooner.
Jack had given up debating with Danny; for one thing, because no one knew what might have been if they’d done things differently, but that difference could just as easily have been an even worse outcome than that being able to save Sha’re. Maybe they might not have saved her kid brother, Skaara or stopped Apophis from blowing up their planet that first year they were a team. There was no way to know and the second reason he’d given up arguing was that he still played the what-if game when it came to his son, Charlie’s death, even now.
Although not every day like he used to do when it first happened. He’d learnt there was no mileage in the woulda-shoulda-coulda endless time loop that could suck you into it. That said, he still found it was hard not to indulge in it when he was feeling low. So, in good conscience, he couldn’t be a hypocrite and criticise his friend for doing the same thing. And as hard as Vala tried to win Daniel over, he wasn’t sure that she was ever going to be successful in her quest, but who knows. The words ‘give up’ didn’t seem to be in her vocabulary. And after surviving being a host to a Goa’uld named Qetesh for so long, that shouldn’t come as a surprise.
As he waited in Carolyn’s office for her to finish up with a patient, he thought back to what Danny had told him on Atlantis about Paddington’s theories on the extra Ancient genes – or specifically the communication gene. Danny had told him about what Alex had told him after he finished translating Danziger’s diary right after Danny decided to go off on one of his epic sanctimonious rants about the inviolate right to free speech. Jack knew he could be a pigheaded vitriolic asshole sometimes, but on Danny’s best day, he could certainly give him a run for his money with his self-righteous holier than thou pontificating.
Danny was always so earnest in his beliefs, so sure he was right. He was someone who saw life and issues as either black or white. Jack saw things in shades of grey. Black or white had pretty much ceased to exist for Jack. In his experience, there were never easy answers, every choice made came with a price tag attached and even when freedom was the ultimate goal, there must be sacrifices made. DiNozzo…no Paddington was right, McKay’s rants about Sheppard’s sex appeal to the female Indigenous population of the Pegasus galaxy had been a contributing factor in the Genii capturing him. It hadn’t caused it but if the Genii hadn’t had intel on where AR-1 would be, it would have greatly lengthened the odds that they could nab him so easily. The fact that their ambush had been carried out like a special ops mission had also contributed to the length of time that it took to locate him.
Thankfully, fate had thrown Tony and Tali DiNozzo into SGC’s path, and the rest was history. Tony or Alex now, reminded him in some ways of Daniel. He had, according to the exhaustive background he’d had done on the former NCIS agent, been the moral compass on his team, the way Daniel had been on SG1, ever since the team was formed. He was probably just as smart as Danny or Sam but like Jack, was not comfortable being a geek. He went out of his way to downplay his intelligence, getting 950 on his SATs and scoring 80 percent on every single test he took. Since statistically speaking, exactly 80 percent on every test every single time was just so unlikely you could say it didn’t just occur randomly. And yet he’d done it, which led Jack to conclude that the only possible explanation was that Alex had done it deliberately. It made Jack’s brain hurt trying to figure out how he pulled it off but pull it off he did. Which in turn made him a lot smarter than almost everyone gave him credit for.
Like Jack and Sheppard, Paddington was more comfortable in having people regard him as a superficial and intellectual lightweight, easily distracted by shiny things. Yet he also had empathy for people, like Daniel did, and was equally willing to stand up for what he believed was right. But unlike the archaeologist, he was much more of a pragmatist who understood that freedoms didn’t apply equally to all. That freedom came at a cost. He and A.J. Chegwidden had taken Danny’s reference for the sanctity of free speech and argued that it was too important to be abused without accepting that it also came with pretty huge responsibilities and consequences.
O’Neill thought about how passionate Paddington had been last week.
Flashback:
Departing the heated discussion, Paddington had told the extremely idealist archaeologist to never underestimate the power of words.
“Speech is a weapon that can be wielded for good or for evil and no ones’ right to say what they think, or feel should be more important than the rights of others to live, safe and sound. Not even if that individual saves the world every other day of the week,” and he left them, clearly furious and upset.
Daniel looked stunned. “Ah what did I say?”
“You were excusing McKay’s inexcusable behaviour towards everyone on the base with the toxic and harmful emoting he’s allowed to get away with. Partly I suspect because he is the CSO and partly because he’s saved Atlantis and the Earth on more than one occasion. Emoting that helped get Colonel Sheppard, McKay’s team leader and the top military officer on Atlantis sold into slavery,” A.J. said with admirable brevity.
“Wait! What? No, I didn’t,” he protested heatedly.
“Yeah, Danny ya kinda did,” Jack told him firmly.
“And regarding Agent Paddington and his angry departure, what you gotta realise is that Paddington also worked as 2IC for an agent who did similar shit to McKay, berating, demeaning his team, yelling at them when he was frustrated – which to be fair was only 24/7. His boss even got away with head-slapping Alex when he got mad, and everyone turned a blind eye to it, all because his boss got good results. And probably because it kept the guy in check and not head-slapping others or threatening to put his boot up their asses,” Chegwidden explained, his expression flinty.
“Mind you, the scuttlebutt is that his conviction rates aren’t so exemplary now. I strongly suspect that most of their convictions before he resigned were down to Alex being a damned fine cop and federal agent. He managed to keep the rest of the team from going off the reservation a lot of the time but there were too many instances when they flat out broke the law,” A.J explained briefly.
Daniel looked shocked or appalled. “Why wasn’t his boss sacked or gee I don’t know…arrested?”
“Several reasons,” the former JAG said, counting them off on his fingers. “It was just his boss being his usual self. Every time they let him get away with shit it became harder to stop him. Alex’s boss’ team had the best closure rates in all of the alphabets (if you totally ignore his less impressive conviction rates). And lastly, he got away with it because he knew where all the bodies were buried, so the rumours go,” A.J. told them, shrugging. “Take your pick!”
“He blackmailed them?” Daniel clarified, appalled. “But that has to be just a rumour, surely?”
Jack shook his head, “Danny, Danny, Danny. How can you really be so damned Radar O’Reilly-ish naïve after dealing with the Goa’ulds and the Ori, or the NID and the Trust? It is DC we’re talking about. There are a shit ton load of bodies, figurative and real that are buried up there,” he said grimly, thinking about the Frankenstein Fiasco and the Frog debacle involving NCIS and the CIA just for starters, which Tony had revealed today.
“But you work there,” Jackson said in a pained voice as Chegwidden gave a cynical cackle.
“Oh, fer cryin out loud, Space Monkey. Why the hell do you think I fought like a pitiful little mouse being dragged into a room full of hungry felines, cuz I didn’t want to take the job, you idiot. But Hammond made me do it – said it needed someone who knew what was really going on up here,” he waved his hand around aimless to indicate space, “to watch out for you guys and the world.
He folded his arms and pouted like a bratty toddler rather than a Lieutenant General. “You know I hate it. I’d much prefer to face a Goa’uld mothership load of Wraigoaori” he said morosely.
“Jaaaack!”
“Danny?”
“What in Ne’tu is a Wraigoaori?”
“Shaking his head, “And you – the guy who’s supposed to have a gift for languages can’t recognise a portmanteau? It’s a Wraith/Goa’uld/Ori chimera, Dr Jackson.”
“Oh,” Daniel responded. “You’re right, I should have figured that out. And I’m sorry that you have to be the bulwark for the Stargate Program down in DC. I guess I haven’t been properly appreciative.”
“No, you haven’t but thanks for acknowledging that, Danny Boy. I’d much rather be fighting megalomaniacs who think they’re gods and messianic Ascended ribbony energy beings than the narcissists, buffoons, and con artists aka the politicians and their hacks, lackeys, and minions plus the damned lobbyists. Gah!” he shuddered theatrically but his voice gave away the fact that he did despise them all deeply
“Right,” Daniel agreed sympathetically. “At least out there we can always blow them up or shoot ‘em.”
“Yeahsureyabetcha and don’t forget the super-duper Zat guns. Gotta love these weird assed Goa’uld shaped- like-a-penis-gun,” he cackled, seeing Chegwidden’s eyes practically bugging out of his head.
Daniel quickly explained that a Zat was a Zat’ni’katel gun. “One shot stun you, two shots kill you and three shots disintegrate you. And Jack’s right, when you um cock them ready to fire, they do look like an erect penis. Not sure why the Goa’uld would design something like that though, since their sex organ resembles a salamander or an eel.”
“First documented case of penis envy in an alien species,” Jack quipped as Daniel choked on his coffee and A.J. cackled.
Whether it was at Jack’s lame-ass joke or the archaeologist’s discomfiture wasn’t entirely clear, but O’Neill had grinned wickedly. This was way better than meetings with the JCS at the Pentagon.
He glanced over at the Claytons hens night table and noted that the party was in full swing although it look like Alex had just arrived (did he detour) and had given Tali a ten more minutes warning. Cassie was giggling and Vala flashed him a look that said he didn’t need to worry – everything was in hand.
“Well, I’m off now to see if I can get a quick meeting with AuClair and Lorne and get permission to host this movie marathon and cookout celebration,” Jack said, standing up to go. “Alex sure does like his movies,” he observed.
“Yep, also used to use them to solve crimes too. Get him to tell you a few stories sometime especially when he saved a classroom full of teenagers from a teenage suicide bomber. It’s a doozy,” Chegwidden promised them.
Daniel rose too. “I’ll walk with you, Jack. Wanted to tell you what Alex was thinking about those extra genes. You just reminded me.”
As Jack headed toward the command centre to see if AuClair was working late, Daniel trotted along beside him rabbiting on about Alex’s theory that his extraordinary abilities with languages might be the result of him having the communication gene.
O’Neill had stopped suddenly, causing Daniel to careen into him and he noted in passing that Dr Jackson was certainly far more solid, pure muscle than he had been back in their early days when they were first teammates together.
Putting his hand on his friend’s shoulder, he said. “Care to run that by me again, Space Monkey,” he said, using the old affectionate nickname he’d given him eons ago after he thought Daniel had died on a mission to save Earth in their first year together.
“Alex explained that Chaya Sar said one of the expressions of the Ancient communication gene is his facility with languages. He thinks because I pick up languages so easily that I could have the gene as well. He suggested we compare his gene profile to mine to try to isolate it or ask Chaya Sar to confirm it.”
~o0o~
The Ancient communication gene was one of the reasons why he was sitting here in Carolyn’s office at the SGC waiting for the chief medical officer to finish her doctoring duties and meet with him. He wanted to see if they could isolate those two genes – the healing gene and the communication gene since they had himself and Paddington to use for comparative purposes but of course, he also had no wish to make a huge deal out of it either. There was no way Jack was going to paint a bigger target on Paddington’s back than there already was. Indeed, he wasn’t even going to inquire whether Chaya Sar was so enamoured by Anabelle Paddington because she also inherited the communication gene, even though he knew that like her father, she was multilingual. He intentionally didn’t ask, and he was fairly sure that Alex wouldn’t tell him, and he was perfectly happy about that.
He also needed to talk to the doctor about the need to establish a highly classified research project and antidote production program, possibly somewhere off-world. It said much that he didn’t trust the IOA or certain sections of the military or most politicians for that matter, with the details about that damned plant and its potential to turn people into mind zombies. Its potential for misuse was enormous!
Until they could be sure that it was confined to one single planet, they need to research to understand its risks. They needed to know what side effects if any there were for long-term use of Lavin’s potion for theoretical considerations, but more importantly, because at the moment because one of their own had been exposed to it. Jack needed to know if it was going to have any permanent side effects.
Speaking of which he also needed a sitrep on John Sheppard. The last one he’d received when he’d flown back to Earth via Midway II had been that Sheppard was still detoxing from the addictive nature of the plant. It had surprised them all because Carson had only required roughly 12 hours of being removed from exposure before the effects had worn off. Carolyn pointed out that John was exposed for a lot longer, five months and they weren’t sure if the potion was the same strength as the previous one used on the Atlantis crew and the villagers on his home-world.
As Carolyn swept into the room, apologising profusely for keeping him waiting, he cut her off.
“Carolyn, I would kick your ass if you kept one of the SGC personnel waiting just to meet with me, so stop with the apologies. They are neither necessary, nor are they welcome.”
“Yes Sir,” she responded with a smile, having known him since she was a kid. “Did you want to start with Colonel Sheppard first,” she asked.
“Yep, sounds good,” he settled back as she gave him an update.
“We are closely monitoring his status. We gradually increased his hydration and are feeding him a carefully balanced liquid supplement trying to avoid refeeding syndrome. His electrolytes and biochemistry have been all over the place but gradually they are stabilising.”
“What about using the Goa’uld healing device?”
“I’m chary about using it in this situation, this is a very delicate balancing act, to be blunt and I’m not confident that it might not tip him over into a catastrophic systems failure. Vala said she has never treated anyone with this type of issue. At the moment, I decided to take a slow and conservative approach and monitor the shit out of him.”
Jack nodded. He trusted Lam to do what she believed was best for her patient.
“I did ask for her assistance in healing the internal damage that the colonel suffered due to the Genii’s sexual assaults. His bloodwork wasn’t stable enough to undergo surgery. Thankfully, she was able to heal his colon, so he won’t require a colostomy.”
“Well, that is good news. What about the broken bones that require resetting?”
“On hold until his bloodwork is more stable. Anesthetizing him right now is risky,” she told him.
“So how is the detox coming along?”
“He is still dealing with the addiction, Sir. He keeps requesting that he be allowed to go back to Porteus Kolya. Insists that he needs him. Dex has been a godsend, keeping him from fighting us. He tells him that Kolya is busy right now, but he sent Dex to watch over and protect Sheppard until that psycho can come and get him. Just listening to his crying, wanting his abuser, has traumatised my staff and they’re pretty tough professionals,” she told him shaking her head.
“It’s taking a long time for the addiction to pass,” he said.
“Reading his report on that mission, Sir, when he returned to Winya, Lavin’s world to get some of his potion for testing purposes, Colonel Sheppard noted that the villagers were feeling pain and acting depressed. That seemed far worse than the effects suffered by Dr Carson – he seemed to suffer mostly emotional and psychological pain.”
“What about the inoculation that Beckett developed? Why didn’t it work?”
“Sheppard never got it, General. He destroyed the plants that had been harvested by Teyla, Ronon and Dr Beckett so it was decided that he didn’t need it,” she said with a shrug.
“What about giving it to him now?”
“We did, several days ago. It didn’t work. Perhaps because Lavin tweaked the new batch of potion somehow. If we could speak with him because we don’t have any of his original potion left to compare to what you brought back from Balar it would help. Or it could have something to do with Colonel Sheppard being exposed to an Iratus bug or the anti-Wraith drug when he was attacked by the young Wraith, Ellia who was being raised by a human.”
Jack winced. “Point taken, Carolyn.”
She nodded. “We don’t know – it could even have something to do with the fact that Todd the Wraith gave John their gift of life. We don’t have a clue, but the point is that he is having to go through it the hard way and it is not just hard on him, but hard on everyone around him.”
“So, we ride it out?” he said, hating the idea.
“Unless or until we figure out a better alternative. Hopefully, it cannot last too much longer.”
“Right, well if you have time, I wanted to talk about a couple of other things?” he said, just as one of her nurses barrelled into her office.
“Sorry to interrupt, Doctor, but SG17 just arrived back with multiple injuries, Ma’am.”
Jack stood up. “Go, Dr Lam. Why don’t you drop around to my place for dinner, and we can finish the rest of the briefing while we eat,” he suggested.
Knowing the nurse was listening in, Carolyn winked at him, carefully turning her face away so Trudy didn’t see it and said, “Okay Uncle Jon, I’ll call you later.”
As the nurse and Carolyn raced away, he heard her say disbelievingly, “Is the General really your uncle.”
He didn’t catch her reply; the pair were too far away but he didn’t need to. He wasn’t her uncle, but she was his goddaughter and Caro had always called him Uncle Jon. He’d known Hank a long time and they were friends, even though Hank was more of a career officer, while Jack spent most of his time up until recently in the thick of things and getting his hands dirty.
Oh well, he’d head down to check out Sheppard although he suspected Dex at this point had to be rather sorely in need of a friendly face and perhaps a break so he could get some food. Jack figured being with the colonel would be bringing up memories of his own time when he was addicted to Wraith juice and brainwashed.
Making his way down to the private room that they’d assigned Sheppard, Jack could hear Sheppard pleading with Dex to find Porteus because he needed him. Jack wasn’t sure if Sheppard meant he needed that piece of shit Genii or that Kolya needed him, but he knocked on the door before the Satedan warrior was forced to answer him. When he opened the door and barged in, Sheppard was wearing a hopeful expression that rapid crumbled into fretful and grumpy.
Dex stood respectfully. Even though their interactions had been limited over the seven years he’d been with Atlantis, he was a former soldier in the Satedan Military. He had due deference for someone of Jack’s rank, especially after he’d led a team on Balar to rescue Sheppard. Jack’s natural environment was in the field, not behind a desk, so he figured Dex had probably seen that he earned the respect that was given to him on Atlantis and SGC the hard way. Looking at the normally impassive Satedan, he could see the subtle signs of tension on his face. Since working with his friend Teal’c who gave new meaning to the word stoicism, reading Dex was a piece of cake.
Speaking of which, he shooed the 6-foot 3 member of AR-1 out, telling him to take a break – get something to eat, some pie or a piece of cake. “I’ll take over watching his six for a bit, Dex,” he said firmly, his tone indicating it was an order, not a suggestion. Trying not to grin, he noted the millimetric changes in Ronon’s facial muscles that indicated to Jack that Dex was relieved but would never have left unless ordered to. Jack made a mental note to mention to Carolyn that she needed to pull rank to get him to take regular breaks.
He knew Dex’s ilk, it must be difficult being there to support Sheppard when there wasn’t a bad guy to chase down and fight. Watching a friend fight their demons was much harder than being able to fight the Wraith or the Goa’uld or Ori on the battlefield. Given that Ronon had faced his own battle with addiction a few years ago made it both easier and harder on him.
Jack knew, that the SGC had not been good at acknowledging their psychological issues back in the early days. He and Danny had both been drugged off world and forced to have non-consensual sex back in the early days of the program. Hathor raped Danny, a nasty Goa’uld bitch who used his DNA to create lots of slimy little Goa’uld symbiotes and while Jack had been turned into a Jaffar incubator and that wasn’t creepy, NOT! And then there was Kenthia, a beautiful young woman on Argus who fed him a piece of cake that turned out to be a drugged wedding cake. Jack ended up being infected by nanites causing him to age rapidly after his non-consensual sex with her.
Plus, there was the whole issue of bodily autonomy when Hathor had forced him to become a host for a Goa’uld snake. Granted, it had been a mercifully brief invasion but even so, that fleeting period before the fifth column Tok’ra operative had saved him and killed the symbiote by shoving him back into cryo-genesis was something he could never forget. Those fuckers were just so sick, twisted, and utterly full of rage and arrogance, Jack still woke up occasionally all these years later having to bolt for the bathroom and throw up his entire stomach contents.
But perhaps the most applicable situation to Sheppard’s current addiction at this time was that Danny and he had both experienced the joys of living through the dependence of using the Goa’ulds’ sarcophagus. It was something Jack tried not to think about if he could avoid it. The gilded casket had messed pretty badly with brain chemistry which was why Janet Fraiser had theorised repeated sojourns inside it had helped make the Goa’uld certifiably loony. Considering his brief but bowel loosening experiencing of the mind of an immature symbiote (before the cryo thankfully snuffed out its lights) the idea Goa’ulds could become even more unhinged by going beddy-byes in a golden casket was beyond imagining.
Chapter 9 Hypothetically Speaking
General Jack O’Neill, with two Ls, watched as Sheppard tried to hold it together while he’d selfishly tripped down memory lane. At least now the SGC were more aware of how crucial it was for immediate support of any team members traumatised by non-consensual encounters especially while compromised by mind altering substances. However, that didn’t mean they couldn’t do better. Once Sheppard got through this acute stage, he and Daniel could help by talking to him about their own traumas. Let him know that others knew what he was going through.
So roughly three minutes after he’d reviewed their progress in treating trauma in their team members, Sheppard broke down. He started pleading with him, gradually escalating his response as he stepped it up to screaming at Jack, berating him for keeping Kolya at bay and finally offering sexual favours if he’d take Sheppard back to Porteus Kolya. Yeah, he could see why Carolyn and her crew were so distressed. To see such a highly decorated and courageous hero as John Sheppard reduced to this was a heartbreaking sight was gut wrenching.
As he searched around for something that would distract him, Jack was eternally grateful that Paddington and Carolyn had been adamant that Sheppard should be taken back to Earth to recuperate. This would crush Atlantis personnel to see him like he was now and once he was in his right mind again, Sheppard would be mortified to have been so vulnerable in the presence of those he commanded. Thankfully, when he’d been detoxing from the countless number of times Ba’al have killed him and then stuck him in that hideous gold sarcophagus to revive him after he died, Dr Janet Fraiser, the SCG’s Napoleonic warmonger and head of medicine at the mountain had been highly protective of him. She’d kept all but Daniel out of his presence since O’Neill had been there for Danny after the Princess on the Naquadah mining planet had fallen for him and forced him to spend extended time in their sarcophagus. Plus since Daniel was an Ancient, she couldn’t stop him.
He remembered that the thing that had helped Daniel get through his detoxification had been to occupy his mind. He’d brought some of the Goa’uld translations he was working on to keep him busy, but Jack needed to find something that would distract Sheppard. That was when he recalled that John was something of a mathematical genius, thanks to McKay’s quantum twin who appeared when they were building a space-time bridge on Atlantis. Grinning, he stuck his head out of the room, spying a nurse, he requested some paper and pens. The nurse returned quickly, casting a brief look at Sheppard, his eyes distressed before he withdrew from the room.
“Colonel Sheppard, I cannot take you to Kolya right now. He’s off on a secret mission for the Genii. However, he asked me to give you a message.”
Suddenly the severely depressed angry man transformed before his eyes. “What? What did Master Porteus say? I’ll do anything to please him, anything at all.”
Trying to ignore the sycophantic attitude of the air force colonel whose normal demeanour was a fuck-you, I’ll do as I damned well like, he said, “Erm well yes, Kolya wants you to calculate a formula for how to maximise drone firing capabilities in the event of an attack,” he said, figuring that was vague enough to give him several days of looking for an answer to what was probably a ridiculous request. Mathematics not being his forte.
Much to his surprise, John nodded enthusiastically. “Did he find it? Oh, tell me he found it,” he begged, his hands clasped together in entreaty, his expression bordering on ecstasy, even if he looked like a freaking scarecrow.
“Find what, Colonel?”
“Please Sir, Master Kolya says my name is Whore.”
Jack wanted to get in a puddle jumper and fly out to Balar to the prison where Kolya was being held and wring that bastard’s neck. He was no angel; he’d killed a lot of enemy combatants in his time at the SGC and a lot before that, but he had never tortured them mentally or physically as the Genii had with the colonel. He wanted to rip the bastard apart, limb by limb. He did at this moment, wish that he had a Goa’uld pain stick at his disposal.
Oh yeah, that desolate expression on the nurse’s face made a whole lot more sense now.
“That’s Kolya’s special, name for you, Colonel Sheppard. He told me no one but himself and his men are permitted to use it.”
John looked conflicted before nodding his acceptance. “Okay, if Master Kolya says so.”
“He did, so we have to follow orders, okay?”
“Yes, Sir, I want to make Master Kolya happy.”
“That’s good,” Jack praised him, feeling dirty and wanting to take a long hot shower. “Now what was it Kolya was looking for?”
“A spaceship for the weapons chair. He was going to fit the chair in a spaceship he stole from the Travellers and fly to Atlantis and take over the city,” Sheppard told him guilelessly. “Master Kolya is so wonderful and clever. I wish he were here.”
“Yes, well he’ll be here as soon as he can, but right now he wanted you to figure out that problem about the drones and the chair, Colonel. He said it was important,” he encouraged him as John started scribbling down a bunch of numbers on the paper, a look of intense concentration on his pale emaciated features.
As his distraction worked, Sheppard became immersed in his work, occasionally needing to be reminded that Kolya needed his formula urgently before he would start writing again. In little over an hour, his focus began to wane until he slipped off to sleep, as Jack contemplated what he’d revealed to him. They had dodged a bullet or more accurately, dodged the drone chair back on Atlantis. Thank goodness Paddington had managed to pull off the miracle of finding him so they could rescue him. If the mercenary bunch that Kolya led had managed to get hold of a Travellers’ ship, and Sheppard would have helped them do it in his zombified brain dead state, Atlantis could easily have been lost to them or destroyed. Either way, the outcome would have been dire.
It was even more critical that they locate Lucius Lavin and find out how much of a problem his plant posed. He was fairly sure that he could get a special sanction to drop that recrement into a deep dark hole somewhere off-world but right now, they needed to capture him, and the oily little prick was proving far too elusive.
Two hours after he’d gone to get cake, Dex came back looking much more relaxed. Knowing his reputation, he probably found a few clueless jarheads who didn’t have any idea who he was and persuaded them to spar with him. Jack was pretty damned certain that he’d busted their asses and was the reason why he was looking so much calmer. While he knew that Dex liked his food and never turned down a meal, having been on the lam for seven years as a Runner for the Wraith’s recreational enjoyment, that Zen-like expression only came from releasing of stress hormones of which he was sure there had been an abundance, after spending a couple of hours with the colonel.
As he slept, Jack pulled Ronon out into the corridor. He explained that he told Sheppard that Kolya had issued orders that no one apart from his Genii men was permitted to use John’s Genii name and he’d grudgingly consented. He also explained his idea about using John’s mathematic bent to give him tasks that Kolya gave him to complete before he would come to see him. They needed to buy time and keep him occupied because as he felt better, Jack was fairly sure the colonel might try to escape so he could find Kolya.
Dex agreed, he recounted how he and Sheppard had been buried in the rubble of one of the laboratories of the Wraith Michael and been grievously wounded when Colonel Caldwell had beamed them up onto the Daedalus even as Michael and his hybrids had almost reached them. Then he’d insisted on leading a rescue mission to retrieve Teyla who was on Michael’s hive ship, despite Keller wanting to operate on him immediately.
Jack expressed his admiration for the colonel and Dex had frowned. “He went to extraordinary measures to rescue me, Rodney, and Teyla. She said that Sheppard never got over not saving Lieutenant Ford and Dr Weir. He blames himself.”
He nodded. “No commanding officer ever gets over losing members of their team or their command. Right at the start of the SGC, I lost an incredibly good friend who’d been with me through some pretty bad missions. He got taken over by a Goa’uld and I ended up having to order him to be killed. Something I will never get over, just like he’s never going to forgive himself for Lieutenant Ford.”
The two warriors enjoyed a silent communion thinking of all their battle buddies, lost over the years before Jack decided to underscore the threat that Sheppard posed with him not being in his right mind right now. He swiftly outlined what Sheppard had revealed about their plot to take over Atlantis and told him that he was going to increase the security around the colonel. Dex, no fool, agreed.
As he was getting ready to return to watch over his team leader and his best friend, he said, “If I get my hands on those fuckers, I’m going to kill them. He told me that twice they locked him away from Kolya, so he started having major withdrawal symptoms. He started hallucinating about gigantic Iratus bugs feeding off him and they laughed at him.”
Jack clenched his fists. That was nothing less than sheer assholery since Sheppard was completely compliant due to Lavin’s damned drug.
“At least this time Dr Lam can give him some stuff to make him more comfortable,” he said, not finding it particularly comforting at all. “Make sure you take regular breaks, Dex. Eat, sleep, beat the crap out of the jarheads,” he ordered him gruffly as Ronon grinned widely.
The effect was…disturbing.
~o0o~
Carter and Jack were bunkered down in Danny’s office. Jack no longer had an office at the mountain and although Sam did have her office, one of the full-time scientists on the base now shared it with her. He knew Danny wouldn’t mind them using his office though. He’d already checked for bugs and just to be sure, he was playing classical music and had brought in a jamming device that would make it impossible to eavesdrop on what they had to say
After a few minutes of Carter asking about the health status of Sheppard who had been her 2IC when she had commanded Atlantis, and he’d let her know he was having a tough time, she was upset. “I could try using the Goa’uld healing device if it would help. I’m not as proficient as Vala,” she offered tentatively.
“You may not be as adept as Mal Doran is, Carter but you’re a darned sight better with that thing than I am,” he told her truthfully, “I feel like a toddler in comparison.”
“Well to be fair, Sir, you only had a Goa’uld symbiote in your for a few minutes,” Sam told him, wanting to boost his fragile male ego.
It was a far cry from their first meeting when Jack meet her at a mission briefing for their return to Abydos one year after blowing up Ra’s Ha’tak. He’d been a little pissed when she was placed on his team, wanting to choose his personnel. Finding out she was a scientist had just made her even less desirable in his eyes and she had been quick to call him out on his supposed misogyny.
She told him, “I’m an Air Force officer just like you are, Colonel. And just because my reproductive organs are on the inside instead of the outside, doesn’t mean I can’t handle whatever you can handle.”
Jack had retorted, “Oh, this has nothing to do with you being a woman. I like women. I’ve just got a little problem with scientists,” which was God’s honest truth, not that he believed in God after Charlie.
They’d come a long way since that rather rocky start. Now she was one of his most trusted officers and friends and her loyalty to him was a little humbling at times. He grinned inwardly and returned to the present.
“And Vala hosted Qetesh for a lifetime, he told her, you were host to Jolinar for a few days, Carter. Of course, Vala is going to be more skilled at using the healing device,” he told her.
“You’re right, Sir. Qetesh probably used it while Vala was her host which means she had firsthand experience. I was relying on the brief memories I shared of Jolinar using the healing device.”
“Hmm I didn’t get any memories, My symbiote was a juvenile,” he said with a distasteful expression. “Yet I knew what to do, even if my skills were shit,” he said with candor.
“Carter,” he said as he began to form a theory. “Did we test out the theory that you need to have hosted a symbiote or did we just accept what we were told at face value?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at, General.”
So, we agree that you and Vala can use the healing device because you had mature symbiotes. I didn’t. What if the whole we can use it because we have minute traces of Naquadah in our blood is wrong? What if is more tied to memories of the host,” he said working out his theory on the fly.”
“If we accepted your theory, Sir, how do you explain that you can power the device and do simple healing?” Sam frowned, trying to see his logic.
“Okay bear with me a minute. Did the Goa’uld invent the healing device?” he asked her.
She looked at him. “Why are you asking me a question that you already know the answer to, General?”
He sighed and said, “Drop the Sirs, Sam, we are having a private conversation. Okay so the Goa’uld stole technology from other advanced races, they did not invent stuff. Who do you think that they purloined the healing device from?”
Still not understanding what he was getting at, not surprisingly, Jack thought because she didn’t have all the latest data, he said. “Not the Tok’ra?”
She shook her blonde hair. These days she wore it long and as per regs, it was tied back, although he preferred her hair when it was shorter, he thought it was more flattering. “No not the Tok’ra,” she confirmed.
“And we know it wasn’t the Asgard either,” he stated.
Intrigued even if she didn’t see where he was going, she said, “I doubt it was the Nox, either. We know that they heal, but it is a collective consciousness,” she said as they both remembered the Nox healing ritual of the young Nox, Nafrayu who was fascinated by the T’auri.
“It could be the Furlings,” Jack said, referring to one of the five great races that the Asgards had been Allied with, “but we have no way of finding out, seeing we have never run into this elusive advanced race,” he said.
Sam giggled, she knew that he had long ago made a bet in the pool run by Walter Harriman that the Furlings looked like the Ewoks in Star Wars. Unfortunately, the pot remained unclaimed since in all their years tripping around the Milky Way and various other galaxies, they’d never run into them.
“Supposing it was the Ancients or even the Alterans who created the healing device and the Goa’uld backwards engineered it, so it looked like something out of a tasteless gaudy billionaire’ bordello. It might be that the Ancients or those with the Ancient gene could still use it. Sort of like how when we retrofitted Apophis’ death glider to create the prototype X-301 it still had traces of the Goa’uld fail-safes in it and we ended up in Shit Creek without a paddle,” he said as they both remembered how close he and Teal’c had come to becoming frozen space popsicles.”
“So, you think the device is one the Goa’ulds nicked from the Ancients and that’s why you can use it? We could test out that theory by getting some of the people who have the ATA to try to use it,” she said, her brow puckered as she considered his theory.
“Yeah, that may or may not work,” he told her. “We have new information from an Ascended Descended Ancient, Chaya Sar who is sweet on Colonel Sheppard. Aside from the gene that enables those who possess it to actualise devices and also use certain technology like the puddle jumpers, she said four other genes give the recipient certain abilities. She says that there are healing, communication, telekinetic and super sensory genes. I’m wondering if people who are genuinely able to move stuff with their minds or heal people might have one of the Ancient genes even if they don’t have the ATA gene.”
“Holy Hannah!” Sam exclaimed, wildly excited. “That’s just awesome.”
“Chaya says that Alex Paddington, our new head of Atlantis’ law enforcement bureau has the communication gene – he can understand the original Ancient language plus a number of newer versions without having to learn them. He speaks quite a few Earth-based languages already and he wondered if Daniel might have the Ancient communication gene too, because of his ability to learn languages so quickly.”
He slipped a flash drive out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Sam. “This is Chaya Sar talking about Ancient genes and the origins of Atlantis,” he said, knowing the geeky scientist in her would be in seventh heaven but also as the former commander, she would be fascinated by the whole sentient city explanation. Personally, it creeped him out more than a bit, that a million-year-old Ancient who was childless decided to donate her body to grow a hard shell for the super city to house untold generations of her brethren. He deliberately tried not to think about it too much, especially since he was going back soon.
Reluctant to leave the whole can of worms he’d just opened for the geeky scientist Carter, she told him, “If you keep practising with the healing device, you could probably become more proficient, Jack. You must still have remnants of information from the Ancient database you can tap into.”
He shrugged. I’ll try,” he said, not just to stop her nagging but because he was curious too. If he could heal people as he’d done with Teal’c, Janet Fraiser may still be alive.
“According to Chaya, which was why I could heal Teal’c, and she said that Thor left 25 percent of the Ancient database in my head with blocks that would gradually dissolve so I didn’t have a brain fart and die,” he told her irreverently as she listened raptly.
“HO-LY HAN-NAH!” she said for a second time, her eyes just about bulging out of her brilliant brain.
Then, because his time was short and he still had to put in an appearance for a routine meeting with Hank to cover his presence here at SGC, he moved things along. “So, Sam, let’s talk about the foothold situation on Atlantis. Were you able to get in?”
Carter looked a little uncomfortable as she admitted, “Yes Sir, I did,”
Sighing at the return to calling him sir, he prompted her, “Am I sensing a but, Carter?”
Looking ever more uneasy, she grimaced. “I managed to get into my reports without any problem, but I was locked out of everything else, Sir.”
He was disappointed but not all that surprised, he admitted it was a long shot. “Well, thanks for trying, Sam.”
Before he left, Carter’s awkwardness grew even more pronounced. “No Sir, wait. I couldn’t get in via normal access.” She stopped and looked at him.
Oh shit, he knew that look.
“What did you do, Carter?” he said feeling equal parts proud of her and a little scared since he knew exactly what she was capable of.
“Hypothetically speaking, I may have decided to create a back door access to the Atlantis database, Jack,” she told him looking guilty.
“I see, and hypothetically, when might you have decided to do this?” he played along with her.
“Hypothetically, a couple of hours after Richard Woolsey fired me as Commander of Atlantis due to my failure to follow protocol and he told me that he was going to be replacing me,” she said unrepentantly.
“Ah huh,” he said enigmatically. He knew how devastated she’d been at having to leave Atlantis – it was her first command and she had loved the people there. The IOA had really done a number on her, the bastards! O’Neill wasn’t sure if he’d been in her shoes – having SG1 yanked out from under him after only a year in command if he wouldn’t have done the same thing to keep an eye on his teammates. Well, that supposed that he had the techno-savvy to pull it off, but he would have probably called in a favour or two. His black ops days were littered with the sort of geeks who could have done that sort of thing if he’d needed it.
“And hypothetically, did you learn anything interesting?”
“That when faced with life-or-death decisions, he wasn’t so ready to stick to protocol. When Dr Keller was taken over by an alien host that started devouring the city, he let cloned Dr Beckett who wasn’t cleared for duty take over the medical department and treat Jennifer,” she said with a shrug, “but he copped to it and the IOA expressed their displeasure. But later, nine months to be hypothetically precise, at his appraisal by the IOA, there was a foothold situation that he didn’t report.”
“Aw fuck! Another one, Carter?” he whined. “I do not believe this!”
“No Sir,” Sam replied, knowing him well enough to know that he was not calling her a liar.
She proceeded to give him a rundown on the scientists finding the Sekkari device at the bottom of New Lantea’s ocean, containing the records of a technologically advanced extinct race regarding their history, science, and technology database and containing the chemical building blocks for a silicon-based life form to reseed their race on a suitable planet. Of course, Jack already knew that part of the story. He’d wholeheartedly supported Woolsey’s decision to use it for its intended purpose – to reseed a new incarnation of the Sekkari race rather than mine the database for data that might help Earth defeat the Wraith. To do so though would thereby destroy the last hope for the Sekkari to rebuild their race.
When she got to the bit about a Dr Vanessa Conrad – a highly attractive scientist seducing Woolsey, who in reality was the Artificial Intelligence created by the Sekkari to protect its seed carrier, he was ropable. Carter related how the IA had caused hallucinations for Sheppard, keeping him occupied on the mainland by appearing in the form of Acastus Kolya and taunting him with taking over Atlantis. Dr McKay was badgered by his 2IC Dr Zelenka (who was a fake as Radek wasn’t on base) to induce him to locate and bring the Sekkari device back to Atlantis. O’Neill was fuming.
Okay, the SGC had certainly fucked up over the years, but they never deliberately withheld records of their failures from the powers that be. This was what came of having civilians such as Woolsey and Weir in such hugely powerful positions without the proper management skill. With Richard, it was even worse though since he was always decrying the lack of transparency in the top-secret program and the need for stringent oversight. Seems ‘ultimate power corrupts’ can be applied to the former NID operative and he was a lawyer too.
A part of him recognised why the Sekkari’s Artificial Intelligence had sought to manipulate Woolsey, but Homeworld Command and the SGC needed to know about what had occurred, even when the hallucinations were manipulating them taking advantage of the recipient’s unconscious ideals and their desires. So, it wasn’t pleasant to admit to being influenced and deceived by the AI physically manifesting a beautify companion to a lonely divorcee, a second in command who would tell McKay he was a genius or in Sheppard’s case his deep-seated fear of losing members of his command. They still needed to know, to help avoid such occurrences happening again. Just as McKay had recognised something about the radiation that had caused mass hallucinations in another situation that ended in death.
It was why the mandatory debriefing after missions was so damned crucial. So that Intel could be collated and analysed but also because successes and failures need to be catalogued and studied to try to replicate their victories and avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. This was something he intended to address after this investigation was over, talk to Paddington and see if he had any ideas about how to stop this shit happening over and over again. There needed to be oversight for the International Oversight Agency too.
At least his mood improved somewhat when Sam told him how Xiaoyi Shen, the Chinese representative on the IOA committee had been dispatched to Atlantis – ostensibly to conduct Woolsey’s performance appraisal right in the middle of the Sekkari security breach. Carter informed him that her real agenda had been that she’d been sent there to sack him because the committee thought he wasn’t upholding the IOA protocols to their satisfaction, so they were planning on getting rid of him. They intended on giving him a sideways promotion off Atlantis and into the Chair of their Environmental initiative so Shen could assume his position as Atlantis’ commander.
Jack was extremely pissed, he’d not been informed that the IOA had planned on getting rid of Woolsey so soon after replacing Sam. Had he known, he would have had something to say about it and had a long talk with the President. Another change at the top – the fourth Commander in 21 months and just 9 months after Sam’s sacking would have been a recipe for disaster. Since the US presence on Atlantis in terms of military resources and civilian contractors was larger than any other country and they footed most of the bill, he would have vetoed Woolsey’s sacking. Even if he thought that Carter should have been left on the base for a minimum of three years before being transferred, barring negligence or unlawful conduct, of course.
When Carter outlined how the IA program had manipulated the IOA Chinese representative, using her projections against her, he couldn’t help grinning. Shen had an imaginary conversation with an IOA colleague, and the IA program led her to believe she was being used to doing the dirty work and after she’d fired Woolsey, the rest of the IOA would appoint James Coolidge as Atlantis’ new commander instead of her. So, because they had left the decision to replace him entirely up to her discretion, she gave Richard Woolsey a glowing evaluation as a fuck-you very much to her backstabbing colleagues.
Her positive review made Woolsey’s appointment permanent, thereby blocking her own promotion to Atlantis. It was a masterful piece of mind manipulation by the Sekkari Artificial Intelligence, who was pissed off at Shen because she ordered Woolsey to mine the database which would have sacrificed any hope of her people starting over. Jack was ‘almost’ able to forgive the artificial intelligence for messing with their people.
Jack gave a sardonic bark of laughter. “Talk about hoisted on your own petard,” he observed. “Hey Carter, how did you find out all that intel about the foothold situation and the machinations of removing Woolsey? he asked.
Shaking her head, she said, “Hypothetically, I may have hacked Richard’s personal and encrypted private log,” she confessed looking entirely unrepentant.
“Woolsey documented it all?” he asked gobsmacked?
“I know, Sir. I’m as amazed as you are. But maybe he thought it was some sort of insurance in case she tried to extort him, and he was protecting himself. He is a lawyer.”
“Hmm, well hypothetically, great work, Sam.”
“Grinning impishly, she responded, “Thanks, Sir.”
“So back on track here, were you able to get the goods on the foothold situation with Lucius Lavin?” he asked briskly.
Seeing Carter’s bleak features she said, “You won’t believe this, but Dr Weir edited Colonel Sheppard’s report after he submitted it and Dr Beckett’s too, deleting anything that mentioned that she or everyone else on Atlantis was compromised by the plant. She cut out a heap of the security footage, keeping in the video that showed that Carson was compromised and brought Lavin to Atlantis and that Weir appointed Teyla and Ronon as his security escort who became compromised too. She replaced the footage with that from several days prior showing everyone going about their business normally and I’m not even sure why she did, just being thorough, I guess.”
“She had decided that those three were expendable should the shit hit the fan,” Jack mused.
“She was so determined to paint Lavin as harmless, justifying why they took him back to his home world and let his people deal with him. I don’t understand how she managed to get everyone on base to go along with that travesty of justice – even if no one knew about the rapes. He got into the database and accesses classified information – he was a security risk.”
“According to our profiler, Alex Paddington, she took advantage of how embarrassed people were. Lavine encouraged them to continually debase themselves to try to win his approval. Beckett and McKay were particularly mortified because they were one-upping each other. Alex theorized that everyone was relieved to send him home with little fanfare because it saved them from having to examine their behaviour. After all, they were ashamed of themselves. They conveniently didn’t focus on the OPSEC breaches because that would require focusing on how easy it was to crack their defences. Sending Lavin back home effectively gave everyone permission to bury their heads in the sand, instead of deal with the potential ramifications. Dex and Teyla didn’t think letting him go back home considering what he knew, was a good idea, but as the outsiders on the base, no one gave much weight to what they thought.”
“Makes sense,” Sam shrugged as she pulled out two reports that were radically different and purported to be written by the CMO Dr Beckett. She pointed out a section where he detailed a conversation that had been deleted in the report Elizabeth submitted to the IOA and SGC that made Jack incandescent with rage.
“Check this out, Sir. Beckett wrote that they were discussing Lavin’s work as a supposed healer before documenting a snippet of their conversation:
Lavin: The young, old, women … Do you like women, Doctor Beckett?
Beckett: What? Yes, of course.
Lavin: 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?
Beckett: I think so, yes.
Lavin: I will trade you that potion for what you are holding in your bag right now.
Jack already knew about this conversation taking place from reading Sheppard’s unedited report that Alex had given him, but it still filled him with rage. It also raised the question of how Alex got a hold of it.
“He openly admits to Beckett that he has a rape drug even before they set off to Atlantis,” Jack said. “Add that to his conversation with Sheppard and he can’t say he didn’t know that the drug was why women were lining up in the square waiting to be with him,” he said in utter disgust.
“Unfortunately, Dr Beckett just thought it was more empty boasting about his prowess as a healer,” she noted, sharing his outrage.
Looking at his trusted colleague, Jack noted Sam had an expression on her face reminiscent of the one she’d worn on one of their first missions together on a planet called Simkara. It was a deeply repressive misogynistic world that Daniels declared bore similarities to Mongols on Earth. On Simkara, females were considered mere objects and had no rights.
Their mission there had not been a whole heap of laughs. Carter had gotten off to a rocky start, narrowly avoided death for daring to dress as a man and having her face uncovered, both being forbidden in the society. Then she was kidnapped and sold to a rival tribal leader by the man SG1 had saved from being torn apart by wild dogs, which Jack considered to be fucking ungrateful of him. She had been so furious – not that he blamed her, but Sam had kicked the ass of the tribal leader who bought her, winning her freedom in a ritual battle with her superior hand-to-hand and knife skills and also won freedom for the leader’s daughter.
She said, “I found other deleted info too. Hours after everyone was inoculated against the plant, there were several persons requesting the morning after pill, including Weir and to be tested to check for Sexual Transmitted Infections, one on a young bisexual male Marine. I don’t think Lavin was into guys because Beckett’s medical files said the Marine reported engaging in oral, not penetrative sex.”
“What a mess! Sofie was right, Weir was one of his victims too.” He really couldn’t find it in him to waste time feeling sorry for her though since she hadn’t protected her people, she’d covered it up.
“There are deleted logs that show that Dr Danziger requested meetings with Weir on five separate occasions and she became increasingly more concerned about her intention to report the rape to the SGC because Weir contacted someone on the IOA and they had at least three encrypted conversations,” she revealed.
“So, it’s fair to say that at least one of the IOA members knew about the foothold situation, if not the entire committee,” Jack observed, astonished at how much data Sam had managed to ferret out so fast. She was a marvel.
“I don’t suppose you were able to crack the encryption yet?”
Carter grinned at him happily. “Yes actually, I did, Sir. Weir was a smart woman, but OPSEC was not her forte. Her contact at the IOA was a lot harder to crack but well…” she trailed off modestly.
“They weren’t a match for your brain and training, Colonel. If it’s the truth it ain’t bragging.”
“I don’t want to sound like Rodney, Sir.”
“True dat,” he quipped absentmindedly as she produced the communique she’d printed with a flourish as he began to read them. “Whoa!” he exclaimed. “The plot thickens. Weir’s IOA contact was Xiaoyi Shen. What do we know about her?”
“Apart from her being the Chinese representative on the IOA, not a lot yet. We know she is a graduate of Beijing Foreign Studies University and London’s School of Economics and Political Science. Shen is also a former attaché to the Chinese Mission in the US.”
“Attachés are frequently spies,” Jack observed absently.
“When SG1 was assigned to escort an IOA delegation, including Shen on a tour to the Gamma site she was clear that she wasn’t happy with the status quo. China wanted access to the military weapons we’d developed from the stargate program and our interactions with alien technology. She made it clear that her government wanted control over the Stargate and intended to get it. They saw an opportunity when the lease agreement for Russia’s stargate approached, trying to get them not to renew the lease to the US.”
Jack smirked, “Yeah but the Russians played China because they didn’t want to run the SGC program after the last debacle, but they used Shen and her government to leverage the US into giving them a new 304 with all the bells and whistles. China and Shen lost face and they were not happy campers.”
Sam chuckled cynically. “When faced with the invasion by the Ori, who in their right mind would want to set up a Stargate program? Shortly after Russia renewed our lease agreement with the US for ten years, Shen took a leave of absence from the IOA for roughly a year. She returned to Beijing but aside from that we have no information on what she was doing during her sabbatical.”
“I am pretty certain that she was disciplined strongly for making her government look foolish,” O’Neill said, not hiding his schadenfreude at one of the major thorns in his side on the cursed IOA getting her ass kicked instead of kicking his.
“Shen returned to the US a few weeks before the episode with the two hive ships attempting to reach Earth. She was part of the IOA committee that recalled Dr Weir, threatening to replace her for her questionable decision to conduct medical experiments on the Wraith known as Michael. It precipitated the Hive’s journey in search of a rich new feeding ground that would have been disastrous for our planet. Weir outmanoeuvred them, and the IOA grudgingly gave her a reprieve.”
“Or they left her in the role because they knew she would probably mess up again and they had an awesome scapegoat,” Jack said cynically.
“Do you think that she would see it like that?” Carter asked.
He thought about how desperate she was to stay when Helia and her fellow Ancients reclaimed the city of Atlantis. “Doubt it,” he said. “It isn’t easy to be dispassionate and insightful when you’re feeling cornered,” he observed.
Jack stared contemplatively at his former 2IC. What Carter had discovered was going to be a game changer, in more ways than one.
Chapter 10 For All the Good it Will Do
AN: There are mental communications between an artificial intelligence and a human in this chapter. Instead of quotes the mental conversations are (italicised and enclosed in brackets).
~o0o~
Tony was beyond frustrated, he was pissed off. So damned close!
They nearly had Lavin but when Arlice Toag, one of his informants on Belkan, tried to take the predator into custody, she reported that he appeared to have some sort of impermeable barrier that stopped her from making contact. Also, weapons could not penetrate the barrier and Tony knew that the rancid piece of shit had stolen a personal shield generator from the Mount Zeniche Complex, Balar. Why the hell hadn’t he anticipated that was a strong possibility.
Your slipping, Anthony, he told himself angrily.
It certainly made the task of capturing him a whole lot harder but leaving him out there was not an option. It simply made Tony more determined that it was going to be third time lucky because there was a cell with Lucius Lavin’s name on it.
However, to bring him in, they needed a new plan. Tony had sent Amelia and Laura off-world on Revelah to pay his contact and to nose around to see if they could find out how long he’d spent on the planet and any contacts Lavin had, even though Arlice reported he’d gone through the gate. Although he preferred to do the payouts personally, he needed to meet with Ambassador AuClair and Lieutenant Colonel Lorne to figure out their new contingency plans.
After he’d briefed them on the last failure to capture Lavin, AuClair looked grave. “I must admit, having this man free to wander around the galaxy, interacting with others makes me pretty nervous,” he said.
“I agree, Ambassador. The knowledge he has of Atlantis, not to mention the information he possesses about that mind-altering drug makes me feel extremely uncomfortable,” Lorne agreed.
“Oh, I agree with you both, gentlemen. That’s why I called this meeting, so we can come up with a new plan. The next time we sight him, we take that slimy prick down.”
“So, Agent Paddington, tell us, how can we help you do that?” Henri asked.
“First thing I’m going to do is to spread the word among my informants that if they locate him, they are not to try to capture him. They are not to draw his attention to the fact they have him under surveillance if that is humanly possible. Their role will be to follow him and report back that they’ve found him.”
Lorne nodded comprehending his plan. “So, one of your informants finds him for us and Atlantis takes him down?”
“Pretty much. We are going to need to have you, Beckett, or me on the takedown team so we can de-active the failsafe on the personal shield generator, of course.”
“And to prevent the team from stringing him up,” Henri said sternly. “I get that Lavin’s role in Colonel Sheppard’s capture and unlawful detention is a deeply emotive one for the military and probably the civilians too if it comes down to it, but General O’Neill’s orders are very clear – he wants him alive and capable of answering questions.”
Tony jumped in, “Damned straight! I want him fighting fit when I throw the book at him. Killing him to avenge Sheppard will not give us answers to the very crucial information we need, to carry out risk analysis regarding that damned pheromone plant of his. I intend to make his life a living hell and give Sheppard (and any other victims that investigations turn up) the opportunity to confront him and demand justice. Killing him is too painless – I intend to make sure he pays dearly for his crimes.”
Lorne knew that Tony already had located several victims from when Lucius had been able to take over the base in the third year of their taking possession of Atlantis, but AuClair hadn’t been briefed as yet so he just gave the agent a meaningful look and said nothing.
“I will drum it into our teams that there is not to be any vigilante justice,” Evan assured the two others grimly. “I’ll make it a direct order from myself and General O’Neill.”
Henri nodded. “Good, well let’s hope that we apprehend him soon. Candidly, I have to say that the possible consequences of Lavin’s potion are very disturbing. If any of Michael’s hybrids still out there or what’s left of the Wraith or even the Genii, or the rogue elements that we haven’t got locked up were to get hold of mass-produced amounts that could be weaponised to administer them to a population, the repercussions are frightening.”
They decided to have at least one team on standby, ready to leave at a moment’s notice, at least for the next seven days and then re-evaluate the situation.
Having secured the support needed to apprehend Lavin, Tony called another meeting for after lunch when Cadman and Banks would have returned from Belkan to pay Toag for her efforts. Except it was more of a training session than a meeting. He decided that he wanted to interview the six wives of Lucius because when the rapist stood trial on multiple counts for his crimes on Atlantis, he wanted to be able to show the court that Lavin had a history of this type of behaviour. Jack had clued him in on the conversation he’d had with Dr Beckett where he virtually offered to supply him with the potion so he could rape women too, proving he knew exactly what he was doing.
Unfortunately, even though it was in the former CMO’s report, they may not be able to use it in court, but he could use the conversation with Sheppard because he would be there to testify and be questioned. However, if they could find anyone on Winya, Lavin’s home planet or beyond, who he might have had a similar conversation with DiNozzo wanted it. It would demonstrate intent.
So, he had recruited some people to assist in questioning the villagers. Daniel and Vala had volunteered. Amelia was up for the challenge and Cadman was a given. He’d ummed and ahhed about whether to ask Aoife to travel off-world, even if ostensibly Winya seemed like a safe enough planet, finally deciding not to ask her. However, she’d volunteered after he told her what was planned. She also recommended he ask Dr Biro if she would consider going but he noted that she didn’t mention Dr Keller.
He discovered from Aoife that Barbara Biro had started her specialty in psychiatry nearly a year in and was having constant conflicts with her supervisor who was a staunch old-school Freudian psychiatrist. Barbara had told him that Old Siggy was a crackhead, who, when he wasn’t snorting cocaine and wrecking his nasal mucosa, had his head so far up his own ass he undoubtedly could tell what he ate for lunch. Needless to say, it had been suggested by the powers that be when her supervisor went supernova that she change specialties STAT. Still, Aoife had assured him that unless there were any lurking Freudian psychotherapists on Winya, Barbara would be incredibly empathetic, she just happened to be more of a fan of Jungian and Erickson therapies. Since he trusted Dr O’Shea’s judgement, he asked Dr Biro for her help, and she immediately agreed.
Teyla had offered to go and normally he’d have accepted her help with open arms. He found her a very calming and empathetic person to be around but unfortunately, Tony had to turn her down. As one of Lavin’s victims, he couldn’t compromise the case he was building against the serial rapist. Sofie Danziger deserved justice and since he couldn’t make Elizabeth Weir answer for her actions, then Lavin must be held accountable for his. So, all up they had managed to scrounge together six interviewers – seven, counting himself and he felt that they had a good group of people.
Now it was just a matter of getting together to train them all in how to interview a witness or speak to a survivor of sexual assault so that they weren’t further victimised yet gave evidence that was admissible in a trial. He would explain how it was crucial not to go putting words in their mouths even if the interviewer was only trying to be helpful. Also, impress upon them how important it was to avoid asking doubled barrelled questions which the defence could argue was ambiguous as to what they were referring to. Tony would also emphasise how important it was to avoid leading the witness with questions.
He would leave it up to Aoife to handle the empathetic aspects of interviewing. For example, how to respect a victim’s personal space and not crowd them or loom over them. Avoid using language that might be considered controlling by giving them choices, such as asking them if they would like to have a seat. Encouraging them to choose where to sit rather than telling them where to sit. They were unimportant things, yet they helped a victim to feel in control of the process. She would talk to them about needing to pay close attention to body language and backing off when the interviewee was struggling to hold it together. That and other critical information about interviewing sexual assault victims such as how to deal with panic attacks.
To be honest, he was a tiny bit worried when Daniel volunteered. Yeah, he was an archaeologist and after all his years on the job, a heck of an anthropologist too. He was highly empathetic and had excellent communication skills but a) he was a male and b) he didn’t have a frame of reference when it came to rape. Now lots of males worked with survivors of rape but they generally had a ton of training and usually worked in tandem with a female cop so that the witness had the option of talking with them or not. He decided to pair him with Amelia who was the least experienced not only because of her lack of training because he didn’t think he and Vala should work together. The overt sexuality between the pair was not appropriate for working with sexual assault survivors who were incredibly attuned to subtext.
It was only later in the day when he stopped by to talk as he sometimes did after Tali had gone to bed that Daniel revealed both he and Jack had been drugged and had non-consensual sex with aliens. He told him about Hathor coming to the base and her ability to produce a compound and drugged them.
“We believe it was similar to Seth’s Nish’ta… which you know nothing about…” he trailed off in embarrassment before picking up his story.
“Anyway, they were similar but not identical substances since Seth could control anyone in his cult, but Hathor’s element only worked on males. It rendered us highly susceptible to her suggestions and infatuated by her beauty. Janet, Cassie’s mom, believed it was similar to a pheromone and it allowed her to control every male on the base. She planned to spawn a new army of Goa’ulds by using our guys as Jaffar to incubate the juvenile symbiotes,” he said with a deep shudder.
“When I realised that she needed human DNA so we would not reject the larval Goa’uld, I fought her, but she kept blowing the pheromone into me and I couldn’t resist her.
“Hathor raped you to get your DNA?” Tony stated, feeling like this was getting a little too close to home for comfort.
“A Goa’uld stole Sha’re from me – and raped her. There was no way I wanted to have sex with a Goa’uld or help her make her evil babies, but I couldn’t resist her even though I wanted to. She told me, ‘We do so enjoy the method of procuring the code of life in your species.’ And then forced me to give her sperm,” he said angrily.
“Fuck, Daniel! I don’t know what to say. Being raped is inexcusable but to take your DNA against your will is so wrong on every level.”
“Yeah, even if she is dead, I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”
Tony was almost afraid to ask, “What happened to her?”
After she spawned her young, she turned Jack into a Jaffar and made him her First Prime as a reward because he killed Ra, her father /husband who she loathed. Luckily, the awesome female members of the SGC saved Jack in the nick of time and kicked her butt. Thankfully, Sam made sure that none of the baby symbiotes survived, but by that time, Hathor had used the stargate to escape.”
“How can you be sure she is dead, then?” Tony asked worriedly.
Because Jack killed her in a cryogenics tank after she kidnapped Sam, him and me and made O’Neill a host for a Goa’uld which he was pretty pissed about let me say. Not of a fan of the Goa’uld is our Jack,” he chuckled weakly.
Well, ya know, I can’t say as I blame him,” Tony told him, shaking his head.
“Neither do I.” But you haven’t asked me about Jack’s experience with non-consensual sex and being drugged,” Daniel responded.
“Um because I figured it was private and he might not want people talking about it,” Tony said a little pointedly, feeling like if he was Jack, he wouldn’t be too happy.
“Yeah, well when it happens on a mission that you get infected with nanites that age you forty years in a week or two and you can’t come back to the SGC to get medical assistance, there is no such thing as privacy,” Daniel retorted. “Pretty much everyone knows about it. They actually use his experience as a teaching case before any newbie recruits go off-world for the first time, to warn them,” Daniel shrugged.
“Okay since I’m a newbie and I’ve already been off-world a few times, you better let me have it,” he said, still feeling weird about the fact it was common knowledge.
“We travelled to this planet called Argos – it was beautiful and all the people there were young and beautiful. But there were no old people, and the young children grew up from babies to children in a matter of days. Anyway, they were all flirty with us and they made a feast for us. The thing is that in the Milky Way, many of the civilisations don’t use the stargate as they do here in Pegasus. So, when we would come through the stargate they thought we were gods and wanted to worship us. Often the Goa’uld were the only ones who used the stargate and they told everyone they were gods and demanded people worship them, so you can see why we were got treated like gods. Drove Jack crazy!”
Daniel chuckled at his friend’s discomfort. “He never was comfortable with all the saluting and bowing and scraping to the brass either, not even now, when he is the brass,” he confided. “Anyway, if Jack has a weakness, it’s cake or pie. The guy has a real sweet tooth and Sammy goes nuts for the blue jello,” he reminisced.
“So this gorgeous young woman, who was called Kenthia sidles up to Jack and offers him a piece of cake and cuz he was trying to be polite and partly cuz he loves his cake, he takes a piece and eats it. What none of us know is that it’s drugged, it isn’t just cake it is a wedding cake and when she offered it to him, she was proposing and when he took a piece and ate it then he accepted her proposal. She leads him off and consummates the marriage – we didn’t realise he was drugged or married. He wakes up the next morning not remembering how he ended up in her bed and with a raging case of sexually transmitted infection, courtesy of nanites who rapidly age him. Jack ends up being an octogenarian and banned from coming back to Earth because they don’t want him infecting anyone else.”
“Okay, that’s fucking frightening,” Tony said grimly when Daniel stopped his recitation. “You must have found a way to reverse the effects because he isn’t an octogenarian anymore.
“Yeah, it is, but it certainly was a harsh lesson about not taking anything for granted.”
So, after learning that Daniel was a sexual assault survivor too, he felt much less concerned about him heading off to Winya, but he stood by his decision to pair him up with Amelia. The villagers were fairly simple folk according to the reports of those people who had been there, it was possible that Lucius ‘wives’ would be uncomfortable talking about sex to men. Of course, he could be wrong, but he thought it was better to be prepared.
After Dr O’Shea had everyone practise by pairing up with another team member and have someone role-play being the victim and the other person interview them, they decided to schedule the visit to Winya for three days after the training sessions, so that rosters could be adjusted for Cadman, Barnes, Dr Biro, and Aoife, as it could be tricky to get everyone time off together. He would supervise the mission and take over any interviews if they ran into trouble. He was also eager for the other villagers to be questioned about Lavin’s habits, particularly what if anything, the predator told anyone about the potion that would have women lining up.
Meanwhile, they had scheduled the interview with Monique Girard today and Miko and Radek tomorrow morning in the new interview room and adjoining observation room with the two-way window which Atlantis had created. He’d taken Janae Progenius’ suggestion seriously and informed Atlantis, that he needed interview facilities and could she help make it happen. He felt kind of stupid speaking to the star city, even now he knew that tens of thousands of years ago, Atlantis had been a living and breathing Ancient.
Now he had two state-of-the-art interview and viewing rooms plus Cadman had requisitioned digital recording equipment, LCD monitors to reply video or display photographs or forensic results as required, and they were all set to go. Of course, as great as his new facilities were, they had come at a cost. To create his interview rooms, Atlantis had evicted a couple of linguists and a palaeobotanist from their offices to create his interview rooms and they had let him know they weren’t happy.
JP had seemed confused at their irritation since Atlantis had provided them with new offices that were airier and better lit, plus they were closer to their laboratories. Tony shrugged, before trying to explain to the AI entity that somehow it had become increasingly acceptable for people to get angry about the slightest inconvenience. He didn’t know about the three scientists, but he suspected it could be a case of scientific affluenza; since the staff on Atlantis got to play with toys left by the Ancients, the likes of which most scientists back on earth couldn’t even dream about.
He did a little digging and discovered that the palaeobotanist was outraged to have to move offices because he considered his work to be of far greater significance to the cosmos than that of a dumb cop who was probably just sitting on his fat ass drinking coffee. As for the linguists, Doctors Greta and Heinrich Sacre were pissed off because their former office had been a couple of minutes’ walking distance from their private quarters.
So, he was right in his first guess it was more than likely a case of scientific affluenza or if you like, Wohlstandsverwahrlosung which was an awesomely brilliant blended German word that referred to moral decay and depravity caused by or concurring at the same time as the obscene economic wealth of an entire society.
JP was confused. (I do not understand how this relates to your new interrogation facilities.)
Tony snorted, (Yeah well it relates because Wohlstandsverwahrlosung refers to a state of festering decay that society can fall into, because it has had it too easy for so long. You start to think your petty grievances and run of the mill successes are in any way on par with the pain and struggles of people with real existential problems, say for example the Athosians, decimated generation upon generation and then abducted wholesale and used for sick genetic experiments. They have every right to complain about how badly they suffered yet they are grateful to have survived.)
(The Athosians are good kind people, who if not constantly culled, would be much more technologically advanced than even the Genii.) Janae Progenius told him.
(Their loss is great and then compare this with the scientist who come to Atlantis after all the sacrifice and pain by the Athosians and the scientists and military forces endured. They have relative safety, by contrast, now the Wraith have been beaten back. It means they can act all entitled about the importance of their own small research endeavours, especially since the facilities and equipment are second to none and way better than on Earth.)
(And the screaming and yelling that they do is a part of this wohlstandsverwahrlosung of which you speak?) the AI asked, mangling the pronunciation.
“Vohl-shtunce-fair-var-low-zoong,” Tony spoke it out loud, slowly, knowing JP would only require hearing the word once to be able to nail the pronunciation next time. It was an artificial intelligence program, after all.
(And yeah, I think the faux moral outrage and the entitled rants and anger are a part of it. I’m pretty certain that it becomes addictive, and it makes individuals with mass insecurities feel powerful,) he mused knowing the strong connection between emotions and neurochemicals in the brain.
(I assumed that Dr McKay had infected many scientists who throw tantrums at the least little problem with his arrogance. It is something that he has in common with the Ancients.)
Tony choked, because he never expected such sagacity from a computer program, even if it was AI that meant it was constantly learning.
(Oh, I think there is some truth in that, JP but not in an infection as in catching the rhinovirus sort of way. More in that if commonly agreed-upon standards of behaviour which exist to make life more civilised and safer for society are not upheld, then those mores become weaker, especially if the people stomping on them aren’t sanctioned.)
(Do you mean detention?) JP suggested hopefully.
(Not necessarily, there would be a lot of scientists in the brig if that were the case,” he chuckled. “But calling out of the behaviour, loss of privileges, shunning by the majority of the society, a strengthening of values,) Tony explained.
While it was an amusing conversation to have with JP, he realised that this was something that Atlantis management needed to address asap. They had seen how the Ancients had handled having so much technology and scientific advancement, creating chimera, and leaving tech lying around for races such as the Goa’uld to steal and use to enslave billions of people. They created an army of fighters in their image to take on their chimera but unlike the Wraith, the Asurans just wanted to have their mommy and daddy’s, unconditional love. Where was the harm in that, hey?
However, when that parental love was denied and the Ancients tried to reduce them to ashes, the Asurans had turned into megalomaniac empire-building obsessed teens, intent on giving the Ancients the nanite equivalent of we’ll show you, attitude as they became ever more arrogant and insane. Because solving the problem of the Wraith by exterminating their food source wasn’t absolutely batshit crazy.
JP alerted him that Captain Cadman had escorted Dr Girard into the second interview room, designed for speaking to witnesses or victims. It was light and bright and had comfortable seating arranged to be friendly and unintimidating, unlike the other interview room that was intended to be imposing. In the witness friendly room, there were coffee and tea making facilities plus a small fridge with bottled water and sodas. By the time he slipped into the observation room, Dr O’Shea had arrived, and Laura was making coffee for herself and Monique and a green tea for Aoife.
Once they were all settled, sitting on the oversized blue leather seats with no arms that were formed in a semi-circle with Girard sitting next to Laura and the seat next to her left empty as Aoife sat on Cadman’s other side, It was a deliberate choice of seating arrangement so that the two women didn’t make Monique feel hemmed in. The head of Atlantis’ security began with the screed the trio had agreed to before the meeting. That is, in the course of investigating Colonel Sheppard’s disappearance she and Special Agent Paddington had acquired information that alerted them to several sexual assaults that had taken place when Lucius Lavin a resident of the planet Winya took over Atlantis. They knew that he was a serial rapist on Winya, having admitted as much to Colonel Shepard and Dr Beckett. Plus, Colonel Sheppard had confirmed it with one of his victims.
Monique looked guarded as Laura paused and took a sip of her coffee. She was a Marine, so she didn’t wince, but Tony resolved to send a message back to General O’Neill to bring back the good stuff when he arrived via Midway II next week. He was due to be back already, but data uncovered by Colonel Carter had delayed his return.
The scientist looked at Laura and Aoife. “Okay, I’m not sure why you are telling me this, though.”
“Cadman shrugged. “Because we have reason to believe that you were a victim too and we are awfully close to tracking him down and arresting him. When we do, he will be transported back here and held in the detention centre, and you wanted to let you know because it might cause you distress.”
Acting incredibly composed although he wondered if it was a mask, Monique nodded. “Thank you for the information, Captain, I appreciate it, although I doubt that I will experience distress. If you mean what you say and that piece of excrement is really going to be held to account, then I will be ecstatic, but I will hold off on a celebration until it occurs,” she responded.
Laura looked dumbfounded; Aoife remained more collected. Tony, via comms told Laura to confirm that Lavin raped the scientist.
“So, I just need to clarify for the record that you are acknowledging that when he gained control of the base and drugged everyone, he had non-consensual sex with you?”
“Yes, Captain Cadman that is what I’m saying and that I fell pregnant with Felix as a result,” she replied with a truly freaky degree of aplomb. Seriously what the shit was going on?
“I see,” Laura managed to get out.
Monique looked at her quizzically. “You seem shocked, Captain, but I’m assuming you already knew that Lavin technically ‘raped’ me because I registered a formal complaint about him with Dr Weir,” she said, a touch of anger finally bleeding through the façade she was maintaining.
Tony was immediately in Cadman’s ear, telling Laura to ask Monique if she would be willing to speak to him and give a formal statement. She relayed the request and Monique considered it thoughtfully before replying she would be willing if they assured her that her testimony was going to be used to make Lavin pay for his crimes.
Laura assured her that even though Lavin was going to be facing other charges, Alex was determined to charge him with the sexual assault cases because he was determined that one of his victims, Dr Sophie Danziger find justice even though she was dead. Cadman told the Canadian scientist she was going to step out and report to Agent Paddington, who she was certain would wish to hear what she had to say.
After she exited the interview room, Tony watched as Girard’s façade crumble significantly. “Sofie? She was one of his victims too? Oh, poor Ilsa.”
Aoife who had remained silent up to this point, asked her, “So you knew Dr Danziger?”
“And Dr Meier. My quarters used to be about five doors down from them. I guess you could say we were neighbours. When Felix was born, I was assigned bigger quarters in another section. I had no idea she was one of his conquests too,” she replied sadly. “I thought that she was struggling with her identity, which is what Ilsa believed too.”
“You mean because she was lesbian?”
“Well, yes, but her upbring and religious beliefs were at odds with her sexuality. Ilsa seemed to think in her last few weeks she was under enormous pressure trying to reconcile who she was, with who she’d been brought up to be.”
At that point, Tony entered the interview room followed by Cadman. He wished he had a fully trained agent who could do this, considering his previous connection to Girard, but he would just have to settle for having Laura and Aoife as impartial witnesses to him taking Dr Girard’s statement. He greeted Felix’s mother quietly before sitting down on the other side of her but leaving the seat directly next to her vacant, wanting to avoid invading her space given he was physically a large and imposing male.
“Captain Cadman has been explaining that you are willing to make a formal statement about Lucius Lavin raping you when he took over Atlantis five years ago?” he said.
“If you want me to, although I’m not sure that it is going to do any good. Can you guarantee that if I do this, Lavin is going to pay for what he did?”
Tony stared at Monique and thought about how to answer her. “Dr Girard, if Felix came to you today and asked you to guarantee that you wouldn’t die this year what would your reply be?”
“That I’m healthy but I can’t guarantee that I won’t die this year. Things happen.”
“And so, I’m going to give you my assurance that I will do everything in my power, as I have throughout my career in law enforcement, to make sure Lavin is held responsible for his crimes. Things happen – he could drop dead of a brain infarct or a bullet tomorrow. A judge who is blind, deaf, and brain-dead might set him free but that is not likely to happen. I have the backing of my boss – the director of Homeworld Command and other very influential people are supporting this investigation. I will try my hardest to see that you experience justice,” he told her passionately.
“Okay, thank you for not lying to me, Agent Paddington. I just have a couple more questions before I decide to make a formal statement, although I’m quite happy to speak off record,” she said.
Tony said, “I appreciate your willingness to speak off the record but what I need to nail this guy is a formal statement that I can put before a judge. So go ahead and ask me your questions and I’ll do my best to answer them.”
“Before I go on record, I need to clarify that if I do this, I’m not breaching my non-disclosure agreement and the Official Secrets Act?”
Tony had not been expecting that. He considered her question carefully. “I do not believe so, Doctor. I am a US federal agent, a personal appointment to this base by the President of the United States and have accreditation with the UK and Interpol. You are giving evidence of an alleged crime that took place on Atlantis which I am investigating to bring charges against Mr Lavin of Winya. The trial will take place per accepted military law and as it takes place on a classified military facility, will not be made public. However, in my opinion, none of that precludes you from testifying or giving formal statements. I’m not sure why you would think it might,” he told her.
“But when I reported the matter to Dr Weir just after it happened and we received inoculations to the drugs, she said that she had been in contact with a representative on the International Oversight Agency and was ordered to drop the matter as a trial would put me in breach of the non-disclosures we had to sign to come to Atlantis.”
“I don’t see how that is possible Dr Girard. You weren’t planning on testifying in an open court and we intend to try Lavin in a special military trial on Atlantis,” he told her. “So, I don’t see any issue, but I can check with Admiral Chegwidden who is a highly qualified and respected military and civilian lawyer and judge,” he offered.
“Yes, I would appreciate it.”
He smiled his professional but empathetic smile, “Consider it done. I’ll get him down here right now if he’s available and you can ask him yourself.”
After requesting that Chegwidden join them, he focused back on Monique. “Do you happen to know who it was that Dr Weir consulted with on the IOA?”
“Elizabeth said it was Xiaoyi Shen, the Chinese representative. I tried to speak to her about it when she came here three years ago to conduct Mr Woolsey’s appraisal, but she told me it was very unfortunate but when it came to matters of international security, an individual’s rights could not take precedence.
“Elizabeth was supportive – she was raped too, you know. But there was nothing she could do, her hands were tied. But she said that the case, even if it ever went before a judge would get thrown out because I didn’t say no, so he didn’t rape me, so there was no point in fighting for it.” Monique said.
Tony held up his hands. “Okay, Doctor, I’m going to need to ask you to stop talking about this until Mr Chegwidden gets here. I want all of this information to be duly documented and I want to ensure we do that by the book.”
Seeing how alarmed she looked, he hastened to assure her, “Monique, you aren’t in any trouble, I promise. It’s just that what you are telling me is so serious and out of line that I need for it to go on the official record. I’d prefer that you only have to do this once. Okay?”
She stared at him for several minutes before he saw something shift in her eyes. Tentatively, she nodded, and he realised she had decided to trust him even just a little. Knowing how vulnerable that must make her feel, he stood up and went over and made himself a cup of hot chocolate and refills for the other occupants. He went ahead and made a cup of coffee for A.J. feeling that it was a fairly safe choice for a former Navy SEAL and Judge Advocate General.
He sent a mental message to Janae Progenius asking how long before Chegwidden arrived and was informed that he was in the transporter at that moment.
Smiling at Laura, he asked her to meet the Admiral at the transporter and show him in. He’d go but he wanted to make sure that Monique didn’t blurt out anything else before he could get it properly recorded.
This information was like nitroglycerine!
Chapter 11 Third Time Lucky
Three days later, Tony and his team of interviewers made their way to Winya to the settlement where five years ago, AR-1 encountered Lucius Lavin. The village was like the medieval pictures he’d seen in books, and he was glad that he’d told everyone to wear civvies, so they didn’t intimidate the Winyans when they interviewed them. He talked to the two teams that Lorne had insisted accompany them, recommending that they also eschewed their normal SGA, and although she wasn’t sure what had prompted that request, Major Teldy had shrugged good-naturedly and decided to humour him.
Her all-female team was shadowing them in the Winya village while Captain Malotti’s team were guarding the stargate to monitor in case any unfriendlies might come through the stargate. While the Wraith had been beaten back significantly, it didn’t pay to let their guard down. Besides there were still pockets of Wraith who had missed the major battles, plus many pesky Wraith warships were still out there and becoming ever more of a problem. Not to mention there were rebel Genii militias, as evidenced by Kolya’s thugs, still wandering around looking to pick fights with Atlantis personnel, all good reasons why Lorne insisted the mostly civilian interviewers should be well protected.
Frankly, he was grateful that Lorne was so cautious. Tony had to admit that he was more than a little paranoid about his team, particularly Dr Biro and Dr O’Shea. He knew Cadman, Vala and Daniel were far more seasoned than he was in terms of off-world experience, but it was his plan to go to Winya and he felt responsible for them all. As for Amelie, thanks to her badass kickboxing skills plus the hand-to-hand combat skills Ronon had taught her, she was very capable but technically, she was an analyst and hadn’t been off-world any more than he had but it was the psychologist and the doctor about which he was most concerned.
It was the first time either Aoife or Barbara had been off-world in the Pegasus galaxy, and he was a nervous wreck. Still, the sooner they got started the sooner they could head back to the relative safety of Atlantis. He assigned people to interview Lavin’s six former wives, leaving Willa for himself since she had seemed comfortable speaking to Sheppard. He had given everyone a list of questions they needed to ask. He wanted to know if Lavin had tried to have sex with his wives before he returned the first time from M6H 491 and if so, what their response had been. He was interested to know if any of the wives had children with Lavin and if they used any birth control measures since he wondered how at least three of the women on Atlantis had fallen pregnant, statistically he thought that was odd,
He’d talked to Barbara Biro about it, and she’d started by saying that it was Atlantis – where the impossible was commonplace but speculated about the possibility of menstrual synchrony theory, although initially, she’d referred to it as the McClintock Effect. When he’d stared at her blankly she explained it was menstrual synchrony that something in Lavin’s potion had forced the females on base to synchronise their cycles. Tony asked if that was real because he’d assumed it was an old wives tale that the female college students of his acquaintance had learned from their mothers. Barbara said shrugged her shoulders and told him it was a theory that wasn’t easy to prove or disprove for several reasons, but it would account for why at least three of the four Atlantis victims had fallen pregnant.
Miko and Radek admitted that she had been raped more than once by Lavin, but the two scientists had started seeing each other a couple of months before he took over the city and had been trying to have a baby as Miko said her biological clock was running out, so Radek could be Kazumi’s biological father. Tony had offered to arrange a DNA test so they could find out and they were still thinking about it. Aoife had recommended that no one pressured them – it must be their decision.
Still, discounting Kazumi, which left Teyla, Monique and Sofie Danziger pregnant to Lavin, which was statistically significant according to Barbara. She had hypothesised that the pheromone-based potion must have played a role. She explained that pheromones sent chemical signals to other humans, signally sexual arousal, attraction, and fertility. If the potion could somehow induce ovulation which was a real phenomenon in some animal species apparently, that was important to know. Dr Biro was certainly excited about the possibilities for infertility issues, but Tony was more interested in if Lavin had found some other way to increase his fertility and if so, was he deliberately trying to impregnate women with his offspring.
If he had knowingly tried to make the Atlantis victims pregnant with souped-up sperm somehow, he was going to find some way to charge him with that too. It was one thing to not take precautions to prevent unplanned pregnancy and since he was raping his partners, it was a given that the pregnancy was unwanted, he found it unforgivable if it was planned by him. He’d talked to Dr O’Shea, and he knew that he was to some extent projecting his own anger at Ziva using him as a sperm donor without his consent, but honestly, just how many babies had Lavin fathered as he raped his way across the Pegasus galaxy?”
As he spoke with Villa, he learnt that the Winyans were no more into polyamory than most of the residents of Earth were. Not that what Lucius had engaged in could by any stretch of the imagination be classified as polyamorous, since it would need the full consent of all the partners and the only one capable of doing that had been the one drugging his victims. But the point was that simple folk were disgusted by the multiple wives and although the women were victims, there was a perception amongst the Winyans that if the women had been more virtuous, they would have fought harder to refuse to share the marriage bed with him. The fact Lavin engaged in orgies with multiple women at the same time sickened most people, particularly the victims and there had also been victim-blaming and shaming which sent Tony into a rage that he had to keep under wraps. It was fortunate that he was so good at undercover work.
Tony had been a cop for six years before he worked at NCIS for a decade and a half. He’d worked in Vice for over a year and investigated sexual assault and rape cases in all types of victims. His heart bled for these women and the innocent children they’d been forced to carry, whether they wanted to or not. There were nine children, several more hadn’t made it to full term but they, like their innocent mothers were looked down upon and he desperately wanted to get his hands on that narcissistic monster Lavin. He intended to make sure he spent the rest of his miserable and hopefully very long life, paying for what he’d done to the Winyans and the women on Atlantis.
Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, Willa told him that Lucius’ second wife was her sister Heleen. The two sisters, despite having a close and loving relationship before Lucius had decided to ‘marry’ them both, had become incredibly jealous of each other as they fought over who would be the one who he shared his bed with. Willa started to sob, describing the terrible shame that she felt for all of the unclean acts she’d committed during her marriage to him.
Tony had been horrified when she explained that amongst her people, the penalty for her actions was death. However, any of his wives who had children had their sentences commuted so that they could raise the children. Lucius’ third wife had not been so lucky, she’d been childless, and she had been put to death by stoning, not long after he returned from Atlantis. After Willa revealed that piece of information, Tony had to leave Willa for several minutes while he went and threw up.
Fighting incredibly hard not to get angry with these simple villagers for their victim-blaming and their misogyny, he was almost glad to be interrupted by an older woman, rather heavyset and plain of features who excused herself.
“Fair day, Sir. My apologies for the interruption but I understand that you be from the Great City of the Ancestors?”
Taking a deep breath, he nodded. “Fair day to you, Madame. I indeed come from Atlantis, how can I help you,” he asked her.
“My name is Filiya, and I have an urgent message for Thomas Magnum.”
Feeling a fluttering in his gut, he tried to remain calm. “And what is the message you wish to give him, Filiya?”
“I know he is offering a reward for the capture of Lucius Lavin, and he is on Winya. He is hiding in a ruined farmhouse outside the village, but he sneaks into the tavern late at night to eat a hearty meal and sleep in a soft bed.”
“What is he doing on Winya?’ he asked not knowing if the woman could be trusted or not.”
“He is on the run from Thomas Magnum who has promised a reward for his capture. Many do not like Lucius,” she said, as Villa snorted ironically. “They are ready to turn him in.”
“But why come back here? I thought he was run out of town?” he persisted.
“Because Lucius is desperate and turns to family. His mother runs the tavern, and he has begged Jeroze, my son, to give him coin and supplies.”
Tony heard the bitter outrage in the woman’s voice and knew she was not a good enough actor to lie to him. “And you and Jeroze are family to Lucius?”
“Jeroze is his son, and I am his wife. Lucius’ lawful wife before he ran off with these whores, these husband stealers,” she said, pointing at Villa with hate in her eyes.
He wanted to yell at this woman – she had no right to blame Willa for Lucius’ narcissism and his predatory sexual behaviour, but he also understood that Filiya had been horribly wounded by this monster too. Being cast aside for young, beautiful women, some of them little more than girls (even though he’d taken them against their will) must have been a bitter blow to her self-esteem. Now was not the time to try to change her attitude – if that was even a possibility. Right now, his priority was going to be making sure they apprehended Lucius Lavin and held him accountable for the terrible things he had done.
He squeezed Willa’s hand and whispered, “It was not your fault,” as he saw the tears in her eyes. He made a silent promise to help these women, but the way to do that was to catch Lavin to start with.
“Filiya, do you think that Jeroze could show me where he is hiding at these ruins? I work with Thomas Magnum and if we can capture him, Thomas Magnum will reward you richly,” he promised.
“Please. Sir, do I have your word that you won’t claim the bounty out from under us? I am ashamed to betray my husband, but he left me with nothing. I am not a wealthy woman, I have little of worth and I have my son and daughter to raise.”
“I promise I will make sure you receive a generous reward for helping us to capture him,” Tony said as he called Major Teldy on his comms and asked her and her team to meet them in the town square asap. Already he was formulating a plan, using Teldy and her three team members as bait.
When his team heard what was going on, they all wanted in too. He quickly agreed that Vala, Cadman and Amelia could play the bait and leave Anne and her ladies to take him down. There was a certain poetic justice in using his weakness for beautiful women to lure him into the open and have the all-female team capture him. As he explained his idea to have the trio wander around picking flowers and distracting him so that Teldy’s team could surround him, Vala disappeared with Willa and her sister Heleen. They returned with armloads of clothing: long skirts and petticoats, peasant blouses, corsets, and various other stuff he couldn’t identify to assist them to pull off the illusion of being from Winya.
Vala herded them into a residence that he assumed must belong to Willa or her sister to change but learnt it belonged to wife number five – Lahn and her father Yas Yeeps. When they emerged ten minutes later, Cadman and Barnes had untied their hair and Dusty Miller, gave a wolf whistle, remarking that the three women pulled off the slutty wench look, which earned chuckles most of the Atlantis delegation.
Tony was too busy trying to connect with Jeroze Lavin, a skinny boy who looked to be around eleven or twelve years old. He could sense the conflict in the kid. His father was a narcissist who abandoned him. He brought pain and suffering to Jeroze and his family, but the kid probably deep down still loved his father. He had expected Lavin’s son to be a little older and he wished he didn’t need to ask this of the lad.
He beckoned Daniel Jackson over. “Daniel, this is Jeroze Lavin, he is going to show us the ruined cottage where his father is holed up and then I need you to get him away, so Lucius doesn’t see him.”
Daniel nodded, “I can do that, Alex.”
Jeroze tugged on Tony’s sleeve. “Agent Alex… are you going to kill my father?” he asked.
“I don’t intend to, Jeroze but you do know that your father has done a lot of bad things that hurt too many innocent people. What happens when you do something bad?”
“My mother punishes me, sometimes she gives me extra chores, or I can’t play with my friends.”
“Well, it is time for your father to be punished and I have told all my people not to harm him unless he tries to hurt them.”
“But he told me he has special powers. No one can capture him,” he warned the two men, and they could sense the conflicting emotions raging within him.
Tony grinned. “I can capture him, Jeroze. I have special powers too,” he confided. “Mine are gifts from the Ancestors,” he told the boy which seemed to settle Jeroze’s emotions as he looked at him wide-eyed.
“Come then. I will show you where he hides.”
Having clued in the others on what his plan was, Edna and Aoife remained behind with the villagers while Jeroze led them to the abandoned cottage about one point five klicks south of the village. Once it was in distant sight, Teldy called a stop and handed the three women small earwigs to replace their standard issue comms which could tip Lavin off that Vala, Laura and Amelia were not from Winya. Somehow, they had managed to procure baskets made from some type of plant fibre and had been collecting wildflowers along the way. He also noted that someone, probably the sisters, Willa and Heleen had woven flowers through the three women’s long hair while he was talking to Jeroze. They looked suitably harmless, which was all to the good since they were bait to lure him out of his hidey-hole.
He and Daniel watched as they started meandering about, picking flowers, chattering about baking bread and basket making, well Valla did most of the heavy lifting when it came to the conversations about domestic matters and Tony wondered if indeed, she had done these activities before. She sounded authentic to him. He also noted that somehow while bending down to gather flowers, her peasant blouse had ridden down so low it barely covered her breasts and he figured it was intentional. He could see that she was a predator and somewhat like himself, who could easily slip into character when it was required.
As Teldy and her team were relying on the trio as a distraction they melted away to surround the ruins. Tony ordered Daniel and Jeroze to fall back to a safer distance where they couldn’t see what was going on. It was for the best in case it all went to hell in a handbasket. He didn’t want the kid to see anything that might be traumatic, not that he expected Lavin to resist.
Finally, after wandering around and filling up their baskets, Vala suggested they sit down and have something to eat, magically producing bread, some sort of soft cheese and dried meat from the bottom of her basket that had been wrapped in cloth. Oh, he seriously wanted to kiss her. She was playing Lucius like a well-tuned lute.
Sure enough, the combination of nubile female prey, combined with the opportunity to fill his belly was just too much for the odious narcissist. He appeared out of what Tony thought was probably a root cellar, calling out to the trio of flower gathers.
“Fair day to you, lovely ladies,”
“Fair day to you, kind sir,” they chorused sweetly.
“Would you like to partake of our simple meal with us,” Vala flirted with him demurely, while somehow managing to let him know she was anything but coy.
Tony had to hand it to her, she was a damned good con artist. He almost believed her coy act, except he knew how wicked she was. As Lavin came over and sat down, Tony mentally tripped the fail-safe mechanism on the personal shield generator which not only switched it off, but it deactivated so that only an Ancient or someone with an ATA gene such as himself would be able to reactivate it again. He sent two clicks down his comms – the prearranged signal that he’d deactivated the shield generator and Teldy’s team could converge on the target.
Lavin must have felt it switch off because he flinched, but Amelia neatly distracted him by asking would he like a drink of water and fluttering her eyelashes at him coquettishly. At which point Vala reached under her voluminous long skirt and numerous petticoats to access her holster, strapped to a shapely thigh. Like a jaguar striking out at its prey, she withdrew a Zat gun and hit him with a single blast, thankfully. Tony wanted him alive and well so he could stand trial.
Lavin crumpled, collapsing like a ton of bricks to hit the ground hard. Cadman, who was caught momentarily off guard because Val zatting him hadn’t been part of the plan, whipped out some military-grade zip-ties and proceeded to cuff him as Teldy’s team all converged, standing over the man who was responsible for the Genii militia capturing their CO and imprisoning him for almost five months.
“Hey,” Dusty Mehra railed at Vala. “You were only supposed to lure him in, we were supposed to take him down,” she glared at Lavin angrily as she went to kick him. Tony, who was making his way down to the group, growled at her over their comms.
“Sergeant! No one is to touch that festering pustule of shit unless he attacks you first. And since as he’s unconscious, keep your hands to yourself unless you want me to haul you before a military tribunal and charge you with assault and disobeying a direct order.”
While he understood their anger, Tony wanted the legal case he was inexorably building to be unimpeachable. Plus, they were setting brand new precedents here in Pegasus and he intended to run an ethical law enforcement agency. Misguided vigilantism would never be condoned while he was in charge.
Vala decided to deescalate the tense situation by apologising to Teldy’s team. “I know it wasn’t part of the plan to zat him. Sorry, not sorry,” she quipped.
Amelia joined in the snark. “It may not have been a part of the plan but us slutty wenches have to grasp an opportunity when it presents itself, Dusty,” she stated, pushing her boobs together and lifting them higher so they were practically busting out of the lowcut peasant top, as she fluttered her eyelashes flirtatiously at Sergeant Mehra. Dusty, whose eyes dilated with lust, chuckled before calling Amelia a twat teaser.
Tony decided to defuse the UST before he had Ronon coming after him for letting Amelia flirt with Mehra, since he didn’t think the Satedan was into sharing.
“So, it may not have been a part of our plan for you to shoot him, Ms Mal Doran, but there is a certain delicious irony with him getting pegged when you think about it,” he said seriously as several people who weren’t aware of his irreverent name for the Zat’ni’katel processed what he just said.
Rolling her eyes at him because Cadman knew exactly how he’d intended that remark to go down, she announced to the group, “Minds out of the gutter, ladies. Special Agent Paddington has an unfortunate habit of renaming things such as zats which he calls pegs.”
Teldy relieved that Mehra, who she admitted could be a hothead, had backed off, decided to play stooge. “Why do you call them pegs, Special Agent Paddington?”
“Because they would have to be the very first penis envy gun ever invented,” he said as the women all erupted into laughter.
Pulling out a card he, Chegwidden and AuClair had worked out the wording of, he prepared to read Lucius Lavin his legal rights when the guy finally regained consciousness. Meanwhile, he sat down to go over it while he waited. He also informed Daniel, Barbara, and Aoife that Lavin was in custody and there were no casualties, as Major Teldy informed Captain Malotti that they had Lucius Lavin in custody.
He hadn’t expected to be returning home with Lavin, but he had to admit that while their mission was a bust for today, they could and would return to complete it. He caught Cadman’s eye and she and Amelia made their way over to him and hunkered down awkwardly in their costumes.
“Problem?” she asked.
“No, but I was wondering if you and Amelia could head back to Atlantis and gather together some provisions for Filiya Lavin and her kids. Tell her this is just a partial payment. Find out what she needs – short term, long term. Does she have any other support to call upon? Will Lavin’s mother make trouble for her because she ratted him out? I want you to gather any intel you can.”
“Right, are you going to resume the interviews with the wives, Alex?”
“No, not today. I think it will be better to return later. I have information that I need to share before we proceed,” he told her.
Amelia said, “Is it okay to swing back by the village and get out of our slutty wench get-ups? It’s hard to walk in all this material,” she indicated the long skirts they were wearing.
Laura chuckled and Tony knew if anyone described it as a giggle, she would shoot them because hard ass Marines didn’t giggle. “So much material below the waist and too little above. I’m afraid my boobs are going to explode out of this scrap of cloth if I have to run or do anything strenuous,” she rolled her eyes for a second time. “I don’t think it would do my reputation has the head of security any favours turning up on Atlantis dressed like this, so I’m all in favour of getting changed before we go.”
Amelia had been staring in frank admiration at her friend’s chest, having complained before that Laura was more endowed than she was. “Not much chance of that happening with me,” she said a little wistfully. “But how weird is it that Winya thinks showing a woman’s legs is immodest, but they think parading around with your boobs on display, isn’t?”
“Not the only thing the folks around here got backasswards,” he growled, thinking about the fact they ran Lavin off their world for raping a bunch of young women and would have condemned them all to death for being victims except they’d carried his nine unfortunate offspring. All except wife number three who was childless – she got death by stoning for pity’s sake.
~o0o~
After they arrived back on Atlantis with Lucius Lavin under arrest, he informed his team that it would meet tomorrow at ten hundred hours, and he requested that they all prepare reports of what they managed to learn from Lucius’s wives before he stomped off to the brig. He needed to make sure that the prisoner was held in accordance with the requirements of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It would be better if they had a full legal code of justice drawn up before they began trying cases, but this was the real world and life was often messy.
For now, they would do the best that they could.
He had read Lavin his rights, his right to not answer questions, his right to a fair trial and to have legal representation. He advised him of some of the pending charges and told him there would be more, which seemed to shock the man. He demanded to see Dr Weir, to see Colonel Sheppard, Rodney McKay, or Carson Beckett. He told him that he would pass on his request. As with Porteus Kolya’s men, he observed the process to ensure that his rights weren’t violated while Lucius was strip-searched for weapons. Even though they had kept the rapes on Atlantis and Sheppard’s abuse locked down pretty tight, the military was furious at Lavin’s role in the colonel’s disappearance and was in a mood for payback.
After he’d ensured that Lavin received food, water, and adequate bedding he retreated to his quarters where Cassie was keeping an eye on his daughter. He was desperate to see Tali, but his emotions were all over the place and he didn’t want them bleeding out all over her. He had so much on his mind, but she deserved his attention – he refused to repeat the mistakes that Senior had made with him. As he took a deep breath, he sent a mental message to open the door. Entering, he noted how silent it was and spied a sheet of paper telling him that Cassie had taken Belle to the playground. It was her daily routine, and he was grateful to Cassie for taking his daughter to play.
Sinking, he thought about today. On paper it had been a good day, they had arrested Lucius Lavin and many of the people here on Atlantis who were ecstatic he’d been caught since he was responsible for Sheppard being taken. Since he’d taken over as military CO of Atlantis while still a major after the original CO, Colonel Sumner, who was taken by the Wraith when they were on Athos, John Sheppard had become a beacon of hope and the source of much pride to his troops. In the eight years of his command, he had gone on two suicide missions to blow up hive ships and undertaken countless other life-threatening assignments, returning time and again from the dead. Sheppard had created an aura of invincibility that had shattered his people when he disappeared for almost five months.
Rescuing him and capturing the people responsible had helped rebuild morale and Tony understood that and he was happy to have arrested Lavin. No not happy, that was not the right word to describe how he felt. Nothing about this case could make him happy. not even if he was successful in helping the serial predator’s victims receive long denied justice. What he supposed that he felt was relief that they had cleared the first of many hurdles on the path to achieving justice for Sophie and Mayuna who were both dead. All because of the actions of one man who couldn’t deal with the fact that women told him no, they didn’t want to have sex with him.
Plus, he was hoping to ensure that there was justice for Teyla, Torren and Kanaan, Monique and Felix, Willa, Heleen, Lahn, Ota, and Neese plus the nine children whose names he was yet to learn. Nine innocent Winyan children were considered by their own people to be tainted by their parent’s wickedness. It was outrageous!
Okay, so he couldn’t let go of what he’d learnt about the people on Winya and how they’d dealt with Lavin and his victims. Even back on Earth, he knew that many societies frown upon polyamorous relationships but what Lucius had done was NOT consensual, it was sexual slavery, pure and simple! When Atlantis had given the Winyans the antidote to Lavin’s potion in good faith, instead of taking care of these women, they had turned against their own and blamed them for not resisting him. Unlike every other person on Winya who had fallen under his thrall, they were punished for being promiscuous when they had no choice. It was unconscionable and it would have been even before Ziva decided to take what Daniel had called the code of life from him without his knowledge or permission.
He was so angry and frustrated and he was also pissed off by everyone on Atlantis who had given them the cure and then returned the sexual predator to his planet to be punished. Sent him home because they were too lazy, too ashamed, too intent on putting the whole sordid episode behind them, so they could deal with more pressing matters. The Lanteans had never bothered to find out the most basic of information about the Winyan society and how it regarded sexual assault and all because of that lapse in their moral duty of care, these women had been subject to further appalling abuse. Lavin’s third victim (he refused to refer to her as his wife) had been stoned to death because fate had dealt her the infertility card.
The fact that she likely went to her death feeling shame for what he did to her, just made it all the worse. What her people did to her made him want to shoot every last one of those stupid hypocritical fools.
None of the people of Winya had been able to resist him! NONE and if Lucius’ taste had run to having sex with guys, they would have been sexually assaulted just as easily. They certainly managed to debase themselves in other ways but weren’t punished for not being able to resist him. Yet the women who had turned him down when they had been of sound mind, were judged as immodest and weak when they were forced into sexual slavery due to the same damned potion. Talk about double standards He wanted to scream and rant and throw stuff at the unfairness of it all. Of the hypocritical duplicity of everyone who failed to resist him but failed to defend Ota, Willa, Neese, Heleen, Lahn and Mayuna.
Even if they’d been given a choice about being his mistresses, why was their penalty for the ‘crime’ death and his was expulsion from their world? It was barbaric and sexist, and he wanted to berate everyone on Atlantis who had joked with Lavin about his concubines, even if they were drugged. However, just as alcohol lowered inhibitions and removed filters, he was betting that this pheromone-based drug worked similarly, it did not cause them to adopt and express opinions that were anathema to them. The nudge, nudge lucky bastard having six wives, laughing and joking had been males and it was likely they secretly envied the detestable sexual predator for forcing young women to sleep with him.
Of course, he knew that his reaction was also, partly a reaction to the shocking details of what Monique had revealed when she gave her formal statement. The overarching narrative of her testimony was a massive indictment of how much power the Atlantis commander could yield on the classified base out in the middle of another galaxy. Dr Girard’s account of how Elizabeth Weir had claimed that the legal experts she consulted had told Monique that they couldn’t prosecute him, had left him furious. And Dr O’Shea, Laura Cadman, and A.J. Chegwidden. Once assured that Monique would not be violating her non-disclosure agreement with the IOA he and Cadman had withdrawn from the interview room, retreating to the observation area to watch the interview via the two-way mirror.
Girard had stated that Dr Weir said that they wouldn’t be able to prove that it was rape because…wait for it – Monique hadn’t ingested the drug, Lucius had. Technically she wasn’t drugged – he was. So, if she weren’t drugged, they couldn’t claim that it was non-consensual, which was just bullshit. Weir had likened it to a person wearing cologne or deodorant which made them smell nice to attract someone when they went out on a date.
He honestly didn’t believe Weir had claimed to have spoken to a legal expert, or if she had, that she had given a true and accurate account of what happened. After all, deodorant, perfumes, and colognes that made people smell nice to attract a sexual partner didn’t make people go on suicide missions just because they might be attracted to someone. It didn’t make a whole base turn against its commanding officer or threaten to shoot him and throw him into prison for criticising the guy who was wearing the cologne. It didn’t cause a team member like Ronon a highly trained soldier and lethal one-man Wraith killer to hunt down Sheppard and shoot him when he tried to stop Lavin from taking over the base.
Harmless colognes to make yourself attractive to others didn’t affect people so dramatically that when the person wearing the scent was no longer in their physical presence for a significant period, they suffered painful physical and psychological symptoms of withdrawal, not ever in his knowledge of law enforcement. Furthermore, if Lucius’s potion had been nothing more than an innocuous cologne/deodorant to make him more attractive to sexual partners, then how come a scientifically devised vaccine had been produced which created immunity to Lavin’s pheromone-based potion? It was sheer bullshit to claim that these women weren’t drugged and even a simple cop like him would have managed it, let alone a halfway competent attorney.
And the second ‘reason’ that Weir had trotted out, that had enraged Tony so badly was that her so-called experts had claimed that everyone had loved Lucius and were falling over themselves to make him happy. The fact that no one was injured when having sex and had enjoyed themselves during the act would make it hard to prove it was rape or that they suffered any ill effects from having sex with him. When Monique had argued that she was having an unplanned pregnancy with someone she would never in a million years choose to father her child and she thought that was compelling evidence, she’d been unprepared for the commander’s response that she claimed was based on a well-respected attorney.
Weir told her that most judges believed that it just wasn’t possible for someone to fall pregnant if they were being raped, that the mind-body connection had ways to prevent conception. Monique had responded angrily by saying that was a load of shit, but Weir had used the irrational example of infertile couples who gave up on the idea of having a child and decided to adopt a child instead. She claimed that the fact that they often fell pregnant once they stopped trying so hard, which she said showed there was a mental component to conceiving. Once they stopped viewing sex as a means to an end and relaxed and enjoyed the communion, they were able to conceive, which proved that Monique was relaxed and enjoying herself for conception to take place.
Tony had been beyond shocked by that insane logic which even if it were true, did not mean that if you got pregnant when forced to have sexual intercourse then it wasn’t really rape. He knew there was a lunatic fringe who touted this bullshit concept that women can’t get pregnant if they are raped because they wouldn’t enjoy it and their body wouldn’t allow conception to occur. It was complete crap but then to turn it around so if you conceived then ergo it was proof you weren’t raped, just the female whore regretting it later on and trying to blame an innocent guy, which was just so despicable he could find words to describe his loathing and anger.
It was really scary that in a first world country, like the USA that there still existed such stupidity. To hear that a well-educated person like Elizabeth Weir would parrot something so stupid (something she couldn’t possibly believe) horrified him beyond words. All to stop a woman from having her day in court to accuse her rapist which would then in turn threaten Weir’s job was beyond his comprehension. It was evil incarnate.
He had to hand it to Dr Girard, she had rebuffed the argument it was consensual, rejected the well you had a good time… so no harm was done argument. She’d strenuously refused to accept the scurrilous women who are raped don’t get pregnant because their body can stop conception idiocy. She was an educated person, a scientist and she had been determined to hold her rapist to account until Shen, the IOA representative entered the picture. Shen had pulled out the big guns and said that having a trial would threaten the security of the Earth and the top-secret information about the SGC and Atlantis. She’d reminded Girard that she had signed a non-disclosure agreement and if she breached it, she would find herself imprisoned for the next fifty years in an off-world detention centre.
It certainly explained why Monique was so closed off emotionally. It was probably the only way she could deal with her situation and not have a breakdown. Monique admitted that although she’d been brought up in a strict Roman Catholic family (like Sofie Danziger) she’d almost terminated the pregnancy several times but been talked out of it by Dr Beckett who felt she was conflicted and might regret her choice later on. Of course, what Beckett misdiagnosed as the conflict had been a typical reaction of a traumatised victim of sexual assault.
Tony hoped that if she did regret not terminating the pregnancy, and really, who could blame her, she was able to still give Felix the love he needed. That poor little boy was just as much a victim of what Lucius had done as she was.
Chapter 12 People in Glass Houses
As Tony sat there alone in his quarters, he made a mental checklist of things he needed to attend to. First and foremost, he had to write up his mission report on arresting Lucius Lavin. He needed to write up a proposal about getting some counselling services set up for Willa and the other victims and he would need to talk to Dr O’Shea to ask if she would co-write the proposal. They also needed to finish interviewing the Winyan women asap and he desperately needed to talk to Daniel and the anthropologist on Major Teldy’s team, Dr Alison Porter. Since she and clone Beckett were together, she would be told not to discuss it with him.
He also felt a desperate urgency, wanting to start building a psychological profile on Elizabeth Weir – another example of how the Dunning Kruger effect didn’t just apply to the uneducated or people who lacked intelligence. On some level, he needed to understand how someone who had supposedly gotten the gig, based on the need for greater transparency and oversight over the military and for her exemplary work in negotiating non-proliferation treaties could go so terribly off course. Based on Dr Girard’s statement it seemed that Weir had suddenly ended up conspiring with either the Chinese representative of the IOA or worst case, the whole fucking committee. If he could figure out what had turned her into such a hypocrite ready to throw away her long-held principles, maybe they could use it to prevent such a travesty from ever occurring again.
But even more pressing than a psych profile, was getting a code of law written that hopefully embraced the Pegasus galaxy and its peoples. The military code that A.J. was working on was easier because it wasn’t intended to apply to residents of different worlds in Pegasus. The international military code only applied to personnel from the expeditionary forces, so there was a precedence to work from in creating something that fit for purpose. The UN Charter of Human Rights, the Geneva convention, and military codes of conduct were good foundations for starters. But it was less black and white in Pegasus – did killing a hybrid creature or even conducting morally questionable medical experiments on them count as illegal acts?
How about dealing with planets where the people saw fit to banish a sexual predator for his crimes but put to death the women who had been his victims. All because the potion had initially been administered via their bread, but Lavin had discovered a more effective way to expose people. Imagine if some enterprising Wraith or the Genii or even the Rebel group of Asgard decided to develop a new method of mass infection.
He wished amongst everything that they’d found in the city that the Ancients had some sort of code of law and then it hit him. Maybe they had! After all, Zelenka had said more than once that they still had only just scratched the surface when it came to exploring all of the knowledge possessed by the Ancients and they had now been here for eight years. But since the main focus had been on looking for weapons technology and energy to power the city, the stargate and the drones by the Lantean scientists, there had been extraordinarily little exploration of the Ancients’ society, or their laws and culture.
“J.P., do you have time to chat?” he asked the AI program.
Janae Progenius didn’t respond at once. After approximately a minute, he answered Tony’s inquiry. (My apologies, I was doing something when you called.)
Curious despite himself he asked, (Do you mind if I ask you what you were doing?)
Chuckling, which always made Tony’s brain itchy, he said, (I have been watching Star Trek Voyager. Were you aware that they had a character called the Doctor who is an artificial intelligence program?)
Tony had watched the show a few times with McGee back when they were colleagues if not friends.
(No, not really. I only watched it a few times and I was more interested in watching the only female Captain in any of the spinoffs from the original. Kate Mulgrew was damned hot!)
J.P sighed, and wow, didn’t that feel weird when he did that too. (I see, then you do not know that they managed to create a hologram that gave him corporeality so he could move around and not be stuck in a computer.)
Once upon a time, he would have played dumb, but he no longer needed to make people think he was stupid. (No, I didn’t know that. So, what, are you going to try to create a hologram for yourself?)
(Would you have a problem with it if I should succeed?)
Shit! Wasn’t that a can of worms? It meant it was almost inevitable that people would find out about him, but Tony realised that ultimately J.P. would do what he wanted to, so he might as well be supportive.
(Should you succeed‽ C’mon J.P., you can’t con me. My father was a professional conman, plus, I happen to know that the technology already exists. There is a hologram that the expeditionary members encountered literally minutes after coming through Atlantis’ stargate. Show me, what do you got?)
Suddenly, there was a mostly corporeal, if slightly translucent figure of Richard Woolsey standing before him that was damned freaky.
(Ah J.P. why does your hologram look like Richard Woolsey in a Star Fleet uniform?)
(Whoa, so it does. I thought he looked familiar. I copied the form of the AI doctor on Voyager. Do you think that Mr Woolsey is an artificial intelligence holographic program?) Janae Progenius asked him in all seriousness.
And the parallels to five-year-old Tali were once again exceedingly obvious. Tony had learnt that when it came to humour, J.P. still had a long way to go.
(No, I don’t believe so. I just think he shares a spooky similarity to the actor who played that character on the show,) he said. (I hate to say it, but I do think that it might be a bit freaky if your hologram looked like someone already aboard Atlantis though.)
Pouting the AI said, (I suppose you are correct.)
There was some static before the AI hologram re-emerged bearing an uncanny resemblance to a young and sexy Jerry Ryan in a non-regulation Star Fleet uniform that left almost nothing to the imagination.
(This is Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One. She was a human called Annika Hansen who was assimilated into the Borg collective. I will try out this form for a while to see how it fits my personality,) J.P. said.
Tony nodded. Faced with a choice he’d take Jeri Ryan over Richard Woolsey any day.
(Now, what did you wish to ask me?)
(Oh, yeah, I was wondering if the Ancients had a code of law and justice that they abided by and could use to punish anyone who disobeyed it?) he asked, his fingers crossed.
Seven of Nine er Janae Progenius was silent for almost a minute as it considered his request. (Yes, it does. It has been amended over the years, well, at least until the Ancients abandoned the city ten thousand years ago. Would you like to study it?)
(That would be an awesome help, J.P., thank you.)
(I am pleased to assist you, Priceless.) Jeri Ryan erm Seven of Nine told him cheerfully. (It will be sent to your laptop as it is an exceptionally large file,) J.P. warned him as the former Borg drone disappeared minutes before Cassie and Tali returned from the playground.
He was definitely in a much better frame of mind after his little tête-à-tête with the AI program. Not only because they now had a code to help them draft an Intergalactic code of law but also the sheer ridiculousness of his holographic search for an identity. He wondered if J.P. had watched Star Trek’s Next Generation and fanboyed er fangirled Commander Data too. This brought up an interesting point…was J.P. binary or non-binary? He snorted in amusement – Tony had no idea how he ended as up as a mentor to a ten-thousand-year-old AI program.
While it was a little early, Cassie happily accepted his invitation to eat dinner with them in the mess. As he watched his daughter eat, he wondered about Janae Progenius. The AI program was up to something, he just couldn’t figure out what.
~o0o~
The next morning Tony made some chocolate chip pancakes for Tali before he took her to school, feeling virtuous for making her favourite breakfast. Alright, maybe he also felt a little guilty, since most people would probably say that it wasn’t very healthy. He wondered if parenthood was always going to be like this – filled with conflicting emotions about if he was doing it right or wrong.
Still, there were no conflicted feelings when he sought out Chegwidden to inform him that he’d procured the Ancient’s Code of Laws and Justice. His look of relief was heartfelt.
“I wish that had occurred to me sooner, Alex but it makes perfect sense that they would have had something in place. Can you send me the file?”
He nodded. “Yep, I can do that as soon as we translate them.”
Chegwidden looked a little chastened. “Damn it, I’d forgotten about that. Has any of the linguists been able to write a translation program yet?”
I’ll ask Daniel – I’m seeing him in about 45 minutes, so I’ll let you know,” he promised.
Although he was already wondering in the AI program could do that. He would ask Daniel, but he would check with J.P. too. his protégé must be pretty bored to be watching Star Trek after all. Maybe it was time to come clean about Janae Progenius and hope for the best.
~o0o~
Later at the meeting with the other interviewers on Winya, Tony gave everyone a SitRep about what he’d learned from Willa about how Lucius Lavin had been found guilty of abandoning his wife and children which was a crime on Winya. They also judged him to have taken six women from the village to be his common-law wives which was also a crime, since he was already married and Winyans were only permitted to have a single wife or husband. They further judged him to be guilty of depravity for forcing multiple ‘wives’ to have sex with him and other degenerate activities including having sex in the town square – again, something that was not permitted. Willa had hinted at further humiliations but hadn’t had a chance to give any details except that for his crimes as the Winyans saw them, he was cast out, sent off the planet and told he could never return.
He could tell most of the people in the room were disgruntled, it was an incredibly lenient sentence from their perspective. After all, he was a sexual predator and several of them expressed the view that if they hadn’t killed him, then the least that they should have done was neutered him so he couldn’t harm anyone else. Tony knew that even without functional genitalia, a man like Lucius posed a real danger to women because he had deep dark anger toward females who rejected his advances. There were other ways to cause them pain and humiliation because the real anger and sickness were in his mind and castration didn’t affect that or if it did, it likely would make him even harsher. But he understood their sentiments – castration was a simple consequence that your average person saw as both a punishment and a way to prevent it from happening again.
When he told them, steeling himself against the raging anger he felt, about how all six of his victims had been put on trial for their crimes, illegally marrying him and engaging in acts of sexual depravity, i.e., being forced to take part in sex orgies, they too had been found guilty. Since some of those acts had taken part in the town square, people had claimed that they had committed inappropriately lewd acts and unchaste. Daniel had hypothesized that even experiencing orgasms could have been seen by some patriarchal societies to be immoral, which had everyone fuming but their reaction to their sentence was incendiary. Probably because they believed it would have been less harsh than Lucius.
When he told them that they had all been sentenced to death, but had it commuted solely because they birthed his children and the Winyans had permitted them to live so they could raise the children, pandemonium broke out over the horrific treatment of six young rape victims.
In the chaos, Aoife approached him to ask, “Are you okay, Alex?”
Tony shook his head. “Not really, and you haven’t heard the worst yet.”
Staring at him shocked, she shook her head. “I’ll juggle my appointments. Come to my office at 1300 hours and we’ll talk,” she said before getting everyone to take their seats so he could finish his report.
When everyone was quiet again, he continued to tell them about the young woman who the others referred to as Lucius’ third wife and how she hadn’t any children, so her sentence hadn’t been commuted. Approximately three months after Atlantis sent Lavin back to Winya she had been stoned to death in the town square.
In contrast to before, the anger was much more subdued but more deadly and Tony figured it was fortunate that Lucius was residing in the Atlantis brig under guard right now.
It was the badass Marine captain who spoke for everyone in the room. “My god, Alex! We need to help those women.”
Tony nodded. “I agree, Cadman. This is why I was going to talk to Dr O’Shea about setting up some counselling and support services for them asap.”
Aoife said, “Absolutely. Come to my office at 1300 and we’ll figure out a way to do something even if I need to train new counsellors to do it,” giving him a legitimate reason to be in her office.
Of course, he wasn’t finished, he told them that Willa had told him that all up, Lavin’s victims had nine children to him and that his second victim, Heleen was Willa’s sister. Which made the four children they’d had between then both cousins and half-siblings and wasn’t that a whole heap of messed up.
Finishing up his report, he told his interviewers that Willa believed that they had betrayed themselves by not being able to control their lust and how she expressed how deeply ashamed she was of her actions. He conclude by saying that one of the first things they needed to investigate when they returned to Winya next week was the Winyan definition of a commuted death sentence.
It had been Cassie who had got him thinking when they had talked in the mess over dinner last night about how words could have similar but not the same meaning on Hanka, which was her home planet before the Goa’uld had killed everyone but Cassie. She said sometimes it had led to some embarrassing situations over the years and Tony realised that he’d applied the most common Earth meaning to a commuted death sentence but as Gibbs had been so fond of pointing out, never assume. To commute is also meant to reduce or lessen, not just to negate it and frankly, it was too serious a situation to make assumptions about.
Although visibly distraught, Daniel offered to speak to the village elders or the magistrate and make one hundred percent sure what the commute truly entailed.
Daniel also had been able to learn from speaking to various villagers that Lavin’s so-called wives were not viewed well by their fellow villagers – they were seen as fallen and unclean for their behaviour and the children face disapproval from the adults and bullying for the other children that were condoned or at best, people turned a blind eye to what was going on. Part of it was that what had happened had broken generations of social and moral taboos but a part of it was also wanting to show solidarity with Filiya Lavin and her two legitimately born children, Jeroze who was twelve and Adrexa who was nine.
Tony asked Laura Cadman and Amelia Banks to report on what they’d learnt when they took a box of provisions to Filiya as part of her reward for information that led to her husband’s capture. They had received a rapturous welcome when they return with an array of provisions for the family. They’d discovered that before Lucius had been banished five years ago, Filiya had owned a spinning business, wisely not relying on her capricious husband, who had always been fickle even before he discovered the potion that had wrecked all their lives.
Between her spinning of various fibres and Lucius’ bakery, they had gotten by reasonably well, but Filiya was no fool, it seemed when it came to her spouse providing for them. She’d wanted to become less reliant on her erratic husband who would take off on trading trips to other planets, sometimes being gone for weeks at a time. She had begged Lucius to obtain a weaving loom for her on his travels so she could weave cloth out of the fibres she spun but he’d never come through for her. Now she was struggling to obtain fibre to spin because she needed to buy food for her children.
The whole time Laura and Amelia were telling them what they learned, Tony could see Daniel’s brain racing at a million miles per hour and when they pause, he leapt in with, “Okay I know this is a cliché but… ‘Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime,’ so maybe we could set Filiya up so she can feed her children until they are independent,” he said.
Tony smiled, happy to be able to do something tangible to help a few of the victims of this terrible crime. “So, we buy her a loom and give her a variety of animal and plant fibres to spin, plus some more provisions until she can get back on her feet. Sounds like an excellent idea to me. I think Thomas Magnum can swing that with his boss,” he joked as the others chuckled.
Vala looked distressed. “I wish we could help Lucius’ victims more – at least Filiya and her children are rightly viewed as being innocent victims in this awful situation. But these other women – let’s call them what they were – they were his sex slaves. I just want to make the Winyan people see this.”
Aoife was quick to agree at least in part with Vala and she gave her a keen assessing glance. “You are right, these survivors do indeed fit the definition of sexual slavery which is the state of being unlawfully kept in a situation where one is repeatedly forced to engage in sexual activity against one’s will. And I’m not optimistic that we can change the Winyans minds regarding the victims. Attitudinal change is hard enough to achieve in one individual who has a closed mind, to think it would be achievable for a whole community is sadly not realistic.”
Tony could tell that nobody there was happy with that answer least of all himself, but he knew that Dr O’Shea was speaking from experience. Her work was all about helping people to examine false beliefs and change them, so she was uniquely qualified to speak on the subject.
Deciding to move things along, he said, “Your definition is correct, and it included forced marriages, but I think sadly you are correct regarding the Winyans having a change of heart about Lucius’s victims. Perhaps if they see him charged and found guilty it may shift some but that’s a big IF. I know it’s hard to believe that they can be so obtuse, so cruel as to blame and shame innocent women who have been greatly harmed by his crimes.” He looked around at the people in the room, predominantly female but all of them distraught by the Winyans’ treatment of Lucius’ victims.
“Yet even in the US, which is considered by many to be an advanced nation in terms of technology and education of its people, there are plenty of people who would agree with the appalling views of the Winyans. They would have no qualms in judging Willa and the others and laying the blame for Lucius’s behaviour at their feet,” he said thinking of what Weir had told Monique about a woman not getting pregnant if they were raped, ergo if they were pregnant then they weren’t raped.
“I understand you all want to help them, I have been in an absolutely shitty frame of mind since Willa told me all this. I want to help them too and I have a few ideas which may or may not be feasible, but we have to tread lightly until we have a clearer picture. I think the hardest obstacle we face in trying to help them is that for Willa at least, she believes, as her people do that she is at fault. That if she were a better more modest person, she would have found the fortitude to resist him, instead, in her mind, she willingly took part in behaviour that Winyans consider depravity. If we can help them to understand that even someone as strong physically and mentally as Ronon who is military trained and survived as Runner for seven years could not resist Lucius’ potion and would have killed Sheppard if Lucius had ordered him to, maybe it will help her understand she had no choice either.”
He could see people relaxing a little and nodding. “I’ve worked with more than a few sexual assault victims over the years, and Aoife has also had professional expertise too which is why she is assisting us. We need to gain their trust to stand a chance of helping them understand that there is only one person responsible and that is Lucius. BUT it isn’t going to be easy. That doesn’t mean we don’t try and if we fail that we just give up on them but like Mayuna who was put to death, we may not be able to save them all from themselves.”
No one wanted to hear that, but he had seen for himself, the suicide rates for victims and as Aoife nodded, he knew she was thinking along the same lines.
“Alright, Laura, Amelia, when you go back to Winya to speak with Filiya Lavin about how Thomas Magnum proposes to reward her for her information, could you speak with Willa and the other women and ask if they are still willing to speak to us if we return next Tuesday, he said aware that the weekend was upon them. “When we go back, we make sure that we encourage them to make choices, even if it is about simple stuff like where to sit, would they like to rest. They’ve had their autonomy taken away and we need to encourage them to take back control.”
Aoife chimed in, “I agree with Alex. To help them, we need to empower them, and we need to gain their trust.”
They talked about the information they had all collected before the interviews were suspended to catch Lavin, and Tony praised everyone for their assistance so far. Winding up, he asked Daniel if he could stay back and told Aoife he would see her at 1300 in her office to look at putting together a proposal for counselling and support. His ad hoc team slowly drifted off, not happy but with newfound purpose. Welcome to Vice Crimes, he thought cynically.
Daniel sauntered over, having grabbed a couple of coffees that were only slightly stewed from being in the glass carafe too long and Tony nodded his appreciation. Over the last few weeks that Jackson had been on Atlantis, he’d come to appreciate that the archaeologist was almost as addicted to coffee as Jethro Gibbs and that was remarkable and a little scary.
He sat back after pulling the seat back from the table and turning it ninety degrees so he could face and indicated that Daniel should sit too. He did, also rearranging his chair as Tony decided to tackle the Ancient translation issue first off. He began by explaining that he’d been given access to the Ancients’ Codes of Law and as expected, Jackson became instantly excited. He didn’t even inquire as to how he found them, although Tony was sure he’d get around to it at some point.
“Can I examine them?” he asked hopefully.
“How’s your Ancient?” he asked?
“It’s fairly good. After Jack had the Ancient database downloaded into his head the first time, I took a crash course and I’ve been working on it ever since,” he said.
“Hmm, that’s good to hear because it is a huge file. Do we have a translation program by any chance?” he asked, his fingers crossed since he didn’t want to have to manually translate over a million pages of law.
“That’s a great question. I don’t think so, but I don’t know for sure. Why?”
“Because Chegwidden wants to get his hands on to familiarise himself with it and hopefully use it as a framework to bring it up to modern standards so we can develop our own. The only problem, he doesn’t speak Ancient,” Tony explained.
“Okay, that makes sense. I’ll check with Heather Michaelson. She is head of linguistics at the SGC, and I’ll get back to you after I speak to her.”
“Thanks, it would be good as we are on the clock here.”
“So can I see it,” he said, sounding like a kid.
“I’ll send you a copy, but I have to warn you, the first roughly a third of the file is written in the language of the First Ones who were Alteran. You may not be able to understand it?”
Daniel’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. “Oh wow, you have text in Alteran? I really want to see it. Can you read it? Is it vastly different to Ancient as in a different dialect or as in a new language?”
Watching the archaeologist practically leaping out of his chair in excitement Tony chuckled a little bit. Yes, it seems like I can read it as well as understand it. As to what it’s like, it has similarities, but it is a different language, not a dialect. A little bit like Latin and Italian or possibly Latin and French.”
“I can’t wait to get started on it. It is remarkable.”
“I guess, but at the moment my focus is purely pragmatic. We need these texts now. And I wanted to ask if, when we go back to Winya you would be willing to talk to the village elders, find out about their laws and if they have them written down somewhere?”
“This about Willa and the other women?” Daniel asked astutely.
“And their children,” he confirmed a little grimly.
“Of course, but if time is a consideration, can I suggest that Dr Porter would be a good person to assist me on this task. She is an anthropologist…”
“And she is on Major Teldy’s team and is Carson’s girlfriend and if the scuttlebutt is accurate, soon to be significant other,” he said smiling. “Great minds, Daniel, I was planning on begging Lieutenant Colonel Lorne if we could borrow her for a week or two.”
“Okay, so if you send me that file I can get started on it now,” he said happily. “And if you need it, I can write a letter in support of Dr O’Shea’s proposal for psychological help for Willa and the other Winyans. I have some favours I can cash in,” he offered.
Tony smiled. “Thanks, Daniel. I’ll definitely be taking you up on your offer.”
Checking the time, he saw that it was 1210. He had time to either chase down J.P. about the translation program or he had time for a quick chat with Teyla. Since he wanted to know how widespread the Winyans’ views on rape and sexual assault were in the Pegasus galaxy, he decided to go and see her now and talk to the AI program later after he picked Tali up from school. He had promised to help her with her project on her favourite book and they had also planned another movie night for tomorrow, Toy Story I and II and she wanted to bake cookies beforehand, so it was going to be a family orientated weekend for him.
Making his way over to the gym that Teyla used for her Bantos sessions, he was just in time to see her dismissing several students and he greeted her politely.
“Do you have more students or are you free to take a walk with me?” he asked.
Teyla studied him intently. “I have no more students until after lunch, I will just pack up my gear and we can go. I did intend to drop by your office today to ask how the interviews went; the other members of your team did not say very much,” she observed.
“Yeah, well we weren’t exactly expecting to find Lavin when we set off, yesterday,” he said, grimacing.
“I imagine not,’ she said, placing her bantos rods, towels, and water bottles in a sports bag she’d picked up on Earth if the Nike logo was anything to go by, before zipping it up and stowing it in a corner out of the way.
“Come,” she linked arms with him and drew him out towards a transporter. “You are looking very grim, Alex. Was it bad?”
“Pretty bad,” he said briefly, wanting to get out in the fresh air where they would have privacy.
Once he felt the sunlight on his face and a gentle breeze off the sea, he felt marginally better. This was not how he envisioned spending the past 15 weeks since their arrival on Atlantis – this was insanely stressful and pressing all of his own triggers about how he’d ended up being Tali’s dad. He was grateful to Teyla, she knew how hard it was and she had a wonderfully calming aura about her. He felt much more centred when she was around.
As they started strolling along, no one else was outside in the fresh air and he breathed deeply. “I wanted to let you and Monique know that Felix and Torren have eleven half-siblings on Winya. I met one, Jeroze who is twelve years old. He and his sister Adrexa who is nine are Lucius’ offspring with his wife, Filiya Lavin who he abandoned after he found the plant and made his potion.”
Teyla looked stunned before seeking out a convenient place to sit. “I never even considered the possibility, which was quite foolish,” she said. “After all, Sofie, Monique and I are all proof that Lucius’ seed is quite fecund. And the others?”
“The other children are all between five and seven years old I believe.”
“And they are children of the wives that he took after he began using the potion, is that so?”
“It is. I spoke to Willa, and I learnt that her older sister Heleen was also one of his victims. The villagers had a trial and found him guilty of depravity for public sex and multiple partners at one time, abandoning his lawful wife and children and committing multiple counts of polygamy, all of which were illegal on Winya, and he was banished, never to return.”
“Him turning up on Amullie – he pretty much admitted being banished, so I doubt you were shocked by this information, Alex,” Teyla said before frowning. “It was not a harsh enough punishment. It did not deter him from trying to trick others. He was conning a new group of trusting people with the shield and several women seemed enamoured by him, believing he was their protector,” she said disapprovingly.
Well, I knew he’d gotten off, obviously but what I wasn’t expecting was that Willa and the other five victims were all tried to and found guilty,” he told her grimly.
“But wait, it was not their fault. They were drugged – everyone in the village was drugged. They had no choice in the matter,” she argued, losing her composure.
“I know but the Winyans believe that they should have resisted – that if they had been more virtuous, they could have fought him off. The real kicker,” seeing her puzzled look he said, “it means the worst thing was that they also believe it is their fault. Willa said that she is sickened and ashamed of all of the unclean things that they did with Lucius.”
Teyla looked sick too. “Those poor young women. We must help them to see that it was not their fault,” she insisted.
Tony shrugged. “It might help if you and Monique could talk to them, they might listen to you, but I am not confident that you can convince them. But the worst thing is that the punishment for Willa and the other women was much harsher. They were sentenced to death, but it was commuted because they had young children who needed raising.” Ignoring her outraged cry, he shrugged.
“Since all of the children are from his polygamous relationship, they view them as being tainted by their immoral conception and I gather no Winyans were clamouring to raise them.”
“That is outrageous. These children are not tainted because their father is evil and forced women to lie with him.”
“Believe me, I know that Teyla,” Tony said trying not to get angry. “But the worst of it is that Lucius’ the third victim – I cannot call her a wife because it normalises rape and sexual slavery – her name was Mayuna, and Willa said she had a miscarriage but no children. She was 22 years old and because she didn’t have any children, the Winyans didn’t commute her death sentence. She was stoned to death 3 months after Atlantis sent Lucius back to his home planet,” he said gently, knowing that this terrible news would affect her and Monique deeply.
At least he knew that Teyla would get angry, yell, fight, weep…AND she did. She would express her emotions which Tony was exceptionally relieved to see. Monique had repressed hers so deeply that he was genuinely concerned about her.
After letting Teyla release her emotions, they were both feeling ragged and off-balance, and he decided to drag her along to Dr O’Shea. He used the ruse that they were talking about ways to help Willa and the other Winyans, but he knew that Aoife wanted to check in and see how he was doing too. He was hoping that he could persuade Teyla and ultimately Monique to attend counselling or some sort of support group. Perhaps they could talk about it today.
At least he’d learnt that the Athosians didn’t share the Winyans’ views on rape and sexual assault.
Heavy topics, great world building and character moments.
Glad you enjoyed it, even with the heavy topics.