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A Legacy Left Behind - Chapter -1 - Initial Encounters - Part 5 (Final)

The new beginnings

Briefing Room, Level 27, SGC - Colorado

Next morning at precisely 0800 hrs, John found himself in the spacious Briefing Room which offered an overview of the Stargate and the Embarkation room through its clear glass window. A detailed star map dominated the wall next to the General's office, which was adjacent to the briefing room. There were projector screens, computers and other stationary surrounding the huge conference table that could comfortably seat about 30 people at a time.

"Hi. Good morning. Major John Sheppard, I presume- Cameron Mitchell- Nice to finally meet you in person- You caused quite the stir around here, man!" The Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, who was lovingly fondling the coffee machine near the window, offered a friendly greeting.

"Good morning, Sir." John returned the greeting and made his way to the coffee machine intending to get a cup for himself as well. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

The handsome Colonel flashed him a grin, his blue eyes sparkling with good humor.

"Relax Sheppard; we are not going to feed you to the sharks or anything. It’s just about you telling us your side of the story of what took place so we have the whole picture of the situation. We still have some loose ends to tie up, you see. And for the record, we only really start throwing our guys to sharks or alien versions of nasties after at least their third gate hop." His charming Southern drawl and the easy conversation did help to wash away some of the tension John carried in his shoulders without even realizing it.

He carried his coffee to the seat the Colonel pointed to and they both sat down. They didn't have to wait long as the remainder of the brass walked in for the briefing. John was introduced to Colonel Marshall Sumner, Marine Corps, Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter, Air Force and Mr. Richard Woolsey, liaison for the International Oversight Advisory (IOA). Dr Lam and Sergeant Harriman also joined and completed the gathering. After everybody was properly armed with their caffeine intakes and settled at the table, the General opened the debriefing session.

"Now Sheppard, Marshall plucked you out from the detention facility they have hidden away behind Bagram Air Base. We know they kept you there for five days. Take us through what happened from the beginning, from where you started, who was with you and what your initial mission was. Anything and everything you can remember and give us as many details as possible."

John took a deep breath, cleared his mind and then throat and started his account as ordered.

"I was sent in a Pave Hawk to pick up a CIA agent, Mr. J. Smith, from Kandahar airport. Caucasian, blond, brown eyed, early forties, 5’6”, spoke with a slight German accent. I was to deliver him to Bagram but I was under orders to divert as required if Mr. Smith requested. He was on record as my crew. I was on comms black out as well. He kept on comms with someone on a private channel from the moment I picked him up and I didn't understand any of it- it was mostly code. Thirty-three minutes into our flight, a Black Hawk came out of nowhere and went down hard right in front of me."

He took a sip of his coffee and took a steadying breath and continued. Nobody interrupted him but he had their full attention.

"I followed it down. I sent a quick message to Bagram but didn't acknowledge their reply. Mr. Smith was insisting that we continue our flight but I didn't listen to him either."

He hesitated here, because he didn't know how to put into words the compulsion that took control of him that directed all his actions from there on. The help came from Colonel Sumner, surprising Sheppard.

"This is probably where your biological imperative took hold. Basically your ATA gene came online and one of its rather strong side effects is the urge to annihilate anything Wraith-related. Don't worry son, you will get the full lecture in the near future. Do go on and tell us what you felt and what you did then."

With a grateful nod towards the Colonel, John continued his narrative;

"Like you said Sir, Things started to feel weird just then. Everything sort of came into sharp focus and all my senses sort of elevated to a very high degree. I was on auto-pilot when I landed my bird near the downed Hawk and armed myself. By then everything else was faded to background and in my mind unimportant, the survivors were already piling out of the bird and I could not stop to check on any of them. By then I had three clear targets, a male and a female, 100 yards off to the South of me and a creepy crawly bug/baby/spider hybrid thing that was crawling towards them in a hurry."

The dread, the guilt, and the nausea he had been pushing away resolutely whenever he cast his mind back to it-since he woke up in Antarctica, came back in full force. He hadn't had the time to properly dwell over his actions as he was occupied from the moment he was awake back at the Outpost. He realized that he still didn't know what happened to the survivors of that unfortunate accident.

"Continue, Sheppard." The order was soft and full of understanding, yet firm.

So he continued, doing his best to keep his voice flat and face neutral.

"I engaged them from a distance first- opened up with the carbine and emptied a full load on both of them but that didn't do anything to them. The male alien- charged me and I stabbed it on the neck and shot its right palm with my hand-gun, the palm with the mouth-like opening, neutralizing it."

"Sheppard, can you describe them, what exactly these Wraiths looked like?"

The question came from Colonel Mitchell. And it was significant for some reason; if the laser-focused looks pointed his way were any indication.

"Well, they were very thin and very tall, easily over 6 and 1/2 ft. They moved way faster than humans and were obviously bullet resistant. They both had kind of long faces, pasty pale, cat like eyes, flat noses and mouths full of pointy teeth. Long white hair that looked slimy. Oh, and really nasty breath. And, um, one of them had, um, curves and, um, breasts and a sort of shrill voice, so I assumed female."

John finished, blushing slightly avoiding looking at anyone. He heard snickers from both Mitchell and Carter.

"Major Sheppard, can you tell us the significance of the way you attacked? How did you know to do that?" The question was from Dr. Lam and she had an intense look on her face. He realized that everybody was staring at him raptly, in varying degrees of alarm and fascination.

"Like I said Doctor, the compulsion that took over my mind sort of gave me all the information. I could see the attack points as if I had an HUD on me. I can't really describe it except to say that I knew what to do and how to do it."

"Sounds like basically your online experience came with some genetically stored information about the Wraith as well. This is extraordinary. I must consult with Dr. Beckett about this at the first opportunity." The doctor had a gleam in her eyes that made Sheppard want to squirm.

“I need to sit down with him and go through all the weak points of the Wraith, their biology and everything else he can tell me about them as soon as possible Jack." Lam directed the last at the General who looked like he wanted to squirm as well.

“All in good time Doctor, let's hear his story first."

John took his cue to get on with it.

"The female was trying to get into my head by this point. She was hurling attack after attack at my mind and she had me on my knees and squeezing me by the throat. She was trying to keep me alive and get information out of my head. I shielded my mind and somehow managed to throw it all back at her- She wasn't expecting it and I caught her off guard. I managed to stab her the same way I did the male and she died. Then I shot the bug hybrid to pieces. Things went back to normal for me then; the compulsion and the energy and sensory boost faded away and I figured I got them all. I remember having the worst headache I have had in my entire life - The return to crash site is a bit hazy and I think I met Steven- uh Lieutenant McGarrett of the Navy SEALsb- I was arrested and my memory is blank from there. The next clear memory I have is being thrown into a cell I thought was in Bagram."

John gulped the remains in his now cold coffee in one big swallow. The General waved a hand towards the coffee maker signaling him to go for a refill. The Sergeant refreshed the General's coffee; nobody else moved. They were all busy taking notes on their PDAs and laptops.

John sat back down and at the nod from O'Neill he continued his account.

"There were five people in there with me with-in like ten minutes. I had the feeling at least three of them were CIA. Mr. Smith was one of them. One CIA guy sounded like a Texan and over 6'3 while the other was African American with cut glass British accent. The other two looked Chinese but they never uttered a word when they were around me. Smith started asking what I did to the aliens; I think they referred to something called homo-iratus at a point and something about keepers. He was quite insistent that I tell him how I got to know about the aliens and I think he couldn't see what I could when we landed at the crash site. Anyway I had the same sort of strong urge again not to reveal any information. They resorted to physical interrogation techniques soon after."

John fervently hoped that the General wouldn't make him talk about the ensuing five days, he lost track of the things they were doing to him by the second or third day. He could feel a cold sweat starting to break all over his body despite the pleasantly controlled temperature in the room.

"Hmm, I don't see the point in making you talk about the torture now Sheppard, we have all seen the medical reports Carson forwarded that came from the pod. It's SOP for any major incident involving our personnel- Besides I'm sure Dr. Heightmayer will sit down and have a talk with you soon enough. She is the resident psychologist for the SGC."

"Carter, I'm sure we can run a search and get IDs on those CIA goons, yes? Sheppard can ID them for us and we can finally get some headway on the missing agents of the elusive 'Keepers Collective'?"

The Air Force Colonel gave a nod of affirmation and John was sure she was already running a search on the laptop in front of her, along the same lines, before the General even made the request.

"So you want to tell him how we got to him?" O'Neill asked the Marine Colonel.

Sumner started to recount the story with a sip of his freshly refilled coffee.

"This was roughly three weeks ago, may be a day or two before you encountered despicable Mr. Smith. Apollo, our second BC 304 warship that was on orbit at the time, started tracking a string of coded messages. It got their attention because they caught reference to this 'Keepers Collective'. Now, this is a group of agents we believe are in league with the Wraiths on earth. They have infiltrated many of our government agencies in a very short time. So our people stumbled across a signature of transporter activation. It was heavily encrypted. When we finally managed to get it decrypted, it was a transporter activity that beamed a flying object from its original path to Area 7 in Russia into the middle of Afghanistan. That was where you got your surprise mid air. We think the plan was to get it safely into on of the small villages that had several entrances to a hidden cave system, but the chopper went down. This village was where the transporter signal originated."

"We believed it was the missing chopper that we were actually looking for. We had a team transporting a cryofrozen Wraith hybrid to a secure facility in Russia for study. This was a specimen that we found during a raid on an enemy base. They never showed up at their destination and we were on alert regarding their disappearance. So when we caught on to the fact that our bird was hijacked by the enemy, we deployed teams to locate them." Colonel Sumner paused.

At this point, Colonel Samantha Carter interjected and informed John somewhat apologetically-

"-It took us sometime to pin-point the origin of that signal. I was there with the tracking team in Apollo, We have only really come across this species a few months ago and up to that point, all we had were some obscure reference from the data we retrieved from Antarctica. We didn't even know that they had beaming capabilities until we caught this activity. Saying we were surprised would be an understatement."

She inclined her head at the Marine Colonel, smiling slightly, indicating he should continue with the brief.

"So we beamed two of our teams to recon, to take over and secure this village where they were operating." Said the Colonel. “They took custody of eight agents, all human, and sealed all the cave entrances. They also uncovered a shallow grave area where they discarded the dead villagers after Wraith feedings. Our teams were trying to locate our missing chopper when they caught some of the comms chatter between the SEAL teams. They were about 30 miles from the crash site then, still near the village. Then Apollo's sensors caught another one of those beaming signatures at the same time the radio chatter started. Different origination this time and a different purpose. When they finally reached the crash site, they found the wreckage of the two birds and five confirmed fatalities. Two civilians and three SEALs."

"The SEAL team had already apprehended and taken you away by then and left a marker for body collection. The SGC team was ordered to leave the crash site security operation to naval forces. They never found any traces of your fight with the Wraiths and the bodies had already disappeared by then. So we didn't know that you had engaged the Wraith at this time. We believe your Mr. Smith and his buddies got there and sanitized the site. We only knew that we found our missing cargo transport and assumed the cargo was destroyed."

He paused again, taking in the appearance of the Major. He had grown steadily more pale throughout Marshall's report and was looking shaken and as if he was about to get sick. It was obvious to him that the kid was blaming himself for not saving his fellow soldiers when he had the chance. And this was the first time he heard the confirmation of what happened to the occupants of the Black Hawk. But Marshall knew from experience that there was nothing he could do once he was under the influence of his genetic heritage. John was staring blankly at a point of the table and Marshall knew he was no longer there with them; he was back there in Afghanistan reliving the memory- trying and failing to see how he could've changed the outcome.

Marshall leaned in closer to the table and fixed his gaze on Sheppard.

"Sheppard, listen to me." He didn't raise his voice; but the command in his tone brought John back and he flinched slightly as he focused on the colonel.

"There was nothing you could've done differently. I, the General, Colonel Mitchell and all other ATA gene carriers who came online during combat facing Wraith went through something similar to what you experienced. And none of us even had to face a fully fledged Wraith queen before. Yeah the females are very rare and they are all queens. It was a Wraith drone or a hybrid every time for us. So we know what happened to you was much worse."

"Besides Sheppard, what you couldn't have predicted was the guy in the chopper starting to call for help on all open radio frequencies. They broke their comms blackout directive. And we are positive it wasn't even the first time they did it because that was how the transporter signal locked onto them in the first place to beam them to Afghanistan. That is how your SEAL buddy Steve knew what happened and that was how the second transporter signal locked on to them as well. This time bringing a bomb that blew them up. We don't know if they could have survived the encounter if not for that call but there wasn't anything you could do."

"But what you did do saved a lot of lives, Sheppard. Those Wraiths were feeding on that village and would have just kept on going if it wasn't for you. There were kids in that village. I know it's hard but that is what you have to focus on Sheppard, because when it comes down to it, knowingly or unknowingly you made the only call you could as a soldier. You put the safety of the humans as a species first above that of your fellow soldiers. You went after the much bigger threat because the War we are fighting against Wraith is much more important than any other war. And like it or not, you are a part of it."

He watched Sheppard visibly collecting himself and regaining some of his composure with huge effort and focusing on him more or less. The Major took a sip of water Walter had kindly placed in front of him and gave a barely perceptible nod.

"So the second signal, we tracked to Bagram, of all places. I'm sure Mr. Smith's buddies again had something to do with it. When our ground team got there a few hours later they found an abandoned site- they had cleared out. Around this time, you were already in custody and we still didn't know anything about you or your involvement except for what we intercepted through the radio chatter. We were not focused on the AWOL zoomie who took off after landing his bird and then got himself arrested. Our teams were instead instructed to keep looking for the missing Wraiths that were feeding on the villagers.”

John thought he detected another slight note of apology there. Colonel Carter took over from the Marine Colonel at this point.

"While we were busy tracking the Wraith-related activity, Rodney was following a strange signal that came online around about the same time you came online. Since we never had the Outpost react to anyone coming online as an ATA gene carrier, he didn't know what it was. He was keeping an eye on it but didn't realize he was actually reading your brain activity."

"He contacted us and the SGC on the third day of your captivity in all-out, full-blown panic. He had finally figured out it was human vitals, with the help of Dr Beckett. By this time you were in trouble and the Outpost was reacting to your distress. They had power fluctuations all over the place and McKay was being bombarded with Ancient and English demands to locate 'P1' and bring them in. That was what Terra Atlantus was calling you. On the fourth day the Chair came online on its own and it launched a program onto our network, our heavily encrypted secure SGC network. And within a couple of hours the Outpost had complete control of the whole national grid and soon after that, the global network. The internet, communications, Satellites; it had control of everything. The White House had issued an order to neutralize the Outpost. They issued evacuation orders to both McMurdo and Terra Atlantus after POTUS authorized extreme measures. But McKay refused to move and he figured out what it was telling us."

She paused briefly to hydrate herself. John thought her timing had more to do with adding to the suspense.

"Your location - That was what the Outpost was looking for. So once McKay figured it out, we scrambled the team with Marshall in the lead to go down and get you. Once McKay managed to convince the control at the Outpost that we were retrieving you, it released our networks and went back offline again."

"Yeah that is one debriefing at the White House I'm not willing to ever repeat again." Jack O'Neill said with a theatrical shudder.

"Well, you know the rest- I found you and beamed with you to Antarctica, and the outpost took over your care. I went back to Bagram to continue the investigation. We have three of your captors in custody along with the agents we arrested in the village. They are all detained at Area 51 and undergoing special hospitality. Being in league with an alien species that literally eat humans for sustenance is not your average war crime. We recalled our teams from Afghanistan after a week, when they kept running into dead ends. We are still keeping our ears to the ground for anything regarding Smith and his cronies. But the odds are they have gone to ground now that their operations are compromised." Colonel Sumner finished the narrative.

John was feeling completely overwhelmed and in way over his head. He hadn't known the lengths that an unknown sentience had gone, to make sure of his safety. He shuddered at the real possibility that it would have been destroyed before John even knew its' existence. He realized that he had connected to the sentience in Terra Atlantus at an astonishingly deep level because the thought of its' destruction made him feel like losing a part of his soul. It had buried itself in his mind so thoroughly and completely and John didn't mind one bit. Because as strange as it was, it was home.

"Alright then, I think we got everything covered. We will meet up again if anything comes up that we didn't cover today. But for now I think we are done. I don't know about you people but I'm hungry-" The General remarked, ending the intense debriefing/briefing session.

"Sheppard, meet Walter after lunch- He will have your introduction program and work schedule. So you can get on with your life here. It's gonna be fun-" the General predicted cheerily at Sheppard.

Then he turned to the civilian who was quiet throughout the whole session and remarked sourly.

"Well, Richard, you and I have to brief the White House and IOA, now won't that be fun? No it won't be fun!" With that he got up from his chair and walked towards his office. John heard a muttered comment about 'processing protected assets and future headaches' from Mr. Woolsey as got up and scrambled to follow the General.

John also got up hurriedly from his chair and received an amiable pat on shoulder from Colonel Sumner when he thanked him for the rescue. Colonel Carter did not show any signs of leaving her seat or her laptop anytime soon. Walter had already followed the general out to help prepare for his not fun briefing.

The Mess hall

Colonel Cameron Mitchell appointed himself John's unofficial welcome wagon, taking him to lunch with him. He was introduced around to some of the gate teams who were there. Some of the scientists were eyeing Sheppard like a pack of hungry hyenas and Mitchell deftly maneuvered him around them to a secluded corner where they could eat in relevant privacy.

He gave him a rundown of the chain of command at SGC, responding to John's question as to where he fit in.

According to Mitchell, General Hammond of the Homeland Security had the overall authority concerning all extra-planetary operations; therefore SGC came under his purview and he reported directly to the POTUS. General Jack O'Neill was the base CO and was stationed at the mountain. Colonel Sumner was the head of military for all military personnel in the mountain while Colonel Carter was the head scientist and in charge of all science projects happening at SGC. She had overview of all science related projects concerning all extraterrestrial technology at Area 51as well. She shared that responsibility with Dr. Rodney McKay. Mitchell was the head of gate operations and third in line of the military chain of command. He also led the first gate team, SG-1.

Carter usually wasn’t involved in military operations as she had her plate full with science. John would fit in there after Mitchell. They had four more Majors; two Air Force and two Marines, but John had more time in rank and therefore seniority. There were three captains and eight Lieutenants that completed the officer contingent.

They had fifteen NCOs and over one hundred fifty soldiers belonging to a convoluting mixture of Marines, Air Force, and soldiers from various military branches belonging to five different countries. The IOA provided the civilian oversight and acted as a diplomatic body due to the multinational nature of Stargate Command. They had sixty Scientists based here from several nations as well.

After the meal John was given the information packet regarding his schedule. There were more medical checkups, psych evals, a couple of one-on-one lecture sessions with various military and science personnel for history and information sharing, a ton of reading materials stored in a few PDAs along with all gate mission reports up to date, physical training, flight simulations and new flight orientation and qualification sessions. He noticed he was also on a roster to be beamed to Antarctica on a weekly basis for training, Ancient tech maintenance and related projects.

His life at SGC had officially begun.

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