måndag 26 augusti 2013

SGA Scrapped Fanfic Book 1 Chapter 6 The gift of Prometheus

To chapter 5


The gift of Prometheus

(The following chapter needs a quality update, consider making it more available to readers not familiar with he plot of SGA, consider writing the important parts of it from Soras perspective, keep the comment about smart redheads though, nice reference to mckay's dumb blondes comment)


The crashed puddle jumper had become something of a project for Hoglund, as soon as he got on his feet again he started working on restoring it to it's original state. Fortunately Atlantis had a more than ample supply of spare parts for puddle jumpers, with the exception of drones , main drone storage could only be accessed through the ancient control chair. There was however still some drones in the jumper bay drone storage. It was oddly relaxing to get to pour ones attention into a single thing instead of bewing asked to out our fires so to say. Beckett had ordered him to take a couple of weeks of and since Hoglund handled boredom pretty badly he had decided to do this in his free time. Right now he was finishing up the blown drive pod he had already fixed the one he had burned out on his flight back to Atlantis, he still didnt remember that flight, Beckett said that if he was ever going to regain that memory it would probably have come back by now. If it hadn't his state had been such that his short term memoery had simply been unable to imprint into long term memory. Kind of like when a person is really really drunk. Which of course reminded Hoglund that he hadn't been drunk for over two months. Not that he had an alcohol problem, well he didn't have a problem with drinking to often, he had a habit of drinking to much when he did drink and doing stupid things but hey who didn't have that problem. Anyway he was finishing up the drivepod when he hears voices in the stairs to the jumper bay. He turned to look and met Mckay and shepard arguing about soemthing.
"Look all I'm saying is that you might want to cut back on the addiction, the chances we find anythign remotly like coffe beans in this galaxy is quite slim." Shepard said.
"That would only really work if i was the only one drinkign coffe Shepard! But all the scientists does and most of the technicians"
"Not eleven cups a day"
"Well Mckay only drinks eleven cups of warm water with a slight hint of coffe taste so I don't think it counts" Hoglund interjected.
"Is tthat suposed  to be another 'nordic people drinks much stronger coffe than anyone else' joke Hoglund?" McKay asked him dryily.
"It isn't a joke when it's true Rodney" hoglund said and took a sip from his own cup standing on a crate beside the pod "I havent ahad a decent cup of coffe since I left earth, in fact i havent had a decnt cup of coffee since I left europe."
"Maybe you should listen to him Mckay, Hoglund has a certain experience when it comes to neural stimulants" Shepard said jokingly. Hoglund's grin faded.
"You know that offer to have something thrown at you still stands Shepard."
"Threatening to assault a  superior officers Hoglund that'll look good on the ol' resume"
"Meh already got one of those"
"Really?"
"No not really" Hoglund said, But close enough "So where is the grand adventure of this time?" he changed the subject.
"Mckay forgot his scanner in the jumper but then it's of on foot in glorious pursuit of Tava beans"
"Farming eh?" Hoglund smiled "I heard there was talk of rationing"
"You did, did you? Now that' weird since it has only ever been said on a senior staff meeting" Shepard shot Mckay an annoyed glance.
"Seems like you have a leak, complaining that we're running out on coffee, on your senior staff" Hoglund said with mock surprise.
"Hey that could mean Peter he drinks just as much coffe as I do... or Zelenka...  Hey at least I don't fill half the cup with grounds!" Hoglund smiled and did a mock salute with his cup
"Nordic and proud of it Rodney"
"I've never met two people who argue as much as the two of you" Shepard shook his head in disbelief "Go get that stuff you needed Rodney. We've got to go talk to some amish over food trading" Rodney looked liek he was going to say somethign then hurried into jumper one and started digging around for stuff.
"It really bothers you doesnt it? That weir send you out for food?" Hogludn asked.Shepard was quiet for a momenr while he considered what to say.
"The Hoffans were nut's I'll be the first to admit that..." he begun
"Actually Carson will be" Hoglund interjected with a sad smile. he had still been in the infirmary when Becket got back from Hoff, It was weird seeing the usually jolly Carson Beckett so depressed. Shepard just ignored the comment though.
"... but they did prove that there are cultures out there with the potential to strike back at the wraith, we shoudl be out there finding them and giving them the means to do so" he continued.
"I disagree there with you major, meddling with other cultures usually ends in disaster look at the effects of imperialism that certain countries still suffer from on earth."
"The prime directive like in star trek?" Mckay asked now carrying a bag.
"Not exactly, I mean how often haven't we wished that the ancients would get of their high horses and help us. That you have a general principle of not interfering doesn't mean you can't make exceptions to that principle. Resting on a set of absolute ideals isn't wisdom it's fundamentalism, I'm just saying we should be careful"
"Elizabeth has given us medicine, antibiotics and vaccines mostly to trade for food, are you opposed to that?" Shepard asked.
"Our knowledge is the only thing we have to bargain with and medicine is probably the best way to uplift another culture, Weir knows this why do you think you're offering antibiotics and not p-90s?"
"A fair point but if it helps our chances of defending this city"
"Believe me major I'm willing to go further to save this city than you are"
"Yeah that thought keeps me up at night" McKay muttered "Teyla and ford are propably waiting for us"
"I should get back to the repairs anyway, hmm maybe another cup of coffe first" Hoglund commented with a grin towards McKay. But he didn't appear to have heard him as he and shepard were already leaving.
A few hours later Hoglund was working on some of the internal system, nothing primary he had fixed all those already, just convenient thing, mostly relating to the neural interface. Not that he or anyone else really understood those systems but once you had the blueprints of how things where supposed to work it was fairly easy to get it to work. A know on the rear hatch made him turn around. It was lieutenant Miller.
"How are you doing doctor?"
"Lieutenant" he greeted the soldier, saving Hoglunds life was a good way to make him think a lot better of you, "Really well actually, I'm thinking of taking her out for a test flight soon"
"do you think she'll fly again?"
"I'll bet you a month's salary that she'll fly just fine"
"I'm surprised you even want to go near a jumper after what happened, even more so this one"

"I had an old motorcycle in collage, when I wasn't studying is was usually working on it, it was nice to have some real world applications for the things i learned. This is the same thing, just on a more advanced level"

"I never held you for a tinkerer, anyway doctor Weir wanted to talk to you and Grodin"

"What about?" Hoglund said and got up

"Apparently shepard's new genii friends arent quite so amish" Miller said as they were walking down towards weirs office.

"How so?"

"I think you should hear this from Weir" he said and gestured him towards her office, he looked genuinely concerned.

Goglund entered, Grodin was already sitting in one of the chairs, Weir sat in her chair behind the desk.
"Doctor Weir you asked me to come down here?" Hoglund asked said.
"Yes, please sit doctor" weir said and pointed at the other. Hoglund sat down, he was a little surprised to be included like this he had both Kavanagh and McKay as his superiors on the primary science team and Zelenka on the secondary one. He had also never really got the feeling Weir trusted him.
"You've previouslt expressed some thought on the uplifting of other cultures we encounter doctor" Weir began. "Would you care to begin by making the point you have on that"
"Enlightened selfintrest, doctor Weir, I believe in courses of action that will in the long run yield a return of investment. When it comes to uplifting other cultures the effects have usually been probvlematic so i believe one should be careful when it comes to that, do you belive that the vaccinees and antibiotics you gave shepard to trade with will cause a great change to the genii society?"
"Unfortunatly we are no longer talking about a simple trade of medicine for food, the genii turned out to be a little more technologically advanced than we first suspected, they want c-4"
"c-4? Why would they want c-4? Sure it got it's uses but p-90's would propably do most people more good"
"They need it to solve their super criticality problem" Grodin said. Hoglund say and thought abut what c-4 coudl be good for and the comment passed him by then he realised what Grodin had said and looked up at him with surpise "Super... are you telling me they are building nuclear weapons?"
"Yes, that's why you are both here, they appear to be formidabble though ruthless yet major Shepard is reccomending we work with them long term towards the goal of defeating the wraith, i want you two to advice me"
"Well my initial reaction is that I'm against teaching people to make WMDs" Grodin said.
"In most cases I would agree with you Peter, handing over weapons that may pose a very real threat even to us is usually a very bad idea, but on the other hand we suspect tat the wraith know we are here, we have no shield and no weapons. These are exceptional circumstances, and we may have to employ exceptional measures."
"But you said it yourself Felix, these weapons pose a threat to ourselves if the genii should prove not trustworthy"
"Teyla spoke of these people as very trustworthy and of some of them as close friends, but the impression I got from Major Shepard was more that of a police state, who at the least provocation threatened to leave them in the path of wraith culling"
"It's possible they are like athosians a hard but fair people, who are as they are becuase of the hardships of the galaxy, but we cant be sure, I dont believe we should teach them these things until we know for certain"
"Yeah I agree with you Peter I usually want dinner and movie before I teach my dates to build nuclear weapons"
"Charming" Grodin said with a  wry smile to Hoglunds wit.
"Major Shepard is going on an op with them right now, he's asked Miller and Markham to fly two jumpers to the genii homeworld and remain cloaked if things should not go as planned, that will have to do for now, thank you gentlemen" she motioned at the door and they both left.
Miller was still waiting outisde.
"So what do you think?" he asked
"These genii can either become a bigger problem than the wraith or our best chance of beating them" Hoglund responded.
"Shepard asked me to take a jumper to the genii homeworld, so do you think your jumper is up to it?"
"Only if I get to come along"
"Sure, but I'm flying, I remember last time you did"
"Well at least now maybe I can get rid of all the got poisoned on my one of-world mission jokes"
"you always get's jibes about the worst of-world op you've been on, that is until one actually turns ugly then the jokes stop and you wish that you had jokes instead of guilt"
"Then maybe i don't mind that much"

"You'll get there anyway, everyone does"


Almost twelve hours later they sat and played cards in jumper two, they had parked the jumpers so close to each other that you could walk from one to the other without becoming visible, they had test flown Hoglunds jumper for a while, then he had callibrated soem systems and then they had tried again and that was nearly six hours ago now. As of now Hoglund was busy emptying the pockets of the second Atlantis off-world team through poker. He had never been much of a chess player, too slow paced and long term planning, but poker he had always been good at, it required the ability to adapt to the unpredicted. He was however starting to get the feeling that the others had tired of the game by the time the gate fwooshed, and an uncloaked jumper came through.
"Ok men this is our que, you know what to do!" Miller shouted and jumped to his feet. Hoglund took his money out of the pot and stood up too. He and Miller took the right flank while Markham took the left, they both hovered in stealth mode, half a kilometer (or half a click as the military would have said) away from  the place shepard had touched down by. Alongside Shepards team was an old stout man in a grey uniform, he walked up to a few other people in grey uniforms, one who was a totally adorable curly redhead. Hoglund made the screen magnify on the scene, and while miller was looking at the conversation Hoglund felt himself watch the reheaded girl instead.
"Hoglund!" Miller snapped "You should be minding your job" Hoglund snapped out of it just to see the older man say somethign and close to twenty genii soldiers heavily armed storm shepards team from the bushes.
"A shame" Miller said, "Now you won't get to talk to her"
"Is this going to be the new jibe?" Hoglund sighed, then again he could live with it she was really pretty, even when holding a gun traield at an Atlantis team members head. Teyla, he realised, yeah she would probably have to change her opinion on the genii after this.
"Well I lied too jumpers two and three execute" Shepards voice sounded over the com. Hoglund manually deactivated the cloak, that was one of the neural interface function that still wasn't working. he realised that redheaded girls or not it was good to be back in service. He had like repairing the jumper but there was a kick in being on active duty he had already started to miss. the idea that people depended on him. but also the flawless execution of  plan.
"Jumper two" shepard said that was Markhams jumper, Hoglunds jumper wasnt the real jumper two it was actually jumper 8, the numbers where written in ancient on the dashboard, but it had been designated jumper 3 for the purposes of this mission. Jumper 8 had simply been missing when they first discovered the ships, there were still three jumpers missing from the bay probably destroyed in Atlantis' last stand.
"prepare to fire on my mark"
The leader of the genii made a gesture of surrender and his men lowered their weapons, jumper two didn't fire, of course Shepard hadn't given his mark so there was no reason for them to do so. Shepard took something from the genii leader then they baoreded their jumer and all three jumpers turned towards the gate.
"Mission accomplished I guess" Higlund said. "I could get used to this"
"Not all missions is abut spying on pretty girls and playing cards you know"
"As long as this wasn't a once in a  lifetime opportunity" Hoglund said with a jawn.

After they returned to Atlantis, Grodin was working on hooking up the device they took of the genii to the ancient devices. Hoglund asked McKay.
"Who was the readhead? And why did she look so upset" Mckay turnd towards him Hoglund sounded genuinly intrested in another persons feelings.
"Sora, her father and her built the device" he motioned towards it.
"Didn't you say these guys had just invented the combustion engine? How did  they manage to dechiper wraith data?"
"They seemed to have worked on it for a very long time, before finally cracking it quite recently"
"So who's the genius the girl or her father?"
"I really can't tell, but if they keep advancing id say the girl"
"How do you figure?"
"her father went with us on the mission and..." he glanced at Teyla "...got killed by the wraith"
"Ok so what does Teyla have to do with it?"
"They were firends and teyla was with Tyrus when he got shot by the wraith, the genii thinks that by leaving him she is resposible for his death" part of what he said most have drifted over to Teyla because she turned and gave Mckay a harsh glance. Hoglund lowered his voice.
"So she did leave him?"
"How would I know?" mckay retorted irritatatedly "All I know is that there is something Teyla isnt telling us, why do you care so much?"
"He couldnt keep his eye's of her" Miller said with a smile.
"Oh.. I guess she was kind of cute, I prefer blondes"
"I've always had a thing for smart redheads"

to chapter 7

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