Eva swallowed hard, but she had to ask. “And the prisoner. Did he die?”
Zelenka’s mouth twisted wryly. “It was Colonel Sheppard. So, no.”
Dick Woolsey opened the door to his office courteously. “Banks, will you show Miss Radim to guest quarters where she can rest? Also, please see if you can find her some clean clothing while her own is washed.” He gave Dahlia Radim his best smile. “We will make arrangements immediately to contact Chief Radim and apprise him of the situation. You are welcome to speak with him of course, and there will be no constraints whatsoever on your conversation.”
“Thank you,” Dahlia Radim said. Her voice was still frosty, but she was no longer shaking with anger.
“Banks?”
“I’d be delighted, ma’am,” Amelia Banks said. “Right this way.”
“Colonel Sheppard, if you would stay.” Woolsey kept his voice neutral until the door closed again. Sheppard looked ragged. By his own admission he’d only slept five hours in more than three days. That knowledge tempered him somewhat. But.
“Sure,” Sheppard said, dropping back into the visitor chair as Dick went around his desk to resume his own seat. “I know what you’re going to say, and…”
“Colonel Sheppard,” Dick broke in. “What were you thinking? Do you have any idea what the ramifications of bringing that Ancient warship here are?”
“We can’t keep it,” Sheppard said, scrubbing his hand over his chin. “We’ve got to give it back to Ladon Radim.”
“Of course we have to give it to Ladon Radim!” Dick was finally starting to lose his temper, and he reined himself in. “We can’t possibly do anything else under the circumstances. Keeping it would be a declaration of war for all practical purposes!”
“Then I don’t see what the problem is,” Sheppard began. “I told her we’d give it to them.”
“Do you understand the political consequences of having an Ancient warship and then just giving it away? Do you have any idea what the IOA or General O’Neill are going to say about how we found an Ancient warship that could be critical to us, an operational Ancient warship, and then we gave it to the Genii? We gave spacefaring capability to our shakiest and most powerful ally?”
Sheppard blinked. “You didn’t say that when I called in and told you what the deal was.”
“That is because what you told me was an entirely different circumstance. It’s one thing for us to render technical assistance with a salvage operation in order to build good will with an ally. It’s another thing to give them a goddamed warship!” Dick never lost his temper, but it was gone now. “As long as we never had it, as long as it was a Genii salvage project we were assisting with, we could go along. But the minute you brought a functional Ancient warship here and landed it in Atlantis, you changed the entire game!”
“I had to,” Sheppard said. “The ship wasn’t in good enough shape to make the Genii homeworld, and Carson and Teyla both needed medical attention. Dahlia couldn’t fix the ship, and it was barely spaceworthy enough to get here.”
“And do you know why you couldn’t fix the ship?” Dick asked sharply. “Have you thought through that one? Why you were wandering around in the desert in the first place being attacked by wild animals?”
Sheppard nodded, his face closing. “Because I didn’t return to Atlantis to get a technical crew to accompany us.”
“Yes.” Dick took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Not so hard. No point in belaboring the point. “I know that you don’t want to replace Dr. McKay on your team, but the lack of technical skills nearly got all of you killed. It is essential that you maintain a team that is able to deal with the common challenges you face, and at present without Dr. McKay that is not the case.” He folded his hands on the desk before him. “Therefore, as of now, Dr. Zelenka is on the gate team.”
Sheppard lifted his eyes. “Radek Zelenka isn’t…”
“Qualified to be on the gate team? Then name someone else. Dr. Kusanagi? Dr. Sauneron?” Dick was adamant. “You have to have someone with the requisite technical skills on the gate team. That’s not negotiable.”
He expected Sheppard to argue, but instead he nodded slowly. “Ok. It’s Zelenka then. Until Rodney gets back.”
“Until Dr. McKay returns and is able to resume his duties,” Dick agreed.
“Dobrý Bože! You are shitting me,” Radek said. He stared at John, wishing that he were more certain it were a joke.
“No.” John looked terrible, and as he hadn’t been to his quarters yet to clean up, he smelled like four days in the field.
“I have a bad leg,” Radek said. “And I have not fired a pistol in four years. I have never fired a P90 in my life! I cannot see across the gate room! I cannot see you standing there without my glasses! ím jsem si tohle zasloužil, John! I am forty-three years old, not some strapping young Marine!”
“You'll do fine,” he said. “You always do fine when you go offworld.”
“Which I try not to do unless I absolutely have to!” Radek snapped. “And when I do I have to be carried about like a parcel! I am not Rodney McKay, action hero!”
“You're exaggerating,” John said patiently. “You don't have to be carried around like a parcel.”
“All of this running and jumping and shooting things…”
“That's not what we need you to do,” John said. “We need you to fix the jumper. You can do that, right?”
“Well, of course I can do that. Who do you think fixes the jumpers when you bring them in torn to hell and back because you have done something bizarre and courageous? But you are talking about going to combat situations. I am useless in that. I am nothing but a dead weight.” Radek kept talking faster and faster, as though the sheer number of his words could wear John down. “I do not do the hand to hand combat, the stick fighting! I am five foot four! Do you think I will be karate chopping people?”
“Teyla's five-foot four.”
“Teyla is a very cute and adorable tank dressed up as a beautiful woman,” Radek said. “She could break my neck with her little finger.”
“Well, right now she's stuck in the infirmary having an x ray to see if her hip is broken because we couldn't fix the jumper,” John snapped. “Look, you don’t have a choice. I don’t have a choice. This is the way it’s going to be. So haul yourself up and get with the program.” He turned around and walked off, leaving Radek gaping after him.
Radek stood for a long moment, until he could stop breathing quite so hard. The entire gate room was trying very hard not to stare at him.
“Well,” he said casually, and wandered back toward his station on the upper tier. Dr. Robinson was still standing there, looking like she was trying as hard as anyone not to appear to be listening to things that were not her business. And yet of course she’d heard every word. “Well, I seem to be on the gate team.”
There. He said it, this thing that scared him to death. “I suppose there is nothing for it.” Was that what Rodney would say, casual and cool as a pickle? Was that how a hero would sound when asked to do something far beyond his physical capabilities? Sure, yes, I will do it, no problem.
“I guess so,” Dr. Robinson said quietly.
“It is very inconvenient,” Radek said with a shrug.
Chapter Twenty-three: Home
John headed for the infirmary, every step seeming to take forever. His feet felt like wood. He’d been a little hard on Zelenka. Yes, ok, he hadn’t wanted Zelenka on the gate team for all of the rational reasons Zelenka had said. He knew perfectly well Radek wasn’t a soldier. And he knew perfectly well that somebody was going to have to look after him when they ran into a firefight. No two ways about that.