You aren't from here?
Teyla shook her head. My people the Athosians are a pastoral people. We have not built cities like this since the great war. We cannot defend them, you see, and a settled people are an easy target.She gestured with her glass to Dahlia Radim, who was staying pointedly across the room from her. The Genii, on the other hand, hide their cities underground in the hopes that they will escape the attention of the Wraith thus. There are many civilizations in this galaxy, Major, and as many ways of living as human beings can invent. The only constant is that we are hunted. Here, human beings are prey.
Franklin nodded. And so you want our help.
Some of us do, and some of us do not. Since Sateda fell, the Genii have been the strongest human civilization in the galaxy, so you must not think they will be glad to see you. Why should they be? If it were not for you, they might be the next short lived empire.
I don't understand.
Do you not have empires on your homeworld, Major Franklin? It is human nature for civilizations to expand, and there are some that absorb others. On your world they fight, or so I have read, until one or another fails. Here, it is more often that the strongest is leveled by the Wraith. Whenever it seems that we will come together, either by force or by treaty, the Wraith destroy it. If they do not, then sooner or later they know that we will successfully resist them. But as long as they keep knocking down the strongest, that will not happen. She raised her glass and took a quick sip. Sateda was the most recent one. They had radios and electric lights, trolley cars and energy beam weapons, steel mills and antibiotics. And so they were killed, even those the Wraith did not feed upon, so that there would be no one who knew how to make those things. If you are here long, you will meet my friend Ronon Dex, who was of the Satedan Immortals, stood in their last battle against the Wraith, and endured much in the years after.
I would like very much to meet him, ma'am, Franklin said.
He often works out with the Marines in the morning, Teyla said. Perhaps if you are in the gym you will see him. She took a step toward the window, unexpectedly feeling her hip give way. She stumbled and nearly fell, catching herself against the glass.
Franklin grabbed for her elbow ineffectually. I'm sorry. Ma'am, are you ill?
I am fine, Teyla said. I injured my hip on the last mission, and it is tender. Dr. Bauer has said I should stay off it, but I think that I can stand up and drink a martini. She smiled, making light of the pain. It would stop in a moment, when she had not put her weight on it wrong.
What did you do to your hip?
I was knocked down by a charging carnivorous lizard while shooting at the rest of its pack with a P90.
Ok. He swallowed nervously. Franklin looked a little overwhelmed glancing around the room. So many new people, Teyla thought. And Atlantis was rather overwhelming.
You will come to know us quickly, Teyla said reassuringly. I know it is confusing to meet so many and know no one.
I've met Colonel Sheppard before, Franklin said. In Afghanistan.
Teyla did her best not to flinch. Oh? Did you serve with him there?
Not for very long.” Franklin’s eyes searched her face. “I’d only been there three weeks when he was sent home. You know, the thing… The court martial board stopped short of a dishonorable discharge, because it wasn’t a direct order he disobeyed. And they cleared him of Captain Holland’s death. There wasn’t enough for the other charges to stick. I mean, nobody actually had anything but hearsay, so…” He pulled himself up short and swallowed hard. “I mean, I’m glad it worked out okay for him, because he seemed like a nice guy, and sometimes stuff happens.”
“Sometimes it does, Major,” Teyla said gently. “As I am sure you know by now.”
“I figured he’d get the short end of the stick somewhere,” Franklin said quietly. “I never thought I’d run into him here. He was a great pilot.”
“He is a great pilot,” Teyla said. “As you will probably see firsthand sooner than you wish. I do not imagine it will be long before you are under fire. Colonel Carter is…what is the term? A fire-eater?”
Franklin laughed. “She sure is! We’re looking forward to it.”
“It was an honor to serve with her,” Teyla said.
Franklin’s face stilled. “You have been around us quite a while, haven’t you?”
“More than long enough to know your words for that,” Teyla said softly.
The dinner lasted about as long as all formal dinners held on base lasted in John’s experience, which was to say about an hour longer than anybody wanted to be there. Woolsey and Sam spent the whole time being so polite to each other that it was probably clear to everyone in the room that they couldn’t stand each other. Teyla looked like she’d rather be taking a nice hot bath, although she did keep determinedly launching new lines of conversation every time they ran one entirely into the ground.
She spent some considerable time pretending to be interested in the Hammond’s long-range scanner system, while Jennifer and Woolsey pretended to be interested in the Genii’s recent developments in nuclear power. John couldn’t think of anything to talk about that it seemed fair to make people pretend to be interested in, so he put on his best social smile, the one that made Teyla look at him a little strangely, and waited the evening out.
Eventually the party broke up, with Teyla heading off to collect Torren from wherever he’d spent a nicer evening, and Jennifer offering to show Dahlia Radim to guest quarters in what was probably an attempt to persuade her that not everyone in Atlantis was an axe murderer. Franklin said goodnight with the expression of someone grateful to have survived his first social occasion under the eye of his new CO.
That left him and Sam lingering in the corridor once Woolsey exchanged one more round of probably insincere pleasantries with Sam and finally called it a night.
“Whew,” Sam said when he was well and truly out of earshot. “I think I’m out of practice at this kind of thing.”
“You think you’re out of practice. Around here, we usually only dress up for funerals,” John said. “It gives formal occasions that extra added touch of depressing.”
Sam looked him over frankly. “Bad week, huh?”
“We’ve had better,” John admitted after a moment. “You want to go have a real drink?”
“That sounds good,” Sam said. “Can I tell you about our new railguns?”
He grinned. “Can I stop you?”
“Oh, admit it, Sheppard. If she were your ship — ”
“Then I’d probably sound like I had a new crush, too.”
He handed her a beer when they got back to his quarters, and pulled out one for himself. It was way too cold to go sit outside, even on the balcony. Sam settled into a chair and put her feet up on another.
“Woolsey’s trying,” John said, folding himself into a chair himself. “I think this was supposed to be an olive branch.”
“Complete with olives,” Sam said. “I had followed things that far, yes.” She shrugged. “He’s made it pretty clear that getting sent out here wasn’t his idea, and for what it’s worth I believe him. I was never going to make the IOA happy, because I wasn’t going to let them call all the shots. So they replaced me with someone who would.”
“I think the honeymoon’s worn off there,” John said.
“I think you’re right,” Sam said. “It wasn’t until after you left that it dawned on the IOA members — at least, it did on the brighter ones — that Woolsey and General O’Neill had been playing them all along. Nechayev is probably Woolsey’s only remaining fan, along with the president. Neither of them wanted us to get stuck with Atlantis on Earth.”