Spoilers: Er…vague for season three. And for “Shades of Grey” from SG-1. All other warnings are at the end of the story.
Disclaimer: Still not mine!
Summary: After the Wraith, after the Genii, after the Asurans and the explosions and the IOA and everything else that the Pegasus Galaxy threw at them, it struck Elizabeth as absurdly funny that it was the North Koreans who finally destroyed Atlantis.
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To Korea, With Love
After the Wraith, after the Genii, after the Asurans and the explosions and the IOA and everything else that the Pegasus Galaxy threw at them, it struck Elizabeth as absurdly funny that it was the North Koreans who finally destroyed Atlantis.
The full scope of the espionage that had gone on at the SGC would probably never be completely known. There had been straight infiltration, over the years a number of Korean agents had inserted themselves into the program under the guise of Korean-American servicemen and women or civilian scientists, but the greatest damage was done by American scientists who had been bought. When General, then Colonel, O’Neill had brought down the NID smuggling ring, the civilian remnants had gone underground, forsaken all pretense of patriotism and sold their knowledge and skills to the highest bidder.
The ship that appeared in orbit around Atlantis was barely space worthy. As Elizabeth tried to make contact on the radio, Rodney remarked scathingly on the construction capabilities of whatever race had built it. When Zelenka reported that the ship was made of Earth-based materials, Elizabeth ordered John to do a fly by in a jumper. He was already half-way to the stairs when she started talking. He smirked at her and headed off and she didn’t really fix his image in her mind. There was no reason to think that this was the last time she would see him.
Zelenka had enough time to report that the ship was venting atmosphere at a rather alarming rate and that the life signs were erratic because it fired on Atlantis. As the nuke streaked towards the command tower and the shield rose up from the base of the city, Rodney voiced a doubt that the shield would reach full power in time. From space, John Sheppard must have had the same worry, because he flew his puddle jumper into the path of the bomb, just before it reached the open place at the top of the shield.
Elizabeth didn’t see him die. Rodney had screamed a warning she was pretty sure they heard on the mainland that everyone should shut their eyes, but Elizabeth had already closed hers to dash away her tears. When she opened her eyes again and looked around at the shocked faces in the darkened control room, Rodney was almost scared of what he saw in her expression.
“Get me that ship.” Elizabeth said flatly. “I want them alive.”
In the end, Rodney devised a cable tow system that hauled the unwilling ship down from orbit and safely into dock on the southwest pier of the powerless city. When Lorne’s team cut through the hull, they discovered twelve bodies, all in Korean uniform, and three more people barely alive next to a weapons console. Beckett, once called, sent the three survivors straight to the infirmary for treatment of hypoxia and declared the others dead of asphyxiation.
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General Landry was never really prepared for his conversations with Dr. Weir. He was by no means a stupid man, but her ability to find loopholes and ways around things made him dizzy. The woman who appeared on the monitor today was a far cry from the calm and ordered academic he usually dealt with.
She forewent greeting him and immediately ordered that he clear the control room and speak to her on a secure line. He tried to explain that this was highly unorthodox and she overrode him before he got three words out. A quick glance at Walter told him that the sergeant was already thinking of a way, but Landry tried again, suggesting this time that Elizabeth come home if it was really that important. Elizabeth’s reply was blistering and brief, and the control room was emptied in short order.
To say that Landry was surprised as to the contents of Elizabeth’s report would be an understatement. He was already expecting something bad, but this was…this was unthinkable. That there could be a breach so big that the Koreans could find out that the Atlantis Expedition existed was terrifying enough. That they could accumulate enough data to build a ship and get there was almost beyond belief, were it not for the complete sincerity of the woman dictating the tale to him.
At the end, all that Landry would think to say was that he would inform the appropriate parties and they would be in contact shortly. He didn’t think he would be able to do anything shortly enough to keep Elizabeth from doing something, sanctioned or not.
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The youngest of the Korean soldiers recovered first. She was a small woman that Lorne vaguely remembered from SGC training exercises. The girl she’d been then was so earnest she was almost painful to watch sometimes. The woman she’d become was hard and superior, a force to be reckoned with.
Though Lorne recalled her name and the fact that she could speak English, the soldier would acknowledge neither. Instead she repeated one phrase over and over, what Lorne assumed was Korean for “I don’t speak English” and refused to say anything else. Again and again he asked her, and always she gave the same reply. Carson was still concerned at her health. She was awake, but she hadn’t entirely shaken off the residual effects of oxygen deprivation. The infirmary had not regained power after the EMP as quickly as Carson would have liked and he was worried that his patients would suffer because of it.
Elizabeth requested that the soldier be moved to an isolation chamber and placed under guard. Her argument was that she did not want the others to wake up and converse with her. None of the Atlantis staff spoke Korean (Beckett did not offer up thanks to any god who might be paying attention that none of the Atlantis staff were Korean until much later) except Elizabeth herself, and she wanted to ensure that all information was contained.
When Elizabeth entered the observation deck over the room where the Korean solider was still resting, no one noticed anything odd about her demeanor. She politely asked the nurses to leave and ordered Lorne to take up position at the door. Although he wasn’t entirely sure why, Lorne did not hesitate before moving to take his place. Elizabeth looked through the window, her face calm and unexpressive. When the solider looked up at her, she smiled in the manner she used to humour a scientist she didn’t really understand or care about understanding (which wasn’t often) and began to speak.
Lorne had no idea what she was saying. Her tone was reasonable, if not particularly expressive, as though she was explaining where the soldier might find the bathroom facilities and how she might request food for lunch. He never saw her hand move to the control panel, so his first clue that the isolation room was losing oxygen was when the alarms started going off. He remembered, vaguely, someone telling him once that the isolation rooms were so called because their air system was completely independent of the rest of the City’s. It was possible to create a vacuum in that room, much like the type of vacuum one would encounter in space.
As the solider began to panic, Lorne rushed into the room. Elizabeth held up her hand for silence, and he obeyed without thinking, his long training had him do first and ask afterwards. In that same calm voice and language Lorne did not understand, Elizabeth went on. She told the solider that they had both seen what hypoxia looked like, but that Elizabeth didn’t know what it felt like. She asked if the solider would like to go through it again or if she would like to talk. The soldier’s sneer was falling off her face now, and she screamed what could only be assent.
Downstairs, Beckett was hammering on the door which had sealed automatically when the air had been cut off. It wouldn’t open, of course, so he turned to his radio asking first Elizabeth and then Lorne what was wrong. It was the radio call that finally broke Lorne out of his trance and he strode forward to reverse whatever it was that Elizabeth had done. He wrestled her aside and she suddenly snapped to life. Gone was the calm façade she had presented so uniformly since the explosion, since John had died and in its place there was pure fury, a rage and despair unlike anything Lorne had ever seen. She clawed at him, but he managed to get the air back on and saw Beckett rush into the isolation room before turning his attention back to Elizabeth.
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Report: 147293, Atlantis
Officer: Major Marcus Lorne
Attn: Gen. Landry, Gen. O’Neill, Joint Chief, POTUS.
Classification: Alpha Black
It has been revealed that the ship which attacked Atlantis was Korean and was operating under the full knowledge and permission of the government of that country. All but three members of the crew died and the other three were treated for hypoxia. They will be returned to Earth for questioning and incarceration. One of them is an American citizen of Korean descent, although she denies that she can speak English and that her name is Satterfield.
The full extent of the infiltration of the SGC by Korean agents needs to be determined, but no member of the Atlantis expedition gave evidence of acting in collusion with the invaders at any time. The near demise of the city, as indicated in Dr. McKay’s report, was inevitable given the lack of warning and the amount of time that the shield takes to power up. The death of Colonel John Sheppard, though grievous, saved the City and all of those within it.
On the matter of Dr. Elizabeth Weir, it is the opinion of our Chief of Medicine Dr. Beckett that she be returned to Earth for a full psych-evaluation. Since the near destruction of the City and the death of Colonel Sheppard, her behaviour has been erratic and Dr. Beckett is worried that she might be in danger of harming herself.
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After she is released from the SGC infirmary but before she is transferred to the Academy Hospital, Elizabeth Weir had lunch with General O’Neill one last time. They talked about the weather and she inquired about the current season of baseball. He made no mention of anything Stargate related, particularly not how the entire Expedition had been recalled, and just as she was about to scrape the whipped cream off the top of her blue jell-o, she looked straight at him and with a calm face and informed him that if there had been a wraith in the holding cell, she wouldn’t have had to use hypoxia.
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Finis
WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH.
GravityNotIncluded, February 28, 2007