7. Dead Man Walking

John had seen it all except the stargate, so he wasn’t sure why standing in front of it made him more nervous than if it had been another Wraith flipping through his mind. The watery blue surface of the active wormhole shimmered as if reflecting the sun. Or a whole galaxy of suns, probably—he wondered how many dead stars were dancing before his eyes.

The marine sent to fetch him, Lt. Aiden Ford, looked bored and heavily armed. John, propped up on a cane and still on the tail end of being weaned off of the narcotic pain meds, was the very definition of harmless. Although he seriously considered waving the cane around and yelling “You kids get off my lawn!”

Given how twitchy the gate guards were, they would probably shoot him if he tried. John doubted the very put-upon General Hammond up behind the safety glass would shed a tear if they did. John was still adjusting to being legally dead, but that did not mean he wanted to try for the real thing, so he kept his cane firmly on the ground.

“You nervous?” The surly Lt. Ford gave him a calculating once-over.

John looked at the stargate, then back at Ford. “No.”

“Real chatty one you are; McKay’s gonna eat you alive.” Ford threw in a nasty grin for effect, but John had played the intimidation game with too many military officers and mafia thugs to be shaken by the freshman efforts of a kid nearly half his age. He stared back at Ford blankly, as if they were facing off over a poker table. After a few seconds, Ford turned away with an effort at nonchalance, and John grinned wolfishly in triumph. He still had it; rusty and bad tempered and standing a mile below the surface in a top secret military base, John could still shake ‘em to their bones.

Ford snapped to attention so hard it made John’s spine hurt in sympathy. He tottered around in an awkward spin to see a good looking blond USAF colonel in uniform standing front and center between two other colonels, one older and fierce and the other younger and solid like a brick house. The whole room had stopped dead and Hammond was nowhere to be seen.

“John Sheppard,” Colonel Carter said, inclining her head politely.

“Colonel Carter,” John answered, making a show of looking at the name tag sitting on her well-shaped tits. The other colonels caught the move and bristled, but stayed silent. John wasn’t stupid; he had heard about “The Three Cs” and particularly Colonel Carter, whom he had stupidly assumed was a guy. Carter had served with the legendary General O’Neill who was somewhere in Antarctica, too busy and too important to be bothered with a fucked-up loser like John. But the Three Cs, they were standing right there, and John figured he was getting a close up look at the power behind the throne. He just wasn’t sure why.

“Dishonorable discharge.” Carter spoke with measured tones, probably too used to guys checking out her rack to be bothered by it, if she even noticed.

“What can I say? I worked hard for it.”

Her eyes were piercing and smart and a shade short of cruel, and John wondered if she hung out with McKay much. They were made for each other. She gave him a brittle, meaningless smile. “Well, now you will be working hard for McKay. You’ll do everything he tells you, including bending over to grab your ankles if he says so. If We get one whisper of insubordination from you, We’re pulling you back so hard it’ll register as a six pointer on the Richter scale.”

John wondered if she knew her science-savvy threat was more sexy than intimidating. He kept his face blank, though, and nodded. “Got it. Work hard, grab ankles.”

Carter narrowed her eyes but it was the colonel labeled “Caldwell” who spoke up, his deep voice ringing throughout the room. “Don’t give us a reason, Sheppard.”

They turned and walked away. John stood in front of the shimmering light of the stargate, watching the Three Cs practically glide out in formation, and knew for a fact that when he stepped through the wormhole to Atlantis, no one intended for him to come back through it alive.

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