Chapter 15-LtCol Sheppard’s Interview
Gibbs found the trip to P4M-948 to be far shorter than he had expected. Jon had explained that travel through a wormhole was nearly instantaneous, but Gibbs had planned on it taking longer. No, he had hoped it would take longer so he could get a bearing on Colonel Sheppard’s mood.
Instead, the pre-flight check done by the colonel had been completed with only minimal communication from Sheppard to the control tower. The colonel has studiously ignored both of his passengers and their inquiries. He showed no interest in the fact that both of his passengers were fully decked out in a field kit. But, Gibbs mused, that shouldn’t surprise him since Sheppard himself had a full kit on as he ran through the checklists.
After his first few attempts to draw the colonel out were rebuffed, he leaned back and just observed the colonel from the co-pilot’s seat. He hadn’t seen any opening, not a single chink in the colonel’s armor.
Once through the wormhole, Gibbs’ attention was drawn outside. He allowed himself a moment of awe as he took in the beauty of the surrounding space. P4M-948, the planet listed in the reports was a brightly glowing ball in the sky. Initially, he didn’t see the wreckage from the hive ships. But soon the heads-up display picked out and mapped the debris orbiting the planet, invisible in the distance.
Gibbs frowned briefly. “I thought the Stargate was in the middle of the debris field.”
And for the first time, Sheppard actually glanced in his direction and responded to him. “We moved it so we could provide humanitarian support to the planet’s population without worrying about flying blind into that mess.”
“Good thinking,” Gibbs replied carefully. No sense in antagonizing him yet. “How long before we are close enough to scan the debris?”
“30 minutes,” the colonel replied briskly, shutting them out again.
“Good. Setup the equipment, Probie.”
“Sure thing, Boss.” Jon replied and quickly pulled out the laptop with the beacon ID database on it. Abby had thrust it into his hands right before they boarded the jumper. He pulled out an Ancient Technology interface cord and then began to methodically scan the jumper’s crystals.
Gibbs went back to watching Sheppard. To his credit, he hid his interest well. But Gibbs could see that his attention was in the back of the jumper and not on the flight path before him. He resisted asking the question he so obviously wanted to ask for ten minutes.
“So… what are you scanning for exactly?” Sheppard asked, finally losing the battle with his curiosity.
“Hum?” Jon replied, playing up his part of the science geek.
“What are you looking for?” Sheppard asked again.
Jon finally turned back to Sheppard. “Oh. Lt Ford’s tracking beacon. We figured that the implants are small enough that IF the lieutenant was caught in the blast, his implant may have survived. If it did, and we can find it, then we know what happened to the lieutenant. If not, while it is still possible that Lt Ford died in the explosion, it is also possible that he survived.” Jon had portrayed the disinterested scientist to a tee.
Gibbs resisted tensing up himself at the callous treatment of the lieutenant’s missing status. But Jon’s words had the desired effect. Gibbs watched as Sheppard’s hands turned white on the ship’s controls. In the end, the colonel regained control and reigned in his anger. For all that the prompting had failed to draw out the colonel, it showed Gibbs that he wasn’t unmoved and that gave Gibbs an idea.
“Probie, you done yet.” Gibbs prompted, knowing that hooking up the laptop to the sensors could be done in less than a minute. Jon had carefully identified the crystal before the colonel had arrived. But Gibbs had planned on using the time to talk to LtCol Sheppard. Jon had agreed to play along pretending to be busy on the controls until Gibbs was ready.
“Yes, Boss.” Jon replied quickly from the back of the jumper.
Gibbs stood up and made his way to the back. “Good. Something’s been bothering me about the last encounter with the lieutenant. In the first two encounters, Ford displays extreme paranoia and a pathological need to avoid the other members of the expedition. But on this last encounter, he decides to make contact and recruit them into his plan to destroy the hive ship.”
“Yeah, Boss. On P3M-736, while he initially seemed unwilling to kill the other Atlantis team members, he eventually took Dr McKay as a hostage in order to force his freedom. When Dr McKay’s usefulness had ended, Ford was more than willing to kill him proving his new sociopathic tendencies. He even joked about trying to kill McKay when the team was later captured and taken to his home base.”
Gibbs grinned at Jon. The kid was really good at playing his part. His language was very inflammatory and was having the desired effect on the colonel. “Yes. He must have had a personal grudge against Dr. McKay. He used the same tactics in that last encounter. Dr McKay is lucky that the second encounter didn’t end with his death. He was saved by the uncaring attitude of his guards which gave him the time to make his escape.”
Gibbs spared a glance at the colonel. The man was practically vibrating with tension. “No, what bothers me most about the last encounter is that the lieutenant’s ability to reason was no longer compromised. He was still pathologically paranoid, but he was able to reason past that to entrap his former teammates. His plan to destroy the hive ship, while fatally flawed, was still well reasoned.”
“I don’t know, Boss. He still showed a sociopathic complex. He may have reasoned that his hatred of the Wraith, brought on by his need to use them to gain more enzyme, was more important than his hatred of the Atlantis expedition for their perceived abandonment. But ultimately, they were just a means to an end. A tool, if you will. To be used for his convenience. Hence, sociopath.” Jon finished with a flourish.
Gibbs was impressed. It was complete bullshit, but is sure as hell sounded good. And as he watched LtCol Sheppard release the jumper’s controls, it had the desired effect.
The colonel jumped up from the pilot’s chair and advanced on the pair in the back with his anger barely under control. The slightest motion from Jon drew Gibbs’ eyes to the Wraith stunner, just out of sight. Gibbs resisted the urge to smile. Yes, one of these days, he would have to stop underestimating the kid.
“You have no idea what in the hell you’re talking about.” Sheppard said as he rounded on them, his hands clenched into fists at his side. “You weren’t there. You don’t know him. Lieutenant Ford was a good man and damn fine Marine.” Sheppard’s voice broke briefly with emotion.
“Then enlighten me,” Gibbs replied coolly. “Because your REPORT shows me a sociopathic drug user bent on using old friends as weapons against his enemies.”
Sheppard seemed to lose some of his anger to apathy. Jon gave Gibbs a brief nod, and left the two men alone in the back.
Sheppard sat heavily across from Gibbs. “It didn’t happen that way. He wasn’t like that.” Sheppard repeated. “He wanted to come home. He missed his grandparents and his friends, but…” Sheppard wiped a hand over his face and finally looked Gibbs in the eye. Sheppard took a deep breath before continuing, “But he felt that the military wouldn’t understand why he stayed away when he got a handle on the enzyme problem. He wanted to prove that it could be used safely because he wasn’t sure if stopping would kill him. He wanted to prove that the enzyme would be a benefit to Atlantis, so he could keep fighting.”
Sheppard sighed softly, “We talked about it, you know. He wanted to go home so badly, but for some damn reason he felt that he had to prove himself… I tried to tell him that he didn’t need to prove himself to anyone… that no one blamed him. But he JUST wouldn’t listen.”
Gibbs nodded in agreement. “What happened in that cell…after you were separated from the others?”
Sheppard tensed up. A look of raw pain flashed across his face before he was able to hide behind his look of casual indifference. He gave a snort of amusement. “It all went to hell… At first, he was fine, but he blamed me for everything going wrong. He… he said that I was sabotaging his mission. That I never wanted him to succeed. After a while he started to go into withdrawal. He was shaking and sweating so bad, but I remember being happy because he was also coming back. He was returning to the Ford that I knew. The one who knew that being a part of a team meant that no one got left behind… and then the Wraith took him.” Sheppard looked away and again Gibbs saw raw pain cross his face. “The next time I saw him, he had just rescued me from the Wraith Queen… and he wouldn’t go with me. He made me choose between him and my team… He… he promised that he would catch up, but I knew he wouldn’t. I knew it and I left anyway.”
Sheppard lapsed into silence. Gibbs let the quiet of the jumper surround them as he thought about what the colonel had said. He had suspected that the colonel was dealing with survivor’s guilt, but the colonel’s resolute belief that the lieutenant was still alive seemed to contradict that guilt. If the colonel thought the lieutenant was dead then the guilt was reasonable, even expected. But if he thought the lieutenant was alive, why the guilt? Did he really think the lieutenant was alive? Or was he hiding his guilt behind his belief that the lieutenant was still alive?
Gibbs moved slightly to catch Sheppard’s attention. “If you knew he wouldn’t follow you to escape, why do you insist that Ford is still alive?”
Sheppard’s response was instant and emphatic, “Because it’s Ford. You’d have to know him to understand. Ford would have survived.”
“How?” Gibbs pressed.
“How should I know? I barely escaped in the modified dart as it was… But Ford… Ford…” A look of shock and surprise flashed across the colonel’s face. “A dart,” he said suddenly. “He stole another dart.” Suddenly, the colonel was up and moving back towards the jumper’s controls. His movements suddenly held an excited purpose. “How could we have missed it?”
Gibbs followed Sheppard to the front of the jumper. “I thought that the reason for kidnapping you was because Ford and his men couldn’t pilot a dart.”
Sheppard maneuvered the controls and the jumper sped toward the wreckage of the two hive ships once again. “He knew enough to steal the dart and to get it back to his planet. He easily could have taken a dart and escaped the hive ship when all the other darts were headed to the culling.”
“But none of the other darts survived the explosion… Colonel Caldwell made sure to scan the wreckage looking for you.” Gibbs said as he watched Sheppard pilot the ship.
“We can still scan the wreckage for his locator beacon,” Jon piped up.
“No. We can’t,” Sheppard replied quietly.
“Why not?” Gibbs asked.
Sheppard winced. “Because we didn’t get the sub-dermal beacons until after the siege on Atlantis. Ford escaped before the siege ended. He doesn’t have a locator beacon.”
“Damn it.” Jon cussed under his breath. “Wait…” Jon grinned as he turned to Sheppard. “Ford wasn’t a pilot and knew that his skill was limited, right?”
“Right?” Sheppard replied.
“So, if I knew that I could barely fly, I’d go to the safest place I could think of before trying to land… If the Stargate was surrounded by debris that would be… there.” Jon pointed to P4M-948, the planet, shining so large and bright in the darkness of space.
Without a second thought, Sheppard turned the ship towards the planet with a grin on his face.
SG-SG--SG--SG--SG--SG--SG--SG--SG--SG--SG--SG--SG--SG--SG--SG—SG
TBC
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