Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 160

Chapter 160 - Deliberations

The Tok'ra had wanted to discuss Eventus's offer in private. Which was more than a little understandable given he had basically sprung it on them on a whim. But that left him and the others sitting somewhat awkwardly in wait for them to come to decision.

“So how's it going?” Sheppard asked as the silence began to stretch on.

“Eh.” Eventus shrugged. “I'm hitting the point where I'm starting to mentally debate the merits of hanging a help wanted sign up in the Atlantis gate room for someone with political aspirations who wouldn't mind handling the day to day minutia of running a spacefaring civilization.”

“Please don't.” Weir tiredly sighed.

Eventus glanced over to her. “Do you want the job? You'd need to go through the official immigration process. But given your academic and diplomatic history that shouldn't be too difficult.”

“No thanks.” Weir answered dryly.

Turning his eyes to Sheppard, Eventus shot the soldier a hopeful look. “Do you think Teyla would be interested?”

Sheppard shook his head. “Na, she prefers being on the ground doing stuff over sitting in an office dealing with paperwork.”

“Maybe the captain of the Tria will be interested.” Eventus mused as he considered just who else he might be able to trick into accepting the job. 

That seemed to make Sheppard frown. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. The City’s really going to have more Ancients showing up?”

Eventus nodded. “Unless something horrible happened to them in the void between galaxies in the ten thousand years since they sent the distress signal, the Asgard should be towing their ship back to Atlantis within the month.”

“And that ship's name would be?” Sheppard pressed.

“The Tria.” Eventus told him. “Same refit type as the Enterprise, the message didn’t include the current state of its crew, but I’d expect at least two to three hundred.”

“I’ll get you their files when we get back to the city.” Sheppard said to Weir.

“They’re not likely to be as… Friendly, as the crew of the Aurora.” Eventus offered in an apologetic tone. “They all grew up during the tail end of the war. So we didn’t really have time to nag the superiority complex out of them.”

Both Sheppard and Weir were staring at him now.

“That was a joke.” He clarified as his lip twitched in amusement.

“About the superiority complex, or nagging it away?” Sheppard asked for clarification.

“The former.” Eventus admitted. “I’m sad to say the superiority complex is something of a species wide norm for us.”

He perked up slightly as a thought occurred to him and he turned to Sheppard with a grin. “On the up side, given you’re the city’s military councilor, you can legally order them around so long as those orders remain within the scope of their duties.”

Which were both wide reaching and highly limited.

“I really need to go over just what’s involved with that.” Sheppard grumbled.

“You really do.” Weir agreed, staring judgementally at the man.

“I keep meaning to get to it.” Sheppard confessed with a grimace. “But things keep coming up.” He turned a glare on Eventus. “And the city won’t stop flooding my email with damage reports and repair schedules.”

Eventus grinned smugly. “I told you to ignore the prompt.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sheppard rolled his eyes. “Laugh it up.”

“Do you know if they will want to stay in the central tower?” Weir asked with a slight frown. “We’ve repurposed a lot of the space there for our own use, so it would be good to know beforehand so we can move things.”

That was a good question, and Eventus considered what he knew about the crew of the Tria for several seconds before offering an apologetic shrug. “I don’t really know. Most of the crew is from Atlantis, so they should have their own living quarters already. But they might not want to stay there, or be capable of staying there if the location suffered too much damage.”

Given its location, he had been relatively lucky that his own apartment had just needed a good cleaning and to have its various furnishings replaced. Anyone whose place had been on one of the outer piers, or in the undercity areas, probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near as likely given those places had taken the brunt of the flooding and hurricane damage.

“Though on that topic,” Eventus continued as he turned a speculative eye to Wier. “How many people are you expanding the expedition by?”

“A hundred and twelve additional scientific and medical personnel will be coming back with us." Weir said. “Along side them, the marines that arrive on the Daedalus will be staying to fill out empty spots on our security and stargate teams."

“Under my command.” Sheppard added in proudly.

“Any chance you could grab an extra twenty or thirty engineers on top of that?” Eventus asked hopefully. “Because there’s a lot of maintenance work left to do for the city that basically amounts to grabbing replacement parts and following directions.”

An annoyed look flashed over Sheppard's face. “We’re heading back tomorrow.”

Weir shot him a reproachful look. “By which Colonel Sheppard means the IOA’s preliminary interview process alone takes several months. So it will be at least half a year before we can realistically look at bringing in more people.”

“And they can’t fast track that?” Eventus pressed, not having met a political body yet that didn’t have some way to bypass bureaucratic minutia when they really needed to.

“I’m sure they could.” Weir acknowledged with an odd smile. “But as Colonel Sheppard said, we’re scheduled to head back to Atlantis tomorrow. So if you wanted to arrange additional personnel, you would have to be the one to convince the IOA of the need.”

Eventus grimaced at the thought of just how much politicking that would likely take. “Maybe it would be easier to just clone Zelenka instead.”

Sheppard shook his head almost pityingly. “It doesn’t work as well when we can tell you’re joking.”

The briefing room’s door chose that moment to swing open, admitting the three Tok’ra back into the room.

“It has been decided that Anise and Freya will take you up on your offer.” Garshaw said after the three had returned to their seats.

“However I will need at least a day to retrieve the clothing and equipment necessary for a long term field assignment.” Anise added in, shooting a somewhat annoyed glare towards Garshaw.

“That shouldn’t be a problem.” Eventus said, hoping Thor wouldn’t be too put out at the thought of a fourth. “The expedition is heading back early tomorrow, but I’m bringing Rayla and Yami back by Asgard ship due to another matter that needs dealing with. So you can join us if you can’t make it in time.”

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Author’s Notes: Cut to Thor letting out a tired sigh and Eventus assuring him it will be a quick three hour tour. Jokes aside, Thor kind of expected things to snowball a bit since going exactly according to plan is kind of athenma to the Ancients.