crossoverfic | The Saints of Atlantis 16

Title: The Saints of Atlantis
Fandoms: The Boondock Saints/Stargate Atlantis
Rating: PG15/Teen for violence and swearing
Author: Dragonfan

If they hadn’t seen people coming and going through the stargate on a regular basis, Conner and Murphy probably would have balked at going through it the first time. As it was, they were able to calmly step through flanking Elizabeth when she followed the first three Marines that were going on this mission through.

The timing of this treaty and celebration sucked. ART-1 had already left on a mission that was scheduled to last several days. Elizabeth and Radek had to go to evaluate the library and to finalize the treaty. Doctor Beckett was going to triage their medical needs and what his people could do about them. That left Lorne in charge of Atlantis by himself; and Lieutenant Cadman in charge of the Marine escort. It was not the ideal set up.

Nevertheless, it was what they had so they did their best to make it work. Lieutenant Cadman and two Marines went first to secure the stargate and surrounding area. Elizabeth went next, with Murphy and Conner on either side of her and Romeo following. Doctor Zelenka and Doctor Beckett followed Romeo and were themselves followed in turn by the last three Marines. This put one Marine with every civilian, a precaution should things go drastically wrong.

As was usual in the Pegasus galaxy, the stargate was at a distance from the local settlement. Conner wasn’t used to meeting the local powerhouses unless it was to send them to the Lord for judgment. So he hadn’t been altogether sure just what to expect, but he was fairly certain that the group waiting to escort them to the settlement wasn’t it.

The first thing that struck Conner was the appalling lack of color coordination. Every color of the rainbow was represented and in such a way as if to compete for who could produce the most number of clashing items. It made him extremely grateful that his role was that of intimidating bodyguard because it meant that he was wearing his sunglasses and he could keep them on. Everyone who wasn’t was going to have one hell of a headache before long.

The second thing he noticed was that the group greeting them was composed of all men. There were any number of reasonable explanations for this, but an unsettled feeling began growing in his gut that had nothing to do with the local’s lack of good taste. The head toady, and he couldn’t be anything else the way he was kissing up to Elizabeth, was going through the motions of welcoming them to the planet while at the same time trying to get them away from the ‘gate. It was a reasonable precaution, but so was the shielded jumper that Lorne had ordered to follow them through the ‘gate.

Conner wasn’t sure that Elizabeth knew about the jumper, but the Marines and the Saints did. The bodyguard detail was only supposed to be for looks, but all three of them were taking Elizabeth’s request seriously. Especially since, appallingly bad taste or not, most of these weren’t terribly good men. None of them had the marks that signaled total corruption, but nearly all of them had marks that showed varying degrees of evil. “These lesser forms of filth have not yet pushed the bounds and crossed over,” muttered Murphy in Spanish.

“But someone has invited us to make sure that those who have will reap what they have sown,” Conner said just as quietly in the same language. As linguists they had both noticed that the only Earth language that was translated by the ‘gates was English, which meant that they could use other languages to keep their conversations to themselves, or share them with only their own group if they chose.

“Let’s get the lay of the land before you two start sending more souls to the river, ok?” Romeo prompted quietly. “We need to make sure that we only send the ones that we have to.”

“We remember Rome,” Conner said. “But if these are the sorts that are sent when they need help, it doesn’t bode well for anyone. Sooner or later they’re going to push us into a corner that we’ll have to fight our way out of. Make sure you keep your eyes open.”

“Another Chekov thing, do you think?” Murphy asked as they began to head towards the local city.

“Oh probably, or if not they’ll think of something else to put us in the same position,” Conner said sourly. He hated being reminded of the morning he’d been chained to a toilet while two Russian mobsters had marched his brother off to die. Those idiots had learned the hard way that there was nothing one twin would not do to defend the other. “Just try not to do anything that would get you a bullet to the brain from one of these lackeys.”

“As long as you don’t end up chained to another toilet,” Murphy agreed.

“That was one well aimed toilet, if I do say so myself,” Conner said as they walked down the street. He noticed that although there were women and children out, there were no women younger than Elizabeth; and no female children older than ten if he had to guess an age. The feeling in his gut grew a little darker.

“Aye, but you didn’t come out of that one so well,” Murphy said. He caught Conner’s eye and twitched a finger in the direction of a group of young men. That particular group was watching Cadman far too closely for Murphy’s comfort.

Conner gave a barely perceptible nod to show that he’d seen it as well. “Oh I don’t know, I only limped for a day. That’s not bad for jumping off a five story building.” There were armed men everywhere. It looked as bad as the Guardia in the North back home, if not worse; only these men didn’t seem to be working together. They weren’t dressed in any fashion that could be said to be a uniform.

“That’s because you weren’t the one that had to haul your heavy ass down to the hospital,” Murphy retorted. They were coming up on a large building, presumably where the local government did business. It was surrounded by men that were obviously some type of military.

“Well if things do go to shit, we’ve got a doc with us,” Romeo said. He too, noticed things that weren’t sitting too well with him.

They were escorted into a suite and left to themselves with instructions that they had an hour to refresh themselves before the first round of negotiations would begin. Once the toady had left Elizabeth turned around, but did not do more than draw a breath to begin chastising the Saints before Conner interrupted her. “Stick to Spanish, they can’t understand that,” he said harshly.

“Cadman, stick with Doctor Weir,” Murphy told the Lieutenant. “It looks like the two of you are going to be in the most danger here.”

“I noticed,” Cadman said in passable Spanish. “Any thoughts on why we were the focus of all the attention? The group that contacted us didn’t pay me any more attention than anyone else did.”

“My guess is that this is a male dominated society,” Elizabeth offered, once she realized that Conner actually had a real reason for his insistence on speaking only Spanish and for the conversation that they’d had on the way in. “They aren’t used to seeing women in positions of power around here.”

“No, it’s more than that,” Murphy disagreed. “If it was only that, we’d have seen more women out on the street. The two of you are the only women we’ve got with us, and a lot of what I think were the richer men on the street were marked as abusers.”

“A lot of them were marked as rapists as well,” Conner growled.

“Aye, but not as many as I feared from the group that met us,” Murphy said thankfully.

“If that’s the case, then it’s probably at least condoned here, if not actually legal,” Cadman pointed out.

“Yeah, but that just means that the higher up these guys are, the more likely they are to be our sorta guys,” Romeo reminded them.

“How they treat each other has nothing to do with us. We’re here to see if we can trade medical assistance for access to that library,” Elizabeth tried to remind them.

“They’re the ones who asked for us to come,” Murphy pointed out. “Someone around here must know what that means.”

“We’ll have to mark the good men so the others will know,” Conner thought out loud. “We don’t want them to get hurt if we’re pushed into doing our duty.”

“Cross ‘em,” Romeo offered. “Then we’ll know not to hit them with friendly fire.” The brothers and the Marines nodded. No one wanted to kill an innocent man.

“Just what makes you think you’ll be pushed into doing your duty?” Elizabeth demanded, frustrated with their attitude and how willing the Marines seemed to go along with it.

“Call it a gut feeling, doctor. We’ll be killing evil men before we leave this place,” Murphy grinned. He could already feel the heightened awareness that would take him over building.

Conner noticed that Doctor Beckett and Doctor Zelenka were watching them with completely bewildered looks on their faces, so he quickly recapped the conversation for in Russian for Zelenka. Murphy caught on and did the same for Beckett in Gaelic. Both doctors nodded and told the brothers their own observations, which only added to the lengthening list of signs of abuse.

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Major Lorne ran for the infirmary, cursing his luck. He would be the only command staff member in Atlantis when the Daedalus arrived and had a medical emergency. He charged into the main room of the infirmary only to slide to a halt when he saw Doctor Biro and Colonel Caldwell standing next to a gurney with a priest on it. “What happened sir?” he asked.

“We dropped out of hyperspace and Father McManus hit the deck Major,” Caldwell said, obviously worried. He’d gotten to like the jovial and hard hitting priest.

“Any relation to the twins sir?” Lorne asked, suspicious that he knew what had happened.

“Their cousin I think,” Caldwell said. “Why?”

Lorne nodded. “Check for high ATA,” he told Biro. “At least half of the McManus family is ATA positive sir. Colonel Sheppard’s theory is that they’ve actually bred themselves for it and the psychic gifts that go with it.”

“Psychic gifts?” Caldwell asked skeptically.

“When the Ancients were pursuing ascension, they developed psychic talents. The McManus family has the gift of seeing evil. I’ll go down to the chair and see if I can get her to quiet down for the Father,” Lorne told Caldwell, turning to do just that.

“Don’t bother, I’m awake,” Father Nevan sat up on the gurney. “I never thought I’d ever hear that. They say the Lord has a voice of thunder. It was just a bit much on top of being greeted by your lady, lad.”

“I’m Major Lorne, I’m second in command of the military personnel here. Let me guess, you’ve been called as a shepherd?” Lorne asked, not at all surprised, not with the evil that was running around this galaxy. Caldwell just looked back and forth between the two confused.

“I’m Father Nevan and I see you’ve been talking to the twins,” Father Nevan said.

“Yes and no,” Lorne said. “If Doctor Biro has cleared you, I’ll show you what I mean.”

Biro nodded. “He’ll be fine. I’ll see him later for his baseline physical.”

Knowing that the doctor was not pleased to be in charge during the Daedalus delivery of new personnel, Lorne quickly got Caldwell and Father Nevan out of the infirmary. It was just a transport and a short walk to the cathedral, which impressed both men as they walked in. “This is a fine place you’ve got here Major,” Father Nevan said, relaxing fully for the first time.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Lorne grinned. “This is your family’s tower. You’ll find inscriptions written in Ancient around the doors and windows and up there,” he pointed at the first level of balconies, “you’ll find classrooms and gyms with your family’s prayer and mandates inscribed on the walls. Above that are the living quarters. There are all sorts of rooms dedicated to your family’s path throughout the tower. Your family has been doing the work of fighting evil for the last ten thousand years. Now that’s dedication.”