IV. C. 1.014 Mission Reports

The team commander will submit a full report at the conclusion of each off-world mission to Stargate Command. Each report will be a complete accounting of the facts of each mission, as detailed as needed but succinct. The report should reflect the actual events of the mission with a high degree of accuracy. – SGC Officers’

* * * * * * * * *

Lt. Col. John Sheppard sat down at his laptop in the privacy of his office. Normally, he maintained an open-door policy – chiefly because he was rarely in the office – but when writing mission reports, he found that he felt more comfortable with the door closed.

He brought up the mission report template, filled in the “to’s” and “from’s” and ”cc:’s,” and other formal details before he was finally ready to proceed to the meat of the report. With a deep breath, he began to mentally review the events of the latest mission, typing them up as he did so…

“We arrived at PRX-403 at approximately 1300 Atlantis time, three hours before their sunset. When we exited the jumper there were no locals nearby and no threat present at the landing point. There was an unusual odor in the air, but we determined it was nothing hazardous…”

”What’s that hideous stench? It smells like a yak farted, then vomited, then died and began decomposing, and now someone is cremating it.”

“We have arrived during their Festival of Thanks. The people of this world express gratitude to their god with burnt offerings.”

“What god? The god of olfactory deficiency? This is nauseating. Seriously, it’s making me sick. If we stay very long, I’m going to puke.”

“Try tying this over your face, McKay.”

“So I can mosey into town looking like I’ve come to rob the stagecoach? And yes, I realize you don’t get the reference, Ronon. Just assume it’s hilarious, like the DOS thing.”

“Rodney, shut the hell up. Teyla, lead the way.”

“…Emmagen provided introductions to the local leadership of the indigenous population. We were warmly received, and trade negotiations began almost immediately. After a somewhat intricate agreement was hammered out (see Attachment A for trade details), we were invited to participate in their ritual of thanksgiving, which was scheduled to begin very shortly…”

”You’ve got to be kidding me. Up to now, I’ve been exercising superhuman fortitude to suppress barfing all through the negotiations, and now you expect me to sit in on some backwards religious square-dance and wear a necklace that’s made from a vegetable that smells like horseshit on asphalt at the height of summer? Do you realize that garlic would run from this stuff?”

“Rodney, I realize that your sense of smell is more… sensitive than most, but we really cannot afford to insult these people. Please, wear the necklace. It will only be for a while.”

“Put it on, McKay. That’s an order.”

“Fine! And when I do inevitably vomit, Colonel, I’m making a conscious effort to turn in your direction.”

“…The ritual lasted about ninety minutes and involved a formal but relatively simple dance, which we all participated in after some brief instruction. After this, there was a large ceremonial dinner…”

”Rodney, are you certain that you should be eating? You have repeatedly mentioned feeling unwell.”

“I’m only doing as ordered, Teyla. You heard them – eating heartily is expected, part of the celebration. Besides, as long as I’ve been stuck here on Planet Dog-Barf, forced to wear the ultimate in vampire-repelling accessories for two hours, and ordered to do-see-do to thank a god I don’t believe in for things I’m not even grateful for, I’m damned sure going to enjoy the feast that represents the one thing about this mission that hasn’t sucked. Besides, I’m feeling better now. My sense of smell seems to have gone into a catatonic state. Could even be some form of brain damage from persistent olfactory overload.”

“That’s a load of shit.”

“No, it only smells like it. Are you gonna finish that?”

”…The feast was elaborate, consisting of a wide variety of foods, many of which we had traded for. Our hosts kept urging us to consume more than we normally would have done, insisting that not doing so would insult their god. In the interest of showing respect for their culture, we proceeded to eat excessively…

”Man, I can’t remember the last time I ate this much. Teyla, is this feast always like this, or did they just have an unusually good year with the crops?”

“I do not know, Colonel. This is the first time I have actually been present for the feast. Usually, I have visited here just before or some time after the festivities concluded.”

“McKay, Ronon – time to ease up, don’t you think? I’m not sure how much extra weight the jumper can handle.”

“Har, har, Colonel. Need I keep reminding you that in this instance, overeating is actually the diplomatic thing to do? We don’t want to insult these people, right, Ronon?”

“Actually, I think… I think I’m done now.”

“Ronon? You do not look well.”

“Hey, look at… Oh, God, oh GOD! That kid over there is puking! And so is that woman, and two others over there! Christ, if there’s some kind of contagion here…”

”…At this point, we were somewhat concerned to learn that the feast was a continuation of the ritual of thanks and that the food had been laced with a substance that caused a certain amount of stomach distress. This, we were told, is their gesture of repayment to their god for a bountiful harvest…

”They poisoned us? You’re telling me they invited us to feast on poison?”

“It is the (gasp) atonement part of the ritual. I am very sorry (gasp)… I did not know.”

“We have to get out of here! No, there must be an antidote. We have guns! We can make them give us the antidote!”

“We must… we must hurry back to the jumper… get back to Atlantis before we are completely (gasp)… completely overcome.”

“Preferably before Ronon yaks all over yet again! I don’t know how I’ve managed to avoid sympathy puking this long. We have to get back to Atlantis and… and… get Beckett to pump our stomachs, or something. Oh, God, Ronon, not again! Colonel!”

”…When we felt we had fully satisfied diplomatic protocol, we made our goodbyes and took our leave with all requisite decorum…

“Oh my God, oh dear God, oh my fucking God…”

“Rodney, you’ll run a lot faster (gasp) … if you stop wasting energy on moaning, damn it!”

“Just shut up. (gasp) You just shut up! I hear you moaning, too, you know. You’re just (gasp) doing it in your typical repressed fashio…fash… oh, oh no! I…I’m gonna… (ooommmmppphhh)”

“Teyla, look out, he’s…Oops! You two okay?”

“Ouch! Holy shit, can’t a guy barf up a lung without someone kneeing him in the gut and falling on his back?! Oh God, I’m…it…”

“Teyla, watch it, he’s going agai… Ronon? C’mon, buddy, you can’t have anything left!”

”…We were lucky in that we were experiencing only minor discomfort from the toxin. The foodstuffs we’d negotiated for had been loaded into the jumper prior to the feast., so when we reached the jumper, we were ready to leave the planet. Unfortunately, we encountered a malfunction that prevented us from powering up right away…

“Sheppard! Sheppard, for God’s sake, get this damned thing going!”

“Rodney, he cannot fly while he is throwing up.”

“We don’t know that! (gasp) With that damned supergene, maybe he can do both! It’s worth a (gasp) try at least, isn’t it?”

“McKay… Shuhp.”

“Stay out of this, Conan! If you hadn’t (gasp) started the barfarama in the first place, I mighta been able to… able to resist… oh God…”

“Rodney! I am tired of your abuse! (gasp) This is not Ronon’s fault! It is (gasp) no one’s fault! Ohhhh… (bbbmmmppphhh)”

“Oh, wonderful, Teyla! These BDUs are brand new! Brand new, and now they… Ow! Ow, stop it! Colonel!”

“T-teyla…(gasp) Stop hi… hitting Rodney. ‘S ‘n order. (rrrrlllllppphhhh)”

"…Working together as a team, we were able to deal with the malfunction and get the jumper into the air in a little over two hours…"

”McKay! You vomited in my hair!”

“The fact that no one will even be able to tell from a distance, Ape-man (gasp)… should tell you (gasp)… something about your grooming.”

“A’right, knock it off! Both of ya. (gasp)… It’s gonna take a team effort to pull this off. Teyla? Still with us?”

”Ohhhhhh…”

“Good girl. Now, I’m gonna get us (gasp)… into the air. If I start feelin’… icky… I’ll say ‘switch.’ That’s… That’s your cue, Rodney. (gasp)… You’ll have to take over then. Ronon? You clear on your job?”

“Plant McKay’s ass in that chair and force ‘m to fly.”

“Help him. I said to help him into the chair if he needs it.”

“I will be happy to ‘help him’ as well.”

“Oh, threats, wonderful. Two words, boys and girls. ‘Positive reinforcement.’”

“Sheppard, get us in the air before I kill him.”

“There’s no ‘I kill’ in ‘team,’ Tarzan.”

“Shut up! We’re in the air… I… oh God…Switch!”

”…The return trip was fortunately uneventful…

”You’re not flyin’ straight!”

“Doing the best I can! I need… I need to visit a toilet. Like, now or sooner.”

“Colonel? John? Are you able to take the controls yet?”

“Arrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhh…”

“God! Cramping here! Cramping badly! Need to be relieved!”

“Aww! What did you do, McKay?!”

“It wasn’t me! Yet.”

“I believe… I think it was Colonel Sheppard.”

“(Sniff) Yeah, it was him.”

“Arrrrgggghhhh…”

“Oh, GOD!”

“Rodney, he is in no condition to take over. Can you hold on?”

“Um… Yes. Yes, I can.”

“You can?”

“Yes. Um. I’m fine. Now.”

”…We flew directly to the jumper bay and took a few minutes to inventory the goods we had brought back, and to conduct a post-mission tidying of the interior…

”God, it so stinks in here.”

“You ruined the chair! You totally ruined my pilot’s seat!”

“Oh, look around you, Mr. Clean! This place is a flying outhouse! The only sane option at this point is gasoline and a match.”

“Can we go now?”

“Not till we figure out a story and a way to clean this ship up.”

“I already told you…”

“We can’t set fire to the jumper, Rodney! Look, guys, we will NE-VER live this down. There has got to be a way to clean this place up a little and…”

“AUUHHHH!”

“What the hell?”

“Water! There is water coming from the walls and ceiling.”

“No, it’s not water. Some kind of… Ancient cleaning compound, I think. See? It’s washing away the evidence! It’s gluupp! Bleah! Don’t let it get in your mouth.”

“Look, it’s even getting the seat clean. You get to live after all, Rodney.”

“Oh, har, har again. Hey, look – it’s leaving everything dry.”

“Even our clothes.”

“And my hair.”

“Okay, so we’re agreed, right? No one ever hears the whole story.”

“Fine with me.”

“I would prefer to forget the entire thing, Colonel.”

“Oh, hell yes. Never happened. Don’t know what we’re even talking about.”

”…And after determining that everything was in order, I declared the mission complete, and successful. Am happy to report that it was discovered by accident that the jumpers have a self-cleaning function. This should come in handy should we ever experience a mission in which the jumpers are heavily soiled.

“Recommend continued trade with the people of PRX-403, but that we time our visits to avoid the festival. Further recommend that the screening of the foodstuffs be extra vigilant before we begin using it.”

”De-briefing in an hour, guys. Go take care of… things.”

“Yeah. And Ronon, might wanna wash your hair first. You still have a little bit of—Ow! I was just pointing out—Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow! Colonel!”

“I am going to my quarters.”

“Ronon! Put McKay down. Now!”

John finished adding the necessary attachments and saved, then emailed the report to Elizabeth. He’d heard that some of the flour that they’d obtained on that mission was going to be rotated into the food supply next week. Making a mental note to abstain from bread for the foreseeable future, he left his office and headed to his quarters. For some reason, he had an overwhelming urge to take a shower.