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saroseficsSpoiler alert: References to HH "D-Day at Stalag 13," "Duel of Honor," "Operation Briefcase," and "The Big Picture" (though the relative timeline is mine) and SGA "The Kindred" and "The Seed."
Chapter 2
Operation "This Will Most Likely End Badly"
The next day, for being a Monday, was blessedly uneventful. After breakfast, Klink gave Sheppard, McKay, and Zelenka one of his standard camp tours, during which they "met" Hogan and accepted his offer of one of LeBeau's famous gourmet dinners. McKay and Zelenka spent the rest of the day in the Jumper, reviewing flight data and running diagnostics, while Sheppard alternated his time between helping as much as they would let him, dodging Klink's attempts to wheedle information out of him, and hanging out in the tunnel with the rest of his team. For their part, Beckett, Teyla, and Ronon got a complete tour of the tunnel system from Kinch and Newkirk and quietly noted possible ways to use the prisoners' innovations to help even the most agrarian peoples of Pegasus fight back against both the Wraith and would-be tyrants like the Genii. Hogan and Carter, meanwhile, organized a handful of feigned attempts to get outside the fence and sneak into the tent, which succeeded in further convincing Klink and Schultz that the Jumper really was a Luftwaffe project. Klink even reported it as such to Gen. Burkhalter when the latter made his Monday check-in call.
That night the Lanteans gathered in the tunnel with Hogan and Kinch to get McKay's assessment. The news wasn't good.
"Because the drive works best when the interval is at least two hundred years, it's going to take us two jumps to get home," McKay explained. "The good news is that we can repair it enough to make exactly two jumps. The bad news is that it will take us a week, maybe two, to fix everything."
"Oh, great," groaned Beckett. "I didn't bring more than one injection."
McKay grimaced. "We'll get you home in time, Carson. I swear."
"Injection?" Hogan frowned.
"It's a... specialized medication I have to take once a week," Beckett explained. "Even if it were safe to radio London, ye couldna get it--it's a drug we just developed in the last year. The condition's quite rare, I'm afraid."
"I see."
"Is there anything the rest of us can do to help?" Teyla asked McKay.
"Not right now," Zelenka replied. "There are many crystals to arrange and repair, many wires out of place. Too many of us in the Jumper at once... it would be bad."
Hogan and Kinch exchanged a confused look at that.
"Not to mention the fact that until we get the cloak fixed, that tent's nowhere close to being soundproof," McKay added. "The only voices those guards should be hearing are ours... Sheppard can get away with his normal accent when he's inside the Jumper, but we definitely can't risk them hearing a woman's voice."
"Crystals?" Kinch asked.
"Yes, it's mostly crystal-based technology," Zelenka confirmed.
After an uncomfortable pause, Sheppard sighed. "The Puddle Jumper isn't an airplane. It's a spaceship."
Hogan and Kinch looked at each other again.
"Well, that explains some things," Hogan finally said.
Tuesday morning found Beckett upstairs after roll call, negotiating with LeBeau for some genuine coffee so that McKay would stop complaining about the not-coffee available in the officers' mess. Kinch and Carter suddenly came in from outside and called for Hogan.
"What is it?" Hogan asked as he came out of his office.
"We've got company," Kinch stated.
"Radio detector truck and a staff car," Carter added. "Can't tell who it is, though."
Several of the prisoners crowded around the windows and held the door ajar. Beckett stood behind LeBeau and Newkirk at one window and just managed to glimpse a man wearing a Gestapo uniform cap and a brunette woman wearing a tall fur hat. LeBeau gasped in delight at the latter sight.
"Marya!" Hogan exclaimed, clearly not as pleased to see her as LeBeau was.
"She has come back to me!" LeBeau cried.
"Oh, do us a favor," Newkirk replied, rolling his eyes.
"Someone you know, Colonel?" Beckett asked Hogan.
Hogan nodded grimly. "White Russian, still collaborates with the KGB. She's worked with us before, and she's nothing but trouble."
"Lovely." Beckett turned back to the stove and picked up the coffee pot. "Well, I'd best get this over to Dr. McKay if he's to get any work done today...."
"Uh-oh," Kinch interrupted.
"What?" Beckett turned back toward the prisoners.
"Are they already out there?" Hogan asked.
"Aye, I believe so," Beckett replied. "Why?"
"Marya's headed their way."
Beckett swore heartily in Gaelic and scrabbled in his pockets for his radio.
In the Puddle Jumper, the Lanteans were unaware of events transpiring outside until, with a sudden twinge of unease, Sheppard reached up and touched his radio earpiece. "Teyla, come in."
"Go ahead," Teyla replied.
"You sure there are no Wraith around?"
"Quite sure." The Athosian's confusion showed in her voice.
"'Cause I'm gettin' that same itchy feeling I get whenever Todd's around."
"There is no way Todd could have followed us here," McKay stated.
"Stranger things have happened," Zelenka observed wryly.
Sheppard sighed. "All right. I'm gonna go check it out."
"Wait a tic, John," came Beckett's voice. "There's a Gestapo officer just came into camp with a White Russian named Marya. Col. Hogan seems more worried about her than he does about the Gestapo man. And she's headed your way."
"Great. Thanks. Sheppard out." He shut off his radio and slid the earpiece into his coat pocket.
"You're not still going out there?" McKay asked.
Sheppard shot him a Look and drew his Luger.
"Right." McKay subsided and got back to work.
Barely had Sheppard emerged from the tent, however, than his nose was assaulted with Chanel No. 5 and cigarette smoke while a fur-clad arm snared his left arm and a sultry Russian alto purred, "We-ell, hello again, darling!"
Sheppard turned to the woman beside him and smiled tightly as he took in the flamboyant furs, the long cigarette holder, the heavy makeup, the artfully arranged hair, the cunning blue eyes that acknowledged that they had not in fact met before. Best to play along, he thought, and acknowledged her with a simple "Marya."
Her response was to pull him into a passionate kiss, and he just managed not to gag on her smoke-and-coffee breath. He was rattled enough to be unable to follow what she babbled at him and at the guards standing nearby. What he did catch was something about going to Klink's quarters "to catch up with one another."
Sheppard didn't resist, but neither did he holster his gun. He did steal a glance at Barracks 2 and prayed that Hogan would come provide backup.
Like I'm walking around with a live grenade in my pocket, he'd said of working with Todd. Marya evoked that feeling and then some. At least she wasn't a Wraith queen, so she wouldn't feed on him--but that didn't mean she wouldn’t turn him in....
Once they were in Klink's quarters, Marya tried to force another kiss but stopped short with an appreciative chuckle when Sheppard pressed the gun against her stomach. "I see you do not trust me," she said in English with a wry smile.
"You're right," Sheppard replied in kind, not even attempting an accent as he saw the stove moving behind her. "I don't. What do you want?"
"Nothing!" Marya replied with a dismissive hand wave.
LeBeau suddenly appeared at her elbow. "I believe you," he stated, looking up at her with adoring eyes.
"Ah, my small one," she crooned, ruffling the short Frenchman's hair.
"LeBeau," Hogan said firmly as he came up from the tunnel.
"Yes, sir," LeBeau answered reluctantly. Marya kissed the top of his head, and he headed to the door to serve as a lookout.
Marya turned to Hogan and smiled flirtatiously. "You are happy to see me, Hogan darling?"
"Not really, no," Hogan replied bluntly. "What's the idea?"
"Sit down."
Hogan and Sheppard exchanged a glance. Then Hogan sat down on the couch with Marya while Sheppard put his gun away, grabbed a chair from the dining table, and sat in it backward.
"I came here for three reasons," Marya began. "First, to find out what Col. Schäfer here is working on. Otto could learn nothing from the Luftwaffe."
"It's Sheppard, and it's classified," Sheppard replied. "But believe me, your government will learn all the details in due time."
"How soon is due time?" Marya asked slyly.
"Ike doesn't even know about it yet," Hogan answered.
"Ah." That seemed to satisfy her. "Second, to warn you about Col. Pungenhorst. Until just a few months ago, he was stationed at Auschwitz, but Himmler recalled him to Berlin to help investigate the attempted assassination in July. Otto is suspicious of Stalag 13 because of Gen. Stauffen’s visit here just before the attack--and this time, Hogan darling, I swear by Saint Alexei he has heard nothing about you from me, not even a hint."
Hogan’s eyebrows rose. Marya never invoked the saints.
"I believe you," LeBeau stated unnecessarily.
"LeBeau," Hogan and Sheppard chorused.
Marya disregarded the interruption. "Third, to bring you the information you were supposed to get from the Underground courier Sunday night. I just happened to be present when Pungenhorst received the briefing. One of his junior officers is a double agent, and he informed London that I would come."
"What happened?" Hogan asked.
"Three couriers were to meet with an informant in the nuclear research program. One of them was betrayed to the Gestapo. All four men were killed, but one lived long enough to escape to a radio and call London. A radio detector truck intercepted the transmission. The man was badly wounded and got out only a fragment of the information before he died, and some of that was obscured by static."
"Explains the radio silence order. Okay, let's hear it."
"Somewhere in Swabia there is a top-secret atomic laboratory. That is all Pungenhorst knows; that is all I know for certain. But the courier managed to say that it is near something beginning with 'Schwäbisch.'"
Sheppard rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "That narrows it down to Schwäbisch Gmünd or Schwäbisch Hall."
"Could also be the Schwäbisch Alb," Hogan noted. "But that's way too far for us to get there easily." He looked at Sheppard carefully. "Unless you have an idea?"
"Yes, sir, I think I do. Excuse me." Sheppard hurried down into the tunnel, looped his earpiece back over his ear, and activated it as he walked to the map room. "McKay, Zelenka, come in."
"Sheppard! Carson said Marya dragged you off to Klink's quarters. What happened?" McKay demanded.
"Later. If you disconnect the time-travel drive, how long will it take to get the Jumper flying?"
In the Jumper, the two scientists exchanged a puzzled look before checking their computers. "A few hours," Zelenka finally replied.
"What about the cloak?"
"Less than that, but it wouldn't be a permanent fix," McKay answered.
"Great. How long to disconnect the time drive?"
"Two hours," said Zelenka.
"What, are we going somewhere?" McKay asked.
"Reconnaissance flight," Sheppard stated.
"Are you nuts?!" McKay exploded. "Do you have any idea what effect that could have?"
"Rodney, we've got very patchy intel on an atomic research lab. We can't risk letting Hitler develop the bomb."
"So what, we're gonna take it out with a drone?"
"Not unless we have to. We do a fly-by, we get the data, we radio London from orbit, and they decide what to do. With luck, they can get it with a routine bombing run or a commando raid."
"With luck?!" McKay echoed incredulously.
Sheppard sighed. "We don't know the terrain or the defenses. We've got only a very vague idea of where it is."
As McKay continued to splutter about causality with occasional contradictions from Zelenka, Sheppard studied a map of the area in question. Teyla and Ronon, who had apparently heard his voice, came to join him. Ronon finally reached up and activated his own radio:
"McKay?"
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
"Well, pardon me for not wanting to foul up the timeline any more than we already have! I've already had to fix it myself once, and that took an entire alternate lifetime! Not to mention SG-1...."
"Rodney, Col. Sheppard is right," Zelenka interrupted before McKay could get rolling again. "We have no way of knowing whether this lab might be the Nazis' one attempt to use uranium without deuterium. We can't take the chance."
McKay let out an exasperated sigh.
"The area we have to search does not appear to be more than a few hundred square miles," Teyla observed. "We should be able to find the lab fairly quickly."
"If they are working with uranium, chances are they won't have proper shielding," Zelenka added. "The Jumper's sensors should pinpoint the radiation easily."
McKay sighed again, more resignedly. "Can we at least stay in the Jumper at a high altitude?"
"No promises," Sheppard replied, "but even if we do have to land, you can stay in the Jumper."
"Okay, but I take no responsibility if anything goes wrong."
"Just get that time drive out by lunchtime. I don't wanna eat with Marya by myself."
McKay brightened at that. "Captain Kirk has met his match, eh?"
"Let's just say I'd almost rather work with Todd."
"Now that's saying something," Ronon and Zelenka said at almost the same time.
Teyla just laughed.
"All right, all right," Sheppard said in mock aggravation. "I'd better get back upstairs. See you at lunch. Sheppard out."
"Is she really that bad?" Ronon wondered as Sheppard put his earpiece away again.
"Worse," Sheppard confirmed and headed back to the ladder to Klink's quarters.
Meanwhile, in Klink's office, Col. Otto von Pungenhorst was attempting to control his temper as Klink rambled on about Stalag 13's fabled no-escape record. Finally, when Klink paused for breath, Pungenhorst jumped in. "Klink, this is not a social visit. I am here on a matter of the greatest urgency."
"Oh, oh, of course," Klink replied. "Forgive me, sir."
"This summer, Klink, a great many unusual occurrences took place in this camp. I am here to learn what I can about them."
"I will be happy to cooperate with you, Col. Pungenhorst."
"Good." Pungenhorst stood and helped himself to a glass of schnapps. "There was, first of all, the destruction of a vital munitions train not far from here on the second of June."
"The Underground in this area has always been most active, sir," Klink said apologetically. "Major Hochstetter has been investigating it."
"Then the hoax perpetrated on the General Staff, in which Der Führer was supposed to have chosen you to replace Gen. von Scheider on the night that marked the beginning of the Allied invasion."
"Well, you see, sir...."
"Then the appearance of Fräulein Erika Weidler at the end of June, supposedly using you as a front for an Abwehr operation."
"I was ordered...."
Pungenhorst drained his glass and plowed ahead. "Then Gen. Stauffen made this camp his final stop on his way to the Wolf's Lair, where he attempted to kill the Führer. Six weeks after that, a Captain Bohrmann abruptly left the investigation of Gen. Mühlendorf to transfer to Düsseldorf headquarters. He stayed here at the Hauserhof for two weeks and received large sums of money from someone in the area. Just as abruptly he tried to escape to Switzerland. He will tell us nothing about why he came here."
"What are you suggesting, Colonel?" Klink asked worriedly.
"I am not quite certain," Pungenhorst confessed. "These events appear to implicate you in a plot against the Third Reich, and I dislike a record that is too perfect, as yours appears to be. Yet that conclusion seems too simple. If Hammelburg is, as you say, a center for Underground activity, it may be that someone has been using you as a pawn in a larger game. Marya thinks so, anyway."
"Marya? Oh... yes, we... have met, yes." Klink refrained from commenting further on his, and Hogan's, tumultuous history with the Russian.
Pungenhorst poured himself another glass of schnapps. "Her tales of you do not allay my suspicions. She is much given to fantasy, especially when she seeks to rouse me to jealousy, as with this supposed reunion with your other guest."
Klink chuckled nervously.
"All the same, I have come here to find answers, and I shall have answers. I expect your full cooperation, Klink."
"Of course. I am completely at your disposal, sir. My Stalag is your Stalag."
In Hogan's office, Newkirk shook his head as Klink's conversation continued to broadcast through the bug attached to Hogan's coffee pot. "Bloody marvelous. Why is it every time we get an urgent mission, the Gestapo shows up?"
Kinch unplugged the coffee pot with a sigh. "Andrew, get Col. Hogan."
"Right," Carter nodded and hurried out to the tunnel entrance in the main room.
Beckett, whom Teyla had decided should stay with the prisoners to learn what was happening, looked from the speaker of the coffee pot to Kinch. "D'ye expect them to search, then?"
"Yeah, they might," Kinch nodded. "At least Klink'll want to take Pungenhorst on a tour of the camp. You'd better get back down. And, uh..." He gestured to his ear. "You guys might want to lay off using those radios."
"Och, they'll not be able to monitor this frequency," Beckett said cryptically. "But I will take this news to Teyla and Ronon in person. Thank you."
Before he could leave, though, a cry of "Schultz!" sounded from the next room, followed by the clatter of the tunnel entrance closing. Newkirk unceremoniously shoved Beckett into Hogan's wardrobe and shut the door behind him.
Seconds later, Schultz walked into Hogan’s office. "What are you two doing in here?" he asked Kinch and Newkirk.
"Waiting for Col. Hogan," Kinch replied. "We need to go over next week’s duty roster with him."
"Oh. Where is he?"
"I'm not sure. I just sent Carter to go find him."
"I think 'e 'ad to settle something in one of the other 'uts," Newkirk added.
Schultz nodded thoughtfully. "Well, when he gets back, tell him Kommandant Klink wants to see him in his office right away."
"Righto, Schultzie, will do."
"What's it about, Schultz?" Kinch asked.
Schultz shrugged. "I know nothing. But Col. Klink told me to tell Col. Hogan that it was urgent.”
Kinch nodded. "Okay, Schultz. We'll give him the message."
"Thank you!" And humming a little tune, Schultz left.
"You can come out now, Doc," Kinch said.
"Wait, I think I just found a door into Narnia," said Beckett's muffled but highly amused voice, much to the prisoners' confusion.
While Pungenhorst grilled Klink, Sheppard briefed Hogan and Marya on his plan, choosing his words with extreme care to avoid giving Marya information she didn't need. He couldn't tell how much she was reading between the lines, but in the end both she and Hogan agreed.
"We'll need some kind of diversion, though, to keep the guards away from the tent and to keep Klink and Pungenhorst tied down," Hogan observed.
"Well, the guards are the easy part," Sheppard shrugged. "I can tell Klink we're taking a short test flight tonight, have him order the guards back into camp while we're gone. No reason for them to be out there if there's nothing for them to guard."
"Leave Otto to me," Marya said with a devious smile that made both colonels look at each other nervously. "Have I ever failed you before, darling?" she added, playfully running a finger around Hogan's ear.
Hogan simply cleared his throat. "I guess that leaves me to take care of Klink."
"Just make sure it is not too noisy, or Otto might get too curious," Marya warned, giving Hogan's ear a tweak.
"Divide and conquer," Sheppard deadpanned.
Before the situation could become any more awkward, Carter poked his head out of the tunnel entrance. "Col. Hogan? We've had the coffee pot plugged in--sounds like the Gestapo colonel's about to start a search."
Hogan sighed. "All right," he said to Sheppard. "After noon roll call, come down through the tunnel and bring your team up to the barracks. We'll need to talk logistics, and I want to send some of my men with you just to be safe."
"Fair enough, sir," Sheppard nodded.
"Okay, LeBeau, let's go."
"Oui, mon colonel," LeBeau replied and dashed across the room to the tunnel entrance, pausing only to blow Marya a kiss before hurrying down the ladder.
"Good luck," Hogan said to Sheppard with a barely perceptible nod toward Marya.
"Thanks," Sheppard replied with a wry smile.
After Hogan disappeared into the tunnel and moved the stove back into place, Marya gave Sheppard a long appraising glance, noting his tousled dark brown hair, his hazel eyes watching her as if she were a coiled rattlesnake, the way he sat as if the back of the chair formed a shield to keep her at bay. Almost any man was an open book to her, and Schäfer--Sheppard, she reminded herself--was no exception. A charmer if he wants to be, she concluded, but a soldier now--much like Hogan. She chuckled finally. "Still you do not trust me."
"You do remind me of a certain unfriendly friendly back home," Sheppard confessed.
"Your ex-wife?" she asked shrewdly.
Sheppard inclined his head and frowned--How could she know that? "No, actually, although now that you mention it...."
While Hogan sat in Klink’s office dodging questions from Pungenhorst and stalling to keep him from taking Klink’s grand tour too soon, McKay and Zelenka managed to get the time drive disconnected and the cloak temporarily repaired in record time, so since McKay had skimped on breakfast, they decided to collect Sheppard and Marya for an early lunch. In doing so, they inadvertently managed to dodge Pungenhorst when he visited both the tent and Klink’s quarters. The four of them were just coming out of the mess, Zelenka humming "Vergammelte Speisen" and Sheppard trying not to laugh, when Klink and Pungenhorst caught up with them. Sheppard and Marya had come to something of an understanding before lunch, and with McKay and Zelenka there for backup, he felt safe letting what McKay called his Kirk persona through in front of the genuine Nazis.
"So, Marya, you have enjoyed your reunion?" asked Pungenhorst, clearly jealous of Sheppard's rakish charm in spite of himself.
Marya pouted and deliberately gripped Sheppard's arm more tightly. "Otto, darling, we have only just found each other," she purred. "And you are busy. But I shall have to let Hansie go back to work soon, and I will be yours again."
Pungenhorst turned a withering glare on Sheppard. "I don't think I heard your name correctly."
"Oberstleutnant Johann Schäfer, Luftwaffe Intelligence," Sheppard replied, saluting with his free hand and just managing not to make his smile too cheeky. He did realize that there was really no point in deliberately antagonizing the Gestapo. "May I present my associates, Dr. Rodney McKay, Dr. Radek Zelenka."
Pungenhorst raised an eyebrow. "We had a Robert Zelenka at Auschwitz--engineer, transferred to us in December. A relative, perhaps?"
McKay and Sheppard succeeded in not reacting visibly, though Marya felt their mood shift.
Zelenka's face was unreadable as he said flatly, "I have no family."
"Ah." Pungenhorst looked slightly relieved. "Odious little man, kept pining that we made him do hard labor instead of teaching like he had at Teresienstadt. He died in January. Shall we continue, Klink?"
Zelenka held himself together long enough for Klink to hustle Pungenhorst off to the camp bakery. Then he let out a strangled whisper: "Praděda...."
Releasing Sheppard, Marya whispered something to Zelenka in Russian and pulled him into a genuine hug. Then she held him as he wept silently, rubbing his back and mouthing 'Great-grandfather' when the others turned puzzled frowns to her.
"Almost wish Todd was here," Sheppard said to McKay under his breath, glaring after Pungenhorst. "Wouldn't think twice about feeding 'im."
"Wonder if we can arrange for Col. Pungenhorst to be in that lab when it blows," McKay mused.
Sheppard shot him a sidelong glance. "Thought you didn't want to foul up the timeline."
"For that, he deserves it."
Sheppard just chuckled.
A/N: NB: This story is an AU of two AUs. Hogan's Heroes canon is rather obviously AU in terms of WWII history; for example, in the episode "Operation Briefcase" referenced here, General Stauffen (supposed to be Klaus von Stauffenberg) picks up the bomb with which he tries to kill Hitler from the Heroes at Stalag 13. The show's episodes also jump around in the war's timeline so frequently that it's not easy to pinpoint which stories fall when. The Stargate franchise is its own AU relative to RL. I've shoehorned in as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are three important points on which I’ve taken liberties:
- History is inconclusive about the Nazi nuke program--they had one, but from what I could learn online, nothing survives to show that they were anywhere close to a working bomb. "Kommandant Schultz," probably set after D-Day, is the only Hogan’s Heroes episode that brings up the use of uranium; most of the others with a nuclear research plot, especially "The Dropouts" and "Go Light on the Heavy Water," focus on heavy water (D2O) as a source of deuterium (hydrogen with two neutrons)--but they also appear to fall in the earlier years of the war. So as Zelenka said, the Lanteans have no way of knowing if this very fictional lab is the one that could make the right breakthrough.
- Col. Pungenhorst is my OC. His rank fits with Hogan's Heroes' usual method of referring to SS officers by their equivalent American rank. His surname, according to my German name dictionary, derives from a swamp weed called Pung; I thought it appropriately odious for a Gestapo officer.
- The story of Zelenka's great-grandfather is partly true and partly fictional--but I'll clarify which is which after Chapter 3 (which will not come as quickly if RL becomes as busy in the short term as I hope it will).
Beckett's concerns about the length of their stay are semi-canonical. This Beckett is a clone created by an enemy early in Season 3 and rescued at the end of Season 4; the original Beckett was killed in an explosion at the end of Season 3. As of the mid-Season 5 episode "Outsiders," Clone!Carson requires weekly injections of a special enzyme designed to prevent his cells from deteriorating. Writer/producer Joe Mallozzi has said on his blog that he considers Carson to have made a full recovery by the end of Season 5 and to no longer need said enzyme, but that doesn’t seem likely to me; rather, his condition strikes me as being more like diabetes or an auto-immune disease, controllable but in need of constant maintenance.
The "unfriendly friendly" (phrase courtesy Ike: Countdown to D-Day) is the male Wraith known on Atlantis as Todd. According to SGA mythology, Wraith--the tyrants of the Pegasus Galaxy--evolved from some combination of human DNA and that of a vicious parasite called the iratus bug. Todd has a long and complicated history with Sheppard that turned into an uneasy alliance with Atlantis, though events in Season 5 have made it even more tenuous than before. (One of Teyla's ancestors was captured by a Wraith scientist and genetically altered with a portion of Wraith DNA; that genetic heritage, "The Gift," allows Teyla to tap into the Wraith's telepathic network and sense when a Wraith is near.)
"Vergammelte Speisen" is a hilarious swing tune by the German pop group Die Prinzen. The chorus translates as, "Spoiled food that's overpriced should be refused." The tune alone wouldn't be noticeably futuristic, but it would still be an inside joke commenting on the quality of the food. And I figure Sheppard, being a Johnny Cash fan and (in this AU) being stationed in Germany during the mid-'90s, is more likely than McKay to have Küssen Verboten hiding in his CD collection. However, the comment about feeding Todd does not refer to the food in the mess hall; Wraith feed on humans' life force, much like vampires feed on human blood.
Praděda = Great-grandfather (Czech)
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