Never Turn Your Back

By BookwormDragon

Disclaimer: Neither the Stargate: Atlantis Universe nor any of the Characters in the Stargate: Atlantis Universe belong to me. No profit is made from this story on my part. No copyright infringement is intended.

The most ironic part, thought Radek sadly, was that after everything that happened to them here in the Pegasus Galaxy, it wasn't the Wraith, or the Replicators, or the Genii who broke them. No, it was Earth.

Earth, the one place where they should have been safe, the place that so many Lanteans had given their lives in defense of. Earth.

Earth had taken them and turned them into mere shadows of themselves. Through kidnappings, cullings, slavery, and that never-to-be-spoken-of incident on PX-339, SGA-1 had stood strong. True, they had sometimes cracked a little, sometimes bent. But they had never broken, never shattered.

Until Earth. Until the Trust. Until they had been kidnapped while on vacation and spirited away in the name of Homeworld Security.

Everyone in power had disavowed all knowledge of the incident, of course, claiming that it had been carried out by rogue agents, but Radek was not a naive man.

Yes, it was possible that rogue agents might occur occasionally in any organization, but the Trust seemed to be made up of nothing but rogue agents. Ergo, they weren't rogue agents at all, but legitimate agents carrying out sanctioned operations, only disavowed when they proved to be an embarrassment to their superiors. And someone in power was looking the other way, allowing their activities to continue.

Don't think that he hadn't noticed that no one had made any mention of the "data" that the "unsanctioned experiments" had gathered. No reassurances that it had been destroyed, no offers to share freely. The PTB might regret that they had gotten caught in such an embarrassing manner, but they weren't above making use of their ill-gotten gains.

It was uncharitable of him, he knew, but he truly hoped that everything that Rodney had been forced to do for them was riddled with errors that would cause large explosions at unforeseen moments. A good explosion could brighten any day – and even better if it just happened to occur during a meeting of the Trust’s leaders: such a pleasant coincidence…

And if they manage to use any of what they had stolen from John, Ronon, or Teyla – well, he hoped the Trust scientists’ deaths were slow and bloody. They deserved it and more besides.

The scientist in him was absolutely horrified: so much of what they had done to his friends had been completely unnecessary to reach their stated goals. Even the Wraith had more decency, if only because their actions were motivated by biological necessity, and not by uncontrolled sadism.

These days, Radek wondered what, exactly, Earth had done to deserve the Lantean blood that had been shed on Their behalf. Perhaps it was time to kick Them out of the nest, so to speak? Let them reap the consequences of their own actions, for once. Atlantis was fed up with being Their punching bag and scapegoat.

Author’s Note: This was inspired by the common appearance of so-called “Rogue” Trust agents as villains. Like Radek, I’ve got a nice piece of beachfront property in Arizona, if you’re interested…
I just took the trope to its natural conclusion.