The Chosen

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Somehow he felt just a little cheated. Sitting on the grass, the mid-afternoon sun warming his face and the breeze ruffling his hair, Major John Sheppard decided that this day was just about perfect in every way. The brilliant blue sky — ideal flying weather, the aviator in him noted idly — was completely inappropriate for the magnitude of the decision he was about to make. Storm clouds would have been more fitting, or at least something with a little less cheer and a little more drama. Figures. He allowed a wry grin to twist his lips. Unpredictability seemed to define his life.

Taking the road less traveled was one thing, but he was pretty sure Robert Frost had never considered that it might lead to another galaxy.

God, another galaxy. He still hadn’t wrapped his mind around that concept. Days ago, he’d been minding his own business at McMurdo Station, secure in his view of the world: namely, that it was far from perfect but at least followed a rational set of rules. It was quiet, he was getting lots of stick time, and the environment, while hostile, didn’t come with gun-toting inhabitants determined to blow him out of the sky. At least, that’s what he’d thought until that freaky missile had fired at him. Then he’d taken a seat in that equally freaky chair, and everything that he’d thought he understood about the world had gone out the window.

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