Stargate Atlantis #24

by Melissa Scott

  “Negative, sir. No weird minerals or poisons, anything else we’ll have to test directly.”

  “Right.” Lorne checked the sensors again. There were still two of the hyena-creatures in range, one a few hundred yards to the northwest, the other further to the east, along the lake’s narrow beach. That one looked as though it was hunting, and seemed to be moving away; with a bit of luck, Lorne thought, we’ll only have to keep an eye on the one behind us. “Do we have a procedure for filling the exterior tanks?”

  “There is a hose that must be deployed manually,” Zelenka answered. “It’s accessed via a port just beside the ramp opening. The hose is heavy, but it should run freely. Once it’s out and the end is completely submerged in the water, you can begin pumping. You will have to switch manually from the left to the right tank to keep balanced.”

  “Ok.” Lorne swung the jumper in a slow circle. If he brought it down right at the water’s edge, so that the ramp actually opened into the water, they’d be able to deploy the hose almost at once. And if that attracted the hyena-creatures’ attention, the water would probably hold them off long enough to recover the hose or at least get airborne before the thing could attack. “Right. Peebles, stand by the ramp.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I will help with the hose,” Zelenka said, and Lorne nodded.

  “Thanks, Doc. Here we go.”

  He turned the jumper again so that it faced away from the lake, then let it descend toward the pebbled beach. The jumper flashed a warning — the ramp would not reach far enough into the water — and he edged it back another two meters. The warning vanished, and he let the jumper settle, skids grinding against the stone. He kept the gravity field on for a moment longer, testing the ground, then let the jumper’s weight fully down. It tilted slightly as damp ground compressed under the right hand skid, but steadied at an acceptable angle.

  “All clear.”

  “Yes, sir.” Peebles worked the ramp controls, and the rear door opened, the ramp extending until it just touched the water’s surface. Zelenka opened the compartment that held the hose and hauled it free, walking it down the ramp. He was outside the jumper’s cloak now, and Lorne checked the nearest creature, hoping it hadn’t seen him. Its head was up, but it didn’t seem to be paying them any particular attention just yet.

  “Major.” Zelenka used the radio rather than shouting: a good choice, Lorne thought. “There is a water test protocol included. Shall I run it?”

  “How long will it take?”

  “I don’t know.” There was a pause. “Less time, I think, than it would take me to bypass it.”

  “Then go ahead with the protocol.” That was one more thing they’d have to warn Jumper One about, Lorne thought. Everything was always more complicated than they’d planned.

  “Roger.”

  Lights flickered across the consoles as Zelenka activated the test protocol, and Kaminsky hastily lifted his hands away from the controls.

  “Whoa. That’s — interesting.”

  “Yeah.” With the jumper’s help, Lorne could follow the procedure: checking for metals and other contaminants, checking for toxins, checking for biological contaminants. Of course, the system was designed for the Ancients, but that ought to make it safe enough.

  “Protocol is complete,” Zelenka said. “It tells me that everything is in order.”

  “We’ve got the same here,” Lorne said. “Go ahead and begin pumping.”

  “Pumping now.”

  The jumper shuddered, the mechanism suddenly loud, and Lorne swore under his breath.

  Kaminsky said, “Damn it. The hyenas are both looking our way.”

  “Major,” Zelenka said, in the same moment, “I think this has attracted the attention of the creatures.”

  “Copy that.” Lorne adjusted his scanner to focus on the nearer animal. “Kaminsky, keep an eye on the other one and be ready to lift on my order. Peebles. Be ready to cover the doc, but don’t fire unless you have to. Maybe it will go away.”

  On the screen, the hyena-creature lifted its head further, slit nostrils flaring open as it tested the wind. Its eyes were still fixed on the jumper’s ramp. It couldn’t see the jumper, Lorne knew, would only see Zelenka alone on the ramp. “Doc. Crouch down and make yourself small.”

  “Are you certain?” Zelenka squatted anyway, one hand resting lightly on the ramp’s surface. “It’s still looking at me.”

  “Yeah.” Lorne watched as the creature took a few slow steps toward them. “Ok, my thought was to get you back inside the cloak, but I’m not sure that’s going to work.”

  “It seems to respond to movement,” Zelenka said. His voice was admirably steady. “And at some point the hose must be retrieved.”

  “Yeah, I’d thought of that.”

  “Major,” Kaminsky said. “The other one seems to have noticed us.”

  “Great.”

  “It’s not doing anything yet, just listening? Looking in our direction?” Kaminsky shrugged. “It might even be responding to the other one.”

  Lorne glanced at his screen, directing his question to the jumper. How are we doing with the water? The screen flashed an answer: the tanks were less than a third full. “We’ll keep going.”

  They sat in silence, the only sound the thrum of the pump. Lorne kept his eyes on the nearer of the hyena-creatures as it paced closer to the shore, raising its head repeatedly to test the air. At the edge of the water, it stopped, baring teeth, and Zelenka rose slowly to his feet. The hyena took a few steps closer in response, and Peebles spoke from the hatch, never taking her eyes off the animal.

  “Permission to fire, sir? The noise might scare it off.”

  “No, hold off,” Lorne answered. “It didn’t scare them away from the Pride, remember.”

  “I don’t like the way it’s looking at us.” Peebles shifted her P90 to the ready.

  “No more do I,” Zelenka said. “Major, I am going to try to move back inside —“

  The hyena-creature lurched forward, going from a shambling walk to a full-out run in a blinding instant. Zelenka gave a yelp and leaped back into the jumper; Peebles snapped off two quick bursts that kicked up sand and stone ahead of the creature. It skidded to a stop, head lifted, nostrils flaring, then turned and lurched away, following the curve of the shore.

  “Well, that was lucky,” Zelenka said.

  “I didn’t hit it,” Peebles said. “At least I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”

  “Maybe it did scare them,” Kaminsky said. “Look, the other one’s moving off, too.”

  “That is good news,” Zelenka said, and stopped abruptly. “Wait. Do you smell smoke?”

  Lorne shook his head, but Peebles said, “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.”

  Lorne extended the sensors again, aware for the first time that the sky to the west was a fractionally darker shade of gray. At first there was nothing, but then, at the edge of the ground-sensors’ reach, he caught a flicker of heat and light. No, he thought, surely it can’t be — But it was, the edge of a fire creeping through the heavy grass. There were a couple of smaller hot spots ahead of the main line, patches of flame and rapidly darkening smoke, and he swore under his breath. The tanks were just three-quarters full: probably they had plenty of time, but he looked back at Zelenka anyway.

  “Can you make this go any faster? It looks like there’s a grass fire out there.”

  Zelenka shook his head. “I am running the system at top speed. We should be done in another ten minutes. Or we can go now, if we must?”

  “We can wait that long,” Lorne said, and reached for the comm console. “Jumper One, this is Jumper Three.”

  ~#~

  John straightened from behind yet another bridge console, working his shoulders. Orsolya gave him a flashing smile, and pointed to another of her technicians — Denzo, John remembered, and the woman who kept popping in was the second engineer, Katalon.

  “See if you can power the circuit now.”

  Denzo did s
omething through a gap in the deck plates, and there was a soft hum from Orsolya’s console.

  “Yes! Well done, Denzo.” Orsolya rubbed her fingers, marked with a red streak where a hot wire had burned her. She gave John a wide smile. “That’s got it. Now it’s just a matter of rewiring the pilot’s station, and we’ll be ready to lift.”

  “Good to hear,” John began, and turned sharply as the hatch slid back. Ronon stood there, followed by the head of the Pride’s gun crew.

  “Sheppard. Have you got the sensors fixed yet?”

  “We’ve just reconnected them,” Orsolya said warily. “What’s going on, Hajnal?”

  “The creatures have stopped attacking the ship,” the gun crew captain answered. “They seem to be moving off.”

  “That’s good news, right?” John asked, looking from him to Ronon and back again.

  “Depends on why,” Ronon answered.

  Orsolya slid round to the other side of the console, began manipulating the controls. “All right, here’s the view from the dorsal camera.” In the screen, John saw the Pride’s hull and the grass of the campsite. One of the creatures looked up at the camera and snarled, baring its teeth, then turned and trotted away. Orsolya swung the camera in a slow circle and captured half a dozen more heading off to the northeast. “That’s odd…”

  She touched keys again, and the picture changed, became a schematic view of the ground around the ship. The mound McKay had located showed at one edge of the image, the Pride in the center, and the lake to the south and west. Dots were moving across the map, streaming away from the ship toward the distant mound.

  “That’s them,” she said. “The creatures.”

  John looked at Hajnal. “Were you doing anything different?”

  “Nothing.” The Genii spread his hands. “The captain ordered us not to fire on them, and they couldn’t get through the hull, so we were leaving them alone. We hoped they’d give up and go away, but this feels…” He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”

  ”They were snuffling around the hatch,” Ronon said. “Like before. Then a couple of them started sniffing, and then they all took off.”

  There was something else out there, John thought, a chill running down his spine, something big enough and mean enough to scare off the hyena-things, and that was something he didn’t want to wait around to meet. He reached for his radio, but Teyla’s voice sounded in his earpiece before he could touch it.

  “John. Major Lorne reports a large grass fire to the west, and coming our way.”

  No wonder the creatures were running. John said, “How far? Can you tell how long before it gets here?”

  “Some distance yet. Jumper Three is on its way to you with a full load of water. I thought it was more important that they deliver that than investigate the fire.”

  “Yeah. Good call.” John looked around the control room. “Orsolya. Where’s the captain?”

  “I can find him —“

  “Yeah. Please.”

  “What’s happened?” Ronon’s hand slid toward the butt of his blaster.

  “There’s a grass fire,” John said. “That’s what’s chased those things off. Lorne’s on his way with water, but I want to take a look —“

  Orsolya was busy at the sensor console, touching buttons with one hand, the other sunk in the gel of the conductive pad. In the screen, the image swooped and shifted, turning to look west beyond the Pride’s tail. At first there was nothing except the grass, and then, as she focused further out, faint white blobs appeared along the horizon. “Hot spots. There’s your fire.”

  “How far off?” John asked.

  She glanced at at scale. “Um, 25 leagues —“

  “That’s a little under fifty of your kilometers,” Ronon said. “Grass fires burn fast.”

  “Can you tell how fast it’s moving?” John asked.

  “I’m working on that,” Orsolya answered. “Also on its actual direction of travel. It’s going to take me a while to work that out.”

  The hatch slid back again, and Fredek stopped, frowning at the image on the screen. “You wanted me, Systems Engineer?”

  “I’ve got some bad news,” John said bluntly. “The hyenas are leaving, but that’s because there’s a wildfire out there, possibly coming toward us.”

  “I’m working on speed and course,” Orsolya said, not looking up from her smaller screens, and Fredek nodded.

  “How soon can we lift?”

  “Two hours,” Orsolya said. “Three at the most.”

  “Our other jumper is on its way back with a load of water,” John said. “I want to take out our other jumper and get a better idea of where this thing is and where it’s going. If it’s heading our way, we want to be able to get out of its way.”

  “Thank you,” Fredek said. “That would be helpful.”

  “I’m going with you,” Ronon said, and John nodded.

  Hajnal opened the main hatch but did not lower the ramp, a gun crew with Genii rifles ready to cover them in case any of the creatures were still there. John dropped down onto the trampled ground, avoiding the gouges scraped out by the hyenas’ claws. Ronon copied him, and together they sprinted toward the jumper, which dropped its cloak to welcome them. Teyla had the ramp down by the time they reached it, and they scrambled on board.

  “Lorne’s on his way in,” McKay said, from the pilot’s seat.

  Looking past him, John could see a dot in the southern sky, growing rapidly larger. “Jumper Three, this is Jumper One.”

  “We hear you, Jumper One.” Lorne’s voice crackled in the speakers. ”Did Teyla tell you there’s a wildfire out there?”

  “Yeah. We’re going to go take a look at it.” John squinted at the western horizon, but could see nothing except maybe a thicker haze of cloud. “Get the water transferred over to the Pride, and see if you can pull another load before the fire gets here, just in case. We’ll try to do the same. But don’t get cut off from the Pride.”

  “Copy that.” Lorne paused. “Is the Pride ready to lift?”

  “They’re working on it,” John said, strapping himself into the co-pilot’s chair. “If worst comes to worst, the hull should hold out all right.”

  But there would be a lot of damage to everything on the outside of the hull, and if the grass burned hot enough, it could damage things like the hatches and the various access panels. Surely grass wouldn’t burn hot enough for that, he thought, and brought the jumper’s engines on line.

  “Copy that,” Lorne said again, and John saw him switch frequencies, the words issuing from a secondary speaker. “Pride of the Genii, this is Jumper Three. I’ve got your water ready to off-load.”

  John turned the jumper west, gaining altitude as they streaked across the plain. Beneath them, the grass swayed in what looked like a rising wind, and Ronon leaned forward, pointing.

  “There.”

  The darkness on the horizon had thickened, was more clearly a cloud — a thick plume of smoke, rising to blend with the hazy sky. At the base of the plume, John could see tiny flickers of flame.

  “That’s really big,” McKay said. “That’s got to be at least, oh, seven or eight kilometers across. But at least it’s not moving directly toward us. If it doesn’t get much wider, it should miss us by a couple of kilometers.”

  “There’s another one,” Ronon said.

  “Crap.” John lifted the jumper as it rocked in a gust of wind. Ronon was right, there was a second fire, and maybe a third — or were those two in the act of joining? Yes, the ends were creeping toward each other, and even as he watched, the two fires merged, became a single line a hundred meters deep. He could hear it now, the roar of the flames loud enough to be heard inside the jumper and Teyla stirred uneasily.

  “Can we tell how fast it is moving?”

  “Fast,” McKay answered, his hands busy on his controls. “It’s generating its own wind, too, so it’s not going to slow down any time soon —“

  “How fast?” Ronon demanded.
>
  “Hang on.” McKay fiddled with his laptop. “Between ten and twelve kilometers an hour. If the wind increases, it’ll move faster, of course.”

  John made the calculations. At that rate, the fires would reach the Pride in about three hours. Orsolya had said she would be ready to lift by then, but it would be cutting it close. “I don’t think we need to see any more. Let’s get a load of water and get back to the Pride.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IT TOOK THEM a solid hour to fill the jumper’s tanks with water, and by then the sky was covered by a haze of smoke that drowned the setting sun, turning it to a weird bronze disk shimmering in the waves of heat and the rolls of low-lying smoke. The fire was still advancing, the flames a furnace-red glow beneath the horizon, and the air tasted of smoke even after John closed the rear door and lifted the jumper for the flight back to the Pride. In the co-pilot’s seat, McKay sneezed violently, and then glared at the controls.

  “This much smoke isn’t good for anybody.”

  “So figure out a way to filter it,” John said.

  “Do you think I haven’t tried? The jumper says it’s doing the best it can.”

  “A little smoke won’t kill you.” The jumper bucked in the wind rushing ahead of the fire, the grass now bending nearly double beneath them, and John bit his lip. A little smoke was harmless, sure, just like a little fire, but none of this was little. He asked the jumper for a stern view, and obediently the jumper replaced a secondary screen with the view behind them. The sun had almost disappeared, obscured by the haze and thicker strands of smoke; beneath those low-lying clouds, the fire glowed brighter still.

  “You don’t know what’s in these plants,” McKay argued. “Or, more precisely, what’s in the ground that they’ve taken up and is now being released as they burn. There could be all kinds of heavy metals, or allergens — or something like the active compounds in poison ivy, burning spreads them —“

  “I bet this is why those things dig tunnels,” Ronon said. “If this grassland burns regularly, they’re better off living underground and feeding off things that live down there with them.”