SGA-21 - Inheritors - Book VI of the Legacy Series

by Melissa Scott

  John acknowledged him with a nod. "Hang on a second. Think you've got it, Captain?"

  "Yes, sir," Captain Ryan said. "We'll cover the infirmary level, stairs and transport area both."

  "We won't lock down that transport unless we've gone to code red on an infiltration," John said. "It's the main way we're getting the wounded to the infirmary. So keep a close eye on it."

  "Yes, sir." He gave John a sharp nod and peeled off with his team.

  John turned around. "What's the problem, McKay?"

  "He's gone."

  "Who's gone?"

  "Newton," Rodney said. "I went back to my quarters, and ok, they’re not the quarters Newton is used to because Jennifer.... But anyway, Newton's not there. And I radioed Jennifer and he's not in her quarters either. Which means he got out. He could be anywhere. Someone could shoot him. Someone could steal him...."

  "Maybe he's wherever the weapon is," John said.

  "Very funny. Just because you don't care what happens to pets doesn't mean I don't take my responsibility as a pet owner very seriously. A little kitten, lost and alone in the middle of a battle...."

  "If we have a battle in the city we have a lot worse problems than a lost cat," John said. He was having trouble taking this one seriously. "Look, he's a cat. He's probably hiding in an air vent somewhere or under a sofa, and he'll come out in a couple of hours when he gets hungry. Why don't you just chill out about it and do the thing you're supposed to do, which is get the city ready for lift off?"

  "Incredibly callous...."

  "Rodney!"

  "What?"

  "Get the city ready to fly," John said very distinctly. "We'll find your cat later. I'm sure he's fine. Now go up there and get on a console.

  He followed Rodney up the steps to the control center. Sam and Radek were at the station at the far end, looking over the shoulder of one of the other scientists, a geologist John thought was named Greensmith. "I don't think that's got it," Sam said.

  "We need a finer setting," Radek said.

  "I think this is the finest setting there is," Greensmith said. She shook her head, her long braid swaying, and tried a different sensor setting. "That's a little better, but – I'm afraid it's just not going to work."

  "What's not going to work?" John kept his voice low so that the rest of the watch wouldn't hear, still keeping an eye on Rodney out of the corner of his eye. Ronon was casually standing just a few feet away from Rodney's usual terminal.

  "We're still trying to scan for naquadah," Sam said.

  "We can detect naquadah just fine," Greensmith said. She looked up over her glasses, as if wondering if she'd spoken out of turn, but Radek motioned for her to go on. "But below a certain point, the city's internal sensors won't give us a precise mass, just that they're detecting 'trace amounts.' And we're finding trace amounts of naquadah in almost every room of the city."

  "The item is very small," Radek added, "and this city is full of things that are made of naquadah. We have not been able to distinguish finely enough – what is the thing we are looking for and what is a power relay, for example? It is just too small and the scanners will not do such fine work. They are not meant for this."

  John scrubbed his chin with his hand. "So what does that mean?"

  Radek looked down at Greensmith, and she shook her head regretfully.

  "It means we're out of technical solutions to find it," Sam said, straightening up. "I think we need to consider what happens if we don't find it in time."

  "We've got to figure out who took it," John said.

  Radek looked exasperated. "And how do we do that? I am an engineer, not a detective!"

  "Jim," Sam added.

  It took a second before John got it. Greensmith looked like she was trying not to smile. "Yeah, and I'm a pilot not a doctor, Bones, but we've still got to find this thing."

  "We may not," Sam said. "I don't think we're any closer than we were yesterday. Whoever has it is keeping mum. We're sure it's not the Wraith and it's not the Genii and we don't think it's Rodney." She glanced down the boards at Rodney, complaining full tilt as his fingers flew over the symbols on the control panel. "Where does that leave us?"

  "Screwed," John said. But at least Torren was on New Athos. At least he'd taken care of that. Which was a lot more important than Rodney's cat.

  "There's nothing more I can do until we find it," Sam said. "My time is better spent on the Hammond's repairs."

  "I know." John took a deep breath. "Thanks, Sam."

  "Call me as soon as you find it," she said, and strode off toward the transport chamber.

  "I will," John said.

  "I really thought we could find it this way," Greensmith said.

  "We do our best," Radek said, resting a reassuring hand on her shoulder for a moment. "But now we must use logic. It must be one of two things. Either someone took it because they do not want it destroyed, in which case they may use it, or someone took it who does not know what it is."

  "If they use it...." John's heart sank.

  "Most likely they do not know what it is," Radek said. "Perhaps it is time to announce that something is missing. I can say it is some vital part of the city's systems. That way if it is someone who has simply picked up an interesting device that they do not know what it does, perhaps they will return it."

  "It's worth a try," John said. "I'll ask Woolsey."

  John paused in the mess hall to draw himself yet another mug of coffee. He was still in pretty good shape, despite the early morning and the rush of preparations. With any luck, he'd be able to grab a few hours sleep sometime early in the evening, and be ready to lift the city once O'Neill and Woolsey made the final decision. Not that he had any real doubts about what that would be. If Atlantis was going to have any chance at all, she had to be in orbit, with the choice to fight or flee. That didn't mean that the IOA wouldn't try to make them destroy the city, but he was pretty sure neither O'Neill nor Woolsey would go along with it, if only because they both believed Zelenka when he said he couldn't truly destroy the City of the Ancients. And O'Neill, at least, was in a position to make it stick.

  He moved to a sunny corner where he could look out over the city, the sea glinting under the sun, the ice melted to damp patches on the terrace below. Zelenka said the city was fit for hyperspace, and that they had enough power to make the jump; they could run if they had to. They might even end up on a more pleasant world, maybe another tropical ocean like their first two homes. But running wouldn't work forever. They'd have to face Queen Death someday. Better to do it now, if they could.

  Of course, the problem with that was Todd. No weapon, to be ceremoniously destroyed in front of him, no Wraith fleet to fight against Queen Death. John couldn't entirely blame him: if the Wraith had something like that, he'd want to have it in hand, see it smashed into little pieces, before he lifted one finger to help. But they were running out of time.

  He moved a little closer to the window, out of earshot of any of the tables, and touched his radio. "Dr. Zelenka."

  "Yes, Colonel?" The little engineer sounded almost cheerful, and John couldn't help raising his eyebrows.

  "Any luck with our hide-and-seek project?"

  "That. No, no luck. Nor has anyone reported finding anything that might be it."

  "Damn."

  "On the other hand, we are making good progress with Rodney's help." There was a pause, as though Zelenka was consulting a screen. "And the Hammond is within four hours of readiness, with only minor work left to do."

  Which is great, John thought, except that the Hammond and the Pride of the Genii aren't going to be enough to hold off Queen Death, not even with the city to back them up. And we can't risk losing the city. "Good work," he said aloud. "And thanks. Sheppard out."

  He glanced at his watch, a vague idea taking shape in his brain. He had almost two hours before his next scheduled meeting; in that time, maybe it was worth having another word with Todd. Todd had to know that he didn't stand a chance if
Queen Death won – she'd feed on him and take his withered carcass up on a wall somewhere to remind people that opposing her was a bad idea. And he also had to know that there was no percentage for Atlantis in using a weapon that would kill some of their best people, never mind every random human who happened to have Wraith DNA. It was worth a try.

  Todd – Guide, John reminded himself – had been taken to a suite of rooms several levels below the gateroom. There were Marines on guard who came to attention at John's approach, and one of them reached across to open the door. Guide spun to face him as the door opened, and John nodded a greeting.

  "You can close up," he said, to the nearest Marine. The man visibly swallowed his protest, and did as he was told. The door hissed shut behind him. "I hope you're comfortable."

  "Oh, entirely." Guide waved a hand at the furnishings, but John couldn't tell if the gesture was ironic or not. "Dare I hope you've brought good news?"

  "'Fraid not. But I did want to discuss that with you."

  "There is nothing to discuss." Guide turned his back, the black coat flaring, crossed the room to peer out the single narrow window. "If Hyperion's weapon is not destroyed – I cannot help you, Sheppard."

  "You need Death destroyed just as much as we do," John said.

  "Yes, but I have some chance of doing it on my own."

  "If you really thought that, you wouldn't be here."

  Guide showed teeth at that, and John pressed his advantage.

  "You have to know we can't risk using it. We'd kill our own people."

  "It has happened before," Guide said.

  "Look," John said. "We didn't kill you. Back on Earth, we could have turned you over to the IOA, and we didn't. Why would we risk killing people as valuable as McKay and Teyla?"

  Guide sighed deeply. "First of all, I believe you are keeping the weapon until McKay and Colonel Carter can figure out how to modify it so that it only kills us – you see, I am being frank with you. "

  "We wouldn't do that," John said, but his voice wasn't as confident as he would like. That was what Ronon had wanted, certainly what the IOA would argue for if they knew about the weapon – if they didn't order Woolsey to use it regardless, and accept the collateral damage. They'd seen Teyla and Torren once or twice, for ten or fifteen minutes at a reception. The face of the Pegasus Galaxy, yes, one woman and her child, but acceptable losses compared to losing more of their own people. The unknown, incalculable number of others who possessed the Gift, any trace of Wraith DNA, wouldn't weigh any more in the scales.

  "Second, even if I were to believe you," Guide said, "you are no longer the authority here. Nor is Mr. Woolsey. It is General O'Neill who gives the orders in Colonel Carter's absence, and I do not know him. I cannot risk trusting him."

  John bit his lip, but there wasn't anything he could say to that. Oh, yeah, he could get into a distracting argument about rank and precedence, try to explain that humans weren't always ruled by the equivalent of Wraith queens and that O'Neill really was in charge, not Carter, but that wasn't going to change the essential facts.

  Guide nodded as though he'd followed the thought. "In my shoes, John Sheppard – what would you do?"

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Final Countdown

  Rodney bent over his console, the sun streaming in through the long windows of the gateroom. So far, everything was going perfectly, just a shortcut here, a minor tweak there, all to bring the city into perfect readiness. When he had last paused long enough to listen, it had sounded as though the Hammond was ready, too, and apparently the Genii were on their way. That actually surprised him a little, though, really, Ladon Radim ought to have figured out which side his bread was buttered on....

  He frowned at his screen, watching the last of the secondary systems nudge firmly into the green, and then leaned back with a sigh. "Where's that coffee I asked for –?"

  "Next to your left hand," Zelenka said precisely.

  "Ah." Rodney picked it up, slurping at it before he registered that the cup wasn't burning his fingers. "It's cold!"

  "Where it has been for the last twenty minutes," Zelenka went on. He had a cup of hot coffee, Rodney noticed, but he wasn't offering to share.

  Dr. Kusanagi looked up from her console, smiling. "Here, you can have this one," she said, and held out a cup.

  "Oh, I couldn't," Rodney said, but reached for it anyway. It was just the way he liked it, and he couldn't repress a blissful smile. "Ah, that's better."

  "Rodney, you are impossible," Zelenka said.

  "Airman Salawi brought him a fresh cup on her way back from her break," Kusanagi said, to Zelenka. "It was very kind of her."

  "Yes. Yes, it was," Zelenka said. "But Rodney can get his own coffee."

  "Can I?" Rodney pointed to Ronon, who leaned against the end of the console. "At the moment, I can't go anywhere with Chewbacca there keeping me company."

  "I'm fine with you getting coffee," Ronon said.

  "You see?" Zelenka said. He looked at his own screens, touched keys to compare two sets of readings. "Oh, yes. Yes, that is going very well."

  Rodney looked over his shoulder. "If you'd cross-connected the secondary conduits here and here, you'd have gotten a faster power-up –"

  "Possibly," Zelenka answered. "Or equally possibly we would have blown that entire bank of circuits."

  Rodney opened his mouth to protest, and Zelenka rode over him.

  "And in any case, we've already started the process. There's no point in interrupting it now."

  "No." Rodney stopped, blinking.

  "And I could not have consulted you," Zelenka continued, "because what you were doing there was the priority."

  "Well, yes," Rodney said. "Yes, it was." And that left him with nothing to say, so he took a deep swallow of his coffee. "Ow!"

  "And if now you complain that it's too hot –" Zelenka broke off, muttering to himself in Czech.

  "Some people let being Head of Science go to their heads," Rodney said, but not so loudly that Zelenka couldn't ignore him. He looked back at his own screen, saw that there was nothing to do until the next diagnostic finished running. That was a little weird – he felt as though he'd been working at top speed ever since he got back to Atlantis – but there was nothing he could do about it, and he took a more careful sip of his coffee, wincing at the heat on his sore tongue.

  Okay, there was nothing he could do here. That left his other problem, proving that he hadn't been tampered with by the Wraith, and that – well, surely all his work getting the city ready to fly had to count for something? But, no, probably some minor component would blow out, and they'd all blame him for something like unconscious sabotage. He was pretty sure that wasn't really possible, and if only he had the time, he'd get Dr. Robinson to tell them as much.

  And what the hell had happened to the weapon? He knew where he'd hidden it, he knew nobody knew about that little private stash – was it possible Sheppard had been looking in the wrong place? Maybe that was it. Maybe Sheppard had gone to the wrong lab. There were at least a dozen of them up there in the towers, all identical – that was part of why he'd chosen one to hide his emergency supplies. That was probably it. His directions hadn't been clear enough, and Sheppard had gotten it wrong. He turned to Ronon.

  "We have to go back up the tower."

  "What?"

  "To where I hid – you know, the thing. Sheppard went to the wrong place."

  Ronon was shaking his head. "No. He went to the right place."

  "You can't be sure," Rodney said. "All those little labs, all the towers, they all look alike. He must have gone to the wrong one."

  "McKay." Ronon sounded as though he were trying very hard to be patient and not succeeding. "He went to the right room. All your other stuff was there."

  "How do you know that? You weren't there!"

  "Sheppard said so." Ronon folded his arms as though that settled the matter.

  Which Rodney supposed it did. Sheppard was good at his job, he wasn't goin
g to confuse Rodney's gear with, say, Kusanagi's or that German kid's. He picked up his coffee again, frowning. And that meant the weapon was still lost, and he was still a suspect. Still potentially Wraith. The heat of the cup traced the line that had been his handmouth, as prickly and uncomfortable as all his other memories. And the worst of it was, there was nothing he could think of that would fix the problem.

  Deep in Cheyenne Mountain there was trouble brewing at the SGC.

  "Tell me it's not true."

  Cameron Mitchell looked up from his computer with his best long-suffering expression to see Daniel Jackson glaring down at him.

  "And don't give me that lost-puppy look. Is the IOA serious?"

  "That was supposed to be classified information," Cam observed. "And, you know, people do sometimes knock. On doors. Before bursting in."

  Jackson waved that away. "Oh, come on, nothing that important stays secret around here." He paused. "Well, not from us."

  "No." That was inarguable: Cam himself wasn't supposed to know about the decision, either, but Landry had thought that the opinion of the leader of the SGC's most experienced gate team would be relevant. Or at least help him make a counterargument.

  "It's insane."

  "I can't argue with you there," Mitchell said, "but, yes, the IOA just ordered Woolsey to evacuate the city and destroy it rather than see it fall to the Wraith."

  "We've got to stop them!"

  Cam just looked at him, and Jackson waved his hands.

  "All right, yes, I have no idea how we're going to do it, but we can't let them blow up the city. Particularly since I doubt they can blow it up, given that it's Ancient technology, and we all know how hard it is to destroy that when we need to get rid of it, not to mention that the Ancients already tried this –"