SGA 22 Legacy 7 Unascended

by Jo Graham

  “A puddle-jumper. Outside.” A chill ran down Elizabeth’s back. “You have a puddle-jumper outside.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Lynn said, looking mystified.

  Elizabeth turned and ran out the door of the office, ran down the hall past what had been the welcome desk, past people coming in with boxes, through the front doors. There, in the middle of the square beside the customs shed, was a stubby metal form. She felt her heart leap. She stopped. It sat not far from the Stargate, the tailgate down. Various Satedans were unloading boxes and crates from the back, no doubt the trade goods Ushan Cai had talked about.

  Elizabeth took a step forward, then another.

  Two men came around the corner of the shed, a small man with glasses and improbably blue eyes, and a taller one with square shoulders and a weapon slung casually across his chest. They stopped as if they’d hit a glass wall, the small man’s mouth open as he muttered something incomprehensible, and pieces suddenly slid into place, final and inexorable as though they had been there all along.

  The man with the weapon blinked incredulously. “Dr. Weir?”

  She felt herself smile. “Major Lorne, Dr. Zelenka, it’s good to see you.”

  SGA-22 Unascended

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Well, that was interesting,” Daniel said, collapsing into one of the jumper’s seats. He did not appear badly injured, although a bruise was rising on his cheek.

  “I am just glad you are all right,” Teyla said as Rodney settled into the pilot’s seat and began checking the jumper’s readouts.

  “I’m fine. That could have gone better, though. I’m sorry.”

  “It could have gone much worse,” Teyla said. “You are good at talking to people in volatile situations.” She had to admit that Daniel had handled Sora well, keeping her talking and seizing the opportunity to get the upper hand as soon as it presented itself. And he had handled her without hurting her any more than was necessary, even though she was a stranger to him and he had no particular reason to be sympathetic to his kidnapper.

  Daniel shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

  “I still think you are a terrible diplomat.”

  “I’ve been told worse things,” he said. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can be stubborn.”

  “Really?” Teyla asked sweetly.

  “It’s not my best quality.”

  “Still, I admit that you do have some good qualities.”

  “Well. Good. I think.”

  “Can we please go find Elizabeth now?” Rodney asked.

  Ronon dropped down to straddle one of the jumper seats. “What are we going to do about Sora?”

  “Nothing for the moment,” Teyla said. “When we return to Atlantis, I expect we should have a talk with Ladon Radim.”

  “He already doesn’t trust her.”

  “But he may not know that she has allies among the scientists that he is working with. Or that she is close to solving the problem of how to activate the ATA gene.”

  “Not that close,” Daniel said. “What do you think she would do if she figured it out?”

  “That depends on how many successes she has,” Teyla said. “Even the recessive ATA gene is rare among the peoples of the Pegasus galaxy. Dr. Beckett tried the process on many Athosians, and none of them acquired the ATA gene as a result.”

  “Me neither,” Ronon said. “But apparently some Satedans have it.”

  “It’s not exactly common on Earth,” Daniel said. “SGC personnel who have the gene are more likely to get sent to Atlantis, so that skews the numbers. But, assuming that she could find a number of people who have the right genetic makeup, then what? It would be stupid for them to try to invade Atlantis at this point.”

  “It would,” Teyla said. “But I expect Pride of the Genii is less heavily guarded. If I were Ladon Radim, I would remedy that.”

  “That’s all we need,” Ronon said. “Sora Tyrus with her own warship.”

  “That is a problem for another day,” Teyla said. “Rodney, can you get the jumper working again?”

  “Probably,” Rodney said, sliding into the pilot’s seat. “It’s not like it’s exactly a good idea to crash-land these things, but the Ancients built them to be remarkably sturdy. It’s like they envisioned that future civilizations were going to come along and fly them very, very badly. They apparently practiced idiot-proofing for the ages.”

  “Maybe the Ancients also had a lot of really bad pilots,” Daniel said. “We tend to assume these things are like fighter planes, but maybe they’re more the SUVs of Ancient civilization. Complete with airbags and cameras to help you back up.”

  “Rodney?” Teyla prompted, in an attempt to head off an incipient discussion of whether Ancient transportation methods were more like one or another transportation method used on Earth. While she was willing to grant that he had handled Sora well, she still felt that Daniel Jackson had an uncanny talent for digressing from whatever the matter at hand might be.

  “I can fix it,” Rodney said. “Just give me a few minutes to get everything powered back up and make sure we aren’t missing anything essential that would make this a very short trip.”

  The silence as Rodney worked on the jumper was an uncomfortable one. “You really believe it is Elizabeth,” Teyla said finally.

  Rodney didn’t lift his head from the jumper’s readouts. “Yes. It’s Elizabeth.”

  “She was frozen in space, unable to think or experience anything,” Teyla said. “It is hard to see how she could have ascended while in that state.”

  “Maybe she had some kind of help,” Daniel said. “The Ancient who helped me Ascend the first time, Oma Desala

  —

  she used to make a habit of helping members of less evolved species achieve Ascension. I was going to die, and she stepped in and helped me take that last step. Now, doing that didn’t work out so well for her in the end, but it’s not inconceivable that someone here in the Pegasus Galaxy could be doing the same thing.”

  “We have never encountered such a being before,” Teyla said. “And many of us have died, or been on the point of death.” She felt a flicker of anger at the idea that someone who could have helped her friends who had died might have been watching them and judged them unworthy. The ways of the Ancestors were mysterious, and yet…

  “I know,” Daniel said, his eyes on her face. “I know. Believe me, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what it means that I got to Ascend and other people I knew

  —

  good people, people who deserved to live, some of them a lot more than I did

  —

  died. It’s not that I deserved it more. It’s probably not even that Oma Desala liked me more, although I wouldn’t entirely rule out reasons that random. It’s that I’d already gone a long way down that path already. It’s like being able to pull someone into a boat if they can grab a rope that you throw them. It’s not that you don’t care about people who are unconscious in the water. But you can’t help them if they can’t grab that rope.”

  “We know Elizabeth tried to Ascend,” Rodney said.

  “And we know that she repeatedly failed,” Teyla said. “Is it not more likely that this is some new trickery of the Replicators?”

  Ronon shook his head. “Why would you rather think that?”

  “Because I had given up hope,” Teyla snapped. “And the last thing I want is to begin hoping that we will find my friend, when what is most likely is that she is dead and this is only some device of our enemies made in her shape.”

  “I understand that,” Rodney said. “Believe me, I’ll be the first to say that pessimism is usually a good way to avoid being horribly disappointed.”

  “And yet you believe.”

  “She talked to me,” Rodney said. “And, before you say it, it was not a spiritual experience, if by ‘spiritual experience’ you mean ‘thing that isn’t really happening.’ She was there in my head, and she talked to me, and as someone who’s had hypoxia-induced h
allucinations before, I think I’m in the best position to say that this wasn’t one.”

  “I am not sure that is how I would define a spiritual experience,” Teyla said.

  “If I had a spiritual experience, it was the spiritual experience of having Ascended Elizabeth talk to me,” Rodney said. “That is one hundred percent as spiritual as I get. And it certainly wasn’t a hallucination, unless we’re willing to accept that it’s entirely a coincidence that someone who thinks they’re Elizabeth is wandering around with amnesia right now.”

  “I think you’re scared to find out if it’s true or not,” Ronon said to Teyla.

  “Is that so hard for you to understand?”

  Ronon shrugged. “No. I don’t want it to be some Replicator either. And if Sheppard were here, he’d be going crazy trying not to get his hopes up. But it’s better to find out the truth.”

  Teyla took a deep breath and then let it out. “Sometimes you are very wise, my friend,” she said.

  “Nice to know I’m not always wrong,” Ronon said.

  “I did not mean it that way,” Teyla protested, but Ronon was smiling.

  “All right,” Rodney said. “I think we’re back in business.”

  “You think, or you’re sure?” Daniel said, looking skeptically at the jumper’s controls. “I’d rather not crash in this thing twice.”

  “I’m never a hundred percent sure,” Rodney said. “We’re flying around in machines that are thousands of years old. They didn’t come with a warranty. But, yes, I am as sure as I ever am that there’s no particular reason that the jumper is going to crash again today.”

  “Well, that’s comforting,” Daniel said after a moment.

  “So can we go?” Rodney said, his hands poised over the jumper’s control panel.

  “Take us to Sateda,” Teyla said.

  The open square by the gate on Sateda was as usual full of people making their way between the buildings or sitting outside them to drink tea or talk. Every time they came there, Teyla saw more signs of repairs in progress; windows that had been boarded up a month before now boasted shutters that could be opened to let in light and air, and a few had been mended with scraps of colored glass leaded together so that their patchwork surfaces shone in the sun.

  Another jumper was already parked in the square, with a small crowd gathered around it.

  “Major Lorne is here with a team to trade,” Teyla said, remembering the fact only as she spoke.

  “I knew that,” Ronon said.

  She gave him a sideways look. “We could have radioed and asked them to find out if anyone has seen Elizabeth.”

  “We were already on our way,” Ronon said. “Or are you saying you wouldn’t have come just because someone else was here?”

  “No, I would have come anyway,” Teyla said. It was not the way of the military on Earth, with their belief that one team should be interchangeable with another. She understood their reasoning, and still did not always agree with it. Elizabeth was her friend, and she and Rodney and Ronon could not sit by letting someone else search for her if there was a chance she could be found.

  The jumper’s subspace radio crackled to life. “Teyla, report,” John said. “Where are you?”

  “We have just landed on Sateda,” Teyla said, as Rodney brought the jumper down to a landing in the square. “Pursuing a lead.”

  “Lorne just radioed in,” John said. She could hear the tightness in his voice, and her own breath caught. “He says they’ve found Elizabeth.”

  The jumper was barely on the ground before Ronon was heading out the door, followed at a brisk pace by the rest of the team. Teyla could see the people gathered near the other jumper as she jogged across the square, Major Lorne and Dr. Zelenka standing in the center of the crowd talking to a dark-haired woman who turned toward them in disbelief as they approached.

  Teyla found herself face to face with Elizabeth Weir, looking just as Teyla remembered her, though wearing clothes she must have acquired on one of the planets she had visited. “Rodney. Teyla. Ronon?” She spoke their names tentatively, as if not sure whether her memory for them was to be trusted.

  “Yes,” Teyla said, and felt her heart lift, even though she knew that they had not yet proven that this was truly Elizabeth. “You remember us.”

  “I remember some things,” Elizabeth said. “It’s coming back slowly. For a while I had no idea where I was from. I couldn’t remember Earth, or the Atlantis expedition, or… ” Elizabeth’s expression grew abruptly troubled. “Where is Colonel Sheppard?”

  “Back in Atlantis,” Teyla reassured her. Of course she must expect John to be in charge of the team, and guess that something terrible had befallen him if he were not. “He is currently in charge of the city.”

  Elizabeth’s eyebrows went up. “Colonel Sheppard? Not that I’m complaining, but I’m surprised that the IOA went for that.” She shook her head. “That was the first thing that came to mind, and now I can’t remember what the IOA is.”

  “It takes some time,” Daniel said. Elizabeth turned to look at him, noticing him for the first time, as Zelenka began herding away the curious Satedan onlookers to give them a little more privacy to talk.

  “I know you,” she said. “But I can’t remember your name.”

  “Daniel Jackson,” he said. “I’m with the SGC on Earth. I’m just here in Atlantis temporarily.”

  “That’s what they all say,” Elizabeth said. It sounded like her, that dry sense of humor. Could a Replicator, or some other creature inhabiting Elizabeth’s shape, seem so much like her? And yet if her blood were filled with nanites, she might be a time bomb completely unawares. “I remember you, though. We dealt with… dangerous parasites?”

  “That could be either the Goa’uld or Senator Kinsey,” Daniel said. “But, yes. You were briefly in charge of the SGC. It was an interesting experience.”

  “You’d think it would be memorable,” Elizabeth said.

  “You’re probably going to have partial amnesia for a while,” Daniel said. “I did, after I came back from being Ascended.”

  Elizabeth looked a little skeptical. “Ascended? Is that what happened to me?”

  Rodney shook his head at her. “You don’t remember?”

  “No. I remember waking up in a field, but I don’t remember anything about how I got there or where I came from. And before that… ” She shook her head. “Something about an attack by the Asurans?”

  “That is right,” Teyla said. “That was when you… ” She hesitated, unsure how best to complete the sentence.

  “Died,” Rodney said bluntly. “At least, we thought you were dead.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Apparently not.”

  “I’ll go report to Colonel Sheppard,” Lorne said, and Teyla nodded as he stepped inside his jumper to do it. They would have to decide what to do about Elizabeth now, and that was not a conversation Lorne would want to have in front of Elizabeth herself.

  Elizabeth was frowning at Rodney. “What happened to your hair?”

  “There was this thing with the Wraith,” he said. At her stricken expression, he hurried on, “They didn’t suck years of my life out of me. It was actually a lot more disturbing than that. I’m fine, now, though. I mean, except for some traumatic… anyway, the hair is just one of those quirky things that happens in Pegasus, right?”

  “Quirky,” Elizabeth said. “That’s one way of putting it.” She looked up at Ronon. “It’s good to see all of you.”

  Ronon looked at her for a long moment, seeming to have run out of words abruptly, and then threw his arms around her and hugged her, lifting her entirely off the ground in the process. Elizabeth hung onto his hands when he finally released her, as if touching him made him seem more real.

  It was as if a glass barrier between them had been broken. Teyla stretched out her hands, and Elizabeth took them, leaning in to touch her forehead to Teyla’s. Her hands were warm, and felt as they should in Teyla’s own. Her smell seemed wrong for
a moment, and then Teyla decided that what was missing was the familiar scent of perfumed toiletries mingled with Air Force issue laundry detergent and the ever-required coffee.

  Elizabeth hugged Rodney, who returned the embrace more awkwardly. “I like the hair,” she said.

  “Really?” he asked, drawing himself up a little bit. “I’ve been wondering if I should dye it.”

  “Leave it,” Elizabeth said.

  Lorne emerged from the jumper. “Sheppard’s on his way,” he said.

  Teyla shook her head. “And who is he leaving in charge in Atlantis?”

  “Me, as soon as I can get back there,” Lorne said. He shrugged. “You didn’t really think he was going to sit this one out, did you?”

  “I did not,” Teyla admitted.

  “Dr. Zelenka, Dr. Lynn, you’re coming back to Atlantis with me,” Lorne said. “Colonel Sheppard is calling off the trade mission until we get this sorted out.”

  Lorne dialed the gate and headed through with the two scientists. It was not long before there was the sound of the gate activating again, and then the boiling blue of the wormhole forming. “Colonel Sheppard, I presume,” Elizabeth said, and turned to watch as John strode through.

  Lorne had barely set foot in the control room when Sgt. Anthony called in from the alpha site. “Sir, we’ve got problems,” Anthony said.

  “What now?” Lorne asked, sliding into the seat beside Airman Salawi, who returned her attention to her computer screen. “We need that alpha site.”

  “The new equipment we brought out is falling apart, too. The tents are just coming apart in pieces. The water cans look like somebody set them on a hot stove.”

  Lorne waved a hand at Radek, who had been on his way out of the control room. Radek came back up the stairs reluctantly, probably wondering why he was being deprived of ten minutes to grab a cup of coffee before anyone piled new technical problems on his head.