“I have spoken with General O’Neill—”
The politician didn’t let up. “I am a United States senator—”
Rush spoke over him. “And I have explained our situation clearly,” he went on. Now give them hope. “In light of my knowledge and experience, General O’Neill has placed me in charge—”
Armstrong couldn’t let that pass. “He did?” Disbelief dripped from the words.
“It was the original mission of this expedition to explore the universe,” Rush went on. “I believe we can still do that.”
Eli gave Scott a brief, pointed look. “We only have a few hours of air left…maybe not even that much. How much of the universe are we gonna be able to cover?”
The muttering in the group took on a fearful edge at the young man’s announcement, and Rush frowned. “I have faith in our ability to work together and to repair this ship,” he insisted. “But if we’re going to survive this, we need leadership and a clear chain of command —”
Once again, Armstrong interrupted, his condescension evident. “Get off it, Doctor! I want to talk to the general myself!”
Rush fixed him with a hard look. The last thing anyone needed was this pompous fool interfering. For a moment, he considered a lie; he could tell the man the stones were programmed for certain individuals, and Armstrong wouldn’t know it wasn’t the truth.
Scott stepped between them. “Give it to him, Doctor.” There was an implied threat in there somewhere, and Rush hesitated. He didn’t want to make an enemy of the young officer, not while he needed him to strengthen his authority.
With a sigh, Rush held opened the case and showed the contents to Armstrong, who seemed on the verge of snatching it from him. For a moment the senator studied the contents, his face an angry red. It mattered little; Rush doubted that the man even had the first clue of how to use the artifacts.
“Dad…” Armstrong’s daughter was close by him. Surely she could see he was being unreasonable?
The politician reached forward, intending to pick up a stone; what followed Rush hadn’t expected at all. Armstrong tensed and froze in place. Then in the next second, he gasped in pain and dropped to the metal deck. His daughter called out in alarm and went to him, eyes wide with fear.
Rush quickly closed the case and put it aside.
Scott was glaring his way. “What did you do to him?”
“Nothing,” Rush said in all honesty, securing the case. “He didn’t even touch the stone…”
Johansen parted the group around Armstrong and knelt by his side. “He’s conscious, still breathing.”
“I…I think he might have hurt his side…” offered Eli. “After we came through the gate, he looked like he was in pain…”
“He was caught in a rock fall,” added Scott.
The medic nodded and pulled up the man’s shirt. Rush winced at the sight of a string of heavy purple-black bruises down the length of Armstrong’s torso.
Chloe’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“I saw him taking pills,” said Johansen. “What were they?”
“Warfarin, for his heart,” Chloe replied, her voice catching.
Johansen frowned. “Blood thinners are the last thing he needs if he’s bleeding internally.”
“Please do something!” Chloe begged.
The other woman’s firm expression suddenly crumbled. “I told you, I’m just a medic! I mean, I have morphine but I don’t…” She trailed off.
Rush could feel the situation slipping and he took a breath, speaking loudly so his voice would carry. “People, listen!” he demanded. He could hear them becoming more agitated by the moment; if he didn’t take control now, then he never would. “There is no need for us all to congregate in one place!” He looked down at the medic. “Lieutenant Johansen, please locate reasonable accommodation for the injured. As for the rest of you—”
Before he could finish, another challenger stepped up; Wray, a woman he barely remembered from one of his first meetings on Icarus Base. “I don’t recognize your authority, Doctor Rush! As the IOA representative here, I—”
His opinion of the IOA was somewhere below that of politicians and imbeciles, and Rush ignored every word she said, growing more frustrated by the moment. “We’ve found quarters nearby, more comfortable than this,” he said. “Go there and stay there until you are asked to do something useful.”
Andrea Palmer, one of the geology team, shot him an affronted glare. “Something useful?” she echoed. Palmer’s annoyance rippled out into the crowd. Rush was suddenly aware that he had lost them, and sensed their mood veering toward an angry pack mentality.
“We don’t want to settle in!” snapped Wray. “We want to get out of here!”
“She’s right,” Volker added. “ We should all be working on getting home.”
Rush hesitated; all right, he thought, if all else fails, tell them the hard truth. “I don’t even know if that’s possible.”
The words had barely left his lips when the group exploded in uproar. Wray stabbed finger toward the silent Stargate. “What? You haven’t even tried!”
Spencer was nodding along with her. “Maybe you should do something instead of standing around talking about being in charge.”
From the side of the group, a hatchet-faced Marine eyed him coldly. “If that’s even true.” The man stood up and took a menacing step.
People were pushing forward now, all talking at once, crowding toward the staircase where Rush was standing. He resisted the urge to draw back and put some distance between himself and them. It was all falling apart! Didn’t they understand? Didn’t they realize he was doing this for the good of the mission, for the good of all of them?
Scott stepped up, making his rifle evident on its sling, and a couple more of the Air Force officers backed him up. “Curtis,” said the lieutenant, addressing the Marine, “back off!” Curtis hesitated, and Scott used the moment to raise his own voice. “Everyone calm down! The fact is, Colonel Young put me in charge, and I expect all SG personnel to follow my orders.” As that sunk in, he scanned the faces of the civilians. “As for the rest of you, if you get out of line we will lock you down.” He threw Rush a quick look over his shoulder. “Now. Doctor Rush is right about a couple of things. One: we have to work together and Two: we don’t all have to stay here. So let’s move out.”
And just like that, the simmering resentment was damped down, the potential riot forestalled. As the crowd broke up into smaller groups, Rush let out a weary breath, unable to grasp how the situation could have spiraled out of his control so fast.
He found Scott looking at him. “I think we need you, so I’ve got your back for now,” said the lieutenant, his voice low. “But if I were you, I’d start figuring out how to dial that gate back to Earth.”
The lieutenant walked away before he could frame a reply.
Once the civilians had got themselves into the quarters, Greer gathered a handful of people, and got them to work moving the cases and backpacks that were scattered all over the gate room into an empty chamber that he’d arbitrarily decided was a storage compartment. The gate tech, Riley, had offered to keep inventory of what they had, but without something to write it all down on, he wondered how the man was going to manage it. Along with Spencer, two of the science types — Palmer and a guy called Volker — were lending a hand. But much to the sergeant’s irritation, that snooty witch Wray from the IOA was also there; although she seemed to be spending more time eyeballing Greer than actually helping out.
Riley was bent over an open airdrop case. “I’ve got some sort of testing equipment here…” He gave the device a rattling shake. “Looks broken.”
Greer nodded. “We’ll come back to that.”
“Did no-one think to label anything?” Volker grumbled.
“There’s a bar code on every case,” noted Riley.
“Anybody find the bar code reader?” Volker replied.
Greer shook his head, joining the chorus o
f ‘No’s. He unzipped a bag and found what appeared to be a collapsible tent and some desert-pattern camouflage gear. He showed it to Riley, who nodded.
“I guess the reader got left behind along with the food and the water,” said Spencer.
“We got food,” Greer looked up again and caught Wray watching him. She quickly turned away.
“Oh, yeah, power bars,” replied Palmer, “and that powdered stuff. Yum.”
Greer noticed Spencer pocket a handful of the ration bars from the open case as Palmer looked away. He didn’t say anything about it for the moment, but made a mental note to give the guy a firm one-on-one talk.
Volker held up some silver packets, all of them carefully color-coded and compartmentalized. “Hey everybody, look,” he said sarcastically. “We’re saved!”
“Seeds?” Riley squinted at the packages. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
As Volker tossed the packets aside, Palmer went to the next box and opened it to reveal a set of blocky packages. “This is like a very depressing Christmas morning,” she said.
“What’s that?” said Riley.
“I’ve got a case of blank paper,” came the reply.
“Maybe we should start a suggestion box,” offered Volker.
From the corner of his eye, Greer saw Wray giving him the look again and his composure snapped. He turned on her. “What are you staring at?” he snarled.
Wray held her ground. “You were in detention, back on Icarus.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” he replied, challenging her.
“For good reason,” Wray went on. The room became quiet.
“What did you want him to do?” Greer snapped. “Leave me there?”
“Of course not,” she said, looking him up and down. “I was just wondering what to do about it now.”
Who the hell did she think she was? “It’s not up to you.”
“We’ll see,” replied Wray.
Greer’s lip twisted in annoyance and he took a step toward her. Wray hadn’t expected that, and she showed a flash of fear, backing away.
Riley stepped into his path. “Don’t, man.”
Greer turned his glare on the Air Force sergeant, who had placed a hand on the Marine’s chest. Greer looked down at it, and Riley pulled it away.
Then he heard Lieutenant Scott calling his name over the radio. “Greer, do you read? I need you to help check for any open bulkhead doors that lead to damaged parts of the ship. Rush will direct you from the control room.”
He picked up the radio, giving Wray a last, iron-hard glare, and replied. “Copy that. On my way.”
A few corridors away across the span of the ship, Scott moved down the middle of a long passageway, his eyes flicking to every shadowed corner, his rifle slung across his chest. So far, they hadn’t encountered anything that could be classed as a threat aboard the vast Ancient derelict — not unless I want to count my own damn stupidity, he chided himself — but Scott wasn’t about to slack off on his vigilance. Now, as the falling oxygen levels would start to take their toll on people’s alertness, it was more important than ever to be careful. He’d already screwed up once by opening that hatchway; he wasn’t going to make that kind of mistake a second time.
“Go past the next junction.” Rush’s voice crackled over the open radio link. Scott kept walking, glancing up at the low iron ceiling, wondering if the scientist was even looking at the same piece of corridor that he was in. So much of the interior of the ship had a similar, modular look to it, like a lot of Ancient construction. He could imagine the walls and the floors being stamped out of moulds or cut from massive plates of red-hot steel, welded together like warships in old newsreels of dockside shipyards.
“There should be an elevator at the end of the hall.” Rush’s voice snapped him back. Scott blinked. His mind was starting to wander.
“Copy that,” he replied. “I see it.” Scott found an open hatchway and a conventional-looking elevator car behind it. Stepping carefully inside, he looked for and found a small control panel.
“We’ve got what looks like another compromised area one level down,” continued Rush. He sounded a lot more in control now he was back in his comfort zone, Scott reflected.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m on my way.” The lieutenant reached out to press one of the keys on the control pad and saw movement out in the corridor, back the way he had come. He stopped dead, snapping his G36 to the ready.
He wasn’t alone. From around the corner of the curving corridor came a spherical object, not much bigger than a softball, floating at chest height with no apparent means of support. It had a silvery, metallic tone to it, similar to the careworn steel walls all around him. Gently, it drifted past, and on one side of its surface he saw something that might have been the impassive mono-optic gaze of a lens. It kept moving, and Scott pulled his rifle up, taking aim as it drifted on. He blinked. What the hell was that?
“Are you there yet?” Rush’s voice was so sudden and so loud over the open channel that it made him twitch in surprise.
The lieutenant toggled the radio and hissed into it. “Radio silence, please. Scott out.” Leading with the rifle, he left the elevator and went after the floating sphere, his finger resting on the trigger-guard.
Pain rushed in from every corner of him, and he gasped as his eyes opened. He tried to focus, but all that he could feel was a pounding series of dull impacts coming from the inside of his skull.
Young turned and realized he was lying on some kind of bed, in a room where the lights were soft. He felt groggy and it was a struggle to focus.
“Easy, Colonel. It’s okay.” He knew that voice. Tamara. For a second, he thought he had been talking to Emily… But then memory caught up with him and he remembered where he was.
“What’s going on?” he managed. His tongue felt thick, his mouth bone-dry.
“We almost lost you, sir,” she said. “You were thrown clear across the room.” Young tried to sit up, but his pain had other ideas. Tamara put a gentle hand on his chest. She shook her head. “I need you to stay still.”
He relented, and for the moment, eased back down. He blinked at the walls around him. The place looked familiar and alien all at once. “Where are we?”
She checked his eyes with a pen-light. “Aboard a ship. It’s Ancient. Rush says its thousands of years old, and we’re probably on the far side of the universe.” Tamara paused. “I say that out loud and it still doesn’t seem like it’s real.”
Young tried to process all that, and a question immediately rose to the top of his thoughts. “What’s he doing to get us home?”
“He says he’s working on it, but right now we have bigger problems. The life support system isn’t working properly. We may not have much time left if it can’t be fixed.”
The colonel nodded. He’d already noticed the air seemed thin in here.
Tamara went on. “You should also know he used the communication stones to contact Earth. He says General O’Neill put him in charge.”
Young’s jaw stiffened, and he felt a surge of anger. Typical of the man to take advantage of any situation. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he began, and tried to rise again.
“Sir…”
He got only a little way before his body betrayed him and the pain forced Young to give up the attempt.
“You shouldn’t be trying to move yet,” insisted the lieutenant.
“I don’t have a choice.” He bit out the words and took a shaky breath. “I can’t… Feel my legs.”
Tamara rested a hand on his arm. “Neurapraxia is a temporary paralysis that can follow a concussive injury,” she told him, with book-rote diction.
“But you don’t know if it’s that.”
Her hesitation answered the question before she did. “You’d need an MRI scan and a qualified doctor to read it to know for sure if there’s any spinal damage.” Tamara’s face fell. “We don’t have either. Hopefully, it’s just the nerves in shock. Best I can do is insist you remain st
ill.”
He studied her; right now, she should have been the one giving him the support, but Young sensed rightly that Tamara needed it more than he did. “Your tour of duty was over two weeks ago. You should be in some classroom in San Diego.”
“I was going to go back on the Hammond,” she admitted. “And it’s Seattle, sir. That’s where I got my scholarship.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry.”
She looked away. “That part is not your fault.”
He was silent for a moment before he spoke again. “Tell Rush I want to see him.”
“Yes, sir.” Tamara got up and left him there.
In the dimness, Young tried to move his leg, just a little. Tried, and failed.
Scott paced the sphere-thing down the halls of the ship, watching it bob gently like a feather caught in an updraft. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could detect the faintest humming sound coming from it, perhaps the noise from some kind of propulsion system. Then he checked himself; he was automatically assuming the thing was a device, a mechanical construct, maybe a robot — but there was nothing to say it wasn’t an organic, living being instead, albeit of a kind he couldn’t fathom. He thought back to when he’d been in the corridor before, that whole Star Trek moment he’d had — was this the ship’s way of answering him back?
Still, he had no idea if the sphere was harmless or of hostile intent, so he was erring on the latter. For all he could know, the object might be like the lure on an angler fish, encouraging him to follow it so he would walk himself straight into a trap.
Out of nowhere, a side door along the corridor opened and Eli Wallace stepped out in front of the lieutenant. He balked at the sight of the assault rifle being aimed in his direction. “Whoa!” he shouted. “Not again!” Eli stepped carefully out of the firing line.
Wallace seemed unconcerned by the presence of the sphere, which continued on its way down the corridor. “What is that thing?” said Scott.
Eli’s face split in a grin. “Oh, it’s cool. Come here, I’ll show you.”
He ducked back into the room he’d just left and Scott warily followed him. The chamber was laid out in a similar fashion to the control room they’d found elsewhere, with the same kind of consoles; but the large mechanism on one wall was a new feature.
STARGATE UNIVERSE: Air Page 14
