STARGATE ATLANTIS: Dead End

by Chris Wraight

  “Behold,” cried Geran. “Sanctuary!”

  Chapter Eleven

  After a heavy slog through the ice, Sheppard and McKay approached the Stargate. The edifice stood defiantly in the middle of a wide depression. It was the only structure for miles around that dared poke its head over the bleak horizon. The grounded Jumper was visible about a mile in the distance, now half-buried in piles of snow.

  Despite the millennia of ferocious storms the Stargate must have endured, it was barely marked. The Ancients certainly knew how to build things, Sheppard thought. Worryingly, though, he also noticed that it wasn’t quite level with the horizon.

  He cocked his head. “Hey, you think this thing’s leaning over?”

  “Possibly,” McKay said, looking rather annoyed. “When you get a tremor in the settlement, the Stargate is likely to be affected too.”

  “Gotta wonder why the Ancients built this thing in earthquake central.”

  McKay shrugged. “The gate’s been here over ten-thousand years. Things change.” He squinted up at the Stargate. “But whatever’s causing this instability, I don’t want to make it worse. If we power the gate up again, even assuming we can figure out how, we risk cracking the ice further. Sending the Stargate into an ice fissure isn’t going to get us home any time soon.”

  McKay turned back to Sheppard. His eyes were rimmed with red. He looked tired. Really tired. The stress of trying to square the circle was clearly getting to him. John regretted his earlier comments about crazy eyes.

  “We should press on with the Jumper,” McKay said. “One thing at a time. If we get that working, at least it’s a start.”

  “Right,” John said, forcing himself to sound cheerful. “Anything you say.”

  They turned their backs on the Stargate and trudged the short distance to the downed Jumper. The deep furrows plowed by their chaotic descent had been completely erased by the actions of the wind and the snow. When they came nearer, it looked for all the world as if the spacecraft had simply been deposited on the plain by an absent-minded pilot.

  Thankfully, it had not been completely buried by the fury of the recent blizzard. The front half of the craft, still more or less completely out of action, was inaccessible, but the rear bay poked up out of the snow as if proud of its elevated status.

  Sheppard looked at the damaged craft with a little concern. “Uh, you know you said the door controls weren’t working yet?”

  “Yeah?” muttered McKay, breaking out his tools.

  “Well, how’re we gonna get in?”

  McKay took what looked like a massive TV remote out of the leather bag he was carrying. “You really think I’d forget about something like that?”

  “Seems not. What is that?”

  “The keys,” said McKay, sounding satisfied with himself. “You didn’t think I was just twiddling my thumbs while that storm was blowing over, did you? I mean, once you’ve had your third bowl of buffalo stew and admired your fourteenth charming little tapestry beer-mat, then there’s not a lot to do.”

  That, Sheppard had to admit, was true. “I’m impressed,” he said. “Should I say ‘open sesame’?”

  McKay flicked the controller on with a button press, and brandished it proudly. “If you must, but it won’t help.”

  At the press of a second button, a series of lights switched on along the Jumper’s flanks and there was an encouraging whirring from inside the vessel.

  “Voilà!” cried McKay, just as alarmingly dark smoke started escaping from one of the starboard plasma vents.

  Sheppard kept his voice as mild as possible. “That meant to be happening?”

  McKay quickly pressed a series of switches on the controller. A curious stuttering, whining sound came from deep within the Jumper, and it looked for a minute as if the thing was trying to burrow back under the ice. Then there was an audible snap and the smoke belched more strongly. From within the ship came the sound of something electrical expiring and then the whole thing came to a shivering halt. Just as it looked as if the entire ship had been terminally affected, the rear door fell open with a clang.

  “See?” said McKay. “It’s all fine.”

  “You know how to reassure a guy,” said Sheppard. He glanced up at the sky. His brow furrowed. There was no sign of a fresh storm. Yet.

  “Let’s get a move on,” he said. “We don’t know how long we’ve got.”

  Weir and Zelenka stood in the Operations Center, looking down at the Stargate. It was dormant, as it had been since Sheppard and the team had last passed through. Concerned faces looked up at Weir from the various consoles in the operations room; it was obvious that they all knew the risks.

  “Right, people,” said Weir. “Let’s get that number dialed.” Her heart was pumping strongly, but she retained her habitual cool demeanor. “Doctor Zelenka, ready with that databurst?”

  “Got it.” He was concentrating furiously on the screen in front in him. “We’ll have a split-second, nothing more. When the aperture opens, it’s going through.”

  Weir turned to the gate operator. “You heard him. Open the gate.”

  The operator keyed in the address and looked over at Zelenka before touching the final symbol. He nodded once, and the last glyph was entered.

  Immediately, the Stargate fired up. The vacant surface filled with bubbling energy and an event horizon formed, bursting into life and shimmering with that strange, unnatural glow.

  Almost immediately, the lack of power was apparent. The event horizon flickered and the lights around the edge of the Stargate dimmed. The vortex buckled, warped and finally sheered away. There was the faint sound of machinery winding down, and then nothing. The Stargate was as dead as it had been before.

  Weir turned to Zelenka urgently. “Well?” The monitors were filling with data and Zelenka’s eyes flicked across the rows of numbers and symbols. “We’ve lost the connection,” he said.

  “But did it work?” she asked. “Did the databurst get through?”

  Zelenka looked up, concern etched into his face. “It was sent. Something went through the wormhole. Whether anyone was listening, that I don’t know. We can hope.”

  Weir looked back at the now-silent gate, consumed with an impotent frustration. She had hoped at least for confirmation that the message had been delivered. Without that, the knowledge that they had sent potentially life-saving technology through the wormhole just added an extra layer of uncertainty.

  “Yes, we will,” she said, half to herself. “We’ll just have to hope.”

  Ronon slipped his gun from his furs. The hunters had become uneasy, and the effect was contagious. The further they went, the darker it got. Surrounded by shadows, it was easy to start getting jumpy.

  “What is it?” he hissed to Orand.

  “The others sense something,” he replied, keeping his voice low. “I can feel it too. It’s like when…” He trailed off.

  “Like when what?”

  “Let’s just keep going,” said Orand, taking his jar’hram from his back and hefting it in his free hand.

  They pressed on, heading ever downwards. The rock around them closed in, glazed with ice. Ronon couldn’t sense anything. There was nothing but the distant, echoing cracks of the ice and the soft footfalls of the hunters.

  Then he heard it.

  “What’s that?” he said, whirling round and pointing his gun into the darkness behind them.

  “What?” said Orand, coming to his side. His eyes were wide with fear.

  “Something back there. Like a… whisper.”

  “Ancestors preserve us…” breathed Orand. “We’ve got to move faster.”

  He hissed an order to the hunters, and they started traveling quicker. It wasn’t easy — the dark was almost complete, and the rock corridor was uneven and twisting.

  “Orand, you’re gonna have to tell me what this is about,” said Ronon, jogging to keep up.

  “Maybe you don’t have them on your world,” said Orand, pushing the pace
further. “They come at random, and you can’t fight them. We’ve lost so many to them.” He shot Ronon a worried glance. “They come to cull.”

  At that, Ronon felt a tremor pass through him. So the Wraith were here.

  “You might not be able to fight them,” he growled, looking about him eagerly, “but I can.”

  “I don’t think —”

  Orand was cut short. There was a cry of alarm from up ahead.

  “They’re here!” came a strangled shout from one of the hunters.

  In the narrow confines of the tunnel, all became confusion. The hunters started to run, pushing past one another, stumbling against the rocks.

  Ronon whirled round. The swishing sound was getting louder. He couldn’t see a thing.

  “Stand your ground!” he shouted to the others, but it was too late. Like a startled herd of animals, the hunters were running. They’d become the prey, darting down the tunnels like rabbits. Orand went after them, leaving Ronon alone at the rear.

  He tried to make out what had got them so terrified. As their lights disappeared into the gloom it got even harder to make anything out. Keeping his gun raised, he followed them, scouring the dark to see what was going on.

  The swishing got louder. He looked over his shoulder. There was something materializing behind him, emitting its own light. It was above him, hard against the roof of the tunnel. For a moment, he thought it was a figure transporting in, but the shape never solidified.

  Ronon felt a rush of fear.

  That was crazy. Even locked in the middle of a Hiveship, surrounded by his mortal enemies, he hadn’t felt that kind of fear. What was getting into him? He flicked the gun setting to ‘kill’, and the white light flashed along its flank.

  He forced himself to stop running and turned to face it. There was a face there, narrow and arrogant, distorted with anger. There were hands outstretched, fingers extended. It rushed toward him, arms grasping. Everything was insubstantial, hard to make out.

  He fired off three rounds. The bolts of energy screamed off, each perfectly aimed. They went straight through the apparition, shattering ice and rock beyond it. The ghost swept towards him.

  “OK, that’s no Wraith,” he muttered, turning tail and running after the hunters. As he went, he could feel the apparition’s presence coming up behind him. His heart started beating out of control, sweat breaking out across his forehead. He tried to fight it, but the fear built in his throat.

  He sped onward, not risking turning. The tunnel continued to plunge down, taking him deeper and deeper into the planet’s core. Soon he could see the lights of the hunters again. He spun round quickly and loosed another volley.

  Same result. Nothing hit. But this time the apparition responded.

  Crackling energy streaked from its ghostly fingers, aimed right for him.

  Ronon sprang away from the blast, rolling as he hit the floor. The jagged rocks bit into his flesh, and he staggered as he found his feet again. Something hot had torn right past his shoulder.

  He scrambled down the tunnel after the hunters, fear now thick in his throat. Orand was right. They couldn’t fight this. Forgetting his training, forgetting his weapon, forgetting the mission, Ronon Dex ran for his life.

  “I’m a genius!” cried McKay, enjoying the familiar warm glow of success. It was almost his favorite feeling. His absolute favorite involved Samantha Carter from SGC, and was not something he dwelt on very much these days.

  Sheppard looked up wearily. He’d been dismantling, carrying, fixing and testing for what seemed like hours, and McKay even began to feel a little sorry for him.

  “That’s great, Rodney,” Sheppard said. “Wanna tell me why?”

  McKay favored him with his patent self-satisfied smirk. “Because, my good Colonel, I have restored power to the Jumper.”

  He picked up a small control panel and entered the command. Lights flickered on along the length of the rear bay. With a further press, the inner bulkhead doors slid open and the dark interior of the cockpit emerged. The windshield was covered with snow, but everything looked in working order.

  “I gotta hand it to you,” said Sheppard, looking relieved. “You sure know when to pull the rabbit out of the hat.”

  McKay knew Sheppard didn’t usually enjoy paying compliments, but he could see the man was impressed.

  McKay flicked a few more switches and a series of secondary systems began to power up. “It’ll take a while for everything to get back up to speed,” he said. “Some of the damage is irreparable and we’ll be a little shaky for a while. I don’t reckon we’ll get more than a single flight, but we’ve got enough to get us home.” Then a worried frown creased his forehead. “That is, of course, if we can get the Stargate to open. And of course we don’t really know what went wrong last time, so we’d have to try and figure that out before making the jump to Atlantis. And if that’s not possible, we might still be stuck here. Though of course, we can now get into orbit if we really have to, although how much that’ll help when we’re…”

  Sheppard’s cold stare silenced him. McKay stopped talking. Military types were never really interested in exploring all the possibilities. They wanted to be told which direction to move, and then allowed to get on with it. The very idea that there might be better alternatives, and that these might be worth considering in some detail, was anathema to them.

  “Alright,” said McKay. “There are still some things to iron out. But we’re making progress.”

  “I love it when you tell me that,” said Sheppard. “Now fire up those sensors. Any sign of Teyla and Ronon?”

  McKay frowned and adjusted some of the settings on the panel in front of him.

  His euphoria gave way to worry. While absorbed in fixing the primary systems he could briefly forget the bigger picture. But the missing team members were never far from his mind and it had now been hours without word. That was too long. “I’m not getting anything at the moment,” he said.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Power,” replied McKay. “And only half the secondary systems are operating. Hang on — I’m getting something. Coming up now… But that can’t be right. Can it? Oh, God.”

  Sheppard hovered at his shoulder. “What can’t be right?”

  McKay double-checked the readings. It was hard to make things out with any clarity, and the signal was weak. But he wasn’t mistaken. “I’m getting some readings from the long-range scanners,” he said. “Nothing precise enough to locate Teyla or Ronon, but enough to see what’s coming. There are storms closing in on us from every side. Big ones.”

  Sheppard shrugged. “We know the place has storms, Rodney.”

  McKay adjusted the settings, back and forth, looking for some kind of error. “Yeah, but they were finite. These are joining up together. I don’t like the look of them at all. The further you go out, there are no breaks at all.” He looked up at John. He could feel the blood draining from his face. “We’re in trouble,” he said. “I don’t think these clouds are going away. Something’s happening here, and it’s working fast.”

  Sheppard looked unconvinced, but Rodney could see he was troubled.

  “Maybe you’ve missed something,” he said.

  McKay nodded, and got back to work. But the image of circling cloud formations, like the eternal storms of Jupiter, wouldn’t leave him. He was sure he wasn’t wrong. More data would just confirm his suspicions. Their time situation had just got much worse.

  Once those fronts closed in, they were never going away.

  Teyla and Miruva were standing on a balcony high in a rock wall. Unlike the sheer, polished surfaces in the Hall of Arrivals, this was living stone, uneven and mottled, as if carved that very day. If the Hall had seemed big, then this new chamber was gigantic.

  They stood perhaps two-hundred feet up the near rock face on a wide ledge. On either side of them, the level surface continued as far as they could see, a shelf in the otherwise unadorned rock. The roof of the chamber was so far away i
t was hard to make out and there seemed to be wispy clouds drifting across its surface. But the real shock was how far the space extended before them. Teyla couldn’t even see the far end. It was lost in a kind of mist. They were in a huge rectangular clearing in the heart of the earth, several miles wide at least. It looked as if thousands of people could shelter there comfortably and still have room for whatever they could desire.

  Once again, she found herself wondering if Geran might actually be right. Who could possibly have manufactured such a vast space?

  “Welcome to the underworld,” said Geran, sounding a little proud of the theater of the whole thing. Presumably, he’d shown many new arrivals their new home. “This is where we live. And where you will spend the rest of your days.”

  On the distant floor below, Teyla could see a lush landscape. Fields stretched away for what looked like several miles, their crops green and healthy. Between the neat squares of cultivation, paved lanes ran, connecting small villages. Even from such a height, Teyla could see them bustling with life. Men and women hurried to and fro carrying baskets stuffed with produce. Children ran and laughed amidst the buildings. If this was the afterlife, it could have been a lot worse.

  “This looks like… Athos,” she breathed, thinking how like her homeworld of old the place seemed. The only difference was the vast rock walls enclosing them on all sides — and the fact there was no sky. Yet, there was light all around them. It was like a world in microcosm.

  “Where does the light come from?” asked Miruva, echoing Teyla’s thoughts. “I can see solid rock above us.”

  Geran shook his head. “We do not know,” he said. “But every morning the light begins to grow, softly at first, until by noon it is as you see it. When the evening comes, it dims again. At night it is much the same as in the world we left, except there is no moon and there are no stars.” He smiled. “And there is no ice, of course. The weather here is temperate. There are seasons, just as in the stories of old, but they are mild. Water wells up from beneath us, and there are many rivers. You probably can’t see it from here, but the land becomes wilder as you head further from this place. None of us has explored all the regions of the underworld.”