by Stargate
“Colonel Sheppard is searching for us,” she told him. “He’ll come for us.”
Ronon managed a nod; even the effort of that seemed to drain him.
With a cloth from her pocket, she dabbed at the drying streaks of blood on his face. As she did so, a new and troubling thought occurred to her, a moment of unpleasant clarity as she realized what the Satedan’s condition reminded her of; the people in Kullid’s sick lodge. Weakened and disoriented, touched by the malady of the Aegis.
“Need to rest,” Ronon husked. “Just a while. Tell Sheppard… I’ll be there.”
Teyla nodded, fighting down her fears. “I’ll tell him.”
McKay didn’t really remember the moment when the Puddle Jumper actually hit the surface of Heruun’s primary moon. Perhaps that might have been a good thing, in retrospect, maybe some basic animal part of his hindbrain taking pity on the rest of him, blotting out the bone-crushing hell of the impact so he would be spared the trauma.
But he remembered what the screeching meant. The high-pitched, screaming whistle coming from the hairline crack slowly making its way down the short axis of the canopy glass. Beside him, Sheppard was lolling over the pilot’s station, blinking away the shock of what could only be called a ‘landing’ by the most generous of critics.
“Any one you can walk away from,” he muttered.
“Congratulate yourself later,” Rodney told him. “We’ve got a big problem.” McKay vaulted from his seat, discarding his useless, still-smoking laptop, and scrambled toward the back cabin of the Jumper. He pulled at equipment lockers, snatching open doors and not finding what he wanted, panic threatening to rise up and overtake him.
And then he found them, in the long footlocker beneath the wire-frame bench. Sheppard came down the canted deck toward him, his expression grim. “Controls are a mess,” said the colonel. “and the mid-hatch is off line. When that canopy breaks, we’ll lose all the air in here.”
“I saw. Here.” Rodney thrust a hard plastic container into the other man’s hands. He didn’t wait for Sheppard to open it; he took another identical case and flipped the latches, dumping the contents on the deck — a plastic fishbowl helmet, a backpack and an oversuit of bright orange material.
“A spacesuit?” Sheppard asked. “I didn’t think Jumpers carried —”
“Not as standard, no,” Rodney was speaking quickly, talking so his mind wouldn’t have the chance to catch up to the idea of how screwed they were. “But I always make sure they’re on board a Jumper any time I’m on it.” He made a flapping gesture with his hand. “Be prepared, right?”
The pitch of the air leak was growing deeper by the second as the crack widened, and it was enough to encourage them both to talk less and work faster. The suits were lightweight experimental models developed by Stargate Command for use aboard starships, low-duration quick-deployment rigs that had half the mass of the NASA legacy gear they typically used.
Rodney felt a flash of claustrophobia as he twisted the lexan helmet into place over his head. He didn’t want to think about what ‘low duration’ meant in terms of how much air you got before you choked to death.
Sensing movement, he turned to Sheppard and realized belatedly that he couldn’t hear what the other man was saying. The colonel grabbed him and the bubbles of the suit helmets clanked together.
“I said hang on to something!”
McKay had enough time to see the canopy become a spider web and then disintegrate; the next second they were in the middle of a hurricane.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Come in, doctor.” Sam Carter looked up from the data screen she held in her hand and beckoned Jennifer Keller into her office. Keller also had one of the ubiquitous portable screens that were in use everywhere throughout Atlantis, but she held it close to her chest as if she was unwilling to share its contents with the rest of the world.
“Colonel,” Keller said, with a nod. Sam indicated a chair across from her desk and the doctor took it. Carter preferred to stand when she was thinking — something about being on her feet made it easier to get the cogs whirring, and she’d practically worn a path around her old lab back at Cheyenne Mountain — but she had to force herself to take a seat now, if only to put the doctor at her ease. Ever since Keller had returned from M9K-153 under Colonel Sheppard’s orders, she’d been uncharacteristically withdrawn, remaining in the medical lab despite the fact that she was supposed to be on a mandatory post-mission stand-down.
Carter saw the look in Keller’s eyes at once, and she understood. The mission isn’t over for her, not yet. She hasn’t let go of it. The look was a familiar one; she’d seen it in the mirror enough times in the past.
“Want some coffee?” She poured one for herself and offered the other woman a steel mug.
Keller gave a wan smile. “I could use a little.”
They both shared a sip. “You wanted to speak to me,” said Carter.
Keller nodded and held up the data screen. “I want to show you my preliminary findings from Heruun.”
Sam nodded. She’d already debriefed Sergeant Rush on his return and got the high points of the situation on the planet from Major Lorne, who had remained on-site. The continued MIA status of Ronon Dex and Teyla Emmagan was deeply troubling, and it threw into question every aspect of the mission. Carter pushed aside a moment of self-doubt, as a voice in the back of her head threatened to blame the situation on her tight hold on mission security.
She had seen the images Keller had captured with her camera, the troubling stills of the makeshift hospital in the Herunni rebel camp, the sick and the dying. Doctor Cullen and her team had been ready and waiting with the gear for a full biological screening when Keller and the others had returned, but they had found no evidence of anything communicable. Carter took the screen from Keller’s outstretched hand and tabbed through the pages. “What am I looking at here, doctor?” A single word jumped out at her and she took a sharp intake of breath.
“Nanites,” said Jennifer, doubtless guessing from Sam’s reaction what she had seen. “Molecular machines, or whatever you want to call them. That’s the source of this so-called sickness on Heruun.”
“The Replicators did this?”
Keller shook her head. “It doesn’t match the signature of Asuran technology. I’ve dealt with that before, I’d know it if I saw it. Not Ancient origin, either. Whoever or whatever the Aegis is, this means they‘re pretty advanced.”
Carter chewed her lip. “We’ve encountered several species out here and in our home galaxy that use this sort of mechanism,” she noted. “Putting aside who made them for a moment, the more important question is what are they doing it for?”
“I can’t be certain, but I don’t think this is deliberate. The illness, I mean.” Keller hesitated, as if she were uncertain about giving voice to something that was just a gut feeling. Sam said nothing and let her find her way; as a commander she had learned early on to let her people trust their instincts. “The blood I drew from the multiple abductees on Heruun shows concentrations of inert nanite devices collecting in their bodies. I think these things might function as markers of some kind, at least on one level.”
“Like a radio tag on a wild animal.” Carter considered this for a moment. “When this Aegis wants to abduct someone for a second or third time, it scans for the markers to locate them.”
“More like taking them for the ninth or tenth time,” Keller corrected, “and the quantity is much higher for those who have been taken the most often.” She indicated a readout on the screen, “I think the sickness is caused by these nanites crossing the blood-brain barrier. It’s causing an ongoing degenerative condition, most likely a breakdown of certain neurotransmitter chemicals in the brain.”
“Okay, so it’s not an infectious disease, it’s the result of deliberate exposure to this technology. Could it be some sort of attack on the Heruuni?”
Keller shook her head again, brushing hair from her eyes. “Unlikely. I’d say this is
an unplanned side-effect of something else. What that something else is, I can’t tell you.” She sighed. “We might be able to decode the nanite programming, figure out their core function but that’s not my area of expertise. I have no idea how long it would take.”
Sam ran a critical eye over the scans of the nano-machines; the tiny, molecule-sized devices were a double-edged sword that could be programmed just as easily to cure diseases or deconstruct matter. “I’ll take a look at this. I’ve had plenty of up-close experience with Replicators…” She gave a wry smile. “More than I’d like.”
The doctor frowned. “Colonel, I have to make this clear to you. The local healer I met on 153, Kullid. He has nothing approaching the level of medical knowledge that we do, and he’s the only one working to find a cure for his people. He’s a smart guy but he’s going to fail without my help. Our help,” she corrected.
“You’re sure you could find a solution?”
“With your help and Doctor McKay’s, I think there’s an outside chance. I could take a medical team back to Heruun, and Rodney’s already there, so —”
Carter held up a hand to interrupt her. “If what Major Lorne tells me is anything to go on, M9K-153 is in the middle of an armed factional conflict. I already have two key team members on the missing list. You’re asking me to let you go back in harm’s way, and not just you but other civilian staff, plus another detail of men to act as your security.” She shook her head. “I can’t do that. Not right now. I’m not willing to let anyone else gate back until we have better intel on what’s going on there.”
Keller’s face darkened. “And in the meantime, people are dying. People we can save.”
She met the other woman’s gaze straight on. “I know that. But I’m not willing to add to the numbers. Your request is denied, Doctor. For the moment.”
Keller put the steel mug down firmly on the desk. “We can’t turn our backs.”
“We’re not going to. Take whatever people can be spared in your department. This city has some of the most advanced medical technology ever created. Use it.”
They said that in space, no one could hear you scream; but in the confines of the helmet, Rodney McKay could hear pretty damned well. He could hear his own tight gasps as he gulped in breaths of air, the thudding rush of his blood in his ears. He followed Sheppard out on to the lunar surface, skidding a little on the rimes of oxygen ice that had formed on the Puddle Jumper’s drop-ramp. As his boots hit the powdery grey moon dust, he had a fleeting, almost giddy thought about Armstrong’s famous touchdown speech. One small step for McKay, he told himself, one run-like-hell for Rodneykind.
Sheppard pivoted ahead of him and pointed up into the black sky. Turning, the scientist saw glitters of light low toward the horizon. More ships, he realized. More of them, coming this way, looking for where the Jumper had augured in.
McKay cast around, scanning the stark lunar landscape for anything that could serve as cover. A long, shallow trench led away from him, a line cut through the dust where the Ancient ship had landed flat and spent its forward momentum scraping to a slow and ignominious halt. His eyes came to rest on a wide slab-like stone canted at a low angle away from the hard glare of Heruun’s sun. Beneath it, there was nothing by black shadows.
“Sheppard!” He grabbed John’s arm and pulled at him. “We can take shelter there!”
The colonel looked in the direction he was pointing and then mouthed the question Cave? through the gold-coated face of his helmet. Rodney nodded; okay, so it wasn’t actually a cave per se, but without an operable radio communications link between the two of them, he wasn’t going to stop to explain otherwise.
Running wasn’t easy in the low gravity of the airless moon; twice McKay stumbled and had to hop-skip-jump to stop from falling flat on his face. His breath pounded in his chest and each cold gasp he took in tasted of stale plastic. Rodney tried not to think about how little air the emergency suit’s small backpack contained. He ducked low and found space under the canted rock, in the deeps of the shade.
Sheppard followed him in, one gloved hand reaching out to steady himself against the stone. McKay caught his wrist and stopped him in time; lying in the direct, unfiltered sunlight, the temperature of the rock was enough that it could have burned through the glove’s padding in an instant.
Crouching in the hollow, McKay could feel the warmth of the star-baked stone over their heads. He tapped his suit helmet against Sheppard’s. “The heat from the rock might be enough to blind any sensors,” he said in a rush, “we can hide until they buzz off!”
“Might?” Sheppard echoed.
“Here they come,” Rodney tried to shrink back into the cover as much as he could, careful not to snag the lightweight suit on any sharp rocks. Sheppard lay flat, watching the downed Jumper.
Three more of the triangular ships came to a halt in a triad formation above the crashed vessel. They had to be scanning for signs of life, he guessed, trying to determine if the Jumper’s troublesome crew had made it down in one piece or died on impact.
What are they going to do? McKay asked himself. Perhaps they would obliterate the wreck if they came up empty, or maybe one of the craft would land and whatever passed for their crew would come out to get a closer look.
But that was not what happened; instead, rods of green light issued out from the craft, connecting each to the next in a frame of glowing color. A field of exotic energy grew between them, expanding to envelop the Puddle Jumper, and in the next moment it shifted, rising into the vacuum. Glittering fragments of broken glass and pieces of litter and debris thrown out by the decompression went with it, hovering in an uncanny cloud. Moving as one rigid formation, the triangular ships carried the wreck away in silence, skimming over the pinnacles of the lunar terrain.
Both men watched their best hopes for survival vanish toward the horizon, the ungainly flight of craft homing in on a pair of tall, blade-like mesas.
McKay saw Sheppard swear silently. After a long moment, the colonel leaned closer so they could talk. “How much oh-two you got?”
Rodney looked at the oxygen meter on his wrist. “Just over three-quarters. Is that good?”
“If you don’t take panic breaths, yeah.”
“Oh, right,” he retorted. “What kind of breaths should I take, then? Seeing as we are now in a situation to which panic would be a very legitimate response?”
“Give me a break, McKay. We’re not dead yet.” The two men scrambled from their concealment and stood, the full glare of the sunlight hard against them.
Rodney leaned in again as Sheppard peered in the direction that the alien ships had come from, and returned to. “What are you, uh, thinking?”
“Those ships are short range, I’m guessing. That means there’s a base of operations up here.” He pointed. “More specifically, over that way.”
“So, what, we just start walking and hope they‘ve left a window open when we get there? If we get there?”
Sheppard eyed him. “You got a better idea?”
As much as it pained him, McKay had to admit that he did not.
The scientist hunched over the scoutship’s sensor console, the glow of the screen casting ghostly light over his face. “It is difficult to report with any certainty,” he began.
The commander let out a low hiss of irritation from between his needle-sharp teeth. His tolerance for this lower caste fool was drawing down to almost nothing. “Tell me what you see.”
“With the sensors in passive mode, there is a large margin of error.” And still he did not answer. “In addition, the energy reflection from the planet’s ring system —”
That was enough. The Wraith commander grabbed the scientist by the scruff of his neck and yanked him away from the console. “I did not ask for explanations or excuses. I asked you what happened out there.” He gestured at the hull and the space beyond it. “Now speak!”
The scientist nodded jerkily. “Of course.” He tried to compose himself as he was release
d. “The craft that left the planet appears to be one of Ancient design, likely from the city of Atlantis.”
“You are telling me what I already know. The protectors! Did they destroy it?”
“It would seem not.” The scientist’s hands knit together as he framed his next words. “The ship survived an engagement with the alien craft, but it was damaged. It reached the limit of our detection as it fell into the gravity well of the larger moon.”
“What is the probability that the craft was obliterated? Give me your estimate.” The commander pressed a bony finger into the scientist’s chest.
“Given our clan’s previous experience with the Atlantean ships, I would say survivability is quite possible. The craft are resilient. Their pilots have skill.”
The Wraith turned and stalked away across the deck. “We have the answer to one question then, at the very least.”
The scientist nodded again. “Indeed. Now we know that this protector is not our old foe, not an Ancient.”
The commander glanced over his shoulder. “And with that, our circumstance becomes more dangerous. If the alien presence here was the Great Enemy, then we would at least know how to fight them… But now? Now we are fighting an unknown.” He paused, musing, wondering after the fate of his kindred, killed or captured by the threat that lurked in this system. “For the moment we must continue to observe.”
“The… The Queen will wish to know what we have learned.”
“And she will. But not yet.” He gave a nod in return. “Not yet.”
Sheppard did what he’d been taught to do in desert navigation training, and chose a landmark to act as his waypoint — the two tall mesas where the alien ships had headed. He walked so that McKay was always in his peripheral vision, and he in Rodney’s, in case one of them put a foot in the lunar equivalent of a rabbit hole and took a tumble. With no radio, there was no way to cry out for help. He blinked away sweat from his eyes and grimaced. If they got back to Atlantis after this little sojourn, he decided he would make a point of sending the technicians back at Vandenberg his precise opinions about the shortcomings of the low duration spacesuits.
