Fic: Cross Product, Part 4 of 6
Fandom: Stargate (Atlantis/SG1 cross)
Title: Cross Product, Part 4
Author: Quasar
Rating: PG-13 this part, NC-17 for the whole story
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Spoilers: specific references up to Conversion, vague ones up to Allies
Warnings: Cliffhanger!
Date written: July 2006
Length: ~6500 words for this part
Summary: McKay and Sheppard get into trouble, together and separately.
Links to Part One
Part Two
Part Three
As it turned out, the only other people in the commissary were O'Neill and Jackson. O'Neill made a face when McKay sat at their table, but he listened as John started talking about Atlantis. Jackson wanted to know about the Ancients' culture and McKay asked about their technology, but as soon as John described the Wraith and their battle against the Ancients, O'Neill interrupted and said they should move the discussion to the conference room.
On the way, they somehow picked up Colonel Mitchell. He had a nasty bruise on his temple and the look of a man with a thumping headache, but he greeted O'Neill's narrow-eyed look with a claim that he'd been released from the infirmary and was certainly capable of sitting in a comfortable chair to hear Sheppard's story.
Carter wasn't around for the meeting, having gone home to be with her two adopted children -- both from off world. One was apparently a descended Ancient with brain damage, which boggled John. But he didn't get to ask about it since McKay digressed into a rant about motherhood being a waste of a brilliant mind.
Once McKay had been stifled, John found himself trying to condense two years of adventures and descriptions of the Pegasus galaxy into a short description. He'd barely gotten up to the Wraith siege at the end of their first year before the discussion devolved into might-have-beens.
"It could have turned out totally different for the guys we sent," Mitchell argued. "I mean, who's to say they woke up the Wraith like you did?"
John had worried this one over on too many sleepless nights. "Even if they didn't get people captured on their first offworld trip -- even if they didn't kill the keeper -- they'd still encounter the Wraith sooner or later. Most of them were hibernating, but not all. It would just take one member of the expedition to get culled and interrogated, and the Wraith would be after them all. They'd want to know more about Earth. They'd probably wake up at least one Hive to attack Atlantis, maybe more."
"But Sumner would still be in charge," said O'Neill, with a measuring gaze. "He'd handle things a lot differently from you."
McKay shook his head in exasperation. "Different or not, it doesn't matter. It didn't matter. We sent two hundred people out there two years ago and we haven't heard from them. We sent a ship after them and it disappeared without a trace."
John startled at this news. He had guessed about the lost expedition, but not about the Daedalus.
McKay continued, "Obviously they're in some kind of trouble, and there's a good chance it's these Wraith Colonel Sheppard is talking about."
"Maybe, maybe not," Mitchell insisted.
Jackson stepped in. "What if they stayed on Atlantis and never went off-world? Then they wouldn't meet the Wraith."
"They wouldn't have much to eat after a few months, either!" McKay retorted.
"Look, we went through the gate in the first place looking for an evacuation site because the ZPMs were depleted and the city was about to -- ah, hell." John rubbed his face wearily. "I forgot."
"Forgot what?" asked Jackson and McKay in ragged stereo.
"The first time my expedition went to Atlantis, the shield failed, the city flooded, and everybody drowned."
"Everybody?" said Mitchell.
"You seem pretty lively for a dead guy," O'Neill remarked.
"First time?" McKay asked, latching onto the critical point.
"Everybody except Dr. Weir. She got sent back in time to just before the Ancients left Atlantis."
"Wait, sent back in time?" McKay demanded. "Ten thousand years?"
"Yeah, there was this one Ancient who was working on a time machine, and he just left it lying around for anyone to stumble onto. Anyway, when he heard Elizabeth's story he set it up so the city would rise to the surface if the shields failed. And that's the only reason the expedition in my timeline survived."
"And you learned about this how?" asked Jackson.
"We found the time-traveling Weir waiting in a stasis chamber. It wasn't perfect and she was aged to like a hundred years old, but that's not the point."
"So what is the point?" O'Neill asked.
"The only reason the time machine worked in the first place was because I touched it. I have the Ancient gene more strongly than anyone else in the expedition." John looked around the table. "Don't you get it? If the John Sheppard from this universe didn't go to Atlantis, there was no one to set off the time machine and make it possible for the city to rise."
There was a long silence. McKay wouldn't meet his eyes. Then Jackson coughed uneasily and said, "Actually, there was someone on the expedition who had a gene as strong as yours."
John blinked. "In my reality we only know of me and General O'Neill who are like that."
Jackson squinted and rubbed his nose. "Yes, well -- Jack went on the expedition. In a sense."
O'Neill rolled his eyes. "My clone went on the expedition."
"Uh . . ." John didn't think he'd heard about that one.
"A couple years ago, a renegade Asgard made a clone of Jack, aged him to adolescence, and gave him Jack's memories," Jackson explained quickly. "We stopped the Asgard from doing anything more, but then we were left with a spare teenage Jack O'Neill. He kept aging at an accelerated rate for a while, but then it slowed down to normal."
"He was like eighteen when the expedition left, right?" Mitchell said.
"Physically," O'Neill grumbled.
"Dr. Weir talked him into going," Jackson added.
"He was probably happy to get out of going to college," said O'Neill darkly.
"Weir pulled some strings and got him a commission as a lieutenant in the Air Force."
"At eighteen?" John protested.
Jackson shrugged. "Whatever age he looked, he had all of Jack's knowledge and skills."
"Just not the bad knees," said O'Neill.
John tried to make sense out of this. "Okay, so you sent along someone with the strong gene. If he found the time machine, maybe someone got sent back in time and it all worked out. Maybe they didn't all drown. Maybe. I still think they'd run into the Wraith, sooner or later."
"Fine," said McKay, "but even that doesn't explain why we never heard back from them. You woke the Wraith, but you still got word back to Earth."
Mitchell shrugged. "So maybe they did all drown, then."
"Sure, and maybe the Daedalus ran into an iceberg on her maiden voyage! No, that theory just doesn't explain it all. Something nasty got hold of the ship as well as the city."
"My first guess would still be the Wraith, but there are plenty of other bad guys out there," said John. "There was this energy-sucking cloud thing that almost fried us all, our first week there. If it hadn't been for Rodney . . . " He trailed off and turned to look at the scientist next to him.
"What?"
"Maybe that was it. McKay pulled our asses out of the fire so many times -- if he wasn't on the expedition, we'd all be dead. And he wasn't on your expedition."
McKay looked as if he wasn't sure whether to be pleased or appalled that his absence could have such an impact.
"Aw, c'mon, there were a lot of good people on that team," said Mitchell. "Nobody's irreplaceable."
"Thank you for that insight, Colonel," said O'Neill a little sharply. Mitchell winced and shut up.
"You never did tell me why you stayed behind," John said to McKay. "Why aren't you in Atlantis now?"
McKay looked away, his mouth slanting down unhappily. "I was sick. I had a . . . parasitic infection."
"He got implanted with a Goa'uld," said O'Neill plainly.
"Whoa!" John didn't like the thought of Rodney with eyes glowing malevolently.
McKay addressed the table. "The Trust wanted to place someone inside the expedition."
Jackson, chin propped on fist, said innocently, "Sam was the one who figured it out. She said he was too good at flirting and too bad at physics."
"Obviously not the real Mc -- Kay," O'Neill drawled.
"Yes, thank you!" McKay snapped. "I've never heard that one before."
"You tipped her off on purpose, didn't you?" said John. "Way to go, Rodney!"
"It was more that my brain is a finely-tuned machine that doesn't work as well when it's under control of a ham-handed alien parasite."
"Goa'uld have hands?" John asked, straight-faced.
"Not so much," said O'Neill.
McKay continued in a rush of words, "It was discovered the day before the expedition left. The removal didn't go smoothly, and I had some lingering neurological problems. All resolved now, fortunately, but at the time the Daedalus broke orbit I still wasn't cleared to go along."
Despite all the banter, the story disturbed John. Alien possession followed by a year-long illness -- that could certainly explain why McKay seemed smaller and less confident in this universe.
"Speaking of the Daedalus," O'Neill said firmly, and turned to John. "Your idea has the same problem as the drowning one. Maybe not having Encyclopedia McKay along would be a problem for the original Atlantis team, but that still doesn't explain what happened to the ship. Last we heard from them was five days out."
John frowned, putting the information together with other clues and realizing they'd never had a ZPM to send along with the ship. "Actually, Rodney did save the Daedalus once, but that was on their second trip to Pegasus. If they disappeared on the first trip, I'd guess either mechanical problems, or else they showed up in the middle of the Wraith siege like in my universe, but without the advance warning." He considered. "Or maybe the energy being ate them, after it was done with Atlantis. Or . . . hmm. I guess there's a lot of things that could have gone wrong."
"You know," said McKay slowly, "we don't have to speculate about this. We have a way of finding out."
O'Neill slapped the table in exasperation. "We've been over this, McKay. The committee won't approve sending the Odyssey to Pegasus if we don't even know what happened to the first two teams we sent. Intel from a parallel universe isn't going to change their minds."
"I'm not talking about the Odyssey, I'm talking about the Stargate. We can dial Atlantis and find out if they're still there."
Everyone stared at him. Once more, Jackson was the one to break the silence. "And how can we do that without a ZPM?"
"A little project I've been working on for a couple months now," said McKay. "I've been trying to replicate the power source that General O'Neill -- well, he was a Colonel then -- constructed to get to the Asgard homeworld."
"Right!" Jackson breathed. "Didn't you use a power crystal from a Jaffa staff for that, Jack? We have plenty of those lying around."
"You're talking about the power source that blew out the electrical grid for half of Colorado?" O'Neill demanded.
McKay huffed. "I can prevent that easily, with the right circuit breakers. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether I can keep the device from blowing itself out. It might be a single-use power source."
"And what does Carter say about this?" Mitchell asked. "You did run this by her, right?"
McKay flushed. "She, uh, she didn't think it was worth pursuing, at first. I've been working on it on the side. But look, she hasn't seen the latest output measurements --"
"How soon can you have it ready?" John asked.
McKay met his gaze and steadied. "If I set everything else aside . . . two days."
"Do it," said John, then remembered himself and looked to O'Neill. "Uh, if that's all right with you, General."
O'Neill waved a hand in resignation. "Fine. But I want Carter working with you on it. We don't dial without her say-so."
-----
Rodney rushed into the conference room with Radek on his heels. "Okay, here's what we've worked out so far . . ." He froze. "What's he doing here?"
Sheppard was sitting between Teyla and Ronon in his trademark slouch.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "I asked him to come. This does concern him."
Rodney coughed nervously. "Yes, right, I suppose it does. I just -- I wasn't expecting . . ."
"You said you'd made progress on your idea to get Colonel Sheppard back. I thought that would be of interest to your whole team."
"Ah, right. Well. So." Rodney hadn't prepared for a full briefing. Not that lack of preparation had ever stopped him before, but he was unsettled with Sheppard's eyes tracking him as if expecting an attack.
Radek looked at him briefly in puzzlement, then shrugged and started the explanation himself. "We have reviewed the scans Rodney made at the outpost, and also we studied archival data about the control device for the quantum mirror that SG-1 found."
Rodney picked up the thread. "Putting those together, we've constructed a program that ought to be able to interface with the device so that we can control which universe it switches with."
"Good!" said Elizabeth. "So you're ready to try it?"
"We have not entered the parameters for the diacritic tensor," Radek said.
"The, uh, the matrix of invariants which provides a description of the other universe," Rodney explained quickly. "We'll have to get the data from the device's memory buffer, assuming I can find a way to interface with it."
Teyla nodded comprehension. "You wish to return to the outpost."
"Right. Jumper in, a few minutes of work, and I should have all the information I need to set up the control program. I can be back inside an hour."
There were surprised looks around the table.
"'I?'" Teyla repeated.
"You're not going alone," said Ronon firmly.
Sheppard frowned.
"I can't authorize a solo offworld mission, Rodney. You know that," Elizabeth told him.
Rodney threw his hands up. "Alright, fine! I'll fly the jumper and do all the work, Ronon and Teyla can sit in the back and look menacing in case any of the sand tries to attack me!"
"What about me?" said Sheppard, even as Elizabeth said, "Take Co-- Mr. Sheppard as well."
"What for?" Rodney demanded, crossing his arms.
"Is there some reason you don't want him along?" Elizabeth asked with a frown.
"Of course not! It's just -- there's no need. He's not the Colonel. He doesn't have gate experience."
"He does have military training as well as the Ancient gene," Elizabeth returned, glancing between the two of them.
"Which is a liability in this case, not an asset! What if he triggers the device prematurely? Better if he doesn't even get near the outpost until we're ready to try the swap."
Sheppard's eyes were narrowed darkly, his mouth set.
"In that case," said Elizabeth, "perhaps you should wait for Major Lorne to return, so his team can accompany you instead."
Rodney gaped. "But they won't be back for days! Anyway, Lorne has the gene too."
Elizabeth arched an eyebrow at him. "But not the natural gene. If you're concerned that the gene therapy could set the device off, perhaps Dr. Zelenka should go in your place."
Radek started to sputter. "Oh no, no -- I couldn't . . ."
"I have to go. He doesn't understand the systems as well as I do." Rodney glared at Elizabeth. "Okay fine, Sheppard can come too. But he'd better not touch anything. In fact, I don't even want him coming into the outpost!"
Sheppard just grinned. "I promise I'll be good, Rodney," he drawled.
"You can stay in the jumper."
"Great, I wanted a closer look at one of those things!" Sheppard rubbed his hands together in exaggerated anticipation.
"With Ronon!" Rodney added quickly. "To make sure you don't touch anything."
"All right!" Elizabeth interposed. "It's settled, then. You have gate time in one hour."
-----
A few days later, they assembled in the control room overlooking the gate. Mitchell was propping up a wall; his bruised forehead had progressed to the spectacular multicolored stage, but he was no longer squinting in pain. Jackson drifted in the background also. Carter and Sergeant Harriman were running the computers, and McKay was off installing the new power unit.
"Carter, is this thing gonna work?" O'Neill asked.
She shrugged uneasily. "I'm not sure, sir. We never really understood how the original worked -- the unit you built. I'm not convinced Rodney's right about the details of the power source mechanism. And if that's wrong, the whole thing is wrong."
"It'll work," John murmured, hoping he was right. This wasn't actually his Rodney, despite the similarities.
O'Neill rubbed at his eyebrow. "But we're not going to blow out the grid, right? I won't have to apologize to the governor?"
"No sir, the circuits are buffered and isolated. The worst that will happen is the gate won't connect."
"All right then, let's try it." O'Neill keyed an intercom. "Siler, you all set down there?"
"Ready, sir," came the firm answer.
"Dial it up, Walter."
Harriman nodded and keyed in the sequence for Atlantis. "Chevron one encoded . . ."
John found his heart pumping as if he were getting ready for combat. It seemed to take forever for this gate to dial.
"Chevron seven encoded," said Harriman. "Chevron eight . . . locked."
As the wormhole splashed into being, the lights in the control room dimmed for a moment, then came back up. John blew out his breath and grinned at Carter, who just shrugged and turned back to her readouts.
"We have a stable wormhole, sir."
"Goody." O'Neill clapped his hands together. "Should we send a MALP?"
John shook his head. "Try to talk to them first, sir. If they're okay and they have the shield up, you'll just be wasting a MALP."
McKay came panting up the stairs. "The power unit blew out," he said grimly. "We won't be able to use it again."
O'Neill grimaced. "How long can we keep this wormhole open?"
"Once established, an intergalactic wormhole only draws about double the power of a normal one, and our generators can provide that easily. So we're only limited by wormhole physics, which means --"
"Thirty-eight minutes, sir," Carter finished, with just a hint of smugness as she cut McKay off.
"Right. Walter, get me a channel to talk to them." O'Neill leaned forward and waited for the sergeant's signal. "Atlantis, this is General O'Neill at the SGC. Anyone home?"
No image came up on the screens, but at length there was a voice. "SGC, this is Atlantis. We hear you."
O'Neill raised his eyebrows at the short response. "We just called to check in on you guys, since we haven't heard from you in so long."
"Everything's fine here, General."
John was getting a bad feeling, and from the looks being exchanged around the room, he wasn't the only one.
"Who am I talking to?" O'Neill asked.
The pause this time was definitely too long. "This is Sergeant Darfman, sir."
O'Neill looked to John, who shook his head; he didn't recognize the name or the voice. O'Neill snapped his fingers at Harriman, who started typing quickly.
"Well, Sergeant, I'd like to speak to Colonel Sumner. Is he around?"
"I'm afraid Colonel Sumner is on the casualty list, sir."
O'Neill cursed under his breath. "How about Dr. Weir, then?"
"She's not in the gate room at the moment, sir. It's the middle of the night here. But I can send for her."
"You do that, Sergeant. Let me know when she arrives. We'll keep the wormhole open." O'Neill turned to Carter and made throat-cutting motions to get her to close the outgoing signal. "Well?" he asked the room.
"I don't like it," John said at once. "It should be early evening there, not the middle of the night. And there wasn't anyone by that name on my version of the expedition."
"There was a Sergeant Dorfman on the original team, sir," said Harriman, pointing at a personnel file on his screen. "No Darfman, though."
"Anyone here who would know Dorfman?" O'Neill asked.
"I don't think so, sir. He was chosen for the Ancient gene; no previous SGC experience."
John spoke urgently. "General, I think we should prepare a strike team to go through the gate. I can lead them, I know the territory, but I can't do it alone."
O'Neill frowned at him. "Let's see what Liz has to say before we go off half-cocked."
"Yes sir, we'll keep them talking until we figure out what's going on, but we need to start getting ready now if we're even going to have the option."
O'Neill sighed and turned to the back of the room. "Mitchell, see what you can arrange."
"Sir." Mitchell hurried out, and Jackson faded after him.
"Open that channel for me again, Carter." O'Neill leaned in. "Sergeant, uh, Darfman. Any chance I could talk to Lieutenant O'Neill as well?"
Long pause. "I'm afraid he's . . . offworld right now, sir. I can take a message if you like, though."
"Uh, yeah, I'll get something ready. How about a video link?"
"That equipment is under maintenance right now, sir."
"Maintenance. Okay. Dr. Weir almost there?"
"Yes sir, here she comes right now."
"Hello?" said Weir's voice, sounding tentative. "General O'Neill, is that really you?"
O'Neill beamed. "Liz! Great to hear your voice. We were getting worried."
"Yes, well, we're . . . still here." She sounded a little hoarse.
"Did you get that care package we sent a year ago?"
"Care package? Oh! Yes, it arrived, but it was . . . damaged in shipping."
"That's too bad." Despite the light words, O'Neill looked grim at the loss of the Daedalus.
"I'm impressed you found a way to open this connection at all," Weir said. John noticed that she didn't ask specifically if they had a ZPM.
O'Neill was similarly short on specifics. "Well, you know, good old American -- uh, North American ingenuity." He glanced sidelong at a scowling McKay. "Sorry we didn't call sooner, but you know what it's like. If it isn't one alien race bent on total domination of the galaxy, it's another."
"Of course," she said faintly.
John shouldered in next to O'Neill. "Elizabeth!" he said jovially. "This is Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. Remember me, from Antarctica?"
"John," Weir said slowly. "It's so good to hear your voice. Again."
He grinned in relief as she followed his lead. "Listen, I was hoping you could settle a little bet I have with the general here." John glanced at O'Neill, who was shooting him a powerful don't-mess-this-up glare. He chose his words carefully; they'd have to keep this obscure. "Speaking of alien races dominating the galaxy, which would you say is worse: the Dracula family, the Gestapo wannabes, or, uh, the snake-heads?" He didn't think it was likely they were having Goa'uld trouble, but he added them to the list to muddy the waters more.
Weir made a small noise. "Oh! Well, I'd say the -- the Draculas are very scary, but the, uh, the SS cause an awful lot of trouble, even though there aren't very many of them."
"Yeah, that's just what I was saying." John nodded, his suspicions confirmed.
O'Neill elbowed John aside. "So Liz, we figured after two years you might need some reinforcements. We can send some people through --"
"No!" said Weir sharply, her voice choked as if in pain. John's fists clenched. "No, we have, uh, we have a quarantine situation here. Nothing too dangerous, but it's, um, an unpleasant illness. Very . . . painful. I wouldn't want to risk infecting your people."
"I get ya," said O'Neill. "How about some supplies, then? We have food and medical supplies ready to go --"
John stepped in again. "We weren't sure what you might need in the way of ammunition and weapons. Would you like more C4, or does anti-aircraft weaponry sound more important?"
O'Neill stared like he was crazy, but John just made patting motions in the air. They had to sweeten the deal to make sure the Genii would open the shield.
"Yes, that would be useful," Weir said in the same choked voice. "Both of those, please." She paused for a long moment, and John thought he could hear murmuring in the background. "We could also use more naquadah generators, and maybe, uh, some nuclear bombs. Yes, send us all the nukes you can."
Now O'Neill was staring at the speaker as if Weir was crazy. Carter and McKay had mouths gaping open, too.
John put on his cheerful voice again. "Sure, no problem, we'll get those lined up for you. It might take a few minutes though -- can we keep this wormhole open until then?"
"Yes, we can do that."
"That's great, Liz," said O'Neill. "Colonel Sheppard and I are going to go make those arrangements now, but you can talk with Sergeant Harriman here about exactly what you need. We also have some messages for you." He cut the mike and turned to Harriman. "Just string them along, keep them talking. Agree to anything she asks for, but say it will take time. Just -- stall them."
John suggested, "You can encrypt some junk files and send those in a databurst, say it's personal messages. Don't tell them anything specific about ships, or when we can dial again, or any of that."
"We can't dial again!" Carter objected.
"Yeah, but we don't want them to know that," said O'Neill. "Everyone except Walter -- conference room, now."
When they were gathered around the table and Mitchell and Jackson had reappeared, the general glared at John. "Evidently you got more out of that conversation than I did."
"Yes, sir. Dr. Weir, um, indicated to me that Atlantis has been taken over by a strike force of Genii. They're one of the more advanced races of the Pegasus galaxy; their technology is similar to ours around World War II, but they also have some scavenged Ancient and Wraith equipment. They're very proud of their military power, and they resent the Earth people for . . . um, well, if I'm not there I'm not sure exactly what they hate us for, but evidently they thought we were worth attacking."
O'Neill rubbed his face. "Right. Mitchell, how's it going?"
"Two pallets of food, medical supplies, and a couple naquadah generators; three pallets with dummy crates that can hold two or three people each with sight-holes to fire through."
"Put nuclear warning labels on one of the crates; they'll open that one first." John considered lines of fire in the Atlantis gate room and shook his head doubtfully. "Nine people isn't a lot."
"For a one-way trip to another galaxy on fifteen minutes' notice, you'll be lucky if we can find that many." O'Neill turned back to Mitchell. "Unmarried volunteers only."
"Yes, sir."
"I'll go," said Jackson brightly.
O'Neill groaned. "Daniel, we've been over this. I need you here to --"
"-- look for weapons we can use against the Ori. Jack, don't you see, the Ancient database on Atlantis could be the best resource we have!"
"Daniel --"
"It's not really a one-way trip. You can persuade the committee to send the Odyssey now that we know Atlantis is still there. And maybe we can dial back -- Rodney, how long would it take you to build another of those power units?"
"Two weeks with the right materials, but --"
"You see? I might only be gone two weeks. Or two months at the outside if I have to wait for the Odyssey."
"Daniel --"
"He's right, sir," Mitchell spoke up. "I'd like to go too."
"No! Dammit, we're in a war of our own here --"
"And SG-1 is already split up to look for allies and weapons. Jackson can go through the database, and I can assess these Wraith as a potential future threat -- or a weapon themselves. Maybe we can turn them against the Ori, and then all we have to do is get out of their way."
John grimaced at the unlikeliness of that scenario, but didn't say anything.
Jackson's voice went low and urgent. "Jack. Those are our people out there -- ours more than Colonel Sheppard's -- and they need our help. We owe it to them."
O'Neill scrubbed a hand over his hair, then his face. "Carter?"
She shook her head. "I can't, sir. Orlin and Cassie need me here."
"Well, that's one less argument for me to lose." O'Neill looked at John.
"I have to go, sir. It could be a ticket back to my universe. But, uh, maybe you could take care of some things for the John Sheppard that belongs here . . . his car. Um, his job." John was really messing up the guy's life, but it couldn't be avoided.
"Alright, alright. McKay?"
McKay's chin jutted. "I'm already packed, and my cat is with a neighbor. I just need to pick up some equipment --"
"Great, fine, who else?"
"I've found a couple of volunteers, sir," said Mitchell, and held up a hand to forestall objections. "Unmarried, showed previous interest in the Atlantis expedition, gate team experience but not gate team leaders."
"Okay, so that's six. Can we get any more?"
"I'll keep trying, but there isn't a lot of time."
Carter looked at her watch. "We can keep the wormhole open another seventeen minutes, sir."
"All right. Mitchell, Sheppard, Jackson, McKay, you have ten minutes to gear up and get to the gate room. Take zats, P-90s and sidearms, and the enhanced flak jackets. Go, go!"
-----
Much to Rodney's annoyance, Sheppard took the seat next to him and watched avidly while he piloted the jumper down into the control room and through the gate. The procedure was mostly automatic, but Rodney's hands clenched nervously on the sticks nonetheless.
"How do those controls work?" Sheppard asked, once they were in flight over the fifty kilometers of desert that stretched between the gate and the outpost. "They look sort of like chopper controls, but you're not working them that way."
"It's mostly controlled by intent," Rodney said.
"What, you fly it telepathically?"
"No! It's far more sophisticated than that, " Rodney snapped. "Certain chemicals in the skin and sweat of a person with the ATA gene are picked up by the handles of the control sticks, and that communicates what you want the jumper to do. You only have to actually move the sticks for fast maneuvers where there isn't time for the skin chemicals to adjust. If there's more than about two seconds to initiate a move, you just need to think about it."
"Oh, that's just cool!" Sheppard breathed.
Rodney started to grin in response, then pulled his mouth into a straight line. "Which means I need to concentrate on flying instead of talking," he said primly. He set himself to ignore any further attempts at conversation, and focused on getting to the outpost and getting to work.
An hour later, he was more baffled than ever. He didn't want to dismantle the quantum consciousness mirror just yet, but he'd been unable to find anything in the tiny room that would allow him to interface with it -- aside from the head-trap itself, which he avoided. The outer room had probably held most of the controls for the device, but all that was gone now. Even the pillars that had once supported consoles of some kind had been gutted so that only a few burnt-out crystals and some lonely fibers remained.
"This doesn't make sense!" he complained, slamming shut the access panel on the last pillar.
"In what way?" Teyla asked from her post near the door. She gestured at the outpost around them. "This outer room was open and undefended, so it has been looted. The inner room was locked to any without the Ancient gene, so it is still intact."
"Fine, but if all the power and controls were out here, why does the device in the inner room still work?"
Teyla considered. "Could it have an internal power source?"
Rodney shook his head. "My scans show it isn't powered by a ZedPM. Any other power source is going to be bigger." He held his hands apart. "That plus the circuitry -- it wouldn't fit in that little mirror-frame thing. We're talking about a sizable piece of equipment, here, and I can't find it!"
"I am not a scientist . . ." said Teyla slowly.
Rodney huffed. "But you have an idea anyway. Fine, spit it out."
"The device is designed to connect with another universe. Could it be drawing power from there instead of from here?"
Rodney was momentarily diverted. "That's actually not a completely stupid question. Zero point modules work on a similar principle. But it can't be what's happening here because the device still needs power -- local power -- in order to access the other universe at all."
"If the power source is not inside the device, and not in another universe, then it must be here somewhere else."
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Yes, thank you, Dr. Emmagan. Now that you've figured that out, we can all go home. Wait, no we can't!" He went back to looking for access panels near the denuded sockets in the walls.
"When we first came here," said Teyla with only a slight edge to her voice, "I walked around the outside of the building and saw that it was larger than the interior. I thought there must be a hidden room. Then we found the inner room, and yet -- I do not think it can account for all the missing space."
"It can't?" Rodney stood and looked around thoughtfully, calculating angles and distances in his head. The building had an irregular footprint, so it was hard to visualize. "Where do you think the extra space would be?"
Teyla tilted her head. "Perhaps on either side of the inner room?" Those walls had no empty control sockets and no discernible seams.
"Yes, of course, behind the wall where the device hangs. I thought of that, but I don't want to just blast through the wall. There should be another . . . huh." Rodney tapped his headset. "Ronon, bring Sheppard in here. I need him to find a hidden door for me."
"Y'know, Rodney, I do have ears of my own," came Sheppard's drawl in response.
"Fine, get in here, then!"
"What do you want me to do?" Sheppard asked as he entered with Ronon looming behind him. "I thought you said I shouldn't touch anything."
"Just the wall. Over here first, then over there."
Sheppard laid a finger gingerly on the wall, which was of the same matte alloy as the walls of Atlantis but colored a deep green. "You said there was a hidden door. Should I tap around, or what?"
"Just run your hands over it, everywhere you can reach from knee-level on up. There has to be something that responds to the Ancient gene."
Within a minute, a tall narrow opening appeared in the corner, revealing banks of glowing crystals inside. Rodney made a happy grunt and pushed Sheppard aside for a better look, but soon he wasn't feeling so pleased with the discovery. He poked at his tablet computer and muttered darkly.
"What's wrong?" Sheppard demanded, peering around him at the crystals.
"Nearly half of these are burnt out. Not the most critical circuits, but there's an odd pattern to it. Not random." Rodney's fingers hovered over one, two, three discolored crystals. "And I'd swear some of these are inserted the wrong way. This one, see? It ought to be rotated and flipped. But this wasn't just mindless sabotage -- it was something very deliberate. Hmmm." He bent over his tablet again.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been tracing the circuit variations when Ronon's deep voice interrupted, "McKay, what's that blinking red light on your scanner?"
"Wh-huh?" He looked around a moment before finding the handheld Ancient scanner next to his knee. "That's just, uh, that's -- the Stargate is open. There's an incoming wormhole."
"What does that mean?" Sheppard asked, but Teyla overrode him: "How long has it been open?"
"Not sure," said Ronon. "I just noticed the flashing now, but I wasn't looking that way earlier."
"It can't be Atlantis," said Rodney. "They would have radioed us." He scrambled to his feet and collected computer, scanner, and tools, shoving them hastily into the pockets of his vest and pack. Experience told him he needed to be ready to move.
Teyla had her head cocked to one side, looking up at the ceiling and through it. "Wraith!" she spat.
"What?" Sheppard asked.
"Jumper's not cloaked," Ronon said, and ran outside. Teyla followed.
"Sheppard, wait!" Rodney yelled. "You have to close these doors so no one will find what's inside."
"What's going on? What's a Wraith?" Sheppard demanded as he tapped the doors.
"Didn't anyone tell you about -- never mind, no time now. Wraith are bad, just trust me on that. As in, thinking we're food kind of bad." Rodney approached the open doorway but didn't venture outside. He drew his sidearm, surprised at how much better he felt with it in his hand.
The jumper was gone -- invisible, he knew, but Sheppard muttered "What the hell?" over his shoulder.
The whine of a Wraith dart could be heard now, nearing rapidly. Rodney pressed Sheppard back away from the doorway and eyed the ceiling of the outpost, wondering if it would be enough to protect them from detection. Maybe they should retreat to the inner room with the door only Sheppard could open -- unless the Wraith blasted the entire outpost apart. Teyla and Ronon would be safe inside the cloaked jumper . . .
Just then, Ronon appeared out of thin air, standing in the path of the dart with his teeth bared and his eyes wild. He lifted his oversized handgun and aimed blast after blast at the approaching ship. The dart bobbled and wavered, but threw out a white beam nonetheless.
"Ronon!" Teyla ran into sight and tackled the big man.
Rodney had seen her push people out of the path of a culling beam with perfect grace and precision. But this time the irregular motion of the dart and Ronon's greater mass defeated her; they didn't get far enough out of the way. A moment later the white light passed over them, and they were gone.
"Oh, no. Nonono!" Rodney breathed, frozen with horror. First Sheppard, now Ronon and Teyla. He could barely wrap his mind around it: his whole team gone, in less than a week.
Part Five
Title: Cross Product, Part 4
Author: Quasar
Rating: PG-13 this part, NC-17 for the whole story
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Spoilers: specific references up to Conversion, vague ones up to Allies
Warnings: Cliffhanger!
Date written: July 2006
Length: ~6500 words for this part
Summary: McKay and Sheppard get into trouble, together and separately.
Links to Part One
Part Two
Part Three
As it turned out, the only other people in the commissary were O'Neill and Jackson. O'Neill made a face when McKay sat at their table, but he listened as John started talking about Atlantis. Jackson wanted to know about the Ancients' culture and McKay asked about their technology, but as soon as John described the Wraith and their battle against the Ancients, O'Neill interrupted and said they should move the discussion to the conference room.
On the way, they somehow picked up Colonel Mitchell. He had a nasty bruise on his temple and the look of a man with a thumping headache, but he greeted O'Neill's narrow-eyed look with a claim that he'd been released from the infirmary and was certainly capable of sitting in a comfortable chair to hear Sheppard's story.
Carter wasn't around for the meeting, having gone home to be with her two adopted children -- both from off world. One was apparently a descended Ancient with brain damage, which boggled John. But he didn't get to ask about it since McKay digressed into a rant about motherhood being a waste of a brilliant mind.
Once McKay had been stifled, John found himself trying to condense two years of adventures and descriptions of the Pegasus galaxy into a short description. He'd barely gotten up to the Wraith siege at the end of their first year before the discussion devolved into might-have-beens.
"It could have turned out totally different for the guys we sent," Mitchell argued. "I mean, who's to say they woke up the Wraith like you did?"
John had worried this one over on too many sleepless nights. "Even if they didn't get people captured on their first offworld trip -- even if they didn't kill the keeper -- they'd still encounter the Wraith sooner or later. Most of them were hibernating, but not all. It would just take one member of the expedition to get culled and interrogated, and the Wraith would be after them all. They'd want to know more about Earth. They'd probably wake up at least one Hive to attack Atlantis, maybe more."
"But Sumner would still be in charge," said O'Neill, with a measuring gaze. "He'd handle things a lot differently from you."
McKay shook his head in exasperation. "Different or not, it doesn't matter. It didn't matter. We sent two hundred people out there two years ago and we haven't heard from them. We sent a ship after them and it disappeared without a trace."
John startled at this news. He had guessed about the lost expedition, but not about the Daedalus.
McKay continued, "Obviously they're in some kind of trouble, and there's a good chance it's these Wraith Colonel Sheppard is talking about."
"Maybe, maybe not," Mitchell insisted.
Jackson stepped in. "What if they stayed on Atlantis and never went off-world? Then they wouldn't meet the Wraith."
"They wouldn't have much to eat after a few months, either!" McKay retorted.
"Look, we went through the gate in the first place looking for an evacuation site because the ZPMs were depleted and the city was about to -- ah, hell." John rubbed his face wearily. "I forgot."
"Forgot what?" asked Jackson and McKay in ragged stereo.
"The first time my expedition went to Atlantis, the shield failed, the city flooded, and everybody drowned."
"Everybody?" said Mitchell.
"You seem pretty lively for a dead guy," O'Neill remarked.
"First time?" McKay asked, latching onto the critical point.
"Everybody except Dr. Weir. She got sent back in time to just before the Ancients left Atlantis."
"Wait, sent back in time?" McKay demanded. "Ten thousand years?"
"Yeah, there was this one Ancient who was working on a time machine, and he just left it lying around for anyone to stumble onto. Anyway, when he heard Elizabeth's story he set it up so the city would rise to the surface if the shields failed. And that's the only reason the expedition in my timeline survived."
"And you learned about this how?" asked Jackson.
"We found the time-traveling Weir waiting in a stasis chamber. It wasn't perfect and she was aged to like a hundred years old, but that's not the point."
"So what is the point?" O'Neill asked.
"The only reason the time machine worked in the first place was because I touched it. I have the Ancient gene more strongly than anyone else in the expedition." John looked around the table. "Don't you get it? If the John Sheppard from this universe didn't go to Atlantis, there was no one to set off the time machine and make it possible for the city to rise."
There was a long silence. McKay wouldn't meet his eyes. Then Jackson coughed uneasily and said, "Actually, there was someone on the expedition who had a gene as strong as yours."
John blinked. "In my reality we only know of me and General O'Neill who are like that."
Jackson squinted and rubbed his nose. "Yes, well -- Jack went on the expedition. In a sense."
O'Neill rolled his eyes. "My clone went on the expedition."
"Uh . . ." John didn't think he'd heard about that one.
"A couple years ago, a renegade Asgard made a clone of Jack, aged him to adolescence, and gave him Jack's memories," Jackson explained quickly. "We stopped the Asgard from doing anything more, but then we were left with a spare teenage Jack O'Neill. He kept aging at an accelerated rate for a while, but then it slowed down to normal."
"He was like eighteen when the expedition left, right?" Mitchell said.
"Physically," O'Neill grumbled.
"Dr. Weir talked him into going," Jackson added.
"He was probably happy to get out of going to college," said O'Neill darkly.
"Weir pulled some strings and got him a commission as a lieutenant in the Air Force."
"At eighteen?" John protested.
Jackson shrugged. "Whatever age he looked, he had all of Jack's knowledge and skills."
"Just not the bad knees," said O'Neill.
John tried to make sense out of this. "Okay, so you sent along someone with the strong gene. If he found the time machine, maybe someone got sent back in time and it all worked out. Maybe they didn't all drown. Maybe. I still think they'd run into the Wraith, sooner or later."
"Fine," said McKay, "but even that doesn't explain why we never heard back from them. You woke the Wraith, but you still got word back to Earth."
Mitchell shrugged. "So maybe they did all drown, then."
"Sure, and maybe the Daedalus ran into an iceberg on her maiden voyage! No, that theory just doesn't explain it all. Something nasty got hold of the ship as well as the city."
"My first guess would still be the Wraith, but there are plenty of other bad guys out there," said John. "There was this energy-sucking cloud thing that almost fried us all, our first week there. If it hadn't been for Rodney . . . " He trailed off and turned to look at the scientist next to him.
"What?"
"Maybe that was it. McKay pulled our asses out of the fire so many times -- if he wasn't on the expedition, we'd all be dead. And he wasn't on your expedition."
McKay looked as if he wasn't sure whether to be pleased or appalled that his absence could have such an impact.
"Aw, c'mon, there were a lot of good people on that team," said Mitchell. "Nobody's irreplaceable."
"Thank you for that insight, Colonel," said O'Neill a little sharply. Mitchell winced and shut up.
"You never did tell me why you stayed behind," John said to McKay. "Why aren't you in Atlantis now?"
McKay looked away, his mouth slanting down unhappily. "I was sick. I had a . . . parasitic infection."
"He got implanted with a Goa'uld," said O'Neill plainly.
"Whoa!" John didn't like the thought of Rodney with eyes glowing malevolently.
McKay addressed the table. "The Trust wanted to place someone inside the expedition."
Jackson, chin propped on fist, said innocently, "Sam was the one who figured it out. She said he was too good at flirting and too bad at physics."
"Obviously not the real Mc -- Kay," O'Neill drawled.
"Yes, thank you!" McKay snapped. "I've never heard that one before."
"You tipped her off on purpose, didn't you?" said John. "Way to go, Rodney!"
"It was more that my brain is a finely-tuned machine that doesn't work as well when it's under control of a ham-handed alien parasite."
"Goa'uld have hands?" John asked, straight-faced.
"Not so much," said O'Neill.
McKay continued in a rush of words, "It was discovered the day before the expedition left. The removal didn't go smoothly, and I had some lingering neurological problems. All resolved now, fortunately, but at the time the Daedalus broke orbit I still wasn't cleared to go along."
Despite all the banter, the story disturbed John. Alien possession followed by a year-long illness -- that could certainly explain why McKay seemed smaller and less confident in this universe.
"Speaking of the Daedalus," O'Neill said firmly, and turned to John. "Your idea has the same problem as the drowning one. Maybe not having Encyclopedia McKay along would be a problem for the original Atlantis team, but that still doesn't explain what happened to the ship. Last we heard from them was five days out."
John frowned, putting the information together with other clues and realizing they'd never had a ZPM to send along with the ship. "Actually, Rodney did save the Daedalus once, but that was on their second trip to Pegasus. If they disappeared on the first trip, I'd guess either mechanical problems, or else they showed up in the middle of the Wraith siege like in my universe, but without the advance warning." He considered. "Or maybe the energy being ate them, after it was done with Atlantis. Or . . . hmm. I guess there's a lot of things that could have gone wrong."
"You know," said McKay slowly, "we don't have to speculate about this. We have a way of finding out."
O'Neill slapped the table in exasperation. "We've been over this, McKay. The committee won't approve sending the Odyssey to Pegasus if we don't even know what happened to the first two teams we sent. Intel from a parallel universe isn't going to change their minds."
"I'm not talking about the Odyssey, I'm talking about the Stargate. We can dial Atlantis and find out if they're still there."
Everyone stared at him. Once more, Jackson was the one to break the silence. "And how can we do that without a ZPM?"
"A little project I've been working on for a couple months now," said McKay. "I've been trying to replicate the power source that General O'Neill -- well, he was a Colonel then -- constructed to get to the Asgard homeworld."
"Right!" Jackson breathed. "Didn't you use a power crystal from a Jaffa staff for that, Jack? We have plenty of those lying around."
"You're talking about the power source that blew out the electrical grid for half of Colorado?" O'Neill demanded.
McKay huffed. "I can prevent that easily, with the right circuit breakers. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether I can keep the device from blowing itself out. It might be a single-use power source."
"And what does Carter say about this?" Mitchell asked. "You did run this by her, right?"
McKay flushed. "She, uh, she didn't think it was worth pursuing, at first. I've been working on it on the side. But look, she hasn't seen the latest output measurements --"
"How soon can you have it ready?" John asked.
McKay met his gaze and steadied. "If I set everything else aside . . . two days."
"Do it," said John, then remembered himself and looked to O'Neill. "Uh, if that's all right with you, General."
O'Neill waved a hand in resignation. "Fine. But I want Carter working with you on it. We don't dial without her say-so."
-----
Rodney rushed into the conference room with Radek on his heels. "Okay, here's what we've worked out so far . . ." He froze. "What's he doing here?"
Sheppard was sitting between Teyla and Ronon in his trademark slouch.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "I asked him to come. This does concern him."
Rodney coughed nervously. "Yes, right, I suppose it does. I just -- I wasn't expecting . . ."
"You said you'd made progress on your idea to get Colonel Sheppard back. I thought that would be of interest to your whole team."
"Ah, right. Well. So." Rodney hadn't prepared for a full briefing. Not that lack of preparation had ever stopped him before, but he was unsettled with Sheppard's eyes tracking him as if expecting an attack.
Radek looked at him briefly in puzzlement, then shrugged and started the explanation himself. "We have reviewed the scans Rodney made at the outpost, and also we studied archival data about the control device for the quantum mirror that SG-1 found."
Rodney picked up the thread. "Putting those together, we've constructed a program that ought to be able to interface with the device so that we can control which universe it switches with."
"Good!" said Elizabeth. "So you're ready to try it?"
"We have not entered the parameters for the diacritic tensor," Radek said.
"The, uh, the matrix of invariants which provides a description of the other universe," Rodney explained quickly. "We'll have to get the data from the device's memory buffer, assuming I can find a way to interface with it."
Teyla nodded comprehension. "You wish to return to the outpost."
"Right. Jumper in, a few minutes of work, and I should have all the information I need to set up the control program. I can be back inside an hour."
There were surprised looks around the table.
"'I?'" Teyla repeated.
"You're not going alone," said Ronon firmly.
Sheppard frowned.
"I can't authorize a solo offworld mission, Rodney. You know that," Elizabeth told him.
Rodney threw his hands up. "Alright, fine! I'll fly the jumper and do all the work, Ronon and Teyla can sit in the back and look menacing in case any of the sand tries to attack me!"
"What about me?" said Sheppard, even as Elizabeth said, "Take Co-- Mr. Sheppard as well."
"What for?" Rodney demanded, crossing his arms.
"Is there some reason you don't want him along?" Elizabeth asked with a frown.
"Of course not! It's just -- there's no need. He's not the Colonel. He doesn't have gate experience."
"He does have military training as well as the Ancient gene," Elizabeth returned, glancing between the two of them.
"Which is a liability in this case, not an asset! What if he triggers the device prematurely? Better if he doesn't even get near the outpost until we're ready to try the swap."
Sheppard's eyes were narrowed darkly, his mouth set.
"In that case," said Elizabeth, "perhaps you should wait for Major Lorne to return, so his team can accompany you instead."
Rodney gaped. "But they won't be back for days! Anyway, Lorne has the gene too."
Elizabeth arched an eyebrow at him. "But not the natural gene. If you're concerned that the gene therapy could set the device off, perhaps Dr. Zelenka should go in your place."
Radek started to sputter. "Oh no, no -- I couldn't . . ."
"I have to go. He doesn't understand the systems as well as I do." Rodney glared at Elizabeth. "Okay fine, Sheppard can come too. But he'd better not touch anything. In fact, I don't even want him coming into the outpost!"
Sheppard just grinned. "I promise I'll be good, Rodney," he drawled.
"You can stay in the jumper."
"Great, I wanted a closer look at one of those things!" Sheppard rubbed his hands together in exaggerated anticipation.
"With Ronon!" Rodney added quickly. "To make sure you don't touch anything."
"All right!" Elizabeth interposed. "It's settled, then. You have gate time in one hour."
-----
A few days later, they assembled in the control room overlooking the gate. Mitchell was propping up a wall; his bruised forehead had progressed to the spectacular multicolored stage, but he was no longer squinting in pain. Jackson drifted in the background also. Carter and Sergeant Harriman were running the computers, and McKay was off installing the new power unit.
"Carter, is this thing gonna work?" O'Neill asked.
She shrugged uneasily. "I'm not sure, sir. We never really understood how the original worked -- the unit you built. I'm not convinced Rodney's right about the details of the power source mechanism. And if that's wrong, the whole thing is wrong."
"It'll work," John murmured, hoping he was right. This wasn't actually his Rodney, despite the similarities.
O'Neill rubbed at his eyebrow. "But we're not going to blow out the grid, right? I won't have to apologize to the governor?"
"No sir, the circuits are buffered and isolated. The worst that will happen is the gate won't connect."
"All right then, let's try it." O'Neill keyed an intercom. "Siler, you all set down there?"
"Ready, sir," came the firm answer.
"Dial it up, Walter."
Harriman nodded and keyed in the sequence for Atlantis. "Chevron one encoded . . ."
John found his heart pumping as if he were getting ready for combat. It seemed to take forever for this gate to dial.
"Chevron seven encoded," said Harriman. "Chevron eight . . . locked."
As the wormhole splashed into being, the lights in the control room dimmed for a moment, then came back up. John blew out his breath and grinned at Carter, who just shrugged and turned back to her readouts.
"We have a stable wormhole, sir."
"Goody." O'Neill clapped his hands together. "Should we send a MALP?"
John shook his head. "Try to talk to them first, sir. If they're okay and they have the shield up, you'll just be wasting a MALP."
McKay came panting up the stairs. "The power unit blew out," he said grimly. "We won't be able to use it again."
O'Neill grimaced. "How long can we keep this wormhole open?"
"Once established, an intergalactic wormhole only draws about double the power of a normal one, and our generators can provide that easily. So we're only limited by wormhole physics, which means --"
"Thirty-eight minutes, sir," Carter finished, with just a hint of smugness as she cut McKay off.
"Right. Walter, get me a channel to talk to them." O'Neill leaned forward and waited for the sergeant's signal. "Atlantis, this is General O'Neill at the SGC. Anyone home?"
No image came up on the screens, but at length there was a voice. "SGC, this is Atlantis. We hear you."
O'Neill raised his eyebrows at the short response. "We just called to check in on you guys, since we haven't heard from you in so long."
"Everything's fine here, General."
John was getting a bad feeling, and from the looks being exchanged around the room, he wasn't the only one.
"Who am I talking to?" O'Neill asked.
The pause this time was definitely too long. "This is Sergeant Darfman, sir."
O'Neill looked to John, who shook his head; he didn't recognize the name or the voice. O'Neill snapped his fingers at Harriman, who started typing quickly.
"Well, Sergeant, I'd like to speak to Colonel Sumner. Is he around?"
"I'm afraid Colonel Sumner is on the casualty list, sir."
O'Neill cursed under his breath. "How about Dr. Weir, then?"
"She's not in the gate room at the moment, sir. It's the middle of the night here. But I can send for her."
"You do that, Sergeant. Let me know when she arrives. We'll keep the wormhole open." O'Neill turned to Carter and made throat-cutting motions to get her to close the outgoing signal. "Well?" he asked the room.
"I don't like it," John said at once. "It should be early evening there, not the middle of the night. And there wasn't anyone by that name on my version of the expedition."
"There was a Sergeant Dorfman on the original team, sir," said Harriman, pointing at a personnel file on his screen. "No Darfman, though."
"Anyone here who would know Dorfman?" O'Neill asked.
"I don't think so, sir. He was chosen for the Ancient gene; no previous SGC experience."
John spoke urgently. "General, I think we should prepare a strike team to go through the gate. I can lead them, I know the territory, but I can't do it alone."
O'Neill frowned at him. "Let's see what Liz has to say before we go off half-cocked."
"Yes sir, we'll keep them talking until we figure out what's going on, but we need to start getting ready now if we're even going to have the option."
O'Neill sighed and turned to the back of the room. "Mitchell, see what you can arrange."
"Sir." Mitchell hurried out, and Jackson faded after him.
"Open that channel for me again, Carter." O'Neill leaned in. "Sergeant, uh, Darfman. Any chance I could talk to Lieutenant O'Neill as well?"
Long pause. "I'm afraid he's . . . offworld right now, sir. I can take a message if you like, though."
"Uh, yeah, I'll get something ready. How about a video link?"
"That equipment is under maintenance right now, sir."
"Maintenance. Okay. Dr. Weir almost there?"
"Yes sir, here she comes right now."
"Hello?" said Weir's voice, sounding tentative. "General O'Neill, is that really you?"
O'Neill beamed. "Liz! Great to hear your voice. We were getting worried."
"Yes, well, we're . . . still here." She sounded a little hoarse.
"Did you get that care package we sent a year ago?"
"Care package? Oh! Yes, it arrived, but it was . . . damaged in shipping."
"That's too bad." Despite the light words, O'Neill looked grim at the loss of the Daedalus.
"I'm impressed you found a way to open this connection at all," Weir said. John noticed that she didn't ask specifically if they had a ZPM.
O'Neill was similarly short on specifics. "Well, you know, good old American -- uh, North American ingenuity." He glanced sidelong at a scowling McKay. "Sorry we didn't call sooner, but you know what it's like. If it isn't one alien race bent on total domination of the galaxy, it's another."
"Of course," she said faintly.
John shouldered in next to O'Neill. "Elizabeth!" he said jovially. "This is Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. Remember me, from Antarctica?"
"John," Weir said slowly. "It's so good to hear your voice. Again."
He grinned in relief as she followed his lead. "Listen, I was hoping you could settle a little bet I have with the general here." John glanced at O'Neill, who was shooting him a powerful don't-mess-this-up glare. He chose his words carefully; they'd have to keep this obscure. "Speaking of alien races dominating the galaxy, which would you say is worse: the Dracula family, the Gestapo wannabes, or, uh, the snake-heads?" He didn't think it was likely they were having Goa'uld trouble, but he added them to the list to muddy the waters more.
Weir made a small noise. "Oh! Well, I'd say the -- the Draculas are very scary, but the, uh, the SS cause an awful lot of trouble, even though there aren't very many of them."
"Yeah, that's just what I was saying." John nodded, his suspicions confirmed.
O'Neill elbowed John aside. "So Liz, we figured after two years you might need some reinforcements. We can send some people through --"
"No!" said Weir sharply, her voice choked as if in pain. John's fists clenched. "No, we have, uh, we have a quarantine situation here. Nothing too dangerous, but it's, um, an unpleasant illness. Very . . . painful. I wouldn't want to risk infecting your people."
"I get ya," said O'Neill. "How about some supplies, then? We have food and medical supplies ready to go --"
John stepped in again. "We weren't sure what you might need in the way of ammunition and weapons. Would you like more C4, or does anti-aircraft weaponry sound more important?"
O'Neill stared like he was crazy, but John just made patting motions in the air. They had to sweeten the deal to make sure the Genii would open the shield.
"Yes, that would be useful," Weir said in the same choked voice. "Both of those, please." She paused for a long moment, and John thought he could hear murmuring in the background. "We could also use more naquadah generators, and maybe, uh, some nuclear bombs. Yes, send us all the nukes you can."
Now O'Neill was staring at the speaker as if Weir was crazy. Carter and McKay had mouths gaping open, too.
John put on his cheerful voice again. "Sure, no problem, we'll get those lined up for you. It might take a few minutes though -- can we keep this wormhole open until then?"
"Yes, we can do that."
"That's great, Liz," said O'Neill. "Colonel Sheppard and I are going to go make those arrangements now, but you can talk with Sergeant Harriman here about exactly what you need. We also have some messages for you." He cut the mike and turned to Harriman. "Just string them along, keep them talking. Agree to anything she asks for, but say it will take time. Just -- stall them."
John suggested, "You can encrypt some junk files and send those in a databurst, say it's personal messages. Don't tell them anything specific about ships, or when we can dial again, or any of that."
"We can't dial again!" Carter objected.
"Yeah, but we don't want them to know that," said O'Neill. "Everyone except Walter -- conference room, now."
When they were gathered around the table and Mitchell and Jackson had reappeared, the general glared at John. "Evidently you got more out of that conversation than I did."
"Yes, sir. Dr. Weir, um, indicated to me that Atlantis has been taken over by a strike force of Genii. They're one of the more advanced races of the Pegasus galaxy; their technology is similar to ours around World War II, but they also have some scavenged Ancient and Wraith equipment. They're very proud of their military power, and they resent the Earth people for . . . um, well, if I'm not there I'm not sure exactly what they hate us for, but evidently they thought we were worth attacking."
O'Neill rubbed his face. "Right. Mitchell, how's it going?"
"Two pallets of food, medical supplies, and a couple naquadah generators; three pallets with dummy crates that can hold two or three people each with sight-holes to fire through."
"Put nuclear warning labels on one of the crates; they'll open that one first." John considered lines of fire in the Atlantis gate room and shook his head doubtfully. "Nine people isn't a lot."
"For a one-way trip to another galaxy on fifteen minutes' notice, you'll be lucky if we can find that many." O'Neill turned back to Mitchell. "Unmarried volunteers only."
"Yes, sir."
"I'll go," said Jackson brightly.
O'Neill groaned. "Daniel, we've been over this. I need you here to --"
"-- look for weapons we can use against the Ori. Jack, don't you see, the Ancient database on Atlantis could be the best resource we have!"
"Daniel --"
"It's not really a one-way trip. You can persuade the committee to send the Odyssey now that we know Atlantis is still there. And maybe we can dial back -- Rodney, how long would it take you to build another of those power units?"
"Two weeks with the right materials, but --"
"You see? I might only be gone two weeks. Or two months at the outside if I have to wait for the Odyssey."
"Daniel --"
"He's right, sir," Mitchell spoke up. "I'd like to go too."
"No! Dammit, we're in a war of our own here --"
"And SG-1 is already split up to look for allies and weapons. Jackson can go through the database, and I can assess these Wraith as a potential future threat -- or a weapon themselves. Maybe we can turn them against the Ori, and then all we have to do is get out of their way."
John grimaced at the unlikeliness of that scenario, but didn't say anything.
Jackson's voice went low and urgent. "Jack. Those are our people out there -- ours more than Colonel Sheppard's -- and they need our help. We owe it to them."
O'Neill scrubbed a hand over his hair, then his face. "Carter?"
She shook her head. "I can't, sir. Orlin and Cassie need me here."
"Well, that's one less argument for me to lose." O'Neill looked at John.
"I have to go, sir. It could be a ticket back to my universe. But, uh, maybe you could take care of some things for the John Sheppard that belongs here . . . his car. Um, his job." John was really messing up the guy's life, but it couldn't be avoided.
"Alright, alright. McKay?"
McKay's chin jutted. "I'm already packed, and my cat is with a neighbor. I just need to pick up some equipment --"
"Great, fine, who else?"
"I've found a couple of volunteers, sir," said Mitchell, and held up a hand to forestall objections. "Unmarried, showed previous interest in the Atlantis expedition, gate team experience but not gate team leaders."
"Okay, so that's six. Can we get any more?"
"I'll keep trying, but there isn't a lot of time."
Carter looked at her watch. "We can keep the wormhole open another seventeen minutes, sir."
"All right. Mitchell, Sheppard, Jackson, McKay, you have ten minutes to gear up and get to the gate room. Take zats, P-90s and sidearms, and the enhanced flak jackets. Go, go!"
-----
Much to Rodney's annoyance, Sheppard took the seat next to him and watched avidly while he piloted the jumper down into the control room and through the gate. The procedure was mostly automatic, but Rodney's hands clenched nervously on the sticks nonetheless.
"How do those controls work?" Sheppard asked, once they were in flight over the fifty kilometers of desert that stretched between the gate and the outpost. "They look sort of like chopper controls, but you're not working them that way."
"It's mostly controlled by intent," Rodney said.
"What, you fly it telepathically?"
"No! It's far more sophisticated than that, " Rodney snapped. "Certain chemicals in the skin and sweat of a person with the ATA gene are picked up by the handles of the control sticks, and that communicates what you want the jumper to do. You only have to actually move the sticks for fast maneuvers where there isn't time for the skin chemicals to adjust. If there's more than about two seconds to initiate a move, you just need to think about it."
"Oh, that's just cool!" Sheppard breathed.
Rodney started to grin in response, then pulled his mouth into a straight line. "Which means I need to concentrate on flying instead of talking," he said primly. He set himself to ignore any further attempts at conversation, and focused on getting to the outpost and getting to work.
An hour later, he was more baffled than ever. He didn't want to dismantle the quantum consciousness mirror just yet, but he'd been unable to find anything in the tiny room that would allow him to interface with it -- aside from the head-trap itself, which he avoided. The outer room had probably held most of the controls for the device, but all that was gone now. Even the pillars that had once supported consoles of some kind had been gutted so that only a few burnt-out crystals and some lonely fibers remained.
"This doesn't make sense!" he complained, slamming shut the access panel on the last pillar.
"In what way?" Teyla asked from her post near the door. She gestured at the outpost around them. "This outer room was open and undefended, so it has been looted. The inner room was locked to any without the Ancient gene, so it is still intact."
"Fine, but if all the power and controls were out here, why does the device in the inner room still work?"
Teyla considered. "Could it have an internal power source?"
Rodney shook his head. "My scans show it isn't powered by a ZedPM. Any other power source is going to be bigger." He held his hands apart. "That plus the circuitry -- it wouldn't fit in that little mirror-frame thing. We're talking about a sizable piece of equipment, here, and I can't find it!"
"I am not a scientist . . ." said Teyla slowly.
Rodney huffed. "But you have an idea anyway. Fine, spit it out."
"The device is designed to connect with another universe. Could it be drawing power from there instead of from here?"
Rodney was momentarily diverted. "That's actually not a completely stupid question. Zero point modules work on a similar principle. But it can't be what's happening here because the device still needs power -- local power -- in order to access the other universe at all."
"If the power source is not inside the device, and not in another universe, then it must be here somewhere else."
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Yes, thank you, Dr. Emmagan. Now that you've figured that out, we can all go home. Wait, no we can't!" He went back to looking for access panels near the denuded sockets in the walls.
"When we first came here," said Teyla with only a slight edge to her voice, "I walked around the outside of the building and saw that it was larger than the interior. I thought there must be a hidden room. Then we found the inner room, and yet -- I do not think it can account for all the missing space."
"It can't?" Rodney stood and looked around thoughtfully, calculating angles and distances in his head. The building had an irregular footprint, so it was hard to visualize. "Where do you think the extra space would be?"
Teyla tilted her head. "Perhaps on either side of the inner room?" Those walls had no empty control sockets and no discernible seams.
"Yes, of course, behind the wall where the device hangs. I thought of that, but I don't want to just blast through the wall. There should be another . . . huh." Rodney tapped his headset. "Ronon, bring Sheppard in here. I need him to find a hidden door for me."
"Y'know, Rodney, I do have ears of my own," came Sheppard's drawl in response.
"Fine, get in here, then!"
"What do you want me to do?" Sheppard asked as he entered with Ronon looming behind him. "I thought you said I shouldn't touch anything."
"Just the wall. Over here first, then over there."
Sheppard laid a finger gingerly on the wall, which was of the same matte alloy as the walls of Atlantis but colored a deep green. "You said there was a hidden door. Should I tap around, or what?"
"Just run your hands over it, everywhere you can reach from knee-level on up. There has to be something that responds to the Ancient gene."
Within a minute, a tall narrow opening appeared in the corner, revealing banks of glowing crystals inside. Rodney made a happy grunt and pushed Sheppard aside for a better look, but soon he wasn't feeling so pleased with the discovery. He poked at his tablet computer and muttered darkly.
"What's wrong?" Sheppard demanded, peering around him at the crystals.
"Nearly half of these are burnt out. Not the most critical circuits, but there's an odd pattern to it. Not random." Rodney's fingers hovered over one, two, three discolored crystals. "And I'd swear some of these are inserted the wrong way. This one, see? It ought to be rotated and flipped. But this wasn't just mindless sabotage -- it was something very deliberate. Hmmm." He bent over his tablet again.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been tracing the circuit variations when Ronon's deep voice interrupted, "McKay, what's that blinking red light on your scanner?"
"Wh-huh?" He looked around a moment before finding the handheld Ancient scanner next to his knee. "That's just, uh, that's -- the Stargate is open. There's an incoming wormhole."
"What does that mean?" Sheppard asked, but Teyla overrode him: "How long has it been open?"
"Not sure," said Ronon. "I just noticed the flashing now, but I wasn't looking that way earlier."
"It can't be Atlantis," said Rodney. "They would have radioed us." He scrambled to his feet and collected computer, scanner, and tools, shoving them hastily into the pockets of his vest and pack. Experience told him he needed to be ready to move.
Teyla had her head cocked to one side, looking up at the ceiling and through it. "Wraith!" she spat.
"What?" Sheppard asked.
"Jumper's not cloaked," Ronon said, and ran outside. Teyla followed.
"Sheppard, wait!" Rodney yelled. "You have to close these doors so no one will find what's inside."
"What's going on? What's a Wraith?" Sheppard demanded as he tapped the doors.
"Didn't anyone tell you about -- never mind, no time now. Wraith are bad, just trust me on that. As in, thinking we're food kind of bad." Rodney approached the open doorway but didn't venture outside. He drew his sidearm, surprised at how much better he felt with it in his hand.
The jumper was gone -- invisible, he knew, but Sheppard muttered "What the hell?" over his shoulder.
The whine of a Wraith dart could be heard now, nearing rapidly. Rodney pressed Sheppard back away from the doorway and eyed the ceiling of the outpost, wondering if it would be enough to protect them from detection. Maybe they should retreat to the inner room with the door only Sheppard could open -- unless the Wraith blasted the entire outpost apart. Teyla and Ronon would be safe inside the cloaked jumper . . .
Just then, Ronon appeared out of thin air, standing in the path of the dart with his teeth bared and his eyes wild. He lifted his oversized handgun and aimed blast after blast at the approaching ship. The dart bobbled and wavered, but threw out a white beam nonetheless.
"Ronon!" Teyla ran into sight and tackled the big man.
Rodney had seen her push people out of the path of a culling beam with perfect grace and precision. But this time the irregular motion of the dart and Ronon's greater mass defeated her; they didn't get far enough out of the way. A moment later the white light passed over them, and they were gone.
"Oh, no. Nonono!" Rodney breathed, frozen with horror. First Sheppard, now Ronon and Teyla. He could barely wrap his mind around it: his whole team gone, in less than a week.
Part Five