Second Siege, by americanleaguer
Title: Second Siege
Author: americanleaguer
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: R
Word count: 7,626
Notes: Non-explicit mention of Ronon/Keller. Warning for minor character death. Yes, the tense shifts are intentional.
During the first siege, he would have given anything to have more time. They had discovered that the Wraith ships were on their way, and then they were there. They hadn't had time for anything. If the Daedalus hadn't come; if SG-1 hadn't found that ZPM; if those rail guns hadn't come through and been installed in time...
He remembers thinking, back then, that if they'd had more time, maybe they could have found a way to fight back on their own. McKay would have come up with something, or they would have discovered some new feature of the city (they were still making about a discovery a day, back then) that would have helped them out. If only they'd had more time.
They'd called it a siege. They'd capitalized it, even: The Siege. They'd patted each other on the backs for making it out with the city intact, the invading Wraith dead. There had been too many losses, yes: his own Marines, the Marines who came through in the wave from Earth, Peter Grodin. The losses that were all the more awful because they weren't really losses: Colonel Everett, Lieutenant Ford. Still, they had won, and there hadn't been any doubt about that.
Sheppard's fought a lot of battles, and he knows a thing or two about the difference between a battle and a siege. The Siege had been a battle. A long, intense, complex battle. It wasn't really a siege.
The Second Siege is not a battle.
The Wraith have surrounded the planet with hives, shoulder to shoulder, the gaps filled in with cruisers. Every so often new cruisers come in with their cargo holds full of people, food, so that the hives never have to leave orbit.
Nine months ago the Apollo tried to run the gauntlet of hives. Only a third of the crew managed to get to the escape pods. Only a third of the escape pods survived the explosion. The Daedalus was able to get within radio contact, once, five months ago. The Daedalus hasn't been able to come back, not yet. Earth can't afford to lose another ship.
Nothing gets in and nothing gets out, not even via the Stargate, which is being jammed by some signal from the hives. McKay spent four months solid, at the beginning, trying to figure out what it was and how to counteract it; they had tried their best, but it's been a long, long time since they were able to dial out, these days.
----
The bomb squats in the back of the 'jumper, short and fat and dull matte silver. It looks good; it looks like a bomb. Like something a movie director from the '50s would appreciate. McKay hadn't been able to do much with the Wraith jamming signal, but he's made a beautiful bomb. Sheppard's not surprised. McKay's always been good with bombs.
He's flown into hive dart bays before, and it's easy enough to avoid trouble in a cloaked 'jumper. He sets the 'jumper down carefully, hoping no darts will try to land on top of them. They should be able to remain undetected for a while so long as that doesn't happen. He tells his Marines to do a final equipment check. They tighten tac vests and go over their guns again, testing straps and buckles and safeties.
This gives McKay time to make some last-minute adjustment to the bomb. He works over its tiny command panel with a tiny screwdriver and a couple of wires twisted down into its guts, connected to a tablet. The hive ship thrums and gurgles around them, thin dart whines shooting overhead every few seconds. McKay's hands don't tremble.
Sheppard stands behind him and watches. McKay maneuvers the screwdriver tenderly, delicately, like an artisan working in some intricately detailed medium. Those people who can draw a perfect landscape on a grain of rice, Sheppard thinks, using a brush with a single fiber in it.
McKay's only fine-tuning. Soon enough he untwists the wires, tucks the screwdriver back into his pocket and snaps the panel cover back down. He stands and steps away from the bomb. A dart goes screaming by just off their bow, and for the first time he seems to hear it, wincing sharply.
"Ready?" Sheppard asks.
McKay nods. He looks at the bomb, then at Sheppard, his eyes tracking nervously back and forth. Sheppard wants to catch his eye, but McKay's looking at every part of his face at once and won't be caught.
"Be careful," he says, and Sheppard doesn't know if he means with the bomb or with yourself.
He nods anyways.
----
He remembers the jamming mechanism.
Remembers Ronon stabbing knives into the wall until the door opened, Marines flooding in, weapons raised, ferrying the bomb in their midst. He remembers striding in at the front of the team, looking for a place to put the bomb. It was big enough, McKay had said, that it didn't need to be hooked up to any part of the jammer; it just had to be on a mostly flat surface nearby. McKay had stayed, with a couple of Marines, back at the 'jumper. If something went wrong, they needed a gene carrier to pilot the 'jumper back out, and they couldn't afford to lose McKay anyways.
He can't remember if they had any expectations about the jammer. Probably they did. Probably they expected it to be the usual kind of twistedly organo-technic Wraith machinery, like the hives themselves. Webbed connective tissue. Pulsating sacs. Exposed patches of unnaturally gleaming metal.
He knows that they hadn't expected what they'd found. The twisted tower of wires and green lights and something darkly oiled that was either soft metal or hard flesh, that had been about right. But they had been completely unprepared for the children.
The Wraith had strung children up around the jammer. Children, they guessed, whose worlds had been culled. There were maybe 30 or 40 of them, all somewhere between toddler and early elementary school age. The ones around the bottom of the jammer were tied up with some kind of tendinous fiber that knives couldn't cut and Ronon's blaster couldn't break. The ones higher up on the machine had their chests sealed in with extrusions of that dark, oily surface material, like the jammer was holding them in bulbous fists, their little arms and legs dangling.
They were all conscious.
Sheppard remembers storming in with the Marines. He remembers the way the children all raised their voices at the sight of them, thinking rescue had come. The soft crying of children who have been terrified for so long that terror has ceased to have any real meaning for them.
They didn't know if the children were somehow an integral part of the jammer, or if they were just there to keep the machine free from human interference.
He remembers how they all came to the slow conclusion that there was no way to separate the children from the machine.
He remembers thinking of the people stranded in Atlantis, rationing more and more, or dying from a lack of medicine. Remembers the mission. Remembers thinking, desperately, that being tied to a Wraith machine on a hive ship without a world to go home to isn't any kind of life anyways.
He remembers Ronon having to knock Lance Corporal Towson out. Towson had a kid brother back home who wouldn't have been any older than these kids.
Remembers thinking that the Wraith were getting smarter, or maybe crueler, and maybe there's not much of a difference between the two.
Remembers being glad that he doesn't have any children of his own as he set the timer, just as McKay had showed him, and ordered the fall-back to the 'jumper.
----
Towson's still unconscious, lolling across Ronon's shoulders, but the two Marines who stayed in the 'jumper make no comment, probably assuming he got in a fight with one of the Wraith.
Sheppard pushes McKay's shoulder wordlessly. McKay gets out of the pilot's seat and moves over, hands activating the co-pilot HUDs automatically. Sheppard gets the 'jumper up and into the middle of the dart bay before the screeching alarm goes off, but they're still cloaked, so he just concentrates hard on maneuvering around darts until they're out in space. He gives them some distance before turning the 'jumper back around to face the hive, and McKay juices the shields without being asked.
They watch the explosion, a small burst of brightness in the center of the dark hive. Little pieces fly out from it. They're still outside of the atmosphere; it doesn't make a sound. Ronon makes a small, gruff noise of approval. One of the Marines swallows audibly.
Sheppard doesn't know what his expression looks like, but he couldn't move his face if he wanted to. McKay glances sidelong at him, and doesn't say anything as they fly back to the city.
----
They got two teams through to the alpha site before the Stargate flickered out again, long before the 38 minute window should have been up. McKay had flung himself at a computer, typing so rapidly that his hands were a blur.
The Wraith were jamming them again.
"They must have another jammer," McKay had said, slumping against the wall in the meeting with all the senior officers. "I don't know if they just have more than one, or if they can build them that quickly."
"We can't go in like that again," Sheppard said.
"The only reason we didn't lose anyone was 'cause we got lucky," Ronon said, and Sheppard had known that Ronon was thinking the same thing he was. There was no limit on the number of children the Wraith had access to. If there was another jammer, there were probably more children hooked up to it, crying hopelessly for their parents.
He thought he could do it again, if he had to, if it would help Atlantis. He didn't like to think too closely about that, but it didn't matter, because he couldn't ask his Marines to go through that again.
"Well, it was worth a shot," Carter had said, rubbing a hand over her face. "We'll have to try to find some other way to get around the jamming signal."
That was four months into the siege. Sometimes Sheppard still dreams about those children. Their voices, their faces, the way one, louder than the rest, had wailed, "I want my daddy," just after he had armed the bomb.
He left out the children, in the official mission report. Carter didn't need the additional burden, and he knew that McKay would read it, looking for whatever it was that had made Sheppard's face so stone-carved when he came back to the 'jumper. He waited for McKay to ask; it must have been obvious to McKay that he had left something out. McKay was annoyingly good at picking up on things like that. But McKay never asked.
He supposes, if he ever wonders why, that there are some things he doesn't ask McKay either.
----
The very last thing to come through the Stargate, before the jamming started, had been a small band of Athosians. No warning, no expectation preceding them, no visions for Teyla or anything like that; just an unscheduled 'gate activation and an old friendly-alien-IDC that they hadn't seen in years.
There were only 15 of them, two of them children. They were all thin, dirty, ragged. They had clung to each other, stumbling through the event horizon and looking around the 'gateroom like they had never expected to see it again.
Teyla had been beside herself, running up and touching her forehead to each one of them in turn before any of them would allow themselves to be consigned to the infirmary. She had stayed there with them, moving from bedside to bedside while they were examined and treated. Sheppard had expected Keller to kick her out-- he would have been kicked out almost immediately-- but apparently Teyla had mastered the fine art of being everywhere at once without getting in the doctors' way, and was allowed to stay.
"They're all suffering from the effects of severe, prolonged exhaustion, they're all malnourished, and most of them are suffering from a variety of ailments related to exposure: sunburn that's approaching third degree, wind burn, small wounds that are infected due to the introduction of dirt to the wound site, things like that," Keller had said, reporting concisely. "One of the children has a broken leg, two of the adults have broken ribs, and one of them has something that looks a lot like bronchitis. Still, all things considered, they're in pretty good shape. No major wounds, nothing life-threatening."
"Good," Sheppard had said, raking his eyes over the infirmary, strategically noting Teyla's location and working out how he could start interrogating the Athosians without her running up to stop him. Ronon was talking to one of the Athosian men; Ronon had been hanging around the infirmary a lot lately, which Sheppard had supposed was good, because it would be nice to have someone on his team with some medical training, and if Ronon wanted to get himself trained, Sheppard wasn't going to stop him. He didn't think Ronon would stop him from talking to the Athosians.
"No," Keller had said, firmly, and Sheppard had winced guiltily. Too obvious. "They need rest, Colonel."
He had slunk out of the infirmary, properly abashed. A minute later, Ronon had come loping out and settled into stride next to him.
"Interesting story," he'd said. "Something about people who looked like them, and looked like us, and weren't. I think they were being experimented on. These," he'd nodded back in the direction of the infirmary, "said they escaped before the experiments got going, and they've been wandering around since."
"Experimented on." Sheppard had frowned. Who would need an entire population just for an experiment? Who had the resources to run that kind of experiment? "Looked like us, but... oh, shit."
Ronon had nodded, face tight. "Yeah. I told Keller to check 'em for nanites."
"I thought we were done with those fuckers," Sheppard had muttered, but he had already been thinking about telling McKay to dredge up the Replicator code again, thinking about security protocol around the infirmary until they were sure the Athosians were clean.
That had been when his radio had crackled into life, Chuck's panicked voice calling him to the 'gateroom, because the sensors had picked up something, sir, the Wraith, I... you need to get up here right away, sir.
----
In the fifth month of the siege, the Wraith figure out a way to disrupt the cloaking system on the puddlejumpers.
They discover this when Captain Pedrona, a good pilot with a medium-strength natural ATA gene, takes a 'jumper out for what has become routine reconnaissance. Twice a week they send a cloaked 'jumper up to inspect the Wraith lines, just to make sure some new weakness they might be able to exploit hasn't arisen. It's Pedrona's turn, and he takes the 'jumper up easily, without the slightest hesitation.
The Wraith blow him away just as easily.
Sheppard rages silently at the loss of an entire 'jumper and, more galling, the loss of a good soldier, a damn good flyer. He had taken Pedrona out for his first 'jumper run, helping the guy learn how to work with his ATA gene, not work against it. He remembers the moment when Pedrona had got it, the slight vibrations that run through a 'jumper fighting its pilot dying away into perfect smooth flight, Pedrona's face lighting up at the same moment. People keep finding him and trying to tell him that it's not his fault, and the ninth time he has to extract himself from an awkward conversation laced with pitying sympathy, he's about ready to commit a murder they can blame on him.
In desperation he goes down to the labs, where McKay and Zelenka are trying to figure out what the Wraith have done and how they did it. The atmosphere in the labs is so tense as to be lethally toxic, but that just means that no one will follow Sheppard there, and absolutely no one will try to offer him solace.
He drags a chair over to an empty corner and hunches in on himself, watching the lab. As expected, no one so much as glances at him. A junior scientist tentatively approaches McKay with data on something other than the 'jumper cloaking system or Wraith technology, and Sheppard lets the resulting verbal explosion calm him down without bothering to think about why it does.
----
Sometimes, now, at night, when the city's blacked out and they can move around a little more freely without the Wraith monitoring their every move, Sheppard will go out to one of the piers, take off his shirt and his boots. He'll jump off the edge into the water.
He'll swim in a straight line out from the city. He'll go as far as he can, swimming until his arms and legs scream back at him and his lungs are aching with the unfamiliar, slightly off salt-tinge of the Lantean sea.
He'll float on his back, staring up at the blinking lights of the Wraith fleet blanketing the sky, until he feels strength returning to his limbs. Then he'll roll over, aiming for the gentle pull of Atlantis on his mind, calling him home, and he'll swim back.
It's the only time he gets away from the city, and has been for a year and a half now.
----
The day after Captain Pedrona had been shot down, Carter called a meeting to seriously discuss rationing protocol. It was, Sheppard thinks, the first time they had really admitted that they were under siege, and that they might be under siege for quite a while.
McKay looked hollow-eyed and pale, but his hands hadn't faltered as he gestured his way through a presentation on the cloak-disruptor the Wraith were using. "This is so advanced for them," he had said. "This, the Stargate jammer... it's not like the Wraith." He had seemed reluctant to say anything else, but in response to Carter's raised eyebrow he had grudgingly added, "I think they're getting help from someone else."
"Who else?" Sheppard had asked. "There isn't anyone else out here technologically advanced enough to be helping the Wraith. They eat anyone who starts trying to develop past the industrial revolution."
Everyone was silent for a minute, thinking that one over.
"Replicators," Zelenka said.
Carter sat up straighter. "I thought--"
"No," McKay interrupted, already getting a far-off look on his face. "No... only, yes, maybe... the implications..." He eyed Zelenka, who nodded.
The familiarity of McKay and Zelenka running so far ahead of everyone else was almost comforting. Sheppard allowed it for a couple of seconds before reigning them back in. "Spill it, Rodney."
McKay looked slightly pained. "Cliff notes version? It would explain how they're getting this technology. It might explain the change in strategy. It would mean that Todd's faction was either defeated or forced into a retreat from this part of the galaxy. I'd be willing to bet it means that there's something in Atlantis the Replicators want and don't mind waiting to get. It would explain why the jammer was out of commission for only a short period of time--"
"We saw that thing," Ronon said. "It was Wraith tech."
"Mimicry is not problem for Replicators. Also, trust," Zelenka said.
Ronon's nose had wrinkled. "Trust?"
Zelenka had opened his mouth, but it was McKay who jumped in. "Trust, yes, because even the Wraith who didn't fight against the Replicator homeworld with Todd weren't exactly thrilled with the Replicators. They wouldn't trust them willingly... they probably wouldn't welcome obviously Replicator technology into their hives, but--"
"--if they billed the stuff as Wraith tech that had been improved, they'd take it on board." Sheppard had been staggered by the entire thing, not least by the fact that the Wraith were trusting Replicator machines on their ships. It was so obviously a terrible idea. If Todd's little rebel group had been defeated, he had to wonder how, when these other Wraith were stupid enough to do shit like this. "That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever--"
"It's possible they know. Or at least the Queens know." McKay had made a hopeless gesture. "Or someone at the top knows. Wraith society, who the hell knows for sure? But they might think the risk is worth it to get the technology, and they're insisting on the mimicry to... I don't know, have it interface better with their own systems, or to keep the soldiers from getting restless, or something."
Teyla cleared her throat softly. "We are here to discuss rationing." She nodded at Carter. "It is a good idea. We may grow some food ourselves, but it will not be much, and we will lack many things. If we can find a way to get to the mainland without being attacked, it will go much easier for us."
"Um, excuse me?" McKay sputtered, incredulous. "You don't care at all that the Wraith may be allied with the Replicators? That the Wraith might have access to Ancient-level technology thanks to the Replicators? That Wraith regenerative abilities might be augmented by nanites? This doesn't freak you out at all?"
"I care very much, Rodney." Teyla wasn't yelling, but she narrowed her eyes a little bit, and that was enough for Sheppard to see the stress getting to her, just like it was getting to all of them. "Do you have a plan? Does this information in some way help us survive right now?" She waited. They all waited. McKay slouched down a little in his seat and exchanged an unreadable look with Zelenka. "I thought not. Setting up a system of rationing and gardening within the city will help us, now. I... we all appreciate the work you are doing, but we must look to the immediate and future survival of our people." She smiled kindly at McKay, like throwing a dog a milkbone after swatting it on the nose. "You of all people must know that we all must eat, Rodney."
"Oh yes, hilarious, joke about hypoglycemia at a time like this."
They had spent the rest of the meeting discussing rationing of food, medicine, various other supplies, and talking about what kinds of food could be grown in the city in what kinds of quantities. McKay and Zelenka ignored everyone, working with their heads together over McKay's laptop. The only other time McKay spoke during that meeting was to briefly agree to ask the chemistry department to look into making an especially nitrogen-rich soil so that the beans they hoped to grow would have a higher protein content.
Rationing was important, Sheppard knew that, but it was clear that Teyla knew more about it than the rest of them combined. He had wanted to see whatever it was that McKay was working on. An offensive strategy, maybe... hell, even a defensive strategy would be more up his alley than farming procedures.
McKay and Zelenka had bolted for the labs as soon as Carter announced the end of the meeting. Sheppard got up to follow them, but stopped when Teyla put a hand on his arm.
"John," she said. "I know you wish to fight. And so do we all. Believe me when I say that it is not to my liking to sit here under the Wraith and do nothing directly against them. But we must survive to fight, and to survive we must attend to these..." she smiled wryly, "...boring matters."
"I know, Teyla, but this is really your kinda thing..."
"And you are the military commander of Atlantis. The people look to you for leadership." She didn't say anything about Colonel Carter, how many people did or still did not trust her leadership completely, but Sheppard heard it anyways.
He sighed. Teyla was right, of course. He had squared his shoulders, made himself smile at her, and followed when she went to talk to the botany department.
----
"Whatcha working on?"
"Busy. Go away."
"C'mon McKay. What is that?"
"Busy. Two syllables, four letters; is that really too hard for you to understand?"
"Rodneeeeyyyyy...."
The glare he gets for that is more than worth it. "Don't you have something better to be doing? Shouldn't you be getting beaten up by Ronon or something? Tilling the fields?"
"Hallways," Sheppard mutters. "Tilling the hallways."
"Go do that, then." McKay types so fast that the clicking sounds of the keys all blur together in one weirdly unique note, a sound Sheppard associates with McKay and Atlantis and the lab.
"I'm a grounded pilot with nothing to fight and no strategy to work out. There's nothing I can do." He means this to come out casual and sarcastic, but he can't stop some of the real hopelessness and frustration from seeping into his voice.
The typing slows down enough for him to hear McKay hitting each individual key. "OK, fine," McKay says. "C'mere." There's no sympathy at all in his words or his tone, but stopping in the middle of his work to explain himself to Sheppard is as good as a sloppy kiss and a thousand fruit baskets from anyone else.
Sheppard scoots a chair around so he can look at the computer, his knee knocking into McKay's. McKay types a command and information starts streaming down the screen. It looks vaguely familiar, but it still takes Sheppard a moment to place it. "Replicator code?"
McKay looks slightly surprised, but nods. "They've made some changes to it since the last time we ran into them. Here, here, here." He flicks his fingernail against the screen, rapidfire, as symbols flash by. Sheppard can't see what he's indicating, but he nods anyways. "If the Wraith really are working with them, and if the Stargate jammer really is at least partially Replicator technology, then if we can disrupt the Replicator code..."
"...we could maybe get the Stargate working again." Or disrupt the de-cloaker, get the puddlejumpers up and out again. Catch the Wraith by surprise, do some damage.
McKay smiles, looking tired. "Right. Maybe. Of course, last time I had a centuries-old Wraith scientist helping me out with this."
"There anything I can do?"
"God, no. Sorry Colonel, you're not as abysmally stupid as most of your military brethren, Sam excepted, but neither one of you is Todd."
Sheppard looks McKay over more closely. His voice is steady enough, same as it always was, but his shirt is slightly loose across his shoulders, and Sheppard has to look away. He sneaks a lot of his rations to McKay, and he knows Ronon does the same. A year and a half of living under siege, and McKay is only just starting to lose weight. Sheppard can't stand to see it. A thinning McKay is wrong.
"I can go grab you some dinner, how's that?"
"That would help, yes. I know it doesn't fulfill your deep-seated military-nursed need to run around and blow things up, but at least you won't be sitting around being counterproductive." Which, hey, ouch, but McKay leans his shoulder into Sheppard's as he speaks, and Sheppard gets what he's saying.
----
Ronon eyes his tray suspiciously. One of the cooks has made the lemon-things they're growing on the East Pier into something like lemony jello. Sheppard likes the lemony jello a lot, but there's none of it on his tray.
Ronon's eyes slide up to meet his. Sheppard tries a lopsided smile and a shrug. Ronon stares at him hard for a second, then reaches up and puts half of his sandwich onto Sheppard's tray. The bread is stringently rationed; they haven't been able to make their own yet, and they're very careful with what the Daedalus managed to get to them.
"Tell him that if he doesn't come out of that lab by tomorrow, I'm gonna drag him out by his neck," Ronon says, already looking back down at what's left of his own food.
"Yeah, OK," Sheppard says. He holds the tray low and sneaks it out of the mess hall, headed for the labs.
----
The crackle of the subspace radio had surprised them all. They had been out of contact with everyone for so long that they had stopped expecting anything to come through.
"Come in, Atlantis," the radio had said. McKay had burst into the 'gateroom, flinging himself at a console, lighting up the sensors. Carter was all the way out on the tip of the South Pier, helping the botanists plant something they were hoping would be mostly like a potato, so Sheppard had been the one to reply.
"Colonel Caldwell?"
There had been a slight burst of static, and Caldwell's voice had come back, strong and relieved. "Good to hear your voice, Colonel Sheppard. This is the Daedalus. What's your status?"
"The city's secure. Food and meds are short. We're working on the 'gate. We can't fly the puddlejumpers without the Wraith shooting them down, they got around our cloaking. We can't get to the mainland, although some of the Athosians are trying to build a rowboat." He had looked around, seen every face in the room turned to him, pale in the white-blue lights of the monitors (except for McKay, who was still trying to pinpoint the Daedalus on the sensors). He had stiffened his spine, going into near-parade rest. "All things considered, we're not bad. Going a little stir crazy, getting a little hungry, but we've only lost a few men, and we're gonna get out of here sooner or later."
Which was pure bluster, of course, but the small smiles he saw around the 'gateroom meant it had been just the right kind of bluster.
"Got 'em!" McKay had chirped, tuning the big screen to the sensor outputs. The thick, solid line of green was the Wraith front; behind that was a solitary blue dot.
"You don't want to stay there, Colonel," Sheppard had said. "If we can pick you up on sensors, so can they."
"We're aware. Even if we just get an hour..." There had been a pause, as though Caldwell had to confirm something with someone else on the Daedalus. "We're too far out to safely beam anything living to or from the ship. But Hermiod assures me that we should be able to beam inert objects down to you."
"Inert objects...?" A bright glow filled the area in front of the Stargate, and when it disappeared, it left a stack of pallets of food in its wake. Another glow swelled up; more food. Another glow; medical supplies. Another glow; ammunition. A ragged cheer went up in the 'gateroom. McKay had dashed onto the balcony, eyes cataloging the pallets, his lips moving as he silently counted to himself. More supplies were beaming in, but already Sheppard could see that it would only be enough to supplement what they'd been doing with the rationing, not enough to sustain them.
It was still better than nothing. And Caldwell had taken an enormous risk bringing the Daedalus this close, after what had happened to the Apollo...
"Sending a databurst now," Caldwell had said. "It's a big one. News from Earth, and whatever intel the SGC's been able to scare up."
Sheppard had watched 5 small green dots break away from the line and start moving towards the blue dot. "You didn't have to come this close in to send a databurst. And you've got..."
"We see them, Sheppard. And we did have to get this close to have a hope of using the Asgard beam."
More little green dots broke off the line. Lots more. "Colonel, you need to get out of there."
Caldwell sounded calm; calmer than anyone on Atlantis had been in months. "We'll hold our position until we've beamed down all the supplies we came with. We didn't pack the Daedalus full and come all the way out here to fail to deliver any of this."
"You need to move." More and more dots were spilling off the line. "Dammit, Caldwell, you saw what happened to the Apollo... this isn't your fight, and Earth can't lose the Daedalus!"
There had been a short silence. More beaming rays lit up the 'gateroom, and the blue dot didn't move on the sensors. When Caldwell spoke again, it was with a hint of static interference. "Believe what you want-- kssh-- Sheppard. You may consider yourself-- kssh-- lantis, but so far as I'm concerned you're still part of the SGC, and you're still part of the US Air Force. So long as we have one way left to get out to Pegasus, we're not going to-- ksssh-- ack down, and we're not going to abandon-- ksssssssh-- no man behind, and that includes you, Sheppard, and your people, whether you like it or not."
The beams had stopped. Sheppard had whipped around to stare at the sensor display; green dots were swarming the blue. "Colonel? Colonel? Caldwell! Daedalus, come in!"
"--ksssssssh-- ave to move out, full power to the shields!, just hang in there Atlantis,-- kssssh-- be back."
"Goddammit Caldwell, get out of there!" Sheppard had been frantic; if only there had been something he could do, if only there'd been anything he could do. "Don't worry about us, we can take care of ourselves, and we'll. We'll blow the fucking 'gate before we let the Wraith get through to Earth. Go!"
"--kssssssssh-- back, we'll be bac-- kssssh-- on't giv-- ksssssh-- soon as-- ksssssssssh-- ear it, Sheppard."
Sheppard had grabbed the console in front of him, knuckles whitening. "Go!"
Finally, finally the blue dot started to move, tiny back-and-forth movements at first, then gaining speed and shedding green dots. It got clear of them, headed away from Atlantis, and disappeared.
"Near as I can tell they made the hyperspace jump," McKay had said, having raced back from the balcony to a laptop as soon as the beaming stopped. "The energy signature... they definitely opened the hyperspace window, and the long-range sensors aren't picking up any bits and pieces, so I think they made it through whole." He had looked up, eyes even wider than usual. "Close, though. If they'd stayed under Wraith fire a couple of minutes longer..."
Carter had burst into the 'gateroom then, sweaty and dirty and with her hair in a crazy blonde cloud around her head, like she'd run all the way from the sort-of-potato patch on the South Pier. "What happened?!"
Sheppard had let Chuck fill her in. He had still been shaking, very very slightly, staring at the sensor output, the spot where the Daedalus had been.
That Caldwell would risk his ship like that-- risk himself like that--
--after the Apollo had been ripped to shreds like its hull was made of soft cheese, going to pieces faster than they'd ever thought possible for an Asgard ship --
That night, Sheppard had composed a letter on his laptop. I don't know if my opinion means anything to you, but if my input carries any weight in the SGC, the IOA, or the USAF at all, I'd like it to be known that I believe Colonel Steven Caldwell is deserving of formal commendation for actions in the face of grave danger going above and beyond the call of duty-- Of course he had no way to send it, no way to get it through to Earth, but if they ever made contact again, even if it was just for a brief databurst transmission, it would be one of the first things he sent.
----
Two months ago, the Athosians finished their rowboat. It was made from scraps of metal and wood, and it wasn't the most elegant sea-faring craft anyone had ever seen, but it was water-tight.
They set out under the cover of darkness, rowing towards the mainland. There were medicinal plants there, and animals. Protein had been sorely lacking from their diet; fruits and vegetables could be grown, but the beans could only make so much protein, and they weren't a substitute for real eggs or meat.
Four Athosians went, along with two Marines and Dr. Keller, who insisted on going in order to identify potentially useful plants. She'd been taking lessons from the botanists.
Atlantis was only a short 'jumper ride from the mainland, but it was a long way to go in a relatively small rowboat without any kind of motor. The sun came up and they were still rowing. Sheppard was watching them from a balcony, keeping them centered in the view of his binoculars. Next to him, McKay, Carter, and Teyla did the same. Ronon was staring out at the water without binoculars, just leaning on the rail and letting the seabreeze gently move his dreads around his face. Nobody said anything; they just listened to the waves and adjusted their binoculars every so often.
They heard the shouting from the 'gateroom a second before the boat, magnified in their binoculars, disappeared in a vertical flume of ocean water.
Nobody had thought the Wraith would bother shooting a non-mechanical boat. They hadn't even been sure the Wraith could pick up something that wasn't putting out an energy signature on their sensors. There were enough sea creatures, enough algae and plankton-equivalents that life sign detectors wouldn't work well on the open water. It was supposed to be a safe mission, almost a milk run.
Sheppard lowered his binoculars. Carter looked sick. Teyla was looking worriedly at Ronon, who was gripping the rail with both hands, staring fixedly out at the spot where the boat had been, breathing really, really hard. Keller, Sheppard thought, and had to look away.
"They must have some kind of visual surveillance," McKay said in a tiny voice, face somewhere on the way to crumpling, also not looking at Ronon. "It's the only explanation, I had no idea, the resolution would have to be incredible--"
"Go find out," Sheppard said. McKay was gone before he could say anything more, and Sheppard was briefly, deeply jealous, wishing like hell that there was something demanding his immediate attention like that, anything at all he could do to make this any better.
----
His door chimes at him. He ignores it, scrolling through the Ancient database for what is probably the thousandth time, looking for something, some as-yet unexplored feature of the city that might come in handy here.
He glances up when the door opens anyways, although he's sure he didn't tell it to do so. McKay storms in and flings himself onto Sheppard's bed. Sheppard raises an eyebrow at him, because this is, well, unexpected.
McKay drapes an arm dramatically over his face and speaks, seemingly to the ceiling. "Did you tell Ronon that I needed beating up? Because I don't appreciate that."
"Uh, no?" Sheppard turns away from his laptop to scrutinize McKay properly. He's wearing a cotton tshirt and what look like his offworld uniform pants. Sweat stains the front of his shirt (and probably the back, and thus now Sheppard's sheets) and he's breathing hard. "Were you just sparring with Ronon?"
"If you can call getting my ass kicked for a couple of hours 'sparring', then yes, I have been sparring with Ronon."
"Why?"
McKay shifts his arm so that he can glare at Sheppard with one eye. "I don't know, I was working in the lab, doing very important things and, I might add, completely minding my own business, when Mr. Big Gun comes stomping in demanding that I go 'train' with him. He was very insistent. I thought you put him up to it."
"Jeez, no," Sheppard says, hands up placatingly. "Swear it. He must've come up with that on his own."
"Oh. Well." McKay sits up, his face starting to turn red. "Sorry about sweating on your bed, then."
"S'OK."
There's a pause. McKay looks down at his hands. Sheppard tries and fails to avoid looking at the belt holding his pants on; the buckle is threaded through a shiny new hole, the worn notch where McKay used to secure it now empty. McKay's still losing weight. Well, they all are; it just seems more noticeable on McKay, whose solid dimensions had been such a comforting constant in Sheppard's life that he didn't even appreciate that he appreciated them until they started dwindling.
"Does he think the Wraith are going to attack soon?" McKay asks, quiet, still looking at his hands. "Is that it? He wants me to be able to fight when they invade the city?"
"He probably just thought it was a good idea and, y'know, no time like the present," Sheppard says, as heartily as he can. McKay shoots him an absolutely withering glare, and of course cheerful bluster is the wrong tack to take with McKay, who's been able to see right through his bullshit from the very start. "I don't know," Sheppard amends. "Why would they attack now, of all times?"
"We've been cut off for a long time," McKay says. He's wringing his hands a little, still staring at them.
And, yeah. It's getting close to two years. But. "But we're not weak, we're not beaten-down. If the point of this siege is to make Atlantis easy to storm, well, it's not there yet."
"Really."
The look McKay shoots him is so open, so frank, that Sheppard can't even handle it. McKay's asking him all sorts of questions with that broad blue gaze, like a stunner blast to Sheppard's brain, he can't handle all that aimed directly at him, but McKay's right here, sitting on his bed, there's nothing to deflect it, nowhere to hide.
He's on his feet before he realizes it. He grabs McKay's face in his hands, holds on tight. "We're gonna get out of this, OK, we're going to, we'll figure out that Replicator code, we'll figure out the Stargate, the Daedalus will come back, we're still here, Ronon and Teyla and you and me and so long as we've got the team we're gonna be OK, we're going to--" and then he's leaning in. He's babbling and it's not helping, so he smothers the words against McKay's mouth.
McKay opens his mouth immediately, his hands fisting in the front of Sheppard's tshirt. Sheppard tries to get his tongue into every part of McKay's mouth at once; McKay tastes strongly like salt, something pungent underneath, all that sweat from fighting with Ronon. It's gross, to be honest, but Sheppard doesn't care. Why the fuck not.
"I'm sorry," McKay says, and Sheppard doesn't know if he means sorry for the kissing, or sorry for any of the most recent set of mechanical failures, or sorry for the Stargate still standing dark and cold, or sorry for Keller, or for any of his Marines, or sorry for all of it, or something else entirely.
"I'm sorry," McKay says, again, words transferred direct to Sheppard's lips. He pushes McKay down onto the bed, fumbles his fly open and jams his hand in there. It's hot and moist and as sweaty as the rest of McKay. McKay's cock is fat and feels good in his grip, hard and alive. His hand is going to smell awful, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care.
McKay arches his back up off the bed, pushing his cock into Sheppard's palm desperately. Sheppard cares about that. He can't do anything; without a fight or a 'jumper to fly, he has so little to offer Atlantis. He can't even keep his own team from being hurt or from going hungry. But this, giving this to McKay, putting this gasping, blissful look on his face-- Sheppard can do this. He has this to give.
----
They had thought, during that first Siege, if only they'd had more time. If only.
During the Second Siege, they have time. They have all the time in the world.
Sheppard finds Carter awake at 2 in the morning, her old SGC jacket wrapped tightly around her shoulders, watching the sensor screen, waiting for that blue dot to come back.
----
He swims so far that he thinks he might have overdone it this time, might not be able to get back. He has to float for a long while before he can make his arms and legs work again. Some weird Lantean sea creatures circle him briefly; they look a little like dolphins, but the profile's slightly off. He's not afraid of them, and they seem more curious about him than anything else. After a while they go away and leave him alone again.
He keeps his arms and legs spread away from his body, increasing his surface area, keeping him afloat on his back. The Wraith fleet blinks at him, covering the sky like a blanket of unnatural stars, some too big, some the wrong color, some pulsating. If he could wipe everything he knew from his mind, if he could forget everything, it might be a pretty sight.
Eventually he flips back over onto his stomach. He closes his eyes and feels for Atlantis with his mind. He swims towards the gentle tug.
He's bone-tired when he gets back to the pier, and he starts to turn back over so that he can float some more, get another burst of strength to haul himself over the edge, but a hand comes down towards him, pale in the black-out darkness.
He grabs it and lets McKay pull him out of the water.
Author: americanleaguer
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: R
Word count: 7,626
Notes: Non-explicit mention of Ronon/Keller. Warning for minor character death. Yes, the tense shifts are intentional.
During the first siege, he would have given anything to have more time. They had discovered that the Wraith ships were on their way, and then they were there. They hadn't had time for anything. If the Daedalus hadn't come; if SG-1 hadn't found that ZPM; if those rail guns hadn't come through and been installed in time...
He remembers thinking, back then, that if they'd had more time, maybe they could have found a way to fight back on their own. McKay would have come up with something, or they would have discovered some new feature of the city (they were still making about a discovery a day, back then) that would have helped them out. If only they'd had more time.
They'd called it a siege. They'd capitalized it, even: The Siege. They'd patted each other on the backs for making it out with the city intact, the invading Wraith dead. There had been too many losses, yes: his own Marines, the Marines who came through in the wave from Earth, Peter Grodin. The losses that were all the more awful because they weren't really losses: Colonel Everett, Lieutenant Ford. Still, they had won, and there hadn't been any doubt about that.
Sheppard's fought a lot of battles, and he knows a thing or two about the difference between a battle and a siege. The Siege had been a battle. A long, intense, complex battle. It wasn't really a siege.
The Second Siege is not a battle.
The Wraith have surrounded the planet with hives, shoulder to shoulder, the gaps filled in with cruisers. Every so often new cruisers come in with their cargo holds full of people, food, so that the hives never have to leave orbit.
Nine months ago the Apollo tried to run the gauntlet of hives. Only a third of the crew managed to get to the escape pods. Only a third of the escape pods survived the explosion. The Daedalus was able to get within radio contact, once, five months ago. The Daedalus hasn't been able to come back, not yet. Earth can't afford to lose another ship.
Nothing gets in and nothing gets out, not even via the Stargate, which is being jammed by some signal from the hives. McKay spent four months solid, at the beginning, trying to figure out what it was and how to counteract it; they had tried their best, but it's been a long, long time since they were able to dial out, these days.
----
The bomb squats in the back of the 'jumper, short and fat and dull matte silver. It looks good; it looks like a bomb. Like something a movie director from the '50s would appreciate. McKay hadn't been able to do much with the Wraith jamming signal, but he's made a beautiful bomb. Sheppard's not surprised. McKay's always been good with bombs.
He's flown into hive dart bays before, and it's easy enough to avoid trouble in a cloaked 'jumper. He sets the 'jumper down carefully, hoping no darts will try to land on top of them. They should be able to remain undetected for a while so long as that doesn't happen. He tells his Marines to do a final equipment check. They tighten tac vests and go over their guns again, testing straps and buckles and safeties.
This gives McKay time to make some last-minute adjustment to the bomb. He works over its tiny command panel with a tiny screwdriver and a couple of wires twisted down into its guts, connected to a tablet. The hive ship thrums and gurgles around them, thin dart whines shooting overhead every few seconds. McKay's hands don't tremble.
Sheppard stands behind him and watches. McKay maneuvers the screwdriver tenderly, delicately, like an artisan working in some intricately detailed medium. Those people who can draw a perfect landscape on a grain of rice, Sheppard thinks, using a brush with a single fiber in it.
McKay's only fine-tuning. Soon enough he untwists the wires, tucks the screwdriver back into his pocket and snaps the panel cover back down. He stands and steps away from the bomb. A dart goes screaming by just off their bow, and for the first time he seems to hear it, wincing sharply.
"Ready?" Sheppard asks.
McKay nods. He looks at the bomb, then at Sheppard, his eyes tracking nervously back and forth. Sheppard wants to catch his eye, but McKay's looking at every part of his face at once and won't be caught.
"Be careful," he says, and Sheppard doesn't know if he means with the bomb or with yourself.
He nods anyways.
----
He remembers the jamming mechanism.
Remembers Ronon stabbing knives into the wall until the door opened, Marines flooding in, weapons raised, ferrying the bomb in their midst. He remembers striding in at the front of the team, looking for a place to put the bomb. It was big enough, McKay had said, that it didn't need to be hooked up to any part of the jammer; it just had to be on a mostly flat surface nearby. McKay had stayed, with a couple of Marines, back at the 'jumper. If something went wrong, they needed a gene carrier to pilot the 'jumper back out, and they couldn't afford to lose McKay anyways.
He can't remember if they had any expectations about the jammer. Probably they did. Probably they expected it to be the usual kind of twistedly organo-technic Wraith machinery, like the hives themselves. Webbed connective tissue. Pulsating sacs. Exposed patches of unnaturally gleaming metal.
He knows that they hadn't expected what they'd found. The twisted tower of wires and green lights and something darkly oiled that was either soft metal or hard flesh, that had been about right. But they had been completely unprepared for the children.
The Wraith had strung children up around the jammer. Children, they guessed, whose worlds had been culled. There were maybe 30 or 40 of them, all somewhere between toddler and early elementary school age. The ones around the bottom of the jammer were tied up with some kind of tendinous fiber that knives couldn't cut and Ronon's blaster couldn't break. The ones higher up on the machine had their chests sealed in with extrusions of that dark, oily surface material, like the jammer was holding them in bulbous fists, their little arms and legs dangling.
They were all conscious.
Sheppard remembers storming in with the Marines. He remembers the way the children all raised their voices at the sight of them, thinking rescue had come. The soft crying of children who have been terrified for so long that terror has ceased to have any real meaning for them.
They didn't know if the children were somehow an integral part of the jammer, or if they were just there to keep the machine free from human interference.
He remembers how they all came to the slow conclusion that there was no way to separate the children from the machine.
He remembers thinking of the people stranded in Atlantis, rationing more and more, or dying from a lack of medicine. Remembers the mission. Remembers thinking, desperately, that being tied to a Wraith machine on a hive ship without a world to go home to isn't any kind of life anyways.
He remembers Ronon having to knock Lance Corporal Towson out. Towson had a kid brother back home who wouldn't have been any older than these kids.
Remembers thinking that the Wraith were getting smarter, or maybe crueler, and maybe there's not much of a difference between the two.
Remembers being glad that he doesn't have any children of his own as he set the timer, just as McKay had showed him, and ordered the fall-back to the 'jumper.
----
Towson's still unconscious, lolling across Ronon's shoulders, but the two Marines who stayed in the 'jumper make no comment, probably assuming he got in a fight with one of the Wraith.
Sheppard pushes McKay's shoulder wordlessly. McKay gets out of the pilot's seat and moves over, hands activating the co-pilot HUDs automatically. Sheppard gets the 'jumper up and into the middle of the dart bay before the screeching alarm goes off, but they're still cloaked, so he just concentrates hard on maneuvering around darts until they're out in space. He gives them some distance before turning the 'jumper back around to face the hive, and McKay juices the shields without being asked.
They watch the explosion, a small burst of brightness in the center of the dark hive. Little pieces fly out from it. They're still outside of the atmosphere; it doesn't make a sound. Ronon makes a small, gruff noise of approval. One of the Marines swallows audibly.
Sheppard doesn't know what his expression looks like, but he couldn't move his face if he wanted to. McKay glances sidelong at him, and doesn't say anything as they fly back to the city.
----
They got two teams through to the alpha site before the Stargate flickered out again, long before the 38 minute window should have been up. McKay had flung himself at a computer, typing so rapidly that his hands were a blur.
The Wraith were jamming them again.
"They must have another jammer," McKay had said, slumping against the wall in the meeting with all the senior officers. "I don't know if they just have more than one, or if they can build them that quickly."
"We can't go in like that again," Sheppard said.
"The only reason we didn't lose anyone was 'cause we got lucky," Ronon said, and Sheppard had known that Ronon was thinking the same thing he was. There was no limit on the number of children the Wraith had access to. If there was another jammer, there were probably more children hooked up to it, crying hopelessly for their parents.
He thought he could do it again, if he had to, if it would help Atlantis. He didn't like to think too closely about that, but it didn't matter, because he couldn't ask his Marines to go through that again.
"Well, it was worth a shot," Carter had said, rubbing a hand over her face. "We'll have to try to find some other way to get around the jamming signal."
That was four months into the siege. Sometimes Sheppard still dreams about those children. Their voices, their faces, the way one, louder than the rest, had wailed, "I want my daddy," just after he had armed the bomb.
He left out the children, in the official mission report. Carter didn't need the additional burden, and he knew that McKay would read it, looking for whatever it was that had made Sheppard's face so stone-carved when he came back to the 'jumper. He waited for McKay to ask; it must have been obvious to McKay that he had left something out. McKay was annoyingly good at picking up on things like that. But McKay never asked.
He supposes, if he ever wonders why, that there are some things he doesn't ask McKay either.
----
The very last thing to come through the Stargate, before the jamming started, had been a small band of Athosians. No warning, no expectation preceding them, no visions for Teyla or anything like that; just an unscheduled 'gate activation and an old friendly-alien-IDC that they hadn't seen in years.
There were only 15 of them, two of them children. They were all thin, dirty, ragged. They had clung to each other, stumbling through the event horizon and looking around the 'gateroom like they had never expected to see it again.
Teyla had been beside herself, running up and touching her forehead to each one of them in turn before any of them would allow themselves to be consigned to the infirmary. She had stayed there with them, moving from bedside to bedside while they were examined and treated. Sheppard had expected Keller to kick her out-- he would have been kicked out almost immediately-- but apparently Teyla had mastered the fine art of being everywhere at once without getting in the doctors' way, and was allowed to stay.
"They're all suffering from the effects of severe, prolonged exhaustion, they're all malnourished, and most of them are suffering from a variety of ailments related to exposure: sunburn that's approaching third degree, wind burn, small wounds that are infected due to the introduction of dirt to the wound site, things like that," Keller had said, reporting concisely. "One of the children has a broken leg, two of the adults have broken ribs, and one of them has something that looks a lot like bronchitis. Still, all things considered, they're in pretty good shape. No major wounds, nothing life-threatening."
"Good," Sheppard had said, raking his eyes over the infirmary, strategically noting Teyla's location and working out how he could start interrogating the Athosians without her running up to stop him. Ronon was talking to one of the Athosian men; Ronon had been hanging around the infirmary a lot lately, which Sheppard had supposed was good, because it would be nice to have someone on his team with some medical training, and if Ronon wanted to get himself trained, Sheppard wasn't going to stop him. He didn't think Ronon would stop him from talking to the Athosians.
"No," Keller had said, firmly, and Sheppard had winced guiltily. Too obvious. "They need rest, Colonel."
He had slunk out of the infirmary, properly abashed. A minute later, Ronon had come loping out and settled into stride next to him.
"Interesting story," he'd said. "Something about people who looked like them, and looked like us, and weren't. I think they were being experimented on. These," he'd nodded back in the direction of the infirmary, "said they escaped before the experiments got going, and they've been wandering around since."
"Experimented on." Sheppard had frowned. Who would need an entire population just for an experiment? Who had the resources to run that kind of experiment? "Looked like us, but... oh, shit."
Ronon had nodded, face tight. "Yeah. I told Keller to check 'em for nanites."
"I thought we were done with those fuckers," Sheppard had muttered, but he had already been thinking about telling McKay to dredge up the Replicator code again, thinking about security protocol around the infirmary until they were sure the Athosians were clean.
That had been when his radio had crackled into life, Chuck's panicked voice calling him to the 'gateroom, because the sensors had picked up something, sir, the Wraith, I... you need to get up here right away, sir.
----
In the fifth month of the siege, the Wraith figure out a way to disrupt the cloaking system on the puddlejumpers.
They discover this when Captain Pedrona, a good pilot with a medium-strength natural ATA gene, takes a 'jumper out for what has become routine reconnaissance. Twice a week they send a cloaked 'jumper up to inspect the Wraith lines, just to make sure some new weakness they might be able to exploit hasn't arisen. It's Pedrona's turn, and he takes the 'jumper up easily, without the slightest hesitation.
The Wraith blow him away just as easily.
Sheppard rages silently at the loss of an entire 'jumper and, more galling, the loss of a good soldier, a damn good flyer. He had taken Pedrona out for his first 'jumper run, helping the guy learn how to work with his ATA gene, not work against it. He remembers the moment when Pedrona had got it, the slight vibrations that run through a 'jumper fighting its pilot dying away into perfect smooth flight, Pedrona's face lighting up at the same moment. People keep finding him and trying to tell him that it's not his fault, and the ninth time he has to extract himself from an awkward conversation laced with pitying sympathy, he's about ready to commit a murder they can blame on him.
In desperation he goes down to the labs, where McKay and Zelenka are trying to figure out what the Wraith have done and how they did it. The atmosphere in the labs is so tense as to be lethally toxic, but that just means that no one will follow Sheppard there, and absolutely no one will try to offer him solace.
He drags a chair over to an empty corner and hunches in on himself, watching the lab. As expected, no one so much as glances at him. A junior scientist tentatively approaches McKay with data on something other than the 'jumper cloaking system or Wraith technology, and Sheppard lets the resulting verbal explosion calm him down without bothering to think about why it does.
----
Sometimes, now, at night, when the city's blacked out and they can move around a little more freely without the Wraith monitoring their every move, Sheppard will go out to one of the piers, take off his shirt and his boots. He'll jump off the edge into the water.
He'll swim in a straight line out from the city. He'll go as far as he can, swimming until his arms and legs scream back at him and his lungs are aching with the unfamiliar, slightly off salt-tinge of the Lantean sea.
He'll float on his back, staring up at the blinking lights of the Wraith fleet blanketing the sky, until he feels strength returning to his limbs. Then he'll roll over, aiming for the gentle pull of Atlantis on his mind, calling him home, and he'll swim back.
It's the only time he gets away from the city, and has been for a year and a half now.
----
The day after Captain Pedrona had been shot down, Carter called a meeting to seriously discuss rationing protocol. It was, Sheppard thinks, the first time they had really admitted that they were under siege, and that they might be under siege for quite a while.
McKay looked hollow-eyed and pale, but his hands hadn't faltered as he gestured his way through a presentation on the cloak-disruptor the Wraith were using. "This is so advanced for them," he had said. "This, the Stargate jammer... it's not like the Wraith." He had seemed reluctant to say anything else, but in response to Carter's raised eyebrow he had grudgingly added, "I think they're getting help from someone else."
"Who else?" Sheppard had asked. "There isn't anyone else out here technologically advanced enough to be helping the Wraith. They eat anyone who starts trying to develop past the industrial revolution."
Everyone was silent for a minute, thinking that one over.
"Replicators," Zelenka said.
Carter sat up straighter. "I thought--"
"No," McKay interrupted, already getting a far-off look on his face. "No... only, yes, maybe... the implications..." He eyed Zelenka, who nodded.
The familiarity of McKay and Zelenka running so far ahead of everyone else was almost comforting. Sheppard allowed it for a couple of seconds before reigning them back in. "Spill it, Rodney."
McKay looked slightly pained. "Cliff notes version? It would explain how they're getting this technology. It might explain the change in strategy. It would mean that Todd's faction was either defeated or forced into a retreat from this part of the galaxy. I'd be willing to bet it means that there's something in Atlantis the Replicators want and don't mind waiting to get. It would explain why the jammer was out of commission for only a short period of time--"
"We saw that thing," Ronon said. "It was Wraith tech."
"Mimicry is not problem for Replicators. Also, trust," Zelenka said.
Ronon's nose had wrinkled. "Trust?"
Zelenka had opened his mouth, but it was McKay who jumped in. "Trust, yes, because even the Wraith who didn't fight against the Replicator homeworld with Todd weren't exactly thrilled with the Replicators. They wouldn't trust them willingly... they probably wouldn't welcome obviously Replicator technology into their hives, but--"
"--if they billed the stuff as Wraith tech that had been improved, they'd take it on board." Sheppard had been staggered by the entire thing, not least by the fact that the Wraith were trusting Replicator machines on their ships. It was so obviously a terrible idea. If Todd's little rebel group had been defeated, he had to wonder how, when these other Wraith were stupid enough to do shit like this. "That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever--"
"It's possible they know. Or at least the Queens know." McKay had made a hopeless gesture. "Or someone at the top knows. Wraith society, who the hell knows for sure? But they might think the risk is worth it to get the technology, and they're insisting on the mimicry to... I don't know, have it interface better with their own systems, or to keep the soldiers from getting restless, or something."
Teyla cleared her throat softly. "We are here to discuss rationing." She nodded at Carter. "It is a good idea. We may grow some food ourselves, but it will not be much, and we will lack many things. If we can find a way to get to the mainland without being attacked, it will go much easier for us."
"Um, excuse me?" McKay sputtered, incredulous. "You don't care at all that the Wraith may be allied with the Replicators? That the Wraith might have access to Ancient-level technology thanks to the Replicators? That Wraith regenerative abilities might be augmented by nanites? This doesn't freak you out at all?"
"I care very much, Rodney." Teyla wasn't yelling, but she narrowed her eyes a little bit, and that was enough for Sheppard to see the stress getting to her, just like it was getting to all of them. "Do you have a plan? Does this information in some way help us survive right now?" She waited. They all waited. McKay slouched down a little in his seat and exchanged an unreadable look with Zelenka. "I thought not. Setting up a system of rationing and gardening within the city will help us, now. I... we all appreciate the work you are doing, but we must look to the immediate and future survival of our people." She smiled kindly at McKay, like throwing a dog a milkbone after swatting it on the nose. "You of all people must know that we all must eat, Rodney."
"Oh yes, hilarious, joke about hypoglycemia at a time like this."
They had spent the rest of the meeting discussing rationing of food, medicine, various other supplies, and talking about what kinds of food could be grown in the city in what kinds of quantities. McKay and Zelenka ignored everyone, working with their heads together over McKay's laptop. The only other time McKay spoke during that meeting was to briefly agree to ask the chemistry department to look into making an especially nitrogen-rich soil so that the beans they hoped to grow would have a higher protein content.
Rationing was important, Sheppard knew that, but it was clear that Teyla knew more about it than the rest of them combined. He had wanted to see whatever it was that McKay was working on. An offensive strategy, maybe... hell, even a defensive strategy would be more up his alley than farming procedures.
McKay and Zelenka had bolted for the labs as soon as Carter announced the end of the meeting. Sheppard got up to follow them, but stopped when Teyla put a hand on his arm.
"John," she said. "I know you wish to fight. And so do we all. Believe me when I say that it is not to my liking to sit here under the Wraith and do nothing directly against them. But we must survive to fight, and to survive we must attend to these..." she smiled wryly, "...boring matters."
"I know, Teyla, but this is really your kinda thing..."
"And you are the military commander of Atlantis. The people look to you for leadership." She didn't say anything about Colonel Carter, how many people did or still did not trust her leadership completely, but Sheppard heard it anyways.
He sighed. Teyla was right, of course. He had squared his shoulders, made himself smile at her, and followed when she went to talk to the botany department.
----
"Whatcha working on?"
"Busy. Go away."
"C'mon McKay. What is that?"
"Busy. Two syllables, four letters; is that really too hard for you to understand?"
"Rodneeeeyyyyy...."
The glare he gets for that is more than worth it. "Don't you have something better to be doing? Shouldn't you be getting beaten up by Ronon or something? Tilling the fields?"
"Hallways," Sheppard mutters. "Tilling the hallways."
"Go do that, then." McKay types so fast that the clicking sounds of the keys all blur together in one weirdly unique note, a sound Sheppard associates with McKay and Atlantis and the lab.
"I'm a grounded pilot with nothing to fight and no strategy to work out. There's nothing I can do." He means this to come out casual and sarcastic, but he can't stop some of the real hopelessness and frustration from seeping into his voice.
The typing slows down enough for him to hear McKay hitting each individual key. "OK, fine," McKay says. "C'mere." There's no sympathy at all in his words or his tone, but stopping in the middle of his work to explain himself to Sheppard is as good as a sloppy kiss and a thousand fruit baskets from anyone else.
Sheppard scoots a chair around so he can look at the computer, his knee knocking into McKay's. McKay types a command and information starts streaming down the screen. It looks vaguely familiar, but it still takes Sheppard a moment to place it. "Replicator code?"
McKay looks slightly surprised, but nods. "They've made some changes to it since the last time we ran into them. Here, here, here." He flicks his fingernail against the screen, rapidfire, as symbols flash by. Sheppard can't see what he's indicating, but he nods anyways. "If the Wraith really are working with them, and if the Stargate jammer really is at least partially Replicator technology, then if we can disrupt the Replicator code..."
"...we could maybe get the Stargate working again." Or disrupt the de-cloaker, get the puddlejumpers up and out again. Catch the Wraith by surprise, do some damage.
McKay smiles, looking tired. "Right. Maybe. Of course, last time I had a centuries-old Wraith scientist helping me out with this."
"There anything I can do?"
"God, no. Sorry Colonel, you're not as abysmally stupid as most of your military brethren, Sam excepted, but neither one of you is Todd."
Sheppard looks McKay over more closely. His voice is steady enough, same as it always was, but his shirt is slightly loose across his shoulders, and Sheppard has to look away. He sneaks a lot of his rations to McKay, and he knows Ronon does the same. A year and a half of living under siege, and McKay is only just starting to lose weight. Sheppard can't stand to see it. A thinning McKay is wrong.
"I can go grab you some dinner, how's that?"
"That would help, yes. I know it doesn't fulfill your deep-seated military-nursed need to run around and blow things up, but at least you won't be sitting around being counterproductive." Which, hey, ouch, but McKay leans his shoulder into Sheppard's as he speaks, and Sheppard gets what he's saying.
----
Ronon eyes his tray suspiciously. One of the cooks has made the lemon-things they're growing on the East Pier into something like lemony jello. Sheppard likes the lemony jello a lot, but there's none of it on his tray.
Ronon's eyes slide up to meet his. Sheppard tries a lopsided smile and a shrug. Ronon stares at him hard for a second, then reaches up and puts half of his sandwich onto Sheppard's tray. The bread is stringently rationed; they haven't been able to make their own yet, and they're very careful with what the Daedalus managed to get to them.
"Tell him that if he doesn't come out of that lab by tomorrow, I'm gonna drag him out by his neck," Ronon says, already looking back down at what's left of his own food.
"Yeah, OK," Sheppard says. He holds the tray low and sneaks it out of the mess hall, headed for the labs.
----
The crackle of the subspace radio had surprised them all. They had been out of contact with everyone for so long that they had stopped expecting anything to come through.
"Come in, Atlantis," the radio had said. McKay had burst into the 'gateroom, flinging himself at a console, lighting up the sensors. Carter was all the way out on the tip of the South Pier, helping the botanists plant something they were hoping would be mostly like a potato, so Sheppard had been the one to reply.
"Colonel Caldwell?"
There had been a slight burst of static, and Caldwell's voice had come back, strong and relieved. "Good to hear your voice, Colonel Sheppard. This is the Daedalus. What's your status?"
"The city's secure. Food and meds are short. We're working on the 'gate. We can't fly the puddlejumpers without the Wraith shooting them down, they got around our cloaking. We can't get to the mainland, although some of the Athosians are trying to build a rowboat." He had looked around, seen every face in the room turned to him, pale in the white-blue lights of the monitors (except for McKay, who was still trying to pinpoint the Daedalus on the sensors). He had stiffened his spine, going into near-parade rest. "All things considered, we're not bad. Going a little stir crazy, getting a little hungry, but we've only lost a few men, and we're gonna get out of here sooner or later."
Which was pure bluster, of course, but the small smiles he saw around the 'gateroom meant it had been just the right kind of bluster.
"Got 'em!" McKay had chirped, tuning the big screen to the sensor outputs. The thick, solid line of green was the Wraith front; behind that was a solitary blue dot.
"You don't want to stay there, Colonel," Sheppard had said. "If we can pick you up on sensors, so can they."
"We're aware. Even if we just get an hour..." There had been a pause, as though Caldwell had to confirm something with someone else on the Daedalus. "We're too far out to safely beam anything living to or from the ship. But Hermiod assures me that we should be able to beam inert objects down to you."
"Inert objects...?" A bright glow filled the area in front of the Stargate, and when it disappeared, it left a stack of pallets of food in its wake. Another glow swelled up; more food. Another glow; medical supplies. Another glow; ammunition. A ragged cheer went up in the 'gateroom. McKay had dashed onto the balcony, eyes cataloging the pallets, his lips moving as he silently counted to himself. More supplies were beaming in, but already Sheppard could see that it would only be enough to supplement what they'd been doing with the rationing, not enough to sustain them.
It was still better than nothing. And Caldwell had taken an enormous risk bringing the Daedalus this close, after what had happened to the Apollo...
"Sending a databurst now," Caldwell had said. "It's a big one. News from Earth, and whatever intel the SGC's been able to scare up."
Sheppard had watched 5 small green dots break away from the line and start moving towards the blue dot. "You didn't have to come this close in to send a databurst. And you've got..."
"We see them, Sheppard. And we did have to get this close to have a hope of using the Asgard beam."
More little green dots broke off the line. Lots more. "Colonel, you need to get out of there."
Caldwell sounded calm; calmer than anyone on Atlantis had been in months. "We'll hold our position until we've beamed down all the supplies we came with. We didn't pack the Daedalus full and come all the way out here to fail to deliver any of this."
"You need to move." More and more dots were spilling off the line. "Dammit, Caldwell, you saw what happened to the Apollo... this isn't your fight, and Earth can't lose the Daedalus!"
There had been a short silence. More beaming rays lit up the 'gateroom, and the blue dot didn't move on the sensors. When Caldwell spoke again, it was with a hint of static interference. "Believe what you want-- kssh-- Sheppard. You may consider yourself-- kssh-- lantis, but so far as I'm concerned you're still part of the SGC, and you're still part of the US Air Force. So long as we have one way left to get out to Pegasus, we're not going to-- ksssh-- ack down, and we're not going to abandon-- ksssssssh-- no man behind, and that includes you, Sheppard, and your people, whether you like it or not."
The beams had stopped. Sheppard had whipped around to stare at the sensor display; green dots were swarming the blue. "Colonel? Colonel? Caldwell! Daedalus, come in!"
"--ksssssssh-- ave to move out, full power to the shields!, just hang in there Atlantis,-- kssssh-- be back."
"Goddammit Caldwell, get out of there!" Sheppard had been frantic; if only there had been something he could do, if only there'd been anything he could do. "Don't worry about us, we can take care of ourselves, and we'll. We'll blow the fucking 'gate before we let the Wraith get through to Earth. Go!"
"--kssssssssh-- back, we'll be bac-- kssssh-- on't giv-- ksssssh-- soon as-- ksssssssssh-- ear it, Sheppard."
Sheppard had grabbed the console in front of him, knuckles whitening. "Go!"
Finally, finally the blue dot started to move, tiny back-and-forth movements at first, then gaining speed and shedding green dots. It got clear of them, headed away from Atlantis, and disappeared.
"Near as I can tell they made the hyperspace jump," McKay had said, having raced back from the balcony to a laptop as soon as the beaming stopped. "The energy signature... they definitely opened the hyperspace window, and the long-range sensors aren't picking up any bits and pieces, so I think they made it through whole." He had looked up, eyes even wider than usual. "Close, though. If they'd stayed under Wraith fire a couple of minutes longer..."
Carter had burst into the 'gateroom then, sweaty and dirty and with her hair in a crazy blonde cloud around her head, like she'd run all the way from the sort-of-potato patch on the South Pier. "What happened?!"
Sheppard had let Chuck fill her in. He had still been shaking, very very slightly, staring at the sensor output, the spot where the Daedalus had been.
That Caldwell would risk his ship like that-- risk himself like that--
--after the Apollo had been ripped to shreds like its hull was made of soft cheese, going to pieces faster than they'd ever thought possible for an Asgard ship --
That night, Sheppard had composed a letter on his laptop. I don't know if my opinion means anything to you, but if my input carries any weight in the SGC, the IOA, or the USAF at all, I'd like it to be known that I believe Colonel Steven Caldwell is deserving of formal commendation for actions in the face of grave danger going above and beyond the call of duty-- Of course he had no way to send it, no way to get it through to Earth, but if they ever made contact again, even if it was just for a brief databurst transmission, it would be one of the first things he sent.
----
Two months ago, the Athosians finished their rowboat. It was made from scraps of metal and wood, and it wasn't the most elegant sea-faring craft anyone had ever seen, but it was water-tight.
They set out under the cover of darkness, rowing towards the mainland. There were medicinal plants there, and animals. Protein had been sorely lacking from their diet; fruits and vegetables could be grown, but the beans could only make so much protein, and they weren't a substitute for real eggs or meat.
Four Athosians went, along with two Marines and Dr. Keller, who insisted on going in order to identify potentially useful plants. She'd been taking lessons from the botanists.
Atlantis was only a short 'jumper ride from the mainland, but it was a long way to go in a relatively small rowboat without any kind of motor. The sun came up and they were still rowing. Sheppard was watching them from a balcony, keeping them centered in the view of his binoculars. Next to him, McKay, Carter, and Teyla did the same. Ronon was staring out at the water without binoculars, just leaning on the rail and letting the seabreeze gently move his dreads around his face. Nobody said anything; they just listened to the waves and adjusted their binoculars every so often.
They heard the shouting from the 'gateroom a second before the boat, magnified in their binoculars, disappeared in a vertical flume of ocean water.
Nobody had thought the Wraith would bother shooting a non-mechanical boat. They hadn't even been sure the Wraith could pick up something that wasn't putting out an energy signature on their sensors. There were enough sea creatures, enough algae and plankton-equivalents that life sign detectors wouldn't work well on the open water. It was supposed to be a safe mission, almost a milk run.
Sheppard lowered his binoculars. Carter looked sick. Teyla was looking worriedly at Ronon, who was gripping the rail with both hands, staring fixedly out at the spot where the boat had been, breathing really, really hard. Keller, Sheppard thought, and had to look away.
"They must have some kind of visual surveillance," McKay said in a tiny voice, face somewhere on the way to crumpling, also not looking at Ronon. "It's the only explanation, I had no idea, the resolution would have to be incredible--"
"Go find out," Sheppard said. McKay was gone before he could say anything more, and Sheppard was briefly, deeply jealous, wishing like hell that there was something demanding his immediate attention like that, anything at all he could do to make this any better.
----
His door chimes at him. He ignores it, scrolling through the Ancient database for what is probably the thousandth time, looking for something, some as-yet unexplored feature of the city that might come in handy here.
He glances up when the door opens anyways, although he's sure he didn't tell it to do so. McKay storms in and flings himself onto Sheppard's bed. Sheppard raises an eyebrow at him, because this is, well, unexpected.
McKay drapes an arm dramatically over his face and speaks, seemingly to the ceiling. "Did you tell Ronon that I needed beating up? Because I don't appreciate that."
"Uh, no?" Sheppard turns away from his laptop to scrutinize McKay properly. He's wearing a cotton tshirt and what look like his offworld uniform pants. Sweat stains the front of his shirt (and probably the back, and thus now Sheppard's sheets) and he's breathing hard. "Were you just sparring with Ronon?"
"If you can call getting my ass kicked for a couple of hours 'sparring', then yes, I have been sparring with Ronon."
"Why?"
McKay shifts his arm so that he can glare at Sheppard with one eye. "I don't know, I was working in the lab, doing very important things and, I might add, completely minding my own business, when Mr. Big Gun comes stomping in demanding that I go 'train' with him. He was very insistent. I thought you put him up to it."
"Jeez, no," Sheppard says, hands up placatingly. "Swear it. He must've come up with that on his own."
"Oh. Well." McKay sits up, his face starting to turn red. "Sorry about sweating on your bed, then."
"S'OK."
There's a pause. McKay looks down at his hands. Sheppard tries and fails to avoid looking at the belt holding his pants on; the buckle is threaded through a shiny new hole, the worn notch where McKay used to secure it now empty. McKay's still losing weight. Well, they all are; it just seems more noticeable on McKay, whose solid dimensions had been such a comforting constant in Sheppard's life that he didn't even appreciate that he appreciated them until they started dwindling.
"Does he think the Wraith are going to attack soon?" McKay asks, quiet, still looking at his hands. "Is that it? He wants me to be able to fight when they invade the city?"
"He probably just thought it was a good idea and, y'know, no time like the present," Sheppard says, as heartily as he can. McKay shoots him an absolutely withering glare, and of course cheerful bluster is the wrong tack to take with McKay, who's been able to see right through his bullshit from the very start. "I don't know," Sheppard amends. "Why would they attack now, of all times?"
"We've been cut off for a long time," McKay says. He's wringing his hands a little, still staring at them.
And, yeah. It's getting close to two years. But. "But we're not weak, we're not beaten-down. If the point of this siege is to make Atlantis easy to storm, well, it's not there yet."
"Really."
The look McKay shoots him is so open, so frank, that Sheppard can't even handle it. McKay's asking him all sorts of questions with that broad blue gaze, like a stunner blast to Sheppard's brain, he can't handle all that aimed directly at him, but McKay's right here, sitting on his bed, there's nothing to deflect it, nowhere to hide.
He's on his feet before he realizes it. He grabs McKay's face in his hands, holds on tight. "We're gonna get out of this, OK, we're going to, we'll figure out that Replicator code, we'll figure out the Stargate, the Daedalus will come back, we're still here, Ronon and Teyla and you and me and so long as we've got the team we're gonna be OK, we're going to--" and then he's leaning in. He's babbling and it's not helping, so he smothers the words against McKay's mouth.
McKay opens his mouth immediately, his hands fisting in the front of Sheppard's tshirt. Sheppard tries to get his tongue into every part of McKay's mouth at once; McKay tastes strongly like salt, something pungent underneath, all that sweat from fighting with Ronon. It's gross, to be honest, but Sheppard doesn't care. Why the fuck not.
"I'm sorry," McKay says, and Sheppard doesn't know if he means sorry for the kissing, or sorry for any of the most recent set of mechanical failures, or sorry for the Stargate still standing dark and cold, or sorry for Keller, or for any of his Marines, or sorry for all of it, or something else entirely.
"I'm sorry," McKay says, again, words transferred direct to Sheppard's lips. He pushes McKay down onto the bed, fumbles his fly open and jams his hand in there. It's hot and moist and as sweaty as the rest of McKay. McKay's cock is fat and feels good in his grip, hard and alive. His hand is going to smell awful, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care.
McKay arches his back up off the bed, pushing his cock into Sheppard's palm desperately. Sheppard cares about that. He can't do anything; without a fight or a 'jumper to fly, he has so little to offer Atlantis. He can't even keep his own team from being hurt or from going hungry. But this, giving this to McKay, putting this gasping, blissful look on his face-- Sheppard can do this. He has this to give.
----
They had thought, during that first Siege, if only they'd had more time. If only.
During the Second Siege, they have time. They have all the time in the world.
Sheppard finds Carter awake at 2 in the morning, her old SGC jacket wrapped tightly around her shoulders, watching the sensor screen, waiting for that blue dot to come back.
----
He swims so far that he thinks he might have overdone it this time, might not be able to get back. He has to float for a long while before he can make his arms and legs work again. Some weird Lantean sea creatures circle him briefly; they look a little like dolphins, but the profile's slightly off. He's not afraid of them, and they seem more curious about him than anything else. After a while they go away and leave him alone again.
He keeps his arms and legs spread away from his body, increasing his surface area, keeping him afloat on his back. The Wraith fleet blinks at him, covering the sky like a blanket of unnatural stars, some too big, some the wrong color, some pulsating. If he could wipe everything he knew from his mind, if he could forget everything, it might be a pretty sight.
Eventually he flips back over onto his stomach. He closes his eyes and feels for Atlantis with his mind. He swims towards the gentle tug.
He's bone-tired when he gets back to the pier, and he starts to turn back over so that he can float some more, get another burst of strength to haul himself over the edge, but a hand comes down towards him, pale in the black-out darkness.
He grabs it and lets McKay pull him out of the water.