Long Journey Home
Day 1
Rodney stood by one of the drone ports on the outside of Atlantis. He had a pair of binoculars in one hand, and was looking towards the outside doors of the Jumper Bay with an air of impatience. Finally the doors opened, and a jumper glided up into the sky.
Gracefully, it gained height and levelled off about a hundred meters above Rodney. He touched his earpiece.
"You need to be a little higher than that." He said, slightly exasperated.
"I know Rodney," replied an equally annoyed John, who was piloting the jumper. "That was the plan. I was just going to check you were ready."
"I've been ready for half an hour."
All right, all right, I'm going." John grinned at Dr Zelenka and Ford, who were fiddling with a test drone from the SGC. "Are you two finished?"
"We are now." Replied Ford, as they put away their tools and took seats in the fore section of the jumper. Zelenka closed the door as he passed.
"Right. Rodney," he started over his radio, "I'm opening the rear door. We'll drop the drone when we reach the right altitude."
"Okay. Elizabeth, we're nearly ready."
"Right you are Rodney," replied Elizabeth, who was in the Chair Room. She smiled encouragingly at Cadman, who was sitting in the chair. Just recently she and Rodney had been forced to share his body. After that, they had developed a good platonic relationship, and she had also discovered she had a talent with Ancient technology that competed with John's.
In a low orbit above Atlantis, John looked over to Zelenka. "Release the drone, Doctor." The scientist touched a button, and the drone dropped out the open rear hatch. It fell back until its cable was tight.
When he felt the ever so slight jerk in the jumper's controls, John turned it around. He took it into a dive that mimicked a dart heading for Atlantis. As soon as their sensor's detected it, Elizabeth said,
"Remember, make sure you target the drone, not the jumper." Cadman nodded an acknowledgment. "Fire one drone."
"Yes ma'am." Replied Cadman. She concentrated hard.
By Rodney, the drone port opened, and a single yellow blur leapt up. The port closed behind it, as Rodney tracked the blur with his binoculars. "One drone away," he reported to John and Elizabeth.
"Acknowledged," replied John. He cut the radio contact, and immediately pulled out of the dive. He began to throw the jumper left and right, trying to shake the drone, while the test drone followed in tow.
In the Chair Room, Cadman visibly mimicked the jumper's movements as she kept the drone locked on its target. It could keep track of his movements normally without help, but the extra intelligence allowed it to predict John's movements and actually catch him.
John dropped the jumper into a free fall dive well away from the drone, then pulled up suddenly, a manoeuvre that he'd seen a Wraith dart use to avoid a drone. The drone matched his movements exactly.
With inertial dampers and artificial gravity, the jumper's passengers didn't feel the violent manoeuvres impossible in a normal Earth fighter. The test drone, however, was being thrown around wildly, making the drone's job a lot harder.
Despite John pulling every trick in every book he knew, which would have easily lost a normal missile, the Ancient's weapon wouldn't budge. Inch by inch, it got closer, until it impacted on the test drone, which exploded.
The jumper, unharmed by its brief tailing fireball, turned to make a graceful landing on one of the piers near Rodney. The physicist came next to it, and waited for the passengers to disembark.
"That was good! I got some good readings from that." Rodney paused when he saw Zelenka and Ford sorting out a second test drone. "Err, what are you doing?"
"You should always repeat an experiment, to check the first results were not a fluke. You should know that by know Rodney. It's your turn to take some readings in the jumper, and I'll watch, so we don't make the same mistakes twice." Zelenka said, matter-of-factly.
"We're ready for the second test, Rodney." Elizabeth said over the radio. Her excellent timing made Rodney sure this had been a set up.
"Why am I the only one who didn't know about this?" Asked Rodney, far from pleased.
"I'm sure I told you when we were planning." Replied Zelenka.
"Don't worry Rodney," added Cadman, who was also listening in, "I won't let it hit you. Besides, I thought you like flying." She grinned at Elizabeth, who just smothered a laugh. The both knew full well his opinions of John's flying.
"Oh yes, I love it." He replied sarcastically.
"Rodney!" Elizabeth started warningly, "Get in the jumper."
"All right! I suppose with the inertial dampers, I won't notice." He sighed, sounding put upon, and walked into the jumper.
Behind his back, John and Ford shared a grin.
When they reached the correct altitude they released the test drone again. John fiddled with a few controls, and then he turned to face his passengers.
"Strap in." He said, and turned back to his controls.
"What about the inertial dampers?" Asked Rodney, a shade panicked.
"I'm turning them down. Hopefully it'll give me a little more manoeuvrability."
"And you're telling me this now!"
"I'm sure I mentioned it before."
"No!"
"Oh, sorry." John grinned so that Rodney couldn't see him. Without warning, he took them through a tight loop that pinned the all to their seats, and the drone followed.
After a short time, Cadman opened her eyes in surprise. Something felt different, wrong even. Seeing Elizabeth's concerned glance, she closed her eyes and concentrated again. She felt all the weapons, all the shields, and half of Atlantis's other systems at her control, but she couldn't find that one drone.
"Err, Doctor Weir, I can't find the drone!" She said, more than a little panicked.
"What do you mean?"
"I've lost control of it."
"It's been destroyed, or stopped working?"
"No, it's definitely there, the sensors can see it. It just isn't following any of my orders."
The implications hit Elizabeth straight away. "Keep trying." She said, and then touched her earpiece. "John, the drone is out of our control. Abort the experiment."
"Right you are Elizabeth. We'll be back down in a couple of minutes."
John turned to Ford, "Drop the drone."
Ford nodded and touched the control. John felt a little lurch as it fell away. They waited for the explosion, but it didn't come. John pulled up a rear view.
The bright yellow point that was the drone was still following, but he could see their test drone dropping towards the sea.
"Err, Atlantis, we have a problem." He winced at the misquoting. "The drone is still chasing us."
"Can you lose it?"
"Not when it's this close, particularly as the Daedalus is so close. It could go for her instead."
"Stand by."
In the mean time, John looked at Rodney. "Any ideas?"
"The chair should have been able to abort it."
"They said they'd lost control of it."
"Then I haven't a clue."
"Right. I'm contacting the Daedalus."
Aboard the Daedalus, the duty officer acknowledged the message. "We've raised shields. Can we help at all?"
"Can you shoot the drone down?" Replied John, hopefully.
"Not without getting you as well."
"Right, well, get ready to go into hyperspace if the drone goes for you."
"Roger, we're spinning up the drive now."
Rodney had his head in his hands, and was practically leaning on the controls. Whether he was in thought or in prayer, John and Ford couldn't tell. Privately John suspected the latter. Suddenly he looked up, eyes alight.
"That's it!" He practically yelled.
"What?" said John, only half concentrating as he tried to shake off the drone.
"Hyperspace! Get the Daedalus to open a window, and then get the drone to go into it. Problem solved!"
"Right. And how do I achieve that?"
"I don't know. You're the pilot."
"Right…" John said slowly, as he took them through a tight turn.
Rodney held a brief discussion with first the duty officer, then one of the engineers on the Daedalus, explaining what he wanted to do, and then had John fly closer than he wanted to the battle cruiser. Ahead of her, the Daedalus projected a hyperspace window, and John directed them towards the multi-hued area of space.
At the absolute last moment before they crossed the event horizon of the window, John flipped them away. For a moment, the drone kept going, but no longer. It performed an impressive turn and kept following the jumper. All the stunt had achieved was gaining them a little distance.
John brought them about once more.
"Any more bright ideas?"
"Afraid not, sorry." Replied Rodney, ignoring the sarcasm.
"In that case, tell the Daedalus to be ready to shut down their hyper drive. They'll know when."
"What are you going to do?"
"You'll see…"
John turned them to face the hyperspace window, and put the throttles to their stops, which wasn't that much more. At first Rodney thought they were just going to try his idea again. Then he realised John's intentions.
"We can't go in there! We could be destroyed!" He said, a shade panicked.
"Compared to what? You can't think I can dodge this thing forever."
"But…"
"Too late!" John cut across him, just as they crossed the event horizon, and vanished.
The drone lost its lock at that instant, and spun to face the Daedalus. Almost lazily, one of the deck guns moved and picked it off in a stream of rail gun fire.
"So where have they gone?" Elizabeth looked at Zelenka.
"Well… we're not sure. They could be anywhere along what is a wide channel." He indicated it on one of their star charts. They could have dropped out anywhere along here."
"Will they know where they are?"
"In theory, yes, so long as they don't gain too much damage and they should be able to find a gate." He tapped a button, and the worlds with stargates glowed. "We'll just have to hope they have enough food and water to get there. I they ended up here," he indicated a few small areas in the channel, "it could be hazy."
"Well, we'll send the Daedalus there first, and then expand the search if we don't find them, or they don't return before then."
"They're best off looking for debris," another man put in.
Elizabeth spun around, and pinned the scientist, who happened to be Kavanaugh's replacement, with her fiercest glare. The man held up his hands in surrender. "I'm just saying that they're unlikely to have survived the journey. Jumpers are designed for gate travel, not hyperspace."
If looks could have killed, the man's shadow would have been etched into the wall, along with the rest of him, by now.
Elizabeth kept her voice level, but her tone had the force of a laser. "We will not be giving up until we find them and we definitely do not need pessimism like that. Your predecessor learnt what happens when people act like that on my team; don't make me repeat myself again. Oh, and we won't be talking about this ever again."
Zelenka had only heard Elizabeth use that tone on Kavanuagh, and he'd been reassigned as soon as they had power for the gate to get to Earth. As the scientist scuttled away, her face softened and she faced Zelenka. "Find then Doctor."
He nodded, and headed off to the Daedalus's pier.
John woke up face down on the jumper's controls. His head felt like it had been sawn in two, and he could feel indents along his forehead that matched the controls in front of him.
Turning around, and trying not to pass out from the pain, he heard a groan from Ford, who was sitting in his chair, stirring. He too showed signs of his one-sided fight with his controls.
Rodney was lying flat out on the floor, not making any sound or movement. John got up to check him over.
John woke up, on the floor this time, a couple of seconds later. Rodney was also showing signs of alertness. They looked into each other's eyes, and, not quite aware of what was going on, Rodney smiled, and said, "G'd Mornin'."
After a short time, both men caught up with current events, and simultaneously got the idea that they were in bed. Together.
They both sat up in shock, and then took in their surroundings. Aside from a few spots of blood where John had fallen the second time and opened a cut on his forehead, the jumper was in good shape. There was no obvious damage, and nothing was burning.
"Well, we made it." John remarked idly, as he explored the wounds on his forehead, wincing.
"Doesn't fell like it." Replied Rodney, as he inspected his head with his hands, which was aching a lot.
John looked up at Ford, who hadn't really moved except for turning around. His eyes were strangely unfocussed, and he didn't seem up to date with the situation. "Are you alright Lieutenant?"
"Sir?" He asked, confused.
"He looks concussed." Commented Rodney, "Let's get him to lie down."
Together, valiantly ignoring sore heads and protesting muscles, they hefted Ford onto one of the benches, where he quickly fell asleep. Happy that he seemed fine, the two men settled themselves into the control chairs.
"Right, now, where are we?" John said.
At his thought, a star chart appeared on the front screen. A box expanded, highlighting their position. When he wondered where the nearest stargate was, the planets with them on flashed.
"I assume those planets have gates." Rodney pointed at the glowing ones. "So, this one's nearest." He pointed to it, "How far is that?"
A distance and ETA appeared. It was about three days aware.
"Well, we'd better get going." John touched the controls, and the jumper set off. "He set the auto-guidance system, and then got up and reached for the first aid kit. "Now, I need an aspirin." Rodney agreed.
Elizabeth looked at the rest of the people in the room.
"According to Dr Zelenka's simulations, there is an 87 chance that the jumper and its occupants survived without serious damage. As such, I'm going to divert most of our resources to the search. The Daedalus will jump to the furthest point the jumper could have emerged. On its way it will drop out of hyperspace at regular intervals in order to scan for the jumper. If she doesn't find it, then she is to turn around and begin a search pattern along the corridor."
Commander Caldwell nodded as he accepted the instructions, even if he didn't agree with the expenditure of resources for just three men. In his mind he began to work out the best method of finding them.
"Meanwhile, we will begin to send teams to the planets that are along the corridor. Teyla, we'll rely on your knowledge of the planets to assist us."
"I will do my best." She replied.
"Right." Elizabeth rubbed her hands together, anticipating a short search. "Does everyone have any questions?"
"I've got one. Err…" The lieutenant acting in John's role until he returned started nervously. "I know all three of the men are important to this mission, and I for one hope we find them soon, but are they important enough to utilize all of Atlantis's personnel?"
The people on either side of him subtly shifted sidewise, and he suddenly felt very exposed.
"Yes." Replied Elizabeth simply.
"Okay." The man recognised an escape when he saw it.
"Good, now, let's find our people."
Dr Zelenka was discussing the problem of locating the jumper with the Daedalus's resident Azgard.
"Would it not be better for us to start a search pattern from the beginning?" Hermiod asked
"It would be more efficient, yes, but time is of the essence. This plan will let us cover the area where the jumper could have emerged faster and then only do a thorough search if it's necessary.
Hermiod nodded, and then said, "The hyperdrive is ready."
"Right." Zelenka touched the internal comms. "Zelenka to Bridge. We're ready to go."
"Okay Doctor."
Zelenka rocked a little as the Daedalus took off, and then turned towards the sensor's controls. Under his breath he muttered, "I hope we find them."
John winced as Rodney tended his cut. "Are you sure you know what you are doing?"
"Yes!" Rodney snapped, concentrating on what he was doing. He taped the last steri-strip over the cut, and then took a step back, examining his work. "There we go." The last words trailed off into a yawn, and John replied with one of his own, scowling. He glanced at his watch, it was about ten in the evening, and despite the few hours spent unconscious, he was exhausted.
"If we're both going to sleep, and I doubt either of us can stay awake any longer," he added, countering any argument from Rodney, "we should go into stealth mode. The jumper will keep going on anyway."
"What if the Daedalus comes past?" Replied Rodney.
"What if the Wraith come past?" Countered John.
"True."
John concentrated for a moment, and then the jumper cloaked.
"I'll let you have the other bench, seeing as you won't be any real use in an emergency." John said, teasing him.
"Thanks!"
John, ignoring the sarcasm, made himself in his seat, and quickly fell into a deep sleep, with Rodney's light snores surprisingly comforting in the background.
Above the invisible jumper, a hyperspace window opened, and the Daedalus emerged. It quickly scanned the area, an action the jumper dutifully recorded. John's ear-piece, which he'd taken out before he settled down, crackled into life for a moment.
"Jumper 1, this is the Daedalus, do you read?"
None of the men noticed the message, or the numerous repeats.
The Daedalus did one last scan of the system, but the jumper's slight emissions, all that penetrated the cloak, were lost in the Daedalus's own much larger interference. She opened another hyperspace window ahead of her, and the battle cruiser disappeared into it.
Underneath, serenely unaware of the activity above it, the jumper continued to drift on into the night.