Hitchhiker
Rating: K+ (Might be changed to 'T' later on)
Genre: Adventure/Humor
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis or the Hitchhiker's series, thank God, otherwise I would mangle it beyond belief.
A/N: The following story supposedly takes place after the events of the episode 'Missing' and after the events in the book Life, the Universe, and Everything, though it is hard to tell, as the very fabric of space-time is warped in this fic. Contains some spoilers for season four of SGA and the Hitchhiker's series.
Prologue
The Prologue of this Story, also known as the Overly Long Chapter to Explain How This Entire Mess Started (OLCEHTEMS).
This annoying Prologue is brought to you by OMG, Object Management Group. "When in doubt, one calls OMG."
It all began with the planet Krikkit.
Actually, a more accurate accusation would be 'It all began with Arthur Dent, who happened to be on the planet Kirkkit,' as the planet itself didn't really do anything but exist. So:
It all began with Arthur Dent, who happened to be on the planet Kirkkit. Though he didn't know it, he was about to cause one of the Universe's greatest threats to its existence to emerge.
Kirkkit slowly turned in its diurnal course. Arthur blearily woke up to the sound of the Krikkit men singing.
"Heigh-ho, away we go,/With faces shinin' and hearts a-glowin'..."
Arthur groaned and rolled over in his bed. The idyllic world had been at first a paradise, the perfect place to settle down in, away from all those nasty creepy aliens and especially those revolting Vogons. But as time went on, paradise became a sort of prison ment for the mentally insane, if a prison had singing farmers and beautiful scenery. In that case, life became a dull and monotonous reality show which nobody watched, which caused Arthur Dent to feel bored. And making Arthur Dent feel bored was very hard, as he was often boring himself.
He had enjoyed listening to the inhabitant of Kirkkit's songs when he first arrived. Heck, he even joined in once in a while.
Now, whenever the Kirkkit people sang, Arthur ran far away to find some earplugs. Unfortunately, earplugs haven't been invented on the planet, as there was no need for them, so the Earthman had to silently suffer.
"Away to work we go, with shovels and hammers, oh!/Spreadin' some mistletoe and potato..."
Those were Kirkkit songs. Short, simple, and sometimes annoyingly pointless and nonsensical.
Arthur lay in bed, hands firmly clasped over his ears, trying his best to drown out their cheery voices. He was so sick and tired of listening to their upbeat and quiet songs that he was just about ready to throw himself off a cliff.
His alarm clock rang with a resounding forcefulness. "6:00 AM," it chirped. "Time to get up! Time to get up! Time to--"
Arthur knocked it down. The alarm clock wailed louder in pain. "Shut the bloody hell up," Arthur mumbled. A shadow drifted over him.
He never saw the spaceship coming until it landed right on his house.
Meanwhile, in an entirely different galaxy (Pegasus) on an entirely different planet (definitely not Lantia), in a city created by a civilization called the 'Ancients' (Atlantis), was a very pissed off Lieutenant Colonel (John Sheppard).
"What do you mean the Stargate is broken?" John glared at the genius standing across from him. That genius happened to be Rodney McKay.
"The Stargate's not really 'broken'," Rodney snapped. He hurried to another computer. "There's something messing up the systems in the gate that enables it to make stable wormholes. Look, it's probably just a small hiccup in the system, a glitch. Give me an hour and I'll have it fixed."
"So the Stargate is broken," John said in a matter-of-factly way, "until you fix it."
"No," Rodney said. He paused. "Yes."
"Good. I'll get Zelenka to help you."
"What? Hey, as much as I appreciate the company, this is a problem I can solve on my own."
"The Stargate's been acting up since breakfast, McKay. And you've been working on this 'small hiccup' since then. How long ago was that?"
"It was probably only a... handful of hours, uh, five or so..." Rodney looked a bit sheepish.
"... And I want this solved as soon as possible. We're completely isolated, and unable to radio Stargate Command if we need their help. And we have teams off-world. And--"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Rodney muttered. "We're screwed if I don't fix it in time."
"I'm glad you understand, Rodney," John said. "Radio me when you're done." He left. Rodney wearily sighed and squinted at the computers.
At that moment, a previously unactivated minor program began to activate itself, but was quickly silenced by the more vicious major programs. If Rodney had bothered to check that minor program, he would've seen the source of the problem and would have managed to single-handedly avert the coming disaster, and then he would've returned to Earth, triumphant and hailed as a hero before retiring back to Atlantis for some coffee and cookies.
Unfortunately, he did not check the minor program, nor did the major programs allow it to warn Rodney. And so, the poor minor program, out-prioritized by the major programs, faded into the background.
Somewhere on Atlantis, Major Lorne was making his daily rounds, unaware that he was going to have one of the strangest experiences in his life.
Arthur had experienced some pretty weird things in his lifetime. He had narrowly escaped the destruction of Earth, saw the end of the Universe, had his limbs melt and solidify again in the Improbability Field in the ship Heart of Gold, went back to prehistoric Earth, saved the Universe not once, but twice, and found the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything (which was 42), not exactly in that order. He also knew how to fly, but that's an unneccesary piece of information.
However, he never had the experience of a ship landing on his house.
Arthur, who had somehow managed to jump out of the way in time, scrambled to his feet, spitting out the grass in his mouth. The space ship, which was oblong and a sleek silver and sitting where the Earthman's house had been, gave a low hum as it unfolded a set of very oblong and sleek silver stairs.
Arthur stared.
A man, who happened to be a native Betelgeusian, waltzed out with a towel slung across his neck and an infuriatingly calm smile on his face. "Hi Arthur, thanks for getting us into trouble again."
"Uh, hi Ford," Arthur said uncertainty. "You destroyed my house, you know."
"I know," Ford Prefect said, "but it doesn't matter now because you caused a dimensional rift in the very fabric of space-time, awakening a very dangerous force called DOE, which may cause the whole entire universe to collapse from intense paradoxes."
"Huh?"
"Just come along, Earthman. We have a lot of things to talk over."
John stepped out of Colonel Carter's office and turned on his radio.
"Rodney?"
"Yeah, what?"
"It didn't work."
A brief silence. John could hear the soft beeping of computers in the background.
"It... wait, wait, what do you mean it didn't work?" Rodney finally said.
"When I say that it didn't work, I mean that it didn't work!"
"That makes no sense! The gate should properly create and sustain a wormhole now!"
"Well it didn't!"
"What!"
"I told you, McKay..."
"No, no, I wasn't talking to you." The furious clacking of typing. In the background, he could hear Zelenka muttering to himself in Czech. "Oh," Rodney said in a strange tone.
John's soldier sense was beginning to buzz, which was never a good sign. "What do you mean by 'oh'?"
"I'll get back to you later on that." The radio clicked off.
"McKay!" John shouted, even though he knew it was too late.
"Colonel?" one of the technicians, Chuck, called. "We're receiving a transmission."
"Patch it through." John ran over to Chuck's side. Chuck nodded and pressed the appropriate buttons.
At that exact same moment the Stargate activated.
"What?"
"No," Ford said in an irritated tone. "WOT. Waste of Time. Haven't you been listening to me?"
Arthur slumped in his chair. "Wait, let me try to get this all together. I woke up the DOE, which then causes the space-time fabric to fold upon itself, which lets other dimensions to interact?"
"And intense paradoxes," Ford emphasized.
"And intense paradoxes," Arthur agreed. "So, uh, the DOE would be...?"
"Destroyer of Everything," Ford said.
"Destroyer of Everything," Arthur repeated. "Okay. What does WOT have to do with this now?"
"Absolutely nothing, since it's a Waste of Time, you see."
"Ah." Arthur had no clue what was going on but nodded anyway. "That sounds very serious."
"It is serious. I've been trying to tell you that it's extremely serious since I've dragged you onto this ship," Ford shouted in exasperation.
Silence. Then:
"Oh. So..." Arthur struggled for words. "Why do I have to come along again?"
"Because you need to put the DOE back to sleep."
"Why not somebody else?"
"Because you woke him up," Ford said in such an accusing tone that the ship's computer began to scream that it didn't do some obscure crime. "So it's your responsiblity. I'm taking you to him right now."
"Now?"
"Yes, now. Didn't your people have some sort of saying about it? 'Make corn while the sun shines?'"
"It's 'make hay while the sun shines!'" Arthur shouted.
"Oh. I thought it was something like that." Ford muttered something under his breath. "Hang on, this ship gives one hell of a kick when it jumps into hyperspace." Ford pressed the button.
With a hiss and sputter the ship leaped into the nothingness, leaving only a thick trail of smoke behind.
A/N: Well, that's it for the Overly Long Prologue, thank goodness. Tell me what you think of it. Reviews are loved.