Disclaimer: We own nothing but this story itself. Any recognisable charaters/locations belong to the Stargate franchise.
The noise was deafening; the shouting and the screaming; the gunfire and the blaster shots.
Whatever was hidden within the tree line was unlike anything they had ever encountered, unseen, invisible to the naked eye. Bullets apparently made of nothing whizzed through the air, invisible yet deadly.
McKay was running through the trees trying to get to Sheppard with the awful news. He passed a man fallen and dead, his eyes staring at the canopy above him as if straining to see the sun through the densely packed leaves.
He turned his head, gasping for air as he ran more panicked than before.
He saw John up ahead crouched behind a tree, firing at the darkness not even sure where to aim.
"Sheppard!" McKay shouted as he came to halt beside John, unsteady on the uneven ground.
"McKay, get DOWN!!" He shouted too late as McKay was struck in the shoulder and taken forcefully off his feet.
As Rodney fell, he could see the shock on Johns face as he tried to grab him. Darkness exploded as his head struck a rock under the soft green moss.
"Come on, McKay,come ON!"
He could hear Sheppard out of breath, could feel his body being dragged roughly over the ground as the gun fight continued around them.
As he stirred all movement stopped and he found himself laying in an awkward position.
"McKay?"
"Um, I should have got down, shouldn't I?" He murmured as some of the fog left his mind.
"That would've been a good idea McKay, yeah."
He tried to sit up and gasped at the pain in his shoulder.
"Yeah, you won't be holding Torren John for a while." John said with a flicker of a smile.
"Oh, ha ha! You know, a little sympathy would not go a miss?" Rodney said as he gingerly felt the lump on the back of his head.
"Yeah well, I leave my sympathy for those who are NOT stupid enough to stand in the line of fire." He grinned.
McKay got unsteadily to his feet and John helped him the rest of the way back to camp, leaving the other marines to battle it out with the unknown.
"What the bloody hell happened?" Carson bellowed as he saw John help McKay to the back of the first puddle jumper.
"Damn ghoul hit me in the shoulder." McKay said as John helped his sit down. "Not to mention I hit my head when I...fell."
"Well McKay, you gave them plenty of opportunity, not like they could have missed..."
"Just...Sheppard...GAH!" McKay flustered with frustration and pain.
"Alright you two, that's enough. Now, let me have a look."
As Carson looked over the wounds to his head and shoulder, McKay fidgeted away one handed on his tablet. Words streamed up the screen and his eyes had trouble focussing on them.
"This is what I was coming to tell you." He said looking away from the screen and handing the tablet to Sheppard. "I contacted... OW!! My God Carson!! Why don't you just stick a FIST in the wound!"
"Oh for pitys sake Rodney, don't be such a big girl."
"What? No, I will NOT fall into this argument. I have too many important things to discuss on what may very well be the final days of Atlantis."
"Ever the drama Queen, never the Wraith Queen." Carson murmured.
McKay shot him a look then sighed and looked back to John.
"I contacted Earth, to get reinforcements."
"And? When are they coming? How many are they sending?" He said as he looked at the screen but not reading it.
"Well see that's the thing. They are not."
"What do you mean they are not? We are getting killed out here! And what about the Daedalus, are they sending it back here?"
"They have decommissioned the Daedalus. They are shutting it all down."
Even Carson stopped prodding around the wound in McKay's shoulder, and joined John in giving him an incredulous stare.
"Okay. I know you have been wounded and all Rodney, but, are you sure that rock didn't take away the last of your senses, coz I think you just said they are shutting everything down." John said uneasily.
"I'm sorry John, but they have cancelled Atlantis, and we are now on our own."
As the words sank in, John became redder and more agitated.
"Do you mean to tell me, that they are cancelling Atlantis and leaving us high and dry?? After all this time, and us out here far from home battling God knows what, they are going to LEAVE us HERE!"
McKay just stared at him and noted John looking at him funny as he felt the wetness spreading down his back.
"It's all...all...he said...I..."
Carson caught him as he slumped to the side.
"Bad time to start shooting the messenger Colonel, let me get him fixed up then we can get things straightened out."
"Woolsey! This is Sheppard, come in."
He had been waiting for this, ever since McKay left to play the bearer of bad tidings. The data stream that Earth sent was brief and to the point, and now he had to try and reason with an irate colonel with little in the way of facts to give him.
"Colonel Sheppard, what can I do for you?"
"You know damn well why I am calling!"
"Yes, well, I can't say I did not expect it."
"You wanna tell me what the hell is going on?"
"I'm sure Dr McKay would have fully..."
"McKay is injured." John interrupted "Now, you wanna tell me why he is saying we are cancelled?"
Woolsey rubbed his hand on his brow, the news had shocked him just as much and now he wished he had stayed in bed.
"Colonel Sheppard, I know as much about the situation as you do. Believe me when I say I am trying to get back in contact with Earth to figure out what is happening. Now, what is your status there?"
John could tell he was going to get nothing from Woolsey, realising this also affected him.
"Situation is worse. We can not see them, we do not know if we are hitting them, and we still do not know what they are. Needless to say, if we can not hold them back, Atlantis is next."
"Well all I can ask is that you do your best until I can get reinforcements."
John could not believe it had started three weeks ago. Random events that seemed completely unrelated. Planets disappearing, stars becoming dark, rumors of invisible bad guys killing off life. The randomness became a pattern that quickly spread across the Pegasus Galaxy, leaving only a few worlds untouched.And they could do nothing to fight it. Bullets were useless, blasters were useless. Nothing was working and people were dying. Even the wraith had become uneasy allies, but even they could do nothing except watch the darkness engulf the light.
John shook his head. Do your best? What did he think they were doing?
He walked back to see how McKay was doing, finding Carson settling him under a field blanket.
"He will be out fer a wee while, that was a nasty knock he took. Shoulder should be ok, I jist need tae get him back to the infirmary."
"No can do Doc, I can not let any of the jumpers out of here in case I have to order a full retreat."
"Colonel, you don't seem tae understand. I have five men here all needing tae return tae Atlantis fer immediate medical treatment. You may HAVE to order a full retreat. By yer ain admission, we are getting nowhere fighting these...things."
John looked around himself, seeing the badly injured, the walking wounded. He stared into the distance at where the gun fight still rang out. He shook his head and activated his com.
"This is Colonel Sheppard. All units retreat, I repeat, all units retreat. We are heading back to Atlantis."
McKay was sitting up in bed, staring at a computer screen when Sheppard walked through the infirmary doors.
"You never stop do you? I always wondered why you had never invented the damn thing that would link that laptop straight into your brain ." He said dryly.
"Yes, well, I COULD invent it, but I choose not to. And while you stand there being smart, I am here finding out vital information for saving Atlantis." McKay replied smugly, laying the laptop onto his legs.
"Yeah, care to fill me in on the cancellation first?"
"Yes, well. The PTB on Earth, the ones who fund the Stargate programme, have decided that they want to fund another project instead. As a result, we no longer have the backup from Earth, nor the option to go home."
"So basically, what you are saying is, we're screwed."
"Not necessarily. I uncovered a hidden message in the communiqué from Earth. It took me a while to figure it out, but...look at this!"
Rodney turned the laptop around to show John, whose eyes opened in surprised confusion.
"The fans support you? What the hell does that mean?"
"The fans? You know, the people who have supported us for the last five years?"
"I know who they are, but what can the fans do to help us?"
"See that's the thing! It turns out these fans are really smart, okay not as smart as me but still, they have devised a way to try and help us."
John stared doubtfully at Rodney.
"And they also have information as to what the Ghouls actually are..." Rodney said pressing a button on the laptop.
This piqued John's interest and he looked again at the screen.
"Pococurante." John said flatly. "Oh well THAT makes all the difference! I mean, now we know that they have a freaky name, we will totally defeat them!"
"Do you need a towel to mop up the sarcasm dripping from your mouth? I mean seriously, if your sarcasm took liquid form you could single-handedly sink Atlantis...Again!"
"Come on McKay, how does knowing their name help us?"
"According to these guys, they are the physical manifestation of the indifference back on Earth by those who would abandon Atlantis."
"So we are fighting some kind of...feeling or lack thereof? What? Are you hearing yourself McKay? Do you want me to go get the Doc for you?"
"John, this makes sense! The cancellation was announced on Earth on the 21st of August, and that's the day these things started to appear! Or...not appear...but you get the picture!"
"Yeah, I get the picture alright. We're screwed."
A/N
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