The Albatross of Atlantis
By Tipper
Disclaimer: Stargate: Atlantis and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story was created for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s), not me. Thank you to the amazing writers, producers, actors, crew and directors who bring these shows to life.
Characters: Zelenka, with some Rodney, a little Elizabeth and a touch of Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon and Lorne.
A/N: Inspired by The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a lovely copy of which I got for Christmas. I'm attempting to mimic the story, sort of, from that awesome poem.
Description: When another storm hits Atlantis, a very human error could not only compromise the City's main source of fresh water, but kill two of its senior staff.
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Water, water everywhere
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water everywhere
Nor any drop to drink – Coleridge
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"They're failing!" Radek yelled, typing quickly into the computer in the Control Room. "Rodney, I can not keep up! You must get out of there!"
"I can't!" Rodney yelled back across the line. "Sheppard is still unconscious! You have to fix this, Radek! Whatever you did, undo it!"
Radek grimaced, his eyes charting the ebbs and flows of the pressure inside the main desalination tanks, trying to stay ahead of the flooding and keep the tanks from exploding from the water pressure. It was a frightening counterpoint to the ebb and flow of the massive storm currently raging over Atlantis—the main cause for the overflowing tanks, whose sensors had failed to recognize that they'd sucked in too much water.
"Rodney, I can't do both! I can't undo the work, and deal with the building pressure!"
"Well, I'd love to help you, Radek," came the reply, heavily laden with sarcasm, "but someone's clever plan made anyone with the gene touching the panels down here a potentially fatal experience!"
"I already said I'm sorry!" Radek snapped back, his face flushing deep red from embarrassment.
"I don't want an apology! I want you to fix this! Now!"
Radek expelled a harsh breath, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "I'm trying!"
"Your 'trying' isn't good enough! I need you to do it! I got Sheppard's heart beating again, but I don't know for how long! He needs Carson!"
Radek's fingers slipped at the words, and he hit the delete key with far more force than necessary to fix the line of code he had just screwed up.
"Radek!"
"I'm doing it!" he shouted back, then, in a thick whisper, he repeated it, just for himself. "I'm doing it."
He'd only been trying to make some of the primary systems, like control of the desalination tanks, more accessible to non-gene carriers—like himself. It was frustrating to know that half of the science staff, including Rodney, could mentally interface with certain systems with a touch of their fingers, while the other half had to go through slower, more conventional methods—namely laptops. Rodney had reviewed his work, agreed that it was a sound hypothesis and...if it worked, beneficial. But it hadn't worked. Worse, it had backfired spectacularly—and injured Colonel Sheppard, nearly fatally.
He swallowed thickly as he heard Carson's calming brogue take over the line, providing instructions to Rodney about how to take care of the Colonel.
A massive storm was raging around the still fragile city—it had come from nowhere—and when they'd attempted to raise the shield, Radek's code had somehow interfered with the command codes. For some reason, instead of allowing additional access to the primary systems—like the shield—it had blocked all access entirely. Radek had immediately started to try to unwind what he had done with Rodney's help, when a lightning strike had unluckily hit an unprotected section of the north pier—still weak from damage from the major storm two years previous—and the bolt had fried the sensors around one of the desalination tanks located nearby. Because of the vitality of the desalination systems, Rodney had raced down there with Sheppard at his back, the Colonel going along to provide what help he could with his gene.
A massive shock "like another lightning bolt," Rodney had described it, exploded from the main control console next to the tank right into the Colonel, and it had taken performing CPR to get his heart beating again—at least for now. And then the entire area they'd been working in had exploded when the desalination tank—the one they'd gone down there to fix—had burst from water pressure, injuring Rodney as well. And now both men were trapped in a rapidly flooding area...and if the other tanks exploded—all now showing the same signs of strain—not only would they lose Rodney and the Colonel, they would lose their main source of fresh water in Atlantis.
Lightning crackled outside, and he glanced up, momentarily shaken from his focus on the computer screen by just how bright that last strike had been. Water poured down all the windows in solid sheets; wind whistled around the tower like a Banshee's scream; and the few potted plants on the balconies slammed against the blurred glass like the Ancients themselves were hammering with their fists, demanding to be let in. Elizabeth shivered by his side, wrapping her thin arms more tightly around her. People circled around them in blue, tan and black, keeping the other systems working even as they waited for Zelenka to save them...
"Rodney," Elizabeth called, her eyes on the main screen showing the life signs as she attempted to sound calm, "Can you move him at all?"
"Not with my leg like this, Elizabeth. I can't even stand up. I could maybe drag myself to somewhere safer, but not both of us—at least, not far."
She hissed a breath, her eyes tracking the life signs readings lighting up the lower sections of Atlantis, deep inside the heart of the north pier—hundreds of feet below where she stood. Two sets of people strove to get through the bulkheads that had slammed down, blocking off that section from the rest of the city. Ronon and Teyla led one, Major Lorne the other.
"Ronon," she called them, "Teyla. How far are you from the Colonel and Rodney?"
"We're at least five doors away, Elizabeth," Teyla informed her, her voice revealing no fear or inflection. It was the woman's default tone in a crisis—she never panicked or got angry or even tense. She just leveled out. Radek, trying desperately to force Atlantis to return control of its primary systems to its people and not the computers, couldn't help but feel envious of that much control.
"Major," Elizabeth still stood right on top of him, never letting up on her presence, anxiety radiating off of her in waves, "how about you?"
"About the same, ma'am," Lorne replied curtly. "I'm sorry—it's just taking too long. We're going to need a miracle."
"A miracle," she breathed, looking down at the increasingly frantic Radek. "Or a system restore button."
Radek's fingers hitched again, then resumed typing. Unfortunately, there was no such button. No simple reset that would allow them to put the system back to its original state. Each system had been affected differently by the code he'd inputted, each adapting to the new commands only to the extent that the code could effectively override the ATA requirement—working well in some, like the desalination tank controls, while doing next to nothing in others, like the Chair. The result was that the code had settled in a different location in every system, and had modified itself to fit wherever it had wormed its way in, and now was too deeply embedded to just pull out—weighing heavily on the different systems like an albatross around their necks.
"Doctor Zelenka! Doctor Weir!" The heavyset Doctor Vogel looked up from his study of a different console behind Zelenka's back, the blue lights reflecting off his silver rimmed glasses, "Tank Two has gone critical! And there is nowhere else to reroute the pressure!"
Elizabeth hissed in a breath. "That's near the Chair room," she noted darkly, her eyes on the other main screen in the room—this one showing the five main tanks flashing towards overflowing. One was already bright red—the one that had blown, one was orange, and the rest in yellow. Tank Two was in orange on the south side of the City. "Will it flood that room?" Her green eyes had grown colder, turning to look over at Doctor Vogel. The stout American swallowed, lowering his head to avoid that gaze.
"Yes," he stammered. "It would flood. Could...it could...cause pretty terrible damage..." He lowered his head more, really hiding his face from her. Elizabeth lowered her own head and turned around to look again down at Radek.
"The Chair room?" Rodney sounded oddly breathless over the line, his anger replaced by something else—more like true panic. "Radek!"
"Rodney, I'm busy!"
"No, Radek! Listen to me—we can't lose the Chair room! Forget us! The Chair is more important! Send the water to Tank Four—if it blows, it will only damage the empty north pier where we are—which is already damaged, so no big deal."
"Except that it would surely kill you both for sure, and, if they don't turn around now, Teyla, Ronon, Lorne and the others."
"Then clear them out! Teyla, Lorne—back out now!"
"Rodney," Elizabeth straightened, "What about the two of you?"
"I might be able to keep us safe...I think I can pull us into this little alcove—should be enough. We'll be okay."
"Are you sure?"
"No. But the stakes, Elizabeth...we can't lose the Chair room."
"Doctor Weir?" Teyla calm voice showed its first signs of cracking. "We do not wish to leave."
"Then don't!" Zelenka gave a short, sharp jerk of his head, a clear visual no. "Don't listen to Rodney. I'm not going to—"
"You are not in charge, Radek!" Rodney snapped. "I'm still your boss! And, in these matters, I'm theirs as well, unless overruled by Elizabeth. Teyla, Ronon, Lorne, BACK OFF! And reroute that pressure, Radek!"
"Rodney!" Zelenka glanced at the life signs on the screen to his right, saw the two bright lights trapped near the busted Tank Five. "Don't make me do this!"
"Doctor Zelenka," Elizabeth said quietly, getting even closer to Radek, so that she was shedding a shadow over his laptop. "Rodney's right." She took in a deep breath, and started issuing orders. "Major Lorne, Teyla, Ronon—all of you fall back. Rodney, do what you can to get yourself and Colonel Sheppard to a safe place. Radek..."
"No!" The Czech had returned to his frantic typing, seeking a way to fix this. To equalize the pressure again. To stop his friends from dying. " I won't do it!"
"Radek..."
"Zastavit lisování mne!" he snapped furiously.
"I'm not pressuring you," she replied quietly, moving forward so that he would see her over the top of his laptop. "I'm ordering you. Rodney's right—we can't lose the Chair room."
Radek's fingers froze, the lines of text on the screen swimming together.
The Chair...
Suddenly, he was minimizing the window on his screen and opening another, calling up the links to the Chair room. "Wait!" he ground out, "wait, wait, wait...I may have a way..."
"What? What are you doing?" Rodney demanded. "Radek?"
"System Restore," Radek breathed. "If I can reset one of the systems that the code didn't affect..."
"What are you saying?" Elizabeth was staring at him over the top of the console, her eyes unnaturally bright as another lightning strike filled the room.
Radek licked his lips, lowering his eyes from hers back to the computer. "The code only really took with the more accessible yet still primary systems—like the desalination tanks and the shields—but not with the systems that have always been most closely tied to the gene, like the Chair. The code should not have affected the Chair's systems as broadly..."
"And if you can reset the Chair, you can use that code to reset the other systems, using its baseline code as a guide." Rodney finished, sounding now almost as excited as Radek. "Yes! Do it!"
"What about Tank Two?" Elizabeth asked, looking up towards the screen.
"Depending on how fast Radek can work," Rodney answered, "if he gets me access to the systems again, I can expel the pressure from all the tanks and some of the flooded sections from the main tank console down here."
"The one that shocked Colonel Sheppard?" Elizabeth said, now looking towards the life signs.
"Yes—hence why we came down here, remember? It's still working. I just...can't get anywhere near it right now."
"I've found it," Radek called gleefully, "I've found the code in the Chair's system!" He was rapidly working to erase it, highlighting and deleting text as quickly as he could. As he'd suspected, the Chair systems had just put it to one side, locked it away in a redundant line of coding, one unlikely ever to be activated. "Miko," he called into his radio, "You following me?"
"Yes!" the Japanese woman called back from where she was down in the auxiliary control room, tracking his work and cleaning up anything he might be missing. "It appears to be deleting successfully. It's not reappearing anywhere else that I can see."
"Tank Two's going to explode!" Vogel suddenly shouted.
"Reroute as much pressure as you can to Tank Four," Elizabeth commanded him. "Now!"
Zelenka swallowed thickly, not even looking up as he continued to rapidly clean out his code.
"Rerouting," Vogel snapped back.
"Teyla, Ronon, Lorne," Elizabeth was still looking at the life signs screen, "Get out of there! Run, if you have to!"
On cue, the two clumps of steady yellow lights started to move swiftly from the north pier.
"Rodney," Elizabeth called, "You need to move into that—"
"I have to be near the main console, Elizabeth, in case Radek—"
"There isn't time, Rodney!" Elizabeth was focused on the other screen. Tank Four turned red. "Tank Four is going to blow!" As she watched, Tanks Three and One also turned orange—both close to the main residential sections of the city, where the bulk of their people were holed up, trying to stay out of harm's way. Many could die if those two burst...
"I've got it!" Zelenka shouted, rebooting the Chair's system. "I just have to—"
But he was too late. The whole City shook with the explosion of water from Tank Four, and Elizabeth staggered into Zelenka's console, grabbing on with both hands. Water could be heard rushing over the comm. link, and the screens showed all of the north pier flashing blue—the whole thing was flooding. Rodney bellowed a wordless, terrified shout, and all eyes looked at the life signs screen...to see two lights blink out on the north pier.
Zelenka stared at the screen, his own blue eyes wide with shock, his pale lips parted in a breathless gasp.
He'd been too slow.
For a moment, it felt like the world had stopped around him, the only light being that of the main screen as the north pier grew larger, flashed bluer, brightening as the tiny subcity out there died before his eyes...
Just as Rodney and Colonel Sheppard had just done.
He'd killed them.
Elizabeth was shouting, but he couldn't hear her. Someone hit his shoulder as they ran behind him, but he barely felt it.
Then, crazily, he heard Rodney in his head. Sharp, strident tones screaming at him to wake up, to finish, to do something.
It sounded almost...real...
"RADEK!" Rodney screamed incredibly loudly. "WAKE THE HELL UP AND FINISH! NOW!"
Zelenka jolted awake, and realized Elizabeth was leaning over the console, looking like she had just been about to grab him with both hands, probably to shake him.
"Radek!" She yelled at him, her eyes bright. "Sensors are all down! We can't see the extent of the damage, but you have to finish now! Before it kills them!"
Zelenka blinked rapidly, shaking his head and refocusing on the screen. Without another word, he cut and pasted the clean codes from the Chair into the system for the desalination tank and watched as it overrode the existing, worm riddled code...
"It's done," he said, watching the systems all turn to green on his screen. "Rodney! If you can hear me, it's—"
"About time! I'm up to my waist in tepid water, Radek, and barely holding up the Colonel's head. I'm going to prop him against the console, so it had better be—"
"It is," Radek assured quickly. "It is!"
Rodney huffed over the line, "Good. And...yes, it's working, responding to my gene! Oh, thank God. Okay, I'm opening the secondary valves, to expel the excess into the ocean..." He trailed off.
They all turned to look at the big screen showing the tanks. As they watched...Tanks One, Two and Three suddenly, almost abruptly, went from orange back to steady green. Elizabeth exhaled a heavy breath and leaned against her console.
"There. Done. And I'm also unflooding...deflooding...are those even words? I'm getting the water out of this section." Sure enough, lights appeared on the screen, and the blue lit North Pier slowly returned to a steady, clear green. No one said anything for a while, just watched, waiting...
Finally, Elizabeth obviously couldn't take the silence anymore. "Rodney?" she called, leaning against Radek's console.
"Yeah. Yeah, we're here. Um... If you want to come and get us now," Rodney sucked in a shaky breath, "that would be good."
"We're on our way," Teyla informed him, her voice back to steady calm, but there was a hint of relief in it. "Can you release the rest of the doors blocking us from you?"
"I...yes," Rodney now sounded very tired, "With the risk gone, Atlantis is...yeah. Doors should be opening."
"Confirmed," the Canadian sergeant on Zelenka's left stated for their benefit. "Atlantis has released her lockdown of the north pier."
"I've got a medical team coming up behind you, Teyla," Carson added, easing more of the tension in the Control Room. "Rodney—we'll be there in two shakes. Just you and the Colonel hang on."
"Hanging on," Rodney replied very tiredly this time, no longer sounding as panicked. It was a good sign.
Elizabeth smiled then, looking at Zelenka. The Czech was leaning forward on the console, resting his head in his hands.
"Radek," she called quietly, getting him to look up. "Good job."
He gave a wry grimace in return, not really ready to accept any sort of praise until Sheppard and Rodney were both rescued and under Carson's care. Hell, he didn't really deserve any in the first place, considering it was his work that had caused the problem to begin with. If he hadn't thought to use the Chair...
"And Radek," Rodney called, sighing heavily. "Thanks."
Zelenka lowered his head, shaking it even though he knew the scientist couldn't see him. How could he thank him? He'd nearly killed him! "Rodney, I'm—"
"Oh, Christ," Rodney sighed again, cutting him off. "Don't you dare. I'm too tired for this, Radek."
Radek frowned a little, confused. "Too tired for what?"
"To argue with you and stop you from feeling guilty. That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? You were going to apologize, right? So, you made a mistake. You fixed it. We learned something and we're all okay, thanks to you—and that's all that matters. Suck it up, accept the praise and thanks for a job well done, and move on."
Zelenka snorted, unable to not smile a little at his boss's words. "But, still I—"
"Look, I know a little of what I speak. Move on, Radek, move on."
Radek let out a breath, shutting his eyes for a moment. Rodney was a belligerent ass, but he had his moments. When he opened his eyes again, he nodded. "Moving on," he said into the radio, and looked up at Elizabeth, who was watching him with a knowing smile. "And thank you," he told her. She just nodded.
A sudden jagged bolt of lightning once more lit the control room, and Elizabeth looked over towards the windows...then back at Zelenka.
"And now, maybe," her lips curled up even more, "you might work your magic on the shield, so we can get out of this rain? I think we've had enough of water for one day."
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The End (of this story)
Hope you liked it! I wrote this very fast, so I'm still a bit leery of it. I'm still not sure if the Albatross is Sheppard or ATA gene carriers in general, but I think it works either way.
I'm hoping this is the first in a series of poem based fics. We'll see if I manage it. :) Thanks for reading!