Castaways by Baroqy
Summary: McKay and Sheppard are stranded on a planet with no hope of immediate rescue. Both men discover that the business of surviving is fairly tedious – right up until Sheppard gets infected with a parasite.
Features: Psycho McKay, Psycho Sheppard and obligatory Shep whumping. Can it get any more fun than that?
Disclaimer: I don't own them or Atlantis or any of that stuff. It's all somebody else's intellectual property. Lucky bastards. I'm just playing with them temporarily and promise to return them when I'm done or they're too broken to be entertaining.
Feedback: That would be cool since it's my first serious fanfic. If you're inclined to offering some beta services that would also be appreciated. The story is actually finished but it's in dire need of editing. Think of it this way – if you like the story and you decide to beta you'll get to read new chapters before anyone else does.
Notes: Any medical errors or armed forces errors are all mine. I've ramped up Lorne and others to act like actual Marines as opposed to girls. Consequently everyone is definitely more potty mouthed. Except for Weir of course. Heh.
Usage Notes: The words 'stargate' and 'jumper' are not capitalized because I use them as common nouns, rather than proper nouns.
((--))
Chapter One
Rodney McKay surveyed the damage to the control systems in the jumper and knew that there was only one answer he could give with any certainty. "We're screwed. We are so totally screwed. The cards are cracked right up the middle and I'd bypass them but there isn't a spare card to bypass to and even if I could find a way to create a jury rigged card we'd need more than one and..."
He ran out of things to say at that point. It wasn't even an answer really. Just random thoughts passing directly from his brain to his mouth. The answer he wanted to give wasn't available and the one thing that frustrated him above all else was being defeated by a problem. Hence the verbal deluge that he'd been running for the past ten minutes. A more suitable answer would have been, "I can get this up and running in a day or so." If only. Instead he was faced with at least six fried control cards and a jumper that had been hemorrhaging power as soon as Sheppard had plowed the ship into the atmosphere.
Mind you, there hadn't been a lot of choice when the stargate exploded.
That was something Rodney didn't see every day. An exploding stargate. In fact, he couldn't even fathom what would be powerful enough to destroy a stargate, apart from the biggies nature tended to throw around. Then again the disappearance of the stargate had become a secondary concern once the jumper had failed. The damage from the resulting shockwave had turned the jumper into a flying brick and Sheppard had only just managed to land it on the shoreline of a continent in the southern hemisphere.
Sheppard fiddled with the console while Rodney tried figuring out whether he could fix the jumper enough to get it airborne.
"We're sort of screwed. Not totally screwed. There's a difference."
"Thanks for the optimistic sentiments, Colonel. I feel so much more cheerful."
Sheppard swiveled around in the pilot's chair. "If that made you happy you're going to love the next part."
"Which is?"
"If the jumper's almost out of power then you'd better start deciding what we can do without."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning every time we go near a console it lights up. That means we keep using power and I'm guessing we probably want to reserve power for the important stuff. Right?"
Rodney nodded, found himself wondering why he hadn't thought of it first. "Yes, yes. Of course."
"So that means we need to shut down everything we can do without. Anything that's surplus."
The seriousness of the situation began to hit Rodney. Repeatedly and just like a school boy bully. He was no good at this whole survival stuff and it was throwing off his ability to think straight. Yes, he came through in the end but not without considerable anxiety. Survival at any cost was getting into Sheppard's area. "What do you suggest?"
Sheppard got out of his chair and went and keyed the hatch open. They both looked outside, got a good view of a windswept beach. Waves crashed foaming and high into the shore. A few bird-like creatures scurried across the sand in a constant search for food. Sheppard stood, staring outside, and Rodney was not one for coping with extended silences.
He offered a prompt. "Well?"
Sheppard turned back to him. "We're going to have to leave the hatch down."
Wind swept into the jumper. Rodney shivered. It was chilly and that meant being uncomfortable and he never liked being uncomfortable. He also wasn't a big fan of whatever may have been lurking outside as it could probably get inside. "What exactly do you mean by leaving the hatch down?"
"Every time the hatch closes or opens we use power."
Rodney's genius brain clicked. "Oh hell. Yes. If we run out of power when the hatch is closed…"
"We're stuck," concluded Sheppard.
The Ancients, bless them, included so many fail safes in their system they had failed to include any manual bypasses for much of their technology. Including the hatch. In some ways it made sense. You didn't want some lunatic manually keying open the hatch in the middle of space, or under the ocean but it did make for tricky rescue situations.
"Yes. Yes. That's right. Okay, any thoughts on what we should leave going?"
"At this point in time, I'd like some heat," replied Sheppard.
"That's going to drain right out of the open hatch."
"We can rig a barrier. It won't be completely insulated but it should help. The question is, even with everything else powered down, are we going to have enough remaining charge to keep warm?"
Rodney did a quick mental calculation in his head. They could get heat. Not enough to be toasty but enough to keep them from dying if the temperature got any cooler. Which meant he needed to get rid of any tiny power usage that was going to mess up their chances of surviving for more than a week. He pointed back towards the controls.
"Right, you need to remember to turn off the air recycling, most of life support, uh…" Rodney clicked his fingers together, getting his brain to work its way through the jumper schematics he could recall from memory. "I think the HUD is independent but it's wrecked anyway. Power it down to be safe. The hatch we've got covered. Inertial dampeners need to be disconnected. I'll just yank the cabling. The computer and DHD need their control crystals pulled to deactivate them and that's it. We can figure out how to power up the radio later."
Sheppard nodded and they moved forward into the cockpit together. Sheppard began powering down and at the same time, Rodney applied himself to disconnecting anything that would be inclined to start getting shiny around the A.T.A gene.
In their haste to power down the key systems Rodney kept thinking he'd forgotten something important. A second later, the thought he'd been trying to grasp crossed back into conscious thought.
"Wait!"
Sheppard's hand hovered over the console.
"What?"
"Don't we want to set up a homing beacon? You know, guide the rescue party to us?"
"That would depend, Rodney."
"On what?"
"On whether you also wanted other parties turning up. One's that weren't interested in rescuing us. Or partying."
He hadn't thought of that either, which irritated him even more. How come Sheppard was the one getting all of the good ideas? "Crap."
"Yeah, crap is right. I'm voting for erring on the side of caution. We only use the radio when we're absolutely sure that we know someone from Atlantis is in orbit. Besides, it's no use inviting someone down to rescue us if we're just a couple of novelty ice cubes."
And with that Sheppard recommenced his power down sequence. It took all of ten-minutes for Rodney and Sheppard to complete the process and it was depressing. The jumper made a strange whirring sound, like a last gasp, leaving nothing but a faint hum to indicate any remaining charge. Everything else was still and silent. No roar of the engine, or the glow of the lights. The jumper was officially a former spaceship and their brand new home.
Rodney glanced at Sheppard and thought he was strangely unaffected by the process. Instead of mourning the death of his ship, the pilot got out of his seat, checked the time on his watch and headed for the back of the jumper. He began pulling boxes down from the storage racks. "We need to take inventory. You got your PDA on you?"
Rodney nodded and pulled it out of his vest pocket. "Never leave home without it."
"I'll count, you write it down."
As Sheppard starting opening cases, Rodney did as he was told and stood poised to scribble down the notes. If he'd had enough time he would have used one of his own applications on his PDA to make a compressed database filled with neatly categorized records. Instead he opted for the notepad mode and cleaning it up later.
The first case was easy. Weaponry. Two Glock 19s, two Lugers and four clips for both. A Taser. Rodney duly jotted those facts down while Sheppard shut the case, put it back and took down the next one.
The next case turned out to be full of mundane items such as toilet paper. Maybe he'd be grateful later on - if they were stranded long enough. Still, it was boring. They were taking inventory and it seemed to Rodney they were probably ignoring more important matters. What those important matters were, his brain couldn't tell him. Sheppard was going through the next case, telling Rodney to write down that they had five MREs and a dozen power bars. Two sleeping bags were rolled and stowed under a bench seat. Goody.
This was followed by a case of medical supplies, a portable defibrillator, survival blankets and other stuff that Rodney was starting to lose interest in. The problem was that they were stranded clear across the other side of the Pegasus Galaxy. They weren't due to report in until later that day. A standard jumper was going to take three months or more to reach them. The Daedalus was heading back to Earth so that was eighteen days and then eighteen days back to reach Atlantis and then say, fourteen days or some to reach them, so that was what? Seven weeks – nearly two months stuck on the planet at a minimum. He felt the rising clamor of hysteria and suppressed it. This time around Rodney McKay wasn't going to bleat, moan and whine because it wouldn't do them any good. He could do this, he told himself, he just needed to distract himself from all the realities of their situation and concentrate on thinking up solutions. He could do this…
"Are you listening to me?"
Rodney started, realized he hadn't been carrying out his assigned duty. "Sorry. I was trying to think of a way to get out of our current mess."
Sheppard gave him a look that said he wasn't in the mood for anything Rodney might say or do in the next twenty-four hours. "Look we need to do this and figure out what our situation is. Once I know what the supply situation is, we can do recon and by the way, I plan to get all this done before it gets dark."
Rodney sighed. "Okay, fine. Let's get this over with."
Sheppard went back to reciting the contents of another case. The case contained flares and torches and it struck Rodney that having flares was funny. After all, the Daedalus wasn't going to be able to see a pathetic little flare from high orbit. What was even funnier was Sheppard finding a bucket in the right side bench.
Bucket. One of. Galvanized stainless steel. With handle.
Whoever packed the jumper was an idiot.
((--))
Carson never admitted it but he always experienced some anxiety about an hour before an off world team was due back through the stargate. Just a twinge really, a thought that niggled in his mind that prepared him for whatever crisis may or may not happen. Teams coming in hot followed by whatever alien weapon beam was being flung at them, teams arriving injured, teams with people unconscious, only part of the team arriving back and more worrying, teams that didn't come back at all.
In his infirmary he tracked which teams were off world and which teams were due back on his laptop and if that was a quirk on his part, it was one that he preferred to keep private. Especially when he always tagged Sheppard's team with red. Because inevitably they were always the ones that got themselves into trouble.
He was completing the paperwork for a patient he'd seen that morning. Seven stitches to the forehead of some hapless lieutenant who'd managed to run his skull into a pylon while playing an impromptu game of football in a corridor. The same lieutenant was probably going to have a visit from Colonel Sheppard about shifting the games out to the pier. Then Sheppard would probably volunteer to join them.
Clicking on Save, he opened his next file, and started typing. That's when the alarm he'd set up started beeping. It continued beeping but Carson didn't check it because he knew what it would say.
Colonel Sheppard and Rodney McKay were overdue.
No surprises there.
((-))
They'd left the confines of the jumper when the inventory was complete and started walking along the beach. Sheppard had his P90 at the ready, one hand clutching the life signs detector. It was running on independent power and Rodney presumed that the life signs detector would continue to run after he, Sheppard and both of their PDAs were long dead.
Rodney had made sure that he'd powered off the heat before they left. In a weird way it felt like leaving his apartment on Earth for a trip to the supermarket. Iron off? Check. Heater off? Check. Locked the door? Check.
Rodney trudged along, shivered again, but felt like he was warming up – at last. They had pulled on their sweaters, zipped into their jackets and with the vest over their jackets it seemed to provide enough insulation. The air temperature was hovering around an annoying thirteen degrees Celsius. Perfectly survivable but it was a temperature that made Rodney wish he had gloves. Still, sticking his hands in his pockets worked just as well. More annoyingly Sheppard seemed unaffected and Rodney had always maintained his own private fantasy that should it ever come down to surviving in the cold, his extra bit of padding in the form of body fat would offer an advantage. But no, Rodney was cold and Sheppard just kept marching along as if they were having a stroll on a pleasant summer's day.
He would have been more than happy to stay in the jumper and not bother with the whole recon mission but Sheppard had insisted, arguing that it was impractical to send Rodney to scout by himself and Sheppard didn't want to leave Rodney alone in an area they knew nothing about. They'd barely been on the planet a day and Rodney felt like a liability.
Rodney hiked along with Sheppard, displeased with the way the wet sand was clinging to his boots. He'd experienced some initial trepidation but now, nearly thirty minutes later, he was getting bored. If there was any wildlife or hostiles on the planet they didn't appear to be attracted to a beach lifestyle.
Sheppard concentrated on the scanner, not bothering to keep up a conversation and this irked Rodney. He was never able to handle silence. Just as he was about to open his mouth and say something for the sake of speaking, Sheppard suddenly held up his right hand. Rodney collided with him.
"What the hell was that? I hate it when you military types use tactical hand signals. It looks like you're trying to park a plane."
"It means freeze but in your case it means shut up and stand still," said Sheppard.
"Oh crap, did you see something? What?" Rodney tried unsuccessfully to rotate his head 360-degrees in the vain hope of seeing the whatever-it-was that Sheppard had seen.
"No, I thought I heard something. So be quiet."
Rodney shut up and stood still, straining to hear anything. The only audible sounds were the soft twittering sounds coming from one of the bird creatures.
After a few moments Sheppard relaxed slightly, put down his hand and began walking again.
"So does this mean we'll be walking and then suddenly stopping for the next half hour?" Rodney was ramping up to full blown sarcasm because he just wanted to go back to the jumper. He wanted to sit down, surrounded by their supplies, and practice denial for a night. Pretend that everything was okay and they weren't stuck in some backwater planet with no hope of rescue in the immediate future.
The military leader of Atlantis didn't reply and looked around again, surveying the tree line. Then he pointed straight ahead. "Okay, I think we've found it."
"Found what? Could you try, just for once, to be specific? Subject Verb Object. Sheppard sees a tree. Sheppard runs from a Wraith. Sheppard shoots a gun."
"Sheppard tells Rodney to shut up. Again."
"See, it's easy when you know how."
Sheppard didn't reply to Rodney's latest zinger, just changed his direction to cut through to the beginnings of marshland, forcing Rodney to follow. It was even worse than the wet sand because water was seeping into Rodney's boots as they traipsed through a combination of fine mud, scrub and grass. They kept moving through the soggy landscape, heading inland, Rodney following Sheppard, completely clueless as to Sheppard's intent. It was then that they reached a river bank and Sheppard once more decided to stop.
"This is a good sign."
"Standing in some bog that's probably crawling with bugs and reptiles and poisonous snakes is a good sign?"
"No, standing by fresh water is a good sign." Sheppard walked down to the river's edge, reached down, dipped a hand into the water, and brought a finger back to his tongue to taste it. "Yeah, seems okay. I'm thinking we can carry the water back to the jumper; work on making sure we do a regular supply run every second day or so."
"You want us to carry it back now?"
Sheppard sighed. He was sighing a lot and Rodney was feeling like the stupidest man on the planet – and at this point he was. Rodney didn't like the feeling at all.
"No, I'm saying that we know we've got a source of water. In case you missed the key chapters in the survival manual, it talks about being unable to survive without water after three to five days. You might have also missed the key point where we took inventory and only had enough water for two days."
"Okay, fine! Forgive me for being distracted by running scenarios in my head and trying to figure out how to get us home. Actually, I did realize we were going to run short of water but instead of whining about dying, I thought I'd try and help by coming up with a solution!" Rodney heard his own voice go up an octave and winced as hysteria made an unscheduled appearance.
Rodney felt a hand reach for his back and give him an awkward pat. Or it might have been a slap. It was hard to tell. Sheppard was trying for empathy and doing a rotten job.
"I'm sorry, Rodney. I guess it's been a long day for both of us. Look, we've found a water source and that's the best thing that could have happened. Let's head back."
"Oh great now you're cutting the recon short to pander to me."
"No, I found what I wanted. We can go back."
"I'm perfectly capable of going further. I'm not five. I don't need a nap."
"I was thinking more along the lines of a time out, Rodney."
"Hah. So funny. So very funny."
"Yes, and the funny guy is heading back to the jumper."
Sheppard turned around and started walking determinedly back the way they'd come. Rodney realized he didn't have much choice but to follow.
The last thing he wanted was to be stuck all alone on this God forsaken planet.
((--))
The briefing room was full. It got full in critical moments. When Atlantis was under attack, or an off world team had gone missing. In this case the room was overflowing with a team of scientists and a frustrated Major Lorne.
Zelenka looked like a kid who'd just lost a family pet.
"I am sorry Dr. Weir but we cannot dial the gate address."
"For what reason?" Dr. Elizabeth Weir asked the obvious question but felt everyone in the room needed to hear it.
"Because there is no reciprocal gate to complete the wormhole," replied Zelenka.
"Meaning?" She pressed him for a more specific and depressing conclusion.
"There is no more stargate. For whatever reason it is no longer there."
There weren't a lot of reasons a stargate could disappear. The only ones that sprung to mind involved the complete destruction of something – the stargate for one and moving up the scale, a planet or solar system for seconds. Not a great thought. "Okay, we're not going to jump to any conclusions. We wait for the Daedalus, and they check out the situation."
Elizabeth noted that Major Lorne looked pissed. Probably because he'd have to assume temporary command of Atlantis and Lorne didn't like the role. He'd do it if he had to but it seemed the military commanders of Atlantis were getting a reputation for being cursed and he didn't want to be the next in line. Being the consummate professional that he was, he offered no immediate protests to her plan.
Ronon had other ideas. He'd been standing at the back with Teyla, casually leaning against the wall. She'd announced her plan and Ronon had promptly stopped leaning.
"So, we're just going to sit around here and wait for the Daedalus? That's a bad idea."
"We don't have a lot of choice."
The Satedan gave her a look that said she wasn't trying hard enough. Teyla stepped in front of Ronon, assumed her diplomatic stance. Weir had always liked that about Teyla. She tried talking first, and then she'd try fighting. Ronon had never been big on the whole talking through a solution angle.
"Dr. Weir, I am sure there are good reasons for waiting for the arrival of the Daedalus but there must be other ideas that we could try."
Several marines nodded. Major Lorne stepped forward, having decided to break his silence.
"I have a suggestion, Ma'am."
"Go ahead, Major."
"I'm thinking we hop the jumper through a series of gates and come out within spitting distance of the Colonel and McKay's position."
Zelenka shook his head. "It is a very good idea Major but there is a problem. There is no 'spitting distance' – as you say. Just very long trip. Nearest gate means it is still three months to planet. Might as well wait on Daedalus."
"We should go anyway. As backup."
Ronon nodded in agreement. "What he said."
"It's three months. We don't even know if the jumper can sustain life support or its power for that long." She hated giving them such a negative reply because she wanted her team back as much as anyone but she was also not a woman prone to foolhardiness. Not when it could mean losing more people.
Zelenka nodded. "We have run simulations to try and determine these things but even Ancient technology can run dry. Besides, three months in a jumper, not good for the… sanity."
Lorne and Ronon both opened his mouth to protest and Elizabeth shook her head. "I'm sorry. We're going to have to wait."
((--))
