Stargate Atlantis
04x11
Quarantine
Rodney looked up from his tablet as he ducked under the wire mesh hanging from the ceiling of the traveller ship, Rodney idly wondered exactly why he had volunteered for this mission. He had always preferred theory to practical work, calculations rather than risky field work, and yet now he found that he couldn't stay behind in the lab why people risked their lives.
"Hey Rodney, ready for the test?" Somehow Laura Cadman had sidled up next to him in the corridor, Rodney sighed, just what he needed, Elizabeth dead, the Asuran replicators and wraith destroying half the galaxy in their war, that despite Laura's reassurance was definitely his fault, whether or not he knew what would happen in the crossfire, and then there was Laura herself, she completely intrigued him creeped him out and drew him in all at the same time, he saw her studying him out of the corner of his eyes. Rodney stopped when he felt her hand on his arm. "Look, Rodney, I know that look; IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT."
Laura didn't emphasise her words, she didn't need to, the conviction behind them was enough to make Rodney raise his eyes from the tablet, he looked into her eyes biting back a scathing retort, after all she had put up with his volatile temper when even Radek couldn't take it anymore.
"I know that, it's just that…" Rodney stopped, throughout his life he'd learnt the hard way that people didn't like him, the tolerated him if they had to, that if you let someone in they'll only hurt you, he'd learnt that the hard way from his parents, and yet here he found himself; ready to bear his burdens onto Cadman.
He again looked into her eyes, trying to convey his thoughts without saying them. Laura smiled in response removing her hand as the two began to walk to the bridge for the breakout, Laura kept glancing at Rodney. Laura herself had only been in the marines for a short time before being posted to Atlantis, but her parents had been military and her both grandfathers had fought in the second world war, and they'd all had that look in their eyes, were they'd seen far too much for one, or any lifetime, she'd seen that look in Rodney's eyes, whether he knew it, let alone liked it or not, he was a soldier of a kind like everyone else on the Atlantis expedition had become.
Katana Labrea sat in the captain's chair on the larger traveller cruiser, while she was sceptical of Larrin's plans to join with the humans from Earth who inhabited the city of the Ancestors she had to admit the weapons platform based on Asgard technology, or so they'd said, were extremely powerful and certainly even the odds a little against the wraith. Katana felt uneasy in the larger cruiser, she preferred her own generational ship, that's she'd brought Mila with her to the cruiser, she knew that the human scientist McKay had taken severe issue about her safety standards and had steered clear of the engine room since.
Katana checked her displays, they were only a few minutes away from reverting to normal space, Katana looked up to see McKay and Lieutenant Cadman entered the bridge, the two of them were like clockwork when they wanted to be.
"We ready?" it was McKay who looked at her, Katana nodded as she began drop out preparations.
McKay and Cadman moved to the console they'd installed to control the weapons array. It was made of a seamless construction with rounded arc curves and angular runes and crystal stones to manipulate the system functions. Katana phased out the two made some last minute checks over the new systems.
The Asuran light cruiser Avenger was one of the oldest ships in the Asuran military, she'd been constructed during the last Asuran-wraith war, while over ships had been decommissioned over the millennia the Avenger had been kept in service since. Unlike other ships Avenger was named its first mission rather than before being launched, there'd been a wraith attack on Asuras, their hive ships had made kamikaze runs on the planet wreaking havoc on the planet. General, then Commander Korceanat had stolen the then uncompleted and unnamed Avenger and attacked the wraith shipyards, destroying them in turn.
The ship had become a symbol of Asuran military might against their enemies, that was until it'd engaged the Tau'ri ship Apollo after their team had stolen a potentia and activated the attack command. As much as he hated to admit it the Avenger's current commander was now Korceanat, he'd made the same hubris as the Lanteans, he'd underestimated his opponent, without full scans he didn't realise the Asgard shield the Lanteans allies had given the Tau'ri were resistant to drone weapons and had launched only minimal salvos allowing them to escape from their raid.
As such the Avenger's commander was caught off guard when the traveller ship exited hyperspace.
The traveller cruiser headed towards the Avenger at its maximum speed.
Katana looked up at the two tau'ri.
"It's now or never,"
McKay and Cadman nodded in response sliding the control stone to the correct rune.
From the ship's bow in response to McKay and Cadman's commands a series of blue pulses of energy fired, the plasma made its way across the vast distance hitting the Avenger just as she raised her shields, scoring two direct hits to the hull leaving large carbon scorch marks and imparting a certain amount of kinetic energy to the vessel.
"We scored two hits before the raised their shields," McKay reported from his tablet hooked up to the Asgard data crystals.
"And I can confirm damage to the Asurans shields, our four direct hits have caused their shields to drop to 90%." Cadman added, the two of them grinning at each other.
"Keep firing then,"
They both turned shocked at Katana's order.
"But, that's not the mission, we're just here to test whether they work," McKay started, he saw Laura feeling for her side-arm in the corner of his eye, while the weapon seemed to work he didn't want to enter battle on the first test of a brand new weapons platform.
"Maybe not yours, but you're not the ones whose fate depends on this! You can just go back to your own galaxy; your fate doesn't depend on this! Fire again."
McKay was taken aback by the bitterness in her tone surprising him, he nodded in response firing the weapons again as the bridge shock with the volley of Avenger's drones impacted, exploding against Marks shields, and they too worked.
The two ships began to trade fire, the traveller particle canons fired red bursts which had no effect on the orange tinted bubble around the Avenger. A series of turrets returned fire along with drones.
The traveller ship rolled so its forward Asgard pulse array was in the direction firing with an amount of fire power equal to that of an Asgard O'Neill class warship.
Sparks fell from the ceiling and Laura kept herself up against the Asgard console. "The Asurans and I have a very different idea about anti-fighter batteries,"
Rodney was jolted into her as he responded.
"Why?"
"Those batteries are at least twice the yield of the most power full Goa'uld weapons Anubis had on his flagship,"
As the ship jolted again McKay turned to Katana.
"We have to abort now, we've got the weapons working, we can build more and install them and come back, but this isn't a fight we can win," McKay tried to reason with her, he didn't even flinch at Katana's glare. "Listen to me no one wants to stop the Asurans as much as me,"
She scoffed at that.
"I was held captive and tortured by them," McKay shouted gaining her attention.
"We have to leave now," Laura told Katana who finally saw sense and ordered a retreat.
Back in Atlantis Sam headed away from a meeting with Larrin into one of the transporters, as she was about to touch the screen she held an accented voice call for her to hold it, Sam waited as Radek came running in. He apologised as Sam moved to activate when the screen slid shut, the door slammed shut and an alarm flared across the city
Shepperd found Teyla in McKay's lab, her pregnancy was clearly showing and she was still mad at him for putting her off the team after she told him about her pregnancy.
"Look, Teyla, I know you don't-"
Shepperd stopped as the quarantine alarm flared and the door to the lab slammed shut.
Ronan entered the infirmary holding a towel to his head, Dr Keller looked up and sighed, why he couldn't just ask her out.
She walked towards him gesturing to one of the beds as the infirmary doors slammed shut and the city-wide quarantine alarm sounded.
While up in orbit on the Odyssey Marks looked down at his display as Atlantis activated jamming systems blocking the sensors and a subspace beacon talking about a quarantine and a pathogen started to broadcast, overall he had only one thing to say.
"What the hell,"
