Chapter 11

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Atlantis, Present Day

In all her years in the military and as a soldier first at Stargate command and then in Atlantis, Rafat still found herself startled when the shit hit the fan. She was highly trained and had a strong background in political science on top of speaking several languages. She had been in the top of her class, and the pressure to perform to the highest standard had been thrust on her shoulders since she was nine years old and her mother had died, leaving her to raise her two brothers and sister while their father worked two full time jobs to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plates. She understood what it was like to have everyone look to her for answers, be it family, friends, or fellow soldiers when their leader was killed and there was too much shit going on for anyone else to step up to the plate.

Sometimes, when she watched Rodney McKay in crises, she felt like an amateur.

He hadn't stopped moving since the explosion, talking almost continuously into his radio as he directed his people, kept Atlantis apprised of the situation and checked in with Sheppard and Zelenka. He had pulled a maintenance panel off the wall and disappeared into a space so small she had begun pre-planning ways to get him out of the wall before he was even fully in it. He had pulled himself back out with small spots of dust stuck to his clothes and a cut bleeding freely on his jaw just under his right ear. He hadn't noticed the blood yet even though he absently wiped it away on his shoulder. A few minutes later he was prying off a different panel, and looking at the space behind it with great distaste before huffing in irritation at himself and squirming in. There were a lot of wires and pipe-like things that glowed in there and he disappeared around a bend only a few feet in.

She did not like it when he disappeared on her.

"Dr. McKay?"

"Busy," he snapped and grunted and she glared at where she had last seen him.

"Please keep me appraised of your status," she requested (ordered) politely. "Do you require assistance?"

"Please, I'm busy enough without having to tell you what to do and there is only room in here for one. This station must have been designed by the smallest Ancients in their entire civilization." There was silence for a few minutes as he worked. Background chatter occasionally filtered through the radio from others discussing their progress. When he spoke again he sounded anxious.

"All right, I'm ready to manually release this escape pod. I've isolated the system so the commands will only affect this unit…just in case it doesn't work…"

"Just do the test, Rodney," Zelenka's accent filtered through the system.

"Right, okay. Prepare for the test on my mark," he waited a moment for any objections. "Three, two, one, mark." Rafat held her breath and looked around at the walls suspiciously before realizing what she was doing and returning to stare at the maintenance hatch again. "Are you guys reading anything?"

"There was a slight power fluctuation in your area, but nothing else. What did you do?" Mills asked.

"I tried inputting direct commands to the pods primary and secondary control units…at least I thought I had. But now that I'm looking at it, these might not be linked up the way I thought. Hold on," there were another few minutes of silence.

"Any day, Rodney," Sheppard drawled lazily in her ear and she automatically stood straighter.

"I'm working as fast as I can. If you have a problem with this maybe you should stop getting into these situations, hmmm?"

"Just do your test, Rodney." Sheppard didn't sound too happy and McKay's lack of response spoke volumes about his feelings on the subject. It was a few minutes before the Doctor spoke again.

"Okay, prepare for the test in three, two, one, mark." She heard a faint clicking sound for a few seconds and then nothing.

"The pod looks like it shifted a bit, but that's…wait, there's something wrong with…the latch on its roof has just opened and released all atmosphere into the water." There was a moment's silence.

"Right, well, it looks like the docking clamps, or whatever they are, are connected to the pods release systems. Great, this'll take hours *grunt* to decipher."

"We do not have that time" Zelenka kindly informed them all and Rafat blinked in response. Hard. Her head hurt and all she had to do was protect McKay.

"Yeah, because I had forgotten that aspect of this entire fiasco. It's a good thing I have you around to remind me about these things," McKay growled back. She saw movement a few feet away, a hand appeared and then McKay as he literally pulled himself towards her using the pipes in the walls. When he squirmed out of the wall he braced his hands on the floor and just kind of fell out, despite her attempts at helping. It was kind of what she pictured a machine giving birth might look like, if in a highly disturbing and not very abstract way. He stood quickly and she saw that he had a transparent red liquid soaking through the left shoulder and arm of his uniform. He saw her looking.

"I cut the connectors and there was no room to duck out of the way," he explained in a huff and began heading back to the control room, staring hard at the floor as he walked, his eyes pinched in concentration before he frowned and slapped his radio on.

"McKay to Atlantis."

"This is Weir."

"We've been unable to locate a control room for the pods. Mills thinks it may have been in the room that exploded, but there's no power running there any more and what we need to work with is probably disintegrated anyway," he shook his head angrily. "Manually releasing the clamps didn't work, so we're going to have to try raising the station so we can cut them out on the surface."

"What do you need?"

"A minimum of three jumpers. We're going to have to situate them just underneath the failed engine and they can replace it, hopefully."

"Are you sure that will work?"

"No, but it's the best idea we have in the timeframe we've been given, even if it is Sheppard's idea."

"Hey!"

"All right, I'm sending them to you now. They should be there in twenty minutes."

"Good, we'll need that time to prepare the stations systems, maybe more. McKay out." He stormed into the control room and Rafat noticed everyone stop and stare at him a moment…except Mills, who never seemed phased by anything. McKay noticed the looks.

"What?"

"You're bleeding," Strat pointed at his chin and McKay frowned, reaching up to wipe at said spot, only to reopen the small wound.

"Great," he turned to glare at her, "you couldn't have mentioned this? I could have bled to death!"

"It's a paper cut, McKay," she soothed.

"Those can be serious!"

"What's on your jacket?" Keagan asked and then quickly looked back to his work when Rodney looked his way.

"Do I look like a chemist to you?"

"We have not yet run across a fluid of such physical characteristics on Atlantis," Miko pointed out and Rodney suddenly paled and began flailing around as he unzipped and then pulled off the offending garment, throwing it in disgust across the room.

"There, it's off. Can we focus now, please? We need to have this thing ready for lift off in twenty minutes," and they were off. Rafat joined Thompkins off by the door, Teyla remaining close to Keagan and watching his every move. Rodney wiped at the nervous sweat on his brow and looked a little paler. She really hoped that this worked.

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Time was running out. Quickly. A lot faster than Strat had expected it could under such circumstances. He had followed Dr. McKay's instructions and followed Dr. Kusanagi to the transporter area where they had examined everything they could again. She was every bit as good as McKay's performance reviews had stated and it hadn't taken long for her (with his aid) to determine that there was nothing that could be done from there. Well, nothing except send some supplies to the trapped individuals.

He was thirsty, but not thirsty enough to withhold it from those with greater need.

They had left shortly after that, determining that there was more to be done in the control room and had been helping Keagan look for information on how to control the ships navigation. He kept looking at his watch every few minutes, watching as the time ticked by and was shocked when he realized it had been almost an hour since the time frame had been declared. An hour less that those four people had to live. He felt the pressure keenly, as did everyone around him as they babbled ideas back and fourth and shared whatever information they could find.

"Aha!" Keagan yelled out and bent over his counsel in concentration. Teyla Emmagen peered keenly over his shoulder as the man worked, her brows furrowed in concentration. Thompkins stood tensely by the door, looking as intimidating as a man possibly could while not directly aiming a weapon at someone and Strat was just grateful it wasn't him that the marine was pissed at.

"What did you find?" Dr. Mills demanded.

"Everything we need to know about driving this station. I'm sending you the information now." There was a moment's silence.

"I have it," Mills stood straighter and shook his head. "This might work," he declared.

"Yes," Dr. Kusanagi pushed her glasses higher on her nose, "if all systems still function as they were meant to function and the engines have enough power, then it should work."

"Well, that's good, right?" Strat asked as neither of them had sounded overly enthusiastic.

"Yes, if it works," Kusanagi informed him softly. She issued instructions for him to begin scanning the power fluctuations as they began rerouting engine controls from 'cruise control' to manual. Then McKay came barging in and Strat stared in shock. What the hell had happened to him! He had blood running down the side of his face and was covered in a red substance in a most undignified manner.

It took a few minutes for him to toss aside the jacket and wipe ineffectively at his chin before he hunkered down and began going through the information they had been organizing for him. He nodded in satisfaction.

"Okay, listen up people, the jumpers are ten minutes out, and when they get here it's going to take approximately seven minutes to get them into position under the third aft engine. I am putting everyone, including you people," he waved a hand at the soldiers, "on engine duty. I need you to watch the power, pressure, and the rate of ascent of your engine at all times. If one of these engines is over stressed it could fail and we don't have enough jumpers or time to compensate for its loss. Understood?" There were nods all around. "Good. We have," he looked at his watch, "two hours and three minutes to make this happen people, so let's not screw it up."

As far as inspirational speeches went…it left Strat feeling terrified, and McKay didn't seem phased in the least as he stormed around, punching at consoles and computers, consulting heavily with Mills and Kusanagi. Just another day at the office, he thought with a little twang in his stomach. Jesus, and he had thought assessing people on desert planets for half a day had been tough. With all his experience he had never actually been in any dangerous situations. He really hadn't imagined how intense real life and death situations could be. His respect for leaders across the program had jumped a few notches from where it had been that morning.

"Strat!"

"Yes!" he snapped to attention as McKay called on him.

"You're at this computer. Thompkins, you're at this one. Strat, show him what he needs to know," and he was off to the other side of the room again.

"Dr. McKay, this is Jumper three arriving at your forward aft," a new person said in his ear and Strat paused in his instructions to listen.

"Jumper six is here as well, sir."

"Jumper two is on scene."

"Right, right, good. Jumper three, you're lead ship."

"Copy that."

"Okay, we're still setting up here, but you can get into position at the coordinates Kusanagi sent you." There was a chorus of 'yes sirs' and they were off, Jumper two taking its place nearby as back-up. Rodney moved twice as fast around the room for a few more minutes until he just stopped and looked around, silently ticking things off on his fingers and muttering under his breath. "Okay," he announced, "okay, we're ready. Any questions before we do this? No? None? All right. Zelenka," he barked into his radio.

"I am here."

"Of course you are. How are you all doing?"

"Just fine, this is like vacation," was the dry response. McKay had walked into that one.

"Right. We're ready to proceed. It should take about half an hour, maybe more to reach the surface, that'll give us just under an hour and a half to cut you out of there. I want you to update me every five minutes on your status. Clear?"

"Understood."

"Jumpers, are you in position?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay, on the five count we're going to initiate the engines, you know what to do. Five, four, three, two, one, initiating." There was a low level rumble that carried throughout the room and, as far as Strat knew, the entire station. The floor began to vibrate beneath his feet and his hands could feel the tremors in the console before him. He held his breath and stared at the readings on his computer, watching as they fluctuated up to 4.7 bars and then held. Good, that was good, now all it had to do was stay between 4.6 and 4.9 and they should be okay. McKay let out a huff of breath.

"This is good, this is going well…any problems?" No one responded. "That's great. McKay to Jumper 3, how are things on your end?"

"It took a lot of power when we took the initial weight, but we're rising steadily now. Friction between the two shields is minimal and there's not a lot of slip, but we need to keep an eye on that to maintain proper traction. Other than that everything is going to plan."

"All right, then let's keep it that way. Nobody takes their eyes off their screen until I say so." And they didn't, at least Strat didn't, far too worried that he would screw it up and this would go horribly wrong. He could hear McKay jumping around still, as he hadn't assigned himself to a computer, and continuously checking in with the jumpers and the pod. The minutes ticked by, his bar dropped to 4.6 for a second and he tensed up, ready to yell it out, when it went to 4.8 and remained there, thank god.

"This might take a little longer than anticipated," Mills spoke up.

"Yeah, about ten minutes or so," McKay agreed. "Zelenka, we should be at the surface in about ten minutes, how are you holding up?"

"Things are fine here, though my right cheek is numb from vibrations…"

"Too much information!" McKay snapped, though his tone did seem a little less tense.

"Is fact, you said keep you updated on all-"

"Yes, well, I'm sure you can figure out where to draw the line," Rodney moved to look over Strat's shoulder briefly.

"Yes, of course, because I am one who needs to look out for what I say."

"If you are ever in charge of this outfit, you can remove whatever verbal filters you think you have, but until then-"

"Engine one is dropping below bar!" Thompkins snapped and Rodney was between them in a second. He looked at the readings and frowned.

"Oh, no no no…this isn't good. The engine is failing, Jumper two! Move to Engine five and try to support it!"

"Engine three is losing power," Kusanagi yelled and Rodney dove for the main controls, frantically re-entering commands and halting the entire stations ascent, and then looking carefully at the readings.

"Jumper two is in position."

"Maintain your position as support. All Jumpers halt. We are no longer ascending to the surface, maintain your positions as support, over."

"Copy that."

"Roger, holding."

"Okay, okay, this is not so good." McKay sighed out loud and rubbed a hand over his mouth, thinking furiously.

"Engine three is able to maintain this depth, but it cannot aid in surfacing the station," Miko's soft voice carried through the room and he acknowledged her with a tight nod.

"How are the other engines?" McKay checked the readings again. With Engine three and one only able to maintain the current depth they weren't going to raise the station any higher, even with the aid of all the jumpers in their arsenal.

Damn it! He'd been afraid this would happen, but he hadn't wanted to linger on doubts. It had been their best option and now it was gone. Maybe they could place a small, private force field around the pod…but there would be no way to drain it. Just around the hatch then! No, no that would so not work. He looked up to find the others in the room watching him, waiting for direction, for something to do to help, for hope.

"McKay, what's going on?" Sheppard chose that moment to cut into his thoughts. Why did the man always want answers at the worst possible time!

"It didn't work. I'm a little busy right now, trying to come up with an alternative plan!" He snapped.

There was a pause.

"Knock yourself out, McKay."

"Thank you," he groaned and looked around the group, watching them check their readings. He could practically see their minds trying to come up with some solution to this and he really, really hoped they could because he had nothing. A big, fat, ultimately defeating nothing. "I'll be back," he growled and stomped out of the room. He couldn't think with them around, he just couldn't concentrate.

He stormed two corridors over and began to pace the hall, ignoring the Sergeant as she dutifully parked herself out of his way, silent vigilance to his complete lack of ideas. He paced for a good ten minutes, tossing out one idea after the other, all things he'd already thought of. He kept coming back to the 'mother pod' but there was nothing he could do from here. They hadn't been able to access it from anywhere in the station. This was just…just…

"How's it going, Rodney?" Sheppard's voice, calm and collected, broke into his thoughts again, but instead of getting angry this time he just felt…he didn't even know where to begin.

"I'm still thinking, Colonel."

"Well, that's good..."

"I suppose. I have some air tanks on their way here that we'll send through in about ten minutes, that should give us another half hour or so to work with," he tried to sound upbeat.

"Well see, that's a good idea, you could send a couple extras and we could last even longer," came the confident reply and he didn't correct his friend. Zelenka had informed them that the power for the heating systems was depleting almost as fast as the air. They would probably freeze to death before they could use a second cylinder. Zelenka remained ominously silent.

"Right," Rodney muttered, just to fill the silence. He looked at his watch: an hour and four minutes left, plus the extra air gave him one hour and approximately thirty minutes to get them out of there.

"Dr. McKay, Jumper four is above your location.

"Right. Rafat, take the Manta and get those cylinders. It'll take too long to reconfigure the shields to let a jumper through."

"Yes, sir," she nodded and left the hallway. He listened to her retreating footsteps and leaned against the wall, sliding slowly to the floor.

"Sheppard, those extra tanks will be in your hands shortly. In the mean time, I'm going to come up with a way to get you out, so you can all sit tight and discuss ways to thank me once your out."

"Ohhh, trust me Rodney, we've already been doing that," and Rodney snorted at the friendly threat.

"I'll bet you have, McKay out." He thumped his head against the wall, and then refrained from doing so again because ow. There had to be something! Damned ancients and their damned emergency systems that were wired up in the stupidest possible way! Honest to god, for such an advanced and intelligent race they had some boneheaded designs. But he couldn't think of that right now, because John and Radek and Ronon and Chu were going to die because he couldn't think…and that was…that was just…it wasn't going to happen. Not on his watch! He was getting them out of there because anything else was simply unacceptable! Too many people had died and he wasn't losing them! Not them! Not his friends. He just…couldn't.

"McKay?" He looked up to find Thompkins standing at the bend in the corridor, looking at him with a closed expression. Rodney looked back at him and waited, but the soldier didn't continue so he rolled his eyes and gave the obligatory answer.

"What?" Thompkins merely watched him for a moment before slowly moving to join him on the floor.

"Catching your breath?"

"It's necessary sometimes."

"I hear that."

"Is this the part where you tell me everything will be okay? That I'll come up with something at the last minute like I always do? Because I gotta tell you, I've got nothing."

"Come on McKay, you know me; I suck at that supportive crap," and Rodney huffed in acknowledgment, the left side of his mouth curling up slightly.

"You're telling me. I think the most supportive thing you said to me when we met, and until I was released from your clutches was, "I believe you." That got me through the first night."

"Hey, it's not like you cared to hear anything else I had to say."

"Maybe if you had said something worth listening to…"

"Maybe if you had stopped talking long enough to allow me to get a word in edge wise."

"I doubt that would have helped your case," Rodney sighed and leaned his head back, closing his eyes, now trying to forget the past as well as worry about the present. Comforting words his ass. They spent a few moments in silence and all Rodney could think was wasting time wasting time wasting time. He could hear Thompkins rubbing a hand over his short, frizzy curls.

"You know," he said and Rodney bit back a groan, not wanting to hear where this was going, "I like Sheppard for the most part."

"Everybody does."

"Yeah, I get that. I don't think he's overly keen on me." Rodney really didn't have anything to say to that, so he raised his eyebrow. "Oh, don't get me wrong, he's been very professional, very conversational…he's a good guy, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I just seemed to rub him the wrong way."

"Don't take it personally, he's just like that sometimes."

"I didn't, I don't really care either way. I'm not here to impress people."

"Is there a point to this?"

"The point is that I figured out why he didn't like me.

"Oh, this is going to be good."

"It's because of you."

"Huh?"

"I think he somehow got it into his head that because I knew something about you that he didn't, you would declare me the closer friend. He was jealous."

"Oh please, that's just ridiculous! Are you still stuck in eighth grade?"

"No, I'm serious."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because most people don't care about things like that unless it really means something. He really values your friendship." He looked over his shoulder and Rodney. "He trusts you, Rodney."

"Yeah well, fat lot of good that's doing him now," he swallowed the lump in his throat. He did not want to talk about this. Whatever happened to manly, military silence?

"What I'm trying to say, is that he knows you're going to do everything you can to help them, and in the end that's all that really matters to him. We all knew what we were getting into when we joined this program."

"I highly doubt that," Rodney sighed. "Thanks for the support though." Thompkins shrugged beside him and they both rose to their feet, where he resumed pacing. He looked at his watch and swallowed thickly. He needed to gain access to the main control pod and that wasn't going to happen until he was the last person on the station! The last…person. On. The station! He snapped his fingers in quick succession.

"That's it!" he looked at Thompkins and grinned.

"What?"

"I know what to do!" and he twisted on his feet and ran back to the control room. "I have a plan!" He announced and rushed to the console he needed.

"What is it?" Mills asked sharply and Rodney opened his mouth, and then hesitated a moment before answering.

"It's too complicated to explain," he declared and bent over his work. "I don't have a lot of time here, so silence would be appreciated."

"But we could help if…"

"Ah ah, did you not listen to anything I just said?" He typed furiously. "Too complicated to explain in such a short amount of time. Genius here, let me work!" He snapped and then dropped to his knees, prying open the panel and quickly beginning to switch around crystals. He heard Sergeant Rafat return, and listened in as she sent the air tanks and regulators to them. It took fifteen minutes to reconfigure what he needed and he took another minute to verify that he had done everything right. His hands were shaking as he closed the panel and stood, finding Miko and Mills behind him, trying to see what he had done.

"Now you can explain, yes?" Miko asked, her brown eyes imploring behind her too large glasses.

"Yes, yes, but first, I need my computer," he disconnected it from the console, "and that bag of connectors and tools," he snapped his fingers and Keagan jumped to get it for him as he grabbed his scanner off the near by table and then threw his flak vest over one shoulder for good measure. He always kept tools in it that he might need. He looked around at them. "Stay here, I need to go check on something. If I'm right and my changes worked then I should be able to help them," he declared and then walked quickly from the room, leaving them in complete bafflement. He heard steps behind him and turned to see Sergeant Rafat tailing him again. Great. He nodded at her and then focused on his destination.

"Hey, McKay?" Sheppard's' voice erupted in his ear.

"I'm a bit busy at the moment, Colonel."

"Yeah I know, with this new plan of yours that you haven't explained to anyone," he shot back and Rodney frowned.

"You know, a little appreciation for the effort I'm going to here wouldn't be too out of place."

"I'll appreciate it once I know what's going on."

"Don't worry Colonel, you'll know soon enough." There was no response for a minute and then John was back, but he sounded quieter, calmer and way too sincere.

"Listen Rodney, I know you're doing everything you can over there," Rodney rolled his eyes, because of course he was. Didn't he always? "But you should know that if we don't get out of here…it's not your fault." Rodney stumbled slightly and he clenched his jaw tight before giving the response that was expected of him, the one that didn't really mean anything.

"Of course it isn't. If the ancients had just designed systems with even an inkling of logic then we would never have any of these issues," he huffed, trying to sound indignant. It might have come across a little weak.

"I mean it, Rodney, we all do. This is not your fault."

"Yes, thank you for reiterating what I already know."

"Great. Now what are you going to do?" He took a sharp left and saw the gaping entrance way to the transporter room that started this whole disaster.

"You know that Hail Mary you're always going on about?"

"Rodney, I don't like the sound of that…"

"Well Colonel, from now on it's going to be known as the Hail McKay." He heard Rafat pick up the pace behind him as she registered what he said and he sent a silent apology her way as he rushed straight into the transporter room and disappeared.

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