Chapter 14: An Unfortunate Incident

The Guardian's jumper exited the gate that was in orbit around the world of Doranda. Rodney was sitting the co-pilot seat, having evicted Sheppard to the back seat due to his seniority as the husband of the pilot.

They were visiting Doranda because of Doctor Kurosawa's newly formed archaeological team, AR-12, had reported a remarkable find during their first off-world archaeological mission. The Guardian had originally suggested to Kurosawa that Doranda would be an ideal location for their first dig because it was a place where her people had been secretly working on a military research project.

The Guardian had suggested the location because, although the facility would have been completely obliterated per standard Wraith wartime tactics, the debris left behind in the aftermath might shed some light on what kind of research was actually going on there. Not even the Guardian's father knew what they were doing. All she knew for certain was that the Lanteans on Doranda were researching some kind of advanced technology to try to turn the tide of the war.

The Guardian brought up the sensor HUD. The glowing translucent display overlapped most of the forward window. She was looking at the display intently.

McKay glanced at it, then he turned and asked her, "What you are looking for?"

She kept scanning the HUD. "I'm checking the surrounding space for targets."

Sheppard was sitting behind her. "Find anything?"

"No, nothing in orbit. Hmm. There's a lot of stuff floating at the L2 point."

"Any idea what it could be?"

"At this distance it is hard to say. I'm switching to the spectrograph." The HUD changed to show bands of colored light at L2.

McKay was surprised. "Wait, this ship is equipped with a spectrometer?"

The Guardian was inspecting the colored bands intently. "Of course it has one. Standard equipment."

McKay grinned, "Neat. Man, I'm still learning stuff from you.."

The Guardian's eyes remained focused on the HUD as she smiled, "Rodney, learning is a lifelong process. Just remember that it never ends."

She was carefully inspecting the faint L2 spectrums. "Hmm, there's something at L2 all right. Lots of calcium, carbon.."

Sheppard looked at the HUD over her shoulder. "Calcium? That's Wraith debris."

"Yes. There's enough mass there for the remains of at least a half dozen hive ships."

Sheppard was impressed. "Wow. Any naquadah spectra?"

"No. I can find no Lantean debris at all. It's 100% Wraith wreckage."

Ronon said, "Looks like the Wraith got their butts kicked."

"Indeed." She turned off the HUD. "I simply have to see this discovery. I can't wait any longer. Prepare for emergency descent." She revved the engines up to full power.

"Aw don't," McKay cinched his seatbelt, "I'll throw up again."

She said reassuringly, "Don't worry, I packed a couple barf bags for you this time. They're in a pouch behind your seat."

Ronon pulled out a bag and handed it forward to McKay, who grabbed it and opened it without speaking. Ronon then sat back to enjoy the wild ride. Teyla gripped her seat without saying anything.

The jumper zoomed downward.

The Guardian was circling the site. "I'm not sensing any life signs down there."

McKay was leaning forward in his seat as he boggled at the huge energy weapon, "That is one nasty looking gun."

Sheppard observed, "It looks fully intact too." As the jumper banked sideways he visually scanned the rest of the city. "I don't see any battle damage anywhere."

The Guardian mused, "Yes, that is odd. The Wraith apparently never came back."

"That's not their SOP. Genie, don't the Wraith always make it a point to completely destroy Lantean defense installations?"

"Yes. We have a mystery." She quickly landed the jumper at the main entrance.

The rear hatch opened and the Guardian disembarked first. She was dressed for battle with her cloak and hood drawn tightly around her. She looked around cautiously and sniffed the air.

She made a face. "The air smells metallic. Dead."

Teyla exited and said, "I sense no Wraith here."

The Guardian agreed, "I sense no life signs of any kind."

Sheppard kept his P90 at his ready nevertheless. "Let's go inside."

The Guardian started walking toward the entrance, "I'll take point. Beware of traps."

McKay was looking at his tablet. "I'm getting zero energy readings. It should be safe."

The Guardian said quietly, "No, Rodney. Stay alert."

"Why? Lantean traps are always energy based, right? There's no power left so it's fine. What's there to be worried about?"

"Rodney, something scared the Wraith away from this place..."

"And?"

".. and that scares me."

McKay was instantly nervous, "You're scared? R-Really?"

"Rodney, the fear of the unknown is a healthy survival trait; just stay behind me."

She slowly walked to the entrance vestibule and crossed into a dark passage. She removed her right glove and a bio-light appeared in her open palm. It illuminated the passage in front of them.

Sheppard and Teyla cautiously followed behind the Guardian, with Ronon watching the rear. McKay decided to stay near Ronon.

The Guardian said, "Nothing so far." Then she peered ahead. "Wait, I can see a body."

She walked forward and approached a mummified corpse that was laying in the middle of the hallway, a brown and dessicated dry husk.

Teyla knelt down to examine it. "Could it be a Wraith feeding?"

Ronon knelt next to Teyla and checked. "Hard to tell. Might be age."

The Guardian agreed with Teyla, "A Wraith feeding can consume all life in the body right down to the microbes in the gut, leaving nothing alive to decay the body afterward."

Sheppard observed, "Still, it seems well preserved to me. You would think that bugs, rats, looters, something, would have disturbed the body by now."

"John, that is not so strange as it looks. After a Wraith feeding it is not unusual for nothing organically consumable to be left behind for microorganisms or scavenging creatures to feed on. Granted, this corpse has been undisturbed for millennia, but many humans consider a Wraith-fed corpse to be cursed. There are strong taboos about disturbing one."

Ronon reminded them, "Don't forget about the traps. They could have been active for years. The looters might have just given up."

Sheppard asked, "Did you see any traps, big guy? I didn't."

"No, but an openly visible defense station like this must have had some kind of protection."

The Guardian agreed, "Definitely."

McKay was anxious, "Let's just find the control center. The logs should be intact. They should explain what happened."

The Guardian walked on ahead, moving more quickly now, with AR-1 following close behind. The group passed a few more bodies on their way to the control center.

The Guardian entered the control center and stopped just inside. She carefully scanned the whole room using her infrared vision. "All clear. No bodies." AR-1 entered the room.

The Guardian walked up to a large control console. She blew the dust off the panel. "This is a very advanced design. It is even more advanced than the control panels found in Atlantis."

McKay moved in closer to get a better look at it. Their shoulders were touching. "Wow, this was the Lanteans' latest stuff all right."

Sheppard asked, "Can you two power it up?"

McKay shook his head. "No way, the batteries are totally shot."

The Guardian stood back and scanned the rest of the room with her IR vision. "Hmm, I don't see a ZPM monitoring station anywhere."

McKay looked up, "That's weird. You sure?"

"Quite sure."

"If this place has no ZPM receptacle how did they power that sucker?"

"Good question."

McKay mused, "It should be easy enough to hook up these panels to one of our spare naquadah generators*. We can use it to power the panels and extract the logs."

Sheppard cautioned, "McKay, just make sure you don't accidentally turn any traps back on."

"Oh, right, good point. Sheppard, fly back to Atlantis to get the extra generator, will you? Sara and I have a lot of work to do here."

"Who, me?"

The Guardian sighed, "It's my jumper. I'll go fetch it."

McKay said, "You sure?"

"Tarai doesn't like strangers flying him."

"Well, okay. Bring back my second tablet, plenty of recording equipment, and a half dozen CDAs. And lots of sandwiches."

The Guardian asked, "And people?"

"Oh yeah, I suppose we need some of those too."

She said sarcastically, "Well?"

"Yeah, yeah. Bring Zelenka, Grodin, and that energy systems expert whose name I forget."

"You mean Doctor Collins."

"Yeah, him too."

Sheppard offered, "Genie, really, I can go fetch McKay's stuff. I promise I'll be nice to Tarai."

"No, I can fly Tarai faster than you. I'll see if Tarai and I can set a new record for a planetary ascent and de-orbit."

"Yipes. You better bring extra barf bags for your poor passengers."

She grinned at Sheppard, "Thanks for the reminder; Tarai will appreciate it." She kissed Rodney's cheek. "Don't have too much fun without me."

"Just hurry." She left.

A minute later McKay was leaning against the console. He was already getting bored. "Phooey, there's not much I can do until she comes back with that generator."

Sheppard gave McKay a sad look, "Then why didn't you go get it with her?"

He glanced up. "Huh? Whatever for?"

"She might go slower."

"Hey, I need that stuff now."

Sheppard sighed at McKay's cluelessness. "Nevermind."

He said to Teyla and Ronon, "C'mon, folks, let's go secure the rest of the facility."

Ronon protested, "Secure what? Everybody's dead."

"Look, we still need to check out the place, so c'mon." Sheppard pulled up his P90 and the three of them headed for the exit.

McKay, Zelenka, and the Guardian were huddled at the control console within the facility. A naquadah generator was humming nearby, and the room was now brightly lit with glowing display panels in several places.

The trio were studying the power distribution diagram. The Guardian was awed.

"Rodney, this is incredible."

Sheppard casually walked up behind the trio to see what they were doing. McKay was flicking the diagram around. "Here's the subspace collector. It feeds the virtual particles into this little doo-hickey."

The Guardian asked, "Doo-hickey?"

"I haven't given it a name yet."

Sheppard spoke up, "Flux capacitor."

McKay turned, "Very funny." He turned back and flicked the diagram around some more with his finger. "The doo-hickey sits between the collector and the emitter. It looks like the emitter converts whatever comes out of the doo-hickey into a coherent energy stream, which in turn feeds into this big conduit right into the main gun. It's almost too simple."

Zelenka was frowning. "It is too simple. For example, where is the energy buffer to smooth out the power output?"

The Guardian shrugged, "It doesn't have one."

"But how can it not? That collector is totally mysterious. It pulls in energy from heaven-knows-where, and it is totally unpredictable how much power might come rushing out of it."

"I see your concern. It feeds directly into the weapon system without a failsafe regulator, like the standard Lantean energy buffer that we use to provide a constant and smooth level of power to the city's shield."

"Yes, exactly."

McKay said, "I hate to admit it, but Zelenka is right. The lack of a power buffer makes the weapon unpredictable. There's no way to throttle it down."

Sheppard said, "Cool."

McKay glanced back at him. "See that? The way his eyes just light up at the mention of a weapon? It's like Sara at the mention of chocolate."

She elbowed him. "Ow!"

Zelenka persisted, "Rodney, my worry is that there is no buffer to smooth out the power fluctuations into the gun. What if it might overload and damage the weapon?"

"There is a strong containment field around the doo-hickey.."

"True, but that is earlier in the flow diagram. On the output side there is still nothing to modulate the weapon's firepower."

Sheppard made a shrug, "It doesn't need one."

They all turned to face him. McKay said snootily, "Oh really now? And what, pray tell, would a hotshot pilot without a science degree know about high energy particle physics, hmm?"

John said placidly, "It means that the weapon can fire multiple energy bursts without having to wait for a buffer to store up more energy for the next firing sequence, thus maximizing its destructive effectiveness."

McKay's eyes blinked. "Uh, yes. That was the point I was going to make.."

The Guardian was impressed, "Very good, John. And the fact that it is only firing up into outer space means there is no need to worry about any collateral damage."

"Like I said, cool."

McKay and the Guardian were back in Atlantis sitting sullenly in the conference room with Weir, Sheppard, Colonel Caldwell, Zelenka, and Beckett. They were trying to explain their failed attempt to power up the weapon on Doranda.

Doctor Beckett was wrapping up his report on the injuries to Doctor Collins. "He is lucky to be alive. He suffered exposure to a type of hard radiation that I've never seen before. According to the visual log he was exposed for only a second, but it still caused significant second-degree burns to his exposed skin on his face and hands."

Weir said to the Guardian, "Sara, thank you for saving his life."

It was because the Guardian had teleported into the access tube to grab him when she sensed the containment field starting to fail.

The Guardian wasn't listening to Weir. Instead she was looking down at the table muttering, "I don't get it. It doesn't make sense.." She looked up. "Why did the field jump out like that? There was no reason for it."

Zelenka replied, "We are still analyzing the data from the test. All we know for certain was there was a huge power surge that made the containment field expand asymmetrically."

The Guardian protested, "But it shouldn't have done that!"

"Well, it did."

McKay sighed, "Sara is right. That should have been theoretically impossible."

Weir chided him, "Well, it looks to me like you need to do some more simulations to figure this out before you try again."

McKay shook his head. "Won't help."

Weir asked, "Why not?"

The Guardian said morosely, "Our theory is off."

McKay explained, "We can run simulations all day and it will never reproduce something like that. We need more experimental data so we can understand what's happening and adjust our simulation model."

Sheppard objected, "You guys want to go back to Doranda and try it again? Look, that thing almost killed a man today."

McKay faced him. "I know that. I am responsible for that as much as anyone, but we also have a responsibility to understand what happened and learn from it."

The Guardian chimed in, "John, an unlimited power source would solve everything. We could power the shield to defend against any Wraith attack, we could fly the city and hide it on another planet, we could create a weapon like the one on Doranda and swat down a duodecim like a fly. We have to pursue this."

McKay explained, "We know that Project Arcturus was attempting to draw energy directly from our own universe through subspace. It's like creating a ZPM the size of the universe. It's mind boggling what they were attempting to do."

Caldwell asked the Guardian, "Wouldn't the Ancients have tried that first, before resorting to ZPMs?"

The Guardian conceded, "It carries its own unknown risks. This was the kind of audacious experimentation that my people did near the end of the war to try to survive."

Weir said, "Like the experiment that created you."

"Yes, Doctor Weir, which was done in violation of our basic principles."

Sheppard said, "And it didn't work. Forced ascension didn't work. Neither did Project Arcturus."

McKay pleaded, "But they were so close.."

"How close, McKay?"

"This close." McKay made a tiny gap between this finger and thumb. "The problem is that they simply ran out of time. We don't have that issue."

Sheppard brought the argument home, "Exactly. There is no rush this time. You obtained plenty of telemetry data, right? Plus you downloaded the log data that you extracted from the Ancients' earlier tests. I suggest you take a couple days to sit down at the look at the data you already got."

Weir agreed, "Rodney, a couple days won't hurt."

"All right, fine, two days. But I predict we won't make any progress until we try it again."

"Just let me know what you find. Good luck."

McKay stood up. "Sara, Zelenka, let's go." They left together.

Caldwell quietly waited until they left, then he said to Weir and Sheppard, "I understand your safety concerns, but the DOD is going to want this."

"They will?"

"Yes."

Weir asked the colonel, "And what if I decide to put a stop to these experiments if they become too dangerous?"

"You won't. We both know what will happen if you try."

"Colonel, is that a threat? Are you planning to go over my head on this?"

"No, Ma'am. I am simply advising you."

"I see. Thank you Colonel."

Caldwell realized he was being dismissed, "Doctor." He left.

Sheppard leaned back in his chair. "Well, he was subtle as a brick."

Weir sighed, "He's right. My hands are tied. But not by him or the DOD."

"I know. The problem is Sara."

"Yes."

Sheppard pondered the situation. "She really wants this badly. I bet that she'll go back to Doranda and do it by herself if we quit on her."

"Very likely."

"And she has the tech skills to pull it off too. McKay will also stick with her, I bet."

Weir said gloomily, "Yes, and he might even resign over it. He has a duty to us, but he also has made vows to her."

"She is so obsessed with stopping the Wraith."

"John, can you really blame her? The city is still unflyable and vulnerable. She has a duty to protect it."

"Well, let's just hope that they succeed then, without getting all of us killed."

McKay, the Guardian, and Zelenka were in the main lab of Atlantis. They reviewing the telemetry data that they had brought back from Doranda.

McKay was shaking his head as he stood at the large imaging table. "The containment field bowed outward. Why did it do that?"

The Guardian looked at the image and mused, "I'm wondering if the flux capacitor might have.." McKay scowled at her. "I mean, the doo-hickey, might have been reacting to the containment, trying to find a way out?"

"A way out? What do you mean?"

"A weak point. Maybe particles were trying to find a way to escape?"

"Sara, you make it sound like they were alive and searching for an exit.."

"We don't know how it works, Rodney. Based on our theories the Casimir-Polder force shouldn't allow a virtual particle pair to just fly apart like that. The particles are being forcibly separated in an unnatural manner. Maybe it's just reacting, with each particle trying to blindly reconnect with its counterpart to resolve the unnatural separation from it."

Zelenka thought about it. "You mean how like lightning during a thunderstorm strongly searches for a way to connect with the ground?"

"Yes, that is a good analogy. A lightning strike is not instantaneous. It starts slowly over several seconds with an initial filament that searches the air, moving this way and that, trying to find that elusive connection to the ground to relieve the huge electrostatic buildup, seeking out a way to make the connection to relieve the pressure. Often it is not the tallest object but rather the first one it happened to discover first. That's why lightning sometimes strikes people even when a taller object is nearby."

McKay frowned, "If you're right, that's not good for a stable containment environment. It means the fluctuations won't be predictable."

Zelenka agreed, "That is a major problem. Without some sort of predictability it won't be possible to modulate the containment field using an automatic algorithm to counteract the fluctuations."

McKay wondered, "Maybe there's a way to spot it before it happens? I want to play back Collin's accident again."

He opened up three windows on the imaging table. One window showed the main collector/emitter chamber, another showed the access tube with Collins inside, and the third showed McKay, the Guardian, and Zelenka at the main control panel.

McKay played the video slowly three times. Each time was the same: The Guardian looked up sharply, then there was a glow inside the main chamber, and split second later the containment field expanded into the access tube and surrounded Collins. A split second after that there was a bright light and the Guardian appeared behind Collins. She grappled him, and they disappeared again less than a half second later.

McKay noticed something. "Hey." He stopped the video from repeating. He rewound it and started it again more slowly, then he froze the image just as the Guardian looked up. He pointed at the image. "Sara, look at yourself. You're already reacting at that point."

She inspected the image of herself and agreed. "Yes, that is when I first sensed it."

McKay pointed at a graph, "Here is the energy level at that moment. See that? It hasn't changed yet. It doesn't start shooting up until 0.5 seconds later, here." He advanced then stopped the video again. "See? The readout now shows the huge energy spike starting." He rewound the video again where she started to turn her head. The graph reverted to a flat line.

He turned to face the Guardian. "Sara, how the heck did you do that?"

She peered down in amazement and touched her own image with a gloved hand. "I don't know."

Zelenka said, "You somehow knew that the spike was going to happen at least half a second before it actually started."

"Maybe I sensed the power surge happening before it was visible?"

McKay crossed his arms. "No. The telemetry doesn't show a thing yet. The power level was still flat at that point."

"Maybe the sensors lagged behind?"

"No, they react in nanoseconds. You have a quick reaction time, Sara, but it's not measured billionths of a second. And you were reacting at least 500 *million* nanoseconds ahead of that sensor. So how did you sense it first?"

"I.. I don't know.."

"Think carefully. What exactly was going through your mind that made you do the teleport?"

"Well, I just saw a vision pop in my head of Collins being burned to death, and I reacted. It was mainly instinct I think. I admit that a semi-blind teleport can be dangerous, but there really wasn't any other option."

Zelenka and McKay looked at each other.

The Czech scientist marvelled, "Do you think she has it?"

McKay nodded, "Yeah. No other way to explain it."

Sara pushed up her elbows from the imaging table. "What are you two talking about?"

"You saw the future. I think you might have precognition powers."

"Rodney, that is absurd. Precognition is the one pre-Ascendant ability that I definitely know that I do not have. I have never been able to predict the future."

"But you just said that a vision popped into your head that showed Collins burning to death."

"So?"

"Sara, Collins did not burn to death. It didn't happen. What you saw in your head never happened."

Zelenka agreed, "She anticipated it. She prevented a future event before it happened."

Sara stood back and shook her head. "No, no, no. Precognition does not work that way. The event always happens. When a seer has a vision and sees a future event, it always takes place. A vision seen by a pre-Ascendant being can never be avoided nor prevented from happening. At best it can only be misinterpreted or misunderstood, but it will definitely happen."

McKay was thinking. "No, I think your ability works differently. It's not a long term vision. It only operates on a time scale measured in a second or less. It shows a potential future, not a definite one. Your vision lets you take action to avoid it."

"Rodney, I can anticipate another person's actions simply by reading their mind. I merely react just before they actually decide to the take action, that's all."

Zelenka responded, "But this was a physical process, not a mind."

McKay approached his wife, "Sara, think hard. Was there ever a time in your life when you avoided injury in a potentially serious accident because you anticipated it? When nobody else was present?"

She tried to think back through her long life. "Uhm, well, I remember an event where I was alone working in the main hanger repairing one of Tarai's engine pods. Suddenly there was a big unexpected electrical discharge that shot out from the open pod right at me. I dived out of the way just before the arc struck the wall behind me. It would have killed me if I hadn't dodged it. At the time I had assumed that Tarai had detected it and warned me mentally, so I thanked him for saving my life, but he insisted that it wasn't him."

"So what did you think it was?"

"I had just assumed that maybe one of the ascended Vigilante had warned me, possibly in violation of their rules about non-interference? I really wasn't sure."

"Then what did you do?"

"I looked up and said 'Thank you' aloud, and that was it."

"Did it ever happen again?"

"Yes, it happened some other times. One time I even yelled, 'Thank you father!', thinking that maybe my father was watching me and looking out for me."

"Was it always a vision?"

"Yes. I would always have a quick vision of something bad that was going happen in the next second if I didn't react fast."

McKay grinned, "Just like a Jedi knight with a light saber."

The Guardian was confused. "A Jedi what?"

McKay tried to explain. "Well, there's a fan theory about how a Jedi knight in Star Wars can block an incoming laser blast with his light saber. You see, the theory is that the Jedi have the ability to see into the future to anticipate and block the laser shot. It works the same way in a light saber duel, where the winner is whichever combatant can see the furthest ahead to counter the opponent's predicted moves and counter-moves to win the battle."

"Rodney, isn't Star Wars just a children's fantasy story?"

"I know.. forget it. The point is, I think that you have that kind of ability, the ability to see into the future by about a second or so. It's why you always win a fight."

The Guardian tried to grasp the implication of McKay's theory. "Rodney, you mean that whenever I fight, say, a Wraith Champion in hand-to-hand combat who is both larger and stronger than me - and thus who ought to win the battle - that I am using both mental scanning and short-term precognitive ability to always win the fight?"

"Yeah."

"So you're saying I double-cheat."

"Yeah, you totally cheat every way you can."

She crossed her arms with satisfaction. "Good. I like that."

McKay chuckled, "Sara, just when I think I know all your tricks, you pull out a new one.."

"Actually this would be an old trick that I just didn't realize I had."

"Yeah, I guess."

"But Rodney, assuming you are correct about your theory - and I think you are - how does it deal with the field containment problem on Doranda?"

"Don't you see? The particle fluctuations are inherently unpredictable. It takes about a half second for the containment field to respond to the controls and counteract the change in the particle flux, but by that time it is already too late, and there is no way to write an automatic algorithm to anticipate something that hasn't happened yet. But you can do it yourself instead. How? By cheating. You adjust the containment field by anticipating the power surges just before they actually happen."

"You mean I do it manually using my short-term precog ability."

"Exactly."

"But Rodney, I can't do something like that indefinitely.."

"I know. We'll test you, see how long you keep it up."

"So how do we test it?"

"We go back to Doranda and run the experiment again, but this time with you manually adjusting the containment field. We'll see how long you can do it and measure the total amount of energy that gets produced. Eventually you will get tired and tell us to quit and we shut it down for you. It's possible you could do it long enough to full up a whole ZPM bottle. We'll find out. Meanwhile, we'll use the big gun to fire random energy shots up into empty space as a safety valve. That's why there wasn't a buffer installed.."

She finished his sentence, ".. because the gun itself is the safety buffer."

McKay grinned. "Yep. Simple, easy, elegant even."

"Rodney, you are brilliant."

He always enjoyed her heartfelt praise. "Heh, well.."

{ Meredith, my love, you are amazing. } She closed her eyes and kissed her husband. As she continued to kiss him she re-opened her eyes and gave a frowning look at the gawking Czech scientist who was standing behind them. Zelenka took the cue and moved away to a data terminal. She closed her eyes again and resumed her kiss.

{ Meredith, I knew there was a reason I married you.. }

{ For my body of course. }

{ Of course. Ronon has nothing on you. }

{ Well obviously. I got fur. }

{ Yes, I need my Pooh Bear. }

{ Hmm, I think we need to adjourn this elsewhere. }

{ Mmm. Definitely. }

As they left arm in arm, Zelenka muttered quietly to himself, "Proč je život tak nespravedlivý?**"

Weir was furious. "You idiots destroyed two solar systems!"

The Guardian spoke quickly, "Ma'am, it was an unfortunate accident. None of the nearby solar systems had any gates or human populations."

Weir fumed, "You call that a little accident?"

The Guardian tried to explain it. "Well, yes, by Lantean standards it wasn't all that big a blunder. Our people have screwed up far worse many times. One of our scientists once messed up a high-energy experiment that accidentally triggered a supernova that took out an entire galactic sector by mistake. By that standard, our error was pretty tame in comparison. I mean, it probably wouldn't even make a list of the top 200 Lantean screw-ups.."

McKay smiled weakly at Weir. { Kit, you are not helping. }

Weir was raging, "That's not the point! How am I going to explain this to the IOA?"

McKay said quietly, "Actually, I think it took out five solar systems.."

{ Really? It did? }

"What?"

The Guardian said contritely, "Okay, maybe not in the top 100 then?"

"Five? Are you serious? You are a pair of totally reckless imbeciles! I can't believe this!"

Weir's rant continued for several minutes. McKay could see Sheppard outside the fishbowl standing with his arms crossed while scowling hard at both of them.

After their profuse apologies, which ended with solemn promises to Weir that they would listen to Zelenka and Sheppard from now on, the Guardian then punished herself by spending the next seven days doing low-priority maintenance and cleanup of the outer piers and buildings. Weir exiled McKay to his lab for a week to do mandatory paperwork.

Looking back on the unfortunate incident, the Guardian was grateful that Sheppard had the foresight to bring a hidden Zat gun with him upon their return to Doranda. It was because the duo had ignored his and Zelenka's stern warnings against repeating the experiment so soon. When the Arcturus device went out of control and they realized that they couldn't turn it off, she had insisted on staying behind, intending to sacrifice herself to maintain the containment field while McKay and Sheppard fled on the jumper back to the gate, but neither one would budge. She was so busy concentrating on predicting the next containment deviation that she had failed to sense Sheppard pointing the Zat gun right at the back of her head. It was fortunate for him that she was so mentally preoccupied with preventing the Arcturus device from blowing up the planet that her survival reflexes had failed to stop him from shooting her, thus protecting Sheppard from serious injury. Both men then quickly carried her stunned body back to her jumper and they fled Doranda together while the out-of-control superweapon took random potshots at them.

Sheppard had trouble flying the Guardian's jumper because Tarai kept fighting him for control of the ship to dodge the incoming fire, but they eventually made it out just before the huge energy buildup - which had climbed to truly monstrous proportions thanks to the Guardian maintaining the containment field for almost two straight hours - that had finally ruptured and destroyed Doranda in a massive subspace shockwave that also obliterated several nearby solar systems.

The Guardian sighed as she looked at her maintenance checklist: 1) Clean and replace the filters on the yeast vats under the North Tower, 2) Clean and mop up the silt and slime that had accumulated in the bottom sublevels of the flooded South Tower, 3) Clean out the grease traps in the mess kitchen, 4) Fix the broken plumbing in the Southwest Tower that was backing up all the toilets, and 5) Do inventory and catalog any Lantean artifacts found in the formerly flooded sections under the South Tower.

By the end of the week she was finally on the last item on the checklist, number 5, the one item on her list that she was actually looking forward to doing. It was because it included a chance for her to visit her father's old secret lab, the birth place where she was incubated in a Time Acceleration Chamber over 10,000 years ago. She had spent her first 12 months growing up in that chamber until she had aged 20 years. During most of that time she was either unconscious, connected to a Learning Machine, or running VR simulations. Her father had released her from the Time Acceleration Chamber for a few days every couple weeks (about every year subjectively) to conduct various medical and mental tests, which also included a rare opportunity for her to interact with other children.

She reached the deserted and nondescript hallway deep under the South Tower. There she carefully replaced all of the fallen wall sconces that were knocked on the floor by the flooding, then she tapped three of them in quick succession and walked through the now permeable wall into her father's secret lab.

As she expected, her father's lab was undamaged, dry, and intact. She had not been inside it for over 6,000 years. The lab sensed her presence and consoles began to light up around her. She pulled out her Dell data tablet and started checking off various items on her list.

One particular item, the Attero Device***, was not on her list. She had deliberately omitted it because she had been instructed to keep the highly dangerous device stored safely within the Forbidden Archives almost 10,000 years ago.

She looked around the lab and kept checking off items. As she slowly walked around the room she approached the alcove that contained her old creche where she had spent most of her life prior to the start of her mission.

She smiled to herself while thinking of those childhood memories. Yes, it would be nice to see it again..

She turned the corner and gasped.

The Time Acceleration Chamber was gone.

A/N:

* After the siege the Daedalus had delivered some extra naquadah generators to Atlantis.

** Czech translation, "Why is life so unfair?"

*** See season 5, episodes 10 and 11: "First Contact (Part 1 of 2)" and "The Lost Tribe (Part 2 of 2)".