SHEPPARD MOON
By TIPPER
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE CRYPT KEEPER
Rodney had finally managed to call back the screen showing him the Daedalus, and saw it was hovering well outside the range of the now somewhat unpredictable planetary system. Safe. He smiled, and coughed raggedly into his hands, doubling over a little. Around him, the room was filled with ash and smoke, causing his eyes to water and his breath to catch. Sheppard and Caldwell had to know that he would be dead soon, but still...they were still there. Waiting. Right then, it meant the world to him. With a shaking hand, he touched the communicator again.
"I, um... his voice wavered, rough from coughing too much, tears running down his dust-covered face, "I...just wanted to...thank you for not leaving
"We're not going anywhere, Doctor," Caldwell's strong, comforting voice answered. "We'll be here."
McKay gave an almost imperceptible smile, his bottom lip trembling.
"I apprec—" Suddenly, the whole room shook and screamed, as every alarm went off at the same time, drowning out all else.
McKay yelled in pain, covering his ears and falling backwards away from the console, shutting his eyes against the assault of light and noise. He didn't feel himself fall, exactly—it was more like the ground jumped up to greet him as everything shook and exploded in a cacophonous boom.
A couple of heartbeats later, he risked opening his eyes. The whole room had been pitched into complete darkness—only his laptop was still shedding any light. Miraculously, it was still on despite having crashed to the floor near him. The screen flickered a little, but was mostly steady, coating the room in a soft, faint bluish light. At least, what remained of the room. From what he could see of it, that wasn't much.
He was lying on his side...and found he couldn't move. Something was pinning him down, laying right across his hip. It took him a moment to realize it was the big pillar he'd leant against before. Now it was leaning against him, holding him in place. How ironic.
It also didn't seem to hurt. In fact, he couldn't feel anything below his waist at all.
He sighed and coughed, knowing what that meant.
And silently cursed fickle fortune for not crushing his skull instead.
Resting his head against the cold floor, he closed his eyes.
At least the shaking seemed to have stopped. Maybe it was done...?
The wind picked up, rushing air past his face, playing with his hair. For a moment, he just ignored it, rather enjoying the sensation across his heated skin, then it occurred to him...
Wind? What wind? There was no wind here. What the hell...?
Oh.
Vacuum. The moon must have cracked open sufficiently to expose the outpost to space. The artificial atmosphere was probably venting out some massive hole somewhere. Fast.
He gave a weak, slightly hysterical laugh. So, if he didn't die from being crushed, he'd die by having all the air sucked from his lungs, probably in a matter of minutes.
Well, wasn't that just perfect.
"Why can't I just die when I'm not watching?" he whispered softly, opening his eyes again. He gave another cough, then sneered up at the ceiling. "Other people die instantly, I die slowly and in pain. How is that fair?"
"It's not."
"I mean, sure," McKay continued weakly, "I might've been a bit of an ass, sometimes, but..." he trailed off. Had someone else just said, 'it's not?' to him?
Rodney eyes widened, and he turned to look over his shoulder.
Enceladus was standing over him, bent over, resting heavily on his cane. His old face was garishly lit by the laptop, and, peculiarly, McKay was reminded of the Crypt Keeper.
Enceladus frowned. "Crypt Keeper?" he asked, his voice still as scratchy as sandpaper.
Rodney stared at him a moment, then snorted, which turned into an ugly bit of coughing. When it was done, he narrowed his eyes up at the old man and croaked out: "You're a telepath. That's how you knew about—"
"Oh," the old man interrupted, "I'm much more than that." Looking around, Enceladus seemed to be considering something, then, stepping over McKay's torso, he used his cane to help settle himself on the uneven ground next to the scientist, sitting Indian style, joints creaking. Sighing, Enceladus shifted so that he could see McKay's face without the scientist having to lift his head too much.
Rodney frowned up at him, "How are you not hurt? Or dead?"
Enceladus shrugged, then undid the buttons on his jacket, revealing a green personal shield beneath.
"Oh," McKay whispered. "You've the gene."
"I should," Enceladus said, fiddling with the jacket a moment before shrugging and taking it off altogether to place on his lap, "Seeing as I'm what your people call an Ancient."
McKay stopped breathing, just staring at the other man. It made a terrible sort of sense.
"An Ancient?" he exhaled heavily after a moment, which resulted in some ugly coughing. When he could speak again, he asked, "How...?"
"I've spent most of the last ten thousand years in a stasis chamber," the old man explained, meeting his gaze again, "only to be woken when either the shield needed maintenance...or someone activated the ring platform."
He raised his eyebrows then, obviously catching the memory of Old Weir that Rodney thought up, and gave a short laugh.
"Janus did that? Ha! Good man. Predictable in his unpredictability," he shook his head a little, smiling affectionately. "But, to answer your unasked question, I modified the stasis chamber here to slow time down at such a rate that not even the chambers on Atlantis could match it. But," he sighed, looking at his withered arms, "I still ended up an old, old man." He sighed, resting his arms down on his legs. "Believe it or not, Osheen and his people were the first to use the rings in all that time."
"An Ancient," McKay laughed weakly, trying to ignore the fuzziness at the edge of his vision, "Can't believe...we have...wanted to...for so long..." He punctuated the words with soft, liquidy coughs. "To learn..."
"Yes, I know. And, from what I can see in your head, Chaya wasn't much more helpful than me, was she?" He gave a short laugh, "And she disliked you, too! What, do you try to piss off every Ancient you meet?"
McKay gave a tiny smile, "Yeah...seem to be good at it." He coughed again. "Colonel Sheppard, on the other hand..." He smiled, closing his eyes. "At least...with the women."
Enceladus chuckled, "You know, Chaya was a beauty among my people, too. I'm not surprised your Colonel Sheppard fell for her. Hot tempered, though. Like me." He shrugged. "Her only difference being, she made her mistake after she ascended."
"Mistake?" McKay opened his eyes again, but only a little. Around them, the "wind" had picked up, and the temperature was dropping very quickly. He started to shiver. He flinched a moment when he felt something being draped over his shoulders, and realized Enceladus was giving him his jacket. He lifted his eyes to meet Enceladus' clear gaze as the old man leant back—he had to know. "What mistake?" he whispered, coughing again.
"Project Arcturus," the old man replied, looking away.
The blue eyes opened wide then. Oh my God. "That...that was you?"
"In part. A big part—I was one of the three chief scientists in charge." Enceladus' face pinched a little at the memory. "It...it's failure nearly destroyed me. The others tried to convince me it wasn't my fault, what happened to the people on Doranda, but I knew it was." He shook his head, heaving another sigh, and looked around at the chaos.
"I came here to hide. Oh sure, I said I was coming here to develop better shield technology, to find a means to create a shield that would be practically self-sustaining, but I really came here to run away. And when everyone evacuated, to return to Earth, I stayed."
"Why?" Rodney whispered, shaking badly with cold now, despite the extra jacket. He shut his eyes, the lids were just so heavy...
"Because I detested them. Thought them the worst kind of coward—running out on everything and everyone in Pegasus that they had created, when they needed them the most. Knowing that, I cut off all communication with Atlantis. I decided I never wanted to see them or anyone else ever again. I'd finish my shield technology, and use it to save Pegasus, without them."
"But—"
"I didn't succeed, I know. As it always does, it came down to power...or rather lack of it. I should never have let Osheen and his people stay—Asimbabbar was never meant to be more than a temporary refuge for the truly desperate. But it seemed a good way to test the durability of my work. But...," he looked around again at the rubble. Some of the smaller, loose pieces were lifting to fly out of the room out the main exit, pulled by the vacuum. "I failed again."
McKay frowned, disagreeing. The work he had done here was amazing. It wasn't a failure...
"Yes, it was, boy," Enceladus told him. "I couldn't generate enough power to sustain the outpost and the shield at the same time, couldn't avoid draining the ZPMs. I knew that ages ago, but even then, I didn't make Osheen leave. I was so certain I could fix it. And they nearly died for my hubris. Just like Doranda."
McKay's lips were as blue as his eyes now, and his voice was gone, though he wanted to add his own culpability. If he hadn't tried to save the ship...
"No, boy, it wasn't your fault, though I wanted to blame you." Enceladus sighed again, shaking his head. "I should have evacuated them six months ago."
The old man glanced down at the scientist when the man didn't reply, and realized the other man probably couldn't really hear him too well anymore. Rodney's shivering was beginning to slow—his body was giving up. Enceladus gave a soft sigh.
"I'm sorry, boy," he said. "I was wrong."
McKay's brow furrowed, but he was too tired and too cold to open his eyes again. His breathing was hitched and shallow, the wheeze very loud in the fading world. There would soon be no sound in this place at all.
Enceladus reached over, resting a hand on the now icy-cool forehead, "It's not an excuse for how I treated you, but...you have to understand..." He bit his lip, and looked away again. "I saw it there, in your mind. Right at the front, coloring everything you said and did. Project Arcturus. The dried husks of the bodies there, the destruction and failure. And your own foolish, egotistical attempt to fix my mistake. And what happened when you did, nearly killing both yourself...and your closest friend. It was...like someone had stuck a knife in my brain." He frowned. "You were the last person I wanted to share my work with. The last person I wanted to be near." The frown lessened, and Enceladus tilted his head, lips almost lifting into a smile as he studied Rodney's now still features.
"But you learned anyway, didn't you, boy?" he said. "You watched, and you learned. I have not seen someone as bright as you in, well," his lips quirked, "millennia. Even among my own people." He gave a small laugh, gently carding his hands through the scientist's hair. "And you used it to save not only your people, but Osheen and his people, knowing full well that you would die doing so."
Rodney showed no sign of having heard that. Completely unresponsive. Around them, the room was beyond freezing, and the wind was fierce. Only seconds of air left.
Enceladus smiled. "You will be a great man, someday, Doctor McKay. Better than me." He snorted, "You might even be able to do what my people and Icouldn't—save this galaxy." He lifted his hand away, and glanced towards the hallway. "And I hope you do," he added softly.
Reaching up, he removed the personal shield from his chest, and immediately shivered as he felt the frigid cold for the first time. Resting it on the ground next to McKay, the old man reached forward and rested one hand on McKay's head, the other on his arm.
Warmth flooded through the scientist, and McKay's eyes opened in shock as pain blasted through his senses from his legs and back. He tried to yell, but his lungs seemed frozen, and he felt like he couldn't breathe. His eyes shut again, pinching closed, unable to bear it.
"Healing," Enceladus muttered weakly over the roaring in McKay's ears, "was never my greatest strength, and I really am old now. But I will do all that I can. With luck, it'll be enough..."
McKay tried to reply, but the pain was too much...
Right before everything went black again, the world erupted in light...
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"Colonel Caldwell," Novak called over the comm., causing both Sheppard and Caldwell's heads to lift, "The outpost is completely exposed...and we are reading two life signs still! They are deeply inside the outpost, but it has be them! Hermiod has managed to lock onto...oh...wait...one of them has..."
"Beam them here!" Caldwell shouted, shooting out of his chair. "Now!"
A flash of white light, and Rodney lay on the floor of the bridge, his clothes ripped and bloodied, covered head to toe in dust and filth—and what looked like someone else's jacket. He was unconscious...and alone.
"McKay!" Sheppard was there in a moment, pressing a hand to the scientist's cold neck—he was freezing! It seemed impossible, but there was a heartbeat there—slow, but there. "Hermiod," he called, "get us to the med bay. Hurry!"
Another flash of light, and both men were gone.
Caldwell exhaled a hard breath, looking out the viewscreen at the planet, pinpointing the pieces of Asimbabbar floating off in different directions. "What about the other?" he asked over the comm.
"I am afraid it disappeared," Hermiod answered, "before we could get a lock. I am sorry, Colonel."
Caldwell grimaced a little, but then simply smiled. He just couldn't be unhappy right now. "Oh well," he said. He turned around to look at his crew, smile growing. "I'll be in the med bay. Captain, you have the bridge. Take us home, will you?" And he turned and walked briskly out.
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TBC...
By the way, Enceladus, as you all know, is one of Saturn's moons. What you may not know is that one of the other moons is named Janus.