A/N:
Hey guys! Sorry about the wait! most of it was literally not my fault this time. It wasn't even the lack of muses fault, although they did abandon me at the end of this chapter. I want Atlantis to get to Pegasus so badly but I have to deal with the first half of the trip before I begin on the parts I've been planning since the beginning. But fair warning, you're gonna love me and hate me before we get there.
Things are beginning to heat up in all kinds of ways. And maybe we'll see what the boys do to Kannaan before we leave the Milky Way. I wonder what the Furling punishment is for abandoning your partner and child? Thoughts? Also Will John ever get a move on?!
In other news. Keep in mind NaNoWriMo is coming up and I will not be writing on Earth and Sky during it so I may have to put it on Hiatus for the month. I hope not. I hope that I can bank 4 chapters before hand. It doesnt seem like a large amount but it is. So stick with me and send chocolate (sea salt and caramel milk chocolate please!) and Whiskey... Or Bourbon... And Tea!
J.R.
Recap:
"Ronon, do you have a knife?"
"How many you need?"
Episode 7 Feedback Part 4
The corner of Sophie's mouth quirked up as she flicked her eyes over his face. "I knew there was a reason I liked you." She teased. "Now I'm going to describe a knife, you're going to tell me you have it or we're all going to die." She smirked, ripping out a wire from the side of the crystal pad and stripping the wire with her teeth. Bad, but she didn't have time to do it the right way. "Six to eight inches long, full tang, no handle scales, bare tang preferred." She bit her lip. Ignoring the beads of sweat that were gathering just below her nose. "No fuller. Throwing knife preferred. Two would be nice but I can make do with one."
A handle gently tapped her elbow and Ronon's grinning face met her eyes. "Woman who knows her weapons. Gotta like that."
John shuddered. "Would you two stop flirting!"
Both Ronon and Sophie snorted as she took one of the knives that Ronon held out to her. "Gotta learn to flirt with your girl Shep." Sophie counseled, making the knife dance between her fingers before she wiggled it into a tiny slot that should have held a crystal.
"Even when you're married," Ronon added, wincing as she jammed the second blade in, making the power jump and arch between the too. "Should always flirt with your other half."
Her eyes filled with tense concentration, while she held the jumping knives steady, Sophie tossed him a smile. "And while you're figuring out how to flirt with her, Teyla I need you to run as fast as you can and get me a spare crystal. Call engineering as you go and tell them I need a power control regulator crystal."
"Why can't you?" John asked, sending the pictures without a problem. Man, he liked Sophie's pad. Much easier than Rodney's plug and play.
The tiny blond growled. "My headset is fried." And he had a feeling that he was just asking for more of a beating. "Because I'm literally being electrocuted," she winced, gritting her teeth against the jolt. "While I make sure the knives don't jump."
"Use your gloves!" He pointed to the leather gloves that were tucked into her belt.
Shaking her head, Teyla took off at a dead run while Sophie glared at the colonel.
"And melt the leather into my palms because I can't feel the shock?"
"Leather doesn't melt!" John's voice echoed down the hallway.
Engineering Bay
"Rodney!" Teyla yelled as she entered the bay, racing past the scurrying workers ignoring the shower of sparks that rained around her. Did she really want to know?
Spinning from the carefully organized spare parts cabinet, Rodney held the crystal to the light, making sure all of the built-in pathways were clear. "Here!" He yelled, tossing it and a spare comm to his teammate. "You better run that patch of hers will only last minutes!"
North Pier Field Generator
"Since you're taller than I am, Ronon." Sophie began once the colonel had stopped arguing with her. "I need you to visually inspect all the crystals still in place." Blue eyes cut to him quickly to take in his somewhat startled expression. This wasn't a weapon that she asked him to take apart and maintain. Definitely not something he was prepared for. "Don't touch, just look. Any black marks, odd smells, or anything out of the ordinary you tell me."
As he nodded and moved away, she called out to the annoying colonel who was quickly moving into sibling level territory of annoying. "Shep, I need you to pull up the schematics for the array on my tablet."
"Uh… That's not plug and play."
"And Todd keep and eye on the levels!"
"What do you think I'm doing human?" Todd asked, what the humans would have sworn was a smile rife in his voice.
"I don't know," she snarked back. "Doing the macarena."
A moment of silence passed before John chuckled. "Wrong people." The engineer chuckled, tossing a smirk over her shoulder.
The doors slid open with another hiss, the airlocks releasing to emit the out of breath Athosian, holding out the crystal for the younger blond.
"Oh, you are a beautiful woman." The Carolinian breathed, carefully reaching for it.
Removing the fried headset from the younger woman's ear, Teyla slid another one in. "Rodney said do not fry another one. He doesn't care that you're," she paused, glancing at Todd. "More durable than normal. He would prefer that you stop breaking equipment."
Chuckling, Sophie slid the crystal into place with an anti-climatic sigh. "Yes, mom." She breathed, sliding to the floor with a relieved groan and hung her head.
"That's it?" The colonel asked, scanning the gathered group. "That doesn't seem like that should be it." His eyes narrowed on the Wraith as the male moved and tapped the screen.
Seeing the glare, Todd continued to tap. "Shield levels rising, female."
Sighing as she raised her head, letting it fall back against the wall with a thud, Sophie nodded. "Tell me when it's above fifty percent, tell me if it's still rising."
Silence reigned for several seconds while everyone seemed simply too stunned to move before the Wraith spoke again. "Fifty-six and steadily rising."
Teyla and Ronon not fully understanding what was going on, not that John did either but at least he understood technology a little bit, looked back and forth between the Wraith and the engineer. They now understood how to use the Atlantian tech that they needed, even the Earthling tech, but how it worked? Still a mystery. "Can one of you explain what just happened?" Teyla asked, her voice testy with exasperation.
Scrubbing at her eyes with the grease smeared heels of her hands, Sophie sighed. "Shepherd is right." It was a good thing she was on the floor because Sophie would have sagged to the floor under the weight of her realization. She may not have trusted all of the new people on her team. But she had hoped that she could. But to have it confirmed that there was a traitor on her team?
Crushing.
"It was too easy." She continued as the group turned their full attention on her. "It was too easy. And do you want to know why?" She asked, desperate grief coloring her words.
"Because you know who is responsible." Todd guessed. "Or at least can narrow it down," He corrected, resting a hip against the housing of the computer panel carefully as if he could feel every single one of his millennia. "Such things happen, female. Even among the Wraith."
"How many can you narrow it down to?" John asked when Sophie began laughing.
It started deep in her gut, bubbling up into her throat. There was no way she could contain it. No way she wanted to. "Fifty people. Fifty-one, including myself."
Protest rose into the eyes of the Atlantis team. They had come to know the woman before them. She would never willingly leak information, let alone tear apart the city that she worked so hard on. "We know you weren't involved, Sophie." John tried. "You don't have to…"
Sophie's eyes flew open. "Yes, I do have to insist that you make sure I am not involved. I do have to add myself to that list." Quickly she pushed to her feet. "All of my work computers have to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb." Moving to stand in front of John, she continued, her eyes meeting his with determination. "I may not personally have sabotaged the shields or the city engines but that doesn't mean my work tablets or computers haven't been hacked."
"Fifty-one points of access, Shepherd" She insisted. "Is better than nowhere to start in finding this bastard."
Almost groaning at the thought of all the complaining that Rodney would do once he was told. Let alone the paperwork. "Do you have any idea how much I hate being in charge sometimes?"
A wicked little smile slid across Sophie's face, glittering in her eyes. "I'm thirsty. Feel like some 'shine, Shep?"
Shaking his head and laughing, Shepherd waved everyone to the door as it slid open and marines began pouring in. "Take Todd back to his cell." He directed the team leader on their way passed him.
Back in the Engineering Bay
Rodney was confused. It wasn't a normal feeling unless he was dealing with people or feelings, he didn't really understand them. It was the "human" element in them that confused him. He was human and he had emotions, which he knew colored his own perception and gave him a very healthy ego, but this?
Why would the programming that he had traced the energy feedback loop to suddenly disappear as soon as he saw the shield levels stabilize? It was like there had been a kill switch. He had seen it. It had been right there on his screen. And then as soon as the shield leveled out? Poof. It disappeared from his screen as if it had never been.
Hearing the tiny blond who was currently the bane of his existence walk into the bay and yell to one of her team, who's name he hadn't bothered to learn, he spun around on his stool. "What did you do?" He snapped at her.
Her eyes narrowed on him, golden eyebrows furrowing on her tanned face in confusion. "What are you talking about, Rodney?"
Sam explained what had happened to the coding, not even bothering to take her eyes from the screen that she was staring at. But when Sophie explained her suspicions to them in a voice, Sam quickly looked at the scurrying hive of activity around them. It was hard enough to hear someone right next to you, so She doubted anyone heard Sophie. But the General waved them into an open shuttle that was in the midst of being stripped for parts. Offices weren't safe of bugs after all.
Hitting the door release, Sam rounded on Sophie and Rodney. "Run that by me again." She ordered.
Sam's face was more shuttered than Rodney had ever seen it. Her eyes going colder and more calculating than he ever remembered seeing her. But Sophie didn't cow like he knew he would under the flinty gaze that looked distinctly "Angry O'Neill" like. The younger blond simply stood at attention with her hands behind her back, laying out the facts in a calm clear manner.
"And you think it's one of your people?"
Sophie nodded, unruly blond curls sliding free of the hair tie that she had pulled them into. "You know my morning meetings with my team." She explained. "You know how we search for weaknesses in our work like we're trying to rip it to shreds." She waited until Sam acknowledged it. "The weaknesses in the shielding? The power distribution crystals? Everything they've attacked and the way that they did it? We've discussed each and every one before it happened. That's how we knew exactly how to fix it so fast. This is the first time that they combined two morning meetings in one go."
"You think they're escalating?" Rodney asked. He really didn't like where this was going.
"I think they want to be caught." She corrected. "Otherwise why do something that we had so obviously discussed within days of us discussing it? Something that only the maintenance crew would hear?"
"Fifty-one places to check if better than an entire city, I suppose." Sam agreed, leaning back against the cockpit door.
Rodney breathed out a heavy sigh, sagging onto one of the only benches left in the rear section and nodded. "But even if it isn't the people themselves, it might be that someone has access to them."
"Bugging them, their tech, their tools even."
"Or it may be the human angle." Sam agreed. "Significant other. One night stand. A friend with benefits. A plain friend who just happens to listen to job stresses."
Chuckling, Sophie shook her head. "Can rule out one night stands at least. They would need nearly constant access to be pulling off everything that they have and keeping us running in circles like this."
With a determined nod, Rodney stood again. "Well, I'll start going through the tech and make sure that isn't bugged."
"Start with Romanov and me, please Rodney." The blond asked, meeting his eyes.
She was scared, he realized as he stared into her eyes. She wasn't showing it to the extent that he would expect from someone her age, but she was. Huh. Before he got into a relationship with Jennifer he wouldn't have noticed that.
When he nodded, she returned it and then smacked the door release. "I'll have the computers and tablets delivered to you immediately, labeled of course."
As the door lowered, she moved to it and yelled. Her voice echoing off the far metal walls and reverberating until his head fairly rattled with it. "ROMANOV!"