A/N:

I need to set my posting alarm for earlier. In my defense, I have had no internet (or power) all day. I'm going to sleep. Night everyone. You know the drill, read, respond, like, subscribe, etc etc etc.

By the way, I do not speak or know how to translate Czeck on my own so any errors in Radek's speech are the fault of Google translate.

Also just a reminder, all parts of a chapter equal one chapter. And I am attempting to write this story like episodes of the show not like a book. So each full chapter is to be viewed as an episode. There were stand-alone episodes in the main story arch. There were character episodes. There were world-ending episodes. This ends this Public Service Announcement.

Second reminder, Atlantis is the size of Manhattan. I dunno if y'all know just how big that is. But let me break it down for you. There are around 1.632 million people currently living and working in Manhattan. Atlantis is now almost fully staffed. In the show, we never saw more than one or maybe two hundred Lanteans. That is unrealistic for a city-ship that size. So keep in mind that even if there are only 5 thousand people living and working in Atlantis at this point, I am never going to be able to show you everyone who is there. People will be walk-ons. People, unfortunately, will die and go missing. Bad things happen, good things happen. This is life. So hang in there with me. Every one of the major characters has a reason for being in this story, especially the ones we love from the Stargate universe. But I am only in Episode 10 at this point!

Much love stay safe and healthy,

J.R

Recap:

Gathering their things together, the siblings made to leave but the doors refused to open. And just as Gunnr popped open the sensor panel to override the lock a red light began flashing and the alarms sounded.

All three sighed in frustration as the lock on the door engaged and they were sealed in. "Not again."

Then the soft current of air that had been constant through the entire game shut off. So did the lights. Leaving them with only the dim red glow of the emergency lights.

Off to the left of Todd, he heard a low angry warning growl. The kind that he had only ever heard from an enraged wraith queen. It wasn't from either brother.

Episode 10 The Wave Part 1

Rodney's Lab.

Jennifer didn't know if she should be furious with Rodney or not. After all, there had been minor glitches to different systems since leaving Earth, and then there was the whole shield issue that was taken care of days ago. But this couldn't be an engineering issue as none of the engineering team had been into the Medwing for anything other than the normal bump and bruise treatment in days. It had been relatively quiet from them. Granted an ensign had come in for a minor burn but he had been in and out within minutes.

No, this had to be a power distribution problem. How else would the diagnostic machines and everything her department used be down? It was mainly the things they had brought from earth too. Though the Lantean equipment was on the fritz too, just not to the same degree.

Either way, Rodney hadn't answered her messages or fixed the problem so she was on the warpath. You could not propose to a girl, with the most beautiful ring she had seen in ever and then ignore her emergencies. Especially when you probably caused them!

"Rodney!"

She found him hunched over his laptop, pounding away at the keys as if they had personally murdered a loved one, his team working furiously around him. Even Radek looked a little more stressed than normal. But at least they weren't at panic levels so that had to be a good thing. Right?

"Doctor Keller?" Radek asked, looking up from his screen and rubbing his eyes like he hadn't seen sunlight in days. "What brings you here?"

"The power is out in Medical." She explained, much kinder than she had been planning to when she talked to Rodney. "Any ideas why?"

He waved her over before going back to his screen and quickly bringing up a power grid view and diagnostic of her department. It was showing that there was nothing wrong. Even she could tell that having looked at that program more than once herself.

"We're working by flashlight down there," she explained. "It's lucky that no one has needed any major help or we'd be in real trouble."

No sooner had she said it than the door to the lab slid shut and the klaxon alarm began sounding. The lights went off and the red emergency lights came on a moment later. Maybe one of these days she would learn not to speak too loudly in this city and tempt whatever fates there may be.

Looking up at the alarm, Rodney met her eye and immediately came to her side to hug her. "Nothing to worry about." He assured.

"Then what's going on?"She yelled to be heard over the alarm only for it to be cut off halfway through her sentence.

"The city tripped an alarm because of a wave of radiation that is headed our way." One of the other scientists explained, pushing her glasses back up her nose. "It's been shutting down power to systems that it believes will be affected by it all day. Anything that is Earth tech was the first it shut down."

"Most of the Lantean tech," Rodney cut in, "is shielded against the radiation, and the crystalline construction isn't really affected by it, so it's safe. But we've never had to deal with it before so anything from Earth is susceptible."

"What about the people?" Jennifer asked, realization dawning on her. They weren't made out of crystals after all. "Is the city shielded enough to protect the people?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Radek answered. "We don't know exactly what type of radiation the main wave is. And we've never had to deal with this before."

"But we've traveled in the city before." She objected. "Why didn't we run into this before?"

Rodney chuckled. "Space is pretty big." He answered and received a backhanded smack to the stomach from his fiance. "In all honesty, we've never been going this slow before so most of the time we could get outside the dissipation range. And the Earth built ships haven't run into it before since they travel at hyperdrive."

"Can't we go into hyperdrive then?" She asked. "Get around the wave?"

Radek shrugged and looked at Rodney. "Engineering says the hyperdrive is ready."

Rodney glared at his partner. "We need to talk to Sophie and we can't get a hold of her."

"She's taking a few days off," Zelenka explained to the doctor with a shrug. "And we've tried contacting her but she's not picking up her comms."

"Have you tried her family?"

Rodney winced. He just couldn't get used to them. Sophie he had known before finding out she was Furling. But the rest of her family? Knowing that they were technically aliens made them so much more… well, alien.

"We have." Radek shrugged. "The only problem is that her father and grandfather don't keep a comm with them. Her mother and grandmother routinely forget theirs. Luka has one but he's not with his mother today."

"And her brothers?"

"Honestly are intimidating."

Jennifer rolled her eyes and held out a hand for Rodney's comm. A moment later she was talking to Gunnr who picked up on the first try. "Yes beautiful?" The flirt answered and she could hear a smile in his voice. "Tell me you've decided to leave McKay and run away with me?"

"Not in your dreams." She laughed. She had a friend a long time ago that acted the exact same as the brother and wasn't fooled in the slightest. "Where's your sister?"

"You wound me gorgeous. Everyone always wants Sophie. No one ever asks how I am." He said and then let out a grunt like something just hit him. "She's right here." He said with a gasp.

A moment later the voice of the engineer came over the comms. "Yes, doctor. What can I do for you?"

"Know anything about radiation waves that would cause the city to go into lockdown?"

The silence that met her question was deafening. "Where are you right now?"

"In Rodney's lab."

"Good." The little engineer answered. Her tone low and calm, which didn't help Keller's nerves. "Can you ask Rodney to so a life signs scan of the city and see how many personnel are outside shielded and protected rooms? The shielded rooms would be resident quarters, medical, Biolabs, and emergency pods."

After relaying the message to Rodney and then his answer, she had to pull the comm away from her ear when the engineer cursed. At least she assumed by the tone it was a curse. "Is that bad?"

"Can you ask him what level the lockdown is at?" Sophie asked instead of answering her. "I know it's not the level used for contagion but the environmental controls have shut down and if there's anyone trapped in small spaces like the transporters then air is going to be a problem before we can worry about the wave."

Not having noticed that the air re-circulation had turned off, Jennifer paled. She could see people in transporters on the map right now. She quickly asked Rodney and his face paled too before he quickly checked the security level.

"Oh, that's not good." He murmured. "Comm please."

At least he remembered to say please, she thought as she handed it over. "Because the city is trying to preserve biologic life everything is shut down. The only thing that the safety protocols haven't locked out is the drive systems. Everything else has been shut down and all power has been diverted to the shields like the city is preparing to ride out the wave with the engines acting like our anchor so we don't get ripped apart by the gravitational backwash of the radiation wave."

"I'm putting you on speaker." He said a moment later.

"Keller, get to a computer," the slightly tinny voice of the engineer came over Rodney's laptop speakers. "We're gonna need your medical override code real quick before we can do anything else."

"What about the hyperdrive?" She asked again, moving to a spare computer.

"We can try it but the engines need to warm up on or else we risk overload," Sophie answered. "And we need to get personnel out of unsecured areas anyway. Does anyone know where the colonel and generals are? We need someone with experience in the chair room."

Doing a quick search, Rodney bit back a curse of his own. "Sam and Jack are in a transporter and Sheperd is in one of the gardens. All are locked in."

"Sam is really gonna hate the transporters after this." She chuckled. "Isn't this her second time stuck in one?" Rodney and Keller shared a knowing look.

Coughing softly, Jennifer pulled up her medical access page on the computer. "Why will you need a medical override?"

"Well," Sophie began. "It seems that the Asgard and the Ancients shared beaming technology. But the Ancients only integrated it for medical emergencies, whereas the Asgard used it frequently. So if this works you're going to have a very packed medical Doctor Keller. I do hope your people can handle it."

"They can." She said confidently, having no doubts as to the competence of her team.

"Rodney who is in the chair room?"

"One of the duckling marines," he began distractedly, using the term coined for a person with a decent ATA gene rating but no real experience with the higher function and delicate machinery, like the chair room. Each duckling took time to train, unlike Shepard and O'Neill who took to it naturally like ducks to water. "And Daniel. Why?"

"Because if you can't overwrite the emergency medical transport programming very quickly and get either Jack or John in the chair room, that duckling is going to be the one jumping us into hyperspace and back out again."

Rodney paled. It was bad enough every time John jumped them. But an untrained newbie? One that he personally knew had very little chair experience as they only just transferred two weeks before Atlantis left earth? That was the stuff nightmares were made of. "On it."

"Doctor Keller will need to sign you into the emergency transport program for almost every transport unless you can cobble together a workaround for that too."

"I've got that one!" Radek called from his station.

"Okay. All of you are going into the medical operation directory and find the program we nickname nine one one."

"Why nine one one?" The Czech doctor asked in confusion.

Knowing the answer, and seeing Rodney had already fallen down the rabbit hole of coding, Doctor Keller replied, tapping on the program. "Emergency medical services in most of North America is nine one one. Found it! What did I do now?"

"Good," Sophie answered back. "Now it'll have you sign in. Then it pulls up a map of the city with life signs marked all over. You're going to have to tap each one and confirm that transport I'm afraid. It wasn't designed for mass transport but there will be an option if your target is with someone to transport the entire group. It was used for things like lab accidents from what I understand. After you confirm the person will automatically transport and you can go on to the next person."

Trying it, Keller gasped in amazement when the life sign disappeared and reappeared in Medical. But no sooner was she excited that they just might get everyone to safety in time, then the program asked for her stupidly long medical override code again. She cursed under her breath and repeated the process, automatically sorting people like it was triage. People in protected and shielded areas were left alone, but she began emptying the edges of the city as quickly as possible not knowing exactly where the wave would hit.

"Radek she needs that work around!"

"Pracuji tak rychle, jak jen mohu! Pokud si myslíte, že to můžete udělat lépe, udělejte to sami a slezte mi z prdele!"(I'm working as fast as I can! If you think you can do better, do it yourself and get off my ass!) Radek snapped over the tapping of his keys.

"Either my Czech is getting better or you've used that one on me before." Sophie chuckled darkly.

"Do háje!" (damn) He snapped again then mumbled something like "dát někomu nůž na krk."(put a knife to someone's neck. (apparently, this means to put pressure on someone if it wasn't self-evident))But she couldn't be sure. When Sophie only laughed again, Keller figured it wasn't that serious whatever it was he said. A moment later as her screen changed to an unfamiliar window, he looked up at her. "It says to confirm mass transport, yes?"

She nodded, reading it and confirmed just as Rodney began yelling to everyone. "Brace yourselves!"

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the wave hit. The entire city bucked and rolled like a leaf in a hurricane. Anything unsecured went flying. From people to plants, computers to tools. Every single thing that wasn't tied, bolted, or lashed down was shaken and bashed about.

"Was that it?" Jennifer asked, looking over everyone in the room. There were bumps, bruises, and other minor injuries, but nothing she saw was life-threatening. Carefully she set the computer with its precious life-saving program back on the table. Most of the scientists were doing the same, having protected their computers and tablets with their own bodies. "Is it over?"

"That was only the first major wave." Rodney groaned, holding one hand to his head as he opened his laptop back up. In their shielded, faraday cage of a lab, the tech was only affected by the tremors, but they were now officially cut off from the comms system or anything else that didn't run on the city's crystalline construction.

"There are two more minor waves like that headed our way." The female scientist with the glasses and blond curly hair grunted, pulling herself upright. "Then the main event."