Author's Note: Sorry, this took a while, but I've been having problems with my account. Also, I've been busy planning updates for my website and such. Updates may come a little more slowly for a while.
This chapter is finishing up the Wraith attack plotline, but I think it's a bit funnier than the last chapter.
HOLY CRAPPER! Hit the 30 reviews mark with the addition of chapter 4! Thank you, wonderful reviewers! Another record: now over 20 pages in MS word (single space, too!)!
Trapped And Annoyed
Courtknee
lovewildfire
T'Karish
Kitty2satan
MaryChristmas
Also, we will be heading back to the stasis pod room, I'm just taking it one plot at a time… or else my brain would put Sheppard as the scientist and McKay in a jumper (o wait, I did that already oop, you weren't supposed to know that.)
Regarding Beckett: I've seen some people doing his accent in writing… but I tried in the second chap when I was writing it, and it was a disaster… so you'll just have to hear it in your head as you read…
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"I didn't realize those things were so fast, sir."
"Me neither," responded Sheppard
"Hey, you got any hyperspace thing over there, sir?" asked Ford, looking over at Sheppard.
"Don't worry, we're catching up."
"Sir, I can see the planet."
"Crap." All of a sudden the ship sped up to nearly twice their previous speed.
"Well it's about time!" Ford regained his hopeful look as the darts drew closer into view, as did the planet.
"You fire when I tell you to fire, you got that?"
xxx
Weir walked into the control room, paged by Grodin not two minutes before.
"Doctor, the enemy ships are approaching at a great speed. I recommend we evacuate. Now," he said, not looking up from the map on the screen. Weir walked over.
They both saw the green dot suddenly race forward. "Wait, what was that?"
"It won't matter. Either evacuate now, or…" answered Grodin.
"Turn on the com." Grodin did so, and Weir started to speak, "Attention all personnel. Immediate evacuation. I repeat, immediate evacuation. Please report to the 'gate room A.S.A.P. Take only what you can carry."
xxx
"Quickly, all equipment containers to the 'gate room. Medical team two, take the patients, on- ON STRETCHERS!" Beckett yelled as two meds tried to carry an Athosian man out of the infirmary.
"Hey, Doc."
"Now is not the time, Rodney," snapped Beckett, clearly caring more about his infirmary equipment than what McKay had to say.
"I promise never to be a pain in the butt ever again when I'm in the infirmary."
Beckett looked over at the man thoughtfully. "That's a handsome offer, Doctor."
"Get me to the jumper bay."
Beckett gave him a look of confusion, but then shouted to a nameless med, "You, in charge for a few minutes. See that everything makes it. I'll meet you in the 'gate room. No, leave him here," he said to another pair of meds about to load McKay on a stretcher. Beckett grabbed a pair of crutches from a passing cart and handed them to McKay.
"Thanks."
"Well, hurry it up, we haven't got all day," Beckett shouted at him, motioning towards the door. He briefly looked towards the ceiling and muttered, "Forgive me."
xxx
"I think we're in range, sir," said
Ford, had anxiously on the Ancient equivalent to a "fire" button.
"Go ahead."
Ford released three drones, but as soon as they were launched, the darts wheeled around and destroyed them all.
"Crap, they're getting smarter." The two could now both clearly see the city outlined on the vast ocean. "Fire again!"
The three drones were again intercepted.
"I sure hope they've all evacuated," Ford said, looking down at the city.
xxx
"Is everyone here?" Weir yelled over the crowd. They had opened a wormhole to a planet the Athosians knew to be friendly.
"Doctor Beckett's not here yet!" yelled someone from the ground below.
"Wait, something's happening. All the darts have stopped," said Grodin, looking intently at the map. Weir and a few other personnel ran to an outside balcony and looked up. Sure enough, the darts had stopped and were firing blindly into the sky.
"Brilliant! The major made the ship invisible!"
"Yes, but why haven't they destroyed the darts?" asked Weir. She was just about to yell for everyone to go though the gate when the three darts suddenly exploded, showering fiery debris into the ocean. Cheers were heard from the small crowd, they then ran in and shared the good news to the crowd at the foot of the stargate, which was momentarily disengaged.
xxx
They jumper was taking hit after hit, the beam fire from the three ships was so thick that Sheppard was having great difficulty dodging them.
"Fire at will, Ford!"
"Yes, sir" Ford released nine drones, all of which were destroyed. Suddenly, the three Wraith ships exploded as if they had been hit by the drones after all.
Ford jumped out of his seat "YES! We did it, sir!" He looked expectantly at Sheppard, who was staring at the burning debris. He turned the invisibility off.
"I'm not so sure."
"Some of the drones must have gotten through, sir! YES!" Ford let out a hoot of excitement, and Sheppard broke into a wide grin.
"Nice work, lieutenant," he said, holding out his hand.
Ford took it saying, "Sir, we gotta do this more often."
They sat back down, Sheppard piloting the jumper towards the city. "I agree, just not this close to home!"
They arrived in the jumper bay to a large crowd, cheering wildly.
"You'd think they'd plan a welcome party, but no, all we get is a mob," mused Sheppard, cleanly landing the jumper. The two were greeted with smiled and "good job"'s in many different languages. Finally, they found Weir.
"You did good up there," she started. "Thank you."
"Well, you gotta give credit to the Ancients for building that thing over there," Sheppard said, turning to face the puddle jumper he'd been piloting for the last half hour. He quickly noticed, though, that something was wrong.
"What is it, sir?" asked Ford, noticing his questioning stare in the direction of the jumpers.
Sheppard pointed to an empty space two ships over from his. "Is it just me, or should there be a jumper right there?"
Weir looked at Ford. "How many puddle jumpers do we have, lieutenant?"
"Twelve, doctor."
Weir was just about to count them when Sheppard said, "There's only eleven."
xxx
Grodin pointed to a lone green dot in the center of a map of the city. "There's your missing jumper. It seems to be in this main building…"
"We searched it already; nothing," said Weir, confused.
"Maybe its not in the building," commented Sheppard, returning from the latest search.
Weir gave him a look.
"This is McKay we're talking about," continued Sheppard.
"You think McKay's aboard the jumper?" asked Weir.
"He's not in the infirmary anymore."
"Well, neither is Doctor Beckett, but he wouldn't go within a hundred feet of those ships."
"Still, a look can't hurt, can it doctor?"
The three headed out onto one of the balconies.
"Was the top of the building always broken like that?"
xxx
The two arrived at the jumper bay in less than two minutes.
"Just out of curiosity, what are you planning to do?" asked Beckett, clearly uncomfortable being in such close proximity of the ships.
"Don't you get it?! Those two need help up there!" McKay exclaimed, hobbling as fast as he could towards the nearest jumper.
Beckett gave a worried/nervous grin, then headed for the door. "Well, have fun, I'll be going ba-" The door closed. Beckett looked at McKay with disbelief. "I am not going on one of those ships! There is no way you can make me!"
"Come on! I uh, need help opening the door!"
"NO!" Beckett succeeded in finding a 'door open' button and ran out of sight.
xxx
As Weir, Grodin, and Sheppard gazed up at the broken tip of the building, the jumper's invisibility faltered, and the three were finally able to see clearly where it was.
"Hey, if the building were green, and that jumper was gold, it would look like a Christmas tree!" No one had noticed Ford walk out on the balcony. He had joined the group in staring up at the jumper. He grinned as he received a that's-not-funny look from Weir and Grodin, but a laugh from Sheppard.
Ford was right, though, as the jumper was centrally stuck on the top of the spire.
"Um, how are we going to get it down?" asked Sheppard.
"From what I've read on the computers, there is a way to pilot the jumpers remotely," started Grodin. The other looked at him expectantly. "Unfortunately, I haven't found it yet. It may only be accessible to someone with the ATA gene."
Weir looked at Sheppard. "You want to give it a try?"
Sheppard returned his gaze to the jumper. "Well, if it really is McKay and Beckett up there, shouldn't one of them have their radios?"
"Got mine," said Beckett, walking out onto the balcony.
"Doctor Beckett! Where did you go?" asked Weir, somewhat relieved to see that the doctor wasn't up in the jumper.
Beckett, however, had followed Sheppard's gaze to the jumper. "Bloody he-"
"Doctor?"
"McKay, that stupid-"
"So it is McKay. How do you know?" asked Sheppard.
"I swear, it's not my fault! Well, it sort of is, no, not really…"
"Carson!" Weir placed a hand on his shoulder. "What happened?"
"Promise me you won't be mad?"
"Just tell us what happened, doc," said Sheppard.
"Em, okay. Well, as we were evacuating, he asked me to take him to the jumper bay. I said no, but then he offered to never be a pain in the-"
"He's that bad, huh?" interrupted Sheppard.
Beckett nodded grimly, adding in a hushed voice, "There's times when I wish I never became a doctor."
"So what happened next?"
"Well, you see that was a pretty good offer… assuming he succeeded in whatever he was going to do…"
Weir cut him off again, "Go on, I undersand."
Beckett grinned, "Thank you, doctor. So I grabbed some crutches for him and took him to the jumper room. Then he explained what he was doing, he was going to fly it up over the city and "help" the you two. I didn't want to get any closer to the ships, so I started walking towards the door, but he tried to get me to come onto the ship, and I ran and I must have taken a wrong turn 'cos I got lost and just made it back to the control room a minute ago." Beckett took a deep breath, and waited for a reaction.
"Try 'n say that in one breath," commented Sheppard.
Grodin's attention was attracted to his transmitter as he was summoned back to the control room. "You work this out amongst yourselves, one of the scientists thinks he's found something."
"We can try and radio him," offered Sheppard.
"Right, I guess we can try," said Weir. She was about to talk into the transmitter when she noted Beckett's worried look. "Carson, I'm not holding you responsible for…" She searched for a phrase.
"McKay's incompetence and piloting skills," finished Sheppard.
Beckett gave a weak grin, and quickly averted his vision to the jumper.
"Doctor McKay?" she said. "Doctor McKay, this is Weir. Can you hear me?"
"Ow…" came a muffled response.
"Rodney, is that you?"
"Yup." said McKay.
"Are you in the jumper?"
"Uh-huh."
"Rodney, do you think you can pilot it back down into the jumper bay?"
"I dunno…" As if on cue, the jumper slowly backed off of the tower, and headed towards the bay."
"John, to the jumper bay with me. Carson, page a med team, sounds like he's going to need it. You come with John and me."
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Author's Second Note: Holy shamoley! This chappie's got five pages! Anyway, you'll just have to see what happens in the next chapter… Hah!
Keep the reviews coming, its like brain food… or maybe muse food. Too bad you can't buy, say, something like "reviews in a can" or something. Like spam. Oo! Ram!
Oh-kay… getting a little carried away.
Reviews are much appreciated and will be recognized! Btw, I highly recommend their (the reviewers') stories, I've read some of them and they're great!
Beckett: You know, its kind of annoying how you always put McKay in the infirmary. 'Cos then I have to deal with him.
Me: It is your job…
Beckett: You know, the TV Beckett doesn't have to deal with that butthead (sorry, McKay lovers) as much as I do.
TV Beckett: That's after editing, my friend. You'd be surprised.
TV McKay: (trips on a stair and breaks his neck)
Beckett: O… I see.
TV Beckett: 'Scuse me, I gotta go.
Beckett: Next think you'll make Weir confine him to the infirmary or something!
Me: Oooo… Good idea. Thanks!
Beckett" NO! Nooo, I was kidding! HEY!