THE TRENCH
PART TEN: ATLANTIS FLY TRAP
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McKay swallowed the coffee, ignoring the burning in his still sore throat, and knowing that if Beckett caught him he'd been in a load of trouble. Some things, though, were worth the risk.
At the sound of voices in the hall approaching the conference room, he quickly swallowed the last dregs and then put the empty metallic mug beneath his chair. When Weir, Sheppard, Teyla and the ecologist, Dr. Ian Collins, a Welshman with the driest humor McKay had ever known, walked into the room with Doctor Beckett, he pasted a broad smile on his face.
Beckett instantly stopped, stared at the toothy smile, then frowned.
"Are you deliberately trying to annoy me, Rodney?" he challenged.
"What?" McKay put on his best innocent expression, one he'd been attempting to master ever since the day he'd seen Sheppard use it successfully on Weir.
"I know coffee when I smell it, son," Beckett chastised, walking swiftly around the table to McKay's chair.
"Honestly, Carson, I don't know what you're talking about? Coffee? I'm not allowed coffee, not with my throat still healing." He smiled again, "Surely you don't think I would be so foolish as to—"
"Oh, aye, aye," Beckett cut him off, sweeping down behind McKay's chair and coming swiftly back up with the incriminating silver mug. McKay looked suitably shocked.
"How did that get there!"
"Oh for…" Beckett just rolled his eyes and walked away, moving to sit in the chair the farthest away from the still "affronted" Rodney, slamming the mug on the table in front of him and glaring at the other man over it.
Sheppard, of course, moved to sit right next to his teammate, clapping McKay on the shoulder.
"We really need to work on that look, McKay. You looked about as innocent as kid with chocolate all over his face swearing he didn't eat the last cookie."
McKay shot him a dark look, then settled back with a huff, crossing his arms. He still had gauze wrapped around both hands, but the fingers were free finally, and, after a little over a week, both he and the major were well on the way to recovery. Ford, on the other hand, was still in the infirmary, much to the bored boy's chagrin. Teyla, of course, was the picture of health already. The woman bounced back faster than was really normal—no one mentioned that it was probably related to the Wraith DNA, but it clearly did have its benefits.
Elizabeth, meanwhile, had sat down and was smiling at both McKay and Sheppard, happy to see them well and finally returning to active duty. She hadn't seen either of them much in the last few days, once she was sure they were going to be all right, due to a number of other crises that had taken her attention, but she allowed herself to focus on them now.
"How are you feeling, gentlemen?" she asked, leaning forward on the table. She already knew from Beckett, but she wanted to hear it from them. Her eyes were automatically drawn to the still raw, pink patches of healing skin on both their faces, and she had force herself to focus on their eyes.
"Peachy," Sheppard replied.
"Bored," McKay admitted, more honestly.
"That too," the major agreed.
She nodded at the answers, smiling a little. As she had expected. "Well, we should have you back to work soon, both of you. Goodness knows we need you." She leaned back from the table, "Doctor Beckett has allowed both of you to return to exploring the city tomorrow, and he thinks you might be up to going on small missions again in about a week." She nodded to the physician as he spoke, who sighed in return. Beckett had not liked the idea, but he also knew that Weir was right. Having both McKay and Sheppard down was always a bad thing—it simply slowed everything down without their leadership and intelligence to drive things. "In the meantime," Elizabeth continued, "I thought you might like to know what we've learned about Planet 51, as Lieutenant Ford tells me it's called."
"Seriously?" Sheppard looked pained at the acceptance of the name, even though he himself had been secretly calling it that, but McKay was leaning forward again.
"You were able to decipher the carvings?" he asked without pause, his own eyes lit up.
"Yes," Weir grinned, with an almost childlike excitement that matched his own. "It's really quite fascinating. We—"
"Wait," Sheppard held up a hand, "what carvings?"
"On the ruins we found," McKay replied quickly. He looked back at Weir, "What did they say?"
"What ruins?" Sheppard cut in. still looking confused.
"The ruins on the planet," McKay snapped. He looked again at Elizabeth, "So what did—"
"What ruins!" Sheppard demanded, looking at McKay, smiling at a little to see him flinch a little at the tone. Yes, Rodney had deserved that.
"The Ancient ruins at the location of the power source we were seeking, Major," Teyla supplied, to forestall any further yelling. "We found it, and tried to contact you and the lieutenant, only to find that our communications were…" she frowned, at a loss for the words, looking to Doctor McKay.
"Something was interfering with the signal," he muttered with obvious impatience, sneering at the smug major out of the corner of his eye.
Teyla quickly continued, "In the general proximity of the ruins, yes. Nevertheless, we did find the power source, and had begun to explore the Ancient ruins housing it before we were fired upon without warning. On the surface, it seemed to be essentially a water pump and filtration device, probably one of the few sources of clean water on the planet. Perhaps the only one." She looked at McKay then, to finish. He was looking more and more irritated with having to explain their discovery, picking at the gauze on his hands, but nevertheless continued on with the explanation.
"Whatever it is now," he said, "that power source's original purpose was obviously much more than just a water filter. Like the bridge, it appeared to be of Ancient construct, but, unlike the bridge, its original purpose must have been lost. The locals obviously discovered it could be used as a well and source of water, but that's all they use it for. Not surprising, really, considering the arid landscape and acidic quality of the rain, but," he shrugged, "it's obviously capable of so much more."
"Yes," Teyla nodded.
"We were able to take photos of the carvings on the walls and translate some of the text before we were attacked. All we really got was something about weather prediction." McKay looked over at Elizabeth. "I take it you were able to get more from the photos?"
"Indeed," her eyes were bright. "And, rare though this is, you were wrong, Rodney. The carvings didn't describe weather prediction, but weather control."
McKay's eyes narrowed in surprise, "What?"
"And it's even more complicated than that." She smiled, "That planet was intended as a trap," she looked at the major this time, "for the Wraith."
Sheppard was instantly awake, "You're kidding."
"No. The dampening field and the moat are tied together. From what we've gathered both from the carvings and what we've now been able to decipher in the database here—once we knew what we were looking for—the Ancients used to lure Wraith to that planet, and trap them there. They could not escape through the field and, as you noted, you need the gene or, obviously, a remote of some kind, to access the bridge, the only exit point."
"Why?" Teyla asked, her face showing her dislike for the idea. "To kill them?"
"No, to learn about them," Weir replied. "The Ancients were fighting a losing battle, and needed more information about the Wraith in order to fight them more effectively."
"Test subjects?" Sheppard said softly, finding the planet name Ford had used even more ironically apt now. "Like lab rats?"
Elizabeth nodded, "Incredible, I know. But understandable, considering how desperate they must have been getting. It appears we are not the only ones who have been pushed to extreme measures." She left the pregnant statement hanging out there, but her meaning was clear. Judge not.
Teyla was looking down at the table, finding yet something else new about the Ancients she found disturbing. She tried to put it down to the fact that they had been at war, but it still bothered her. She looked up, to see Doctor McKay and Doctor Beckett also didn't look too comfortable with the knowledge. Major Sheppard had that mask of his on, the military façade behind which he often hid. She looked back at Weir as Rodney asked another question.
"So what did they learn?" he asked softly. "And what does it have to do with the weather?"
"I'll let Dr. Collins answer that one," she replied, looking across at the blond Welshman. "As this is more his area than mine."
"Apparently, something the Ancients learned early on is that the Wraith have an aversion to salt water. Building on that, they learned as part of their testing on Planet 51 that the Wraith can not stand acid rain. The lower the pH level, the more dangerous it is to them. To test their theories, they created a machine that allowed them to mentally control the weather within the small area inside the Trench. They could call up rainstorms at will." He gave a humorless smile, "And presumably anyone with the gene could do the same."
"So, perhaps the story those prisoners told you was not as far fetched as it seemed," Weir added, looking at the major with raised eyebrows. He nodded back at her.
"I was hot," Sheppard admitted softly, thinking about the first time it rained. He looked up at Weir with wide eyes, "I wanted it to rain."
"I did it too," McKay said, looking at Sheppard. "The second time, after Teyla had been hurt. I begged for a distraction to get them off our tail, even if it was the rain." He shrugged, "It worked for a little while."
"Wow," Sheppard leaned back in his chair, "That's…cool."
"Unfortunately," Collins added, "even controlling weather on a scale that small did terrible harm to the planet. It was described as a green planet when the Ancients first began their testing, but, as you saw, much of it is probably now desert and subject to extreme weather shifts, something the two of you undoubtedly did not help with."
"Sure, sure, but at least now the carvings make sense!" McKay suddenly enthused, clearly not having listened to a word the Welshman had just said, as he smiled excitedly at Elizabeth. "I thought that was what they said, but just assumed I was reading it backwards. A weather device…good lord! The power that must be supplying something like that! We have to go back to—"
"No," Elizabeth stated firmly, her palms down on the table. "Rodney, we can't."
"But—"
"That device, as you pointed out earlier, is also the those people's main source of water, Rodney."
"How do you know?" he demanded fiercely. She just looked at him.
Okay, to be honest, it was rather unlikely that there was more than one on that planet. He sighed, then grimaced.
"They did almost kill us all, you know," he stated softly, trying a different tactic.
"Just because they are prisoners, Rodney," Elizabeth replied, just as softly, "and because they were frightened enough of you to try and kill you—"
"Frightened? Didn't seem that frightened to me," he groused.
"She's right, McKay," Sheppard groaned. "Hate to say it, but they were acting defensively."
McKay just looked at him, then sighed, crossing his arms and settling back. "Well, this sucks."
Weir sighed, "Yes, I know. Perhaps, however, we might someday—after things have calmed down a little—be able to send a team back to that planet to get a better look. Someone who won't get hot," she said, smiling a little at John, "and accidentally alert the prisoners there to our presence. And maybe they can find a way to maintain the field and the water device with a generator and bring back the ZPM...assuming that it is a ZPM powering it."
"It has to be," McKay noted peevishly. "To be able to control the weather like that? It has to be."
"Okay then. Then, when some time has passed—"
"Still sucks," McKay said again.
"Rodney," Elizabeth was staring at him, her eyes soft, which caused some of McKay's frown to fade, "I nearly lost all of you. And I won't send you or anyone into a now obviously dangerous situation, where the locals clearly have their hackles raised, and where the Genii themselves might show up at any time, until I am more confident that the mission can be successful. Do you understand?"
McKay stared at her, then lowered his eyes, a wry grimace on his face.
"Come on, McKay," Sheppard encouraged, nudging McKay, "you just found out you made it rain. That's got to make you feel better."
McKay's lips pursed, then, slowly, a tiny smile crept onto the scientist's face.
Elizabeth just smiled at them both patiently, then looked to Sheppard.
"In the meantime, you two still need rest. Can I count on you to get some?"
The major just smiled. Rodney didn't even look up, still not quite down sulking.
"Wonderful," Elizabeth deadpanned, "Thought as much. Just try not to kill yourselves, okay?" She stood up, "Dismissed."
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To be concluded in Part Eleven. One more to go…
