Sheppard swam up from a fog. He thought he heard a murmur, cajoling him, and whispering feelings; not words. Atlantis…she was beckoning him to wake.
His eyes fluttered open; first, second and third time was the charm. He kept them open, and surveyed the infirmary. McKay was sitting next to him, Rodney's head was propped on his hands, his elbows digging into his thighs.
Sheppard didn't see anyone else, and the dimmed lights seemed to indicate it was late at night. How long had he been unconscious? And why? He fought to remember, and like a slow movie on reverse through a projector, the past events unfurled like a bad flashback.
He'd killed the Wraith attacking the Folnerians, but in the process, he'd killed those already culled.
"You're up," stated a surprised, but relieved, McKay.
Sheppard offered a weary smile and admitted, "Wish I wasn't."
"Why?"
"I killed them, McKay," he said, pained. At the confused look, he explained, "Not the Wraith; the Folnerians in the darts."
McKay was already shaking his head before he could finish, short jerking negatives. "They were already dead, Major. There wouldn't have been a last minute stay…you gave them the only kind of rescue possible."
"I've rescued others before, and I didn't have the abilities I do now."
"And back then we knew where they were taken!" exclaimed McKay. "Back then, the entire race wasn't awakened, and hunting for food."
"I could've tried," defended Sheppard.
"And you would've failed, leaving those people to die, every year of their life being sucked out in one agonizing second after another."
Sheppard opened his mouth to refute McKay's claims, but he couldn't, and they both knew it. He stared at Rodney, anguish stark in his soul, and he saw that the physicist understood.
McKay got up from the chair, and Sheppard knew he was leaving. He felt a pang of guilt because he had joined the group of projects keeping McKay awake. Despite that guilt, he almost asked him to stay. Almost.
Before he left, Rodney said, "You remember how I envied you this?"
Sheppard nodded, not wanting to go down that road right now.
"I don't anymore."
Sheppard watched McKay leave, surprised by the admission.
oOo
"Good morning," said Beckett, giving John a tight smile, betraying the strain of keeping Sheppard in running order.
Sheppard grunted. It wasn't a good morning. He'd hardly slept at all. He glanced at Carson through lidded eyes, and wasn't surprised to see that Beckett didn't look like he'd fared much better last night. The doctor had a five O'clock shadow, and his white coat was rumpled.
"How do ye feel?" Carson asked, shifting the clipboard under his arm to his front, and scanning the numbers from the list of vitals taken during the night.
"Tired," admitted Sheppard. What was the use of lying? It was written all over his face, and he knew it.
Beckett nodded. "Aye, and you will be for a good day or more." He sat the clipboard on the end of the bed, and withdrew the stethoscope from his pocket, slipping it on, and rubbed the metal briskly, trying to warm it up, before placing it against Sheppard's chest. "Breathe," he instructed, listening intently.
Sheppard did as told, and soon Carson was writing new numbers down. Judging from the unworried face, Sheppard guessed he'd passed.
"Major, we need to talk," said Beckett, regarding him seriously.
"I'm listening."
"Do ye recall the talk we had about the physical effects?"
He did. Like a souped up race car – "I do."
Carson nodded, but his brow was wrinkled in worry. "What happens when a race car runs hard?"
Sheppard wondered what the point of this was, but followed along. "They need a pit stop?" he asked, uncertain.
"Aye, and what happens if there is no pit stop around?"
"It runs out of gas?"
Beckett was nodding sagely, and the implication finally hit home. "If I 'run out of gas', I'll die, is that what you're saying?"
"Essentially." Carson crossed his arms, one hand holding a pen, the other the clipboard, and they were know tucked tight against his chest. A familiar hold for the doctor.
"Major, ye can't be doing this without medical support nearby. Your body just does nae have the reserves to carry it through the use of these -" he waved the clipboard, searching for the word. "-powers," he finished lamely, not finding a better term.
"I didn't go there intending -"
Beckett held up his hands, the one still holding the clipboard, the other, the pen. "I know, but the outcome was the same."
Sheppard pursed his lips together in annoyance. He hadn't asked for any of this.
Carson sensed his mood, and retreated his full-court press. "Just…don't do it again, okay?"
"Okay," agreed John, but silently he wondered if he'd have much choice.
Thinking along those lines, the doctor said, "I've added a full IV packet with saline and glucose bags into you're med kit. All personnel will be trained in administering IV therapy."
Sheppard's mouth twisted into a sour smile. He could just bet how well that'd gone over with the troops. He grunted an acknowledgement, and Beckett signed his release with an illegible scrawl.
"I don't want to see ye back here," lectured Beckett, handing over the form. "Light duty for the next twenty-four hours."
With that, Beckett left him alone to get changed. John did so, and he knew where he was going first. The console room. He'd heard her calling to him all night. She sought the synergic relationship with wanton lust, and it surprised him. Atlantis was lonely, and having a taste of being heard had enticed her into wanting more…
…she was waiting for him. It was dark, the only light coming from the panel. He rested his palm against the cool plastic, and felt the thrill of her elation rocket through his mind. I missed you…
"I knew I would find you here."
Sheppard pulled his hand back, as if burnt, and spun about. Avitus.
"I don't want to talk about it," stated Sheppard emphatically. He knew why the Ancient was here.
"What you want," started the old man, coming closer to Sheppard, "is irrelevant. What you must do…that's why I'm here."
"You mean what you think I must do," gritted Sheppard.
"Those Folnerians didn't have to die, Major. If you had acted -"
And that was the crux of it. That simple statement revealed the truth of what was eating away at him. If he'd acted. If he'd condemned those children on the Wraith home world to death - the Folnerians, and all the others, wouldn't have been, or be, attacked. Trading lives for lives. That's all it was.
"There's got to be another way," argued Sheppard. He had his back against the console, and he felt the city's distrust of Avitus. It reverberated into his body like a spoken echo.
"There is not!" Avitus' eyes had a gleam of fanaticism.
Sheppard looked upward. He was drained. He needed to get away from Avitus; clear his mind. "What do you want me to do?" he asked. He wanted to hear the plan. Then he'd take it to McKay for help. That way, at least, he'd get an idea of how feasible it was. Maybe there was a way to go with Avitus, and rescue the children.
The plan Avitus proceeded to detail, chilled Sheppard to the bone. He knew he needed to find McKay sooner, rather than later…
oOo
"He what!" exploded McKay.
Sheppard had found him in his lab, just as he'd figured he would. McKay was working on some kind of converter. The parts were strewn across the workbench; crystals and fiber optic wires so thin and fragile, Sheppard thought a strong gust of wind would shatter them.
"You heard me," said Sheppard. "He wants me to cause the sun to supernova. He claims the Wraith's home world is close enough that it'll be dragged in."
McKay snapped his fingers, heading over to his computer. "What's the address?" He was already typing.
Sheppard frowned, trying to recall the picture in his mind to gate addresses. "It's not there," he said, coming up empty.
McKay paused, thinking. He raised his head, a triumphant grin. "Could you show me?"
The chair. John grinned back, nodding. They headed out…
…Sheppard sat down; the chair responded instantaneously, reclining, and a star map drifted lazily into being in the room above.
He thought about the location, and the stars rotated, a section of the galaxy was zoomed into; once, twice…and then a star was shining brighter than the rest.
"That's it?" asked McKay, pointing towards it.
Sheppard nodded.
McKay regarded him gravely. "Major, we've got a problem."
oOo
Sheppard had acquiesced to McKay's request that they call a general briefing, consisting of Weir, Beckett, Bates, and Teyla. Now, everyone was here except McKay.
He tapped his foot impatiently, and smiled reassuringly at the others, who were looking slightly irritable at the wait.
Finally, Elizabeth cracked. "Major, where is Rodney?"
"Here!" called McKay, as he hurried in the double doors. "I'm here."
His arms were full of papers, and Sheppard could make out mathematical equations.
"It took longer than I thought," he explained, setting the work on the surface of the table by his chair. He didn't sit down, instead he headed over to a recessed computer and typed in commands. The lights dimmed, and a star map resolved above their heads.
Sheppard whistled in appreciation. "I didn't know it could do that."
Rodney grinned. "Nobody did; Avitus showed me."
At the mention of Avitus, the room sobered. Everyone, at the very least, knew the basic reason they were gathered here.
"Right," McKay said, realizing the reason for the sudden pall that had fallen across the room. "As I'm sure Major Sheppard has explained; he was approached by Avitus with a plan to destroy the Wraith home world."
Heads bobbed.
Elizabeth glanced at John, and turned her attention back to McKay. "He also explained how the Wraith use human children to grow new Wraith."
McKay grimaced. "I know."
"Then you know," continued Elizabeth, "We can't allow the destruction of the sun. Thousands of innocents will die, along with the Wraith, and all the Wraith out in Hive ships will remain alive."
McKay stared at her, his face showing consternation. "I know that," he said dismissively. "That's not what this is about."
"Then what is it about?" she asked, an edge to her tone.
Sheppard wondered if they'd interrupted something by calling the meeting. Or, maybe it was the fact that they'd 'called' the meeting without consulting her first. He winced in the darkened room…that was probably it.
"Avitus' plan wouldn't just destroy the Wraith home world," stated McKay. He paused for emphasis. "It would destroy half the galaxy."
The shocked silence gave him the satisfaction that he'd achieved his point.
Sheppard recovered first. He'd suspected something was wrong, and that's why he'd gone to McKay in the first place.
"How?" he asked coldly. His suspicions about the Ancient were being borne to fruition here in this room.
McKay turned back to the panel, and the star map winked out of existence, the lights slowly brightening back to normal levels. He stepped back to his chair, and lifted a paper full of equations, and returned back to the computer. The lights dimmed again, and this time the star map that resolved was the Wraith home world orbiting a massive sun.
"To explain, first you should understand how a black hole forms," he started. The map slid away to reveal a large, massive gaseous giant. Everyone watched as it began to swell – "A star feeds on hydrogen, and burns through a process of fusion. The hydrogen atoms are combined, and that creates energy. The energy feeds the star. Eventually, the supply of hydrogen is used up. When that happens, the star basically implodes. The outer atmosphere of gas explodes outward in a shockwave, while the insides fall inward, and when it does, the interior mass collapsing upon itself creates a mass so dense that the gravitational forces become impossible for even the fastest form of energy known to man to escape – visible light among them, hence the name- black hole."
"Planck actually discovered a major leap in physics with black body radiation. Stars emit light at a certain wavelength, blue stars being the most energetic. Imagine light entering a star, and inside there's a cavity. The particles of light bounce around, and by the time they exit the star, every single particle of light is now an identical energy state – that's why there are red, blue, and yellow stars. A black hole isn't so much a hole, as a star that has a gravity well so great that no known wavelength can escape it, not even energy radiating at wavelengths in the spectrum more energetic than visible light – gamma rays for example."
As he was explaining, the star exploded on the map, a wave of matter spreading concentrically outward, while the interior collapsed upon itself, and soon a black dot grew.
"This process doesn't happen overnight; it can take months, but the end result is the same."
Sheppard considered the information. He wasn't stupid, but he wasn't a physicist either. "Why blue? I thought red was higher up in the visible light spectrum?"
McKay looked positively excited by his question. He supposed he was in his element here. "Good question," he said, pointing something in his direction. "The visible light spectrum is separated based on the wavelengths of light. Red has an approximate wavelength of 650 nanometers to about 700, whereas blue runs about 450 nanometers. Keep in mind these aren't exact numbers. Now, that's wavelengths. Energy is actually an inverse of wavelength. The equation boils down to energy being equal to Planck's constant times the frequency, and frequency is the speed of light divided by the wavelength. The bigger the wavelength -"
"The smaller the frequency," said Sheppard.
"Exactly," said McKay. "And the smaller the frequency, the less energy."
Silence echoed around the room. The demonstration of a star going supernova, and the resulting black hole had a repressive effect. With the exception of Teyla, everyone else knew the terror of what a black hole could do. Combine that with the impromptu physics lesson, everyone was still trying to process the implication.
But everyone didn't quite understand the implication. McKay hit another button, and a red line created a path throughout the galaxy. "This is the path the black hole will take," he explained. "As you can see, it will affect roughly half the galaxy. And when I say affect, let me be clear, it will siphon away energy like an insatiable planet eater."
Elizabeth looked at the red line grimly. "Will it kill the stars in its path?" she asked.
"The forces on the affected planetary systems might not be great enough to sheer away portions of everything along the path, but the gravitational forces will have an equal result; death on every planet in it's way."
"Avitus knew this," said Teyla, her lips in a tight line, her eyes foreboding.
"I think so," agreed McKay.
Sheppard was surprised by his easy admittance. He knew McKay had thought Avitus was the answer for all their prayers, if Rodney even prayed. He'd believed in the Ancient from the start, and now irrefutable proof that the old man had came here under false pretenses, and was nothing short of a homicidal mad man.
Beckett had remained quiet through the entire briefing, but now, with a sharp look at Sheppard asked, "Will he take no for an answer?"
Sheppard didn't flinch, or hesitate. "He won't have a choice."