Chapter 4
Looking around the once pristine gate control room Weir had to admit that the place looked like a bomb had hit it, then her mind caught up with the incongruity of the thought and she choked back the entirely inappropriate smile. Captain Roberts and Sergeant Callaghan, along with some of the marines with demolitions experience, had rigged shaped explosive charges at strategic points along the walls of the Gate Room. McKay was hobbling around, PDA in one hand, cane in the other checking and double checking their locations between frequent glances at his watch: Sheppard and his team were due back in less than thirty minutes.
"We're nearly done. Final checks, people!" called out Roberts. "Everyone who doesn't need to be here, clear out now, please!"
Technicians and scientists who had been trying to repair the damage done by the earlier surge shut down their work and left. Within minutes the only people in the gate control room were Weir, Grodin, McKay and Roberts' demolitions crew. Then Sergeants Bates and Callaghan reported their readiness and everyone started moving to the shelter offered by the rear section of the observation deck overlooking the Gate. On his way to the staircase Callaghan handed his CO the remote detonator.
Less than half the marines had vacated the area when everyone heard the unmistakeable sound of the Stargate started to dial up. Lights flickered around the outer ring and settled on the first chevron. Slowed by his twisted ankle, McKay was still on the stairway to the upper level as the Gate started to activate. Roberts looked down with a frown at the countdown on his watch which was still reading seventeen minutes to Sheppard's scheduled return. "Bloody American pillock's early!" he swore, then calling out more loudly. "Get clear! I might have to set the charges off early. Everyone hunt cover!" The others followed his instructions as he hurriedly keyed the correct frequencies into the remote detonator that would set off both charges. A snatched glance upward showed McKay still on the main staircase, dithering between finding cover and trying to figure out how to help. "McKay, that includes you," he yelled. Just as he finished keying in the last series of digits, the final symbol on the gate illuminated and locked. The familiar fluid 'kawoosh' of the establishing wormhole was blocked by the still active Shield.
For an instant everything paused. Then from above he heard a voice calling out, "receiving Major Sheppard's IDC!"
Roberts looked at the explosives no more than twenty feet away from him, then at the staircase leading to the upper level - too far to reach in the few seconds before Sheppard would surely try to come through the Gate. A few feet away he noticed one of the heavy packing cases brought from Earth, weighty in itself, and still half full of gear that had been moved in to supply the repair effort. He was hardly aware of the moment when he made the decision, but even as he was throwing himself behind the scant cover it offered, little more than a second after hearing confirmation of Sheppard's IDC, he yelled, "GET DOWN!" and activated the remote detonator. Out of the corner of his eye he saw an instant's appalled shock on McKay's face before he too dropped where he was on the wide landing half way up the main staircase.
The roars from the two explosions came so close together as to be almost indistinguishable. The charges might have been shaped, but the volume of explosive required to be sure of penetrating the ducting and severing the power supply was such that even the spacious Gate Room was confined enough that the severity of the concussion blast took most people by surprise. Many of those on the upper floor who had not had time to reach shelter were thrown from their feet, though apart from cuts and bruises not badly hurt.
Roberts however had not been so fortunate. He had known he was perilously close to the explosives, but before he was able to hunker down behind the packing case the blast had caught him and flung him against one of the support pillars. The last thing he saw before the greyness encroaching on his consciousness swept over him was the flicker of the Gate Shield going down.
No more than five seconds later Major Sheppard, Lieutenant Ford and Teyla Emmagan emerged from the event horizon into Atlantis' Control Room to a scene far different from the one they had left.
Sheppard stopped a few feet from the Gate and looked around. Coils of smoke snaked towards the ceiling and spread out across it in dark billows. The air was foul with the smell of cordite, burnt plastic and a definite, if faint, tang of ozone. A squad of US marines, bizarrely preceded by a British Sergeant hastened down the main stairs. Some stopped to help a grimy, coughing Rodney McKay to his feet while others continued on towards a supine form lying next to the base of a pillar. From the upper level he heard Weir's voice urgently calling for a medical team to be sent to the Control Room.
"What the hell just happened?" he asked no one in particular.
Anyone in earshot seemed too preoccupied to answer, but he saw Weir heading down to meet him. She paused on the way, taking a few seconds to confirm that beyond a few comparatively minor cuts from flying debris, McKay had not been badly hurt by the explosions. Even he seemed relieved that their self inflicted sabotage had worked, to the extent that temporarily at least the handful of cuts on his face and arms were forgotten. He appeared content to sit on the stairs and wave a greeting to Sheppard while one of Beckett's team cleaned and taped his cuts.
Picking her way over the scattered fragments of architecture, Weir made her way to where Sheppard was still stood next to the now inert Stargate. "Good to have you back safe, John," she smiled warmly.
He looked at her, saw the smudges of grime on her face and clothing, saw the tension in her stance. Before he could reply, the timbre of the city's alarm altered, and a finely modulated voice commenced speaking in a language the recently returned Major only half recognised.
Weir, however, recognised it all too well. And even as she welcomed the safe return of expedition's military commander, she was just able to understand from the computer's emotionless warning that an attack had been registered in the Gate Control Room and grimly wondered what further problems a 'level four' security condition would entail.
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