Problems?
Dr. Elizabeth Weir stared off into space.
"Cubes."
Her lead team, save one, had been reduced to cubes.
Her office chair squeaked as she pushed back from the desk. She stood and walked past the still shattered window in her office.
"Cubes."
It sounded so very strange. She squashed another bout of hysterical laughter that threatened to burst out of the back of her throat.
Carson had been in the control room giving her a status quo update on the occupants of the infirmary when Col. Caldwell's report and resulting request reached them. Then as the excitement of the news of the teams supposed welfare was winding down and the Puddle Jumper was leaving, Major Lorne's direct contact produced shock.
The cursing that spewed from Carson's mouth was quite beautiful really. She guessed that it had to do with it being in Gaelic and peppered with Scottish colloquialisms. It made it more lyrical. She could hear the mumbling and the stomping down the corridor after Lorne had finished his quick synopsis of what had befallen the team.
Flabbergasted was a pretty good description of what her reaction was.
Cubes.
They were removed from their bodies by a device that Lorne described as a three pronged tuning fork. Now at least they knew what the strange marks on their abdomens were- exit wounds of a sort. Their very souls sucked out like a fountain Coke and deposited into glowing red cubes.
She did not even notice she was walking to the infirmary until she reached the door. Whether he was listening or not, she would tell "the one" that his team had been found- sort of.
When she entered there was shouting and general disorder in the curtained off area where Sheppard et al took up residence. Something must have happened while Carson had been debriefing her. Tense voices called out observations. Questions flew back and forth.
And she swore she heard someone say something about defrosting.
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Lorne stood on the wall of the monastery with his binoculars. Refra's men were setting up a perimeter and bringing in two very impressive big guns. If they got a lucky shot off, those bad boys could take down a Jumper or at least cause a good amount of damage. They definitely could take out the big thick oak-like door to the abbey if given enough time.
Then every once in awhile, some idiot would take a pot shot at the monastery. They had been doing this for an hour. He looked at the sun. It was three-quarters of its way down the sky. Sunset would be in less than two hours. They were most likely waiting for that.
The Jumper had landed about thirty minutes ago. After filling Zelenka in on all the unbelievable information, he stationed the team that came with the Jumper at various points around the abbey. Stackhouse and his team had volunteered to join them. He wanted to bring his C.O. home and this time not in a body bag.
"Has Dr. Zelenka made it down there yet?" Lorne asked into his radio.
"Yes Sir," replied Williams.
When the Jumper was preparing to leave Atlantis, he filled Weir in as best as he could and as quickly as he could. He could hear the "Whatchya talkin' about Willis?" reaction going on around the Control Room. Well hell, he and everyone here had had that reaction as well.
Thankfully, now they would have regular communication with Atlantis and a form of escape if necessary. There was no way in hell he was going to leave without the scepter and the three recharged cubes. Stackhouse would definitely make it his life's mission to make sure he didn't.
However, Sheppard's cube was just not cooperating. Even Teyla's and Ronon's cubes were not charging correctly. The Venerable maintained that Sheppard's declination of the honor was to blame. If that was the case, he really needed to retrieve that oversized dinner fork soon.
Lorne scanned the soldiers below again. He could easily take those guns out but he did not want to leave these people defenseless. Not all were deceitful little pricks. He would wait for the Daedalus.
He tapped his earpiece again. "Dennison take Feris and make sure all doors are secured. Weir's Spidey sense has transferred to me."
"On my way Sir."
He kept his binoculars and a life signs detector on the small army out front. One man stepped forward with something akin to a director's cone.
"Abbey of the Protectors! Hand the Protectors over to us or we will open fire on you!"
The High Abbot stepped up to the wall out of nowhere. He must have been keeping tabs of the goins' on.
"Oh my brothers! You are being foolish! We are the keepers of the Protectors and cannot let you use them for any other purpose than for fighting the Wraith!"
Laughter rose from the soldiers. The man yelled back, "Old man! You have an hour to meet our demands!"
Sunset would be the hour. Lorne kept watching and counting the group down in the fields. Wait a minute. He recounted. Crap. He recounted again.
His radio crackled and Dennison spoke in his ear.
"Sir, we have a problem."
Or he could be wrong about sunset.
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Dr. Zelenka was led down more stairs and hallways than Atlantis had or so it felt like. A young brother showed him the Vestibule and he entered. He stopped and stared for a good few seconds at all the prayer candles.
He was so zoned in on the contraption he did not notice the soldier just inside the room until he spoke up.
"Hey Doc!" The young soldier saw the startled and confused look on Zelenka's face. "Williams Doc." He gave a nod and a smile to the doctor.
Radek smiled in greeting back at him. "What do we have here? And what is the problem?"
"Believe it or not, Col. Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon are in those little boxes right there," he replied pointing to three cubes on the lower tier of the recharging rack. "But they're not behavin' themselves. The little cubes aren't rechargin' right."
Radek walked over to the exposed console. "Do you have the gene Williams?"
"You're in luck Doc, I sure do."
"I may need you." Radek waved his hand over the console's display. "Not good, not good…oh yes, that would cause that…aah interesting configuration and solution…" The Czech kept mumbling to himself while he unpacked his equipment.
He hooked up his laptop to the console. "I'm going to go through all information on entire device. Hopefully this'll lead to answer to solve Col. Sheppard's problem and the others as well.
Williams walked up and stood directly behind him looking over his shoulder.
"This may take a while," said Zelenka clearly annoyed. He went back to his mumblings.
"Sorry Doc." Williams stepped back and went into the anti-chamber.
He ran his hand along the table in the room ambling slowly along. His head shot up and he cocked his ear towards the door. He heard something. Williams pulled out the life signs detector. It registered ten blips slowly heading his way. He backed into the Vestibule.
"Doc, I need you to stay against the wall." He said it with such deadly calm Zelenka froze.
Williams clicked his earpiece. "Major Lorne we have visitors."
Zelenka's eyes grew three sizes and started moving around the room looking for intruders to jump out from behind one of the portraits.
"Hey Doc, any chance there's another door to this room. That one there doesn't look like the Ancients built it."
Zelenka composed himself and scanned the monitors around the room. One behind a particularly corpulent Venerable next to the doorway caught his attention. It was blinking; only problem was he would have to cross the room to get to it.
"Lieutenant take that portrait down so I can get a better look," directed Zelenka.
Williams carefully removed the portrait and stepped back to the side. He rechecked the scanner. The blips were getting closer.
"Come on Doc."
"The blue square, press it."
He did as told and a door slid out of the wall sealing the way.
"Alrighty then, that should buy us some time, unless they find a door mechanism on the other side." Williams gave a reassuring grin.
Still skittish, Zelenka went back to work.
He pulled up a schematic of the recharging device and then one of the cubes without the added mechanisms. He walked over to the rack and visually inspected Sheppard's first. He made a few notes and then went to another that had no damage.
"Very ingenious, direct tapping to allow us mere mortals access." He looked at Williams. "Do you know how to activate the cubes?"
"No, sorry Doc." Williams looked back down at the life signs detector. The blips were right outside the room. Four other blips were approaching from the other direction.
"Hope those are our guys."
A muffled bang and the sound of P90 fire came from the other side of the door.
"Yep, our guys." He gave a wicked grin.
"Open up Williams. You OK in there?" Lorne asked over the radio.
"Peachy keen Major. That was fast."
Williams opened the door and smoke wafted into the room.
"Dennison found an open door. When your call came in, I knew what was going on and we were half way here." Lorne poked his head in and looked around. "No problems?" He walked all the way in.
"None to speak of Sir."
Williams noticed the injured intruders were being tended to and the bodies of the others taken away.
Zelenka purposely ignored the happenings around him and spoke up, "I need someone who can work the cubes so I can observe power utilization and inner workings."
"Whatcha have so far Doctor?" Lorne asked blocking his view of the mess in the other room.
"Not much, give me two hours." Radek went back to the console and studied the schematics.
"Jones is Brother Mede with you or the Athosians?"
"He's with Meka."
"Send them down here."
Lorne looked back at Williams. "I'm leaving Dennison, Smith and Feris here with you."
Lorne let a wicked grin of his own spread across his face. "I think it's time to ask the crowd outside to leave."
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A/N: Can't believe this is turning out so long. Didn't realize what an undertaking when I started. As always feel free to review.