(Thank you everyone so much for the reviews! Here's the penultimate chapter. You'll see, I do love fast moving scenes!)
MORE THAN JUST PRETTY FACES
By TIPPER
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN: SPEED
They felt the change in atmosphere the moment Teyla hit the central button on the DHD, the entire jumper feeling suddenly electrified as Blobby came to life overhead, the creature clearly "smelling" the wormhole engage. Sheppard called up the HUD the moment the sun hit the jumper's window, to follow the path of the energy creature as it shot away from them towards the cornucopia that was the Stargate.
With a speed even Sheppard didn't know the jumper had in it, the small ship was in the air and streaking in the opposite direction across the ravine, aiming for Ronon and McKay's position.
"The creature is nearly to the Stargate," Teyla stated, watching the HUD screen intently.
"Shut it down," the colonel ordered grimly, praying that he had gained them enough time. Teyla hit the central button again on the DHD, and saw the Stargate symbol blink off the screen.
Blobby immediately reversed direction on the HUD, a fuzzy pink haze on the transparent screen...and aimed straight for them.
"Damn it," Sheppard swore. Quickly, he hit his radio. "Ronon!" he called. "Ronon, do you read?"
"I'm here."
"Get McKay up and over your shoulder. We're coming in fast. You need to get in here the moment we're down, clear?"
"Gotcha."
Sheppard angled towards the clearing, pinpointing the spot closest to the where they had left the two men.
"Here's goes nothing," he whispered, decloaking the ship as he swung the ship around to land.
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Rodney woke abruptly at the sensation at being wrenched harshly to his feet, then tipped once more over Ronon's shoulder. He didn't even have the breath to complain, the air whooshing out of his lungs with the painful stab of the Satedan's bony shoulder into his stomach as he was lifted.
The world swam around him for a second, disorientation so striking, it sent stabs of pain through his head.
And then the world went black again.
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Ronon watched as the jumper swung around then landed hard a mere ten feet from where he stood, McKay over one shoulder and McKay's heavy pack over his arm. The combined weight would have toppled a smaller man, but the Satedan thought of nothing but getting into the jumper as quickly as he could.
The back hatch opened and he jogged inside, nodding to Teyla as she immediately shut the hatch behind him. Dropping McKay's pack on the floor, he staggered a bit as Sheppard lifted them back up again into the air, then moved to settle Rodney on a bench.
"Put him on the floor!" Sheppard called, not turning around, "We're in for a bumpy ride!"
Ronon glanced at him, then to his right as Teyla pulled down a blanket from the supplies. She put it on the floor of the jumper, and Ronon pulled McKay off it and settled him against the back hatch.
The scientist was out cold again, which the Satedan didn't like, but, at the moment, didn't have time to worry about. Lying him down carefully, he trusted the inertial dampeners to keep McKay in place, nodded at Teyla, then strode up to look out the front of the ship to stand by his normal chair.
A moment later, Teyla sidled past, nodding at him as she aimed for the co-pilot's seat. Ronon glanced back at McKay, to see she had placed another blanket over him and a pillow under his head. It was the best they could do for him right now.
Still on his feet, Ronon held onto the back of his chair, frowning as he tried to make sense of the HUD screen in front of Sheppard. All sorts of images were blinking across it, too fast for him to comprehend...but he did get one thing.
"That pink haze on the screen," he said, looking at Sheppard, "is that the energy creature?"
"Yup," the colonel replied, his hands pressed forward on the controls, obviously urging the jumper to its fastest speed.
"But," Ronon frowned, "you're flying towards it."
"I know."
"Isn't that sort of...stupid?"
"Obviously," Sheppard said, smirking a little, "yes. It is."
"But you're still doing it."
Sheppard's smirk grew.
"I sure am."
And Ronon knew, this was not a McKay idea. This one was pure Sheppard.
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Sheppard lost all sense of self, completely immersing himself in the speed and agility of the jumper at his control. It flew at a velocity he wasn't even sure it was capable of, streaking across the sky so fast, it would have appeared like a shooting star to the people on the ground...if it wasn't cloaked.
But Blobby wasn't fooled. The energy creature flew straight and true, directly for the invisible jumper racing towards it.
Sheppard's eyes narrowed, watching the black mass yawning up before him, like a mouth opening to take a bite...
And pulled back hard on the jumper's controls.
Even with the dampeners, Teyla and Ronon rocked back with the force of the maneuver, the Satedan staggering back a little and catching himself on the side of the bulkhead doors. He glanced at McKay, who had shifted a bit, but not much, and returned his attention to the front.
Sheppard had turned the ship so that it was now nearly vertical to the ground below, pointing the jumper straight towards the stars.
"Colonel..." Teyla said weakly, holding on to the panel in front of her, even though she didn't really need to.
"Hang on," he answered, feeling the jumper shudder at the rough exit through the planet's atmosphere. One eye he kept on the HUD, the screen flickering a little as the jumper fought to stay steady, watching the pink haze at it stayed ridiculously close to the jumper's rear.
And it was gaining.
He gritted his teeth, biting back a swear as the jumper exploded out of the flaming atmosphere and into the dead quiet of space. The ship's shuddering stopped immediately, and it adjusted to the vacuum of space as easily as a knife cutting through butter.
Sheppard righted the tiny ship, and pressed forward hard on the controls, every part of him screaming at the machinery to find even more speed.
The creature was practically on top of them. He could feel it like a drag on the jumper, trying to draw it backwards.
The little ship started to shake. Shit...he was cutting this close...
"Sheppard," Ronon said nervously, eyes staring at the tendrils of pink reaching for the jumper on the HUD. He glanced out of the window, and saw what looked like fingers of black starting to block out the stars around them.
"I know!" Sheppard snapped back, leaning forward on the seat, pushing harder, trying to draw every little bit of power of the jumper's power cells. His whole body felt like it was thrumming with energy now.
And then he saw them.
His lips parted into an incredibly evil grin.
Ronon snorted a laugh, and even Teyla's lips creased into a smile.
He aimed straight for the central point between the three Wraith cruisers hovering over the planet, flying straight through the gap in the middle, not even slowing down to see if they reacted to the sudden appearance of the energy creature. The invisible little jumper spun like a top as he avoided the much larger ships, threading the needle perfectly.
As soon as he was on the other side, he twisted the controls down and around, performing a sharp spiral that turned the jumper around almost 180 degrees while also sending them down and away from the Cruisers—and aimed the ship back down into the atmosphere of the planet.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the black mass engulf the first Hive Cruiser, while the other two tried to back away. Tendrils of energy shot out, latching on to them as surely as a frog's tongue catches a fly. The engine pods on all three ships turned impossibly bright, fighting to stay alive, to get away, and weapons fire erupted, firing into the nothingness.
Then the first Cruiser, the one that had been almost entirely engulfed, exploded.
Ronon let out a wild cheer, while Teyla leaned back in her chair, looking exhausted and exalted at the same time.
Sheppard focused as the jumper shuddered upon hitting the atmosphere, recognizing that the angle was too sharp, and he slowed the ship down a little.
Meanwhile, Teyla and Ronon continued to raptly watch the HUD, as the pink haze surrounded the two remaining flashing red dots on the screen...and extinguished them both one after the other. In the now blue sky overhead, two fantastically bright flashes of light evidenced the two explosions for them.
Sheppard finally slowed down as they reached a normal flying level, and breathed out heavily. Turning his head, he glanced at Teyla, then Ronon, then beyond to where he could see Rodney lying peacefully on the floor in the back, covered partially by a blanket that Teyla must have thrown over him. When his gaze returned to the smiling faces of his two other teammates, he just nodded.
"Okay then...Let's go home."
Teyla nodded, and reached over to dial the Stargate. With a little extra force than was necessary, she hit the central button and turned to see the actual Stargate in the distance. The wormhole exploded to life with its usual whoosh.
"Sheppard!" Ronon said urgently, looking up at the sky through the window.
The colonel's eyes lifted from where he'd be watching the tiny stargate in the distance engage.
And widened.
Oh shit.
Black filled the sky above them, boiling out of nothingness, like a fungal infection bubbling across the icy firmament. And it was aiming straight for the same thing as them—the Stargate. Bolts of electrical energy screamed across its inky black surface, wreaking havoc with the planet's atmosphere.
"IDC!" Sheppard yelled. Teyla was way ahead of him, tapping her radio.
"Atlantis!" she called, not hiding her desperation.
"Teyla? You're early," the soft voice of the Canadian tech answered back cheerfully, "What's up?"
"We're coming through fast! Lower the shield, and be ready to disengage the gate the second we're through. Don't even raise the shield, just shut the gate down!"
"What? But..."
"Teyla? This is Weir. What's going on?"
"Elizabeth," Sheppard called through gritted teeth, "do exactly what Teyla just said. Don't hesitate. And tell Beckett we need a medical team in the bay, now!"
"Okay," Elizabeth replied firmly, getting it. "We'll be ready."
"But," the Canadian tech interrupted, "I'm not sure we can just immediately disengage—"
"I said," Elizabeth stressed again, "we'll be ready." And in the background, they heard a swear and orders being called out by the tech.
"Then we're coming home," Sheppard replied, focused on the blue shimmering light before him. "NOW."
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To be Concluded in the next chapter (I know, can you believe it?)