Chapter Ten

Rodney needed a break from thinking. The conversation he'd had with the remainder of his team plus Elizabeth in the mess hall did nothing to lift his spirits. He'd expected that once they got back to Atlantis they could finally get a decent meal, a good night's sleep and everyone could get on with their lives again. He hadn't taken into account any of the complications that now plagued their efforts at the necessity of coming up with a rescue mission. Every suggestion made - and there weren't many to start with - had been picked apart, until all that was left were the flaws. They had all moved into the conference room once Lorne and his team had showed up and had stayed there for hours. Frustration turned into irritation and people started to snap at each other. They'd all forgive any transgressions made against them once they had John back, it was just the getting him back part that was starting to be a problem.

Time went by as time is known to do and it came to a point where various bodies were slumped over desks and slouched back into chairs.They were all tired and as much as they wanted to stay focused on finishing the job, there was just not enough coffee in the Pegasus galaxy to keep them functioning at any useful level. It was then that Elizabeth kicked them out and told them all to go get some sleep. The usual protests that they could still work for a while yet was met with an unwavering iron cast glare from Elizabeth and the voices were silenced.

Despite the ache in his limbs and the way his eyelids were taking longer to open when he blinked, Rodney couldn't help but stop by the science lab before he called it a night. He wasn't all that surprised that some of his colleagues were still bent over their work tops or peering into the screens of their laptops even at this late hour. He knew what it was to find a project that could engross you so completely that it seems as though nothing exists beyond you and your experiment, the need to make that one last leap of progress that could be the answer to everything you've always wanted to know.

He didn't know what it was he was looking for as he ambled around the room, maybe he'd stay for a little while to work on one of his own projects. Just until his mind cleared and he could start thinking again about what to do for Colonel Sheppard.

If he'd had the strength, he would have thought it a little funny, how even though they'd been friends now for coming up to four years and at some point he had even dared to call him his best friend, but he still didn't call him by his first name. He always addressed him as Colonel Sheppard or just Colonel if he was in a hurry. Even Teyla would call him John when they were on down time and loosing the formality had taken some practice on her part.

It said a lot about how his mind worked when he used rank to talk to his closest friend. The formalities most of them had deferred to when they first arrived, whether it be rank or appellation, had fallen away within their social circles after a time, but in this case he couldn't shake it. He knew Teyla had referred to him thus, because she respected that his rank was a reflection of his achievements and that was what she called him when they were working. For him it was much different. Somewhere deep inside him he was still afraid that the friendship he had come to depend on to get through some of the more challenging times in his life in Atlantis, was only a shallow one, based on the fact they needed each other to survive. That without the constant peril, they wouldn't have anything to fall back on.

He decided right then that once John was back, he was going to make a change. Hell, if he could share a tent with him and put up with the infuriating snoring too, he could damn well use his first name when he yelled at him to shut up!

Dragging himself out of that line of thought, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and realised he had stopped walking. He looked down to find he was at the work station Radek usually reserved for himself. His note books were still strewn across the desk, open at the pages he had been working on. Rodney looked up then to see if maybe he was still around here somewhere just taking a break, but couldn't spot him. Oh well, Radek wouldn't mind if he took a quick look to see what he had been doing before he had retired for the evening. Reading the lines of messy scrawl, some in English, some in his native Czech, Rodney suddenly froze at what he saw.

His jaw started to work up and down as if it were getting ready for words that were moments away from being spewed out, just waiting for his voice to catch up with his thought process. "Oh, oh, yes, this could work."

The abrupt surge of life coming from his corner of the quiet lab piqued some interest with the other scientists. Several sets of eyes were squinting at him over the top of computer screens as he continued to think out loud, most of not in any fathomable, clear way that they could follow.

"This, this might just be... if they can find someone, of course they'll get someone...but then they'd need to, no that wouldn't do it, not unless...and I'd have to, yes I can do it...I just need a bit of time." He had been rocking back and forth, turning one way to ask a question, then swiftly turn back to answer it, then all of a sudden stopped dead and looked up into the room. He exploits had gathered everyone's attention and demanded into the crowd, "Where is Dr.Zelenka!"

Dr. Zelenka had been rudely woken, so had several other people in living quarters close to his own, by an insistent banging on his door and a man yelling his name. His brain told his body to ignore whoever it was, they could come back in the morning and when the banging had stopped, he promptly turned over thinking the person had gone away. Of course he had been wrong on that count. The banging had only stopped because the person outside needed both his hands to override the locking mechanism on his door. Hasty footsteps covered the distance from door to bed without any consideration for how loud they were being and a hand came out of the dark to shake his sleeping form.

"What, what? Do you know what time it is?"

"Yes Radek, I know exactly what time it is," Rodney's coarse whisper spoke to him.

"I'm glad to see you're back, but could you not wait until morning to see me?" Radek had given up hope on getting back to sleep. He had been victim to Rodney's after hours visits before and it always turned out the same. He would come in, wake up him and a couple of his neighbours while he was at it, drag him away from his warm comfy bed, then use him as a sounding board for whatever project was causing his insomnia this time. Still only half asleep, Radek had to try to attempt at keeping up with Rodney's headlong rambling, often not able to get a word in edgeways, then endure his maniacal friend's jibes at his inability to help him in anyway. Eventually Rodney would quiet down and settle back into his work, then look up as if he was surprised to see him sitting there. At that point he would be curtly dismissed, his presence no longer required.

"Don't worry Radek, there'll be plenty of time later to fill me in about how the lab came close to meltdown without my guiding presence. But right now we have work to do." Assured that his friend was now properly awake, he stood impatiently waiting for him to make his appearance a little more acceptable, than the 'just rolled out of bed look' that he currently sported.

"This better be good or this is the last time I get up in the middle of the night, just to be abused. I'm going to start moving furniture in front of the door to stop you getting in."

"What?"

All the answer Rodney got was a mumbling of a few choice curses in Czech.

"Oh, don't start doing that. I hate it when you swear at me in Czech, how can I possibly defend myself when I don't understand a word you're saying? Anyway I brought you coffee."

That was a shock. Well there was a first time for everything Radek supposed. He received the half a cup of cold coffee, that was meant to be part bribe, part peace offering, with a word of thanks. Radek suspected that it had been someone else's coffee, if not one Rodney had made for himself earlier and he just hadn't bothered to make a fresh cup. He nodded and forced a half smile then ditched the cup on the desk top on the way out the door. He had to admit, Rodney's social skills were improving, he'd been thoughtful enough to bring the coffee, so it was a start. He'd just have to find a subtle way to tell his friend, that gifts for someone you want help from, need to be something a little more persuasive than your dirty washing up.

That had been two hours ago and Radek had since found himself a nice clean cup and a fresh pot of steaming java to console him over the loss of his bed. As it turned out, this was more that the average sounding board sessions he was used to, and more along the lines of an actual emergency, something a man wouldn't begrudge being woken for. It seemed, as much as it irked Rodney, that it was his work that could end up saving the day.

They had spent the last couple of hours working through all the theories, hammered out the details, double checked their results and corrected the imperfections the best they could with the time remaining. They had called for Dr. Weir to join them and considering it was now the very early morning, she had answered in a voice that didn't hold the tell-tale sound of confusion that still clouds the mind just before you're fully awake. Despite ordering the rest of them to turn in for the night, she had neglected to do so herself. She had arrived a couple of minutes later and not a second too soon. While Rodney and Radek were waiting on her, they had started to bicker again and that was the sound that greeted her ears as she strode through the lab doors.

"...anyway, I thought I told you we'd start the live tests once I got back from our mission?" The indignant tone could only be that belonging to Rodney.

It was promptly answered in an angry Czech accent, "It's a good job then that I ignored you! If I hadn't started when I did, we would not have a viable option for saving Colonel Sheppard."

"Oh please, I could have easily come up with the solution, it was only down to you, tinkering around with a system you're not sufficiently familiar with that slowed me down!"

"If you hadn't taken so long off world, then I would not have felt the need to begin without you!"

"Ah, hello? You were informed that I was being held prisoner, in intolerable conditions by the way, yes!"

There was more foreign, angry muttering.

"I asked you before to stop doing that. If you insist on arguing a moot point, can you at least do it in a language I understand, so that when you realise that I was right all along, I can stop trying to prove my point!"

Elizabeth had heard enough. The two scientists were facing off about a foot away from each other, both gesticulating wildly with arms, pointing at note books and computer screens for emphasis. If she didn't break it up now, they were at risk of grabbing each other by the lapels of their jackets and throttling each other. They were so caught up in the fight, they hadn't even seen her come in.

She coughed to get their attention. "All right gentlemen and I use the term lightly, settle down. Am I right in thinking I heard the magic words before?"

Dr's Zelenka and McKay both spun round to look at her over the desk, they straightened down their clothes the way a couple of naughty school boys would when the headmaster catches them fighting in the playground. Neither had the slightest idea of what she meant by 'magic words', so she had to elaborate.

"Somebody said something about 'saving Colonel Sheppard'. I assumed that's why you would call me down here at this time of night. So what do you have?"

Miraculously recovering from their falling out, Rodney indicated politely that Radek had the floor.

Graciously excepting, Radek stepped up. "Last year, I started looking into some research for one of my personal projects. Oh, in my free time!" He assured her. "I was hoping to design a personal cloaking device. I had gone through the Ancient data base for anything that could help, but I could only go so far until I had exhausted all my resources. In the end it just wasn't possible for me to create such a device with the technology we had available and so I had to leave the project unfinished. However, if you remember, a couple of months ago, a discovery was made by a team exploring one of the uninhabited parts of the city?"

"Yes I remember. It was some kind of storage facility, we've still got people cataloguing the last of items that were found there."

"Well, one of the things on the inventory was a cache of the shield devices..."

"Yes, like the one I originally found, just after we first arrived and used to get rid of that energy creature the Ancients left trapped in a cage for ten thousand years." Rodney beamed with pride but the stares he was receiving told him his interruption was unwarranted. "Sorry, please continue."

Radek had forgotten what he was saying for a second. "Ah? Oh yes, the shields. The shields, made me start thinking again. Their design is much like what I had envisioned a cloak would be like. Also, we have already seen examples of Ancient technology that is capable of acting in the capacity of shield or cloak. The jumpers are one and we were able to manipulate the city's own shield to function as a cloak."

"Wait a minute, are you telling me, that you think it's now possible to make a personal cloaking device?"

"No. Its much simpler than that. All we have to do is convert one of the shields into a cloak."

"Are you sure you can do this?"

This time both scientists were in complete agreement. "Yes!"

Radek piped up then, "This was what I had wanted to tell Rodney the morning he and the others were leaving."

Elizabeth remembered the encounter she'd had with him the other day in the control room. No wonder he'd been excited. She nodded at the two of them and allowed a ghost of a smile to grace her lips. "Then by all means, get on it."

Elizabeth turned to leave the men to their work, but Rodney called her back.

"Just a second Elizabeth, before you go, there's something else you should know."

And there it was, the other shoe. "What is it?"

"Considering the time restraints, this thing is going to be much less than perfect."

She didn't know where this was headed, but already she didn't like the sound of it. She regarded him with a questioning look in her eye.

"Radek's research revealed that when the shields were was completely depleted of power, the imprinting from the previous wearer is wiped. It's like taking the batteries out initiated a master reset, the factory settings have been restored as it were. When it's charged up again the one I wore will be able to work on anyone else who has the gene."

"Okay, Rodney, I get it. What's your point?"

"It's while it's in its depleted state, that we have been able to access the internal systems and make the changes needed to convert it. So far we've been very successful, I can't foresee any possible trouble completing this part of it. After this is done it may take some considerable time to recharge, it won't be as easy as putting in a fresh set of batteries and it's ready to go."

"Well do you have time to sufficiently recharge the cloak?" Elizabeth inquired.

"I believe so, yes. It's just that we won't be able to test it once we've finished. If we do that the cloak will become imprinted on whoever tries it, if we do that the device will have to be depleted again and reprogrammed again. There is no way near enough time for us to do this before the deadline.

The three of them were solemn as they contemplated the consequences of this. It was Elizabeth that spoke first.

"So, just that I'm clear about this, let me clarify the situation. You have a shield and will be able to modify it so it will operate as a cloaking device?"

"Yes."

"However, the first time we'll know if your work has been successful, is when Colonel Sheppard puts it on!"

"Well of course my work will be successful..."

"Rodney!" She cut him off. "Just answer me this; Honestly, how confident are you that this will work?"

He didn't miss a beat. "Elizabeth, I would never have suggested this plan if I though we couldn't pull it off. Yes, there will be a risk and we will do everything we can to ensure it is minimal, but I couldn't not tell you. It's going to be your decision whether or not to proceed, but I don't see that we have another option. I think this is the best chance we have to retrieve the Colonel, short of sending in a strike team."

It was a fair assessment and she was thankful that for once, he had just answered her question without embellishing the results to inflate his own ego. "Thank you Rodney. I'll trust your judgement. If you think you can do this, then I'll take you at your word."

They had nearly forgotten the other man was there, but Radek still had a point to raise. "We can do this Dr. Weir, but how will you get the device to Colonel Sheppard if we are not allowed to return to the planet?"