THIEVES IN ATLANTIS
BY TIPPER
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CHAPTER FIVE: THE CAUSE OF ACCIDENTS
"So, what we're trying to do here…"
"We?" McKay replied softly, almost like a moan.
. "…Is to increase power to the new shield mechanism without a significant drain on energy, right? Something which, while being attacked, the pilot could opt for, if needed, with a single command. Is that it?" Ren was lying on the floor of the jumper next to McKay as the astrophysicist worked on the main console in front of the pilot's seat, his eyes glued to McKay's hands as the scientist worked the crystals. As he spoke, Ren scooted in closer, in order to see better, and ended up knocking McKay's left arm, earning an annoyed mutter from the scientist.
"You're worse than a bad penny, you know that?" McKay muttered, sighing softly.
"Huh?"
"Nothing." The scientist grimaced as he maneuvered around a particularly stubborn piece of crystal, to test the connections underneath. When Ren reached up to try and help, McKay slapped his hand away, causing Ren to grin. McKay rolled his eyes a little. "But in answer to your incredibly asinine question, yes."
"And what you're trying to avoid is draining power from one of the four essential systems—engines, life support, DHD and navigation, right?"
"Yes, again. You're on a roll, Ren!"
The sarcasm was lost on the boy, who continued on without shame.
"And so, instead, you're trying to siphon power from," Ren craned his neck, hooking his chin on McKay's bent elbow to get an even better view (and earning him a very nasty look), "the inertial dampeners?"
"Well, obviously, if there's a shield," McKay said, freeing his left arm roughly and returning his attention to plucking at the delicate circuitry beneath the dampener mechanism, "and you're in the vacuum of space, dampeners are not really as vital."
Ren hummed slightly, tilting his head away again and looking at some of the other exposed sections under the console that McKay wasn't working on.
"I was just thinking….can I make another suggestion?" He reached up to poke at one of the unused crystals, not flinching as McKay automatically slapped his hand down again. "Something else to skim power from?"
McKay didn't reply for a moment, but Zelenka, who was in the back of the jumper, working on and monitoring the main control panels, paused and looked at the two of them. Or, at least, at their legs—their upper bodies were hidden behind the pilot chair. McKay's long and partially bent ones were still, while Ren's short and spindly ones were rocking back and forth, causing his toes to tap together.
McKay sighed heavily, lowered his arms, and looked at the boy next to him. Ren grinned.
"Fine," McKay said unhappily. "What's your suggestion?"
"Well, I noticed you didn't have any belts on the chairs in here—which, by the way, I think is weird…I mean, how do you stop yourselves from hitting the console or falling out of your chairs when you crash? And I know you crash, because Radek told me about how you guys came to get shields on the jumpers in the first place, because you crashed into the ocean and he saved your life, and also because Sergeant Sanchez told me that the reason Jumper Three is out of commission is because Doctor Kusanagi hit a flock of Kaya birds on the Mainland, and they took out the right engine pod...Anyway, anyway, as I was saying..." He took a deep breath, oblivious to the pained look on McKay's face at the rapid-fire prattle, "I noticed you don't have any belts or harnesses on the chairs, to keep people safe. But what if, say, you added them? Then, when you needed the shields, everyone strapped in…and you turned off the artificial gravity? I mean, would you need gravity if everyone is locked down? And it takes a lot of power to maintain it, right?"
McKay's pained expression faded, and the blue eyes turned to stared at the boy in obvious surprise. Then, slowly, he began to smile.
"Well," he said, looking back up at the crystals, "we couldn't turn it off completely. The pilot still needs the speed that gravity allows him in order to manipulate the controls efficiently and quickly, not to mention, give him a sense of which direction is "up" so to speak, but, you know, a moderate decrease might….hmm...Hey, Radek!"
"Yes, McKay?" Zelenka was still watching their legs, a tiny smile on his face.
"You heard that?"
"Yes, McKay."
"What do you think?"
"I'll check if the gravity controls can be sufficiently separated from life support to allow that sort of manipulation."
McKay grinned, then reached over and rubbed Ren's moppish brown hair. "First useful thing you've said all week, Ren. We'll make a scientist out of you yet!" As he spoke, McKay lifted his hands back up into the console, to return to his fiddling, so he missed the massive smile that brightened up Ren's face. Far more real than the polite one the boy wore most of the week—he was positively glowing with the compliment.
Zelenka, still watching them from the back, just chuckled. Ren's feet had finally stopped moving, showing just how pleased he was.
After a couple of minutes, Ren's toes started tapping again, and he cleared his throat. "Can I ask another question?"
"Oh, and we were doing so well," McKay groaned, all his brief niceness gone. "For a second there, I thought I'd managed to actually shut you up!"
Ren, unphased, plunged on. "I was just curious about the shield when it's a cloak, or, rather, when the cloak's not a shield," he hummed a little, as if getting that straight in his head, then asked, "if the cloak makes the ship invisible to all sensors, how does Atlantis know where it is?"
McKay rolled his eyes a little. "Atlantis can read its own ships, regardless of if they're cloaked."
"How?"
"Does it matter?"
Ren grimaced, annoyed at the non-response, and he nudged McKay's arm. "How?" he demanded.
McKay swiveled an angry glare at him, "Stop that!"
"I will if you tell me!" Ren taunted, nudging his arm again. McKay snapped his left arm out of nudging range.
"God, you're annoying!"
"My name's Ren, not God. So, how does it do it?"
"Atlantis is attuned to its own machinery—the cloak is designed to repel all sensor ranges and frequencies except those that match Atlantis sensors exactly. So, Atlantis always knows where her ships are. There, happy?"
Ren smiled, leaning back again. "Yes. Thank you."
McKay muttered something unkind about Ren's parentage, which the boy totally ignored.
"So," Ren asked, and McKay sighed heavily, "Can it also read life signs within the cloak, or just the ship's signature."
"Just the ship's signature," McKay answered tiredly. "It can't tell you who is on board."
"So, then, how does…"
"Hey, Ren, you done yet? I'm getting bored." Garron's loud call interrupted the conversation, and Zelenka jumped almost a mile in back. Turning around, the Czech rested a hand over his rapidly beating heart at the sight of the dark-haired teenager sitting on the bench behind him, playing on what looked suspiciously like Corporal Dunne's gameboy.
Both Ren and McKay leaned out from under the console and around the pilot's chair in order to better see the gangly boy.
Garron continued to play on the gameboy, oblivious.
"How long have you been there?" Zelenka asked, still coming down from his shock.
"Hunh?" Garron looked up, then down again, his thumbs never stopping their playing, "About five minutes." He shrugged, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I came to fetch Ren for dinner."
"Oh!" Ren looked down at his watch—almost identical to McKay's, "it's six already?"
"Yeah," Garron said, yawning a little, and doing something that apparently shut the gameboy down. He stood up lazily from his seat, putting the game away in a pocket in the big, oversized coat he seemed to like wearing. "Oh, Neera's making something called Beef Wellington tonight, based off some Earth recipe. She'll kill us if we don't get there for the first servings." He didn't notice the way both McKay's and Zelenka's eyes lit up at the description.
"Okay, okay," Ren said, scooting out from under the console. "I'm coming." Like just about every other people they had met in this galaxy, the four refugees had adopted the phrase, "okay" almost immediately.
After Ren was up and dusting himself off, he turned to look at McKay, "You going to be okay without me?"
McKay just gave him a dark look. Ren grinned, turned, and with a nod to Zelenka, bounced after his already departing brother. Garron moved slowly, almost like he was too bored even to walk. In contrast, Ren was like a hyperactive gnat, circling a slow moving draft horse.
Rodney sighed, climbing out from under the console himself and, after stretching for a second, walked over to join Zelenka now standing at the back hatch. They watched the two boys heading out of the bay, and McKay sighed again.
"Damn it," he muttered.
"What?"
The scientist grimaced, glancing at Zelenka, "Now I'm hungry."
"Beef Wellington," Radek said, humming a little in agreement. "If it's as good as everything else she's cooked up this week…"
McKay just shook his head and walked down the ramp after the boys, knowing Zelenka would be right behind him.
About halfway across the bay, Ren stopped, grabbed his brother's arm and pointed off towards the side. Garron shrugged and Ren grinned, heading off in a different direction, while Garron stood where he was to wait. The younger boy ran towards where Sergeant Sanchez and Doctor Bryce were supervising the repair of Jumper Three. McKay paused, watching Ren go, frowning slightly. Radek came up next to him, curious at McKay's attention.
"McKay?"
Ren bounded up to the back of the jumper, getting up close to the damaged engine pod and looking down at it from the back. Inside the jumper, Sanchez was fiddling with the mechanical workings of the engine pod retractors inside the bench, while Bryce worked on the main circuit board. A young marine was also sitting up front in the pilot's seat, staring at the wall and looking bored. Consequently, none of them saw the boy.
Sanchez pulled his considerable bulk out from inside the bench and closed it, and looked towards the pilot. They heard Bryce say something, then spin her hand around.
McKay took off running before Zelenka realized what was happening. Bryce had just ordered the pilot to fire up the engine pod…and Ren was standing right behind it.
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TBC