Chapter 8: Still more complications
"WHAT!"
"Yes."
A groan escaped Sheppard's lips. "Could this possibly get any worse?"
McKay held up his finger. "Actually, we could" he began.
"Don't answer that. I really don't need to know." Sheppard paused and thought for a second. "Well, if we do go far enough back that we run into the plague, it shouldn't be a problem, right? The city will just put itself into lockdown and the plague would be contained, right?"
"Umm…"
"Don't answer that either."
Rodney went forth and told him anyway. "That's not a guarantee. It wouldn't have been much of a plague if it had been contained, now would it? It's possible that the city only 'learned' the behavior as a result of the plague."
"Dammit." Sheppard swore loudly, pounding his fist against the wall of the infirmary. He turned back to Rodney. "But we don't even know if you're right. You could be wrong."
In a typical instance of McKay-ness, he snorted and proclaimed, "Of course I'm not wrong."
"But what if you are?" Sheppard countered.
"Well, I'm not, so it doesn't matter. Now we need to"
"But what if you are!"
McKay sighed impatiently. "I'm not. End of story. And I, for one, really don't want to die a horribly slow, gruesome, and painful death by way of plague, so let's find"
"How can you prove it? You said there were at least three ways to prove you were right."
"And I also said that they take a lot of time! Now we need to go!"
Sheppard threw his arms up. "Where? Where do we need to go?"
"To somewhere quarantined where we're not going to get infected by a plague."
"Can't we check on the way there?"
McKay began bouncing up and down on his tiptoes with irritation. "No, no we can't. Can we please go now?"
"We're in an infirmary, I doubt the virus is here," Sheppard countered. After McKay couldn't come up with a descent rebuttal for that statement, the major moved on. "How exactly can you prove it?"
"Well, there's the easiest way to prove I'm right, and then there's the harder way which will prove how far back we've gone,"
"Gimmie the easy one," Sheppard said exasperatedly, wondering why McKay couldn't just do that in the first place.
"Well, the stars and planets wouldn't be in the same positions they are in now thousands of years ago. If we took the jumper into orbit, we could cross-reference the positions of the stars with starcharts"
"Which are on the laptops which have disappeared," finished Sheppard flatly.
McKay opened his mouth to respond and then snapped it shut. "Yes, that's right. But if we've gone back a significant enough period of time, then the change should be visible enough to not need starcharts."
"Okay, then," Sheppard sighed. "Then let's go."
"No! Why?"
"Because you just convinced me that we need to go out and see if you're correct."
"I wasn't trying to convince you of anything! I was merely stating it could be done!" McKay cried, getting panicky.
"Why wouldn't we go? The jumper's airtight, so no plague will get in," John shrugged.
"Yes, but if we take the jumper up and have Hive ships and Darts awaiting us…" McKay left the sentence hanging.
"Come on, Rodney. That was, what, 10,000 years ago? We couldn't possibly have traveled that far already."
"Yes, but I don't want"
"Wouldn't you just love to prove your right?" Sheppard egged him on, knowing that would convince Rodney to do anything.
Apparently, it was working. Rodney had a brief internal struggle whether to stay safe or get an "I told you so" on Sheppard. "I told you so" won out.
"Oh, alright."
Sheppard flew the jumper out into orbit. The ship sat there for a few seconds, before McKay asked in an annoyed tone of voice, "Well?"
"Well what?" the major asked wearily, wondering what Rodney could possibly expect him to do.
"Well, are the stars different or not?" McKay asked with his arms crossed.
Sheppard shot Rodney the nastiest glare he could muster. "You're kidding me, right?"
"What?"
"Do you actually think I pay attention to the stars?"
McKay threw his hands up. "You fly the jumper! I just figured that you might use them as markers in the sky or something!"
"Well, I'm usually a little busy flying the jumper to make a mental map! Why don't you pay attention? You're the passenger, who has nothing to concentrate on."
Rodney fidgeted a little. It was obvious that he was trying to come up with an excuse so he didn't sound completely oblivious.
Hah! Sheppard thought joyfully.
"Well, if this isn't going to help any, we should probably head back to Atlantis," McKay said, changing the subject. He got up and walked to the back of the jumper. Sheppard had no idea what he was going to do there, and didn't really want to know. Probably just going back there to sulk and avoid being ridiculed for not paying any more attention that I did, he thought smugly.
A few minutes later, the jumper broke through the atmosphere of the planet. As he was flying, Sheppard did a double take. He squinted his eyes to make sure he was seeing things right, that this wasn't some crazy mirage. He double checked the navigation computer; no, he was definitely heading in the right direction.
"McKay," he said nervously.
Rodney was completely absorbed in whatever he was doing in the back of the puddlejumper, not wanting to be disturbed. "What?" he snapped.
"Look."
He snarled and glanced up. Ocean. Nothing interesting at all. "So?"
"Where's the city?"
McKay did a double take. "Uhh, on the other side of the planet," he responded, as if it was a stupid question.
"No, the nav computer says we're heading in the right direction," Sheppard said frowning.
"Are you sure it's working?"
"Yes, of course I'm sure! And besides, the mainland's over there, so the city should be straight ahead of us!"
McKay stood up, put his hand over his brow to cut down the glare, and stared out the jumper window. "Oh my god," he said after a few seconds.
"What? What is it?"
"I think the city's underwater."
Sheppard gaped. After excessive squinting, he could just barely make out the outline of something big below the ocean's surface.
"I am right! Ha!" McKay celebrated. John half expected him to do a little victory dance, and he probably would have had they not been in the jumper.
"Damn," was all Sheppard could muster. He pulled the puddlejumper into a gentle dive.
"What are you doing?" McKay asked uneasily.
"Well, what do you think I'm doing?" Sheppard asked sarcastically. "We're going back to the city."
"What? You can't do that! In case you hadn't noticed, the city has sunken!"
"Do we have much of a choice?"
"Can this thing even go underwater!" McKay asked uneasily, looking around in the puddlejumper.
"Let's find out, shall we?" Sheppard said, putting the ship into a dive.
"Oh, Christ," McKay muttered, sitting down in the copilot's seat and holding on for dear life.
Of course the thing can go underwater, thought Sheppard. Why couldn't it? It's spaceproof, why not waterproof? It makes sense!
"Slow down, unless you want to kill us both, major!" McKay warned. "Don't hit the water too fast!"
This brought on an eye roll from John. Of course he knew enough simple physics to slow down. They trained you for situations like this in the Air Force.
It wasn't smooth, and it wasn't pretty, but the puddlejumper entered the water without incident.
Almost.
McKay tried to pick up the remaining strands of dignity as he pulled himself up off the floor.
"Well, that was stupid." McKay muttered under his breath. "God, remind me never to do that again. We're lucky this thing didn't completely buckle when it hit the water and WOULD YOU STOP LAUGHING!"
John was barely keeping the jumper in a straight line he was laughing so hard. Damn, that had been quite a jolt, but seeing McKay get dumped on his ass was quite worth it.
"Sheppard!" McKay blurted out, the sound of panic rising quickly in his voice.
"Yes? What?" he responded, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes.
"The city's shield! We're not gonna be able to get through the shield!"
Sheppard immediately sobered up and turned to Rodney. "This would have been nice to know beforehand!"
"Well, you should have realized it too!" McKay countered.
"We can argue about this later! Quick, how do I deactivate the shield?"
"Don't be stupid! That would flood the city. Besides, there's no way to do that from outside Atlantis! Why do you think it's a shield?"
"Then how are we supposed to get in?"
"I have no idea! Transmit an IDC or something!"
"How the hell do you expect me to do that?"
"I don't know! You're the one with the big fancy gene!"
"You have it too! And you're the scientist!"
"and not the pilot! Pull up, Sheppard, you're going to crash! Pull up!" McKay screeched, waving his arms wildly.
"It's too late! We wouldn't be able to make it!"
"Oh, HELL!" McKay slouched down in the copilot's seat and brought his arm up over his face. Sheppard braced his body for a very painful impact and hoped that whatever God watched over the Pegasus galaxy didn't want to see them squished like a fly on a windshield.
The jumper passed through the shield.
Sheppard gave McKay a triumphant smile.
"I knew that was going to happen," McKay said, sitting up in his seat.
