The lights came on as they entered the rear end of the small ship, and McKay looked around with skeptical interest.
"Are you sure this is a space ship?"
Ian ignored him and headed for the front section of the gate ship, which looked a bit more like a cockpit should. Even for a space ship. He gestured for McKay to sit down in the copilot's seat, and settled himself into the pilot's chair with a twinge of nausea that had nothing to do with how much he hurt. God, he hated flying…
"Are you sure you can fly this thing?" McKay asked, looking at the instrumentation panels in front of them.
Ian shook his head.
"I'm sure that I can't."
"What?"
"I can't fly it," Ian repeated, reaching out and activating the heads up display.
"Well, that's lovely," the astrophysicist snapped. "What are we doing here, then?"
"We're going to fly out of here."
"But you just said-"
"It'll fly itself," Ian interrupted, just honest enough to admit to himself that he'd enjoyed the sudden look of panic on McKay's face a moment before. "All I have to do is tell it what I want it to do."
"It's an AI?" McKay asked, interested and annoyed at the same time.
Ian nodded, turning on the sensors. A moment later an image of the entire city came up on the display.
"And it's mentally connected to the pilot – somehow. It should do most of the work…"
"Should…"
"Yeah."
"But you're not certain?"
"It will."
McKay didn't look all that reassured, but he didn't press the issue. He was looking at the display as well, and couldn't help but once more be amazed.
"Is that the city?"
"Yeah."
"What are you doing?"
"Double checking to make sure SG-4 isn't here."
There was no way he'd leave them, after all, if they were.
There was a silent moment as the sensors of the little ship scanned the city, and then it made a gentle beep that almost sounded negative.
"Are they?" McKay asked.
Ian shook his head.
"Not according to this thing."
"But you're not sure it's working…"
"That part I'm sure of."
"Which part aren't you all that sure of?"
"Just shut up for a minute…"
Ian needed to concentrate on what he wanted, and McKay was making that difficult. A moment later a panel on the dash between him and McKay lit up, and he looked at it. This was the dialing device – not exactly the same as the Stargates, but close enough. He'd seen them work before – and had used them before – but now he needed to decide exactly where they were going to go.
"What are you doing?" McKay asked, ignoring the request for silence.
"Deciding where to go."
"How about Earth?" he asked, sarcastically.
Ian scowled.
"We won't fit in the SGC – and even if we did, we'd be just as well off charging in blaring trumpets and telling Anubis we're there. We're going to come up on him quietly – at least I am – and to do that we're going to have to gate in somewhere else and fly the rest of the way cloaked.
"Where?"
Ian gave a silent request to the gate ship and it responded by bringing up a lengthy list of gate addresses and coordinates relative to where he was and where he wanted to go.
"No," Ian said, addressing the ship and not McKay. "I need something closer…"
"What?"
"Shut up, McKay."
Rodney made an impatient noise.
"Then stop talking to me."
"I'm not talking to you," Ian snapped, his eyes on the display as a new list was brought up. This one was much smaller, and two of the addresses were highlighted. "Shut the fuck up. Okay? Please?"
"What is it doing?" Rodney asked, once more ignoring Ian.
Ian frowned, but not in response to McKay.
"This one might work…"
The address in question stayed on the HUD, but the others all vanished.
"Dial that in, McKay."
"What?"
"Dial the fucking address into the computer…"
"I thought it wouldn't work for me."
"That part will. Do it. I need to check something."
Ian was already turning his attention to a different panel on the ship's communications board, and McKay gingerly reached out and touched the first symbol in the address that was on the HUD. When it didn't zap him, he finished dialing quickly. And frowned. And then rolled his eyes.
"Nothing's happening, smart ass. I told you it-"
The little ship suddenly moved, making only the slightest of bumps as the inertial dampeners kicked in. The HUD in front of them vanished, replaced by the sight of the bay they'd been in suddenly moving and they both watched as the ship moved towards the center of the bay and then seemed to sink right through the floor.
"What's going on?"
"We're right above the gate room," Ian said. "It's taking us there."
"Oh…" He watched in silence as they sank through the floor (the ceiling of the gate room) and wound up hovering in the embarkation room. "That's really very clever…"
"Yeah."
Then they both swallowed hard as they headed for the already activated gate. McKay because he wasn't all that sure what was going to happen, and Ian because he did.
OOOOOOOOOOOO
The small ship was silent as it hurtled through space with Teal'c at the controls. The Jaffa was silent as he watched the readouts on the pilot's console, in deference to the fact that the others were asleep.
Not all of them. Jacob and Thor were awake and softly discussing the ZPM on one side of the ship, but Daniel, Jack and Sam had all fallen asleep, Sam with her head on Jack's shoulder and him with his arm protectively around her. Daniel had fallen asleep with his notes still open, his head resting on them and his glasses skewed on his nose. None of them looked very comfortable, but it had been a long couple of days, and it was only going to get crazier.
But they were ready to go. The ZPM had been hooked up and the ring device was ready to go. Jacob had entered in the coordinates to the exact spot in Antarctica that Ian had pointed out to them into the ship's navigational computer and it would be ready to lock onto that spot as soon as they dropped into regular space.
All they needed to do was get where they were going, and that destination was still hours away.