Reminder:
"This is spoken English."
"This is spoken Czech."
This is a thought.

Last time: Anna's getting closer to something she's been working on for a while (more off than on since chapter 68 and 84, but more in 119 and 131). We discovered a Wraith hiveship is heading right for us (SG:A Inferno and, to a lesser extent, chapter 131), and it probably has to do with Michael (more implied than anything at this point, to be honest... Anna isn't involved in that situation, though we talk about it in chapter 129).


Chapter 132. Things on the List.

The Hippaforalkus's control room was a quiet bustle of work—it was supposed to be called the Orion, but somehow it hadn't stuck. Anna seemed to prefer the old name for whatever reason. Even Rodney had reverted to calling the ship by the original name from time to time.

The ship's novelty nevertheless seemed to have worn off, replaced by an anxiety that was more present today than other days. There was a Wraith hive ship coming. It was closer today than it was yesterday, and, if it held its singular course, it would be closer tomorrow. It would be here in four days. Radek tried not to worry too much about it.

He always worried, so there was no point in adding more to it.

The thought he'd already dedicated to Anna ended with the assurance that if there was an evacuation, she would be one of the first people off Atlantis. She would be okay under most circumstances. And, if she wasn't, well… That just meant everyone else was dead, too. Including him. That was hardly a comforting thought, but if he was dead then he wouldn't care.

And for all that, he was still happy to be here. For some reason, despite that quiet hum of apprehension, he was having the time of his life. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that there was a skip in his step from evidently full lungs. That he'd faced death more head-on than he thought he might and survived put a new perspective on things. Radek noticed a few days ago that he'd gone up the stairs down the hall from his lab at what one more poetic might term a "canter," and arrived without having to pause to catch his breath.

Such small things could be more cheering than they had any right to be.

And now he was working on the Ancient weapons systems of an almost-intact warship. And Rodney was incongruously miffed about that. Probably because it was the only thing they could think to argue about all morning. Everything was going pretty well in Radek's estimation—they'd never have the whole thing ready, probably not in their lifetime, but they were going to have a partially-working Ancient warship by the time the Wraith arrived if they played their cards and arranged their crystals right.

"I hate to interrupt whatever it is you're doing over there, but maybe do you want to give me a hand with this before the Wraith get here?" Rodney wondered.

Miko and Schreiber looked up from their disparate corners of the bridge, and then back down when they noticed that they weren't the ones being yelled at. They should have guessed, since Radek had come in at eight in the morning and Rodney hadn't seen a reason to degrade anyone else.

Things were normal again. Maybe it had less to do with the breath at the top of the stairs.

"Rodney, we've been over this. We aren't going to have either system up and running fully by the time the Wraith get here. Here, let's do the math." Radek seized his nearby tablet and pulled up a familiar notepad, graphing damage versus time. "The drones are basically a burst of damage, correct?"

"Yeah, yeah, under certain circumstances, the shields drop off in usefulness because the drones have been expended. But here's the thing: ten to one I'm going to be the one on this thing. I'm not going to go down with the ship. You know what would give you a few extra seconds to evacuate?" Rodney didn't look up during his whole tirade. In fact, Radek doubted he'd lost his train of thought on diverting power around the completely degraded leads. "Shields."

"Yes." Radek nodded, pushing the tablet toward him. "You know what would eliminate the need to evacuate at all?"

Rodney paused to look up. He didn't say anything, just squinted a little and didn't look impressed. Perhaps he'd guessed the punchline.

"Destroying the enemy vessel." Radek grinned. "You see, under these circumstances, the best defense is, as they say, a good offense. Sacrificing shields for weapons is the best option nine times out of ten."

"Okay, sure. I suppose between the two of us, you have much more combat experience. You go ahead and sacrifice shields when you're the one ducking sparks." Rodney shook his head and went back to work.

Radek wasn't sure he would, and he doubted he would be in such a position, anyway. He had never been on the Daedalus in such a situation. Most people probably, like he did, hoped they never would. He would happily theorize from this side of the battle, though. Hopefully, happily afterward, as well, when everyone was back on Atlantis safe and well.

"I will…" Radek sighed and went back to his tablet. "But, the shields are just as worthless if you don't have any weapons to fire when you get there, you know?" He didn't know if Rodney heard. He acted like he hadn't.

The Hippaforalkus was a currently half-functioning miracle. It was a fluke of Ancient design that the ship was space-worthy after all this time, considering most of the bottom of it had been severely damaged when Rodney and the others made their escape from Taranis. Most of the connections between the systems and the power source in the most central chamber that functioned somewhat like an engineering bay were completely run down. Of course, those connections could have been easily bypassed if the control center—where they were now—was even in slightly better repair than it was.

But Ancient control crystals were at a premium. They had to decide whether they wanted speed in adjusting power flow or more efficiency in that power flow. The truth was that both of them were right. Under these circumstances, it was practically all-or-nothing. Either their weapons would be functioning well, or the shields would. There would be little opportunity to switch focus from one to the other—only Rodney or Radek could do it really quickly, and once they did switch, there would likely be no time to turn back.

She was an old girl hobbling up the stairs, stopping halfway to catch her breath. Unfortunately, she wouldn't have the time it took to heal properly.

"Radek?"

Radek and everyone else in the control room glanced toward the door where Anna stood. Miko and Shreiber went back to their work almost immediately afterward, only Rodney paused a bit longer to see if she had anything interesting to say. Or, perhaps thinking something similar to what Radek had already considered in depth. This was going to go badly, if anyone asked either of them. But Anna would be safe if the worst happened.

Rodney went back to his work with a small nod of greeting in her direction, which she returned.

So, perhaps, things were not quite normal. At least not what he thought would be normal if he'd had any actual say in the matter. He liked Rodney better now than he had a year ago, and he imagined that would never sit well.

"What do you have, miláčku?"

She smiled and approached with the box that jingled like bells in time with her step. And when he looked, it was like Christmas inside. "I found them in the lower Janus lab," she said, picking up one of the control crystals.

He had never really seen a new one, or a good-as-new one before. Unlike the Asgard crystals they were used to on the Daedalus, the Ancient crystals were milky white and smooth—the appearance and texture reminded him of a white gypsum specimen. Not that he had any interest or knowledge in geology. Sometimes it just happened to surprisingly intersect with alien power sources.

"Incredible…"

"There's twenty of them," she said. "I think we could replace some of the worst ones, couldn't we?"

Their conversation was enough to draw Rodney off the shields, and over to join them. He peered into the box, and then at Anna. "Huh."

Radek expected more, but Rodney seemed to be very distracted with his thoughts this morning. Either that or the coffee they'd brought up was less than satisfactory.

"Yeah," Rodney said after a moment, "get to work on the main control panel. Focus on the pathways to save time and energy bringing up the shields after our first salvo."

"Me?" Anna asked, her eyes bright with excitement to be able to help. She'd been up here with them almost every day since the Hippaforalkus came to rest above the atmosphere over Atlantis, but hadn't done as much, perhaps, as she would have wanted.

Rodney waved her away irritation as he said, "Yes, yes, you. Who else?"

Radek was annoyed, briefly, but when he saw that Anna seemed to be having as good a time as he was, Rodney's dismissive impatience and all, he gave her a smile. She really was his daughter, wasn't she? Minus the anxiety. He hoped so, anyway.

As she got to work, sitting cross-legged on the floor, he went back to his own station at weapons, giving her shoulder a squeeze as he went past. If she took any particular note, he didn't see.

#

Anna wondered briefly if she should have told someone that the chip factory was at least printing these things. It wasn't fast, and she didn't have enough raw materials to make more, anyway. She'd checked everywhere: all the scrapped tech repositories, every single room she could think of with storage catalogued or not. She knew the machine was even capable of recycling these old, dead crystals, and all it cost was time. Time which they did not have. At least, not to make any difference for the Hippaforalkus.

It was incredibly selfish to so want to make the big ZPM discovery on her own—assuming such a discovery was there to be made—potentially at the expense of this Ancient warship, just because she didn't know what she was doing.

All the same, she knew enough to know that they just didn't have any of the materials they would need to make any real difference. These twenty crystals were all they could have, and it was better than nothing.

"How's it going in here?"

Anna looked up at Major Lorne's voice. He walked in with Sheppard, who probably had the good sense to do so quietly. Either that or he was just distracted. Either way, most of Major Lorne's experience with scientists had ben with Radek. Even if Radek wasn't happy with people talking to him while he worked, he was at least polite about asking them to be quiet. Mostly.

"Wonderful," Rodney snapped from the shield console. "It will only get better the more you interrupt us."

"We're down to the hive ship arriving in four days, Rodney. Asking for an update on how screwed we are isn't unreasonable," Sheppard said. "And besides…" With a sigh, Sheppard sat in the control chair. He looked quite uncomfortable there if Anna had to put a term to it. "I don't think he was talking to you."

"I am actually pretty curious as to whatever's going on over here." Major Lorne crossed the bridge to stand behind Anna and her array of crystals spread out on the floor.

"I have a system," she said, looking at the mess. Because it was a mess. She'd managed to disassemble most of the control panel and select the most salvageable of the control crystals.

When she looked up to see whether he responded, he, surprisingly, looked interested. So she held up one of the new crystals for him to see. "These new crystals needed to be put in the most advantageous patterns, and then filled in with the old crystals I pulled from the panel." Unfortunately, their knowledge of the crystal control of the warship was patchy.

"I see," Lorne said, crouching beside her and picking up a crystal from the pile that Anna thought looked obviously discarded. "And what do you do with the bad ones?"

"Salvage." She saw the look of curiosity he gave her and deliberately ignored it, leaning back into the panel and arranging the crystals into another set. She only had five more reasonable permutations before she could decide on the best arrangement. She leaned back out of the panel. "Shields or weapons?"

"Shields," Rodney said.

At the same time Radek said, "Debatable."

"I've seen the math," Sheppard spoke up from the captain chair. He leaned up against the back like it was a recliner, not the command seat of a warship. "Zelenka makes a pretty good argument."

"Yeah, this prioritized laundry list you gave us at the beginning of this whole thing is just not going to happen, okay?" Rodney sighed. "Are you two here just to slow us down, or is there something you needed?"

"We're here to park the Orion outside of sensor range, actually." Sheppard craned around to look at Rodney. "Speaking of which, I have two questions. First, why the hell is everyone still calling her the Hippaforalkus, and, second, she is capable of moving again, right?"

"Okay, two, yes, she's capable of moving again. I think. Probably."

"McKay."

"I'm working on it! And, one…" Rodney cast a quiet glance toward Anna, the front of the bridge, and then Radek before back at Sheppard. "I'd rather not say."

"Very smooth, Rodney…" Radek muttered, but Anna could hear his otherwise concealed grin.

"It's me, I think…" Anna spoke up.

Sheppard turned back in his chair, watching Anna with what she thought looked like supreme disappointment. "What's wrong with the Orion?"

"I just think it's sad that an Ancient general had his namesake ship survive for ten thousand years and the first time we drag her out of mothballs, we change her name." Anna shrugged. "Seems unlucky or something. She's survived this long as the Hippaforalkus."

"Yeah, but General Hippaforalkus didn't survive this long," Sheppard said with a snapping point at her. "It can't be that lucky."

"What's wrong with Hippaforalkus?"

"Orion's cooler."

"Orion's just a mythological figure, though. Hippaforalkus was an actual general that won actual battles against the Wraith." Anna didn't know that for sure. But looking it up would be the first thing she did when she got back to Atlantis.

"Can we please stop saying Hippaforalkus?" Lorne chuckled.

Sheppard straightened, smiled a little, as he turned his attention to Lorne. "Is that a vote for Orion?"

"Frankly, sir, I don't care what we call her as long as we decide before they get here." Major Lorne had taken a seat on the floor near Anna, back against the console. He looked much more relaxed than Sheppard did. "You're probably the one who's going to be flying her, anyway."

Sheppard leaned back in his chair with a sigh, and Anna returned her attention to the console. She knew she would probably continue calling it the Hippaforalkus regardless of what Sheppard chose, and it wouldn't make too much of a difference in the long run. She settled on a crystal arrangement and put everything back.

"I guess, you're right, Anna. I'd be pretty ticked if I got a ship named after me, then some jerk from another galaxy took that away." With another sigh, as though it hurt him to say it, he said, "Hippaforalkus, it is."

Anna saw Radek give her a smile across the room, but any further discussion might have been cut off when Rodney spoke up. "Oh, good, I'm glad. The Hippaforalkus. Hey, Radek, could you cross 'come up with a good name' off the list of things we have to do before the Wraith get here? Oh, right, it's not on the list because it doesn't matter."

"Alright, alright. We know when we're not wanted." Sheppard stood and made for the door. He turned back at the entry when he realized he wasn't being followed. "Lorne, you coming?"

"I know how to shut up and stay out of the way, sir," Lorne said with a grin, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling. "Though, I have to admit, inspection sounds like a hell of a good time."

Sheppard chuckled. "Fair enough. Let me know when we can move her, McKay. I'll be checking in with the other teams."

Anna quietly gathered up her salvaged crystal chips. She hoped it made a difference. Maybe not the name, but the new pieces inside. Whether she had a new or old name, she definitely deserved another chance.


A/N: If you're wondering why I'm apparently using the name Hippaforalkus now… these are questions I ask myself every day. Actually, I'm just kidding, it's just way more interesting than the Orion. Uninspired, frankly. Sheppard, I expect better.

Next time: Just stay there. And don't come out.