Reminder:
"This is spoken English."
"This is spoken Czech."
This is a thought.
Last time: 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 134. Location, Location, Location.
How was Radek supposed to predict this morning when he brought Anna to the Central Tower that there would be a Wraith there…? He might have made a few decisions differently. Now, to have her out of his sight was intolerable, given the Wraith's free reign of the hallways—well, perhaps not "free," since they were always under a small legion of marines' watchful eyes. But to have her anywhere on Atlantis except within a brief sprint to the 'gate was even more intolerable.
Unfortunately, those two were just about mutually exclusive.
Today was the worst.
And probably tomorrow. He didn't know when it would end.
He watched in something right next door to horror as the Wraith woman—tall, pink-skinned, and dressed in white—and her two black-clad male Wraith escorts walked with her and a battery of military members toward the Central Tower. He pulled Anna to him, and didn't look to see how she was taking this.
Anna would be curious. Interested. She'd want to see and hear what was going on, because she was his daughter. As long as danger was of less consequence to her—as it had been to him about a year ago—then she'd want to understand what was happening. She'd asked more than once today if she could help somehow. She must have known every time she asked that the answer would be no, she couldn't help at all. She knew even less than Radek did about the layout of a Wraith hive ship, and absolutely nothing about the machinery Carson required to synthesize the retrovirus. Anna had grown up in a world that might not even require her to learn about explosive weaponry and chemical dispersion, two topics in which Radek once considered himself an expert.
He didn't realize how strong his grip on her shoulder was until she looked at him, one of her cool hands on his. Instead of complaining, she pulled at his fingers and whispered to get his attention. "What do I do now?"
If Radek had a crown for every time he'd said he didn't know today, he could have at least bought himself a beer. But he wasn't drinking, not today. And he wasn't saying he didn't know again.
He sighed, and let go of her shoulder. In response, she slid ever so slightly closer to him and wrapped her own arm around his waist. "I think it doesn't matter…" he said finally. "You can stay with me, in the Central Tower, with the Athosians—it doesn't matter. The Wraith are here, in Elizabeth's office."
He looked at her, and her eyes were still on him. Somehow, she was smiling. It was a small smile, he thought, born of the desire to be encouraging rather than any real optimism she had for the situation. To show him that she was alright, at least emotionally, and he didn't have to worry. Not about her, anyway.
Radek would worry, it was in his genes as much as gulaš and beer. "What do you want to do?" he asked.
Anna looked out into the hallway, toward the Central Tower they couldn't see, and then down the hall from where the Wraith had come. If she was like him—and she was—she would also worry. But she was young, which meant her confidence was at an all-time high. She hadn't yet seen what could happen.
To his surprise, she met his eyes again. "Can I just stay with you?"
He nodded. He didn't know where he would be going or what he would be doing, but it was as good an idea as anything. He wouldn't want to be alone in their quarters, either. And he wouldn't want to be next door to a Wraith as the situation would be in the Central Tower.
"Of course."
A familiar voice behind him spoke in Czech. Radek turned to see Carson, and wonder if he'd heard correctly. Were there English words that corresponded with his whispered, "If we want to work on this without Wraith supervision, now's the time"?
It made too much sense in Czech to have been anything else. And English didn't sound like that.
"Let's go, then."
Anna followed them. Carson noticed, but didn't make any comment on that. "I'm given to understand that at least one of the Wraith with the queen is a scientist. I think he's meant to work with me—with us. You know what they want to do probably better than I do."
"Yes, probably…" And not just because he had a better grasp of weaponry than he hoped Carson ever would. "Obviously the biggest hurdle now is the delivery system." To his surprise, he'd stopped shaking a long time ago. The world had reduced to the hallway ahead of him, and the hallway behind him. Anna was in it, and he was moving forward. "We'll have to test the stability of the aerosol in various, um… environments."
"I suppose you mean incendiary environments?"
"Hm. Yes. We want the gas to reach as many of the Wraith on a hiveship as quickly as possible, though, don't we?" And they wouldn't know how much of that was feasible until they tested the gas with that kind of dispersion… obviously, the Wraith wouldn't be strolling into a rival hive's ship and serving up cocktails. "So let's put some firepower behind a sample and see what happens."
Carson shook his head, probably thinking of all the time and power it took to produce the retrovirus… and how they were just about to literally light it on fire. If the Wraith wanted to waste Atlantis's time and precious energy, this would be a good way to do it. Still, asking them to make the retrovirus would take over a year of nonstop production to bring them into dangerous power levels.
And, of course, asking them to turn that retrovirus into a weapon would do that much quicker.
"At least this time, the weapon is harmless to us…" Radek muttered.
If Carson had any guesses as to exactly which weapon Radek was talking about, he gave no indication. Atlantis helping the Genii with their radioactive interests had almost gotten Radek personally incinerated. And, to be sure, Radek was planning to continue with this explosive line of thinking to help the Wraith fight other Wraith… but only just enough.
Who was he kidding? It wasn't as if the Wraith wouldn't be able to use their own explosives if—
Did the Wraith use explosives? That struck Radek as rather counter-productive. Their weapons generally stunned—at least in Radek's limited experience—because Humans were more than just enemies. They were food. And that food had to be alive. But were Wraith prepared to fight other Wraith?
"Are you alright, Radek?" Carson asked quietly.
"Oh, yes." Radek nodded, and shook off that line of questioning. "Sorry. I was just thinking."
Anna followed at a near distance, and Radek had to imagine she was exhausted from having done absolutely nothing but sit around and worry all day. He'd done something similar and… well, a nap was out of the question. So was sleep tonight.
But now that he had something to do, something he could be somewhat assured would improve the situation, he actually felt a little better. "We could probably use your help, Anna." He regretted the words before he even started saying them.
"I'd like to."
Radek eyed her. It didn't matter how peaceful the revolution was. The nightmares were still next door. They still roamed their streets, filled their screens, and visited with their leaders. Maybe her world would require her to learn about explosive weaponry and chemical dispersion after all.
#
It turned out that there was a lot of math involved in what boiled down to chemical warfare. Fluid dynamics, because, of course, air was a fluid. But there was another facet to it, one of enclosed spaces and the way people and objects moved in those small spaces. How explosions affected walls and floors, and Radek asked how long it took to react once initial symptoms occurred.
Radek was surprisingly and distressingly well-versed in all of it.
"It is pretty volatile, isn't it?" Radek pondered their sixth test of a small sample of the retrovirus aerosol. "I don't suppose there's time to find something more stable? I'm not a chemist."
"They seem to be in a hurry," Carson answered.
Anna pulled in another canister of the retrovirus and stuck a label on it. Number 6. Radek told her to prepare a total of ten samples, and then told her to do her best with the schematic of the Wraith hive ship's air flow. He said it was an interesting problem for finding the most efficient starting points to reach all areas in the ship in the shortest time frame possible. Sort of like a "the train leaves the station at three in the afternoon" word problem.
But with more fascinating outcomes than just passing another train in Brno at nine.
As for Anna, she'd learned more than she ever wanted to know about a few dozen more ways to die in a space ship. Not to a retrovirus, of course… but the principle was the same for any gas, she assumed. The next time she was on the Daedalus would be a rough time, probably.
"How much medication is needed to be effective on a single Wraith?" Anna wondered, and then suddenly wished she'd kept her mouth shut. But, well, if Radek wanted her calculations to be useful at all…
Carson glanced at her. "We don't know exactly. I can give you a guess. We've refined the medication since using it last, but we never used the aerosolized version on Michael." Carson turned to a nearby computer and pulled up a screen. Anna couldn't see what was on it.
"A test may be in order…" Radek pondered quietly, and Carson seemed to be horrified with that notion. "No, you see, when disseminating an aerosolized medication like this, you have to consider ventilation patterns, airway architecture, particle size…"
"Proximity to patient." Carson impatiently tapped on his keyboard. "Yes, yes, I know."
Anna gathered her tablet and went to Carson's desk, next to Radek. He looked at the schematics, and, she imagined, the small list of variables she thought she'd have to take into account. She added Radek's particle size and Carson's proximity. There was no way anyone would be able to tell her that, though.
Radek watched Carson's work, and explained, "On Earth, we would normally use a technique called thermal dissemination."
"Explosives…" Anna said.
"Explosives, yes." The glance Radek gave her, she didn't know what it meant. "The problem with an explosive delivery system is that, because the drug is an aerosol, these tests always ignite at least some of the medication. In two of them, it was completely ruined."
"They call it flashing," Carson added with a small smile.
"Yes. Hm. Flashing." Radek chuckled. If it was a joke, no one explained it. "Anyway, I suppose you can tell me another reason why we'll have a problem with that?"
Anna looked at the test canister in Radek's hand, as if she'd see the answer there if she looked. "Well, when you put an explosive on a ship… you could cause damage to the hull?"
Radek's smile said she'd given the answer he was looking for. "Yes. Normally explosive decompression is something you might want in an enemy vessel in outer atmosphere combat, but in our case that would defeat the purpose."
"The gas would get sucked out into space instead of staying on the ship," Anna said. Of course, any Wraith in the compartment would also get sucked out into space. Not, perhaps, the worst outcome in a battle, but Anna understood the Wraith they were working with seemed to want to convert their enemies' hive ships into floating refrigerators for their next meal. "So delivering it with something like a missile definitely wouldn't work."
"Right. So that's where you come in with this schematic." Radek tapped her tablet, as if she were actually doing anything helpful with the schematics there.
Carson, apparently having found what he was looking for, turned his attention on Anna. "If you want to affect a large population as close to simultaneously as possible, aerosol is really the only way to go."
"Aerodynamic dissemination," Radek said. "We have to use the properties of diffusion and the Wraith ship itself to spread the gas."
"Quickly," Carson added.
Without any announcement, Coughlin walked into the room flanked by two additional marines, even larger than he was. "Was geht, Doc?" He looked around the room as Radek answered, in English, and Coughlin's eyes landed on Anna. "I don't know if you want to be here…"
"Why not?" Anna asked.
"Because there's gonna be some… collaboration going on in this room. We're here to make sure it's secure." With that, Coughlin nodded to his two compatriots who walked around the room looking for contraband. One of them considered the giant contraption against one of the walls for only a moment before moving on. "We won't be leaving the room, of course, and he'll have his own escorts."
Anna looked at Radek. He was looking at Coughlin—though almost through Coughlin. Anna didn't know if he'd expected something else to happen, and she didn't know why she'd expected something different… But, of course, the Wraith would be coming here. Of course, Radek would be working with one of them. Of course. But what was she supposed to do now? Hang out with Lorne in close proximity to the Wraith queen and her bodyguard?
Radek finally gave a nod. "Alright." He didn't look at Anna. Instead, he turned to the strange machine and its tubes and drums performing some esoteric chemistry behind clear plastic. "You can stay if you want," he said, obviously to Anna. Carson had to stay whether he wanted to or not. "But you don't have to."
"What do you want me to do?" Anna didn't know which answer to wish for. She could easily imagine being disappointed or dismayed with either answer: stay or go. And where did she think she would go? Back to their quarters?
Radek shrugged, picked up one of the test canisters, and turned it in his hand. "I think it's time for you to leave Atlantis."
A/N: It's good to be back! How is everyone? My summer was magical, and I hope yours was just as good.
Also, yeah, I'll just give Radek some of Carson's lines. Carson is a doctor. Why in the world would he be that familiar with the tactical elements of chemical warfare? Also, welcome to the singular episode upon which I've based my version of Radek's technological background. A small and shaky ground, but here we are. Additionally shaky ground would be the changes I made to the, uh, technobabble? Like, I'm sure what was in the show made sense, but not to my five-year-old-caveman brain.
Next time: Too close for comfort.
