Chapter 7: Timing Issues
John literally bolted upright as he regained consciousness, alarm racing through him, wildly searching for enemies. His mind only registered the glow of the gate and the stand of nearby trees.
"Wraith!"
As soon as he blurted the word, he realized the area looked familiar, but not because they were still on the planet where he'd blacked out. Alpha Site. Right. McKay was sitting nearby, a shocked stare still on his face, hands propping him up where John must have knocked him with his abrupt awakening. Noting the pilot actually focusing on him, the shock turned to an annoyed grimace as he pushed himself back up to crouch near the other man.
"Not here, thank you very much. We're just waiting for the others to quit gawking and come through. You've really got to knock off this fainting stuff, its starting to get rather annoying. For a toothpick, you weigh too damn much."
John rolled his eyes at the caustic wit of his friend, then instantly regretted it as another wave of vertigo hit. Hands pressed him on both sides and he allowed them to guide him back until he was laying against what felt like McKay's backpack. There was, at a guess, a power bar sticking him in the spine. This spell wasn't anywhere near as severe or as long lasting as the previous ones, though, so he was soon able to reopen his eyes, meeting the concerned gaze of Jonas Quinn while McKay was anxiously watching the event horizon, nine millimeter clenched in one hand. Which reminded John of a little issue he had...
"Where the hell did you come from, anyway?! I thought I told Ronon to circle around!"
Jonas flushed, head darting to stare at the leaf-covered ground.
"Yeah, well, Ronon had other ideas and Teal'c and I weren't exactly in a position to argue with him. He was shadowing you."
Yep, a short not-so-polite discussion with his team was definitely in order. Contrary to certain doctors' beliefs, Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard was not made of spun glass. His rising temper, however, was cut short by the appearance of Teyla coming through the event horizon at a run followed closely by Cam. Two down, five to go.
Daniel showed up next, only seconds behind, stumbling and hitting the ground just as he emerged. Thankfully, he had the presence of mind to immediately roll to the side since Carter came barreling after him, narrowly missing her friend. Teal'c was another several seconds, which left only two, Jack O'Neill and Ronon, who had obviously taken over John's normal position of rear guard.
30 seconds, 45 seconds, a full minute... nothing.
"Come on, dammit, where are you guys..."
The mutter was universally echoed and so soft John wasn't even sure who had said it. Then both came through at the same time, one last stunner bolt along with. Missing the last two travelers, it caused Cam to flatten himself to the ground with the razor sharp instincts of a fighter pilot, passing harmlessly through the space where he'd just stood. The gate shut down without any more parting gifts from their enemies and the tension instantly eased in multiple bodies. Cam stood back up, grinning at the older colonel, a twinkle in his eye that instantly spelled trouble.
"You're not supposed to bring souvenirs with you, sir."
John bit back a chuckle at Cam's own absurd brand of humor. Comments like that had gotten the pilot into plenty of trouble with officers who thought a sense of humor definitely didn't go with the uniform. Fortunately, Jack O'Neill could never be accused of that!
"Sorry. They insisted and my mother taught me never to be rude." Jack allowed a smile to flash briefly on his face with his flippant answer.
Grabbing on to McKay's arm to steady himself, John carefully pulled himself to his feet, concerned that the team stationed here had yet to put in an appearance. They were under standing orders to take cover if the gate opened and assess the threat before approaching, true, but they should have come out upon seeing their commanding officer and his team. Something wasn't right here. First, though, he wanted to be sure his current charges were all in one piece.
"Everyone okay? The camp isn't far."
A derisive snort from McKay. "You mean everyone other than you? 'Cause there's no way you qualify as okay even under your own backwards definition of the word!"
John pointedly ignored the other man, which was somewhat hard to do as he was still using McKay as a crutch, steadying himself against the intermittent bouts of his swimming head. He really needed to lie down and rest for a while. His concern focused on Daniel, though, who was standing carefully with some help from Teal'c and Carter.
"Dr. Jackson?"
"I turned my ankle running but I don't think its anything serious." Daniel shrugged, though the Atlantis colonel noted he didn't try putting weight on it. "Should be fine after a few hours with a cold pack."
So, himself with a possible concussion, dizziness, and exhaustion, and Daniel with a sprained ankle. They could have come out of that a lot worse. Nobody'd even caught a stunner! A gentle tug by McKay and they set off around the hill, the camp used by the team pulling Alpha Site duty only a five minute walk even as slowly as they were going. The first sight of the place, though...
"I thought this was supposed to be an Alpha Site."
Daniel's soft comment received a growl from Ronon as John stood, muttering curses in angry denial. The place was ruined. Equipment lay scattered about, much of it broken, and the remnants of the main tent hung in shreds from the only one of the four corner poles to stay standing. Even the privy was destroyed, broken and twisted wood lying in a heap the only thing left to mark the spot where it once stood. A glance at Teyla yielded a quick, sad shake of the head. They'd come too late to even exact revenge. John slowly sank to the ground, head going down on his drawn up knees, unable to continue examining the sickening sight. Vaguely, he heard someone tell him Ronon was going to scout the mess, but his mind was too busy racing, trying to remember which team was up for their two week rotation on the planet.
Who had he lost now? Stackhouse? Miller? Yang? Lorne? How many more letters home? It didn't take much imagination to figure out what had happened here. They'd seen it too many times on too many other worlds. The signs were as easy to read as if they'd been written in neon. The Alpha Site had been culled.
"You look like you know what happened here."
At Jack's comment, John lifted his aching head back off his knees, meeting the puzzled, worried faces of SG-1.
"Yeah. Wraith. McKay, go back and dial...the base. If we're really lucky, maybe some of the team made it through the gate before..."
He couldn't finish, failure biting deep. John knew that he would lose people, especially to the Wraith, but that didn't mean he could just brush the deaths off. The mournful silence was broken by the distinctive sound of the gate activating, then multiple radios crackled to life around him, resulting in McKay in surround sound. Several people instantly reached to turn down the offending items while John absently noted the scientist's careful hailing of 'the base' as opposed to 'Atlantis'. The man was finally learning to watch what he said. At least ten percent of the time, anyway. The lack of answer, however, sent another surge of alarm through the pilot. What else could possibly have gone wrong? Grimly, he reached up to his ear to activate his own com. There really wasn't much they could do at the moment.
"Leave it, McKay."
The soft scuff of a boot brought his head up to meet the raging dark eyes of the Satedan. Somehow, John suspected that fire would never be quenched until all the Wraith in the Pegasus Galaxy were dead or the man died trying. The man's face, however, bore a faintly puzzled cast, almost as if he couldn't believe what he'd found. Silence stretched as John found himself reluctant to ask the dreaded question, only galvanized into doing so by the hurried return of a grouchy McKay.
"Well, Ronon?"
"Definitely Wraith."
The answer shouted Ronon's own reluctance to give voice to whatever was bothering him.
"Thank you, Mr. Blatantly Obvious."
The other three members of the Atlantis team ignored McKay's snide shot at the former Runner, recognizing the scientist's rather unusual defense mechanism, but John caught Carter rolling her eyes in exasperation while Cam and Jack both grimaced. The older colonel glared daggers at the offending man while casually asking the group, "Anybody bring some super glue?"
Teyla fought down a laugh at that while Rodney scowled. John found his own lips twitching ever so slightly, his own coping skills ensuring he couldn't leave the question alone.
"Don't bother, colonel, it won't work. Neither will threatening to shoot him. How long ago, Ronon?"
The large man simply grunted, already adapting to his new friends and their strange ways.
"Two months, possibly three."
John immediately fought to contain the nausea as his brain informed him of the implications of that answer. The teams had just rotated site duties three days before the Daedalus arrived. To find it destroyed now...
"We're no longer in our own time, are we?"
Rodney's gloom and doom tone came quickly, but for once no one on his team really felt able to contradict him. It would certainly explain too much of what had been going on. John slumped back against the hillside, mentally running through options, discarding one after another. They really needed to find a way to regain control of the situation, but the Pegasus Galaxy was once again determined to ensure that wasn't a simple thing to do.
"What about the MALP we always leave here? We could send it through ahead of us, see if it impacts the gate shield."
Rodney's question had them all turning to the Satedan, who instantly shook a head full of dreadlocks negatively.
"Looks badly damaged."
"McKay..."
"I'm on it, colonel. Where is it?" The astrophysicist gifted his leader with a put upon grumble. "Don't go expecting miracles. I don't have any spare parts or decent tools to work with and nowhere on my resumé does it say 'MacGyver'!"
"Carter, give McKay a hand, see what the two of you can come up with."
O'Neill gave a jerk of his head toward Rodney, who seemed suddenly rather chipper with the notion that he would be working with the woman while his fellow astrophysicist shook her head resignedly.
"You so owe me for this one, sir."
John barely heard the quiet mutter directed at her own team leader as she waved at McKay to lead the way to the damaged machine. Ronon gave them quiet, short directions and the two set off, heads already bent toward one another in consultation. Daniel, seated nearby with Jonas carefully helping him wrap his swelling ankle in an Ace, smiled as he watched them walk away.
"Are you guys sure that was such a good idea? They might kill each other before too long."
The archaeologist's tone was purposely light, teasing, earning answering grins from the others.
Jack snorted. "Somehow I doubt McKay'd be the one doing the killing, Daniel. At least not intentionally. He damn near electrocuted her not that long ago."
Daniel quickly shook his head at his old friend. "For you, maybe it was recent, but not for him. He really has changed, Jack, and for the better from what I've seen. Now, he's more like Sam was when we first started going through the gate- irritated when science told her one thing and reality another, but learning to improvise."
"Dr. McKay has become, as Colonel Sheppard has described it on more than one occasion, quite good at 'pulling miraculous saves out of various parts of his anatomy.'"
Teyla deliberately pretended not to see the hastily covered laughs of Cam and John, both aware that the Athosian was diplomatically paraphrasing John's actual language. The SG-1 colonel obviously knew it, too, but just shrugged tiredly.
"We'll see. Since we may be here a while waiting for yet another scientific wonder, maybe we should see what kind of camp we can cobble together from this mess."
Everyone immediately began rising from their various positions, but when John attempted to join them, he was stopped short by several hands and a protesting head. Items landed in his lap with a thump even as he waited out the whirling, someone's hand planted on his shoulder to steady him. Finally, his vision cleared to find Ronon providing the anchor while Teyla and Jack stood nearby, silently watching, and an MRE and canteen laying in his lap. Daniel was still seated a few feet away, adjusting an instant cold pack from the medical kit on his ankle. As soon as the other colonel saw John looking at him, he leveled a stern finger at the younger officer.
"You just worry about resting and getting your stomach settled enough to eat that. Daniel, your job is to keep that ankle elevated and watch him. Yell if he even looks like he's going to get up. As soon as we have some decent shelter set up, we'll come and get you two."
Hackles instantly rising at being, as John saw it, treated like a helpless child, he opened his mouth to object, face darkening in anger and embarrassment. He locked gazes with O'Neill, glaring, only to be met with matching stubbornness. Jack finally broke the impromptu staring contest with a grimace. Neither one noted McKay approaching at a fast trot, self-congratulating smirk on his face.
"I need you rested and healthy to lead this insane bunch when we leave for your base, colonel. Once our dynamic duo of brainiacs come up with a way to prevent us imitating a bug on a windshield, that is... What?!"
The last sharp question was prompted by John's involuntary flinch and intake of breath at Jack's words. Not to mention a low, rumbling growl from John's large team mate, still standing just behind him.
"Jack..."
Daniel worked hard to keep the amusement from his voice, knowing Sheppard's team wouldn't appreciate thinking he was laughing at what their leader had just been through. His old friend just couldn't seem to help stepping in verbal holes, reminding the younger man strongly of their interactions when Daniel's memory was full of its own gaps. Ones Jack had hit with an appalling regularity.
"Colonel Sheppard hates the B-U-G word about as much as you hate the A word. You know, the one associated with the-"
"Colonel Antarctica, a word please?"
Rodney was looking right at the Atlantis commander when he was smacked on the arm, his response coming automatically until it dawned on him that John couldn't have done it.
"Hey! Sheppard! What- Wait a minute, who hit me?!"
Turning, he came face to face with a scowling Jack O'Neill.
"What was that for?! I was talking to Sheppard!"
John really couldn't help it, he burst out laughing. The Atlantis Chief Scientist seemed to have contracted an incurable case of foot-in-mouth disease around members of SG-1, past and present.
"Rodney..." Sheppard gasped, struggling to address the man with the same chiding tone Daniel had used a few minutes before, but still not able to contain his mirth. "Think about what you just tried calling me and who you're standing next to! You've read most of the SG-1 mission reports!"
The others saw the gears turning in the genius' head, then the the light finally went on and he flushed hard, glancing guiltily at O'Neill.
"I didn't- I meant- That wasn't supposed to-"
The older colonel fixed the sputtering man with a disgusted glare, then softened it slightly as he realized Rodney was actually trying to apologize.
"Just drop it, McKay. Did you want something, or did you decide you needed to annoy us?"
"Yes! Major Carter and I are working on a MALP of some kind, but its going to take a while. Don't expect much out of it, either, with the junk we have to work with. Contrary to popular belief, I can't fix anything simply because you want me to!"
"That's fine, Rodney, just get us something that will tell us if the gate shield is down or not. That's all we need. As for time, we don't have any Wraith or other assorted nasties breathing down our necks at the moment, so no hurry."
John shrugged, silently glad it would take the two a while to cobble something together. He really did need the rest.
Rodney grimaced at the exhaustion and suppressed pain he detected in John's voice. The man was really hurting to be that obvious about it, something that had the astrophysicist close to launching into panic mode. Still, short of Carson's care, a safe place with shelter for Sheppard to rest in was their best alternative. He'd better go speak with Carter, see if they could delay pulling this one off too fast.
The sooner it was done, the sooner Sheppard would insist on returning to Atlantis, whether he was physically fit to deal with whatever was causing them not to respond or not.
Really, it was a wonder the man was still alive the way he went rushing headlong into danger without a thought for his own skinny hide! What had Sheppard done before Rodney came along and took time out from his universe saving work to look out for the man?
Amused with his own cleverness, the genius turned to go find his oh-so-attractive counterpart only to have his elbow firmly grabbed by Jack O'Neill when he had taken several steps away from his injured colonel.
"Any reason you know of for this thing to be done before the morning?"
Jack's muttered question surprised Rodney, but then, if Sheppard looked bad enough for the normally oblivious genius to notice...
"Morning should be fine, general...er, colonel. We can't reach the base, but there could be lots of reasons for that and not really much we could do about it that doesn't involve foolishly suicidal heroics."
A sour grimace aimed at John Sheppard left Jack with no doubt who was being referred to. Seemed more and more like the kid was a man after his own heart. With a twinkle in his eye, he went off to see what kind of camp could made for the night while Rodney went back to his work. Fate seemed to finally be favoring this odd bunch. After all, if these people from the future knew him as General O'Neill, then that meant they had to get out of this.
Didn't it?
Author's Note: Tsk, tsk, Jack. You should never count your iratus bugs before they're hatched!!