Title: The Last Chance
Date: 26th December 2007
Author: Kazavid
Chapter: 7/9
Rating: M
Pairing: John Sheppard / OFC - Alex from (Doppelgänger – Mating Instinct – Didn't think...)
Archiving: None
Warnings: Sexual Content
Spoilers: Anything up to The Seer
Feedback: Yes
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and its characters do not belong to me.
Summary: Four days, five chances, to stop Atlantis from being destroyed. And he can't tell anyone what he knows, or what he's doing. Is Sheppard up to the task, can he stop the destruction of Atlantis and save everyone he cares about.
The Last Chance
Chapter 7
The Day Atlantis is Destroyed
Alex entered the holding cells and saw John lying back on the bench, his arm draped over his eyes. She nodded to Lieutenant Grayson, who switched the force shield off. John looked up and smiled when he saw her, he looked pleased.
"I wasn't expecting you to come and see me." he told her.
"Why would you think that?"
"After what I did."
"Why did you do it?" she asked, hoping he'd tell her, but knowing he probably wouldn't.
"If you came for answers for my behaviour, I don't have any." he told her outright.
"Don't have any, or won't give any?" she asked, as she leaned against the bars of the cell.
"Can't give any." He came over and leaned against the bars, next to her, "Where's Aaron?"
She knew he was deliberately changing the subject, "He's with Teyla."
"And you... are you okay?"
"No, I'm not okay. I'm concerned about you."
"There's nothing wrong with me." he told her.
"Yeah, right." she laughed with disbelief, "Have you had any sleep?" she asked, noticing the dark shadows beneath his eyes.
"I got a couple of hours." he reached his hand through the bars and stroked her cheek. "I'm sorry I shot you."
"It hurt." she said looking right in to his eyes.
He groaned, "I know. And I never should have done it, but it was necessary at the time. Besides, when all this is over, I'll give you a stunner and you can shoot me back." he just hoped that they'd still be around to be able to go through with it.
"Deal." she said and watched him smile, she grabbed his hand and placed a kiss on the palm.
"Alex, your time is up." Grayson informed her.
She nodded to him, then turned back to John, "I'll see you later." she told him.
"Sure." he said, reluctantly he let her go.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
McKay and Zelenka were seated across from Sam, in her office.
"The formula from the artefact tells us how to attach it to the dialling system." McKay informed her.
"And you want me to give you the go ahead to attach it." Sam said.
"Well, yes,... of course." McKay said presumptuously, "Isn't that what we'd normally do?"
"Are you sure about your calculations? Did you check everything?" she asked him.
"Yes, yes, of course I checked everything." he told her, he wanted to begin attaching the artefact as soon as possible.
Sam looked at Zelenka, "Doctor Zelenka, what do you think?" she asked.
McKay grimaced and gave a derisive snort, he already knew what Zelenka thought.
"I'm not so sure it's a good idea to attach it to the dialling system." Zelenka told her.
"Oh, here it comes, Mr. Cautious. Mr., don't do anything until you've analysed it to death." McKay said disdainfully.
Zelenka ignored McKay's sarcastic comments and carried on, "I think we need to run some more tests before we go that far."
"If you'd listened to the likes of him, we'd still be back on Earth instead of in Atlantis."
Sam understood McKay's eagerness to push on, if it were her project, she'd be just as eager.
"You do remember how we made contact with the Asgard don't you?" McKay asked Sam, with a slightly condescending tone to his voice.
She pursed her lips at McKay, of course she remembered how they made contact with the Asgard. "Your point being?" she asked.
"What do you think would have happened if General O'Neill hadn't built that device to boost the power output? If he hadn't been allowed to attach it to the power supply?" he gave her a smug look.
"You're equating this artefact with what General O'Neill built?"
"Well, yes, I mean how do we know we won't make contact with a race that is equivalent to the Asgard." he pointed out.
She looked at him with an expression that told him, she didn't, for one second, believe that
He backtracked a little, "Okay, so maybe not like the Asgard, but we can't dispute the fact that this artefact is unique. So we have no idea what we'll find when we step through the Stargate."
Since taking over command of Atlantis, Sam had been a little cautious. Due to the fact that her decisions were paramount to the lives of everyone on Atlantis. Sometimes though, you had to take a risk.
"Okay, go ahead and attach it, but make sure you have all the security measures in place, 'BEFORE', you complete the process. Just in case." she warned him.
"Of course." he smiled, eager to get started.
"And McKay, before I give you the go ahead to dial the Gate address, I want you to run through the programme again. Make sure..."
He groaned, "I told you, I've been through it with a fine tooth comb, I didn't find anything that suggested it was dangerous."
"Just humour me McKay." She told him.
He stared at her and saw the 'I am not backing down on this', look on her face, so he gave in, "Yes. Whatever you say." he agreed, she could be as stubborn as him sometimes, so he knew he wouldn't get anywhere until he did what she asked.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
It took a few hours for McKay to complete the process, when he'd finished he stood back and looked at the artefact, which was now a part of the dialling system. All he had to do now was dial the Gate address.
"It's done." he announced as Sam came over to see how far he'd gotten
"Already?"
"Yes, it was a simple case of rearranging a few crystals and reconfiguring a few programmes."
"You do have the security measures in place, don't you?" she asked him.
"Of course I do." he did have them in place, he just hadn't checked them yet.
"You ran through the programme again, checked all your readings?"
"Yes, I've done everything you asked me to do. Now, can we dial the address?" he asked, impatiently.
"I'll see if the M.A.L.P. is ready to go." she told him.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
McKay dialled the Gate address. As he got to the last symbol, he lifted his head up and smiled, "Right then, here goes." he said as he pressed the last symbol. He stared at the Stargate waiting for it to whoosh in to life. When it didn't, he looked down at the console to make sure the address he'd input was correct, it was.
Sam looked at him questioningly, "McKay, what's going on?"
He looked at her, "I don't know, I put the correct address in, it should have activated." he told her.
"It's not doing anything." she pointed out.
"I know that..." he huffed, he didn't need her to tell him the obvious. He started tapping away on the console looking for the problem.
"That's incorrect." Zelenka stated loudly.
"What's incorrect?" McKay turned toward him.
"That the Stargate isn't doing anything."
"We can see for ourselves that it isn't doing anything." McKay told him, he was getting flustered because nothing was happening.
"But it is." Zelenka insisted. When McKay looked at him with a frown, he added, "Doing something."
"Okay," McKay stood up straight and looked at Zelenka, "So what's it doing?" he asked.
"It's building up energy."
"But it hasn't activated, you can see that for yourself." McKay said, pointing to the inactive Stargate.
"It must have activated, look, see for yourself." Zelenka told him, McKay moved to look at Zelenka's screen.
"That can't be right..." it couldn't be.
"I assure it is."
"Then where's the wormhole?" McKay wanted to know, he tried recalculating the data, searching for an explanation.
"I did warn you about attaching it too soon." Zelenka said.
"Yes, alright, I don't need your 'I told you so' right now." McKay bit out
"I'm just saying..."
"Well don't, just help me to fix it." McKay asked.
"Can you hear that?" Sam asked, as she became aware of a low, whining noise.
"Yes." Zelenka told her.
As the minutes ticked by, the noise began getting louder and louder, then the whole city of Atlantis began to shake.
"What's happening?" Alex asked as she came running in to the Gate room, alarmed by the noise and the vibrations she could feel beneath her feet.
"It's the energy building up in the Stargate." Sam told her.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
John knew they'd dialled the Gate address, as soon as he felt the vibrations beneath his feet.
"Lieutenant Grayson, give me your comms." he shouted at him.
Grayson looked at his CO, he hesitated for a few seconds, he was used to taking orders from Colonel Sheppard, and it was ingrained in him to obey his CO, he handed his comms over.
"Thanks." John put the ear piece in and activated it. "McKay, you have to let me fix it." he shouted, he just hoped he still had time to do something.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
"What's he doing, where did he get a comm from?" McKay asked when he heard Sheppard shouting in his ear.
"McKay you need to let me fix it, before it's too late." John warned.
"You fix it! Oh, yes like I'm going to listen to you." he snorted, "And how do YOU propose to fix it?" he wanted to know.
"Get me up there and I'll show you how I can fix it." John said, playing on McKay's curiosity, and need to know.
"You're bluffing." McKay told him.
"Colonel Carter I'm telling you there is nothing McKay can do, I'm the only one who can fix it. I know you don't trust me..."
"Who does he think he is..." McKay spluttered indignantly.
"Quiet McKay, just concentrate on trying to fix it." Sam told him. "Colonel Sheppard, how do you know you can fix it?" she asked.
"Just get me up there." he said, "Look you can have me restrained, have a whole team of security guys around me, but you need to do something, and you need to do it now."
Sam turned to look at Major Lorne, "Go and bring him up here." she told him.
"You want me to restrain him?"
"No, that's not necessary, but have a security detail with you."
"Right." Lorne left to get Colonel Sheppard.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
The vibrations were getting stronger, and the whining noise was getting so loud it was beginning to hurt everyone's ears.
When John entered the Gate room, he went to run over to the dialling system, but the two security guys on either side, grabbed him.
"You have to let me fix it." he shouted over to McKay and Carter.
"So you think you know more than me, do you?" McKay asked.
"I need to see it." he tried to pull away from the security guys, but they wouldn't let him go.
"Let him go." Sam told them.
John ran over to the dialling system and looked at the artefact, he reached his hand out, he was half expecting to get a shock from it, but it never happened. When his hand touched the device it started to glow, the whining noise of the energy build up stopped, the vibrations, ceased. The Stargate whooshed in to life, everyone stared at it, it looked nothing like a normal Stargate wormhole, it was black, and devoid of anything.
"What the hell is that?" McKay asked, open mouthed, as he stared at the appearance of the wormhole.
"Were getting some very strange readings from it." Zelenka announced, he wasn't sure how to explain what he was seeing.
"What kind of readings?" McKay asked him.
"I think you should take a look for yourself." Zelenka told him, he knew Rodney wouldn't believe him if he told him.
As McKay looked for himself, he became alarmed, "No, no, no... this can't be... I checked everything..." McKay sounded very worried.
"McKay, what is it?" Sam asked. When she didn't get a reply from him, she ran over to see for herself what the problem was.
"It's not a wormhole, it isn't connected to another planet." he told her, as he desperately tried to disconnect the Stargate. "It's a portal, and it isn't restricted to just one way."
"I can see that," she said, the more she read, the more alarmed she became. "So anything could come through that thing without having to dial Atlantis?"
"Yes, it's a doorway, it goes both ways." he admitted.
"Raise the shield."
McKay glanced up nervously, "I already tried it, it won't work."
"Then shut the Stargate down." she told him.
He looked even more nervous, "I'm trying, but something is stopping it..."
"McKay, did you have the security measures in place that I asked you to." Sam asked him.
"Yes, I did... I just... I didn't have time to re check them." he told her. Sam glared at him.
"Colonel, we have readings of a large mass approaching the Stargate." Zelenka told her.
Sam looked at Zelenka's console, 'They either had one very large something, or an army of hundreds' approaching the Stargate.
"I can't shut it down, I need more time." McKay screamed.
"Major Lorne, I want every available security team to the Gate room, immediately."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I want everyone covering the Stargate, I don't want anything coming out of there, nothing, is that understood."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And have all none essential personnel evacuated from the immediate area."
While McKay tried to raise the shield and shut the Stargate down, Sam tried to disconnect the artefact from the Stargate.
The security teams arrived and began setting up positions in the Gate room.
"Ma'am, we have less than thirty seconds before whatever is heading this way reaches us."
"I know." she yelled, "McKay how close are you?"
"I need more time, another minute or two." he told her.
"I don't think we have a minute or two." she told him.
At that precise moment they heard a sudden burst of gunfire. Sam looked up to see what was happening. She could see a small number of men firing blindly at the Stargate.
"Major Lorne, what are your men firing at?"
"We have some kind of entities coming through the Stargate." he told her.
"What entities? There's nothing there." she told him, she couldn't see anything.
"We're out of time, whatever was coming our way, has reached us." Zelenka said as he looked towards the Stargate to see what would come through.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
The first thing that John realised, was that not everyone could see the entities emerging from the Stargate. He looked at Wilson who was standing next to him, he was staring at his colleagues, with total confusion.
"Give me your weapon." he told him.
Wilson couldn't see a goddam thing, but apparently Colonel Sheppard could, so he handed his gun over.
John aimed the gun at, what looked like, a black shadow, that was floating about ten foot off the ground, and fired. He wasn't sure the weapons fire was doing anything, not until the entity exploded like an energy ball, then vanished. He looked around the Gate room and saw several more entities, he fired his weapon at a couple of them and watched as they exploded like the first one.
In all the confusion, unseen by anyone, one of the dark entities escaped by phasing through a wall.
It took some time for them to eradicate all the entities from the Gate room, only then did John move over to McKay and Carter.
"It's done." McKay announced, with a look of relief on his face. He'd finally managed to shut the Stargate down.
"Colonel, what were you shooting at?" Sam asked John.
"Couldn't you see them?"
"See what?"
"They looked like dark shadows." he told her.
"I couldn't see anything."
"Well you're not the only one who couldn't see them, a lot of the security guys couldn't see them either."
Sam looked at the gun he was still holding, he saw her looking at it and smiled, "I suppose you want this back now." he said handing the gun over to her.
"Yes, thanks." she said, taking the gun from him. She turned back to McKay, "I want that thing disconnected from there, now." she told him firmly.
"Of course." McKay said in a subdued manner.
Sam then told the security men to take Colonel Sheppard back to the holding cells. He knew he had a lot of explaining to do before she'd trust him again.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
Well at least now he'd be able to reveal what he was doing and why, John thought. He wondered when the being, or if the being, would come and let him know that he'd succeeded.
When he was enveloped in blackness, he thought he was about to find out. But he didn't find anything out, the blackness lifted almost as soon as it had descended. He was still walking down the corridor to the cells, still flanked by two security men. But something was wrong, he felt like a stranger in his own body, like he was no longer in control. And the thoughts that were running around in his head, were definitely not his own.
He attacked the two security men, almost taking Wilson's head off with a brutal flick of his elbow. Lieutenant Grayson tried to activate his comm, John grabbed him by the throat and squeezed, when Grayson lost consciousness he threw him aside. He grabbed a gun from one of them and then headed along another corridor. His intention, to access the dialling system from another console and re dial the address from the artefact.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
McKay was still working on disconnecting the artefact from the dialling system when it suddenly burst in to life.
"Someone is trying to override the security code for the dialling programme." McKay said with alarm, as he frantically tried to stop it.
"Who would do such a thing?" Sam asked.
"I'm just checking that..." he told her, he looked up a few seconds later, "It's Colonel Sheppard's security access code." he told her with disbelief.
"Colonel Sheppard's! Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure, I don't just throw random names out."
Sam activated her comm, "Lieutenant Grayson is Colonel Sheppard in the holding cell?" she asked.
There was no response.
"Lieutenant Grayson can you hear me?" she asked again.
Still no response.
She looked up and saw Major Lorne across the room, "Major, would you go and check on Lieutenant Grayson, he was escorting Colonel Sheppard to the holding cells. He's not answering his comms."
"Right away, ma'am." he and two other men left to go and check on Lieutenant Grayson.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
"I need a medical team to corridor 7." Lorne said through his comm. "Ma'am, we found Lieutenant Grayson, and Wilson, they're both unconscious." he told her.
"Any sign of Colonel Sheppard?"
"No ma'am, no sign of him. But Wilson is missing his P90, so I'm assuming Colonel Sheppard has taken it."
"Damn it, he seemed alright when he was here." Sam remarked.
"Yes, he does that, one minute he's charming, then the next minute he's shoving a gun in your face." McKay grunted as he tried to keep Sheppard out of the dialling system. "I'm not sure I'll be able to keep him out much longer." McKay admitted.
"What do you mean?"
"Each time I block him, he seems to get better, and faster, at accessing the data. How he's doing it, I don't know, but if he keeps this up, he'll be dialling the Stargate in no time. And we won't be able to stop him."
"Ronon and I, can go and see if we can stop John." Alex said before Sam had a chance to speak.
"Alex, I don't think..." Sam started to protest.
"Please, you can't expect me to stand back and wait. And I don't think he'd use a gun on us..." Sam widened her eyes at Alex's supposition that Sheppard wouldn't use a gun on them, "Okay, if he had a stun gun, then yes he might use it, but not a P90." Alex said, convinced that she was right.
"Alright, but I want Major Lorne, and a security team to go with you." Sam told her.
"Okay."
"Doctor Zelenka, can you do a scan and give us a location for Colonel Sheppard."
"Certainly." he did the scan, "He's in the main chamber in corridor 12." he told her.
"We can meet Lorne in corridor 12." Alex suggested.
"Alright, I'll let Major Lorne know where Colonel Sheppard is, and to meet you there." Sam watched Alex and Ronon leave, "And Alex, be careful." she shouted after her.
"We will."
TBC...
>>>>>>>>>>ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo>>>>>>>>>>