CHAPTER EIGHT: SURPRISES
McKay woke up aching all over, particularly his leg, and he had the headache from hell. Why was he feeling like that? Oh yeah, he was off world on a wraith planet, he'd gotten his leg trapped under a tree branch, rolled down a steep hill several times, then fallen off the edge of a cliff and onto a tree. That definitely explained the aching…
Now where had the headache come from and how had he gotten off the tree? McKay didn't remember getting back up the cliff. Oh, wait, Sheppard had come to help him, except a dart had turned up. A dart! Oh God, he'd been swept up by a dart!! That meant he was probably infront of a wraith, which would be just waiting until he woke up so it could kill him… unless he acted first. McKay heard movement to his left, only a little bit though; hopefully meaning only one wraith. He'd have to take it by surprise, it didn't know he was awake yet, he definitely had the advantage, and it didn't know it, perfect.
McKay thought about that for a while. He couldn't reach his gun in time, it would kill him before he'd fired the first shot. He could use the element of surprise by launching himself at it. It wouldn't even know what hit it, he could shoot it or run away while it was in shock. That was a good plan. McKay liked it. He needed to choose his moment carefully, he could hear it shifting around, then he could hear footfalls, it was coming towards him, he couldn't act yet, a little closer…
NOW!!
McKay launched himself off the ground, using his good leg.
"What the..?" exclaimed the wraith, then, before it could react, he smashed into it and they both went flying into a tree, the wraith first.
McKay scrambled backwards, drawing his gun…
And stared openly, the 'wraith' was evidently Sheppard; he was looking a bit dazed. McKay hastily put his gun away.
Sheppard's dazed look turned to anger,
"What the hell McKay? Are you trying to kill me?" he demanded.
McKay shifted uncomfortably and promptantly fell over because of his sore leg. Sheppard now looked concerned, he went over to him and raised an eyebrow.
"You okay?"
"No, I'm not!"
"No, I thought not, sane people don't usually go smashing into people who've just gotten them out of a wraith dart buffer in to a tree!" grumbled Sheppard.
"I'm not insane!" protested McKay angrily.
"Then what was with that stupid stunt?" retorted Sheppard irritatedly.
"Well since I'd just woken up after being swept up by a wraith dart I naturally assumed that there would be wraith around, and I heard you moving."
"You thought I was a wraith?" Sheppard had his eyebrow raised again.
"Yes."
"So you launched yourself at me?" Sheppard inquired, his eyebrow raised higher.
"Yes, I did! I wanted to take you by surprise and it worked, didn't it?" snapped McKay.
"If I'd been a wraith, I wouldn't have been pushed backwards."
"But you're not a wraith, are you." McKay saw Sheppard's scanner on the floor and picked it up. "What have you done to this?"
Sheppard sighed. "I was trying to get it to scan for Ancient tech."
McKay grimaced. "Well, you failed miserably. It's now stuck half way between life sign detection and wraith tech scans. Just brilliant."
McKay fiddled with it for a while.
"There you go, Ancient tech scans. Hang on a sec, why did you want that?"
"We need to find a Jumper. What does the scan say?"
"The scan says there's Ancient technology a quarter mile that way," frowned McKay pointing. "It's a Jumper, I think."
"Good, set your scanner to life signs and lets go," ordered Sheppard.
"What? I'm not going anywhere! Not with this leg!" protested McKay.
"You can lean on me, we're going."
"Why can't we just radio the people in the Jumper and tell them to bring the Jumper to us?" whined McKay.
"Because the wraith will pick up the radio signal, if the Jumpers communications are even working, and even if we could radio them, that Jumper isn't going anywhere until you've fixed it," Sheppard informed him.
"Fixed it?! What happened to it?"
"The wraith shot it down, there are probably unconscious people inside. It was doing cartwheels in the air!"
"I see," commented McKay.
"Good," replied Sheppard, pulling him to his feet and letting McKay lean on his shoulder. "Lets go then."
Weir hurried along to the Jumper Bay with Zelenka. She wondered what had happened, they must have taken fire or they wouldn't need Zelenka, also meaning they hadn't got McKay with them, she'd seen Teyla and Ronon through the front window of the Jumper, but she hadn't seen either McKay or Sheppard. Were they in Jumper six with Beckett? Where was Beckett? The Jumpers should have returned together, yet they hadn't. So what had gone wrong?
She walked into the Jumper Bay and Lorne ran up to meet her.
"Dr Weir, we need to go back with Zelenka; Jumper six was taken down and we were unable to find Doctor McKay or Colonel Sheppard. Apparently they are both hurt. We need to fix Jumper six find McKay and Sheppard and get the hell out of there again," Lorne told her.
"Beckett was taken down?" asked Weir.
"Dramatically," confirmed Lorne. "We need Zelenka to fix Jumper six."
"Okay, Zelenka can go with you, but be careful."
"What?" complained Zelenka.
"You have to go with them to fix Jumper six," repeated Weir.
Zelenka muttered something under his breath.
"Lorne, if you're not back in half an hour I'm going to send a team to get some the people with the Gene and I'll send you back up."
"Thank you," replied Lorne.
"You can go," Weir told him.
Lorne nodded to her and lead Zelenka into the Jumper, Weir watched as the Jumper left for the gate again. It sounded like things had gotten out of hand to her.
Sheppard and McKay reached the Jumper, unlike he dart it hadn't landed in a clearing, it had made its own. The trees had been torn down as it crashed into them. Sheppard ran to the back of it and opened the rear hatch. There were unconscious medical personnel and marines everywhere. McKay limped around to join him.
"Ouch, you weren't kidding this thing really does look like its been doing cartwheels," commented McKay.
"Can you fix it?" Sheppard wanted to know.
"I don't know, I haven't had a look at it yet!" snapped McKay limping inside the puddle Jumper and examining the damage.
"What does this control? Ah, weapons, well this ship won't be firing any drones until I've got the correct equipment back in Atlantis," complained McKay, muttering to himself like always. "But this, oh good it's the cloak, I can bring that back right away, a bit make shift, but it'll work.. Now engines, hmm, I think I can fix them to, but not completely…"
Sheppard walked to the front of the Jumper, only half listening to McKay. He saw Beckett in the pilots seat. Beckett was still in brace position, but there was a laptop lying on the console near by and it looked like it had hit him, it must have knocked him out. Sheppard couldn't help wondering why they'd get Beckett to fly it, everyone in Atlantis knew that he hated flying , Sheppard couldn't think why, but he did, so why make him fly a Jumper?
"McKay, how's your repair job going?" he asked.
"I've got the cloak online and nearly the engines, we'll be able to fly in a second but I don't have the parts to fix it properly so it's going to shake a bit and be hard to control, but that can't be helped. The cloak a bit make shift, but it should make it to the gate, yet again, I don't have the parts to fix it properly so we're just going to have to live with that too. We won't have any weapons though, the damage that's been done to them is going to be hard to fix even when I've got the right parts," McKay told him.
"Okay, so no weapons." Sheppard was frowning, but he'd expected it. "How long till the engines work?"
"Errrm… now. Okay we can take off now, but I'm not joking; this thing's gonna be hard to control."
"I'll live with that," replied Sheppard, gently taking Beckett out of the pilots seat and leaning him against a wall.
McKay saw him move Beckett.
"What did they have Beckett flying for?" demanded McKay.
"Dunno," answered Sheppard, sitting down and lifting the Jumper up, it lurched violently. "Whoa, what the hell?"
"I told you it was going to be hard to control," grunted McKay through gritted teeth, he was sitting down and clutching his leg.
The Jumper was bouncing around a bit but Sheppard was managing to fly it mostly straight.
"Are you sure that's the best you can do on the engines?" questioned Sheppard, trying-and failing- to get the Jumper to stop bouncing.
"Yes, I'm positive, deal with it."
The Jumper shuddered violently and a wire came unclipped.
"No, don't do that," grumbled McKay, sticking it back in place.
"What happened?" asked Sheppard.
"We were uncloaked for a couple of seconds, but it's fine now," McKay informed him.
Sheppard didn't reply, he was too busy concentrating on flying the ship straight.
Lorne, Teyla and Ronon were all staring in amazement at what they'd just seen.
"Did you see that?" demanded Ronon, although it was obvious they all had.
"I think so," replied Teyla, she had seen it. A Jumper appearing for a fraction of a second infront of them, then disappear again, it was true they'd past over where Beckett's Jumper should have been and it wasn't there, that had confused them, but it had been damaged enough to crash, and apparently cartwheel out of control meaning it wasn't up to flying, so what had they just seen?
"I don't understand," muttered Lorne. "There's no way that Jumper was fit for flying, it was doing cartwheels I'd be surprised if anyone in there was still conscious…"
Then Ronon voiced what they were all thinking.
"So how's it up and flying?"
"Maybe Beckett fixed it?" suggested Teyla.
"Beckett? No. He's a medical doctor. The cloak was down, and the engines must have been too for it to crash, and I don't know anyone on that ship who could fix that," Lorne informed them.
Teyla sighed and saw something in the distance.
"What is that, Major Lorne?" she asked, pointing at a small curl of smoke coming from a clearing.
Lorne flew the Jumper closer.
"It's a wraith dart, and it looks like it was shot down," commented Lorne, unable to keep the confusion out of his voice; the dart was at least half a mile form the cliff.
"Good for whoever brought it down," grunted Ronon. "Lets go find that Jumper."
"Can we scan for it even if it has a cloak on?" Teyla wanted to know.
"Yeah, good thinking, cloaks don't interfere with Ancient technology," Lorne told them. "Scanning now."
He'd obviously just scanned for Ancient tech, because a HUD came up with a dot showing Ancient technology off to their left. The scans said the Jumper on the screen was rising and falling like a little boat in huge swell.
"It's definitely up and flying," observed Ronon.
"It's not doing a great job at the flying bit," remarked Lorne.
The Jumper on the screen had started to spin around dangerously.
"What does Beckett think he's doing," wondered Lorne. "That ship's obviously not fit to fly."
Sheppard was not happy; the Jumper had started to spin around uncontrollably.
"McKay! You didn't do a very good job on the engines!"
"They're badly damaged," retorted McKay. "I did my best! Which, may I remind you, is a lot better then anyone else could've done!! Oh no, the cloak's gone again, no, it's back again."
"McKay! A dart just saw us, it's started shooting at us, and because of this Jumpers engines, I'm not going to be able to dodge them all!" called Sheppard, who had only just managed to get the Jumper to stop spinning.
The whole ship shuddered violently as it was hit.
"That's it! Engines are down! We're going to crash!" yelled McKay.
"No we're not, we're going back to Atlantis," Sheppard disagreed firmly.
"What?!" exclaimed McKay.
"See infront of us? That, McKay, is called a Stargate. Dial it."
"Are you kidding? We've lost engines and we've started spinning again! We'll never get through!"
"Just dial it and put in your IDC," ordered Sheppard.
"I know you're a good pilot, but you're not superman!!" argued McKay.
"McKay!! Just dial the damn gate!"
"We are so screwed," whimpered McKay, but began to dial the gate anyway.
"Oops," muttered Sheppard.
"What?!" asked McKay.
"I retracted the drive pods, and we're no longer spinning, but now we're going sideways, hang on."
The Jumper shuddered and spun again.
"You dialled the gate yet?" Sheppard wanted to know.
"And put my IDC in, " confirmed McKay. "Are we going forwards now?"
"Nope."
"What?!"
"We're going in backwards."
"You're going to kill us!" exclaimed McKay.
Sheppard ignored him.
"Hold on tight, I'm going to have to stop very quickly once we're through the gate to avoid crushing anyone who's on the stairs."
Weir stared at the active Stargate, they'd received McKay's IDC. A puddle Jumper suddenly shot through the gate at high speeds, jolting to a very sudden halt. It was smoking. Weir couldn't see who was driving because who ever they were had somehow managed to drive the Jumper through the gate backwards,
Her radio sprang to life.
"Sorry about the entry, McKay couldn't fix the engines properly."
Weir recognised the voice instantly.
"I did so fix the engines! If that dart hadn't shot us we'd have been alright! And we wouldn't have practically smashed through the gate backwards if you'd landed it first and given me some more time!"
"McKay, Sheppard, where is Lorne?" Weir asked through her radio.
"Lorne?" Sheppard sounded confused.
"Yes, Lorne. I sent him in one Jumper, Beckett in another. Lorne returned saying Beckett had been shot down, they left again with Zelenka and next thing I know you've come flying backwards through the gate."
"We're in Beckett Jumper, it was badly damaged when we found it, McKay fixed it as well as he could but it still wasn't flying properly. The cloak flicked off and on and a dart shot us down, I only just managed to get us through the gate. We've got Beckett, his medical team and a few marines unconscious in here, I think they probably need medical attention. McKay's fiddling with the engines now, he thinks we can get back to the Jumper Bay. Meet us there with a couple of medical teams."
With that the Jumper shuddered out of the gate room.
"That didn't look good," commented Lorne staring at the HUD where the Jumper had just disappeared through the gate and off their scans. "I'm checking what damage it had when it went through the gate and its cloak was failing, it had no weapons and the engines were down. Beckett's a lot better with those things then a thought; I couldn't have got that Jumper through the gate."
"Well, at least now we know Beckett is safe," pointed out Teyla. ""Now we must find Colonel Sheppard and Doctor McKay."
"We should started at the cliff," suggested Ronon. "Begin looking from there."
"Okay," agreed Lorne, turning the Jumper towards the cliff.
It didn't take them long to get there. When they arrived the vine Sheppard had used to climb down the cliff was clearly visible.
"I can see why Beckett thought McKay had been rescued," commented Ronon.
"That vine hangs too far from the tree for it to have been used to rescue McKay," stated Teyla. "And it is much longer than needed, it goes at least half way down the cliff."
"She's right," agreed Lorne. "Nobody could jump from that tree to the vine, and you said he was injured."
"He is, although I am not sure how badly," Teyla confirmed.
"Alright, just doing a check, we have a shot down wraith dart half a mile from the cliff, a vine leading half way down the cliff, McKay having vanished into thin air, and we can't find Sheppard either, And a severely damaged Puddle Jumper has had Beckett somehow get it working again, then do a great flying job getting the Jumper through the gate after he's lost engines. Have I missed anything else that doesn't add up?" Lorne asked.
"I think you've covered it all," replied Ronon unhelpfully.
Lorne groaned.
"How am I meant to find McKay and Sheppard when it looks like one of them has climbed down the cliff for some stupid reason?" he grumbled.
"Maybe we should go back to Atlantis and come back with more Puddle Jumpers," suggested Teyla.
"I think you're right, we can't solve this probably with one Jumper, lets go get back up," sighed Lorne.
"Back up for back up," muttered Ronon, as they turned back towards the Stargate.