Stargate Atlantis -:- Endgame

Author's Note(s):

I'M SORRY! After the end of the last chapter's cliff-hanger I had every intention of writing and updating quickly, but then Morrisons kidnapped me and chained me to a till up until Xmas eve and once I was finally released it was to the custody of my family where I was force fed until I exploded! There are still leftovers! This Xmas thing is ridiculous!

Anyway, enough of my excuses. Thanks to my wonderful reviewers/readers/general nice people – my profuse apologies for making you wait! Let's get back to our team in the Franken-chopper, shall we?

Enjoy!

Chapter Six -:- Worst Case Scenario

SOUTH SOLARIS: DOMILITIS CITY
34 Hours 20 Minutes and counting
[0220hours ALT]

The craft dropped, taking John's stomach with it in a horrifying rollercoaster ride.

The ground opened up beneath them like a gaping jaw, the Franken-chopper falling into the abyss. Every part of him wanted to panic, but experience had taught him that that wasn't conducive to actually fixing a situation. Instead in the split second after the craft had begun its descent he was focused on the control panel before him in all its alienistic glory.

They had barely dropped six feet before John had pulled off a miracle – a complete fluke that he couldn't repeat if he tried – the engine finally igniting, the too-slow fwup-fwup-fwup of the rotors coming to life. They weren't saved yet, not by a long shot, but they weren't as completely screwed as they had been five seconds ago. They continued down into the crevice – further down that John would have liked, the intense heat of molten lava below invading the metal space, promising a quick death.

Finally the rotors got to speed and caught on the air. Finally they could start going to right way. John grabbed hold of what he had figured was the equivalent of a cyclic, attempting to steer the uncooperative craft into an upward climb. Begrudgingly, she obliged, pushing up and eventually out of the fissure and into the snowstorm of grey of the world above. Visibility was an issue.

"Talyn!" John found his voice after the tense moments of concentrative silence. He had shut out everything else, and even now as he threw a glance over his shoulder he was only vaguely aware of what was happening in the rear compartment. Teyla was looking after Rodney who was as white as a sheet, Ronon hovering nearby. Talyn's head snapped round at her name and she directed her way quickly into the co-pilots seat while John kept the craft in a hover. "I need you to navigate – are there any tall buildings I'm likely to crash into round here?"

Talyn squinted through the grey snow that clogged the windshield, but she sensibly gave up on the being able to see pretty quick. She instead turned to the instruments that John couldn't make rhyme nor reason of, indicating two that could have been an altitude indicator and a whacked-out compass. "We should head south out of the city – raise the height of the craft to 400cambles – that will take us above all the buildings."

John had no idea what a 'camble' was, but guessed it was their measurement of altitude. She helpfully pointed to the ideal height on the instrument when it became clear he couldn't understand their numbering system either, and he managed to convince the craft to do as she was told. They rose higher into the grey storm and then manoeuvred in the direction Talyn had suggested.

They flew in silence for a few minutes, all of them expecting something to loom out of the grey and smash into them, but for the first time that day, luck was on their side. Talyn leaned forward and gestured at what could potentially have been a GPS – a really, really weird GPS. A dot fixed in the centre had crossed the line of the map moving beneath it, and Talyn made a small sound – somewhere between a relieved sigh and a mournful whimper. Her home had just been destroyed. John wondered if she had had any family and whether she had just lost them as well. She was about to lose her whole world.

She regained her composure quickly, turning away for a millisecond before she trusted her voice to speak. "We have left Domilitis now. That was the city line we just crossed."

"Great. So we survived one volcano on a planet that's about to be destroyed," Rodney seemed to have recovered somewhat. Teyla had finished dressing the wound and was now attempting to move on to Ronon and his broken hand. They both threw Rodney an exasperated look, but John could see that they felt the same way. "I'm sorry for stating the damn obvious, but there's no Stargate and no other way off of this planet. Just where in the hell are we going to go?"

The adrenaline that had been keeping John going through the whole 'prison-escape- and-daring-take-off' chose at that moment to leave him, and it took everything he had not to just collapse over the control panel in front of him. Thankfully, Talyn answered for him. "We should head to the East. My people have predicted, quite accurately, the rate and order in which our world will end. There is a plain in the Virai desert that we have determined will be the last place to be destroyed. That is where we built our Ark Programme facility. It will buy us some time."

"Time for what?" Rodney continued to be his usual negative self, and John felt the last dregs of his patience disappear with what was left of his energy. He tried to glare at the scientist, but Rodney was looking at Talyn and missed it completely. "What part of 'no way off of this planet' did you not understand? Unless you're hiding a space worthy craft, which I highly doubt by the way, we are still completely screwed! Sooner or later we are going to run out of places on this planet for us to run to!"

"Rodney," it was meant to be his usual irritated shout, but John just didn't have the strength for that. Maybe McKay caught the edge to the tone though, because he did shut up. "There's still a chance. When Carter couldn't dial the gate she would have sent the Apollo to come get us."

"That's assuming that she didn't dial the gate early and then sent a team through when she couldn't make radio contact and is now waiting on them to make their check-in, which they won't because they're probably dead but Sam still waited and then she realised the gate had been destroyed and the Apollo has already left so she had to recall it which means it will take more than three days to reach us and that's if it left Atlantis more than four hours ago, in which case we're still screwed because guess what, we don't have three days. We barely have one."

John knew Rodney was a fatalist, but damn he was laying on the pessimism today.

"Actually, we have thirty-four hours, so technically you have more than one day." Talyn pointed out, consulting her time piece. Rodney threw a successful glare her way and she shied away with a contrite expression.

John closed his eyes for a second, and then opened them again with an exhausted sigh. "Let's call your worst case scenario Plan B and stick with blind optimism and the chance of survival as Plan A, alright?"

"But even if…"

John held up a hand to cut Rodney off. He was tired, in pain and running on the slim hope that there was still a slight chance that he could get his team home. Rodney poking gaping holes in his positivity right now was not in any way helpful. He couldn't give up yet, not when they were relying on him like this. John instead turned to Talyn "If I show you how, you can fly this thing right?"

Talyn smirked. "I will try and ignore the irony of an alien teaching me how to use my own technology."

"Don't expect any cool tricks, I'm not even 100% sure how to land," John replied, he ignored Rodney's tsk from behind them and returned his waning attention back to the controls. "I've set us in the right direction; all you've literally got to do is fly us in a straight line. Actually, I think that's all we can do."

"I think I understand, but where are you going?"

"I am going to lie down before I fall down," John pushed himself out of the pilot's chair, ignoring the fact that the Franken-chopper lurched and spun around him at the movement. Teyla was eyeing him in that concerned way she always did, putting herself within easy reach if the act of moving from the front to the back proved too difficult.

He made it to the bench that ran down the right side of the craft, a myriad of injuries making themselves known. His shoulder throbbed in agony, his skull felt like it had been cracked open and every muscle in his body ached with a vengeance. The damned drug was still in his system, amplifying every painful sensation. He was beyond exhausted.

He was out before he hit the bench.

THE APOLLO: FLIGHT DECK
28 Hours 45 Minutes and counting
[0755hours ALT]

"We should arrive within thirty-six hours, Colonel."

Colonel Ellis reported to his counterpart back on Atlantis. Samantha Carter didn't look overly enthused by this news though, the crystal clear image of her on the screen in front of him showing him in high definition her worry that that simply wouldn't be fast enough. Ellis tried to mask his annoyance; he had already tasked his engineer with pushing the hyperdrive to maximum, but without an Asgard on board there was little they could do. He never thought he would miss the little grey men.

"I would appreciate knowing what it is I'm flying into," Ellis continued, not quite achieving the mask over his annoyance he had aimed for. He wasn't a part of the Atlantis Expedition, and as such he didn't have to follow Carter's orders. It annoyed him how often he and Caldwell were collared into performing missions and rescue operations for Atlantis regardless.

Carter had picked up on the tone, and responded in kind with a clipped, professional response. Yep, he'd pissed her off. "We have been unable to gather any intel considering that the Stargate on the planet is either no longer connected to the network or no longer exists. At this stage, only a ship can reach them, otherwise I wouldn't have asked for your assistance."

"Understood, Colonel," Ellis replied formally. Carter was giving him the stare down she'd developed from years of being a woman in a man's world. It was no wonder that she had gotten as far as she had. She looked away for a moment, as if considering her words, and then turned back to the screen.

"SGA-1 is now twelve hours overdue and have been offworld for nearly twenty," Carter stood at ease, her hands clasped loosely behind her back as if giving a report. "They were sent to M98-472, or Solaris as the database called it, as an exploratory mission following the possibility that the planet may once have been an Ancient outpost. We were no longer able to establish a wormhole to the planet's gate eight hours after SGA-1's departure, and we believe it is safe to assume that they can't dial out. Right now, the Apollo is there only way home."

Ellis nodded, having the decency to look a little contrite. Carter was simply doing whatever she could to get her people home; in her position, Ellis didn't know what else he would do. "Our ETA is 2000hours tomorrow Atlantis Local Time, we'll check-in every six hours. Apollo out."

SOLARIS AIRSPACE: SOMEWHERE ABOVE THE EASTERN VIRAI PLAINS
28 Hours 10 Minutes and counting
[0830hours ALT]

Teyla gently stroked John's unruly hair as she knelt beside him, careful to avoid the fresh cut above his right brow. He was asleep still, as he had been since he'd handed over control and all but collapsed here six hours ago. She had felt like a mother hen as she had re-dressed his shoulder and cleaned new wounds, all the while reassured by the gentle rise and fall of his chest. With a small smile at his peaceful features she climbed to her feet and made her way towards the cockpit.

On her way she passed Rodney and Ronon, both of whom had fallen asleep as well. She paused to check on them both, concerned to see the bandage on Rodney's leg already soaked through with blood. The metal shrapnel that had pierced his thigh was still trapped there, Teyla fearing that removing it would only cause more damage, the field dressing wrapped around it to keep it still. He needed medical attention, but considering that there was a strong chance they would never leave this planet, Teyla had neglected to tell him that.

It worried her that Ronon had fallen asleep. In the two years she had worked with him she had never seen him willingly sleep when they were offworld. Maybe it was his experience as a Runner that had taught him not to unless he knew he was safe. Part of her was glad he was out though; it was the only way she was allowed to treat his broken hand – before he had kept shrugging her off and telling her to look after someone else. He had been in pain, she had seen it on his face, but nothing would keep the Satedan from being dangerously stoic.

Once again she rose and gave the three men a final look until she was satisfied that, for now at least, they were okay. She then ducked into the cockpit and took her place in the co-pilots seat. Grey no longer filled the windshield and Teyla found herself looking in wonder at the red sands below. Great dunes rose from the plains like mountains, nothing but sand everywhere as far as the eye could see. A giant orb hung oppressively in the sky, blasting their flying tin can with heat and making Teyla's ash-caked clothes stick uncomfortably to her.

"We should arrive soon," Dawn Talyn broke the silence of the space, the sudden sound making Teyla jump. She had become accustomed to the constant reassurance of the rotors sound and the engine's hum; her thoughts in rhythm with the machine. She just nodded in response, not trusting her unused voice. Dawn gestured behind them "Your friends are of strong will, considering."

Teyla furrowed her brow. "Considering what?"

Dawn looked awkward and ashamed for a moment as she shifted in her seat. "As part of the…questioning…they would have been given doloricin. It is a drug that the military Sana's developed to make torture more…economical. It amplifies the sensation of pain so that all injuries feel ten times worse than they are in reality…"

"What?" Teyla almost leapt out of her seat in anger, but realised that she had no one to aim it at. What the hell kind of people come up with something like that? She looked back at her teammates, cataloguing their injuries and then applying the effects of the drug. It was no wonder that they were uncharacteristically allowing the pain to show – they should have been screaming in agony! John's shoulder, Ronon's hand, Rodney's leg…

Dawn was watching Teyla's reaction cautiously, waiting for the right moment to speak again. "The fact that they are now unconscious is a good sign. When they awaken the drug will have worn off – the exhaustion is a side effect that protects the body and mind from being fatally overwhelmed. I must admit that I have never witnessed a victim of doloricin function as well as they."

It took Teyla a moment to reply, her mind still tripping on what she had been told. "They…they are strong."

Dawn nodded, and then turned her attention back to the instruments and then the windshield. Teyla just sank back into her seat, still fuming over the ill-treatment of her teammates. It was difficult to feel remorse for the people of Solaris. At first, Teyla had been sympathetic; she had lost her own home world of Athos to the Wraith four years prior and even now she felt the loss as fresh. But these people seemed to care very little for each other like the Athosians did, and seemed content to hasten their own destruction.

"We are not all bad people, Teyla," Dawn muttered quietly, as if reading her thoughts. "As a whole we are greedy, ambitious, self-centred and prejudiced, I will not deny that. But I assure that there are exceptions to every rule. Back there, at home, there were people worth saving, people who had never hurt another soul or done anything more than survive in a world where only the strong prevail. Those were the people I wanted to save. They were the legacy of Solaris that I wanted to preserve."

Teyla looked away as a single tear carved a river in the ash on Dawn's cheek, and when she looked back only a smudge remained. Shame filled Teyla for a moment; she was too quick to judge the people of an entire planet based on the sample of a select few. An example of the good of this world sat beside her, a lone woman witnessing her world's destruction as she tried to save four complete strangers. "I am sorry."

"Don't be." Dawn gave her a weak smile and a quick glance before turning away. "There has been little hope for my people for a very long time. I am taking you to the last of it."

"The Ark Programme?"

"Yes. We developed it as a method to evacuate the select few that we could to a new world somewhere out there in the Void. But only the people of Domilitis of course," Dawn added scornfully as if it left a bad taste in her mouth. "When I was at the University I was laughed at because I was one of the very few who took the studies on the Void, little did they know that it was going to make me indispensible. We knew that the Virai plains would be the last to go and so we built the facility there so that people would have time to evacuate. We have built eight prototype craft over the last ten years, but not a single one has succeeded."

"Your technology is still impressive," Teyla replied. "Where I come from our advancements have been limited by the presence of the Wraith."

"The Wraith?"

Teyla smiled, an old memory resurfacing. "Four years ago, Colonel Sheppard came to my planet. He did not know of the Wraith either. I told him that if they had not touched his world then he should return there for there are monsters in this galaxy. The Wraith cultivate worlds like farms, allowing the population to grow and then they come in their ships and cull their human herds leaving only enough to start the process again," she paused, watching the horror on Dawn's features, and then gave a small shrug. "However, having seen both his world and yours I fear that the Wraith may have been our salvation. On your worlds, with no common enemy to fight, you have turned on each other. I had not known of war among humans before I met John, but now I see it wherever the Wraith have not touched."

The two women lapsed into silence after that, leaving only the constant rumble of the craft to fill the quiet. Through the windshield the red dunes continued to pass by, the shadows they cast getting longer and longer as the sun began to lower on the horizon.

"Are we there yet?"

Once again, Teyla jumped out of her skin, and then threw the culprit lurking at her shoulder an irritated glare. Ronon just grinned back, looking much happier now that the drug had worn off. A broken hand still had to hurt like hell, but the Satedan seemed to just shrug it off – a sure sign that he was fine. "Nearly."

"Actually, we are here," Dawn corrected, pointing through the screen at a red bricked building that had magically appeared between two dunes. It was practically camouflaged, surrounded by nothing but sand, but its straight lined structure gave it away. "You should wake your flyer; I have no idea how to land."

Ronon gave a nod, and then disappeared back into the rear compartment. Teyla gave Dawn a smile before following suit, pausing to check on Rodney again as she knelt beside the low bench. The scientist was still fast asleep, but it was not peaceful. His breathing was coming in shorter gasps as sweat began to form on his brow. Teyla placed a hand on his forehead to find that he was running a temperature. He was getting worse.

"Alright! I'm up! I'm up!" Teyla glanced over her shoulder to see a pleased Ronon prodding an uncooperative John into consciousness; the process taking significantly longer than it would have done under normal circumstances. Ronon hauled John to his feet and guided his unbalanced form into the cockpit where he took over from Dawn and began the task of landing the alien craft.

As the craft began its descent, Teyla turned her attention back to Rodney and set about changing the bandage and re-cleaning the wound. She suspected it was the metal shrapnel that was causing the infection but she still doubted her ability to remove it without making things worse. She wasn't a doctor or a healer, but had made sure she knew enough to patch up her friends long enough to get them to someone who was. But looking at Rodney now, she feared that what she knew would not be enough.

An abrupt crash sent her to the floor as the craft connected with what was hopefully the landing pad. As she picked herself up she saw John give her an apologetic look from the cockpit. Around her the noise of the engine winding down and the rotors slowing almost masked the sound of voices coming from outside. Ronon was instantly on alert, his blaster in his hand as he headed toward the cabin door. Teyla drew her sidearm from her reclaimed holster and in the cockpit John was taking his from the vest Dawn had been given. She was trying to look out the windshield to see who it was.

Suddenly the door was slammed open, revealing a handful of men standing outside. At the sight of the armed strangers they whipped out their rifles and had the passengers of the Franken-chopper at gunpoint in seconds. "Who are you? What have you done with the Master Chief? What colony are you from?"

Behind where Teyla knelt, a foggy Rodney was coming to. He just had to add to the massive influx of questions.

"What the hell is going on?"

I finally updated! Teehee! Hope you have enjoyed and forgiven me for my incredible tardiness enough for you to leave a nice review – tis the season of good will and all :P