Orsus Comitas
AN: If you're wondering what it means, it's 'Beginning Kindness' or…'New Alliance' or something…it was a long time ago, okay? -_-
Chapter SevenOutside Moya, Jumper Five (20 hours, 12 minutes and 55 seconds after contact)
Doctor Carson Beckett never liked travelling through Stargates to begin with. On top of that, flying around in a machine that defied the laws of physics into Wraith-infested territories didn't make his list of favourite things to do. Cloaked or no, seeing that purple-and-black thing hovering so nearby made him a bit queasy. At least it did until he saw the gargantuan 'creature ship' McKay had been babbling about only a few dozen kilometers away. It was possibly the grandest and scariest thing he had seen in his life, all at the same time.
He listened to one of Lorne's team swear under his breath and decided against chiding the lad for his vocabulary. "Rodney," he said instead, addressing the scientist currently piloting the cloaked Puddlejumper back to the alien spaceship. "Remind me again why I'm coming along on this excursion? I mean, ye know I'd love tae help in any way I can, but how exactly am I supposed tae help a patient whose physiology I don't even know?"
"Carson," Rodney snapped back. He had tiny beads of sweat beginning to form on his brow. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to inconspicuously sneak an invisible flying Puddlejumper into the docking hangar of a helpless space whale well within range of a fully armed Wraith cruiser. Can we please save the unnecessary questions for when our lives aren't in mortal peril?"
The response wasn't entirely unexpected. Rodney would be under a lot of stress, and flying the jumper didn't help matters much. Carson looked over at Lorne, who exchanged a liberal expression with the doctor. The corner of the major's lip tightened with amusement before dropping again.
As the jumper entered the cavernous hangar and the 'Leviathan's doors closed automatically, McKay let out a long breath and seemed to mentally let go of an immense burden. Teyla, with a smirk that resembled Lorne's, patted him gently on the shoulder. "Well done, Rodney. We made it to Atlantis and back without being detected by the Wraith cruiser, just as I said we would."
The scientist sighed a little. "Yeah…uh…how's the shoulder, by the way?"
"It feels much better. Dr. Beckett looked at it while you were concentrating on flying."
"Oh…" His knuckles, which were just starting to get their flushed tone back, unclenched as he sat up. "Oh!" His hand snapped up to his headset and a moment later, he had established radio contact with the other half of their team again. "Sheppard, this is McKay. Dr. Beckett and Lorne's team are with us..."
"Great," came the response over everyone's radios. "That's probably the best news we've got since you guys left, in fact. Carson, we could really use your input over here."
"Glad I can be of some help, Colonel," the Scotsman answered with a twinge of doubt. "Thought I am a wee bit nervous considering the unusual venue, I might add."
"Sorry about that, doc. Major, what's your status?"
"We're battle-ready and waiting for your orders, Colonel Sheppard," Lorne said, glancing around at the other three members of his team. "Colonel Caldwell was also made aware of your situation and is en route, ETA seven hours, assuming they don't have any Wraith problems of their own. Jumper Five and Lieutenant Padley's team, along with Drs. Zelenka and Biro just in case are right behind us. Should get here in another hour."
It would be Dr. Biro's first official offworld experience, Carson recalled. If this could be considered a world, in any case. She was a good, strong woman and he was going to need all the help he could get when it came to treating a non-humanoid lifeform for a sickness he knew nothing about. Her experience with victims of Wraith and recoveries from Wraith enzyme exceeded anyone else's, and that wasn't mentioning her unmatched expertise in pathology. Good God, what was he getting into?
"Alright. Hold off on the Wraith hunt and join McKay and Teyla down here with the rest of our new friends. Crichton says the little yellow D things will show you the way here. Sheppard out."
"You heard the man," Lorne told the gathered adults standing around the rear compartment. He reached out and hit the switch to the ramp, and waited for it to open into the alien hangar.
Three battle-scarred and sorry-looking yellow machines came scuttling towards them as soon as the group moved out into the hangar. Neither Rodney nor Teyla seemed to be concerned about them, but Lorne's team still seized their P-90's defensively.
"Ah, right…those things…" McKay's face scrunched a little, almost apologetically. "Um…there's really no way to put this without making it sound weird, is there? Stay still so the little guys can give you your shots."
Carson blinked his eyes at him as they were surrounded. "I beg your pardon?"
That was what he managed to say when he felt a pinprick in his ankle. Vocalizing his surprise, Carson jumped back and away from the strange little machine. Two of Lorne's men made similar sounds, followed by Lorne himself. It was almost funny, but it was a good thing Rodney had the sense to warn them or the miniature bug-like robots would have ended up with a few dozen bullet holes in their shells. "What in God's name was that?" Carson demanded of the scientist.
"As far as I can tell...it just makes it so you can understand what the aliens are saying. I don't get it either, okay?" McKay sounded annoyed, unsurprisingly. "Probably some kind of microscopic…oh, boy…I don't want to think about anything microscopic swimming around my body right now. I already analyzed them—no nanites. At least, not the ones we're used to…just…let's go, shall we?"
"If McKay thinks it harmless, I'm convinced," Lorne said begrudgingly. Even Carson agreed on some level, though what in this great wide universe had the ability to translate foreign languages once injected…it fascinated him and scared the crap out of him, too. This was going to be quite a pattern, it seemed.
Moya, Pilot's Den (20 arns, 1202 microts after contact)
It had been almost a day, according to Sheppard's watch, since they first walked into this bizarre heart of the living alien ship. Normal people would be exhausted, but neither Crichton nor Aeryn appeared the slightest bit bothered. D'Argo their son, on the other hand, was fast asleep in his room…wherever that was, it was close by and very, very locked. Young boys spent energy as fast as they drank it, and with all of the recent excitement it was no surprise the kid practically passed out on the floor.
He'd given Crichton the news about Tier Five falling apart, which made Crichton a tad bit crankier than before. Something was making the ship's living tissue fall apart and it had something to do with the Wraith feeding on their pilot. The moment he heard McKay's voice over the radio, shattering the uncomfortable silence, John felt both relieved and anxious. Finding Todd was going to be hard, but figuring out how to stop screwing things up for this ship and everyone else on board was going to be one hell of a challenge.
The once seriously skeptical and vocal Pilot was still mostly out cold, too. Sheppard didn't even bother wondering what happened to the weird, wrinkled Rygel guy…there were probably members of Crichton's crew on board that even Crichton didn't know about. Like that Gala lady…bizarreness at its crest.
He told McKay and the others to come to the 'den', expecting this reunion and round of introductions to go over not as smoothly as he dared to hope. When he heard the door at the end of the bridge twist open, he wasn't the only one to glance over.
"Oh my lord…" he heard Carson say out loud, apparently when he saw his patient. Lorne clapped a hand on the doctor's back and gave him a gentle push forward.
Not to the colonel's surprise, Crichton picked up his pulse rifle again and looked warily at the group of armed marines that approached them. The fact that they were marines, albeit a collection of military personnel from various countries across Earth, obviously had something to do with his sudden agreement with Sheppard's back-up plan. It was getting easier and easier to believe that this man was a genuine Earth native, when one looked past the blatant absurdities.
"Commander, I'd like you to meet Dr. Beckett. If it's okay, he's going to take a look at your pilot and see if he can do something about his condition. That's Major Lorne, Second Lieutenant Salley, and Privates Harper and MacDaniels. They're be helping me and Ronon find the Wraith we're looking for."
"You'll look at Pilot?" Aeryn interjected, as she'd been sitting on the edge of the large alien's seat since moment she had returned from putting her son to bed. "Well, hurry up. He hasn't regained consciousness in over an hour, and Moya's getting more and more anxious."
Carson's blank expression alerted Sheppard. He pointed to the ceiling. "Moya is the ship," he reminded the good doctor, who nodded his head in an acute daze.
"I…I suppose I can do what I can," said Carson, breaking out of his fear of the alien and putting the bag he had been carrying down next to the bulkhead. Private MacDaniels brought him his second bag of equipment and stood behind the doctor at a protective distance. Oblivious, Carson grabbed a small kit from his belongings and looked for some possible way to climb over the barrier in front of him.
Aeryn Sun offered him a hand with no expression whatsoever, which he took. A moment later, he was crouched right next to her, inches away from the comatose crustacean-like alien that reminded him more of a battle tank than a helmsman.
Sheppard took this opportunity to lure Crichton into the pending briefing on their Wraith situation. Like it or not, the easily provoke father-gone-nuts was already standing in front of Lorne and his two remaining teammates. Ronon looked over at Sheppard expectantly.
"Okay," the colonel started, shattering the awkward moment. "Let's start at the beginning. I think by now we owe each other a nice, brief explanation of what's going on. Right now, there's a Wraith cruiser breathing down our necks and I'm pretty sure there's at least one hive ship on the way to give our old buddy Todd his much needed reinforcements. Even if the Daedalus gets here before them, they're gonna have a hell of a time defending this position for very long."
"Right," Ronon added. "So we move. Get McKay or somebody to fix the ship and let's get the hell out of here."
"Me? Huh!" McKay snorted and dropped his hands to his sides. "I'd have about as much success fixing anything on this ship as I do at lacrosse, which—believe me—is not a topic up for discussion right now."
"What Rodney means," Sheppard half-growled, shooting him a glare, "is that he's not qualified to fix a living spaceship. If we somehow get your pilot back on his feet—metaphorically speaking—then I'm guessing he'll figure out a way to get Moya to move for us. But then again, only one of us here who knows that for sure is you, Crichton."
"Oh, yeah, that'd be a great plan," Crichton responded. "If we somehow knew what fried Moya in the first place, it would be an actual plausible plan. But, oh yeah! Moya's starting to melt inside!"
"All right, calm down!" snapped the colonel. "We don't know what's causing that, either. We're trying to rescue both your family, your crew and this whole ship, but you're going to have to accept that in the end, it's possible you're going to have to—"
"Ah!" That exclamation was loud enough to make a faint echo somewhere in the depths of the massive chamber. "Put down those cards, cowboy. Abandoning Moya isn't plan B, C or letter's D through W, either. This ship isn't our ship, Colonel. She's part of the family, and so is Pilot. Hell, even Rygel's like the pet hamster in our crazy carnival, so either she Stabursts outta here with everyone on board, or you can take your fancy flying tubes and get the Hezmana out of Moya."
The gathered members of the Atlantis expedition and accompanying Pegasus Galaxy residents all stared in unison at Crichton's next outburst. In some way, the commander's treatment of both the ship and the injured pilot made a lot more sense with an explanation like that…but damn, did it ever make things a lot worse to deal with. Sheppard furled his brow. And what the hell was a Starburst?
"So, what it boils down to is…" He trailed off, and deliberately looked over at Carson. "Carson, you got anything so far?"
The Scotsman sighed heavily and stopped examining the puncture marks on the pilot's chest. "Only a deduction and a theory, Colonel. I'm sorry, but I cannae help much over here unless I've an idea of what's inside this poor creature."
"I can live with a theory, doc," said Sheppard. "What's up?"
"So far as I can tell…the Wraith that fed on him must have used a much larger dose of the feeding enzyme than they typically use on humans. I'm not surprised; this is a much larger life form than they're used to. Given his symbiotic nature with the ship, I would wager that both creatures are suffering the aftereffects of the enzyme."
"So Moya's sickness is caused by a kind of poison the Wraith gave to Pilot," said Aeryn, getting straight to the point. "There is no antidote we can give him to stop her from decaying?"
"I'm afraid not, luv," the kind doctor responded, using the moment to carefully open one of Pilot's eyes and examine them with a tiny light. "If only it were that easy. I've seen quite enough of my dear friends suffering from the enzyme withdrawal in my time on Atlantis. Oh, my…" He quickly let the eyelid close and faced her again. "His pupils aren't responding as well as I hoped. I'm terribly sorry, I don't mean tae upset, but if this creature were human, his sympathetic nervous system would have shut down a long time ago."
"In English, Jeremiah," Crichton advised with a tone of warning. "How bad are we talking here?"
"On the contrary, this is actually quite good, Commander. Figuratively, he's gotten past the biggest hurtle. In fact, by human standards, this may very well be the strongest reaction of a Wraith feeding that I've ever witnessed. I need a lot more time tae look at your large friend here, and I may even be able to administer something to help alleviate the worst of his symptoms."
Sheppard felt a smile tug at the corner of his lips. "Well then," he said matter-of-factly, nodding at Crichton. "That's great news. I'm certain we'll all turn out to be great friends in the end. Right, Rodney?"
He chose McKay at random, and the scientist flinched at the mention of his name. His eyes flickered between the colonel and the stone-faced Crichton for a brief second. "Huh? Oh, yeah…sure. Friends. What's one cold, cramped overnight visit in a locked prison cell?'"
"Okay, maybe not McKay, but then, he's not really the type of friend you'd want anyway," he shot back. He heard Lorne made a sound that was vaguely like a laugh choked back and disguised as a cough. There was a sour look on Rodney's face that didn't escape anyone's attention, but despite his sacrificial goat status, the mood in the oversized chamber didn't lighten in the slightest. Sheppard nodded to Lorne's team. "Major, have two of your men stay behind and guard this room. Teyla, you're in charge…of our people, that is, while Rodney…you just…stay put and see if you can use your brain to figure out a way to keep the Wraith from barging in on us."
"Oh, naturally."
"Ronon, you're with me. We're going to have Lorne's group take this half of the ship, and we'll take the other. Crichton, now's a good time to pick a team or forever hold your peace."
"Ye-ah-hah, and let you go galloping around Moya without adult supervision? No thank you," the disgruntled father replied, cocking his pulse rifle. "Let's lock and load, baby." He then paused. "Been some time since I've been able to say that with a straight face. Huh."
"Keep me posted, doc," Sheppard told Carson, to which he received a mumbled confirmation.
MacDaniels and Salley stayed inside the den, just inside the door as both teams filed into the corridor. Crichton stayed within half a pace of the colonel's shoulder, giving him the distinct impression that 'friends' was going to be a far stretch for the kind of direction their rapport was going. It was too bad Weir couldn't be here right now. Somehow, he had a feeling that she would have these people wrapped around her fingers…well, maybe just one.
Diplomacy was always his worst subject in school, anyway.
Moya, Pilot's Den (20 arns, 2588 microts after contact)
If there had been a quieter night in Moya since the exhausting years before D'Argo's birth, it was not one Aeryn remembered that well. Never in a thousand cycles would she have imagined that they would be stranded in a place so barren, so unfamiliar with so many hostile, alien forces after they left Sebacean territory for far more peaceful planets. If those Plokavian pirates hadn't attacked them out of nowhere, none of this would have happened. Yet here they were again, stranded and crippled. Moya nad Pilot were falling prey to an evil that surpassed some of the things her own people had done in the past.
Then again, she imagined these Wraith merely 'fed' when they needed to, in order to survive. What she had done in the past…
…was in the past. She'd stopped thinking about that so many cycles ago. Now wasn't the time to start that up again.
The man with the soft hands and unusual accent had just finished filling a syringe with Pilot's blood. He already had a sort of laboratory of his own set up in various places along the outer shell of the seat where Pilot lived. She had been hostile at first to what this so-called doctor had in mind for her dear friend, but it took only a few minutes to realize that he was fascinated in a way that reminded her of D'Argo, whenever he discovered something new and exotic. It also reminded her of the way John used to be, when she had first arrived on Moya. It was becoming harder and harder to doubt that these strangers really were from the Earth from which Crichton originated from.
"What do you plan to do with that?" she asked Dr. Beckett, once the vial of thick, dark violet liquid was ready.
He glanced up at her briefly, as if eager to explain the process of his findings. "It's nothing much, really. I hope that taking a closer look at his blood cells might give me a better understanding of his biological structure. Of course," he added with an almost apologetic chuckle, "most of my equipment is still on its way, so I'll be relying on good old-fashioned microscopic technology. I'd hardly want to give him a dose of diazepam if there is too much sodium in his blood to negatively affect his polysynaptic charges, for example."
After a moment, Aeryn nodded her head once, and slowly. "I…see," she said, forcing back a laugh of her own. "I'll take your word on it for now." She watched as the doctor placed a few drops of the blood sample on a small, clear strip and stepped over to the device he had take out earlier. He then leaned forward and pressed his eyes against the cylindrical part of the machine, apparently examining a magnified version of the liquid through the lenses.
A few seconds later, he breathed, "Wow."
Aeryn tried to not imagine the disgusting creature who had once so long ago demanded samples of the crews' DNA in exchange for information. She couldn't justly compare a fekkik display of the universe's worst scum to the seemingly gentle-natured man in front of her. In a sense, perhaps Beckett really was genuinely interested in helping Pilot for the sake of good will. If that were the case, her outlook on all of Sheppard's companions might change once again…for the better, of course.
"I suppose there's no use in trying tae explain what I can see here, but this really is quite fascinating." Beckett stood straight up again and glanced over at the sleeping pilot with a new spark in his eyes. "Beyond explanation. Not only am I quite certain that I can help your friend recover, lass, but his proteins and quite possibly those of your lovely ship herself…there may be a way to stop the Wraith for good. Holy crap, I've got to tell Rodney about this…" Without a second glance at his machine, the doctor rushed over to where his comrade stood hovering over his computer.
It didn't make all that much sense in her mind, but Aeryn supposed that Beckett's enthusiasm wasn't a complete waste. After all, as long as these 'allies' of theirs found a way to keep Moya alive...she shamelessly cared less about the fate of either the Wraith or the 'Erpmen'.