A/N: Okay, sorry this is so late A/N: Okay, sorry this is so late. Anyway, that 'When Sheppard gets an Iratus Bug on his head' challenge was a challenge made by me for you guys to write a short story on the topic… I must have worded that badly 'cause I didn't get a single reply for that challenge!
Thanks for the great reviews and I'll try to post quicker!
CHAPTER NINE: TWO UNIVERSES
Weir watched Zelenka as he tried to get the Parallel Universe machine to work for him again.
"Can you tell what's wrong with it?" she asked.
"No," complained Zelenka. "It won't react to anything I do!"
"So you don't know what happened? Will the machine that it sends people to in the other universe be doing the same?" questioned Weir.
"I don' t think so. This appears to be the master machine that controls the machines in other universes, I think another universe must have been damaged to make it do something like this!"
Weir stared at the silent and inactive machine. "Remind me, what is it doing?"
"Nothing I tell it to! I had just figured out that it has a life signs detector build into it that should be able to pick up SGA-1 and SGA-8's locator signals! From what there I could get it to change the settings so it connects to that universe, but now it won't recognise any of my commands!"
The machine flashed and let out a short beep. Weir looked at it wearily.
"Is it safe?"
Zelenka looked exasperated. "I've no way of knowing. It could repeat what it did before any time for all I know!"
Weir didn't like the sound of that.
"Radek, I'm sorry but unless you can assure me that it's not going to endanger you or anyone else on the base you're going to have to take it to the Alpha site and work on it there."
Zelenka looked at her for a minute. 'I can't promise that it won't be dangerous."
Weir nodded. "I'll send Lorne's team with you."
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Sheppard watched McKay examine SGA-8's remote-like machine that was supposed to get them back to their own universe.
McKay was muttering to himself.
"This is meant to provide a straight link back to our universe? I don't think so. Unless… yes, tied with the Starplate it might work, but if it didn't and it damaged the Starplate…" McKay grabbed his scanner and began scanning the Starplate and remote. "No, the Starplate shouldn't get damaged by that, but it still wouldn't create a path back to our universe. Maybe if I tried… no that would definitely overload my scanner. Fine then. Stupid machine."
Scully was watching McKay work; she had also noticed that it was starting to go dark.
Sheppard was losing interest in McKay's work, he didn't like standing under the trees; there could be more bugs…
"McKay, are you actually getting anywhere with that?" asked Sheppard.
McKay glared at him. "Of course I am, it's just not working perfectly. We've already jumped to a couple of different universes, further away from ours, these are made for a straight there and back trip between two universes."
"Yeah, well don't forget we still need to take Scully back to her universe," Sheppard reminded him.
"What? I can't possibly sent this thing so it sends us to one universe and her to another!" complained McKay.
Scully was alarmed. "I am not staying here! Or in your crazy universe for that matter!"
McKay glared at her. "Well I can't get this thing to connect to two separate machines! Wait… that would narrow down the power consumption if it didn't have to narrow down the usually billion number of machines it can connect to to just one; it definitely would use less power. That might just work…"
Sheppard raise an eyebrow, and was about to comment when he saw Iratus bugs crawling up more then one of the trees, too many to shoot so Sheppard just watched them very carefully, with his P90 ready. Fortunately Mills and his team had been in the Atlantis mission since year one and understood exactly what an Iratus Bug was and why Sheppard hated them so much.
McKay hadn't even noticed the bugs and was continuing to mutter to himself. "If I were to use two machines to connect it to, it would lower the power consumption considerably, my scanner might even work as more power now… hmmm, it would work but it would still overload the scanner."
"Can you get me back to my universe?" asked Scully and she wasn't planning on taking no for an answer.
"I might. Sheppard, I need your scanner," called McKay clicking his fingers and holding out his hand.
"Will it help get us off this planet quicker?" questioned Sheppard hopefully.
"Probably," replied McKay.
Sheppard handed over his scanner.
McKay immediately started playing around with the Starplate, two scanners and remote-like machine.
"Okay, you might wan to stand back a bit," McKay told Scully.
Scully wearily backed off.
McKay pressed a button on the remote-like machine and quickly also backed off. Sheppard's scanner exploded into many tiny pieces. The Starplate and the remote started glowing. All the Iratus Bugs turned to the noise.
"McKay!" said Sheppard angrily.
"Did you know it was going to do that?" inquired Scully.
"Yes," answered McKay. "The Starplate now has enough power with Mills's remote thing to send us to either our or Scully universe. I don't know which, it might send some of us to one and the rest of us to the other but the Starplate system is now locked so it should always send us to one or the other."
"Great," commented Mills. "But you just attracted the attention of all the bugs."
"What?" asked McKay, looking up and seeing all the bugs. "Where did they come from?!"
Sheppard kept his P90 aimed at the nearest one. "As soon as it started to go dark they came out."
"And you just drew their attention to us," repeated Mills.
"Uh, oops. Um… everyone come stand infront of the Starplate, lets hope we all end up in our own universe because this is taking a lot of the power from the Starplate system."
They all grouped up infront of the Starplate. McKay held it out infront of him, pointed it at himself and the rest of the group and pressed a button on the remote. They were all scoped up in the blue beam of the Starplate.
A/N: I still don't have names for two of Mills team… please give me suggestions!