A/N: Wow, chapter twelve?! This is my longest story yet!

CHAPTER TWELVE: WORMHOLE PHYSICS

"Are there any wraith left?" Mills asked Teyla, wondering if Mulder had killed them all. Mills didn't know either Teyla or Ronon very well but her did know Teyla could sense the wraith, who didn't?

Teyla nodded. "I believe there are two darts left. They have retreated up into space."

"Cowards," growled Ronon.

Mills was a bit intimidated by the Satedan so wisely chose not to point out that Mulder had killed most of the wraith.

Speaking of whom…

The FBI man was looking increasingly annoyed as his partner's absence stretched out. Maybe having Ronon there wasn't a bad thing; if Scully didn't return soon Mills wasn't at all sure Mulder wouldn't start taking hostages and he had a bazooka.

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Scully quickly learnt that Sheppard was a good pilot, despite the lack of English they were barrelling towards a planet, at over 200 miles an hour, that McKay claimed had a Stargate (what ever that was) on it. Not to mention all the other wraith ships chasing and shooting at them.

Scully had a nasty thought.

"Won't we burn up in the planet's atmosphere?" she asked.

"No," replied McKay. "Because of the alien material and other scientific reasons, that I won't bother explaining because you won't understand a word of it, we'll pass into the atmosphere without a problem."

Scully was insulted. "I'm sure I would perfectly understand the science behind it!"

McKay snorted. "I doubt it."

Scully's angry answer was cut off as Sheppard banked hard right to avoid dart fire. Scully tried, and failed, to stay on her feet. She, McKay and Tatum ended up in a pile on the left side of the cargo ship.

"Could've done with a warning!" complained McKay as they all got back to their feet.

"Sorry," replied Sheppard, frowning at a flashing control in confusion.

"It might mean we just entered the planet's atmosphere," suggested Tatum., noticing Sheppard's confusion.

"Oh yeah, because that's so likely," grumbled McKay. "We don't need to be told that, that's what the huge window infront of you is for!"

"What the hell?" commented Sheppard as a similar control on the other side of the control console flashed too. "McKay can you work on translating this?!"

"If you didn't keep throwing s across the ship I might try!" answered McKay.

"I can't help it!"

The Wraith Cargo-Ship suddenly dipped dramatically as a dart succeeded in shooting it.

"Sheppard! We're falling!" yelled McKay.

"I know! This is the worst damn ship I've ever flown! Why is that frikkin control flashing?!"

Sheppard was getting noticeably frustrated as the ship plummeted towards the planet's surface. Scully was suitably freaked out.

"Sheppard, you're going to kill us all!" cried McKay.

Sheppard chose not to answer and managed to pull the ship up into a dive rather than an all out fall. The wraith ship skimmed across the ground before hitting a tree and coming to a dead stop. The ships engines died completely and one side of the ship collapsed in on itself.

Scully climbed out the top of what was left of the cargo ship after McKay and Tatum and noticed Sheppard climbing out the front and noting how close he had come to being splattered into the tree.

McKay was studying the back of the ship. "Hmm, luckily these cargo ships are built differently to the darts so I should be able to take the buffer back to Atlantis and rematerialise the people and Parallel Universe Machine there because this ship has absolutely no power left."

He detached the buffer from the ship, Scully thought it was surprisingly small. There were two huge explosions near by.

"Crap! The hive's firing on us!" realised Sheppard. "McKay, where's the gate?"

"That way," McKay told him, pointing in the same direction as one of the explosions. "Luckily you managed to crash very close to it."

"Lead the way," muttered Scully, having doubts about this 'Stargate'.

They had only got roughly a hundred meters before the cargo ship exploded and the hive stopped firing.

"Must've thought we were still in there," noted Sheppard.

"Luckily we weren't," mumbled McKay and Tatum gave him a look that clearly meant; duh!

McKay ignored him and walked boldly out of the trees towards the Stargate DHD. Scully didn't see anything star or gate like, but she did see a huge crater just in front of McKay, hadn't he seen it?

Sheppard frowned. "Oh crap! McKay, that could be a problem."

McKay looked up to give an undoubtably sarcastic remark when he realised that the Stargate was not infront of him and saw the crater and the Stargate lying down in the middle of it.

He stared speechless for a moment; how could he have not seen that?! "Oh! I, uh… I saw that of course. I'm dialling Atlantis to see if the gate's the right way up."

Scully gave a sigh. "That's the 'Stargate'? That round thing?"

"Yes," Sheppard told her. "Except it's meant to be up vertically."

McKay dialled and Scully stared as a huge fountain of water came out of the 'Stargate'; and was sucked back in again, forming a puddle in the circle.

"It's the right way up," commented Tatum in relief.

"Ten out of ten for observing the obvious," muttered McKay, earning yet another nasty glare.

They walked over to the gate, Scully trailing behind wearily. Sheppard studied the gate.

"Which side's the top?" he asked.

McKay squinted at the large ring. "I don't know. I can't see which chevrons are lit up because it's covered in so much dust! And it was obviously thrown up into the air by the explosion so almost definitely spun in mid air."

Sheppard sighed. "Great. Put in your IDC and I'll go first. I'll radio you and tell you."

Scully was confused. "What's going on?"

"Well," said McKay. "Sheppard told you the Stargate's meant to be vertical, and the one on Atlantis is. But we don't know which side of this gate is the top and if we accidentally step through the top we'll come flying out the top of the Atlantis gate, which, as you can see, the gate's quite tall."

"Wait, you're going to jump into that?!" asked Scully, staring at the puddle.

McKay stared at her like she was crazy. "Of course we are. That's a wormhole to the Atlantis gate."

Scully opened her mouth to question that but Sheppard cut across her.

"It's a wormhole, deal with it. We need to get off this planet before the wraith realise that we're still alive and have activated the gate," Sheppard told her. "McKay, have you entered your IDC?"

"Yes," McKay told him, talking over Scully, who was trying to question wormhole physics.

"Alright, see you later." Sheppard picked a random side of the gate and stepped into the 'wormhole'.

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Weir stared at the active Stargate.

"Receiving Doctor McKay's IDC," announced Chuck.

Weir stared expectantly at the Stargate. Doctor Beckett had told her that McKay, Sheppard and a stranger were back in their universe and Weir was pretty sure their was an interesting explanation to why McKay had dragged his team to the Parallel Universe Machine before their mission in the first place.

She nodded to Chuck and turned back to the gate… just in time to see Sheppard come feet first out of the top of the Stargate.

How the hell had he managed…?!

"Oh my god," said Weir as Sheppard covered his head with his arms as he crashed to the floor and rolled to a stop on his back. "Medical team to the gate room!"

She ran down the stairs to Sheppard as the Colonel mumbled into his radio. "McKay, use the other side of the gate." Before he lost consciousness.

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McKay frowned at Sheppard's radio message. "Out of all the sides, he just had to choose the top, didn't he?"

Tatum just shrugged. Scully continued to stare at the 'Stargate'. Getting on an alien spaceship was one thing, but then there was stepping into an alien puddle that was supposedly a wormhole that would take her to the lost city of Atlantis. It just wasn't going to happen.

"Let's go," suggested McKay, walking over to the opposite side of the gate to the side Sheppard had used carrying the wraith cargo-ship buffer.

Scully walked after him and examined the puddle again. "I am not going to step into that puddle."

"It's perfectly safe," McKay assured her. "We use it daily. Once you step in to the wormhole it simply breaks up your molecules, sends them across the galaxy and reassembles you at the other side."

Scully was alarm; that sounded painful.

"I refuse to step into that!" she insisted.

"Would you rather stay here?" demanded McKay.

"No," complained Scully and heard Dr Tatum come up behind her.

She turned around just in time to see the scientist's hands shoot out as he pushed her into the wormhole. Scully braced herself.

A/N: please review, I love to know what people think of my stories… which is obvious from all my other Author Notes.