See, I can keep my promises! Next day! But I warn you...it's not pretty. Sort of like Krys' joke (that one deserved a head smack, girl!)

NEVER STOP MOVING
By TIPPER

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN: TESTING THE WATERS

Teyla felt like a rock in a stream as Ronon shifted all around her, working to fill four packs (three heavy, one light) in case they still needed them. She noticed him glancing out through the back hatch every so often, eyes scanning the canyon walls. They were a long way from the edge, meaning anyone sneaking up on them would be easily seen long before they were in range, but it was obviously bothering the Satedan to be on the low ground.

Ronon eventually disappeared, heading outside with an explanation about seeing aloe-like plants, useful for burns. It was fairly obvious to the other three, however, that the Jumper was making him stir crazy. His taking both his blaster, his sword and a 9MM was proof enough of that.

Teyla finished piecing together the last of the diagnostic information for Rodney, blowing the air out of her cheeks as she triple-checked one more connection. She wanted to be sure of everything before she spoke to him.

Her nerves were frazzled—she could not recall the last time she had been this nervous to speak to someone. Even her first conversation with Michael had not caused this much insecurity—or perhaps it was just a different kind of insecurity. Indeed, part of her did not understand why she was even nervous. It was just Rodney—someone she knew, someone she loved, and, someone, if she were being truly honest with herself, she often felt 'older' than. But the irrational part of her still felt just like the little girl showing off the first fighting sticks she had ever made to her father, terrified that the great Tagan would be disappointed.

Glancing down at the watch, she saw that nearly forty minutes had passed since they had landed here, twenty since she had returned back inside after inspecting the left drive pod—that was a long time. Too long. Grimacing, she was well aware that Rodney would have taken far less time—but he hadn't said a thing to her, seemingly engrossed in what he was working on. Still, if the time estimates that she and Ronon had come up with were right about the Kaveer, they only had less than an hour and a half to do the repairs she believed could be made. It was not going to be enough time—not unless Rodney helped her, and even then...

But the alternative was impossible. They could not run. She had to make this work.

She sighed again and checked the readout on the last connection. Satisfied with what it said, she unhooked the tablet and moved into the forward compartment.

John was typing one handed on a laptop in what was normally Ronon's chair, using the small shelf next to it for the computer. McKay was opposite him, in his usual chair, doing the same—though he was using two hands. A half eaten power bar was next to the laptop—the other half had been thrown up through the hole in the hull within minutes of Rodney eating it. She was glad she had not been outside when that had happened. Both men had canteens resting near their stations—while they had access to fresh water, they were both taking advantage of it for as long as they could.

"Rodney," she called softly. He stopped working, his left hand moving up to knead his forehead. Turning in the chair, he looked up at her, frowning a little and squinting.

"You've done it?" he asked, his voice roughened by his obviously sore throat.

She gave a nod.

"So?" His eyebrows lifted.

"The control crystals for the left hand drive pod are not salvageable—not even for temporary use. However, Doctor Zelenka taught me that many crystals can swapped around, substituted for the broken ones. All you need to do is reset them to blank, and then, when slotted in the appropriate slot, the Jumper itself will reform the connections necessary to make them work for that slot's function." She paused, not sure what she was waiting for until Rodney gave a single nod, his eyes narrowing a little.

"Right. So?" he asked, impatience lining his voice. "Tell me something I don't know."

She frowned slightly. "Well, as we can not leave the atmosphere, I recommend pulling the control crystals for the artificial gravity and life support to use as blanks. I can reset them, and put them in the slots for the left hand control crystals."

He snorted. "Well, that's a painfully obvious solution. Wait," he looked past her to the control panels, then back at her, his brow furrowing even further. "Are you saying that you haven't done it yet? You've just been...checking them? But it's been...," he looked down at his watch, then frowned. Grimacing, he looked up at her again, his eyes narrowed almost to slits. "Well, it's been a really long time. What the hell have you been doing?"

"I, well..." Teyla sucked in a tight breath, trying not to show any reaction to his rudeness. She had expected it, though that didn't stop it from stinging. "I have been—"

"Oh, don't bother." McKay waved a hand. "You'll do it now, and do it quickly, I hope." His eyes continued to measure her, and Teyla shifted, uncomfortable. "Right," he said then, "what about the fact that the controls on the console are shish-kebab?"

Teyla nodded. "A long wire, connecting the crystals in the control panel in the back to the data tablet," she said, speaking quickly as Rodney rolled his hand at her, gesturing her to hurry. "Place the tablet on the console in front of the pilot's side, and, with your left hand, use the arrow keys for direction."

Rodney snorted a laugh. "The tablet?" he scoffed. "Oh, that's funny! What a terrible idea!"

Teyla kept her jaw firmly set, still refusing to show any sign that he was hurting her. His eyebrows lifted again at her thin lipped stare.

"Oh, you're serious?" he said, as if shocked. "Teyla, come on. It's too cumbersome, for one thing, and won't balance with the right hand controls. It'd be like fighting with a sword in one hand and a butter knife in the other. Think of something better."

She blinked. "Better?" But there wasn't anything better, she thought worriedly. She had thought about this a great deal. She had been proud of the idea, had even checked that there were wires in the back that were long enough to stretch to the front. But Rodney was shaking his head slowly, as if he could read her mind.

"Yes, better. That tablet won't work," he stated firmly, all traces of mockery gone, leaving only irritation. "The arrow keys are too small, and the touch pad is finicky at best. Are you trying to kill us?" He was watching her intensely, and Teyla found herself frowning in the face of his stare. "You need to think of something better," he repeated.

"I..." she looked down at the tablet, at the tiny keys. The tablet was all she knew—it is what Radek had taught her on. She was sure it would work. Maybe...maybe if he just tried it first, before dismissing the idea, he—

"Come on, Teyla," Rodney snapped. "You said you wanted to do this. So do it. The tablet will not work. Don't try to think of ways to convince me otherwise, just accept that it won't, and think of something else. Find another way. Now, what else is there besides the tablet? Think!"

She flinched a little, and then ground her teeth together. She caught John watching them, eyeing her worriedly and sending dark looks at Rodney—but he did not interfere. For some reason, she was glad of that. This was not John's fight. Raising her chin, she turned and looked around, her mind skipping to the other pieces of technology on board. There were the two laptops, of course, but surely they needed those for the work Rodney and John were doing. So what did that leave? There was nothing else. The only other technology on board was the defibrillator, Ronon's blaster and...

...and Rodney's scanner—the life signs detector.

Could it work? She knew it was a powerful and supposedly versatile piece of technology, but she had never seen it used as anything except as a scanning device. But...that did not negate the possibility that it could do more. Could it function as a control device? After all, it was designed to read the minds of John and Rodney when they used it, so perhaps...perhaps it could read their minds and help fly the Jumper. Could it be "reset" like the control crystals and its programming changed to work as a control?

"The scanner?" she suggested, looking back at Rodney. He gave a tiny smile.

"The scanner?" he mocked in a sing song voice. "Yes, the scanner," he sneered. "Well done. Took you long enough." Teyla tried not to frown, to demonstrate any evidence that he was having an affect on her. But it rankled—if he had already known the answer, why had he forced her to come up with it herself? Was he playing games with her? Trying to make her feel like a fool? She was about to say something about not needing to be condescended to when she saw him run a hand down his face, his tiredness showing through. She pressed her lips together tightly—she would berate him when they returned home and he was feeling better.

"The scanner's in my vest pocket, still," he said, lowering the hand. "And you won't need to string wires. Once you've replaced the crystals, connect the scanner to the panel using the wires. Either Sheppard or I will then ask it to download what it needs to act as half of a steering wheel. Once reprogrammed, it can be held anywhere in the Jumper and will control the left hand side."

"It can do that?" John asked. Teyla wanted to smile in gratitude, glad that John didn't know it could do that either.

"Sure," Rodney said, shrugging a little. "Probably don't even have to..." he stopped talking, staring vaguely towards the back hatch when Ronon suddenly reappeared inside and dropped something that looked like a bunch of plants on the floor of the Jumper, and then his brow furrowed. He looked at John, "What was I saying?"

John's own brow furrowed, "The life signs detector. It can be used to control the Jumper."

"What? No. Don't be an idiot. The scanner can be used as a substitute for the left hand control stick—to control the left hand drive pod. It can't control the whole Jumper—that'd be insane!" Rodney snapped. "Weren't you listening?"

John's eyebrows lifted—that had been over the top rude, even for Rodney. Teyla's irritation from earlier melted away in the realization that the scientist's unusual acerbity may not be entirely of his own conscious making. Rodney, however, seemed unconcerned with his overly dark behavior, and looked back up at her.

"So, we have control. Of course," his eyes narrowed, "control doesn't mean a damn if we don't have a drive pod that works."

She gave a nod. "Yes, it is damaged," she admitted, and he raised his eyebrows as if to say 'obviously'. She frowned again. "The pod has a broad, black stripe along its left side and part of its underbelly. It destroyed a number of the engine coils—but not many. The main problem is that at least half of the still intact coils have been cut off from the Jumper's main power cells—most of the conduits melted and snapped. However," she took a breath, "I think I can fix it by replacing the damaged conduits."

"Replace them how?" he asked, one eyebrow arching. "With what?"

"As you suspected, the beam also striped the drone bay doors before finally breaching the hull. The metal is completely fused—they will not open..."

"Wait," John interrupted, speaking up again. "There were two drones in the bay on that side. As you saying they're not accessible?"

"Yes," Teyla said, shifting a little so she could see the colonel as well. "You will not be able to fire them."

"Well, hell!" The colonel rested his head on his right fingers, careful of the bruise, closing his eyes. "You realize that means we only have one drone in our arsenal?"

"I am sorry, Colonel," she said, not sure what else to say. Rodney snorted lightly. John just sighed.

"No," the colonel said, lifting his head so he could wave a little at her, "it's not your fault. I just..." he pursed his lips. "It's good information to have. We'll just have to plan around it." He rubbed at his head again, and tried to smile up at her. He looked terrible—wan and strained. Perhaps she should give him the rest of the morphine...

"Well, Colonel," Rodney sneered, peering down his nose at John, "if you're done whining now, Teyla was going to tell me how the left drone bay door not working was going to save the Jumper's left drive pod." He looked up at her, his eyes half lidded, as if she were boring him, John's muttered comment about it not being a 'whine' falling on deaf ears. McKay's eyebrows lifted. "Well?"

"Oh, yes," she looked behind her at where she had opened the bench, which accessed the wiring for the drone bay. "I was planning on pulling the conduits for the drone bay doors and swapping them for the ones on the drive pod. It should—"

"It will. But, think, if enough of the drive pod coils are damaged," Rodney said, "too much power will just overload the conduits again. It explains why the conduits are melted—too much power trying to access the coils that were damaged by the weapon. The power must have backed up and—"

"Yes, I know," Teyla said, cutting him off this time, "and I have a solution for that as well. I can adjust the power crystals to seventy five percent capacity, which is about right for the number of working coils on the left engine pod."

"But the right drive pod will—"

"I will adjust the right drive pod's power usage down as well, to keep the two sides balanced. The Jumper will not fly as fast, or be as agile, but it will be balanced and provide the maneuverability we need."

Rodney was watching her now, his eyes narrowed. She wasn't sure but—was there a hint of a smile on his lips?

"And," she said, feeling like she was, as John said, 'going for broke', "I can reroute all the unused power into the shields. It should bolster them to at least twenty five percent. The shields are running at only twelve percent power right now."

Rodney did smile this time, a tiny one on the corner, almost invisible. "That is," he said, his eyes meeting hers knowingly, "provided the shields stay up at all."

"True." She grimaced. "I do not know how to fix that problem."

"You can't. Not in the time we have." He gave a nod. "Okay. Fine. Go do it. And don't waste any more time like you have been—we don't have the luxury for training wheels right now. Replace the conduits first—that's the trickiest part—and let me see what you've done when finished. Then start on the crystals."

She stared at him a moment, blinking a little. She had not planned on working on the conduits alone—she had never actually done anything like that. The crystals she had worked before, under Radek's supervision, but wiring was something he had yet to let her touch.

Then there was the time factor. There was no way she could possibly do all that in the limited time they had left.

Her hesitation must have been obvious, because Rodney was suddenly turning again in the chair to look at her.

"What?" he asked, frowning. "What's the matter? Why aren't you moving?"

"By myself?" she blurted out, hating her voice for how young it had sounded at the question.

"Yes, by yourself. You said you could do it, so do it. Everything you said was right. There. Now go. Shoo." He flapped a hand at her and turned around again. "I'm busy here."

"But I have never—"

"Yeah, well, welcome to my world," he sneered. "I already said I'd check your work when you've finished, which is more than anyone has ever done for me since I've been here. So go. Now. Clock's ticking. Tick tock, tick tock." He had already resumed his typing.

Teyla frowned, and turned to look at John. He didn't help any, just looked up at her with an unhappy grimace and a 'you sort of asked for this' look on his face. Lowering her eyes, she nodded.

She had. After all, this was what she had wanted...wasn't it?

Gripping her hands into fists, she nodded again to herself and turned to grab the tool kit in the back. She brushed past Ronon, who was half kneeling next to the cactus like plants he had dumped on the ramp, stripping them of their skins, and walked down to the sandy canyon floor. Not sparing a glance for the desert around her, she moved to the left side of the Jumper, intent only on the drive pod. She was aware of Ronon watching her go out of the corner of his eye, a frown on his face. He had obviously heard her report to Rodney inside as well, and the caustic way Rodney had treated her. Refusing to give him a chance to provide any sort of pity or understanding, she moved to the far side of the open engine pod, away from his gaze, and set the kit on the sand.

She straightened again, stretching her back first to relieve the knots, and was about to kneel down to check the underside of the drive pod when she heard her name called.

For a moment, she was confused as to its source—thinking it was coming from somewhere outside, but then she looked up at the Jumper. She was standing right below the hole in the hull—the voices she heard were John and Rodney. Briefly, she considered saying something, to let them know she could hear, but curiosity got the better of her...and she scooted closer to the hole to hear more clearly.

"...not going to ease up on her, Colonel. She wants to be like Zelenka, then I'm going to treat her like Zelenka."

"But she's not Zelenka, Rodney. She's not even one of your lab rats. She's Teyla—your friend, and someone who is doing her best with only a couple months of training on this stuff. You didn't have to be so damned harsh!"

"Harsh? You called that harsh? Please, I could have filleted her if I wanted."

"Are you kidding? Did you hear yourself?" John answered. "You did fillet her!"

There was a pause, then, "Well, she's tough. She can handle it. She has to understand that she can't work at Radek's pace. Out here, she has to think and work faster."

"And putting her down and calling her ideas terrible is going to make her do that."

"Yes."

"Oh, please," John jeered. "It's like you went to the boot camp school of project management. All I'm saying is, give her a break, okay?"

"A break? I don't have time to give her a break. She's a big girl, Major. If she's angry with me, I'm pretty sure she'll let me know. Probably with sticks."

There was a pause, then, "Colonel."

"What?"

"You called me 'Major'."

"I did? Why did I do that? Hunh." There was another pause. "Whatever, I need to get back to this."

"Wait," the colonel sounded exasperated, "look...how about you give her some encouragement, at least?"

There was another pause, then, "No. She'll know it's fake."

"It doesn't have to be fake encouragement, McKay."

"Yes, it does. Teyla knows me, Colonel. She's smart, smarter than I think you're giving her credit for, and she knows that any platitudes I throw in her direction are going to be just that, fake. If she does a good job, I'll tell her, but I'm not going to hold her hand on the way there. She knows what to do. I've told her so. She does it, then we live. That should be enough encouragement for anyone."

There was another pause, then, in a monotone, "Wow."

A heavy sigh. "I know what that means. You think I'm being an ass. Well, you know what? I am. And I'm not going to stop being an ass just because you think Teyla deserves better treatment than my scientists. She doesn't. Right now, she is one of my scientists, and she's getting the work done, which is more than she's been doing for the past...however long it's been. And, I might add, is more than I'm doing right now with you carping over my shoulder like a mother hen!"

"Well, maybe if you worked and thought faster, you could help her! Hell, you could be doing it all by yourself! But you can't, can you? You're not good enough!"

There was a long pause, then, "That was low."

"Really? But I thought being mean was a way to get someone to work faster?"

There was no answer to that. Then, "Point taken."

"Thank you," John replied.

"I...I am doing my best, you know."

There was a soft sigh, "I know, Rodney. I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

He was cut off by a short laugh. "You're such a sap. Apologizing—you're too easy."

John groaned, "My God, you are such an ass!"

"Just saying, I'm not going to apologize to Teyla. And she won't expect one. You, on the other hand..."

"Oh, you'll apologize," John said, sounding confident. "When we get home, I'm scheduling you for more of her classes. See how long your smugness lasts in there. Oh yeah, you'll be apologizing."

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

Rodney huffed. "That's it, I'm not talking to you anymore."

"Good."

"Good."

"Good."

"Why can't I get the last word?"

"Because I'm better than you. Now get to work. Tick tock, tick tock, remember?"

Rodney made a sound like he was being strangled, John laughed, and then there was nothing more except for the tapping of keys on keyboards.

Teyla stepped away from the hole, and frowned.

She rubbed at her arms, kneading the muscles in her forearms, then looked down at the tool kit. She wanted to absorb what she'd just heard, to take it in and mull it over...but McKay was right. There was no time. Still, something he had said had rubbed her the wrong way enough that it was sticking out in her mind.

He thought she wanted to be Doctor Zelenka. He was wrong. Radek had taught her to be careful and methodical as she worked through the Jumper's systems, something which made her take too long on the diagnostics. She knew that now. If they were going to survive this, she could not be Radek.

She had to be Rodney.

And if she were going to be Rodney, she did not need encouragement or platitudes or kindnesses. She just needed to get this done.

Nodding in determination, she knelt down to get under the drive pod and shoved her hands into the circuits.

And then pulled back a second later with a yelp as sparks erupted from the pod.

Should probably cut the power first, she thought, a wry smile on her face as she flapped stinging fingers in the wind.

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TBC...

They're just not doing well, are they?

I need to do my taxes before I post again, but we're in the home stretch now so not much more to go...and it's all going to go just like clockwork, right? Next chapter, they'll just fly off and everything will be happy and joyful and with no problems at all...