Okay, this is so, so, so not my fault. I haven't been able to upload for two days! I keep hoping the site will cure itself, but, alas, no such luck. So, Tazmy, clever, clever, Tazmy, showed me a back door. Thank you TAZMY! So, here's hoping this works. Chapter 17, ahoy!

NEVER STOP MOVING
By TIPPER

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE RUMBLING EARTH

For the next hour, other than Teyla occasionally asking Rodney questions, the atmosphere in the Jumper fell into a tense quiet. Ronon stayed outside, walking the perimeter, using all his senses to watch for anything that might be approaching, aware that it could be from any direction—even the sky, if they decided to fire their weapon. John diligently wrote every puzzle he could think of, then fell into a light slumber, eased that way by the rest of the morphine. Rodney just worked. The main evidence that he was in trouble were the short, monosyllabic answers he gave to Teyla and those times when she caught him pausing for too long over his keyboard—like his brain had briefly shorted out.

She finished replacing the conduits and adjusting the power to the two drive pods and the shield. She had not yet started on the crystals, but, because she felt more confident about the latter, decided she should interrupt Rodney now…just in case she might not be able to do so later.

"Rodney," she called, hating the glazed way he seemed to have once again stalled over his laptop. He jerked a little, and frowned, turning to look up at her.

"What?"

"I have done the replacements."

"The what?"

"The power conduits, I have swapped them out, and I have adjusted the power relays."

He stared at her a moment, as if uncertain about what she was saying, then seemed to shake himself, looking down at the floor.

"Yes, yes, of course. I…right." He frowned again, and looked up at her. "So, you need something from me?"

"I need you to look over the work."

"Yes. Of course. Fine. What was I…?" He turned in the chair and looked at the screen on his laptop. "Right." He turned around fully to face John in the chair opposite. The Colonel was leaning back, his mouth agape as he breathed heavily in a morphine induced slumber, snoring lightly. McKay snorted at the sight. "What an image. Lovely, Sheppard, lovely." He reached forward and tapped John's knee. "Wake up!" he ordered, raising his voice so it was a little higher than the almost whisper he'd been using.

Sheppard jumped, and instantly winced, leaning forward, his right hand wrapping around his left wrist. "G-ah," he groaned.

"Yes, yes. Bad arm, we know. I need you awake. Are you done?"

Teyla grimaced, hating that they could not let John sleep, hating that Rodney had to be pushed like this, hating everything about what was happening.

John, meanwhile, was blinking open his eyes and looking blearily at Rodney. "What?"

"The puzzles. Are they done?"

"Oh, um," John squinted at his monitor, rubbing at little at his scratchy sounding throat, "Yeah."

"Think you can input them for me, so I can help Teyla?"

"Uh...," John blinked again, finally looking more awake. "I…I don't know anything about writing computer code, McKay."

"You don't have to. Strictly cut and paste. Transfer your data to my laptop."

John nodded numbly, sat up slowly and typed something. Behind where he was sitting, Rodney's laptop beeped softly. Swiveling in his chair, Rodney opened the file John had sent. He read few lines of what was written there and, despite himself, started to smile.

"Oh…these are clever. I recognize the first two. Good God, Fermat's Last Theorem? Nice. Be nice if it takes them three hundred and fifty years to crack it, eh? And this one..." He narrowed his eyes at the screen. "What is this one?"

"I made that one up," John said, smiling despite himself. "I'm not even sure it's solvable. I mean, it's not as clever as Fermat's, but...way I see it, there are multiple rational results depending on which proof you work, but only one of them will be correct. They'll really, really hate that one."

"Perfect." McKay smiled and highlighted the one John just described, and copied it. Flipping over to his earlier screen he leaned back so John could see it more clearly. "See this bit here? It's already set up. You just have to…" he trailed off, and Teyla leaned a little closer to see as well. McKay dropped John's math puzzle into what looked like a lot of confusing text, all of which looked the same to her. "There. Just like that. This specific line of coding repeats every other page. Just keep dropping what you did into it wherever it appears until you're done. I set up at least thirteen of these, so…" He shrugged. "Then it's just a matter of translating it into Ancient, then uploading it and transferring it. Easy."

John was peering at the nonsensical text, his expression as befuddled as Teyla's had been. "Sure," he muttered weakly, "easy."

Rodney gave a weak smile and pushed back. "Right." With a soft sigh, he stood up quickly…

And toppled over.

John yelped in pain as he'd attempted to stop his friend and got his arm jarred badly. Teyla, however, had no such problem. She dove down, catching Rodney's head and shoulders before they hit the floor, her back flaring in pain from the awkward snatch.

"Rodney!" she called, shifting his weight in her arms to hold him closer, twisting him so she could see his face. It was completely slack, the eyes closed. "Rodney?" Juggling him more against her legs, she rested a hand on his neck, feeling the sluggish pulse, and looking worriedly up at John. The colonel had tears in his eyes from his own agonizing pain as he met her gaze.

"What just happened?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"I do not know. He is unconscious. Rodney!" she tried calling his name louder, but the scientist was oblivious. Whatever had just happened to him, it had happened fast. "Rodney," she tried again, "you must wake up. Please wake up!" She looked up at John again, "Is this related to his…his hypoglycemia, as he calls it?"

"No," John replied, still cradling his arm. "That's…no. This has nothing to do with that—he wouldn't even be feeling the effects of that for hours yet." The blood spots were getting rapidly thicker through the bandaging, and his face was etched with pain. "It's his head—those two knocks he got. He's been dizzy and overly agitated and disoriented. His right arm was trembling while his left was not, at least not to the same degree—something's very wrong with him."

Footsteps running towards them had her looking out the back hatch just as Ronon banged up the metal ramp, his face filled with worry. He looked at Teyla, Rodney then at John.

"What just happened?" he demanded.

"Rodney…fell." It was all Teyla could say. "He fainted when he tried to stand up."

"Bad timing," Ronon said, jogging the rest of the way inside and practically jumping over Teyla and Rodney to get into the front compartment. He ripped open the nearly empty medical kit next to the pilot's console and pulled out the smelling salts.

"What are you doing?" John asked, still just trying to breathe through his own pain and sounding rougher than sandpaper. "And what do you mean, 'bad timing'?"

"Getting the smelling salts," Ronon replied, pulling them out and tossing them to Teyla. "He has to wake up." She caught them one handed, her other arm still wrapped under Rodney, holding him up.

"Why?" she demanded.

"Because they're here. I saw them on the edge of the canyon, the light reflecting off their binoculars—they were looking right at us."

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Teyla waved the smelling salts under Rodney's nose, and nearly sagged in relief when he jerked slightly.

"Rodney," she called, tapping his arm. "Rodney, wake up."

Blue eyes blinked open, then rolled and pinched shut. He groaned.

"I am sorry, Rodney, but you need to wake up. Please."

"Why?" he asked peevishly, sounding like a child who did not want to get up to do his morning chores.

"The Kaveer are coming. You must help me finish."

"The who?"

"The Kaveer. Please, Rodney. You need to wake up."

"Tired. Head hurts."

"I know, but you—" She stopped as Ronon suddenly got in her line of sight, grabbing at Rodney's arms and gripping hard.

"Wake up, McKay! Now!"

Rodney's eyes snapped open in surprise, staring up at Ronon with confusion, and wincing as it movement obviously caused his head pain. "What?"

"Bad guys coming," Ronon almost shouted. "Jumper needs finishing. We have to go home. Now get up!"

Rodney blinked some more, then looked over at Teyla, in whose lap he had been. She just gave him a sad look, wishing she could do more. "You must get up, Rodney," she said.

Rodney still seemed confused, but allowed Ronon to pull him sharply upright.

For which Ronon paid a price in the form of whatever else Rodney had in his stomach on his shoes—which wasn't much. Mostly water. It didn't seem to bother the big man, though, as he just slung the scientist's arm over his shoulder and dragged him outside. Teyla bounced up to her feet, glanced at John, who just gave her a nod and returned his attention to Rodney's laptop, already clicking away one-handed—trying to finish the code. Then she jogged outside after the other two.

Ronon was holding Rodney up next to the engine pod, the scientist pale as a ghost.

"What am I looking at?" Rodney asked weakly, still obviously confused.

"The power conduits," Teyla replied, getting up close to the engine. She knelt and pointed to the underside of the drive pod. "I've replaced them. Did I do it correctly?"

Rodney stared at her in total puzzlement, but, with Ronon's help, knelt down to peer under the drive. He stared for a moment, then said, with some curiosity.

"You replaced these?"

"Yes," she replied, her brow furrowing with worry.

"They look okay," Rodney said, and Teyla's whole face relaxed.

"Oh." She wanted to smile, but then Ronon was pulling Rodney back up and the scientist teetered like a leaf in the wind. Rodney grimaced, holding the hand not gripping Ronon's shoulder to his head. He did not pull away from Ronon's support, showing that he was indeed badly off.

"Right, right," Rodney muttered, as if pulling his mind back from someplace far away. "You had to replace those…and adjust the power to balance the two sides. Right?" He squinted at Teyla, who simply nodded. "Did you adjust the power?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Show me."

She nodded, and turned to run back inside, glancing up at the canyon's edge as she did so. She could see the people up there—black dots on the skyline, like small bugs. They were coming down what must be some sort of pass, disappearing inside a ripple in the canyon wall. They were moving very, very quickly—some sort of transportation was bringing them down.

Once inside again, she grabbed the tablet, still resting on the bench beneath the left hand drive pod and connected to the panels. Turning, she held it up just as Ronon dragged Rodney inside. The scientist let Ronon sit him on the bench and reached to take the tablet. With a frown, Rodney studied the readouts on the tablet.

And that was when the Jumper's radio connection came alive.

"Doctor McKay. Teyla Emmagen. I assume you can hear this transmission."

It was Metra.

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TBC...

Very soon! I have three more chapters written, and can say with some certainty that there will be 23 chapters total. If this back door thing works, I'll try to post daily.

And Krys—the jokes are still TERRIBLE. :p