Author Notes: Woah. This chapter turned out A LOT longer than I'd anticipated, but there was no way to break it up, so I guess you guys get more! Thanks for the feedback, and just to warn you, this chapter is pretty dark, with lots of death. Not too graphic, but it might upset some people. Enjoy!
Chapter 9: Horizon
Laura, McKay and Zelenka were sat in the science labs, frantically going over field notes, mission reports, experiments, the Ancient database; anything that might help them fix the ever growing hole in the universe. Most of Atlantis had been evacuated already, so the majority of the people left were military, senior personnel or pilot volunteers who held the ATA gene. The Alpha site was already setting up in their labs, in case they had to destroy Atlantis to prevent Anubis getting hold of it. Either way, they had to fix this problem, there was no way around it.
Elizabeth walked into the lab, followed by Colonel Sheppard and Ronon, "Everyone's been evacuated, including your sister, Rodney. If worst comes to worst, and we have to set the city to self-destruct, then the Daedalus will hopefully know where we've gone when it returns. Please tell me it won't come to that."
Zelenka tiredly removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, "We are no closer than before."
Elizabeth sighed, tapping her comm. "Teyla, Major Lorne, are you teams all in place?"
Lorne replied, "We've got teams guarding essential systems, and a perimeter has been set up around the Jumper Bay and Gateroom. ETA for the gliders has come down to approximately five minutes, I'd advise you all come down here."
"Understood Major. I want you to prep the Jumpers and head the defence. Colonel Sheppard will command the ground military."
John made to protest, but stopped at 'the look'. Instead he turned to the scientists, "Pack it up, we're moving."
As Rodney and Zelenka grabbed their equipment, Ronon turned to John, "Why don't we just blow up the device that's keeping her here?"
Laura's cold, dark stare at him voicing an opinion was matched with Ronon's indifferent one. In a way, he could relate to her, and so knew not to overstep himself. Rodney and Zelenka both looked up sharply, and John recognised those looks well, "Don't tell me that didn't even cross your minds?"
"These devices are sensitive pieces of Ancient technology. We're hardly going to just blow the damn things up, are we? It would take an exorbitant amount of power!"
"But would it work?" Elizabeth pressed.
Rodney floundered for a second, but Zelenka covered, "C4 would work, packed in around the control crystal."
John was confused, "You said it would take a lot of power!"
Rodney was unusually quiet. Laura sighed; she knew he had worked out the solution a few days ago, but hadn't wanted to suggest it, instead desperately searching for another way. She decided to save him the explanation, "Just blowing up your device wouldn't work. The connection between the universes needs to be severed at the exact same moment. When that happens, Anubis should be sucked back to my Earth, as your universe rejects him. Right now, the only things keeping our universes connected are those devices, the ones that are keeping me here."
Ronon nodded, "Sounds like a plan."
John shook his head, "But you'll have to go back there to blow the device the same time as we do." Everyone looked between Rodney and Laura. From what they had heard, the other Earth was not a nice place to live.
Laura shrugged indifferently, "What is hell to one is home to another. I was never going to stay here. I can't live a life with a future; I'm not wired for it. I need to live day by day to stay sane. 'Sides," She added, glancing at Rodney, "Someone's gotta make sure Emily and her kid keep themselves alive."
Rodney regarded her closely. She wasn't lying; she would implode if she stayed on Atlantis. Even though there was risk, it was very different from the danger she knew. A lifetime of habits couldn't be changed, only adapted to, as Rodney knew.
Suddenly, an explosion wretched through the air, making the floor shake. Immediately, Weir tried to find out what had happened, "Control room, come in. What was that?"
Teyla's voice could be heard responding, "A glider was just shot down; it impacted into the city. We're getting reports of transporter use near all key areas of the city. You all need to get back here now!"
"Alright, can you tell us which route is safest to take?" There was no response, only crackling, "Teyla? Teyla!"
Laura snatched up the knife she had acquired earlier, along with a gun, "Classic tactic; don't bother, he's made Atlantis a communication dead zone. We need to move. Do you have the C4 we'll need?"
John nodded, handing the sidearm he had been carrying to Zelenka, while Ronon handed one of his to Elizabeth, so they were all armed, "Moved all the arms to the Gateroom. I'll take point, you all stay in the middle and Ronon, you follow up. Keep your eyes open, and don't hesitate. Come on!"
As a group, they headed out through the corridors of their home. At first, it was unnervingly quiet, and then the first sounds of gunfire could be heard echoing down the halls of the city, accompanied by the ominous explosion of energy weapons both above their heads and in return fire. And then blue light materialised in front of them, and five Jaffa, all robed in black, aimed their staffs. It all happened so quickly, one minute they were running, the next they were ducking as fast as possible, the first volley flying over their heads. A cry from behind John signalled that someone had been hit. He took aim, but these guys weren't weighed by armour, and he was their first target, receiving a well aimed blow to his head from the staff. Ronon recovered first, taking down three with deadly accuracy. Vision blurred, John thought someone ran past him, and sure enough, two thuds hit the ground. Looking up, he saw Laura standing over them, her knife dripping with the crimson blood of the warriors. One had been killed by a slice across the throat, the other still choked on his own blood as the shock of having both his and his symbiote's spinal cord severed at the same time brought him a slow death.
John shook his head, trying to clear it, "Everyone okay?"
"No." It was Rodney who answered him, the others were silent.
"What?" John stood up as quickly as his developing concussion would allow, blood dripping sluggishly down the side of his face. Rodney pushed past him roughly. His eyes held an expression that John had never seen before, before their focus shifted to Laura. She nodded, tossing him her knife, which he caught deftly, jamming his gun in his leg holster in case he needed it. She bent and picked up a nasty looking dagger from the belt of the dying Jaffa.
Rodney turned to them, his gaze resting on something on the floor, before stating coldly, "We need to keep moving."
"If someone's injured-" John's brain was beginning to respond to adrenaline, his vision more responsive.
"No one's injured." There was no infliction of emotion in Rodney's voice, as if he had completely shut down. No panic, no anger, no fear. Nothing but a determination to make it through; to survive.
"McKay, speak sense, you just said-"
"Elizabeth's dead. We need to keep moving." Rodney turned, Laura followed. Both of them barely made a sound as they moved purposefully away from the scene of their first encounter.
John turned in pure shock. On the floor was Zelenka. The man was cradling the unmoving body of their leader in his lap. Her eyes were glassy and unseeing, and a small trickle of blood snaked delicately from her mouth, drastically offset from the gaping wound in her chest. Ronon, his nature to fight and run over-riding any grief, pulled the scientist forcibly to his feet, "We have to leave her. Sheppard. Sheppard! They can't hold the Gate for long."
John composed himself, trying to dispel the image of Elizabeth lying there broken on the floor from his mind, "Move out."
Teyla span and parried, wielding the staff weapon she had acquired with deadly skill. It was an onslaught; worse than the Wraith. With the stolen Ancient technology, more and more Jaffa came down as soon as one of them was felled. On both sides, the casualties mounted. She took out an advancing Jaffa by discharging the weapon, but was forced backwards to the line they were barely holding at the Gateroom. "Teyla!" Major Bates's voice rang out above the carnage, and on instinct she ducked, recognising the call as a warning, only just missing the attack by a hair's breadth. And then the offender fell down dead. She twisted, and saw Ronon, who nodded briefly, before turning to help the others.
"Bates! Dial the Gate! M6T-089!" John yelled as they ran in, desperately trying not to get shot.
The Major looked up in shock, clearly having honestly not expected any survivors apart from those few who stood to be left, ready to set the city to self destruct at the last moment. His delay was his undoing, as his neck was snapped cleanly by a new wave of materialising Jaffa from the ships above. Explosions aided the cacophony as their Jumpers tried desperately to hold off the Gliders. John looked on in shock as Atlantis fell around them, shouts from both the control room and the Jumper communications as good people died.
And then he kicked himself into movement, matching his actions to those of the remainder of the soldiers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Carson abandon a man for dead, and run full pelt to the controls, punching in the address. He received a shot in the shoulder, and he cried out, the pain causing him to double over, an act that saved him from the second shot at his head. "Everyone fall back to the Gate!" John yelled, "Zelenka! Set the city to destruct!"
The scientist ran, but John knew his mistake, as he was killed almost instantly by the heavily trained Jaffa. He opened fire as best he could, but remained fearful of hitting their men with friendly fire, such was the mess of the battle. And yet there were too many enemies between them and their only way out. Ronon had fought his way through, grabbing Teyla, but then a rogue shot from a zat gun hit her, the charge enveloping them both, causing them to fall unconscious. Shouts in a language John didn't understand were thick in the air, and he was almost felled in a fresh surge towards the Gate. He couldn't see any of the Atlantians.
And then a blur moved past him, a thin woman moving in tandem with another, a man. They whirled and cut, only killing enough to clear a way, instinct to survive the primary drive in their movements. Neither blinked as they killed being after being. John collided with another, who he almost shot, before he realised it was Carson. It didn't matter, because the next second, a staff blast hit the pillar next to them, and force of the blast sending them down the steps, head over heels, landing in a heap at the bottom. "Come on!" John yelled, discarding his empty gun, and physically pulling Carson up. If there was one thing he could do, he could at least make sure one of the people under his care survived.
But the Stargate's shield was up.
They turned to see an overwhelming number of Jaffa advancing on them, there was a buzzing in John's ears that sounded like Lorne, his voice tainted with distress and urgency, yelling over the whirring of a Jumper damaged beyond repair. And then the whole tower shook. Smashed glass, electrical sparks; there was rubble, metal, detritus all flying. The shield flickered and died as power to Atlantis' control room failed. A siren began to sound, signifying that someone had triggered the self destruct.
"Move!" The voice was high and clear, laced with venom, and not one John could immediately place.
It didn't matter. The Jaffa were too many, and even as he picked up a discarded staff weapon, he knew it would not do much good. Then he saw Rodney, taking down a Jaffa with a staff blow to the head, and Laura, leaping on the back of another, plunging her knife in deep, tearing flesh as she wrenched it upwards and out. It was then that John noticed the downed shield. He grabbed Carson, and with one last push, they both fell through the Stargate, the momentary rush washing away the memories for the blink of an eye, before all sensation returned full force as they hit the dewy grass.
Two more bodies fell through. Laura fell to her knees, allowing the exhaustion to take hold of her, but Rodney hit the ground running, heading for the DHD so as to cut the connection. The Stargate died before he could reach it. Either Atlantis was no more, or someone had managed to cut it the other end.
Laura was the first to speak, "Carson? You alive?"
"Aye. I'll live." A grim reply. His shoulder was partly cauterised from the staff wound, but it was still bleeding. Both Laura and Rodney were drenched in blood, having engaged in hand to hand combat.
John wasn't sure if he trusted himself to speak, instead helping Carson to his feet. Finally he turned to Rodney, "So this was you? Back then?"
Rodney shrugged, "I had to survive. Now and then, there's no difference. I just..." He trailed off.
Laura quirked a bitter smile, "You remembered Earth. And Jaffa." She frowned. "Where's your pack? With the C4?"
"I gave it to-" John stopped himself short, "I gave it to Ronon. He was to go through the Gate first."
Laura swore, "Then how do we blow the devices?"
"This cannot be for nothing!" Rodney spat.
John looked at his friend, the one who had always needed protecting, standing there, covered in blood, both his own and others', skin dark with residue from explosions, a knife in one hand, and a staff in the other. Then he looked at the ground where he had dropped the staff weapon he himself had acquired. He picked it up, "It won't be. These'll work for us."
Laura nodded in agreement. "We need to move. The longer we wait, the more damage Anubis does to the universes."
The battered four headed off in the direction that Carson remembered from the first time with Zelenka. They walked the distance in silence and determination. And then they saw it. Standing as innocently as it had for so many millennia was the device, tucked away in an overgrown crevice.
The three Atlantians stopped, but Laura kept walking, taking the staff from John's hand. Her thin fingers moved lightly over the device, changing the position of the crystal. Rodney charged his staff weapon, walking forwards to meet her. "I'll shoot five seconds after you disappear. That should give you enough time."
Laura nodded, "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For remembering in the end. For not running. And for Hannah, however it turned out. Don't forget. Promise me."
"I'll survive." He replied simply.
"So will I." She retorted.
They paused, and then Rodney leaned forwards, pressing a light kiss on Laura's sunken cheek. "Goodbye Laura."
The woman smirked, hefting her weapon, before reaching behind her, fingers inches from the control crystals.
And then she disappeared as if she had always been a ghost of the light dancing on close eyelids. In his mind, Rodney steadily counted, aiming the weapon at the device.
"Five." He spoke the last count, and released the weapon.
The device exploded in a mess of twisted metal and shards of crystal. But it did not end there. The air seemed to crackle and shriek, the sky darkened, and clouds raced across the sky, colliding in thunder without sound. A hot wind sang, sucked towards the torn device, as it seemed to implode with light, before everything rushed outwards, tearing the ground from their feet, throwing the last survivors into a tangle of limbs.
It was as if the world was finally at an end.
Maybe it should be.
They were the only ones left.
Atlantis was gone.
And the universes screamed.
To Be Continued...
Author Notes: I did warn you. Possibly the most canon characters I've killed in one chapter to date. Please don't hurt me! I'll post the last chapter up soon, within the week.