Sorry about the delay. But hey...Rose is coming back!
CHAPTER FIVE
The Doctor descended into a morose silence for the rest of the tour, until they reached the control room, where he perked up almost instantly. "Ah, that's beautiful, that is!" he exclaimed, a pair of black-rimmed glasses materializing on the bridge of his nose (or, at least, so it seemed to Shepard; he looked away and when he looked back, there they were), as he peered intently at the deep-space scanner screen, which was currently dark. "Wide screen TV, eh?" He whipped out a thin, pen-like device and pointed it at the screen. With a quiet crackle, it flickered back to life.
"He fixed it!" Radik Zelenka exclaimed.
"It shouldn't have needed fixing in the first place," John snapped.
"It turned off shortly before you returned, and we haven't been able to turn it back on since," Zelenka replied.
"Well, well, well. What have we here? Somebody playing Space Invaders?"
They all turned to look at the Doctor. "I beg your pardon?" inquired Teyla.
"Lots of spaceships. Don't like the look of them," he replied. "Looks like an armada."
"Oh, crap."
None of the others added to Shepard's exclamation. "Oh, crap" just about summed up the situation.
Commodore Valnark twirled his scarlet cape impatiently. He did not like working with a member inferior species, but Sycoraxic High Command had ordered him to command this mission, so he had to do it. Besides, there might even be a promotion in the bargain.
"Is it done?" he hissed irritably at the Human in Sycoraxic, which was translated into English via a translator.
The Human nodded. "It is done."
Valnark grinned cruelly. "Good. Now we advance." He pressed a button on the console in front of which the Human was sitting. "Commence Phase Two!" he ordered.
The other ships in his armada formed a v-shape behind Valnark's ship, the flagship, and descended upon the planet beneath them.
Valnark glanced at the Human and a cold shudder ran down the Sycorax's spine when he saw his cold, cruel smile, made all the more unnerving by his mismatched eyes. Those eyes had always unnerved Commodore Valnark, and nothing unnerved Commodore Valnark.
The Human was smiling because he was at last getting his revenge upon the Lantians
"Looks like Rodney's flock has come to take him South for the winter," Shepard remarked drily.
When everybody else laughed, the Doctor felt quite left out. "Er, what's so funny?" he inquired bashfully, whipping off his glasses.
"Rodney's Canadian," someone explained.
"I still don't get it," the Doctor grumbled.
"On Earth, Canadian geese migrate south for the winter," someone else explained.
"I know that, but what the bloody hell do geese have to do with the fact that there is a flippin' armada coming to wipe us off the face of the universe?" the Doctor snapped.
"They're in a v formation," Shepard explained.
"Oh," the Doctor realised, but didn't laugh. Jokes aren't funny when they have to be explained. "Do you have a communications system?"
"Why?" Carter inquired dubiously.
"I'd like to hail the geese," the Doctor replied.
"Now that's taking it too far," Shepard warned.
The Doctor glared at him, then turned back to Carter. "Well? Do you?"
Carter glanced at Zelenka, Zelenka pointed helplessly at the DHD. "The Stargate stopped working at the same time as the deep space scanner."
"Figures," the Doctor muttered under his breath. He added, a bit louder, "Do you have any other means of communicating?"
Ronan tossed him his walkie talkie. "There's this."
The Doctor caught it deftly, whipped on his glasses, sat himself down in a swivel chair, propped his sneaker clad feet on the DHD, and started buzzing the walkie talkie with his pen-like device, which was apparently, not a pen.
After about 30 seconds of this, people started to get bored and wander off to do their own business. After five minutes, the only people in the control room, apart from the Doctor, were Shepard, Carter, Teyla, Ronan, and Zelenka.
Finally, the Doctor looked up triumphantly. "I did--Where'd everyone go?"
"They got bored," Shepard replied drily.
The Doctor frowned. "Oh." He glanced down at the walkie talkie in his hands. "Well, let's give this a go, eh?" With one long finger, he deftly pressed the "Talk" button. "Hola, amigos!" he called cheerfully into the speaker.
"Who is this?" the walkie talkie crackled angrily in reply.
"What the hell?" Ronan gasped. Carter shushed him.
"Soy el Médico," the Doctor answered, more cheerfully.
"Who is this?" the walkie talkie repeated, more angrily.
"Ah, not the Spanish Armada," the Doctor hissed to his bystanders. To the walkie talkie, he said, "Je suis le Docteur. Et vous? Qui êtes-vous?"
"Are you the chieftain of this planet?" the voice on the other end of the walkie talkie hissed.
"Non. Est-ce que vous voulez parler à Colonel Samantha Carter?" the Doctor replied tritely.
A second voice, rough and coarse like the first voice albeit higher in pitch, inquired of the first voice, "Should we turn on the translator, sir?"
The first voice growled in reply, "It is on, Ensign!"
The second voice nervously squeaked, "Ah, so it is, sir."
The Doctor grinned mischieviously and, in a German accent, barked, "Bist Sie Deutsch?"
"We wish to speak to the tribal chieftain of this planet!" the first voice snapped, absolutely livid.
"Stop repeating yourself, old chap. And don't yell; terrible for the complexion, doncha know," the Doctor chirped. "If you want, I could put Colonel Carter on the line, but you have to say please."
A whispered converstation commenced then on the other end of the walkie talkie. At last, the first voice spoke. "We want to speak to Dr. Elizabeth Weir."
"Who?"
"Unfortunately, she's dead," Carter replied, standing over the Doctor's shoulder, "so you'll have to talk to me."
"Were you aware of this?" hissed the first voice to someone on his ship.
"No, Commodore. I did not intend to lie to you, but as I told you, it has been over a year since I was last in contact with Atlantis," a third voice said, this one very unlike the first two voices. A voice that Teyla, Shepard, and Zelenka recognised with horror.
"Damn. I was really hoping we'd gotten rid of that bastard for good," Shepard murmured, his face white.
The Doctor fixed his dark eyes on him. "Who?" he whispered.
"That voice--" Zelenka began.
"Didn't belong to a Sycorax, that's for sure. Why are you so freaked?" the Doctor hissed.
"We know that voice," Teyla replied.
"How? You know who that was?"
"Yes," she replied, "Lieutenant Aidan Ford."