Chapter 46: It's a huge drain on power.
The trip back to Atlantis was difficult and draining on all the crew. Finally though the ship broke out of hyperspace to the welcome sight of the Ancient's home planet. I stood with John and Rodney on the Bridge as we made orbit. John and I had come to an unspoken agreement to leave our problems on the back burner for the remainder of the trip home. Even Rodney seemed aware that things were strained between us but no one said anything to bring it out into the open. I hadn't become any more comfortable in the presence of Michael either ... I kept a strong block around myself but even so imagined his mind as a slimy touch against the edges of mine.
"Atlantis, this is Sheppard, come in."
"John?!" Teyla's voice was both happy and incredulous.
"They made it?!" Doctor Weir exclaimed.
"We're out of food and water and we haven't slept in days but, yeah, we made it," John reported tiredly. "So now would not be a good time to fire on us ... after all, wouldn't wanna damage our new Hive ship."
We all smiled at the surprise that comment would have evoked back on Atlantis.
"What now?" I asked, once a stable orbit had been established.
"Rodney needs time to analyse the ship, work out what we need to do to get it to fly," John said. "I need to get Carson up here so we can work out what to do with all those Wraith we'd got stored in stasis."
"Should I leave the Dart here?" I asked. "I've got everything I could for the TED when I plugged it in yesterday – fixed all the corrupted data from before."
"Leave it all here," John instructed after thinking for a minute. "We might need it if Rodney can't think of any other way to get the Hive operational."
"So ah ..." I paused, looking at John, reluctant to just leave without anything else being said. "I guess ... ah I guess I'll see you back on Atlantis ... sometime." God, could that have sounded any lamer? Even Rodney looked at me sympathetically and we all knew how disjointed and stuttery he got when he was nervous.
Passing Ronan on my way out I muttered "Please shoot me now ... put me out of my misery." Ronan just laughed.
Even though the Daedalus still required a vast array of repairs, the beaming technology was working perfectly, which proved useful in relocating everyone where they needed to be. I was beamed into the usual spot in front of the Stargate and Teyla came down from the Control Room to greet me.
"Sabina," she said with a gracious smile. "It is good to have you back ... we feared the worst when the Daedalus could find no trace of you."
"Thanks Teyla," I replied gratefully. "It's been a difficult week."
"I can see that," Teyla gestured to my face, still clearly advertising the battle I'd fought with the Queen.
"You should see the other guy," I joked, happy when she rewarded me with a faint smile. "I wondered ... if you have time later ... maybe I could talk to you about it?" Teyla would understand better than anyone else the baggage I carried after facing the Wraith Queen again – having seen into the evil core of her, doubting whether I'd actually be strong enough mentally to resist her, feeling that horrible almost connection to the Wraith simply because I had the Wraith gene.
"Of course Sabina," Teyla agreed readily. "I will come and see you later."
"Thanks," I smiled gratefully. "I'm gonna head down to my lab ... let me know if you need help with anything, especially with Doctor Weir still being en route back to Atlantis."
Teyla nodded before making her way back up the steps to the Control Room.
I went through the motions of analysing the data I'd collected from the TED but I was beginning to doubt its usefulness. I had been right there on a Hive ship and yet had still been unable to find a way to use it. I would have needed the device physically on my person when things went downhill for it to have helped me. The original plan of the Ancients had required many of the devices to be permanently mounted in the Puddle Jumpers. And they'd never intended the device to be the weapon itself – the biotic virus was supposed to be the actual weapon, TED was just part of the method of delivery.
Given the very small number of scenarios in which having a telepathic expansion device would be useful, I decided to shelve my project and go back to assisting Rodney and Radek with theirs.
A few days after our return to Atlantis John called a meeting and included me as a required attendee. I'd deliberately kept a low profile since I'd been back, content to find out what was going on in the city and on the Hive ship from the gossip that still freely travelled through the city. Doctor Weir was still on the way back to Atlantis, meaning that John had command responsibility for both military and civilians.
"In the course of my investigations on the Hive ship I've discovered that more than half of the ship's power generating capacity is gone," Rodney informed us. "We can't fix it and if we want to have any hope of flying the Hive with weapons capability we need to cut back on our current power consumption."
"The Hive is parked in orbit," Colonel Caldwell pointed out. "Where's the big drain in power coming from?"
"The stasis pods," Rodney replied. "There are two hundred prisoners being maintained by the Hive and it's a huge drain on power."
"We can't keep them in there forever," John summarised it for us. "That being the case there's no point in keeping them in stasis any longer. We need to work out what we're gonna do with those men."
"Dump them on a deserted planet," Ronan suggested. "Let the other Wraith find them."
"They are human," Teyla protested. "We would be no better than the Wraith if we abandoned them defenceless."
"Teyla's right," Doctor Beckett said. "I created the retrovirus to free the Wraith from what I saw as an unnatural side effect of the Iratus bug feeding process. I don't think we can ethically abandon these men to die horribly at the hands of the Wraith."
"Would anyone accept them freely into society, knowing what they used to be?" I asked quietly. "Did any of you truly accept Michael while he was here?"
"They're Wraith," Ronan's voice was heated. "You can make them look human, but their Wraith instincts will play out over time."
"I've made refinements to the retrovirus since Michael," Doctor Beckett insisted. "We don't have any proof that the Wraith instincts will return as they did with him."
"What do you suggest then," John directed the question at the room in general.
"Can we not set them up as a settlement, give them supplies, teach them how to defend against the Wraith?" Teyla asked.
"We'd need to teach them how to administer the daily drugs they'd need to prevent the Wraith characteristics from returning," Carson pointed out. "If we're to have any hope of finding a permanent solution I'd need to study their progress over time."
"Colonel?" John turned to Caldwell, seeking his opinion.
"A POW camp on a deserted planet is a workable solution," Caldwell allowed, "assuming of course there's no Stargate and no means for them to send subspace communications."
John looked around the room to see if anyone had a differing view. "All right – we'll search out a suitable planet as soon as possible."
"We still need the Hive ship to be operational to take them anywhere," Rodney pointed out impatiently. "All the essential systems like navigation and sub light engines respond only to the Wraith neural interface. It's a similar failsafe to the Ancient ships only being controlled by people with the ATA genes.
"We need a Wraith to fly it?" Caldwell asked incredulously.
"I'm working on a manual override," Rodney admitted somewhat wearily. "Look, it took me days to crack a Wraith Dart which is like a paper plane in comparison to this Hive ship. I haven't had much luck and I'm not likely to in the time we have left before the power reserves reach critical levels."
"Sabina will fly it," John stated like it was a done deal.
"What?" I said in surprise.
"You have the Wraith gene," John pointed out the obvious.
"So does Teyla," I replied, "and she's been actively using it for a lot longer than I have."
"Teyla has no experience with operating Wraith technology," John said impatiently. "You've shown with the Dart that you can use the neural interface to fly something ... we can rig up the TED to the Hive ship to give you extra support so the mental task doesn't overtax you."
"Yes," Rodney said excitedly. "That would work. Sabina, I need you to come back to the Hive with me – we'll need to run a few tests first just to make sure this'll work like we want."
"Okay," I replied somewhat dazed. John was volunteering me for a mission? When had that ever happened in the past? I was caught off guard – I looked across at John to find him looking back at me with an expectant look on his face. I nodded slightly, even though I wasn't completely sure what I was agreeing to.
"What about Michael?" Teyla asked reluctantly. "He wishes to make his way on his own – he said he would rather be killed than be subjected to the retrovirus a second time."
"I know he saved all our lives by giving us the jamming codes and by flying us back here,' Caldwell acknowledged. "As much as I'd like to reward that assistance, we can't allow him to leave Atlantis in possession of the intelligence he's gained about us."
"I agree - he goes with the others," John said, leaving no room for argument.
Authors Note:
It's unclear how much time goes by between Dr Weir leaving and then coming back to Atlantis so I've just assumed the usual 18 days - I have no idea how she even gets there because the Daedalus is damaged and clearly still back on Atlantis and we know from a late season three episode that the Apollo is a new ship at that time ... I've never heard mention of any other ships and can only assume the Prometheus was available to take her.