Chapter 15 – The End of the Road
Rodney typed frantically on the laptop. He could almost feel the eyes burrowing into him as everyone in the Control Room stared at his back in expectation.
He had nothing though. He had tried every way he could think of to shut down the shield trapping them, but the systems were just as unresponsive as always.
His head throbbed with every thump of his heart and the food he had just eaten was threatening to come back up again.
He swallowed quickly and breathed through his mouth to try and still the nausea as he glared at the useless computer in front of him.
Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon stood at the side out of Rodney's way. They watched in helplessness as the scientist worked.
Sheppard was glad Teyla had got something for Rodney to eat, as he studied the man's frustrated features he thought he could see a little colour returning.
After a few tense minutes and several loud sighs from both Zelenka and McKay with some vigorous and pained forehead rubbing on Rodney's part, Dr Weir went over to them and asked what everyone else had been thinking.
"How's it going gentlemen?"
Zelenka shrugged and shook his head as he continued to type.
Rodney swivelled round in his chair to face her, "We're completely locked out of everything now. All that we can do is watch the systems and there's no way of knowing whether the data we are seeing is correct." He winced and put a hand on his forehead again.
Weir started at this and went over to him. Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon were over in a second as well. They crowded around him as he leaned over and shuddered, cradling his head in both hands.
When he looked up he gave a weak smile at the concerned faces peering down at him. "Just got a bit of a headache. It doesn't matter, I need to get access back to the city so we can stop this."
He turned his chair to face the laptop again and hunched over while he worked.
Sheppard exchanged an exasperated look with everyone else. Teyla was frowning though and she moved closer to Rodney, "Carson gave you some painkillers for that earlier. Have you remembered to take any?"
Rodney looked up at her blearily and patted his pocket. He drew out a battered and squashed box of pills that he had a vague memory of a certain Scottish Doctor shoving into his hands a few hours ago.
He smiled grimly, "I've been so busy. I didn't realise how bad it was getting."
He took a couple of the tablets and grimaced as he went back to work.
Sheppard felt a little happier, but Carson had been right; Rodney was difficult to monitor especially when he ignored his own pain to try and save everyone else. It was only when he was on the verge of collapse that they finally noticed.
Sheppard made a mental note to keep a closer eye on the tricky scientist, but he knew it would be nigh on impossible to stop Rodney from working. The stubborn streak in McKay always meant he worked himself to the point of exhaustion and beyond every time the city was in peril. Sacrificing his own health for the survival of everyone else.
After a few more minutes, Zelenka and McKay both looked up at the same time. Rodney turned around again and Zelenka frowned at him in confusion.
Zelenka spoke first, "There is one thing we could do."
Rodney scowled at him and then turned back to Dr Weir, "But you're not going to like it. In fact I think it's a bad idea."
He paused for a moment and Weir shifted awkwardly. It was almost as if Rodney was waiting for everyone else to catch up and figure it out.
He frowned when no one spoke and sighed, "We need to shut down all the shield generators we can find." He looked down at his hands in his lap, "And by 'shut down' I mean cut the cables like everything else we've had to deactivate today."
Sheppard shook his head and glared at Rodney, "That's a terrible idea."
Zelenka looked back at him defiantly, "It's the only idea we have, and the only thing which would work."
Weir narrowed her eyes at Rodney when he looked to her for her opinion, "I'm afraid I agree with the Colonel, Dr McKay. We would be completely defenceless for as long as it took to repair the generators."
Rodney held his hands out in front of him with the palms upwards as he spoke intensely, "We're completely defenceless now anyway. There's no way of knowing whether the Wraith are in orbit. Even if we knew we have no control over anything."
Weir turned to Sheppard and as they glanced at each other something passed between them. She pursed her lips and looked back to the two scientists waiting for her decision, "We're not quite there yet I'm afraid. Keep working, I'm not about to authorise the possible destruction of the greatest defence we have against the Wraith."
Rodney sighed in annoyance and nodded. He turned back to the laptop and had only been typing for a few seconds when the screen turned off.
"What the hell…" he muttered as he looked up feeling even more lost.
All the lights in the Control Room and then the Gate Room suddenly turned off and the usual hum of electricity and the constant whirring of the Earth computer equipment was silenced.
The darkness pressed heavily on everyone in the Control Room and Sheppard's voice cut through it harshly, "McKay! This isn't what we had in mind…"
Rodney's high-pitched and panicked voice replied to the accusation, "I didn't do anything!"
Several people had managed to find some torches in the darkness and clicked them on. One of the lights passed over Rodney's face and everyone saw the mixture of terror and anger mingled together in his features. "No no no no no! This can only mean one thing! The ZedPM has been taken! Without properly routing the systems and carefully shutting them down it's effectively disabled power to the whole base. This means that at the moment absolutely nothing will be working."
Sheppard turned quickly to Teyla and Ronon, "You're on me, let's get to the ZPM Room and see if we can catch whoever took it."
Weir nodded at him with her brows knitted together, "Be careful."
Rodney said, "But it's right at the bottom of the Tower. They'll be long gone before you get there."
Sheppard rolled his eyes, "Let us worry about that McKay. You just get something working before we get back."
Rodney grimaced as he got up from the chair and went over to help Zelenka with hooking up some Naquadah generators.
Dr Newall smiled as he worked. He was setting a cunning trap that he knew McKay would fall into. He was so certain that the predictable scientist would follow along the path he laid out. It would all be very easy. Even if the others killed him in the end, he would at least die knowing he had had his revenge on the one man who had made his simple plan fall apart.
He set the Puddle Jumper to hover where he needed it. He then fired a drone from Atlantis high up into the sky. He set it on an autopilot course he had devised. An hour should be enough time.
He tore his hand away from the podium and frowned at the panel as it lowered into the ground. He only needed a few minutes and he had already locked all of the systems to only respond to his commands, even when he was disconnected from the city.
He had also siphoned enough power into a buffer he had found to give the Stargate enough power for two activations only. Any more and his plan would fail.
He shuffled his leaden feet as he walked along the corridor and entered the transporter.
He tried to whistle as he left the transporter and walked into the ZPM Room at the base of the Central Tower. His lips were too dry and cracked for him to form any sound. He frowned and shook his head.
McKay and his team would be set back spectacularly by what he was about to do. He smiled again and disconnected the ZPM without shutting down any of the systems connected to it.
He was instantly plunged into blissful near total darkness. He could only croak as his throat would not let him make any noise in triumph.
The ZPM he tucked under his arm remained lit in a soft yellow glow and made it possible to see the corridor in front of him as he approached the balcony.
He smiled again as he saw the Puddle Jumper hovering obediently in front of him. He opened the rear hatch with a wave of his right hand and climbed inside.
McKay and Zelenka stood at the back of the Control Room trying to rig up a generator by torchlight. Rodney's hands shook as he worked and Zelenka had to keep helping him as he fumbled with the cables.
"How's your head, Rodney?" Zelenka asked quietly as he caught his friend when he was about to plug a cable into the wrong socket.
McKay looked back at him in sadness and tiredness, "Pretty bad. But it's like everything else at the moment. I think I'm about ready to drop. I just… I can't…" He looked away and massaged his temples, wincing as his bruised chest reminded him not to move so quickly.
Zelenka peered back at him with his brow furrowed and spoke quietly again, "Don't worry Rodney. We'll get it back."
McKay gave him a grim smile and clasped his shaking hands together. They were still quite sore from the burns, but not to such an extent as his aching head, chest and belly. He looked at them as he held them tightly in front of himself. He wished that through holding them like that it would do something to numb the rest of the pain he was in. The bandages were now so dirty he could see the filth even in the dull torchlight a gate technician was holding up behind them. They were unravelling at the edges and he unclasped his hands to tuck the ends back underneath. He grimaced at the metaphor with his own situation and steeled himself to carry on working.
After a few more minutes they had the generator rigged up and enough power to activate the emergency lighting and systems in the Control Room.
Rodney and Zelenka got up and went over to one of the computers. McKay sat down and shifted about impatiently as it booted up. He used the precious seconds to rest his eyes.
Dr Weir came up behind him, "Rodney?"
"What? Yes," he blurted out and snapped his eyes to look at the screen. His vision was blurred for a moment, so he blinked and the display soon came into focus.
He ran a quick check over the systems they had access to. He jumped up from his seat and turned his wide eyes to Dr Weir.
"We need to evacuate the Gate Room! Now!"
She gave him a puzzled and calming look to try and diffuse his panic. "What's wrong?"
"A Puddle Jumper on the sensors. It's heading this way!"
He scrambled to try and get away, but he was not fast enough.
The window behind the gate shattered inwards and showered the floor of the Gate Room in glass. Some pieces were blasted upwards and hit the people still standing in the Control Room.
They all threw their hands up to protect their faces and were luckily only subjected to some minor cuts on their exposed skin.
Rodney straightened up and dabbed a hand to his cheek. It came away with a small amount of blood on his fingertips. He grimaced as he rubbed his fingers together and then on his trousers to get rid of the sticky sensation as he looked down into the Gate Room.
The Puddle Jumper flew backwards through the destroyed window and passed through the inactive gate. It rose upwards towards the closed doors leading into the Jumper Bay.
Rodney knew what was going to happen next and he rushed over to the DHD to try and disconnect the gate, but he was not fast enough.
The wormhole formed and the Jumper slid through a moment before the gate deactivated.
Rodney looked at the inert gate in shock with his eyes wide in the dull emergency lighting.
Weir looked at him, she had a few small cuts on her face and hands, "Where did it go?"
Rodney shook his head and without blinking he turned to her, "P3X-778."
Dr Weir tapped her headset; they were still using the short-range Earth based military radios since they had lost control of the communications array. "Dr Weir to Colonel Sheppard. Meet back in the Control Room. We have a situation."
She turned to Zelenka who was on the computer Rodney had vacated, "Radek, I would like you to go down and assist Dr Beckett. I called a couple of the less injured scientists to help him with a generator, but I would like you to make sure everything is alright and then head back up to try and get the long range communications back online. We could really use the help of the Daedalus right now."
He nodded and left to begin the slow journey downwards without using the transporter.
Weir now turned to Rodney, "I need you to go with Colonel Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon to P3X-778 and get our ZPM back. I also think that whoever was in control of that Jumper is the person we've been looking for."
He looked back at her in fear and spoke rapidly in his panic, "But the only Jumper we have was nearly blasted out of the sky earlier. I know Sheppard can fly anything, even if it's not meant to fly, but I don't like the prospect of enduring orbital re-entry in a clapped out ship with only one working engine."
Weir gave him a reassuring smile, "I'm sure it won't be a problem. You're our last hope."
Rodney sighed in disgust, "Way to pile the pressure on."
She smiled more broadly and narrowed her eyes, "I have every confidence that you'll be able to get it back."
He rolled his eyes and left to get geared up for the ZPM search and rescue operation.
TBC
A/N - Oooo, a field trip… uh oh!