When Sheppard woke up ten hours later he found Stevenson's bed empty.
"Now where did he go?"
He stood up from the low bed and grabbed at his soar back. Sleeping on a stone slab was as bad as it sounded. After stretching a bit he ventured outside the door and tried to get some sense of where Stevenson had gone.
With neither a sight nor a sound to go by, he decided to backtrack to the command center…and found Stevenson once again at the holographic controls.
"There you are…don't go wandering off like that."
Stevenson glanced over his shoulder and said something in Ancient.
"Apology accepted," Sheppard said, guessing as to the context. "What have you been up to?" he asked as he glanced out over the multi-galaxy map again. There seemed to be fewer dots amongst the other galaxies this time…but a number of interconnecting lines within Pegasus had been added, but without any extragalactic lines. There were, however, a few dots in between galaxies that he guessed were the remains of the gate bridge.
"What happened here?" he asked, pointing to Pegasus. "And what is that?" Sheppard added, noticing another new galaxy far outside the Ancients' territory. It was connected to the Milky Way by a solitary gray line.
Stevenson made the symbol for stargate with his finger.
"Stargate." Sheppard said.
Stevenson formed an 'O' with his fingers and expanded it outward.
"Bigger…you mean supergate?"
He nodded and pointed at the two ends of the gray line.
"That's the Ori galaxy?" Sheppard asked.
Stevenson gave him a thumbs up.
"You can tap into their network from here?"
The Captain held his hand up and wiggled it.
"Kind of…partially?" Sheppard guessed.
Stevenson held his fingers up and pointed at his eyes and then at the supergate connection.
"See…you can see it? You can detect it?"
Another thumbs up.
"But you can't control it?"
Stevenson shook his head 'no.'
"What about Pegasus, can you control their gates?"
Thumbs up again.
"Can you get us back there?"
He nodded and held up two fingers…then three.
"Two, three," Sheppard repeated. "Two what?"
Stevenson held his hands about a foot apart, one above the other.
"ZPM? Two ZPMs plus the one in Atlantis make three? That's what they're for?"
Another thumbs up.
"Then what? The I.O.A. and stargate command still control the city. We go there and we'll get sent back to Earth."
Stevenson shook his head 'no' and reached out to Sheppard's temple again. A moment later he released him, his eyes wide with surprise.
"That…could work," were all the words Sheppard could manage in total shock.
"Caldwell to Atlantis, we're ready to beam aboard the second shipment now," the Daedalus's commander said over the intercom in Atlantis's gateroom.
"Woolsey here. You have clearance to proceed," he said, referring to the second load of scavenged tech from the city that was too large to fit through the gate and take back to Earth the easy way.
The Daedalus activated its beaming technology and started plucking specific items from Atlantis's various wings while Woolsey continued to oversee the stacking of smaller crates on the gateroom floor in preparation for the next direct connection back to Earth.
Once they'd managed to strip the city of everything remotely useful, the Daedalus or Apollo would bring five gate-buster nukes back from the Milky Way and beam them into the city as a means of obliterating the remaining superstructure. The gate link back to Earth would be destroyed as well as what was left of Atlantis's hyperdrives, forever stranding the Wraith in the Pegasus galaxy…at which point Earth would wash its hands of the whole affair while reaping the plunder from the lost city and preserving the finite remaining power in the ZPM.
"Incoming wormhole," someone shouted from behind Woolsey.
"Who could that be? We don't have any teams off world," Atlantis's commander asked.
"We're receiving no IDC, sir."
"Keep the shield up," Woolsey warned. "It could be the Wraith…or god knows what else," he uttered just before the shield dropped, exposing the incoming wormhole.
"I said keep the shield up!" he yelled, glaring at the tech sitting at the dialing station.
"It wasn't me, sir. My controls are being overridden. I can't raise it again!"
"Security to the gateroom!" Woolsey yelled in panic as he started to backtrack from the open gate. "Find out where that override is coming from and some way to get around it."
"What's going on?" Teyla asked as she ran into the gateroom.
"We don't know and we can't raise the shield," Woolsey explained.
"John!!!" she suddenly exclaimed as Sheppard and Stevenson walked through the gate.
"What the hell?" Woolsey said as he darted back down the stairs. "Why did they send you back? Aren't you supposed to be awaiting court martial?"
"Sheppard!" Ronon yelled excitedly as he entered the gateroom a few seconds behind Teyla.
"Hey buddy, good to see you."
"Answer me, Colonel," Woolsey insisted as they walked up face to face in front of the gate.
Before Sheppard could smart off, Stevenson reached his hand out and the control pillar shot up from the floor. He placed his hand on it and suddenly the lockdown alarm sounded.
"What the hell is going on?!" Woolsey demanded. "Security!"
Four SF's stepped forward and raised their guns on the pair while another three started to come down the staircase.
Stevenson raised a hand and ripped the guns away from the nearest two. A split second later Sheppard pulled out his Zat and shot one of the others. Ronon got the fourth with a quick draw before the man could fire at Sheppard.
The three coming down the staircase quickly took fire from both Sheppard and Ronon while Stevenson relieved another of his weapon. Within seconds the gateroom was back in their hands.
"Thanks buddy," Sheppard said to Ronon as he trained his Zat on Woolsey.
Stevenson, meanwhile, darted up the stairs and ran to the city control board and raised the city's shields.
"Are you insane? Who is he?" Woolsey asked almost simultaneously.
"He stuck his head in an Ancient microwave and got superpowers," Sheppard said sarcastically as Woolsey's radio buzzed with static.
"Daedalus to Atlantis, why did you raise shields?" Caldwell asked, quite miffed.
"Ronon, Teyla, keep them under guard," Sheppard ordered as he bounded up the staircase.
"Move," he told the tech at the dialing station.
The man slid out of his seat while Sheppard dialed Earth.
"What's going on?" Teyla asked, very concerned.
"We're not going to let Atlantis be destroyed," he answered bluntly. "And we're not going to abandon the Pegasus galaxy either."
"And by us you mean?" Teyla asked.
"By us I mean me and my new best friend."
"And he is?" she asked, frowning.
"Captain Stevenson," Sheppard answered. "He can't talk but he can still hear us just fine."
"Wait a minute," Ronon asked, "the two of you are planning to take over Atlantis on your own?"
Sheppard glanced over at Stevenson, who gave him a nod of confirmation as he continued to work the controls. "Actually, we already have."
"Who'd you get to lower the shield for you?" Woolsey asked snobbishly. "McKay?"
"Nope, he did," he said, pointing to Stevenson.
"How?" Woolsey asked incredulously.
"None of your concern," Sheppard said as he sent Atlantis's IDC signal through the gate. He jogged back down the stairs and snatched the radio from Woolsey's shoulder, cutting off Caldwell's continued questions with a quick flick of the switch. He grabbed Woolsey by the collar and dragged him up to the gate.
"Here's the deal. I'm kicking your butt back to Earth first so you can tell them not to raise the iris the next few times we dial in. I'm going to give everyone on Atlantis a choice to stay or go. Those who want to go, and those I can't trust, will be sent back through the gate to Earth, at which point we're cutting all ties with the I.O.A. and anyone under their command."
"You're insane," Woolsey said slowly. "You'll never get away with this."
"We'll manage," Sheppard said before using the business end of his boot on Woolsey's butt, knocking him through the event horizon. "Send the guards through," Sheppard ordered Ronon and Teyla.
Ronon responded immediately, but Teyla hesitated. "Colonel, are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"Too late too turn back now if I wasn't," he said sarcastically. When she didn't move he looked her in the eye and confidently said, "Yes."
She nodded that that was good enough for her and started to drag one of the unconscious guards toward the gate.
"How are we doing?" he asked Stevenson.
The Captain pointed to the comm button.
"Alright, here goes nothing," he said, placing his hand on the panel and activating the city-wide intercom.
"Everybody listen up. This is Colonel John Sheppard, acting commander of Atlantis. I've taken control of the city and initiated a comprehensive lockdown, so just sit tight for a while, you're not going anywhere for a couple of hours."
"In my opinion both the I.O.A. and stargate command have crossed the line when they decided to abandon the Pegasus galaxy to the fate of being Wraith food…not to mention destroying Atlantis in the process, but only after stripping it down like a pack of lowly scavengers. I would like to think Earth is better than that, but recent events have shown me otherwise."
"I, however, am not going to abandon Pegasus, nor am I going to let the city be destroyed. I've already been declared an enemy of Earth, if not I will be soon, so I don't have the luxury of going back…but you do. So you have a choice to make."
"Anyone that wishes to stay here and fight the Wraith will be welcome to, but it will mean never returning home to Earth, as well as imprisonment if we were ever captured."
"I know this is a lot to throw at you all at once, but you're going to have some time to think it over as long as the lockdown is in effect, so think hard. You won't get a chance to change your mind…either way. If you choose to go back I won't hold it against you personally. I'll understand if you can't bring yourself to turn against Earth…me, with a court martial waiting back home, it's an easy choice. For you I know it won't be."
"Talk amongst yourselves, think it through. Contact the gateroom over the comm when you finally decide, or wait for us to come around room by room. Figure a couple of hours at least. Sheppard out."
Teyla and Ronon joined Sheppard on the command platform as the gate finally shut down. "I assume you two are with us?"
"We were staying behind anyway," Ronon pointed out.
"Just checking," Sheppard added. "What about the rest of you. Anyone want to turn renegade?"
The half dozen people in the control room exchanged glances and bashfully shook their heads 'no.'
"Ok," Sheppard said, expecting as much. "Redial the gate, check with the SGC to make sure the iris is down, then head on back."
"What about our personal belongings?" one of the techs asked.
Sheppard glared at him and the man held up his hands in defense. "Never mind."
"Teyla, watch over the gateroom and make sure they get back safely. We'll be sending more this way," Sheppard said as Stevenson headed for the door. "Ronon, come with us. We'll need help with security."
Ronon brandished his weapon. "Gladly."