OK, so maybe I am going to stick the Flock in a Jumper. Either way, they should be in Atlantis soon. Zalenka, eat your heart out.
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OK, I'm going to say this once and for all, because apparently no-one in the entire freaking world has any idea what-so-ever about this.
We, (i.e. myself and the Flock), absolutely hate small, enclosed spaces. Anything smaller than, say, Grand Central Station, and we'll almost immediately go into "panic" mode.
You see, when all of your early memories are of you whimpering in the corner of a steel dog crate, waiting until your next torture session with the most God-forsaken, evil scientists on the face of the earth, not knowing whether or not today was your last day, well....
Now picture yourself in a thirty-five by ten foot long, *airtight* tube, with one girl who could talk Mother Teresa to death, and two pyromaniacs (one of whom has one of the worst digestive tracks in the world) and you find yourself in the third worst hell anyone can ever imagine.
(The first is obvious, the second is an Airplane Stewardess School. Stupid happy perky robots!)
This is where I found myself as we were waiting to go through the Stargate to the Freaking lost city of Atlantis. I sat there thinking that this must all be a dream. I mean, aliens don't really exist, right? People couldn't really travel between different worlds (or galaxies for that matter). This was all just to crazy to be true!
Then again, we were six mutant kids and one mutant dog with wings and freaky mutant powers, who constantly saved the world from evil.
Pfft, so much for that theory.
Anyways, here we were, sitting in a metal tube, waiting impatiently to get on our way to Atlantis. (Apparently the safest place in two, count 'em, two galaxies.)
Max, Angel asked with her mind, are you doing alright?
I'm fine, Sweety, I replied. How about you?
Don't worry about me, she said, I think this is neat!
I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or frightened. For all I knew, that kid could be the devil incarnate, waiting for the operatune moment to knock us all off without any wittnesses.
With golden curls and a Teddybear angel. Yeah right.
Out of curiosity, what exactly is "neat" about this? I asked, trying to take my mind off of all the worry that was building up inside me.
Oh, you'll find out soon enough, she said cryptically.
Wait a second, how does she-
The people around here are really reckless thinkers, I learned all sorts of cool stuff!
Seriously, one of these days....
"Jumper 1, you are clear for launch," a voice, (Walter, I think it was), said over the radio.
"Rodger that, Command," Captain Falcone said, flipping various switches, Jumper 1 out."
"Um, this won't hurt, will it?" Iggy asked, unsure of exactly what happening.
Captain Bird-name just chuckled and said, "Here we go!".
With a small jolt of acceleration, softer than I thought something this size would make, we shot through the not water stuff of the big ring with a "Whoosh!"
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Suddenly we were out the other side.
I looked out the big cockpit window in front and saw...Nothing.
Well, not exactly nothing; there was something that looked like a big piece of scaffolding, and there were millions of twinkling light off in the vast distance that is outer space. But other than that....
"Is everyone alright back there?" Captain Nate (Hmm, I like that name the best. "Captain Nate" it is, then) asked.
In the back was as varied a collection of mixed reactions as you could possibly hope for. Here's what every one looked like.
Fang-stoic.
Iggy-flustered.
Nudge-doubled over.
Gazzy-excited.
Angel-distracted.
Total-see previous.
Me, I was awestruck. I've been in some pretty empty spaces before, but space totally raised the bar. To just have stark nothing around you in every direction, it's like...like...
OK, so I guess my muse doesn't work in the far depths of space. That's fine, I'll just think of something later.
"Guys, sit-rep," I called back, snapping back to reality after my little mini epiphany.
"Here!" Angel called, raising her hand.
"That was really cool," Gazzy said, "can we do that again?"
"Seconded," Iggy chimed in, "but only if someone warns me first."
Fang was still sitting in the exact same position as when we left. He gave a little wave to show that he was still awake.
"Does this thing have a bathroom?" Nudge asked queesily.
"If there is one here, I haven't been able to find it yet," Captain Nate explained. "Don't worry, we'll be on the city in a few more minutes. Can you hold on until then?"
Nudge nodded weakly.
"This 'city', as you call it, is dog accessable, right?" Total asked.
This seemed to take Nate back a little.
"I don't think anyone has actually gauged the 'dog readiness' of Atlantis. In fact, at least to my knowledge, you'll be the first official non-humanoid, canine guest to be on the city."
Total beamed at hearing he was being given such a great honor.
"Exactly how long do you mean by 'a few minutes'?" I asked, fervently wondering how much longer we'd have to stay out here with only a thin shell between us and hard vacuum, with the Gasman.
Oh yeah, and how much longer before our air runs out. There was that, too.
"Just another minute or so," Captain Nate replied, pushing a bunch of triangle-like buttons in the middle of the dashboard. "There's a couple little protocols I need to go through first, but that shouldn't take more than a few seconds."
"OK guys," I sighed, turning back to the rest of the Flock, "this is it. If anyone want's out you should probably say so now."
I got nothing but incredulous stares in return.
"I guess we're ready when you are, Captain," I told Nate, extremely disliking the fact that I was, in fact, not fulfilling my "absolute leader" roll I'd taken upon myself.
"Alright, then," he said. "Jumper 1 to Atlantis, would you kindly mind lowering the shield? My charges here aren't exactly too keen on staying out here too much longer."
"Jumper 1, we're receiving your IDC, come on through at your leisure."
Boy, there were real informal here, weren't they?
"Hang on to your seats, guys," Captain Nate called back, and began counting down, "three, two, one."
"Please let us come out the other side in one piece," I prayed to whatever gods I could think of the instant before we shot through the wading pool of space travel.
Please?
We shot out of the giant puddle into a really large room. Smaller then the endless void we were in seconds before, but still large enough for us not to make our skin crawl. It kind of reminded me of St. Patrick's Cathedral back in New York.
"Pretty impressive, huh?" the Captain asked.
"You can say that again," breathed Nudge, who by now had joined us up in the cockpit area. Come to think of it, all of the Flock was starting to migrate up here.
"And I bet it only gets better, right?" Iggy asked dryly. Oops, forgot he was blind again.
Sorry, Ig.
"Got anything to eat?" Gazzy asked out of the blue. "I'm starving."
"Me too," Angel agreed.
"Come to think of it," Fang said, "I'm starting to feel a little hungy too."
"Alright, I get the picture," Nate said, throwing his hands up defensively. "Let's all head to the mess."
"Yay!" everyone cheered. Including Nudge, even though she still looked a little green around the gills.
We stepped out of the ship (scrawny little puddle-jumper, isn't it?) and headed down to the mess hall, eagerly awaiting our offical first meal in another galaxy.
As we stood in huge cathedral like room we landed in, I began to notice just how alien it really looked. The high ceiling and the stained-glass windows had brought back the memories of that church in New York, but that's where the similarities ended.
For one thing, it looked very angular. Serioiusly, if there were any round edges in here, I couldn't find them.
It also looked strangely natural. It can't explain it, that's just how it looked. Like everything was suppose to look like that. Crystalline. That's the word. It looked like it was made out of metallic crystals.
Or something likt that.
"Captain, got stuck with babysitting duty?" a messy-haired Leiutenant-Colonel said as he came down the stairs at one end of the cathedral room.
Babysitting duty!? Oh, he is so going down.
"Nothing like that," Captain Nate corrected, "we were just heading over to mess to get some food." Then he turned to us. "Guys, this is Lieutenant-Colonel John Sheppard. He's the head of the military here on Atlantis. Colonel, this is Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, The Gasman, Angel, and Total," he said, pointing each of us out in turn.
"You could just call me 'Gazzy' for short," Gazzy said.
"Yeah, I knew that," Colonel Bed-head said, looking like he was trying to appear as if he were actually expecting that.
"It's okay if you didn't read the file," Angel said, "we don't mind." She flashed him one of her signature angelic smiles. You know, the one that promised the coming of an evil more deadly than a thousand of your worst nightmares times ten and then some.
Whoa, pull it together, Max. Don't go reading things into others when they aren't there.
Needless to say, the Colonel just stood there, his eyes the size of dinner plates.
"You might want to read the file, sir," Captain Nate said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He looked like he enjoying the Colonel's reaction almost as much as we were.
Wow, I think I'm starting to not hate this guy.
"You know, I think I'll do that." With that the messy haired Colonel turned around and headed off to presumably go read the file about us. I almost felt sorry for him; getting shot down by a bunch of kids.
But then I got over it. I've never had a problem with that before, so I just put it out of mind.
"What just happened?" Iggy asked. "You guys see everything, what did that guys look like?"
As Gazzy explained what had just happened to Iggy, and Nudge was pestering Angel with questions about what was in Colonel Sheppard's head, and Fang just stood there, I decided to get some more answers out of Captain Friendly.
"Is everybody here as friendly as that guy?" I asked him.
"Don't worry," he said, "I don't think anyone here is quite like Colonel Sheppard." I breathed a sigh of relief. I guess that's a good thing. "Though on the other hand, there are people here who are probably a lot worse then him."
If eyes could groan, I think mine just did.
"Are we at the mess yet?" Gazzy asked from the back of the group.
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Authro's Note; Hey there, Layman again! What do you think of the story? If you have anything to say about it, then click the review bar at the bottom of page.
Secondly, I like to apologize in advance if any of the characters from SGA seem OOC. I confess that I haven't really watched that show in a while, so those people might seem a little... "fuzzy".
And D., I also confess that I don't really have a good idea about where the plot is going. I have no crisis. If anyone at all has any idea for a good for a plot, Private Message me from my profile.
On a finally note, I probably won't be updating this story as frequently as I'd like. So if you plan on following this, all I can say I hang in there man! I'm also going to try to pay homage to St. Fang of Boredom over the course of said story. (there's nothing in this chapter, but see if you can stop the examples.
Oh, and sorry for rambling so much. See you next time and God bless!