Seven

The Jigsaw Pieces

The city of Atlantis rises through the boiling waters to reach the surface of the ocean under the cover of darkness. Sensor alarms sound off all over the city as the underwater earthquake rumbles on below. Rodney desperately tries to get some sense of the scale of the seismic activity but the equipment is struggling as the readings are off the scale.

'Rodney, as soon as you canwith the data please!' Samantha grips the desk in front of her to keep herself on her feet as Rodney, Torren and Freya try and establish what is going on below them on the ocean floor.

'I am trying but... this is unprecedented, the readings are of a magnitude that...' Rodney trails off mid sentence.

'I have the same here.' Torren shouts across from the console he is working on. 'The whole of the Pacific plate is moving.'

'All the plates are shifting. I have seismic activity on almost every fault line!' Freya double checks her readings. 'Are you seeing what I'm seeing... the San Andreas...'

'Rodney what is going on?' Samantha yells exasperated at the lack of clarity. 'Do we need to evacuate through the Stargate to Destiny? Is the planet ripping Atlantis apart?'

'We have a catastrophic volcanic event, all of the Earth's plates are shifting... we need to get Atlantis off the surface of the planet, once above the atmosphere we should be fine... we can hold the city in geostationary orbit and monitor the planet from there. The whole of the Earth's surface is reshaping...this data is extraordinary!'

'John can you fly Atlantis into the atmosphere?' Samantha

'Yes, already on it!' John sprints to the control seat and takes his place, feeling with his mind for the controls of the city.

As Atlantis rises from the ocean into the atmosphere, the surface of the planet stretches into view below, fiery red outlines running in giant jigsaw pieces against the inky night. Here and there, volcanic eruptions can be seen but no sign of any city lights or, for that matter, the light of civilisation anywhere below.

Genii Training Camp, Athos, Pegasus Galaxy

Scera glances at her father's face, seeing the look of self satisfaction as he takes the Wraith Tullar on a tour of the training base, as though it was he who had journeyed into the Outlaw Zone and spent a dreadful evening trying to entertain Queen Elliana in a Space dock saloon. He always took the glory for her achievements and Scera could feel the cold rage of defiance burning in her gut. She watches as Tullar inspects the ranks of Athosian fighters Occut has turned out for the tour. They are nothing without her work and her work is far further ahead than she has led everyone to believe. Her father expects her to work for nothing but his glory but Scera has other plans.

On board Queen Elliana's Dart

Londic stares out of the forward window at the spectacle unfolding in front of him. He had travelled with the Wraith queen far beyond the Space dock, deep into the Outlaw Zone, to a small planet with a fiery orange moon. The planet itself is shrouded with a veil of impenetrable silvery gas rings, hiding vast swathes of the surface from view.

'Welcome to my planet, Londic of the Genii, all you see before you is now Wraith territory. We will visit my hive ship and you can see the progress I have made.' Queen Elliana smiles at Londic in a manner he finds most chilling as she steers the dart towards the moon.

Hidden in the curve of the moon's shadow, Londic spots a dark shape looming. He cannot comprehend the size, a hundred times bigger at least than any other spaceship he has seen in the Galaxy. The hive ship is ominous in it's sleek shape, it's silver-blue oily sheen reflecting nothing. Londic shivers involuntarily at the sight and Queen Elliana, picking up on his fear, laughs.

'Yes, she is quite something! We will board her and you can see first hand what a beauty she is.'

'I am simply awestruck by your great achievement, my Queen.' Londic tries to cover his fear with flattery in the hopes of finding favour with the Wraith Queen, it could do no harm to gain her trust, in fact it might be something he could later use for his own advantage.

On the city of Atlantis in Orbit above Earth.

'So, the impact from the Cuiper Belt asteroid caused a catastrophic climate event and annihilated most of the southern polar regions, as predicted by my collision models...Did you know I spent almost three whole days awake working on those...anyway, in fact, the impact was marginally less than expected as the moon knocked it slightly off-course and so it was more of a glancing blow, imagine if you have a pool table with several balls strategically placed near the centre pocket ...'

'Stick to the report!' Colonel David Telford is exasperated by Rodney's ability to stray from the facts.

'Yes, sorry... where was I. The upshot is, the Earth, as I predicted, did survive the impact but a new period of volcanicity occurred as a direct result of the asteroid causing massive shifts in the plates across the earth's surface. What we experienced last night was, from all the data collected over the last few millennia by Atlantis, one of a series of mega quakes.' Rodney presents his data to everyone sitting around the meeting room table.

'Do we have any signs of life from the planet surface at all?' Colonel Sam Carter asks Torren.

'Nothing so far, Mam. But the scans are not complete and the climatic conditions are challenging to say the least.'

'Yes,' butts in Rodney, insensitive to the great loss of human life on Earth, 'High levels of methane, sulphuric acid rain, high temperatures, molten lava flows... Without it's shielding, Atlantis would have boiled us like peas in a tin...sorry, that was tactless..I just meant the Earth now resembles a period from it's prehistory.'

'OK, Rodney we get the picture. ' John Sheppard leans across the table and taps the interactive screen embedded in the table where there is a schematic of Destiny. 'This has to be our next priority, see if anyone has survived in the stasis pods on board Destiny.'

'I agree with John, we need to secure the ship.' David folds his arms and leans back in his chair. 'We may have no other option but to abandon Earth altogether.'

'The thought had crossed my mind. I want to divide us into two teams, I'll head up here with Torren, Freya and Rodney, we'll complete a thorough scan and analysis of the planet and of Atlantis itself, and David, you take John, Teyla and Ronon out to Destiny. See what shape she is in and what our options are with her.'

'And what about those two?' Teyla points to a small side room where Torr and Lilion are waiting to hear the outcome of the meeting.

'One can stay here, one can go with you. Better to split them up until we know exactly what is happening in the Pegasus Galaxy. OK, the sooner we start the sooner we can piece this whole jigsaw together. Let's fire up the Stargate and get going!' Samantha calls the meeting to close.

Torr and Lilion in the Waiting Room

'This is a mistake, they've already locked us up once! I don't trust them.' Lilion paces up and down the small room in frustrated annoyance.

'Don't trust them or just embarrassed that the tall one could disarm you so quickly?' Replies Torr, laughing at Lilion's obvious annoyance. 'I don't think we have much option but to trust them, they outnumber us and out-gun us.'

'They have two Athosians among them. I will not trust them.'

'Ancient Athosians and they seem very honourable. At least let's see what kind of plan they come up with, perhaps they will let us back through the Stargate to Pegasus.'

'And lose the Destiny? Never! You go back through if you want, that ship could stop a Genii uprising.'

'Not your conspiracy theories again, Lilion, it is technically their ship, they still have the Ancient gene and we can't control it. If you want the ship to go to the Pegasus Galaxy, you will have to work with them and convince them to go, although why you would want to leave a city as rich with technology as this I have no idea!'

'You'll see, they won't include us and we'll lose the ship and we'll be stuck here for ever.'

'I think of worse places to be marooned, Lilion.'

'In case you hadn't noticed, they have very little in the way of supplies. Wait till the food and water runs out and then see how you like this deserted city.'

Lilion's words jolt Torr out of his complacency, his bookish impracticality meant he hadn't even thought about supplies, too busy thinking of the rich history contained within the city itself. But before he can begin to concentrate on the practicalities of their predicament, Colonel Telford opens the door and calls them into the meeting room.