Hello again! I just recently learned that there is a fan-made book series of the Stargate Atlantis series called Stargate Atlantis: Legacy. It continues right where the finale left off. I just started the first book in the series, and so far it's pretty good.
Anyway, here's chapter 2. I'm trying to stay consistent with chapter lengths. I usually write very short chapters, so I'm trying to improve on that with better pacing. Also, someone brought to my attention an issue with page breaks in the last chapter - I had been using mobile for formatting, which is a notoriously bad idea. It's fixed now though. Hope you all enjoy!
——/——/——
Radek was still irritated when he began making his way back to the jumper bay, but working with Rodney had taught him to not take things to heart. Sometimes he wondered, though, how Rodney had managed to pass his multiple PhD defenses if he had no inkling of how to collaborate with other people.
He supposed he couldn't blame Rodney for biting his head off - the few times Radek had been in the field were stressful enough without random jumper malfunctions. The fact that the Ancient equipment that they had grown to trust was now proving to be just as susceptible to disrepair as their own Earth-based technology must have bothered Rodney more than he let on. It certainly was concerning, Radek thought, especially considering the fact that they still didn't entirely understand how those Ancient systems worked. If something were to fall apart, it usually took them months to figure out the intricate systems and connections required to get it back up and running again.
He tucked the extra lunch he'd brought under his arm. On top of trying to solve whatever was wrong with the jumper, he really didn't need to add dealing with a hypoglycemic McKay to the list.
Radek took a sharp breath before he stepped into the transporter, steeling himself for another inevitable rant from McKay. He had calmed down a bit more by the time the transporter opened up to the jumper bay. He stepped out and stopped just outside the door, head tilted in confusion.
"Rodney?" He called out to the empty space. There was only one other jumper left in the bay. There were a handful out on missions right now, Radek remembered from reading the flight schedule, and a few more out on resupply. But the blocky yellow letters emblazoned on the stern of the last remaining ship told him that it was jumper five, not two. So where - ?
He frowned, switching his comms on. "Rodney? Did you activate jumper cloak?"
There was no response. Zelenka stepped towards the empty dock and waved his hand in the air, trying to find the cloaked jumper before realizing that there was no cloak - the jumper was just gone. He tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach.
He paced back and forth in front of where the jumper should have been, stopping briefly to examine some of the diagnostic equipment that Rodney had left strewn across the floor, near where the door of the jumper should have been. It wasn't like Rodney to leave his equipment behind, and Zelenka knew from experience that he wouldn't leave a project behind until he was satisfied - too many times he'd walked into the lab in the morning to find McKay asleep at his desk.
"Doctor Zelenka to gateroom," said as he tapped on his earpiece. While he waited for a response, he began sifting through the pile of equipment that was left behind until he found one of the scanners. It had been wirelessly transmitting data from the jumper, but the logs abruptly stopped as of about 30 minutes ago. He opened the latest one and began combing through the data.
The comms fizzed on in his ear, and a slightly confused voice came through the earpiece.
"Doctor Zelenka?", Woolsey responded, "what seems to be the issue?"
Zelenka frowned down at the scanner in hand, trying to ignore the worry creeping into his voice. He had a feeling that he knew exactly what happened, but he hoped he was wrong.
"Perhaps it would be best explained if you came down here."
——/——/——
Sheppard was in the middle of a session with Teyla in the gym when the call came over his earpiece. He held up a hand in the universal sign for time-out as he listened, and she paused in her advance. Finally he nodded, tapped the earpiece, and said, "Be right there."
Teyla shot him a questioning look as she lowered the fighting sticks.
"Woolsey wants the team in the bay," John explained, "Something with Rodney." He took the sticks from Teyla, replacing them in the storage locker near the door.
"The jumper bay?" Teyla followed behind him as they left the gym room, heading towards the nearest transporter.
John just nodded - he was more curious than anything to see what McKay had found this time. He gestured towards his earpiece with feigned exasperation. "Yeah, I think he was checking out what went wrong with the jumper after that last mission on 989," he said.
Teyla seemed to cringe slightly at the memory of the jumper suddenly falling out of the sky. John couldn't blame her - even with all his experience in the Air Force, uncontrolled freefall wasn't a very comfortable experience.
"Ronon," John tapped the earpiece again as he waved a hand in front of the transporter pad, "Me and Teyla are headed down to the jumper bay. I think McKay found something with the jumper."
John heard what sounded like an irritated grunt over the radio before Ronon responded, "Meet you there."
The transporter wooshed as it brought them down to the lower levels, and Teyla turned towards Sheppard.
"I wonder what he could have found that warrants our attention."
"Whatever it is, I'm sure he can't wait to tell us." John smirked with a good-natured roll of his eyes. He didn't particularly mind Rodney's incessant need to explain the importance of every new discovery - it had become a little endearing, even if John didn't understand half of the stuff he said.
A few seconds later the transporter opened up into the jumper bay and they stepped out. Woolsey and Zelenka stood near the middle of the room talking. Zelenka seemed agitated, gesturing behind him and looking down at a scanner in his hands. Teyla raised an eyebrow in confusion as she took a quick glance around the cavernous room. There was no sign of Doctor McKay anywhere, nor of the jumper that he'd been working on.
John walked over to greet them. He also seemed to notice the distinct lack of the jumper as he glanced around the empty bay.
"What's going on?" he asked, casually looping his fingers into his belt loops.
"Major Sheppard, Teyla," Woolsey nodded, reluctantly dragging his piercing glare away from Radek. "Thank you for coming so quickly." Zelenka pinched his mouth into a frown, pushing his owlish glasses up.
"Where is Doctor McKay?" Teyla glanced at a pile of what looked like diagnostic equipment scattered near one of the jumper docks.
Zelenka shifted awkwardly, muttering a few words in another language, but John caught the meaning behind them. His eyes widened slightly at the reaction.
"Zelenka -" he drew out the name.
"He's not here," Zelenka finally said. Behind him, Woolsey folded his arms and let out a long breath.
"What do you mean, he's not here?" Sheppard repeated, "I thought he was supposed to be doing diagnostics." He glanced around the room again, this time noticing some of Rodney's tools laying nearby.
"What happened, Doctor Zelenka?" Teyla asked, albeit with a much more patient tone.
"That's precisely what I've been trying to figure out," Woolsey replied, casting a disapproving glance towards Zelenka. The scientist threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.
"I already told you, I don't know. He told me to leave and that he had it handled, so I left."
"Breaking protocol in the process," Woolsey leveled an accusatory tone at him.
"Well, yes but he-", Zelenka stammered, nervously tapping his fingers against the scanner that he held, "you know how Rodney is."
John glanced between the two of them. He didn't like where this conversation was going. "Will someone just explain what the hell is going on?"
Woolsey tapped on his earpiece, "Chet, I want you to do a subspace sweep for any small spacecrafts. And try to extend the range as far as you can," he turned towards Sheppard and Teyla, "We're not exactly sure what happened. Doctors McKay - and Zelenka," he added pointedly, shooting a sideways glance at Zelenka, "were supposed to be doing the diagnostics on jumper two following its recent performance issues. Zelenka came down to check in and both the jumper and McKay were missing."
"Missing?" John tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. "Maybe he just - I don't know, went for a trip to the mainland?" Even Woolsey knew just how out of character that would be for Rodney. He just raised an eyebrow before continuing.
"Regardless, any attempts to contact him via radio have been useless."
"Not to mention the fact that there was no contact with the tower to approve any flights." Zelenka added, barely looking up from the scanner. He continued to fiddle with it for a moment, and it took all of John's willpower not to slap it out of his hands.
"Aha!" He finally exclaimed, before his eyebrows knit together in confusion as he looked at the data readout. "Oh. This is - No, this is not good."
"What?"
Zelenka ignored the question, lost in thought for a moment before looking up. "The jumper has been going haywire ever since last mission. I thought was simply needing reboot, a uh-" he snapped his fingers as he tried to find the word, "a software update. But we kept finding these strange repeating patterns in power output. It looks like it malfunctioned again, only this time the fluctuations were the result of power being diverted to engines. There was a massive overload," he shook his head with a slight grimace.
"Rodney could be in serious trouble," he glanced between John and Teyla before turning to Woolsey. He should never have left Rodney alone, stubbornness be damned.
"I need to take this to the lab. The sooner I can get this data analyzed, the better."
Woolsey nodded, and the group watched as Zelenka promptly turned back towards the transporter, still clutching the scanner and muttering under his breath.
John turned back to Woolsey, who seemed at a loss for words. Something still wasn't sitting right with him - this malfunction wasn't anything like the other ones they had seen before. There was something different about it this time.
"So, what, Rodney's stuck in a malfunctioning jumper? Why can't we just use the tracking system onboard?"
"From what I understand, the engines were the only functioning system on the jumper. So tracking, navigations -
"Life support." John finished. The room went silent as they all realized the implications of that. He and Teyla exchanged a worried glance.
"That we know of," Woolsey said quickly. "We only have the ship logs from immediately before the jumper left Atlantis airspace. It's entirely possible that they went back online once the ship entered zero gravity." Woolsey was briefly grateful for the fact that all the jumper logs were automatically transmitted to the control room - it gave them more to go on, but it also gave them more to worry about. "Either way, we have no way of knowing where it is right now," he glanced in the direction of the empty dock.
After a moment of silence, Teyla spoke up. "I'm sorry, I still don't understand," she said, eyebrows drawn together in confusion, "How did this happen? The previous malfunctions did not result in such erratic behavior. But this one caused the jumper to take flight?"
Woolsey let out a sigh of resignation. "I don't know," he said simply, "But I trust that Zelenka will have answers for us soon enough." Woolsey paused, tilting his head to the side as he listened to a transmission over his earpiece. "I'm sorry to leave at a time like this, but it appears that I'm needed in the gateroom." He glanced towards Sheppard as if waiting for permission, and he curtly nodded.
"Go. We can handle this," he said. Woolsey seemed to hesitate for a moment longer before heading back towards the transporter. The door opened before he reached it, however, and Ronon stepped out. He glanced at the director, his face tight with worry - but when was it not?
"Nice of you to join us," John said sarcastically.
Teyla just gave him a sympathetic half-smile. Ronon held his hands out at his sides before letting them drop. "Wasn't in the mood for a science talk."
"Yeah, well you won't need to worry about that anytime soon. Our scientist is missing."
"I will go to the control room to see if I can lend any assistance with the subspace sweep," Teyla said with a curt nod before she excused herself. If Zelenka was correct, they had no time to waste.
Sheppard turned towards Ronon, who still looked mildly confused. "C'mon, let's go up to the labs. I'll fill you in on the way."
——/——/——
A constant, lulling drone had settled in the back of his mind, growing in volume until it suddenly jerked him awake. He opened his eyes and winced when the slight movement sent a jolt of pain ripping through the side of his head. His vision was blurry and grey, vague shapes and blocks of color twisting and swaying like the inside of a kaleidoscope. He groaned, screwing his eyes shut and giving himself a moment to gain his bearings.
When he opened his eyes again, it took him a moment to realize that he was looking at the floor of the jumper. The smell of an electrical fire hung heavily in the air, mingling with the scent of burnt rubber. His gaze drifted across the front of the jumper where the control console should have been. In its place was a smoking mess of twisted metal and exposed wiring- sparks flew off at random intervals, providing the only brief flashes of illumination in the otherwise dim lighting.
His arm was pinned underneath him, and when he tried to sit up he was surprised to find that it was unable to hold his weight - he collapsed back onto the floor with a groan, rolling onto his back as he clutched his arm to his chest. White-hot spikes of pain shot up through it, blooming into a dull throb on his left side. His hand was shaking. He tried to flex his fingers, but found that he could barely move them - even now, they looked swollen and red, and an angry purple bruise crept out from under the sleeve of his shirt, wrapping around and stopping at the wrist. There was definitely something wrong, he thought.
After a long few minutes he slowly got back up, keeping his arm pinned to his side. He didn't get very far though, opting to trade his position on the floor for the wall behind him. His vision swam as he tried to catch his breath, and the sickening motion followed him even with his eyes closed. He tried to ignore the incessant ringing reverberating in his ears from the close-range explosion.
He should get up. Get to the infirmary. He was surprised that no one had heard the explosion - surely someone would be on their way.
One of the flashes from the console illuminated the area long enough for McKay to spot his earpiece a few feet away. He fumbled around the floor for it for a moment, finally finding it and switching it on.
"McKay t'control," he slurred, wincing when even the slightest movement sent a knife through his skull.
He brushed his fingers across his temple and winced when they found a sizable gash, slowly oozing blood. The bleeding seemed to have almost stopped already. How long had he been out, then?
" 'lantis control, I need -", he paused, taking a breath. The air seemed thin, but he brushed it aside. "Need med. Jumper bay." And where was Zelenka? Surely he wouldn't have just left McKay to his own devices. He should have been back by now, too.
He waited for a response. Nothing. Maybe the damage from the explosion was worse than he thought. Brief panic rose in his chest as images of Atlantis in shambles flashed through his mind. But - no, the jumper was still more or less intact. There was a small explosion, sure, but from what he could tell it seemed to have been limited to the inside of the jumper. So then shouldn't they have sent a response team already?
His scanner was face-up on the ground near the pilot's chair. He made to stand up, but the edges of his vision began to dissolve and he found himself swaying in place, breath coming in heavy gasps as he tried to push back the rising nausea. He leaned heavily against the wall as he waited for his vision to stabilize again. Concussion? Finally, after a few long minutes, he continued towards the front.
"Can't just be easy for once, can it?" He grumbled under his breath. He gripped the edge of the console with his good hand, trying his best to keep himself upright as he pulled himself into the pilot's chair.
He reached down to grab the scanner at his feet and briefly glanced over the control console. It was a complete mess. The overload left scorch marks across the entire array. He absently brushed a hand over the DHD, leaving a smear in the charred material - one side of it was almost completely melted into its housing, and the tiles that weren't shattered or blown across the room were completely dark.
That won't be working anytime soon, he thought.
Something outside the viewport caught his eye, and he was surprised when he noticed for the first time where he was. Or rather, where he wasn't. Empty, inky blackness stretched out before him - a region of space that he didn't recognize, and one that Atlantis certainly didn't call home. He watched as the stars stretched and passed by, quickly forgotten in the wake of the careening ship.
"Oh."
The ship was moving. That certainly explained why no one had come to check on him.
He blinked sluggishly at where the head-up display should have been only to be dismayed by the empty screen - no map there, but he could probably triangulate his position using any nearby stargates. Or maybe he could send out a distress signal and -
Oh.
He mentally chided himself for being so slow - why was he having so much trouble thinking? The communications array in front of him was a charred hunk of metal. In fact, now that he was looking at the scanner, he could see that the engines were the only thing working. No navigation, no communications, nothing. Ok, not a big deal, all he had to do was fix it, he thought. Just - just divert the power from engines into the main system, same way he did on the last mission. Yes, that should work.
His thoughts felt fuzzy as he tried to remember exactly how he had done it last time. He closed his eyes for a moment again, trying to catch his breath as he worked up the strength to move. He wondered, briefly, if he had also managed to somehow break a few ribs when he was thrown across the wall - his chest felt tight, and every breath he took seemed to be making him more and more lightheaded.
Maybe he should take a minute. Just a minute to get his bearings, and then he would fix it and be on his way back. He allowed his eyes to drift closed again as he slumped forward on the console.
A moment later the scanner flashed to life in front of him, jolting him away from the edge of unconsciousness. He squinted in the sudden light. It let out another small, irritated beep, and before he could try to hook it up to what was left of the control console, the small LED for the atmospheric indicator flashed red.
Unsuitable environment. Protective gear required.
He stared dumbly at the readout for a moment. Was there something wrong with the life support system? Or was it just the scanner? He fumbled with the device for a moment, trying to ignore the numbness that had crept into his hands. He took another gasping breath, abruptly standing up as he realized what was happening. He almost immediately regretted the movement when his vision began spinning, and he clutched the back of the pilot's chair for support.
How had this happened? Even powered down, the jumper still should have had enough oxygen left for a day or two at least. And it couldn't have been more than a few hours, right?
The explosion. It had probably burned through most of the oxygen in the main compartment, which meant he didn't have much time. It was a good thing he woke up when he did, he thought grimly.
Between the concussion and the lack of oxygen he knew he shouldn't be moving too quickly, but at the same time he was in a bit of a time crunch. He was already experiencing some of the symptoms of hypoxia. He couldn't help a panicked laugh from escaping as he realized the explanation for why he wasn't thinking straight. A small part of him was terrified by that response, though. He needed to fix this, now.
He took another deep breath, trying to reorient himself. He glanced at the scanner, which was now displaying the oxygen levels. Six percent. Great.
He started towards the CO2 converter near the door before something caught his eye. One of the emergency kits had been knocked over by the power surge, and the edge was peeking out from under one of the benches. He stumbled towards it, but his legs gave out before he could even take a step and he pitched forward, landing on the arm he had already injured. He cried out in pain, immediately clutching his arm to his chest. The fall left him gasping on the floor, and black spots danced dangerously across his vision - the wind was knocked out of him, and he couldn't even catch his breath. He fumbled in a blind panic for the emergency kit in front of him, finding the latch and flinging it open. He could feel his breath getting faster, wheezing, and he let out a small whimper of relief when his hand finally closed around an oxygen mask. With the last of his strength he brought it up to his face and took a deep breath.
He briefly thanked Woolsey for his crippling need to follow protocol - despite the fact that most of the planets they explored were habitable, he still insisted that every jumper be stocked with a few emergency kits, which luckily included oxygen masks. It was a temporary fix, of course, but one that he desperately needed. He continued to greedily take in ragged gasps of air, and ever so slowly he could feel his vision return to normal. After a few minutes he cautiously sat up. The movement sent pain flaring up his side, settling into a dull fire.
"Dammit," he sucked in a breath, hand shooting towards his temple. His fingers came back slightly bloody, and the pounding in his head almost helped mask the fact that the jumper, usually alive with the sounds of machinery, was dead quiet.
Now that the oxygen was no longer such a pressing issue, his other injuries began clamoring for center stage. There was nothing much to be done for the concussion, he knew, but he had to do something about his arm. He wrinkled his nose as he glanced down at it - this was Beckett's forte. He couldn't deal with blood or broken bones, and he certainly wasn't any good with pain. Of course, he would never admit that to the doctor, but he was certain that Beckett already knew that his feigned overexaggerated reaction at the sight of blood was at least partly real. He gently brushed a hand across the worst of the bruising and sucked in a breath, quickly thinking better of it. It was beginning to make him feel nauseous, and the feeling of bones grinding together every time he tried to move it wasn't helping in the least.
He glanced around the small area for something that he could use to immobilize the bone, and his eyes finally landed on the jacket that hewearing - the same one he'd used to keep the jumper controls from burning his hands during the overload. It took him a few agonizing moments to fashion his jacket into a sling, but he eventually was able to loop it around his neck and under his arm. He had to stop every few seconds when he felt like he was about to pass out, breathing slowly through clenched teeth - it seemed to help, ever so slightly.
He took another deep breath through the mask. At least he wasn't quite so lightheaded now, and he could think much more clearly. He glanced at the level indicator on the canister - he still had maybe two hours of oxygen left. That should be plenty of time to get the CO2 converter back online.
And after that? he thought as he glanced out at the view stretching out behind the glass. He wasn't sure.
————————
Teyla paced nervously behind the control chair. She occasionally stopped to look over Chuck's shoulder before continuing.
"Have you found anything yet?" After she asked for the fifth time, Chuck exasperatedly turned to shoot her a pointed look.
"I'm sorry," she gave him an apologetic look. Chuck's gaze softened when he saw the tight lines of worry creasing her face.
"Look, I understand that you're worried," Chuck said, before continuing to monitor the screen. "But I'm sure he's fine. It's only been a couple of hours."
She gave him a small smile, but his words hadn't reassured her in the least. If McKay was injured and alone, completely cut off from their communications - she shuddered to think of how he was reacting, what he was thinking.
"I am sorry, it's just -", she hesitated, "From Doctor Zelenka's description of events, he may be injured. How long do these scans usually take?"
Chuck just shook his head with a sigh. "It depends. We can keep running the subspace sweep until we get a hit, but there's no telling what range we need to extend it out to. It's a pretty wide search area."
Chuck had been surprised when, only a few hours earlier, he had seen a jumper zip out of Atlantis airspace. Of course, he hadn't thought much of it at the time - maybe just an SG team that forgot to clear their departure, which happened often enough. But after command tried to hail them to no avail, and they received word shortly after that Doctor McKay had gone missing . . . Well, it didn't take much to put two and two together. He didn't know the whole story, but from the bits and pieces that Teyla had been able to tell him, it seemed that no one did.
He glanced at the empty screen still devoid of any sign of the missing jumper and frowned, considering his next words.
"Teyla, it's - I mean, it's McKay, right? If anyone can figure out how to fix something like this, it's him."
She nodded hesitantly. "Yes. Yes, I suppose you're right, Chuck. Thank you," she said sincerely.
He gave her another reassuring smile before turning back to the map in front of him. "Alright, let's run the sweep one more time."
——/——/——
On the way down to Zelenka's lab, Sheppard filled Ronon in on what little information they had. He could tell Ronon felt a bit guilty for not meeting them at the jumper bay as soon as he was summoned, especially after realizing the urgency of the situation, but Sheppard didn't blame him. He wanted to blame Zelenka, seeing as how he was the last person who saw Rodney before he went missing. At the same time, though, Sheppard knew how stubborn Rodney could be about working alone. Hopefully he'll think twice about that now, John thought. Either way, without the ability to communicate with the jumper, Zelenka was their only hope of finding it.
He waved a hand in front of the scanner and the door to the lab wooshed open. The lab seemed to be in a flurry of motion - a few scientists to the left were standing around an image displayed on one of the screens inlaid on the workbenches, and John recognized Kavanaugh among them gesturing aggressively and rolling his eyes. Zelenka was sitting at a bench in front of one of the computers, muttering to himself and occasionally trading notes with a woman across the table. John couldn't hope to track the streams of data pouring across the screen, but Zelenka seemed less than enthused when he saw them.
The scientist whirled around at the sound of the door, and his gaze immediately landed on John and Ronon. His eyes widened slightly, and John frowned at the look of guilt on his face before he turned back to his computer.
"Colonel. I was just about to send for you," he paused, shuffling through the stack of papers on his left.
"What do you have so far?"
Zelenka reached across the bench and grabbed the scanner he had found in the jumper bay.
"Not much. Initially -" he trailed off, "initially, I had assumed that the power spike was the result of Rodney getting the jumper back online. But now - ", he hesitated. Sheppard couldn't help but notice how nervous he was acting, but he didn't think it was because he blamed himself. No, he seemed scared of something.
"It's like electrical surge. I - we still don't understand how it happened."
"But we know what happened," the woman across the table spoke up. John recognized her as Zhang, one of the few scientists that transferred after their contact with earth. She turned to the Colonel. "For a few seconds before the surge, the jumper's power was being redirected to the storage buffers. It would have looked like a power failure. And once it was released back into the main system, it somehow was diverted towards the engines, and -"
"Snap. Like giant rubber band," Zelenka finished. Zhang shot him a look.
Sheppard cringed slightly at the violent description. "Thanks, I think we got the message," Ronon said gruffly.
"Luckily," Zhang continued, "From the security feeds, it seems that the jumper was still intact when it left the bay."
Sheppard nodded slowly. It was the only bit of good news that he'd heard so far - it meant that McKay could still be alive.
"So does this have something to do with the software updates, like you said?" he asked.
Zelenka and Zhang exchanged a glance. There was some silent communication between them before Zhang shook her head slightly. Zelenka seemed to hesitate as if trying to choose his next words carefully. "No. Rodney believed it was some faulty connections between system and ATA interface, which would certainly explain why issue was confined to one jumper. But even then, the jumpers were never made to handle such energy at one time. Even for dialing," he twisted his hands together, "To be honest, the Ancient failsafes make this type of malfunction impossible."
Zelenka could have kicked himself for not realizing sooner the reason they weren't making any headway on fixing the jumper - it wasn't because of some unknown glitch in the Ancient technology, or some Ancient equivalent of a loose connection. They had been looking in the wrong place entirely.
"Ok," Sheppard's eyebrows knit together in confusion as he glanced between the scientists, both clearly wanting to say something. "What does that mean, exactly?"
"It means that something manually overrode them. Someone - or something- sabotaged the jumper."
The color drained from Sheppard's face as he realized what could be capable of doing such a thing. "You don't mean - "
Zelenka nodded gravely. "Replicators."