Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chosen & Stargate Atlantis: S01/S02 - The Siege.
Disclaimer: Anything copyrighted belongs to its legal owners.
Author's Note: Written for Day 13 of the 2023 August Fic-A-Day.
"We have a problem!" Dr. McKay announced as he strode into Dr. Weir's office with Major Sheppard trailing behind him. "Since we finally have enough power to activate the Control Chair I naturally checked it out and ran a diagnostic."
"It only has a few dozen drones left," Sheppard interjected, clearly not wanting his teammate to go into even more details. He gave Buffy a considering look, "I don't suppose you know where we can find more of those, do you?"
She shook her head once, "No, sorry. And even if I did, it would probably take more time than we have to produce more since most of what they made was shipped out pretty quickly to wherever it was needed the most. They were at war, and Atlantis was under constant bombardment. Any shipments of drones were no doubt transported here and used to thin out all the Hive Ships laying siege to the City."
Buffy had asked the Alterrans about it but had only been given vague replies. Janus, ever the friendly rebel, had given hints about where at least one factory was located, but despite working her way through the very long list of outposts he had given her she had yet to find it. If she'd had access to it then she would've supplied the Expedition with drones instead of suggesting sinking the City or flying it elsewhere to avoid the problem altogether. That said, she hadn't known the supply was that low. If she'd known she would've tried harder to find the factory.
Sheppard nodded, and she felt a slight sense of relief that he believed her. It was good because it was her life on the line as well. She also didn't want Atlantis to be destroyed or occupied by someone unfriendly, especially if the unfriendlies were Wraith.
"You know of a ZedPM factory, are you sure they didn't tell you about wherever they make drones? Because we could really, really use a few thousand of them right about now."
"I know they had several factories, but not where. Believe it or not, but I have actually been trying to find one of them when I've been off-world. If you have gotten any hints about the Alterrans at all, you have figured out by now that they don't really give out information or leave instructions behind. Pretty much the only way to find it is to go through a whole lot of planets to figure out which ones are actually useful and which were just observatories for ancient butterflies or something."
The last comment made them smile briefly, but it didn't solve their problem. "Either way, if they buy the ruse and believe that we took the City and moved it to another planet then we should be safe. At least for now. It should buy me some time to locate the factory."
"I would feel a lot more comfortable if we had better weapons instead of being sitting ducks at the bottom of the ocean."
"I understand, Major Sheppard." Off his dubious look, she continued, "I do understand. While I have never been military, I did work in a field that could be interpreted as both security and I suppose a kind of law enforcement or military where we handled certain unruly elements. Having the proper weapons for specific situations is very important."
All three of the room's other occupants looked mildly surprised at her revelation, but it was Dr. Weir who asked the obvious question. "Was this while you were on Earth in your own reality or when you were in the past with the Ancients?"
"On Earth. I worked for that organization for many years. It taught me a lot, for better or worse."
"Yes, yes, yes. That's all very fascinating," McKay interrupted, "but can we get back to the part where we are almost out of ammunition to use against the three Hive Ships that'll be here in less than three days and what we're going to do about it?"
They all sort of looked at Buffy, so she shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know." Then after thinking about it, she asked, "Are any of the defense satellites still operational?"
She gave all of them a questioning look but was unsurprised when McKay was the one who answered. "They have all been destroyed except for one, but it isn't working."
"It isn't working because something important has been destroyed or because whatever's wrong can be fixed if someone goes there to check on it?"
"If we're right about what's wrong with it then it can be fixed, but we don't have the time to go there and find out. Especially if we want to remain hidden."
Stumped at that she began going through her own memories to see if there might've been something useful there, but she was coming up blank.
"Can a ZPM be used to power a Jumper so it'll go faster?" All of them looked at Major Sheppard in surprise before most of them turned to McKay to see what he had to say.
"Yes of course," he answered on autopilot. Then snapped his fingers, "Yes! It should cut the travel time from 16 hours to five hours. It would give us a lot more time to study it and then fix whatever's wrong with it so it'll be capable of destroying the Hive Ships!"
"Hold on," Dr. Weir said before he could continue. "Won't arming the satellite give them a head's up that we're still on Lantea somewhere?"
"Not necessarily. Obviously, I don't know how Wraith thinks, but leaving someone behind to try and kill off your enemies isn't that rare. It's a tactic they used not that long ago when they beamed one of their own into the City. Summers found and killed him so he wasn't able to complete his mission, but it's entirely possible that we could've done something like it. Especially if we intended to come back for whoever."
"Okay," Sheppard replied. "Let's say interfacing the ZPM with a Jumper actually works. How long would it take to do that, get to the satellite, fix it, and return to Atlantis?"
McKay ran the calculations in his head as everyone else waited more or less patiently for his brain to produce a good answer. "Five hours each way, let's say another five-to-ten hours to get it operational, run diagnostics to find the problem, and to fix the problem. So... 15 or 20 hours at least, maybe more."
"Can it be operated from Atlantis or does someone have to be up there?" Dr. Weir was leaning slightly over her desk to look at the Chief Science Officer.
"It can, but it would be better if someone was there operating it. It's been up there for 10,000 years, it's already been shot who knows how many times, and anything can break at any time. We need to have someone there to fix it so it'll destroy the Hive Ships."
No one, not even McKay, was happy about having to stay up there for what could easily be several days. Especially since there was no guarantee they would survive it, particularly if they got off one shot and then experienced problems. The satellite didn't have a shield, meaning even a single shot from a Hive Ship was likely to kill anyone onboard.
"Wait a minute," Sheppard said into the contemplative silence. "We're under tonnes of water, how are we even going to get the Jumpers up in the air?"
McKay opened his mouth again, but Buffy was faster. "The Gateships, or Jumpers as you call them, are submersibles so they're capable of moving underwater as well. There is an underwater bay on the underside of the North Pier for entry and egress. It has a small control station."
"Right, we knew that, but those Jumpers are not working."
"Well, Rodney, you and Dr. Zelenka better get to it then because we're running out of time."
McKay left in a hurry as he was speaking rapidly to the Czech scientist through the earpiece. Which left Buffy with the Military Commander and the Civilian Commander.
"You're awfully helpful all of a sudden," Sheppard commented once the door to Dr. Weir's office had closed again.
She just raised an eyebrow slightly. "I don't want the City to be destroyed or overtaken by the Wraith or someone else I can't control."
"We are not under your control, Miss Summers!" Elizabeth Weir said raising her voice a little more than what was necessary.
Buffy smiled slightly, "Actually you are. Not on a day-to-day basis, but this is my City and I am allowing you and your Expedition to stay here on my courtesy. If I want, I can kick all of you out at any time. I would prefer not to have to do that, but if you decide to become difficult then you will leave me with no choice but to do so."
"Okay, calm down both of you. We're in enough trouble, don't start to argue." He gave both of them a stern look, "We agreed to revisit this topic AFTER we have dealt with the Wraith, remember?"
Buffy chose to remain silent, but she kept her eyes on the other woman until she grudgingly agreed. The three of them went their separate ways after that to attend to things that needed to be done before the Wraith arrived in their little part of the Pegasus Galaxy.
The Slayer went much deeper into Atlantis. The Expedition members knew about the main Control Chair, but as far as she had been able to ascertain they did not know there was a secondary chair room that had been manually powered down and as such would not register on their scans.
As soon as she arrived she manually put the power to the room back on. As soon as it was operational, she sat down in the chair, closed her eyes, and concentrated. Diagrams, schematics, numbers, and information in both Alterran and English flashed behind her eyelids.
It had surprised her at first when she realized they had not tried to keep her out of any of the systems despite being fully aware that she had locked them out of quite a lot on purpose. Technically, their documents and other information was password protected, but given that it was either saved on the City's servers or on something connected to the city's servers she had full access.
Out of pure curiosity, she had read her own file, including the medical report Dr. Beckett had written up after she consented to him giving her a medical check when she had first left the stasis chamber. Beckett had already shown her what was in his file and there was nothing new.
Her 'personnel' file wasn't quite as friendly. Dr. Weir didn't state outright that she didn't trust Buffy, but she might as well have. It reminded her a little of the old Watchers from back in her own reality; they expected her to do whatever they told her to and leave all major (and minor) decisions up to them, and never argue with them about anything. While the Watchers expected her to be a good toy soldier and kill vampires, Dr. Weir expected her to hand over all the ZPMs, the location of the ZPM factory, and anything else that might be useful or beneficial to the Expedition.
Dr. Weir did not seem to think she was useful on her own, other than as an overpowered light switch, and therefore not someone to agitate too much. As far as the other woman was concerned, Buffy was a problem that needed to be 'handled'. Suspecting that was the case and actually reading it was two very different things, but it meant she needed to be more vigilant just in case she tried something.
Major Sheppard had mostly been neutral and awaiting more information. Although he seemed optimistic that there was a good possibility for them to co-exist in Atlantis to both of their benefits. Unfortunately, it was also implicated that he expected Buffy to be under the same kind of agreement as the Expedition had with Teyla and the Athosians. I.e. working allies who helped out when they could but would otherwise be somewhere not in the way.
Buffy read other people's reports on her as well, including Sergeant Bates who outright stated that she needed to either be imprisoned or banned from Atlantis. Most of the others were more neutral.
The various mission reports were more interesting, especially the ones regarding the Genii. As far as she had been aware they had not been an issue before. She had never been to their homeworld, but she had heard about them, and how they were fair traders. It was incredibly smart of the Genii to keep the surface of their homeworld looking primitive while developing their technology in secret. It kept both the Wraith and other hostile humans away from them. Being evil was not of the good.
Buffy spent hours going through the reports, mainly to get a better understanding of both the Expedition and its people, but also what the rest of the galaxy had become while she was in stasis.