Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis - Far Horizons (11 page)

“What?” O’Neill had been busy trying on various types of head coverings and spun around abruptly, wearing an oddly shaped helmet. “Will my clan
what
? What clan?”

“Does not the color of the garments indicate one’s affiliation?”

“Uh… yeah. Yeah. Kind of.” He took off the helmet, tossed it back on the shelf, and nodded at the clothes in Teal’c’s hands. “These are BDUs — a battle dress uniform. They belong to the Air Force. That’s my… uh, clan. Yours, too, if you like. Up to you. I mean, if you wanna join the Marines, I –”

“What are Marines?”

O’Neill frowned. “How about you go and get changed? I’ll explain later.”

Teal’c retreated behind a shelf unit and tried on the new clothing. Beedeeyous. At least O’Neill had solved that particular mystery. Battle dress uniform. Recalling the offer of Happy Hour, Teal’c presumed that, although these garments obviously derived their name from being worn in battle, they also were the preferred vesture for the ritual fights. He attempted a brief sequence of
lok’nel
moves and found the garments’ fit adequate and nonrestrictive, albeit somewhat short in the arms and legs. Despite their awkward looks, even the boots were comfortable, and when he went to find O’Neill again, Teal’c felt ready to participate in Happy Hour.

O’Neill had picked out more items, including a backpack into which he shoved several metal cylinders he retrieved from various pockets of his pants, as well as a cap of soft, warm yarn that he held out to Teal’c. “You’d better put his on,” he said, tapping a finger to his forehead.

Indeed.

None of the Tau’ri, not even the warriors, were wearing tattoos, and it clearly was a wise idea to blend in more seamlessly by concealing his own. Teal’c put on the cap, pulling the rim down to his eyebrows.

“Sweet.” O’Neill nodded approvingly. “It’s you, T.”

Unsure of who else he might conceivably be, Teal’c opted for a noncommittal reply. “It is indeed.”

“Uh… great. Let’s go.” The backpack slung across his shoulder, O’Neill headed for the door. After he had shooed Teal’c through like a mother
triq’joc
would shoo her chicks, he fell in beside him. “Listen, Teal’c. From now on out until I tell you otherwise, don’t talk if there’s other people around. Anyone we meet, you just nod at them and otherwise follow my lead. It’s important.”

A rite of spiritual preparation for the Happy Hour, no doubt.

“As you wish, O’Neill.” Since there was indeed no one else around and since he had ascertained that O’Neill had not entered a preparatory state of meditation, Teal’c felt it was appropriate to ask another one of those burning questions that had arisen in the short while that he had spent among the Tau’ri. “Am I correct in assuming that ‘Sergeant’ is not a name?”

“Ah, no… I mean, yes, you are correct. ‘Sergeant’ is a rank.”

“What is a rank?”

“You guys have ranks, right? I mean, you’re what? What is your position among the Jaffa?”

“I am… I
was
First Prime of Apophis.”

“Meaning what?”

“I fulfilled the same function and enjoyed the same privileges as you do. You are First Prime of the stout, loud system lord, are you not?”

O’Neill missed a step and stumbled. When he caught himself and spoke, his shoulders shook and his voice sounded oddly constrained. “Yeah… except, we don’t call ours system lords. We call them generals. Probably because their eyes don’t do that weird flashy thing. The… uh… stout, loud one is called General Hammond. Hammond’s his name.”

“I see.”

“So, you were First Prime. What about the guys under you? The men you commanded?”

“They are warriors.”

“Yeah, I got that, but what about the hierarchy? Who was in charge when you were off sick?”

“I do not get sick.”

“Come on, Teal’c! Just work with me here. Who’s next in command after you?”

“The oldest of the warriors. He is the one with the most experience.”

“So you’ve got no command structure, instead seniority goes by age?”

“As the word implies, yes. Although the most senior among us no longer commands. He teaches.”

“Ah. See, we handle it a little differently. Age doesn’t determine seniority. Merit does. Mostly. Of course, you always get the guys who know how to pull strings.”

Teal’c could not begin to fathom how the pulling of a piece of thread might in any way contribute to a man’s standing as a warrior, but he decided against closer inquiry. Things were sufficiently confusing already.

As no answer or comment was forthcoming, O’Neill continued. “Basically, a sergeant is in command of a group of about ten guys. In terms of admin it’s a little more complicated than that, but you –

“Sorry, T, we’ll finish this later. Remember what I told you. Keep it zipped, don’t make eye contact, and try to be invisible.”

O’Neill was staring ahead, to the point where the corridor terminated in a small lobby. This place Teal’c could identify. The transportation device could be accessed from here. And there were people waiting for the cabin to arrive.

After O’Neill’s caution, Teal’c had expected some form of difficulty to arise. In actual fact, nothing happened. Following O’Neill’s instructions to the letter, he avoided eye contact and pretended to be elsewhere. Specifically, he chose the Morning Glades on Chulak, and his first meeting with Drey’auc. She had made him laugh that day, at a time when he thought he had lost that particular facility completely.

Their journey in the cabin took longer than anticipated, interrupted by frequent halts to allow others to enter or leave the device. When it finally came to a stop at station “11” — this according to the figures that lit up on a small panel set into the wall — there was only one person left besides O’Neill and himself.

The woman exited ahead of them and approached a desk where two guards were stationed to show them the plastic rectangle — apparently identical to O’Neill’s — she wore around her neck. The guards examined it carefully.

O’Neill tugged at Teal’c’s sleeve and steered him into a corridor that led away from the transportation device, the desk, and the people. As soon as they were out of sight, he increased his pace, almost to a run. Whether it was directed at himself, whether it was directed at somebody else, Teal’c had a strong suspicion that O’Neill was engaging in some kind of subterfuge. But, absence of people notwithstanding, this likely as not still fell under the same directive: he was to follow O’Neill’s lead. Therefore he ran.

At last O’Neill came to an abrupt stop in front of an unmarked metal hatch — as gray and unremarkable as everything here, except O’Neill himself — that was inset into a wall. The hatch had to have been well maintained, for it swung open absolutely silently, revealing a dimly lit shaft and countless metal rungs leading down. And as many again, leading up.

To the planet’s surface? Was it habitable after all? Or had O’Neill received orders to get rid of the Jaffa by stranding him in what might well be an unbreathable atmosphere or a vast number of other deadly conditions?

“Let’s go!” hissed O’Neill. “I know it looks funny, but now is not the time to explain!”

“Which way, O’Neill? Up or down?”

“Up. Sorry about the climb. I got us as close as I could, but this is the only way if we want to get back in.”

Whether or not he wished to ‘get back in’ was yet to be decided, Teal’c thought as he slipped into the hatch and started climbing. However, he was sure that he would find a means of remaining wherever they were going if he felt it suited his purposes better. Then again, this shaft might merely lead to yet another maze of gray, unremarkable corridors.

Behind him he heard O’Neill close the hatch and follow up the rungs.

Before long Teal’c managed to find a rhythm of movement that allowed him to slip into a light meditative state. While it made the climb less taxing, it had the disadvantage of slightly dulling his senses. It explained why he very nearly struck his head on an obstruction that closed off the shaft.

“Look for the handle!” O’Neill suggested from below. “It’s right in the middle. Turn left to unlock it. But wait for me to help you open the hatch — it’s heavy as sin!”

Teal’c decided that he did not wish to wait with a solid metal blockage over his head. He turned the handle as O’Neill had indicated and pushed. The hatch opened smoothly and without much effort.

“Holy crap! What did you eat for breakfast?”

O’Neill’s question briefly took Teal’c aback, because he couldn’t remember. This day seemed to have gone on forever, and breakfast appeared to be utterly inconsequential. “Steamed
plak’norel
,” he answered at last once it came to him.

“Ah, yes. That explains it…” O’Neill muttered behind him. “Sounds hearty. Now move!”

Teal’c moved.

Not least because, on opening the heavy lid that closed off the shaft, he had been enveloped by a blast of fresh, cool air that smelled pleasantly of rain and a dozen other, less familiar things.

Fresh, cool, breathable air.

So the Tau’ri did, after all, have a world worth living in.

Above rose the indigo vault of the night sky and to the west a last, faint echo of the day outlined the jagged knife edge of a mountain ridge. They had emerged near one of the peaks, and below them tall trees descended into blackness. The sky was dotted with countless stars, clustered in a broad, bright ribbon that spanned from horizon to horizon.

O’Neill came to his side and gazed up as well. “We call it the Milky Way. It’s an arm of our galaxy.” After a moment, he asked, “Can you find Chulak?”

“I cannot.” Much like the gray corridors beneath the mountain, this Milky Way afforded him no point of reference he could recognize. He was lost, perhaps irrevocably.

Beside him, O’Neill stirred and dug something from his backpack. In the faint starlight, Teal’c could make out a shiny metal cylinder, moist with condensation. O’Neill pulled at a small latch on the cylinder’s top. It opened with a hiss, and he handed the cylinder to Teal’c to repeat the entire process with a second one.

“This is called ‘beer’,” he explained, clinking his cylinder against Teal’c’s. “Cheers and welcome to Earth! You’re supposed to drink it.” He proceeded to demonstrate.

Teal’c followed suit. The beer’s flavor was tart and a little sweet, and the liquid had a fizzy quality that bit his tongue. All in all it was unexpected but not entirely unpleasant. Oddly like the Tau’ri.

As though he had read Teal’c’s thoughts, O’Neill said, “This isn’t what you expected, is it? I guess by now you realized that I can’t make good on my promise. They won’t let you stay at my place.” He wandered to a nearby rock and sat. “One day I’ll show you this world, I swear, but for the time being we’ll have to make do with this. But we’ve got beer, so let’s call it Happy Hour.”

This was Happy Hour then?

Again, Teal’c found himself surprised, and he understood that there would be considerably more surprises in his immediate future. He walked over to O’Neill and took a seat next to him.

“It is different from what I imagined. But different is not necessarily bad. It is merely unexpected. Cheers!”

It also was beautiful.

And it might, in time, justify the decision Teal’c had made so rashly, just as this strange, unpredictable warrior next to him might, in time, become a friend.

STARGATE ATLANTIS:
Close Quarters
by Melissa Scott

Ronon
Dex leaned forward in his seat in the puddle jumper, watching the Ancient warship grow as they approached.  It looked a lot like the Lanteans’ own ships, which made sense since they’d borrowed both the basic design and a lot of the technology, the boxy hull pale against the stars. Of course, it was pretty much derelict, or the Travelers who had found it wouldn’t have traded its location to Atlantis. But the scientists seemed to think there was a chance that it could be repaired at least well enough to bring it back to Atlantis, and no one was going to turn down the chance of getting another warship. Even if it did mean dealing with the Travelers.

Teyla looked back at him from her seat beside Lorne, and Ronon gave her a polite smile. She had been very determined that he should accompany them, even though this wasn’t his usual sort of mission. Ronon suspected it was because she was worried that he had been hurt by Jennifer’s rejection and wanted to keep him distracted.  He found that he appreciated the thought: it had been more than a decade since anyone had felt the need to watch over his feelings — Milena had considered him man enough to handle that on his own, and surely he was by now — but it was good to know that someone cared. Not that his heart was broken, either. Bruised, certainly, and he didn’t think it was just his ego; he was genuinely fond of Dr. Keller. Nor did he blame McKay, he just wished she had chosen him instead.

Teyla gave him a very marked smile, and Ronon realized Lorne had been speaking for some time. He smiled back, nodding — they’d been talking about the work on the ship, hadn’t they, and how far it had come? — and Teyla turned back to Lorne.

“You see? I told you Ronon would be happy to help.”

Ronon kept his smile steady with an effort.  All right, he’d deserved that. He just hoped he hadn’t agreed to anything too unpleasant.

“Dr. Zelenka could probably use him,” Lorne agreed, and Ronon relaxed. He liked Zelenka, and spending time with the little scientist usually meant that McKay wasn’t present.

The jumper slid into the docking bay, the doors closing smoothly behind it. Both the gravity and the atmosphere seemed ordinary enough, and Ronon allowed himself to relax. All in all, he preferred gate travel to the incalculable uncertainties of spaceships. Besides, ships were a little too… Wraith-like, when you came right down to it. Only the Travelers and the Wraith lived in space.

Lorne lowered the back ramp, though he stayed at the controls to talk to someone on the radio. Ronon threaded his way between the crates that filled the back of the jumper to where Teyla was waiting. She started off without comment, leading him between two more jumpers and then across the bay and into what looked like a main corridor. As that door slid closed behind them, she cleared her throat meaningfully, and he glanced down at her.

“All right. What did you sign me up for?”

“You were very kind to volunteer to assist Dr. Zelenka in examining the hull structure,” she said austerely, but there was laughter in her eyes.

Ronon suppressed a groan. “Really?”

“Oh, very definitely.” Teyla paused at a cross corridor, then turned to her left. “I will take you to the control room, I expect he will still be there.”

“Thanks.”

Ronon trailed along in her wake, wondering exactly what he’d gotten himself into. It looked as though they’d brought a pretty good-sized science team on board, there had been four jumpers in the bay, counting their own, and even if at least one more of them was carrying supplies, that added up pretty quickly. This wasn’t exactly something he was trained for, but it made Teyla happy and it was at least different from doing nothing on Atlantis, where he was a little too likely to run into Jennifer. Which, he supposed, proved Teyla’s point, though he wasn’t sure he was ready to admit it just yet.

The control room door opened before Teyla could pass her hand over the sensor, and McKay burst out, looking over his shoulder so that both Ronon and Teyla had to step sideways to avoid a collision.

“No, no, no, that’s a complete waste of time, and I’m not sparing anyone to do it.”

“Good afternoon, Rodney,” Teyla said and McKay blinked.

“What? Oh. Hello. I have work to do —”

And he was gone again. Ronon suppressed a snicker, and followed Teyla into the control room.

“And good afternoon, Dr. Zelenka,” Teyla said, with her usual bland smile.

Zelenka pushed his glasses up on his nose. His hair was disordered, as though he’d been tugging at it, but he managed to answer calmly enough. “Good afternoon, Teyla. Ronon.”

Ronon kept his face sober with an effort. “Doc.”

“Did you bring the bridging kit?” Zelenka asked. “And Dr. Sommer?”

“We came with Major Lorne,” Teyla said. “Dr. Sommer was not with us. But I believe there was — bridging equipment? — in one of the other jumpers.”

Zelenka said something sharp in his own language. Czech was, Ronon thought, an effective language for cursing. “If Rodney has gotten him first —” He stopped, shaking his head. “It’s all very well to re-invent the Ancient’s hyperdrive, but if the hull isn’t sound, we still won’t be going anywhere.”

“Ronon has said he would help with the frame survey,” Teyla said, and Zelenka gave Ronon a sympathetic glance.

Before he could say anything, however, the control room door slid open and Sheppard appeared. Teyla’s smile widened as she murmured a greeting, and Sheppard visibly swallowed whatever he had been going to say.

“We came out with Major Lorne,” Teyla said, and Ronon grunted agreement. “Mr. Woolsey thought I might be of help if there were any discussions to be had with the Travelers.”

Sheppard gave a rueful smile, rubbing his chin. “You might, at that. I’m never quite sure where we are when we’re dealing with Larrin.”

We know
. Ronon swallowed the words as unkind and not entirely true.

“And Ronon volunteered to help Dr. Zelenka,” Teyla said.

Sheppard lifted an eyebrow at that, and Ronon felt his face heat. But the most Sheppard would think was that he’d been bored; Ronon could deal with that.

“I could certainly use him,” Zelenka said. “Since Rodney has stolen all my other assistants already.”

“That’s fine by me,” Sheppard said. He looked at Teyla. “Did Radek tell you about the drones?”

She shook her head.

Sheppard grinned. “This ship is full of them, hundreds it looks like.”

“If they will fit in Atlantis’s systems,” Zelenka interjected. “This is a much older ship, and many of her systems are unfamiliar. The drones do have some differences.”

“But it’s definitely worth a try,” Sheppard said. “Right now, my biggest concern is to get them back to Atlantis, and that means taking them by jumper. If you’ll stay here to deal with the Travelers, I can take three jumpers on each run.”

“Surely that is excellent news,” Teyla said

“Yeah.” Sheppard looked genuinely happy. “We should be able to replace a lot of the drones we’ve expended.”

“If they will fit,” Zelenka said again. “Dr. McKay has not yet looked closely at them.”

“And he can’t be bothered to do it while he’s doing whatever it is that he’s doing right now,” Ronon said. The others looked at him, and he spread his hands. “What?”

“True enough,” Sheppard said. “My plan is, we try the drones on Atlantis. If they don’t work, and we get this ship working, we fly it back to Atlantis and reload the drones there. If we can’t fix it, we see if we can adapt the drones to work on Atlantis.”

“And if that does not work,” Teyla said thoughtfully, “and we brought some of them back here, we might be able to set up a very effective sort of trap should we need to deal with the Wraith in that way.”

Zelenka nodded slowly. “We would not need the frame to be completely intact to fire a drone salvo. But we would not get more than one shot without making repairs.”

It was a good idea, Ronon thought. Lure the Wraith, then fire all the drones at once. The Wraith cruisers certainly couldn’t stand up to that kind of attack and even the strongest hiveship would suffer serious damage.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Sheppard said. “Let’s see if we can use them on Atlantis first.”

“Yes,” Zelenka said.

“If I take three of the four jumpers — How many people have you got working here, doc, a dozen?”

“Not so many.” Zelenka reached for his laptop. “We need equipment more than people at the moment. Five, counting myself and Rodney. And if you leave us Teyla and Ronon that will make seven. We could certainly fit into a single jumper in case of an emergency, and with Rodney and Dr. Tanaka we will have two people on board with the ATA gene.”

“That was the thought,” Sheppard said. “Teyla, I’ll leave you in charge. I don’t expect there to be any trouble, but if there is something, like if the Wraith show up —”

“I will put everyone onto a jumper and we will either cloak and hide or we will return through the Stargate,” Teyla answered. “Do not worry, John, I do not expect trouble, either.”

“Where the Travelers are concerned, that’s usually when we get it,” Sheppard answered, but he was smiling. He reached for his radio. “Lorne. How’s it coming with loading those drones?”

“Piece of cake,” Lorne responded, his voice only a little distorted by the radio. “We’ve got the first jumper loaded already, and it shouldn’t take long to do the second.”

“Load the third as well,” Sheppard ordered.

“Sir, there’s just me and Porter to fly them. Well, except Dr. McKay, but —”

“I’ll take the third,” Sheppard said. “If there’s a problem here, Rodney will have to take over.”

“Yes, sir,” Lorne answered.

“You can be the one to tell him that, Colonel,” Zelenka said.

Sheppard grinned. “Oh, Rodney will be fine. I’ll just go talk to him myself.”

“I will go with you,” Teyla said, and the control room door closed behind them.

Ronon looked at Zelenka, who dropped into the nearest chair, shaking his head. “Look, doc —” he began, and Zelenka lifted a hand.

“No, no, it’s a good plan, as plans go. It’s just not the one I thought we were following.”

“I’d like to help,” Ronon said. “But I don’t want to be in the way.”

“And you can be a help, I think,” Zelenka answered, with a quick smile. “You understand the problem, yes? We have to find all the places that the ship’s skeleton is stressed or broken outright, only I do not have enough people to do it manually. So if you would start with these files —”

Ronon suppressed a groan, and seated himself at the indicated console. A screen lit, showing a model of the ship rotating in space, and Zelenka pushed his glasses more securely onto his nose.

“This is a — Well, essentially it’s a stress scan of the ship. We placed a tone generator as close to the nose as we could get it, and then recorded the vibration throughout the ship’s frame.”

“That was smart.”

“Thank you.” Zelenka touched more keys, and the image on the screen stopped spinning, colors appearing along its length. “What I need you to do is flag every point where the metal shows red — this bright red, here.”

Ronon squinted at the screen. There was quite a bit of red on the model, mostly at points where one or more lines crossed, and he gave Zelenka an uneasy look. “Is this thing safe?”

“Mostly? We are leaking some atmosphere, but not much. Not enough to change our orbit, at least not in any reasonable time frame. As long as we don’t try to fly it, we should be fine.”

“All right.” Ronon reached for the mouse, began moving it around the screen, clicking on the red patches to expand them, and drawing circles around the points where the color flared brightest. “Hey, doc? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to have the computer do this?”

“Probably.” Zelenka didn’t look up from his own screen. “But I don’t have time to write that program just at the moment, and you are a perfectly reliable substitute.”

“Thanks,” Ronon said, doubtfully, and went back to work.

He worked his way down from the nose to a point a little before the control room, the number of weak points that he had marked making him feel as though he ought somehow to move more carefully, or at least sit more lightly in his chair. He felt as though he were inside a cracked eggshell, the spring eggs that they had bought filled with confetti for Founders’ Day. He jumped as the control room door slid open, but it was only Teyla, coming back from the docking bay.

“Colonel Sheppard is ready to return to Atlantis,” she said.

Zelenka nodded, adjusting his headset, and moved to a different section of the controls, activating the main viewscreen so that it showed the Stargate hanging above the curve of the planet. “Rodney. Colonel Sheppard is about to leave. Are all your people clear of the area?”

“Yes, we’re fine,” McKay answered.

Ronon tuned out the rest of the familiar conversation, looking up only when the Stargate whooshed open. One after the other, the three puddle jumpers disappeared into the roiling blue light, and then the gate winked closed.

“Well,” Zelenka said, and Teyla nodded.

“It is good to restock the city’s weapons.”

“Yes —” Zelenka broke off as half a dozen lights flashed to life on his console. His hands moved busily over the keys, and he swore under his breath. “Someone is dialing the gate.”

A moment later, the Stargate whooshed open, and a battered ship tumbled through. It hung for an instant against the stars as the gate blinked out behind it, and then thrusters fired in ragged sequence, irregular flashes of light across the scarred hull. They winked out, leaving the ship nearly motionless against the stars.

“Wraith?” Ronon asked, and managed not to reach for his weapon. Something was very wrong.

“I don’t feel any,” Teyla said, and she was cut off by a screech of static from the communications system.

Zelenka swore again, adjusting the frequencies, and abruptly words came clear.

“— Lanteans still on the Ancient ship, please answer! If anyone’s on board, come in, please!”

Zelenka touched a key. “This is Zelenka. Identify yourselves, please.” He muted the system, and looked at Teyla. “Do you recognize the ship?”

She shook her head. “It looks like a Traveler ship, but I don’t recognize it. It’s not one of the ones we have dealt with before.

“Thank the Ancestors, the Lanteans are still there!”

Ronon could almost hear the speaker shake himself, controlling fear and excitement.

“Atlantis personnel, this is Tarris, Housing Officer of the Traveler ship
Great Astala
. We collided with the
Sunstar
, she’s holed, and we suffered catastrophic drive failure and are venting atmosphere. I’ve brought off the children and some of the women, but we’re out of power and we’re losing the ship — “