Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis - Far Horizons (12 page)

“Rodney, you are needed on the bridge,” Zelenka said, into his mic, and touched the keys again. “I understand you, Tarris. You say you have survivors on board?”

“We’re the lifeboat,” Tarris answered. “But there are another two hundred people back on
Astala
, and we can’t get them off — “

“We don’t have enough ships to rescue all your people at once,” Zelenka said. “We can take off some, but it will take several trips. How badly is your main ship damaged?”

“
Astala
lost the main drive,” Tarris said again. “She’s in an unstable orbit. If we don’t get power back, we’re going to enter the atmosphere and burn.”

Ronon looked over his shoulder as the control room door slid open, admitting McKay. The scientist slid into a seat next to Zelenka, for once not interrupting, and Zelenka frowned at the screen.

“How long do you have?”

“I don’t know. The engineers were trying to get the maneuver drive back but they weren’t having any luck —” Tarris stopped, and Ronon could almost hear him hauling himself back from the brink of panic. “Ok. They’re telling me maybe four hours? Five? Not much more than that.”

“All right,” Zelenka said. “That gives us a little time to plan.” He hit the switch that closed the channel and looked at McKay. “You heard?”

“Every word.” McKay was already typing figures into a laptop. “Do we know anything at all about this ship of theirs? Besides that it’s a Traveler ship, which means it’s a jury-rigged collection of improbably wired and extremely dangerous components that have finally given out on them?”

“That seems to describe it, yes,” Zelenka answered.

“The first thing must be to get the people off,” Teyla said.

“We can’t,” McKay answered. “We’ve only got the one puddle jumper, it’d take ten trips at least. And where would we take them?”

Zelenka opened communications again. “Tarris. Are you sure there’s no room on your other ship?”

“We’re sure.
Sunstar’s
environmental systems were damaged, she’s barely able to take care of what she has.”

“What exactly is wrong with your power plant?” McKay demanded. “What did you do to it?”

“We didn’t —”

“Do you have any schematics?” McKay reached for his laptop. “Any record of what happened?”

“I can send you what we have.” That was a new voice, a light contralto that could have been a very young man or a slightly older woman. With the Travelers, Ronon thought, it could be either. Any Traveler who showed a talent for ship maintenance was promptly pressed into service.

“Got it,” McKay said, watching the data spooling onto his screen. He spun the laptop so that Zelenka could see the screen. “If this is really what’s wrong — and I grant you, it’s a big if, this data is pretty ratty —  we can fix it.”

Zelenka studied the screen for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. Yes, we have everything you would need.”

“Once we get the engine back on line, we can stabilize the orbit, and everything will be fine.” McKay scowled at his screen. “And if we need to — We have lifeboats here, right?”

“Yes,” Zelenka said, “but they’re not — their engines won’t take them further than the planet.”

“I know that,” McKay said. “But if we have to, we can ferry the rest of the Travelers back here. I don’t want to try to put them on this ship —”

“Not given the state of the hull, no,” Zelenka said.

“But there are, what, five lifeboats? We can transfer them to the lifeboats temporarily while we get this ship out of trouble.”

Zelenka nodded. “Yes, ok, that will work. I will start loading the jumper —”

McKay shook his head. “You’re not coming.”

“Oh?” Zelenka looked up sharply, ready to protest, and McKay went on as though he hadn’t spoken.

“I need you to stay here and launch the lifeboats. I’ll take the rest of our team — and Teyla, she can organize the rescue — and we’ll handle the repairs.”

“Who will fly the puddle jumper?” Teyla asked. “Rodney, you cannot do that and fix their engines —”

“Of course not. Dr. Tanaka has the ATA gene, she can fly the jumper.”

Ronan looked at Teyla. “Do you want me to come with you? I can help corral the Travelers.”

Teyla tipped her head to one side, visibly considering. “No. The Travelers must be used to emergencies in space, they will not panic. And we need all the room there is.”

Ronon nodded, and swallowed his automatic protest. She was right, of course. They could fit two Travelers into the space he’d occupy in the jumper, and he wasn’t going to be any help with the repairs.

“Did you hear that?” McKay demanded. “We’re coming to you.”

“We heard,” Tarris answered. “And thank you.”

Zelenka watched the puddle jumper leave the docking bay and accelerate toward the Stargate. It had taken less than an hour to assemble the supplies and load everything onto the remaining jumper, but that was time that was running out on the
Astala
. And on the ship that was
Astala’s
‘lifeboat’, hanging in space between the Ancient ship and the Stargate. Tarris had not complained, but the scanner confirmed that they were pushing the limits of their life support systems.

And that, he told himself sternly, was their problem to deal with. His job was to launch the Ancient lifeboats in preparation for the jumper’s return. He scrolled through Ancient menus, muttering to himself. Yes, there it was, the section of the manifest that dealt with emergencies, and there was the section on the lifeboats. All five of them were present, though the hull around both three and five had suffered damage. He checked the scan, frowning, but none of the stress lines showed completely red. According to the system, the lifeboats should be fully stocked, but they’d already discovered that the computer was not entirely accurate. Prone to wishful thinking, Rodney had said, glaring at the empty tool sockets as though it were a personal insult. But Radek was inclined to think that the Ancients were just as bad about falsifying checklists as most people. It wasn’t until your life had depended on the most obscure tool in the kit that you really understood how important they could be. And, besides, there were a few things the lifeboats would need that the Ancients didn’t supply.

“Ronon. I need you to make sure that the lifeboats are in fact in place and fully supplied.”

The big man rose, nodding.

“Also there are oxygen candles in the locker beside the door. Take — let’s see, two for each lifeboat — take ten of them and share them out.”

“Ok.” Ronon turned toward the door. It was nice, Radek thought, to deal with someone who didn’t need to argue about absolutely everything —

The lights flickered. Radek looked up sharply, then reached for his laptop, switching to internal scans, but there were no alarms. The naqqadah generator was in place, powering the ship’s systems; the gravity field indicators glowed green, and they weren’t losing any more atmosphere than they had been.

The lights flickered again, and then blinked out. The emergency lights came on at once, but half the consoles were dead.

“Doc?” Ronon said.

“I don’t know.” Radek glared at the displays as though he could make them work by mental force. “We’ve lost everything but emergency power.”

“Damn.”

Radek took a deep breath, considering the displays. Everything was down except the emergency systems, and they, too, were showing warning signs. But the naqqadah generator was fine, and the connections said they were still good. If they weren’t, he and Ronon would have to get down to the engine room and replace them by hand. But, for now, try rebooting, he thought, and typed in the sequence of commands that would bring the naqqadah generator back into the system. The response flashed across his screen: the generator was receiving his input, but the power wasn’t crossing into the ship’s systems. Probably that was a physical problem with that particular bridge. But, no, when he pinged it individually, it showed intact. The frequency? Ancient equipment could be finicky about the frequencies it received. The emergency lights wavered, shadows moving across the consoles, but he ignored them. He touched keys again, adjusting the generator’s output. Bring it down to the minimum, he thought, tune it to be sure it matches exactly, and then try to reboot…

He entered the last command, holding his breath. The power surged, and the main lights flashed. For just a moment, he thought he’d succeeded, and then everything cut out. In the dark, the chair fell away beneath him as the gravity cut out, and he heard Ronon yell.

He grabbed for the edge of his chair, dragged himself down against it and wrapped his feet around the pillar that connected it to the deck. “Ronon! Grab something and hold on!”

“Trying, doc.” The answer came from somewhere near the door, but Radek couldn’t waste the time to look even if he had been able to see anything. His laptop, he needed his laptop — needed any laptop, it would be battery powered. It had been on the console beside where he’d been working, and he reached carefully in that direction, trying not to stir up air currents that would drive it away from him. Assuming that all the air was not rushing out —  but, no, there was no breeze on his skin. They were not decompressing.

The laptop. He had to find the laptop. He leaned forward, not losing his grip on the seat, and stretched in the direction where he’d last seen it. His questing fingers touched metal, batting it away, and he swore.

“Are you all right?” Ronon’s voice sounded closer.

“I’m fine. Hold on to something, you don’t want to be drifting if the power comes back.” Radek unwound his feet from the chair, grabbed its arm with one hand and stretched again. This time his fingers closed on the laptop’s edge, but he flailed for a moment before he could drag himself back against the console. He opened the laptop, and couldn’t help a sigh of relief as the screen sprang to life.

In its dim light, he could see Ronon spinning slowly in the center of the room. He wasn’t flailing, but working his arms and legs slowly, as though he was swimming in jelly, and Radek hooked his foot around the chair again to anchor himself. Ronon wasn’t in immediate danger; his first care had to be for the ship.

The system management program opened, alert windows popping open everywhere. Radek dismissed the least important, leaving the last four open so that he could switch quickly from system to system. Power was definitely out; the naqqadah generator’s fail-safe had cut in, and he’d need to restart it. Their own Wi-Fi was running, but that was it for communications; he could talk to the generator, and to the other laptops, and anyone who happened to be on the ship. Except, of course, that it was just him and Ronon. The environmental systems were completely shut down, and there were new stress points showing throughout the hull.

None of that was good, he thought, but the power came first. Without power, he couldn’t do anything else. “Ronon! I am going to try to get power back. Try to secure yourself.”

“Yeah, I’m working on that.”

Ronon sounded faintly breathless, but Radek couldn’t spare him a look. He switched to the main power window, studying the readouts from the generator. The power surge had tripped the failsafes, just as it was supposed to; when he pinged the system, there was no sign of damage. He typed in the commands to bring the generator back online, and held his breath as the line that showed power flow began to build.

“Hold on! I think we’re restarting —”

The lights flashed on and off, then on again, and the gravity field surged, his body suddenly twice as heavy as it should be. He heard Ronon yell, and swore himself as he fell painfully against the edge of the chair. He clutched the laptop against his chest, trying to switch windows, the deck heaving under him, his weight fading and then returning to pin him against the chair and console. The program refused to connect to the Ancient systems, and he dragged himself to the next control station, trying to read the flickering screens. There, he thought, there was the problem. He touched keys, closing one damaged circuit, and, before he could compensate, the ship seemed to whirl sideways into a spin, flinging him out of the chair and toward the ceiling.

He landed hard, lay for a moment crowing for breath: the corner of the laptop had caught him in the diaphragm, knocking the wind out of him. The lights were coming back on, slowly but surely, and he managed to sit up, wincing. It wasn’t the ship that had flipped, he thought. Instead, the gravity field had reversed itself so that he was sitting on what had been the ceiling, the laptop still clutched to his chest.

“Ronon?”

There was no answer, but in the growing light Radek could see him sprawled against the bulkhead beside the hatch.

“Ronon! Are you all right?”

This time, Ronon moved, cautiously stretching arms and legs. “Yeah — ow. I’ve hurt my leg. Not broken, I don’t think.”

“Good.” Radek reopened the laptop, sighing with relief at the unbroken screen. The news, though, was less than good. Power was flowing steadily again, but that was about the only thing that was working correctly. Air was moving, but the environmental readouts showed that the ventilators were off line. “Ok, this is not good.”

“What?” Ronon was sitting up against the far wall, wincing as he felt his way down his left leg.

“The surge in the gravity field has opened more breaks in the hull.” Radek switched windows again, calling up the hull scan, and swore at the results. “Damn it, it’s all in pieces. I don’t know how long it will hold.”

“Can we get to the Traveler ship?” Ronon asked.

“Communications are out,” Radek answered. “And they didn’t have much in the way of maneuvering power. We could get to the lifeboats, maybe.”

“You’re going to have to help me,” Ronon said, after a moment. “My knee’s not going to take my weight.”

And I can hardly carry you
. Radek swallowed the words, looked around the control room. Surely someone had brought a first aid kit? Yes, there it was, the bright plastic impossible to miss, stuck to the bulkhead beside what had been the lower curve of the hatch, completely out of reach. Ronon followed his look, and for just an instant his expression was bleak.

“At least we have one,” Radek said, and pushed himself to his feet. The gravity field felt fairly stable, the new ‘deck’ solid beneath him, but he grabbed a carryall that someone had left behind and stuffed the laptop in it, then slung the bag over his shoulder. They could not afford to lose the laptop. With it secured, he made his way to the bulkhead, and stretched as far as he could. The first aid kit remained tantalizingly out of reach. He turned, scanning the control room. “Something to stand on…”

“Me,” Ronon said.

Radek looked at him sharply, then realized the other man was right. None of the other furniture could be reached; it was all bolted to the deck, or what had been the deck, and hung overhead useless and unhelpful. “Are you sure?”