Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis - Far Horizons (14 page)

He stopped abruptly, his eyes focusing on the colored buttons above the main lock. “Doc, wait. What do those do?”

“What?” Zelenka froze, the candle opened but not yet ignited.

“Those buttons, above the lock.” Ronon pointed, supporting himself with his other hand. “Are they part of the lock? There’s nothing like them in Atlantis.”

“No,” Zelenka agreed. “They seem to be part of the lock, but I can’t make any of it work.”

Ronon tipped his head to one side. They were tantalizingly familiar, a memory momentarily out of reach — The game, he thought, the game that had been all the rage his last year in grammar school. You had to figure out the next color in the sequence from the colors that had come before. “I think I know how that part works,” he said. “You pick the next color.”

Zelenka set the candle back in the bag with the others. “If that’s right, it would certainly be better.” He ran his hand gently over the row of buttons, and shrugged. “I think they’ll move. Do we have to get it right the first try, or do we get more than one attempt?”

Damned if I know
. Ronon swallowed the words. “In the games you do. But one mistake resets everything.” He stopped, feeling the color rising in his face. “There was a game like this, when I was a kid.”

Zelenka nodded as though that made perfect sense. “The anthropologists back at the SGC talked about Ancient knowledge surviving in nursery rhymes and children’s games. Why shouldn’t it be true here? Don’t try to move, just tell me what color to select.”

That was the trick, wasn’t it? Ronon squinted at the band of color printed above the first button. Red, yellow, red, blue, red, orange, red… “Purple.”

Zelenka pressed the button, pressed it again to cycle through the series of colors, stopping on purple. The band lit up, and he made a pleased sound. “Oh, very good.”

The ship groaned again, a dull, grinding noise that set Ronon’s teeth on edge. He ignored it, concentrating on the next pattern. Blue, yellow, red, yellow, red, blue, yellow, blue… “Yellow.”

Zelenka pressed the button, and the strip lit again. “Yes.”

Was the air moving faster now, rustling across his skin? Was there a different smell? Ronon shoved those thoughts aside. “Blue.”

The next strip lit under Zelenka’s touch. The next sequence had gaps in it, as though the paint had been scratched away. He frowned at it, trying to work out what was missing, deduce the sequence from the gaps. “Red?” he began, and shook his head. “No, wait!”

Zelenka froze.

“Nothing. Skip that one and go on.” Ronon considered the next line of colors. “Definitely red.”

Zelenka cycled through to red, and both strips lit. They were all on now, and Ronon held his breath. There was a grinding of metal from inside the bulkhead. Slowly, shuddering, the door began to move — and stopped, leaving an opening not much more than a hand span wide.

Zelenka said something pithy in his own language, and put his shoulder to the door. It gave another inch or two, and stuck again.

“Let me try,” Ronon said, before he could think better of it, and leaned hard on the door. It didn’t move, and his knee gave way under him. Zelenka steadied him.

“I do not think that is going to work.” He reached for his laptop, unfolded it, and began typing. “It says there’s nothing wrong with the mechanism. Something’s jammed it from the other side, perhaps?”

The deck shivered under them, a vibration that seemed to travel from one end of the corridor to the next. The hull groaned again, and there was a distinct popping sound. Zelenka swore again, working his keyboard one-handed, and abruptly a breeze swept across Ronon’s skin, strengthening perceptibly.

“We’re in trouble,” he said, and Zelenka nodded.

“The breaches in the hull have gotten worse. We have maybe fifteen, maybe twenty minutes of good air left.”

Radek took a final look at the uncompromising numbers on his screen, then closed the laptop. They were in the core of the ship, in a section that remained more intact that others, but that wouldn’t save them unless they could get into an airtight compartment. There were no airtight bulkheads between them and the nearest breaches, and the most recent scan showed dozens of tiny fractures all around them. And if any one of them became large enough, the pressure differential would shatter the hull entirely. “The drone compartment is designed to be airtight,” he said. “If we can just get in —”

Ronon nodded, and heaved at the door again, but fell back, wincing. “It’s jammed pretty good.”

“Yes.” Radek tried to see into the compartment, but the emergency lighting didn’t seem to be working. He worked his shoulder into the opening, feeling cautiously along the inside of the door to see if he could feel the blockage. There was nothing, and he stepped back, reaching for the laptop. “I’m going to try closing and opening it again, see if I can work whatever is blocking it loose.”

He touched keys, and the door slid shut, the grinding noise much less evident. That was a hopeful sign, Radek thought. It should mean that the mechanism itself was intact, and the problem was something external. He entered the command to open the door again, and it slid back, only to jam in the same place. Or maybe not, he thought, and in the same moment, Ronon said, “It moved.”

“Good.” Radek cycled through the sequence again and yet again. The grinding noise was worse than ever, but Ronon was right, the door was opening just a little further. He ran the sequence a fourth time, and the door stopped with a screech of metal. “Ok, not so good.”

“You could get through that,” Ronon said.

“Maybe.” Radek shrugged off his shoulder bag, and then stripped off his jacket. If he could get through, and could clear the jam enough to let Ronon pass…? It was worth a shot. He turned sideways, put one leg through the gap, and then his shoulder, turning his head as he tried to slide through. He stuck for a moment, something sharp digging into his chest, and then he forced himself through, tearing his shirt and drawing a long scratch across his ribcage. He dabbed at it, swearing under his breath — a little blood, not much; good thing he’d had all his shots — and tried to get his bearings in the unlit compartment. As his eyes adjusted, he could see a faint flash of light from the center of the floor: the original ceiling fixture, he guessed, broken by falling debris when the gravity field failed and then reversed.

The flicker of light was just enough to reveal a hulking shadow resting against the door. The next time he had a mission off Atlantis, he would be sure to bring a flashlight, he told himself, and looked back out into the corridor. “Ronon! Hand me that candle.”

The Satedan passed it through without a word. Radek planted the magnetic base against the bulkhead where it would be out of the way and still, he hoped, cast enough light to be useful, and pulled the ignition tab. The candle hissed and sputtered and burst abruptly into blinding white light. He blinked, and as his vision cleared, the shadow resolved itself to a tangle of lifting gear, cables and pulleys and the twisted frame of a hoist that had fallen against the door mechanism. It didn’t need to be moved very far, that was the good news, but… He studied the pile of wreckage for a long moment, looking for a weak point. Yes, there, that beam: if it shifted a few centimeters toward the center of the compartment, the door should surely open. The trick would be to move it.

He leaned his weight against it, but it was dishearteningly solid. If only Ronan could make it through the gap, but if he could, they could simply seal the door again behind them. He tried again, exerting his full strength, but nothing moved. The hull moaned again, a dull noise that was as much vibration as sound, and the light of the candle wavered slightly.

“Doc?”

Radek hurried back to the gap in the door. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” Ronon’s tone wasn’t as confident as his words. “But I think we’re losing more air.”

Radek cursed again. “Yes, I believe it. Just hang on, I can move this in just a moment.”

“Maybe I can get through,” Ronon said, and wedged his shoulder into the gap, only to fall back, wincing.

“Give me my laptop,” Radek said. He would find a way, there had to be a way, but while he was figuring it out, he needed to set up the laptop to work the door controls from the inside. His hands moved without conscious volition, attaching the new cable, typing in the commands and adjusting the tolerances. The window opened, and he allowed himself a sigh of relief.

“Better take these, too,” Ronon said, and shoved the bag that held the oxygen candles through the gap.

Radek accepted it automatically, dragging it to one side so that it would be out of the way. There were still pulleys on the floor and on what was now the ceiling, an elaborate block and tackle system intended to ease moving something larger than the drones. Or, perhaps, to move the things the drones were loaded into? It was hard to tell. Most of the hoist had broken free of its moorings, but at least the main block and tackle was intact. If he could just free one end of the cable —

He hauled on it, and staggered back as it came free, the pulley wheels running freely. That was good, and he traced the other end into the tangle, hauling on it until it stuck fast. If he had a cutting torch — and that was something else he was going to carry the next time he went off Atlantis, assuming there was a next time. He killed that thought. He didn’t have a torch, and he was running out of time.

He wrapped the free end of the cable around his waist, to be sure his efforts didn’t drag it out of the sheaves, then tugged at the other end to gain some slack. He looped that around the biggest beam, angling it to get the best leverage, then walked back toward the opening, pulling in the cable to bring it taut. It came fast at first, the wheels clattering, and stopped abruptly, the cable singing as it snapped tight. He put his full weight on it, felt the metal give, and then stick fast again.

“Doc,” Ronon said again. “The air, it’s going. Seal the door.”

“We do not do things that way,” Radek said, breathlessly, and hauled with all his strength. The metal moved, and he pulled again, hanging from the cable to get every last gram of force. It moved, it definitely moved, but was it enough? It would have to be, he thought, and reached for his laptop. “I think we have it.”

“It’s too late,” Ronon said. “Seal the damn door.”

“Don’t pass out, I can’t carry you.” Radek typed the command into the computer, and the door began to move, sliding back on its track. Ten centimeters, twenty-five… it jammed again, but surely the opening was large enough. “Come on!”

He could feel the air flowing past him, the candle sputtering. Ronon lurched forward, and Radek caught his arm, steering him through the gap and into the shelter of the storage compartment. Ronon shook himself, leaning hard against the wall, and Radek reversed the door. It slid closed with a solid thunk. Above them, the oxygen candle guttered, and Ronon slid down the wall, grimacing as he settled himself on the floor.

“Are you all right?” Radek checked the bag with the oxygen candles. They had a dozen left; he could spare another to replenish the atmosphere they’d lost. He dragged one out, stuck it to the wall, and pulled the tab. It flared to life, casting a second set of wavering shadows, and Radek turned his attention to the other man. “Let me see.”

“I’m ok,” Ronon said. “Just my leg.”

“Yes —” The hull groaned again, and Radek reached for his laptop. “I think —  Yes, we’re still holding together, though we’re losing atmosphere everywhere.” He allowed himself a deep sigh, and slumped to the floor beside Ronon. “But this compartment is intact, and we still have emergency power. That means we should keep gravity, at least for a while.”

“That’s good, right?” Ronon sounded exhausted, and Radek made himself reach for the first aid kit.

“Yes. We should be fine until either Teyla or Colonel Sheppard returns. Now, let me take a look at your leg.”

“There’s nothing more you can do,” Ronon said. He rested his head against the wall. “Unless you’ve got any of those pain pills?”

“Yes.” Radek found them, measured out the tablets.

Ronon palmed them, swallowing them dry. “Thanks.”

“We should be all right —” Radek began, and Ronon shook his head.

“Don’t say it.”

Radek laughed under his breath. “Perhaps not.”

“When do you think they’ll get here?”

Radek shrugged, reaching for his laptop. “Who knows? But hours, not days.”

“That’s something.”

The dry humor in Ronon’s voice was oddly encouraging. “Yes, well,” Radek said. “I did not bring anything with me to amuse myself with.”

Ronon shifted, reaching into his pockets. “Cards.”

“You brought playing cards?” Radek looked doubtfully over the top of his glasses.

“I was planning teach Martinez and Sloan how to play catch-as-catch-can,” Ronon said. “But Teyla decided I needed to come on this mission. They were in my pocket.”

“I’m not exactly sorry,” Radek said. “If you hadn’t been here, I don’t know if I could have gotten that door open. I wouldn’t have known that was part of the lock, much less figured it out.”

“It wouldn’t have done me any good if you hadn’t gotten the door unjammed,” Ronon answered.

That was not something Radek really wanted to think too much about. “Can two people play this game, catch-as-catch-can?”

“Not so much.” Ronon sounded faintly relieved at the change of subject. “But there are other games.”

“Good,” Radek said briskly. “You can teach them to me.”

Sheppard peered at his laptop’s glowing screen, night rising outside Atlantis’s windows. It had been a long day, but a much better one than it might have been, considering everything that had gone wrong. Nobody had been killed, and Carson promised Ronon’s wrenched knee would be fine in a week or so. Ok, they hadn’t been able to save the Ancient warship, but Rodney had managed to repair the Traveler ship in the nick of time. His fingers moved, typing quickly.
Dr. McKay’s assistance ensures that the Travelers will continue to cooperate with Atlantis mission objectives
: he thought that was pretty good report-speak for ‘and now Larrin
really
owes us one.’

Unfortunately, the Ancient warship’s hull proved to be unstable and the ship unsalvageable. However, we were able to remove all useable parts and return them to Atlantis. (See attached inventory.)
And that pretty much covered it, because there wasn’t any room in the official report for the moment of pure adrenaline when he came back through the wormhole to find a Traveler ship in orbit and the Ancient ship dark and silent, or for the sheer relief of finding Zelenka and Ronon alive and not seriously hurt. He couldn’t suppress a crooked smile, remembering how his team had found the two of them, sitting quietly in the drone compartment, cards in hand and a pile of improvised counters in front of Zelenka. That was something else that wasn’t going in the official report: don’t play cards with Zelenka. He’d let them figure that out the hard way.