The computer dinged, alerting Kimberly to her search program getting a hit. Twisting in her seat, she cursed under her breath. Her damn leg was going to drive her up the wall soon, but at least Mac had cleared her to go back to work – as long as she stuck to desk work only. When she had maneuvered herself to where she could see the screen, she quickly scanned the readout. “Oh. My. God,” she whispered, hitting her comms. “Dr. McKay, could you come down to my lab, please?”
“What is it, Kimberly? I’m kind of busy here,” Rodney groused in her ear.
“Trust me, Rodney, you’ll want to see this. And if John is with you, you might want to bring him along.” If what she was reading was any indication, and if the satellite was still around and in working order, she was pretty sure that both Rodney and John were liable to spontaneously combust. Hell, the specs on this thing almost had her rubbing her thighs together.
A long suffering sigh followed by, “Fine. We’ll be there in ten,” had her grinning. While she waited for Rodney to show, she adjusted her search parameters a little and by the time he and John walked into her lab, she had found more information.
“What was so urgent, Kim?” Rodney grumbled.
She turned, grinning, and almost laughed at John goodnaturedly rolling his eyes at his mate. Pointing at her screen, she said, “See for yourself.” Lowering her leg from the stool it was resting on, she moved aside so both Rodney and John could take a look. It was most gratifying to hear the sounds of delight coming from both men. When they looked up, she didn’t even try to suppress the smugness she felt, so she crossed her arms and grinned. “Told you.”
Gripping Rodney’s arm, John seemed to have a hard time not letting the little boy inside him jump with joy. As toys went, a giant weapons satellite was… well… big. “Kimberly,” John said hoarsely, “is there any way to tell if it’s still out there?”
She sighed, shaking her head. “No, not from here. If the satellite still exists, it is either damaged or out of power. Or both, come to think of it. The only way to really know for sure is to go check it out in person.”
John and Rodney shared an excited look. “According to the specs, there’s a loading dock for the jumpers, John. We could fly out there.”
He bit his lip, mulling it over. “Elizabeth might not like it. It’d take us a good fifteen hours to get there, Rodney. But if it’s there… if it works…”
Kimberly cleared her throat, getting their attention. “From what I read, if it’s merely out of power, we should be able to hook it up to our naquedah generators. The power requirements are not dissimilar to that of the systems we have them on here in the city.”
Rodney bent to read for himself then nodded. “Surprisingly enough, she’s right, John. You’d have thought it’d require a ZPM just like the chair, but this seems different. Still insanely powerful of course, but we should be able to make it work.”
John nodded, reaching out to squeeze Kimberly’s shoulder. “You did good, Kimberly.”
She smiled wanly. “Thanks. If Dr. Weir okays the mission, I don’t suppose I have a chance in hell of going, do I?”
Rodney glared at her, arms crossed tight around his chest. “No.”
“But Rodney!” she whined. Damn her stupid broken leg. “I could-”
“No way, Kim. You’re not cleared for that kind of duty, and even if you were, I still wouldn’t let you go. God only knows what we’ll be faced with if and when we find it and until you are completely mobile again, you are a liability in the field. Besides, Ioan would gut me.”
She huffed, pouting. Rodney was right and she knew it, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. John patted her shoulder. “Sorry, Kimberly. Maybe next time.”
“Yeah, because there’ll be so many other weapons satellites out there,” she groused, though there was no real heat in it. Taking a breath, she tapped her finger on her desk. “Okay, so I won’t be going. You’ll still need a couple of people with you to help look it over.”
Rodney nodded, crossing his legs as he settled against the desk. “You’re right. I want you to bring Gall and Abrams up to speed and I want you to keep digging in the database. Anything you find on that thing, I want uploaded to our pads.”
“Can do,” she assured, already putting in a new search parameter. “When are you planning on leaving?”
Rodney glanced at John, who answered. “Assuming Elizabeth gives a green light, I want to be wheels up in two hours. There’s no point in delaying longer than that, but I want to give you some time to get everything prepped. And by ‘in two hours’, I mean from now, not from when Elizabeth says ‘yes’.”
Kimberly’s lips twitched, her eyes dancing with amusement. “Think you can talk her around that quickly?”
John grinned. “Watch me.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and huffed. “Alright, flyboy. Let’s go. We all have work to do,” he chided, herding John out of the lab.
Kimberly called after them, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Lifting her leg back up on the stool, she sighed, trying to get comfortable again. She was getting so tired of being in that damn cast. Hitting her comms, she paged Drs. Gall and Abrams even as she began sending the information already obtained to their pads.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Come on, John, please?” Rodney wheedled for the umpteenth time.
John sighed, closing his eyes briefly. “Rodney, do we have to do this now?” he said quietly, jerking his head to the two men behind them. He loved the man, he really did, but John had realized fairly early on that Rodney didn’t like to lose face in front of his minions and, well, Rodney really sucked at flying. He was getting better, admittedly, but John wasn’t sure that giving him a flying lesson now was the best idea.
“Oh, please, Major, just let him have a go,” Abrams exclaimed tiredly. “Or we’ll never have any peace.”
“Not that we ever do,” grumbled Gall, which made John frown. There seemed to be an underlying friction between Gall and Rodney, but Rodney declined to comment on it.
“Fine. Here, take the wheel. Just… take it easy this time, okay?” John said as he got out of the pilot’s seat so Rodney could slide in. Once the man had a handle on the controls, John took Rodney’s seat. He shook his head at how tight his mate’s posture had become, though he couldn’t help but smile at the look of excitement on his face. Okay, so maybe it was worth it to have him have a lesson on this trip, despite the audience.
John noticed Gall get up unsteadily and move to the back of the jumper to use the head. When he came back a few minutes later, John thought he looked a little green around the gills. Frowning, he was about to ask if the man was okay when Rodney tightened his grip on the controls even further. “Ease up on the controls a little,” John cautioned.
“I’m fine,” Rodney assured.
Shaking his head slightly, John contradicted him. “You’re gonna snap the damn things off in a minute. Ease up!”
“I’m just seeing what this baby can do.”
Abrams snorted. “Did you just say ‘this baby’?”
“Ah, that’s perfectly appropriate space pirate parlance,” Rodney quipped.
Quipped! Rodney! In another time and place, John thought that Rodney could have been playing in a bumper car for all the enjoyment he seemed to take in flying the jumper. “Try to fly ‘the baby’ in a straight line,” John said wryly.
“I’m flying in a straight line!” Rodney protested, frowning at him.
John huffed slightly as he pulled up the HUD. First it showed their projected course, and then their current trajectory. Quirking a brow, John murmured, “Yeah, not so much.”
“Well,” Rodney said, shrugging. “In space all motion is relative.”
From the corner of his eye, John could see Gall hunkering down in his seat looking ill. He was fanning his face and appeared to want to be anywhere but here. Half-turning in his seat, John asked, “Are you okay, Dr. Gall?”
Gall waved him off, a pinched expression on his face, claiming he got motion sickness. John bit his tongue, shooting his mate a look of disbelief. Had Gall really been Rodney’s best choice for this mission? Leaning across the console, John whispered to Rodney, “Why did you pick him for this mission?”
Rodney turned to him, waving his hand dismissively. “Because he’s one of the few people on my team that have studied Ancient weaponry. I figured that might prove useful?” Rodney said with an air of stating the obvious.
John nodded then snapped, “Don’t let go of the controls!” when he realized what Rodney had done.
Jumping in his seat, Rodney fumbled to get ahold of the controls again. “Snapping doesn’t help!” He glowered at John.
Rolling his eyes, John shook his head. “This is why parents get someone else to teach their kids how to drive.” Maybe he could have one of the Lorne brothers give lessons to Rodney instead, because John really wasn’t in the mood to let their respective tempers lead to a fight over this. At least if Rodney got mad at one of them instead of John, he would still have a chance at getting laid.
Rodney shot him a sharp look. “I am both insulted and touched by that,” he all but sneered.
Yeah, that definitely sounded like Rodney, John thought. Gall’s whispered, “Oh my God,” made him look up. For a minute, all four men simply stared out of the viewscreen at the approaching satellite. It was massive, and from the look of things, at least appeared to be in one piece. John’s stomach did a little flip when he imagined the fire power this thing would have if they ever got it up and running again. It would make any confrontation with the Wraith a lot easier to handle, and John had absolutely no doubts in his mind that the Wraith were coming.
As the satellite loomed closer, John got up. “McKay?” Eyes on the viewscreen, they switched places, neither one willing to risk any mishaps now they were so close to their goal. Leaving the scientists to whatever it was they did, John got as close as he dared for the moment. Gall confirmed the station was dead, noting again they could probably hook it up to a generator.
While he and Rodney were debating the chances of that, Abrams interrupted them. “Wait, wait… I’m picking up something on the ultra-low frequency range.”
John turned his head toward the man. “Where’s it coming from,” he asked as Abrams switched on the audio. John frowned, trying to place where he’d heard the sound before. It dawned on him at the same time as Rodney said, “The planet. It’s a distress call. A Wraith distress call.”
He and Rodney shared a long, knowing look. There was no way the Wraith could be here this soon or they would have heard about it already. Which meant that this ship had been here since the war with the Ancients over ten thousand years ago. John’s thoughts automatically began to weigh the pros and cons of checking out the distress beacon. It didn’t take him long. Whatever intel they could gain would be worth any risk, and surely no Wraith could still be living after this much time. Could it?
“Contact Atlantis,” John said quietly.
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