“Something weird? That’s your reason to go?” asked Weir.
“Well, I’m not best qualified on the science stuff. But yeah, that’s about the size of it. Rodney’ll give you the technical side.”
All eyes turned to McKay. He looked uncomfortable.
“Look, I don’t like cold. Or hot, come to think of it. But especially not cold. And I get chilblains easy,” he said. “But we could certainly use a way to travel around without relying on the Daedalus. If there’s new gate tech working here, then I’m not going to sleep well until I know how it works. If we can crack it, we could even get the backup link to Earth you’ve been trying to get me to build since we got here. So that’s a reason for checking it out. Not that I’m keen on going myself. I’d be happy to monitor things from here, really I would. But we can’t just ignore it.”
Sheppard turned back to Weir. “You heard the man,” he said. “Now we’ve got two reasons for going. It’s weird, and it’s useful.”
Weir turned to the other members. “Teyla?”
“I agree with Dr McKay,” the Athosian said. “The Ancestors have spoken. If they had come back to Lantea, they would have completed whatever it was they were doing there. There was urgency in their message. We cannot ignore it.”
“Ronon?”
The Satedan shrugged. “I’m up for it,” he said in his usual expansive way.
Sheppard grinned, feeling things going his way. “You’re gonna have to find a reason for us not to do this, Elizabeth,” he said. “There’s a case for a recon, and that’s really our job.”
Weir looked at him for a few moments, evidently weighing up her options. “I still don’t like it,” she said, at last. “There’s way too much we don’t know.”
Still she paused. The team waited, saying nothing.
“But I’m mindful of the Ancients’ message,” she said at last. “They felt it was important, and we have to take that seriously. So take the Jumper — that’ll give you some protection. We’re breaking new ground here and I want you all back safely.”
Sheppard nodded. “Agreed,” he said. “No unnecessary risks.”
Decision made. Now he’d just have to ensure that something useful came out of it.
McKay picked at his collar nervously. The Jumper was fully loaded, the bulkheads stuffed with cold-weather gear. Like the rest of the team, he was decked out in ECWCS versions of their standard fatigues. In Atlantis’s controlled atmosphere they felt close and restrictive, but he knew they’d be needed as soon as they emerged from the other end of the wormhole. It was little comfort. He didn’t like the cold any more than he liked the heat, or the damp, or the dry.
He still wasn’t sure he’d made the right choice in coming. It was either him or Zelenka, and the battle between his natural fear of the unknown and the chance of his colleague discovering something about the Ancients he didn’t know had been close. In the end, his thirst for knowledge had won. But only just. Now the nerves had returned and he felt terrible.
Up in the cockpit, Sheppard ran through the final pre-flight checks, the translucent screens of the Ancient head-up display floating before him. Teyla sat in the co-pilot’s seat, Ronon next to McKay in the rear compartment. He seemed to take up all the spare space.
“This damn thing’s too tight!” Rodney mumbled, trying to pull the insulated fabric from his neck.
“Don’t pull it, then,” said Ronon.
Sheppard spoke into the comm link. “Jumper’s good to go.”
“Very good,” came Weir’s voice from the Operations Center. “You’re clear to leave when ready.”
Sheppard ran his fingers over the Jumper’s control mechanism and McKay felt vaguely resentful of the man’s easy familiarity with Ancient technology. He didn’t seem to realize quite how lucky he was.
“Here we go, boys and girls,” Sheppard said, casting a final watchful eye over the diagnostic readings streaming across the lower half of the HUD. “Watch yourselves on the other side. There’s a storm blowing.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” muttered McKay. “We had to take off when there’s a storm blowing. Would it have been so hard to pick a clear window?”
“From what I can tell, there’s always a storm blowing,” said Sheppard, maneuvering the Jumper into position. “Quit complaining. You’re the one that started all of this.”
“I’m so glad you’re here to point these things out,” McKay grumbled.
Sheppard ignored him and continued nudging the Jumper round.
The ship hovered for a moment before powering the thrusters. Ahead, the surface of the Stargate shimmered with the vast energies of the contained event horizon.
“Good luck,” Weir said. “Bring back something good.”
McKay almost responded with a ‘like frostbite’ quip, but bit his tongue. Sheppard gave the necessary command and the Jumper responded with the strange, inertia-less movement so typical of Ancient technology. The sleek craft shot forward, the gate room blurring into the familiar split-second of wild disorientation before they were spat out.
Except they weren’t. Something had gone wrong. Instead of emerging into a new world, they were hurtling along a snaking, whirling tube of energy.
“This isn’t good,” Sheppard growled. “Oh, this is really not good…”
The HUD ran with strange figures. The Jumper lurched sideways, scraping along the edge of the wormhole limits. McKay was thrown roughly against Ronon as the Jumper listed crazily.
“What is happening?” Teyla yelled.
“Ask McKay!” Sheppard snapped, battling for control of the Jumper.
“What? This isn’t my fault!” McKay protested, heart thumping with alarm. “This didn’t happen to the MALP!”
Unbuckling himself with fumbling fingers, he stumbled over to a control panel in the rear of the Jumper — and was nearly hurled straight into it by a fresh yaw sideways. “Keep this thing on the road, will you?”
“You wanna fly?” Sheppard looked like he was struggling to maintain control.
“We’ve got massive power loss,” shouted McKay, desperately flicking a series of controls. “We’ll need to use the Jumper’s own supply to get us out.”
Teyla gave him a sharp look. “Can you do it?”
“If I can’t, we’re beyond screwed!”
“Any time you’re ready…” Sheppard ground out.
John pulled the Jumper into a long, tight arc that rolled waves of nausea around McKay’s stomach. He swallowed hard.
“OK, OK! I’m there. Are you getting anything now?” The Jumper swooped dizzyingly and McKay clamped his jaw shut, making a mental note to check the inertial dampeners.
“I’ve routed all power to navigation,” Sheppard barked. “Something’s picking up on the display. I think we’re on the way out.”
McKay slumped back in his seat and attempted to buckle up. “This didn’t happen to the MALP,” he muttered. “Zelenka must have gotten something wrong with the calculations. I should have run a final check myself. If you want something done…”
He stole a quick glance at Ronon and Teyla. The huge Satedan was untroubled. Nothing seemed to faze him. Teyla was similarly stoic. They were both far too calm. God, he hated that.
The Jumper lurched again. The readings suddenly changed, and a stream of data cascaded across the screen.
“OK, we’re getting out of this,” announced Sheppard. “Get ready. We’ll be coming in hot.”
McKay closed his eyes. “Ironic.”
The swirling mass of energy in the forward viewscreen coalesced into the more familiar shape of a bubbling event horizon. The Jumper gave a final, bone-shaking shudder, slamming Rodney hard against the hull. A microsecond later, and they were through the gate.
Sheppard felt like whooping.
But it wasn’t over yet. Everything skewed, bounced and jumped as the gravitational forces suddenly changed. He compensated. Too late. The Jumper skidded, grazing something jagged and hard, before careering back into the air. The whole ship rolled around like a drunkard.
“For God’s sake!” cried McKay, hanging precariously on to his seat. “Land the damn thing already!”