McKay sighed, and pressed the a button on the improvised door release mechanism. When he finally found the others, he thought to himself, they had better be grateful.
The rear door juddered open, and immediately a storm of snow shot into the narrow space. Within a second, every surface was covered in a layer of white. The wind was mind-blowing, and once inside it began to rock the Jumper like a toy. McKay grabbed a bulkhead for support and staggered forward. He couldn’t see a thing beyond the entrance to the vessel. His heart quailed and he hesitated, clinging to the fragile hull. He couldn’t go out. He just couldn’t.
“About damn time!” came a muffled shout from the void.
Three gray figures emerged from the white-out, staggering against the force of the wind.
“Ronon!” cried McKay, rushing forward. Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon stumbled into the rear bay, barely visible beneath the snow that clung to their clothing. Once inside the rear bay, they collapsed.
“Close the door!” yelled Ronon.
McKay hurried to comply, struggling to find the closing mechanism in the swirling confusion. Eventually, his fingers located the control panel and he activated the switch. The door slammed upwards, locking out the maelstrom. The noise was reduced to a booming rumble.
“All right, that was too close,” Sheppard’s voice was alarmingly slurred. “Anyone else feel their fingers?”
McKay frowned. “We’re not out of this yet,” he said. “I don’t want to hurry you, but most of the readings here are somewhere close to critical and I don’t even want to think about what’s happening to the Stargate in our absence.”
“Just gimme a minute, will ya?” The Colonel looked horribly fatigued. McKay could only imagine what a few hours in that storm must have been like. But there was no time to rest. He looked at Ronon, who made to speak, but then the Jumper was rocked by a massive gust. It tipped to one side. McKay had difficulty keeping his feet, then fell back heavily as a series of amber lights flickered across the HUD display.
“Minute up,” Sheppard groaned, climbing painfully to his feet, beginning to strip off his sodden furs. “Just don’t expect first-class service here.”
Weir walked into the Operations Center, just as she had done every couple of hours since the databurst had been sent. It had become a ritual, increasingly devoid of hope. But it had to be done.
“Anything?” she asked Zelenka.
Just as always, Radek shook his head. Each time, he looked a little wearier, a little less full of life.
“Nothing,” he said. Weir looked at the empty Stargate below. It gazed back up at her, vacant and hollow. Every time she looked at it, she imagined the addresses whirling around the rim, the sudden burst of a new event horizon. Staring at it too long played tricks on you. She let her gaze return to Zelenka.
“How long do you think they could last in that climate?” she asked. “Have we run any models?”
Zelenka shook his head. “Not enough data. We have the readings from the MALP, but I don’t know what good it would do to speculate. We can’t reach them. We must wait.”
“Keep running the sensor tests,” she said. “We’re not giving up yet. Let me know if you get anything. I don’t care how small.”
Zelenka nodded.
“Will do,” he said, but his voice was empty.
The team clambered into the cockpit, taking their usual places and strapping in. McKay sat back against the hard seat-back with some pleasure. Sheppard brought up the controls quickly.
“So what happened out there?” said McKay. “Did it go to plan?”
“Another time, Rodney,” said Sheppard wearily. “Just sit back and enjoy the flight.”
With a sudden surge, the Jumper powered smoothly into the air once more. Unlike Rodney’s chaotic ascent, this time it traced a straight line into the storm-driven sky, the power increasing steadily as Sheppard deftly managed the power fluctuations. The Jumper turned in a wide arc and headed back towards the Stargate.
“Coming up on the Stargate now,” said Sheppard. “Anything I should know about, Rodney?”
“Aside from the fact that it might already be at the bottom of a crevasse?”
“Right. Anything useful?”
“Just keep us near to the ice. At best, it will have sunk further since we were last there. The closer you can hug the ground, the easier our passage will be.”
Sheppard shook his head and dipped the Jumper further towards the planet’s surface. “Sure, piece of cake,” he said.
McKay didn’t reply, but the Jumper noticeably slowed and the altitude continued to fall. In the rare gaps between the driving snow, McKay saw flashes of the ice speeding below them. It was happening. This was the important moment. And there was so much to get right.
“Remember what I told you about the module!” McKay said, aware that getting into the Stargate was only part of their task. “You’ll need to activate it straightaway. A second too late, and we’ll be threading through the anomaly again.”
“Don’t need to remind me,” said Sheppard. “Dialing the gate now. Hold tight folks. We’re going in — see you on the other side.”
McKay screwed his eyes shut, then opened them again. It was hard to decide which way was worse.
The Jumper dropped sharply. They were racing along. Sheppard remained silent, looking at the figures on the HUD intently. Teyla seemed barely conscious and Ronon said nothing.
And then, as if Khost wanted to give them a view to remember it by, the cloud cover broke. They were in the open, hurtling earthwards. The Stargate was directly in front of them, only partly obscured by the tearing flurries of snow and ice, and its surface boiled with the massive contained energies of the event horizon. The ZPM had kicked in. The wormhole was open.
But the power unleashed was doing dangerous things to the ice around it; there were jagged cracks all around the base. The gate itself was still above ground, but only just. As they plunged towards it, dark lines were radiating out across the plain. The Stargate was going down.
“Faster!” McKay yelled. Sheppard didn’t need to be told. As the Stargate tottered on the brink, he poured on the power and the Jumper hurled itself forward. McKay was thrown back in his seat, his heart pounding. Cracks opened, fissures yawned, and the ice floe collapsed.
The Stargate plunged into the abyss.
“We’ve got something!”
Zelenka’s voice cracked with excitement. Around him, scientists scrambled to get at a monitor. Down in the gate room, the landing bay was flooded with light. The event horizon had formed.
“Try to feed power to the link!” cried Zelenka. “I don’t care what readings you’re getting, we need to keep it open!”
The Atlantis squads swung into action. The medical team was already on its way to the gate room. Marines snapped to combat alertness, just in case. But they all knew what was coming through. Or, more accurately, they all knew what they wanted to come through.
Weir arrived, out of breath. “What is it?” she demanded. ”Do you have them?”
“Don’t know yet,” said Zelenka. “But the wormhole is from Dead End, or I’m a Slovak!”
Elizabeth raced over to the balcony and Zelenka turned back to the screen. The numbers were all over the place; this was definitely no normal transit. For a moment it looked as if they would lose the signal. Then it came back. Then it dimmed again.
“Come on, Rodney,” he breathed, gripped by the fluctuating readings. “Come on.”
The top of the Jumper screamed as they hit the falling gate, metal scraping away. It was enough. Though battered and listing, they were inside the event horizon.
“Now!” screamed McKay. “Route the power!”
For a moment, the Jumper viewscreen was filled with a confused pool of energy. It looked horribly like the tunnel of plasma they had seen before.