McKay felt the contents of his stomach rise.
“I’m losing power, Rodney!” shouted Sheppard.
McKay leapt from his seat. “This should be working!” he wailed. “Did you trip the Zelenka module?”
The Jumper swung round hard. Something up ahead was forming. The plasma conduit. Not again.
“What d’you think?” yelled Sheppard. “We can’t survive another trip into that.”
“I know!”
McKay ran his fingers over the module. It was working. Power was being routed. But not enough. Why? It wasn’t fair.
“Here it comes!” warned Sheppard. “We’re gonna hit it…”
“I’ve got it!” cried Rodney. “There it is!”
One of the nodes on the Zelenka module had worked loose. Probably knocked when the Jumper had hit the ice. Rodney slammed it back into place. Immediately, the power feed doubled. “Hit it!”
The plasma tore away. A shimmering curtain of light formed in front of them and they were out. McKay looked nervously out of the front windshield. He didn’t quite know what to expect. Part of him wouldn’t have been surprised to see a wall of ice, another part of him still expected to see the anomaly in all its horrifying glory.
The reality was much more comforting. They were in the gate room on Atlantis. With shaking hands, Sheppard brought the vessel smoothly down on to the solid floor. Once stationary, he turned to the rest of the team. His face was white.
“Hit it?” he asked. “What the hell was that?”
“It just seemed, you know, the right thing to say,” said Rodney.
He looked around the cockpit for support. Teyla was out cold and even Ronon wasn’t moving. The full enormity of what they’d just done hit home. He felt queasy.
“Oh, God,” he said, and promptly passed out.
Chapter Nineteen
“I’ll see you.”
Sheppard felt confident. Real confident. Rodney was a terrible bluffer. He had trouble hiding his emotions at the best of times, but when there was money at stake his composure left him entirely.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” said McKay, looking a little uncomfortable. “You don’t want to raise the bet just a little?”
Teyla rolled her eyes. She was looking a lot healthier, Sheppard thought. Since the team had returned from Khost, she’d been kept in the infirmary longest. She’d been lucky — the injuries from the rock collapse had been relatively minor. Then again, they’d all been lucky. A few more minutes in the that storm, and it could all have been over. Not something he really wanted to think about.
“Rodney, that will hardly encourage him to raise his stake,” she said. “I am not sure you fully appreciate the subtleties of this game.”
McKay scowled.
“Subtleties?” he muttered. “It’s all a matter of probability, that’s what it is. And that’s where I score very highly. So here’s what I’ve got.”
He slapped his hand on to the table. Two queens. Not bad. But not worth the pile of bills stacked in the middle of the table.
“Hell, yeah!” cried Sheppard in triumph. “My first haul of the night.”
He threw his own hand down, revealing a full house. Rodney rolled his eyes.
“This is the stupidest game I’ve ever played,” he moaned. “I mean, where’s the skill? Where’s the technique?”
“It’s all in your attitude to risk, my friend,” said Sheppard, moving to gather his winnings.
“Not so fast,” interrupted Ronon. All eyes turned to the Runner, who’d been characteristically quiet the whole round.
“You’re kidding me,” Sheppard groaned. “What have you got?”
Four jacks. The other three players looked disgusted.
“Even I am truly amazed,” said Teyla. Though she hid it better than Rodney, everyone knew she hated losing. Ronon was now sitting on a substantial pile of cash. He grinned and pulled the wad of bills towards him.
“Like the man said, it’s all about risk,” he said. “You’ll learn.”
“Yeah, once I’m bankrupt,” Rodney sighed. “This is too rich for my blood. I’m out, guys.”
“Glad to hear it,” came a new voice. Weir was standing in the doorway to the card room. She looked amused. “I don’t want any of my people getting into trouble over this. You’ve caused enough worry recently.”
The gentle dig was well-intentioned, but it brought an awkward silence around the table. Though the physical wounds from Khost had all healed, there’d been some soul-searching in the post-mission briefing.
Sheppard felt it keenly. To have gone so far and encountered so much danger for so little reward was still something that bothered him.
“Hey, it wasn’t a wasted journey,” protested McKay. “We learned something about Jumper propulsion we didn’t know before. And we got an insight into what the Ancients were up to before they left the city.”
“And the wonders of Sanctuary were truly worth seeing,” said Teyla. “Their technology is still so far in advance of anything we can achieve.”
“Well, that’s not quite fair,” muttered McKay. “And if you’d told me there were atmospheric generators and underground terraforming equipment, I might have liked to have taken a look myself. Could have proved pretty useful for us in the future.”
Weir leaned against the doorway, an amused expression on her face. “You can talk about the technology all you want. That’s not what made this mission a justified risk.”
“An entire people was saved from destruction,” said Teyla. “That is something to be celebrated, whatever the danger.”
“We are good at that,” agreed McKay.
“Kinda wish we could check up on them, all the same,” mused Sheppard. “I mean, it was a little cold…”
“Sure you can check up on them,” said Weir. “Just call by in another few thousand years.”
Teyla smiled. “By then, they will be masters of a city every bit as powerful as this one.”
“If they can figure out how to use it,” said McKay. “In any case, it’s given me an idea.” His face took on the eager expression that warned he’d been working on something. “We’ve seen what the Ancients were trying to do with the Jumpers to try and extend their range. Let’s not do that again: it’s far too gribbly.”
“Gribbly?” said Sheppard.
“Technical term. Anyway, they had the right idea. Except that we could do it much more simply.”
“Oh yeah?”
McKay gave Sheppard a mysterious look. “Oh yes. I’ve already started working on the plans. It’s time we stopped just taking the gate network as we find it, and started shifting Stargates around. By stringing them together, we could do what the Ancients never dreamed of.” He shot Teyla a significant look. “It’s all on the drawing board, but I’m thinking of christening it the McKay Intergalactic Gate Avenue.”
“Might need to work on that title,” said Sheppard.
“Really? Just what is it with you and names?”
Weir raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m sure we’ll hear all about it when it’s ready, Rodney,” she said. “For now, I want you all to make the most of your down-time while it lasts. We ran that one a little too close.”
Teyla and Ronon looked like they were about to protest — they were already itching to report fit for the next mission — but Sheppard gave them a warning look. Too soon. Far too soon.
“Deal you in, Elizabeth?” he said, changing the subject. Weir laughed, and shook her head.
“Not while Ronon’s playing,” she said. “I’m guessing you wish you’d never taught him to play.”
Ronon looked smug, but Sheppard snorted.
“Nah. He’s just got lucky. Now whiskey, that’s another matter.”
“He can put it away?”
“Oh yeah. Doesn’t even take ice.”
Weir smiled. They all did. After so many days of worry, it felt good.
“After what you’ve been through,” she said, “I can’t say I blame him.”