“Bloody hell,” Carson muttered. He leveled off, circling around. “Everybody all right back there?”
“We’re good!” Cadman replied cheerfully. “Just a few bruises!”
“I’m going to land,” Carson said. “I’ve got instrument fluctuations everywhere.”
“Yes, and these patches are temporary,” Rodney snapped, his eyes on the panel before him. He’d slapped together a reroute, but it wasn’t going to hold for extended flight.
“Coming around then,” Carson said.
The jumper made a wide, low turn, Carson steering clear of the cliffs and opting instead for a wide expanse of sand gleaming pale in the moonlight. The jumper settled down gracefully, only a few sparks jumping from the open panel. Not good, Rodney thought. Something else was shorted out and he was going to have to fix it.
Carson let out a huge sigh as the jumper touched down, sinking a few inches into the firm packed sand. “We’re down,” he said, and turned to Rodney, his face a mask of indignation. “What was that about? I’ve never seen anything like that. It was like hitting a wall in thin air.”
“There’s an energy shield,” Rodney said. “Like the one we encountered on M32-3375. It protects the planet from the Wraith by basically interdicting any traffic in or out. When a ship tries to ascend or descend past a certain altitude it shorts out everything. It is like hitting a wall in the air. You’d better just be glad that you didn’t run into it full on. It would have torn the ship apart. As long as we stay under it we should be fine, but the minute we got too close…”
“Could that be what happened to Colonel Sheppard?” Lorne asked from behind Rodney’s seat.
“It very probably is,” Rodney said testily. He should have thought of that earlier. “If he got too high he would have blown the main power in the jumper. Knowing Sheppard, he probably landed more or less in one piece. But unlike you, he does not have me aboard.” Rodney stood up. “I have to run a full diagnostic and fix whatever it is that’s smoking back there. Until that happens, this ship isn’t flying anywhere.”
Carson and Lorne exchanged a worried glance. “Fine with me, doc,” Lorne said. “Let’s make sure we’re good before we get airborne again.”
“But Colonel Sheppard had Dr. Zelenka with him,” Carson said, ever the optimist. “He could fix the other jumper.”
“Please,” Rodney said. “It might have happened after he dropped Ronon and Zelenka off, and even if it didn’t…” He stopped just short of pointing out how much more fortunate they were to have him than Zelenka, who admittedly wasn’t bad, but was also not even in Rodney’s league. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Ok,” Lorne said, walking into the back of the jumper. “We’re grounded for now, people. Let’s establish a perimeter and keep watch. We don’t want any unexpected visitors while Dr. McKay fixes the jumper. We’re all in one piece, thanks to the super flying of Dr. Beckett, so let’s get out of the way and let them work.”
Rodney heard them letting the back gate down, the voice of Lt. Cadman saying something as they went outside. He was all for establishing a perimeter. None of those jackals or whatever they were. He opened the panel behind, where there was still a thin trickle of smoke. He’d have to get the power to these circuits off before he started playing with them, and then see if any of the crystals were cracked from the heat. Once again everything was on him.
Chapter Eleven
The lights of Pelagia were winking out, fires damped as people sought their beds, lamps extinguished. John and Teyla sat beside the broad window, looking out toward the sea. The hanging lamps in the room behind were unlit, giving them a better view without the backlight. Tolas had not returned.
Nor had Jitrine. Teyla had changed John’s bandage herself. The cut looked long and nasty, the stitches dark with dried blood, but there was no redness of infection. Teyla had liberally smeared on her last packet of antibiotic cream and rewrapped it with the field dressing from her pocket before the sun set and she lost the light.
A short while before, the guards had opened the door to admit two servants with a tray of food, which they left on the table by the window. Her attempts to find out what was happening from them were fruitless. It was doubtful they even knew who Tolas was, much less whether he had spoken with the king.
Now they sat on either side of the table, poking at the remains of the food in a desultory fashion. There had been two wings of some sort of fowl roasted in a sweet sauce, a pottage of stewed grains and greens, bread, honey, and more of the ubiquitous fruit — a good meal, but not a spectacular one. Teyla thought this emphasized their uncertain status further. It was not what one would feed a prisoner, but given the level of wealth they’d already seen in the city, it was not fare for an honored guest either.
On the other hand, John did not seem to be fretting at the delay for once, and she said so.
He looked up from the bones he was picking at and shrugged. “Delay works for us. Lorne and Rodney will show up any minute. It’s just as well if they turn up before we talk to the king. If he wants to wait until in the morning, that’s probably in our favor.”
“That is true,” Teyla said, taking a long drink of cool water. “We do not know the reason why, if they know this world, the Wraith have left this city alone. But since they apparently have for centuries, it is unlikely that will change tonight.”
John blinked. “You don’t sense Wraith, do you?”
Teyla shook her head. “I do not. There are no Wraith close by, not within perhaps twenty or thirty miles. I am not certain what the range of my Gift is, but when there was a Wraith in Atlantis before the siege I had a very clear sense of him when he was entirely on the other side of the city. I would certainly know if there were Wraith within the palace or within Pelagia.”
“That’s good to know,” John said. “Really good to know.”
“I am certain,” she said. “There are no Wraith close at hand.”
John’s eyes strayed again to the window, a slight crease between his brows. “I hope Ronon and Zelenka are ok. They should be, on the island. There was plenty of water and food. But with that Wraith cruiser around…”
“I know,” Teyla said. “I am worried about them too.”
“We are screwed,” Radek said.
“Pretty much.” Ronon’s voice came out of the darkness from somewhere at the other end of the boat, which was to say about a meter away.
They lay on the upturned hull, which rose and fell in choppy seas. Above them the sky was clearing, bright stars appearing in unfamiliar constellations. Radek wondered which were the navigational stars in this world, which were the ones that men who knew anything about boats steered by. Unlike them, who knew nothing about boats. Perhaps this had been a little rash and foolish of him.
Radek sighed. “My father said I should come to a bad end if I did not stop being so impulsive.”
Ronon snorted, something that might actually have been intended as a laugh. “What did you do that was impulsive?”
He sounded like he thought it was impossible, which rankled a little. “Perhaps going off to another galaxy full of creatures that eat men with no plan and no way to get home?”
There was a long silence. “Ok,” Ronon said at last. “I’ll give you that.”
“Yes, you should,” Radek said.