Zelenka began, "We thought-" In the staticobscured background, Miko said something urgently and Sheppard's pet caveman growled. Zelenka finished, "Yes, yes, I'm telling him! Colonel, there are Wraith everywhere."
Rodney rolled his eyes and spared a moment to contribute, "You don't say."
"Zelenka, I need you to define `everywhere,"' Sheppard persisted. "Is it a hiveship?"
"No, not yet," Zelenka replied hurriedly. "The jumper has detected a small ship in polar orbit, matching our data on the energy signatures for a Wraith scout ship."
Teyla's brow furrowed. "We must assume a hiveship is on the way."
Ah ha. Here we go. "Got it." Rodney pushed to his feet. He stepped over to Sheppard and Teyla, tapping the tablet's display. "I was certain I saw this but I wanted to verify the location. Trishen's equipment registered an energy pulse coming from along the top of the installation." He pointed up for emphasis. "If I'm correct, that pulse is designed to generate a containment field just above the Mirror's accretion surface, to stabilize the singularity's event horizon. Without it, the singularity keeps trying to expand, pushing at the naquadah frame, the structure of the installation, the bedrock beneath it. Like the rest of the installation, the pulse generator is drawing power from the Mirror's subspace conduit, but something is causing it to only function erratically at the moment, which is why the discharges are occurring. And the energy signatures of the jumper and any Wraith darts may be disrupting the pulse itself whenever they come within range, causing the discharges to occur more frequently." Rodney tucked the tablet under his arm. "The Mirror is already dangerously unstable. The key to rendering it unusable is going to be in destabilizing it further-"
"So you want to blow up the thing that's generating the pulse?" Sheppard said.
Watching Rodney intently, Teyla asked, "Can we use the jumper's weapons?"
"The shielding!" Zelenka was saying in the headset. "The shielding may prevent-!"
Rodney waved at them all to shut up, even though Zelenka couldn't see him. "Yes, and no. We need to disable the pulse generator, but taking the jumper up into a firing position above the roof may just trigger another violent discharge; we could be smashed into the building before we have a chance to fire. And the shielding on the installation's inner ring and the roof must be designed to deflect the full force of the energy spikes that the Mirror can generate; the jumper's energy drones may not be able to penetrate it." He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "But the good news is, the pulse array stretches along the entire circumference of the roof, and we should be able to disrupt it at any point."
Sheppard was watching Rodney as if he didn't have a clue what Rodney was saying, as if he wasn't even sure Rodney was speaking English, but Rodney had learned long ago that was just as deceptive as the involuntary sarcasm. Proving it, Sheppard said, "So we need to get up there and disable one section so the whole thing will shut down. And the Mirror will do what?"
"The Mirror is going to-" Rodney hesitated uneasily, thinking it over. The singularity would take time to collapse, but the discharges would become more violent immediately. "We're going to have to get back inside the installation as quickly as possible. The instability should cause the singularity to begin a collapse, but it'll take some time. Hours, probably days. After the initial reaction, we should be able to lift off in the jumper and get away." Remembering all his practical experience was with a Quantum Mirror the size of a bathtub rather than an Olympic stadium, he added, "Theoretically."
"Right." Sheppard looked at Teyla and got a grim nod in response. In Rodney's headset he could hear Zelenka and Kusanagi unhelpfully debating the possibility of the collapsing singularity punching a hole straight through the moon and taking all matter in the area with it. Sheppard asked, "What about the jumper? Are they going to be safe out there during this?"
"In a word, no." Rodney touched his headset. "Radek, does your life signs screen show the Wraith anywhere near that big freight corridor?"
Zelenka answered, "No, they are not there. We can not see their positions exactly-there is still much interference-but we saw them move into the center section."
Rodney nodded briskly. "Good. I need you to move the jumper, still cloaked, into that passage. That's what it was designed for; there's plenty of room. Look for a stable bay along the side and take the jumper into it. That should shield you from the initial reaction discharge and cut down the chances of the Wraith stumbling into you if they come back down that way."
Teyla lifted her brows doubtfully and looked at Sheppard. Sheppard got that expression he always got when someone other than him wanted to do something crazy with a puddlejumper. There was a static-laden silence from the radio. Then Zelenka said, "Ali… Colonel, is that good idea?"
Rodney mentally rewrote Zelenka's next performance evaluation to include the term "mutinous."
But Sheppard just said, "Affirmative, Zelenka, take the jumper inside."
The comm was chiming for attention, but Trishen hesitated, leaning on her control console. Unlike her drive, her sensors had survived the abrupt unplanned trip through the Quantum Mirror, and her holo display showed the newly arrived ship in orbit. She had seen the energy signatures when it had used a transport beam to send a landing party to the installation, and the effect that had had on the dangerously unstable Mirror.
She should answer the comm. Except… something's wrong, she told herself, grimly eyeing the screen. She hadn't been able to sense the humans' presence. But these newcomers were not humans, and she could taste the matrix of their minds, just on the edge of her awareness.
It felt wrong. There was nothing she could articulate, no one element that seemed to warn of danger. But deep inside her, a buried instinct said, fear this.
The humans had spoken of Wraith, of the danger of revealing her presence in this place. Of course, then they went mad and threatened to kill you, she told herself ruefully.
Their fear she had been able to understand; she was too different from them, perhaps they had never seen an alien being before. It was the hate that baffled her.
When she had first glimpsed them on the security camera she hadn't known what she was looking at. They were so alien, so unlike Eidolon, all different sizes and colors. Then one had looked directly at the camera, and she had had a sudden clear view of his face. It had been like looking at one of the ancient holo recordings of the Creators.
She had gripped the cold metal of the console, staring in shock. If the Creators were alive in this reality… This is incredible; all our questions could be answered! But surely Creators would know how to override their own security measures. She had turned the damn system on accidentally when trying to power up the complex and it had taken her hours to figure out how to keep it from locking her in constantly. If she hadn't had the Creators' gene, it would have been impossible.
That was when she had realized that they must be humans. The Eidolon knew that the first human colonies had died out even before the Creators, the first victims of the plague that had eventually destroyed the Creators' civilization. She had been desperate to speak to them, and not only for the value to Eidolon science. She wasn't accustomed to being alone, to being separated from her own kind; she was desperate to speak to anyone.
The comm chimed again and she grimaced at it. The humans could have been lying about the danger… Why? They weren't afraid until they saw your face, until they saw you weren't one of them. Before that, she thought they had honestly meant to help her. She knotted her fists. She still needed that help. You should be able to deal with this. You're not a child, you're an adult, skilled in your calling, an expert in the Creators' lost technology. She was also alone, trapped away from her world, away from the protection of her mother and her male lineage, and it frightened her in a way that struck her to the core.