"I see 'em, but I'm not sure how much help we're going to be. I can barely keep this thing in the air."
"We must at least try." Teyla stared in concentration at five life signs moving rapidly along the same course as the river. She felt a deep pain seize her heart as, one by one, the life signs winked out, until only two remained.
"I'm sorry, Teyla." Corletti's voice was tinged with regret. "But I'm going to have to put us down someplace until the wind lets up. I can't control it much longer."
"Can you reach this group?" She pointed to the closest life signs clustered on the near side of the river, then gripped her armrests to prevent herself from being knocked out of the seat. The jumper was, as Corletti had said, difficult to control in the storm.
"Yeah, I think so. Hang on. This could get bumpy… well, bumpier."
The atmosphere on the Daedalus was charged with a familiar tension. Crewmembers moved purposefully through the corridors, barely paying notice to the two members of Atlantis's senior staff making their way toward the bridge.
"You're sure you want to do this?" John asked.
"There's naught else I can do at the moment," Beckett replied. "I've examined the sample. Though I'm not a mineralogist, I can say that the red granules aren't really sand at all. They're more like tiny flakes of a substance that I can only assume was brought in for terraforming. Heaven knows why, since it's incredibly destructive."
"Maybe the Ancients weren't the environmentally sensitive miners we first thought."
"Perhaps not," the doctor allowed. "Under UV light, the surface of the flakes quickly degrades and develops an inert yellow crust, rendering them relatively harmless. However, once airborne, the grains abrade each other or whatever else they come into contact with, causing the flakes to fragment and exposing the caustic interior."
"So the sand lying on the ground is harmless?"
"Aye. You could pour it all over your hands and not feel a thing. But rub off the surface of the flake and you're in trouble. With millions of grains tearing into you during one of those sandstorms, the abrasiveness alone would guarantee an ugly outcome. Add the caustic component and there wouldn't be much left of you at the end."
John recalled seeing a few people who'd lost battles with sandstorms back on Earth, and remembered Vene's ruined face. "Yeah, I think I'll try to steer clear."
Arriving on the ship's bridge, they caught the tail end of Hermiod's expected complaint to Caldwell. "I do not believe it prudent to discontinue work on the hyperdrive. Nor do I have any desire to assist Dr. McKay in his misguided plans to prepare Atlantis for interstellar flight. Several million years have passed since the city was used for this purpose. If the Ancients had considered it capable of flight, do you not think they would have returned to Earth in the ship instead?"
"Well, they were under siege, for one thing." John was willing to admit that the short gray guy still weirded him out. Unlike most of the expedition, John hadn't done any time at the SGC, so in his experience, intelligent aliens usually were either humans by another name, or Wraith-which, as they had recently discovered, were sort of human. The Asgard, on the other hand, bore a disturbing resemblance to something that he'd seen once too often on the covers of supermarket tabloids.
The odd noise that came from Hermiod might have been a reply, but sounded more like something related to its-John wasn't sure if it was a he or a she-digestive tract.
Caldwell, apparently, had mastered Asgard-speak. "Hermiod is certain that he can have the Daedalus's hyperdrive repaired within a week," he explained, confirming at least that Hermiod was a `he'. "If the engineers can fabricate the necessary replacement parts. That's not going to happen if McKay commandeers all our resources."
"For a plan that is bound to fail," Hermiod added.
It wasn't a stretch to say that Rodney's ego occasionally got in the way of progress. John hadn't forgotten about the disaster on Doranda. Still, he felt compelled to stick up for his friend. "That's a little pessimistic, isn't it?"
"Colonel, my first responsibility is to my ship," Caldwell stated, his voice taking on an edge. "I've got a choice to make. I can put my resources toward Hermiod's ability to fix something that he knows well and that generally works without any problems. Or I can put them toward Dr. McKay's ability to fix something of which he has yet to acquire sufficient knowledge, only after sorting out some other planet's problems, most likely while fending off some angry Wraith."
Hermiod did his eye-blinky thing, the strangeness of which distracted John just long enough for Beckett to get a word in. "Colonel Caldwell, with all due respect, we're not here to argue Rodney's case."
Caldwell crossed his arms and looked at them expectantly. John obliged by coming right to the point. "How long would it take to get Daedalus's sublight engines, shields, and inertial dampening systems operational?"
"You're not thinking we should take the Daedalus to the nearest star system, are you? Because my great-grandkids will be in a nursing home before we reach it, even at top speed-unless we get the hyperdrive repaired."
"I was thinking of somewhere a little closer. Sending rescue jumpers to the mainland in that storm would be like sending a rowboat. But Daedalus is more like an aircraft carrier."
Eyes narrowing, Caldwell pointed out, "An aircraft carrier is still vulnerable if ninety percent of its systems are down. In order to repair the hyperdrive, we've taken the sublight engines, shields, in fact pretty much everything offline. We can't risk running power to anything that interfaces with the hyperdrive while we're in there tinkering around."
Which, John knew, was why Caldwell had been on edge. A warship existed to project strength, but the Daedalus was by no means invincible. The recent loss of her sister ship had made that all too clear. "There has to be a way to take the hyperdrive out of the circuit and put the other systems back together long enough to take a short flight to the mainland."
"That may be, but mounting a rescue mission in that condition would risk the ship in more ways than one. What if these nanites have already been let loose?" He held up a hand, forestalling John's objection. "Don't get me wrong, Colonel. I share your concern for the Athosians, but I need to consider the further ramifications of your request-not just here and now, but back on Earth. The threat of the Ori has become significantly greater, and now that we've lost the Prometheus-"
"Respectfully, sir, you're talking about theoretical benefits somewhere down the road. There are real people here who need help now."
"Careful, Sheppard. Unless my memory's failing, this is starting to look a lot like the situation that got your ass busted back on Earth."
Instinctively, John's spine went rigid. That was one decision he'd never regretted. "The life of a fellow officer was at stake," he replied, voice hardening.
"And if I were that man, or his parents, I'd be damned grateful for what you did. But the fact remains that you sacrificed a hell of a lot more in the process. You're now asking me to endanger the lives of considerably more people."
John had had his moments of deliberately antagonizing superiors, but this wasn't one of them. He could see Caldwell's point. The Daedalus was an ongoing concern with a repairable problem. All they needed was a little more time, which Rodney would likely be able to buy them with another ZPM. However, he still had one more ace to play.
Turning to Hermiod, he said, "You were asking for the engineer who designed the interface for the hyperdrive's overheat detection system?" When the Asgard blinked at him again, he took that as an affirmative. "Well, his name's Kwesi Anane." From the corner of his eye, John saw Caldwell's expression shift. "He's currently sitting in a cave on the other side of the river by the Athosian camp."