Yes! Only the need to keep both hands on the controls kept him from punching the air as he pulled up hard into a fast landing, right there on the ice. Eat that, you metallic piece of-
"Shut down the engine," O'Neill ordered.
He did, and the engine noise swiftly died. Outside, all was silent bar the wind whipping past the window. The wind never stopped blowing out here. "Sir," he asked, "what the hell was-?"
"Wait for it…" O'Neill didn't look triumphant; he was listening for the sound of the other shoe dropping.
Glancing around, Sheppard could see nothing but miles of blinding white snow. Surely there weren't more of these things? Beached on the ice with the engines cooling they'd be sitting ducks if- And then he saw it, to his right. The drone shot from the compacted ice as if it had been spat out; it wasn't even dented. Damn it! And it was coming right at them, its one beady eye fixed on their position.
He fumbled for his straps. "Get out!"
But it was coming too fast, they'd never get far enough away. He scrambled out the door and hit the snow, just in time to see the drone die mid-air. It simply stopped, its light fading as it fell onto the ice and skidded to a halt a couple of inches from General O'Neill's outstretched hand.
What the-? Sheppard stared; the damn thing wasn't a machine after all. It looked like some kind of squid!
For a long moment neither of them spoke. Eventually the snow felt cold enough to prompt Sheppard back into action. Who knew, there might be more of these things. He climbed back into the helicopter, O'Neill dropping into the co-pilot's chair with a resigned sigh.
"That was different," Sheppard observed, restarting the engines.
O'Neill cast him an unreadable look. "For me," he said wearily, "not so much."
Not for the first time that day, Sheppard realized he was seriously out of the loop.
Dr. Weir watched as Beckett's eyes flashed open. Everyone was staring at him, and he stared back for a breathless beat before saying, "I think I did it."
"Did what?" Daniel Jackson voiced the pertinent question, but Beckett didn't have time to answer before Lieutenant Ford's radio crackled into life. Ford listened intently for a moment, then smiled.
"Major Sheppard is reporting the drone appears to have been incapacitated. General O'Neill's helicopter is unharmed and on its way…" He listened again, then nodded. "Seven minutes out."
"Thank God." Weir couldn't begin to imagine the six kinds of hell she'd have had to pay if her people had been accidentally responsible for the death of the SGC's new commander — not to mention the world's greatest, if unsung, hero. Blowing out a sigh she gave a nod to her shell-shocked team and headed back toward her office. Just breathe, disaster averted.
But the doubts came crowding in anyway. If this kind of accident could happen here, in the relative safety of the base, what the hell might go wrong once they were alone on the far side of the universe?
General Jack O'Neill was impressed. It wasn't something that happened a lot, so when it did he tended to pay attention. The kid standing next to him, staring up at the shrinking speck of sky as they trundled through layers of ice in the cage-elevator, had impressed him. And not just with the fancy flying; there weren't many who could keep their heads in a situation like that. Fewer still who could shake off the completely inexplicable with a phlegmatic shrug and get right back down to business.
He liked this kid, and wondered again whom Sheppard had pissed off enough to draw a tour at McMurdo. He'd call Carter, get her to pull up his personnel file. Major Sheppard would be an asset to the SGC; in fact, since his promotion, SG-1 had been running a man light. Perhaps he'd just found their fourth?
"Sir?" Sheppard said, cutting through a silence that had held since they'd stepped into the elevator. "You should know that I don't have security clearance to come down here."
O'Neill repressed a smile. Of course, Sheppard hadn't mentioned that until they were almost at the bottom. He liked how this kid thought; it reminded him of himself. Jack cast him a quick look. "After that?" In his book, nearly getting your ass blown off by an alien missile entitled a guy to certain privileges. "You do now."
Which was, no doubt, exactly what Sheppard had been counting on. Yeah, Jack liked this kid. He'd be an asset to the SGC…
At last the elevator clunked to a halt at the bottom of the borehole. Sheppard spared a final glance up at the sky, and followed O'Neill out of the elevator.
Daniel was there waiting, almost bouncing with impatience. "Jack!"
"Daniel," Jack replied, taking in the raw ice walls; interior design by Polar Bears `R' Us. "Warm welcome.
"Wasn't me," Daniel assured him, because nine times out of ten it was him causing alien technology to go crazy. He headed off immediately through the busy base. "So, how did you manage to-?"
"Not get our asses blown out of the sky?" Jack nodded toward Sheppard, who was straggling behind and trying to look at absolutely everything at once. "The exceptional flying of Major John Sheppard." He cast Daniel a wry look. "He likes it here."
"Exceptional," Daniel repeated, apparently stunned by Jack's unusually lavish praise. "That's…" Then his eyebrows rose, and he glanced at Sheppard with some disbelief. "You like it here?"
Interrupting the inevitable to-and-fro, because he actually didn't like it here, Jack snapped, "What say we cut to the part where you start talking a mile a minute?" And I can get back to someplace warmer
"Sure," Daniel nodded, heading off with blithe faith that Jack would follow. "Weir's in here…"
Jack hesitated a moment before turning back to Sheppard, who was still staring like a kid in a candy store. "Just… don't touch anything."
The major nodded. "Yessir."
Satisfied — almost — that Sheppard would do as he was told, Jack followed Daniel. His friend was after something, that much had been clear during the phone call yesterday. Daniel hadn't spelled it out, had insisted Jack come here in person to make the decision, which only fuelled Jack's suspicions. Whatever the hell Daniel wanted, it was big. And it was something Daniel knew Jack wouldn't want to give up… He could think of two things that fulfilled that criteria: one was the military advantage this out post gave them over the Goa'uld, and the other was Jackson himself.
On one of them, he might compromise. On the other, no way. It just wasn't gonna happen.
Okay, so John Sheppard had absolutely no idea where he was, but it looked pretty damn cool. The whole thing was carved out of ice, the walls and ceiling sliced by some huge machine into sharp, crystalline angles. It was quite incredible, and leagues away from the prefab buildings at McMurdo. Given their run in with the drone he figured it was some kind of advanced weapons research facility, but why it had to be buried beneath the ice was anyone's guess. Nuclear, maybe? But the place didn't have the somber feel of a nuclear research station. There was too much of a buzz in the atmosphere, and, more significantly, hardly anyone was in uniform. If he didn't know better he'd have said it was a civilian operation. But if that were the case then what were he and General O'Neill doing here? And that thing that had chased them out of the sky hadn't been civilian either…
Mindful of O'Neill's order not to touch, Sheppard started wandering. There were people bustling everywhere, but his attention was immediately caught by a dark-haired man standing next to a large, strangelooking chair. He was regaling a couple of others with a story that had him very animated, and Sheppard sidled closer in the hope of eavesdropping. Or, as he preferred to think of it, gathering intel.