"I don't know where it came from," the guy was saying. He had an accent. Irish, perhaps? "I just tried to concentrate, and the drone shut itself down…"
The drone? Suddenly the man's eyes were on Sheppard. Slightly awkward at having been caught listening, he decided that offense was the best form of defense. "So it was you?"
The man blinked nervously. "Me?"
"You tried to shoot my ass out of the sky?"
"No!" the guy protested immediately, taking a step back. And then, with a wince added, "Yes. I'm sorry.
Sheppard scowled. He had no idea who this little Irish — or was that Scottish? — guy was, but no one took pot shots at him without-
"Look, we're doing research," the guy blurted. "We're working with technology that's light years beyond us and we make mistakes. I'm incredibly, incredibly sorry."
Hmm… It was hard to argue with an apology that unconditional. "Well," Sheppard grumbled, "you should be more careful."
"That's what I said!"
"What the hell was that thing anyway?"
The man blinked again, this time in confusion. "You mean the drone?" When Sheppard stared blankly, the Scot — he was definitely Scottish, Sheppard decided — cautiously added, "The weapon the Ancients built to defend this outpost?"
Okay… Now things were getting a little weird. "The who?"
A flutter of panic crossed the guy's face, bordering on genuine alarm. He glanced around, as if expecting the hand of God to descend at any moment. "You do have security clearance to be here…?"
"Yeah, yeah," Sheppard assured him, feigning nonchalance. "General O'Neill just gave it to me." The truth was, he was far from nonchalant. Ancients? Weapons? Technology light years beyond us? His heart was hammering with an excitement he rarely felt when he wasn't at 20,000 feet with a bandit on his ass.
"Just now?"
"Yeah, five minutes ago." Now spill.
The guy didn't seem reassured. "Then," he began warily, "you don't even know about the Stargate?"
Sheppard stared at him. "The what?"
Dr. Jackson's research lab was as cluttered as always, microscopes competing with books and paper for the limited space he'd been allotted. But Weir's attention wasn't on the barely controlled chaos at the edges of the room, it was firmly fixed on the little theatre taking place around the wide table at the center.
General O'Neill had arrived, remarkably unfazed by his run-in with the rogue drone. In fact, when she'd started to apologize, he'd waved it away and said something about it being a good demonstration of the pilot's skills. Not fully understanding the military mind, Weir had let it rest. Frankly, she didn't have a lot of attention to spare from the business at hand. The General's decision today would mean life or death for the Atlantis project, and right now things didn't seem to be going in her favor.
"Pegasus?" O'Neill layered the word with amusement and sarcasm in equal measure.
"It's the name of a dwarf galaxy in the local group," Dr. Jackson supplied, utterly unperturbed by the General's apparent lack of interest.
O'Neill glanced at the map spread out before him on the table, one eyebrow lifting. "It's not on the map.
"No, it's very far away," Daniel agreed. "It's actually out here somewhere," he added, gesturing vaguely beyond the room. "We weren't even looking in the right neighborhood. I figure the Ancients packed up their entire city and left our galaxy somewhere between five and ten million years ago."
O'Neill was apparently immune to Jackson's infectious enthusiasm. "In their flying city?"
"Yes." Daniel stopped suddenly, brow furrowing. "What?"
The General was five degrees beyond skeptical. "Flying city?"
"Keep in mind this is the race that built the Stargate," Jackson reminded him. "They did everything big.
The idea of a civilization that had explored their entire galaxy simply packing up shop and going home still gave Weir pause for thought. "Why?" she asked, when it seemed that no one else would speak.
"You mean why did they leave?" Daniel asked, turning his gaze away from the dubious O'Neill. He shrugged. "Who knows? The Ancients on Earth were suffering a plague. That we know. Maybe some of them were trying to start over, seeding life in a new galaxy…? Maybe that's what Ancient civilizations do?" His attention returned to O'Neill, intense as a magnesium flame. "The point is, we know where they went."
At Weir's side, McKay stirred. He'd been unusually quiet so far, and she suspected he was somewhat intimidated by O'Neill. She was hazy on the details, but knew that he'd encountered the General back at the SGC on more than one occasion. "After all that time," McKay said, addressing Jackson, "is there any hope of actually meeting them?" Weir couldn't tell if he was excited or terrified by the prospect. A little of both, perhaps.
Jackson just shrugged again. "I have no idea," he confessed, "but it's reason enough to go."
And she wasn't going to be arguing with that. "I've been choosing the members of this expedition for months, Doctor." She looked at O'Neill, caught his eye and held it. "I'm not the one that needs con„vincing.
His flat smile lacked any warmth. "I'm convinced. Have fun."
Dr. Jackson sucked in a breath. "It's a little more complicated than that."
"We need the Zed Pee Em," McKay supplied helpfully. He seemed pleased to have a contribution to make.
But O'Neill just looked blank. "The what?"
"Zee Pee Em," Daniel corrected, and with an apologetic nod toward McKay added, "He's Canadian."
"I'm sorry," O'Neill replied, deadpan.
The jibe seemed to go right over McKay's head — there were times when his thick skin was actually useful, Weir decided — and he launched into an excited explanation. "Zero Point Module, General. The Ancient power source you recovered from Pra- clarush Taonas that's now powering this outpost's defenses." When O'Neill didn't respond, McKay continued, attempting to sound modest. He failed abysmally. "I've since determined it generates its enormous power from vacuum energy derived from a self-contained region of subspace/time."
After a long beat, O'Neill said, "That was a waste of a perfectly good explanation." His astute gaze returned to Jackson, then landed on Weir. "And the answer is no.
No? Impossible… Weir felt the breath catch in her chest. He was saying no? He couldn't. He couldn't just refuse to let them take the biggest step in the history of mankind just because-
"Jack, you know that gating between galaxies requires an incredible amount of power." Dr. Jackson wasn't giving up. Good. Neither was she.
"Yes. I do," O'Neill agreed. "Find another way."
"There is no other way and you know it," Daniel insisted. His irritation was beginning to seep through the cracks in his calm exterior, and before O'Neill could answer he hurried on. "I know what you're going to say: the outpost's power source has barely enough energy left in it to defend Earth in the event of another attack."
O'Neill shrugged. "That is what I was going to say. Slower."
"All the more reason to go…" Jackson dangled the unspoken promise like candy before a child.
The General cautiously sniffed at the bait. "There might be more of those things in Atlantis?"
"Yes!" Jackson was jubilant. "And who knows what else we could find? This isn't just another civilization, Jack, these were the Gate Builders."
O'Neill seemed reluctantly impressed, and Weir decided it was time to press the slight advantage. "The potential wealth of knowledge and technology outweighs anything we've come across since we first stepped through the Stargate."
"That's a…large statement."
And not one she was going to retract. "Yes, it is."
For a moment O'Neill looked at her, as if assessing her worth or her strength. Weir couldn't be sure. And then, quietly, he said, "With the amount of power you need to make the trip… odds are it'll be one way."