Exogenesis

Chapter Twenty-one

"Looking at our choices, I think we'll take the low road," Colonel Sheppard suggested when Jumper One emerged through the bay doors.

Teyla had sensed only disorder, not malice, from the nanites when she and Lieutenant Corletti had taken Jumper Three into the gray goo. If her understanding was correct, that situation was now changing. The storm outside Atlantis's force field made the one that had threatened the mainland seem feeble by comparison. Black and gray fluid swirled across the energy bubble with an almost tangible intent to burst in. Bright flashes periodically erupted against the shield; lightning bolts of a sort, perhaps, arcing across the surface in spidery veins of green and purple.

Seated beside her, Nabu was looking down at the city below, his eyes shining with appreciation. Despite the tempest beyond and the absence of illumination now that the city had been powered down, it was an impressive sight, one that Teyla had never failed to admire. Its loss would indeed be tragic, for so many reasons.

"The ocean directly beneath the city shield is still unaffected," Rodney announced from the front right seat. His eyes darted between the datapad in his hand and the electric display outside. "The nanites are beginning to absorb energy from the shield, which means even with the replacement ZPM we may run out of time."

"How long?" Sheppard asked, angling Jumper One down toward a relatively calm patch of water between the south and west piers of the city.

"The nanites are now operating within their own temporal field, so time isn't easily quantifiable. From our perspective, I'd say three hours is radically optimistic."

"To drain an entire ZPM?" Sheppard didn't hide his disbelief.

"It would not be hours from the point of view of the nanites, Colonel Sheppard," Nabu explained. "For them it would be thousands of years." He barely flinched when the jumper plunged beneath the surface of the ocean.

"Okay, explain that," Ronon declared, voicing Teyla's thoughts as well. "How does a bunch of gray stuff have a point of view?"

"Because each and every nanite is encased in its own individual, micro-thin temporal distortion field." Rodney's clipped explanation provided no enlightenment, but before Ronon could question further, their attention was diverted to the HUD. "We may have an even bigger problem."

"Problems don't get bigger than this, Rodney," Sheppard said under his breath, his gaze apprehensive as he studied the display. The depth of the ocean beneath Atlantis had been reduced by some fifty meters and was becoming shallower with every moment that passed.

"The goo in the atmosphere is converting the water from the surface down." Rodney adjusted the display to show their projected path to the submarine trench. It was not, as Teyla had hoped, simply a matter of going deeper. Instead, they would be required to negotiate a passage across hundreds of miles, traversing several shallow areas-some of which would soon be engulfed by the rapidly spreading grayness. "Don't use the external lights," Rodney warned. "We're going to need every one of those power cells and then some. At the rate the nanites are converting the ocean, our chances of getting back are looking slim."

Sheppard continued to guide the jumper down through a darkness made absolute by the storm over Atlantis. "Well, I think all of us understood going in that this might be a one-way trip."

Teyla had already prepared herself for that. It pained her to be separated from her people, to risk leaving them to fend for themselves in a new galaxy if this mission failed. But she was doing this in the hope of preventing just such a possibility. She could not have lived comfortably with her people in a new land, knowing that her absence from this mission might have doomed it to failure. Nor could she have lived comfortably with the loss of the thousands of other people in this galaxy-many of whom she had come to know as friends-because she had chosen to desert them.

She glanced around at the others in the jumper. Ronon, who carried deeper wounds than perhaps any of them truly understood, had refused to remain hunted and instead became the hunter. Colonel Sheppard, for whom the term loyalty was not a word, but an etching on his soul. And Rodney, whose loss of Turpi had revealed a lonely spirit that craved acceptance. These men were also her family, and there could be no greater honor than to die in their company. "Do you believe the nanites will attempt to stop our passage?" she asked.

"They are not conscious in that sense." Nabu had lifted the exogenesis machine in his hands and was manipulating one end, as if he were fashioning a piece of clay. "But the time differential they are now employing will impact this ship's shield in the same way that it will Atlantis's." Under his fingers, the strange material moved across the surface, as if imbued with a life of its own. The ocher colors within changed hue, becoming yellow, then shifting to turquoise.

"Coming up on the city shield," Sheppard stated.

"Setting our shield to match…now." Rodney's eyes narrowed in concentration, and he stared intently at the HUD.

The transition was uneventful, the oceanic world outside the jumper's force field remaining dark and without apparent form. The only indication of their movement was the route track displayed on the HUD. "So if we come into contact with nanites," Sheppard asked, "that means our power will be drained faster than normal?"

"On the order of several hundred thousand times faster, yes," McKay answered, swiveling around in his seat to watch Nabu. "Which is why I wanted so many power cells."

"Is anyone going to explain exactly what's going on?" Ronon demanded.

Rodney's incipient reply was cut short when Nabu informed them, "Ea and Atlas were my grandparents."

Having been caught in the storm on the mainland, Teyla was not fully conversant with everything that had come to pass on Polrusso, and while she had some understanding of the situation, this was a most unexpected development. Apparently Rodney and Colonel Sheppard were of the same mind, for now they both stared at the Polrusson.

Nabu's fingers continued to gently work the surface of the exogenesis machine, as if he were tuning a delicate musical instrument. "I have had many lifetimes in which to understand the truth." He glanced at Teyla, his gaze suggesting that full honesty was wise. "One I suspect that you may not take comfort in hearing."

If he believed that his words might erode her faith in the virtue of the Ancestors, he had crossed her path far too late. Meeting his eyes, Teyla said, "I am not averse to the truth."

He held her gaze for a moment, and, apparently satisfied, put the exogenesis machine aside. "Then perhaps much of what I can tell you is already known to you."

"That's okay," the Colonel said, peering out into the featureless abyss. "We've got a little time, and it'd make for a better diversion than playing `I Spy "'

"As you wish." Nabu's glance skimmed over the HUD. "Atlas believed that the Wraith were an experiment gone wrong. It angered him that the Atlantean Council was quick to sanction genetic experiments in humans to foil the Wraith, and experiments on themselves to expedite Ascension, while denying his and Janus's request to test the exogenesis machine. Worse, Moros ordered Atlas and Janus to destroy their work in preparation for the return to Earth.

"Such hypocrisy greatly angered Atlas, for temporal distortion fields had been employed elsewhere in this galaxy in order for people to be given time to Ascend."

Sheppard winced. "Been there, done that, lost the six months to prove it."

After a moment's close scrutiny of him, Nabu observed, "You were given the opportunity to Ascend, yet you chose not to take it."

The pilot's expression tensed almost imperceptibly, and Teyla did not require Nabu's telepathy to discern that this was uncomfortable territory. "Yeah, well, I don't think it would have lasted long. Unlike the Ancients, I tend to err on the side of action rather than inaction. Probably would have ended up banished some place-not that that would be anything new."

Ronon brought the conversation back. "So what exactly happened on Polrusso?"

"Atlas's machine terraformed worlds by installing the same program as is currently used; except to power the process it employed the planet's internal heat rather than ZPMs. More innovative was its use of a temporal field. While a planet still required approximately ten thousand years to be terraformed, by using the machine, from an outside observer's point of view only a week would have elapsed. Those living on the planet during terraforming would also be subject to the passage of ten thousand years."

"So let me get this straight," said the Colonel. "If Atlas had used the machine on Polrusso, people there could have evolved over the required millennia, while the rest of the galaxy aged only a week or so." His look turned thoughtful. "Cool. Instant Wraith repellant-just add water. Except, you know, don't add it right away."

Nabu picked up the exogenesis machine and examined the lights within, which had now turned a brilliant aquamarine. "While the experiment to breed a group of humans with special abilities might succeed, Atlas believed that this in no way mitigated the Wraith threat. For just as humans would evolve to accommodate the toxin, so too would the Wraith ultimately evolve to accommodate these changes in their food source. Consequently, he developed the program that Ea implemented here on Atlantis. Their intent, you see, was to prove to the Council that another galaxy could be prepared for settlement within a very short space of relative time, while this galaxy could be cleansed of the threat posed by the Wraith. In Ea's words, the Wraith were a mess of their own making, one they should clean up."

"How charitable," Rodney muttered. "Let's not worry about everyone else living in the galaxy at the time."

"Do not judge Ea too harshly. Both she and Atlas believed that it was better to sever a diseased limb rather than allow it to infect the entire universe. Before they could implement this plan on Polrusso, however, the Wraith arrived through the Stargate in great numbers, cutting off their access to the laboratory. During the many days the attack lasted, hundreds were killed, including Atlas and Ea's son. Those who survived had been badly injured, but they were able to heal themselves and each other. Eventually, they fought their way back into the laboratory and fled by jumpers to an orbiting ship. Ea left with the first group, while Atlas, determined to initiate the exogenesis machine, remained. The hologram records do not show what happened next, but it is not difficult to guess. The final image shows a technician helping Atlas, barely alive, staggering into the last jumper, with only one exogenesis machine in hand. After viewing the records, I searched for the second machine, the one you see here, and located it a short distance away."

"Atlas was unable to trigger the device," Teyla deduced, "but he allowed Ea to believe otherwise."

Nabu smiled sadly. "Perhaps to give her hope."

Sheppard's expression was marked by puzzlement. "Hold on. If their son was your father, and was killed by the Wraith-"

"Unknown to either Atlas or Ea, their son had fallen in love with a human of Polrusso, who was carrying his unborn child."

Slack-jawed, Rodney stared at him. "You're ten thousand years old?"

A look of sorrow crossed the Polrusson's face. "It is, as I said, my deformity. Do not feel so encumbered by your mortality," he added, meeting Rodney's look. "It is not such a blessing to watch each generation come and go."

Jaw snapping shut, Rodney nodded once and looked away, the pain of his loss etched deeply on his features. Teyla was left to wonder what had transpired in the short time he had known Turpi.

Through the windshield, distant lights began to coalesce, drawing their attention from Nabu. "We've got company," Sheppard said.

The lights resolved themselves into a huge school of fish. Along each animal's body were glowing patches. They flashed in an organized pattern that seemed to transform the entire school into a single organism. More odd-looking creatures appeared, many shimmering in different colors, and all lighting the ocean in a way that Teyla had never dreamed possible. A bulbous translucent shape sped past, long filaments streaking out behind. More such creatures followed, and Teyla noticed that the tendrils entrapped smaller animals-or perhaps they had found refuge there from the many fanged predators. Each new denizen they encountered proved even more bizarre than the ones that had gone before, and combined they unquestionably were the strangest collection of creatures that Teyla had ever seen.

"Check out the angler fish," Sheppard observed of one small monster whose mouth was disproportionately larger than its body.

"You have such animals on Earth?" Teyla studied the collection of teeth and transparent flesh. Behind them was a school that seemed more like a herd of beasts, their massive fins flapping back and forth in a manner that resembled the ears of an Earth animal she'd seen in one of the team's DVDs-something called an elephant.

Rodney looked up and nodded absently. In what appeared to be a deliberate effort to join the conversation, he said, "Considerably stranger than that. Once we go deeper, we're likely to encounter some really unpleasant sights. When. when this is over, remind me to show you photographs of viperfish."

"Viperfish?"

"Chauliodus sloania. I'm not really a fish person, but these things look like escapees from gothic horror nightmare. They're only about half a meter long, but they have these teeth"-he raised his hands and spread his fingers to imitate snapping jaws-"and a glowing lure on top of their heads."

"How big did you say they grew?" Ronon asked.

"About as long as my arm."

"Not on this planet," Sheppard commented, pointing to a creature that fit Rodney's description in all ways-except that its jaws were easily twice the length of the jumper, and it was headed straight for them.

Elizabeth adjusted her earpiece, not sure she'd heard correctly. Hermiod had a reputation for being obstinate, but this was bordering on ridiculous. "Excuse me?"

"I do not believe a total evacuation to the Alpha site to be the best course of action." The Asgard sounded as infuriatingly composed as ever, even over the radio. "You stated a time limit of approximately three hours. If I continue to work, the hyperdrive will be functional within that time."

"Daedalus will not be able to escape the atmosphere before its shields are depleted by the gray goo," Radek pointed out, typing on his laptop with one hand while steadying himself on a nearby console with the other.

"That will not be necessary. We can engage the hyperdrive within the atmosphere-or rather what remains of the atmosphere." From Hermiod's tone, he could have been discussing the lunch menu. "The resulting reaction may be enough to destroy Atlantis and the 'gate far more effectively than the self-destruct sequence."

If so, they could confine the nanites to this one planet, denying them access to the rest of the Stargate network. Elizabeth looked to Radek. "Is he right?"

"In the sense that it is plausible, yes." The scientist glanced up, obviously unconvinced. "It is also possible that the nanites will reach the Daedalus, and then be able to access the ship's systems, as well as information on other planets-including Earth."

"Unlikely." The first hint of emotion shone through Hermiod's voice, manifested as irritation at Radek's challenge. "Ea would have had no knowledge of the ship's systems. These nanites are not replicators. They do not have an adaptive agenda that can be amended in response to changing circumstances. They have been programmed only to enter Atlantis's main dialing computer. Nothing more "

"You hope," Elizabeth couldn't help adding.

She could almost hear him blink. "I theorize."

Radek met her inquiring look with a half-shrug and a nod of acquiescence. At this point, there were no clear-cut choices. They'd have to do the best they could with the information they had.

"All right. Colonel Caldwell?"

"Here," Caldwell responded. "We'll keep a skeleton crew on board to help Hermiod finish his work. A squad of Marines will be setting out soon to place C-4 charges in the critical record-keeping areas of the city, just to be on the safe side. I'll send the rest to the 'gate room for evacuation."

His phrasing didn't escape her notice, and it came as no surprise to her that he planned to stay with his ship, come what may. Still. .no easy choices.

Within minutes, the remaining crewmembers from the Daedalus were beamed into the 'gate room and quickly dispatched to the Alpha site. No sooner had the event horizon winked out than Lome and Witner set off for Polrusso in Jumper Two. After the 'gate had shut down, it promptly engaged a third time.

"Atlantis, Polrusso here, with you on redial," Lome reported. "I'll keep my foot in the door, so to speak."

A few mumbled words of Czech brought Elizabeth's attention back to Radek. "The temporal fields are coalescing," he announced. "Instead of millions of individual fields enclosing individual nanites, they are becoming one solid mass. When it comes into contact with the city shield, the outside of the shield will be exposed to a broad, uniform temporal field."

"Meaning what?" Caldwell's voice came over the radio.

"The passage of time on that side of the shield will be approximately half a million times faster than on our side. The shield is already performing at its limits, and we have, of course, had to use the Stargate several times. This is why we will only have"-his gaze shifted briefly to the screen-"less than three hours of ZPM power."

The city gave a slow roll, a motion that might have turned Elizabeth's stomach if she'd actually eaten anything in recent memory. She watched Radek work, aware that he was tackling several problems simultaneously and trying to divide his attention accordingly.

"Colonel Caldwell, I am sending a file to the Daedalus's main computer," the scientist called. "In it you will find the most critical records interfaces throughout the city. If you would please direct your Marines to the top priority locations first and work down the list, they will be able to set the charges so that the entire database is destroyed."

"Will do. Receiving the file now," Caldwell said. "There seem to be a lot of redundancies in here, Doctor."

Radek sighed. "Unfortunately, yes. This is not a trivial task. Your men will need to work quickly." He ducked when a particularly bright lightning strike impacted the city shield. After a moment, he glanced up, and his expression turned thoughtful.

Me and my big mouth. Fortunately, this world's King Kong of viperfish turned its interest elsewhere.

Rodney had bullied his way onto this hellish ride, sure his talents would be needed throughout, and unwilling to stay behind where he could wallow in his pain. But Nabu was handling the programming of the exogenesis machine just fine by himself, leaving Rodney with nothing to distract him from his bleak thoughts.

He was certain that no one else could truly comprehend what losing Turpi meant, because no one had ever known the likes of such a… God, what could he call her? Beyond human? Even so, it tore at his soul to realize that he still could not shake his memory of her physical deformities. The cruelest trick of…not nature, but the Ancients' self-centered game of genetic Scrabble.

If, as he suspected, some of the gods of the ancient world were not all Goa'uld but had in fact been the Ancients who had fled to Earth from Atlantis, it was little wonder that mankind had assigned them such cruel traits. Squabbling with one another, perched in their lofty abodes tossing metaphorical thunderbolts…

Of course.! How had that not occurred to him before`?

Rodney scrambled for his radio, nearly knocking his datapad off his lap. "Atlantis, Jumper One," he called.

Throwing him a startled look, Sheppard's tone was cautious as he asked, "Rodney, you okay?"

"I'm fine, dammit!" he snapped. "Radek, take the grounding stations offline. Use the lightning to power the shield!"

The response was garbled and choppy. "Rodn-" It sounded like Radek, but that was about all he could make out. "-power-"

"Yes, lots of power. There's an enormous charge differential out there, ready and waiting. I hope to hell you read my report from the last storm to end all-" All strategies vanished from his mind when he found himself staring down the throat of something surrounded by lots of teeth the length of power poles. The viperfish had returned, abruptly latching onto the shield in front of the jumper. His well-built emotional shields long since shredded, Rodney let out a scream.

Sheppard reacted intuitively, spinning the jumper in a tight circle and flinging the creature off. "Ugh."

Once the monster was gone, Rodney recovered his poise, refusing to acknowledge Ronon's soft huff of amusement behind him. "Radek, are you still there?"

This time, there was nothing, not even crackling air. "Nanites have probably penetrated deep enough to interfere with the transmission," Sheppard guessed.

Radek had said `power'. If he'd heard enough to carry out the process Rodney had outlined, Atlantis could be shielded for as long as the storm raged. Certainly long enough to finish the Daedalus repairs. But if the message hadn't gotten through… The jumper had to return to Atlantis and ensure that the shield was powered, which would allow all of them to get the hell out of this remake of Abyss.

Turning partway in his seat, Rodney eyed the exogenesis machine, the possibilities coming into focus. They could take the Daedalus back to Earth, and the machine could be studied for so many other applications.

And leave this galaxy to its fate, the way Atlas planned, the way Ea tried to do.

He started. Turpi was not really dead, but Ascended. And her wish was that he take care of those who remained behind. It wasn't just about his own life or death. He would not-he could not-let Ea win.

Would his conscience be speaking with Turpi's voice from here on out?

Every day of her life, she'd had the chance to transform herself, to make her appearance reflect her true beauty, and every day she'd refused because it would have separated her from the people-the children-that she loved. She'd given up everything because she cared so much for others.

For the second time that day-a new record, and one he had no desire to repeat-Rodney overrode his instincts. They had to plant the exogenesis machine and simply hope that Radek had heard him.

Glancing up from the machine, he found Nabu watching him. Unnoticed by the others, the Polrusson gave a silent nod of approval, the side of his mouth drawn upward in a small smile.

The static was every bit as chilling as the scream it had so abruptly replaced. Elizabeth sucked in a startled breath so fast her chest hurt.

"DejA vu," murmured Radek, going pale under the blue glow of the computer screen.

"Jumper One, come in." Not now, damn it, not when we've come this far Her call was greeted by silence. "It could just be the radio," she maintained.

"Indeed." Radek's voice held a note of relief. They would reinforce each other's stubborn optimism as long as they could. "I believe I know what Rodney was trying to suggest."

"From that mess of a transmission?" Elizabeth's already lofty opinion of her scientists climbed another notch. "The only word I understood was `light'."

"I heard the same. However, I had already begun to form a similar idea before the call "" Radek moved, hand over hand to maintain his balance, toward a console that monitored power levels. "During last year's great storm, Rodney was able to power the city shield using-

"Lightning!" The memory leaped into her mind, bringing with it a few choice recollections that she could have done without.

The Czech tipped his head toward the windows, indicating the furious flashes outside. "It should be enough to give the Daedalus the time she needs. With your permission, I will divert the Marines from their task with the explosives and send them to disable the grounding stations around the city"

"Can they get it done before we drain the ZPM?"

In any other situation, Radek's expression would have been comical. "As much as it pains me to sound like Rodney, it will be very, very close."

"As always. Do it "

While Radek spoke to Sergeant Stackhouse's squad over the radio, outlining their new duties, Elizabeth retreated to her office, helpless once again. Infinitely more so this time. Of course there was a chance that John and the others might still succeed in placing the exogenesis machine. But that hideous scream still echoed in her mind, forcing her to accept the possibility that the team-no, not the team, but individuals: John and Rodney, Teyla and Ronon, people who had come to mean more to her than she had ever thought possible-were dead.

There had been days in the past when her confidence had faltered, but she'd never lacked for hope, believing that the latter often led to the former. Hope had kept her going for so long now, almost since the moment she'd first heard Ea speak with Carson's voice. But that hope had been frayed under the growing weight of imminent catastrophe, and now it felt threadbare and fragile. She'd been brought to the Stargate program to be a negotiator, and with Ea, obsessed or not, she'd failed in spectacular fashion. Her shortcomings would doom not only Atlantis but also possibly the entire Pegasus Galaxy.

Elizabeth thought back to a five-minute conversation in the Oval Office seemingly a lifetime ago. She'd told the President then that she had never trained to negotiate with aliens. At the time, even though she'd known his offer to be serious, it had felt a bit surreal. She'd had no idea her decision would lead her here-and she had to wonder now, as it all came crashing down, what might have happened if she'd said no.

"Atlantis, this is Polrusso." Lome's voice swiftly brought her back to the present, and she touched her earpiece. There was still work to be done. And still hope.

"Go ahead, Major."

"Ma'am, we've explained the situation to Nabu's people, and they've started collecting as many as they can with the Darts. They all want to come with us."

"All of them?" Elizabeth could only imagine General Landry's reaction to an influx of thousands of Pegasus refugees in need of a new planet to call home.

"As many as we can manage, yes, ma'am." Lome paused. "I'm prepared to pull the ZPM from the lab on your order."

Gripping the edge of her desk with a force that made her fingers ache, she weighed the awful choice. As soon as they took the ZPM for the trip to Earth, the remaining hundreds of thousands of people on Polrusso, conceivably the galaxy's best long term hope for a future defense against the Wraith, would be lost under the planet's new oceans. But if they waited too long and the nanites spread beyond Atlantis, the Polrussons were dead anyway, along with the Wraith and everything else in the galaxy.

She could hope that the Stargate would be destroyed along with the rest of the city, but hope had limits, and this was a risk they couldn't take. If Radek's plan worked…

In an instant, a realization washed her despair away. She knew exactly how to save the expedition, confine the nanites to this planet, and leave the people of Polrusso unharmed. They just needed one small bit of luck.

"All set," came Stackhouse's voice through her earpiece. "This is really going to power the city?"

"It will," assured Radek. "This is the rare instance where we have previous experience to draw upon. All of you must now take shelter on the Daedalus. It and the control room are shielded against the electrical surge."

"We're on our way."

The exhilaration Elizabeth felt must have showed on her face when she rushed out of her office, because Radek looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. Not bothered, she skidded to a stop in front of him. "I have an idea."

A squid thing that bore an uncanny resemblance to Cthulhu had also tried to ingest the jumper, freaking Rodney out a second time, but that was only a hint of the weird encounters to come. Thousands of sea creatures flashed as dots on the HUD and in the flesh beyond the jumper's shield, lighting up the ocean like a star-filled sky. John was intrigued by the sight and more than a little alarmed. All of them were heading away from the direction in which the jumper was traveling.

"They are fleeing the gray goo," Teyla observed. "The animals on the mainland did likewise, although then we were all traveling in the same direction."

"It makes sense that we're swimming upstream, so to speak." Rodney gestured toward the route map on the HUD, clearly doing his best to pretend the creatures weren't flying past the windshield behind it. "We're coming up on the shallow section-and what a surprise, it's already gone gooey."

Meaning they'd have to go through that muck. John knew Teyla had done it before, but he still didn't like it. "How are we doing on shield power?"

Before he'd finished asking the question, Rodney had already moved to the rear of the jumper. "There'll be some needle-threading involved. I'll hook up each power cell as the prior one falls below the ten-percent level. The water pressure on the hull is no longer a factor, so I'll reduce power to a minimum. But if the shield is compromised at any point, the temporal field that breaks through will age us so fast the Wraith would weep with envy."

"Then let's get this over with." John twisted around to face the rear compartment. "Are we ready?"

Rodney didn't look ready, but he gave a jerky nod. "Go for it "

Expecting to have to rise into the goo, John was surprised to see the gray shroud descending with such speed. He needed only to wait a few seconds before the jumper was enveloped. The points of light provided by the last of the sea creatures winked out, leaving them in darkness.

A few more seconds passed before Rodney's voice broke the tense silence. "Power consumption is steady. Fast, but steady."

When the thick curtain of nanites caused the HUD to stutter and eventually stop updating entirely, John started to get the now-familiar sensation of losing his bearings. On Earth, flying on instruments, he'd always had gravity and a seat-of-the-pants sense to help tell him which way was up, but the jumper's inertial dampeners had shot those instincts to hell. All he could do was stay on the course the HUD had marked before it fritzed out, keeping a mental image of where he wanted to go. Come on, you sweet little mind-reading ride, don't let me down.

From the back, Rodney cursed. "Down to fifteen percent on the second cell."

"Already?" John didn't like the sound of that. "I thought you said-"

"Given my complete lack of experience with this situation, it's possible my estimate was only marginally accurate." Rodney connected the third power cell.

"So we're down to how many spares?"

"One.,

That had to be a joke. Except Rodney was obviously not in a joking mood. "One?" John pressed.

"Look, don't shoot the messenger, all right?"

They'd have to head down sooner than the original route suggested, just to escape the goo. Not too soon, of course, or they could pop out of the goo only to run smack into a not-yet-converted underwater mountain. It wasn't the kind of thing John liked to guess at, but, given no other choice, he checked their last known speed and position, did a quick-and-dirty rate-of-descent calculation in his head, and aimed the jumper's nose downward.

Before long, he could hear Rodney starting to connect the last power cell. Fabric rustled, repeatedly, and John suspected that the scientist was wiping sweaty palms on his pant legs.

Abruptly, they broke out from the goo, and darkness gave way to an ocean jam-packed with marine life. Every living thing that had managed to outrun the goo had been pushed down to the remaining water at depth. Some of the fish-type things were huge, snapping at each other, adding to the chaos. Not all of the critters had survived the rapid pressure change, either- and the victims were quickly being devoured by the survivors.

The frenzy quickly encompassed the jumper. "Holy-" Returning to the front seat, Rodney flinched as a school of massive barracuda-like animals swarmed over the shield, bumping and jostling the craft. The space that Jumper One pushed through seemed to be filled with more fish than water. Fortunately, the HUD came back to life once the nanites' interference was gone, and John could see the trench that was their objective not far away. "Teyla, you're on deck."

Encased in the HAZMAT suit, Teyla pulled her hood on and, nodding, held her hand out to Nabu to take the machine. "I am prepared."

Just as John aimed them into the trench, Rodney cursed. "Power level's dropping. The goo's coming down on top of us!"

"How does it keep getting faster like that?" Ronon wanted to know.

"It is an exponential expansion," Nabu explained from the rear of the jumper. He was still holding the exogenesis machine. "The more of the gray substance that exists, the faster it can spread."

"Well, I can't make us go any faster, so pick a vent, quick." John flung a hand toward the windshield, where streams of thin bubbles and roiling yellowish clouds of what the HUD described as sulfur trailed from a series of chimney-stack pipes on the ocean floor, and up into the goo above. He had no idea what was lighting the trench, but right about now he didn't much care.

"Just a second." Studying the sensor readout, Rodney showed an uncharacteristic level of anger by pounding a fist into the armrest. "None of the vents are big enough to drop the machine into!"

At last, something he could solve. "Then we'll make one big enough," John growled, reaching for the weapons panel.

"Okay, good. For once, your propensity for shooting things is in no way misguided."

On command, the weapon bay door opened on the side of the jumper, deploying a drone into the water. The projectile found its mark- and then some.

Huge bubbles of superheated gas erupted from the point of impact, roiling upward. The force of the rupture caught the jumper and lifted it, thrusting it into the goo above.

A bleak sense of failure descended over John as swiftly as the darkness fell. They were out of time, water, ideas, and about to be out of power. There was nothing left.

He wasn't normally the praying type, but he offered a silent, fervent wish to anyone who might listen that Elizabeth and the others had made it.