The Inheritors

Chapter Thirteen The Final Countdown

Rodney bent over his console, the sun streaming in through the long windows of the gateroom. So far, everything was going perfectly, just a shortcut here, a minor tweak there, all to bring the city into perfect readiness. When he had last paused long enough to listen, it had sounded as though the Hammond was ready, too, and apparently the Genii were on their way. That actually surprised him a little, though, really, Ladon Radim ought to have figured out which side his bread was buttered on….

He frowned at his screen, watching the last of the secondary systems nudge firmly into the green, and then leaned back with a sigh. "Where's that coffee I asked for —?"

"Next to your left hand," Zelenka said precisely.

"Ah." Rodney picked it up, slurping at it before he registered that the cup wasn't burning his fingers. "It's cold!"

"Where it has been for the last twenty minutes," Zelenka went on. He had a cup of hot coffee, Rodney noticed, but he wasn't offering to share.

Dr. Kusanagi looked up from her console, smiling. "Here, you can have this one," she said, and held out a cup.

"Oh, I couldn't," Rodney said, but reached for it anyway. It was just the way he liked it, and he couldn't repress a blissful smile. "Ah, that's better."

"Rodney, you are impossible," Zelenka said.

"Airman Salawi brought him a fresh cup on her way back from her break," Kusanagi said, to Zelenka. "It was very kind of her."

"Yes. Yes, it was," Zelenka said. "But Rodney can get his own coffee."

"Can I?" Rodney pointed to Ronon, who leaned against the end of the console. "At the moment, I can't go anywhere with Chewbacca there keeping me company."

"I'm fine with you getting coffee," Ronon said.

"You see?" Zelenka said. He looked at his own screens, touched keys to compare two sets of readings. "Oh, yes. Yes, that is going very well."

Rodney looked over his shoulder. "If you'd cross-connected the secondary conduits here and here, you'd have gotten a faster power-up —"

"Possibly," Zelenka answered. "Or equally possibly we would have blown that entire bank of circuits."

Rodney opened his mouth to protest, and Zelenka rode over him.

"And in any case, we've already started the process. There's no point in interrupting it now."

"No." Rodney stopped, blinking.

"And I could not have consulted you," Zelenka continued, "because what you were doing there was the priority."

"Well, yes," Rodney said. "Yes, it was." And that left him with nothing to say, so he took a deep swallow of his coffee. "Ow!"

"And if now you complain that it's too hot —" Zelenka broke off, muttering to himself in Czech.

"Some people let being Head of Science go to their heads," Rodney said, but not so loudly that Zelenka couldn't ignore him. He looked back at his own screen, saw that there was nothing to do until the next diagnostic finished running. That was a little weird — he felt as though he'd been working at top speed ever since he got back to Atlantis — but there was nothing he could do about it, and he took a more careful sip of his coffee, wincing at the heat on his sore tongue.

Okay, there was nothing he could do here. That left his other problem, proving that he hadn't been tampered with by the Wraith, and that — well, surely all his work getting the city ready to fly had to count for something? But, no, probably some minor component would blow out, and they'd all blame him for something like unconscious sabotage. He was pretty sure that wasn't really possible, and if only he had the time, he'd get Dr. Robinson to tell them as much.

And what the hell had happened to the weapon? He knew where he'd hidden it, he knew nobody knew about that little private stash — was it possible Sheppard had been looking in the wrong place? Maybe that was it. Maybe Sheppard had gone to the wrong lab. There were at least a dozen of them up there in the towers, all identical — that was part of why he'd chosen one to hide his emergency supplies. That was probably it. His directions hadn't been clear enough, and Sheppard had gotten it wrong. He turned to Ronon.

"We have to go back up the tower."

"What?"

"To where I hid — you know, the thing. Sheppard went to the wrong place."

Ronon was shaking his head. "No. He went to the right place."

"You can't be sure," Rodney said. "All those little labs, all the towers, they all look alike. He must have gone to the wrong one."

"McKay." Ronon sounded as though he were trying very hard to be patient and not succeeding. "He went to the right room. All your other stuff was there."

"How do you know that? You weren't there!"

"Sheppard said so." Ronon folded his arms as though that settled the matter.

Which Rodney supposed it did. Sheppard was good at his job, he wasn't going to confuse Rodney's gear with, say, Kusanagi's or that German kid's. He picked up his coffee again, frowning. And that meant the weapon was still lost, and he was still a suspect. Still potentially Wraith. The heat of the cup traced the line that had been his handmouth, as prickly and uncomfortable as all his other memories. And the worst of it was, there was nothing he could think of that would fix the problem.

Deep in Cheyenne Mountain there was trouble brewing at the SGC.

"Tell me it's not true."

Cameron Mitchell looked up from his computer with his best long-suffering expression to see Daniel Jackson glaring down at him.

"And don't give me that lost-puppy look. Is the IOA serious?"

"That was supposed to be classified information," Cam observed. "And, you know, people do sometimes knock. On doors. Before bursting in."

Jackson waved that away. "Oh, come on, nothing that important stays secret around here." He paused. "Well, not from us."

"No." That was inarguable: Cam himself wasn't supposed to know about the decision, either, but Landry had thought that the opinion of the leader of the SGC's most experienced gate team would be relevant. Or at least help him make a counterargument.

"It's insane."

"I can't argue with you there," Mitchell said, "but, yes, the IOA just ordered Woolsey to evacuate the city and destroy it rather than see it fall to the Wraith."

"We've got to stop them!"

Cam just looked at him, and Jackson waved his hands.

"All right, yes, I have no idea how we're going to do it, but we can't let them blow up the city. Particularly since I doubt they can blow it up, given that it's Ancient technology, and we all know how hard it is to destroy that when we need to get rid of it, not to mention that the Ancients already tried this —"

Cam wondered for a moment if he should just let him run down, but decided that could take too long. "Jackson. General Landry's already made those arguments."

Jackson stopped, took a deep breath. "Okay," he said, more moderately. "Is it doing any good?"

"I haven't heard."

"Jack won't let them do it," Jackson said. "Sam won't, either, and Sheppard — he'll never go along with it."

Cam nodded in agreement. That had become painfully obvious during the weeks Atlantis was on Earth. John Sheppard took a definitely proprietary interest in the city, and if the IOA had succeeded in getting control of it, Cam wouldn't have bet against Sheppard trying something stupid like stealing it. And it had become equally clear that an awful lot of the Atlantis team, civilian and military, would have been happy to help out. "And you're right, it probably wouldn't work — didn't they try to blow it up once before, only they couldn't figure out how? Not to mention that fleeing through the gate didn't work all that well the last time."

Jackson paused. "Well, technically, I suppose it did sort of work, only not as a long-term solution, and there are a lot more Wraith to deal with now anyway."

Cam stared. "Do you always have to play devil's advocate? No, sorry, dumb question."

Before Jackson could say anything, the door crashed open behind him. "Cameron! Oh, and you're here, too, darling." Vala Mal Doran gave Jackson a blinding smile, and leaned hard on Cam's desk. "Did you know that they're starting to evacuate people from Atlantis?"

"What?" Jackson straightened sharply. "They can't —"

"Hang on," Cam said. He frowned at his computer screen, checking back through his message queue. "Ok, calm down, both of you. They're evacuating non-essential personnel from a combat zone, not abandoning the city."

"So they say," Jackson said darkly.

"Abandoning the city?" Vala's eyes were wide.

"Don't tell me you didn't figure that out," Jackson said.

"That's all classified, darling."

"Which hasn't ever stopped you," Jackson said.

"Could we skip this part?" Cam asked. "And, while we're at it, could I remind people to knock —"

His door swung open again, and Teal'c blinked at him.

"There you are, Colonel Mitchell. I have been looking for you."

"Knocking," Cam said. "It's an Earth custom."

"The IOA wants to evacuate Atlantis," Jackson said.

"So I have heard." Teal'c fixed his eyes on Cam. "Is that in fact confirmed?"

Cam rubbed his forehead. "The IOA has issued an order, yes. There hasn't been an answer from Atlantis, though they are evacuating noncombatants."

Teal'c clasped his hands behind his back. "In that case, Colonel Mitchell, I respectfully tender my resignation from SG-1."

"Whoa!" Jackson said, not quite under his breath, and Cam felt his eyebrows rise.

"Now, hang on," he said. "I'm not sure that's strictly necessary —"

"I do not intend to remain here while Atlantis is under siege," Teal'c said. "And while Colonel Carter and General O'Neill remain in jeopardy."

"You don't think they're going to destroy it," Jackson interrupted.

"I do not believe that they can," Teal'c answered. "And it cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the Wraith."

"Wait a minute!" Cam pushed himself up from his chair. "Teal'c, there's no need to resign from SG-1 —"

"Because we're all going!" Vala exclaimed. "Cameron, you're a genius."

Jackson looked like he wanted to disagree, possibly violently, but Cam decided he was going to put that down to it having been Vala who said it. "Could we all slow down here just for a minute?" he asked. "As a matter of fact, it had occurred to me that it might make sense for the SGC to send its top gate team through to Atlantis in a support role."

Jackson's eyebrows rose toward his hairline. "And what exactly do you think we can do there? Not that I'm opposed to the idea, but we'll have to convince Landry."

"You're our biggest expert on Ancient everything," Cam said. Flattery never hurt, with Jackson. "You can advise on what we absolutely have to either destroy or rescue. And the rest of us — if any of our people get stuck in the Pegasus Galaxy, have to hide out until Daedalus can get there to pick them up, well, who better to arrange that than SG-1?"

Teal'c said, slowly, "I do not believe General Landry will accept that argument."

"Well, no," Cam said. "But I bet you it'll be good enough to get us through the gate."

There was a moment of silence, Jackson nodding slowly, Teal'c with his head cocked to one side as he considered, and then Vala smiled brightly. "Right! So what are we waiting for? We have a general to talk to."

Aboard the Pride of the Genii, Evan Lorne stood behind the pilot's chair, one hand resting lightly on the back, the other curled loosely at his side. He hoped nobody else could tell how much of an effort it took to hold himself like that, faking relaxation, but then he glanced at Ladon Radim. The Genii leader had both hands clasped behind his back, his expression gravely attentive, and Lorne guessed Ladon was just as nervous.

It was a Genii in the chair, after all, a young captain with a head of unruly red curls and no trace of the ATA gene. His hands were on the secondary controls, his eyes darting between his own screen and the twin navigation consoles, and there were tiny beads of sweat on the back of his neck between his hairline and his collar. Lorne wasn't at all sure he wasn't sweating himself.

"Ladon." That was Dahlia, arriving so silently that Lorne started at her voice. "Perhaps it would be better if Major Lorne handled the transition."

She kept her voice low, but Lorne saw the captain grimace. His hands were steady on the controls, though, watching the Pride approach the red line that marked the transition to regular space, and Lorne looked over his shoulder.

"Captain Nanion is doing fine," he said. "And I think it's important that as many of the crew as possible practice handling the ship without help from someone with the ATA gene." In case something happens to me: he didn't have to say that, and Dahlia dipped her head in acknowledgement.

"Yes, of course."

Ladon gave a crooked smile. "I suspect we'll all earn our stripes this trip."

Nanion did grin at that, and leaned forward again over the controls.

"Not yet," Lorne said. The Pride's image had reached the edge of the red line, but he could feel that it wasn't time, and he dredged his memory for the visual sign that marked that moment. "The line will brighten — just like that."

Nanion shoved the drive lever forward, and light flared in the forward screens. The window formed and then they were through, hanging in blackness spangled with stars.

"Chief, I have Atlantis on the screen," one of the navigators reported, and beyond him, at the environmental stations on the lower boards, there was a steady murmur of voices as the technicians gave their status reports. If he were flying, Lorne thought, none of that would be necessary. It would all be instantly available, a lovely overlay conjured up as soon as he desired it, and gone again the moment he no longer needed it. The Genii could fly their ship, but they needed a crew of dozens to take the place of a single person with the ATA gene. No wonder Radim was so desperate to get his hands on it.

"Nice job, Captain," he said, and Nanion glanced up at him.

"Thank you, sir. Set a course for Atlantis?"

Lorne looked at Ladon, who shook his head. "Let's let them know we're here first. Not that I think they haven't seen, but it would be only polite."

Out of the corner of his eye, Lorne could see the communications officer frowning over his controls, and his fingers itched to do it himself. He could do it with a thought, the spark of a wish sending the information flying, the towers of Atlantis lighting to welcome them home….

"And while you're at it," Ladon said, "any sign of the Wraith fleet?"

Another technician began adjusting his controls. "Not yet — wait, there they are."

The image on the central screen shifted, stars replaced by a schematic of the solar system, planets and orbits picked out in shades of purple. There was the Pride, a blue-white star, maybe an hour away from Atlantis's orbit. There was Atlantis, her towers replacing the planet itself. And there, on the edges of the system, an arc made of a dozen orange wedges: Queen Death's fleet.

Ladon lifted an eyebrow. "How far out is that?"

His voice was impressively steady. Lorne looked at Nanion. "Captain —"

"Yes, sir."

Nanion scrambled hastily out of the chair, and Lorne took his place, sinking his fingers into the conductive gel with a sigh of relief. The sense of the ship washed over him, half a hundred individual status reports merging into a general sense of well-being, and he turned his attention to the long-range sensors. It didn't look good: four hiveships, six cruisers, a pair of smaller ships with an odd power signature that suggested they might be full of Darts…. Assuming constant course and speed, they were four hours out of fighting distance; they were too close to try a hyperspace jump, so that was about what you had to expect. He was suddenly very glad he'd yielded to Ladon's suggestion and gotten a decent night's sleep.

"I'd say we have just under four hours before we can expect to engage," Lorne said. "Unless Atlantis has something else planned."

Ladon eyed the screen. "What if they made another jump through hyperspace? They'd be here much sooner then."

"They're too close," Lorne answered. "The way they have to drop out of hyperspace, Wraith ships don't seem to have a lot of fine control over their hyperdrives. We could make a microjump and engage them now if we wanted to —" The Pride's controls pulsed confirmation in the palms of his hands. "But there's no way the Wraith could make the kind of jump."

There was another flicker of sensation at the tips of his fingers, and the communications officer said, "I have Atlantis, Chief."

The Pride passed him the image before it reached the main screen, and Lorne managed not to respond, though every fiber of his being wanted to. This was how the ship was supposed to be flown, by a pilot who was one with it, not at third hand, every sensation negated by the clumsiness of consoles and buttons and levers, relays so much slower than synapses. I'm sorry, Lorne said, in the back of his mind where only the ship could hear him. They have to do it this way — they found you, they repaired you, you can work with them. And we'll all face the Wraith together.

"Mr. Woolsey," Ladon said. "I see that we're in time. Though I don't see any sign of your — other — ally."

"We anticipate their arrival shortly," Woolsey said. His face was prim, and Lorne wondered just what had gone wrong. "In the meantime, may I suggest you join us in orbit? The Hammond will be lifting off within the hour, and we plan to raise Atlantis shortly after that."

"Raise Atlantis," Ladon said. "You plan to fly the city — to fight from her?"

"Yes." In the screen, Woolsey's face was bland, as though they did that every day. "Can you be here before we take off?"

Ladon glanced at Lorne, who felt the confirmation pulse through him almost before he formed the question. "We can be there in 51 minutes," he said.

"We'll be there," Ladon said, and nodded to his technician to cut the transmission. A sudden smile lightened his face. "That will be something to see, Atlantis in flight. Whatever else happens, at least we'll have seen that."

Lorne nodded, feeling the ship's acceptance wash through him, seeing the same wonder on the faces of the technicians and soldiers at their places. It was worth it to be there.

Sam pushed her hair out of her eyes and glanced at her watch. Six-thirty, time and past for Bill Lee's team to be out of the ship, out of the city, and on their way back to Earth. But no, there he was, on his hands and knees peering into the guts of a fire-control console, a younger uniformed technician crouching at his side.

"Okay, yeah, I see what you mean," he was saying, "but if you'll hand me that bridging bar —"

The technician did as he was told, inching forward a little as he did so.

"I wouldn't do that," Lee said, and both men jumped back as sparks flew. "Ok, see, that's the only problem with this particular technique, but if it holds…." He wormed his way back into the depths of the console, ignoring the wisp of smoke that curled out past him. "It's really solid."

"Yes, sir," the technician said, sounding genuinely impressed, and Sam tried not to flinch. Yes, the bridging bars would do the job, but if they blew in a firefight, they'd generally take the entire section with them. They were supposed to be ridiculously sturdy, but if anything was likely to override them, it was a pitched battle with a larger Wraith fleet. She shoved the thought aside as too late to worry about, and gently kicked Lee's back foot.

"Dr. Lee."

"Colonel?" Lee scrambled back out again, and peered up at her from the floor plates. "I'm just about done here, but there are a couple more things I want to go over —"

"It's time to leave," Sam said. "Your team is the last out."

"Yeah, about that." Lee came to his feet, adjusting his glasses. His jacket was peppered with tiny burn marks, and his hands were filthy. He seemed to realize the latter, and wiped his hands awkwardly on his pants. "If I were to stick around — I could get a few of the last little things taken care of, and, you know, then I'd be here to help with repairs and stuff."

For a second, Sam was tempted. The Hammond was so close to optimum status that even an hour or two of Lee's expertise might make all the difference. She curbed herself sternly. Bill wasn't a field operative, no matter how good he was when he was forced into it; it wasn't fair to let him risk his life for the difference between ninety-eight percent ready and one hundred. All the more so because both she and McKay were at risk, and after them, Bill was the biggest expert they had on Ancient technology. She shook her head. "Sorry, Bill. They're going to need you back at the SGC."

"But —" Lee stopped abruptly, obviously coming to the same conclusion she had made. "Oh. Right. Uh, yeah. I suppose so."

Sam grinned. She was suddenly very fond of him, this rumpled little man, never quite properly shaven, with his perpetually harried look and his fount of ideas. She wanted to hug him, to kiss his forehead, but she knew this was just the exhilaration that came with impending battle. "Not that I wouldn't rather keep you," she said, "but those are the orders."

"Thanks," Lee said, with a preoccupied smile, his attention back on the console. "Just one more quick thing —"

"Sorry," Sam said. "It's time to go."

Lee grimaced, but moved away from the console. She followed him down the corridor, feeling like a sheepdog as they collected the rest of his team, and walked with them across the landing pad back toward the towers. It was just sunset, the western horizon aflame behind them, while ahead the sky between the towers was dark blue velvet, spangled with the earliest stars. Warm light spilled from the doors to the city, and as they crossed into the tower, Lee glanced over his shoulder.

"You know, I never did see the aurora everybody talks about. Did you ever figure out what makes it so spectacular?"

"Something to do with the magnetic field," Sam answered. "Though I think the composition of the core probably plays a part."

Lee stopped dead. "Now that's very interesting. On M7K-991 —"

"Dr. Lee," one of the technicians said, and gave Sam an apologetic glance. "We really need to be getting to the gateroom now."

"Oh. Right." Lee picked up the pace uncomplainingly, and glanced over his shoulder with a shrugging smile. "It'll make for an interesting paper anyway."

"Yeah," Sam said. She wanted to follow them up to the gateroom, see them safely through the Stargate, but she wasn't in command of Atlantis any more. That was Woolsey's job, and she was needed on the Hammond to deal with the myriad last minute questions that inevitably arose. She retraced her steps, and the doors slid open to allow her out, but no wave of cold came in to meet her. Some sort of deflection field, she guessed, and filed a mental note to look into exactly how it worked. There were plenty of uses for such a thing. Assuming she survived — but that was a familiar gamble. The important thing was to win the battle.

On the pad, the Hammond stood waiting under the lights, a last technical crew busy on scaffolding around the engines. They were finishing up, by the look of it, taking down the platform even as Sam watched: one more thing to take off her mental list. The sunset glowed red-bronze along the horizon, the light caught between the distant towers at the end of the pier, the Hammond somehow more solid against that furnace glow. And now, too late for Bill Lee, a strand of the aurora coiled past the zenith, a pale blue thread against the black. He would be gone now, the last of the civilians and the technical personnel, the injured and the nonessential crew, the ones who didn't have to risk their lives. And it was her job to be sure that they had a city to return to: the bottom line, the thing she'd signed up for all those years ago, following in her father's footsteps. She lengthened her stride, her breath a plume in the cold air, heading for her command.