Unascended

Chapter Twelve

It took quite some time for Teyla, Ember and Rodney to find their way out to the jumper, following one passage and then another by process of elimination. By the time they had returned with flashlights and first aid kits, Ronon and Daniel Jackson were awake. Teyla helped Ronon to his feet while Rodney steadied Daniel. Ember watched, his hands at his sides, as if wanting to make sure no one misinterpreted his touch.

“It was the Asgard,” Teyla said to Daniel. “That is the logical conclusion. They stunned us and then took the ZPM and whatever else they wanted.”

Daniel rubbed his eyes. “But what was it?” he wondered aloud. “And was it sheer coincidence that they turned up here at the same time we did? I mean, they’ve had thousands of years to loot this planet. They did it today? Coincidentally?”

“That doesn’t seem likely,” Ember agreed.

“Whatever was here, they took it,” Rodney said.

“I need to examine the room,” Daniel said. “There may be something left.”

“There is not,” Teyla said. “There are no instruments left at all.”

Daniel shrugged. “Sometimes people drop things. Or there’s writing on surfaces. Or they lose some small attached part. There are lots of things you wouldn’t have seen in the dark.”

“That is true,” Teyla said. She took a deep breath. “It will only take a few minutes to search the room, and we are already here. Let us do it. Rodney, you and Ronon go back to the jumper and radio Atlantis and tell John what happened. I will go with Ember and Dr. Jackson.”

Together, they descended to the stripped room, which seemed no more promising to Teyla on second glance than on first. She and Ember watched while Daniel examined the floor, crawled under the tables and desks, and inspected the empty mounting brackets on the walls.

“There was some kind of device here,” Daniel said at last, pointing to a blank expanse of floor in front of two tables, five empty brackets behind it. “About two meters tall and one meter wide. It took a lot of power. These are multiple heavy duty power couplings.”

Ember’s brows rose. “And that means that something was connected there. What was it?”

Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what it did. But I do know there was something that took a lot of power and that you couldn’t go near when it was operating.” He pointed to a small line of Ancient symbols on the floor. “Caution Induction Zone. Whatever was being induced, you needed to stand back from it.”

Teyla remembered something. “This looks like an installation in Atlantis,” she said.

Daniel turned around. “What? Where? I’ve never seen it.”

“Elizabeth insisted that we seal the room,” she said. “We found it years ago, and it proved incredibly dangerous. It was a device to help one Ascend. Rodney was nearly killed as a result of it.”

“Ah.” Daniel looked about, turning in place as though trying to visualize things that were no longer there. “That makes sense. That makes complete sense of these.” He pointed to a tiny row of symbols along one of the tables. “This says Reintegration Unit. This isn’t for Ascension. It’s for a device that causes someone to unascend.” He stopped, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “No, that forces them to unascend.”

Ember frowned. “Can that happen?”

“You mean can someone unascend? Of course,” Daniel said.

“No,” Teyla said. “Is it possible to affect someone who is Ascended? I have never heard of any such thing.” The very idea was deeply disturbing.

Daniel nodded. “Yes. I mean, we know that it is. Merlin, the Ancient Merlin, projected his consciousness into my brain once so that I would understand how to make a device that would destroy the Ori, and they’re Ascended beings. So yes, you can theoretically have a device that could force an Ascended being to return to corporeal form. I have no idea how you would do it, but it could be done.”

“And this device,” Teyla gestured to the blank space before them, “Might have done that?”

“It’s possible,” Daniel said.

“And now the Asgard have it and we do not,” Teyla said. “That is not a good development.”

“The real question,” Daniel said, “Is why they want it.”

“I don’t like stuff we don’t know,” John said. He looked around the conference table at the familiar faces of his team plus Daniel Jackson. At least he didn’t have to have Ember the Wraith in the debriefing. “Why would the Asgard come to that planet at the same time as us? Why did they stun everyone? What did they take and why?”

“They followed us,” Rodney said, his fists clenched.

“How?”

“I don’t know how!” Rodney sputtered, “But I know they did. Come on. They just happened to show up at the same time? Not likely. They could have visited that planet anytime in the last thousand years. No, they followed us. And that’s why they just stunned us.”

“We’re the stalking horse,” Daniel said. “We run the risks, we turn off the Ancient defenses, and then they take the stuff.” Which did make sense. It wasn’t anything John liked, but it sure made sense.

“But why do they want it?” Teyla was frowning. “To force the Ancestors to unascend is…” She paused as if looking for a bad enough word. “Obscene.”

“Maybe they want knowledge one of them has,” Daniel said.

“And now they’ve got the device,” Rodney said. “And there’s nothing we can do about it.”

There was a long moment of gloomy silence as everyone considered this.

“Wait a second,” Ronon rumbled, leaning back in his chair. “There’s one thing we know about Ancient devices that goes for every single one we’ve ever found. It doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. Just because they’ve got it doesn’t mean they can do what they wanted it for. And they can’t use it without the ATA gene anyway, right?”

“That’s true,” Daniel said more brightly.

“I think we’re losing sight of the priority here,” Rodney said. “We’re looking for Elizabeth.”

John folded his hands on the table deliberately. “No,” he said. “We’re looking for Ancient installations. That’s what we found. Too bad the Asgard did too. But nobody was hurt, and we’re no worse off than we started.”

“I just think this is connected,” Rodney said. “If the Asgard are trying to find an Unascension device at the same time that Elizabeth is missing and maybe Unascended…”

“Maybe it is,” John said with frustration. “But do you have any bright ideas about how to find the Asgard ship? I thought not. So let’s get on with what we’re actually doing. Everybody stand down, get some rest, and tomorrow we’ll talk about the next site.”

Nobody moved.

John got up. “Meeting over. Good night.”

“I just…” Rodney began.

“Tomorrow.”

“OK.”

Daniel got up, opening his laptop and showing it to Rodney. “Can we talk about these three places on the list?” They went out with their heads alarmingly together.

Ronon tilted his chair down. “Want to grab some dinner?” he asked Teyla.

“Perhaps I will be down in a few minutes,” Teyla said. She lagged behind as Ronon went out.

John sat down on the edge of the table as the doors slid closed. “What’s up?”

Teyla shook her head, a fond smile on her face. “Have you had such trouble leading the team for years? Ronon and Rodney are bad enough, but when there is Dr. Jackson and Ember…” She spread her hands. “I feel that I spend all my time shouting.”

John laughed. “That’s pretty much it. It’s herding cats. Always has been.”

She took a step closer, inclining her head to his in Athosian courtesy. “I did not realize the difficulties involved.”

“Kind of makes you appreciate me more,” John said with a smile.

Richard Woolsey stood in the conference room at Stargate Command, watching the gate turn, a regularly scheduled offworld team returning. It was a little after 06.00 Mountain Time. He’d spent the night in SGC guest quarters, which he had to say were a lot more comfortable than the first time he’d been here. Then, they’d been bunk beds in a concrete room painted olive drab. Now they were a lot like a budget hotel complete with queen beds with pastel quilts and framed prints of scenic beaches on the wall. Possibly this was intended to put guests at ease. Certainly there were no beaches anywhere nearby.

Woolsey took a sip of his scalding coffee. One thing that hadn’t changed was the coffee. This was as thick as if it had been sitting on the hotplate all night. Which it probably had.

He paced around the empty conference table, empty and waiting for the next crisis. Everything was very quiet. The bulletproof glass cut out the sounds of the gateroom below entirely. Beyond the head of the conference table the Stargate Command insignia was mounted on the wall, proud encouragement to those who found themselves here for the first time. On the right hand wall was a different kind of plaque a list of names. Most of them he didn’t know: Spec. Robert Riley, Spec. Louise Fernandez, Lt. Aidan Ford. Some he did. Dr. Janet Fraiser. Dr. Elizabeth Weir.

Woolsey took another sip of the terrible coffee. Was it possible that Dr. Weir was alive, as unlikely as that seemed? The answer was probably no. There was no evidence, no reason to think so other than the wishful thinking of a man who had himself been a prisoner of war and then recovered. McKay wanted her to be alive. Everyone wanted her to be alive. Understandably. Death was hard to accept, and doubly so when one felt responsible for the death. But that didn’t make her alive. The Atlantis expedition had to face the facts. Elizabeth Weir was not coming back.

Woolsey sighed. Sheppard would come to that. He wouldn’t let them spend too much time on a wild goose hunt. It was time to move on.

Just as it was time for him to move on. It was time for him to stop thinking of himself as a member of the Atlantis expedition and to start thinking of himself as a member of the IOA, the US representative to the IOA. His was the position of responsibility, and it was time to take what he’d learned and put it to good use. There was no going back. It was time to go forward. He had the briefing files on this new fiasco, the loss of an experimental base and its personnel, the armed hostilities with the Lucian Alliance that ensued, the loss of several of the Hammond’s 302s in the subsequent fight. He needed to get a handle on that. What the gate team in Atlantis did was no longer his job.

Richard Woolsey squared his shoulders. The names looked back at him from the wall. I will do my best, he promised silently. I’ll make sure you weren’t wasted.

An Airman cleared his throat from the doorway. “Mr. Woolsey? Your car is ready to take you to Peterson, sir.”

“I’m coming,” Woolsey said. He put the coffee cup down on the conference table and left it there.

It was several hours before they had seen all the injured, including a man who had been shot in the leg and lost a lot of blood. He wasn’t the worst injured, though. That went to a woman who had been hit in the head with a rifle butt and hadn’t regained consciousness since. Dekaas arranged to transport her onto the Durant where he had more equipment, shaking his head as he did so. He had no words of comfort for her kin, only that he’d try. Elizabeth watched them go up the elevator to the airlock, the woman wrapped in a blanket on a pallet, Dekaas and her two teenage daughters, their faces pale and pinched with worry.

“She tried to fight back,” Fenna said. “Always a mistake.”

Elizabeth didn’t reply. She took a deep breath, warming her hands against her sleeves.

“So you wanted to use our gate to dial out?” Fenna asked.

“If you’ll permit it,” Elizabeth said. “But Dekaas asked me to keep an eye on the injured down here while he tends to her, so I’m not leaving just yet.”

“Fair enough,” Fenna said. “You can trade your help for the use of our gate.”

“That’s a deal,” Elizabeth said, putting out her hand.

After a moment Fenna shook it. “We’re going to end this thing deep in the Travelers’ debt, but I see no alternative. It’s a bad business.”

“It seems so,” Elizabeth said.

“But now you’re welcome to a bite to eat,” Fenna said.

“That would be great.” Elizabeth walked with her through several corridors and out into the largest cavern she’d yet seen. At the other end of it was a vast ring of dark metal with a pedestal before it. Elizabeth frowned, a shiver running through her. “The Ring,” she said. “It’s different.” There was an inner circle of symbols on a band rather than lights.

“Aye,” Fenna said. “It’s different from most I’ve seen. But it works just the same.”

“How did it get here?” She had the feeling that there was something wrong about that, something important.

“How did any Ring get anywhere?” Fenna asked. “We found it here when we first came here. These caverns were already hollowed out, but I guess the ore wasn’t good enough to be worth the effort, or maybe troubles came and everyone went home. It was all shut down tidily. No bones, no signs of a fight, just abandoned. I reckon somebody pulled out long ago.”

“I suppose,” Elizabeth said. She frowned. There was something about the gate that was wrong, something she should remember. When had she seen one like it before?

Two figures were silhouetted for a moment against the brightness of the Stargate as they walked through, one with a cap of golden hair, the other tall and muscular. They stepped through, and for a moment the puddle of blue light remained before it faded. The circle of red lit symbols around the gate went dark.

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing,” she said.

The man beside her at the window shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “It’s our best shot,” he said. “If anybody can do it, Sam and Teal’c can.”

“Frankly, I’m less worried about them than us.” Elizabeth turned away from the gate room window, pacing around the conference room table. “That modified ship is the most advanced piece of technology Earth has.”

The man pushed his glasses up on his nose with one hand. “Think about it this way. That ship exists because of what’s in Jack’s head. Right now, nobody can access that, including Jack. But if the Asgard can help him, then maybe we can find out how he modified the ship. And everything else he knows but can’t tell us.”

Elizabeth stopped at the far end of the table. “You have a point,” she said.

“I often do.” He gave her a boyish smile. “You know, it’s not necessary to have an adversarial relationship.”

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Dr. Jackson, I had nothing to do with the President relieving General Hammond. I didn’t even know the Stargate program existed! This job was not my idea. But I’m going to see it through, and I’m going to make the best decisions I possibly can.”

He perched on the other end of the table, the tension in his body belying his carefully diffident demeanor. “Look, it’s not to your advantage or to ours for this to be adversarial. But I can’t help wondering exactly who does benefit. Progressive activist given command of an Air Force project, disarmament negotiator given control of Earth’s most advanced weapons, DC insider relieving beloved commander somebody’s set up for failure here and I’m not sure if it’s you or us.”

It was time to trust him, time to take that leap of faith that’s always the most deadly in politics. “I know exactly who,” Elizabeth said. “And it’s both of us set up to fail. This is supposed to discredit both the Stargate program and me. Unless I’m simply a convenient pawn as far as he’s concerned.”

“Kinsey,” Jackson said.

“Got it in one.”

“Color me surprised.” Jackson smiled again. “Then you know there’s one way for both of us to win.”

“For us not to fail,” Elizabeth said. She came around the table again and offered her hand. “How about it?”

“It’s a deal,” Jackson said.