by Martha Wells
From inside the room, Zelenka was saying, "The field phase adjustment-"
Rodney snapped his fingers. "Wait."
John knew that tone. He stepped back into the control room.
Rodney fumbled at his headset, saying urgently. "You, Trishen! When did you say that data was recorded?"
John heard Trishen's voice on the radio channel. "As my ship was pulled into the Mirror. That's why I was so close to it, to collect the data from the buoys-"
"Yes, yes, on the other side of the Mirror!" Rodney crouched down, shouldering Zelenka aside to get to the laptop keyboard, typing frantically. "The phase is-"
"Inverted!" Zelenka clapped a hand to his forehead. "Ali, we are fools!"
"Yes, exactly!" Rodney nodded urgently, still typing. "Well, not me, but you, yes. We've never had a chance for data collection during an active Quantum Mirror activation. Obviously, as the accretion surface prepares for the transition, it inverts the phase. Kusanagi, are you getting this?"
Sounding relieved, Miko's voice replied, "Yes, Dr. McKay, I'm running my figures again now!"
John prompted, "Rodney, still need an ETA."
Rodney pushed to his feet, giving John a harried grimace as he turned to the console. "We've got it. Just let me-Radek, dammit-"
"Enter the numbers, here, here!" Radek stood up, holding the laptop so Rodney could see the screen.
"Colonel," Teyla said in John's headset. "The Wraith scout ship is within range again and the darts are coming back in this direction."
"Crap," John muttered. The Wraith had to be wondering why the Mirror was being so damn active, and they must suspect that someone was messing with it. The darts were coming back to sweep the open areas for any signs of activity. He said, "Copy that, Teyla. Ronon, fall back to the jumper. Zelenka, you too, get out of here."
Zelenka hesitated, and Rodney waved him off. "I've got it, go on!"
Zelenka nodded tensely, jammed the tablet under his arm and grabbed his laptop. He headed for the door and John followed him, watching until he reached Teyla at the jumper's ramp. They both disappeared as they stepped through the cloak and John went back to the control room. "Rodney, now would be good-"
Rodney shook his head, the reflected blue glow of the consoles' screens giving his face an unhealthy cast. "The system's accepting my commands now, I have to make these last adjustments." He touched his headset again, saying, "Trishen, your sensors should detect the change in the accretion surface when the Mirror becomes safe to activate. When that happens-"
Sounding more confident, Trishen's voice replied, "Yes, I lower the shuttle over the surface. I'm ready."
Rodney cut the channel. "Oh, that's good. I'm glad everyone's ready to go," he muttered, still hitting touchpads. "Unfortunately the giant Quantum Mirror decided not to follow our schedule-"
John debated just dragging him away from the console. "Rodney, there's no time now, we can come back when the scout ship's out of range-"
"We can't wait, the hiveship could get here any moment-"
"Then we forget this and blow up the pulse array!"
"That's not helping!" Rodney shouted. He gave John a look that combined impatience and desperation. "Two minutes, that's all, just two minutes! Look, just go, I'll pull the crystals out of the door, they're not going to know I'm here-"
"Rodney, I'm not leaving you here alone!" John yelled, then he realized the reason they were shouting at each other was that the dull roar from the Mirror had gradually grown louder. It was resonating through the stone now, like the building was one giant soundboard. "Are you doing that?" he asked.
"No!" Rodney stared at the console. The Ancient display was flashing symbols that John knew meant "danger." Data, graphs, and images were scrolling through it too rapidly to read. "That has to be a discharge but it's not registering-The system can't even recognize what's happening. It's as if something else is controlling it." Rodney backed away from the console, swallowing nervously. "I think we need to get out of here."
"Oh, you think?" John said incredulously, and they both turned to run.
As they reached the door, the roar of sound escalated suddenly into an ear-piercing blast and the stone underfoot rippled, sending them both staggering sideways. John caught himself on the wall, then caught Rodney, keeping them both upright. It felt like the entire giant structure of stone and metal had turned into jelly. Rodney knotted a fist in John's shirt and pointed. John looked up and saw a silvery haze filling the air above the Mirror platform, extending upward until it vanished from sight high in the upper atmosphere. He could see two darts caught in it, tumbling helplessly in slow motion, as if the air was solidifying around them. Crap, John thought, staring, I think we broke the giant Quantum Mirror He pushed away from the wall, hauling Rodney with him, and ran toward the invisible jumper.
The stone jolting underfoot made it hard to move in a straight line. Just as John was thinking that now would be a really bad time to overshoot the ramp, Ronon appeared so suddenly in front of them that John slammed into his chest.
Ronon grabbed them both and fell backward. John tumbled through the cloak, landing heavily on the ramp between Rodney and Ronon as the jumper snapped into visibility around them. Teyla and Zelenka stood over them, both looking horrified, and Teyla dodged forward to hit the control to raise the ramp. Everyone was trying to talk but the noise was still so intense John could barely hear anything over it. He scrambled up, staggering to his feet and lunging for the cockpit.
Miko pushed out of the pilot's chair, gesturing helplessly to the HUD. The screens were flashing random diagnostics, distorted readings, static. John dropped into the chair, checking the board. Comm was dead, sensors were going crazy. The building was shaking so hard he could feel the jumper starting to bounce. If Trishen's shuttle was still in the air, it was caught in that field, whatever it was. Oh yeah, this is not good.
John knew the instant the ramp shut because the shielding dropped the sound to a bearable level. Rodney stumbled up beside him, catching hold of the co-pilot's seat to steady himself. He stared out the port in horror. "Can we lift off?"
"Good question." John could feel the jumper's resistance through the control yoke. The only thing that did seem to work was the terrain sensors, and they were showing a pressure build-up on the outside of the hull; the shaking had to be climbing the Richter scale to an apocalyptic level. Stay on the ground and be crushed, lift off and break apart, John thought. Six of one, half dozen of the other If the building collapsed under them... He would rather be in the air. His radio was dead so he raised his voice to yell, "Don't take off your breathing units! Find a seat and strap in!"
"Oh God," Rodney said thickly, dropping into the copilot's seat and hastily buckling the straps. John looked back to see the others taking seats on the rear cabin benches, reaching for the safety straps.
The next instant the jumper lurched forward as if something had snatched it off the roof. John slammed back in the seat, the force a solid punch right to his chest. The Mirror platform filled the port as the jumper was sucked down toward it.
The next slam was forward into the port, and the world went silver, then black.
CHAPTER NINE
arson found Major Lorne in the Daedalus' mess. The long compartment was mostly empty, with only a few off-duty crew members having coffee or early dinners. Carson took a seat across the table from Lorne, admitting, "I keep wanting to ask you if there's been any word, but that's not likely in hyperspace, is it?"
Lorne shook his head, and didn't have to check his watch. He had the air of a man who had been watching the clock for so long he had an intimate awareness of the passage of minutes and seconds. "Not for another half hour or so. That's still our projected arrival time."
Carson tasted his coffee and winced. It was terrible, but unfortunately, the tea was worse. He had been clock-watching himself, in between reading the reports about the previous Quantum Mirror incidents. He had a better understanding now of just what Rodney and the others
might have gotten themselves into. He was still hoping that in the time the Daedalus had been underway, Sheppard's team would have found their way back through the Stargate on the base moon. Colonel Caldwell might not be happy about the wasted trip, but then Colonel Caldwell can lump it, he thought.
Some of the old guard tended to be a little resentful of Caldwell, wanting to close ranks against an outside authority, against someone who hadn't spent the last year isolated and under the constant threat of the Wraith. Carson didn't think it was a fair or logical attitude, but he didn't know Caldwell very well, and the man was hard to read. That might be part of the problem. We've all been living in a close-knit little community for so long, we're too used to each others' ways. An outsider, especially someone who was seen as a potential rival to Elizabeth's and Sheppard's authority, was bound to have a hard row to hoe.
And there was a rumor that Carson kept hearing, that Caldwell had suggested Sheppard had killed Colonel Sumner unnecessarily, that Sheppard could have rescued him if he bothered. If the rumor was true, it would explain a great deal of the tension. The man should review the report on poor Colonel Everett, Carson thought uncharitably. Or stop by the medlab the next time Carson and Biro were autopsying a Wraith victim. Carson shook off that unpleasant image. He told Lorne, "Perhaps when we come out of hyper there'll be a message from home, saying they arrived safely sometime after we left."
He saw Lorne smile wryly. He supposed he had been sounding a bit like a Pollyanna again. Carson sighed. "I know, I know, I'm something of an optimist. It helps balance out Rodney."
"I wish I was an optimist," Lorne admitted. "I should have-" He cut himself off with grimace, and put more sugar in his coffee.
Carson watched him a moment, then said firmly, "You didn't abandon your post, lad. You had to get the others out, and that needed both jumpers. What were you going to do, hide out there alone? That wouldn't have done anybody any good."
"I know, Doc, there wasn't a choice." Lorne still didn't say it like he believed it. He shook his head. "If we don't find them-"
Then Carson felt the low steady thrum of the ship's engines change in pitch. After all these long hours en route, he hadn't been aware of the engine noise at all, but the slight change made him sit up straight. The Daedalus was coming out of hyperspace. Startled, Lorne set his mug down with a thump and checked his watch, saying, "We're early."
"Thank God for that." By the time Carson shoved out of his chair, Lorne had already raced down the corridor. Carson caught up with him at the lift and they made it onto the bridge together. Heart pounding, Carson followed Lorne through the maze of consoles and suspended screens to the forward area. Colonel Caldwell was on his feet, watching one of the console screens over the operator's shoulder.
The view out the big port didn't tell Carson much. He could see the moon, presumably the correct moon, hanging red and full in the lower quarter of the port.
Caldwell glanced up at their arrival. "We've got a little problem, gentlemen."
"Colonel?" Lorne asked warily. Carson swallowed frustration, supposing that if the sensors had picked up puddlejumper wreckage and human bodies, the man wouldn't use quite those words to announce it.
Caldwell folded his arms, frowning at the screen. "We've found the Quantum Mirror, exactly as described. But there's no sign of the jumper."
Major Meyers at the right hand control board touched some buttons, studying her screen carefully. "Sir, I'm still not picking up any life signs, and there are no ships in the area.
"Not even Wraith?" Beckett asked, feeling his heart sink.
"We've identified some orbital debris that looks like it might be from darts, several of them." Caldwell saw Carson's expression. He added, "The Mirror is interfering with our sensors, Doctor, and we just got here. At the moment, all it means is that we've got a lot of searching to do."
Carson swallowed in a dry throat, and nodded. It didn't mean they had all been captured-taken-by Wraith. It just meant that they had had to go to ground somewhere, to hide in some other part of the system.
One of the airmen said, "Sir, we've got a sensor scan of the structure."
Caldwell stepped over to the man's station. "Let's see it.
The image that formed on the screen could have been a weather satellite's view of a massive hurricane. It seemed to cover half the moon's surface, the sensors rendering the detected energy into angry swirls of color, spiraling outward. It looked like the images the jumpers had collected of the killer storm that had nearly destroyed Atlantis, like a powerful malevolent entity. Baffled, Carson said, "What the bloody hell is that?"
Lorne shook his head a little, staring incredulously. "That's not the-"
Caldwell's expression was grim. "That's the Mirror."
"Colonel, answer me! Are you all right? Colonel!"
John pried his eyes open. Rodney was leaning over him, pale and wide-eyed with anxiety. "Yeah. What?" Groggy and finding it difficult to think, John couldn't figure out why his perspective was so skewed. He was lying on his side, on a painfully knobby surface, but he could see part of the cockpit's ceiling past Rodney's head, and he didn't think he had ever seen it from this angle before. It was like an Escher print or a Twilight Zone episode. And Rodney was clinging to the pilot's seat like he needed it to keep himself upright, and his breathing mask was down around his neck. John didn't seem to be wearing his anymore either, though he could feel the tank jammed into his back. He asked vaguely, "You okay?"
"No, no, I'm not, actually." Rodney laughed a little, with just a touch of hysteria. "But back to my original question-No, never mind. First things first. You need to get off the console."
"The what?" John's head hurt and his ears were ringing, but he could hear Teyla and Miko in the rear cabin. Miko sounded frightened and shaky, and there was a note of urgency in Teyla's voice that worried him a lot. He tried to sit up, and that was when he realized the thing his knee was jammed against was the jumper's DHD, and it suddenly dawned on him why everything looked so strange. He was on top of the control console, wedged between it and the port. And the jumper was sitting at an odd angle, tilted slightly forward. Oh crap, we crashed. No, something the Mirror? grabbed us off the roof. He looked over his shoulder, out the port. It was dark outside, but the cockpit's emergency lighting fell on a dart smashed up against the jumper's nose. A Wraith arm, unmoving, was sticking up out of the wreckage, the hand clenched as if grasping for something. John blinked. "Uh o.
"Yes, that's a brief but accurate summation." Rodney took John's arm, trying to pull him upright. "We're on the Mirror platform, and the deck has a couple of feet of incline, so I suspect there's another dart underneath us. The inertial dampeners must have held on until the last possible instant or we'd all be smashed to bloody pulp, you especially. Next time you tell us to strap in, you should actually do it too."
"Rodney, is he all right?" Teyla called from the rear cabin.
"Not really, no," Rodney called back.
"I'm fine." John shoved away from the port, then gasped as little knives stabbed his back, ribs, and right knee all at once. He gritted his teeth against the pain and said, "Anybody hurt?"
Still trying to pull John off the panel, Rodney winced. "Radek and Ronon didn't finish strapping in either. Radek's still unconscious but Ronon's coming around." Rodney braced a foot on the base of the DHD, grabbed John by the tac vest and hauled him up. "Oof, you're heavy when you're half-conscious," he gasped. "And trust me, this is not a good time for my back to go out. Did I mention there are Wraith everywhere? There are life signs and dart energy signatures all around us."
We could be seriously screwed here, John thought, grabbing the pilot's seat and dragging himself upright and off the console. The blood rushed from his head and he squeezed his eyes shut, holding onto Rodney, riding out the wave of dizziness. His side hurt in one particular spot when he took more than a shallow breath, and he knew he must have a couple of cracked ribs. "Do we have the cloak, weapons, radio?"
"No
, we have nothing, we're down to emergency power." Rodney's voice was hard, edgy with fear. "The Mirror's field may have overloaded the crystals in the main bus. I have to check under the console. Please don't throw up on me."
"I'm not going to throw up." John got his eyes open. The emergency lighting was on, but all the other screens in the cockpit were dead. His heart was pounding, the adrenaline helping clear his head. They couldn't stay in the jumper without power for weapons or the cloak, the Wraith could cut their way in, jimmy the hatch controls from outside, or just blow them up. They had to get to a place they could defend. "If we can't fix the jumper, we need to make for the building." He pushed away from the pilot's seat and managed to stagger past Rodney, who immediately crouched down and started to rip open the panel under the console.
Teyla was just inside the rear cabin hatch, stuffing ammo into her vest pockets, two extra P-90s slung over one shoulder. She met John's eyes, her face tense and desperate. Yeah, John didn't know how they were going to get out of this one either. Past her he saw Zelenka lying on the deck unconscious, the front of his blue uniform shirt spattered with blood; Miko was just fixing a bandage to a gash on his forehead. Ronon sat on the bench, mostly upright but listing to one side and holding his head. Everybody looked bruised, scraped, battered. Teyla handed John a P-90 and said, "I can sense the Wraith. They are confused, angry. Hungry." She took a sharp breath and added, "If they have been away from their hive for some time, and have not run across any inhabited worlds to cull, the drones may not have been allowed to feed."
"Great." That was about all they needed. John got the P-90 clipped to his vest.
Rodney pushed out of the cockpit, and from his desperate expression, the news wasn't good. "The main power crystals are dead. If it's what I think-" He stepped across to the rack with the emergency supplies, pulled out a padded case, and tore it open. His mouth twisted in despair. "Yes, it's what I think. The field drained all of them, even these spares that weren't connected into the system. Unless we want to live out the rest of our very short lives in this jumper, we have to go."