by Karen Miller
“Oh, come on!” Rodney exclaimed, throwing up his hands in frustration. “How is that even possible?”
But the screen’s readout continued to show the same information it had just revealed a second ago. Almost like it was taunting him.
“That’s impossible,” Rodney insisted, typing in a new command. The display shifted, showing a new readout, along with a scan similar to the one from the small handheld energy meter he’d used on the buffer.
Much too similar for his tastes.
“Why couldn’t the last satellite be the one with the upgrades, and this one be the one with only the original, clunky old software?” Rodney complained as he scrolled through pages of schematics and code simultaneously. “That would have worked so much better for everyone concerned.”
The big problem he and Peter had discovered when they’d examined the previous satellite was that the links to the buffer had been damaged, and as a result, even though that system had been able to draw a charge off the portable generator they’d brought, it hadn’t been able to send the energy through to the buffer. Rodney had been forced to go outside that time as well, and had managed to reroute the power through secondary systems so that it could finally charge the weapon and make it operational.
But after the first shot his patch had failed, and the weapon had lost power, leaving it — and Peter — defenseless against the remaining Hive ships.
This satellite, as it turned out, would not have suffered the same fate — because its software included a program that automatically rerouted power whenever the main conduits failed.
Or were deliberately disconnected.
Rodney had thought he was buying the rest of the team anywhere from eight to twelve more hours to find that beacon.
Instead, he’d barely gotten them an extra three.
And the program was still running its own internal diagnostics, looking for better routes to channel that energy. If it found anything, it could cut the charge-up time even further.
Rodney sighed.
Time to find more creative ways to slow this system down.
“Someone’s definitely been up here,” Ronon confirmed, studying the flat surface of the roof they stood upon. “Footprints there and there.” He crouched, examining the marks, which were so faint Sheppard could barely see them even after the Satedan had pointed them out. “Those are Wraith for sure.”
“Okay, so Bob did use the scenic route,” Sheppard mused aloud. “Good — at least we found his trail. Now let’s assume he stayed up here as long as possible. It’s what I’d have done — best way to keep an eye on anything moving down below while staying out of sight yourself.”
“So we go over the route again,” Teyla added, “only this time from up here. And hope this is where he hid the beacon.”
“Exactly.” Sheppard nodded to Ronon. “Keep your eyes peeled, and let me know if he wandered off anywhere, even by a few feet. That’d be enough for him to duck to one side and stash the thing behind a ventilation port.”
Ronon nodded, and the three of them set off again. This time more carefully, since the way across the roofs was narrow and a single wrong step could send them plummeting to their deaths.
Then again, they couldn’t take too long, because if they couldn’t find the beacon in time, and Rodney couldn’t disable the satellite, they’d all be dead anyway.
“Aha!” Rodney’s triumphant shout echoed off the close metal walls. “Got you, you elusive little software glitch, you!” The dying sounds of his voice faded behind a new, rising sound, one much like the hiss of steam escaping. Only it wasn’t steam, Rodney knew.
It was energy.
He’d been poring over the weapon system’s coding, hunting for a way to disable the targeting lock or put the entire system on standby or shut it all down.
None of those had turned up yet.
But what he had noticed was a small subroutine for weapons maintenance. The satellite had built-in procedures for regular weapons tests, to make sure that whenever it was needed the system could come back online quickly, build a charge easily, and fire without delay. That program had apparently been damaged or corrupted somehow in the previous satellite, which was why the systems there had fallen into such disarray — if the subroutine had been working the conduits would have already been rerouted when he and Peter and Miller had arrived, and none of their jury-rigging would have been necessary.
And Peter might still be alive.
But that hadn’t been the case. Most likely a small asteroid had struck the satellite, just a random chunk of floating rock that had smashed into the artifact’s side, damaging the buffer and its connections to the main power conduits and possibly sending a spark back down the line, which had somehow shorted out the subroutine.
Regardless, it hadn’t worked there.
But it was working just fine here. Which was why the weapon buffer had been able to reroute power so quickly and start recharging so soon after he’d drained it. Rodney’s first instinct upon spotting the small maintenance program was to disable it so that any additional delays he tried wouldn’t be circumvented so easily.
Then he realized that he might be able to use the subroutine for his own purposes.
One of the potential problems with an energy-based weapon was that it could build up too much of a charge, overload, and short out — or explode. To protect against that, the system had a built-in venting mechanism, allowing it to bleed off excess energy as necessary. One of the subroutine’s standard operations was to test that mechanism by bleeding off the entire charge.
And Rodney had just triggered that test.
He watched the display showing the buffer’s total charge. It was dropping rapidly. In a matter of minutes, it was completely empty.
Yes!
Of course, it would just start drawing a fresh charge now. And when he tried to set the subroutine to vent a second time, the system informed him that the test had already been run successfully and would not be necessary again until the next maintenance cycle — which would certainly be days or weeks or months or even years from now.
So it was a trick he could only use once.
But at least he’d managed it the once. And that meant Sheppard and the others now had another three hours in which to find that beacon and shut it down.
Because after that, Rodney was fresh out of Plan A ideas, and would have to resort to Plan B.
And he really didn’t want to use Plan B.
“Stop!” Ronon held up a hand, and immediately Sheppard and Teyla froze in place. They watched as Ronon considered the stretch of roof directly in front of them. “Strange,” he said softly. “Very strange.”
“What’s so strange?” Sheppard demanded. He hated not knowing what was going on.
In answer, Ronon dropped into a crouch. “Look.” He indicated a patch right in front of him. “See the tracks?”
By squatting down beside his teammate and squinting hard, Sheppard was just able to make out a faint discoloration on the stone surface. “Yeah, I do.” He was proud of himself for that — up until now, every time Ronon had indicated a mark he hadn’t seen a thing.
But instead of being impressed, Ronon shook his head. “You shouldn’t,” he replied. “That print is too obvious. He wasn’t that sloppy.” Standing, the Satedan studied the area immediately around them. “He wanted us to keep going, right past this spot.”
“How could he even know we’d be here?” Teyla asked. She’d stayed back from the two of them, giving them space to maneuver. “We didn’t even know we’d be doing this this morning!”
Ronon simply shrugged. “He was being careful. Cautious. Just in case.” With a grunt, he stepped to one side, where the available foot space narrowed because large blocks occupied most of both corners, almost like small storage sheds had been p
laced atop the flat roof but far enough apart to allow passage between them. No seams showed anywhere, or any kind of access point, but he still scoured first one and then the other block.
Nothing.
“It should be here,” he said, his words coming out in a low growl of frustration.
“All right, let’s think about this for a moment,” Teyla offered. She considered their surroundings. “If you were him, and you came up here to hide that beacon, where would you put it?”
“Off to the side somewhere, where nobody’d see it right away,” Sheppard replied. He frowned at the big blocks. “Not on those, that’s for sure — it’d stick out like a sore thumb atop them.”
Teyla nodded. “Right. And they seem to be solid, so you couldn’t hide it inside them.” She eyed the edge of the roof on the side nearest her. “Is it a straight drop along the side, do you think? Or does the roof hang over just a bit?”
Ronon was already moving before she’d finished her question. Loping over to that side, he leaned over the edge, propping himself against the low wall there with his legs so that he could reach over and run both hands along the outer surface. “There’s a ledge,” he announced. “Perhaps half a meter deep. Maybe — ha!” His hands clamped down on something, and with a yank of his shoulders he wrenched it loose, swiveling his entire upper body back around to bring the object up to them.
It was perhaps twenty centimeters in diameter, small enough to be held in one of Ronon’s large hands, though he kept both on it to make sure. Made mostly of black metal that glistened as if it were wet, it had several glowing green lights and a tracery of blue and green lines about it as well, those trails more organic than mechanical in shape, which gave the entire object the appearance of a large, blackened eyeball.
Or a cluster of glowing, glistening eggs.
It looked disgusting. And dangerous. And very, very Wraith.
“Great!” Sheppard said, going to clap Ronon on the back but deciding against it for fear of jostling the device. “Let’s get that thing back to command and see if the eggheads can take it apart and switch it off.”
But Teyla was glancing at the small tablet she’d brought with them. “There’s no time for that,” she warned, showing the two men the display. It was a simple countdown meter — and right now it was showing only forty-two minutes. “I’ve been resetting this every time Rodney has notified us of a change,” she explained, “so this is current. It would take us far too long to get back there, especially since we’d have to climb back down first. And Ronon was right, it’s definitely jamming signals — I can’t raise anyone or anything.” She set the tablet down in front of her and stared at her teammates.
Sheppard sighed. “Right. Well, guess it’s up to us, then. Okay, let’s starting looking for the power button.”
Back on the satellite, Rodney was engaged in a conversation of his own — only his was with someone who wasn’t really there.
“Is this what it felt like to you?” he asked the empty air. “Sitting in that satellite, knowing the Hive ships were closing in on you, knowing there wasn’t anything you could do about it?”
He tried to imagine how Peter would have answered, if he could. But the air remained empty, the small chamber silent. He was alone, just him and his memories.
“I’m sorry,” Rodney said finally. “I should’ve stayed with you. I should’ve tried harder to figure something out. Together, we might have been able to fix it in time.”
Or we might both have died, he knew.
Which wouldn’t have helped Peter any, or anybody else.
With a sigh, Rodney shook his head and turned back to the task at hand. The counter showed that he had only twenty minutes left. Sheppard hadn’t reported in, so he had to assume they still hadn’t found that beacon.
Which meant it was up to him.
He’d used up all the easy fixes he could think of, all the cheats, all the stalls.
His only option now was to do some real damage to the system. So much that it couldn’t fire properly.
Damage like that wasn’t something he’d be able to repair easily. If at all.
But it was better than letting Atlantis be destroyed.
Shaking his head, Rodney began tapping in a series of commands. This wasn’t going to be easy, and he was going to need every second of the time remaining to pull it off. He was still hoping that wouldn’t be necessary — but he couldn’t take that risk.
Peter would have understood.
“I can’t get any sort of reading off it,” Teyla said, waving her tablet over the beacon. “It’s so heavily shielded I’m not even picking up its energy signature when I’m touching it directly.” She frowned and lowered her tablet. “Which means there is no way to tap into it and shut it down remotely.”
Sheppard nodded and rose to his feet — they’d all been crouched down around the device so that it could sit on the roof and free their hands for the work. “That leaves just one option,” he said, drawing his pistol. “If we can’t turn it off, we’ll just have to break it.” And he leveled his weapon at the Wraith device.
“No!” Ronon was on his feet in an instant, forcing Sheppard to step back as the Satedan moved between him and the beacon. “It will be rigged to blow if it’s tampered with!”
“Crap.” Sheppard lowered his gun. “How big an explosion?”
“Enough to kill all three of us,” Ronon assured him. “I can’t say beyond that.” His own tracker hadn’t had an explosive component — it hadn’t needed one, since it had been wrapped around his spinal column where he couldn’t possibly remove it. This beacon was a lot bigger than that, however, which meant it certainly had room in its shell for some sort of bomb.
“Okay,” Sheppard said, holding up both hands to show he wouldn’t do anything rash. “So what do we do with it, then?”
Surprisingly, his Satedan teammate grinned at him. “You showed me the sport you call baseball, once,” he replied. “How is your pitching arm?”
“Here goes nothing,” Rodney declared, tapping in the final command. He paused for an instant, still hoping for a last-second reprieve, but everything around him was silent. Finally he pressed Execute.
“Now!” Sheppard called out. He lobbed the beacon up and out in a fastball special, as high and hard as he could throw.
Beside him, Ronon raised the long-barreled revolver he carried. The particle magnum had three settings: stun, kill, and incinerate. Right now it was switched to the last one.
He took careful aim as the beacon soared away from the roof, lining up the shot — and then he fired.
Zot! Rodney imagined he could hear the electrical impulse as it sped through the weapons system, arcing from circuit to circuit. He’d deactivated the safeties and triggered a small surge through certain key components. In a matter of seconds, it had raced through the control mechanisms built into the satellite’s main chamber, frying several critical elements.
Zap! A single sizzling bolt emerged from Ronon’s gun and shot straight for the airborne beacon. The blast enveloped the Wraith device, and with a loud crackle the energy tore the beacon apart. When it dissipated, there was nothing left but a wisp of smoke, rapidly fading on the breeze.
With a faint discordant clank, the weapon system shut down. Rodney kept a close watch on the displays, a single bead of sweat displaying his concern. If he’d miscalculated even a little, his little electronic imp might have just destroyed the satellite’s life support system as well.
But the little chamber continued to provide air and heat and gravity and light, and the displays showed the burst had faded away.
Rodney slumped back against the wall. He’d done it!
Sheppard sagged against the roof ledge, laughing. They’d done it!
Beside him, Ronon smiled and holstered his gun.
On his other side, Teyla also smiled. “The jamming is gone, too, and there is a call from Rodney,” she announced, holding up the tablet.
“Tell him we took care of the problem,” Sheppard instructed, still grinning. He glanced at the counter on the tablet. “With seconds to spare.”
Teyla shook her head and answered the call. “Good news —” she began.
“I should have known better!” Rodney insisted as they entered central command. It had indeed taken Sheppard, Ronon, and Teyla several hours to climb back down and then return to the command post, but as soon as they had they’d taken a Puddle Jumper and gone to collect their missing teammate. Rodney had been uncharacteristically silent the entire way back, but now that they were home on Atlantis he’d burst into full rant — only, this time, it was aimed at himself. “Of course you shut down the beacon!” he continued. “If I’d just trusted you, the satellite would still be working!”
“And we might all be dead,” Weir pointed out as the foursome strode toward her. Sheppard had briefed her on their way back. “Look, Rodney,” the commander said, “you did what needed to be done. You had no way of knowing they’d deactivate that beacon in time, and you couldn’t risk Atlantis’s safety. You did the right thing.”
Rodney shook his head, but Sheppard stepped up beside the scientist and rested a hand on his shoulder. “She’s right, Rodney,” Sheppard insisted. “It was right down to the wire, for both of us. Better we both took care of the problem then neither of us did.”
“You waited as long as you could,” Teyla agreed. “And then you made sure we were all safe, no matter what.”