by Jo Graham
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying that was after I died.”
“It’s complicated,” John said. “You’ve been gone for nearly three years. The last time we saw you
—
for some value of ‘saw’ and ‘you’
—
was about eighteen months ago.”
“Three years,” Elizabeth said. She took a deep breath, and then let it out again, pressing her hands to the tabletop as if to steady herself. “Okay. So what happens now?”
“I go find out why it’s taking Lorne so long to get the alpha site set up,” John said, and hoped the answer wasn’t going to be that their minor problem had turned into another unfolding catastrophe.
Lorne looked up as Radek came into the control room. “We have a problem,” Radek said shortly.
“It really is a plastic-eating bug.”
“Yes. Yes, it appears to be, according to the data that Dr. Xiao was just able to transmit.”
“Before his laptop fell apart?”
“It did do that, but he was able to relay information through the jumper. Thankfully, the materials used to construct the jumper are all metal, crystal, or silicone rather than petroleum-based plastics. Silicone plastics appear to be unaffected.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Most of the plastic used in our equipment is petroleum-based. The Ancient equipment is safe, but nearly everything made of plastic that we brought from Earth is vulnerable, as well as synthetic fabrics. Polyester is a petroleum product.”
“Wonderful.”
“Now, we are lucky that many harmful microorganisms do not pass through the Stargate. The gate’s own systems are designed to prevent some common forms of contamination from passing through.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
“Some is not all. And as people have been moving back and forth from the alpha site all day long, and we know some of their personal items are affected… ”
“It’s worse than that,” Lorne said, his stomach sinking at a sudden memory. “Harper said she was going to bring the defective gear back to Atlantis. It’s probably sitting here somewhere. And if it’s infected… ”
Radek’s expression was grim. “Where did she put it?”
They found the defective tent and water cans piled in a corner of the supply depot. The tent crumbled in Lorne’s hand as he tried to pick it up, as if made of something dry and brittle. A plastic storage container was sitting next to them, and he nudged it with his foot. It caved in easily at the slightest pressure.
“Oh, not good,” Radek said.
SGA-22 Unascended
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I have to say that this is frustrating,” Elizabeth said as they waited. “I remember bits and pieces, but not enough to be sure about what happened to me.”
“It’ll come back,” Daniel said. “Most of it.” He tried to think back to the first time he had returned from being Ascended, after SG-1 had found him. “Some things I didn’t remember until something reminded me. Or until I dreamed about them.”
“Dreams,” Elizabeth said, and frowned. “I dreamed about a woman… no, that’s not right. Not a human woman. She said she had helped me Ascend.”
“It’s good that you’re starting to remember,” Daniel said. “Was she one of the Ancients?”
“You would think she would be. But I don’t think so. She didn’t look human at all. In my dream, she was warning me about… someone who was threatening her. Someone who was looking for a way to… force Ascended beings to unascend?”
She didn’t sound sure of that last, but Daniel felt his heart sink. “That’s what the Asgard just found,” he said. “A device that might be able to force Ascended beings back into physical form.”
“The Asgard,” Elizabeth said, frowning intently. “Someone show me a picture of one of the Asgard.”
Rodney brought out his tablet obligingly and pulled up a picture of one of the Asgard; Daniel thought it was Hermiod, although he had to admit that even he had trouble telling the Asgard apart until they spoke.
“I think the person I dreamed about may have been an Asgard,” Elizabeth said, shaking her head slowly. “She had hair, and… ” She opened and closed one hand, as if trying to grasp scraps of memory. “More distinct facial features. But the eyes, and the bone structure, and the height, that’s all right.”
“You think she was one of the Asgard? And that she was Ascended?”
“I think she must have been if she helped me Ascend. And if she was worried about someone having the ability to force her to unascend. She said her name was Ran.”
“That’s a Norse sea goddess,” Daniel said immediately. “Completely unsurprising as an Asgard name, because a lot of the Asgard spent some time on Earth, helping us develop as a species. They were perceived as gods by the local inhabitants, like the Goa’uld, but more benevolently. At least usually.”
“Except they weren’t Ascended,” Rodney pointed out
Daniel nodded, acknowledging that. “We’ve never heard of any of the Asgard Ascending. As far as we know, they decided that living without physical bodies wasn’t an acceptable solution to their problems.”
“They decided,” Elizabeth said. “But if one person had made another choice, they couldn’t actually have stopped her, could they? After all, it’s not like humans have gotten together and decided that it’s a good idea for all humans to Ascend.”
“No, you’re right,” Daniel said. “But that hasn’t stopped a few humans from doing it.”
“As far as we know, you’re the only one,” John said.
“I’m not the only one. There have always been stories of mystics and saints, people who wandered into another world, or were taken bodily into heaven, or whatever your cultural frame of reference might be. The capacity to Ascend is written into our genes. It’s just that it’s incredibly rare for someone to stumble onto the way to do it.”
“It was not even possible for all of the Ancestors to Ascend,” Teyla said.
“No. No, that’s true. But they were trying, as a people. Most of the Asgard weren’t interested. So if one particular Asgard had found a way to Ascend, the same way that a handful of humans have over the centuries, Thor might not have thought it was important enough to even mention to us. If he even knew about it. Maybe from the Asgard point of view, she just disappeared.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “If they didn’t know that she ascended, they wouldn’t be trying to force her to unascend now.”
Daniel turned up his hands. “I’m not sure why they would try to force her to unascend. All right, it wasn’t something they approved of, but would they really care that much about one person making an unusual choice?”
Ronon shrugged. “Maybe she’s causing them problems.”
“She can’t have been interfering in any meaningful way in their activities, or she would have gotten kicked out by the other Ascended beings.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Helping you is right on the line of what an Ascended being can get away with. Trying to push the other Asgard around from the great beyond is definitely over the line.”
Elizabeth’s eyebrows went up. “The great beyond?”
“Or whatever you want to call it.”
“Maybe there’s some reason that they want her back,” Elizabeth said.
“It can’t be sentimental attachment,” Rodney said. “All the Asgard who actually knew her are probably long dead by now.”
“Or at least recently dead,” Daniel said. “No, I feel like there’s something we’re missing.”
Teyla frowned, considering the question. “What have the Asgard in this galaxy wanted in the past?”
“To fix their planet’s ecology. To fix their own genetic damage that they caused by cloning themselves over and over again.”
Elizabeth put her head to one side. “And to fix their genetic damage, they would need?”
“An undamaged sample of Asgard DNA,” Rodney said. From his expression, Daniel thought he
followed Elizabeth’s line of thought. “One that doesn’t come from a clone, or from a computer model that was made after they started frying their own genes.”
Daniel nodded. “But all the Asgard who were alive before they started cloning themselves are dead, or
—”
“Or Ascended,” Elizabeth finished.
“That’s what they want,” Daniel said at once. “To force an Ascended Asgard back into physical form so that they can use her to restore their species.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “She doesn’t want to go.”
“Then she may be in trouble. We know the Asgard just got their hands on a device that may let them do just that.”
“I don’t think they know how to use it,” Elizabeth said. “Ran said they were still trying to understand how unascension works. And that they… ” She looked up, startled, as if at sudden memory. “That they’re looking for people who’ve done it.”
There was a momentary pause. “We may be in trouble,” Daniel said.
John gritted his teeth. “We need to get both of you to a more secure location.”
“The delay isn’t on my end,” Elizabeth pointed out.
John thumbed his radio on. “Major Lorne, I need the alpha site set up ten minutes ago.”
“Copy that, Colonel, but apparently our equipment damage really is being caused by a microorganism that eats anything based on petroleum. We’re trying to get it contained.”
“I thought it was contained at the alpha site.”
“So did we. But we’ve got some equipment damage in the supply warehouse that seems to have spread from the damaged supplies from the alpha site. We’re hoping we can get a lid on the whole thing, but I’ve got the city locked down right now as a precaution.”
“Not fixing this would be very, very bad,” Zelenka said urgently over the radio.
“I get it,” John said. He looked around. “What are the chances that I brought this thing here?”
“Hopefully not very much. I’m more worried about the trade goods we just handed over. You should tell the Satedans to keep the supplies we brought in today isolated.”
“Until we fix this, right?”
“We’re working on it,” Lorne said.
“We are, we are. We will contain this,” Zelenka said.
“Containing it in the city still lets it destroy the city,” Rodney snapped.
“Most of the Ancient equipment does not rely heavily on petroleum-based plastics,” Zelenka said. “What is most vulnerable is our equipment that we brought from Earth.”
“That’s just great,” John said. “Do we have a plan for getting rid of this thing?”
“Isolate the microorganism or substance that is causing this and find a way to decontaminate the affected sections,” Zelenka said. Daniel had heard Sam put on the spot enough times to understand that what he’d just heard wasn’t a solution, but a restatement of the problem in slightly more technical terms. Even so, it seemed to mollify John.
“All right, keep me posted,” he said. “And get me the gate address for somewhere we can go that isn’t inhabited, isn’t uninhabitable, and isn’t contaminated by this thing. We may need to proceed there without waiting for the medical team and the security team.”
“Working on it,” Lorne said.
Ronon turned his head abruptly. “What’s that noise?”
“It sounds like an airplane,” Elizabeth said.
“We don’t have airplanes,” Ronon said. “And that doesn’t sound like a Dart.”
There was the sound of voices raised in consternation from the square outside. “We’ll go check it out,” John said. He nodded to Teyla and Rodney to follow him. “Ronon, stay with Elizabeth.”
Daniel wasn’t sure if Ronon was supposed to be guarding Elizabeth from whatever was outside or guarding the rest of them from Elizabeth, but Ronon nodded and moved to stand behind her.
“I’ll be fine,” Elizabeth said. “Go.”
John headed out the door at a run, with Teyla and Rodney close behind him. Daniel went over to the window. The square was emptying fast, people getting under cover as the shadow of a ship passed over the pavement. He craned his neck to look up. It was a small ship, three or four times the size of a puddle-jumper, now hovering over the center of the gate square.
“We’ve got company,” he said as he turned back to Elizabeth and Ronon.
He was in time to see the shimmer of Asgard transport beams as both Elizabeth and Ronon disappeared from sight.
John came running out into the square, Teyla and Rodney at his heels, to see a number of heavily armed Satedans forming up in front of one of the buildings across the square. Apparently Cai had persuaded a few of Sateda’s scattered soldiers to return. Not that there was much they could do with rifles and pistols against a spaceship.
The captain in charge didn’t seem to agree, shouting an order to fire. Bullets thundered upwards toward the hovering spaceship, but the few that actually reached it spat off its shields to ricochet along with the complete misses in a lethal hail back toward the square.
“Hey!” John shouted, dodging for the cover of the nearest set of brick steps.
The Satedan captain waved him back furiously. “Get under cover! What are you, stupid?”
“We’re not the ones shooting at something we can’t hit!” Rodney yelled. “They have shields, you
—”
“Sheppard!” Daniel yelled abruptly over the radio. “Ronon and Dr. Weir were just grabbed by an Asgard transport beam! They’re both gone.”
“Damn it!” John dived out from behind the steps, hoping the Satedans would hold their fire for the next few seconds, and started sprinting for the jumper. Teyla and Rodney were right behind him.
He ducked into the lee of the jumper as the Satedan riflemen opened fire again. It would have been good tactics if they’d been shooting at an unshielded Dart, but all they were achieving was spraying stray bullets across the square. The ship was rising, hovering over the building where he hoped Daniel was at that moment taking evasive action.
“You two go cover Jackson,” he said. “I’ll take the jumper up and see if I can bring this son of a bitch down before it leaves atmosphere.”
“I’m taking the other jumper,” Rodney said.
“Damn it, McKay
—”
Rodney’s jaw was set. “They have Elizabeth.”
“All right, go,” John said after a moment. “Go!”
He scrambled into the jumper and threw himself into the pilot’s seat. The Asgard ship was rising faster, skimming over the city. He brought the jumper’s systems online with a silent, furious demand, and brought it arrowing up after the Asgard ship.
“You have to adjust the jumper’s shield configuration,” Rodney said rapidly. “Otherwise they can mimic our shield frequency and transport us aboard. I’m sending instructions now.”
“I’m on it,” John said, ordering the ship to make the changes as they were transmitted. Below him the other jumper was lifting, and he could see Teyla running across the square for the doorway of the building where they’d been meeting.
“Jackson, you still there?”
“I’m here,” Daniel said. He sounded out of breath. “If you keep moving, it’s harder for the Asgard transport beams to get a lock on you. Not impossible, though, so anything you can do
—”
“They’re trying to pull back,” John said. “I’m going after them.”
He brought the jumper up and over the Asgard ship, forcing them to bank and roll to avoid him, their collision alarms probably screaming. The jumper’s computer pointed out helpfully that there were drones available to fire.
“Unidentified ship, respond!” he yelled over the jumper’s comm system, hoping that they were listening for transmissions. “You have two of my people! I want them back right now, or I’m opening fire on your vessel!”
He didn’t really expect a response, and didn’t get one, but he figured it
fulfilled any obligation to try to be diplomatic. The computer was still busily suggesting drones.
“I think you’re right,” he told it. “Preparing to fire. Jumper two, stand clear.”
“Copy that,” Rodney said. He wouldn’t have been John’s choice as a jumper pilot in combat
—
he’d logged plenty hours in the jumpers under normal conditions, but precious few of them under fire
—
but he had to admit they were better off with two jumpers in the air rather than one.
He readied a single drone, put some vertical distance between himself and the Asgard ship, and fired. He didn’t want to tear up the ship with Elizabeth and Ronon aboard, but their shields ought to be able to take a single drone strike. The drone spun toward the Asgard ship and spattered itself against their shields in a blaze of light.
“Teyla! Report!”
“I have found Dr. Jackson, and we are fine,” Teyla said over the radio. “He suggests we dial the gate and call for reinforcements from Atlantis.”
“Negative,” John said immediately. “Whatever that contamination is, we can’t risk bringing it here. These people have enough problems.”
“Understood.”
“Unidentified ship, respond! Come on, talk to me, answer the damn phone.”
John kept his own jumper above the Asgard ship as they climbed, hoping that its field of fire didn’t extend to directly above its hull. An alarm sounded, and the jumper’s sensors registered that the Asgard ship was trying to use its transport beams.
“That’s not going to work,” John said. “We’re way ahead of you. Give me my people back, and I won’t have to blow you out of the sky.”
The pilot of the Asgard ship seemed to also come to the conclusion that trying to transport John and Rodney aboard wasn’t going to work. It banked hard to port, bringing its beam weapons to bear on Rodney’s jumper below it.
“McKay
—”
“I see it!”
“Evasive maneuvers!”
“I’m taking them!”
The Asgard beam still clipped the jumper’s stern, although it didn’t look like it had done more than minor damage, the shields absorbing most of its punishment.