STARGATE UNIVERSE: Air

by James Swallow

  Except it wasn’t working. It all looked right, but the numbers were mocking him. After everything that had happened, the puzzle was still missing a final piece.

  “There has to be an error in here.” He glanced over his shoulder, and saw Eli scanning the equations, his lip curled.

  “Seriously, who uses a whiteboard any more?” Eli nodded at one of the monitors nearby. “You have computers everywhere here.”

  “It helps me to think,” Rush muttered. He tapped a subset of figures with the marker in his hand. “Power flow was within the target range. Why wouldn’t the chevron lock? Why wouldn’t the address connect?” Not for the first time, Rush briefly entertained the thought that the code they were dialing might be a dead end. In all the countless millennia since the Ancients had traveled the stars, there was nothing to say that the location they were trying to reach even existed anymore. He shook his head slightly. No. The feedback through the gate would have given a null reading, and they hadn’t seen anything to indicate that.

  “Wrong address?” offered Eli.

  Rush shot him a look. “There is only one. Rodney McKay and his people found it in the Ancient database on Atlantis, out in the Pegasus galaxy.”

  “With no instructions.”

  “No.” Rush had to admit, the Ancients were careless that way. They tended to leave their technology littered about the cosmos with little concern as to what might happen to those who found it; then again, when your entire species had ascended from corporeal form into something of near-godlike infinite energy, he imagined that matters of the physical suddenly became far less important. “But that’s not the issue,” he continued. “It has to be your proof.”

  Eli spread his hands. “My proof works,” he replied. “How do I know? Because you said it did.”

  Rush’s lips thinned, but the terse reply he was forming was lost as Colonel Young entered the room. “Gentlemen, how’s it coming?”

  Acting on a sudden impulse, fuelled by irritation and frustration, Rush snatched up the eraser pad and wiped out the lines of numbers.

  Eli took a step forward, holding out his hand. “Whoa, what are you doing?”

  “Starting from the beginning,” Rush replied.

  “Wait! Save save save!” Eli looked stricken as the figures were obliterated by the sweeps of the eraser.

  Rush caught sight of Young evaluating the situation. The colonel did a lot of that, he’d noted. He had a dogged sense of tactics that played itself out in everything he did, from the smallest interaction to the biggest. Rush imagined that Young was the kind of man who wouldn’t go anywhere or do anything without a plan.

  “Mister Wallace?” said the colonel. “I’d like you to join me for dinner in the officer’s mess.” Which really meant: Rush is pissed off, so give him some distance. The scientist had to admit that the commander of Icarus Base had got just as much a read on him as he had on the colonel.

  Eli seemed not to notice. “Thank you. I’m starving.”

  Food could wait, though. “We’re very close to a breakthrough. I’d like Eli to keep working.”

  Young had a look that he used every time he wanted Rush to know that the scientist’s ‘requests’ were only ever that, and he employed it now. “We’ve been here for six months,” he said, leading Wallace to the door. “It can wait a few more hours.”

  Despite himself, Rush couldn’t stop from shooting the colonel a glare as he exited, and with an irritated twist of his fingers, the scientist bent forward and began to quickly and carefully write out the equations from scratch.

  Eli followed Young to a cafeteria-type space a short walk from the command levels, and he made a couple of attempts at conversation that netted him polite, if curt, replies.

  “Why’d they call it a ‘mess hall’, anyhow?” Eli gave a faint grin. “You military guys don’t exactly seem like sloppy eaters.”

  “It’s from ‘mes’,” said Young. “Old French word for a portion of food.”

  “Oh.”

  “They make us read books in the Air Force.”

  “Right,” he nodded lamely. “I thought it was all just yelling and shooting and blowing stuff up.”

  Young shook his head as he opened the door for him. “You’re thinking of the Marines,” he replied, and Eli couldn’t be sure if the man was making a joke or not.

  He got himself a seat and an Airman served Eli what was actually a pretty passable steak dinner, which he ate with gusto. Around him, the conversation was mostly in the direction of the officers on Colonel Telford’s side of the table, the jut-jawed, clear-eyed members of the expedition force who each exuded a Right Stuff vibe utterly at odds with anyone Eli had ever known. He saw Lieutenant Scott a few seats down, talking quietly to a female officer with a strong face and a crop of blonde hair; the name ‘Johansen’ was visible on her uniform jacket.

  Nearby, Senator Armstrong and his daughter were intently focused on every word that Telford said. Chloe especially, Eli noted, seemed quite taken by Telford’s flyboy charm.

  “When you go through the Stargate, you don’t really feel it.” Telford used his hands to demonstrate the wingspan of an aircraft. “But I’m telling you, the moment you break through the atmosphere in an F-302 and you see the stars…” He paused, nodding to himself. “It’s incredible.”

  “Could I go for a ride?” asked Chloe.

  Telford nodded again. “Sure, I can arrange that.”

  Eli rolled his eyes. “So, Colonel,” he broke in. “You really have no idea where this nine chevron Stargate address is going to send you?”

  Telford was unfazed by the question. “No idea at all. But the Ancients built the Stargate with nine chevrons around it, and they weren’t the kind of people to do stuff just for show.” He took a sip of his drink. “It’s got to go somewhere.”

  “That’s a little vague, don’t you think?” Eli pressed. “I mean, when NASA did the moon shots, they could see where they were supposed to be going. You’re flying blind, here.” The room went a little quiet, and Eli realized that perhaps this was the wrong crowd for those comments. He glanced around, looking for support, and didn’t get it.

  “That’s true,” Telford offered, “up to a point. But the fact is, Columbus had no maps when he set off. People thought that Chuck Yeager’s airplane would explode if he tried to break the sound barrier. The first missions through the Stargate to Abydos, and then to Atlantis, they were all a roll of the dice. There’s always a risk.”

  “And if we don’t take risks, we don’t advance,” added Scott.

  “Well said,” nodded Armstrong.

  He ran out of numbers, and Rush’s hand stopped dead. Stepping back, he studied the whiteboard and his brow furrowed. Nothing had changed. The board looked almost identical to the way it had appeared before he erased it, the same lines of symbols and digits in Rush’s swift, looping hand, and more importantly the same damn solutions in the same damn places.

  The board loomed in front of him like a sheer wall, and that was exactly what it was. A blockade made of mathematics, stopping him from making that last step toward the solution. And as hard as he tried to force it, Rush could not find the connection that eluded him.

  You need Eli, said his wife’s voice. You know it. It doesn’t make you weak or wrong to admit that.

  Rush let out a sigh of exasperation, and reluctantly turned away.

  It was evening on the base, and the corridors were sparsely populated; even so, he didn’t register the handful of other people who passed him by, his focus buried deep in his own thoughts. Rush approached the officer’s mess. Despite what Young said, this couldn’t wait any longer. He was so close. Couldn’t the man understand that? And Eli, Eli Wallace could give him the boost he needed to surmount the last obstacle.

  Rush detoured through the mess hall kitchen and caught the sound of Young’s voice as he came closer. “We’ve also known for some time that the only way to unlock the ninth chevron was to solve the power issues.”

  Arms
trong’s daughter replied immediately. “If anyone’s going to solve it, I think Eli will.”

  He stopped. The kitchen lighting was low, so Rush doubted that anyone was aware he was outside. Through the half-open door, in the mess hall beyond he saw Eli give a smug grin, playing up to the attention of the room. “Yes, it’s true. I’m Math Boy.”

  And all at once, the annoyance and the irritation churned up inside him, and Rush turned away on his heel, his face set in a stony grimace.

  “Doctor Rush?” He turned and saw the duty cook, an airman named Becker, offering him a food pack. He took it without comment and went back the way he had come.

  The quarters the Americans had given him on Icarus Base were basic but comfortable — twice the size of those given to the junior officers or the second-string scientists, apparently — but in truth, Rush had spent hardly any time in here during his weeks at the facility, returning only to crash out on the bed when fatigue pushed him to it. There were a few books, mostly unread. A tablet computer, for those moments when he awoke in the middle of the night with some insight. But little in the way of personal effects. When he left Earth for the first time to come here, there hadn’t been much he really wanted to keep. Nothing that could not be replaced, nothing of value, except…

  Except the picture. He sat on the bed and his hand strayed to the bedside cabinet without conscious thought on his part, opening the drawer to pull it out. The two of them in better times, arm in arm. That smile on his face that he’d always said was amazement at how lucky he was; and her grin, her laughing eyes. They’d been in Germany when it was taken, for her star turn at a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic.

  Rush ran his finger over the image and he felt his breath catch, his vision mist. The moment seemed so distant to him, but yet so close as well. How was it possible to be both things at once? The equation refused to resolve itself.

  He sighed and put the picture away again.

  Eli accepted his moment in the spotlight with what he considered to be good grace, and he ignored the voice inside his head reminding him that, if Rush was right, the whole reason the gate hadn’t opened today was because he’d missed out a decimal point somewhere.

  Chloe’s father picked up his glass and got to his feet. “I would like to propose a toast,” he began.

  “I’m flattered.” Eli gave a bashful smile. “But that’s not really necessary.”

  Armstrong shot him a look. “Not to you.”

  The grin fell off his face. “Oh.”

  Armstrong went on, scanning the faces of the men and women in the room. “When the proposal for the financing of this project first crossed my desk, I was not going to approve it.”

  Chloe’s expression became brittle, and she buried her head in her hands. “Oh my God, no…” she muttered.

  “It seemed clear to me at the time,” continued the senator. “There were enough terrestrial matters of importance that needed that kind of money.”

  Eli blinked as Chloe downed the remainder of the wine in her glass and helped herself to another. Her cheeks were taking on a blush of color, and he looked on, wondering where she was going with this sudden change in behavior.

  Armstrong was into full flow by now, and didn’t seem to be aware of her newfound thirst. “It was my daughter Chloe who reminded me that there is no greater endeavor than seeking an understanding of the universe in which we all exist.”

  Chloe glanced at Eli and spoke quietly to him. “Not in those exact words,” she whispered, before going for another quick refill.

  “It was also her idea to embed the Ancient mathematical proof in a medium that would give us access to brilliant young minds we would have otherwise overlooked.”

  Eli gaped. “You came up with the game thing?” Chloe is responsible for me being here? He had to admit, he hadn’t seen that coming.

  Armstrong’s daughter was clearly unhappy in the limelight, however, and suitably fortified with a few gulps of a nice Napa Valley white, she spoke up, intent on stopping her father from talking about her any further. “And so,” she piped, “to all of the brave men and women who have volunteered for—”

  A sound like distant thunder cut short her words. Eli felt it through the soles of his sneakers and the back of his chair, heard it in the clink of glasses and cutlery against plates. Overhead, the lights swayed slightly.

  “Okay.” Chloe asked the question on everyone’s mind. “What was that?”

  Young was out of his seat in a flash, snatching an intercom phone from the wall and pressing it to his ear. “Ops room, this is Young—”

  It happened again, and this time it was louder and closer, and it wasn’t sounding like thunder any more. Eli knew the noise of an explosion when he heard it. Particles of dust shaken free from the ceiling overhead rained down, catching in the drifting, flickering light; then the sirens began to wail, and red strobes stuttered into life on the walls.

  The military officers were already up, but Eli froze for a long second, watching them rise almost as one, food and drink and polite conversation immediately forgotten.

  Young put down the phone and gave them a look. “The base is under attack,” he said, as matter of fact as he had been about words in old French. Without pause, he snapped out orders in a tone of voice that made it clear he expected to be obeyed without question. “All non-combatant personnel report to your designated safe areas, everyone else to your battle stations. This is not a drill.”

  This is not a drill. Eli thought people only talked like that in the movies. But this was real, just like all the rest of it was real, and it was happening to him right now. He belatedly got to his feet, trying to remember where his designated safe area actually was, while Telford and the other officers raced away down the corridor.

  Young gestured to Armstrong. “Senator, I need you and your daughter to go with Lieutenant Scott…” The colonel turned his gaze toward Eli and he saw something new in there — not fear, not concern, but duty. “You too, Eli,” he said.

  He turned and found Scott watching him with the same look in his eyes. “Follow me,” he said.

  In the main corridor, Young found a sergeant handing out equipment and secured himself a gear vest, a MICH helmet, a radio and a M4 carbine in short order. Boots pounding the marble floors, the colonel donned the equipment on the run, the action as easy as muscle memory from hundreds of deployments and combat operations. He checked the carbine’s loads and then barked into the radio, ordering the technician in the ops room to get him hooked up with the Hammond, orbiting somewhere up above them.

  When his first attempt to raise the starship failed, Young felt a stab of ice in his gut. There had been no alarm, no call from the Hammond or Icarus’s suite of sensor satellites, nothing to warn them of the arrival of an intruder — and that could mean any one of a whole galaxy of problems was now at his front door, throwing down fire.

  If the Hammond is already gone… He shook his head and pushed the thought away. There was no point in making guesses until he had the facts.

  Young shouted at a pair of non-coms to make a hole, and taking two steps at a time, he vaulted up a gantry toward the battlements. He got halfway up and hesitated. If an attack was coming, he was going to need every fighting man he could muster. His best. Young turned and made a quick detour, grabbing some extra kit as he went.

  Ronald Greer felt the next impact, and then the next, and his hands went out to walls, a sweat breaking on his forehead. Whatever the hell was going on out there, it sounded like a giant was using a sledgehammer the size of a football stadium to wale on the side of the mountain. The bombardment was rattling him around like a stone in a can, and the only thing worse than that was the annoyance he felt at being stuck in here, unable to stand a post.

  Greer felt a horrible, cold chill at the idea he might die in here, locked up in a holding cell. He looked down at the bruises on his knuckles and cursed himself. It was no way for a Marine to go out, caged like an animal while the roof caved in and bu
ried him alive.

  Then keys rattled in the lock and the heavy door cranked open. Standing behind it, armed for bear, was Colonel Young. “Sergeant,” he said. Over the man’s shoulder he saw his fellow Marines Curtis and Spencer, and Lieutenant James gearing up for a fight.

  Greer immediately shot to his feet and attention, ram-rod straight. “Sir!” he snapped, in his best Parris Island snarl.

  “We’re under attack,” continued Young. “Don’t know why. Don’t know who.”

  Greer said nothing, remaining stock still. Young was a man of few words, and the Marine liked that about him. He was okay for Air Force. If Young had something to say, he’d get to it.

  “I need every able body I can spare.” The colonel had a G36 and a gear belt in his hands, and without ceremony he tossed the weapon and the kit in Greer’s direction. The sergeant caught them with ease. “Consider the charges dropped. Now go take your anger out on them.”

  Greer strapped the belt about his waist and checked the assault rifle’s ammunition clip. Locked and loaded. “Yes sir,” he said, and bounded out into the corridor, without looking back.

  A firestorm of energy streaked down through the darkness and slammed into the shields of the U.S.S. Hammond, the invisible bubble of force suddenly flashing into existence as exotic radiations collided with one another, spilling out jagged ripples of lightning.

  The angular carrier ship powered into a turn, coming about to present its stronger ventral barriers to the enemy onslaught. Hammond’s attackers crowded in toward it, like a trio of street thugs moving in to take down a victim. The vessels were towering brass pyramids ringed with planes of black steel; the Goa’uld who built them called them Ha’taks, and these three ships had once been warcraft in the service to a minor System Lord called Zipacna, but his sigil had been burned from their hulls a long time ago.