Rising Read online

  At least, she hoped they could. She tugged nervously on her jacket and glanced up the borehole. Somewhere, far above, General O'Neill was en route to the base, and the fate - the very existence - of her whole expedition to Pegasus depended upon her ability to convince him that it was worthwhile. That it was worth sacrificing the remaining power of Earth's only ZPM - the one device that stood between the planet and destruction by the Goa'uld.

  At her side, Dr. Jackson was lost in thought. He was frowning, lips moving slightly in silent conversation with himself. Rehearsing his argument, perhaps? It was no secret that he'd been angling for a place on the expedition team, and Weir would have been more than happy - delighted, actually - to snap him up. But General O'Neill had nixed the idea at the outset, and he wasn't the type to be gainsaid. Not that this seemed to deter Daniel Jackson; in fact, Weir suspected that very little could deter him. "Dr. Jackson?" she asked, disturbing his contemplation.

  "Hmm?"

  "Do you think he'll say yes?"

  His eyebrows lifted. "To using the ZPM? He might. He probably will."

  Weir smiled. "And to allowing you to join the expedition?"

  "I don't..." His intense blue eyes fixed on her suddenly and he took half a step closer. "Maybe if you could just impress upon him how much value I'd bring to-"

  Something fast and bright shot past them, rattling the cage so hard Weir thought it would slip free of the cable and go crashing back down the shaft. The object raced up, smashed right through the roof of the dome above the borehole, and was gone.

  "What the...?" said Dr. Jackson.

  Weir knew; she'd seen the damn thing on the workbench just this morning. "Get us back down there!"

  The elevator started to plummet.

  "Doc, what's happening?" Lieutenant Alden Ford was the first to move, darting across the room and staring up the borehole - but the drone had gone. Far above, he could see a raw patch of bright blue sky and knew that their containment was well and truly breached.

  "Without proper direction," Dr. McKay snapped, "the weapon could seek a target on its own."

  Holy crap. Ford grabbed his radio. "This is Ford, I'm declaring an emergency!" And that was one hell of an understatement.

  Major John Sheppard had always had 20/20 vision; lucky, given his choice of career. And so, when he saw a dot in the distance heading straight for them in a straight and purposeful flight pattern, he knew instantly that he'd clocked something. He was about to comment to the General when a burst of static squawked over his radio. An unfamiliar voice followed. "All inbound craft, we have a rogue drone that has the ability to seek targets."

  A what?

  "Land immediately," the order continued, "and shut down your engines, this is not a drill. I repeat..." The signal dissolved.

  Sheppard's eyes were fixed on the approaching bandit. It almost looked golden, too small to be a fighter but what the hell was a rogue drone? And one able to seek targets? Normally a drone was the target. At his side, General O'Neill turned to look at him. He didn't seem worried, just resigned, and motioned for Sheppard to land.

  "Too late!" Whatever the hell else a drone was, this one was definitely on their ass. "Hang on!"

  He banked right, pulling hard gees, muscles bunching as he fought the stick for control. The drone missed by a hair's breadth, but came right around for another pass. He'd never seen anything move like this; liquid motion, faster than you could think. Had to be automated, but he'd never seen a missile target like this one.

  "Break right!" O'Neill ordered, craning his neck to see the drone settle on their tail.

  Sheppard was already on it and broke sharply left.

  "I said right!"

  The drone skimmed by again, turning for a third pass. "Yessir, I'm getting to that!" This time he banked hard right, and the drone screamed past them. But it wasn't going away, and he had no wingman to clear it off his ass.

  Truth was, he had no idea how the hell he was gonna get them outta this one. He cursed silently and took the 'copter into a steep dive. What the hell were these people playing with out here...?

  Weir sprinted through the lab to the Ancient chair. Beckett lay frozen in its embrace, like a startled rabbit caught by the full-beams of an oncoming truck. One of the base scientists - she recognized him as the British guy - Peter Grodin, was talking in a panicked stream of words to McKay. "I was sure we'd disarmed it-"

  Beckett's pained voice interrupted. "I told you I was the wrong person-"

  "That doesn't matter now." Daniel Jackson's years of experience with unexpected and inexplicable crises showed in the decisiveness of his tone. He wasn't flustered. "Do something."

  "What?" Beckett pleaded. He was overwhelmed, and Weir couldn't blame him.

  "Concentrate on shutting down that weapon before it hurts someone." It was the best she could offer, and it seemed to be enough.

  Clearly terrified of what he'd done, Beckett closed his eyes and screwed up his face in concentration. Elizabeth Weir found herself holding her breath...

  It was out there. Sheppard could feel it, like the eyes of a predator on his back. They were being hunted. By what he still had no idea, but that hardly mattered. Whatever the hell this thing was, it had its sights on his ass and nothing was going to get in its way.

  Well, nothing but Major John Sheppard. Sophisticated it might be, but Sheppard had yet to encounter a machine that could out-fly him. There were some instincts that a missile could never have, strategies they couldn't plan for, calculations so far outside the box that no computer could understand them. Yeah, it would be a cold day in hell - or a warm one at McMurdo - before he was out maneuvered by a machine, however smart its programming.

  Bravado was good, kept the adrenaline pumping hard. But it didn't change facts. "I can't see it."

  He looked around, General O'Neill twisting in his seat to do the same. Suddenly, straight ahead, he saw it coming for them. A tiny dot of gold against the brilliance of the snowfield.

  "Pull up!" O'Neill barked. The guy was the original backseat driver!

  Sheppard decided to dive. He had a plan, one this tin can on their tail would never be able to calculate. Machines just weren't that crazy...

  He was pushing it as hard as he dared, pitching the dive at the very limit of aerodynamic viability. This was no F-16... But the plunge was steep enough, the ice racing up to meet them as the drone pivoted midair and settled back on his six.

  "How about now?" O'Neill suggested, remarkably languid given the circumstances. Sheppard figured the guy had seen some action before he became a deskjockey.

  The fissures and black rocks of the snow field were painted stark in snapshot images as they all but fell toward the ground. Yeah, O'Neill might have a point. "Now's good," Sheppard decided. He yanked back hard on the stick and the 'copter's nose edged up with several inches at least to spare. Behind them the drone buried itself in the ice.

  Yes! Only the need to keep both hands on the controls kept him from punching the air as he pulled up hard into a fast landing, right there on the ice. Eat that, you metallic piece of-

  "Shut down the engine," O'Neill ordered.

  He did, and the engine noise swiftly died. Outside, all was silent bar the wind whipping past the window. The wind never stopped blowing out here. "Sir," he asked, "what the hell was-?"

  "Wait for it..." O'Neill didn't look triumphant; he was listening for the sound of the other shoe dropping.

  Glancing around, Sheppard could see nothing but miles of blinding white snow. Surely there weren't more of these things? Beached on the ice with the engines cooling they'd be sitting ducks if- And then he saw it, to his right. The drone shot from the compacted ice as if it had been spat out; it wasn't even dented. Damn it! And it was coming right at them, its one beady eye fixed on their position.

  He fumbled for his straps. "Get out!"

  But it was coming too fast, they'd never get far enough away. He scrambled out the door and hit the snow, just in time to see the drone d
ie mid-air. It simply stopped, its light fading as it fell onto the ice and skidded to a halt a couple of inches from General O'Neill's outstretched hand.

  What the-? Sheppard stared; the damn thing wasn't a machine after all. It looked like some kind of squid!

  For a long moment neither of them spoke. Eventually the snow felt cold enough to prompt Sheppard back into action. Who knew, there might be more of these things. He climbed back into the helicopter, O'Neill dropping into the co-pilot's chair with a resigned sigh.

  "That was different," Sheppard observed, restarting the engines.

  O'Neill cast him an unreadable look. "For me," he said wearily, "not so much."

  Not for the first time that day, Sheppard realized he was seriously out of the loop.

  Dr. Weir watched as Beckett's eyes flashed open. Everyone was staring at him, and he stared back for a breathless beat before saying, "I think I did it."

  "Did what?" Daniel Jackson voiced the pertinent question, but Beckett didn't have time to answer before Lieutenant Ford's radio crackled into life. Ford listened intently for a moment, then smiled.

  "Major Sheppard is reporting the drone appears to have been incapacitated. General O'Neill's helicopter is unharmed and on its way..." He listened again, then nodded. "Seven minutes out."

  "Thank God." Weir couldn't begin to imagine the six kinds of hell she'd have had to pay if her people had been accidentally responsible for the death of the SGC's new commander - not to mention the world's greatest, if unsung, hero. Blowing out a sigh she gave a nod to her shell-shocked team and headed back toward her office. Just breathe, disaster averted.

  But the doubts came crowding in anyway. If this kind of accident could happen here, in the relative safety of the base, what the hell might go wrong once they were alone on the far side of the universe?

  General Jack O'Neill was impressed. It wasn't something that happened a lot, so when it did he tended to pay attention. The kid standing next to him, staring up at the shrinking speck of sky as they trundled through layers of ice in the cage-elevator, had impressed him. And not just with the fancy flying; there weren't many who could keep their heads in a situation like that. Fewer still who could shake off the completely inexplicable with a phlegmatic shrug and get right back down to business.

  He liked this kid, and wondered again whom Sheppard had pissed off enough to draw a tour at McMurdo. He'd call Carter, get her to pull up his personnel file. Major Sheppard would be an asset to the SGC; in fact, since his promotion, SG-1 had been running a man light. Perhaps he'd just found their fourth?

  "Sir?" Sheppard said, cutting through a silence that had held since they'd stepped into the elevator. "You should know that I don't have security clearance to come down here."

  O'Neill repressed a smile. Of course, Sheppard hadn't mentioned that until they were almost at the bottom. He liked how this kid thought; it reminded him of himself. Jack cast him a quick look. "After that?" In his book, nearly getting your ass blown off by an alien missile entitled a guy to certain privileges. "You do now."

  Which was, no doubt, exactly what Sheppard had been counting on. Yeah, Jack liked this kid. He'd be an asset to the SGC...

  At last the elevator clunked to a halt at the bottom of the borehole. Sheppard spared a final glance up at the sky, and followed O'Neill out of the elevator.

  Daniel was there waiting, almost bouncing with impatience. "Jack!"

  "Daniel," Jack replied, taking in the raw ice walls; interior design by Polar Bears `R' Us. "Warm welcome.

  "Wasn't me," Daniel assured him, because nine times out of ten it was him causing alien technology to go crazy. He headed off immediately through the busy base. "So, how did you manage to-?"

  "Not get our asses blown out of the sky?" Jack nodded toward Sheppard, who was straggling behind and trying to look at absolutely everything at once. "The exceptional flying of Major John Sheppard." He cast Daniel a wry look. "He likes it here."

  "Exceptional," Daniel repeated, apparently stunned by Jack's unusually lavish praise. "That's..." Then his eyebrows rose, and he glanced at Sheppard with some disbelief. "You like it here?"

  Interrupting the inevitable to-and-fro, because he actually didn't like it here, Jack snapped, "What say we cut to the part where you start talking a mile a minute?" And I can get back to someplace warmer

  "Sure," Daniel nodded, heading off with blithe faith that Jack would follow. "Weir's in here..."

  Jack hesitated a moment before turning back to Sheppard, who was still staring like a kid in a candy store. "Just... don't touch anything."

  The major nodded. "Yessir."

  Satisfied - almost - that Sheppard would do as he was told, Jack followed Daniel. His friend was after something, that much had been clear during the phone call yesterday. Daniel hadn't spelled it out, had insisted Jack come here in person to make the decision, which only fuelled Jack's suspicions. Whatever the hell Daniel wanted, it was big. And it was something Daniel knew Jack wouldn't want to give up... He could think of two things that fulfilled that criteria: one was the military advantage this out post gave them over the Goa'uld, and the other was Jackson himself.

  On one of them, he might compromise. On the other, no way. It just wasn't gonna happen.

  Okay, so John Sheppard had absolutely no idea where he was, but it looked pretty damn cool. The whole thing was carved out of ice, the walls and ceiling sliced by some huge machine into sharp, crystalline angles. It was quite incredible, and leagues away from the prefab buildings at McMurdo. Given their run in with the drone he figured it was some kind of advanced weapons research facility, but why it had to be buried beneath the ice was anyone's guess. Nuclear, maybe? But the place didn't have the somber feel of a nuclear research station. There was too much of a buzz in the atmosphere, and, more significantly, hardly anyone was in uniform. If he didn't know better he'd have said it was a civilian operation. But if that were the case then what were he and General O'Neill doing here? And that thing that had chased them out of the sky hadn't been civilian either...

  Mindful of O'Neill's order not to touch, Sheppard started wandering. There were people bustling everywhere, but his attention was immediately caught by a dark-haired man standing next to a large, strangelooking chair. He was regaling a couple of others with a story that had him very animated, and Sheppard sidled closer in the hope of eavesdropping. Or, as he preferred to think of it, gathering intel.

  "I don't know where it came from," the guy was saying. He had an accent. Irish, perhaps? "I just tried to concentrate, and the drone shut itself down..."

  The drone? Suddenly the man's eyes were on Sheppard. Slightly awkward at having been caught listening, he decided that offense was the best form of defense. "So it was you?"

  The man blinked nervously. "Me?"

  "You tried to shoot my ass out of the sky?"

  "No!" the guy protested immediately, taking a step back. And then, with a wince added, "Yes. I'm sorry.

  Sheppard scowled. He had no idea who this little Irish - or was that Scottish? - guy was, but no one took pot shots at him without-

  "Look, we're doing research," the guy blurted. "We're working with technology that's light years beyond us and we make mistakes. I'm incredibly, incredibly sorry."

  Hmm... It was hard to argue with an apology that unconditional. "Well," Sheppard grumbled, "you should be more careful."

  "That's what I said!"

  "What the hell was that thing anyway?"

  The man blinked again, this time in confusion. "You mean the drone?" When Sheppard stared blankly, the Scot - he was definitely Scottish, Sheppard decided -cautiously added, "The weapon the Ancients built to defend this outpost?"

  Okay... Now things were getting a little weird. "The who?"

  A flutter of panic crossed the guy's face, bordering on genuine alarm. He glanced around, as if expecting the hand of God to descend at any moment. "You do have security clearance to be here...?"

  "Yeah, yeah," Sheppard assured him, feigning n
onchalance. "General O'Neill just gave it to me." The truth was, he was far from nonchalant. Ancients? Weapons? Technology light years beyond us? His heart was hammering with an excitement he rarely felt when he wasn't at 20,000 feet with a bandit on his ass.

  "Just now?"

  "Yeah, five minutes ago." Now spill.

  The guy didn't seem reassured. "Then," he began warily, "you don't even know about the Stargate?"

  Sheppard stared at him. "The what?"

  Dr. Jackson's research lab was as cluttered as always, microscopes competing with books and paper for the limited space he'd been allotted. But Weir's attention wasn't on the barely controlled chaos at the edges of the room, it was firmly fixed on the little theatre taking place around the wide table at the center.

  General O'Neill had arrived, remarkably unfazed by his run-in with the rogue drone. In fact, when she'd started to apologize, he'd waved it away and said something about it being a good demonstration of the pilot's skills. Not fully understanding the military mind, Weir had let it rest. Frankly, she didn't have a lot of attention to spare from the business at hand. The General's decision today would mean life or death for the Atlantis project, and right now things didn't seem to be going in her favor.

  "Pegasus?" O'Neill layered the word with amusement and sarcasm in equal measure.

  "It's the name of a dwarf galaxy in the local group," Dr. Jackson supplied, utterly unperturbed by the General's apparent lack of interest.

  O'Neill glanced at the map spread out before him on the table, one eyebrow lifting. "It's not on the map.

  "No, it's very far away," Daniel agreed. "It's actually out here somewhere," he added, gesturing vaguely beyond the room. "We weren't even looking in the right neighborhood. I figure the Ancients packed up their entire city and left our galaxy somewhere between five and ten million years ago."

  O'Neill was apparently immune to Jackson's infectious enthusiasm. "In their flying city?"

  "Yes." Daniel stopped suddenly, brow furrowing. "What?"

  The General was five degrees beyond skeptical. "Flying city?"