John stared at him. "Right." He lifted the jumper up through the hatch.
As soon as they cleared the roof, the jumper registered a strong pull forward. Down on the platform, past the far side of the Mirror's frame, the Wraith scout ship was in pieces, smoke swirling up from it. But the lighter dart wreckage was stirring, lifting up as if pulled by a tractor beam. "Gravity well?" John asked.
"Yes." Rodney studied the platform, eyes wide. "It's going to pull some of this wreckage in. And us too."
"Here we go," John said, and directed the jumper straight for the Mirror.
The silver surface grew larger and larger in the port until there was nothing else. Then everything went black.
Carson felt he was half-mad from waiting. The Daedalus had been scanning the system for hours now, with no result. He couldn't fault their efforts; Hermiod and Dr. Novak had come up to the bridge to assist, and the little Asgard was at one of the consoles now, finetuning the sensors to better search for the jumper.
"It doesn't look good, Doc," Lorne said. He leaned on the bulkhead, watching the activity at the forward section of the bridge, his face set with concern. "If they had to land somewhere on this moon, they would have come out by now."
Carson knew Lorne was trying to prepare him for the worst. But Carson knew just how many times Rodney, Sheppard, and Teyla had survived the worst, and they had some good people with them. "Then it's either the Wraith or the Quantum Mirror, Major." Both possibilities were fairly terrible. He folded his arms, shaking his head. "I'd rather it was the Mirror. At least then we'd have a chance of finding them."
Lorne frowned. "They wouldn't have gone into that thing voluntarily. McKay knows just how dangerous it is." He threw an uncertain look at Carson. "Would they?"
Carson had to admit, "No, I don't think so either, lad. Not voluntarily."
An alarm went off somewhere forward. Carson saw Caldwell stride over to look at Hermiod's screen. He decided to hell with patience. He hurried forward, demanding, "What is it?"
Caldwell glanced up from the screen to say, "The Mirror's apparently activated. It's spitting out Wraith darts, and pieces of a ship."
"A ship?" Carson looked from Lorne to Caldwell, wishing the man would just say what he meant. "Is it-
Caldwell clarified, "A Wraith ship, Doctor. We can't tell what class yet."
"Colonel!" Novak called from her console. She flailed excitedly. "I'm picking up an energy signature from Ancient technology. I'm not sure if it's a cloaked puddlejumper, it doesn't quite match the pattern-"
Hermiod interrupted in his dry laconic voice, "It is a gate ship signature, possibly altered to avoid interfering with the Mirror's destabilized quantum field."
"It's them," Carson said. It had to be them.
"Open a channel." Caldwell sat down in the command chair.
"Oh, this isn't good," Novak muttered. "Sir, the Quantum Mirror-"
"The singularity is detaching from the Mirror's matrix and collapsing," Hermiod overrode her. "It will close, destroying the Mirror's physical structure, and causing a massive disruption to the area around it."
Caldwell shifted impatiently, leaning forward. "Can you raise the jumper?"
At the forward control board, Major Meyers glanced up, her brow furrowed in concentration. "No, sir, it's not responding. And it's just heading straight up from the surface. It could be on automatic pilot."
Caldwell grimaced. "Life signs?"
"There's too much interference from the Mirror, sir," Lieutenant Hawkins answered him.
"They must be unconscious, that's why they aren't answering the comm," Carson said. He wasn't sure how much Caldwell knew about the puddlejumpers' ATA interface. "The jumper wouldn't still be flying if there wasn't someone with the Ancient gene alive inside it."
"He's right, Colonel," Major Lorne added quickly. "The jumpers only have a limited unmanned autopilot function, and that's only for dropping out of the Atlantis jumper bay and going through the gate. If it's under power and maintaining a heading, it's got a gene carrier pilot, whether he's conscious or not."
Hermiod's voice grated, "The singularity is detaching now. It will cause a gravitational well to form temporarily over the area. The gate ship is not powerful enough to pull free. If you intend to retrieve it-"
Caldwell sat back in his chair. "Full power, take us down into tractor range."
The starfield wheeled as the Daedalus dove down toward the moon's surface. Though the deck felt rock steady under his feet, Carson's stomach did a psychosomatic dip anyway.
"We're nearly in range." Captain Kleinmann, on the other forward console, made some careful adjustments to his controls.
The ship started to shake. "The gravity well is forming," Hermiod informed them, probably unnecessarily.
Carson couldn't see a damn thing through the port. He stepped forward, looking at the screens, but it was all just blips.
Hawkins said urgently, "Sir, we have a hiveship on longrange sensors, just entering the system."
Carson's stomach clenched but Caldwell just muttered dryly, "Of course we do."
"We've got it!" Novak called, "We've got the jumper, sir.
"Pull up, bring it into the bay, and get us out of here," Caldwell said, watching the screen with narrowed eyes. "It looks like the Mirror isn't going to be a problem any„more.
The screen was displaying a sensor schematic of the giant structure around the Mirror. The collapsing singu larity had taken a good portion of the ground around it when it had vanished. The remaining structure was slowly crumbling into the crater it had left behind. Carson didn't stay to watch further; he and Lorne hurried to the elevator, making for the F-302 bay.
John came to feeling like someone had punched him in the head. A lot. "Not again," he muttered. He managed to get his eyes open. The HUD was fuzzy and flashing error codes, but it was the view through the jumper's port that made him grip the armrests, the sudden jolt of adrenaline clearing his head. He wasn't looking at a starfield, but a set of enormous ship bay doors that were just starting to slide open. "What the hell-?"
"Giant Quantum Mirror of death," Rodney groaned from the co-pilot's seat. He was leaning forward on the control board, his head pillowed on his arms. "Does that ring any bells? The concussion wave must have knocked us out. If the jumper's inertial dampeners hadn't-" Rodney lifted his head, saw what was happening, and froze, gaping. "Oh, you meant `what fresh hell is this?"'
But as the opening grew wider, John spotted the familiar racks of F-302s. They weren't being tractored into an alien spaceship, this was a rescue. "It's the Daedalus," he said in relief He tried to twist around in his seat, gritted his teeth as pain stabbed through his midsection. He fumbled at the straps, calling, "Teyla, Ronon, you guys okay back there?"
Sounding shaky, Teyla's voice answered, "I believe…ow."
John managed to get himself out of the chair and stagger into the back cabin. Everyone was stirring, except for Zelenka, who hung limply against the straps. John limped over to him and felt his pulse. It was there, and he seemed to be breathing normally. "Is he all right?" Teyla asked, pushing unsteadily to her feet. Ronon was gripping the bench seat for support, still moving sluggishly from the stun blasts. Miko was fumbling to unbuckle her safety straps, watching Zelenka anxiously.
"He's alive," John told her. Rodney, standing in the cabin doorway, swore in weary relief. Alive, John repeated to himself. They were all alive. And apparently in the right reality. It was just starting to dawn on him that they had really made it.
By the time they got Zelenka unstrapped and laid out on the bench, the jumper had thumped softly to the deck of the bay and someone was banging on the hatch. Rodney hit the ramp release and it lowered, letting in the Daedalus' filtered air. A group of SFs were warily waiting, aiming weapons. John understood the necessity, but at the moment it just exasperated the hell out of him. He said tightly, "Yeah, it's us. Get a damn medical team in here, now."