That point, at least, Carson was forced to concede. He'd never doubted his decision to join the expedition before this. Maybe in time, the doubts would fade, but right now he wondered if the risks they'd taken had ever been worthwhile.
"Next you must reconnect the tertiary data bus-third crystal from the left."
Teyla followed Dr. Zelenka's instructions precisely, determined to leave no room for error. Across from her, Corletti was standing on one of the rear seats to gain better access to the bank of Ancient crystals. "Dr. Z, which one was the grounding slot again?"
"Top compartment, all the way to the rear," the scientist replied patiently.
"Okay." Corletti tossed a sheepish smile over her shoulder as she reached in with her good arm. "I keep forgetting which ones I'm not supposed to move, and I don't want to fry us."
The Marine didn't show it, of course, but Teyla knew she had to be running on her last reserves of energy. Facing a seemingly endless series of challenges had drained them all, in spirit as well as physically. Still, no one had mentioned the end-of-life ritual since Halting's comment hours ago, and she refused to consider it herself. While they had the jumper, there still was a chance. A brief glance outside told her that it was slim. "What next?"
"That was the last reroute," replied Zelenka. "You may try the start sequence now."
"All right! Let's do this thing." Corletti climbed down and headed for the cockpit. "Powering up" She placed her hand over the panel and slid it forward.
The expected hum of energy never came. The pilot let loose with a string of curses that only ceased when she noticed Jinto listening in from outside the open hatch. "Dr. Z?"
"I have gone through the entire auxiliary power system schematic." Zelenka sounded almost as frustrated as Corletti. "Perhaps there is more damage than we anticipated."
Dropping into her seat with a groan, Corletti pushed back the strands of dark hair that had escaped from her braid. "It's the Ancient equivalent of a battery pack. Maybe it has a loose lead somewhere."
"Teyla!" Halling rushed to the hatch, the others hurriedly gathering their belongings behind him. "The gray now streams down the hills like water. It will be here momentarily." The look in his eyes warned her that they had run out of time. "The ceremony. If not for yourself, then do not deny it to Jinto."
Going to investigate, Teyla came to the rear of the jumper and looked outside. As she suspected, even were they to run, they would soon be outpaced, for the grayness moved like nothing she had ever encountered. It was not alive, and yet it held a malevolence that she could not define. She watched in repugnance as it easily overtook a herd of unfortunate animals attempting to flee before its relentless path. Their squeals of terror brought cries from those on the far side of the jumper who also watched. Within seconds the carnage was assimilated into the amorphous gray substance.
"Teyla?" Halling's voice was insistent. "We must begin now, with or without you."
"You must do what you think is best, but I will not give up so easily." Meeting the eyes of several, she then went back inside to the cockpit.
"Teyla!" She heard Halling's footsteps inside the jumper, and then felt his hand on her shoulder. "You need this, perhaps more than we, to make peace with yourself. There is no more time."
She turned to confront him. The plea in his eyes, Teyla knew, was out of concern for her, and yet for some reason it felt wrong. Before her stood a man she had known all of her life, calm in the face of impending death, preparing himself for that final, inevitable journey. Behind her in the pilot's seat, Lieutenant Corletti was equally calm, but determinedly refusing to give up. The Marine would not abandon her efforts until the grayness swept over her.
In that brief moment, Teyla understood that the genes bequeathed to her by generations long past, generations before the Wraith had even become as they were, had traveled to a distant galaxy in the bodies of the Ancestors and bred a world of humans who refused to surrender in the face of adversity. Neither Corletti nor Hailing was right or wrong, but Teyla knew now that a part of her was from both worlds. The ritual was a good and necessary ceremony-but it was one that should only be undertaken by those who were ready to die.
Glancing firstly through the rear hatch and then the windshield, she saw that the gray had now surrounded their elevated position on a hillock. Teyla turned her attention to the power unit and said, "And I am not yet ready to die." When Corletti tossed her a grim look, she added, "Perhaps a variation on the procedure you employed earlier?" She directed a well-placed kick into the side of the unit. The jumper hummed to life.
"Oo-rah!" Corletti beamed at her. "You just earned yourself an honorary commission as a Marine."
Dashing to the hatch, Teyla beckoned the rest of the group inside. The jumper soon filled with refugees, far more than she had ever seen the craft hold, for the last of her people, the two she had thought lost to the river the previous night, had finally staggered into the camp. The gray death pursued them relentlessly, drawing ever nearer as everyone piled inside. As soon as the last person stepped aboard, Corletti yanked the jumper off the ground, not waiting for the hatch to fully close. Just before it sealed, Teyla caught a chilling glimpse of a filament of gray only a body length away.
"Atlantis, Jumper Three is airborne," Corletti reported, her tone a mixture of relief and exuberance.
"Good work, very good work. And your jumper-starting secret is safe with me." There was a hint of a smile in Zelenka's voice, but it soon faded. "I only wish I could tell you to come home."
"It's okay, Dr. Z. We can outrun this crap for a while"
This time Teyla was sure the confidence in the young woman's voice rang of false bravado, but it had an effect on Halling and the others, for there was no more talk of rituals.
"I must return to Polrusso now," Zelenka informed them. "When I come back, I will have the means to stop this monstrous thing."
"We'll hold you to that. Safe trip."
The jumper climbed, and Teyla looked through the windshield at the astonishing sight below. The grayness had spread outward from its starting place up in the mountains, leveling everything in its path. It now flowed like water through and over the riverbanks, perhaps using the speed of the river itself to facilitate its progress. At the rate it now traveled the planet would surely be overwhelmed in days.
"Lieutenant!" Zelenka's animated voice broke in again, startling them. A few rapid words about halting the dialing sequence were spoken to someone off-radio, and then he was back. "Please, take a reading of the gray goo. Of what exactly is it made-not just the chemical breakdown, but the molecular structure?"
"Stand by." Calling up the HUD, Corletti watched a list of options scroll across the screen and struggled to manipulate the sensors with only her uninjured hand. After a few seconds the results came up on the screen. "Okay, I've got a material analysis, but it's Greek to me. Can I transmit it to you somehow?"
"Yes, yes. I am in Jumper Two, preparing to leave, but I have just had an idea." He rattled off a series of short instructions, and Corletti obeyed. Another minute passed before they heard an exul tant shout in his native language. "I believe it can be done!"
"What can be done?"
"Recalibration of the jumper's shield. Much like we calibrated it to repel water while on the sea floor, we can attempt to configure it to repel gray goo."
"Will that allow us to reach Atlantis?" Teyla asked.
"If I am right, Atlantis's shield can also be programmed to match the jumper's. Then you should be allowed to pass through without bringing any undesirables with you."
The survivors behind her broke into a hopeful murmur, loud enough that Corletti had to raise her voice. "All right, what do we need to do?"