“Congratulate yourself later,” Rodney told him. “We’ve got a big problem.” McKay vaulted from his seat, discarding his useless, still-smoking laptop, and scrambled toward the back cabin of the Jumper. He pulled at equipment lockers, snatching open doors and not finding what he wanted, panic threatening to rise up and overtake him.
And then he found them, in the long footlocker beneath the wire-frame bench. Sheppard came down the canted deck toward him, his expression grim. “Controls are a mess,” said the colonel. “and the mid-hatch is off line. When that canopy breaks, we’ll lose all the air in here.”
“I saw. Here.” Rodney thrust a hard plastic container into the other man’s hands. He didn’t wait for Sheppard to open it; he took another identical case and flipped the latches, dumping the contents on the deck — a plastic fishbowl helmet, a backpack and an oversuit of bright orange material.
“A spacesuit?” Sheppard asked. “I didn’t think Jumpers carried —”
“Not as standard, no,” Rodney was speaking quickly, talking so his mind wouldn’t have the chance to catch up to the idea of how screwed they were. “But I always make sure they’re on board a Jumper any time I’m on it.” He made a flapping gesture with his hand. “Be prepared, right?”
The pitch of the air leak was growing deeper by the second as the crack widened, and it was enough to encourage them both to talk less and work faster. The suits were lightweight experimental models developed by Stargate Command for use aboard starships, low-duration quick-deployment rigs that had half the mass of the NASA legacy gear they typically used.
Rodney felt a flash of claustrophobia as he twisted the lexan helmet into place over his head. He didn’t want to think about what ‘low duration’ meant in terms of how much air you got before you choked to death.
Sensing movement, he turned to Sheppard and realized belatedly that he couldn’t hear what the other man was saying. The colonel grabbed him and the bubbles of the suit helmets clanked together.
“I said hang on to something!”
McKay had enough time to see the canopy become a spider web and then disintegrate; the next second they were in the middle of a hurricane.
Chapter Seven
“Come in, doctor.” Sam Carter looked up from the data screen she held in her hand and beckoned Jennifer Keller into her office. Keller also had one of the ubiquitous portable screens that were in use everywhere throughout Atlantis, but she held it close to her chest as if she was unwilling to share its contents with the rest of the world.
“Colonel,” Keller said, with a nod. Sam indicated a chair across from her desk and the doctor took it. Carter preferred to stand when she was thinking — something about being on her feet made it easier to get the cogs whirring, and she’d practically worn a path around her old lab back at Cheyenne Mountain — but she had to force herself to take a seat now, if only to put the doctor at her ease. Ever since Keller had returned from M9K-153 under Colonel Sheppard’s orders, she’d been uncharacteristically withdrawn, remaining in the medical lab despite the fact that she was supposed to be on a mandatory post-mission stand-down.
Carter saw the look in Keller’s eyes at once, and she understood. The mission isn’t over for her, not yet. She hasn’t let go of it. The look was a familiar one; she’d seen it in the mirror enough times in the past.
“Want some coffee?” She poured one for herself and offered the other woman a steel mug.
Keller gave a wan smile. “I could use a little.”
They both shared a sip. “You wanted to speak to me,” said Carter.
Keller nodded and held up the data screen. “I want to show you my preliminary findings from Heruun.”
Sam nodded. She’d already debriefed Sergeant Rush on his return and got the high points of the situation on the planet from Major Lorne, who had remained on-site. The continued MIA status of Ronon Dex and Teyla Emmagan was deeply troubling, and it threw into question every aspect of the mission. Carter pushed aside a moment of self-doubt, as a voice in the back of her head threatened to blame the situation on her tight hold on mission security.
She had seen the images Keller had captured with her camera, the troubling stills of the makeshift hospital in the Herunni rebel camp, the sick and the dying. Doctor Cullen and her team had been ready and waiting with the gear for a full biological screening when Keller and the others had returned, but they had found no evidence of anything communicable. Carter took the screen from Keller’s outstretched hand and tabbed through the pages. “What am I looking at here, doctor?” A single word jumped out at her and she took a sharp intake of breath.
“Nanites,” said Jennifer, doubtless guessing from Sam’s reaction what she had seen. “Molecular machines, or whatever you want to call them. That’s the source of this so-called sickness on Heruun.”
“The Replicators did this?”
Keller shook her head. “It doesn’t match the signature of Asuran technology. I’ve dealt with that before, I’d know it if I saw it. Not Ancient origin, either. Whoever or whatever the Aegis is, this means they‘re pretty advanced.”
Carter chewed her lip. “We’ve encountered several species out here and in our home galaxy that use this sort of mechanism,” she noted. “Putting aside who made them for a moment, the more important question is what are they doing it for?”
“I can’t be certain, but I don’t think this is deliberate. The illness, I mean.” Keller hesitated, as if she were uncertain about giving voice to something that was just a gut feeling. Sam said nothing and let her find her way; as a commander she had learned early on to let her people trust their instincts. “The blood I drew from the multiple abductees on Heruun shows concentrations of inert nanite devices collecting in their bodies. I think these things might function as markers of some kind, at least on one level.”
“Like a radio tag on a wild animal.” Carter considered this for a moment. “When this Aegis wants to abduct someone for a second or third time, it scans for the markers to locate them.”
“More like taking them for the ninth or tenth time,” Keller corrected, “and the quantity is much higher for those who have been taken the most often.” She indicated a readout on the screen, “I think the sickness is caused by these nanites crossing the blood-brain barrier. It’s causing an ongoing degenerative condition, most likely a breakdown of certain neurotransmitter chemicals in the brain.”
“Okay, so it’s not an infectious disease, it’s the result of deliberate exposure to this technology. Could it be some sort of attack on the Heruuni?”
Keller shook her head again, brushing hair from her eyes. “Unlikely. I’d say this is an unplanned side-effect of something else. What that something else is, I can’t tell you.” She sighed. “We might be able to decode the nanite programming, figure out their core function but that’s not my area of expertise. I have no idea how long it would take.”
Sam ran a critical eye over the scans of the nano-machines; the tiny, molecule-sized devices were a double-edged sword that could be programmed just as easily to cure diseases or deconstruct matter. “I’ll take a look at this. I’ve had plenty of up-close experience with Replicators…” She gave a wry smile. “More than I’d like.”
The doctor frowned. “Colonel, I have to make this clear to you. The local healer I met on 153, Kullid. He has nothing approaching the level of medical knowledge that we do, and he’s the only one working to find a cure for his people. He’s a smart guy but he’s going to fail without my help. Our help,” she corrected.
“You’re sure you could find a solution?”
“With your help and Doctor McKay’s, I think there’s an outside chance. I could take a medical team back to Heruun, and Rodney’s already there, so —”
Carter held up a hand to interrupt her. “If what Major Lorne tells me is anything to go on, M9K-153 is in the middle of an armed factional conflict. I already have two key team members on the missing list. You’re asking me to let you go back in harm’s way, and not just you but other civilian staff, plus another detail of men to act as your security.” She shook her head. “I can’t do that. Not right now. I’m not willing to let anyone else gate back until we have better intel on what’s going on there.”