Allegiance

Chapter Twenty-eight Last Chance

John looked around the table, wishing the coffee would kick in. He’d managed to shower and shave, but he’d been up well into the early hours of the morning reading the various reports, and he was still kind of surprised they’d done as well as they had. From the look of the faces around the table, he thought the others might be feeling much the same way.

The door of the briefing room slid open to admit Colonel Carter. She looked as though she hadn’t slept since they’d managed to wrestle the Hammond down safely onto the West Pier — probably hadn’t, John thought, and nodded a greeting.

“Sorry,” Carter said, generally, and reached for the coffee.

Caldwell slid his chair aside to make room for her, and Keller looked up with a wincing smile. Might as well start there, John thought, and took a breath.

“Dr. Keller. How are the injured doing?”

She gave him another nervous smile, glanced down at her tablet. “Actually, not badly. We’ve got six people with moderately severe burns, all of whom I believe can be successfully treated here. Dr. Flecha has a broken shoulder from falling debris, but everyone else has been treated and released. That includes those of Hammond’s crew that were beamed to the city during the fight.”

That was unexpectedly good news, John thought. “Speaking of damage to the city — ”

Zelenka looked over the top of his glasses. “We have been lucky there, too. The three smaller towers on the Northwest Pier took structural damage, and I have placed them off limits until we can shore up the supports, but that is the worst of it. I have a team resurfacing the hole on the South Pier, the area that we use as an auxiliary landing pad for the jumpers, but they expect to be done by nightfall. The rest is broken glass and blown fuses.”

Repairing the landing pad wouldn’t be much fun in this weather, John thought. The wind was strong out of the south, dropping the apparent temperatures below freezing again. But it was better than he’d expected. “Keep me posted.”

“Yes, I will do that.” Zelenka frowned at his tablet, made a note of something there. “I have also put every available person to help with the repairs to the Hammond, and there will be more, Colonel Carter, as soon as our repairs are in place.”

“Which I appreciate,” Carter said. “Very much. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

“Which brings us to the bigger issue,” Caldwell said. “The Wraith have got an energy shield. And I think we all know where they got it.”

That was the elephant in the room, pirouetting in a tutu in the middle of the table. John bit his lip, not sure what to say that wouldn’t make things worse, and Carter looked up from her coffee.

“They’ve got a shield,” she said, seriously, “but it’s not a very efficient one. I don’t know about you, Steven, but it seemed to me that when the shield was up, the hive was significantly less maneuverable.”

Caldwell gave a reluctant nod. “I’ll agree with that. And I’ll agree that it’s not effective as ours. But it’s still something they didn’t have before they got McKay.”

There was another little silence, and then Zelenka said, “It is possible that they have reverse-engineered it on their own. The Wraith have always been very quick to react to our technology, to counter anything we have done.”

“Do you really think that’s likely?” Caldwell asked.

“They’ve done it before,” John said.

Carter wrapped both hands around her coffee mug. “I hate to say it, but I think this is McKay,” she said. “Or at least information obtained from him one way or another. The Wraith never had enough power to make energy shields practical — and still don’t — so the decision to try it seems to have had to come from outside.”

“I am not sure I entirely agree,” Zelenka said. “They are well aware that energy shields are more effective. Perhaps they have decided it is worth the power drain.”

“Rodney McKay has already led an attack on this base,” Caldwell said. “Why wouldn’t he go ahead and develop shields, too?”

“This may be why he took the ZPM,” Carter said.

Zelenka sighed. “That makes sense. And if he has it…”

There was a depressed pause, everyone thinking about the attack on Earth, the super-hive powered by stolen ZPMs. John took a breath.

“McKay doesn’t know who he is. He thinks he’s a Wraith, that’s pretty obvious, so he’s not going to think he knows a lot of things. And he hasn’t told them how to get to Earth, or they’d be there already.”

“Hasn’t told them yet,” Caldwell said. “Colonel Sheppard, I know he’s your friend, but we’re going to have to face facts here. Leaving McKay in their hands is increasingly dangerous.”

“So we get him back,” John said. “I’m open to suggestions, Colonel.”

Caldwell’s face darkened, and Carter said, “I think this discussion is premature, given our current resources. Right now, I’m more concerned about getting the Hammond spaceworthy again.”

Caldwell nodded, and after a moment, John copied him. “OK,” he said. “If that’s everything?”

“There is one small matter,” Zelenka said. “But it does not concern everyone.”

“OK,” John said again, and pushed himself to his feet. The others filed out. Carter paused in the doorway, seeming about to say something, but then she thought better of it, and turned away.

“So,” John said. “What’s up, Radek?”

“First, there is the Wraith cruiser,” Zelenka answered. “It is in an unstable orbit around the planet, so at some point we may need to send a jumper up to finish it off. Otherwise, it will make an uncontrolled reentry, and, although the chances of it hitting something important — ”

“Like us?” John asked.

Zelenka smiled. “Yes, like us — are fairly small, still we may not wish to take the risk.”

John bit his lip, considering. The jumpers had plenty of drones, but at the moment, he didn’t want to waste anything. “How long before we have to do something about it?”

“Several weeks,” Zelenka answered. “Perhaps longer. I will run more exact calculations today.”

“Good.” John paused. “And second?”

“Second — ” Zelenka grimaced. “Second, I think Mrs. Miller and I need a word with you privately.”

That did not sound good. “All right,” John said, warily, and started for his office.

Jeannie Miller was waiting in the control room, pretending to look out over the city, swept bare now of snow by the steady wind. She turned at their approach, her face lightening, and John waved her ahead of them into the office. The door closed softly behind them, and John leaned on the edge of Woolsey’s desk.

“OK,” he said. “What’s going on?”

The others exchanged glances, and then Jeannie drew a breath. “It’s Rodney,” she said. “I think he’s left us a message.”

“What?” John winced at his near-shout, and Zelenka nodded.

“I agree. You know that we have been finding and deleting pieces of Rodney’s code after each attack.”

“Meredith’s been trying to set up new backdoors,” Jeannie interjected.

“And so after the last time, we found another subroutine that had burrowed in,” Zelenka said. “But this one was different.”

“It’s a code we used to use when we were kids,” Jeannie said. “Something only Meredith would remember.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out a slip of paper and handed it across. “He wants to meet you.”

John took the scrap, smoothed it carefully twice before he could bring himself to look. For John Sheppard, it read, in Jeannie’s neat printing, I’m on Gaffen. Help me. Rodney McKay.

“You’re sure it’s him,” he said, and both of them nodded.

“It is McKay’s hand, no question,” Zelenka said.

“He must have remembered who he is,” Jeannie said. Her eyes were bleak. “We have to help him, John.”

It took Ronon and Teyla a few minutes to get up to John’s office. Time enough to think about what he was about to ask them to do, and about whether he was entirely sure it was a good idea. There was something about sitting behind that desk that made it seem harder to tell what the right answers were.

“What’s going on?” Ronon said, stepping back in the doorway to let Teyla come in before him.

“Shut the door,” John said. Ronon raised his eyebrows but shut the door.

“Are we in trouble?” Ronon asked.

John frowned. “For what?”

“That just usually means somebody’s in trouble.”

“Somebody sent us a coded message,” John said, laying it down on the table in front of him. “It says it’s from Rodney.”

Both Teyla and Ronon glanced down at the paper, as if needing to see even that much concrete evidence for themselves.

“So, we go get him,” Ronon said after a moment.

Teyla shook her head immediately. “We must take time to think,” she said. “We could very well be walking into a trap.”

And of course she was all too aware of the possibility, having walked into Michael’s trap herself intending to rescue Kanaan. He didn’t think she’d ever be quite as quick to throw herself into danger again. They’d all been younger five years ago, and more fearless, if probably not as smart.

“We still have to go,” Ronon said.

“I agree that we must,” Teyla said before John could. “But we must think of the fact that it may not truly be a call for help.”

“Believe me, I am,” John said. “We’ll take a Marine team for backup, but we need to act fast. If he was able to send a coded message through the gate, he must have at least radio equipment with him. That suggests a Wraith scouting party or something like that, and they may not hang around the area for long.”

Teyla looked at him a little too perceptively. “What do colonels Caldwell and Carter say?”

“I haven’t asked them,” John said. He looked from her to Ronon, knowing the one he really had to convince here was himself. “I don’t know what Colonel Carter would say, but Colonel Caldwell thinks that it’s time to eliminate Rodney as a threat. I’m not ready to do that yet, not if he’s remembered who he is and is trying to escape.”

“Nor am I,” Teyla said. “I think that changes the situation.”

“I don’t think Caldwell’s going to see it that way,” John said. “But he’s senior to me and Carter both. If he really wants to arm-wrestle over who’s in command in Atlantis, we’re going to have a problem.”

“Mr. Woolsey left you in command,” Teyla said.

“That’s the way I see it,” John said. “It’s my responsibility to make a decision, and I’m making one. But if we have to have an argument over whose responsibility it is right now, we could be losing our last chance to get Rodney back.”

And with Caldwell and Carter both on station, it wasn’t like he was leaving Atlantis undefended if this went badly. Carter had certainly done a fine job when she was in command, and as many times as he’d clashed with Caldwell over the years, John did at least trust him to take care of the city if he wasn’t around.

Ronon shrugged. “You’re in charge of Atlantis. We work for you, not for the Air Force. It’s not a problem for us.”

“All right,” John said. It wasn’t exactly disobeying a direct order. They hadn’t gotten the orders yet, although he knew they would as soon as they got back in contact with Earth, as soon as he reported in. And he’d do it, if there wasn’t any other way, but not without trying one more time. If that didn’t work, if this was a trap, then he’d do what he had to do and try to live with it.

It was the best decision he knew to make, the best he could do for Rodney and for everybody who was screwed by the way the Wraith were using Rodney, for everybody who was also going to be screwed if they didn’t get Rodney back to saving their asses on a regular basis. The best he could do for Atlantis. He’d think about whether it was the best he could do for the Air Force later.

“Let’s go get Rodney,” he said.