Fic: Star Drive (Gen, PG13)

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Title: Star Drive
Author: icarusancalion
Recipient: writing for calcitrix
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gen, with as much McShep as the show. Which means that it's ever-present.
Length: 9,700 words
Summary: Ten thousand years ago, a cabal of militant anti-Ascensionists had a plan to force the Ancients to stand and fight the Wraith. Now all they need is John Sheppard to set it into motion.
Prompt: Cal wanted action and adventure, alien civilizations and/or ancient gizmos discovered in Atlantis. Basically, she wanted an SGA episode. Yes, me too.
Author notes: Amazingly, both mecurtin and mad_maudlin made time on Christmas eve to beta this--Maud at 1:30am. This story wouldn't be what it is without their wonder twin powers of observation. All mistakes are mine.

Ten thousand years ago: Atlantis

Commander Dolbraith had a thin face and wild deep-set blue eyes. His cream-colored robes swept the stone halls of Atlantis. He was late; not his fault. Detained by security this morning.

He tensed as he swept his hand across the doorplate into his lab, his heart tight. To his surprise, it opened.

The lab was a wide, high-ceilinged room with monitors on every wall and freestanding control panels, all tastefully lit with splashes of blue light. The other hyperdrive technologists were scattered about the room, working quietly in clusters of two and three. They whispered to each other, the whispers echoing in the cavernous space. Dolbraith's assistants glanced in his direction, shying away. They must have heard he was an anti-Ascensionist.

But Atlantis was still free. He'd been held for questioning, yes. But it wasn't illegal (yet) to believe that Ascension was wrong. Irresponsible. He walked to his station, chin held high, raised to observe the monitor above his control panel.

Unfortunately, Atlantis was on the verge of being overtaken by the Ascension insanity that had emptied entire Alterran colonies. Suicides, he was sure, hushed up with absurd stories of beings of light rising into the sky. It was pure fear, fear of losing to the Wraith, that drove his people to religious fanaticism. He'd fought forty years for Atlantis. It had to be stopped. Dolbraith slammed his palm on the control panel.

The whispers silenced. His assistants glanced warily in his direction.

Embarrassed, he decided to get some work done. Then the doors to the lab slid open and long shadows stretched across the floor. Shadows of men with shouldered weapons.

Dolbraith stilled, but didn't turn around. It might not be for him.

"Commander Dolbraith, you are under arrest."

Dolbraith hid a smile. They might arrest him now, but they were too late. The movement was about to strike at the heart of the Ascension myth.

The present: Atlantis

Wind buffeted John's hair as he and Rodney stepped around a corner, followed by a full complement of murmuring scientists and marines. They sounded more like dinner party than a team on a mission.

John glanced up at Atlantis' spires overhead, sun gleaming off stained glass against the cloudy sky--as tall as the skyscrapers of New York and nine times as beautiful, though they turned the streets into a series of wind tunnels.

Rodney huffed miserably, one shoulder hunched against the wind.

"Come on, Rodney," John said. "You used to like exploring the city." With me, he didn't add.

"That's before I lost half my team to an Ancient virus, had my memory wiped, and nearly died of Ascension. Now I'm better informed: exploring Atlantis is about as safe as exploring a toxic waste dump."

John sighed. He waved to his men over the opposite side of street, edging around a puddle. "Split up, teams of two. Rodney and I will go on ahead." He held open the nearest door for Rodney with a mocking flourish. "After you."

Rodney stood his ground. "Oh sure, let me get cut to pieces by the Indiana Jones booby trap."

"Jeeze, Rodney." John pushed past him, aiming his flashlight to splash about the walls. He poked his head through the doorway. "Look, see? Head still attached."

The flashlight beam searched across the curved built-in furniture of a sunken living room the size of a hotel lobby. The anthropologists surmised that the Ancients saved space (which for them had been at a premium) with communal living spaces and kitchens. Three stairways led up to windows and a wide balcony that encircled the room. Off this balcony hallways spread in a wheel pattern. John strode across a room which wouldn't have been out of place in a 70's orgy flick (all it needed was the shag carpeting), and took the stairs two at a time, trusting Rodney to follow. He picked a hallway at random, pausing to sweep his hand over the sensor to turn on the lights. A neon blue glow lit the floorboards, painting the walls from the floor up. John figured this was their "night light" setting.

"Yes, wonderful, more personal quarters. Can we go now?" Rodney said.

"We're here to explore. That means exploring."

"You've mistaken me for a cultural anthropologist," Rodney grumbled, though he followed with the second flashlight. "All you're going to find here are personal nick-knacks and abandoned toys."

Not even that. John peered into a smallish room stripped clean of any personal effects. The next was much larger, easily half the size of the main living area. Such little differences had excited the anthropologists earlier, apparently a sign that the Ancients had "variation in socioeconomic status" despite a "marked lack of gender differentiation." John preferred Rodney's babble, which usually ended with the explosive yield of a newly discovered weapon.

"We haven't seen a tenth of Atlantis." John tilted his head, confessing as he rubbed the back of his neck, "And, well ... it makes me look bad to my boss when I don't know what I'm in charge of."

"Pfft." Rodney trailed John aimlessly. "That's like visiting every restaurant in Manhattan--you could, but why bother? We've already explored the important parts of the city. I prioritized. Critical systems first, followed by labs...."

They came to a room with a stuck door. John swept his hand in front of the sensor panel but it didn't budge. He half considered leaving it but Rodney, despite his complaints, was a thorough man. He knelt right away and tinkered with the crystal panels until the door slid open ... and stuck again halfway.

"... Major industrial centers...." Rodney continued, slightly muffled.

John turned sideways to squeeze inside. The windows here were all set to a dark tint though it wasn't late in the afternoon and this side of the tower didn't get full sun anyway. John's flashlight played about one of the largest rooms they'd found, almost big enough for a warehouse. The beam struck the gleam of metal in the center of the room about thirty feet away.

"... So unless someone did advanced science as a hobby...."

There, still showing the rotted shreds of cloth or carpet under wheels, John's flashlight picked out a swept-back wing. This led across and up to a dual passenger seat--light glanced off of a clear dome--and an elongated tip ending in a long point like a hornet. Rodney's flashlight swung toward the back end, which was dominated by an engine large enough to be capable of sub-light speeds at least.

John breathed, "Holy shit."

Rodney said in a stunned voice starved for air, "Score one for the hobbyists."

~*~*~

The two jumpers hovered close to the Ancient architecture, the chain and canvas sling drooping between them. Sweat beaded on Sheppard's forehead as he held his jumper steady, cast a quick glance over at Lorne's jumper. Hover hook-ups were dangerous, but this one was only two stories up, in blustery winds typical of the deck of your average ship.

On cue, the window was smashed, a shatter of glass cascading down. Ronon and two of the burlier engineers reached for the chains and Sheppard moved closer to give them more play.

The Ancient fighter, stripped of its wings, rested on two modified MALPs. Engineers moved rapidly, jumpsuits rippling in the wind, to hook the chains in place. Then the senior engineer, a heavyset guy with a mustache, spiraled his hand in the air.

Here goes. John and Lorne backed their jumpers up in tandem, slowly rising.

The fighter dragged and then swung free of the window ledge. Sheppard yanked the jumper upward to compensate for the pendulum stroke. The jumper jerked and dipped but held its place a lot better than a chopper. A plastic med kit shattered open and loose supplies clattered about the rear compartment.

Then, bottom heavy, the fighter swung back the opposite way too quick and smashed into the wall.

Sheppard bit his lip and ignored the stream of invectives from Rodney in his ear. "Sheppard, you're fired!" He nodded through the window at Lorne and they moved up and away, narrowly missing the wall again on the next swing. The craft leaned backwards, nearly out of the sling.

"It's not in there solid," Sheppard said into his radio.

"No, sir, let's set her down, now," Lorne answered.

They set it down on the pier, fast, and none too gently. The ship bounced once on the metal pier.

"Save all the pieces! You're fired and I'm docking your pay! That's not even where it's supposed to be."

"Sorry, Rodney, you're gonna have to move your equipment. It was either that or drop it in the ocean. Sheppard out," Sheppard said, pulling off his radio. He felt guilty enough for denting his baby.

He gently set the jumper down and was out in a hot minute. He stroked his hands along the hull, performing a visual inspection for damage. The Alterran alloy had held.

"Don't worry," he told the ship. "We'll get your wings back on in no time, good as new."

~*~*~

The next meeting was standing room only, with both engineering staff and military personnel, including a few from the Daedalus, leaned back against the walls. The anthropology and linguistics department was out in full force as well, though they had arrived early and claimed all the available chairs, with the exception of those reserved at the table for command staff.

"The first order of business--" Rodney began, standing at the front.

"Is to schedule a test flight," Sheppard interrupted. He held up his hand with a smirking smile. "I volunteer."

A low male murmur of amusement filled the room.

"--Is to see if it works at all," Rodney finished, rolling his eyes.

"And schedule a test flight," Sheppard added with a chipper dip of his head.

"Ten thousand year old equipment here!" Rodney insisted.

"The jumpers worked just fine," Sheppard pointed out.

"Not all of them," Zelenka said, looking over the rim of his glasses. "And there is no sign that this aircraft design was ever put into production."

"There's been tantalizing little mentions of a fighter craft all over the database--" Rodney raised his hand to stave off complaints from Sheppard. "--but no schematics, no proof it had ever been built."

Woolsey drummed his fingers on the conference table. "I don't understand. What was it doing in someone's private quarters then?"

"Who knows? Who cares? Maybe it's a prototype. Maybe he stole it for a joyride," Rodney said. "The good news is our joyriding thief-cum-backyard-mechanic unlike everyone else in Atlantis didn't clean up after himself."

"I'd feel more comfortable knowing why it was there," Woolsey said.

"I don't think that's relevant. If it hadn't been put into production yet--" Caldwell raised his eyebrows. "--am I given to understand...."

"That this is state of the art, top of the line Ancient technology." Rodney pointed at him, finishing the sentence, and beamed. "Yes. We'll know more about what it can do within the next twenty-four hours."

"After which," Sheppard said, coming back to the real point of the meeting, "we schedule a test flight." He placed his palm on the table with a sense of finality, beaming.

"That is correct," Woolsey said, lacing his fingers together. "However, we can't afford to risk the head of the military contingent in Atlantis in the role of a test pilot."

"But--" Sheppard said, a plaintive note creeping into his voice. "--it requires the ATA gene...."

"Major Lorne also has the ATA. He should do admirably well. Pending approval from the head of science," Woolsey inclined his head to McKay, "He can tentatively test it the day after tomorrow."

Lorne was smart enough put on his best poker face and avoid Sheppard's gaze. But there was a detectable smirk as the meeting broke up.

~*~*~

The halls of Atlantis were dark and quiet after the busy day, though still filled with a hum of Christmas-like excitement. It had been years since the last big discovery. Well, there were many regular big discoveries but these days they were a bit esoteric. The layman had trouble getting excited about the regeneration capacity of plankton. John scuffed down the hall from his quarters and hit the transporter to the first floor kitchen. It reminded him of those early days in Atlantis, when every trip into the city netted them Puddlejumpers or holographic records or funky ray guns that could repair human tissue at the molecular level and you could watch a cut close, turn red, and heal.

Reappearing on the first floor, John walked right past the kitchen, swinging his heaviest bomber jacket over his shoulders. He adjusted his collar, then his sleeves, tugging them down, and was still zipping up as he walked outside. The sky was spangled with stars, a clear night with relatively light winds. Perfect. He passed the guard on duty.

"You're up late, sir," the corporal commented.

"Yeah. Can't sleep," John said, carefully casual.

Hands in his pockets, John kept walking straight ahead, forcing himself to not look back until the guard was out of sight. Then he slipped behind a building and tightrope-walked a half a dozen steps across a metal I-beam as a shortcut. Below him the water in the lee of the pier was almost smooth, the moonlight glistening like gems.

A ten minute walk later, John was stymied, trying to find the opening that led into the Ancient fighter. The metal was seamless and seemed to blend right into the clear dome over the pilot's chair. Finally, running his hands over the sides, he found four small depressions just below the dome, like the handprint a kid might leave in concrete. He concentrated, eyes closed, and the fighter craft hissed. He glanced up. The dome hatch was now open, though he hadn't seen it move. With a chill, John climbed up and hitched a leg over the side.

The pilot's chair fit like a womb, and with a hum and tickly vibration, it snugged tighter around him once he was in position. There were no apparent switches or buttons like the Jumper, but then again, the fighter was state of the art. He concentrated again, thinking, On, baby, let's get this show on the road and the hatch sealed around him, the metal seeming to reform seamlessly. He felt around for more hand depressions and found two located on the arms of his seat, just like on the Atlantis control chair. A direct neural interface. Cool.

Blinking once, he ran through pre-flight, the HUD zipping through readings almost faster than he could process it. Then the ship was ready.

Here goes nothing.

He fired up the engines, vapor steaming from the deck below him. A siren like a car alarm started wailing.

Wait a minute. That was a car alarm.

"Rodney...." John complained, eyes skyward.

His radio went off a moment later. John ran through the ship's more advanced sensors, asking how to shut the damned thing off. Stats flashed in multi-colors across the dome.

"Sheppard, I know that's you," Rodney accused.

The ship identified a kill switch on the reactor coil that was set to shut him down in two minutes. It quickly disabled it. It identified a wire that had weakened from metal fatigue and rerouted around it. But as far as the ship was concerned, there was no car alarm. It had to be a separate circuit.

John heard pounding steps on the deck and looked up to find Rodney already there, waving his arms as he ran. Leave it to Rodney to find another, closer transporter.

"Sheppard, you're so not doing this without me!"

John gave him a thumbs up and said, "See you!" and lifted straight up off the dock like he'd been pulled by a rubberband. Whoa, the ship was sensitive.

He rocketed forward, head thrown back. The stars blurred overhead and John's eyes watered at the pressure. It took him a moment to realize why.

Check. Inertial dampeners were off-line.

Blood pounded in his head and he was getting a headache, grateful the mainland with its mountains was nowhere near, because he wasn't in full control of this ship.

"Sheppard, you're taking all the blame for this!" Rodney's voice sounded in his ear. "Wait. Are you still conscious? Your inertial dampeners aren't working."

"No shit, Rodney, I wondered why the skin was being pulled off my face," John said.

"Slow it down. I'll try to fix it from here," Rodney said.

"This isslow," John said, the breath torn from his squeezed throat.

"Hover, hover!" Rodney said.

Right. He remembered. Mentally controlled ship. John, blinking himself awake, visualized the ship hovering over the ocean.

It came to an immediate stop, slamming him forward like a bug against a grill. John groaned. The seat was like sitting inside an airbag, including the hit to the gut.

"There. I think I fixed it," Rodney said. "Try that now."

"Gah. Hang on," John said, swallowing bile. "Glad I skipped dinner...."

"Come on, come on, we haven't got all night. I need my beauty sleep," Rodney said. "And how did you undo my kill switch anyway? That one would've stumped Zelenka."

John opted not to explain. He swallowed again, then with a thought, sent the ship back into a full-speed run, his body flattened against the seat.

"You have to initialize it! Initialize it!" Rodney said.

John blinked, asking the ship how. A blue line schematic of the inertial dampeners flashed on the HUD. Then suddenly the pressure released. He was floating, like a soap bubble in air, as silent as a ghost. The ocean sped by, endless ridges of dark waves below him.

Almost lazily now John ran through the ship's capabilities. It had a hyperdrive but it was offline.

He wished he had the nerve to test the ship in space. But leaking atmosphere in an aircraft he nearly passed out in, without a support crew standing by, well, that just seemed like a bad idea.

Then a thought occurred to him. He pulled up into a soaring climb. There was more than one way to check for air leaks.

He turned the ship into a hairpin curve. The ship dove like a dolphin, slicing the surface of the water.

"Sheppard!"

~*~*~

By dawn the rest of science team stumbled into the lab. They congregated around the coffee pot with their usual hellos and good mornings. McKay was already in, tapping at full speed on his laptop. He usually talked to himself as he typed, little burbles of happy sounds, or huffs and half-sentences of annoyance followed by loud pounding keystrokes. The team usually tiptoed past and ignored him.

But this morning he was talking excitedly to Colonel Sheppard, who stood looking over his shoulder, a fresh cup of coffee steaming in his hands. Sheppard's hair was greasy and there were dark circles under his eyes, but he turned a relaxed, happy smile to the rest of the team.

"Good thing you tested this in water and not the upper atmosphere," McKay was saying. "Though I'd like to know how you plan to get the water out of the hull lining, hmm? It sounds like a waterbed."

"We're done here, aren't we?" Sheppard asked, draining the last of his cup. "Let's have a look under the hood now that it's light out."

Zelenka came in ten minutes late as usual, hurrying to sling his jacket over his chair. He always made up for it by working through lunch. He had his computer set to open automatically on some signal no one knew, and was fishing a breakfast muffin out of his pants pocket as he stood over his computer, skimming his email. He tapped one open. "Rodney, what is this--?"

"Got to run, busy, busy!" Rodney said, abruptly shutting down his own computer. He grabbed Sheppard's arm to drag him out the door.

"She's small, but fast." Sheppard beamed. "I'm thinking of calling her Madeline."

"It's a machine," Rodney complained.

~*~*~

Rodney swallowed his muffin in three bites. He dropped crumbs down the front of his shirt, brushed them off briskly, then set to work finding the finger depressions that would reveal the guts of the engines.

"Found it," John said from the other side. With a soft hiss, the rear engine compartment opened.

Rodney walked around the ship, saying as he circled the tail, "If I'm not mistaken that should be the hyperdrive."

He stopped short and stared at the spiderweb of lighted crisscrossing connections and crystal plates. Less sophisticated clear wires looped top to bottom, while others dangled loose.

Sheppard frowned at it a moment. Finally he said, "Now I don't know much about hyperdrives, but to me, that doesn't look right."

"Obviously our backyard mechanic had limits to his talents." Rodney lifted a section of the wires to reveal a darkened panel. "Oh, look at this." He whistled. "This explains how it was left behind. This is the cloaking mechanism. Or was. The charge is completely spent."

John gave him a curious glance.

"That shouldn't ever happen," Rodney explained. "Whoever left it behind left it cloaked. Possibly for decades."

"Can you recharge its batteries?"

Rodney sighed heavily. "Sophisticated Ancient technology isn't exactly like the cheap rechargeable batteries you plug into the wall for Christmas, but yes, of course I can."

~*~*~

The next staff meeting was a bit tense.

Zelenka licked his lips and took a deep breath. "Apparently the test flight took place slightly earlier than scheduled."

"I heard," Woolsey said, giving Sheppard a reproachful look. Major Lorne had given up his poker face and tipped a look of frustrated annoyance at his commander.

Sheppard simply blinked with exaggerated innocence.

"However, despite the limited number of scientists involved in the actual test..." Zelenka's glance flicked to Rodney. "... at least we have had extra time to examine the data. It revealed no major problems."

"No major problems?!" Rodney spluttered. He waved his hands. "It's a dream machine! I think the theme song for our new fighter should be 'Anything A Puddlejumper Can Do, I Can Do Better,' right down to hyperspace capability-if we can get it to work, that is," Rodney admitted. He started to enumerate points on his fingers. "It has a cloak, high speed sublight engines. It can run circles around a Dart. And it's armed to the teeth. A hyper resonator, plus some substance that will act as a decaying agent to Wraith organic compounds."

"Nasty," John said, nodding approvingly.

"Let's just say it's not a ship I'd want to meet in a dark alley."

John smiled. He definitely liked Rodney's babble best. He stretched and yawned and figured he was probably slaphappy from lack of sleep. Rodney also seemed frayed around the edges with a little bit of stubble and a loose set to his shoulders. Exhaustion was a good look on him.

John rubbed his eyes and tried to unthink that.

"It even fires mini-drones like we found on Harmony's planet. It's, uh, almost out of those but that shouldn't be too much of a problem."

"Glad to hear it," Woolsey said. "The Daedalus is scheduled to depart in a few days. That gives us enough time to seal the atmospheric leaks before we take it back to Earth for further study."

"Wait, what?" John said, sitting up and forcing himself awake.

"The Daedalus will be taking the Ancient fighter ship back to Area 51 where it will be used as a prototype," Woolsey said in a matter-of-fact voice.

"You can't do that," Rodney said.

"We need that ship," John said, his mind blank in shock.

"No doubt it would be useful here. But I'm sure you understand that we can't afford to lose our only working model in a combat situation. We don't even have schematics to produce another," Woolsey said in a level, reasonable tone. Then he smiled, quirking his head. "The plan is to call it the X-411."

"You're going to let those weasels at Area 51 take it apart? Sandusky and Gilman--and worse yet, Bryce?" Rodney blurted out, aghast.

"I am not apprised as to who will be assigned to the project."

Sheppard shook his head slowly. "You can't do this...."

Colonel Caldwell, sitting across the conference table from Sheppard, gave him a knowing sardonic smile. His eyes glinted with humor. "We'll take good care of Madeline, Colonel."

Woolsey coughed and changed the subject. "Now, do we have any word about the data files found in the room with the fighter?" He turned to the linguists. Rodney visibly fumed.

The Ancient linguistics specialist, a sandy-haired guy with glasses and an innocent face, shook his head. John remembered that hair splash. "No name on the owner of our plane. We can't run a general search for him yet. So far mostly it's mathematical notations. He's definitely a scientist."

"Or an accountant," Rodney sniped, venting his ire on a random hapless victim.

"Can't you look him up in the white pages?" John asked. "By address?"

"We can't, I mean there isn't--" A strange expression crossed the linguist's face, like he'd just sipped milk when he expected orange juice. John was disappointed that the hair stayed still this time. "--Okay, there might be a way to do that."

Rodney smirked at Sheppard, folding his arms across his chest as he leaned back in his seat. "You know, I hate it when you do this to me--come up a stupidly simple solution that will probably work--but it's great to watch when you do it to somebody else."

~*~*~

The gateroom lights dimmed for the night shift as Chuck settled into his chair with a sigh. He set his cup of hot chocolate and wrapped sandwich between the DHD dialing device and his keyboard.

Chuck typed in his password to StatCOMCEN, the program McKay had built to monitor all the city's "autonomic systems" as he called it, on one screen. Like popcorn, data graphs appeared: wiggly lines showing temperature readings for throughout the city, water levels, the latitude and longitude of Atlantis (2% drift was acceptable) and so on.

Using the Ancients' tracking systems, most of which couldn't be run through StatCOMCEN, was a little bit like driving a car. Chuck kept his eye on the road, the external sensors, and checked the rest of it periodically.

He rolled his chair over to the city life signs monitor, a.k.a. "Big Brother." Colonel Sheppard had someone in his room late again. McKay's quarters were empty. Chuck raised his eyebrows.

On the greenish overhead monitor, the running patterns that looked like falling letters were, in fact, falling letters in Ancient script. McKay called it the "ticker tape," short summaries of any changes caught by the city sensors.

It had been known to lull people to sleep, like watching fish in a fish tank. Chuck scanned it for trigger words. Desalinization level..."? Yeah, that was no big deal. That changed every time someone flushed a toilet.

Long range sensors... moved a bit, too, obviously. You could get pretty paranoid at how many Wraith ships were out there.

In-System activity... Atlantis always wigged out about meteors and comets. With a smile, Chuck visualized Atlantis as a worried old lady, fussing over every change.

He took a bite of his sandwich and leaned back in his chair as the In-System sensors rattled off another line about an asteroid changing orbit.

The line about the asteroid crawled down the screen again. And a third time. Chuck squinted closer as he read the degree of change in those asteroids. "That's impossible...."

~*~*~

The Atlantis alarms sounded, hammering loud. The full gateroom crew scrambled to their stations, half of them out of uniform or wearing some mix of uniforms plus pajama tops. Mira Baxter next to Chuck had buttoned her uniform blouse sideways.

"Incoming Hive ships, incoming Hive ships!" the intercom announced.

The command staff, Colonel Sheppard, Woolsey, Colonel Caldwell, and Rodney stood in a loose semicircle around Chuck.

"They didn't show up on any of our long-range sensors," Chuck reported. "They just appeared out of nowhere. They have some sort of stealth capability--there are almost no energy readings. We only know they're there because they're moving."

Caldwell went straight to the worst-case scenario. "New hyperdrive technology?"

"No." Rodney said with an abrupt shake of his head. "You can't disguise a hyperspace window even if you can disguise a ship. Too much energy is released. And that doesn't explain the current lack of readings." He tapped the In-System sensor monitor almost accusingly.

"Cloak the city," Woosley said, his jaw set and determined.

"No, this isn't a coincidence. One? Maybe. Four?" Sheppard shook his head. "They know we're here."

"Shields?" Caldwell said, sounding doubtful.

Rodney shook his head. "Against four Hives? We won't last long." He gave the board with the four green blobs inbound a worried look. "Especially since these seem to have new technology."

"Let's not borrow trouble," Caldwell said. "We don't know that. We don't know how they got there. It could be a malfunction in our sensors. Or maybe we just missed them." He gave Chuck a barely perceptible glance.

"I don't think so, sir," Chuck said, trying not to sound defensive.

Sheppard said, "I have an idea. What if we could cloak and disable all four?"

"The Daedalus doesn't have a cloak. Even if we could handle four Hives."

"But the Ancient fighter does. And we've got that decaying agent that'll eat their hulls. They'll be venting atmosphere by the time they get here," John said. He turned to Rodney. "The cloak is recharged, atmospheric leaks sealed?"

"It was flown to the Daedalus yesterday," Caldwell said.

John raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Caldwell gave Sheppard a tight disapproving smile. Woolsey examined the floor. "We wanted to be sure it didn't go suddenly missing."

"I said that I..." Sheppard ducked his head, visibly swallowing his pride. He did a little cutting gesture with his hand. "... never mind. I'll fly in close--" He held up his palm as Caldwell opened his mouth to object. "I know! But I'm the only person with any real experience flying that fighter," he insisted.

"Much as I hate to reward that stunt of the other day and worse, continue our bad habit of leading from the front, you're correct," Woolsey said with a sour twist of his lips.

Caldwell agreed, "It's the best we've got."

Woolsey nodded firmly. "Then ... make it so."

Sheppard paused, exchanging a glance with McKay.

"I've always wanted to say that," Woolsey admitted, hunching his shoulders with a sheepish little smile.

~*~*~

John was beamed to the Daedalus, always a strange experience. The gateroom went hazy, dispersing like fog, then the world changed around him, the deck of the Daedalus seeming first like a ghost image and then firming up and becoming vivid and real. John used the trick of focusing on one item--the Daedalus eagle embossed on the back captain's chair--to help with the vertigo. Rodney had told him once that the brain made associations between "movement" and "going" so couldn't process beaming technology correctly.

Outside the viewscreen of the Daedalus, four cylindrical Puddlejumpers rested in orbit against the blue curve of the planet and the softer curve of its atmosphere. They gleamed bronze, sharply shadowed by the sun as they converged on the docking bay. John was led by two Marine guards down a maze of halls to the airlock outside the bay. He suited up while the Puddlejumpers landed. In a berth nearest the airlock window, the Ancient fighter looked out of place among the F-302s, like a starling among hawks.

Once the bay was sealed and repressurized, John slip past his guards. He patted the smooth skin of his ship, murmuring, "We'll get you out of here."

~*~*~

Hyperspace travel was very different from being beamed. A vortex like a glowing tornado, or the polar opposite of a black hole, opened up in front of the Daedalus. Techs called it "the toilet bowl," and the tech in charge of the hyperdrive, the "Tidy Bowl Man." Rather than sensibly avoid this storm in space, the Daedalus fired up her sublights and moved right into the eye.

They were jolted by the force of it. Stars and space stretched around them like a glowing tube. In a flash of light, milliseconds later, they were ejected out the other side. Rodney used the game Chutes & Ladders to explain the shortcut they'd taken through subspace, though the younger soldiers had never played it. The Daedalus hovered behind the last gas giant in Atlantis system. Striped orange and red, it filled most of the view outside the docking bay. They hoped the energy released by the planets' storms would cover the energy "noise" they'd just made leaving hyperspace, though Rodney said it was like hiding an earthquake, sensor-wise. If the Hives caught on to their presence, the Daedalus would have to cut and run to Atlantis.

John could have flown the fighter to the Hives in less than an hour, but it would have taken the Jumpers all day to catch up.

It felt strange to be wearing a helmet in the cockpit of the fighter. John shifted his shoulders, the helmet held too tightly by the seat, like it hadn't been designed for it.

"No sign that the Hives have spotted us, or care that we're here," Caldwell's voice came over the radio.

John adjust his radio mic. "We're ready when you are."

The docking bay depressurization alarm sounded and John felt his ship gently lift from the floor, his own body weightless though held in place. "Okay, slowpokes," he told his team, although they'd been waiting for him. "I feel like I should have some 'words of wisdom' for you...." he said, tongue in cheek.

Someone blew a raspberry.

"All right then," John said, grinning. "But don't complain that I haven't inspired you."

"Just don't get killed in that thing," Lorne said from his Jumper.

"That's your job," John said. He lowered his eyelids, not quite closing his eyes, and commanded the engines, on. He rocketed past the four Jumpers into space.

~*~*~

John circled his fighter back around to the Jumpers in an overhead loop, both marveling at and missing the lack of Gs. It was familiar, but somehow more noticeably different when his ship looked so much like a real fighter jet. Below him the Jumpers lined up in a wing formation, saving the point position for John. He shifted to hover, slotting into position from above.

On his signal they all cloaked. From John's perspective he seemed still exposed while the other ships around him faded and vanished.

"Okay. Good. Keep strict formation discipline, please," John reminded them all, including himself. "I don't want any dents on my new spaceship."

~*~*~

The Daedalus signaled that the Wraith Hives hadn't shifted direction or speed while John and his team curved around the planet, threading their way through its band of small moons. Within half an hour, four dark blots against the stars grew steadily larger. The sunlight was grayish this far out in the solar system, its sharp highlights dimmed. One Hive was in front, followed by two more Hives. A fourth trailed some distance back, far enough that if John had more ships with the decaying agent, he'd split them into two teams.

The Hives ran dark. No running lights. No glow from the transparent bubbles in their compounds that served as windows. None of their usual greenish phosphorescence.

"This is weird," John said, half to himself.

"The old submarine trick?" captain Tavers suggested in his light Irish lilt. " Run without power so no one can see you?" His Jumper would be to John's far right, and down--if John could see him. John kept a mental map of the whole formation in his mind.

Lorne said, "I guess this explains why there were no readings."

"I guess...." John said.

"Where are the Darts?" And give Lieutenant Cho a prize, because John was just wondering that. They'd planned on dodging long range patrols.

"I don't like this, sir." That was Lorne.

"Yeah. Let's move in for a closer look. Mark 4-4-0, on my signal--now," John said, veering the fighter left. Flying cloaked in a squadron required they follow planned maneuvers like a football team.

"Sir, sir!" came Cho's clipped Korean accent again. "Check out the last one! There's a giant hole in the side. No Wraith could survive that. This is space junk."

Sure enough, the hole was star-shaped, ripped outward from an interior explosion. There wasn't even the vapor trail of venting atmosphere or the gruesome flotsam of bodies, Wraith and their victims. On television, explosions consumed the entire craft, leaving no trace but John knew the reality.

This was old damage. Rocks and debris trailed the Hives.

Captain Alvarez laughed. "That's anticlimactic."

"What's powering them?" Lorne wondered.

"I have a bad feeling about this," John said.

They radioed back to the Daedalus.

"Destroy them with your shields on high," Colonel Caldwell said. "I want nothing left of those Hives."

~*~*~

Chuck recognized the young, sandy-haired linguist, David Soltis, as he pushed his way through the crowded gateroom command center. He even shoved Ronon aside, which no one did.

"Woolsey, I mean, Mr. Woolsey, um-- sir!" Soltis said. Woosley broke off his conversation, turning with surprise. "We've got to get Sheppard out of that plane."

McKay rolled his eyes. "It's a spacecraft, not an airplane," he snapped.

"It's a bomb."

Ronon and Teyla exchanged a glance.

McKay turned his shoulder away from the linguist, telling Woolsey, "No it's not. I checked it out carefully." Zelenka beside him nodded.

"I'm telling you, the Ancient who had it cloaked was an anti-Ascensionist," the linguist insisted.

~*~*~

John's team was having a fine time with the live fire exercise. They'd decloaked and were skimming around the Hives, targeting the fuel cells for maximum effect.

The signal from Atlantis hissed in John's earpiece. "Colonel Sheppard, please stand by to be transported to the Daedalus."

"What? Abandon ship?" John said. He fired the decaying agent at the second Hive. Satisfying how the surface became mottled and then thinned, breaking up like cobweb. "What are you smoking, Chuck? You may not have heard but we won this before it even began."

"The Daedalus will hook up a line and tow the ship at some distance."

Woolsey broke in. "There is some concern over the safety of your spacecraft," he said. "It's just a precaution. It seems the tenant, and apparent owner of an illegal ship, was an anti-Ascentionist who believed the Ancients should stay and fight the Wraith."

"I don't have a problem with that," John said, firing off a spray of mini-drones.

"Perhaps it is best we err on the side of caution," Teyla said.

An unfamiliar voice took up the com. "You don't understand, sir. These people are responsible for a shipment of tainted food supplies to an Ascension colony. They were suspected in the bombings of two prototype Ascension machines."

"Which I don't disagree with," came Rodney's voice.

"The fact is," Woolsey said, "There is no good reason why an ani-Ascentionist would have a state-of-the art fighter cloaked in his quarters."

"All right," John said reluctantly. "But you'd better not lose my spaceship. Let me get clear of the debris field."

~*~*~

Sheppard's sigh came loud and clear over the com in Atlantis. "All right. But you'd better not lose my spaceship. Let me get clear of the debris field."

Sheppard signaled his men. "I've gotta go home. You know how mom worries."

His ship angled toward the Daedalus, in no big hurry, Chuck noticed. Finally he was in position. "I'm not saying 'beam me up' because I've called a moratorium on all Star Trek references until after Teyla's seen the entire original series."

The gateroom team chuckled.

Teyla gave a wan, slightly pained smile. "Perhaps you can simply explain."

"Oh no, you've got to see them."

"I've seen them," Ronon said. He shrugged. "Don't see what the big deal is."

A line of text scrolled down the Ancient overhead monitor. Hyperdrive activated. Followed by a series of readings.

Chuck read it again as it repeated.

Hyperdrive activated.

"Sir-!" Chuck spun around.

But Doctor McKay had seen it too.

"He doesn't have a hyperdrive! I mean--it doesn't even have all the parts!" McKay dove at the Ancient control board, bringing online systems that Chuck had never seen before, even as McKay yelled into the com, "Daedalus, get him out of there!"

The greenish dot of Sheppard's fighter on the Atlantis monitors turned white, and vanished. Everyone stood stock still, silent, hands frozen over their keyboards, staring up at the monitors.

"He's gone," Chuck said.

~*~*~

A vortex like a storm opened up in front of the fighter. John nosed up sharply to avoid the hyperspace window, swearing. The stars around him smeared into a tube of light and he tumbled end over end.

He lost track of time as he tried to gain control of his craft, but there was little vertical room to work with in hyperspace. Then in a flash of light, he tumbled out of hyperspace. He dove the ship into a wider tumble, turning that into a loop. He couldn't use inertia to slow himself, not with inertial dampeners, but he used the remainder of the motion for a barrel roll which forced him out of the tumble.

He leveled out, thanking the ship for its maneuverability. Light like Saint Elmo's fire crawled across the surface of the fighter. Something was definitely wrong with that hyperdrive. He wondered if he should start looking for a place to set down and took a quick look around.

He was in the outer atmosphere of what looked like an Earth class planet, judging by the blue oceans and continents below. And there were way too many stars. The sky was crowded with them.

The Saint Elmo's fire if anything had increased. Then John checked back the way he'd come.

The hyperspace window was still open and a stream of crackling energy tethered him to the window in a glowing, writhing line.

That... didn't look good.

"You are trespassing," a bland baritone boomed, and not from John's radio. If it weren't impossible he'd say it came from outside the ship, but speech required air.

"...Trespassing..." repeated another, more feminine voice.

The final voice was an unintelligible whisper, either a hissing echo or someone else.

"Uh. Sorry," John said, his eyes flicking around the dome of his ship. He called up star chart after star chart, which displayed in spangles across the HUD but found nothing to tell him where he was. Except in trouble. "Took a wrong turn back at Albuquerque."

Then Madeline told him he was pulling energy out of hyperspace. It was increasing.

"Your ship is designed to destroy us," the baritone continued calmly. "We cannot allow this."

"Destroy us..." the woman's voice said.

The whisper repeated.

"Uh," John said, quickly trying to reset the hyperdrive. He had the engines ready to get out of there, hot. "Not that I know of." The ship insisted it couldn't shut off the hyperdrive. John punched the armrest. "Look, I'm from Atlantis. Can't we talk this over?"

There was no answer, but a wide beam the size of a comet came sweeping around the planet straight for John. He recognized this from Chaya's world. He slammed the engines into full, faster than he'd gone before, and found himself ahead of the beam, just barely outrunning it. He pulled away. Tried evasive maneuvers. Light had to travel in a straight line.

Except this one didn't. It bent and followed John, caught him. Light suffused the ship, the metal itself seeming to glow--and then the body of the craft shattered, leaving John hanging in space. John was never more grateful for the helmet of the Daedalus space suit, even as the cold crept up his arms. He never thought he'd go for a slow death, but people will hang onto life no matter what. He caught a glimpse of the blue world beneath him before everything went dark.

~*~*~

John woke to find himself still floating in orbit above the planet. "Am I dead?" John asked himself. "Oh great. I'm a space ghost. And I don't even have anyone to haunt."

It occurred to him that he sounded an awful lot like Rodney.

Then a beam of light surrounded him, warming his hands until they stung. "Okay, is this the 'go into the light' phase? You know, we can skip the tearful reunion with my dad, I don't think that'll go well, but it would be nice to see my dog, Taffy. And my mom," John added as an afterthought, feeling guilty he'd thought of his dog first.

"You are not dead, Colonel Sheppard," the same baritone voice from before said.

The third voice whispered after him. Dead....

"Ascended?" John ventured.

"That would take more effort on your part," the woman's voice replied. "Please remain calm."

"I'm in orbit and you blew up my ship!" John said, the loss suddenly hitting him. Madeline was gone. He realized that in addition to losing the Ancient fighter, he also had no means to get home.

"We could not allow you to destroy our life's work," the woman's voice said.

We could not... the voice whispered.

"So you're stuck here, like Chaya on her planet," John said, realizing they might have a stargate.

"War, though motivating, is not an ideal circumstance for Ascension," the baritone voice said. "Some choose to remain on the lower planes of Ascension out of fear for their loved ones."

"She chose her punishment. And chose to view it as punishment," the woman's voice said.

Punish....

"We wished to remain to keep the Gateway open to Ascension," the baritone voice added.

"You've been here over ten thousand years...." John said, wondering if a Gateway was anything like a stargate. Either way, he had to figure where it was, how to get to one, and get home.

"Is that how it appears in your reckoning?" the woman's voice said. "As if time has passed?"

The third voice whispered.

John felt his hair brushed by wind. He'd begun moving across the thin band of the sky. At first it seemed like he was moving straight ahead, but he noticed (pilots became attuned to declination since it meant their lives) that he was in a gradually declining orbit.

"How can I breathe?" John asked, his mind returning to more practical matters. "And where are we going?"

The stars above him were brilliant, like Christmas ornaments, packed close together. Maybe the solar system was in a globular cluster. That would help Rodney narrow things down if he could get a message to him.

"You are not breathing," the baritone voice answered. "And you're going to your new home."

Home... the whispering voice said.

~*~*~

John struggled to escape the grip of his captors but while he could turn himself over, he couldn't control any more than that. It probably was just as well, given he didn't usually know how to fly without a plane. The voices did not return.

The slow descent to the planet took hours. John flew over the snowcaps of mountain ranges and dipped as he crossed valleys. At one point he floated right into a thunderstorm and watched the turmoil of black clouds the way he would from a passenger plane. The flash of lightning lit the sky and left him blinded momentarily. He didn't get wet.

He didn't what the voice (he called him Mr. Ed) had been talking about. He was breathing just fine.

Finally he was low enough to discern settlements on the land below him. Lighted settlements. He made out a well-lit soaring bridge over a crevasse, and then a city clustered on its other side, Atlantis-style spires rising into the sky. It looked like a pile of glistening gems as he approached and John readied himself mentally for a landing.

But he kept going.

A linear tracing of light followed an overland bridge. It reminded him of the bridges connecting the islands in Key West. Apparently the Ancients didn't build on the ground but left the natural environment alone. They rested their infrastructure on above it, untouched and untouchable. The green landscape below leveled out into a plain, and the air felt heavier, which made John think they might be coming closer to sea level.

A few smaller spire clusters appeared off of branching bridges from the main drag. And then he saw it. He'd been paying too much attention to the ground and not looking ahead.

The curve of the ocean had appeared on the horizon. As far as his eye could see, like a vast port, were cities just like Atlantis. One after another. Hundreds of them, linked together irregularly with delicate bridges.

"Here are the remaining cities of the Ancients," the woman's voice returned. "This world was the original center of learning about Ascension. When times grew dark, we flew our ships across the galaxy and gathered here to learn to Ascend."

Ancients... the whispering voice said.

The archeologists in Atlantis, up to and especially Doctor Jackson, had openly wondered why there were so few Ancient ruins in the Pegasus galaxy. The stargate network had obviously been built to link together Ancient settlements. John had their answer.

"I thought you guys did farm work and meditated," John said, dumbfounded.

"One Ascension facility was left for the people of Pegasus, our cousins. We designed it to include every comfort--as they thought of comfort," the baritone voice said.

"If the anti-Ascensionist plot had not been exposed in time, there would have been hundreds of our most advanced fighters programmed to come here," he continued. "Though it seems one fighter escaped destruction."

"Ironically," the woman's voice said, "It was the exposure of just such a plot, that would kill thousands of our own people on this world, that revealed the anti-Ascensionists for what they were. They themselves convinced entire cities that Ascension, not aggression, was the way."

Ascend ... the whisper said.

John's angle of declination increased. He seemed to be headed towards the nearest of the cities.

"You shall remain here until you yourself Ascend," the woman's voice continued. "It has been long since anyone has had use of our facilities. Every method for Ascension will be at your disposal."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," John said. "I've tried the whole Ascension lifestyle and while I've got nothing against it, it's not for me."

"In time you will change your mind," the woman's voice said.

Time...

"Isn't that, like, inhumane? Oh, right, you're Ancients. You don't care about people," John answered his own question. He was floating closer and closer to the cities, so much like his home, but without everything that made it home, his friends, his coworkers.

Rodney...

The bridges could be easily made out now. There was not a soul on them. No traffic. No people.

John turned desperate.

"How can you offer all this to just one person?" he said, looking away from the cities, searching the sky for the source of the voices. "I mean, wasn't the whole plan to keep the Gateway to Ascension open? For who, exactly?"

He stopped moving forward, hovering in midair above the plain.

"Don't you want people to Ascend?" John pressed them. "I have access to over a billion people who've never even heard of Ascension." He prayed that the Ancients were as evangelical as every other religious movement he'd ever met.

"You have access to the Pegasus facility in the time dilation field," the woman's voice said. "None of your people have remained."

"His suggestion has merit," the baritone voice said.

"He only wishes to return home," the woman's voice said, her tone sad.

"Yes, his motives run counter to Ascension. But the request is a good one regardless," the baritone voice said. "There is much here. These facilities are more advanced than anything you have encountered elsewhere."

"You're sweetening the pot," John realized.
"Make the offer to your people," the baritone voice replied.

Make the offer... the whisper said.

~*~*~

Ronon found John on the pier, the one where they had first dropped Madeline.

From a distance John had looked like a bundle of dropped cloth. He lay curled on his side, arms loose and limp. His helmet protected his face from the rain, and there was the faint mist of his breath on the faceplate. His flight suit was soaked.

"Medic!" Ronon shouted into his radio, lifting John partway off the hard metal surface.

~*~*~

John sat up in his bed in sickbay, beaming and as happy as a clam. He finished off a second pudding cup, licking the spoon clean. The third was still on his tray.

Rodney had brought them. John felt smug.

Normally John preferred more privacy than sickbay, but at the moment he wanted nothing more than a warm bed, good food, and lots and lots of familiar faces. And heat. John snuggled under the blankets, deciding to savor the last pudding cup later.

Rodney had also brought John his own hypoallergenic down comforter. Well, after first making half the medical staff swear they would not spill corrosive chemicals or stick it with needles. If Rodney brought his wii, John might just have to propose.

The busy sickbay with its constant movement of nurses and people and central location, which meant almost everyone passed it once a day, was ideal. The only way it could be better was if it were in the gateroom. But John was confined to bed rest and fluids for at least another day.

Jennifer Keller came by to check his vitals. She swept the curtains closed behind her.

"I just have a cold," John said, more for form's sake than any real effort to leave. He picked up his Gatorade and sipped it through a straw. Straws were something else that the Ancients didn't have.

"You were dehydrated and could have caught pneumonia," Keller said. She plucked the Gatorade out of his hand and shook a thermometer with her other hand. "With all that power they could have dropped you anywhere. What were they thinking?"

"Yeah, I haven't met an Ancient yet who could be called a 'people person'," John agreed, just before she stuck the thermometer under his tongue.

~*~*~

A week after his return, John was at his desk finishing up some paperwork. His office was tiny and dark for Atlantis, crowded with just the desk and two chairs. Intentionally so: John meant to spend as little time as possible here. The only light came from the screen of his laptop and the frosted window above his head, faintly gray, without offering even a view.

Life was back to normal, although Rodney described him as "clingy," so perhaps he wasn't entirely together yet. The abandonment issues in the Ascension village with thirty people and a girlfriend to keep him company had been bad enough. John shuddered to imagine life on a planet with a hundred empty Atlantises. Ascension, hell. He'd have found a gun.

Someone knocked at the door.

"Come in," John said, not looking up from his email.

The door hit his desk as Mr. Woolsey attempted to open it all the way.

"Sorry. It only opens partway," John explained as he stood to help, shoving the desk back a little more.

Woolsey edged through sideways, looking around. "Now you're making me feel guilty about the size of my office."

"Don't." John winced and brushed at a layer of dust on the desk. "I'm never here. I usually work in my room."

"Ah, yes. Far more comfortable." Woolsey settled himself in the chair in the corner a few feet across from John. "So, I read your report. That's your final decision?"

"Not to include the ship's nickname? Well. I went back and forth about it. Madeline deserves her moment in history but I get teased enough by O'Neill as it is. The SGC doesn't need to know every detail," John said.

Woolsey smiled, tipping his head with rueful patience. "I meant about the Ancients' offer."

"Oh, that." John had known what he meant of course. He had typed his mission report that morning and Woolsey had to sign off on it. John had written:

"The Wraith dominate this galaxy because the Ancients gave up their posts. It's not just that so many Ascended. It's that their best minds, their best scientists, their best everything abandoned us. And I've noticed that it's always been the people like Elizabeth Weir or Doctor Jackson--people we desperately need--who've shown the most interest in Ascension. The Ancient, Dolbraith, was a terrorist who didn't care who he killed--namely me. But fundamentally, when it comes to Ascension, I agree with him. Granted, I'm a career soldier so maybe I'm bound to think that way. I can admit that."

John leaned back in his chair, slouching, one arm loosely folded across his chest, a hand hooked over his bicep. His other hand twirled a pen unconsciously.

He pursed his lips and shook his head. "One of the best things about not being in charge is that I don't have to make that decision. I don't have the right." He bobbed his head. "I'm passing it along to my superiors at the IOA like any good soldier. With my recommendations."

"The implications are so vast, it's staggering," Woolsey said, leaning forward in his chair. "The technology alone... yet even if we could do it in a way that didn't reveal the stargate program, introducing an entirely new religious movement to a world that already has so many competing religions-? " He shook his head in disbelief. "It'll die in committee."

John set down his pen with a soft click. He smiled. "That's what I'm counting on."