Jo Graham: Homecoming

“It is the hyperspace corridor,” Zelenka said. “Why are you doing this!”

“The power usage is increasing exponentially,” Kusanagi called. “It’s pulling from all available systems.”

Zelenka cupped the mouthpiece of the headset. “Carson, shut it down! Bring us out of hyperspace now!”

“We’re not…”

“Bring us out now!” Zelenka shouted. “I do not have time to argue with you!”

The city shook. No, shuddered was more the word. Salawi had felt something like this before, in an earthquake, the terrifying bone-deep movement at the core. The lights flickered and died, the screens of the laptops blanking though the Ancient displays were steady. The city heaved, throwing her to one knee beside the board, lukewarm coffee splashing over her hands.

Outside, the blue of hyperspace faded, blue to black, the pinprick lights of a million wheeling stars.

“Jesus Christ,” Beckett said over the radio. “What the bloody hell was that?”

Zelenka held on to the edge of the board and shoved his glasses back up his nose with one finger. “We are spinning. Carson, can you level us out?”

“Not without the lateral thrusters!” Beckett said indignantly. “I’ve got no power to any propulsion systems. Get me some power and I’ll see what I can do.”

Zelenka’s hands skimmed the board. “I am doing. I am doing.”

Colonel Sheppard came charging up the steps from the lower doors, in uniform pants over a faded t shirt that proclaimed him a patron of Johnson’s Garage, his hair askew. “What happened?” he demanded.

“We have a problem in the hyperdrive induction array,” Zelenka said, not even looking up from his screen. “It started pulling power from other systems. Kusanagi rerouted priority emergency power to the shield so we did not lose that. I had Carson drop us out of hyperspace.”

“Where are we?” Sheppard asked.

“That is the least of our troubles at the moment.” Zelenka spared him a sideways glance, and Sheppard swallowed.

Dr. McKay bounded up the stairs two at a time in what appeared to be flannel pyjama pants with a uniform jacket over them. “What did you do?”

“The number four induction array went crazy,” Zelenka said. “Carson’s little wobble, remember?” He looked at McKay over the top of his glasses. “As much as I can tell, it started opening a wider and wider hyperspace corridor, and drawing sufficient power to do so from all available systems.”

“Did you…” McKay began.

“I had Carson drop us out of hyperspace. All the propulsion systems are offline.”

Salawi moved out of the way so that McKay could crowd into the board. “Did you…”

“Yes, of course I did.”

“Would somebody like to tell me what that means?” Sheppard asked, scrubbing his hand over his unshaven chin.

McKay shoved Zelenka over, his hands on the Ancient keys.

Zelenka looked round at Sheppard. “When a ship opens a hyperspace window, the window occupies real space. It has a location and a size. The larger the ship, the larger the window it needs to open. This is intuitive, yes? The Daedalus does not require as large a window as a hive ship, nor a hive ship as this city. And the size of the window determines the power requirements. A big window requires exponentially more power than a small window. Daedalus could not open a window for Atlantis. She would not have enough power to do so.” He spread his hands. “It looks like the induction array malfunctioned and began expanding our hyperspace window as though the city were much larger than it is. To do so, it pulled power out of all other major systems to sustain an enormous hyperspace envelope.”

“That’s not the only thing it pulled power out of,” McKay said grimly. “The ZPMs are at 20 per cent. It’s eaten our power.”

Teyla Emmagan folded her hands on the conference table in front of her, tilting her head toward Rodney as he spoke.

“We’ve restored power to all vital systems, but that’s not going to do it for us. The shield draws massive amounts of power, and it’s not optional. So rather than have the kind of involuntary rolling shutdown we had before, we’re shutting down systems manually.”

“Water filtration, for example,” Radek said from the other end of Woolsey’s conference table. “We have ten days supply already clean. We can resume filtration when it’s necessary.”

“And of course power to unoccupied parts of the city,” Rodney said. “But I cannot stress enough that this is not going to help much.”

“So we’re all going to die.” John leaned back in his chair. “What’s the bad news?”

“No,” Rodney said shortly. “We are not all going to die. At least I hope not.”

At the head of the table, Richard Woolsey looked as though his head were hurting. “Is there enough power for the hyperdrive?”

“Yes,” Rodney said.

“No,” Radek said.

They exchanged a glance. “There is technically enough power,” Rodney said. “But it doesn’t matter. The overload has destroyed the induction array command crystal, one of those beautiful Ancient parts that we have no idea how to make. We’ve learned how to repattern some of the less complex crystals, the ordinary ones used in many systems, but the command crystal for the hyperdrive is much more complicated. We would need to pull it and replace it, and as we have no idea how to synthesize even an ordinary one…”

“The answer is no,” Radek said.

“I was coming to that,” Rodney said.

Teyla thought Woolsey looked as though he wished to kill them both. It seemed like time to sum up. “So the hyperdrive is inoperable, and will be for the forseeable future?”

Rodney pointed a forefinger at her and gave her a smile. “Got it in one.”

“No rolling shutdowns?” John asked, letting his chair spring forward again and resting his elbows on the table. Teyla remembered all too clearly the last time Atlantis had been lost in space, power depleted by the Replicator weapon that had nearly killed Elizabeth Weir. She was quite certain that he remembered far too clearly as well.

“Not at this point,” Radek assured him.

“So where are we?” Woolsey asked, a question directed to John rather than the scientists. Atlantis’ command chair gave a far clearer picture of their navigational situation than any other.

“Just inside the Pegasus Galaxy,” John said, tilting his head to the side. “A couple of hours earlier and we’d be in real trouble. As it is, there are three systems in reasonable sublight range, none of them with Stargates and only one of them in Atlantis’ database. It’s a binary system.”

“No inhabitable planets,” Rodney said. “They’re all too close to one or another primary.”

Woolsey twitched. “And the other two?”

“We are analyzing data now,” Radek said. “The odds are reasonable that one of them will have a suitable planet.”

“And if they don’t?” Woolsey asked.

Rodney’s face was eloquent. “They’d better. We can’t get anywhere else. May I stress that we are right on the fringe of the Pegasus Galaxy? The stars are not exactly thick out here.”

“If they do have an inhabitable planet, why did the Ancients not build a Stargate there?” Teyla asked.

“Perhaps they did and it was lost,” Radek said.

“And the Daedalus is thirteen days out,” John said. “Minimum.”

“We can last that long,” Rodney said. “Assuming we can communicate our position.”

“Then let’s get to it,” Woolsey said, rising to his feet.

Teyla lagged behind, falling into step with him as the conference room emptied. “We were in far worse condition last time,” she said reassuringly.