Aaron Rosenberg: Hunt and run

“We’re still getting the distress beacon,” Ronon commented, “but they may be unable to respond further.”

“I’d say so,” Rodney told him, “seeing as how responding would require power and they haven’t got any!”

“If it’s powered down — ” Teyla began, but Sheppard had jumped to the same worry himself.

“ — then they’ve got no life-support,” he finished for her. He kicked their speed up a notch, and began the arc of the turn. “I’m bringing us in fast as I can — every second could count here!”

The others began suiting up while he piloted. Their MOPP gear wasn’t actually a spacesuit and wouldn’t last long in a total vacuum, but they would serve to get from the Jumper to the injured ship. Once inside, they’d keep out any airborne contaminants and could regulate body temperature. Each suit also had a small air canister and could recycle that for ten to twenty minutes if there wasn’t any other air present. Hopefully that would be enough. They did have one actual spacesuit on the Jumper, but Sheppard didn’t want to use that unless it was absolutely necessary. “I see no signs of damage,” Ronon pointed out once he had his protective suit in place. He was leaning on the back of Sheppard’s chair, peering over him out the front, but Sheppard had neither the time nor the energy to care. Besides Ronon knew better than to get in his way while he was flying. And he was right, anyway — the distressed ship looked structurally intact. No blast holes, no missing pieces, not even any major dents. Hell, it was in better shape than their Jumper!

“So if it’s not hurt,” Rodney asked, “why is it just floating here?”

“There could be any number of reasons,” Teyla reminded him. “The most likely is some form of internal power failure.”

“Or poison gas,” Ronon added darkly.

That earned him a glare from Rodney. “Oh, great! You just had to say that, didn’t you? What if our gas masks aren’t enough to deal with something like that? What if it’s acidic and eats right through our suits? Huh? What then?”

Ronon shrugged. “Then we die.”

“That’s your answer? Just like that?”

Sheppard could feel Ronon shrug again through the chair. “Hopefully,” he agreed. “It could be long and drawn-out and painful instead.”

“If you’re so eager to check,” Rodney managed after a moment of stunned silence, “maybe you should just go in by yourself!”

“We’re all going in,” Sheppard told him sharply. He spun the Jumper lightly on its axis, and eased the engines off just as their roof nudged up against the side of their target. The impact wasn’t even rough enough to count as a scrape. Damn, he was good! “The MOPP suits can handle it,” he assured Rodney as he stood and accepted his gear from Teyla. “And if the suit scanners do pick up anything beyond their rating we’ll back off at once and quarantine the entire ship, okay?”

“Fat lot of good that’ll do us after we’ve already been exposed,” Rodney muttered, but he fell into line a minute later as Sheppard led them through the bulkhead door into the cargo hold, and then to the Jumper’s ceiling access hatch.

“All set?” Sheppard asked everyone. He got two nods and a grumble he took to mean yes. “Then here we go.” He reached up and punched the release switch, and the hatch hissed open. The shuttle’s door was right beside them, inches away, and he simply grabbed the handhold beside their hatch and pulled himself up so he could hit the door’s access panel. It slid open — good thing it didn’t open outward! — with a faint hiss. Beyond it he could make out only darkness.

“Hello? Anybody home?” Sheppard hauled himself through both doors, taking a second to let his body reorient so the shuttle floor was ‘down.’ “Avon calling!”

“If we die,” Rodney warned as they clambered one after the other into the distressed ship, “I’m blaming you!”

“Fair enough.” Sheppard stepped to the side once he was through, allowing the others in, then closed the door behind them. No sense letting any possible contagions onto the Jumper if they could avoid it. Rodney was a coward and a complainer, but he wasn’t stupid and he did occasionally have some valid concerns. “Okay, let’s have a look around.”

They split up, though in a ship this size that didn’t mean much — even when he had reached the far hull Sheppard could turn around and see the others’ faces within their helmets. The Jumper had room for a crew of four and perhaps another six to eight passengers. This ship would be lucky to fit eight total. Especially since it didn’t have any seats in the back section.

“Light cargo,” Ronon guessed, completing a sweep of the interior. “Only the two seats up front, pilot and copilot, and the rest is cargo space.”

“And no sign of anyone,” Teyla added. “No bodies, no remains, nothing.”

“I’m not seeing any interior damage, either,” Rodney pointed out, sweeping a handlight along the walls and particularly over the panels. “I’d have to crack everything open to be sure, but at least on the surface there’s nothing to indicate why this thing isn’t zipping along somewhere.”

“Distress beacon was activated,” Sheppard reminded them, gesturing toward the front console, where a small light blinked on and off. “Somebody hit it. And this thing is dead in space, so something happened. We just need to figure out what.” Something about all this was bugging him, though. He just couldn’t put his finger on it right away.

Rodney didn’t have any such problem. “There’s nobody here,” he declared suddenly.

“I think we got that,” Teyla told him.

“No, listen,” the scientist insisted. “There’s nobody here. So where did those life-signs come from?”

It was Ronon who answered — sort of. “We need to leave,” he announced. “Now!”

“What? Why?” Sheppard turned but the Satedan was already striding back toward the shuttle door. “Hey, hold up, big guy! What’s going on?”

“We need to get off this ship at once,” Ronon insisted. “And touch nothing!” That last comment was directed sharply at Rodney, who had been in the act of reaching for an instrument panel near the front console.

“But if I can get in here — ” Rodney started to protest.

“Leave it!” Ronon repeated. “Or viruses will be the least of your worries!”

That shut Rodney up and got him moving in a hurry. By the time he reached the rest of them Ronon had the door open. He ushered them all through before leaping back into the Jumper himself. Then he pulled the shuttle door shut again, but he didn’t shut the Jumper’s ceiling hatch.

“We need to push off,” he said instead. He gestured toward one of the collection nets that hung from a rack above one of the rear seats. “Sheppard, give me a hand.”

Sheppard knew better than to argue — Ronon never did anything without a darn good reason, and most of the time that reason was their immediate survival. The Satedan had survived seven years as a Runner, after all — and if being chased nonstop by the entire Wraith empire didn’t teach you to recognize danger signs, Sheppard wasn’t sure what could!

He handed Ronon the net and watched as the Satedan reversed it and used the butt of its handle to shove off against the shuttle’s hull. He could see Ronon’s muscles straining, and after a second the constant pressure nudged the two ships apart. Once they were separated the Jumper’s own slight momentum carried it further, and the impact against the empty ship forced it to drift in the opposite direction, widening the gap.

“Be ready to engage the ship’s drive,” Ronon warned as he finally pulled the ceiling hatch closed and air began to filter into the cargo hold again. Their MOPP gear had held — barely. “But don’t activate it until we’ve gained more distance.”