Trishen was working on her terminal while Rodney and Radek pointed at different laptop and tablet screens and argued. Ronon stood with one hand not-so-casually on his energy gun. "Everything okay?" John asked.
Ronon shrugged one shoulder. "So far."
Rodney and Radek had to go back and forth into the shuttle a few times, to take special readings or copy over something else from her stored data. John made sure they were never alone with Trishen, while Teyla and Ronon kept an eye on their perimeter. The active cloaks on the ships made things a little awkward, since neither the shuttle nor the jumper were visible unless you were standing in them, and people occasionally got lost moving from one ship to the other and had to be directed back on course.
Then Miko's voice came over their headsets, shouting, "There are Wraith! There are two darts! I mean, incoming!„
"Everybody inside." John turned, scanning the sky. There was nothing visible yet, but the HUD would have picked them up long before they were in visible range.
"Me too?" Trishen asked uncertainly, standing up and clutching her terminal. Zelenka had already shifted his equipment away from the hatch, further back into the rear cabin. Rodney was standing, his eyes on the handheld life signs detector.
They couldn't chance sending Trishen across the open area to the shuttle. "Yeah, you too," John said, trying not to sound too grudging about it.
Trishen edged up the ramp a little, still staying as far away from them as possible.
Miko came out of the cockpit, stepping up beside John, uneasily peering up at the sky. "They should be-Yes, right there."
She pointed and John made out the shape of the darts, nearly lost against the colors of the gas giant. Ronon stepped past Miko, stationing himself between her and the hatch opening; he was watching Trishen rather than the darts.
After an endless moment, John could tell the darts' course was taking them off to the west. He said, "Rodney?"
Rodney shook his head, his eyes on the life signs detector. "There's nothing on the ground." He looked up, squinting to follow the dart's progress. "They didn't beam down."
He and John exchanged a look of weary relief. Yeah, John had had more than enough Wraith for today, too. The darts zigzagged back and forth a few times, then finally turned, heading east. Considering it, John said, "Funny how with this whole moon to search, they're pay ing so much attention to these mountains."
Rodney's brow furrowed suspiciously as he glanced up at the retreating darts. "I'll check again for signal leakage, but if they knew where we were, they'd attack."
Trishen looked at them, at Zelenka clutching his laptop and nervously studying the sky, at Miko still squeezed in between John and Ronon, at Rodney intently watching the life signs detector. Trishen asked, "This is how you live?"
John just looked at her, having no idea what to say to that. They were so much safer, so much better off, than most of the other human inhabitants of Pegasus, that the question was impossible to answer. Ronon looked away, his face set in a sardonic grimace. Teyla said, coldly, "Yes. But we have weapons, and the Ancestors' cloaking devices. Others do not." Canting her head thoughtfully, she added, "They have come this way because they sense your presence, have they not?"
Trishen hesitated, and John swore under his breath. He had had the feeling there was another shoe about to drop, but he had hoped to put it off for a while longer. Trishen made a frustrated gesture, saying, "I didn't think they would be able to. Their minds are so ... different. But they only have a vague awareness of my existence. Obviously they can't pinpoint my location."
"What?" Rodney stared at her. "Hello, were you not standing right there when I explained the plan to make it look like we were all dead, so the Wraith would stop looking for us?"
Ronon grunted in a way that clearly meant I told you so.
John ignored both of them, pointing out to Trishen, "You could have mentioned this earlier."
"I didn't know," she insisted. "I've kept myself closed off from their minds, I thought that would be enough." John's expression must have conveyed what he thought of that excuse. Sounding urgent, she added, "But you can use it to your advantage. I can distract them away from you.
Rodney clapped a hand over his eyes in exasperation. John just said, "I hope you're right about that."
The work was interrupted twice more by searching darts, but Trishen was right in that they didn't seem able to pinpoint her. And the base moon hadn't responded to John's transmission yet, giving him something else to worry about. He knew it was all too possible for the Wraith to have followed the signal traces the Mirror was sending to the monitoring station in the ruined city. Lorne would've gotten them out of there, he told himself. Lorne better have gotten them out of there.
Rodney finally said, "All right, we've got it." He motioned everyone to gather around the ramp, and turned the laptop, which was displaying a partial schematic of the top half of the installation. "As I suspected all along, the key is in the pulse generator that stabilizes the Mirror's accretion surface. Since it was first constructed, factors that affected the required degree of stabilization have changed. Now these factors could be anything from the decreasing levels of oxygen in the atmosphere, changes in the ozone layer caused by the Mirror itself, orbital drift, and so on. There was apparently no compensation mechanism for this because the Mirror was meant to be abandoned-" He glared at John, who was making "get on with it" gestures. "Fine. The instability has kept the Mirror active since Trishen's ship came through, and it's still connected to the correct destination; we just have to make that connection stable enough for transport by adjusting the pulse. We've done the calculations, but the corrections are going to have to be made directly to the consoles that control the array."
"Okay." John thought it sounded deceptively easy. "Do we have a clue where that is?"
"Yes, yes, I'm getting to it." Rodney hit a few keys to change the schematic, bringing up another section. "From the exploration that Trishen managed to do before we arrived, we suspect it's here, on the roof, above the section of the installation where the environmental and security system controls are located." He indicated a highlighted spot on the roof, not too far from the observation area they had found when they had first managed to get into the building.
"You suspect?" Teyla said, before John could. "What if you are wrong?"
Rodney gave them all a sour grimace. "I'm not wrong. According to everything we've discovered about this place so far, and the exploration Trishen did before we arrived, the controls we need have to be in this section."
Zelenka shifted forward. "The good news is, once the shuttle has passed through the Mirror-which should take only seconds-we can shut the entire pulse generator down from that location. It's much more effective method of destabilizing the Mirror than just destroying a section of the array itself, as we originally planned. Instead of dramatic discharge, the singularity is likely to just collapse inward and disappear." He shrugged. "And we will probably not be killed."
"And the Wraith can't find these controls and turn it back on?" John said, wanting to be absolutely certain.
Rodney signed in annoyance and folded his arms. "That would be a yes, since it's the entire point of this insane exercise.
"It would do no good to turn it back on." Zelenka made motions indicating something big getting suddenly very small, and then waved his hands rapidly. "Some of the physical structure of the Mirror may remain, but the quantum components will no longer exist in this reality."
"Thank you, Dr. Zelenka, that was the answer I was hoping for." John smiled engagingly at Rodney. "I assume you've got some way for us to land on the roof without triggering another discharge from the Mirror?"
Rodney appeared to take a lot of pleasure in saying, "For once, you assume correctly. Trishen's shuttle emits a field which keeps it from disrupting the pulse array, and we're going to temporarily adjust the jumper's cloak signatures to mimic that field. That should allow us to fly above the Mirror platform and land on th
e roof without triggering another discharge."
"Which would cause us to crash and die," Zelenka added helpfully.
Rodney checked his watch. "We'll have to time our arrival for the moment that the Wraith scout ship's orbit takes it out of scanning range. It'll be out of range for only forty-five minutes, so we'll need to move quickly. Not that the scout ship wasn't out of range the last time we tried the roof, but it gives us a slight advantage." With a wince, he added, "Very slight."
"This is where I can help," Trishen said, sitting forward. "I can draw the darts away from the area with my shuttle."
Rodney eyed her, as if reluctant to let her participate. Not too far away. Even once we enter the corrections, the Mirror won't be stable for long. We'll need you to be ready to go through as soon as we make the adjustments." He looked at John impatiently. "Well?"
John nodded. It sounded like a plan. It also sounded like their only option. "Let's do it."
"Looks pretty quiet," John said, studying the jumper's screens as he guided it in a smooth arc above the installation's roof. The adjustments Zelenka had made to the jumper's cloak must be working; the Mirror hadn't made so much as a grumble. "Good job, Radek."
"Thank you, Colonel," Zelenka said from the right hand jump seat. "It's nice not to crash." Rodney was in the co-pilot's seat, comparing a tablet to the energy signatures the jumper was displaying on the HUD. Teyla was sitting behind John, with Kusanagi and Ronon watching from the rear cabin. Trishen's shuttle should be paralleling their course, though it was invisible to both instruments and visual contact. Relying on Trishen not to crash into him wasn't exactly John's favorite part of this trip.
"I do not see any Wraith on the platform," Teyla said from behind him.
"Yeah, they're probably inside." The life signs screen wasn't showing any Wraith in the open at all; they were probably busy ransacking the building, looking for more intel on the Mirror. Most of the darts were out of the immediate area, searching the mountains and the surrounding area. "Rodney?"
"Will you slow down? Hold it-" Rodney sat forward, pointing out the viewport. "Here we go. Right there."
John slowed, bringing the jumper in a little lower. Rodney was pointing at a small dome on top of the roof, not far from the trench that bordered the curved housing of the pulse array. It was the same dark stone as the rest of the building, and from the air it looked like one of the round elevator-access kiosks. The HUD popped up a terrain sensor screen, comparing this dome to the other structures on the roof, and John could see it was somewhat larger. He hit the comm channel. "Jumper One to Trishen. We're about to set down. If you can proceed to the south side of the complex and circle around, we'd appreciate that."
"Yes, yes, I'll do that," she replied. She sounded a little nervous. It caused John to recalculate all the ways she might possibly be planning to screw them over; except he couldn't think of that many ways. If she really didn't want to feed on them, then the only thing they had that she wanted was her way home, and they were giving her that.
John put the jumper down gently near the dome as the others were adjusting their SCBAs, getting their masks on, and grabbing their equipment. They lowered the ramp and John went out first with Ronon and Teyla. The stirred dust settled slowly in the thin air, and he could see the dome had a triangular doorway, sheltered by a low porch roof extending out from the structure. "We're clear. Teyla, you're with Miko and the jumper. Ronon, find a good vantage point and keep an eye out for company."
Teyla nodded, telling them, "Good luck." Ronon jogged off toward one of the platforms that offered a good view of this section of the roof.
John went to the dome with Rodney and Zelenka. The door slid open to reveal a round chamber with a circular bank of consoles on stone pedestals in the center. It wasn't pressurized, though it had the round silver vents in the walls. But the lights that were set into the dark blue ceiling and along the top of the pillars glowed gently as they stepped inside. "Well, this makes sense," Rodney said, acidly thoughtful. "Recognize it?"
"No. Should I?" John circled warily around the room, P-90 aimed, making certain there weren't any lurking surprises.
"It's laid out like the inexplicable chamber of tantalizing energy signatures back in the ruin on the Stargate moon." Rodney frowned as he selected a console, hitting a couple of touchpads. A holographic display blinked into life above it.
"Oh, good," Zelenka said wearily, sitting down on the floor and opening his laptop. "Because we had such good luck with that room."
"Great," John said, and went out to watch the jumper, the life signs detector, and the sky.
Then things started to go wrong.
First the Mirror started to rumble again, a long low sustained groan, as if mammoth granite blocks were grinding against each other under the installation. Vibrations traveled through the roof, just strong enough for John to feel through the soles of his boots. He ducked into the control room to see Rodney frantically checking his tablet. "It's not building up for a discharge," Rodney said, before John could ask. "Signatures are still normal, pulse generator is erratic but working. We should be fine," he finished briskly, lifting his chin.
John pointed back over his shoulder. "Okay, because it sounds really-"
Rodney glared. "I know! Believe me, I know! But it's fine!"
John went out to the observation porch again. The pulse array at the roof's edge blocked the view from here. He keyed his radio and said, "Ronon, this is Sheppard. Can you see the Mirror from your position?"
Ronon's answer came a moment later. "Yes."
John thought, note to self.- teach Ronon to use proper radio protocol. "Is it doing anything?"
"Like what?"
John saw Teyla suddenly appear out of nowhere as she stepped out of the cloaked jumper, her expression caught between annoyance and amusement. John said, "Oh, glowing, turning colors, transporting an armada of alien spaceships into the galaxy-"
Ronon sounded thoughtful. "No, it looks the same."
"Thank you, Ronon. Sheppard out."
Teyla shook her head and turned back to the jumper, disappearing as she stepped onto the ramp.
John waited, and paced. The low rumble from the Mirror didn't seem to increase, as far as he could tell. Then Teyla reported via headset, "Colonel, Miko says the screens show that the darts are returning." Her voice was tight with tension. "They are all moving to the south, toward the shuttle."
John grimaced. "Trishen, you copy that?"
"Yes." Her voice in his headset sounded human, young, and very tense. "What should I do?"
Teyla stepped out of the jumper again, her eyes worried. John made his voice even, telling Trishen, "You want to widen your flight path and vary your pattern. They couldn't pinpoint you in the mountains, so they can't do it here. Just stay out of their way."
"Oh yes, I see." She sounded a little calmer.
"Okay. Just call if you have any problems." John exchanged a look with Teyla, who shook her head and winced. Trishen had suggested this part of the plan herself, and he had just assumed she could handle it. Yeah, there's one of those assumptions again. And they couldn't even see the damn shuttle on the jumper's sensors and follow her progress.
They had been here half an hour already for what Rodney had described as a five minute job, darts were circling the plain to the south and the Mirror was keeping up its steady grumbling threat. John stepped back into the doorway of the lab. "Rodney-"
"Busy!" Rodney snarled. He was standing at the center console, hitting touchpads and glaring at the results. Radek was still on the floor with the laptop and the tablet, apparently comparing one screen to the other while making little abortive gestures suggesting it was an effort not to tear his hair out.
"Rodney, this is going to be tight. I need an ETA," John persisted.
"I don't know," Rodney said through gritted teeth.
And everything's been going so well up to now, John thought. "What's wrong? I thought you had this all worked out."
&nbs
p; "So did I." Rodney pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. He looked frustrated and desperate. "It should work, but it won't. The system isn't accepting our corrections."
"What does that mean?" John demanded.
"It means our corrections are so far from being right that the system is refusing to implement them because it would cause the entire installation to disappear in a massive naquadah explosion!" Rodney rubbed his face, then slammed his hands down on the console. "That's what it means.
"Figures cannot be right!" Zelenka shook his head furiously, hair flying. "There must be an error in our calculations, somewhere-"
Miko's voice in the headset said impatiently, "I've just run it again, Dr. Zelenka, it isn't-"
"We've run it over and over again, it's not an error, we don't have time for this!" Rodney snapped. He knotted his fists, as if it was an effort not to punch the console. "We're missing something."
"Right, right. We took account of orbital drift-" Zelenka began to tick the various points off on his fingers. "-of increased ionization in atmosphere, of degradation of singularity field-"
On the other channel, John could hear Miko muttering darkly to herself in Japanese. He stepped back out onto the porch and resisted the urge to beat his head against the wall. In his headset, Ronon's voice rumbled, "Sheppard. What's going on?"
John told him, "Something's wrong with their. ..something. What's your situation?"
"The same. This area's clear."
"Copy that." John was going to have to put a stop to this, they just didn't have the time to make the damn Mirror work. But he found himself reluctant to doom Trishen. She had held up her end of the bargain so far, and if they couldn't send her back to her own reality, he didn't know what the hell they were going to do with her. Even if she didn't need to feed on humans, they couldn't chance the Wraith finding her. It'll have to be Atlantis, he told himself reluctantly. And once she had seen it, they couldn't let her leave. Not unless the SGC had some sort of settlement program for displaced aliens in the Milky Way. And that was only if they could prove she was safe around people. "Ronon, Teyla-"