Exogenesis Read online

The jumper rose, and the force field around the four of them shrank into nothingness. Freezing water rushed in, knocking Radek off his feet. Dimly he could hear Rodney and Sheppard yelling at him, but the cold swept over him, the pressure compacting his suit so that it tightened painfully against every inch of his body, seemingly forcing the air from his lungs. Basic physics assured him that he could not actually be crushed to death at this depth, but the surface was beyond reach, a tantalizing, hopeless distance away. It occurred to him in a brief moment of bizarre detachment that even if he had learned to swim, it would have been of no use.

  Radek had heard that drowning was not an unpleasant way to die. Perhaps that was true, but there had been no mention of the terror one suffered in the final moments as one's lungs burned and the world went dark.

  elenka, everybody, hang tight!" John wrenched Jumper One into the air and redlined its engines, gunning toward the ocean. "I'm inbound to you. Pull your hoods off, stay together and don't panic!" There was no reply, and he told himself firmly that their silence meant absolutely nothing. "Rodney, am I gonna make it?"

  "You should-they've got a little time." That declaration would have been more convincing had Rodney's voice not cracked. "Carson, for the love of God, I know you're in there-"

  "You're wasting your breath." John liked to think of himself as a relatively laid-back guy, but control was kind of an issue for him, and having his body commandeered and taken on a violent rampage not so long ago had knocked him for a psychological loop. When they got Beckett back, he and Elizabeth would have to share a drink with the good doctor. First, though, they had to get him back. "The Doc's not in the driver's seat."

  "Right. I know." Rodney sounded abashed and frustrated all at once. "It's just..."

  "Yeah." Jumper One hit the surface of the water at an angle chosen for speed, not comfort. The impact sent the stasis pod in the rear bay skidding against the bulkhead, but John's level of respect for his dead Ancient passenger had taken a nosedive the moment the guy's companion had hijacked Beckett.

  Elizabeth's voice returned, strained but impressively composed as she addressed the distraught Ancient. "Please, what can we do to help you?"

  "Help?" The Ancient gave a hideous laugh. "Does your arrogance never end? You are nothing without us, and yet you blunder about the universe as if it were your unassailable right."

  "It has never been our intention to use your city for reckless purposes," Elizabeth countered. "We simply want to learn all we can. If Carson's mind is open to you, you must know that. Yes, we've made mistakes, but we truly respect Atlantis and everything it represents. We've defended it as if it was our own, and we will continue to do so "

  There was liquid steel in that last statement. The Ancient seemed to recognize the warning, but was not deterred. The reply was delivered with cold conviction. "That is no longer your choice to make."

  That had an ominous ring to it, but John had other things on his mind just then. Jumper One's HUD located four life signs amid the swirling sediment kicked up from the seafloor. Briefly tuning out the situation with Jumper Three, he performed what could charitably be called a combat landing beside the rest of his team. Two of the men had retained the presence of mind to hang on to the others so that they were clustered together about six feet off the ground-and rising, because the other two hadn't removed their hoods. Despite the compression, air pockets caught inside their suits were giving them buoyancy, something that John really didn't want. He smacked his hand down on the shield activation panel. When the force field sprang into place and pushed the water away, all four of them hit the deck.

  Opening the hatch, John ran out to assess the team's welfare. Mueller got to his knees, ripped off his hood and threw up. Blood trickled from the engineer's ears, but John had been around the block enough to know that busted eardrums were more irritating than debilitating. Alderman and Stackhouse also had bloody ears, but they were already pulling themselves upright, using their first gasps of air to whoop in relieved celebration.

  John headed for the prone scientist. "Radek, buddy, you still kicking?"

  With a shuddering breath, the scientist dragged off his hood and pushed himself up on one elbow. "I am still alive?" he groaned. "Good. Rodney will pay for this."

  John grinned and offered him a hand up. Avengeful Zelenka was a healthy Zelenka. "Atlantis, Jumper One has its cargo secured."

  "That was shit hot, sir!" Alderman expressed his gratitude at the top of his lungs, probably because of the wrecked eardrums. "Search and rescue to the extreme."

  "All part of the service," John called back.

  "What happened with the Doc?" Stackhouse demanded, bringing his hands to his jaw and flexing it experimentally. The brief, intense pain of having his eardrums perforated was probably making itself felt now that the first adrenaline rush had passed. "He just-"

  Shaking his head, John told them, "That's not Beckett right now." He'd forgotten to yell, so the men tapped their ears with a collective wince, but they appeared to get the picture. He quickly checked the pod, which hadn't moved in the buffeting of water, and saw the face of a woman, still beautiful even in death.

  Motioning his charges into the jumper, John began paying attention to the radio traffic again. Elizabeth was still trying to reason with the Ancient, but seemed to be making very little headway. He slung one of Radek's arms across his shoulders and gestured for Mueller to do the same, debating his options as they walked the scientist into the jumper. He was in a good position to follow Jumper Three, and could most likely intercept it faster than anything Atlantis could scramble. On the other hand, he had four colleagues here who were bleeding and slightly oxygen-deprived.

  Once the hatch was secured and Radek dropped gracelessly into a seat, John went forward and brought up the HUD. Jumper Three had breached the surface and looked to be headed for the mainland. Two additional jumpers appeared on the screen as well-where had those come from? "Atlantis, somebody give me a status, please," he requested, blowing through the preflight checklist at top speed.

  "Teyla and Ronon were on their way back and diverted to intercept," Rodney answered, "and Lome just took off with a squad of Marines."

  Good. That made his decision a lot easier. "Okay, I have `em on the HUD. We're going to head for home, and there's no point in bothering with quarantine now, so if you could scrounge up a medical team for these guys and point it toward the jumper bay, we'd appreciate it "

  "Are they okay? How's Radek?"

  Was it his imagination, or did Rodney actually sound worried? John glanced over his shoulder and tried not to smirk. "Answer one: they'll all be fine. Answer two: he's half-deaf and royally pissed off."

  "Uh, good. Nice work. I'll just take a moment and update my will for when he gets out of the infirmary."

  "You do that." John lifted Jumper One off the ocean floor. Over the radio, the Ancient, whose name Elizabeth had learned was Ea, was complaining about the quality of the body she currently inhabited. Then maybe you shouldn't have stolen it, sweetheart. What was it with this galaxy and beings that wanted to play puppets with them?

  "Agh!" The repugnance in Ea's voice was unmistakable. "His hands are shredded and there is blood everywhere."

  John winced. It didn't take any imagination to guess why. The pod had been encrusted with enough shellfish to feed a platoon.

  "Like all humans he is weak, unable even to heal himself," Ea added.

  "Then why don't you heal him? You can do that, can't you?" Elizabeth's voice broke in.

  "Must I also breathe for him? I have little time for such trivialities."

  "And what about the man who needs that body? His name is Carson Beckett. He's a doctor, a healer who has only ever wanted to help people."

  "A human," Ea replied contemptuously. "Like all of you, he is no longer of any consequence." Something that was either a bitter laugh or a whimper followed that belittling remark. "Atlas, my love, it is fitting that your machine will put an end to that which was created so many
years ago."

  John sucked in a sharp breath. Elizabeth must have been getting the same very bad vibes because she said in a low voice, "End to what? Ea, what are you going to do?"

  There was silence for a long moment before Elizabeth pleaded, "Ea, this is your city. It holds unimaginable knowledge-"

  "And you have brought it to ruin by exposing it to the Wraith!" Ea roared.

  "We will not let that happen," Elizabeth insisted.

  "How can you hope to avoid it? Do you truly believe you can succeed where we could not?" A soft, mocking laugh quickly became a sob. "Better that Atlantis be destroyed than become the portal through which the scourge of this galaxy obliterates all life."

  Jumper One breached the surface. John slid his hand over the panel and activated the doors to the jumper bay inside the city. Much as he hated to admit it, Ea's twisted logic wasn't completely off-target. If the Wraith ever found a way of capturing the Atlantis Stargate... He glanced down at the Daedalus, still parked on its usual pier, its scheduled departure delayed for maintenance. Significant maintenance, he reminded himself grimly. The crew had found out the hard way that small material defects could lead to big problems over time. A number of parts needed to be replaced before the engines would be safe and effective for hyperdrive operation, and until then, the ship-and Atlantis-had something in common with the proverbial fish in a barrel.

  "We've gone out of our way to enhance the self-destruct mechanism," Elizabeth continued. "Carson knows that. You must see it in his memories. We defeated the Goa'uld through your technology, but now there is a greater threat. Look inside Carson's mind! Can't you see the Ori?"

  Putting a lid on the various alarming possibilities that were swirling around in John's head, he brought the jumper in to land. A small army of medical personnel was waiting in the bay, Rodney hovering uncomfortably behind them. The chief scientist watched the Marines disembark, and paled when he saw the streaks of dried blood on either side of his colleague's head. "Oh, holy-does he have a head injury? Is it possible to get brain damage from rapid depressurization?"

  "Deep breaths, Rodney," John advised, assisting Radek to a waiting gurney. "It's just his eardrums. They'll heal."

  "And he is right here," Radek grumbled, fixing Rodney with a poisoned glare, though there didn't seem to be any real malice in it.

  "You can hear me?"

  "Earless creatures in neighboring star systems can hear you."

  "Excuse me for demonstrating some concern for a member of my team."

  Rodney's distress was genuine, John could tell, but there was more to it than that. The problem with an ego like Rodney McKay's was that it usually led him to assume a disproportionate share of responsibility in both good times and bad. It wasn't his fault that a mission he'd foisted on Radek had gone to hell in a hand basket, but that probably wouldn't stop Rodney from sending himself on a guilt trip.

  Radek's acerbic response suggested that maybe the Czech sensed the same thing. "You admit my invaluable skill. Also, I am the only person willing to work with you."

  That snapped Rodney back to form in short order. "Oh, now I know there's brain damage."

  "Please excuse me, but I need to throw up now."

  From the expression on Radek's face, he wasn't speaking figuratively. Taking that as a cue, John nudged Rodney. "We'd better get to the control room."

  "Colonel," called Mueller. John turned back and went over to where the German was being treated. "Dr. Beckett ... after the Ancient took him over, he-ah, she pulled something off the stasis pod and took it in the jumper with her."

  "The cylinder-looking thing? The sergeants said something about it" John had dismissed it earlier, but he realized now that it might have been their introduction to the machine Ea had men tioned. "Try to remember as many details as you can about it. I think we're going to need them."

  He followed Rodney down to the control room, where Elizabeth greeted them with a look of helplessness. "I can't get through to Ea," she said. "I've told her how many people she's threatening, I've promised her everything under the sun, but she's determined that Atlantis has to be destroyed."

  "Except she's heading for the mainland, not the city," Rodney pointed out. "She must know of something there that has the capacity to wipe us out."

  "Unless it's something she took with her," John said, Mueller's description fresh in his mind. "Like the cylinder."

  Rodney was all but bouncing from one foot to the other. "By all means, try not to strain yourself with specifics."

  "Mueller and the sergeants saw her take something off the pod. You didn't hear him just tell us about it?"

  "I may have had a few other things on my mind at that moment, thank you. Okay, a cylindrical machine." Rodney's fingers tapped a staccato rhythm against his leg. "Did they describe it?"

  "Underneath the ten-thousand-year-old oysters, you mean? Mueller said it was long."

  "Well, that's astute. Long." His fingers stopped tapping and rolled into a clenched fist.

  "Atlantis, Jumper Four." Major Lome's voice sounded over the com. "We have Jumper Three in sight. She's headed out over the main Athosian camp."

  Looking at her senior advisors, Elizabeth asked, "Do we have any idea what Ea might be able to do with this machine?"

  "Unfortunately, nobody got all that great a look at it." John brushed sweat out of his eyes and took the opportunity to strip off his HAZMAT suit. The damned things were effective but suffocating. "What I want to know is why she's heading inland if her plan is to destroy Atlantis. And how she thinks she can pull that off with a machine the size of a piece of drainpipe."

  "Size isn't everything," Rodney declared. "And don't even think about cracking a joke-"

  "Too easy." The course of action was unequivocally clear in John's mind. "So we're going to have to stop her."

  "How exactly do you propose to do that? I'm sure no one has failed to notice that she's an Ancient, and she has a jumper."

  "Which is heavily shielded." Elizabeth clasped her hands in front of her, a gesture that John recognized as the prelude to an unpleasant decision.

  The resulting silence was telling. John knew, as the others surely did, that they had only two options: force Ea to land, or use the firepower of the Daedalus to blow the jumper out of the sky. Still pulling the HAZMAT suit off his foot, he nearly lost his balance upon remembering that the Daedalus was currently grounded. So much for options. With a last fierce tug, he threw the garment aside. Of course nobody wanted to be the one to point out that any action they took to stop Ea could kill Carson Beckett. This was an Ancient that had taken over the doctor's mind and body. For all anyone knew, Carson had died at the bottom of the ocean.

  "Jumper Three is slowing," Lome announced, drawing all eyes to the control room's main screen.

  Rodney leaned down to type a command into the computer, and a topographical map appeared. "Ea's landed on the edge of that rift valley in the mountains above the Athosian camp."

  "Lome, get down there," John ordered.

  "Roger that, sir "

  "We are nearly there as well," Teyla informed them from Jumper Two. "I have Dr. Beckett in sight. He is on the ground, running towards a deep chasm."

  Lome continued, cautious with his choice of words. "Colonel, now would be a good time to tell us our rules of engagement."

  Elizabeth lifted pained eyes to John, and his chest tightened as he responded. "This is an imminent, severe threat, Major. Do what you have to do."

  Anew blip suddenly appeared on the screen. "Too late," declared Rodney. The negative number beside the blip was steadily grow ing. "Something's drilling into the ground at an incredible rate!"

  "Ea, can you hear me?" Elizabeth called. No answer came. "Major Lome? Teyla?"

  "Coming in now," replied Lome.

  "We have landed by Jumper Three" Teyla's voice sounded strained when she added, "There is no sign of Dr. Beckett"

  For some time a tense quiet reigned over the control room. At last, Teyla's vo
ice returned, even more apprehensive than before. "I fear he has gone into the chasm."

  John glanced at Elizabeth, seeing memories of the same experience mirrored in her expression. If Ea was dying, she likely saw Carson's body as expendable, something to be used up and thrown away.

  They heard Lome giving instructions to the Marines to spread out. A few moments later, Teyla reported, "Ea appears to have thrown herself into the ravine along with the machine. However, Dr. Beckett's body has landed on a ledge not far below us."

  "Is Carson alive?" Elizabeth brought her clasped hands to her mouth as they all waited for Teyla's reply.

  Trying to quell his frustration at not being out there, John steeled himself for the worst.

  "It appears so. Dr. Beckett's body is convulsing."

  So it had been like the Cohall pod. John's relief at knowing the doctor was alive was tempered by the knowledge of what Beckett was going through now. The term `agony' might have been a little melodramatic, but it was more the sensation of dying without actually dying that still freaked him out. Beckett was going to be in serious need of that drink when he got back.

  A weak voice with a familiar accent could be heard over the radio. "Oh, God. . .what have I done?"

  "Carson?"

  There was no immediate reply, and Teyla spoke up again. "I believe Ea has died."

  "Maybe," Ronon put in gruffly.

  Elizabeth's knuckles were white as she gripped the edge of the nearest console. "Can you get to Dr. Beckett?"

  "No problem, ma'am," Lome answered. "Give us a minute to set up a rappelling line."

  When the Marines reached the doctor, they reported his condition as stable. He didn't seem to be suffering any broken bones. And while the deep lacerations on his arms had resulted in some blood loss, the pain in his voice was clearly not physical. "I left them," Carson said in a broken voice, devastated. "They were begging me-they needed me!"

  "Doc, it's okay," John hurried to tell him. "Zelenka and Stackhouse and the others are all fine. It's not your fault."

  The reassurance didn't seem to ease Beckett's burden. "I wanted so badly to stop her, and I don't know why I couldn't-"