32. C'Mon Baby, Hold Together

Every Wraith they saw on the way was busy killing each other or trying to eat the walls, and John suspected his little group of people could play a Sousa march on trombones and they’d be ignored, but they moved with as much stealth as they could. Which, with McKay, was not much.

“This fucking place makes no sense!” McKay snarled, poking at one of the consoles. The “bridge” was murky and dark and empty with no viewports and no chairs.

John thought that wasn’t quite true. He could see that it was demonstrably a command center, smaller consoles arrayed around a central one, with monitors displaying information. Aside from that, though, he had to admit McKay had a point.

Ronon, who had been taking pot shots at every crazy ship-eating Wraith they came across simply because he could, kicked a console. “Meaningless.”

John eyed him. “You know something about space ships?”

“I was a Specialist,” he said, shrugging, as if that explained anything. John decided not to pursue the matter just then.

Ford was in position by the only door into the dead end cave, which was as reassuring as things were going to get. He was facing out, apparently trusting McKay to solve the problem. John had to marvel at that level of trust; no one had put that kind faith in John since Anne died, and even before then he was considered a loose cannon in the squadrons he served in. The kind of trust Ford handed to McKay unquestioningly was humbling, and John shoved down a flare of jealousy that shot through him from nowhere. He turned to McKay and snapped at him. “Are we screwed?”

“Yes. All we have is the LSD; what we need is one of my laptops; I could probably splice a cable into this mess, but absent that, we’re flying through space on a piece of flotsam.”

“Now you tell us, McKay?” John snarled, shoving into McKay’s personal space.

McKay held his ground. “Yes, now! Because I knew I wouldn’t know that until I saw it. Sue me for hoping for the fucking best, okay? Back off, Sheppard.” McKay pushed him hard, and despite expecting it and knowing what to do, John’s hips and legs were not up to cooperating. He stumbled into the console. McKay reached out and grabbed him, pulling back to upright. They stood staring at each other for a moment, angry and aggressive and frustrated, and John suspected McKay would as soon fuck him as hit him. Instead, McKay let go and stepped back. He waved a hand over the console, his posture defensive but his voice discouraged. “If I had any idea what any of this even says, we’d have a chance. We know Wraith is some twisted derivative of Ancient, but damned if I can translate this by sight. You need Saint Daniel Fucking Jackson for that kind of miracle.”

“Or Doctor Haworth?” Ford asked from the doorway.

“Well, yes. He’s not useless, for a linguist.” McKay sighed, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “One reason we always bring him along.”

“Then it is fortunate that Dr. Haworth agreed to join me in our rescue attempt,” Teyla said calmly, walking into the room trailing both Haworth and Stackhouse. Ford was grinning like a loon, his hero-worship of Teyla apparent as he tracked her through the room. John rolled his eyes.

McKay huffed. “We didn’t need rescuing.”

“So I see.” Teyla smiled at him, not at all put off by McKay’s sour attitude. “But from the gateship, we could not determine that. Sergeant Stackhouse had the ship tracking you, and we saw you turn around and go back the way you came. We thought you had been cut off.”

John nodded, because if he had seen that he would have assumed the same thing.

“This is navigation!” Haworth broke in before McKay could start protesting again. McKay moved swiftly over to the console Haworth was at and they started bickering at each other while pointing at readouts.

John moved around the consoles, trying to mystically divine what they controlled. One of them was lit up like a Christmas tree, graphs and numbers going mad. John stared at it for a second before calling Haworth over. “What’s going on here?”

Haworth frowned, studying the output on the screens, running his fingers over words (or, at least John thought they were words) as if he could absorb their meaning. Then he shrugged. “Environmentals, I think. Oxygen, water…although it looks like ship structure is included, which is weird.”

They studied the information for a second before understanding slammed into John. “Fuck. Fuck! McKay!”

“What? Shut up. I’m busy.”

“McKay.” John spoke with all the authority born of being a Sheppard and an officer, which brought the room to a halt. Everyone stared at him, including Ford. John spoke very slowly while jabbing a finger at the console. “They are tearing the ship apart.”

“Yes, we saw that thank you—oh, fuck.” McKay ran over. “That’s bad.”

“I would say so.” John agreed, stepping aside. Haworth pointed out readings and McKay worked on putting it all together for a few minutes before McKay sucked in a breath.

“Hours, maybe. Hours.”

“I do not understand, Rodney,” Teyla said, her voice calm but demanding.

“They are literally tearing the ship apart. It’s mass suicide.” McKay’s hand waved wildly around for a second before he noticed what he was doing and yanked it down. John filed that reaction away to study later.

Ronon kicked a console again.

“Do we have time to fly this thing anywhere?” John asked in the dead silence. “Because if we don’t, we’re making a run for the gateship and hoping the whole place doesn’t depressurize before we get there.”

Ford and Stackhouse looked ready to herd everyone out the room right then, but John shook his head and they stood down, unhappy but willing to wait for a command decision.

McKay snapped his fingers and went back to the navigation console. “We’re in a system, actually. Space-gates are always in a system. Habitable planets? No idea. But we’re in a system. Let me…” He trailed off as he looked at the console. Haworth moved over to him, translating on the fly as McKay tried to work the controls. John went back to inspecting the consoles again, since there wasn’t anything he could do until they decided what they were doing. One console looked more like a video game controller writ large, and John knew instinctively it was the pilot station. He stepped up to it and suddenly his mind was awash with different knowledge – data from his interface with Atlantis, showing him schematics for Wraith hives. Their technology was profoundly static, and the control station he was at was only slightly different than what he “remembered,” the primary difference being that the Wraith had scaled up over the centuries. The Hive ship he was on was at least five times bigger than the Hive ships the Ancients faced.

Larger, and more complicated, but otherwise very closely related. He knew the Wraith lived for centuries, which would explain the lack of significant change. Putting his hands on the controls, he applied pressure and one of the screens scrolled information.

“What are you doing?” McKay snapped, not moving from the navigation station.

“Piloting this thing. She’s responding, so they haven’t destroyed the engines. You need to program in our course so I can follow it.”

“I don’t have a course, Sheppard!” McKay spat out.

“Then find one!” John shouted back.

“Dr. McKay, this is planet has to be it. Close enough to the space gate, anyway.” Haworth pointed at something on the console.

“We don’t know that, we don’t have any readings on it and—”

“Plot it, McKay,” John growled. The ship was moving but sluggish, and John did not know where he was going.

“As if the ship will survive reentry!” McKay yelled.

“This was your idea!” John yelled back.

“That was before I knew those things were going to rip it apart with their bare teeth!”

John ground his own teeth, took a deep breath and nodded. “Haworth, plot the course if McKay won’t. Ford, get everyone back to the gateship. Stackhouse can pilot it off this thing while I try to land.” John’s hands moved over the controls with a memory that wasn’t his, but was close enough to let him figure out what he was doing.

There was a long silence. When Haworth finally bent over the console, McKay shoved him off. “Elizabeth was right, you’re a suicidal menace.”

“I don’t plan on dying, McKay.”

“Shut the fuck up and let me work. Ford, do as he says and get everyone out of here.” McKay punched at the controls.

“You need me to help,” Haworth announced, stepping up to the console again.

“I swore I would not leave without you, if you were alive,” Teyla said, putting a hand on McKay’s shoulder.

Ford and Stackhouse looked conflicted for a moment until Ford’s resolve gelled. “We’re staying, Doc. Sergeant, cover the door.”

John kept looking at the readouts, ignoring the sentimental declarations being made without him. Maps were all the same, even on an alien space ship with three dimensional displays and points labeled in Wraith. He focused on the path that was slowly building itself in front of him in response to McKay’s input, pushing the half-gutted monstrosity to its breaking point, hoping that it would not reach that point any time before, during, or after atmospheric entry.

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