STARGATE ATLANTIS: Dead End by Chris Wraight Page B

much as I can.”
    “And I’m going hunting,” said Ronon. “The place needs more supplies.”
    Rodney rolled his eyes. “Oh, and how, exactly, is that going to help the mission? That’s all we need right now — a jolly jaunt across the ice after some giant space cows. C’mon, guys. This isn’t a galactic safari. If we can’t get ourselves back into shape soon, we’ll be in serious trouble.”
    Ronon glowered at him. “They need to eat,” he said. “We need to eat. I don’t hear you offering to give up your food.”
    McKay started to reply, but choked on a rogue piece of buffalo gristle. Sheppard stepped in. “Alright guys, no need to get all antsy,” he said. “We can’t all work on the same thing at once. Rodney and I’ll take a look at the Jumper and the gate. Ronon, do what you gotta do to get alongside these people. Just be careful.”
    Ronon shot McKay a satisfied look. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I can look after myself.”
    “Madness,” McKay mumbled, grimacing as he worked his way through the stringy meat. “Just total, screwed-up madness.”
    “Right, let’s get going,” said Sheppard, putting down his bowl with some relief. “We don’t know how long we’ll get before the weather closes in, and before then I want some answers.”
     
    Zelenka was tired, hungry, and irritable. He’d worked through the night and was no closer to finding a solution. The situation was bad and, even after several hours of brainstorming, the numbers still didn’t add up.
    Weir walked into the operations room, and Zelenka could see the lines of weariness around her eyes. With no news of the team, he doubted she’d slept well.
    “Alright, where are we?” she asked.
    Zelenka coughed an apology. “We’ve made some progress,” he said. “But not much. We still have no idea why the Jumper seemed to re-materialize within the wormhole vortex. My only guess is that the Stargate on the far side works differently to the ones we’re used to. That would fit in with Dr McKay’s hypothesis that the Ancients were working on a new method of interstellar propulsion.”
    “So our gate and theirs were incompatible?” asked Weir, looking alarmed at the prospect.
    “I don’t think so,” said Zelenka. “Not quite. We’ve been working hard, and we think we can re-establish the link. On your command, we’ll run a test. It’s likely that the problem was one of power — we’re theorizing that the gate at the other end experienced a major failure, causing it to attempt to abort the transit while the Jumper was still inside the wormhole. The energy burst containing the mass information for the Jumper could have rematerialized in something like real space. I’d never have believed it if I hadn’t seen the data, but we think — ”
    “
We
think
?” said Weir. “It’s
likely
? These aren’t very helpful words, Dr Zelenka.”
    “I know,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I believe they got out at the far end. My working hypothesis is this: the Stargate on the other side has suffered a catastrophic failure and lost a key component. Maybe the power drain was too much, and some critical circuit failed. Normally, it would be able to draw on the gate at this end to compensate, but for some reason it didn’t. If we’re going to get the team back, we’ll need to find a way to power up the gate remotely. Or they’ll have to find a way. Until then, we can’t establish a wormhole, and neither can they.”
    Weir took a deep breath. “No other options?”
    Zelenka shrugged. “We’ll keep working on the numbers. If that gate can’t power up or take power from us, it can’t maintain a wormhole. End of story. But there might be some means of making contact with it. I’ll let you know. In the meantime, you could get some more people working on excavating that chamber Dr McKay discovered. Get through that shielding, and we might be able to find some more clues. Something very odd is happening