Nephelai by anyanka

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This plot bunny was not an Atlantis story to begin with but John and Rodney invaded and threw out my other characters. Thanks to Azrael for her wicked beta skills. Any errors or plot holes are all my own work.
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Rodney fixed his eyes on the navigational array and let his brain idle. The energy signature they were following was faint but clear, about fifty kilometers to the north, at least what equated to north on PX-5763. It should be a simple matter of steering the jumper in a straight line to find it. Brain on stand-by, he mentally thumbed through his to do list.

There were the strange energy fluctuations in the conduits near the armory that even Zalenka couldn't pin down. He needed to recalibrate the long range sensors with the new algorithms he'd written which would make them point zero five percent more accurate, not that anyone would actually notice that. He also needed to continue with his most important work, that of convincing the kitchen staff that ground zod beans, or whatever the hell the Mara called them, did not a flour substitute make.

Interrupting these thoughts was a constant and annoying rehash of last night's movie. He hadn't really enjoyed it that much but somehow it kept invading his thoughts, probably because of the terrain they were flying over; jungle, jungle and, ooo look, more jungle! Why anyone would want to re-make such a classic as King Kong was beyond him, something he'd stated many times during the film, and Sheppard's increasingly irritated arguments of 'but...Peter Jackson', while persuasive, hadn't really convinced him. Ronon and Teyla had certainly enjoyed it, much more than John's misguided attempt to introduce them to Lost, and Teyla was visibly upset by Kong's fate. He was pretty sure that Ronon hadn't been rubbing dust out of his eye when John had brought up the lights either, no matter what his teammate insisted.

He shifted in the co-pilot's seat, hunching further over the screen of the navigation array, and wished the Ancients could provide a bit more in the way of lumbar support. His back was aching already and they were barely thirty minutes into the mission. He knew his posture sucked but this was getting beyond a joke. Maybe Carson should add an osteopath to his staff. There must be some adventurous young spinal-manipulator willing to risk life and limb in another galaxy, hell, he might even use his hazard pay to fund the post. He'd suggest it to Elizabeth when they got back, in the meantime...

"Colonel, are you asleep at the wheel?" he queried of the man flying the jumper.

"Huh?" came the eloquent response from the seat next to him. There were two accompanying snorts from Ronon and Teyla seated behind him, but Rodney paid them no mind. Ronon had, eventually, gotten used to bickering as functional communication, although the big man didn't seem to enter into the spirit of things like John usually did.

"You're heading in the wrong direction," he pointed out, glancing at Sheppard. The pilot had his intrigued concentration face on; the one Rodney always thought, with the addition of a tongue poking out the corner of his mouth, would make him a perfect six year old. Maybe if he gave the Colonel a coloring book and some crayons he'd get the complete look. Of course, Sheppard would make sure nobody would ever find the body if he did.

"Just a little detour," Sheppard replied, turning to grin at Rodney.

"A detour? There's nothing but uninhabited jungle and one mildly intriguing energy spike. What could you possibly want to see?"

"I'm not sure. I was thinking about the geology of this place and I got a map, well a scan really, but it was in my head, so I thought we should go have a look. Its not far," said Sheppard with a deliberate glibness that did nothing to distract Rodney from what the pilot had just admitted.

"And when were you going to mention that you were communing with the jumper? It is the jumper isn't it? Can you get it to display on the screen? What sort of information is there? And when did you ever think about geology?"

Rodney's fingers sped over the screen of his datapad, his eyes flicking up to the window where all jumper displays usually appeared. There was nothing about geology. Very strange, and very Sheppard to not mention a new jumper function. God forbid someone else should interact with his babies.

"Jeez, McKay, slow down. No, I can't get it on the screen, and I don't know why. It's like a sensation of the rocks, rather than a visual, if you know what I mean."

"How very Zen," Rodney retorted, rolling his eyes. Honestly, the man was astonishingly laid back at times. Sheppard smiled without looking at him and continued to concentrate intently at a display only he could 'see'.

"What's it telling you? And you still haven't told me what made you think about rocks," he pressed when the pilot didn't rise to the bait.

"I don't understand most of it, but there's something I think is going to be really, really cool to see."

"We're sight seeing?" He knew he really shouldn't be surprised by his team leader any more but sometimes it just snuck up on him.

"I'd prefer to think of it as scientific enquiry," said the Colonel, flashing his best McKay-taunting grin. And Rodney knew he was going to rise to it, he always did.

"Oh please! Geology is barely more than pointing at a rock and going ooo shiny," he replied, fighting the upward twitch of his lips, after all where was the fun in letting John know he enjoyed being baited. Sheppard favored him with a fond smile and he suspected it wasn't so much of a secret really.

"And you still haven't explained why the jumper suddenly chose to show you this stuff. Is this the first time you've thought about rocks?" he asked, determined to get an answer this time.

"I didn't think about rocks. I thought about how cool that waterfall back there was and suddenly there's a whole bunch of stuff I don't understand in my head."

"There was a waterfall?" Rodney queried, honestly mystified.

"You know, if you call shot gun, you should really take advantage of the windows. I bet if Ronon sat up here he'd have noticed a waterfall. A really cool waterfall, at that" said the Colonel, twisting in his seat to look at the Satedan. "You want to swap with McKay?"

"I want to catch up on my sleep, but you two won't shut up" rumbled the big warrior. Teyla chuckled and at John's slightly hurt expression, spoke.

"I believe he had what you would term, a busy night."

"Ronon, you sly dog! Who's the lucky girl?" asked the pilot, turning almost all the way around in his seat.

Rodney rolled his eyes and looked back to the front of the jumper. Ronon's love life was not something he really had any interest in. Well, he did in an idly curious sort of way, but he wasn't sure he wanted anyone else to know that. He dimly heard Ronon muttering a probable curse in a language he didn't understand, but the view out of the window was taking all his concentration right now.

A massive wall of rock rose directly in front of them, emerging sharply from the undulating jungle they were racing over. For a brief second he thought it was immediately in front of them, but then his brain, belatedly adjusted to the scale of the thing and realized it was still some distance away. The hand that had been creeping over to Sheppard in silent panic, stilled as he marveled at the magnificence of the sight before them.

Stretching from horizon to horizon, the sheer grey rock was covered in swaths of green, the thriving plant life of the planet determinedly gripping to this most improbable of places. As the jumper sped closer, he could make out huge waterfalls rushing over the top of the cliff before dissolving to nothing more than mist a good distance above the base. Behind the wall he glimpsed a range of mountains whose massive peaks disappeared into a layer of cloud only to appear again, glistening with pristine snowy caps.

Finally he let his hand finish its journey and touched John's shoulder. He felt the pilot start slightly and turn, but he could not drag his eyes away from the window.

"Wha...oh...oh wow," he heard Sheppard breathe. At least it wasn't just him who was overawed by the scale of the thing.

"Quite," was the only response he could muster. He felt Ronon and Teyla silently move to stand behind them, and still the wall got closer and closer.

Sheppard turned the tiny craft so it skimmed along the face of the cliff, weaving them in a lazy glide through the spray of the waterfalls, close enough that they could pick out individual features. Trees clung precariously to the smallest of ledges, roots forced into tiny crevices, scrambling for purchase and moisture. Mosses, vines and what looked like multicolored orchids clung to the trees, the rocks and each other. The mouths of caves gaped dark against the green of the plants that surrounded them and, in the case of the larger ones, crept far down their throats.

"It's even more impressive than it looked in my head," Sheppard said finally. "And, is it bad that saying things like that doesn't seem weird any more?"

"Welcome to the Stargate program, Colonel. Nice of you to finally join us," chuckled Rodney, turning to look at the man flying the jumper. Sheppard didn't even turn towards him but smirked as he craned his neck to look up the wall of rock.

"It is most impressive," said Teyla, leaning over John's shoulder slightly for a better look. Ronon snorted in what Rodney thought was agreement, but it could have meant anything from 'I've seen things you people wouldn't believe' to 'I need to pee'.

"It's got to be about a mile and a half high, right?" Sheppard speculated.

"You're the one with geology in your head." Rodney wasn't really jealous, oh no, not at all. He already had way too much stuff in his head but it still seemed sort of unfair that every single bit of Ancient technology lit up and danced a jig for Colonel Sheppard.

"Like I said, I don't understand most of it, and there's no built in conversion table for miles to whatever the hell the Ancients measured in," Sheppard complained, speeding the jumper through the spray of a river spilling from the entrance of a massive cave.

"Egyptian royal cubits," said Rodney, blinking at the sheer vastness of everything.

"Huh?"

"They measured in something that's almost the same length as a royal cubit, about 20 inches" Rodney explained, even as Sheppard gave him a skeptical look. "What? Daniel Jackson told me."

The Colonel rolled his eyes and swerved the jumper closer to the cliff face and Rodney watched fascinated as a giant blue bird, startled by their passage, launched itself off a tree and swooped down into the jungle at least a mile below them.

"Wow, its closer to two miles," exclaimed Sheppard, and at Rodney's confused look explained further. "The jumper says its five thousand, seven hundred and two Ancient cubits so that makes it one point eight miles high."

"I still don't understand what's made the jumper suddenly so eager to share," complained Rodney as he pointedly ignored Sheppard's math skills. "It doesn't make any sense."

There was silence in the jumper as they sailed past a vast cave, its mouth almost choked with a forest watered by the spray of huge river raining from the top of the cliff. Rodney realized that whatever the energy source turned out to be, the Atlantis expedition was going to be spending a lot more time on this planet. The biologists were going to be having fits of ecstasy over this place.

"I've never flown this one before," offered Sheppard suddenly, breaking his chain of thought.

"Really? How do you know?"

"I just do. They all feel...different. I think this one's set up for surveying."

"Well I suppose that makes sense. Do the others have different set ups?" asked Rodney, suddenly much more excited by the prospect of specialized jumpers than the energy signature they were supposed to be following.

"I haven't noticed anything, but then I wasn't looking. Oh, wait, jumper eight's got something different. I don't know what but it definitely feels really...off."

"And you never mentioned this?" How were they ever supposed to learn what Atlantis could do if the man with the strongest ATA gene didn't bother to mention little things like the jumpers had special powers.

"I thought it was like cars handling differently. Until today," explained the pilot.

"For god's sake Colonel, we're in another galaxy. Could you mention things like this?" Rodney shouted, because really how dumb could such an intelligent man be.

"If I mentioned every weird little thing about Atlantis you'd never get anything done," Sheppard replied quietly, but firmly.

"Perhaps I should be the judge of that, hmm?" suggested the disgruntled scientist, tapping at the jumper's navigation screens and not meeting Sheppard's eye. He was never entirely sure why he got so angry with his team leader for things like this. After all, he was right in a way. Atlantis was full of stupid little quirks and massive discoveries all jumbled together and most of the time it wasn't until you investigated for days that you could tell the difference.

There was movement behind him and he knew Ronon and Teyla were withdrawing from the field of combat, leaving the two Terrans to rip each other to shreds. Teyla used to try to smooth over these arguments, but she'd gotten enough metaphorical bloody noses to have learned to keep her distance. Ronon seemed to enjoy the sport.

"Look McKay..." Sheppard started, his voice finally rising above normal speaking levels just as the jumper lurched wildly under a series of impacts.

"Shit!" swore the pilot, as he griped the controls of the pitching craft. Knuckles white and jaw clenched, he steered them away from the cliff wall, back towards the 'gate. Something thudded against the exterior of the ship and McKay jumped.

"Sheppard?" questioned Ronon's deep voice from the rear of the shuddering vessel. Rodney wondered how the big man was always able to say so much with a single word. Even as he frantically tapped at the screens of the jumper, he could hear the questions and admonishments loaded onto the two syllables. Ronon wanted to go out fighting the Wraith, not hitting the ground in a ten thousand year old flying tube. Rodney could see the sense in that. Well, except the dying fighting the Wraith part.

There were another series of jarring impacts, the final one on the windshield of the jumper. A black, winged shape slid down the glass, leaving a smear of blood behind, as the occupants of the Ancient ship watched in horror.

"Bird strike" John said finally, as though he couldn't believe it, even though he'd just seen it himself.

"Actually I think it was bat strike," pointed out Rodney, hiding his fear behind pedantry.

"Really? In the day?"

"Well, it looked like a bat," he responded, knowing Sheppard was using the pointless questions in the face of absurd danger routine again, but perfectly willing to go with it.

"We must have flown through a swarm...that's not right...a flock?"

Rodney glanced at the man who managed to sound chatty even as he fought with the jumper's urge to fall out of the sky. Looking strained but composed, he was bringing up schematics on the forward display, all the while struggling to control the violent bucking of the ship. The scientist smiled fondly and shook his head, before turning back to his own frantic attempts to get some power back into the controls.

"It's a colony of bats. Although in flight, I believe it's a cloud," Rodney informed him.

"A cloud? Cool," John responded, voice a little tighter than before. "We've lost the left drive pod and the right one's not so good. Anything you can do McKay?"

"I'm trying, Colonel, I'm trying. I'm still struggling with the idea that the Ancients didn't have some sort of anti-bird strike system. For god's sake, they fought the Wraith and didn't think of this?"

Ok, panicking now. The pitching and yawing of the jumper was starting to make him feel sick and no amount of banter from Sheppard was going to help. Really, it was totally insane that the Ancients hadn't factored in the possibility flying animals in the design of the jumpers.

"Bat-strike. We'd probably have been fine if it was birds," John muttered and pulled the ship out of another gut-churning dive.

"What?" snapped Rodney, turning to glare at his team leader. Sheppard's face was a mask of calm, but his eyes were narrowed and flinty. Ah, things were bad enough for misplaced humor. It was time to ease the tension.

"Oh, that was a joke. Excellent, Colonel, well done. Can we get back to the part where you're flying rather than quipping?"

"Come on McKay, where's the fun in that?" ground out the pilot through gritted teeth, as the jumper veered to the left, plummeting toward the jungle. They were loosing altitude alarmingly quickly and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. No amount of swapping crystals and inventive cursing was going to help.

"Colonel, I believe you should consider trying to land," suggested Teyla as she strapped herself into the seat behind John, her voice almost lost in the rushing and thudding of the tops of the tallest jungle trees against the bottom of the jumper.

"Already on it, Teyla. McKay, can you find me anywhere without trees? Oh, oh wait. The geo-scanner's realigned itself with the surface, and, oh that is so cool," breathed Sheppard, banking the jumper to the right.

"Less talking, more landing," Rodney complained, as he began buckling himself into the seat. "And, geo-scanner? Please!"

"Rodney, go in the back," ordered the pilot.

"What? No."

"This isn't going to be pretty," Sheppard said tightly, grimacing as he swerved the jumper around a vast tree, just missing the thick trunk.

"And you don't want me to watch?"

"No, McKay. I don't want you to die," he roared, voice ragged.

Time slowed to a painful trickle and sound dimmed to almost nothing as Rodney froze in his seat. Sheppard didn't turn his head, didn't even glance at him but Rodney felt the full force of the soldier's personality willing him not to argue this time. He watched a bead of sweat form over the Colonel's right eye and slide down the side of his face like an escaping tear.

Sound rushed back and the world sped up to normal as Rodney made his choice. There were times to fight with Sheppard, times to stop him from martyring himself, but there were also times when you had to give him space to do his thing; the stupid, heroic, dumb, brave thing that it was.

He stood up, his throat too tight to speak, managing only to squeeze his friend's shoulder as he passed, hoping the man would understand it meant so much more than a simple 'be careful'. Even if both he and the Colonel survived against all the odds to doddering old age, he would never get used to this, because getting used to it would mean not caring, and he knew that would never be the case.

He sighed as he strapped himself into the make shift seats in the rear compartment, making a mental note to thank Elizabeth for insisting that even marines needed safety harnesses, and began praying to all those gods he didn't believe in.

"Alright kids, this is going to get kinda bumpy," said the Colonel, conversationally.

The jumper slammed through the tops of the trees, bucking wildly as John fought to reach the landing site he had seen in his head. Rodney hoped that the sensors were accurate and that the pilot could keep the craft in the air long enough to get them there, because he really didn't want to die on some alien planet.

Well, ok, that probably would happen at some point, but he really didn't want to be killed by giant bats, because even if all his work, his whole life in fact, was classified, someone, probably Kavanaugh, would make sure everyone knew how he'd died. Bat-strike, for god's sake!

The jumper crunched into a tree, lurching sideways as the Ancient metal groaned and squealed, and Rodney closed his eyes. He felt his shoulders wrench against the straps, then his body smacked back into the wall of the jumper, forcing his breath out in a grunted cry and jarring his teeth together. He could hear branches snapping against the useless drive pods and the underside of the jumper before the whole craft shook as it hit the ground.

"Colonel..." Teyla's voice was calm, but the strained warning made Rodney open his eyes and turn his head to watch in horror as they screamed across a scrub filled clearing, the jungle on the far side rushing towards them.

The jumper bounced drunkenly through the bushes, its inhabitants shaking and flopping like rag dolls. John's knuckles were white on the controls and his jaw tight with effort. Rodney wondered, as he rattled in his seat, if the pilot was fighting the jumper or trying to help it save itself. And, he hoped anthropomorphizing the jumpers was a reaction to extreme stress or Zalenka would laugh.

"Oh God!" Rodney moaned and shut his eyes again, his hands fisting at the shoulder straps of the harness. He could hear rocks scraping along the metal under his feet and he fought to urge to lift his legs.

"Hang on," Sheppard yelled. The jumper bounced, crunched as it landed, tipped alarmingly and then there was only noise and rushing air.

Rodney's pried open his eyes as they came to a halt and for a few dazed seconds he watched shredded leaves flutter to the floor of the jumper, only it wasn't the floor. The craft was on its side and the outside was inside.

He snapped his head round, wincing at the pain in his neck, to find Teyla already fighting her way out of her seat harness. Ronon was stirring groggily to her right, a huge branch skimming an inch from his ear, bisecting the jumper; the branch that had smashed the co-pilot's seat to splinters.

Rodney's seat.

The seat John had made him leave.

His heart pounded in his chest as he forced his eyes to search for the Colonel in the tangled mess of jungle that had replaced the cockpit of the jumper. Between the branches he could just make out the back of a dark head slumped heavily to one side and an arm hanging limp between the leaves, blood dripping from the fingers. He thrashed uselessly against the straps that held him suspended above the floor and it wasn't until Teyla told him later, that he understood he was making the horrible keening noise he could hear.

Wraithbait

Stargate: Atlantis Fanfiction