7. Through the Dark
Ophir entered the room only to get questioned. Young looked at him when he entered and asked, “How is he?”
Ophir shrugged. “He should be fine but will be out of it for quite some time, according to TJ.”
Young nodded, turning to the three others in the room. “So…”
Volker sighed. “Rush was right. Everything but life support is dead.”
“Why now? Why just when we show up?” Young asked.
“Because we just showed up.”
Adam Brody piped in, drawing everyone’s gaze. “There's the Stargate. It's a power hog and we had it on all day yesterday.”
Volker nodded. “There's still some power and the shields are still working to some degree but…”
“…again, that's to keep us alive,” Brody added.
“For how long?” Young inquired, turning to Ophir.
Ophir shrugged. “Depends. Rush knows more”
“T.J. says he's not gonna be up for a while. So - where does that leave us?”
“Dead,” Brody answered.
Volker agreed. “Dead.”
Young turned to Eli and Ophir raised an eyebrow when the other his age hesitated.
“Not right away.”
Again, Volker agreed. “Yeah, we have days - maybe a lot of days, but if there's no Stargate in range–”
“And there's not,” Eli cut it.
“We don't have the power to dial out, anyway,” Brody pointed out.
“So it's a race between food, water and life support,” Volker stated blatantly.
Young wasn’t giving up that easily. “I don't buy that.”
“We can't do anything without access to the ship's systems,” Volker mentioned. “Look.” He poked at various control panels but nothing happened. “I mean, I could stand here all day.”
Young turned away from him and rounded on one of the youngest. “Eli.”
“I put a Kino in a search mode and sent it into unpressurized areas of the ship, looking for an active console somewhere. Nothing yet. Also, I was looking into if there's any way we could integrate the shuttle's power with the ship's system…” Eli shook his head. He wasn’t very hopeful at that.
“So you're working the problem.”
“Yeah!” Eli commented, surprised even at the statement. Ophir rolled his eyes.
Young turns and looks pointedly at Brody and Volker, who look a little embarrassed. “Does the computer-hacking drop-out have to save our asses?”
Eli raised his hand crossly. “The drop-out is still here.”
Young ignored Eli’s comment. “Are you gonna get your heads out of yours?”
The two men exchange glances for a moment before Brody turned back to Young. “The shuttle idea's pretty good.”
Volker nodded. “Yeah, there might be a workaround.”
“Well, let's do that.”
Brody and Volker head out to get to work and Young turned to Eli. “Thank you, Eli.”
Eli shifted. “Uh, by the way, it's "M.I.T. drop-out."”
Young raised an eyebrow. “You want a gold star for that?”
“No, I just–”
“Do something. I'm gonna be gone for a few hours,” Young stated.
“Gone?” Eli asked, taken aback.
“To report this mess. If you need me, yank me back.” Young walked passed Ophir, stating, “Walk with me.”
Ophir followed without a word. Young glanced at him, inquiring, “Something I should be let in on?”
Ophir merely shook his head. Silence fell over them as they walked before Young broke it with, “I want you to keep clear of my body when I’m on Earth.”
Ophir frowned, stopping. “Why?”
“Very few know of your presence on Destiny and very few are even aware of your participation in the program.”
“Basically only General O’Neill, Colonel Carter, and Dr. Jackson know I’m here on Destiny,” Ophir guessed.
Young nodded. “Basically. There are a few others but many believed you had already left Icarus Base before the explosion.”
“Hmm. Handy.” The dry humor didn't help the comment. “I’ll lock myself in my room, then.”
Young nodded, stopping before a door. Ophir nodded once in goodbye before he continued down the hall. He avoided the main hallways and found his way to his room. He entered and flopped onto his bed, shifting enough to get comfortable before dosing. When Ophir woke up, he was wide awake in a split second and had no idea what had scared him awake like that. Shifting into a sitting position, he rubbed his face before dropping his hand. He looked around and felt exceedingly tired but knew there was no way of falling back to sleep now. Ophir stood and exited his room, making sure to lock it on the way out.
He wasn’t sure on how he had ended up near Rush’s room but TJ had caught his attention and he followed her into Rush’s quarters. In a matter of minutes of entering the room, Rush was waking up with TJ standing over him. She smiled gently. “Hey. How are you?”
Rush looked around, realizing where he was. “How did I get here?”
“You're not that heavy,” TJ played. “That and Ophir helped.”
She gestured to Ophir who was standing at the foot of the bed. Seeing the younger, Rush groaned and sank back into the bed. Though she was pretty sure Rush already knew, she went on and explained, “You passed out for a little while.”
“How long?”
“About ten hours,” TJ informed him. Rush sat up abruptly, shocked. TJ continued, “It's probably the first real sleep you've had since we arrived here.”
“Has anything happened?”
Ophir shook his head, cutting in. “Not since we lost power. Other than the short battle of what to do next, you didn’t miss anything.”
Rush put a hand to his head and grimaced.
“How do you feel?” TJ asked.
“Embarrassed.”
TJ smiled gently. “Don't be.”
“Oh, you weren't there.”
“Your head's pounding, right?” Rush nodded and TJ went on to the next question. “How many cups of coffee do you normally drink a day? Four, five?”
“That’s only minimum,” Ophir clarified. “Try closer to seven.”
She nodded sympathetically, returning her gaze to Rush. “You're in caffeine withdrawal. So are about a dozen other people onboard. It can make you pretty crazy. You should see the smokers!”
Rush added ruefully, “You're looking at one.”
TJ smiled. “Double whammy, huh?!”
Rush sighed.
“I was gonna let you sleep it off, but the Colonel wants you to see something. Both of you.”
Ophir nodded, as did Rush. TJ escorted Rush and Ophir to the shuttle where Young turned to greet them. “Come on in.”
Out the front window, the side view of a giant gas planet was visible. Just a glance at the view had both the new comers guessing at what was going on. Rush spoke up, though. “Orbital insertion trajectory?”
“That was my first thought,” Scott stated.
Greer chuckled. “No, your first thought was we were gonna fly into the damned thing!”
Ophir briefly wondered how hard it was for Scott to not roll his eyes and smile as the lieutenant explained, “No, sir, I'm guessing we'll get close enough to kiss but not enough for capture.
“An aero braking maneuver?” Rush asked
Scott shifted. “Well, that's over my head but, yeah, should come out of the slingshot somewhere in the system.”
“Where there are habitable planets.”
Young looked accusingly at TJ. She quickly jumped to her own defense. “I didn't tell him!”
“No, but you're all smiling,” Rush pointed out.
Scott continued on. “Well, we're still too far off to know if they're anything more than rocks, but we found three candidates before Big Bertha here filled up the sky.”
Rush nodded. “So this trajectory is no accident, then.”
He started picking off the stickers that had been attached below the buttons on the consoles hanging from the ceiling. Ophir watched the near OCD act but knew all too well that that wasn’t the case. He could read the translations and symbols from where he stood, after all.
“Well, the man's quick,” Young stated. “We'll know once we're clear.”
“That'll be in, uh, six minutes,” Scott added.
“Who translated this?” Rush asked, holding up the stickers on his fingers. He looked around accusingly at everyone. “You know it's completely backwards?”
He began to put the stickers back into their correct positions while Young gave Scott a long look. Trying to hide his embarrassment, Scott stood up. “Well, pull up a chair, sir. This'll be a show you don't wanna miss.”
“So we're clear, my definition of "habitable" includes a sandy beach, a tropical climate…”
Rush cut Young off as he settled into one of the chairs. “There's gonna be some severe turbulence when we contact the atmosphere.”
Scott sank back down into his chair and Young turned to leave the shuttle. “We'll pass the word.”
Rush stopped Young. “Colonel, about our previous conversation.”
“Rush, no need to apologize.”
Rush shook his head. “I wasn't about to. Only trying to explain I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. I know all about it.”
Young walked over to Greer who was waiting to escort him wherever. Ophir barely heard the mutter escape the Colonel as Young left. “Lotta lotta work.”
Ophir took a seat before the window, amber eyes glued to the scene. As Destiny raced into the gas giant’s gravity well, Scott keyed his radio and stated, “90 seconds to contact.”
Time ticked by in silence and the gas giant got bigger and bigger. Scott keyed his radio again. “30 seconds to contact. Hang on.”
Ophir looked around his chair and found a seatbelt as he heard the faint clicks of Rush’s and TJ’s. He strapped his over his lap before returning his gaze to the window. As Destiny skimmed the atmosphere, the turbulence increased. Ophir gawked at the view, a smile creeping onto his face. The ride wasn’t very long and Destiny pulled away from the gas giant. Ophir's smile disappeared as Scott whooped in relief, commenting, “Hell of a ride, huh?”
He and TJ laughed as Rush looked at them. “Yes. Yes, it was. Now, let's find these planets you were talking about.”
“There they are, dead ahead.” Scott got up and indicated them on a screen on one of the consoles. Ophir returned his gaze out the window and frowned. Standing, he went to the console everyone was looking at as Rush commented, “Yes. We should be able to analyze the atmosphere of the nearest planet within a few hours.”
Young entered the shuttle, asking, “We clear?”
Scott nearly beamed at him. “Yes, sir. Did you catch any of that?”
“No, I couldn't get back in time.”
Rush stared at the screen on the console. Ophir glanced over his shoulder before looking back out the window.
“This is - this is unbelievable. Look at this.” Rush turned to the three chatting behind him, none of which had heard him. “Please. Please, everyone, be quiet!”
The three military personnel fell silent, giving Rush their undivided attention. “Our trajectory has changed.”
Scott looked at the screen. His face fell. “Oh, no.”
“Changed?” TJ asked.
“The planet has altered Destiny's course more than we hoped,” Rush stated.
“What are you talking about, Rush?” Young nearly demanded.
Rush sank back into his seat in despair as Ophir looked out the window. He was too busy in his own world of calculations and theories to even really look much more than uninterested.
Young turned to Scott. “Lieutenant, what the hell's he talking about?”
Scott didn’t answer, too shocked to even hear the question. However, something in the question had caught Ophir's attention enough to pull him from his own little world to answer, “We’re heading straight for the sun.”
...last for a while
