Stargate Atlantis WIP: "Light and Shadows"
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, don't make money off 'em.
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Mystery/Adventure, Gen Rating: T Archive: Please ask me first. Thanks.
Pairings: None. Main Character: Lorne, Zelenka, Beckett and team.
Here's my other WIP that I'm currently working on. As an artist, I was thrilled to see they made Evan Lorne a painter in "Sunday" (hated Carson dying, though.:( ) I wanted to expand on that, and I wanted to see more of the city, since they seemed to stop exploring it after season 1. This is the result. Thanks to Ladyhawke Legend and Entallat for the beta on chapter 1. If anyone else is interested in betaing for me, please let me know. I'd appreciate it.
Thanks. Annie
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, don't make money off 'em.
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Mystery/Adventure, Gen Rating: T Archive: Please ask me first. Thanks.
Pairings: None. Main Character: Lorne, Zelenka, Beckett and team.
Lights and Shadows Chapter 1
"Team Two, this is Team One, report."
Major Evan Lorne raised a hand and his team stopped. He tapped his earpiece and replied, "This is Lorne. We're heading into Sector Twenty-Three A."
Colonel John Sheppard's tone was amused, even more than usual, as he asked, "Find anything interesting?"
Evan glanced up at Doctor Radek Zelenka. The Czech engineer scowled at his computer tablet and muttered under his breath. Lorne had worked with Radek long enough to recognize a few Czech expletives. This time, Radek uttered a whole string of them. Evan sighed; he didn't blame Radek one bit.
"Not really, unless you count empty storage rooms and a waste disposal unit." Evan smothered a grin at more grumbling from Radek. The Marine escort overheard the dark tone and unobtrusively kept their distance. Funny, Evan thought, and I thought they were skittish around McKay.
"Will do, sir. Lorne, out." Privately, he hoped McKay would keep himself out of trouble. Really bad things tended to happen when the Canadian pushed buttons he wasn't supposed to.
Radek echoed Evan's thought. "Rodney and Ancient laboratories. I hope nothing awful will happen...again."
"Colonel Sheppard will make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble," Evan reassured him. Mentally, he added, I hope. Aloud, he asked, "What's up next, Doc?"
Radek indicated the next building with a lift of his chin. "There. I am detecting a faint energy reading."
"All right, let's get a move on." He and his team headed in that direction with a sense of purpose. It had been a while since any of Atlantis's teams had explored any new parts of the city. Evan wondered what kind of secrets Atlantis still held, though he had a healthy sense of caution about any leftover Ancient artifacts.
To Evan's amusement, so did Radek. The scientist didn't object to the Marine escort around them, and in fact, had insisted on taking a medic along for the day. Radek kept one eye on his scanner as he spoke to Doctor Marta Cezivic in hushed tones. Cezivic nodded and responded in their native language. Sheppard would have described them as being 'cute' together, but he'd never dare saying it aloud to either of them.
They rounded a corner and ended up at the entrance to a plaza. "Major?" called Sergeant Van Maarten. "Look at this. It is remarkable!"
Evan nodded and gave a low whistle. "Yeah." The plaza was enclosed on two sides by an intricately carved stone wall. The ground was covered in tiled mosaics, each piece inset with a loving hand and a precise eye. Stone benches dotted the plaza and a marble fountain dominated the center of it. There was no water in it now; the bottom of it shone green in the sunlight.
"Beautiful," breathed Cezivic. "A little piece of paradise in the city."
Radek grunted in agreement, but he seemed more interested in the energy reading. He brought his scanner to a niche in the wall. "Here is the control to the entrance gates. Major, if you would be so kind...?"
Even nodded and swept his hand over the niche. The security control responded to his ATA gene and a seam cracked open in the wall. He pushed it open and nodded at Van Maarten. Together, the two entered the plaza, with the rest of the Marine contingent behind them. As soon as they secured the area, Evan waved at Radek, Marta, and the rest of the scientists to follow.
"I was visiting a Roman villa once," Cezivic murmured, "and these mosaics remind me of the ones on the villa's walls. Look at them, it seems as if they were newly made!"
"Not a single trace of age," Evan agreed. He tilted his head to see the mosaics better. Each section seemed to be a small part of an ocean scene. Whoever had made this had a good sense of color and balance; Evan's mother, an art teacher, would have loved seeing this.
Corporal Tenney waved at them from across the plaza. Evan nodded and caught up with the rest of the team. Radek and Doctor Zeina El Hamra were taking readings from a door of an adjacent building. El Hamra smiled at him and pointed at the symbols etched into the doorframe.
"What's it say?" Evan asked her.
"It's not clear, but it seems to be an important site for the Ancients. Some sort of repository."
"Like an archive?"
"Perhaps. I'll try to translate this further." El Hamra sounded distracted as she compared the letters to the ones on her tablet.
Tenney traded glances with Evan; at the Major's nod, Tenney and Van Maarten quietly organized a protective perimeter around the scientists. The military escort slipped into their roles with long practice. Evan watched with a sense of pride. Colonel Sheppard would be proud of 'em.
"Sheppard to Lorne."
Evan tapped his comm. Someone on Sheppard's end of the line was mad about something. McKay. "Go ahead."
"McKay's found some strange database that isn't connected to the main Atlantis system. Looks like we're gonna be a while."
"Somebody's private notes?"
"Maybe. The whole thing's encrypted. Whoever programmed it didn't want their information to be found. Doctor Sanchez thinks it's a detailed inventory of what's in the lab, but McKay thinks it's more involved than that. They're arguing about it right now."
Evan resisted a smile. "So that's the bickering I'm hearing in the background."
Before Sheppard could say anything else, Ronon's aggrieved voice boomed over the link. "I'm gonna go out into the hall and check out the next room. Call me when they're finished arguing."
Evan suppressed a snort of laughter at Sheppard's exasperated sigh. There were times when the colonel's team acted like a bunch of rowdy schoolchildren. "We're in a plaza next to one of the buildings in the northeast sector. You should see these mosaics; they're impressive."
"That from a soldier's or an artist's perspective?"
"Both, actually." Sheppard was one of the few people who knew about his artistic endeavors. It wasn't something Evan advertised aloud. "Zelenka's checking out the source of an energy reading in one of the nearby buildings---"
Suddenly, the inscriptions around the doorframe began to glow, scarlet at first, and then it turned into a shimmering blue. Radek swore and took a step back, bumping into El Hamra, who jumped as if he'd given her an electric shock.
"What the---" Van Maarten shouted.
"Get away from the door!" Evan yelled. A wave of energy passed over his skin. The metal of his rifle became white-hot, and his fingers jerked as they reflexively dropped it. He cursed as he lost hold of his weapon and as the screech of a fried comm circuit nearly deafened him.
The door rippled as if it were made of water; it reminded him of the Stargate. A blast of white light erupted from its center, barely missing El Hamra and Van Maarten. Radek shouted as he shoved Cezivic out of the way of the beam. It overwhelmed Evan, and he tried to fight he overwhelming force pulling at him, but to no avail.
"Do prdele!" Radek swore, before the roar swamped Evan's senses. It was the last thing Evan heard before the light faded into blackness.
-----------------------------
"Lorne? Lorne?" John Sheppard yanked out his earpiece as feedback reverberated into his ear. "Son of a---" His legs buckled under him and only Teyla's reflexes saved him from an embarrassing spill onto the floor.
"Are you all right?" she asked him.
"Yeah...I think. Worse than the speakers at a Stones concert," he muttered.
"A...what?"
"I'll explain later." He managed a smile at her and straightened under her grasp. "Rodney? You okay?"
"I'm fine...fine," Rodney snapped, as he shook his right hand and blew on his fingers, "considering I nearly got electrocuted!"
"Where'd that come from?" Doctor Emilia Sanchez asked as she frantically tried to save her translation of the database. A panel next to her sparked, and she nearly jumped into Rodney's path.
"Careful!" he told her brusquely. The lights in the Ancient lab faded out and left the room in darkness. A minute later, a soft glow illuminated the various consoles as the emergency power kicked in. "There was a surge in the power grid, and everything's out in this sector of the city. Transporters, lights, everything. I'm trying to reestablish our connection---"
"Sheppard!" It was Ronon, from the adjoining hall.
John and Teyla looked at each other, and then made their way to the door. The Satedan stood a few meters away, his blaster pointed at a glowing figure at the end of the corridor. Two other Marines trained their P-90s at the unexpected visitor as well, but it made no reaction to the firepower zeroed in on it.
"Came out of nowhere," Ronon told Sheppard, "just as the lights went out."
No one said anything for a few moments. The light obscured its features, but it was definitely humanoid. It inclined its head at them, as if asking a question.
"It is curious," Teyla whispered. "It wants to know what we are going to do."
"Hold your fire," John ordered quietly. He nodded at Ronon, and the two approached the figure, still training their weapons on it. The figure raised a hand as if in warning; John and Ronon stopped in their tracks.
Then John heard three distinct words in his head: "No, not you."
The figure seemed to shrink into itself, and then disappeared with an audible pop. It didn't appear again. Ronon scowled, but didn't lower his weapon a fraction.
"That was weird," John said to no one in particular. "It didn't stick around. What was that?"
"Dunno," Ronon rumbled. "It said---"
"'No, not you'," Teyla finished. Her delicate brows knit together in thought. "What did it mean by that?"
One of the Marines looked back at her, confusion on his face. "It said something?"
She glanced at him. "You did not hear it?"
The Marine shook his head. "No, ma'am."
The lights flickered back on, feebly at first, then back to full strength. They all heard Rodney's frustrated sputter from the lab behind them.
"Rodney?" Sheppard asked, glancing over his shoulder at the Canadian.
"I didn't do anything this time!" Rodney snapped back. "The power came back on by itself. We've got communications back---"
Carson Beckett's voice broke into the channel. The Scotsman was obviously in the middle of a conversation with one of his medics. "We're almost there, Marta. Continue to apply pressure to Sergeant Van Maarten's head wound----"
Marta Cezivic's tone was professional as she spoke to her boss, but John Sheppard could hear the tremble in the medic's voice. "Doctor Beckett, Major Lorne and Doctor Zelenka were in front of the building...but they've disappeared!"
And speaking of..
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Mystery/Adventure, Gen Rating: T Archive: Please ask me first. Thanks.
Pairings: None. Main Character: Lorne, Zelenka, Beckett and team.
Here's my other WIP that I'm currently working on. As an artist, I was thrilled to see they made Evan Lorne a painter in "Sunday" (hated Carson dying, though.:( ) I wanted to expand on that, and I wanted to see more of the city, since they seemed to stop exploring it after season 1. This is the result. Thanks to Ladyhawke Legend and Entallat for the beta on chapter 1. If anyone else is interested in betaing for me, please let me know. I'd appreciate it.
Thanks. Annie
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, don't make money off 'em.
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Mystery/Adventure, Gen Rating: T Archive: Please ask me first. Thanks.
Pairings: None. Main Character: Lorne, Zelenka, Beckett and team.
Lights and Shadows Chapter 1
"Team Two, this is Team One, report."
Major Evan Lorne raised a hand and his team stopped. He tapped his earpiece and replied, "This is Lorne. We're heading into Sector Twenty-Three A."
Colonel John Sheppard's tone was amused, even more than usual, as he asked, "Find anything interesting?"
Evan glanced up at Doctor Radek Zelenka. The Czech engineer scowled at his computer tablet and muttered under his breath. Lorne had worked with Radek long enough to recognize a few Czech expletives. This time, Radek uttered a whole string of them. Evan sighed; he didn't blame Radek one bit.
"Not really, unless you count empty storage rooms and a waste disposal unit." Evan smothered a grin at more grumbling from Radek. The Marine escort overheard the dark tone and unobtrusively kept their distance. Funny, Evan thought, and I thought they were skittish around McKay.
"Will do, sir. Lorne, out." Privately, he hoped McKay would keep himself out of trouble. Really bad things tended to happen when the Canadian pushed buttons he wasn't supposed to.
Radek echoed Evan's thought. "Rodney and Ancient laboratories. I hope nothing awful will happen...again."
"Colonel Sheppard will make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble," Evan reassured him. Mentally, he added, I hope. Aloud, he asked, "What's up next, Doc?"
Radek indicated the next building with a lift of his chin. "There. I am detecting a faint energy reading."
"All right, let's get a move on." He and his team headed in that direction with a sense of purpose. It had been a while since any of Atlantis's teams had explored any new parts of the city. Evan wondered what kind of secrets Atlantis still held, though he had a healthy sense of caution about any leftover Ancient artifacts.
To Evan's amusement, so did Radek. The scientist didn't object to the Marine escort around them, and in fact, had insisted on taking a medic along for the day. Radek kept one eye on his scanner as he spoke to Doctor Marta Cezivic in hushed tones. Cezivic nodded and responded in their native language. Sheppard would have described them as being 'cute' together, but he'd never dare saying it aloud to either of them.
They rounded a corner and ended up at the entrance to a plaza. "Major?" called Sergeant Van Maarten. "Look at this. It is remarkable!"
Evan nodded and gave a low whistle. "Yeah." The plaza was enclosed on two sides by an intricately carved stone wall. The ground was covered in tiled mosaics, each piece inset with a loving hand and a precise eye. Stone benches dotted the plaza and a marble fountain dominated the center of it. There was no water in it now; the bottom of it shone green in the sunlight.
"Beautiful," breathed Cezivic. "A little piece of paradise in the city."
Radek grunted in agreement, but he seemed more interested in the energy reading. He brought his scanner to a niche in the wall. "Here is the control to the entrance gates. Major, if you would be so kind...?"
Even nodded and swept his hand over the niche. The security control responded to his ATA gene and a seam cracked open in the wall. He pushed it open and nodded at Van Maarten. Together, the two entered the plaza, with the rest of the Marine contingent behind them. As soon as they secured the area, Evan waved at Radek, Marta, and the rest of the scientists to follow.
"I was visiting a Roman villa once," Cezivic murmured, "and these mosaics remind me of the ones on the villa's walls. Look at them, it seems as if they were newly made!"
"Not a single trace of age," Evan agreed. He tilted his head to see the mosaics better. Each section seemed to be a small part of an ocean scene. Whoever had made this had a good sense of color and balance; Evan's mother, an art teacher, would have loved seeing this.
Corporal Tenney waved at them from across the plaza. Evan nodded and caught up with the rest of the team. Radek and Doctor Zeina El Hamra were taking readings from a door of an adjacent building. El Hamra smiled at him and pointed at the symbols etched into the doorframe.
"What's it say?" Evan asked her.
"It's not clear, but it seems to be an important site for the Ancients. Some sort of repository."
"Like an archive?"
"Perhaps. I'll try to translate this further." El Hamra sounded distracted as she compared the letters to the ones on her tablet.
Tenney traded glances with Evan; at the Major's nod, Tenney and Van Maarten quietly organized a protective perimeter around the scientists. The military escort slipped into their roles with long practice. Evan watched with a sense of pride. Colonel Sheppard would be proud of 'em.
"Sheppard to Lorne."
Evan tapped his comm. Someone on Sheppard's end of the line was mad about something. McKay. "Go ahead."
"McKay's found some strange database that isn't connected to the main Atlantis system. Looks like we're gonna be a while."
"Somebody's private notes?"
"Maybe. The whole thing's encrypted. Whoever programmed it didn't want their information to be found. Doctor Sanchez thinks it's a detailed inventory of what's in the lab, but McKay thinks it's more involved than that. They're arguing about it right now."
Evan resisted a smile. "So that's the bickering I'm hearing in the background."
Before Sheppard could say anything else, Ronon's aggrieved voice boomed over the link. "I'm gonna go out into the hall and check out the next room. Call me when they're finished arguing."
Evan suppressed a snort of laughter at Sheppard's exasperated sigh. There were times when the colonel's team acted like a bunch of rowdy schoolchildren. "We're in a plaza next to one of the buildings in the northeast sector. You should see these mosaics; they're impressive."
"That from a soldier's or an artist's perspective?"
"Both, actually." Sheppard was one of the few people who knew about his artistic endeavors. It wasn't something Evan advertised aloud. "Zelenka's checking out the source of an energy reading in one of the nearby buildings---"
Suddenly, the inscriptions around the doorframe began to glow, scarlet at first, and then it turned into a shimmering blue. Radek swore and took a step back, bumping into El Hamra, who jumped as if he'd given her an electric shock.
"What the---" Van Maarten shouted.
"Get away from the door!" Evan yelled. A wave of energy passed over his skin. The metal of his rifle became white-hot, and his fingers jerked as they reflexively dropped it. He cursed as he lost hold of his weapon and as the screech of a fried comm circuit nearly deafened him.
The door rippled as if it were made of water; it reminded him of the Stargate. A blast of white light erupted from its center, barely missing El Hamra and Van Maarten. Radek shouted as he shoved Cezivic out of the way of the beam. It overwhelmed Evan, and he tried to fight he overwhelming force pulling at him, but to no avail.
"Do prdele!" Radek swore, before the roar swamped Evan's senses. It was the last thing Evan heard before the light faded into blackness.
-----------------------------
"Lorne? Lorne?" John Sheppard yanked out his earpiece as feedback reverberated into his ear. "Son of a---" His legs buckled under him and only Teyla's reflexes saved him from an embarrassing spill onto the floor.
"Are you all right?" she asked him.
"Yeah...I think. Worse than the speakers at a Stones concert," he muttered.
"A...what?"
"I'll explain later." He managed a smile at her and straightened under her grasp. "Rodney? You okay?"
"I'm fine...fine," Rodney snapped, as he shook his right hand and blew on his fingers, "considering I nearly got electrocuted!"
"Where'd that come from?" Doctor Emilia Sanchez asked as she frantically tried to save her translation of the database. A panel next to her sparked, and she nearly jumped into Rodney's path.
"Careful!" he told her brusquely. The lights in the Ancient lab faded out and left the room in darkness. A minute later, a soft glow illuminated the various consoles as the emergency power kicked in. "There was a surge in the power grid, and everything's out in this sector of the city. Transporters, lights, everything. I'm trying to reestablish our connection---"
"Sheppard!" It was Ronon, from the adjoining hall.
John and Teyla looked at each other, and then made their way to the door. The Satedan stood a few meters away, his blaster pointed at a glowing figure at the end of the corridor. Two other Marines trained their P-90s at the unexpected visitor as well, but it made no reaction to the firepower zeroed in on it.
"Came out of nowhere," Ronon told Sheppard, "just as the lights went out."
No one said anything for a few moments. The light obscured its features, but it was definitely humanoid. It inclined its head at them, as if asking a question.
"It is curious," Teyla whispered. "It wants to know what we are going to do."
"Hold your fire," John ordered quietly. He nodded at Ronon, and the two approached the figure, still training their weapons on it. The figure raised a hand as if in warning; John and Ronon stopped in their tracks.
Then John heard three distinct words in his head: "No, not you."
The figure seemed to shrink into itself, and then disappeared with an audible pop. It didn't appear again. Ronon scowled, but didn't lower his weapon a fraction.
"That was weird," John said to no one in particular. "It didn't stick around. What was that?"
"Dunno," Ronon rumbled. "It said---"
"'No, not you'," Teyla finished. Her delicate brows knit together in thought. "What did it mean by that?"
One of the Marines looked back at her, confusion on his face. "It said something?"
She glanced at him. "You did not hear it?"
The Marine shook his head. "No, ma'am."
The lights flickered back on, feebly at first, then back to full strength. They all heard Rodney's frustrated sputter from the lab behind them.
"Rodney?" Sheppard asked, glancing over his shoulder at the Canadian.
"I didn't do anything this time!" Rodney snapped back. "The power came back on by itself. We've got communications back---"
Carson Beckett's voice broke into the channel. The Scotsman was obviously in the middle of a conversation with one of his medics. "We're almost there, Marta. Continue to apply pressure to Sergeant Van Maarten's head wound----"
Marta Cezivic's tone was professional as she spoke to her boss, but John Sheppard could hear the tremble in the medic's voice. "Doctor Beckett, Major Lorne and Doctor Zelenka were in front of the building...but they've disappeared!"
And speaking of..