The Other City von T L Kay
The following day and a half was a blur of preparations, briefings and endless medical procedures. Whenever Kate got a moment or two to herself John was close by, watching over her. She knew he was just anxious about her leaving, but things were stressed enough without his constant attention.
Finally the time came to depart. Kate’s team and a science team assembled in the gate room with their gear and their space suits. Kate looked up to the control room where General Landry, Jack, John, Daniel, Rodney and Elizabeth were all standing looking anxious. She saw Landry nod to Walter and the gate began to dial. Kate exchanged a look with her brother before fastening her helmet firmly onto her suit.
“You’re clear to depart,” said Landry’s voice over the intercom when the gate had connected. “Good luck.”
Kate nodded and stepped forward. The shimmering blue surface was so foreboding this time. Who knew exactly what was on the other side? Was she leading them to their deaths? She took a deep breath; she had to be strong for her team.
“Here we go,” she said.
She closed her eyes and stepped through. She felt herself come through the other side and engaged her gravity boots. She slowly opened her eyes and looked around. It was the most amazing thing she had ever seen, ten times the beauty and majesty of Atlantis. She heard the sound of the others coming through. She turned around to them. Zelenka and the other scientists were taking things off the cart and Lorne was supervising, but Kate’s attention was drawn to James. She smiled at the look on his face.
“It has that effect,” she said with a laugh, remembering her brother telling her that.
James took a deep breath, trying to speak.
With a laugh Kate tapped on her radio. “Command this is Praesidium, we’re through.”
“Best of luck Doctor,” said Landry’s voice. “You have 18 hours of oxygen, if we haven’t heard from you before then we will dial in and divert the Daedalus to your position.”
“Understood sir, Praesidium out.”
The gate shut down and they were plunged into darkness. Kate switched on her light and saw the others doing the same. She looked around the embarkation room. Zelenka and the scientists had unloaded the equipment they would need and had moved to the command room to see if they couldn’t get things up and running. Lorne was still overseeing everything and James was standing there, gazing around in wonder.
“Hey Marty,” Kate said. “You feel up to a stroll?”
James nodded, still unable to speak.
She turned to Lorne. “Captain James and I are going to poke around. Let me know if the nerd herd gets anything working.”
Lorne smiled. “Will do.”
Kate took a quick look around at the options for exiting the embarkation room before she finally decided on a stairway that led down from the control room. Adrianus’ memories told her that she would like what she found down there. James followed, still dumbstruck. As the stairs opened up into a hallway that Kate followed he seemed to find his voice.
“How do you know where you’re going?” he asked.
Kate smiled. “You know that symbiote that I told you about?”
“The snake in your head?”
She nodded. “Well he left behind his memories and thoughts and things like that. I’m remembering what he knew of the layout of this place.”
“That’s gotta be disconcerting, remembering a place that you’ve never been.”
She laughed. “You have no idea.”
“And where do the memories tell you we’re going.”
Kate smiled. “You’ll see.”
They continued down the hallway until they came to a door. Kate waved her hand over the console, but nothing happened.
“Damn it,” she said. “I didn’t think about that.”
“What?”
She gave him a look. “Think about it Marty.”
“Oh right, the power.”
She sighed. “I guess we could try to manually open it?”
James shrugged. “How does one do that exactly?”
Kate smiled. “I’m not exactly sure.”
James opened his mouth to say something, but just then the lights in the hallway came on and they felt the artificial gravity engage.
“Kat?” came Lorne’s voice over the intercom. “Zelenka fixed the power.”
Kate laughed. “I noticed.”
“He also found something that he wants you to see. He’s the in control room, do you know where that is?”
Kate dug around in the memories for a second until she found it. “Yeah, I know where that is. But there’s something I want to check out first. I’ll meet you there in a few.”
“Ok,” he said. “Lorne out.”
Kate shot James a mischievous look before swiping her hand over the console again. This time the door opened. They stepped in and the lights turned on to reveal a very large room, filled with what looked like space ships. Kate smiled as she walked up to one.
“What are those?” asked James in awe.
“These are puddle jumpers,” she said. “There are similar ships on Atlantis.”
James laughed.
“What?”
“It’s just all sinking in. I’m in another galaxy on a space station that’s god only knows how old, looking at space ships. My life’s never going to be normal again, is it?”
Kate laughed. “Probably not. Come on, Radek’s waiting.”
They met Dr. Zelenka in the control room where he and the other scientists were flitting from console to console excitedly. They also weren’t wearing their spacesuits, which was something Kate hadn’t thought of. With the restoration of the power came the restoration of life support.
“So what’s up?” she asked Radek, taking off her helmet.
“Well, we didn’t need to hook up the naquadah generators.”
“The city has a ZPM?”
He smiled, then indicated the center console, where she knew the ZPM resided in from the one in Atlantis. “We have 5.”
“Five?” she gaped at him. “But there are only slots for three.”
“Two are in storage.”
“Wherever these Ancients disappeared to they left in a hurry,” she said.
Zelenka shrugged. “I guess.”
“Well, I suppose we should probably dial Earth?”
He smiled. “Already done.”
“And?”
“They’ll be sending the rest within the hour.”
Kate smiled and turned to James. “Well, what do you say we go pick out our quarters before everyone else gets here?”
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