Journey to Green Bay by Pouncer

Rating: PG
Genre: Gen
Challenge: First Contact
Summary: One of the Voyagers had captured the big red spot in all its full-color glory, the farthest human eyes had ever traveled. Sheppard had never thought he’d see anything like it in person.


Journey to Green Bay
by Pouncer

This week’s gate orbited a gas giant. The MALP’s camera showed how the planet’s atmosphere swirled together green and amber and white, with rings that arched at an oblique angle to the stargate. McKay and Zelenka had both been stymied when asked why the Ancients would have done such a thing. Every other orbital gate they had stumbled upon had circled a habitable world.

“Do I look like a mind-reader?” McKay had snapped at last. Zelenka had just shrugged, a puzzled expression on his face. Grodin was trying to figure out how to retrieve the MALP.

Weir had told Sheppard to be careful while checking out the solar system. As if he would be anything but careful, now that he’d survived lost cities and soul-eating aliens and life-sucking bugs and explosives-crazy totalitarians. He smirked in reply and went to order McKay to bring along extra sensor equipment and the digital camera. Sheppard had always liked pictures of planets, ever since that issue of Life devoted to Jupiter had distracted him from the hostages in Iran. One of the Voyagers had captured the big red spot in all its full-color glory, the farthest human eyes had ever traveled. He’d never thought he’d see anything like it in person.

His team armed up, just in case they found a planet with a breathable atmosphere. McKay must have felt compelled to note, “You know, the Ancients could have wanted to reach a moon. Titan in our own solar system has an atmosphere. Not oxygen-nitrogen, of course, but there might be some life there. I wish I could have been there to see what Cassini found.”

Sheppard looked at McKay steadily. “You’re in another galaxy, Rodney. You’ve found plenty on your own.”

McKay looked pleased, a hint of his natural smugness replacing the longing. “Why yes, I have.” He donned his flak vest. “Well, come along. We should really get started.”

* * *

The planet, which Ford wanted to name Corwin after some book he’d read in his far-too-recent adolescence, possessed moons in abundance. All of them bare rock, unprotected from the vacuum of space. Sheppard flew ever-increasing spiral orbits around the planet, which he was not going to name Corwin. Maybe Green Bay, instead. Or Favre.

McKay hummed under his breath from where he was interpreting his arcane readouts. Sheppard ignored him, but at last Teyla broke. “Dr. McKay, have you found something?” She’d been sitting in that chair with nothing to occupy her for quite a while. Sheppard thought they should bring one of the laptops and some DVDs the next time they did this. And popcorn. Although he wasn’t really tired of the view yet.

McKay peered more closely at his Ancient PDA. “I don’t know. There’s something very strange about that planet.”

“It’s a gas giant, Rodney. What wouldn’t be strange?”

“I do keep up with the astronomy literature, you know, Major.” Sheppard loved it when McKay got all offended that his scientific dignity might have been slighted. “Gas giants in our solar system share certain characteristics, and this planet is just … off.”

“Off? Off how?” Sheppard was really going to have to work on McKay’s ability to concisely convey information in the field.

“I said I don’t know, Major.” A slight pause while McKay’s eyes went blank in the way that meant he was making some intuitive leap that none of the rest of them could follow. “Although. Hmmm.”

“Hmmm?” Sheppard was sure that McKay was teasing him now.

“Can you fly us closer to the atmosphere?” McKay’s eyes had refocused and he turned the full force of his attention on Sheppard. It was like having the universe’s most intense Golden Retriever begging to go for a walk.

“Closer? How much closer?” Sheppard was dubious.

“Maybe just inside the outermost gaseous layer?” McKay had blinked. Sheppard had seen it.

“Inside the …? Rodney. Do you know what the pressure levels could do to this ship? We don’t know what its tolerance specifications are!” One of the first things Sheppard had learned in flight school was always protect the aircraft. The instructor hadn’t gone into these specific circumstances, but Sheppard thought he should take extra care when surrounded by hard vacuum with backup solar systems away.

“It wouldn’t be that far inside, Major. I just need to get closer to see –“ and here McKay veered off into scientist-speak that Sheppard couldn’t translate.

The air of wounded eagerness that McKay was projecting finally made Sheppard knuckle under. “Fine! Fine. We’ll go just inside.”

“Sir,” Ford tried to object, but Sheppard overrode him ruthlessly, now that he’d given in.

“No, Lieutenant, I can see that Rodney will sulk the entire way home if he doesn’t get to visit the gas giant and take pictures to all his friends back in the lab for show and tell.” Sheppard looked at Ford’s stolid face, which didn’t hide his trepidation nearly as well as the lieutenant thought. “Don’t worry, Ford. I can fly anything, anywhere.”

Teyla just nodded when Sheppard glanced at her.

The lightest of thoughts and the Jumper curved closer to the planet while avoiding the clustered ice and rock of its rings. Sheppard busied himself trying to recall what this type of orbit would have been called back on Earth. He’d always flown too close to the ground to care how far his eyes in the sky were above him. Those space guys had the wackiest designations for their satellite’s paths – HEO, GEO, LEO, like they all belonged on Old McDonald’s farm.

Sheppard decided that McKay would have to be content with the top third of Favre’s atmosphere. He aimed for a green band of clouds, probably some caustic chemical that would eat through the Jumper’s hull. There was a little turbulence as he hit the outer edges, and a spike of excitement that Sheppard didn’t think he would ever get used to. He was flying a spaceship through the atmosphere of an alien planet. The things you got into, ferrying generals around.

McKay was completely focused on his sensor data, and a quick peek back showed Ford’s hands digging into the armrests of his chair. Teyla was poised, tense and ready for action. Sheppard eased a few hundred meters down into the murk, trusting that the Jumper knew what he wanted it to do.

He was the first one to see it, a glimpse off the bottom right of the viewscreen. Sheppard thought it was a shadow at first, a darker patch of cloud, but it kept getting closer and bigger.

“Rodney.” His voice modulated up and down the two syllables.

“Hmmm?” Just like McKay, to miss this.

“Rodney, do you see what I’m seeing?” Sheppard knew his voice was a little too urgent, but he was too jazzed to care. He pointed at the shadow, whose edges were becoming clearer.

McKay sat beside Sheppard, speechless for once.

Another one swooped from above them, tumbling around the first. They began to dance a spiral in front of the Jumper, delicate translucent wings floating out from a slim central carapace. A third joined them, another alien combination of butterfly and jellyfish and hang-glider.

“Rodney, get the camera. We’re going to need pictures or they’ll never believe us back on Atlantis.” Sheppard gestured toward the cargo hold where their equipment was stored. He didn’t stop watching the pas de trois being performed to lead the Jumper onwards.

Teyla and Ford were muttering to each other, but Sheppard couldn’t make out the words.

McKay returned and shot digital images one after another as an entire flock of the aliens appeared to escort the Jumper. “Why didn’t I bring the video camera? Why?”

Sheppard watched the fluttering wings create geometric patterns, and didn’t care.

-end-



Notes: “Corwin” is from Roger Zelazny’s Amber series. I shamelessly stole the concept of the aliens from C.S. Friedman’s The Madness Season. My thanks to kageygirl for her beta efforts.

Disclaimer: If they were mine, Sheppard would be shirtless a lot more often.