Story part 2

Radek walked slowly through the city. He knew he would be living here for the next little while but he still didn’t want to miss anything. Rodney was walking by. Zelinka quickly stopped to talk to him. “Carson found a hologram three floors down, if you see doctor Weir she’d probably like to see it as well.

“What is your name again?” Rodney wondered.

“Zelinka” Radek sighed.

“Zelinka! McKay!” one of the scientists yelled. “We have a problem,”

“Yes, yes, I was looking for Dr Weir so I could tell her” McKay bragged. McKay was proud, he was much smarter then all the other scientists. Radek frowned. His boss was arrogant, way too arrogant.

“So what’s the problem?” Zelinka asked.

“The city is sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Thankfully there is a force field holding the water back.” McKay shot out.

Radek was frightened. “What if the force field gives out?”

“Then the city floods and we all die but that’s not going to happen,”

“What makes you so sure it can’t happen?”

“The force field has been holding back the water for thousands of years it’s not going to just give out right after we come,” Rodney said.

“I hope you are right”

“There was an energy spike” the scientist tried to explain but Rodney and Radek just kept talking.

“Of course I’m right. When am I ever wrong?” Rodney laughed sarcastically.

“More often then you would dare to admit”

“Zelinko, I am THE Rodney Mckay. I am always right.”

“It’s Zelinka”

“Yes, yes, Zelinka, Zelinko. Does it really matter what I call you?”

“Anos, ty delta ne Malji byt ano Arogantní,” Zelinka mumbled

“Hello, I’m not Italian. I don’t have a clue what you’re saying.”

“Itallinain. Jako je prase”

“What did you call me?” Rodney said. Radek knew he would be in trouble if he went an further.

“Never mind.”

“I’m smarter then you so you can go work with all the less important scientists. Understand?”

“Anos”

“English”

“Yes”

Radek walked away with his head low. “Jsem třicet pět let, Dnes je moje první den v. I nemohou křik” he mumbled.

“Are you alright?” Ford asked as he was walking by.

“Yes, I am fine” Radek faked a smile. Ford stared at him for a moment.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes” Zelinka said. Ford stood there a moment longer and then he continued walking along.

Radek kept walking. Nobody liked him when he was a child but he had figured that maybe he would make friends here in Atlantis. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he would always be rejected by everyone. “Why doesn’t anyone like me?” he whispered. He let one tear role down his face. Then he smiled so that nobody would know he was crying.

Carson walked over to Rodney. “Please tell me this is not my fault,” he begged.

“No Carson. It’s not.” Rodney sighed. When everyone entered the city everything turned on. There for power levels in the city were dropping rapidly. As soon as they ran out of power the shield would fail and the water would flood the city.

“From what we have been able to find there are three ZPM’s powering the city, two of which are depleted while the third is reaching maximum energy. When it does it will die too and nothing can reverse that.” Rodney explained to everyone in the room.

“Just tell me the bottom line” Cornel Sumner said.

“The force field that is holding back the ocean has collapsed to the minimum sustainable levels.” Rodney said. How could he not understand it? He thought. It was so simple. Rodney brought a map of Atlantis up on the computer. “Look, here and here where the shield has already colasped and the city has already flooded. It could have happened years ago. This room that we are in now is likely protected because this room holds the Stargate.”

“What if it fails completely?” John asked.

“It’s a matter of when, not if.” Rodney said as he walked towards more computers.

“Cornel Sumner, you need to order your men to stop searching the city.” Dr Weir ordered.

“All security teams, fall back to the gate room” Sumner spoke as he turned on his radio that was hooked around his ear.

“It’s not going to be good enough,” Rodney sighed.

“How much time do we have?” Dr Weir asked

“It’s hard to say. Hours, maybe even days if we use as little power as possible.”

“What about our own power generators?” Carson asked

“We are working on that but even with are most advanced naquada generators the equations are coming up far short.”

“So we need to find more ZPM’s” Dr Weir suggested

“How can we do that if we can’t search the city?” Sumner asked

“If there were more here we would be able to detect them,” Rodney said as he pointed at the larger computer screen.

“Can we use the Stargate?” Sumner asked

“There’s no where near enough power to open a wormhole back to earth.”

“Maybe somewhere in this galaxy,” John suggested.

“That’s relatively easy” Rodney concluded. They group looked at each other. Maybe it’ll work, Rodney thought.

“Thankfully some ancients uses good old fashion push bottoms. We just have to access the data base and find a planet that’s supposed to be safe.”

“That’s not all!” shot Peter, who was one of the few scientists that Rodney respected. Peter pressed a button on the DHD. A large white screen of energy covered the Stargate.

“ It’s just like the Iris on the earth gate,” Sumner commented. The Iris was a shield that covered the Stargate so that nothing could pass through that was not supposed to pass through.

“Using power, using power, using power,” Rodney repeated until Peter reached over and turned the shield off.

“This means we don’t have to deal with any uninvited guests”

“Cornel, assemble a team” Dr Weir ordered, “We need a safe place to live or better yet a power source.” Elizabeth said. The cornel ordered Ford to gather security teams one and two over the radio.

“Shepherd, I want you to go too” Elizabeth said. She knew that Sumner didn’t like John. She wanted to give him a chance to prove himself.

“Yes ma’am”, John tried to be solemn but he still smiled.

“Alright,” Dr Weir turned to Rodney and Peter, “Dial a planet”

Rodney pushed a button and waited for it to lock, “Chevron one encoded” he said with a serious face.

“Rodney,” Dr Weir warned Rodney looked at her and frowned.

“Fine” He pushed all eight symbols.

Soon everyone had heard the news. They all knew they were leaving. They all knew why, including Radek. Zelinka searched for McKay until he finally found him. “McKay, I need to talk to you now!” Zelinka insisted.

“Didn’t I tell you to go work with the less important scientists? What was your name, Slinky?” Rodney sighed

“Zelinka, my name is Zelinka.”

“Zelinka, what do you want?”

“Why would the Ancients leave Atlantis this way?”

“Please, speak English.”

“The ancients left the city knowing that whoever occupied it in the future would have this problem.”

“And your point is?”

“Well, weren’t they smart enough to prevent that?”

“Zelinka, they were in the middle of a war. They didn’t have time to mess with things like these.”

“Maybe they did think of some plan B or something.”

“When the ancients sunk the city they intended on coming back themselves. They thought they would come back with a ZPM. If we had a Zero Point Module we could plug it in and save the city but we don’t! Ralinka, we can not save the city so let me get back to work so I can save your life!”

“Me jemno je Zelinka, Radek Zelinka.” Radek sighed.

“I may be the smartest person alive but I don’t speak Japanese! Please, will you just speak English!”

“Říká si je geniuse ale může ani Vzpome si jedno jméno” Zelinka mumbled.

“Fine! Don’t talk to me. Remind me not to vote for you as Atlantian of The Year! Oh, I forgot! If you keep talking to me in who knows what language, I wont be able to complete my work and there for we wont be able to have a vote because we will all be dead! Now move out of my way and let me save your life. Not that I really want to but if I didn’t then I would have a bad reputation!” Rodney was yelling at Radek when Dr Weir walked into the room.

“Well you should stop being so arrogant and start caring about the lives you’re trying so hard to save!”

“I do care! I care about Dr Weir, Peter, John Shepherd, I even care about what’s his name. Ford?”

“It would be nice if you acted like it!”

“McKay! Zelinka!” Dr Weir interrupted, “Will you please stop fighting like your five and start acting like you’re adults!”

“Anos, Za.” Radek sighed

“Radek! We don’t speak German!” Rodney teased.

“Rodney, he’s not German,” Dr Weir said, “Could you say that again in English please?”

“I said sorry,”

“Rodney?” Elizabeth turned to McKay, “Why don’t you go help Peter.”

“I was just going to….”

“Rodney”

“Yes ma’am” Rodney sighed. He turned and walked out of the room very fast.

“Radek,” Dr Weir turned around, “I know how stressed everyone is but you need to try and work through it until we find a way to save the city or a safe place to stay.”

“And then what?”

“Then we will all take a break.”

“Yes ma’am”

“Go find something to do Radek,” Elizabeth smiled. She was so excited, she couldn’t sit still. Sure she might only have a few more hours in it but she was in the lost city of Atlantis. She was special. Not many people got to go to Atlantis. “We have a city to save,” she laughed.

Radek continued on his theory that maybe the ancients did have a plan to save the city. Maybe somewhere it was written down and someone just had to find it. He read the last entry in the ancient data base.

The 8^th day of the 4^th Melenyon on the 14^th hour

Five hive ships orbit the planet. We will attempt to destroy one of the by sending a team onto the ship and over loading the systems which will result in the ships exploding. We are running low on drones. My dear friend Teak’ku will have to create more because he is the only survivor who can build drones. We need him for this so he will not be put in any place of danger. Marluku, my Uncle will be one of the ones to go on the ship and overload the systems. We have lost many of our kind fighting this war but never have we been on the losing side of the battle. We have hid ZPM’s on many planets all of which are settlements of the great enemy.

“We’re evacuating Rat nest!” Rodney walked over to Zelinka.

“You know my name is not Rat nest. You are just trying to annoy me.”

“Sure, but we’re evacuating”

“Why?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Maybe because the shield is about to clasp and the ocean will flood the city.”

“Maybe it’s a lake”

“I doubt it”

“It might be”

“Gentle men” Elizabeth said as she walked in the room. “Does it really matter?”

“Yes!” Radek and Rodney both said at the same time.

“Well you two can bicker when we have finished our evacuation.”

“BUT….” Rodney started to speak

“Rodney, will it matter if the water is salty or fresh when you drown in it?”

“Well actually, I never liked the beach. The salt water always got in my eyes and it burned.”

“How about we evacuate and then you won’t have to worry about getting salt in your eyes.”

“I like that idea,” Radek added, “let’s get out of here and avoid dying all together.”

“What do you think, Rodney?” Dr Weir asked

“Yes, let’s evacuate”

“Good, let’s go”

Everyone was getting ready to leave the city. Dr Weir’s smile had finally left her face. Not many people were smiling. McKay and Weir were arguing. “Never in my wildest dreams should I have to find the lost city of the ancients so completely untouched and we have no choice but to leave it.”

“In order to save it” Rodney added

“To save it for whom? We don’t have enough power to send a message. As far as earth is concerned we’re just going to be a missing loss.”

“We’ll be back; we will find a power source somewhere in Pegasus.”

“We have yet to hear from Cornel Sumner’s team. We have no idea what’s out there!”

“It is time to go now,” Rodney insisted. Elizabeth and Rodney stared at each other a moment long until Dr Weir stepped back and walked away. She turned on her radio and spoke into it.

“Attention all personel, this is Weir,” the city started to shake like a massive earthquake. Elizabeth grabbed the railing in front of her. “Stand by for immediate evacuation!” She shouted. She turned to Rodney who was amongst a bunch of panicked scientist all running in different directions gathering stuff. “Dial the gate!” Radek looked up from the computer he was reading from. Then he looked back down. He had to finish reading this.

I came to realize that the woman from the future might stand a chance if I helped her. It was already decided that there was no way to reverse the effects of the time machine in the limited time we had remaining but because she was so desperate to go home I thought of a way. Secretly against the will of my friends, I put her in stasis so that she could rotate the ZPM’s because one ZPM would die in a thousand years or so. My plan would send her back and give her people another chance. Maybe the next time the city wont…

“Radek, come on!” Rodney shouted. Radek looked at him amazed that Rodney remembered his name.

“I just want to read a bit…”

“Radek! The shield is about to collapse. When it does the city will flood! We need to go now!”

“One second” Radek insisted. Rodney turned to dial the gate. Rodney paused. He looked very confused.

“We’ve got an incoming wormhole,” McKay said shocked.

“I’m reading Lt Ford’s identification code,” Peter announced.

“Let them in!” Weir ordered. Rodney lowered the shield. Radek realized he might have a moment longer.

Maybe the next time the city won’t flood. When the people retake the city in three thousand years and they find they are sunk at the bottom of the ocean they will not be able to supply power enough to save the city from flooding but when the shield collapses…

Radek quickly looked up to see Shepherd and many children coming into the city. Then more people came in through the Stargate. All the people looked around amazed. Zelinka looked back down at the computer and continued to read.

When the shield collapses the city will rise to the top of the ocean. The city will not flood but it will float. After that they will live in Atlantis floating on the ocean without shields but hopefully by then our enemy will not live.

Elizabeth went running down the stairs to the gate. Radek chased her; he had to tell her not to leave.

“Major Shepherd! Who are all these people?” Elizabeth asked.

“Survivors from the settlement, we were attacked! Sumner and some of our men were taken. What’s going on?”

“We are in no position to help anyone right now,”

“What’s going on here?” John asked again.

“We were about to abandon the city!”

“Going back there is a really bad idea.”

“The shield is about to fail and the ocean is about to collapse in on us. Do you have a better place to go?”

“Jinto, do you have another address we can gate to?” John turned to a twelve years old boy.

“Yes, many!” Jinto remembered.

“He’s just a boy” Elizabeth said as Radek ran up to her and tapped her on the shoulder.

“My name is Jinto!” the kid smiled

“She’s pleased to meet you,” John said as he dragged Jinto up to the control room.

“Dr Weir,” Radek said.

“Not now Zelinka,” Dr. Weir pushed him away.

“Elizabeth! Listen to me please!”

“What!?”

“When the shield collapses the city will rise out of the ocean!”

“I don’t understand,”

“The shield has failed!” Rodney shouted

“Elizabeth! Trust me.” Radek tried to stay calm. Dr Weir thought about it for a second. As a leader she had to trust her people. The city shook even harder and she fell backwards. She got up but it was hard to balance. Ford who also tried to get up ran into her by accident.

“I’m dialing an address!” Peter shouted. Radek was on the floor trying to get up.

“NO! Wait!” She called out.

“She’s right,” Rodney confirmed.

“We’re moving!” John shouted. The city continued to shake. Boxes fell on the floor. Radek looked at the stain glass window behind the Stargate. Light was soon shining into the large room. Soon the city stopped shaking. Everyone gathered around the windows to see water dripping down the windows.

“Je Uzasne” he whispered which meant it’s amazing.

Elizabeth, John, Jinto, Ford, Rodney and Peter gathered around a window at the back of the room.

“We’re on the surface!” Ford smiled.

“I was hoping for another day,” Dr Weir said, “Look’s like we’ve got a whole lot more then that. Let’s not waste it.”

John smiled. The ocean went on farther than the eye could see. A large wave, the shape of the city, moved away father and farther. Weir looked back at Radek.

“I have to go tell Dr Zelinka something,” she walked towards him. She held his shoulder. “Radek,” she whispered. Radek looked at her. “Thank you.”

Radek frowned, “I’m sorry I didn’t evacuate. I wasn’t very much help. It wont happen again, I promise.”

“You did good,” Dr Weir assured.

“Neni oprevda,” Radek sighed.

Elizabeth knew what he said. She shook her head. “You did do well.”

Radek lowered his head and looked at the floor. “Každý, kdo nenávidí mě”

“Radek,” Rodney said, “You were right, I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

“It is alright Rodney. You could of very easily have been right.”

“Well, I wasn’t. Where are you from anyway?”

“Czech”

“Rodney!” Elizabeth shouted. “Let’s start cleaning up!”

The end

This story was based on the si-fi TV serise Stargate Atlantis, it was based on the first and second episode -The Riseing part 1 and 2. The TV serise is writen by Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper.