sga_flashfic | G-Forces, by kuonji (G) [This Is Not Happening challenge]

TItle: G-Forces
Author: kuonji
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: a whole heap of 'em
Rating: G
Challenge: This Is Not Happening challenge
Spoilers: none really, though it takes place after Duet
Summary:
"Er, Rodney, did you notice how far away Zelenka was when it picked him up?"
"No, I didn't, because my head is stuck to a giant piece of Ancient plastic."

This was written for

dracostella, who told me, "First of all, any story that starts with OMG, gets a thumbs up from me"

G-Forces
by kuonji

"Oh my God!" Rodney gasps. He pushes desperately at the body on top of his own, trying to, needing to... If he could just--

"Oh my God is right, Rodney," John exclaims. "Can't you stay still for one single--" He ends the sentence in a growl as he tries and fails to reach, to twist, to... move! He can't--

"I can't breathe!" Rodney moans. "I don't want to die like this; please, this is too humiliating."

"What, did you have some better death planned out that we pre-empted?" John struggles again to get a hand free, just one...! But his attempts to knock Rodney upside the head continue to fail spectacularly despite there being zero space between them. "And obviously," he grits out, "you can breathe just fine, because you are not shutting up!"

"Oh. My. God. You two are unbelievable. Neither of you has stopped whining since you got here." Both men glare at the blonde speaker.

"Watch it, Lieutenant. You're on thin ice there." John has absolutely no sympathy for Laura Cadman, who had arguably started the mess in the first place. "Might I remind you that the next time you yell for assist, you let me know what the problem is before we actually step into it?"

"Sir--"

"Oh..." Any further reply from Cadman is cut off by the groggy voice. Those of them who can, swivel towards it. "My God, what happened?"

"Welcome back, Beckett. Actually, we thought maybe you'd like to tell us," John says to Dr. Beckett, the other half of the addend that equates to the current disaster. If Carson's wild eyes are any indication, he knows it too.

"I didn't do anything!" he says, his thickened accent giving away his nerves.

Knows it and denying it, the bastard.

"I hope that was just pulled from long-term memory after a head trauma, Carson, because if that was your actual assessment of the situation, I am going to have to suggest to the keepers of the Simon-Binet scale that IQ start to be measureable in negative digits just to accomodate morons like you."

Somehow, the fact that Rodney's forehead and most of the front of his body is glued to a pillar at the moment fails to detract from his threatening tone. Carson whimpers.

"Hey, lay off, McKay," Cadman scowls, even though with her right arm and entire left side immobilized, she can't even see her target.

"Don't start," John breaks in, feeling Rodney tense in front of him for a reply.

He doesn't get to see if this authority thing will work out because they're interrupted by a scream from the doorway.

"Oh my God! What's happening to me?!" John twists enough around to see Katie Brown stumbling towards them.

"Wait, wait, wait, don't--!" But it's too late and she's there and her right hand and her entire backside connect to Carson with a meaty thump.

Rodney stares daggers at Beckett. "What, your own girlfriend stuck to your side not good enough?"

"What's going on here?" Katie says, trying to pull herself free, just as John and Rodney had done when they'd first been in that position. Just like them, it does no good except to wrench on the connecting person's skin.

"Please don't do that," Carson yelps.

"Wait, Katie, Katie," Cadman interjects. "Can you reach my radio?"

"Laura, is that you?" Katie tries to peer around Carson, and John can see that there's no way even her willowy arms can bend that far backwards.

"We're doomed, we're doomed..." Obviously Rodney, despite his limited scope of vision, has realized the same. "We're all going to die in a miserable alien fly trap, and the only person even distantly capable of saving us is probably sitting around on his ass ruining my life's work with spilled coffee."

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod...!"

"Crap, Rodney, speak of the devil. Incoming!"

Cadman's warning is mostly unnecessary as John watches Radek backpedalling towards them at an unstoppable near run. He looks once over his shoulder at them and gets out a couple of what John assumes to be swear words in panicked Czech before he collides with and stays pasted to Rodney's (and incidentally, John's) left side.

"What... How...?" He tries to bring his glasses back down from the top of his head, but his upper arms are unmoveable and he can't reach. John stretches to nudge the lenses back into place with his chin. The shifting causes Rodney to growl under him and try to elbow his ribs again.

"Sorry."

"Am I correct in saying that I've arrived in the middle of another dangerous situation?" Radek inquires. He blinks owlishly, looking remarkably calm now that he realizes they're at what counts for status quo in Atlantis.

"Not exactly dangerous," John allows.

"Oh good, so only twenty-two percent chance of dying instead of usual," Radek comments. John doesn't bother correcting him, in case it's true.

"Er, Rodney, did you notice how far away Zelenka was when it picked him up?"

"No, I didn't, because my head is stuck to a giant piece of Ancient plastic."

John rolls his eyes. "Okay, never mind."

A moment passes. They all fidget against each other.

"Okay, how far?"

"Looked like out in the hallway to me."

"Yes, I felt something pulling me when I came out from the opposite room, and suddenly" -- some Czech expession with distinct lack of accompanying hand gestures -- "I am here!"

"Oh God, it's expanding," Rodney says unnecessarily. "Of course, I should have thought of that; G is always proportional to Mass, in this case augmented to ridiculous proportions."

"The doorway for Katie. Ten feet away for us. Hey, how close to the thing were you two just before it went off?" John asks Beckett, just to be mean.

"That would be-- touching it, Colonel."

"By which, you mean doing unhygienic things while leaning on priceless Ancient technology," Rodney adds.

"Laura!" Cadman shrugs -- as much as she is able -- at Katie's wicked tone.

"We were off-duty, it was dark and quiet."

"It was, and is, an experimental lab," Rodney adds, scathing.

"Well, I'm sorry, Rodney. But how the bloody hell would we have known," Carson protests. "I still don't see what the Ancients could have done with something like this."

Zelenka's in between them now, but Rodney manages to sneer in Beckett's direction. "It was probably some sort of tool used for punishing stupid people, and the stupider people who choose to come running to save them when they are passed out from unidentified technology that they should not have been touching, only to start freefalling sideways into said unidentified technology and be stuck here like vinyl clings."

Luckily, that particular conversation is cut off by a roar of confusion from the doorway.

"What. Is. This?" John struggles toward the familiar voice and sees Ronon braced against the doorway. Ronon doesn't have time to say anymore, however, because not even his shoulders are wide enough, and his fingers slip and he's suddenly lurching forward.

"Oh my GOD! NOOO!" they all yell, as two hundred plus pounds of solid muscle comes hurtling towards them at breakneck speed.

***

"Oh my... God knows we find something new here every day, don't we."

It's two hours, thirty-nine people, and what feels like fifty million bruises later, and Elizabeth is really not trying nearly hard enough to keep the smile off her face, in John's opinion.

"And the device, Rodney. Any idea what it is exactly?"

Rodney fiddles with his datapad, and it's finally Radek who answers. "We think it's a construction tool."

Even Elizabeth looks blank at that. They all wait for elaboration.

"It was discontinued due to difficulties, but it was supposed to be one of those things that suck up other things so you can move them around," Rodney finally explains, hands clipping out the appropriate gestures. "Like the magnetic cranes in recycling yards, only it works on everything, not just metal."

Great, they'd all spent the afternoon stuck to a garbage hauler. Just another day in the Pegasus Galaxy.

"So, it might actually be useful to our engineers."

"It might if it worked, which it doesn't. For reasons I'm not going to get into now, the stability of the gravity well is disrupted by proximity of someone with the ATA gene. In fact, that's how we got free of it. Obviously, this would have been disaster to the Ancients, since all of them had it."

"But not all of us," John muses.

"No, but Rodney's right," Elizabeth is quick to note. "That's still too big of a restriction." She looks disappointed. "I'm sure we could have used it for reconstructing the damaged parts of the city."

"Tractor beams," John sighs.

"Personnel rescue," Beckett puts in.

"Yes, and clearing debris, and launching satellites, and maybe a cure for world famine," Rodney says, sarcastic. "But we can't do all that because it doesn't work. And it doesn't work because-- waitaminute." Rodney sits up very straight.

By now, the snapping fingers and the waving and pointing and half-coherant technobabble between McKay and Zelenka have become familiar to all of them. They wait it out cheerfully.

"So we have a go, then?" Elizabeth says.

"Maybe," Zelenka hedges.

"Absolutely!" Rodney crows. "We're going to need to borrow a couple of marines for the grunt work, though." John shrugs his assent. "And also," Rodney smiles the incredibly smug You-Are-Doomed Rodney Special from hell. "I'm requesting Dr. Beckett's assistance. His detailed knowledge of how the ATA gene works would be invaluable on this project."

Carson goes utterly pale. "Rodney!"

But Elizabeth nods. "Makes sense. Carson, lend a hand, please."

"Oh my dear sweet God..." Carson groans as Elizabeth dismisses everyone.

***

Six months later, John is grinning openly as he test flies the new four-man escape pod, powered by three spark-less, EM-less G-Wells engines, second generation. Rodney and Radek and Carson are on the radio, cheering, and John is almost ready to believe that in Atlantis, all accidents happen for a reason.

OMG.

If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:
     Virgins Out Of This World (Stargate Atlantis), by kuonji
     Marks (Stargate Atlantis), by kuonji
     A Gerbil Story (Stargate Atlantis), by kuonji

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From:

kitsune-tsuki.livejournal.com

This is so many levels of brilliant I can't begin to tel you how much I loved it. :D

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