Day 8 - Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, McKay)

[purplerhino.livejournal.com]

The small group gathered early, collecting food to sustain them for lunch, but prepared to scavenge for their own meals after that. Rose was starting off wearing her backpack, and had a Bamboo walking stick. Her hair was pulled up into a pony tail on top her head, keeping it out of the way. The Backpack held two changes of clothing two blankets wand bottled water. The Doctor carried nothing except what was in the pockets f his ever-present leather jacket. Sayid had one of John Locke’s knives tucked into his belt, and one of the sturdy spears from the found crate ‘just in case’.

Sayid had not understood why he had been asked to join them. He knew that between The Doctor and Doctor McKay his own technical knowledge was limited. But the Doctor insisted he’d be invaluable if they were dealing with older equipment and, The Doctor confided, he was obviously one of the ex-military types. He told the Iranian he wanted someone who could handle themselves, and was an adult, with them. Someone he trusted to help protect the group. Although when he said the group he’d turned to look at Rose. Sayid was not certain if The Doctor was mad or not, the things he had heard whispered round the campfire, but he was capable. And the obvious trust was an honor of its own.

McKay, Jon and Tara rounded out the group heading for the Transmitter. Tara had the map. The Doctor had announced he didn’t need it. Rose complained that such a statement was something only those male statements that tended to get people lost, so Tara had been handed the map to keep them on track, should the Doctor’s ‘excellent sense of direction’ fail them.

They had set off keeping to the shade of the treeline. Besides the shade, the ground was harder there, and easier to walk over. They were not traveling fast, in deference to McKay’s still hurting ribs.

Comments

[McKay] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, Doctor, Rose)

[lost-mckay.livejournal.com]

There were worse things in the universe, amazingly enough, than snakes with the flashy eyes. Them, remarkably, McKay could deal with. They didn't suck life from a person with their -hand-. They were just over-the-top actors with a god complex. -There- was the understanding. As for the Doctor? Well, he'd worked with the man long enough, or as long as one could while on this island, that he could trust him-- as far as one could trust an alien, that is. A sort of working relationship had been built, and that went a long way with the astrophysicist. It was Jon, really, that sort of weirded him out. Still, he'd seen stranger things. Kind of. To work for the SGC meant that one had to keep one's mind open to many, many, many things, so many different possibilities. Energy beings. Life suckers. Snakes that bury themselves in people's heads, 'incubated' in people's guts... shadow creatures. Dinosaurs. Doesn't mean he liked it, however.

Step. Step. Breathe. Not too deeply, no. He'd positioned himself in the middle of the group out of habit. In good times, McKay was out of shape. He was a /theoretical/ astrophysicist. Never trained with guns, never trained in military tactics even though he was on a 'gate team'. By now, they'd have forgotten him, Zelenka replaced him, and the entire city was at the bottom of the ocean, thanks to the man's incompetence. Truth be told, he probably wouldn't have minded Rose's aid. After all, while he wouldn't classify her as a hot blonde, she was cute. On the flip side, however, if anything happened to his laptop, he would probably have a nervous breakdown.

Step. Step. Breathe. Not too deeply. One foot in front of the other as his thoughts shifted towards the 'are we there yet?'. "How far" *pant* "is it?"

[Doctor] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, McKay)

[purplerhino.livejournal.com]

“At this rate, we’ll be to the TARDIS tonight. It took us about a day’s travel to find the main camp… or Scott, anyway. Now we know the way as far as the ship, so even with the frequent stops we should make descent time.” The Doctor switched the toolbox to his left hand. “We could sleep in the Consol Room tonight, not the most comfy, but it’ll be totally safe. Then tomorrow it looks like another half day’s walk to the transmitter site.”

As they walked, every once in a while the Doctor would look over his shoulder, checking up on Rose, Tara and Jon, no doubt. Actually, the former more than the latter. Sayid had taken point and walked alone.

“At least tonight you’ll be back in top shape.” The Doctor almost laughed at Rodney’s face at the thought of an all day trek to relief. “Think of it as a character building outing.”

[McKay] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, Doctor, Rose)

[lost-mckay.livejournal.com]

Rodney stopped briefly, his shoulders pulled back as if some unseen force held him, his head rolling in a vain attempt to loosen impossibly tight muscles. A wince crossed his face, as a hand rose. "Tonight. What is it about people parking so far? Is it a pilot thing, or what?" He'd noticed that even flying the jumpers, they'd always be parked way out in the middle of nowhere and had to walk. Lots. Oddly enough, he'd never asked his friend.

His expression turned to a pained scowl. Essentially, the response was 'For your own good', quite literally. "Yes, funny. Character building. I've had more of that..." in the last year. "I don't need anymore."

[Doctor/Rose] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, McKay)

[purplerhino.livejournal.com]

“Wasn’t like it was a planned landing, now, was it? We’d just been through… a major crisis, and it completely drained her power sources. Just lucky she got us to Rose’s planet and general time, not toss us up on Janusia II during the great Rebellion. All considered it was a stellar landing. And nicely out of the way of our fellow cast aways. Don’t need them poking about.” The Doctor got a bit defensive. “Course if we were on Janusia II during their great Rebellion we could have nicked enough proper power supplies to get us moving again and I wouldn’t be stuck on a little island with a bunch of silly little apes. Maybe the landing wasn’t as good as all that after all.”

Rose laughed from behind them, as the Doctor was not being particularly hushed. “Don’t ever pick on the TARDIS. Although the piloting bit tends to be off a bit here and there. Few years, couple thousand miles.”

“Like to see you do better. Besides, she usually takes us exactly where we’re needed, if not where we were aiming for.”

“Just part of the adventure.” She nodded.

“Yup. Don’t want things to get too boring now, do we?”

[McKay] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, Doctor, Rose)

[lost-mckay.livejournal.com]

The thought of navigating through space and time was just something that McKay would love to get his mind around. The formulae would be intense. Of course, it could simply be a case, now, of pushing buttons, which would be very disappointing.

McKay had been on the move again, his breathing coming laboured, the exertion evident as the Doctor ringed himself in his own logic, coming out to the conclusion that, perhaps, the landing wasn't all that great. He stopped once more, however, at the characterization, his features turning insulted and vaguely irritated. "Who are you calling 'silly little apes'?" Not him, surely. Translating, perhaps, is in order, and a glance was given to the blonde. "Apes?"

[Rose/Doctor] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, McKay)

[purplerhino.livejournal.com]

“Don’t get him started. His people were navigating space and time when ours were just slithering out of the primordial slime.” Her tone was long suffering. “We’re barely one step up from Neanderthal in the scale of time, and it’s amazing we managed to discover how to make fire without setting ourselves on. He’s having you on. Makes himself feel superior when he gets defensive. He stubs his toe and does a half hour on megalomaniacal alien dictators he’s outsmarted. You don’t want to know where he goes when he slams his hand in the kitchen drawer.”

“OI! The TARDIS did that to me, cause she was taking Jack’s side.” He shot back.

“Doesn’t change the fact that you always think you’re so clever.” She was grinning.

“I am so clever.” He answered with a grin of his own.

[McKay] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, Rose/Doctor)

[lost-mckay.livejournal.com]

"And look where we are now, and where he is." McKay could very well go into a treatise about stagnated worlds where they've plateaued, and humans have continued to learn, to grow, to move, change and even surpass those others. The fact that the astrophysicist has a shot of -understanding- the science behind the time travel speaks volumes. At least in his book.

"Not bad for an 'ape' to be able to understand what they've been doing for 'millions of years', all in... what? A blink of a cosmic eye? Hmmmm?" Clash of the egos. Still, while McKay wasn't necessarily smiling, his tones didn't carry a combative tenor, simply an intellectual challenge, exchange. He's willing to grant the timelord's people millions of years of experience, but the human physicists have done a pretty credible job in playing 'catch-up'.

[Doctor] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, McKay)

[purplerhino.livejournal.com]

“Never said you didn’t have potential.” The Doctor pointed out, “One of the reasons I keep coming back to this little blue planet. You’ve just started to expand, branch out, look beyond your own little selves to what’s really out there. Eventually you’ll spread throughout the universe, exploring, discovering, building…”

“Dancing.” Rose laughed.

“Dancing.” He grinned. “You’re quite the expansive little race. You embrace everything, sometimes when you shouldn’t. If you don’t let greed and jealousy get the best of you, you promise to become one of the dominant species in the universe. So, yeah, you can learn. But you’re still evolving, intellectually if not physically.” He threw himself into the debate with exuberance. His mobile face accentuating his speech, his hands flying.”

“As for where I am now, could be worse. Could be better. At least the scenery’s nice even if the diet could use improving. The neighbors are a bit rowdy though.”

[McKay] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, Doctor/Rose)

[lost-mckay.livejournal.com]

...Eventually you'll spread throughout the universe, exploring, discovering, building...

Rodney had to snort, the sound of a laugh as he, once again, pulled himself to a stop, his head rolled backwards in an 'oh, come on' gesture. Before he actually said anything, however, he paused, considered, then with a rather dramatic, put-up sigh, took another step forward to begin again. The ache was getting to the point of convincing him he'd never take a full drought of air again.

"I'll grant you that we're still evolving, but the point was, we're not 'apes' anymore than-than-than-- well, I don't know." He withdrew from biology courses in favour for the hard sciences. "But-but-but the point stands that we are pretty advanced for the sliver of time-- and I don't believe I'm having this conversation... Jon... Can you believe I'm having this conversation?-- I was speaking metaphorically."

[Jon] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, McKay, Doctor/Rose)

[sophiedb.livejournal.com]

"Hey, don't bring me into this," Jon replied from the back of the line, annoyed by how close McKay was to spilling the beans. "I'm just glad we haven't blown ourselves up yet. Besides, he's got a time machine that flies through space. We have the shuttle and a few unmanned probes. We don't even come close, right?"

He knew the Doctor could speak Goa'uld and knew something about the Ancients, so chances were that Rose had a clue as well, but as far as he could tell there were still two Earthbound humans in this little group and that was more than enough to put a lid on this conversation. The thought of seeing this TARDIS wasn't bad though - if Rodney could keep his hot little hands off whatever undoubtedly sensitive controls there were inside.

"You want some painkillers? Or to offload some of that junk on your back?" Jon grinned cheekily. "I know how easily you old folks tire."

[McKay] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, Doctor/Rose)

[lost-mckay.livejournal.com]

"Right." The word was a mumbled response from McKay. He shifted his equipment around once more before giving Jon a good, old-fashioned glare, though it didn't stop him from pausing his travel once again and handing one of his briefcases with potentially useful bits of electronic equipment, a 'home built' circuit tester, and the salvageable tool kit from the aircraft. He held on to his laptop, however.

"I bet you won't see thirty years," McKay grumbled as he continued on his path once more, stumbling over a branch. It took a couple added steps to right himself, his hand going out to catch himself before another complaint came. "It can't possibly be that far. We-we-we've gone... how far? It must have been..." For an astrophysicist, he was a bad judge of physical distance.

[Doctor] Team Transmitter (tag Tara, Jon, McKay)

[purplerhino.livejournal.com]

"See that big light in the sky. It's just about overhead. That makes it close to noon." The Doctor pointed up with a grin. He was egging McKay on and it was pretty obvious.

"Good, that means we can stop for lunch." Rose announced.

"It also means we're about half way there, give or take." The Doctor explained.

"We've come about twenty kilometers from the camp." Sayid supplied.

"See, you're doing great." The Doctor grinned at McKay. The more he was involved in arguing, or being indignant, the less he payed attention to his aches and pains.

"Our first night's campfire remains shouldn't be too far from here, then." Rose pointed out as she dug fresh water bottles out, and some slightly bruised fruit. Smoked turtle meat was not a delicacy to be taken along. So it was vegitarian for a few days.

"Right. It'll be a good marker." The Doctor sat down, indian style, on the dirt.

"As for your technology, nope, you haven't come very far on your own yet." The Doctor let that be as much as he was saying, since this lot got all uptight about their secret government agencies. In truth, most of their advances came from using technology not their own. Even their super secret space ships used lots of borrowed technology.

"But Doctor McKay is right. You like us because we have come so far in just the last thirty years. For silly little apes, we've grown quite a bit in such a short spurt." Rose nodded to Doctor McKay.

"That's one of the reasons anyway." He winked at her.