Chapter Text
Atlantis continued to lose power much more quickly than it should, but Radek had not yet identified the source of the problem.
He had determined that the problem was not with the ZPM. Diagnostics showed nothing wrong with it, with the hub connecting it to the power system, or with the computer system that controlled its output.
Radek's radio activated. “Zelenka! Report!” Rodney demanded.
“I don't think the problem is on this end,” Radek told him. He took the tablet Dr. Li offered him and examined the results of his diagnostic of the conduits leading from the ZPM room: several main conduits had been damaged by the energy beam. They had not been completely destroyed, fortunately. They continued to transfer power to where it must go, but not all of the power was getting through correctly. Atlantis had increased the power flow to try to compensate for the loss of efficiency. It was successful in that critical systems continued to received necessary power and had not yet begun to shut down, but the increased power flow resulted in a much faster rate of loss of power from the ZPM and from the naquadah generators.
Soon, they would begin to lose critical systems – including the shields.
Without the shields, they would lose atmosphere as well.
Radek briefly explained the problem.
Rodney didn't ask for a more detailed report. After a brief discussion of what must be done, he closed the channel.
Radek assigned each person in his department a damaged section of conduit to repair, grabbed his tool bag, a bag of replacement parts, and his laptop, ran to the damaged section closest to the ZPM room, opened the access panel, and examined the conduit within.
Two of the control crystals were dark and inactive. One was visibly cracked. He would have to replace them both.
Radek turned to his laptop, entered a series of commands to shut down the power to the conduit he would be working on, and removed the first damaged crystal.