by Martha Wells
It pulled its claws free, and he felt blood well up. It moved up the slab to lean over him, one hand resting on his chest, the claws just snagging in the material of his shirt. John held his breath, waited until it started to press down. Then with his free hand, he punched it in the larynx.
It staggered back, clutching at its throat and making gagging noises. But John could tell he hadn't had the leverage to make it a killing blow. "Oh, crap," he muttered. The creature eyed him with pure hate, gasping for a breath. Yeah, I've done it now, all right.
The lights went out abruptly. Something clanged as it hit the metal floor of the gallery, and a brilliant white light exploded in the darkness. The Koan up there yelled in pain, and John winced away. A quick scatter of shots echoed off the stone while a flashlight beam waved wildly around. John twisted frantically, trying to see who it was. He could tell from the sound that whoever was shooting had a 9mm but-
His Koan buddy snarled angrily and flung itself toward the stairs. The flashlight beam swung toward it, catching it midway up. Another shot from the 9mm dropped it. It sprawled across the steps, twitched a few times, then went still. "Major Sheppard?" It was McKay's voice, coming from the gallery. "Are you all right?"
"Rodney!" John's throat went tight with relief. He should have known it; McKay was too smart to get killed. "Yeah, I'm fine, get down here!"
"Good, I didn't know-" More thumping and clanging and flashlight waving, as McKay must have been wrestling the gate open. He sounded harried and breathless and almost as relieved as John. "-how I was going-" There was a gasp as the gate gave way and muted thuds as he half-climbed, half-fell down the narrow steps "-drag you out of here if you weren't conscious." Then McKay was standing over him, waving a 9mm and a pocket flashlight. He shoved the pistol back into its holster and pointed the light around, demanding, "Are you hurt?"
"Rodney, Rodney, not in the eyes," John said urgently, twisting his face away. His eyes still felt sunburned from the explosion of light up on the gallery.
"Sorry." McKay juggled the flashlight and something that had the low power hum of a laser cutting tool. The light flicked around to the manacles. "You're bleeding- Did that thing bite you?" he asked worriedly. "God knows what kind of diseases-"
"It clawed my leg a little, and that manacle was loose and I was using the blood to work my wrist-" With McKay, alive and well, standing over him apparently loaded down with weapons and tools, it now sounded kind of crazy. "I was trying to escape, okay? What did you do up there, what was that explosion?"
"Potassium perchlorate and aluminum powder. I found a bio- chem lab that still had some viable materials." McKay put the flashlight in John's free hand, positioning it so the beam would illuminate the other wrist manacle. "Hold that still. And don't move."
McKay cut through the manacle, and John sat up, then nearly reeled over as a wave of dizziness hit. He felt flushed and hot and had to take a deep breath to keep from throwing up.
McKay was too busy working on the ankle restraints to notice; he snapped, "Will you hold that light still? I don't think either of us wants any accidental amputations here."
John pushed himself up again, taking deep breaths to clear his head and trying to steady the light. It might be blood loss. He could see now that his wrist was bleeding a lot more than he had thought, to the extent where trying to free the other arm the same way might have been a big mistake. His last mistake. While McKay cut through the ankle chains John held the flashlight in his mouth so he could dig out a bandana to wrap around his wrist. His pockets were empty of anything else that might be useful. He said around the flashlight, "He took the others to the surface, to the jumper. They're going to Atlantis. We need to get up there."
"Yes, I thought it must be something like that." Sounding exasperated, McKay asked, "What the hell was up with Kavanagh? He attacked Ford."
John tied off the bandana and took the light out of his mouth, holding it out for McKay. His eyes still hurt, but considering the massive headache and the puncture wounds, it was the least of his problems. "Teyla said Dorane got Kavanagh with this mindcontrol drug. It works like the Ancient Technology Activation, but on people. Once you've been dosed with it, apparently you just do what he wants you to do, you can't stop yourself. He got Kavanagh with it when we first arrived, and Kavanagh passed it on to Teyla. The drug doesn't work too well if you have the Ancient gene or the therapy, so he couldn't get Kolesnikova or you or me. It didn't take right away on Teyla, probably because she's Athosian."
McKay's voice was grim. "The sick bastard killed Irina, did you know? I found her body."
"Yeah, Teyla told me." John took a sharp breath. One more civilian he hadn't been able to protect. She shouldn't have been here, we never should have brought so many civilians, she should have been home in a lab discovering stuff. "She had the ATA therapy, that was why he killed her."
McKay looked up, frowning. "I've got the ATA therapy."
"He told me you were dead too."
"Well, despite what you and Ford think, I'm a hell of a lot faster than Kavanagh at everything, including running in panic down dark corridors." McKay got the last chain cut away, and John hopped off the slab. He started to tell McKay to give him the pistol, but the dizziness hit again. John dropped to his knees, just barely able to keep himself from doing a face-plant on the stone floor.
"What's wrong?" McKay asked urgently, leaning over him, fumbling with the flashlight. "Did he shoot you? You should have mentioned it earlier. Rugged stoicism has its place in these situations, but-"
"Can you tell if I feel hot, if I have a fever?" John asked him. He felt like heat was radiating off him in waves. This wasn't from blood loss, and it wasn't from getting hit on the head.
McKay sat on his heels and put the back of his hand to John's forehead. "Yes, you're burning up. Are you sick? How did you get sick? This is lousy timing-"
"Rodney, just shut up and listen." John bit his lip. He had to admit it to himself; Dorane hadn't been lying about the injection. Whatever Teyla had given him, it was starting to take affect. Concussions didn't give you fevers. But saying it aloud was like giving in to it. "Dorane made Teyla give me a drug."
"What? Like the mind-control thing, whatever, that he gave the others-"
"No, no. She gave me what he's been giving the Koan. The drug he developed when he was experimenting on the humans who used to live here. It's like Beckett's retrovirus. It was because I had the Ancient gene, that I was born with it instead of needing the therapy like you guys. It's like he thought I was one of them, or something. And he really hates them."
In the glow of the flashlight, John saw McKay's mouth twist down. For a long moment McKay didn't say anything, then he let his breath out. "Right. I'll have to get into his database-hopefully he used the Ancient nomenclature-chances are he didn't take the time to destroy it. Or he couldn't bear to destroy it. Megalomaniacs are often unable to take those kinds of preventative measures." He pushed to his feet. "But how am I going to get you up those stairs? Maybe a safety rope-"
John glared up at him, frustrated. "Rodney, you don't understand-"
"Of course I understand!" Trying to shout quietly, McKay's voice cracked. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to? A nutjob looking for revenge on people who have been dead ten thousand years tried to turn you into a monster by giving you a drug that's going to wreck havoc with every cell in your body! And will you shut up while I'm trying to think? We need a plan here!"
"Okay, okay! Just calm down!" About the last thing John needed right now was to have to talk McKay down from a panic attack. But part of him knew that if McKay, of all people, had gone all sympathetic, it would have been that much worse. John would much rather have him acting normal, which meant yelling like a crazy man and making it all about him. "But you have to stop him from getting to Atlantis. Or warn them. When he dials the Stargate, you can use that communications suite to-"
"I tried that first, as soon as I could get back into that area. I thought I
could call Boerne and the others for help," McKay said flatly. "That console hasn't worked in hundreds of years. The key control crystals are missing and the others are broken. There were only enough left to make a convincing display of blinky lights and noise when Kavanagh was pretending to use it. That's why he wouldn't let me near it."
"Oh. Crap." John pressed his hands to his eyes. The pounding in his head was just getting worse. "Look, just go. I'll catch up with you. Just-" John didn't remember what he was going to say after that, because the room swung around and then he fell over.
He wasn't really unconscious, just in a kind of waking delirium that made it really difficult to talk or stand or help while McKay dragged him up, shouldered his arm, and started hauling him up the stairs to the gallery. McKay had taken off his pack to do it, and John hadn't been able to tell him not to, which was even more annoying. He started to come back to his senses a little, mostly in self-defense, when McKay banged John's head against a metal support. He grabbed the railing to help steady McKay, who was muttering, "-find a stranded survivor in a stasis container in the middle of a bombed-out Ancient repository, you'd think he was an Ancient, right, but no, this is the Pegasus Galaxy, so he's a serial killer! And you, you obstinate product of the military industrial complex, expect me to leave you in this filthy pit, surrounded by decomposing genetically altered people, and dead people I might add, like something out of a Dr. Phibes movie-"
"That was Dr. Moreau," John told him, then the rest of that little speech registered. "Are you still bitching about me telling you to leave me? `Cause nothing's changed, you're going to have to leave me."
"Can I not emphasize strongly enough the fact that you should shut up right now?"
"Hey, I'm still in command here." They staggered off the stairs onto the gallery level, and the way John felt at the moment, it made reaching Camp IV on Mount Everest seem like a walk in the park. His knees gave out, and McKay managed to lower him to the floor.
McKay leaned over him, breathing hard. "There may only be two of us left on this hellish planet, Major, and until we can make contact with the others or Atlantis again, we're an autonomous collective."
"Go get your pack," John ordered. His head hurt like crazy, and even the reflected glow from the flash light stung his eyes.
"Yes, yes, I know, I'm going!" McKay turned back for the stairs.
"And if we're an autonomous collective, how come you keep telling me to shut up?" John added, as McKay clattered down the steps. He tried to sit up, realized that was a mistake when his stomach lurched and his head swam, and eased back down again.
John watched the dark ceiling swing around until McKay reappeared, the 9mm in his holster, the pack slung over his shoulder, the flashlight stuffed into a pocket. John shoved himself up, grimacing, ignoring nausea and vertigo. McKay caught his arm as John flailed to his feet, saying, "We have to hurry, the Koan are coming back."
John squinted and saw McKay had the life sign detector in his free hand and it was blinking urgently. At least the Koan weren't using that damn jammer. He was willing to bet Dorane had taken that with him. "Right, let's go- Where?"
"Good question." Sounding a little desperate, McKay hauled him along the dark gallery, back into a narrow passage. "I have a vague idea but I haven't had a chance to-" they reached a metal door, round like a hatch, standing partly open, and McKay shoved at it "-test it."
"Good, I love it when we wing it."
The hatch opened into a landing overlooking a big shadowy room, with more of the swooping pipes overhead. There was a walkway along the wall just under the pipes and McKay helped John along it, then down a series of twisty rock-walled passages and through another hatch. He said in relief, "Good, these passages do connect, I wasn't certain." He added, "There's a control area with sensors and a security system through here that Dorane somehow neglected to point out when we first arrived." The sarcasm in McKay's voice was more biting than usual.
"How the hell did you find me?" John demanded. The hatch opened into a small control room with consoles, a holographic screen, and a couple of semi-circular bench seats with gray padding.
"Did I not just say sensors and security screens-" McKay looked down at him, then pressed his lips together. "Never mind."
"Oh, right." John sprawled on one of the benches while McKay bent over the largest station and tapped the touchpads. John closed his eyes, forced the dizziness down. "Can you find Doran?"
"Yes, yes, yes, hold on. Let me check the Stargate... Oh."
"What?" John opened his eyes, saw McKay staring grimly at the flickering screen. He shoved himself upright, nearly lurching to the floor as he leaned forward to see.
It was a long-distance view of the Stargate, in color though fuzzy and pixilated as the system tried to enlarge the distant image. The `gate held an active wormhole, and a puddlejumper hovered in front of it. Their puddlejumper. John swore.
McKay spread his hands helplessly, his face bleak. "There's nothing I can do. These are just sensors, cameras, there's no communications equipment. No weapons. Though if we had weapons what would we do? He's got our people in there."
John shook his head, sick. It wasn't McKay's fault. "He'll come back for the Koan, the ones that still follow his orders. After he gets control of our `gate."
The tiny jumper on the screen vanished into the wormhole's event horizon.
Confusion reigned in the jumper bay for some time before Elizabeth Weir found herself facing their new guest. Lieutenant Ford and Private Kinjo had both been injured and taken off on gurneys, and Dr. Corrigan had seemed confused and probably needed to go to the medlab as well. She had gotten the most information out of Dr. Kavanagh, upset and barely coherent himself He had told her that they had encountered a group of about fifty refugees from another world hiding in the ruins, that there had been a Wraith attack, and that Dr. Kolesnikova and Corporal Boerne had been killed. The Wraith had withdrawn temporarily but the Stargate was such a distance from the repository that the refugees were afraid to approach it in daylight. They had agreed to come out once night fell.
Boerne and Kolesnikova. Elizabeth felt it like a little stab in the heart. Two more dead. She had taken a sharp breath and asked, "Where are Major Sheppard and Rodney?" The medical team had cleared out of the back of the puddlejumper, and she could see now that no one else was aboard. "Who flew the jumper back?"
"It was Dorane," Kavanagh had said, already backing away from her, avoiding her eyes and her first question. "His people have the Ancient gene as well."
Now, facing Dorane and Teyla in the relative quiet of the jumper bay, with Zelenka, Sergeant Bates, and the Marine security detail gathered around her, she could finally ask the question again.
Dorane was saying, "I would ask you to send a gateship back for the rest of my people, but they feel they must wait until nightfall, when they can go to the Stargate under the cover of darkness."
"Yes, of course. Are Major Sheppard and Dr. McKay waiting with them?" Ignoring the tightness in her chest, Elizabeth tried to keep her eyes on their visitor, not Teyla. The other woman looked awful, her face drawn and ill, and the look in her eyes told Elizabeth she had seen something terrible. She knew Sheppard would have stayed behind to make sure the stranded refugees reached the Stargate safely, but would he have kept Rodney with him rather than Teyla?
Dorane looked startled and uncertain. "Did no one tell you?" He shook his head, spreading his hands regretfully. "I am sorry, but there was nothing we could do. In the Wraith attack- They are gone."
John was in that drifting state of consciousness again. He couldn't remember how long he had been here, or why it was happening. The heat came and went in cycles, as if he was staked out on a beach under the hottest sun imaginable, with only an occasional wave washing up high enough to give him some relief.
There were long periods where he was convinced that he had been taken by the Wraith.
Sometimes it was the Wraith from the downed supply ship, and it had him pinned to the
floor of the jumper, sucking his life out slowly, trying to make him unlock the controls so it could go to Atlantis. Sometimes he was webbed up in one of those little cubbies, sick with fear and writhing uselessly against the sticky bonds, hearing familiar voices-Rodney, Teyla, Ford, Elizabeth, Kolesnikova, Zelenka, Stackhouse, Beckett, Halling, Jinto-call- ing frantically to each other somewhere in the darkness of the hive ship.
Fortunately for John's sanity, there were times he knew clearly that he was badly ill and that Rodney was trying to take care of him, making him sit up to drink water or just pouring it down his throat when he was so out of it he refused to drink. He remembered having several conversations where he kept asking questions and fading out when Rodney tried to answer him.
When John finally woke up, everything was still weirdly vague and dreamlike. He was lying on an uncomfortably hard floor in a small rock-walled room, and he couldn't remember much of the immediate past. He could see, because there was a small pocket flashlight balanced on its base, pointing upward so it mostly lit the little space. His head was propped on a pack which felt like it was stuffed with hammers. Large awkwardly-shaped hammers.
The fever was burning through him, making his own body feel distant and strange; his skin felt too tight, as if it had shrunk a little in the heat. He remembered that they had been moving around a lot, finding different places to hide. McKay had seen the Koan coming toward the security area on the detector, and they had had to run for it or, in John's case, hobble for it. They couldn't afford to be boxed in, for the Koan to trap them in a room and starve them out.
He shifted a little and winced. His leg was throbbing where the Koan had clawed him, and his wrist still hurt; McKay had had a small medical kit in his pack and had wanted to use most of the contents on him. John had argued him down to pouring antiseptic into the punctures and bandaging his wrist, and he had taken a couple of antibiotics. Other than that, there wasn't much else to be done. They had an epinephrine hypo McKay kept because he was allergic to just about everything; it would come in handy if John went into respiratory arrest, but it wouldn't do a damn thing for his other problems.
