The Mercy Seat
By Alekto
Rating: PG-13 or T
Genre: Action/Adventure with some gratuitous h/c thrown in.
Warnings: none.
Season/Spoilers: After Hotzone, but before Siege, so sometime late Season 1.
Summary: Sometimes the Atlantis Expedition's attempts to understand the Ancients' technology work, sometimes they don't; and sometimes things go really badly wrong. This is mainly a McKay and Sheppard fic, though some of the others do feature.
Archive: SGAHC, Helio, Wraithbait. Others please ask.
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. I'm just borrowing and I promise to give them back after I'm done, though perhaps a little the worse for wear.
Author's note: I've tried to keep this fairly close to canon, but as I started writing this back in Season 1 there is a slight divergence from canon in that I have Zelenka going offworld. However, in "Duet", it's stated that that is Zelenka's first trip offworld. Also, for the record: I'm English, and so is the spelling.
Huge thanks are due to Susan Zell for her encouragement and comments, and likewise to NotTasha for the excellent job she did of beta reading. Any mistakes left are all mine.
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Teaser
"Nothing's happening, Rodney," ground out Sheppard, an unmistakeable edge of urgency in his voice.
"Not really too surprising. No one's used this thing in thousands of years," McKay rasped, coughing painfully in the foul, leaden air, the exhalation condensing into billowing clouds in damp bone-numbing chill. "And God alone knows how much of that time it's been underwater," he muttered almost as an afterthought.
Sheppard remained where he was, laid back in the reclined throne-like Chair, his hands resting on the wide arms, just as he had done once before – admittedly by accident on that occasion – back in Antarctica. This time however, the Chair was most definitely not co-operating. Even through the BDUs he wore, he could feel the cold of whatever metal the Chair was made from leeching away the scant warmth in his body. A loud clang coming from behind and to one side of the chair's bulk startled him and he twisted around abruptly, only to find McKay had dropped the panel he had pulled away to gain access to the interior in an attempt to discover what was stopping it from working.
The latter fumbled for a few minutes, blowing on cold numbed hands in an effort to get some feeling back into them, then paused and peered about abruptly from where he was crouched, the partially teased out tangle of cables and crystalline blocks running to the chair temporarily forgotten. "What was that?" he whispered urgently, scoping out the room as if he had not seen it properly before. The sudden movement nudged the headache he had been nursing to new levels. "Major? I told you before. There's definitely something down here."
He reached down to the Beretta holstered at his hip, heard the nearby click of a P-90's safety being disengaged, and felt rather than saw Sheppard's gaze tracking his own, checking out the room then staring back down the dank corridor they had emerged from only minutes before. The vestigial blue tinged lighting that had survived the ages in the domed room did little to dispel the pervasive murk. "I don't see anything," Sheppard admitted quietly.
"You sure?" The doubt in his tone was clear. "It's probably hiding… waiting to leap out on us when we least expect it. God! I'm talking like we're in one of those appalling teen slasher movies: dim lighting, a couple of poor brainless idiots wandering around with flashlights, something slimy with huge teeth lurking in the dark…" McKay's brittle laughter did little to reassure his team-mate.
Sheppard levered himself upward, ruthlessly choking back the pained gasp the movement caused and peered again into the darkness. Like spokes of a wheel spreading out from the hub, the empty corridors stretched away. In the dark, beyond the range of their flashlights he could just make out the faint shimmers of phosphorescence that outlined their own footprints along the corridor they had come down tracking through the stinking ankle deep mud. The only sounds were the almost imperceptible drone of the Naquada generator they brought with them on standby and the slow, unending drip… drip… drip… echoing from far off.
They could not even hear the warble of the City's alarm any more. The absence left a strange gap after its being part of the soundscape for so long, but they were too deep now.
Time crawled by as they watched and waited. "There's nothing out there," Sheppard finally decided and carefully settled back into the chair, only too aware of the stabbing ache in his side.
McKay harrumphed, gave one last, dubious, look down the corridor but trusting the Major's conclusion he knelt to return his attention to the task at hand.
He was too preoccupied to notice when Sheppard's gaze was drawn inexorably back to the surrounding corridors or the worried frown that slowly crept over his face.
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