Tales From a Galaxy Far Away
Prologue
By Oberon
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Not the characters, not the shows, not the franchises, nothing. Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1 belong to MGM. Startrek belongs to paramount. I don't own nothing, don't even bother suing cause I ain't payin nothing.
Summery: When Sheppard went looking for an antidote for McKay he never dreamed that it would lead to a whole new galaxy of war. A new galaxy where humans and the Federation are fighting for their right to survival.
1Col. John Sheppard mentally slammed the breaks the moment the puddle jumper's HUD showed the dark and jagged calcium spikes on this side of the stargate. John's face hardened with concentration even as the Atlantian built puddle jumper responded, yet they were still coming at the jagged ceiling too fast. The colonel sensed the jumper's sudden deceleration even as he became aware of a most unmanly scream from the man sitting on the copilot chair. "Yes," John thought, definitely a scream-like-a-little-girl scream.
The puddle jumper stopped with a sudden lurch, just an inch away from the sharpest spike of calcium that would have pierced the jumper's transparent front panel – right where the copilot's head would have been.
John grinned at his copilot, more taunting than friendly. "You big baby," adding more salt to an obvious tender wound.
By now, the man, a Dr. Rodney McKay, had realized he wasn't dead just yet and lowered his arms which he had moments before held protectively over his face. Rodney breathed heavily, the fear of death still rushing in his blood. "Yes-yes, that was very mature." Rodney, a slightly chubby Canadian with a bolding hairline stuttered in self-defense of his most unmanly reaction.
John found amusement from the good doctor's discomfort. Juvenile, yes, but still funny; at least it was to Col. John Sheppard. His boyish smile betrayed his rugged exterior. John righted the vertically suspended puddle jumper. The stargate they came out of had toppled over in the millenniums since the last Altarians had set foot on this world.
John set the jumper gently on the cave floor.
Teyla Emmagan patted Rodney on the shoulder. "If it makes you feel any better, I thought you were very brave."
Ronon Dex, the last member of the four-member team, only gave Rodney an amused chuckled before leaving the Canadian alone in the jumper. The rest of the team had set out without Rodney.
"Rodney…"
"WHAT!" An irritated McKay shouted back when he heard John Sheppard called out his name from outside the jumper.
"Dial the gate," Col. Sheppard ordered in his clam and serious tone.
Still, being the curious scientist that he is, Rodney McKay couldn't help but to ask the Colonel why are they leaving when they just got here. "Why, what's wrong? We haven't even found that signal we yet."
Rodney got his answer when three pairs of sinister red eyes, arranged in an upside down pyramid formation, stared at him as he turned around. The only thing that separated the Canadian and these eyes were the jumper's windshield. Rodney panicked and he was certain this hairy monster saw his fear. Mistake.
The creature's head split open revealing 3 rolls of razor sharp teeth dripping with a thick saliva and hot foil breath that fogged up the transparent windshield. Rodney staggered in his chair and trembled with irrepressible fear. Something shot out from the creature's open maw, something strong enough to crack the transparent partition between them and leave behind a disgusting splatter of gooey saliva.
"No don't!" Rodney shouted to his friends outside the puddle jumper with their P-90s trained at the creature's exposed back. They were going to save Rodney by filling the creature full of lead. But the puddle jumper's windshield wasn't bulletproof, this Rodney knew.
John hesitated; Rodney was directly in the line of fire.
The creature didn't care. It attacked the jumper again trying to get at Rodney. This time it pierced the windshield - the tip of its powerful tongue managed to penetrate the cockpit.
The tip of the creature's stretched tongue ended in a nasty stinger. Drops of green liquid dripped from this bone-like stinger, when it met the jumper's controls, the liquid immediately began to eat at the puddle jumper's console.
Rodney changed his mind. "OK, shoot it!" He yelled to Sheppard.
Piercing bullets stuck at the creature's backside in rapid succession. The concussive force from two P-90s and one alien ray gun slammed the creature into the already cracked windshield. The creature let out one last mighty roar of pain and rage, its tongue still lodged in the jumper. Then it was silent. All 8 legs of the creature went limp but even in death, it clung onto the puddle jumper.
"Must have been hungry," Ronon shot one last red bolt at the back of the creature's skull.
Ronon Dex was a large man with dark brown skin and an intimidating attitude. Ronon had been a Runner once, sentient game to a predacious species called the Wraith. The Wraith had fed on Ronon's people and took a sick interest in him when he fought back. They let Ronon escape, but followed him wherever he went, taking twisted pleasure from bring death to the poor saps that sheltered the desperate Runner. Only the Col. Sheppard of the Atlantis expedition broke through his solitude. Only they could end the Wraith's perverse game.
"You saying I'm fat?" A pale faced Rodney McKay made his way to be with the rest of the team.
"Well you have put on a few pounds since I met you..." Ronon jabbed, but his eyes were still on the creature. Just incase it wasn't dead.
The Canadian scientist, insecure at the moment, looked to John Sheppard for some comfort. "You think I gained weight too?" The colonel's grin irritated Rodney.
"Maybe just a little," John couldn't help but tease his friend, just a little bit. Every now and again, Rodney needed some humbling if just to keep him grounded.
Rodney gasped. "There's nothing wrong with eating good." He protested.
"If you call that eating," Ronon was referring to the party they threw McKay last night.
"Har Har. Get it in while you can. You know you're going to miss me when I'm gone."
"Of course we will Rodney." Sheppard said.
"Really?"
"Sure," Sheppard said, sounding insincere. And irritating Rodney some more.
"You're not just saying that..."
"Of course we will," Sheppard reassured him.
"We all will," Teyla added to what Sheppard had said.
Rodney pointed to Ronon with his thumb. "Even him?"
The big man was characteristically quiet. Teyla spoke for him though. "Even Ronon will miss you."
Rodney didn't know what to say. The truth was, he's going to miss them too.
"Give me a hand with this guy would you?" Sheppard stuck the barrow of his P-90 into the 8-legged monster. It was hairy and green, like it's covered by algae. "Well at least its blood isn't acid." The creature in fact looked like a cross between a giant tick and the alien from the Alien movies.
"Oh... No..." Rodney's face twisted in panic. He ran back into the jumper.
"What? What's wrong?" Sheppard follow him with Ronon and Teyla right behind.
"That's what I was afraid of," The control for the jumper was gone, eaten away by the creature's venom. Nothing more than a big hole and scorched circuits where the controls used to be. The team could clearly see the cave's flood through the hole.
When the creature died, the entire content of its venom glands squeezed out through the stinger at the tip of the tongue, which had became lodged in the windshield. The creature had enough corrosive venom to melt the controls, melt through the deck plat and hull of the puddle jumper.
"Its blood isn't acid, but its venom certainly is."
"Can you dial the gate without it?" Sheppard had a bad feeling about this.
"Let's take a look," McKay was back in his element. The slightly chubby Canadian scientists began by ripping out circuit boards in jumper's aft section. Fifteen minutes later, the rest of the team had Rodney's answer.
"I got good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?" Rodney came back with a cocky smirk on his face. This look of Rodney's told John the scientist had a plan but wasn't telling just yet because it would make him seem more brilliant once he explained the problem.
Sheppard decided to humor the Canadian. "Ok... I'll bite. Give us the good news first."
"I wouldn't have any problems writing a simple program to dial the gate."
John rolled his eyes. "What's the bad news?"
"There's a short circuit around the power grid. If we try to reroute power the whole jumper is going to blow."
"So just hold out in the jumper, close the doors and wait for the cavalry."
"Exactly what I was thinking," McKay smirked at Sheppard.
Twenty minutes later, Sheppard entertained himself by repeatedly bouncing a rubber ball off the jumper's walls. He saw McKay working on the damaged section of the Jumper.
"Hay, I thought you couldn't fix that?"
"Well, what else am I going to do?" The Canadian replied.
"I just thought you would want to spend you last mission doing something a little more exciting. And as for doing. How about stay away from the cockpit for starters."
"What? Why?" McKay looked up from his work, perplexed.
"Because. They might see you?" was Sheppard's slightly annoyed reply.
"Who might see me?"
"You know, those things."
"The Xenomorphs?" Unknown to McKay, the stinger lodged in the jumper's windshield still had one last drop of venom left in it. While Rodney bantered with John, that drop finally came out.
"Xeno what?" Sheppard was curious, though he just knew it was going to be another of McKay's geek things.
"Xenomorphs. That's what they call those things in the movies..." McKay flinched. Something had fallen on his hand, something wet. And it has immediately started to burn.
Sheppard saw the distress on his chubby friend's face. "Rodney?"
McKay panicked from the sudden realization of what just happened. "I thought it was dry!" He shouted in hysteria. The small area of skin on the backside of his hand blistered like it the scorching from acid.
Shepaprd held his friend by the shoulder, stopping Rodney's wild shaking. Ronon gripped McKay's hand, inspecting the damage.
"It's nothing, just a little burn." The big man let go of Rodney's hand, losing further interest.
But McKay was hysterical beyond reason. "Just a little burn! I could be poisoned! I could die. Oh God, I'm going to die aren't I?"
Sheppard remembered from basic aid that most venoms need blood contact to have an effect, the fact this venom came out of a stinger confirm that this was the case. Sheppard handed McKay his canteen. "Here."
"What do you want me to do with this?"
"Just keep pouring water over the wound. You should be fine until Atlantis checks in."
"John," The distress in Teyla's voice called their attention.
Sheppard stepped around the charred hole in the jumper's cockpit, watching over Teyla's back, he noted not all was going exactly were as planed. "This is bad..."
"Now what-" McKay's face turned pale. "We're surrounded!" The Canadian was hysterical. "There must be hundreds of 'em." In reality there were few than a hundred of the creatures.
"Don't' worry," Sheppard told the others. "There's no way those aliens could get through the hull."
Ronon slapped a fresh power cell into his ray gun.
The team heard a loud clang on the hull, then another followed by more and more impacts. The 8 legged monsters swarmed the jumper, pushing and shoving.
After a vicious push, the jumper settled back on the cave floor with loud thud. McKay cowered next to Teyla, everyone else hold onto anything they could grab at the last moment.
"They're trying to roll us over!" McKay realized with a start.
"I hope you lost a leg!" Sheppard yelled to the creatures outside. In response, the creatures filled cave with a deafening shriek.
Ronon grabbed Teyla by the hand and pulled her upright just as the creatures once again tried to roll the jumper.
There was a second shriek from outside and suddenly, the aliens stopped.
"Did we win?" McKay was the first to speak up.
"I think we just got a much bigger problem." From the cockpit, Sheppard saw a new player in the cave. The 8 legged aliens had lost interest in them, instead they're surrounding a much bigger alien.
The new alien is at least 10 times larger than the smaller ones. Its thorax, from what John could tell, was a thick dark green carapace - made it look like a long green tube. Just like the jumper.
The larger alien opened its maw a let out another shriek. Like lightning, its tongue shot out and speared one of the smaller ones that got too close. The wounded creature thrashed, trying to escape even while the tongue reeled the smaller alien into the larger's open jaw. It roared once, just before the larger alien's jaws snapped it in two.
The smaller aliens backed off, giving the larger one more room. But they still surrounded it and outnumber it. The smaller ones let out a roar for their fallen comrade, a challenge to the larger creature. Then, at some unseen signal, they swarmed. The large creature let out another shriek, spearing another of the smaller creatures, it moved wildly, trying to shake off more of the smaller ones. But the smaller ones were relentless; once more they worked in unison to try to topple the larger creature. To get at its soft underbelly.
"The smaller ones must have mistaken the jumper for their enemy." McKay remarked but backed away when one of the smaller aliens flew into the side of the jumper. It got up, the first few steps it look dazed, then immediately returned to the fray.
"I'm not so sure about that," Sheppard kept his eyes on them. "I think the larger one is female."
"Somehow, the thought of that makes me feel dirty." McKay quipped.
"It would make sense," Teyla came up behind them. "The smaller ones doesn't look like they're trying to hurt it"
"Hmmm... I just hope they didn't leave their spunk all over the jumper's hull. On second thought, Zelenka will have to be the one to fix the jumper." Rodney thought of the look on Zelenka's face when he sees the jumper. Somehow it made the Canadian giddy inside.
The large alien speared another of the smaller ones. There were only a few of the smaller ones left, most of the others went splat on the cave wall or met their end at the tip of female's stinger.
"I say we wait until the female leaves then pick off the males that are still alive." Sheppard suggested to his team. "There shouldn't be that many of them, I counted at least 20 got eaten and 11 went splat on the walls."
"22 eaten," Ronon corrected.
The female finished off the last males by stepping on its head, crushing it.
"Go away," McKay tried to shoo it off, though he feared attracting the victor's attention.
"I don't think that's going to work," Sheppard said from beside McKay. The large female, instead of heading away from them, have taken a sudden interest in the jumper.
"Perhaps it thinks the jumper is a rival dominate female?" Teyla suggested.
"So instead of getting humped by horny hairy monsters we're going to get bitch slapped by the pissed off hairy monster queen." Sheppard ignored McKay's sudden outburst. The colonel had a plan.
"How many of the males are still out there?" Sheppard asked McKay, the Canadian was the only one with the life signs detector.
"The female is the only one I'm picking up."
Sheppard looked to Ronon who only primed his ray gun in readiness. "Stay out of reach of its tongue, from what I could tell it doesn't stretch more than 5 feet. Aim for the head, the body is heavily armored." Sheppard turned to Teyla. "Teyla, cover our six." Then the colonel faced the Canadian scientist. "Rodney, stay put."
The three opened the jumper's bay doors, their weapons drawn.
The female was still some distance away when Sheppard and Ronon stepped out. They check around the jumper to make sure any of the males wasn't hiding. Beams from their flashlight found nothing. Sheppard held up the light to the ceiling, scanning the sharp hanging spikes should the aliens be able to climb. Sheppard gave Ronon a look which signaled the other man to get ready. They stepped into the open, Talya with her back to them, covering the rear.
The female was still coming, slowly, a giant behemoth creeping on eight short legs.
Sheppard flashed his light at the female's face as it was too dark to get a clear shot otherwise. The female retched her head away from the light and let a shriek. The female stopped in her tracks then backed off, slowly.
"Guess they don't like lights," Sheppard noted. The colonel trained his light on the female's face, keeping up with it even as the female moved her head wildly to avoid the light. The female hissed at Sheppard before completely losing interest in the jumper and the humans. She retreated into a tunnel and disappeared into the darkness.
Talya let down her guard once the female was out of sight. She stood with the others, looking down the tunnel the female had disappeared into. "It is good that..."
"Get down!"
The team ducked without hesitation and Taylya felt a rush of air where her head would had been.
Someone opened fire and the team heard the sound of bullets ricocheting off the cave walls, forcing Teyla, Ronon and Sheppard to keep their heads down. Then the sound of gunfire stopped and colonel Sheppard looked up to see a pale faced McKay clutching a P-90 for dear life. The muzzle still smoking.
Something green dropped down from here McKay had trained his gun. It still twitched.
"Is it dead?" The Canadian breathed heavily, still wide-eyed and pointed the P-90 at where the spot the alien fell from.
To answer Rodney's question, the alien stood up on its 5 remaining legs though shaking and blooding from many bullet wounds. It was one of the male aliens and it wasn't happy.
Rodney took a step back defensively but it was too late. The angry male wouldn't have it and before anyone could react, its maw split open and it speared McKay with its tongue stinger. It nailed the Canadian scientist straight into his shoulder blades, tearing soft tissue and scratching the bone.
McKay staggered, recoiling from the wound and sinking to his knees as his vision blurred.
Sheppard didn't need to give the word, Ronon and Teyla acted in concert - 2 P-90s and one ray gun plastered the male alien to the side of the jumper. When it was all over, Ronon delivered a final shot.
Sheppard and Teyla ran to McKay's side, the poor Canadian was still awake but in serious pain.
"It's ok, we got it." Sheppard examined the open would on McKay's shoulder. It was a nasty open wound about and inch and a half across.
"Guess second times the charm," McKay took a horrified look at his wound. "Oh... This is bad..." Teyla caught Rodney before his head hit the ground.
"Rodney!"
"Doctor McKay!"
Teyla's gentle hands held Rodney down while she wielded a combat knife against the Canadian's pale skin. She slit open Rodney's uniform, Teyla winced, there was a lot of blood.
"How is he?" Sheppard knew without asking that he would not like the answer.
"He has lost much blood but I'm afraid the creature's poison would be fatal if untreated." She folded up some bandages from their emergency med-kit and pressed firmly on Rodney's wound to stem the flow of blood.
"Oh God, I'm going to die, aren't I?" Rodney came around just in time to hear Talya's grim assessment.
"You're not going to die," Sheppard reassured him, absolute certainty in his voice. He would not let his friend die, period.
"You're just saying that to make..." Rodney's eyes rolled back to back of the skull. But he was still alive and breathing.
Sheppard felt there was only one thing he could do. It will be risky and he's probably wrong, but he wasn't about to do nothing and watch his friend die. "Ok, you guys hang tight." He made a move for Rodney's life-signs detector.
"I'm coming with you," Ronon came up behind the colonel, ready to keep watch over the other man's back.
"No, stay here," Sheppard commanded. "There might be more of those things." Sheppard check the portal life detector then waved for Ronon to shut the door behind him. "If Atlantis checks in before I get back, forget about me and just take care of Rodney. OK?"
"What about you?" The big man asked.
"I'll be fine. Got plenty of ammo," Sheppard patted his P-90.
The last thing Ronon saw as the hatch closed was Sheppard's back disappearing into the same tunnel the female had taken.
Sheppard stayed hidden long enough to make sure there weren't any stragglers. It was a good thing he had found cover behind a large pillar inside an open chamber. He would have come face-to-face with about 40 of these male aliens in a cramped tunnel if not for the Atlantian portable life signs detector. Sheppard made a mental note to avoid single roaming eight-legged aliens in the future, seeing they like to travel in gangs of 30 to 40.
John stood on a high ledge overlooking a pit.
"Ok, this is interesting..."
A fire pit. Every few seconds a random build up of natural gas erupts from underground causing a pillar of fire to raise high into the air and scorching the walls. From what Sheppard could tell, the fire came out of the many geysers on the floor of the pit. They were on the walls too. Now and then a horizontal wall of fire would blaze across the pit at odd angles.
No way around this, not according to the portable life signs detector - which showed the layout of the tunnel network - the only path to the surface lies on the other side of the pit. There was however, a narrow rail on the walls that Sheppard could get to from the ledge.
Cautiously, the colonel set one foot on the rocky rail. It crumbled beneath his foot, there was simply no way the rail could support his weight.
Sheppard decided to try his luck with the fire pit. McKay was counting on him to find help and John Sheppard was not about to let a friend die on some giant bug infested world. He was about to climb down the pit when he spotted the aliens, of the eight-legged kind, existed from a tunnel just below him.
Then, to Sheppard's eyes, the most curious thing happened. The lead alien jumped straight into a pillar of flame. Instead of being toast, the flames died down seconds before the intense heat would have roasted the eight-legged alien. The male landed on his eight legs then immediately broke into a spring, narrowly avoiding a cone of fire that flared up behind him. . It, or he to be more precise, careened around an erupting geyser only to come to a sudden and complete stop. The alien crutched down on all eight legs just as another geyser sent a diagonal column of fire where his head would have been. As soon as the fire died down, the alien sprinted toward the tunnels again, zigzagging between erupting geysers and narrowly avoiding a fiery death. The alien was almost across but had the final obstacle was a cluster of geysers that almost blocked off the rest of the way. The lead alien ran at the last group of geysers at full speed just as fire behind it died down. Without hesitation, the alien leaped into the air. Moments later, the first of the geyser in the cluster erupted. It would have fried the alien had it 5 feet to the left instead. Then it was across, and not a moment too soon, for less than 5 seconds later all the geysers erupted simultaneous. If it had not jumped across when it did, or waited before crossing the cluster, it would have not have made it across.
The green hair on the lead alien stood on ends, lifted by the hot upward draft from the erupted geysers. The alien signaled to the others to cross once the eruptions died down.
"Looks simple enough," Sheppard commented after the last alien crossed the fire pit. He had memorized the course and timing the employed by the aliens when they cross the pit. While Sheppard was fairly certain he got the path down, the timing was another problem. Still he could see the tunnel to the surface just on the other side and John Sheppard would save his friend, no matter what stood in his way.
Sheppard took off running into the infernal just as the first alien had done. He took one deep breath of the uncomfortably hot air, even as he ran at full speed, then dived headfirst into a pillar of fire. He felt the air become intolerably hot but even as he was about to let out his final words of "Oh shit…" the geyser cut off and he cross over a pocket of extreme hot air instead of burning fire. The colonel landed on all fours, breathing heavily and smelling ozone, then immediately charged to the part of the obstacle course. An expanding wall of fire necked at John's heals even as he came up to an idle geyser. Sheppard dove to the side of the quiet geyser just in time to avoid its sudden eruption, which would have roasted the colonel if he had tried to jump across.
Sheppard breathed a sigh of relief, barely inhaling extreme hot air as the fire consumed most of the oxygen; he stayed down waiting for the geyser beside him to die down. Then a sound came through the roar of the fire, a shriek. Sheppard looked back, and through the flickering flame he saw one of the aliens standing just outside the fire pit. Their eyes met, John's two against the alien's six, and all six eyes told John that they wouldn't get along.
John wiped the sweat from his brow. "What you're looking at?" His voice dripping with sarcasm but he doubted the alien heard him over the open flames - or understand him for that matter.
The dying of the geyser next to John Sheppard signaled the beginning of a race. Just as the air cooled by less than a fraction; John Sheppard scrambled to his feet. The alien dove into the fire and like those before him, it timed the jump so the geysers cut off seconds before the alien crossed into the columns of flame.
Sheppard didn't stop to see if the alien made it across the first geyser, with all the speed he could muster, John Sheppard reached the second portion of this obstacle course. Sheppard headed for the geyser farthest to the right. Like he had seen the gang of aliens did before, Sheppard skit to a stop then twisted around to face the left. Sweat rolled off Sheppard but the colonel ignored the warning signal his body was giving off. He ran down straight path between geysers as fast as he could and breathing as much as he could. The geysers around him exploded, creating a narrow path - a safe haven from the thousand degree flames. Sheppard skit to a stop once again then quickly turned to face a lone geyser at end of another narrow path. Sheppard, exhausted now, but he pushed himself on, the heat drained his energy for more than he thought it would. When he reached the third turning point Sheppard was ready to lie down but he was too stubborn to give up, if he stopped now he would surely die of dehydration or suffocation. Whichever came first.
Stubbornly, John Sheppard zigzagged one last time between geysers and found himself with a few feet clearing between the next groups of geysers. Sheppard sank to his knees with exhaustion and quietly patted himself for clearing the second part of this obstacle race. "Yeah, still got it." Thanks to the sweating and stress Sheppard had trouble remembering what he had to do to clear the last part of the obstacle. But it came to him though.
The colonel's legs felt like gelatin, sore and painful gelatin. In a rush, Sheppard pushed on and with every fiber of his being he willed himself into a frenzied sprint across the open ground. He felt the rush of flames coming up behind him; in that moment he gave everything he had and leaped across the final group of geysers in his path. Pillars of flames exploded behind him but Sheppard sailed through the silent geysers, his timing was right on target, allowing him to outrun the fire behind him. Colonel Sheppard landed on his face, the dirt stuck to his cheeks and chin like a keg thanks to the sweat. He breathed heavily, thankful for being alive. He flipped himself over so he laid on his back then his eyes opened wide in surprise. Sheppard twisted his head out-of-the-way just in time to avoid the tongue stinger of an alien as it leaped through the fire. The alien reeled back his tongue even while still in midair, when in landed in front of Sheppard its stinger was back in its mouth ready to finish off the exhausted human intruder.
The roar of the exploding geysers drowned out the sound of P-90 fire. John Sheppard kicked the alien from his prone possession just to make sure it was dead. When he was certain the colonel managed to drag himself to the tunnel that would lead the surface. It was cooler here but only slightly so. Sheppard wiped sweat from his face then reached for his canteen only to remember he had left it with Rodney.
"Here, drink this." Telya Emmagan's gentle hands held the canteen to Rodney McKay's lips. She watched heartbreakingly as the Canadian scientist gulped down the water, choking and spitting every sip. She took the canteen away, after a time so McKay could breathe.
She, as the lead of the Aphosian people, had on many occasions presided over death rituals for those poisoned in the wild. For the Aphosians, being a people that essentially lived off the land, such incidents were unavoidable. The important thing was to treat the victims quickly after the bite. Now, Telya feared she might be attending yet another funeral. She once again checked McKay's bandages and winced. Dark necrotic tissue covered most of McKay's left shoulder and down the arm almost to the elbow.
"This-this, supposed to be my last mission… Come check out the planet with a strange signal, all routine." McKay muttered while half conscious. "Doesn't look like I'll be getting that Nobel Prize after all or woe Sam with my genius," the Canadian half chuckled half coughed. "I don't want to die! I got so much to do, still so much for me to do. Please tell my sister how brave I was at the end. Oh-oh better yet. Tell Madison, my niece, that I took down 2, no, 3, no, 30 of those aliens before that one got me. She looks up to her uncle Meredith." Rodney's eye's rolled back.
"Stay with me Rodney," Teyla shook the Canadian, trying to keep him awake but stopped when Rodney's eyes suddenly stared back at her.
"You think 30 is enough? Maybe you should say 300. Yeah, better go with 300-" again the Doctor's eyes rolled back into his skull.
Col. John Sheppard had literally reached the light at the end of the tunnel. The exhausted colonel limped every last step and finally, he collapsed just as the rays of sunlight brushed his man-boyish face. The fire pit had dehydrated Sheppard enough that he knew he wouldn't be making the trip back, not without help. Help was exactly what he came up here to find.
"Or not..." Sheppard found himself in the middle of a wasteland, a sea of desert sand extend as far to the horizon as he could see. It didn't make sense. According to the Atlantis database there was suppose to be an Ancient outpost on this planet. This planet was supposed to be a lush green world with several indigenous people seeded by the Ancients. "But that was 10,000 years ago," Sheppard realized. So where did the powerful subspace signal, that they could pick up from deep underground, came from? The initial remote-control probed sent through the Atlantis Stargate had detected a powerful signal that originated somewhere on this planet's surface. There is no civilization here, has been for a very longtime.
"Sheppard to Teyla, how's McKay doing?" No response on the radio then a crackle of static.
"Not good," Teyla's voice came though over the in-ear radio. "Doctor McKay passed out about 15 minutes ago and I have not been able to wake him since."
Sheppard sighed. "Has there been word from Atlantis?" He feared after all the adventures, Rodney McKay would fall victim to some bug aliens. "Don't think that, John." He told himself.
"Not yet. Have you located help?"
"No." but just then he heard something with the other ear. "Just hang tight. I got something here..." a whine like the hum of a jumper's engine.
There was something in the distance. It looked very much like an Atlantian puddle jumper, right down to the nacelles that jutted out from under the belly. Approaching at high speeds and flying toward him from a high in the atmosphere, it left a trail from the occasional cloud. But unlike the puddle jumper this angular box-like contraption was gray instead of the Atlantian dark green. It came at John's position from an angle and on the side of this shuttle, words written in English. Copernicus.
The single light in an otherwise dark room, shined into Colonel Sheppard's eyes. Of the interrogations by both humans and aliens this, as interrogations go this by far was the most comfortable.
"How did you get here?" The voice in the darkness asked again. The voice was intimidating but Sheppard expected some threats to his health that has yet to materialize.
"Look, I would love to play this game 20 questions but I have people in trouble. I will answer all your questions as soon as you sent help."
The man in the darkness leaned forward. Garbed in a gray and black uniform he appeared distinguished and clearly had the military feel to him. On the collar were 4 small golden pins which suggested the man's rank. From him, John Sheppard didn't get the sense that this man was not a professional interrogator. Rather he felt to John like someone in charge.
"Look son, I don't know what you're trying to pull but trespassing on Starfleet instillation is a serious offense. You better 'fess up or you ain't going to like the consequences."
To be continued…
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