A/N: Surprise! An early chapter! This is just to get the ball rolling on this story… Enjoy!
Admare paced nervously in front of the large window that took up most of the wall. It overlooked the vast city below. It made Admare nervous. He felt exposed. An assassin's bullet could easily penetrate the glass, no matter how thick it was. Such were the advancements in weaponry. Being as high as he was only served to expose him more. The lofty position flashed like a strobe light to anyone looking. The man found the urge to sink down to the lower levels of the city where he could hide in the many nooks and crannies found there. There he could hide from prying eyes. And high powered weapon scopes. Assassination from afar wasn't the only way to go. Admare knew this. But just because he could be killed as easily some other way didn't mean he was going to parade himself in front of a sniper.

The city was huge. Mind numbingly huge. Hundreds of miles in circumference and several miles deep, buildings and streets built on top of each other until the top levels of them reached high into the heavens. Each level down seemed to get poorer and wilder until the ground levels were populated by little more than scavengers and beasts. But then, you didn't travel to the lower levels of the city unless you had a death wish for yourself. Or unless you had a death wish for an assassin.

Such an assassin would probably know some survival skills to keep himself alive but one had to have some inkling of hope to grasp onto. Admare prided himself on his survival instincts. He felt confident that he could survive the lower levels if it came down to it.

But for now, he would bide his time. No need to go running into danger unless danger itself was chasing you. As of right now, the danger was most likely in his head. No one could possibly have figured out his plan at this point. They would later of course. They always did. It was then that Admare would run and hide. And not get killed.

A soft knock on the massive wooden doors pulled Admare from his nervous pacing. He took a shuddering breath and looked at his reflection in the glass. The man staring back had disheveled hair. Drops of sweat rolled down his pasty face. He tugged out a wrinkled piece of cloth from his pocket and mopped up the moisture. He pulled splayed fingers through his hair and straightened his jacket for good measure.

The knock came again, more agitated this time. Three sharp knocks. Rap rap rap. Admare imagined they sounded far too much like the noise a silenced bullet makes when leaving a gun muzzle. Pheft pheft pheft. Sweat popped out of his pores and dribbled down his face again. And again, he dragged the nearly soaked cloth across his face.

The knocking came yet again, Rap rap rap… pheft pheft pheft, this time it was followed by a slightly nervous "Sir? Master Admare?"

Admare took another deep breath to still his quaking hands. He sat firmly in his large chair and cleared his throat. "Come." He commanded, cringing as his voice cracked ever so slightly. One of the tall wooden doors opened slowly, groaning from its own weight. A woman poked her head into the room.

"Master Admare?" It was a smallish woman, one of Marklov's assistants. Admare sneered.

"Yes?" He asked brusquely. The woman swallowed nervously as she crept into the room. Admare inwardly smiled at the level of fear he could strike into the hearts of people below him. The woman scurried forward and bowed awkwardly.

"The Chief of Security would like to speak with you." She told him. He cocked his head and fixed her with a glare.

"And?" He demanded. The woman's eyes went wide and she sputtered.

"He…he would…l-like to see you in the...um…in his office." She babbled than stood quaking before him. He nodded to himself. Something big must have happened to have the Chief of Security calling him down to his office. The man was rarely in his office unless there was something going on that required him to have a base of operations. There was a twinge of fear that the Chief wanted to see him because of…well…that didn't bare thinking about.

Admare realized the woman was still standing before him. He shooed her off with a wave of his hand and went back to musing, deciding that being fashionably late would be appropriate for this occasion.

oOo

Consciousness returned to Sheppard none too gently. Actually, it returned like a herd of stampeding elephants. Stampeding elephants that used his body as a yo-yo as stomach muscles were suddenly released from their unnatural paralysis. After the first wave of nausea passed, John was bombarded by the pain from his previously frozen limbs. But the pain was soon forgotten as another wave of nausea hit him. John lost the battle and what little nutrients he had in his stomach were soon on the floor. He moaned miserably and rolled onto his back, discovering for the first time that he was lying on his side with both legs awkwardly splayed out, one arm above his head, and the other lying on his face. John felt oddly detached from the rest of his body as he lifted his arm and it moved away from his face as if controlled by some outside force.

John groaned, fighting back yet another wave of nausea while trying to figure out what was going on around him. He started to shake as he fought for control of his body. Water started to fall, which confused him even more. There were rough hands holding him, scrubbing him, hurting him. He opened his mouth to curse only to have it suddenly full of vomit that he was spewing on the ground.

Finally, he got back some degree of control over his muscles and used that control to launch himself backward and out of the grasp of whomever was holding him. He backed up until his back hit the wall and he stayed there, panting and shaking as his body got over the shock of extreme paralysis. John finally looked up to see two people in front of him. Water sprayed out of a showerhead in the wall. The two people, a man and a woman, were both covered in plastic looking coats and armed with scrub brushes. John stared at them and suddenly realized, between dry heaves, that the woman was holding his clothes. He hunkered down as far as he could into the corner and narrowed his eyes at them.

"Hi… Can I…um, have my clothes back?" His eyebrows quirked up. "I mean, you don't want your prisoner to catch cold or anything. Unle—" He heaved again, his stomach pulling up a mouthful of bile which he spat off to the side. The man walked up to him and pulled him back into the water. John didn't protest as his limbs felt like jello. The water was warm and soothing, washing away the grime that was caked on his body. He was soon pulled from the water and roughly dried off. Then he was given a simple pair of black pants and a matching shirt and no shoes.

"Follow me." The man ordered then promptly moved off, letting John force his stiff legs to move fast enough to follow. They moved through a maze of hallways until they came to a large room that reminded John of a throne room without the throne. The black floor was smooth and mirror like as if someone had waxed it one too many times. The room was brightly lit due to the large windows that covered the majority of the walls. The bits of wall that were visible were painted a deep red color. A few benches were scattered about the room but it was mostly void of furniture.

Rodney, Teyla and Ronon were already there, sitting in the corner and looking none to happy. The rest of the room was empty. John was pushed inside and the door was shut and locked behind him.

"Its about time you got here, we were starting to get worried." Rodney quipped. John shrugged.

"I stopped by starbucks on my way here. It was a long line." He said dryly.

"Oh did you get us anything?" Rodney said with mock hope. John shrugged again.

"It was a long line."

"Well, it's not like my stomach could handle anything right now anyway." The scientist said with a sigh. John noticed how green the man looked and how still he sat.

"You too?" He asked as he found a seat along the wall.

"Mm, it seems that being paralyzed and then unparalyzed like that is hard on the stomach." Rodney said with a frown.

"How 'bout you two?" John said, looking at Teyla and Ronon. The Sateden just glared at him. Teyla nodded.

"I am feeling very ill." She informed him.

"I can think of a dozen better ways to be captured." Ronon growled.

John gave a half hearted grin. "I never thought I'd actually prefer being stunned."

The door to the room opened and two men walked through it. John pushed himself up and stepped forward. The first man had a fake smile on his face as he walked up to the four Lantians.

"Greetings. I am Rolend, Chief of Security. This is Master Admare." He said, gesturing towards a short, sweaty man. "I am certain you have many questions. Let me first ask who you are and then the reason you have come to our magnificent city unannounced."

Sheppard took a deep breath and let is hiss out slowly before answering. "Ok, I'm Lt. Colonel John Sheppard; this is Dr.Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex and Teyla Emmagan." John wondered briefly how many times he had said those words. "We didn't actually mean to come here. We were being pursued by an enemy when we dialed out and we obviously miss-dialed." The sweaty man, Admare, snorted and muttered something under his breath. "Look," John said firmly. "This was a mistake and one we can fix if you just let us dial home."

Rolend nodded to himself. "A believable story, to be sure. I would certainly like to believe it. However, it is not that simple. There will be an investigation conducted to prove your story. It will be in your best interest to provide as much information as you can to help this investigation along. You will be detained in a civil holding house until your innocence is proven or until you are proven guilty in which case Marklov, Sovereign of Brillez, will determine your fate." The Chief of Security turned to Admare. "Master Admare, do you acknowledge that these four people have been given clear explanation as to their fate and will you stand as a witness before Marklov, Sovereign of Brillez?"

"Yes." Admare said plainly. John narrowed his eyes at them.

"It's nice that you're trying to be all official and everything but I really need to contact my superiors. If I don't, then they'll send a team out to look for us and when they do find us, which they will, they will not be happy to see that we are being held like this." John said in a threatening tone. The smile dropped from Rolends face.

"Our offer to be civil can most certainly be withdrawn. I know you are all very familiar with our tactics for transporting and detaining suspected criminals. This can be implemented at anytime should you not comply with our laws. Given the length in time that you may be detained, this tactic would be most unpleasant for you. You are only offered civility now because of the amount of truth that may be in your story." The threat in Rolends speech did not fall on deaf ears. John's face twitched in effort to hold back the less than civil words that were begging to spill out of his mouth. Rolend didn't bother to wait for those words to burst forth.

"An escort will arrive shortly to take you to the holding house." He said sharply then turned on his heels and marched out of the room. Admare stayed for a moment to stare at the Lantians. Ronon took a step forward.

"You got anything more to say?" He growled low. The man's eyes flicked over to study him. A malicious glint flared up briefly then died away. He left without a word.

John glanced around at his team. They were all seething.

"So," Rodney said dryly. "How do we get out of this one?"

To Be Continued…

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