To Freedom
Chapter Three: Purpose
Not much about this chapter has been changed, actually. Mostly it's all prose clean-ups. I think I was marathoning "Alejandro" by Lady Gaga (an okay song with a great video, I'd say) while editing this, but I don't how much that influenced its contents.
"So, the people there are Wraith worshippers?" said Dr. Weir, linking her fingers together as she paced up and down the meeting room just as Dr. McKay had done that morning. Said Dr. Rodney McKay nodded vigorously.
"Yeah, they're Wraith worshippers," he said, "but thanks to them, we know now where the Wraith are holding Sheppard."
"Are you certain?"said Weir, making no effort to hide her doubt. "The village leader didn't explicitly say that those mountains were a Wraith base, did he? "
"I know, I know, I know," said Rodney impatiently, "but given everything he said, it's pretty damn obvious, don't you think? Spirits live there? Those are Wraith hallucinations. Check. No human has ever come out alive? That's 'cause the Wraith feed on them! Check. The dart was flying straight for those mountains? That's a big - fat - check! Sheppard is being held at those mountains, no questions asked, let's go!"
With his last outburst, he leapt to his feet as if he intended to dash to the gate room that instant. The rest of the team regaled him with blank stares.
"What?" he said, frowning at them. "Aren't we going?"
"Sit down, Rodney," said Weir, though she was trying hard not to smile. Everyone was used to Rodney being an egoistical coward - this new heroic personality was an amusing change. Rodney obviously blamed himself quite badly for Sheppard's capture, if it had changed him so much...though he'd probably return to his old self once they had rescued Sheppard.
Which made it all the more imperative at the Atlantis crew mount the rescue soon.
Rodney flopped into his seat, looking dejected. Weir spoke again. "Like I said, we can't afford to act so rashly. Do we know anything about this hypothetical base in the mountains? How large it is? Can we take down its defenses?"
"That's why we have to take a cloaked jumper for recon, and that's what I'm proposing right now. Come on, Elizabeth, what could go wrong?" said Rodney. "If there's nothing there then, well, there's nothing there. If it is a huge base chock full of guards, we'll be cloaked so we won't be in any danger."
"McKay's right," growled Ronon. "The sooner we rescue Sheppard, the better."
"Who knows what the Wraith are doing to John?" Teyla said, her forehead creasing in worry.
"If we wait too long, he might even...well...you know," said Carson, trailing off.
"Sheppard won't die," said Rodney fiercely. "That is, he won't die if we get there ASAP. So, what do you say, Elizabeth? Let's grab a jumper and go!"
Weir sighed. "I see your point, Rodney. Take a jumper to those mountains, but be quick - and don't try to rescue him on your own if there is a Wraith base there. This mission will solely be for reconnaissance purposes, understood?"
"'Course," said Ronon, but then added hopefully, "but if we do see any Wraith, can we kill a few?"
"Don't do anything to alert them to your presence," Weir said, though she sympathized with Ronon. "And if they do notice you, don't try to engage them - flee. One jumper isn't enough to take on a fully-armed Wraith base. I want everyone to come out alive."
"All right, we've been approved, no time to lose, let's go, let's go, chop chop!" Rodney leapt from his chair with a speed Weir didn't even know he possessed. He was soon followed by the others, all quivering in grim anticipation. Weir understood - anything to save Sheppard.
Keith came back sooner than Sheppard expected him to. The colonel had been sprawled upon the squishy cell floor, trying to sleep, but every time he closed his eyes his headache pounded harder and prevented his mind from drifting into sweet blankness. He tossed and turned and grumbled, wondering when Elizabeth would put a team together to save him, unless they'd already come and been killed...
Don't be an idiot, Sheppard told himself. If they are dead, you'd think Later would at least have the decency to tell me, right? Even if it is just to gloat.
Sheppard was rescued from his thoughts by the sound of footsteps - the clanking thud of a drone. This was unusual. It was hard to determine the passage of time in this place, but he was certain that it hadn't been a day since his last meal.
"Colonel Sheppard." A now-familiar soft voice rose from the darkness. Sheppard cracked his eyes open and stared. Keith stood in front of the cell bars, and a drone stood a few feet behind.
"You may leave now," Keith said rather irritably to the drone. "I'll take care of the prisoner."
The drone watched him impassively through its masked face, before turning around and clanking off. Sheppard groaned and rubbed his aching head - why did they have to stomp so noisily? His headache had reached "full team of miners drilling inside his skull" intensity.
"Hey, you're back already?" Sheppard said, surprised by the speed of Keith's return. "Couldn't get enough of me, huh?"
Keith jerked as if he'd been hit and became immersed into the squishy floor. By all means, he seemed embarrassed.
"Sorry, did I offend you?" Sheppard said, though he couldn't see why.
"N-no...not at all, Colonel Sheppard," said Keith, shaking his head; his hair swung in a whirl of white around him. He still wasn't looking at Sheppard.
"What was with that drone?" Sheppard said. "Your bodyguard?"
Keith jerked his shoulder as if he was dispelling a fly. "Technically I'm not supposed to visit the prisons without a guard, but..."
"Sticking it to the man, huh?" Sheppard said with a chuckle.
"Excuse me?" Keith blinked.
"Nothing, never mind...human joke," Sheppard said, though it hadn't been much of a joke. "Hey, you got something for me?"
His eyes had landed on the square-shaped package tucked under Keith's left arm. It was wrapped in burlap, like the nuts earlier. Had Keith brought him more food? But Sheppard still had a good supply of nuts and water - he was taking care to ration his eating. At least his stomach wasn't making bizarre noises anymore.
"Yes," Keith said. "New clothes." He shoved the package through the bars, but had some trouble making it fit; Sheppard seized one end and dragged it through. It was surprisingly light for its size. When he prised it open, he saw that it indeed contained clothes - a faded grayish tunics and matching pants.
"Thanks," said Sheppard, relieved that he wouldn't have to wear his food-stained uniform anymore. The front had gotten all crusty and stiff and it was stinking something horrible. Not that he was going to change in front of Keith! He'd never take his clothes off in front of a Wraith, and a Wraith with a stare as unrelenting as Keith's was even worse.
"It isn't much...I took it from another prisoner," Keith said,, looking as if he expected Sheppard to disapprove. "He had just been...ah...disposed of...this morning."
Sheppard caught on instantly. "You mean you fed on him." He glanced at the clothes again, this time with disgust. These came from a dead man.
"We must feed to survive," Keith said with no emotion.
"Yeah, and we're trying to survive, too," said Sheppard. "And we don't go around culling your kind."
"I know that...but...you wouldn't understand," Keith said. "Our hunger is...unbearable."
"Hey, I think I'd understand, since I was damn starving these past few days," said Sheppard. "Oh, yeah, speaking about that, thanks for the food and water yesterday."
Keith fixed Sheppard with one unblinking eye, his other covered by his copious hair. "We detest hunger. Only humans can sate our hunger. Logically, we use humans as our food source. It's simply how things are."
"But hey, I thought you'd actually be kind of sympathetic to humans, since you study us," Sheppard said, massaging his aching temples. Damn, his headache had started again. "You said you were interested in our culture."
"I may be interested...but...I cannot change what I am," said Keith, opening his hands and staring down at them - no, at his feeding organs. When he spoke, he sounded almost bitter. "I am Wraith. I must feed on humans to survive."
As Keith speak, a bizarre realization dawned over Sheppard. He tried not to voice it - it was too far out - but it escaped his lips anyhow. "Hey...wait a second...you don't like feeding on humans, do you?"
No way, you must be hearing things wrong. What kind of Wraith doesn't?
But to Sheppard's astonishment, Keith jerked his head in a nod. "You're sharp, Colonel. And you're correct. There is nothing that I hate more."
By this point, Sheppard felt light-headed. Perhaps he was delusional. Perhaps the drugs were inadvertantly beginning to affect him. He'd thought that Keith was an unusual Wraith, and now he knew for certain.
"Then why don't you stop?" he said.
Keith laughed - a harsh, mirthless chuckle. "Can you will yourself to stop breathing?"
"Well, no," Sheppard said.
"Precisely," said Keith, folding his arms and glaring at Sheppard, who already regretted asking such a stupid question. Way to go, genius, he told himself, and for some reason he found himself thinking about Rodney's favorite "I'm With Genius" shirt. Before he could stop himself, he unleashed a tiny chuckle.
"You think that's funny?" Keith snarled, anger flashing in his eyes. He had never looked more like a Wraith. "You think it's amusing that I can't control my basest nature, do you?"
"Oh, no, oh no," said Sheppard, realizing that Keith must have perceived the chuckle as directed towards him. "I swear - it had nothing to do with you. I was thinking about my friend."
Keith looked no less angry than he had been before. "I'm sure you were," he said.
"I swear I was," said Sheppard as his head pulsed in agony. "Dr. Rodney McKay. You should meet him. He's really a riot."
And he's the reason I'm in this place...argh, he's your friend, damn it, John! What was I supposed to do, let the Wraith kill him? No way, friends help each other and we don't leave our people behind!
"We know about Dr. McKay," Keith said shortly. The feralness of his anger seemed to have passed, and now he came across as more sulky than anything. Strange how difficult it was to think of him as a Wraith.
"I'm sure you do," Sheppard said. "Like I said, I'm sorry I laughed. I wasn't laughing at you, I swear. I guess...but it is kind of odd, isn't it? A Wraith that doesn't like feeding."
"I know I'm probably alone," said Keith, and to Sheppard's relief, he sounded a little calmer. "And I do my best to hide my sentiments...but...even so, I can't stand it. I can't stand to look in their eyes when I kill them. I'm weak like that."
"Nothing wrong with that," said Sheppard distantly, but most of him was focused on the agony throbbing inside his cranium. He groaned and massaged his temples with his fists, but that did nothing to abate the pain slicing through the soft gray matter of his brain. Damn, why had his headache started again? He'd thought that it had gotten better...
"Colonel Sheppard?" Keith's voice acquired a concerned tinge. "You seem to be in pain. Are you all right?"
"I will be, once this goddamn headache stops," groaned Sheppard, sinking against the squishy wall. "Oh...argh...you don't happen to have any aspirin, do you?"
"Any what?" Keith said. Sheppard groaned again.
"Aww, forget it..." Something had happened..something more than just him getting stunned...
"Colonel Sheppard," Keith kept repeating like a broken record. "Colonel Sheppard, what's wrong?" Oh, if only he'd just shut up...Sheppard was on the the verge of remembering...why, what had happened, why he had been injured on his head...
The stunner fired but instincts took over and Sheppard hurled himself out of the way. He hit the forest floor hard. In only a few seconds he'd picked himself up and fired insanely, and the drone who had pressed the stunner to his head crumpled.
"Guys? Hey, guys, where'd you all go?" he demanded.
"We're right here, John," called Teyla's familiar voice, and Teyla and Carson came stumbling his way, Rodney's arms slung over their shoulders. Rodney was gibbering unintelligibly.
"Okay, I'll be there," said Sheppard, passing the two unconscious Wraith who'd tried to feed on Rodney before Ronon's stunner had made short work of them...
Well, Sheppard thought that Ronon's stunner had made short work of them.
Because of that, he did a very foolish thing - he delivered a whopping kick to the goateed Wraith's side. Simply being stunned did not seem a sufficient punishment for trying to kill Rodney.
A blink later, Sheppard found himself face down in the earth, and then the goateed Wraith picked him up like a sack of potatoes and tossed him aside. Sheppard slammed against a tree, the back of his head cracking sickeningly against the rough bark. He gasped as a wet heat spread across the impacted area - blood.
Teyla was shouting John's name and firing upon the Wraith, who barely seeemed to feel the shots. Ronon charged through the trees, roaring. But the other Wraith had woken up too and he leapt in Ronon's way and engaged him in combat, while the goateed Wraith yanked Sheppard off the tree and dragged him roughly over the ground. Oh his head throbbed and stars spun in his vision, and he felt sick and he couldn't see and he couldn't even hear Rodney's shrieks anymore, heard nothing but the thud of his head against the ground and the crunching of the leaves beneath his captor's boots...
"This is the one? Colonel John Sheppard?" said the goateed Wraith.
Another Wraith voice curtly replied, "Yes. The one with the Ancient gene."
Sheppard's head swam. A beam of white harsh light swept in his direction - he realized too late what it was, but by then he was already aboard the Wraith dart, and his team was long gone.
He passed out soon afterwards.
"The Ancient gene...that's right..." Sheppard mumbled to himself. "They want me because of the Ancient gene...but why?"
"Colonel?" Keith said, his voice soft with concern. Sheppard blinked, noticing the young Wraith again.
"Argh...nothing...only...ohhh, shit." Horror of horrors, a veritable army of drones was marching his way. Each heavy thud of their footfalls lacerated his brain. He wouldn't be surprised if his head chose to split in half that moment.
And then Later was standing in front of the bars, his hands behind his back, flanked by a consort of faceless drones. Keith stood to the side, looking nervous and out of place.
"'Bout time." Sheppard tried to smile, but it came out more of a pained grimace.
When Later spoke, it wasn't to him but Keith. "You may go now." Keith threw Sheppard an unreadable glance before dashing down the hall. Sheppard watched him go, a little regretful - he must preferred Keith's company to Later's. Still, now that Later was here, maybe now he'd finally find out what the Wraith were planning with him.
Later's eyes flickered over the untouched food trays in the corner of the cell. "You have not been eating, Colonel Sheppard," he said.
"Yeah...I would if you stopped trying to drug me to sleep." Sheppard forced himself to banter with the Wraith even though that was the last thing he wanted. If only he could sleep... But he had to stay awake, had to preserve his mental faculties while dealing with Later. Just because Keith was kind and helpful didn't mean that the others weren't dangerous.
Later chuckled, but with any humor. "Ah, but Colonel Sheppard...we know that you are not a very good prisoner. It will be much harder for you to escape when you are sleeping, don't you agree?"
Sheppard scowled, though he had to concede Later had a very valid point. "Well, your little plan failed. I'm not eating a single bite of that slop until you stop drugging it."
"You will starve to death eventually, Colonel," Later said.
"Like hell if I don't know that," Sheppard snarled. To his relief, it seemed that Later didn't know that Keith had been secretly feeding Sheppard. Somehow, he doubted that the Wraith would be very pleased to find out that one of their kind was sneaking food to to the prisoner, and Sheppard did not like to imagine what they'd do to the young Wraith who had helped him out so much already.
"You will not remain so defiant for long..." The cell door opened and before Sheppard could register what was happening, two drones marched in and tugged him to his feet and dragged him into the hall. Sheppard tugged against them, but their grips were made of iron. The hauled him after Later, who power-walked down the hall so quickly that the drones had to break into a little jog to keep up with him, which the prisoner between their arms did not appreciate.
"Oh, so now you're going to tell me why you've been holding me in this hellhole? Sure took your sweet time!" Sheppard shouted at them, but of course they didn't reply. Eventually he fell into a sullen silence, and during that silence he darted glances around, trying to take in the layout of the place - but it looked like every other Wraith base he'd been to, dark and gloomy (and squishy), with cobwebby walls and winding corridors.
Their destination must be quite far from the prisons, because they had been walking for some time now. Sheppard occasionally tried to get to the drones or Later to talk, demanding, "Hey, where exactly are we going?" and "C'mon, you can't leave me in the dark" and so on, but none of the Wraith ever answered, though sometimes the drones shoved him forward. Vaguely, he sensed that they were moving up, even though there were no stairs. The floor seemed to have an incline.
Finally they rounded a corner and entered a room: a wide, circular chamber that still managed to seem dark and oppressive under the gloomy lighting - not to mention it was half-filled with Wraith. The Wraith congregated in a silent, dark-coated group on the far end of the chamber; among them, Sheppard made out Keith's small and slender figure. He offered Keith what he hoped was a casual smile, but was probably more of a grimace.
He couldn't look in Keith's direction for long because the drones turned him so that he was facing the center of the room. In it was an object made of bluish-white metal, which resembled a large DHD. Dominating its surface was an orb that pulsated with a ghostly blue light. Where the buttons would be on a DHD were a string of symbols which emanated from the orb in a spiral. Sheppard stared at the symbols and realized he recognized them: Ancient. But why would the Wraith have an Ancient device?
"Hey, what the hell is this?" he demanded of Later. For the first time, the goateed Wraith graced Sheppard with a reply.
"We retrieved it some time ago, but we did not have the means to activate it, Colonel Sheppard," he said, amusement evident in his deep voice.
"You didn't answer my question, you know," Sheppard said. The drones responded by pushing Sheppard forward so that he collided into the device. Sheppard winced and would have clutched his stomach had his arms not been restrained. If he'd hit it any harder, he'd have gotten bruised.
At the edge of his vision, Sheppard noticed Keith avert his eyes and fix his gaze on the floor. The other Wraith around him, however, watched with ill-disguised anticipation. Whatever was going to happen couldn't be good.
"Patience, Colonel Sheppard," said Later, pacing dramatically in front of the device, coat swirling around him. He was even smirking and stroking his goatee, of all things. "Though patience seems to be a faculty in which you are severely lacking."
"Yeah, you can't blame me," Sheppard said, remembering why he had named the Wraith Later in the first place. "So, what is this thing?" The pulsing blue of the device's central orb was quite mesmerizing - his eye was naturally drawn towards it, even though he tried to maintain focus on Later.
Later chuckled unpleasantly. If Sheppard had had a weapon he'd have blasted the smirking Wraith's head clean off, but if he'd had a weapon he wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
"Well? I'm quaking in anticipation here, I'm telling you." He settled for using the only weapon he had left - his wit. "C'mon, enough leaving me in the dark." It's Ancient, definitely...so me sort of...some sort of Ancient...weapon...maybe?
A nasty suspicion struck Sheppard - it was enough to tear his gaze away from the central orb and whirl around to face Later. "This thing...this is an Ancient weapon, and you need someone with the Ancient gene to use it, don't you?"
Later stopped pacing and flashed Sheppard what could only be described as a shit-eating grin. "You are indeed correct, Colonel Sheppard. We have faced this sort of weapon before when our people battled the Ancients. Used properly, it can demolish an entire Hive...or an entire city."
Now Sheppard was certain of the Wraith's intents. "Oh, no, you don't."
"You're right," Later said, which was no comfort to Sheppard since he was probably going to say something worse. "We do not plan on destroying your city, Colonel Sheppard, not when your Stargate can access your home galaxy and all the ripe feeding grounds there...but having control over this weapon would easily enable us to defeat Atlantis once and for all, wouldn't you say?" He laughed again. Sheppard glared.
"I'm not doing it," he snapped.
"Ah, I thought you'd say that," said Later, not sounding perturbed.
"Then why bother capturing me?" Sheppard shot back. "Hell, Rodney or Carson would have done just as well, wouldn't they?"
"We know that you have a particularly strong version of the Ancient gene," Later said. "We are not asking much, Colonel Sheppard. Simply turn on the device for us, and you may return to your cell. It sound simple enough, doesn't it?"
"What's the catch?" Sheppard said.
Later's smirk tightened. "There is no catch."
"Yeah, there sure as hell is!" Sheppard backed off from the device only to bump into a drone, who pushed him forward. He caught himself before he slammed into the device; clinging to its edge, he looked up and locked eyes with Later. "You're insane if you think that I'll ever turn on my people. No matter what you do to me, I swear I - "
"Like I said, I thought you wouldn't be compliant," said Later, his eyes aglow with fiendish sadism - a sadism uglier than any Sheppard had seen from a Wraith before. "Bring him here."
"Now what?" Sheppard demanded when the drones grabbed him and hauled him away from the device, only to push him into his knees in front of Later. Dread tightened in a ball in the pit of Sheppard's stomach. There was no doubt about this so-called "catch" now. Though he knew it was futile, he bucked against the drones' grip and swore as Later bent over him, hand extended... Trying not to meet Later's feral gaze, he threw a glance towards the motionless congregation of Wraith on the other side of the room - no, at Keith. Keith, who stil lhad his eyes trained on the ground, his hair obscuring his face from Sheppard's scrutiny...
All thoughts of Keith were driven from Sheppard's mind when Later slammed his hand against Sheppard's chest. The colonel convulsed as a score of knives were driven into his heart and from there sliced through his entire body. Later was cackling, a low maniacal laugh; Sheppard groaned and gasped, his years were slipping away... He'd forgotten the pain of a feeding, but now it all came back. Everything. It was a nightmare that didn't end, a nightmare that was too real. Dizzying. A snarling Wraith sucking years off Sheppard's life through the vice on his chest, claws digging into his skin - his head lolled back, he shouted his pain to the entire world, but there was no sympathy because the only ones who could listen were Wraith as well...
And then he'd been released and the unbearable pressure on his chest was gone and he crumpled face-forward to the floor. He sucked in rattling breaths that couldn't fill his lungs. The Wraith around him were dispersing, stonily silent as ever. They were acting as if what they'd seen hadn't happened. The room swirled in a blur of dark colors around him - Sheppard knew that the feeding had not lasted long, had to have been less than ten seconds, but that was no comfort to his aching body and he knew he never wanted to experience such torture again...
His eyelids, heavy as lead, slid shut. Giving in to his weariness, his pain. But if he'd stayed awake for just a moment longer, he would saw the departing Keith stare over his shoulder at the collapsed colonel, his eyes luminous with concern - and guilt.
"Take him back to the cell," Later said dismissively. The drones picked up the unconscious Sheppard by the wrists and ankles and carried him out of the room.
Please do review.
