Disclaimer: Blah, blah, don't own SGA, yada yada

Thanks to KindlyKeller for all her amazing beta'ing skills.

Chapter 3

"What in the sphincter of hell are you doing to my ship, boy?" A voice bellowed from just outside the ship's control room. That particular voice belonged to the ship's captain. Not a happy man at the best of times, he was a downright furious son of a bitch now that his ship was lurching about in space as if drunk on its own fuel, it's engines coughing and wheezing, sounding for all the world like they were ready to die within the next ten seconds, and the possibility of sanctuary was so far away he doubted it'd ever existed for his crew or this galaxy.

"I leave you to pilot this steaming hunk of Wraith shit for a few minutes so I might take care of a man's business and I come back to find you've destroyed my ship!" The captain shouted those last few words directly in the boy's ear, but the boy knew better than to flinch or to show his fear. Weakness was not tolerated on Captain Varius' ship, just as weakness was not tolerated in life. Those who showed fear, allowed it to incapacitate them and slow their actions, died or - worse - were captured by the Wraith.

The boy glanced up, staring into the face of his worst nightmare and greatest salvation, the man who'd raised him when his own mother had discarded him like so much waste. He looked up into those blood-shot eyes that hadn't seen the right side of a bed in too many weeks to count. They were drilling holes into his skull now, the brown of his irises almost completely obscured by red veins, sagging lids, and folds of skin. The boy's own eyes were involuntarily drawn to the jagged, angry scar that ran from Varius' right temple, cut savagely across his cheek, and continued down his throat to disappear under the stained folds of his shirt. Varius never spoke of that day, the day he'd stood up to fear, and lost everything.

"We must have suffered more damage than we'd thought when the Wraith ambushed us." The ship shuddered violently and Varius grabbed onto the back of the pilot's seat to steady himself. His scowl deepened as another alarm blared to life.

"You want to tell me what else just went wrong on this blasted ship?" Varius demanded, his face now red with fury. Damn it all, he thought. It might just be easier to settle back and die now. Just let this heap of junk take them into the next plane. It would mean no more running, no more scavenging, no more fighting for a life the Wraith were determined to suck out from the bowels of his chest. Damn it all, he thought again, furious with himself. He wasn't that man.

"The engines are overheating!" The boy was scared now. Fear and terror evident in his wide, blue eyes, the pallor of his skin, the slight tremble in his chin, and the hitch in his voice as he continued, "The cooling system is down, the fans stopped working days ago," he turned his gaze up at the man who'd given everyone on this ship a second chance at life. "We keep going and it'll-"

"No," Varius bellowed, grabbing the boy by the scruff of his neck and hauling him to his feet. "You learned a trade, didn't you, boy?" When he got no answer and those pale blue eyes just continued to stare madly into his own, he shook the boy, once, twice, and a third time more violently 'till he saw awareness begin to creep back in.

"Yes, sir. I did." He was terrified and couldn't keep it out of his voice but he tried his damnedest to lock his knees and stop them shaking. The whine from the sirens grew shriller and the ship's rocking and shuddering more violent.

Varius narrowed his eyes until they were nothing more than red slits. He drew the boy in to his chest and pressed his bulbous nose against the boy's skinny one. He spoke softly, but savagely, "Then you ply your trade. I don't much care how you do it. Spit on the engine, piss on it if you have to, but you get that engine cool and working 'till I decide it's time for us to land."

He pushed the boy away and watched silently as he stumbled, nearly landing head first on the floor of the control room when the ship pitched violently forward. He silently approved when the boy caught himself and straightened, his tall, reed-thin body nearly too tall for the small space.

"This ship doesn't crash, Marcus. Now go."

Varius turned around and set himself gracelessly down into the pilot's seat and grabbed the controls with both hands. He didn't have to look behind him to know the boy was long gone, and he'd bet next week's rations that the engines started behaving within a quarter hour.

He gripped the control wheel tighter and gritted his teeth as the ship shook once more, threatening to end their journey right there, right then. The middle-of-nowhere-space as their grave bed, this patched together hunk of metal their grave marker. He didn't much mind that sort of end for himself, but he'd made promises he'd intended to keep. They may have been promises that weren't his to make but he'd never been one to be deterred by pointless semantics. He said what needed to be said to get the job done.

"Hard on the boy," an old voice wheezed behind him.

Varius couldn't afford the luxury of taking his eyes off the controls in front of him. He grunted in acknowledgement before wrenching the wheel harshly to the left, straightening the ship out of its violent list. The ship continued to lurch and shudder, the engines' alarm still drilling into his head, but he could swear they didn't sound as bad now as they had a minute ago.

"Life's a bitch, old man. I'd do him no favours by coddling him. The Wraith sure as hell don't coddle and coo right before they suck the life from your chest."

Valius swore long, loud, and elaborately when more lights lit up on the control panel in front him. What had started as a minor dent in the hull had turned into a tear and his ship was venting atmosphere. "Come on, you bastards. Fix it." His right hand lifted off the wheel to hover over the comm. system before he remembered that it hadn't worked since he'd patched in parts from Rial's ship. "Shit. Shit."

Both hands on the wheel now, Varius turned angry eyes on the man leaning heavily against the co-pilot's chair. The older man's cane lay discarded on the floor and both withered hands, the right one missing two fingers, the left one missing another, gripped onto either side of the chair. He had a single leg to balance on, the other lost long ago to a war both men had given up any hope of winning. All that was left was survival.

"You're running in the wrong direction," was all the old man said. His eyes never left the view before him – open, empty space. It would just as soon kill you as give you a home. To him, it was simply the only place left. He'd lost whatever had counted for home long ago, back when such things mattered, back when there had been more to life than fighting and running and hoping for one more day, one more battle, one more chance to kill them all. He'd given up that hope the day he'd lost his leg and his life.

Once, he'd been amongst the best fighter's the humans had against the Wraith. He'd taken out hundreds of the bastards after they'd stolen his planet and his home. Now he was a crippled old man in body and fifty years younger at heart. All he had left was this ship and this crew and the blind determination to make Valius see reason.

"Do not start this with me again. I've made my decision."

"Yes. One made with hate and anger and resentment in your heart. You sentence us all to death."

"That is my right as captain of this ship," Valius bellowed, springing from his seat. All his efforts at piloting were in vain anyway. If his actions and decisions as captain were to be questioned, he'd be staring the would-be mutineer in the face, on his feet, and ready to take him down. "And if you don't see fit to die under my command, Darius, then you can see fit to leave."

Darius would not give this up. Not this time. It probably wouldn't make a difference, not this late, but he would not die a coward and not having at least tried, "Atlantis-"

"Brought this down on our heads," Valius shouted, hands balled into fists at his sides. His furious voice broke through the sirens and the alarms foretelling their imminent death, "You would have me turn to – no - beg for help from the ones who sentenced this galaxy and its people to die at the hands of the Wraith?"

"They offer protection."

"They offer us nothing," Valius roared. His eyes blazed, alight with a fire born of a deep-seeded hatred for those who'd awakened the Wraith, those responsible for the merciless slaughter of millions. "They sit in their shielded city and fly about in their shiny ships," he spat out each word as one would poison.

He took two slow, measured steps and stopped to tower over the man he'd once called his friend. Darius had been great once; they'd fought side by side in the war. But now, he was a tired, feeble man with stooped shoulders, thinning gray hair, and a broken soul. The man he'd once known would have never suggested what was being spoken now. Another thing to add to a long list of losses those miserable bastards were responsible for, he thought.

"We suffer and we run and we die. We watched our children vanish before our eyes. Known the cruel fate that awaited them," The ship bucked again beneath their feet, its shudders growing ever more violent, its sirens blaring ever louder, but Valius paid them no heed. "And you want us to run into the arms of those that rained destruction upon us?" His voice reduced itself to a whisper. Their faces so close together now, Darius could trace the veins in Valius' eyes and see the puckered skin of his scar. His dim gray eyes met forceful brown, and held.

"Sir."

Valius broke the stare and shifted, ready to tell the boy to get back to the engine room. He could still hear the damn things sputtering; the heat sensors were still ringing inside his head, and in his control room. But Marcus wasn't looking at him with that wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression. He was staring out the control room's window.

Both men turned and followed Marcus' stare and looked upon their salvation.

Valius jumped when the ship bucked again and tumbled him into the pilot's seat, both hands reflexively gripping the wheel again.

"Can you set her down?" Darius inquired softly.

"Shut up, old man." Valius gritted his teeth as the shudders of his ship in its dieing throws threatened to rip the hull apart.

"I wouldn't want to die before you got the chance to kill me." Darius had managed to seat himself in the co-pilot's chair, a twisted parody of what had once been.

"Not today, old man. Not today."

A/N: Reviews are love, people.