Chapter 10

After leaving the prison block, they moved swiftly through a maze of twisting and turning corridors. Faint bells rang in the background, telling them that someone had noticed their escape. Whilst they had yet to run into any guards, he couldn't help but grimace at the speed with which they were tiring. He knew the only things really keeping Ronon going was adrenaline and hope that they were going to escape. They had no idea where they were going and how, but just getting to somewhere relatively safe where they could rest would do for now. We never really have plans anyway he mused, feeling a little better about the situation. Rounding the next corner, Ronon scouted it out with the stolen gun, stopping and motioning to Sheppard that they had company. 'How many?' he whispered, pushing himself flat against the wall just as Ronon had done. 'Three' came the reply. Both men began silently checking their borrowed weapons, Sheppard shaking his head when he saw that the rifle he'd picked up didn't have a visible magazine. Searching the surface of his gun, he couldn't see any discernable way of finding out how many bullets he had. 'You? Bullets?' he mouthed at Ronon. As the sound of footsteps getting closer, Ronon cautiously held out his hand to suggest the number five. At that moment, Sheppard realised that they were in all likelihood screwed. He'd seen the visible shake of his team-mates' hand, a sign that spoke to him, as he knew Ronon wouldn't. Looking at his face, his eyes were tight in unspoken pain and his sweaty face was definitely paler than it should have been, perhaps even a little green looking. Deep in concentration as he had been when they were running, he was annoyed that he'd only just noticed most of Ronon's wounds had pulled themselves open with the effort of escaping, and whilst they weren't bleeding freely it must have been hurting like hell. He pointed at Ronon to move out of the way and let him take the shots. Confused, Ronon began to shake his head, not understanding why he would want to waste time in moving around when he was already closer. Sheppard grabbed Ronon's free hand by the wrist and shoved it under his nose, where it shook, visualising the weakness he was trying to hide. Ronon simply glared at him in a way that suggested he knew Sheppard was right, but that he didn't like it. Moving into the free space Ronon vacated, Sheppard raised his rifle up in readiness to take down the enemy. Whirling around the corner in a move he'd made countless times before, two men were down before the third managed to turn around and raise his own weapon. With no time to waste, Sheppard took his aim, squeezing the trigger for a third time. Expecting a satisfying bang and for his opponent to drop, Sheppard felt a moment of dread when the only sound that reached his ears was the click of the trigger hitting thin air, followed by the guard cocking his own weapon.

SGASGASGASGA

Looking at the wilting greenery on his plate, Rodney silently wondered if he'd be able to skip his main course and just eat pudding without Carson noticing. As members of the team missed meals and got little sleep through worry, Carson was a giant hypocrite and rushed around fussing at everyone to eat and sleep whilst neglecting his own advice himself. 'Stupid Carson', he muttered, flinging a salad leaf down.

'What?' asked a familiar voice. Engrossed in his sorry excuse for a meal, Rodney didn't notice that Zelenka had joined him at the table. Fighting the last of his optimism, Rodney pushed away his plate and grabbed the tablet out of a surprised Zelenka's hands.

Unable to do anything more with computer programs and the ancient database than narrow it down to just shy of 150 possible planets, he, along with the rest of the team had taken it in turns to search with the away teams. In the last two days he'd been to 20 separate worlds himself, all of which had been either too hot, too cold or just plain dangerous. 'So? Progress?' he barked at Zelenka, rather than actually looking at the tablet.

'Well, erm…' he started. 'Yes?' barked Rodney impatiently. 'There are only about 60 planets left to search, Dr Weir says they have a few leads from locals saying they saw groups of armed men near their gates, arriving and then leaving, but they seemed reluctant to pass on any more information'. Sighing through his nose in frustration, Rodney tried not to think about the worlds they excluded from their search. 'So no then' he stated. 'We've had various locals saying that all along, but that doesn't help us!' Knowing that technology had gotten them as far as it could upset Rodney. Feeling helpless when being attached by Wraith or being captured and whatever was one thing, but being stuck on Atlantis with only man power being the thing that kept them from finding their team mates, this really annoyed him.

'No' said Zelenka, resignedly. 'But Dr Weir says she wants you to have another look at the Labs on Deck 6, We've had a team exploring down there ever since you opened it up, but there's no power down there, so they're just groping about in the…' Zelenka trailed off as he noticed that Rodney wasn't paying him attention anymore.

'Power…' said Rodney, his eyes taking on a hint of glassiness. 'No…it's too simple, but, well yeah… I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier. I mean there is no guarantee that they were the only large group of people to go through the gate at that time, but…'

'Rodney?' asked Zelenka, 'What is it?'

'Hmmm… they must have memory, how would they know what gate address is valid or not?' he rambled to himself.

'Rodney…' sighed Zelenka, used to Rodney ignoring him now.

'Well done, thanks Radek!' shouted Rodney unexpectedly, walking away from the table.

'Thank you… Rodney,' Replied Zelenka in stunned amazement 'Do you want me to' he began, but noticed that Rodney had already left the hall.