Author's Notes - Okay I tried to keep it angsty only, but the suspense bunnies attacked and I couldn't do it. I'm afraid I'm going to have to bow to their will. I have discovered that I can barely write a story without something happening to someone (usually Jen). Sigh. But hopefully you like where it's going and how it gets there. :P Also - to answer the question of why there are so many people on the mission, the new recruits are still in training for new worlds, and since technically this world was inhabited... it was supposed to be an easy offworld experience. Whoops. :)
Jen tried her radio, but all she got was static. Lieutenants Thomas and Lewis tried their radios, but all they got was static. She wondered why she even bothered telling them the radios didn't work… they just tried themselves anyway. Of course they wouldn't believe her.
Jane moved towards the box and the screen.
"Don't touch it." Jen ordered, but Jane ignored her.
"This thing closed the door," Jane poked the screen with her index finger. "So, it must also open it."
"Is that supposed to be doing that?" Sarah pointed to the glass vials along the back side of the case. Jen stepped to the far side and watched as the two end vials, their liquid once clear, were now slowly draining, but it was the middle vial that caught her attention. Two streams of liquid filled into the sides of the vial… one yellow, the other blue. The resulting green mixture swirled and congealed, filling the container.
Something struggled forward in Jen's mind… something familiar about the vials and mixing colors. Something she'd read… no heard… something very specific about vials and colors… vials and colors…
Something… Rodney said?
No… no, not McKay. Cadman.
"Did it work?" Jane looked over at Sarah, who tried the door again.
"Nope." Sarah muttered. "Try something else."
Crap. Jen exhaled, the memory surfacing with a vengeance.
She leapt around the side of the box and shoved Jane as hard as she could, sending the Lieutenant staggering to the side.
"Don't touch it!" Jen cried.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Jane frowned, her hands on her hips.
"Because it's a bomb." Jen pointed to the box.
"It's a bomb." Jane rolled her eyes.
Sarah laughed. "How can you possibly know it's a bomb?"
"Because I read mission reports." Jen answered.
Jane stepped towards the console but Jen blocked her way, countering the Lieutenant's movement.
"Move, Doctor." Jane stepped back and glared at Jen.
"No." Jen shook her head, remembering Laura's conversation in her head. Genii bomb… liquids mixing first stage… second stage explosion took out half the village… pretty colors though…
The first bomb the locals found had taken out half the village. They'd contacted Atlantis before they touched the second one. But those vials had been the size of a fist. If Laura's estimates were right, this particular explosive could take out the room, the compound, and maybe even the land clear back to the Stargate.
"Look, Doctor Keller." Jane frowned. "I'm not staying stuck in some idiotic laboratory because you've got some bizarre notion the box is a bomb. Last time I checked, medical doctors weren't explosive experts."
Sarah laughed, but with slightly less humor. She moved to stand next to Jane.
"Dr. McKay will have us out of here shortly. In the mean time I suggest we just sit back and wait." Jen suggested with a shake of her head.
"Trapped in an ancient laboratory that does god-knows-what and you want me to wait for some scientist? I don't think so." Jane stepped forward again, her hands reaching around Jen towards the console. "I said… move!"
Jen's core reaction was to fight. She couldn't let the woman lay another finger on the console. Not with so much at stake. Not with everyone's life hanging. Not when there was even the slightest chance that touching that console would set off the third trigger. The first trigger was the bomb's activation, and most likely the sealing of the door. The second was mixing the chemicals. The third would be the explosion, and there was no way Jen could let that happen.
She went for the gun.
Fueled by McKay's panicked message, John slid to a stop inside the first empty room, his eyes on the glass wall of the observation area.
He cursed, cursed again, and then cursed a third time just because he couldn't think of anything else to say. Zeeman, Rodney and Radek ran into the room behind him, and an echoing stream of curses faded out on top of John's.
Through the glass, on the opposite side of the room, they could see Evan, Ronon, and Teyla slam into the other empty room, their eyes also locked on the scene inside the glassed in room.
Dr. Keller stood in front of the oblong box, gun in her hand, the barrel aimed directly at Lieutenant Thomas, who had her hands in the air, but barely. Since Thomas' holster was empty, it was her own revolver she was being held at bay with. Lieutenant Lewis, still standing by the door, had her P90 trained on the doctor, and there was a seriously heated shouting match going on by all parties. Dr. Keller was shaking, both her hands wrapped around the handle of the revolver while she shouted at Lieutenant Thomas. Thomas looked stupidly pissed off and was shouting back with just as much gusto, her hands dropping lower until Keller's weapon wiggled and Jane raised her arms again. Lewis, her gun trained on Jennifer, was giving her own round of orders.
Without being able to hear, John knew the room was volatile to the point of someone getting hurt… or worse… killed.
"God damn it McKay!" He shouted. "What the hell happened!"
"How should I know!" Rodney yelled back. "We were in the other room! An alarm sounded and the door sealed. It's cut off communication. They can't hear us."
"Get the damn door open!" John ordered.
Rodney and Radek spun and ran back into the hallway.
John stepped up to the glass, his eyes on Lewis, waving his hands to get her attention. He stepped to the side, angling him behind Jennifer. When Lewis finally caught sight of him, he ordered her to lower her weapon. She shook her head quickly, looking back at Jennifer.
John tried again, this time mouthing the words that's an order.
Inside the room, Jennifer's racing heart and elevated adrenaline was the only thing keeping her on her feet. She could barely think straight, the sight of the P90 barrel kicking through her insides with a screaming blast of pure fear. She felt Lewis hesitation, but couldn't take her eyes off Thomas. The stupid Lieutenant was going to kill them all.
Lewis was ordering her to drop the gun. Jen was ordering her to drop her gun. Thomas was ordering Lewis to shoot Jen. Jen was ordering Thomas to back off or she'd kill them all.
It was a nasty loop of shouts and curses and it wasn't getting them anywhere except closer to being dead, and all Jen could hear outside of the screaming was the fear-panicked chant of oh-god-oh-god-oh-god echoing through her mind.
Jen was pretty sure the only thing that saved her life so far was Lieutenant Lewis' hesitation to shoot the CMO. If Jen had just been a regular doctor… there was no question in her mind she'd have been dead on the floor the minute she pulled the revolver on Thomas. But she was running out of time. Jane was getting louder, and Sarah was getting antsy.
"What the hell are you doing!" Thomas barked at Lewis, when Sarah slowly lowered the P90.
"It's an order!" Sarah hesitated, her eyes shifting to something behind Jen's shoulder.
Jen couldn't look. Orders meant higher up. Higher up meant Evan or John. Someone was here. Someone was helping. But she couldn't turn around to see who. Her vision was tunneled on Jane's body… eyes, shoulders, hips telegraph the next move… Ronon's words echoed through her mind. Never turn your back on your opponent.
"He's not in here!" Jane spat.
"Damn it, Jane." Sarah muttered, releasing her weapon, and looking around them. "Look behind you."
Jane chanced a glance over her shoulder, and what she saw obviously kicked something into place because her shoulders dropped and she sighed.
"You know, Doc," Jane shook her head, turning back towards Jen. "I think I really hate you right now."
Jen couldn't bring herself to look. She watched television. She saw the movies. It was the oldest trick in the book. Distract them and then go for the gun. But Sarah had stood down. And Jane stopped yelling. There had to be something to it.
After a lifetime of hesitation, Jen decided to chance it.
But not before walking all the way back across the room until she was far enough from Lieutenant Thomas the woman would need to run to get to her. Time enough to correct her aim if she needed to. Crap. She really shouldn't need to. She was a doctor. What the hell was she doing?
Saving him.
Saving them.
It was all she could do.
Jen felt her back hit the far windowed wall, and with a panic-filled breath she shifted her eyes, but not the gun. And what she saw drew all her attention, and oxygen.
Standing on the other side of the wall, directly behind Thomas and Lewis, stood Ronon, Evan, and Teyla, each with weapons raised and aimed, fingers on triggers.
But it was who they were aiming at that stole Jen's breath.
They were all aiming at Jane and Sarah.
Jen chanced a quick glance over her shoulder, and met the very concerned, very angry eyes of John Sheppard. She turned back into the room, her body trembling with the realization that it might actually be okay.
She tried to think… couldn't quite get her mind to move. Her eyes moved to the glass wall behind the two Lieutenants, searching for strength. Searching for courage. Knowing the others were there and without hesitation had chosen sides settled into her abdomen and grew outward in a word.
Trust.
She inhaled, trying to figure out how to do what she needed to do next.
"Weapons on the floor." She finally said, her voice raw from the shouting match that took place only moments before. She cleared her throat and ordered it again.
Sarah quickly removed her P90 and revolver and set them on the floor.
"Kick them away." Jen ordered.
Jane frowned.
"Just do it, Jane." Sarah muttered.
"Slowly!" Jen ordered, when Jane's eyes narrowed.
"Oh for god sake, Jane." Sarah muttered, moving to stand next to Jane to unclip her P90, dropping it onto the floor next to the other weapons.
"Back up." Jen ordered, her fingers cramping on the gun. Sarah grabbed the back of Jane's TAC vest and hauled her back against the far window.
Both women complied, slowly, but Jen had a feeling it was the firepower behind them that had them obeying, and not her futile power-trip.
"Okay. Now don't move." Jen stepped across the room towards her knapsack, which was lying on the floor. Grabbing it and tossing it behind her, Jen retreated to the corner, and used her left hand to dig into the bag.
She was immensely glad she was such a neat freak that everything had it's place, and she immediately found what she was looking for. A black marker.
Walking backwards until she was once again next to the glass window, she quickly checked to make sure Sheppard was still there.
Taking a deep breath, she switched the revolver to her left hand, and pulled the cap of the marker with her teeth. Spitting the lid onto the floor she angled her arm so she could write on the window. Doing her best to keep one eye on Jane and Sarah, and the other on what she was doing, she wrote on the glass.
The letters were backwards – and hopefully properly mirrored so the Colonel could read them from his side. If she did it correctly, he would see two words.
B O M B
C A D M A N
With a quick glance over her shoulder, it was very difficult to miss Sheppard's mouthed reply.
Fuck.