Rules of War
AN: I used to live off of Tim Hortons. Now I work there. It's all part of the great circle of life.
"Every true genius is bound to be naive."
-- J.C.F. von Schiller
Chapter Eleven: Rules
-
4:00 pm, Jumper One, Space
Alright, thought John.
To hell with the rules.
The hive ship opened fire, and so did the Daedalus. It was like watching a movie screen playing the climax of a space film. The missiles from Daedalus streaked silently towards the gargantuan hive ship, but too slowly to counteract the cascade of blue bursts of energy that rained down on the surface of the Ancient satellite. Fiery eruptions, like so many hideous boils, burst open the hull of the structure—
—and then the mother of all explosions tore it apart, sending chunks of the station spinning in all directions.
It dragged a knife through Sheppard's gut until the bright reflection of orange and red hurt his eyes, and he was forced to shut them and look away. There was an indescribable silence as the Daedalus and the Wraith drifted apart, surrounded by bits and pieces of the wreckage. The missiles had barely even scratched the hive ship.
With the sensors on the fritz, there was no telling if anything had survived that hellish inferno. But Sheppard didn't need the jumper to tell him what he saw.
Nothing.
Not a single damn thing. Not even a piece of debris large enough for a scientist and a US Air Force officer to survive in before being exposed to hard vacuum.
The hive ship slowly turned on the Daedalus, and the Daedalus continued to sit idly by while they sized each other up. Sheppard stared unbelievingly. Why is no one firing at anyone?
As if on cue, the hive ship exploded.
Oh.
The enormous alien spacecraft burst into millions of random pieces and Wraith corpses; dwarfing the satellite's smaller field of debris with its somehow less-than-impressive splendor. If Hermiod had somehow found a way to beam a nuclear explosive on board the hive ship, then let that be their goddamned victory. Sheppard wasn't so sure that 'victory' was what he was feeling right now.
Ronon was never very good at repressing his rage, and judging by the way he punched the jumper's seat in front of him, Teyla obviously hadn't gotten around to teaching him. Sheppard chose to say nothing. Even a word in Rodney's memory seemed inappropriate right now. And Lorne, too. Shit.
He'd never fully understood Rodney. It took a while to grasp what it was that drove the guy to do anything beyond his tenacity and irritability. All he ever did was eat, sleep, think and complain. But other than that, he made all kinds of unpredictable mistakes—acts of bravery, even, that usually ended up getting the whole team in trouble.
Like getting infested, and subsequently blown up by the Wraith.
Happy birthday, Rodney.
It was such a goddamned waste. McKay should never have gone through the hell he did, just to die because some cowardly old computer virus was afraid of a single Wraith.
A broken Ancient machine. That's all it ever boiled down to. The next time he met an Ancient scientist, he'd have to give them a polite 'thank-you' for all the crap they left rotting around the Pegasus Galaxy that had nearly—or in this case, succeeded—in killing one of his friends.
For what seemed like hours, Sheppard stared at the field of debris outside the Puddlejumper screen. Ronon sat down beside him, eyes hard as a rock and his knuckles turning white.
"Now what?" he said darkly.
The colonel didn't answer. He didn't have to. Neither of them had a clue as to what should be done next—the satellite was gone, the Daedalus safe, the Wraith gone…all that was left was to go home.
But still.
Sheppard reached for his radio, and spoke without a shred of appeal in his voice. "Colonel Caldwell, this is Sheppard. Glad you people are okay, but Ronon and I have decided to stick around and look for our guys. Sheppard out."
He switched off the connection before he could hear Caldwell's answer. He had no intention of following orders, anyway. There was still a small chance Rodney and Lorne were still alive, somewhere, and he wasn't about to give up without at least examining the evidence. What was it Ford's grandparents had said? Don't lose hope until all hope is gone? Yeah, that sounded right. Here's hoping.
He hadn't forgotten about Brandelis, either. If that maniac was still inside the jumper, he would have to be careful piloting through the debris. The smallest change of course could send them crashing into something they really didn't need to get close to.
There was no activity from the Daedalus, which probably meant he had free rein to search the wreckage for his missing teammates. The jumper's sensors picked up thousands of fragments, most of them smaller than the average SUV and even smaller. Nothing, nothing, nothing, a few spots of weird radiation, and more nothing.
And then—there. A small blip on the screen in front of him. It displayed as a friendly greet dot, which probably accounted for about one tenth of his surprise. The other ninety percent happened because he was not staring at any old piece of debris, but a bonafide Ancient military-class battle module. Or as Rodney would have called it, an 'X-Wing'.
It only looked a little bit like an X-Wing, but then, he never was that into Star Wars. It was pretty big, though, and it was jettisoning away from the field of debris like a bat out of hell. And Sheppard's first, angry thought was: Brandelis. That son-of-a-bitch was trying to escape. It was the only possible explanation.
"Do you think that's…?" Ronon didn't finish the question. They both had the same gut feeling.
"Maybe," the colonel replied roughly, forcing himself to remain calm. "Guess the slimy bastard had a backup plan, after all."
After a moment, the Satedan turned a serious look on him. "And you're not going to follow him?"
"I would if I could. But seeing as he's moving twice as fast as us and we're almost definitely less agile, chasing him won't do any good, will it?"
"You're letting him get away."
"Yeah. I'm not happy about that, either." Sheppard's face hardened as he stared, rejecting all painful emotions, into the infinite stars. "Right now, I'm more worried about getting the hell out of here before the next explosion blows us halfway back to Atlantis."
"What next explos—
A fiery inferno erupted from the center of the debris field, cutting Ronon's confused sentence in half. Fortunately, Sheppard had already turned the Puddlejumper away from the origin of the blast, and the wave of heat and fragments hit their ship like a flyswatter. Jumper One pitched forward, spinning out of control as the two occupants struggled to stay upright.
When the vacuum of space had rapidly quelled the flames, Ronon and Sheppard took a moment to revel in the aftermath. One look at the colonel's face told Ronon all he needed—the explosion was a parting gift from Brandelis. The Daedalus had not been touched, but then, it was probably not the target the mad remnants of the former Ancient scientist's mind had intended.
"Guess he was serious about killing Rodney," muttered Sheppard, bringing the ship around to face the debris field. Most of the satellite's remains had been atomized by Brandelis' bomb. Even if something had been left behind, there was no retrieving it now.
It was pretty ironic, space being silent and all. It didn't offer a single sound of compassion in the wake of this disaster. Even the explosions had been silent. All of a sudden, Sheppard wanted to hear something—some idiotic remark about the physics of space and sound; wanted to argue with McKay about the 'cool factor' of sci-fi movies always having sound in space. Versus Rodney's almost fanatical belief in the molecular impossibility of sound waves traveling through vacuum, it was cakewalk to drive the astrophysicist up the wall by refusing to accept the subtlety of realism when it came to filmmaking.
Everything was only starting to make sense when, as if Steven Spielberg himself had planned it, Caldwell's voice came over the radio.
"Colonel Sheppard, if you're there—respond. This is Daedalus, requesting an immediate response from Jumper One. Do you read?"
Reluctantly, the colonel switched his radio on. "We survived, Colonel. Unfortunately, Dr. McKay and Major Lorne weren't as lucky."
There was a distinct pause on the other end. "I beg to differ, Colonel. Hermiod has recovered two pod-like devices from the wreckage of the satellite, complete with both Major Lorne and Dr. McKay inside them—alive. If you hadn't so illicitly cut the radio, I would not have been forced to use the restricted emergency frequency, and that information would have been available to you earlier."
"Alive?" Sheppard could hardly believe what he was hearing.
"No, Colonel. They really are dead. I've recently discovered I have a sense of humour and my psychiatrist recommended that I use it more frequently. Yes, they're alive for now. As for your refusal to comply with proper military procedures, I'm not as inclined to express my amusement."
He opened his mouth to reply, but Caldwell cut him off.
"Putting aside violations of a certain chain of command, you're welcome to land on my ship. You'll meet with the engineers in charge of recovering the pods as soon as possible. Caldwell out."
The abruptness in which the transmission cut out failed to shake him. All this time he'd been searching the debris field for what had already been found. What a way to have his heroic tenacity come back and bite him in the ass. He looked at Ronon. "I think I've had enough explosions for one day. How about you?"
There was a snort. "Shall we go home?"
"I thought you'd never ask." They were both feeling the elation that came with the news about Rodney's survival. It was one thing to lose a soldier in combat—hell, even in espionage—but to lose a friend was another story. Not that he'd ever tell anyone he considered McKay a friend. That would be like admitting to the Wraith that they really creeped him out.
Before he even realized it, the Puddlejumper had drifted into the landing bay inside the Daedalus's left docking port. He released the controls and stood up, heading for the back of the ship as the compartment around the repressurized. Ronon opened the rear hatch and they stepped simultaneously out onto the floor, where they were greeted by a handful of security detail.
"Colonel Sheppard, sir," said an unshaven man, nodding curtly. "We've been instructed to escort you directly to the infirmary. This is only a precautionary measure, however, so please don't think of this as a sign of distrust."
"Listen," Sheppard said. "It's been a long day. If you guys wanna tag along, be my guest. Ronon, let's go."
His Satedan counterpart cut through the group of uniforms smoothly, clearing a path for Sheppard to take into the east corridor. The detail fell in behind them, keeping their assorted opinions to themselves. The rough-edged man who had earlier spoken paced beside the colonel with military expertise. Sheppard was able to glance at the name stitched on his shoulder and learned that the man was in fact, the head of security and had a funny name: Syblus
"We've been told that Teyla had the bullet in her shoulder extracted without difficulty," Syblus reported. "One of the alien pods was partially damaged, though Major Lorne managed to survive with only a few burns and a bad headache."
Sheppard waited for the other shoe to drop. It never did. He stopped in the middle of the corridor and eyed Syblus. "And?"
On this man's cragged face, shame was a poor mask. Syblus clasped his arms behind him and looked elsewhere—the unlucky bastard who had been chosen to break bad news to people who didn't take bad news lightly.
"Colonel, the second pod…before I relay this information, sir, you should be prepared to consider Dr. McKay deceased. To be honest, we have no idea if he's going to live."
The colonel's stare was cold. "Why not?"
"I think I'd better try tae answer that."
Dr. Beckett's accented voice was sad relief for impatient ears. The worn-and-worried doctor appeared in front of them, stripping off a pair of bloody surgical gloves as he came to a halt. Sheppard hadn't realized they were so close to the infirmary until now.
"Carson," said the colonel quaintly. "Good to see you decided come along."
"Aye, are ye kiddin' me, lad?" the Scotsman joked with a half-hearted chuckle. Then he frowned. "Holy crap, Colonel. You've been shot, too?"
Sheppard sighed. He'd almost forgotten about his arm--but then, he'd been shot before. "It's nothing. Just tell me what I need to know."
The doctor's return sigh was much more lenient, though clearly strained. "Well, the moment I heard abou' yer team not reportin' back, I packed mae things and bought a first-class ticket." The humour faded from his face and became angst. "Colonel, I'm afrai' we've hit a stump with that wee rascal we call Rodney."
"So I've heard."
"Come along, then," said Beckett, turning. They began to walk again as a group, as he continued. "We managed tae get him out of the pod without killin' him, which believe me, was a bloody miracle tae start with. After that, it's been one disaster after another. His heart rate is dangerously low, and if his brain doesn't stop switchin' on and off', his nervous system will 'ave a catastrophic breakdown."
"And what caused it? Does anyone know?"
The Scotsman raised an eyebrow at him. "Ye mean aside from the fact he had a bullet lodged inside his bloody skull? Aye, it might have avoided his brain, but I can't see the poor man bouncin' back from an injury like that on a dime."
"Okay. A hole in the back of his head. Other than that, there's nothing else?"
"If yer referrin' to the nanites in Rodney's bloodsteam, aye, there's a good chance they're what's causin' the erratic activity in his brain." Carson placed a hand on his neck as he paced, feeling for the worst kink and trying to wring it out. "Now Dr. Yolane already filled in the part about the Wraith takin' possession of the belligerent little man, so I'm kin to understand that these nanites are makin' some last ditch attempt at stayin' alive."
"The Wraith," Ronon growled with immeasurable hatred.
Sheppard tightened his jaw as the puzzle rotated inside his mind. "No."
"What?"
"No, it's not the Wraith. The Wraith probably died eons ago."
Everyone had stopped. Everyone was looking at him.
"But we just—" Ronon started to say.
"We've been duped." The colonel's tone was harsh and annoyed. "This whole thing—the Wraith, the blue lights, the ZPMs, the pods—they're all props he used to get what he really wants. What he really needs."
Somehow, the awkward and bewildered silence that followed didn't make him feel any better. But there was no denying the conclusion he'd just drawn from this nightmarish turn of events. The whole thing—everything they'd heard and done—had been a ruse.
TBC
AN: More confused? Good. You should be. Next chapter will be a little slice of heaven.