Author's note: Thanks so much for all your reviews last chapter! houghtam, Chloe, kahuna, dpdp, Apples26, Mini Goat, and various guests - I really appreciated your feedback. :)
John Sheppard and Rodney McKay stood in front of their final emitter, facing the open tray. The crystal had already been swapped out and the C4-placed in position.
Then John heard footsteps.
"Now," he whispered.
McKay closed the tray and they turned around.
"And I was so sure we were going to survive this one," he said as he looked at the armed Replicators surrounding them.
"Me too," McKay replied.
John knew this had to happen, but it rankled him to have to surrender to the enemy. They put their hands up and were relieved of their weapons.
He would have preferred shooting their way out, but it would have reduced the efficacy of the crystals and threatened their plan. Hiding would have been better than being captured, but it had just taken too long to get to the final emitter.
Beckett and Teyla had likely been captured, plus Carter if she'd made it to them. They definitely would have sent more Replicators to the Chair room. Could be that Ronon and Weir were still out there roaming the city, though.
"Move."
They couldn't do anything but follow the Replicator's order as they were marched in the direction of the brig.
He hoped that the rest of his team was okay. Getting captured was always a risky bet. People could get injured or even killed in the process if they weren't careful.
When they were thrown into the holding cell, Beckett, Weir, Carter, Ronon, and Teyla were all already there. No one looked injured, which made him feel a whole lot better.
"Bring the prisoners from the other cell," one of the Replicators ordered.
John watched as a few of them left and two remained to stand guard.
The cell door closed and the shields between the horizontal bars surrounding them were enabled. They were well and truly trapped. He hoped to god that McKay's plan worked.
He stood up and looked around.
"Everyone okay?"
"So far," Weir replied.
Beckett shrugged. "I'll be fine."
Ronon, sitting on the bench, delivered his line with a laid-back lack of care that would have made John laugh under other circumstances.
"Why aren't we dead yet?"
They weren't dead yet because the Replicators wouldn't bother killing them until they had all the information they needed. For now, they had to do what they could to direct the enemy's attention where they wanted it focused.
Because they had an audience, they had to put on a little show to make sure the Replicators knew they had finished planting all the C-4. That way, they would focus on retrieving those based on the information from Woolsey instead of spending time interrogating the rest of them.
"Probably saving us for a little recreational mind-probing," he said in response to Ronon's question. "Did everyone get the…?"
He let his voice trail off and watched as one of the guards looked over at them with interest.
"We completed our task," Teyla acknowledged. Beckett shook his head in agreement.
"So did we." Weir agreed. "In the nick of time."
"You?" Ronon asked.
"Yeah. Just under the wire," McKay said, complete with a sweeping hand gesture to emphasize the response.
"Colonel?" John asked.
"Yes," she replied. "I met up with Teyla and Beckett."
The yes was the response to his question. The second sentence was her cover so the Replicators wouldn't try to find out what the seventh member of their team had been doing.
She'd gotten a message to the Daedalus. That was good. As long as the ship arrived and held steady in orbit without dropping the nuke, their plan would work. The Replicators would need to raise the shield.
"Were they already in position when you got there?" he asked, hoping that she could follow his line of questioning.
He caught the brief grin and knowing look in Carter's eyes.
"Almost there," she replied. "We got everything done in twenty minutes."
The Daedalus was twenty minutes out. They were in good shape as long as Colonel Caldwell acted threatening, but delayed destroying the city.
They needed the Replicators to raise the shield.