The Journey
Chapter 6
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"Do something!" Beckett yelled at McKay, having heard every word of their exchange on the radio.
"What do you think I'm trying to do? There is simply no way. I'm locked out of the system." He pointed at the dark console. McKay was ready to give up. All he could think of was how he had failed his teammate. But Beckett wouldn't let him give up so easily.
"You always find a way, there has to be some kind of emergency shut down or something. All the Ancient technology we have seen before had some kind of failsafe to prevent people from being killed."
"That only works for people with the gene." McKay snapped, not realizing what he had just said.
"Of course, John has the gene and so do you. Get on the computer." McKay shoved Beckett towards the console. As soon as he touched the console, it lit up again, and a map with life signs appeared. Two small life signs were gathered in a very small while a stronger life sign was headed towards their present location. Four life signs were missing. Beckett panicked, suddenly, they had not only their suffocating friends to deal with, but also someone, most likely someone who had killed four of their team already advancing towards them.
"Get that wall up again!" McKay yelled at him, while unholstering his gun. He too had seen the life sign advancing towards their position, coming closer at an alarming pace. Trying to focus, Beckett tried to think about the locking mechanism, thinking about releasing the doors. The screen in front of him rapidly flicked through a row of schematics before coming to a diagramme of the locking mechanism. Not knowing which of the crystals that controlled the locking mechanism to disable, Beckett simple took the central one off-line, disable all locks in the temple. This was the only way he could be sure that the doors that had trapped John and Teyla would be opened. On the downside, they would not be able to lock off the control room to protect themselves from whatever was with them inside the temple.
Suddenly, Beckett heard gunshots from the corridor leading away from the control room. He spun around, surprised to find himself alone in the room. McKay must have gone ahead to confront the intruder. An utterly foolish idea, but Beckett wouldn't put it past McKay to try and play the hero. He considered running off in the opposite direction, in case that Rodney was unsuccessful in holding off their attacker, but he decided otherwise. Rodney might be in need of his newly acquired healing skills, he couldn't leave him behind like that. Wishing for a weapon, he listened to the gunfire and the screams outside, hoping that Rodney hadn't made a fatal decision when he had decided to confront the enemy.
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It felt good to be able to stretch his legs again, John thought dreamily. He must have fallen sleep in one hell of an uncomfortable position. His muscles hurt like after a hard day off-world as he stretch and expanded his curled up body until he was lying flat on the floor. He was just about to drift off again, when it struck him that his bed was oddly hard, in fact it felt a lot like solid rock. He opened his eyes and saw a dimly lit stone ceiling. The memories were flooding back to him now. They had been trapped in the corridor; oxygen had been running out fast. His recall was a bit hazy, but the last thing he remembered was talking on the radio with McKay, before passing out. He didn't think he and Teyla were going to make it out of this one. Teyla! Before he could move to check on her, his mind automatically reached out to her, reassuring him that she was near and alive. Turning his head, he saw her scrunched up form right next to him. She was just starting to stir awake. He leaned over, gently shaking her shoulder, trying to rouse her. They had to act quickly before whoever had been trying to kill them realized that they had escaped. At least that was what John thought must have happened. McKay must have come through for them at the last second.
"John?" Teyla muttered, slowly becoming more awake. "John, are you all right?" Teyla still seemed not totally aware of her surroundings
"I'm fine. I was worried about you. Can you sit up?" John was concerned
"Yes, I think so." She pushed herself up and shifted her gaze to John. "What happened?"
"McKay must have managed to open the doors remotely. We have to get going as soon as you feel better. Someone is out here with us; we have to get to it before it gets to any of us. It already tried to kill the two of us. It's not going to stop there."
"I'm ready." Teyla said and John helped her back to her feet. Once she was standing steadily, they resumed their previous way downwards to corridor to the room in which they had spotted the additional life sign when they had been in the upper control room.
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Just when Beckett thought that McKay should have run out of bullets, he heard one last gunshot, followed by a mangled scream. Some shuffling sounds flooded in from the corridor and then a single set of footsteps approached. Before Beckett could contemplate the best place to hide in the room, it entered the room. He started at it in mixture of terror and shock. At the first second he had thought it was a Wraith that had just walked into the control room with Rodney slung over his shoulder. But even though the creature bore a strong resemblance to the Wraith, it was clearly something far less humanoid. It reminded him more of some reptilian, lizard like creature. But before Carson had more time to contemplate the finer points of the creature's appearance, it dumped Rodney right in front of him. Rodney was bleeding from his arm, from what looked like a gunshot wound. His eyes were opened, but his wasn't moving. He just started up at Carson with a horrified gaze. Carson was about to kneel down to have a closer look at his friend, when the creature roughly grabbed him by the arm, it's sharp, claw-like nails ripping through the fabric of his uniform and breaking his skin. The creature tightened the grip, obviously waiting for something to happened.
"You are not like him. You are one of them. I don't need to kill you, you're already paying the price for the mistake you made." The creature sneered and let out something that vaguely resembled a laugh. "I'll not kill you, you'll be much more useful to me alive." The creature smacked Beckett to the side of the head and he went down to the floor.
McKay was watching in horror. There was nothing he could do. He had tried to stop the would-be Wraith, but his Beretta had been useless. The creature had easily wrestled the weapon from his hand, and probably broken his wrist in the process, and then proceeded to shot him with his own gun. Why it had gone for a shot to the arm and not a more lethal region, he had no idea. Then it had gripped him by the arm. Somehow, those claws must contain a poison, because immediately after the creature had released his arm, paralysis had set in. He had been watching helplessly how the creature had knocked out Beckett.
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John carefully spied around the corner as he and Teyla reached their destination. Neither of them sensed anyone present, but he didn't dare to entirely rely on his new abilities yet. He was too used to standard military strategy to suddenly change his operating mode completely.
He could see two figures lying motionless on the floor in the dark room. That was all he could detected with the light of his P90. He signaled Teyla that they were ready to enter the room. They cautiously entered the dark room.
TBC
