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The Weapon
Chapter 8
The city looked huge. It was huge, but the fact that they may have to search every inch of it made it look all the bigger. Even to Ford and Teyla, who had already spend time exploring and searching, it seemed an almost impossible task. One that seemed all the more difficult now it was not the weapon but their team mates they were trying to find. A weapon could wait for years, just sitting in a room alone. Sheppard and McKay could not. Not only that, but if the villagers wanted to keep them, they would be doing everything in their power to hide them. And that included moving from building to building. This was going to be difficult.
They had split into groups of two and headed out in different directions, keeping in contact by radio and looking out for any sign that someone had been there recently. So far, after an hour, they had found nothing. No one was surprised by this, but everyone was disappointed.
They had decided before they began the search, that if no one had found anything after two hours, someone would return to the gate and request more people to search. The original number would have been enough if they had had to return to the village and retrieve Sheppard and McKay, but for searching an area as vast and easy to hide in as the city, they needed more.
Ford was just considering sending someone back sooner, when Teyla's voice came over the radio, "We have seen one of the villagers. He is heading into a building on the outskirts of the city. We're in pursuit."
"No, wait," Ford told her, "stay where you are, wait for backup. Where are you?"
There was a pause at the other end of the radio as Teyla tried to explain her position. "It is a building near the tall domed building we saw from outside the city," she said eventually.
Ford smiled, he knew exactly where that was. He and Sheppard had searched it on their first day, "I'll be there in five minutes. Watch out for anyone else entering or leaving the building. Everyone else, head to the domed building." He and Mitchell, the man in his search team, headed off at a fast jogging speed to the domed building. Ford, who had a better idea of the direction, took the lead.
They arrived in just over three minutes, and found Teyla and three men standing at the side of the domed building. Another team had arrived before him. They were stood, backs against the wall, waiting for the others.
"Which building?" Ford asked.
Teyla pointed to an ugly square building. "As soon as the first man entered, another left. They are patrolling the area, no doubt looking for us."
"Then we should move. Before they see one of the other teams and know we're coming." He radioed to the others to approach carefully and avoid the guard, describing the building and telling them to wait nearby in case they needed backup. That done, the six of then ran quickly and as quietly as possible across the street and around the corner to the building.
There was no shout of angry villagers from the building, and no rain of arrows from the windows. Either there were very few men there, or they had concentrated their efforts on guarding their prisoners. Either way, they made it safely into the building.
Ford entered first, rapidly followed by the others. He stood, gun at the ready waiting for his eyes to adjust to the different light level in the windowless corridor in which he now found himself. standing. He blinked in the half-light and became immediately aware of a man, little more than a boy really, perhaps seventeen years old. He was dressed in the same roughly woven garments of the other villagers, but in his hands, looking completely out of place, was a P-90.
Ford immediately pointed his gun at the boy, who was holding the weapon uncertainly, his hands shaking from the shock of suddenly finding himself confronted by these six people. If his people had decided to give him the P-90 to use, they must have tested it and therefore knew how dangerous it could be. Having six of the weapons pointed at him clearly terrified the boy.
Visibly trembling, he knelt down and placed the gun on the floor, then held his hands up to indicate that he had no more weapons. Ford picked up the gun, keeping his own firmly pointed at the boy, "Where are they?" he asked.
"Please, don't kill me," said the boy, his voice trembling almost as much as his hands as he looked nervously at the group from their deadly weapons to their angry faces.
"Tell us where they are." Ford told him
The boy made a sound somewhere between a word and a cry of fear. Teyla lowered her gun and stepped forward. "We won't hurt you," she promised, "just tell us where our friends are, and we will take them and leave."
A shaking hand moved to point in the direction of the stairs, "Up and then up again," he said.
"How many people are guarding them?"
"I don't know. Three. Or four."
Ford signalled to the others to lower their weapons. "Stay with him," he said to one of the group, "make sure he doesn't get a signal to the people outside."
The remaining five walked slowly up the stairs, Ford again taking the lead.
"Did you hear that?" Sheppard turned around from the window where he had been standing, suddenly alert. His hand slid automatically to his side where his gun would usually be and he frowned as he remembered that it was gone.
"My stomach?" asked McKay, "It's been making some strange noises for the last…"
"Shhhh!" Sheppard put a finger to his lips and moved closer to the door to listen, "Voices," he whispered.
"Who is it?" asked McKay, straining to hear from his position further away from the door.
Without warning, the guard who had been slouching against the wall just outside the door suddenly snapped to alertness and loaded an arrow into his bow. For a second, Sheppard thought he and McKay were his targets and took half a step backwards, but instead, he aimed down the corridor and moved forwards out of sight.
Taken aback by his sudden departure, Sheppard hesitated for a moment then rushed forwards, "The guard's gone!" he said, still whispering, "Stay here."
McKay opened his mouth to tell Sheppard that he was actually planning on jumping out of the window and landing on his wounded leg, but he had already left. Instead he struggled to his feet and gingerly put a little weight on his left leg.
The pain shot up and down his leg, stopping him after he barely placed his foot on the ground. Even straightening the knee was agony. As he lifted his foot from the ground, the pain ceased slightly, but moving the leg seemed to have started the pain all over again. He was sure that it hadn't hurt this much when the arrow first hit him.
Keeping one hand on the wall for balance, he hopped forward, feeling ridiculous but having no other choice if he wanted to know what was going on outside. If he had known how much it would hurt, he would have stayed on the floor and shuffled himself forwards without having to use the leg at all, but it was too late for that. He was up now and sitting down would probably be more painful than staying standing. He looked at the door. It was less than ten feet away, but the pain made moving even that short distance seem like an impossible task. Screwing up his face in concentration, he tried to ignore the throbbing in his leg and hopped forwards again.
It occurred to him that he wasn't sure that he wanted to know what was going on outside the door. It could be something bad, and in his current state, it would be difficult to get away again, but curiosity and now concern for Sheppard kept him moving.
Sheppard looked out of the room carefully, not knowing that he would find on the other side of the wall. True, he had heard voices and the guard had disappeared from sight, and that most likely meant that he was trying to prevent his prisoners from being reclaimed, but there were other possible explanations.
He looked out of the door and pulled his head back inside a split second later, waiting until he was safe from sight and weapons fire to allow his brain to process what he had seen. He saw the guard's back. The man was standing with his bow drawn, arm tense and waiting to fire, facing a group from Atlantis including Ford, Teyla and a handful of others whose identities he had no time to recognise before ducking back inside the room. They were being rescued. He had no idea how they had been found, but for that moment that was unimportant. He had to let them know that he and McKay were alive and relatively unharmed.
He stepped out of the room, hands on view in case anyone failed to notice who he was and perceived the new arrival as a threat. As soon as he was visible, Ford glanced up, aiming his gun as he did. Realising that it was Sheppard, he grinned and aimed back at the lone guard. Three other villagers had already surrendered and were standing to the right of the rescue team, held at gun point by a man called Mitchell.
Sheppard cleared his throat, "What kept you?" he asked.
The guard stiffened visibly, but didn't turn around. He knew that he had lost, but turning around, taking his sight off the armed intruders for even a second and he might as well surrender.
"Are you alright, sir?" asked Ford, keeping his eyes on the guard.
"Not too bad. McKay got shot in the leg, but I think he'll be okay." He looked at the guard, he was outnumbered five to one, but was still standing his ground.
"Put down the bow and step out of the way and you won't be hurt," Ford said.
The guard shook his head, "You will not hurt me. If you planned to fire, you would have done so already."
"If you don't get out of the way…"
But the guard had already begun to move. He moved so quickly that by the time anyone had registered the movement, it was already too late. The bow was dropped onto the floor, the arrow falling uselessly next to it. In the same fluid movement, he pulled a knife from his belt, grabbed hold of Sheppard and held the blade to his throat. "Leave, or he dies," said the guard. "I mean it. He is not important to us."
Ford hesitated. It would not be difficult to shoot the guard, but he might have chance to cut Sheppard's throat before he was hit.
Sheppard grabbed the man's arm with one hand, slamming his other elbow into his face. The guard was knocked backwards, but Sheppard's grip on his knife hand prevented the blade from slicing his throat. Knocked off-balance, the guard staggered, and Sheppard turned around, elbowing him in the face again as he did. He finished off with a kick to the stomach that sent the guard falling backwards. He hit the floor hard and sat, leaning against the wall, looking dazed. The knife fell to the ground with a thud and Sheppard kicked it out of the guard's reach. "That's to make up for this," he said, pointing to his bruised face.
At that moment, McKay appeared at the door of the room where they had been kept, "I don't suppose you want to shoot him in the leg for me, do you?" he asked.
The guard's eyes widened in fear, "That wasn't me!" he said.
"Relax," Sheppard told him, "no one's going to shoot you." He looked back to McKay, "I thought you were too hurt to walk."
"I am!" said McKay immediately. He was still leaning heavily on the wall, the toes of his left foot barely making contact with the ground. He looked from person to person expectantly, "Isn't anyone going to help me? Or do you want me to hop back to the gate?"
Sheppard sighed and moved back to the door, McKay leaned on him gratefully. Ford took the other side and he half hopped and was half carried down the stairs and out of the building.
