Part 13 The Force Isn't With You

Over the next couple of days, the activity in Sanjava was one of high tension as everyone went about their duties or activities as best they could, although the leaders continued to reassure everyone that they would be safe.

However, they continually declined to reveal how the system worked. Ultimately, this refusal convinced McKay that they didn't really know how it worked themselves, which added little to the Atlanteans confidence in the system.

Because of this lack of knowledge, Sheppard worked extra hard to gain back his strength but it was going to be a long haul before he was one hundred percent fit again. He could now walk for short distances but soon tired if he tried to do too much at once. Therefore, if he wanted to go for longer trips, he still used the hoverchair.

As the hour of the Wraith ship's arrival approached, the atmosphere in the dome grew even tenser. Sanjava was again sealed from the outside world and all the citizens where now safely relocated back inside, except for the lawless element out in the city suburbs. An attempt to contact them had failed, so they had no choice but to leave them on their own.

The Hive's approach was schedule for midnight, meaning that no one would be sleeping soundly tonight.

Alone in his hospital room, John attempted to rest on top of his bed as the doctors still refused to release him. However, he intended to go and join the others in the control room when the time drew closer, so he was still dressed in his blue tunic. Off in the dimness, he could just make out the silhouette of the hoverchair parked nearby, ready, and waiting. On the night table sat a borrowed 9mm from Major Lorne and near his side on the bed, he kept a P90 that someone had given up in favor of a local weapon, and his trusty knife.

Glancing at the clock Dr. Ricaud had loaned him, John groaned as he noted that it was still a good hour short of midnight. He calculated the time it would take him to get to the control room using the chair and realized that he still had a good thirty minutes or so to kill. He would have gone already but he'd promised Beckett that he would get some much needed rest before arriving, and as the good doctor was probably in the control room by now, John didn't want to earn his wrath by turning up too early. Therefore, he dozed while keeping one ear alert for any sound or so he thought but when the attack came, it took him completely by surprise as someone violently dragged from his bed, vividly reminding him of the time before.

For a second, he thought the Wraith must have taken over and he'd slept through the whole event but his attacker didn't smell like one. In fact, he smelt far worse as a waft of stale body odor and bad breath assaulted his nostrils. In the dim light, he could make out a pair of wild mad eyes staring at him as strong hands gripped his throat in a strangle hold. John fought and kicked out, trying desperately to dislodge the hands but the gripe only tightened until John felt dizzy and weak from lack of air.

In the back of his mind, he dimly thought that he couldn't go like this. He wasn't ready to die just yet, not after surviving all that had been thrown at him so far and he certainly didn't want his friends to find his lifeless corpse rotting away on the hospital floor.

John's vision was starting to diminish as blood pounded in his head and he felt a fiery pain in his chest from lack of oxygen but out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the remote control for the hoverchair was lying on the floor. Turning his head slightly, he struggled to reach out for it but only succeeded in pushing it further away from his grasp.

Frustrated, he truly wished that he were a Jedi like the one Rodney had implied a while back now. Well, he may not have the Force but he did have plenty of willpower and a great deal of stubbornness, so with one frantic surge of energy he didn't really have, John managed to shove his attacker over a bit. The hands loosened their grip but still stayed persistently around his abused neck. However, the movement brought them closer to the remote. Stabbing blindly at the controls with his left hand, John pushed what he hoped was the forward button and was rewarded when the chair shot up and rushed towards them, knocking the maniac off his chest. Gasping for air, John scrambled up and painfully staggered towards the bed to grab his P90, but the weight of his assailant, as he landed on his back, pushed him back down to land roughly on the hard floor.

Once again, the coarse hands grabbed him around his neck and forced his chin back at an angle that threatened to snap his neck. Genuine fear shot through John's mind and drove him to reach behind in a desperate bid to dislodge the hands as he tried to stab his assailant in the face with his fingers. Something must have connected as he felt a warm drip fall onto his hand followed by a cry of rage and pain, but it only served to make his attacker angrier as the hands moved to his throat again, squeezing dangerously tight.

-SGA-

Up in the control room, Rodney looked at his watch. Another six minutes and the Hive would be over the planet. He was mildly surprised that Sheppard hadn't turned up yet and that he'd actually listened to Beckett for once.

As if reading his mind, Carson turned to him and spoke his thoughts. "I wonder what's keeping the Colonel. It's certainly not like him to miss something as important as a possible Wraith attack?"

McKay at looked vaguely towards the entry, "Probably gone to sleep."

"Ah…come on, Rodney, ya know he'd 'ave to be tied down and anaesthetized before that would happen."

"Well, it's nearly too late anyway. We have about five minutes to find out if their defense systems are as good as they claim."

Carson nodded grimly but he was also worried about his patient. "I don't think ya really need me here, so I'll go and check to see what's keeping the Colonel and if he really has gone to sleep."

"Okay, but you'll miss all the fun."

"Aye, but its fun I can well do without, thank you, especially if it doesn't work out." Without saying another word, Carson quietly slipped from the room just as everyone gathered around the monitors.

Moving quickly through the very silent passageways, Beckett entered the hospital area, which seemed quieter than normal. Over by the station, he saw no sign of the staff that should have been on night duty and wondered if they had an emergency on their hands. He just hoped to god it wasn't anything to do with Sheppard.

Approaching cautiously, Beckett suddenly saw an arm stretched out on the floor and his inner alarm went on full alert just as the most horrendous noise rumbled throughout Sanjava. "Oh, bloody heck," he muttered as he went about checking the unconscious nurse he found lying behind the desk and several others the located in a nearby treatment room.

-SGA-

Down the corridor, things weren't improving for Sheppard. Miraculously, he was still alive and he'd managed to push his assailant off his back. However, his knife must have fallen off the bed and onto the floor, and somehow, the maniac had found it.

Scrambling away, John tried to make a desperate bid for the door but he didn't get far before a hand grabbed his ankle and he saw the glint of metal rise above him ready to strike. Calling on his last ounce of strength, Sheppard kicked out with his right foot and got lucky as he heard a soft thud as his assailant hit the wall just as another deafening rumble echoed throughout the dome.

John's attacker recovered quickly and lunged again, pushing him violently onto the floor. Then pinning John's right arm under his knee, the brute raised the knife ready to plunge it into John's vulnerable chest. Having only his left hand free, Sheppard desperately gripped the knife holding hand, trying to keep it from striking but his strength was fading very fast as he felt pain and tremors pulsate up his arm. Although he could now breathe easier, he knew he couldn't take much more of this, so he almost resigned himself to the inevitable. He almost became ready to give up and allowed the peace of death to strike but several wet drops of moisture landed onto his face and a memory flared, as he registered whom his attacker truly was – Aldrich. Another drop landed near his nose and he dearly wanted to wipe the offending substance away but couldn't. Then John dimly become aware of something else, Aldrich was also losing his strength as it became slightly less of an effort to keep the knife wheeling hand away, but the brute still only needed one strike in the right place and it would be all over for him.

Suddenly taking John by surprise, Aldrich broke free of his grip and brought his arm up high ready to strike just as the dome once again resounded with another deafening noise. Taking advantage of this slight distraction, John gave one last desperate shove against Aldrich's chest. It was feeble but enough to unbalance the maniac, causing him to toppled onto his side with a thump.

As quickly as he could, John rolled his weary body under the bed and pulled himself upright on the other side with an effort born of perseverance. Having no time to rest, John frantically scrambled around in the dark gloom trying to locate either of his guns and sighed in relief when his hand finally brushed against the P90. Bringing it up rapidly, John tried to make out his assailant not realizing that the man was now standing directly behind him until he felt the touch of Aldrich's putrid breathe on his neck. In a blink of an eye, John bought his gun up and rammed the butt into Aldrich's stomach. Then turning on his heel, he let off a single bullet, which impaled the fanatic's chest, spewing blood everywhere.

Staggering away from the corpse, John fell back onto the bed with a jolt just as Carson rushed into the room and threw on the light switch. Taking in John's blood soaked and prostrate appearance, the doctor cried. "Oh, bloody hell, not again!"

Gradually sitting up, Sheppard squinted at Beckett in the sudden overly bright room. "Its ok, doc! It's not mine, belongs to that freakin' maniac over there."

Beckett let out an audible of sigh of relief as Sanjava echoed with a quieter rumble. They both glazed up towards the ceiling as if expecting to find the answer there.

Then suddenly with an effort that surprised Beckett, John found enough strength to stagger over the nearby hoverchair and sit down. Securing his weapon, he brought it to life and started to glide out of the room.

Beckett looked on in disbelief as Sheppard maneuvered away. "Where do ya think you're going, Colonel?" he shouted after him. "Ya can't go looking like you do!"

"I don't have time for niceties, doc! I have to know what's going on!" Sheppard shouted back as he hovered past a few shocked patients, woken up by all the noise.

Beckett didn't follow him at first as he reassured the people and told them to go back to their beds. Other medical personnel began to arrive to deal with the wounded staff, so Beckett warned. "Don't go into room 206 until the security people have arrived. It's not a pretty sight." He then grabbed some clean clothes and his small field kit, and rushed after his fellow Atlantean.

John slowed as he approached the control room and looked down at himself. Maybe he should have taken a little time to change his tunic top but it was too late for that now. Moreover, it certainly wouldn't make any difference if the Wraith were about to beam in. Apprehensively, he entered the control room and found everyone in organized calm until they saw him, of course.

Rodney turned and pulled a sick face. "Oh my god, Sheppard, that is so gross!"

Teyla rushed up. "Colonel, are you all right? Ronon moved to stand by him, weapon at the ready as if he expected to defend Sheppard against a marauding mob.

John scowled at McKay. "Well, at least some folks care. I'm fine thank you, Teyla, Ronon. I had a little run in with an old friend, but that's not important right now. What's been happening about the Wraith?"

Engineer Baltar moved over to him just as Beckett arrived on the scene. "It went as we predicted, Colonel Sheppard. Our defense systems are as good as the day our ancestors installed them. The Hive ship met its end before it even managed to launch a single dart. The escort cruisers were also taken out, but we let one escape to get the word out that Capella is a dangerous place to visit."

"And all that noise?" John's ears were still ringing from the din and his near strangulation.

Baltar looked slightly smug. "That was the Death Bringer. I'm afraid it was as noisy as the history books tell us."

John wanted to know more but Beckett was hovering over him. "Now that ya know things are safe, can we please get ya checked over and cleaned up?" Sheppard reluctantly nodded in agreement. "Right, is there a washroom near here somewhere?" Carson asked.

Baltar suddenly looked alarmed as if noticing Sheppard's state for the first time. "It's just two doors down on the left hand side," he pointed, "Whose blood is that anyway?"

As they started to leave, John called out. "Alexei Aldrich's!"

Baltar looked astounded and muttered. "It's a wonder he's still alive."

TBC Thanks for your reviews. Hope you liked this little bit of Shep whumping?