APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEIVING part 5
Sheppard rounded the corner, and skidded to a halt at what he saw. Rodney narrowly avoided running into him, and the security detail clattered more noisily to a halt behind him, the gadgetry and machinery they'd brought clanking as it came to rest.
McKay's eyes opened wide, and he echoed the softly spoken "Son of a -" that Sheppard had said seconds earlier.
Thirty or so metres in front of them, far too close in McKay's opinion, stretched a web, bigger than last time, though still as beautiful in the fitful light provided by the slimy algae and the flashlights they carried, the colours shimmering, changing second by second as they watched. But all that was background information. What really held their attention was the bloated grotesque thing that hung from the silken strands. The huge spider- like creature regarded them balefully from multifaceted eyes as she hung there, massaging her swollen abdomen. Her skin, or more correctly exoskeleton, appeared to be moving, but closer inspection revealed it wasn't moving, but the hundreds of smaller spider things emerging from her body and scuttling over her then to the web made it seem as if it was.
The floor was carpeted with a heaving moving mass that the two marines were firing at sporadically, if ineffectually, and it was heading their way.
"Hold your fire!" barked the Colonel peremptorily.
The marines obeyed, backing away slowly as the mass of scuttling, scampering creatures advanced. Rodney, looking at the scene in horrified fascination, felt sure he would have nightmares about this for the rest of his life. More and more of the horrid things were emerging from the queen spider as they watched, dropping to the floor, running up the walls, and covering the ceiling. Sheppard was suddenly aware that they would be outflanked if they stayed much longer.
"Fall back," he ordered, retreating as he did so, coming to a halt a good few metres away from the advancing spiders. He regarded the oncoming menace for a few moments, then said, "Pass me the flame thrower."
Rodney addressed him as he geared up. "Do you think this is such a good idea, Colonel? If you burn through the ceiling, we're beneath the water level here, and I don't know how well the Ancient sprinkler system will be working down here, if all you do is set the walls on fire."
"Do you have a better idea, Rodney?" replied Sheppard looking him straight in the eye, "because I don't think we brought a big enough can of Raid." He carried on suiting up in the fireproof gear while McKay tried to think of a snarky comeback, and came up empty.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," was all he could come up with.
"I'll be relying on you to tell me my ass is on fire," rejoined Sheppard, hoisting the heavy canister onto his back. "Stay well behind, Rodney, crispy fried spider is gonna smell pretty bad." He flipped the fireproof visor down, then advanced towards the seething mass, holding the business end of the flamethrower protectively out in front of himself.
The roar of the weapon as it hurled fire at the roiling carpet of spiders shocked Rodney for a moment, then he rallied enough to get on the radio and tell Zelenka to ignore any fire alarms going off in the area they were currently in.
"What is the Colonel doing? The temperature readings down there are increasing rapidly!" Zelenka's voice sounded annoyed even across the radio.
"Toasting spiders," was McKay's terse response. "Look, just keep watching the readouts, and let us know if things look like they're getting too hot."
"Okay," Zelenka still didn't sound too happy.
McKay took a few steps back. Even from this distance it was getting pretty hot, Rodney hoped the fireproof clothing was keeping the Colonel from getting overheated. It looked like the whole place was going up, but closer inspection revealed it was the density of spiders on fire creating that illusion. To McKay, the whole scene resembled something out of The Inferno, the roaring of the flamethrower, the thick black smoke beginning to billow, the stench, the fire dancing up the walls, across the ceiling, and over the floor in front of Sheppard. He hadn't expected the noise, and then the Queen, realising her brood was in danger, screamed a horrible ululating caterwauling that hurt his ears. He looked up in time to see the monster scrabbling at an unbelievable rate down the web, heading towards the Colonel. He barely had time to shout out a warning, having no idea if Sheppard would even hear, before the thick black smoke obscured his vision…
oOo
In the control room, Elizabeth Weir was pacing anxiously, alternating between watching the readouts on the lifesigns monitor, and staring over Zelenka's shoulder. She startled when an alarm began shrieking, sighing in relief when Radek turned it off. He looked at her apologetically. "The fire control systems for that area have just come on. Colonel Sheppard is using the flamethrower against the creatures."
She nodded, clasping her hands and trying for a semblance of calm, listening to the roar of the flamethrower. Her face tightened as she heard an ungodly shriek, and Rodney shouting…
oOo
In the infirmary, Beckett tossed in a world of pain and sweat as the venom upset his metabolism. It was impossible for him to lie still, the twitching of his muscles causing frequent position changes as he vainly sought somewhere to be comfortable and cool. Having anything but a light sheet against his skin was agony, but the cool cloths one of his nurses applied to his face and neck helped more than he could have thought possible. The drugs were making him drowsy, and he wanted nothing more than to be able to let go and sleep, but the activity around him prevented even that, though to be fair, the pain in his gut wasn't helping.
The shrill tone of an alarm on one of the monitors they were using to help assess his condition startled him into another bout of muscle spasms, fresh perspiration breaking out over his already damp body. The nurse, Caroline, reached out and silenced it, her smile, meant to be reassuring, belying the urgency of her body language.
"Dr. Lawrence," she called softly, knowing sounds were painfully magnified for Carson, "His blood pressure just went up again."
He heard the measured footsteps of the doctor approach, and felt the quiet while Lawrence checked out the readings on the monitors.
"Ok, the drugs aren't helping enough any more. We need to try the anti-venin. Carson?"
Becket nodded as best as he was able to in response to his doctor.
"We're going to try the anti-venin now, though I have to be honest, I don't know how much good it'll be against Pegasus Galaxy arachnid venom."
Beckett simply nodded again, then reached out and feebly grasped at Lawrence's wrist. "You're just doin' what you have to do, lad," he whispered.
Dr. Lawrence returned the pressure, then left to prepare the medication needed.
Beckett felt the drug slip fluidly into his vein, felt the coolness it brought with it, but wasn't prepared for the liquid fire that followed. His spine arched wildly as he tried to escape the fire that burned within, only dimly aware of all the monitors alarming as his staff hurriedly moved around him, trying to combat this latest complication. It was all too much, and finally he was able to slip into the oblivion he'd craved for so long.
oOo
Colonel Sheppard was trying to flame as many of the small bugs as he could before the fuel for the thrower ran out. He was concentrating hard on what he was doing, trying to ignore the growing heat within the suit, spraying the burning fuel around, spreading it as far as possible. He was trying to watch for the Queen, but the encroaching smoke obscured his vision. He thought he heard Rodney shout a warning, but didn't have time to process it before he was flung to the ground by a huge weight landing on top of him. Desperately he sought a way to push the monster off, but he was fighting a losing battle. As she reared up to strike, he acted mainly on instinct, and plunged the nozzle of the flamethrower, still dripping flaming fuel, into her exposed underbelly. The creature dropped hard, knocking all the wind out of him, and crunching his chest, preventing him from drawing breath. The hood of the flame proof suit was knocked off by flailing multi-jointed legs, and he found himself face to face with something from the fevered imagination of a Stephen King novel. She reared to strike again, and he scrambled out from underneath her as fast as his injured chest would allow, curling up against the anticipated bite, but it never came. Instead, as he risked looking up, he saw the spider monster disappearing back down the tunnel, away from the carnage he had wrought.
Still desperately trying to suck air into his protesting lungs, he croaked out, "Shoot it! Stop it from going deeper!"
He was rewarded by the sound of several P90s being fired, and that awful, high pitched screaming assaulted his ears again. He became aware of McKay at his side, trying to help him up, and he accepted the proffered hand, using Rodney's body as a prop to bolster his sagging energy.
The ensuing silence was blessed. And Sheppard took a moment to stare round at the smoking ruin of the corridor, now being doused with seawater from the ancient fire systems. His comlink crackled into life.
"Colonel? Colonel Sheppard, this is Weir, what is going on down there?"
Sheppard took another long look around at the steaming lumps of charcoaled spiders, charred walls, and finally the unmoving body of the spider Queen lying further down the hall. Taking a shaky breath, he replied, "Threat neutralized," then abruptly sat down again, legs unable to support his weight.
He gazed up at Rodney, whose face was blackened with soot except where the sprinkler system had started washing it off, eyes huge in the man's shocked expression.
"Jeez, Rodney," he wheezed, "You look awful," and before he could hear the snarky reply he knew McKay had waiting, he promptly passed out.
oOo
Carson woke slowly, awareness gradually returning. He had vague memories of searing heat throughout his whole body, running feet and agitated staff barking out panicked orders, but it could just have all been a bad dream. He hoped so, but on trying to move, found that theory brutally disproved.
His body was one giant ache, and he was sure his head had expanded and grown so his neck could no longer support its weight. In the background he could hear monitors beeping, and one was speeding up. His, he supposed, then started to worry about who else could be hooked up to a heart monitor. His escalating anxiety caused a corresponding increase in the rate of the beeping, and in just a few seconds he was aware of the comforting presence of Dr. Lawrence standing beside him. He felt the other man taking his pulse – it seemed that despite all the technology, sometimes the good old fashioned way comforted the doctor – and he could almost feel the smile lighting up the other man's face.
Carson risked cranking open one eye, just to shut it again tightly when the bright lights of the infirmary sent the pounding headache he was suffering, up until now just a background ache to go with all the other aches and pains, roaring up to an eight out of ten on the Carson pain scale. With a hurried apology, Dr Lawrence turned down the lights until they were bearable. Beckett opened his eyes again.
"What happened?" he croaked.
"Well," began the other doctor.
"I didnae hurt anyone, did I?" interrupted Beckett, the cause of his anxiety surfacing again.
"No," soothed Lawrence, "In fact, quite the opposite. Your return to Atlantis proved that that-thing definitely wasn't you, so Colonel Sheppard was able to neutralize it."
"Oh. So why is there another monitor giving my headache a headache?"
"Well, that one's down to Colonel Sheppard. No, don't worry," he continued as he saw Carson's eyes open wide in alarm, "He'll be ok. The spider thing fell on him, cracked a couple of ribs, nothing the Colonel isn't used to, and he got a bit dehydrated in the fireproof suit. Are you alright?" he asked, suddenly concerned as Beckett lay back and closed his eyes, an expression of long suffering on his face.
"Aye, I'm fine. That man's a trouble magnet."
"He is that," agreed Dr. Lawrence. "Now, how about you. How do you feel?"
"Like I went ten rounds with the entire Olympic boxing squad," muttered Carson tiredly. "When can I get out of here?"
Dr. Lawrence let out an unprofessional expletive. "When I tell you you can and not before," he said. "Believe me, Carson, you're going to be sore for a few days. We nearly lost you! It took us a while to get you stable, and I'm not about to let all that hard work waltz out of the door too soon. You know yourself you'd only be back again."
But the doctor was speaking to himself. Beckett was out for the count again.
Much later…
It was the rasping noise of an electric buzz saw that finally woke him, then he heard the steady beep, beep, beep of a heart monitor, and that sound was way too familiar, especially hearing it in stereo as he was doing now. Stereo? That couldn't be right. He risked opening an eye, and found as he'd thought. He was in the infirmary, again. Crap. Looking over, he caught sight of Carson in the bed over from him, and the buzz saw? McKay was sleeping in a chair positioned between the beds of his two friends, head tipped back, snoring and drooling, and wasn't that a picture to wake up to.
"Colonel? Colonel Sheppard?"
Carson. He tried sitting up, realising it was a big mistake, and lay back, biting his lip as his chest informed him of all the reasons why he shouldn't try that again for a while. After he'd got his breath back, he rolled slightly, and looked over at the other occupied bed.
"Carson? Are you ok?"
"I will be," replied the doctor. "What happened to you?"
Sheppard shuddered at the memory of flaming spiders. "Got dropped on by Spider queen. Obviously she didn't appreciate my efforts at barbequing the family." He laid back and closed his eyes, then, "You?"
"Spider bite is as horrible in this galaxy as it is on Earth."
"She bit you?" Sheppard was horrified.
"Aye." There was a pause as each man digested that unpleasant image. "She just wanted to stop me from getting back and warning you." Beckett left out the part where he was probably supposed to be lunch for the workers left behind.
"Yeah, I was going to talk to you about that."
Carson shifted uncomfortably in his bed. His muscles were still sore as a result of the venom and its effects, but he knew what was coming.
"Why'd you go wandering off on your own?"
"I didn't appear to have much choice in the matter. Dr. Lawrence figured out that there was something on the silk that caused me to want to follow where it led, despite myself."
Sheppard rolled back and closed his eyes, feeling the pull on his sore chest. "This should be an interesting debriefing," he said, making the understatement of the year. Between them, Rodney snorted, hitched his breath, then resumed snoring.
"That is so annoying," stated Beckett emphatically. Sheppard was about to agree when movement at his side prompted him to open his eyes again, and there was Dr. Lawrence smiling down at him.
"Welcome back, Colonel, you've been asleep for quite a while now. It was about time you rejoined the living. How are you feeling?"
"Like a monster spider dropped on me," he replied dryly. "What's the damage this time?"
"A few cracked ribs, some heat exhaustion and dehydration caused by over enthusiastic spider barbecues."
"So when can I get out of here?"
"When I tell you that you can. Believe me, the next few days are going to be sore."
Sheppard nodded, then asked, "Carson?"
Dr. Lawrence looked a little more solemn. "Ah. Well, he'll be our guest a little longer than you, though he's finally on the mend now. The spider venom was pretty potent, and we had to give him some anti-venin. It worked really well, too, eventually, but he caused us a few problems while it was doing its thing. Still he's on the mend now, though he needs to sleep for about a week to recover. And so do you. Need to sleep I mean."
Sheppard yawned, but said, "I'm good. Rodney?" he inclined his head towards the drowsing scientist.
"Rodney's fine, just a little smoke inhalation. He'll be annoyed he was sleeping when you woke up, but maybe I'll finally be able to get him to go to his own quarters."
Sheppard was feeling sleepy again, and realised Dr Lawrence was adding something to his IV.
"Go back to sleep, Colonel. You can get up to speed in the morning."
The Colonel nodded sleepily as he slid down into the depths again. Somebody else could watch out for them all, just for a little while…
THE END