Armed with nothing but his wits, Radek pressed the door release, praying that the room wasn't being guarded by a Wraith. It seemed to be his lucky day, in a perverse ironic way. The coast was clear. The corridor was dimly lit. Carefully listening for any sound of approaching Wraith, Radek sneaked out into the corridor. Corridors were branching off to the left and right. Too bad he didn't have a map of the compound. He could be walking into Wraith Central and not even knowing it. Some sort of emergency exit would be fine. Did the Wraith have regulation fire exits? Radek had his doubts about that as he inched forwards.
He had walked undisturbed for maybe five minutes when he heard muted voices and footsteps. Deciding that they came from straight ahead, Radek duck out of the way in a corridor branching off to the side. He pressed himself to the wall, hoping fervently not to be seen. Two Wraith passed without taking note of him. Radek had tried to listen to what they had been saying, buthad only been able to make out fractions. Something about 'experiments' and 'scouting the area'. He didn't like what he had heard. If they where still searching the planet, there was a chance that the rest of his team mates hadn't made it back to Atlantis either. Not just for them, Radek wished that at least one of them had successfully finished the mission. Sheppard and Teyla depended on them and he on his part had failed them from the start.
Figuring the Wraith must have come from some source of information, Radek went in the direction they had come from. It turned out he had guessed right. The corridor led to a round room. Radek couldn't believe his luck, the room was empty. He went in and activated the door mechanism to lock the door; at least he thought he was locking the door.
At closer inspection, the room turned out to be some sort of observatory, but insteadof allowing one to look at the constellations in the sky, this observatory allowed keeping an eye on the planet. The ceiling and walls served as a looking glass on the planet's surface. Radek could see the Gate. By now, two Wraith had taken position by it. He saw the forest in which he and Bates had gotten separated. In total three Darts were roaming over the forest. So they didn't have Bates and Halling yet, Radek noted with relief. Whatever technology allowed them to generate this map must not allow them to locate the humans from a distance.
Radek heard the whoosh of the door opening too late. He barely had the chance to turn around when the stunner blast caught him mid-torso. Without being able to say another word, Radek dropped face first to the floor. Oblivion swallowed him before he hit the ground.
oOo
Something was wrong, everything was moving. Radek opened his eyes and saw the ceiling moving by. He closed his eyes again as the image made his head spin even worse. He wanted to protest, but the commands from his brain never reached his body. He couldn't move, couldn't speak...ah, Wraith stunner. The memory came back quickly. This was bad, so very bad. God only knew the Wraith were dragging him know. He opened his eyes again, but could only see the ceiling. Frustrated he closed his eyes. Stunner blast weren't permanently damaging, Rodney had complained enough about the time he had had the receiving end of one, for him to know, but it would take a few hours for the effects to wear off enough to even think about escaping.
The dragging stopped, Zelenka opened his eyes again and was just in time to see a huge Wraith grab him by the shoulders and throw him into a prison cell. Having no feeling in most of his body came at an advantage when Radek crashed to the floor in the cell. Now all he could do was wait. He doubted the Wraith were done with him already.
"Dr. Zelenka?" Someone whispered behind him. Radek struggled to turn around, his body still largely incompliant. Suddenly to hands helped him and he was propped up against side wall of the prison cell. The helping hands belonged to Sergeant Bates. So much for his hopes that the others had fared better.
"Halling?" Radek managed to ask-
"He isn't here." Bates answered. "You okay?"
Zelenka nodded. "Just got hit by Stunner." Talking was still an effort as his body was unco-operative. He didn't mention that the Wraith had probably saved his life when he had fallen off the cliff. Had the Dart not caught him, his shattered body would be lying somewhere on the body of that cliff now.
"What do they want?" Radek asked.
"No idea. Don't worry Doc; The Stunner is going to wear off soon."
"At first I was in sort of storage room for humans. They caught me escaping." Radek told Bates what had happened.
"I have been sitting here for a while now. We don't seem to be exactly a priority."
oOo
Rodney McKay hadn't slept for 36 hours. Since glowy-Sheppard, how he had dubbed the figure that had appeared to him, he had been following the directions, walking upstream the river. Rodney tried not to think about what had happened. Talking to glowy-Sheppard had made some things clearer, but there were still many questions left and Rodney wasn't sure he wanted to know the answers. In a way, he already had an idea what had happened. His encounters with the ascended Sheppard, Sheppard had made up for the damage he had done, he had healed Rodney's injuries and given him the information that would most likely save his life. Rodney had had a lot of time to think about in the 36 hours that he had spent setting one foot in front of the other, but the longer he thought about it, the more he thought that it had been Sheppard's final good-bye to him.
The terrain had gone from perfectly even meadows to steep, rocky paths that were impossible to travel in the dark. Rodney had been forced to stop for several hours to previous night and from the looks of the sun, he would only have two or three hours more before he had to call it a day. He hadn't had anything to eat since he had left the camp with Ford and Teyla several days ago. Following the river had provided him with water. In the first day he had often gotten light-headed, but that had passed now.
Sheppard had said that the Gate was thirty miles from the abandoned village that he had left 36 hours ago. Out of the those 36 hours, he had been walking for maybe thirty, but his pace had been slow as the terrain rose steadily, but even a mile an hour, he should have done that. But the river was sill running. Follow it all the way to it's spring. Rodney looked up the snow-covered mountains in the distance. The spring could be anywhere up there. The more altitude he gained the colder it got, he could only hope that Sheppard had not been to far off with his estimate.
He was not. Rodney followed a curve in the river and finally there it was, the spring of the river in a clearing. And in the setting sun, under an arch, the Stargate stood in the middle of the clearing. Rodney had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
oOo
It was the end of a long day on Atlantis. The City was buzzing with rumours as everyone had seen something of the action and was filling in on the rest. Elizabeth had, in consulting with Dr. Heigthtmeyer, assembled everyone in the Gateroom at the usual dinner time.
"First of all, thank you all for coming on such short notice. Today had been trying day for many of you. It's also a sad day. Most of you already know from your colleagues or friends, but for those of you who didn't know. We lost a member of our expedition today. Dr. Rodney McKay was killed on a so far undesignated planet. But he died in the effort to rescue Major John Sheppard who was recovered today together with rest of the rescue team. "Elizabeth paused.
"Sergeant Bates, Dr. Zelenka and Halling all volunteered for the mission to Athos to search for a plant vital to the survival of the major and Teyla. Halling was the only one who returned for the mission. We now know that Athos has been settled by the Wraith. "
A murmur went through the rows.
"We lost contact with them two hours after the start of them mission and since 1800 wehaven't been abletoestablish a connection with Athos anymore. It is most likely that they have fallen in enemy hands." Dr. Weir concluded. "Sergeant Forsythe and Dr. Jamison, if you could please drop by later." She stepped back and Kate walked up to her.
"Are you sure it was a good idea giving them the news about Bates and Zelenka?" Kate asked her.
Elizabeth sat down on one of the now vacant chairs and drove a hand through her hair.
"I don't know. I guess half the City knew it anyways, and they deserve the truth. If the Wraith have them, they are gone. I sent them there!" Elizabeth exclaimed.
"You can't blame yourself! They were volunteers. They understood how important the mission was and they knew the risks. They are professionals."
"It was Radek's first time off-world. I pushed him because I thought they could use his expertise." Elizabeth sighed.
"What if I told you no matter who you would have chosen, it would always have happened the same, who would you have picked then?" Kate asked.
"I would have gone myself, of course."
"See, Elizabeth. You didn't know this was going to happen." Kate put her hand on Elizabeth's shoulder. "Call me later if you want to talk." Kate slipped away
towards the cafeteria.
Dr. Jamison approached Elizabeth. "Dr. Weir? Do you have a moment?"
"Yes, I wanted to talk to you about something concerning Dr. Zelenka. Please walk with me." Dr. Weir invited the other woman as they made their way back to Elizabeth's office.
"What is it?"
"I need you to change all of Dr. Zelenka's passwords and access codes. We cannot risk the Wraith having access to our systems in any form." Elizabeth explained briefly. "I already deleted his IDC from the system in case the Wraith get their hands on that information."
Dr. Jamison nodded. "I'll take care of it. The science department is having a party tonight."
Elizabeth gave her a surprised look. "For Radek and Rodney. To remember and celebrate them. What they did, they did for all of us. Maybe you would like to join us?"
oOo
The party at the science department had mutated into a party for all of Atlantis. By the time the party had spread from the empty storage rooms out into the hallways, Elizabeth had been too drunk to care. After checking in with Dr. Muir who was working on the cure for Major Sheppard and Teyla, Elizabeth had followed Dr. Jamison's invitation and had been surprised to find most of the City already there. The music was soft, there was plenty of alcohol and only few people were dancing. Dr. Jamison had been mixing drinks; they still tasted of paint stripper and lemonade concentrate. Elizabeth didn't care and from the looks of it so didn't anyone else. They had come to remember and to forget at the same time. Elizabeth needed to forget, forget all the people who had died on what was starting to look like a one-way trip, the fate that Zelenka and Bates had faced, forget the families back on Earth who might never know what might have happened to their sons, brothers and fathers. Elizabeth went to grab another drink.
TBC