"I still don't understand why I'm here with you." Rodney was pressed to the wall, his hands stretched before him and behind him, guiding him along.
"Because I need a hand, and at the moment we're stretched to the limit," John muttered, his gun held tense and ready. "Besides, you really want to go back to your lab right now?"
"Why, what's wrong with the lab?"
"As I recall, that was their first hiding place."
"Right. Forget I asked."
John swivelled his gun to shine the mounted light onto the walls. "So, any ideas?"
"Well, if I suggest setting off a bomb, you'll get the wrong idea and blow up the entire city or go off and do some stupid, self-sacrificing crap, so I just as soon keep my ideas to myself." He spun around at a shadow, saw nothing, and swallowed.
"Rodney, relax. We should hear these things coming before they ever get here. Besides, I think I can safely say I have a reason to hate bugs more than you do."
"I highly doubt that."
"Whatever. Come on." He took only three steps more when a horrible shriek filled the air, and he was knocked forwards.
He rolled, his gun ready, and saw Rodney on the ground, with one of the two-hundred-pound bugs towering over him. The shriek had been his. "Shit! Get it off!" Rodney tried to protect himself by throwing his arms over his face as it reared then fell as gunshots pummeled the exoskeleton. Rodney shrieked once more, trying to back away, but the giant insect collapsed on top of him, trapping him half underneath. He lay there for a moment, winded.
"Rodney!" Sheppard was firing down the hall, taking out the four bugs at bend in the corridor.
It took Rodney a moment to realize his predicament, and when he did, panic followed. "Colonel! Get this thing off . . ." he stopped as he caught sight of the crawling ceiling above them. "Oh my god . . ."
Sheppard looked up as well. "Holy . . ."
"Get it off! Hurry!" Rodney's struggled renewed with frantic intensity. "Now!"
"Working on it!" John fell to Rodney's side, trying to shove at the bug without touching it. Desperation took hold, and he ignored the gore and pushed with everything he had.
"Colonel!"
"Shut up, will ya, they'll . . ."
And they started to drip from the ceiling.
There were hundreds of them. Small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, small enough to crawl up the leg of his pants and get into the sleeves of his shirt. Small, but lethal.
The first bite stung. The second had him on his knees.
"Colonel!"
The voice was fading.
"COLONEL!"
He woke to dim lights. Not in the infirmary, then, no, of course not. It had been sealed off, the patients evacuated to a room near the control center. And that's where he was.
Sheppard blinked and looked around him. He was hooked to an IV, and more machines than he cared to count. His head throbbed, and he felt dry.
Rodney looked up in response to his grunt, and instantly leaned over his bed. "Colonel! You okay?"
"Wh-hpn'd?"
"You got bit." Ronon stepped forward, his thumbs tucked in the waistband of his pants.
"Elaborate as always," Rodney muttered.
Sheppard winced. He could feel the bite, rising in a hard bump above his skin. He felt so tired, and fuzzy. "Poison?"
"Not so much," Rodney said. "I mean, toxic, but not deadly. Not unless you were bitten quite a lot, which you weren't, fortunately." He sat back in his chair gingerly.
John frowned, remembering Rodney's own frightening plight. He caught the man's eyes with his own, trying to read him while making sure his vocal chords were still functional. "What about you? You okay?" he croaked.
"A few cracked ribs, nothing too serious. I mean, you know, considering . . ." He looked very ill at ease, not just tired or concerned.
Sheppard frowned. "How long?"
"Uh, you were out for several hours. Lang and his men found us, and . . .Mr Eloquence here. They, well, they helped me, and you . . ." he clasped his hands between his knees and turned his head away slightly, finding a spot on the floor to stare at. Ronon gave Sheppard a nod and left the two men.
Not a good sign. "Rodney?"
He swallowed and raised his chin, seeing that Ronon had gone, and still not meeting John's eyes. "I, uh . . . I mean, just there were so many, you know? I was pinned under that thing so it wasn't, I mean . . .they were all over you, just crawling," he shivered and looked sick," but they didn't come near me, I guess because Mama Bug was dead. But . . . I laid there, and . . ." he shook his head, and sad eyes met John's. "Just felt helpless, you know? Well, that and I couldn't breathe, and the stench . . ."
"But we're fine now."
"Better, yes. Fine is debatable."
There was more. Rodney's eyes were dark, his knees bouncing lightly against the hands clenched tightly between them. "Something else happened."
He could tell that Rodney was getting to the part he didn't want to discuss. He studied the floor. "I- I told them to get you first, because they were . . .you know. And they got you out, but more bugs started falling from the ceiling. I heard a scream, and – and one had crawled into this guy's mouth, think his name is Woodman. He – no one could get to him in time. The soldier beside him went down, completely covered with them. They found his body an hour ago. His flesh was . . . mostly gone from his face, and there were large open sores all over his body."
"They ate at him?" Sheppard's voice was small.
"Yeah. Or something."
Sheppard swallowed, and regretted it. "Feels like my throat is stuck together."
"Oh. Here." Rodney quickly reached over and picked up a small cup of water with a straw. "Carson says to take it slow. We currently have adequate water supply, but no way to get any ice chips, which he'd rather you have."
"How many are there now?"
"Bugs? Who knows. We still haven't found any eggs, but at least with the size of those smaller bugs, we've got a better idea what size egg to look for."
"Unless they're like spiders and come from a sac." His voice had improved to the point where he could utter a sentence without croaking. It was a start.
"A sac. Always comes back to spiders, doesn't it?" Rodney frowned and tapped his radio. "Lipton? You there with Big Bertha?"
A moment's hesitation, then, "Yes, Rodney?"
"Any way you can run the cameras to search the city for a large egg sac?"
"Easily done."
"Focus your attention on the main power conduits first," he said, and looked at Sheppard. "The larger bugs seem to either be where we use a lot of power, or head towards it," he said to him.
"Infirmary, the mess, the labs. Why didn't they just go to the gateroom?"
Rodney gave a half-hearted shrug. "Guess they just haven't made it that far."
"Do they feed off energy?"
"Doubt it. Remember Woodman?"
"Right."
Rodney nodded and started to say something when an urgent call came through on his radio. He tapped it, then gave Sheppard a puzzled look. "It's Elizabeth. She wants me to go look off a balcony." He stood and started to the hall.
John was smiling. For a moment he'd thought Rodney had said 'take a jump off a balcony'. "Take someone with you who knows how to fire a gun," he called to Rodney's retreating back.
Rodney turned with a not-so-patient sigh. "I can fire a gun, thank you." He pointed to a large soldier nearby. "You! Come with me."
John smirked. "Thought you said you could fire a gun?"
Rodney tossed a crooked grin over his shoulder. "His is bigger."
The nearest balcony was two doors down and around the corner from the makeshift infirmary. Rodney walked out and stared, slowly keying his radio. The view below captured him unwillingly. His voice was weak. "Elizabeth?"
"You see it too, then?" Her voice was weak as well.
He did see it. Boy did he ever.
In the distance, the sea was black, and crawling.