AMONG THE STARS - by NotTasha
PART 8: AIRLOCK
"What the hell?" McKay gasped as he climbed. "What the hell was that all about?" He groaned, using his elbow to leverage him upward. "OW!"
"Why'd she have to shoot me?" he squabbled to the walls around him. "Why? Because I discovered their stash, their cache, their … booty?" he spat out the word.
"Booty?" he repeated, as if he couldn't believe he'd thought of that particular word. "What's this supposed to mean? They're pirates, and they stashed her in that room as soon as they saw us coming. Stuck her in there to guard the loot while Frick and Frack distracted us? Oh, don't tell me we dealing with pirates!"
He closed his eyes a moment, leaning heavily on the ladder. Hadn't Teyla told them about pirates once, long gone? Damn it, what had she called them? Boca Grandes or something like that?
Yes, back during that horrible time when he'd been trapped on the planet of a thousand mosses, the others had discovered a cache of gold, jewels, crystals and bits of Ancient tech – just like the concoction he'd glimpsed in that room. Boca Ratons? Bog people?
"Great! Just great! I'm in another GALAXY for Christ's sake and now I'm being chased by PIRATES?"
The Fates laughed at him, he had no doubts about that. They laughed and ate popcorn and threw footballs at him as they played with his life.
"A woman, in a closet, jumps out and shoots me. How unfair is that?" He glared downward in the direction he'd come. "Who is she? Bonny Anne Bonny? Does that make the others Blackbeard and Jean Lafitte?"
"Gah, dammit!" His foot slipped, the step slick with his blood, and he missed the rung. He made a little whimper as he placed his foot again, more carefully, and climbed further.
Unhappy as hell, and in a world of hurt, he kept moving upward, one rung at a time, pulling himself onward. He'd seen the schematics of the space station. He knew where he was going. He had to make it to the Observation level before the Pirate Queen made it much further.
He climbed, shaking, pulling himself upward, stepping to the next rung as he reached again.
Ow! Oh God… OW! Damn it! Damn it!
One hand remained clamped at his side, trying to keep pressure against the wound. His elbow had to work as a limb to lean against the ladder.
Suck it up, McKay! Keep going!
This bites. This really bites!
And he kept climbing, as quickly as he could manage, dreading the moment the woman would figure out how to get through the next two doors, and the airlock would open beneath him.
Not going to happen, he promised himself. Because you're almost to the next door! And you will solve this problem like you always do.
Just a few more steps – a few more. Anyone can do this, right?
"I'm going to die," he muttered. "I'm not going to make it, and I'm going to die!"
Another step, and another.
"Just watch! I'm going to pass out and fall, and strike my head on the way down on this stupid ladder. DEAD! I'll be dead! If not from blood loss and the inevitable concussion, then it'll be internal injuries from the fall. I'd probably land on the laptop and die from the shards jamming into my most necessary organs."
He reached and stepped once more, and he reached the top of the section. He smiled at that accomplishment, breathing hard. "Knew I could do it," he told himself and reached the panel, keyed in the command and opened the airlock above him.
Another cylindrical space, just like the one he was in, yawned above him. Another ladder.
He sighed at the sight and held still for a moment, breathing in gasps from his exertion and the pain.
How am I supposed to climb another one of these?
What the hell's expected of me?
Pirates! Why'd there have to be pirates?
Pulling himself up past the gap in the ladders was murder. He groaned with the effort, screwing up his face and moving as quickly as possible to the next control panel and he shut the airlock behind him. HA!
Good, another door between himself and the mad marauding pirate wench. Excellent!
He paused, a hand spidery above the keypad as he thought. There was a sound beneath his feet, and he froze. A muted the sound of an airlock opening farther down. Then it closed a moment later.
CRAP! Oh crap crappy crap! She's just one level down! Crap! Shit! Dammit!
Great.
He started punching in commands, overwriting the previously stored passwords with a few keystrokes. Almost immediately, he could hear her, beneath him.
How'd she climb the ladder so fast? What am I dealing with? Super Pirate Monkey Girl?
So unfair!
"You can't have it!" he heard her voice rasp from the other side of the thick door. "You're not taking what we've waited so long for!"
"What? The ZPM?" He kept working at the keypad.
"Our riches!"
"Riches? Oh yeah, that's fine. Keep them! We already have our own box of booty."
"What?" her voice was furious. "You have stolen from the Bogachiel!?"
Bogachiel! That was it. What kind of lame ass pirate name was that?
"I'll skin you alive for that!" her muffled voice hissed.
Great -- way to piss off a pirate, McKay, he said to himself. First she shoots me, then she wants to skin me alive? "Come on! Give me a break. I'm havin' a pretty bad day right now!"
Her voice was hard to hear through the heavy door, "I will cut out your heart when I get you!"
Rodney clung to the ladder, holding his side as he pressed his head to the ladder. "I was only trying to help you fix your ship," he whined softly. "Is this how you thank people? Why the hell should I care if you got a chest full of doubloons? Go on, have fun. Go keelhaulin' with your buddies and shiver your timbers. Drink your rum, say, 'Avast, me hearties,' and sing 'Yo-ho-ho' and all that. Swab the poop deck!" And he hissed as he finished his dissertation, feeling empty and spent. His whole body tingled. His side throbbed with pain.
From the other side of the door, she let off what must have been a string of colorful curses.
He punched at the keypad as he listened to her muffled voice. She was caterwauling, getting even angrier by the sound of it, as she attempted to open the airlock that separated them. He made out her saying, "You're a dead man as soon as I get through this door!"
McKay sighed, as he pressed a hand to his bleeding wound. Probably be a dead man no matter what you do, he thought. But, you're not getting through this door.
He didn't care how well she knew this space station, she was up against the brightest mind in the galaxy.
He concentrated on his work, entering data that would bewilder the system, canceling out their codes, denying access, finding his way to access the other doors. With a few keystrokes, he had not only locked the airlock between them, but also ensured that nothing else above the ZPM level would open -- unless by his command. With any luck, she would be truly trapped now – unable to go up or down. He grinned, biting his bottom lip. This would work, wouldn't it? There! Done. That would do it.
But now he'd ensured that the others would be unable to rescue him. Great…
The woman kept up her hullabaloo.
"Try all you want!" Rodney called down. "Don't give up. Just keep punching away at the keypad."
He closed his eyes a moment as a shudder ran through him, and rested his head again. Below him, the pirate queen continued to bitch and wail, accomplishing nothing.
He smiled softly, realizing that he'd managed to imprison her. She would not be able to attack him again – or going after the others.
He stared at the little keypad that he'd just abused. If he'd had his laptop still, he'd be able to break into some of the main systems. If he'd just thought to break into the system while he still had it in his hands...
He touched his radio again, listening to the static. If he hadn't been so incapable, so unable to hang onto his laptop, he would have been able to rig in his laptop at this juncture, and deactivate the jamming system, warn the Colonel and Teyla and Ronon. His next best bet was the observation deck above.
Rix and Zeno knew about this woman on the space station. How could they not? The others were in danger of a similar attack from those two.
Teyla… he stiffened, remembering how he'd left her alone with Rix. What sort of trouble was she in? Sorry, Teyla. So damn sorry. If he could only warn her and…
But, crap, he was as trapped as pirate girl.
He was on his own now – and this upward ladder led to nothing except the Observation Deck.
"I am so screwed," he muttered again, and commenced climbing once again.
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TBC - yeah, 'screwed' is the right word for it.