AMONG THE STARS - by NotTasha
I've been
terribly remiss. I just wanted to thank everyone for leaving
such lovely reviews. Sigh... they make me happy :-) It really
means a lot to hear what you have to say. Thanks for taking the
time to review. Now, enough of that. On with the show!
PART 10: THE CENTRAL CORE
"McKay!" Sheppard called. "McKay! Goddamn it, McKay, answer me! Teyla? What did you find?"
"John!" she shouted over the radio, her voice electric with rage and worry. "Rodney is badly hurt. There is blood -- a great deal of blood! We must get to him."
Outside of the central core, Sheppard closed his eyes for a moment and uttered a soft, "No…"
He tried another series of numbers at the door. The keypad blatted at him. He scowled and tried again. "Damn it! Damn it!" he growled, slamming an open palm against the door. He spoke over the radio. "Get to him, Teyla!"
"We are attempting to access the next level," Teyla replied, frustrated.
"We?" Sheppard responded. "Mills is with you?"
"Rix is attempting to key open the airlock above us, and is facing difficulty. The keypad to the upper hall has been disassembled. He has replaced a missing crystal, but he's not sure if this is affecting the airlock."
Over the connection, they could hear Rix whine about codes being changed, his access not working any longer – and then a stifled gasp as if he was met with a sudden pain. Teyla had undoubtedly given him a shove.
"Teyla, don't trust him," Sheppard warned, his voice like steel.
"I do not," Teyla told him. "He is Bogachiel. They are all Bogachiel."
At the mention of that name, Ronon let out a frustrated sound.
"Bogachiel?" Sheppard repeated, familiar with the name. It took him a moment, but it came to him. "Space Pirates?" His voice was incredulous.
"Yes," Teyla responded.
"Damn it," Sheppard muttered, shaking his head. "Space pirates… This can't be happening."
"Don't let him out of your sight," Ronon ordered the Athosian.
"I do not know the codes to get through to the next level," Teyla told him.
Another voice came over the comm., speaking in a quiet slur, "Can't… locked it…"
Sheppard froze at the sound – the usually impatient and energetic scientist sounded so tired, so weak. "Rodney, hang in there. We're coming." Beside him, Ronon shifted back and forth, obviously itching to get moving.
"How do we get past this airlock?" Teyla came on. "Rodney, tell me how to open it!"
Sheppard glanced to Dex as Rodney spoke again. "Can't unlock it. She's… dangerous. Had to… had to trap her in."
"Who the hell is 'She'?" Sheppard spat over the airwaves.
"Her name is Wortley," Teyla replied. There was a pause as Rix must have said something. "Rix believes she shot Rodney when he discovered her guarding their treasure."
Sheppard groaned, finding it hard to believe that he'd again come across a treasure chest in the Pegasus Galaxy.
Another slight pause and Teyla went on, "We can hear her. She is in the section directly above us. She is not happy."
"McKay!" Sheppard growled. "Unlock the damn doors!" He poked viciously at the keypad, and the thing just bleeped flippantly at him. "Ronon and me are stuck down in the lower levels! Let us get in! We'll take care of her."
"Lower levels… weren't affected," Rodney returned. "I … I just shut down… airlocks above the… control center."
"Then why can't I open this goddamn door!?" Sheppard growled.
"Are you entering… the correct code?" Rodney asked, a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
Sheppard scowled. "What's the right code, Rodney?"
A quiet moment, and then Rodney said, "Let me think… having trouble…"
"Colonel, Rix will let you in," Teyla's voice came on.
Within the column, Sheppard heard something moved, and the muffled sound of an airlock opening, and then closing above them, and after a moment, the door to the central core slid open. Rix stood at the doorway. He smiled for a moment, but the expression dropped immediately as he took in Sheppard and Ronon. He backed away.
Teyla dropped down beside Mills. She said nothing. Her eyes bleak, she held up the laptop for Sheppard to see it.
"Son of a bitch," John muttered, his eyes wide at the amount of blood that coated the device. He looked up to Teyla, whose face was set like stone.
There was a shove from behind him. Ronon pushed his way through the narrow door and in a flash the Satedan was on Rix. For the second time the scrawny redhead was slammed against a wall.
"I didn't do it!" Rix cried. "It wasn't me…"
Ronon just growled, shoving the man off the ground as he pressed him into the wall.
"I'm trying to help!" Rix insisted.
Sheppard took the laptop from Teyla with one hand, and met her eyes, seeing the fear. Sheppard touched his radio again. "Rodney?" he called.
"Rodney?" he tried again when silence was returned.
"Present…" Rodney finally replied, softly.
We're coming to get you," Sheppard promised.
"He's locked it up tight," Rix insisted, and then let out an OOF as Ronon pushed him further against the wall. "I tried! I can't go any further. He's done something to the airlocks. Honest!"
"Keep trying!" Ronon demanded. Grasping hold of Rix's shirt, he flung him toward the keypad at the door. "Get that airlock open, or end up like your friend."
Rix gasped, coming to a stop and turning toward them. "Zeno?" he asked. "What happened to Zeno?"
"He's dead," Ronon explained tersely.
The man stared at Ronon a moment, then Sheppard. "You killed Zeno?" He looked lost. "Why?"
"He was about to shoot me," Sheppard responded.
"It was us or him," Ronon completed.
Rix shook his head mournfully. "This is so checkered up!" he whispered. He looked beseechingly at Teyla. "We weren't going to do you any harm. You'd fix our ship and then you'd go. We'd load up the Ironspot full of riches and go." He stopped short. "Wortley knew places. Knew lots of places where we could hide out and they'd never find us – the others. They'd come after us, you know. They'd come looking. We just wanted to go!"
He looked from one of them to the other. "Rodney must have opened the stronghold. And… you killed Zeno?" He looked aghast as he asked, "And me? You're just gonna kill me, too?"
Sheppard paused a moment, then declared, "Get us to McKay and we'll let you go."
Rix scuttled to the keypad. He closed the door that led to the hallway, and flew up the ladder, climbing like a monkey. Teyla was right behind him when he reached the airlock above them.
When the ceiling slid open, revealing the next section of the central core, Ronon let out a low growl. He jammed one of their packs at Sheppard, and set off after the others.
Rix and Teyla climbed. Sheppard stared upward into the next section, not sure about what he was looking at. For the love of God, it looked like paint had dripped down the wall and around the ladder.
Sheppard took a moment to secure the smeared laptop into his pack, and then slung the rucksack over his shoulders and started up after Ronon.
He topped the open airlock. Rix hung to one side of the ladder, waiting until the others climbed past him before he shut the aperture after them.
It wasn't until the shut airlock formed a floor beneath them that Sheppard saw the true extent of what had happened to Rodney, the blood that had collected on the 'floor'.
Oh God…
Ronon, just above him on the ladder, seemed thick with rage.
"It's the airlock above that's jammed," Rix explained unnecessarily as he climbed along the side of the ladder, easily passing the others.
Sheppard's hand flew to his radio, activating it. "Rodney," he called. "Rodney, talk to me, buddy. How're you doing?"
He dropped from the ladder to the 'floor'. "Rodney," he called again. "You're going to have to unlock the doors."
"Can't…" was the response. "Not from here."
"From where then? We're in-between the jumper bay level and the control level right now."
"Two floors down."
"Okay, we'll go down there."
"From where… I am!" was the snappish reply. "I locked it… two floors below the observation deck…."
Sheppard looked mournfully upward, realizing how far McKay had to climb, and in pain. "Rodney, where're you hurt?"
"Shot… right above my hip. God, it hurts. It hurts… She shot me!"
"You get it bound up with anything?" Ronon asked.
"I… I… I got nothing. Oh yeah… shirt… was going to use that. Forgot. Damn, I forgot…"
"Rodney?" Sheppard called, looking upward as if it would help him see his friend. He had to get to him… had to see for sure.
"Not so bad now. Bleeding is slowed down a lot. Not so bad… God it hurts."
Ronon growled again, his hands clenching the rungs tightly.
Rix was above them, prodding away at the keypad. Sheppard frowned as a woman's muffled and enraged voice resounded from beyond the airlock.
"I'm trying!" Rix whined in answer to her. "I'm trying to open it! It won't go!"
Thumping was heard, with stifled curses.
Ronon, further down the ladder, had his weapon out and ready in case either Rix or Wortley were successful.
"Colonel," Rodney's voice came through the radio again, sounding almost timid.
Sheppard swallowed, and then answered, "Yeah?" He kept watching the ceiling, wanting to get through it, wanting to be able to see his way around it.
"You need to get the ZPM," McKay said softly. "Don't leave it…"
"We're kinda busy trying to get past your work right now."
"Don't leave the ZPM.."
"We'll get it," Sheppard snapped, "After we reach you."
"Took out a crystal to … disabled the hallway door in the core, and another… into the room. Need to put them back."
"We're working on something else right now."
"Find my laptop. I dropped it … valuable… don't leave it. Someone can fix it… get the data."
"McKay! Listen to me! We're going to get through whatever you did to the airlocks and we'll…"
"Can't…" A short laugh followed. "Oh God, I really screwed myself. Stupid… so stupid." And then a pained cough followed, the sound of struggled breathing.
"Rodney, we're going to figure this out! Rodney?" Sheppard waited, listening to Rodney breathe over the comm.
Above him, Rix still poked ineffectually at the keypad while the woman named Wortley raged. John couldn't quite make out what she was yelling, but the tone let him understand exactly why Rodney had locked her in.
And Rodney was alone, and hurt. How much time did he have?
If I could just see him, John thought, see if he was going to be okay…
"Rix! Get this door open!" Sheppard demanded.
"I'm trying!" Rix insisted.
"This one!" Sheppard jabbed a finger at the door at his side. "Let me into the jumper level!"
"Huh?" Rix looked over his shoulder, past Teyla who was halfway on top of him, and Ronon who trained his gun somewhere near his head. He noted where Sheppard was pointing. "Oh. The gateships!" And Rix maneuvered around until he was clinging to the side of the ladder again, and sort of slid down it, neatly avoiding both of the people beneath him.
He landed with a thunk beside Sheppard, and looked at his hands in disgust. He took a moment to wipe Rodney's blood off on his trousers before he worked the keypad to open the door to the lower hallway.
"Keep an eye on him!" Sheppard ordered Ronon. Turning to Teyla, he demanded, "Get the goddamn ZPM. His power buffer should be loaded." It would give them an hour, right? It wasn't as if Rodney had any time left, anyway.
"Where're you going?" Ronon asked Sheppard, keeping his gaze on the squirrelly pirate.
"I'm taking the jumper out. Going to see if there's any other way to get around this." Sheppard nodded up at the secured airlock, and then added, "Need to check on him." He gave Rix a shove toward the ladder. "Get back up there and let Teyla into the power level, then you're back to work on getting that airlock open. You got that?"
"Yeah, sure," Rix responded and clambered up the ladder once again.
Sheppard slipped through the door, and into gateship level of the space station, the door snicking shut behind him.
His feet pounded as he made his way around the central core and back to the dock where their jumper awaited. He was within the ship almost immediately. God, it felt good to be back in a real jumper, to find Jumper 5 all clean and reasonably neat, without cancerous growths attached everywhere.
Quickly, John detached from the station and floated free "Rodney? You still with us. Rodney?"
"Yeah," was the quiet return.
"Good, keep it that way. Teyla?"
"Rix has regained access to the control level. I am replacing the crystal for the door to the ZPM unit," Teyla replied. There was a 'whoosh' and then she said, "I am in."
"Careful…" Rodney warned. "Be very… careful."
"I understand how to handle a ZPM device. I have a good teacher," Teyla replied over the radio. "Colonel, I will bring the device down to the dock for when you return with the jumper."
"Good, yeah, perfect," Sheppard responded as he redirected the jumper, bringing it up and around, to the 'flower' of the potted plant space station.
He examined the bottom of the observation deck, grimacing as he saw no sign of another entryway. Nothing. Unable to do any good there, he brought the jumper up and over the deck, to stare into the dome. "Rodney?"
Through the transparent material, he could make out the scientist, prone beside the control console. He was staring upward and clutched his side, unaware that the jumper had appeared.
"Rodney?" Sheppard called again.
"'m still here," Rodney replied weakly. It was strange to see his lips moving in that clear dome, and have his soft voice come over the radio.
"I'm here. To your left."
Rodney looked momentarily in the wrong direction and then turned his head correctly. For a moment he just blinked at the jumper outside the window, and then smiled at the strangeness of it. "Hey," he said.
"Hey," Sheppard returned, watching the languid movements of the scientist. Rodney's whole side, from his waist down was dark with blood. "Looks like you sprung a leak," John said conversationally.
"Yeah," Rodney responded, keeping his hand clamped to the hole above his hip. "I'm not doing so good here," he confessed. "It's better than it was," he admitted quietly. "Think the bleeding's almost stopped." He released his hand for a moment and groaned. With a pained look he gazed toward the blood that coated him. "This isn't good," he commented.
"How do we get in there, Rodney?" Sheppard asked, not able to keep the pleading tone from his voice. "There's another entrance, isn't there?"
"'Fraid not," Rodney responded, and laughed a little giddily. "A string walks into a bar…"
"Rodney! We need a way to get through the airlocks."
"Bonny Anne Bonny is in there."
"Ronon will deal with Wortley. Listen to me, Rodney, if there's any way to undo whatever you did…"
"Not from here," Rodney said sadly. "Messed up… messed up big."
"There's got to be another docking station or something in this deck!" Sheppard yelled. "There has to be a way to get in there!"
"Only one way in and out," Rodney responded. He blinked at John, and said, "It's good to see you, colonel."
"Figure it out! Rodney! How do I get in there? I'm getting in one way or another."
"Only one way in…" Rodney gulped and closed his eyes. He seemed to shudder as he said, "Sorry…"
Sheppard groaned, pressing a hand to his head as he stared at the stalk-like central core and tried to figure out a way around it.
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TBC - maybe it wasn't such a good idea to
lock her in there.