Previously: When we picked up an alien escape pod (in chapter 108), Carson decided to help the dying lady inside (in chapter 109). Needless to say that went really poorly.
Chapter 111. Control.
Radek came to around the same time Rodney did, or else Rodney decided to lay on the floor for a few minutes after he woke up. Radek bolted up, a headache assaulting his senses and blocking his vision. He shut his eyes and pulled at his hair, as though that might stop his head from pounding.
"We can track them down faster," Ronon was saying as he pulled Sheppard up off the ground.
Sheppard looked dizzy, but he kept his feet. He also managed to realize he was missing his sidearm. "Damnit, who took my gun?" he asked. He squared his vision on McKay.
"It wasn't me," Rodney said, holding a hand to his head.
Radek wanted to speak up that, actually, Rodney did take it. And then Elizabeth took it from Rodney. Almost shot Radek with it, too, thank you very much. Instead of sharing this admittedly useless information, Radek put his head decidedly in his hands and stared at the floor, waiting for his vision to normalize.
"Elizabeth has it," Rodney finished.
"Great." Sheppard looked around and, spying one of the guards outside the door, he motioned for one of them to hand over his sidearm. "Come on, Teyla, let's go."
Teyla knelt beside Rodney, helping him sit up. She looked to Colonel Caldwell. "There is a medical team on its way."
Caldwell nodded and watched them sprint out into the hallway. Then he looked at Rodney. "What the hell just happened?"
"Obviously, Phebus was lying to us," Rodney snapped. He picked himself up off the floor and stumbled over to the console. He tapped at the screen a few times, giving Radek more than enough time to pull himself up off the floor and look at what he was doing.
Or what he wasn't doing.
"You know, I hate it when I'm right," Rodney grumbled.
Radek glanced at him sideways in disbelief. Not only did he love being right, but… "What? I was right. You would have believed Phebus if not for me. Hell, Colonel Sheppard could be the one out of control right now instead of Carson."
"Yeah, well, it doesn't make much of a difference now, does it?" Rodney snapped. "Carson is just as deadly with a gun as Colonel Sheppard, isn't he?"
Radek had his doubts, but Caldwell interrupted. "Doctors." He looked now like he was dealing with a couple of children, and not just McKay anymore. Radek thought with no little shame he was right about that. This was a disaster. It could have been worse, yes, but it was still a disaster.
"Let's go to the Control Room. We can figure out which one of you to blame for this later." Caldwell stomped out of the room, with Rodney and Radek on his heels.
Radek's mind reeled with possibilities of what could happen in just the next half-hour. Elizabeth and Carson were on a mutual manhunt and it didn't seem like they were too concerned with incapacitating anyone who got in their way. But they hadn't killed yet. That they knew of.
They would each be looking to get the upper hand. They both knew a good deal about Atlantis, but Phebus had the advantage. Carson didn't know about things like where many Ancient weapons systems were located, how to best get from one place to another, how to overload or redirect—Radek glanced at Rodney.
They stepped into the transporter together and were whisked off to the control room.
"We just lost contact with Major Lorne," one of the technicians said as they walked in.
Radek took a breath. That didn't mean he was dead. On the other hand, taking out Major Lorne almost necessitated taking out Coughlin and Reed, too. That wasn't something that Elizabeth or Carson should have been able to do.
Except they looked like Elizabeth and Carson. No one would suspect them of being particularly dangerous.
"All right," Caldwell announced to the room. "I want all non-essential personnel to return directly to their quarters and remain there until notified. The only people I want moving through the city are security teams."
Radek devoted a brief thought to Anna. She'd be concerned. Maybe scared. Confused for sure. But she was safe, he was sure. He redirected his thoughts before the urge to go make absolutely certain she was alright was too strong.
"Rodney, we need to make sure we maintain control of Atlantis's power system." Radek slid next to Rodney at the console he was working on. Looking at life signs or something. Good idea, actually.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Rodney paused, then looked at him. "Oh, my god. That's where she'll go first, isn't it?"
"It's where I would go." Radek shrugged.
If he were in a death-match with a doctor's knowledge of Atlantis, he could probably kill Carson without ever seeing him. He was never so glad he hadn't volunteered—his knowledge versus Elizabeth's wouldn't be a fair fight if Thalen knew how to access information as well as Phebus seemed able to. He wasn't sure Elizabeth would know how to do things like that, but she'd at least know how to make it difficult for Carson to navigate Atlantis.
And she'd know how to make it harder to be caught.
"Two marines from Daedalus are on their way to guard the power room," Caldwell said, and radioed for backup. Then he leaned over Rodney's chair. "What are you doing, Doctor?"
"We may be able to track their progress using the life signs detectors," Rodney said. "If security teams travel in groups of two or more, Carson and Elizabeth'll be the only individual signals traveling through the city."
Caldwell nodded and touched his radio again. "Colonel Sheppard."
Rodney motioned impatiently at Radek. "See if you can pick up any chatter."
"Do I look like a technician to you?" Radek grumbled, sitting down anyway.
"Look, I don't want to get all chain-of-command on you, but this is an emergency situation. Keep an eye on them is all I'm saying," Rodney said.
Radek tapped into the communications system and started scanning the noise. The security teams were, fortunately, mostly quiet. Of course, they were stalking a couple of fugitives. It didn't help to be making small talk about dinner last night.
The signals flipped one after another, most of them empty.
Then he heard Carson. At least, it sounded sort of like Carson. "We've got all the time in the world," he was saying, presumably to Elizabeth. Or, rather, Phebus. "As long as we both keep out of sight, we could play this game of cat-and-mouse forever."
"Don't make this difficult, Thalen," Phebus hissed. "We both want a shot at the same thing."
"You mean each other," Thalen answered.
"I've got them." Radek put it over the speakers to the control room.
Caldwell fell silent as he concentrated, looking into the distance. Studying his new target, maybe. Radek noticed he did that… quietly assessing the best way to come out on top of a situation. Or maybe reminiscing about his days in roughly the same situation Elizabeth and Carson were in right now.
"You're the one that likes to run," Thalen pointed out. "My ship ran out of fuel before I could even get a clean shot."
"That was my plan." Phebus laughed.
"You didn't have a plan." Thalen sounded moderately amused, too. "You just wanted me dead."
"Still do," Phebus said. "As a matter of fact, I can't wait to see that look of defeat on your face, just one last time…" She sounded so wistful… This was some deranged psychotic killer these aliens had let into their air force, wasn't it?
"You mean the look on my face when you rammed my fighter, making sure neither one of us would win?" Thalen chuckled darkly. "That was hatred, Phebus. Not defeat. Besides…" Thalen paused a moment. "I'm here, aren't I? Still undefeated."
"But you will be, make no mistake." Phebus waited for a moment, maybe for Thalen to answer her, but he didn't. "Thalen?" She growled a little and said, "Run all you like. The moment I find you, you die."
Caldwell looked at Rodney, a small grin just barely touching his face. "Well, they're headed straight for divorce."
And here Radek was, thinking Caldwell had no sense of humor…
"From the sound of it, we have two fighter pilots who don't know their war is over," Caldwell finished.
"Or who are fighting a completely different war," Rodney muttered.
Colonel Caldwell heaved a sigh and looked around at the control room as he called up Colonel Sheppard again. "Sheppard." He paused, maybe to hear something Sheppard said on the other side. "It looks like the two of them have some sort of personal vendetta against each other. If we don't stop them, one of them is going to end up dead." Pause again. "Keep in mind, Doctor Weir knows everything about this city. The layout, defensive systems, how to access weapons, power." He glanced at Radek. "We just need to find a way to stop them without unduly harming the hosts."
Rodney paused his work with the life signs detector to spin in his chair. "'Unduly?" He paled. "What does that mean?"
"Well, obviously, some force may be necessary," Caldwell said.
Radek held his breath and didn't know what to hope for. Not too much force, anyway.
Then, the whole city went dead.
#
Anna came to a halt and looked around… tried, anyway. Interior rooms in Atlantis without power were solid darkness. Her heart pounded ahead as if she were still jogging, adrenaline flooding her system. Why was the power off? There was little to light her way except for a vague memory of what was in front of her and a half-forgotten map she'd looked at yesterday.
"You're kidding…" she mumbled to Atlantis.
She shouldn't have said anything. Atlantis answered with her voice echoing in the empty expanse in front of her. The hollow sound bounced off the walls and doors closing her in.
There was no one and nothing in here. She knew she was safe from physical harm, and she knew the room she was in was enormous—several floors tall and both wide and long. She wouldn't suffocate anytime soon and she wouldn't die of thirst for several days.
She imagined Radek and Rodney already in a flurry of panic trying to turn the city back on.
But why was it off? It would take a lot for Atlantis to just shut off like this.
She suddenly crouched, holding her breath even though she was still panting. Were they under attack?
No explosions. No telltale screech of a Wraith dart… not that she knew of, anyway. She'd only heard stories about how they sounded. Saw a recording once. Never heard one herself. She hoped she never would… at least not today, and not without a decent weapon in her hands.
More training and then… probably. It would be cool if she could be like Colonel Sheppard and Teyla, going on adventures, saving people, and discovering crazy new things.
Couldn't do that if she died in here.
Standing again, she took careful steps forward, her hands extended to keep her from running into the walls. She realized that some part, a very small part, of Atlantis must have been working. In the stillness, she could hear the airflow systems pushing oxygen through the vents. If the doors were working, too, she could make her way to a room with a window and find her way back in the light.
Light would be comforting right now.
At least the door opened when she approached it. The hallway beyond was just as dark as this room, but she had a vague idea of what it was supposed to look like. All the same, she walked along with one hand on the wall to guide her slow steps.
She took the first hook in the hallway, eventually turning back toward the Central Tower. At least, she thought that was where she was going.
She came to another doorway, a faint light coming from somewhere above. This room might have been even larger and taller than the last, almost like a hallway. Anna could see the faint outline of staircases in the distance, and several shadowy corners that might have been exits to hallways. In the middle of the room, not quite pressed up against the walls, boxes, trunks, and crates piled up around the room.
She had no idea where she was.
She heard footsteps. Quiet. Quick. The click of a gun.
Thank yous & etc
Bubblea- You're welcome; and thank you for leaving a review! I love answering the comments people leave. As to the birthday, yes, I did know that! (I use David Nykl's birth date as Radek's, too.) I would normally post extra on his birthday (Chapters 38 and 83 (whoa) were both extra posts for his birthday), but since I've been really out of it for about six+ months now, I didn't have anything special prepared. :( I guess my special thing this year was to actually start posting again... There's always next year, though!
Next time: Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't-
