Time Immemorial

Chapter 27: Wrath

July 17th
0646 Hours

Relying more on hearing than eyesight, John rounded the corner of the darkened hallway, his P-90 leading the way. He had no clue just how far Antigonos was ahead of him. He only prayed the commander wasn't lying in ambush around the next bend. He had to trust that Antigonos was making a beeline for the nearest of his ships, which, Sheppard surmised, was on the northeast jetty.

John pushed on, desperately wanting to break into a run. He knew he was already tearing down the hallways faster than caution dictated. Any slower and he'd be crawling. While he benefited from night vision goggles, he prayed Antigonos would be slowed down by the blackness of Atlantis' lower levels. Darkness had been a long standing friend of forces of interior numbers.

As he wore his NVGs, casting the world before him in a neon green, he tried not to be overly-confident in his movements. Wearing a pair of the goggles was like strapping illuminated binoculars to one's forehead - it wreaked havoc on one's depth perception and hampered peripheral vision. He didn't want to make any poor judgement calls because of it.

Raw rage fueled his feet. He breathed heavily with the exertion and single-minded determination. He forced himself to focus on the corridor ahead, pushing to the back of his mind what he had planned for Antigonos once he caught up with him. A simple death was far too good for the scum. He'd given them a chance, an olive branch, a peaceful way out. Antigonos had spit it back in his face. John intended to make him pay for that. All bets were off now.

There - ahead he spotted movement. He heard the faintest shuffle of feet. Without hesitation, he squeezed the trigger on his P-90. From the clang! of the rounds impacting a metal surface, he could tell he had missed his target... and revealed his position.

Immediately return fire assaulted the air around him. The electrified bullets lit up his goggles like tracer fire. He was forced to duck behind a nearby doorframe for cover.

Stupid! John chastised himself. He knew his ire and impatience had gotten the better of him, carrying his shots wide and alerting Antigonos to his presence. When the shooting from the Lacedami pistol stopped, he brought the P-90 to his shoulder again but already heard the retreating footsteps.

Goddammit, he thought, taking up chase. There was no point in maintaining stealth now. He ran full bore after his quarry.

Left, right, left again through the maze of Atlantis' ground floor; John thought he knew his City well but the darkness challenged that assumption. And he had seemingly made no gain on the commander. For supposedly being handicapped by the darkness, Antigonos had maintained a blistering pace.

Their gun's HUDs, Sheppard remembered, recalling back to when he had held Straton's in the encampment. Its display had illuminated everything in blues and greens. Antigonos was undoubtedly having no trouble traversing the darkness at all. Thank you, Ancients, John thought dryly.

All around him echoed the sounds of the ongoing Wraith attack. The increasing frequency of what John could only assume were the sounds of plasma mortar impacting the outside of buildings indicated the barrage was now fully under way. He could picture the hundreds of Darts swarming around the City like bees, their cruisers parked safely in orbit above, their fire lighting up the inky sky.

"Ford, what's your status?" he radioed as he ran.

"Thing's are starting to get hot here, sir!" Ford answered. There was a burst of gunfire on the other end of the line before the captain's voice returned. "The Wraith are in the City! I think they're using their culling beams in reverse to beam their guys down!"

Great, just what we need, John thought to himself. The background noise on Aiden's end indicated a much more chaotic scene than the one he currently found himself in. "Then do what you can against the Darts, but focus your fire on the Wraith on foot."

"Roger that!" Another quick barrage of rifle fire. "I gotta say, sir, these Lacedami have been really helpful! They sure can shoot!"

"Good to hear. Let's just make sure that their aim doesn't suddenly wander our way."

"Yes, sir... something I should know about?"

"I'm taking care of it. Just keep it up, Captain-"

Suddenly an explosion, the loudest - and closest - yet, erupted somewhere nearby. The floor shook beneath his feet, forcing him to stay his pursuit. He learned against a wall for support, but it, too, quaked fiercely.

When the tremors ceased his ears still rang. Through his NVGs he saw nothing. It was when he began to cough he realized that a dust cloud had wafted into the corridor. Deaf and blind, he had little choice but to stay put.

He was only willing to wait one minute. Sheppard raised his gun and inched forward, his back pressed to the wall. He listened for any indication of Antigonos' presence but heard only the occasional crack of rock on stone. Taking a left turn he spotted the source of the sound.

Thirty yards ahead, a pile of rubble blocked the way forward. Large chunks of Atlantis's structure had been torn from their supports, presumably from Wraith fire, and had collapsed the hallway. Loose pieces still rolled down the mound. A small water shower rained down from a busted overhead pipe. The intermittent spark jumped from a torn conduit to a shredded piece of metal. Small flames licked the wreckage, their glow forcing him to remove his goggles. It looked like a war zone.

Perhaps more alarmingly, Antigonos was nowhere to be seen. The major was certain he had seen the commander turn into the corridor, but in the short section of narrow hallway ahead there was no one. Panic began to set in as he realized Antigonos might have slipped by just before the explosion, the rubble now squarely between John and his foe—

Then he spotted him, positioned behind one of the far glass-walled, liquid-filled support columns of which Atlantis' original architects were so fond. Having been much closer to the blast, Antigonos had born the full brunt of the shock wave. As he sat still reeling, there was nowhere forward for him to run. Retreat toward a T-junction behind him would send him into the waiting sights of John's P-90. Gotcha now, asshole, thought the major.

A wild spray of irate fire was his reply. Sheppard was forced to duck behind a two stacked USMC crates.

"What, your escape attempt not quite working out the way you thought it would, Commander?" John yelled across the chasm, calmly reloading his P-90.

"Though my time in this insufferable City seems to have been prolonged for the moment, I can assure you my exit is proceeding as designed!" Antigonos shouted back.

John actually laughed out loud to himself. He knew his lack of sleep was making him punchy. He wiped sweat and soot from is brow. "Yeah, sorry about your two ships! Guess you'll have to find a new getaway car! Those Wraith sure are good shots, huh?"

"One could say the same about the marksman who took out my lieutenant, no?"

John paused and tried to read the tone of the question. Was it bitterness or respect that laced his words? "You've killed eight of my people; don't think that makes us even. But I tell you what: I'm in a forgive-and-forget sort of mood, so how about you just give up and we'll call it square?"

Another several rounds were hurled his way. The fire, frustrated and uncoordinated, flew wide. John took the opportunity to advance forward, trading his cover behind the crates for that of another glass support column ahead. While the commander was seemingly trapped, he knew a cornered animal was a dangerous one.

"You've got nowhere to go, Commander!" the major called. "It's over!"

"I am not so certain, Major!"

"If you think I'm letting you leave this City alive, you'd better think again!"

Scuttling to the next column ahead, John advanced toward his opponent as quietly as he could. He now crouched abeam the T-junction, some fifteen yards separating him from Antigonos. The intersecting hallway extended onward into darkness, its walls gently curving down its length. If he could just cut off Antigonos from that alternate route...

"I don't suppose you would consider a surrender?" John asked absentmindedly, stalling as he braced his rifle against the column. He searched its scope for the commander. If he had a shot, he intended to take it. He would end this here and now.

"The Lacedami people humbly accept your offer to yield!"

His cheek pressed against the butt of the rifle, John snuffed a laugh. "I think you got that backwards!"

"And if I respectfully decline?"

"Just another excuse for me to drop you where you stand!"

John continued to search his rifle's scope. The bastard was out there in the rubble, ahead of him somewhere. He was doing an awful good job of hiding. Fortunately, Sheppard was doing an equally good job keeping a low profile. In moving his position several times, he was confident Antigonos had no idea where he was-

The clang of bullets on the column beside John begged to differ. The shots were close, close enough to hear their electrified sizzle and feel their wake. They drove the major to the tile floor. He covered his head as chunks of metal sprinkled onto him. The fire followed him to the ground, but the pillar stood fast under the single-shot barrage. How the hell does he know where I am? he thought, mind reeling. It's like he can see my every move!

With his cheek pressed against the cool tile, John's eyes caught sight of a column identical to his own cover only several yards behind him. The water within bubbled behind the glass. On the glass, however... Oh, you clever, clever bastard...

As the major stared at the pillar, he found an image of himself staring right back. The glass provided a perfect reflecting surface for the world in front of it. It captured himself and his surroundings quite clearly to anyone who cared to look.

There's one way to solve that problem, John thought. He took aim at the troublesome column and let loose with a volley of rifle fire. The glass was stout, but within several seconds it had shattered, leaving only the metal support frame standing. Immediately the water within rushed out. A puddle spread in his direction.

Without a means of targeting, Antigonos' fire abruptly ceased. John was about to rush the blind commander when the spray of bullets surprisingly resumed. Taking cue, Antigonos shot at another column - this time, the very one behind which John took cover. Apparently two could play at that game. Spiderwebs cracked through the glass panes before they splintered apart. Once again, water surged out in every direction, dousing John with liquid and glass from above. He covered his head and felt the weight of the gallons of water crash down upon him.

He realized exactly what was happening. Antigonos had needed a distraction, and he had found one. Worse, John was powerless to do anything about it; by the time the flow had ebbed, Antigonos was escaping down the side corridor of the T-junction.

No, you son of a bitch! John screamed in his head.

He scrambled awkwardly on all fours, like a spindly-legged deer on a frozen pond. Finally, his boots found purchase on the slippery floor and he took off like an Olympic sprinter from the starting blocks. He could barely keep his quarry in sight as the evasive commander rounded each bend.

He felt desperate, frenzied, barely clinging onto lucidity. A grief- and fury-driven haze clouded his vision and impaired judgment.

He looked physically sick to his stomach with ire. His lungs burned with the exertion. His aching muscles were suddenly painfully apparent, each screaming at him to stop the torment. In stark contrast, the Lacedami leader seemed to tear effortlessly ahead. With a grimace John ignored it all. He would rest when either Antigonos was dead or he was.

As the race wound through the blackened hallways, the two opponents stayed their fire - Antigonos strategically abandoning fight for flight, forcing Major Sheppard to pursue. The Air Force officer stuck to his mark like glue, refusing to give up even an inch more ground to the man in the lead. He focused only on the bouncing shield strapped to the back of Antigonos, its metal surface catching stray beams of the barely risen sun through passing windows. John's vision tunneled, blinded by rage to all but the weaving target ahead. He heard nothing but the pounding of his own pulse inside his head. He was in a trance, anesthetized to the reason for his pursuit. It didn't matter. It'd be over soon, one way or the other.

Before he knew it, his feet had carried him to a dead end. A heavy door blocked the hall's only exit. Unlike most other doors throughout the City, this one was decidedly industrial in form and function, designed to work independent of the power grid. Seeing no other possibility, the major cranked upward the levered handle and pivoted the door open on its hinges. The five-foot wide, three-inch thick slab of metal moved surprisingly easily.

John found himself looking past the threshold at the fiery dawn sky. The cool air nipped at him once again. Together with the drone of Wraith Darts elsewhere above the City, it chilled his core.

The sight of two untouched Ravens parked on the outstretched pier before him refocused Sheppard. They sat like their sisters positioned on Atlantis' other piers, paired up and separated by only a few dozen feet. And there, rounding the nose of the nearest ship was Antigonos. The commander shot a furtive look back toward the City, eager to see if he was still being pursued, before disappearing from sight.

John wasn't sure the Lacedami had seen him there, standing in the shadows of the doorframe. He hoped he did. He hoped the bastard knew he was coming for him.

The major bolted onto the deck. He prayed his legs wouldn't give out halfway to his target. Straining his ears over the cacophony of the overhead battle, he listened for the whine of a Raven engine spooling up. The splash of his boots through lingering puddles intermixed with the distant blasts of plasma fire.

As he approached the nearest ship he noticed with a wash of relief that her engine still sat cold. John didn't slow his charge. He tore around the aircraft's nose. He had come too fucking far and had lost too fucking much to let this prick win now-

An unforgiving blow to his jaw sent the major sprawling onto the wet deck.

Antigonos had been waiting.

The commander hopped out effortlessly from the starboard-side hatch. He walked casually over to Sheppard, who still lurched uneasily on his back, and kicked away his P-90.

"And I half-expected you to stay your pursuit," Antigonos clucked.

John rolled to his stomach and pushed to his hands and knees. "Are you kidding me?" he rasped between ragged breaths. "I wasn't about to miss seeing you off. You didn't even say goodbye."

"Then how lucky for you I had not left yet," Antigonos touted as he ambled closer, entering the major's blind spot. "I may have been airborne by now."

"My jaw wishes you were." John struggled to stop his vision from spinning. "So why aren't you?"

"Because," John heard Antigonos' bleary voice say from somewhere nearby, "like you, for me this fight stopped being about our peoples' history." He felt his sidearm being ripped from his holster and heard a plunk! as it was thrown into the ocean. "For me, this fight became personal."

Antigonos laid into the major's stomach with a powerful kick.

John felt the air leave his lungs in a painful rush. He careened backwards and hit the cold ground in a heap.

Yep, that sure as hell felt personal, he thought. His ribs burned. He so desperately needed air, but it hurt to breathe. Once again he rolled arduously to his front side, using more strength to do so than he cared to admit.

Picking his head up from the deck he searched the haze for his opponent. A blurry set of sandaled feet sauntered confidently before him, assessing his strength, calculating his next move. The commander wanted him dead, there was no doubt. But he still holstered his pistol; he flexed his fists in anticipation. Antigonos wanted to kill the major with his bare hands, badly enough to risk his delaying his retreat. John swallowed. This is going to hurt….

Antigonos scowled at the audacious wretch. He would not give him a quick death. He intended to toy with his prey, to make him pay in excruciating pain for the inconvenience he had caused him, to pay for the atrocities of the past, to prove to himself he was yet again the smarter, stronger, better soldier of the the two.

"No snipers this time?" Antigonos needled.

John squeezed his eyes shut. Elizabeth's shape haunted the blackness; the fragrant scent of her hair, the softness of her lips suddenly assaulted his memory. Her cries of terror rubbed his nerves raw like he was suffering her death all over again.

He's right, Sheppard thought to himself, this is personal. He wants a fight - I'll give him one hell of a fight.

"Nope," replied John, spitting out blood. "Just me."

With speed that belayed his state, John pushed to his feet and charged, letting out a bellow of pure rage. There was no strategy, just wrath. Military tactics were reduced to base animal aggression. He still couldn't see Antigonos clearly through his fogged vision, but he didn't need to. John drove bodily into the Lacedami, wrapping his arms around his torso linebacker-style and crash-tackled him to the ground.

In any other instance, Antigonos could have dodged such a wild, sloppy attack. But the sight of a bloodied, enraged officer already beaten half to death with the audacity to launch such an assault had shocked the seasoned soldier into a stupor. The two fell to the deck.

The commander was first to his feet, as quick as a cat. John was there a second later, throwing a wicked right cross. Antigonos dodged it easily and countered with his own. Sheppard wasn't quite swift enough to parry it entirely. The punch landed off target on his good shoulder and threw him off balance.

It was all that the Lacedami needed. Antigonos pounced on John, dealing a two-handed blow down onto the back of his head. The force knocked John to his knees. He knew a follow-up attack was imminent, so he lashed out blindly with a low kick from the deck, hoping to get lucky. But the commander had seen the move coming. Antigonos easily sidestepped the kick, as easily as one would sidestep a pothole on the sidewalk. He made John pay for his mistake with a return kick to the face.

Toppling backwards from the force, John caught himself from falling and steadied himself with a hand to the ground. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end; he felt a change in the air. He could feel Antigonos coming at him again, from somewhere, but his senses were no good to him. The tumble had spun his internal gyro. On instinct alone, he sidestepped right. Antigonos's fist cut through midair where his head had been only a split second earlier, leaving a wake from its velocity.

The duelers separated, and John used the blissful moment's break to catch his breath. He willed his vision to steady and his ears to stop ringing. With one hand braced against his knee, the other wiped blood from his split lip.

His opponent stood steady, looking no more winded than had he just returned from a morning stroll. Antigonos inspected the busy skies overhead, looking unconcerned by the Darts attacking the City. His plan was coming to fruition. Whether by his hand or not made no difference to him.

Antigonos laughed at his good fortune - that sick perversion of a joyous sound.

"So glad I could be your entertainment," John croaked.

"I do admit, I am rather enjoying myself. You never yield, do you?"

"Yeah, it's a bad habit of mine."

"Even still, I did not expect this to be so delightfully easy. The gods smile upon me this day. It was unfair to you, Major, for them to pit you against me. I never lose."

So self-assured was the commander in his attitude that it enraged John even further. He wanted nothing more than to knock the man down a peg before wringing his neck. "Well I got news for you, buddy. You're about to."

"Really!" the Lacedami exclaimed mirthfully. "And how to do you envision that transpiring?"

"I haven't figured that part out quite yet," Sheppard admitted, which prompted another snicker. "Go ahead, laugh it up. You may be the better soldier, but you're forgetting one thing: thanks to you, I've got nothing left to lose."

"And you believe that makes you stronger. I caution you against any folly. I believe we can both agree that you have already made enough mistakes today."

John wiped his brow, looked at Antigonos's getaway ship, and regarded how the man wasn't making a move for it. "So, what now? We circle each other like wolves, hackles raised and teeth bared?"

Antigonos contemplated the question. "How like Dr. Weir you sounded just then."

John's breathing unwillingly faltered for a moment. His expression melted from one of physical distress to that of another type of pain altogether. In a low voice he warned, "I caution you: don't you mention her name again in front of me."

The commander tugged definitively on his forearm greaves. "Very well," he acquiesced with a satisfied smirk, the verbal blow having already been delivered.

He wrenched off his shield from its shoulder attachment and boldly turned his exposed back on John. Antigonos placed the shield inside the open doorsill of Raven. His cape was removed, folded reverently, and it, too, placed inside the ship. When he returned to face Major Sheppard, he held a third item, this one retrieved from inside.

Watching Antigonos extend the ZPM toward him, John struggled to make sense of this development. Was he giving the power source to him?

"Take it," Antigonos offered freely.

John balked. "It's dead, isn't it?" he accused, leery.

Antigonos frowned, disappointed. "No, I assure you, it is fully charged and ready for operation."

Staring into the glass facade peeking out from underneath its cloth wrapping, Sheppard didn't understand. "So what's the catch? If it's booby trapped-"

"My offer is genuine. If this is what you truly seek, your sole reason for coming out on this pier, then accept it."

John mentally kicked himself. So engrossed in his pursuit of the commander, so blinded with revenge was he that he had let slip from his mind what should have been his only reason behind the chase, the right reason. And, ashamed as he was, it was only now dawning on him.

This was what could save the City and everyone in it.

"If I accept it, then what?"

"Then we part ways, as you offered when we entered into this agreement." The commander handed the ZPM over.

It was John's turn to frown. He took the device gingerly, feeling the weight in his hands. His brain wasn't firing on all cylinders, of that he was well aware, but the proposal wouldn't have made any more sense without the concussion. It was a gift, and Antigonos didn't seem like the giving type - especially given that it was in direct conflict with his primary objective: to destroy Atlantis.

Then John remembered the man's secondary objective: to destroy him. In the literal, physical sense it would be coincidental to his primary objective, but Antigonos wanted more, had always wanted more. It had never been enough to just kill the leader of the opposing force. Antigonos had wanted to destroy John mentally, emotionally, intimately, from the very core of his being outward. He needed to beat him personally to fully claim victory. He had demonstrated that desire time and again through his mind games. And what a gamesman he had been.

John thought back to the beginning of the day. The demand to send more Lacedami troops to Atlantis during the initial meet-and-greet; the refusal to acquiesce to Carson's medical exam; the unwarranted advances on Elizabeth; all an attempt to get into his head. It was what his interrogation had been about, the reason behind those raw, personal questions that poured salt on the fresh emotional wounds. It had prompted the torment that yielded his self-destruct code.

Elizabeth had been right. She had warned that Antigonos would attempt to get under John's skin. Bitterly, he wondered if she could have known he would succeed, at the expense of her own and many other's lives.

This offer was the final game. John was well aware that Antigonos knew the darker reason for his presence on the pier, and it hadn't been to secure the ZPM. He hadn't exactly kept his hatred for the man a secret. And so the challenge was simple. If he accepted, he returned to the City with the ZPM but allowed the commander to escape alive, forever forsaking his heart's true reason for the pursuit. If he declined and continued down the path of revenge, he'd fulfill his true motivation but in doing so expose that this United States Air Force officer was no more altruistic than Antigonos himself.

Antigonos wanted the fight to continue, of this John was certain. It wasn't because the commander believed he was physically superior, though the notion was true. It was because he wanted Sheppard to succumb to his ignobility, to lose the last shred of morality he clung to, to transform into the monster he was, to admit to himself that he was psychologically beaten.

John thought back to his last words to Rodney over the radio. No, killing Antigonos would not bring Elizabeth back. But he could not live with himself if he let her murderer live. He would not be part of a world where she was dead and her killer still drew breath, still roamed free, still thrived.

It was settled then: Antigonos had to pay for all the atrocities he had committed. John could secure the ZPM after. If that meant he lost this mind game, then this was one contest he was happy to let the Lacedami win.

TBC

Author's note: Hey, guys. I apologize for chapters 29 and 30 not being readable. I posted them 4 and 1 days ago, respectively, but a few of you have let me know you can't see them. I can in the site's preview tool, and in my story manager it says there are 30 chapters, but guests and other users apparently can't view past 28. I've tried replacing the chapters, and removing and re-adding, but no luck. I've sent a note to asking for help. I won't be posting any more chapters until this is resolved. I'm sorry!