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Chapter Eleven: Takeover
During her time as a diplomat, Elizabeth had learned a few hard-and-fast rules. One of them was Do not argue with fanatics. And from the tone of Seng's command, combined with the Dorandans' earlier obsession with Wraithsign and genetic purity, she guessed that this was exactly what she was dealing with.
On the other hand, they'd apparently been allies up until recently. Something had changed. As a diplomat, and as the leader of the city, it was her job to find out what had gone wrong -- and fix it.
Stepping forward, she saw that the final ship had halted in place in front of the gate, blocking it. She was amazed that it had fit through the gate at all, but then realized that it was designed to do so, although only barely; its tailfins and side fins must have been folded down in transit. Looking up at the ceiling, she realized that it had not risen into the jumper bay because it was too large to fit through the door. Some failsafe must have kicked in to prevent it -- which meant they were stuck with a warship in the gateroom.
"This is Dr. Elizabeth Weir." She spoke loudly, hoping that those within the ship could receive as well as broadcast. "Captain Seng, we met on Doranda. I had believed our people were allies; what is the meaning of this treachery?"
Seng laughed harshly over the loudspeakers. "Treachery -- that's fine, coming from defilers of the Holy City. Perhaps you do not understand what has happened. The Dorandan people are the caretakers of the city now. We are in control of your computer systems. I would prefer not to damage the Ancestors' city, but I will do what I must to remove you people from it. Tell your people to surrender and hand over your weapons to us. We demand that anyone who carries the Wraithsign be handed over as well."
Teyla, Elizabeth thought; how did they find out about Teyla? "Let us negotiate, one leader to another. We are not prepared to hand the city over to you, but a compromise --"
A small port under the nose of the ship irised open. Elizabeth sucked in a breath. Scarlet light stabbed past her, cutting a swathe through glass and plastic. Technicians and soldiers threw themselves to the floor or rolled out of the way; one unlucky Marine had time for an aborted scream before he was immolated. The beam punched a hole in the stained-glass window behind the control room; sunlight streamed into the room, slanting through the smoke of burning plastic and electrical components.
"Medical team to the control room!" Elizabeth ordered. "Who's hurt?"
"Janya cut her arm," Chuck reported, white-faced, "and Corporal Kouviakis is --" But he didn't have to finish the sentence; the only thing left of the Marine was his boots.
At the same time, Carson's voice came across Elizabeth's radio. "We can't get to you, Elizabeth. The city's in lockdown. It's like the bloody nanovirus all over again."
Elizabeth spun back to the ship hovering, implacable, its gunports still trained on the control room. She had to grip the railing to still her furious shaking. "Your actions are those of a terrorist, Captain Seng. Is this what it means to you, to be a 'caretaker' of the city? Would you destroy it and kill us all in order to win?"
"I would rather destroy the city than see it in the hands of Wraith sympathizers."
Even anger was washed away momentarily in her rush of shock. "What?"
"I will ask once more, Dr. Weir, and then I will open fire. Do not think I'll hesitate; we have scientists who are capable of fixing any damage that we do to the city in the process of freeing it. You and your people will not be so fortunate. Lay down your weapons and order the rest of your people in the city to do likewise, or I will kill you where you stand."
She believed he'd do it. Obviously, they had been betrayed by Larissa; there was no other way that the Dorandans could have taken over the computer. Right now the Dorandans held all the cards. We can't fight back if we're dead.
And where in the world did they get the idea that we're Wraith sympathizers? The very idea was repugnant. She forced herself to swallow her anger.
"I want your word that if I tell my people to surrender, no one will be harmed."
"You have it," Seng said. "Once we've secured Atlantis, you will be released on the planet of your choice. The only exceptions are Dr. McKay and any of you who bear the Wraithsign. The rest of you will be free to return to wherever you came from."
Well, for now, for whatever it was worth ... it was better than nothing. She gave the warship a single, tight nod, and then turned to the control room, meeting a dozen frightened pairs of eyes. "For now, we will do as they say. Lay down your weapons."
------
Seng watched on the forward viewing ports of the Caledon, his flagship, as the Atlanteans laid their weapons down.
"So far, so good," offered Tennet, his second-in-command.
Seng shook his head. "Most of them are still at large in the city. Some may obey their leader's command, but I'm sure we can expect resistance. And Sheppard is still at large." He should have known Larissa wouldn't succeed in all of her objectives. The woman seemed to think that she could play spy, but she hadn't been trained for it, wasn't prepared to take the necessary steps to ensure victory. At least she'd gotten control of the gate, although the close timing still left a roiling hole in the pit of his stomach. They could so easily have lost their first ship against the gate shield, and the element of surprise along with it.
The ship's pilot rotated her chair so that she could look at him. "Should I take the Caledon up to the gateship room with the rest of them?"
"Negative. As long as we stay here, we'll have an excellent bargaining position." He glanced at the rear screens. "Can we get the ship any farther forward? I don't think it's outside the Ring's blast radius." That probably wasn't the preferred scientific term, and Larissa would no doubt correct him. But it was how he thought of it. He'd never seen a man vaporized in front of the gate, but he'd heard stories.
His pilot was the best; no one else would have been allowed at the helm of the Caledon. She nudged the ship forward until its bow nearly touched the railing of the control room. Separated from the Dorandans by only a few paces and the ship's thin hull, Dr. Weir glared at them defiantly.
Seng ignored her, instead calling up to his mind's eye the figures and numbers that Larissa and her scientists had retrieved from the stolen computer. According to the information on the computer, there were 317 people currently on Atlantis, of whom 98 were military and the rest could be assumed to have at least some minimal self-defense training.
It would be a close thing; they'd have to depend on quickly subduing as many of the city's defenders as possible. While there the Dorandans were more numerous than they'd allowed the Atlanteans to believe, they still didn't have enough people and weapons to be assured of victory in a war of attrition -- which was what guerilla warfare usually turned out to be.
He opened a channel to the other ships. "This is Seng. The control room is secured."
Through a fuzz of static -- Larissa had warned them that the Atlanteans' communication systems might cause some problems with the radio frequencies they normally used -- the answer came back: "Gateship room secured, sir. We've captured two of their people."
"Casualties?"
"Footsoldier Breen is injured, but it's only a flesh wound."
So far, so good. "Proceed with the plan. You all have rough schematics of the city's layout. Spread out, capture and subdue; your first priority is finding and securing a large area for keeping hostages. Someplace defensible. I don't want any massacres, but you are absolutely authorized to use lethal force when necessary. Make an effort to take civilians alive, where you can do it without undue risk to yourself or your squad. But if someone shoots at you, shoot back at them until they stop."
"Yes, sir."
Closing the connection, he looked at Tennet. "Sub-Captain, secure the gate area. Once that's done, I want a squad dispatched immediately to assist Larissa with her hostages. We need to get McKay somewhere secure and keep him there."
"You..." He thought a moment. "Find the Atlanteans' hospital area. Assuming they're still alive, that's where the people from the other universe are most likely to be, based on what we've been told about their physical condition. I want them killed. They are of no help to us, and if they're in good enough shape, they're likely to be dangerous."
Tennet nodded and ran off. Seng looked back at the viewscreens. Dr. Weir was kneeling beside one of her people who'd been injured when the laser grazed the control room. Tennet's soldiers appeared in his field of vision, fanning out, collecting the Atlanteans' weapons.
As long as all of his people kept their discipline and stuck to the plan, they'd be all right; his greatest fear was that someone would turn out to be the weak link in the chain, snapping and causing the rest to unravel. While they had trained all their lives for the possibility that they might someday have to fight to defend their homeworld, none of them had any actual combat experience -- including himself. He'd read all the books in their database on military strategy; now he just had to hope that those long-dead authors knew what they were talking about.
------
The gym was lit by the soft glow of the sun through the stained-glass windows, casting patterns of gold and blue across Teyla's skin as she went through her cooling-down stretches after her workout. Running the back of her hand across her forehead, she wrapped a towel around her shoulders and ran her palm across the place on the wall that opened the door.
Nothing happened.
Frowning, she tried it again. Still nothing. Only then did she notice that the normally glowing blue crystals were not lit up. Frowning, she was reaching for her radio when Dr. Weir's voice came on the Atlantis PA.
"May I have your attention, please. This is Dr. Weir. Atlantis has been invaded by a hostile army. I repeat, Atlantis has been invaded and is currently experiencing a citywide lockdown. Please go to your quarters if you can, or, if not, stay where you are. We have received the invaders' word that those who cooperate will not be harmed." Teyla, attentive to vocal nuance, noticed the sarcastic twist to Elizabeth's words as she said this. "They are armed, well-trained and very dangerous. They have also taken hostages. Do not offer resistance; you will only risk your own lives and that of your colleagues."
Teyla hesitated with her hand on her radio. Perhaps Sheppard wished to maintain radio silence. Or perhaps he was one of the hostages. But she needed to know what he wanted her to do. "Colonel?"
His voice came back immediately, punctuated with heavy breaths. He was running. "Teyla! Where are you?"
"I am in the gym."
"Door locked?"
"Yes. I cannot open it."
"Damn. All right, listen. We have no way of knowing if they can listen in on our communications, so I want to keep this short. You heard the announcement: we're under attack and Elizabeth's folded like a house of cards. The hell with that. We're taking this city back. It looks like they --" There was a pause; his voice came back softer. "They've got soldiers moving through the city in three-man squads. Right now, I have Lorne gathering up all the Marines he can find."
"What would you like me to do?"
Another pause, and she realized in that instant that he hadn't even thought about it -- in this moment of crisis, his thoughts were all on his soldiers, his people. The awareness lanced through her heart, a quick sharp pain; the depth of that hurt amazed her. When Halling had first told her of her father's death, it had hurt so.
She knew that Ronon had been thinking of leaving the city, and in that instant, she realized that if they survived whatever was happening, she would probably do likewise. Even without outside involvement, Atlantis was fragmenting, eaten from within by distrust and resentment. Dr. McKay had not spoken to her since leaving the team; Colonel Sheppard was no longer the man she had met on Athos, who had seen her as a person when his leader had looked through her.
Colonel Sheppard was speaking again. "Okay, why don't you find Ronon and the two of you --"
"Never mind." She cut him off. She had never done that before. "I cannot leave the gym; the door has locked me in. You must carry on protecting the city, Colonel. Please do not be concerned for me; I will be safe here, but there is nothing I can do to help."
"Teyla --" he said, but she turned off her radio.
Standing in the warm sunlight, she felt her heart battering at her ribs, and closed her eyes, willing it to slow. The childish petulance in her words came back to haunt her, and she was ashamed. Her father would have scolded her for allowing her personal feelings to interfere in a crisis.
But her father had also taught her to have pride in herself and her people. He had taught her that the universe is far too large a place to trade with people who belittle and devalue their trading partners. When she had first met the Atlanteans, she had not judged them by Colonel Sumner's casual dismissal of her voice, or by Dr. Weir's willingness to believe the worst of Teyla and her people. Instead she had judged them by John's open welcome, by Dr. McKay's defense of her in the face of Elizabeth's suspicions, by Ford's ready friendship. Now she considered the possibility that she had been in error.
The Atlanteans did not deserve to be overrun by invaders. She would help, of course. But after that ... her lips pressed together in a thin line. As Charin always said, If you stop to count the running denga-beast, your arrows will go astray. In other words, the middle of a crisis was not the time to make plans.
There would be time for plans later.
Right now she had other things to worry about. Her eyes went to the door. It was locked; she could not get out that way.
Her speculative gaze went to the window.
For a girl who had grown up in the woods, doors and corridors were a mere formality. There was more than one way to get around in a city.
------
Rodney started out of a light doze when Ronon uncoiled with catlike speed and agility, going from sleep to wide-awake and upright. Blinking up at him, still drowsy from the sun on his shoulders, Rodney said, "What's the matter with you?"
Ronon didn't answer; instead, he paced quickly across the balcony to the semi-transparent door leading into the corridor. On the other side, Rodney could see that the Marine ostensibly guarding him was trying to get it open, to no avail.
The door was soundproof, but Ronon and the Marine had a brief conversation using nothing but hand signals. Rodney stood up stiffly, confused -- and still more confused when a distant sound caught his attention, and he looked down to see a flash of red light from the city below them. Wait -- that was the general area of the Stargate, wasn't it?
Something was wrong.
Ronon stepped back from the door, and drew his gun. The Marine ducked to the side. A few blasts from the gun left the door dangling askew from its hinges.
Rodney couldn't restrain a squeak of frustration. This might not be his Atlantis, but it was still an Atlantis; it was like opening up machinegun fire in a cathedral! No, worse, because there were lots of cathedrals, but only one Atlantis. "Have you gone insane?"
"Quiet," Ronon snapped. "We got a problem."
The Marine was talking into his radio. Rodney could only catch about one word in four, but he heard Genii and his stomach dropped straight into his shoes. "What, what? What's going on?"
Both of the others ignored him. The Marine said, "Yes, sir," and signed off. He looked up at Ronon. "The city's under attack from the Dorandans, and it's locked down ... although you seem to have a solution for that," he added, looking at the ruined door. "Everyone who's still free is being ordered to fall back to the armory, where we'll prepare to --"
He paused, cocking his head to one side. The Atlantis PA was only faintly audible from out on the balcony, but Rodney could get the gist of what the alternate Weir was saying.
Ronon's face darkened.
"Sorry, sir, I have to go," the Marine told Ronon, and turning to Rodney, "Come on, Doc. I guess you're still with me."
Rodney took a step forward and then fear came crashing down onto him like a ton of bricks. "Sheppard! I have to get to Sheppard."
"The Colonel's a little busy at the moment. Come on, Doc, let's move."
Rodney planted his feet. "My universe's Sheppard, you buffoon. He's --" Injured and helpless was what he wanted to say, but putting Sheppard and helpless in the same sentence just didn't seem appropriate. "If my experiences in your universe of paranoiacs have been anything to go by, nobody's telling him anything and he has no idea where I am. He'll probably go into Rambo mode, make it three steps from his bed and collapse in a puddle of blood. Get out of my way."
"I got my orders, Doc. Move it."
Ronon's big hand settled onto the Marine's shoulder. "I'll take him back to the infirmary. You go join Sheppard in the armory."
The soldier studied him, then nodded. Apparently Ronon's mysterious mojo with the Marines worked in this universe, too. Turning, the man trotted off down the hall.
Ronon didn't say anything, just jerked his head at McKay and took off down the hall. The main lights were out, leaving only the occasional emergency light; there was an apocalyptic feeling to the place.
They went down two flights of stairs and hit a sealed door. Ronon promptly blasted it open.
"Far be it from me to interfere, Conan, but do the words 'stealth mode' mean anything to you?"
Ronon shot him the standard "Earth people are crazy" look. "No."
"Well, that just fig --"
A big hand caught him in the chest and slammed him into the wall. Ronon ducked back behind the stairs, taking Rodney with him. A minute later, three people in brown fatigues rounded the corner cautiously. Ronon strafed them with his gun; they went down like dominos. From the flare of red light and lack of smoke or blood, he must have reset it to stun.
The ex-Runner trotted over to the bodies, picked up one of their guns and turned it over in his hands. Rodney trailed after him, only to make an Oof sound as Ronon shoved the gun into his hands.
"What's this for?"
"It's a gun. You shoot things with it."
He glared. "I know that."
"Then why'd you ask?" Ronon kicked the other guns away from the bodies and blew the weapons to twisted slag with a shot from his gun, then stepped over the smoking remains and jogged to the corner, peeking around it.
Rodney looked down at the gun in his hand. It was obviously an energy weapon, judging from the lack of a visible magazine, but otherwise had no clues to its function. There was a trigger, and a glowing red bar with tick-marks along it; he guessed that it was some kind of charge indicator.
His eyes went from the gun to the men on the floor. The brown clothes and baggy jackets -- he recognized the design from when he'd met Larissa and the scientists earlier.
"They're Dorandan," he muttered. A shiver ran through him. It was like looking at ghosts -- ghosts of people he'd killed.
"Hey." A bone-jarring whap on his shoulder drew him back to the here and now. Rodney looked up to glare at Ronon, rubbing his arm where the big man's fist felt as if it had left a bruise.
"Coast's clear," Ronon said.
"What, you can't just say that? You have to beat me up to make some kind of macho point?"
"I tapped your shoulder, McKay."
"With what, a redwood?"
They rounded the corner -- Ronon leading, Rodney hanging back because, after all, protecting the smart guy's brains was the only logical thing in a crisis! Another couple flights of stairs brought them to the corridor that led to the infirmary. "Wait --" Rodney began, but Ronon was already firing at the closed infirmary door. Another shot blew it off its hinges.
"What's the matter with you? Doesn't the thought occur to you that we might need that door to keep the bad guys out?"
"Doesn't help us much if we can't get in."
"Yeah, but the people inside might disagree!"
There had been complete silence from inside the infirmary since they'd blown the door off. Rodney sighed, imagining panicked infirmary staff hovering behind the door, waiting to brain them both with bedpans. He called through the gap between the warped door and its frame, "Hey, we're on your side, okay? It's not my fault Clint Eastwood here prefers to shoot first, second and last, asking questions never. Um, don't kill us?"
Ronon gave the door a shove; it teetered and then crashed to the floor with a deafening sound that reverberated down the hall.
Rodney shot him a withering look. Ronon, unperturbed, ignored it and stepped over the door, where they were met by a couple of terrified nurses and an equally freaked-out Marine, the one who'd been assigned to watch Sheppard.
Sheppard himself was sitting on the edge of his bed with the curtain drawn back. He looked wary when he saw Rodney. "Okay, which one are you?"
"Don't ask stupid questions, and what the hell are you doing out of bed? Get back in there! If you tear your stitches, the Wrath of Carson will be on my head, and I don't care if it's a different universe, he'll still find a way to make my life miserable."
Sheppard grinned at him, weary relief lighting him up like a neon sign. "Hey, Rodney."
"Don't 'hey Rodney' me; you've been sitting up for, what, all of five minutes and you look like you're about to pass out. You, bed, now."
Sheppard obediently swung his legs back up onto the bed, wincing as he did so. "Ronon. Hey there. Good to see ya, buddy. We haven't exactly had a chance to talk yet, in this universe, anyway."
"Brought you a gun," Ronon said.
"Cool. Um, where?"
"McKay, give him the gun."
"Oh, hell no," Rodney snapped. "Does he look like he needs to be running the halls doing the Bruce Willis thing? I don't think so! You should have picked up an extra one. This is mine and I'm keeping it." He stuck it in the waistband of his pants, TV private-eye style, and snapped his fingers at a nurse. "I need a computer."
The targeted nurse looked around helplessly for someone who was authorized to approve this; everyone knew that the foreign Rodney was supposed to be kept away from the computers.
"Oh, for -- Look, we're at war, okay? You people have much bigger problems than me." His eye settled on the nearest laptop; with the power mostly down, it had switched over to its battery and the screen's blue glow seemed bright compared to the muted emergency lights. "Never mind. There's one."
Sheppard, nominally back in bed but leaning forward tensely, beckoned to Ronon. "So, fill me in. What the heck's going on?"
Ronon hesitated for only a moment. "Dorandan army took over the city. Sheppard -- the other one -- is getting together everyone who's still free. Looks like Weir's been compromised. Guess that's about it."
Sheppard held up a hand. "Did you say Dorandan army?"
At the laptop, struggling to get into a computer system for which none of his access codes worked, Rodney went stiff.
"Yep. No Doranda in your universe?"
Rodney focused on the computer. Still, he could feel Sheppard looking at him. "Not really," he heard Sheppard say. "Tell me about them. What are we dealing with? What sort of technology do they have?"
"About like you guys. Radios. Guns. Stuff like that. Haven't met them, except just to shoot a few."
"Hey, Rodney?" Sheppard's voice was soft. "How about you? Have you met these people?"
Rodney tried to focus on the computer screen. His fingers went astray, spewing gibberish into the password box. Shit. He wanted to scream, throw something; his vision went hazy for a minute. "Kinda busy here," he bit out. "Saving our asses, and all. You know. No pressure."
After a minute, Sheppard said, "Hey, big guy, why don't you go put the door back on."
"Don't know if it'll go back on."
"Prop it up. We need to be able to keep the, uh, the Dorandans out, and we don't have enough people to repel a siege."
Ronon's bootsteps retreated across the floor. Rodney tried to guess what codes the alternate McKay might have used. The computer didn't seem to be in a high-security lockdown; his best guess was that someone, possibly Larissa, had gained access to it at a normal security level and then locked out everyone else. Therefore, a higher-level security code could still override her lockdown. The trouble was he didn't know any of them.
"Rodney."
"Still busy!"
"Rodney, these people he's talking about -- have you seen them? Talked to them?"
"Why?" Rodney demanded harshly.
"I just want to know what sort of technology level we're dealing with here."
Yeah. Like hell. "You heard the caveman." He didn't look up from the computer. "About like Earth, I'd guess, maybe a little beyond, or else they've picked up advanced technology from somewhere else. They understand about computers, and they have energy weapons."
"Are they actually from Doranda?" Sheppard's tone gave away nothing, but the softness was back.
Rodney stopped typing, squeezed his eyes shut briefly, then opened them again. Bile rose in his throat. He swallowed it back. "Not Doranda itself, but the next planet out. It didn't have a Stargate, so we didn't scan it for life signs, when we were there."
"Different universe," Sheppard said immediately. "Different universe, okay? We know a lot of things are different here."
"You can rationalize it however you want, but I'm trying to work here, so shut up."
He worked in silence for another minute or two, mentally cursing alternate-McKay's paranoia, because all the codes had either been changed, or were never the same as the ones he knew. There was a creak from Sheppard's bed, and then shuffling footsteps approached, along with the clink of an IV pole being dragged along the floor.
Rodney attempted to bore a hole in the screen with his eyes, refusing to be baited into looking up. "Go away."
Something touched him: a hand, coming gently to rest on his shoulder. Rodney shrugged it off with a quick, hard jerk of his arm. Sheppard sighed, and leaned heavily on the edge of the counter where the laptop sat. "So, what are you doing?"
"Trying to break into the system."
"How hard can that possibly be? Don't you know the system inside and out?"
"Well, sure, but none of that does me any good without the passwords. Contrary to what you may have seen on TV, you can't just hack into an encrypted, high-security system using magic. Without the passwords, I may as well be some idiot Windows user staring at a blue screen."
"I like Windows. The little dancing paperclip is cute."
"The paperclip is Word, you moron." Rodney looked up. Sheppard's face was deathly white and beaded with sweat. "Okay, for the last time, you seriously do not look like you need to be out of bed. Get back in it."
"Little problem with that." Sheppard's grip tightened on the edge of the counter.
"Which would be?"
"I don't think I can walk that far."
"Honestly, are you entirely lacking in common sense? Ronon!" he bellowed, only to turn around and jump when he discovered Ronon looming behind the two of them, watching them. "What are you doing today, training for the Stalking Olympics? Help him back to bed before he falls over and cracks his head open on the infirmary floor, thus damaging his brains. Damaging them more than they already are, that is."
Ronon, looking amused, hooked an arm around Sheppard's waist and helped him back to the infirmary bed. Sheppard asked over his shoulder, "Can you make paperclips dance on the big Atlantis screens?"
This startled a laugh out of Rodney -- not much of one, but still a laugh. "What kind of drugs are they giving you?"
"No, seriously, Rodney, can you? That little paperclip with the eyeballs, but two or three feet tall? I'd love to see Elizabeth's face."
"Tell you what, let's save that happy little romp until after we take care of the terrorists trying to take over the city, okay?" Shaking his head, and refusing to acknowledge that the vice crushing his stomach seemed to have eased off a few notches, he tackled the computer again.
As Ronon eased Sheppard back down onto the bed, he said, "You're different. Both of you."
"From this universe's versions, you mean?" Sheppard had unhooked the PCA from the IV in order to make himself more mobile; he stared at it, trying to figure out how to get it back on without giving himself an embolism, then gave up.
Ronon nodded. He slid his hands under Sheppard's legs, lifting them onto the bed with matter-of-fact ease. "The Sheppard here -- I like him. I respect him. But he's --" There was a pause while he helped Sheppard get settled. "He's not you," he said finally. "He doesn't smile much. I don't know if I've ever heard him make a joke."
"Sounds downright peaceful," Rodney said without raising his eyes from the computer. "What am I like in this universe? No, don't answer that. I'm a jerk."
"Pretty much. Kind of a relief when you left the team, really."
Sheppard looked around at him. "You're not on my team? I mean, his team?"
"He left awhile back," Ronon confirmed. "We got a little guy now, talks funny. Zelenka. Don't know if you have him in your universe."
Rodney's jaw dropped and he swiveled around in his chair. Sheppard choked on a laugh. "You replaced me with Zelenka? What kind of messed-up universe is this?"
"I don't know, McKay." Sheppard was trying hard to look innocent, but his dancing eyes and the smirk tugging at the corner of his lips gave him away. "He's quiet, polite -- sounds ideal to me."
"Hello, terrorists?"
The teasing expression fell away, and Sheppard was all business again. "Rodney's right; we need a plan. Heavily armed Dorandans are presumably going to show up here at any time, and we've got civilians." He glanced at the nurses and the injured Dr. Moreland in her hospital bed.
Ronon flipped the setting on his gun from stun to kill and back again. "They come through the door. I shoot them."
"There is a certain elegant simplicity to that," Sheppard admitted.
"If one is twelve," Rodney put in. "Oh, wait. Forgot who I was talking to."
They all jumped sky-high when the damaged door fell in again with a loud crash. Ronon and the Marine took up instant defensive positions; Rodney grabbed the laptop and dived under the counter.
Alt-Sheppard stepped cautiously over the bent and damaged door, P90 cradled in his arms. He had a "yeah, I meant to do that" sort of look on his face; the door must have fallen in when he'd touched it.
"Well," he said, sweeping his cool eyes over them. "So that's where you went. Ronon, go down to the gym and make sure Teyla's all right. She was training in her usual place when the doors locked up."
Sheppard raised his eyebrows at the peremptory command. Ronon didn't seem to think anything of it, though. "And then what?" the Satedan asked.
"And then stay there and wait for orders, that's what. If you can get her out, I'm sending stragglers to the armory." From somewhere distant came the sound of P90 fire and an explosion. "We've started engaging the enemy," he added, unnecessarily.
Ronon nodded, and trotted for the door. "Hey!" Sheppard -- the real Sheppard -- called after him. "Be careful out there!"
Ronon glanced back, looking startled, then nodded and raised his gun in an informal salute. He vanished into the hall.
The two Sheppards regarded each other. It wasn't an especially friendly look -- more like two stray dogs circling each other in an alleyway, jockeying for territory. Alt-Sheppard broke the look first; he swung around on the nurses and the Marine. "This room isn't at all defensible. Start setting up a perimeter," he snapped. "Unfortunately the security doors have trapped people all over Atlantis. It's going to take me a while to get some backup over here; in the meantime, you'll probably end up having to hold off Dorandan attempts to take the infirmary. The door fell over when I tried to knock on it; we need something better. You --" He pointed to Rodney, who looked up from his laptop in surprise and annoyance. "Find something to barricade the door."
"Little busy here! I'm trying to break into the computer system!"
"Making any progress?" alt-Sheppard challenged.
Rodney crossed his arms. "I've ruled out quite a few things that don't work --"
"In other words, no. Make yourself useful."
"No one talks to a member of my team that way," Sheppard said in a quietly dangerous tone.
"Just in case you hadn't noticed, Colonel, this is a martial-law situation. With Weir compromised at worst, and in enemy hands at best, I'm in charge not just of the military, but of Atlantis itself. And that includes you. Now there is no doubt in my mind that the enemy are on their way down here to seize control of the infirmary, and all the drugs and facilities it contains -- if I were them, that'd be one of the first things I'd do, to treat my own wounded and prevent the enemy from treating theirs." As he spoke, he circled the room like a restless panther, his sharp eyes assessing everything. Two nurses were wrestling the damaged door back into place, while a nurse and a pathologist moved the semiconscious Dr. Moreland into an isolation room.
One of the nurses jumped back from the door with a cry. "Colonel, there are soldiers in the h--"
She never had a chance to finish; something like a shotgun blast tore through the damaged door, and through her. Mouth open, dead before she hit the ground, she fell in a spray of blood.
"Damn it!" alt-Sheppard snarled. "Get in there with them!" He pointed towards the isolation room where Dr. Moreland had been moved; the nurse who had been standing close to the dead woman, her face and body splattered with blood, shook herself out of her stupor and ran.
Sheppard was trying to scramble out of bed. "For God's sake stay where you are!" alt-Sheppard shouted at him, pulling the curtain closed. There was no time to hide him better than that; he obviously couldn't fight hand-to-hand, and he didn't have a gun.
The lone Marine had already moved to one side of the door; Rodney, following that cue because he didn't know what else to do, went to the other side, his shaking hands clenched on the unfamiliar energy weapon.
"What the hell are you doing?" alt-Sheppard demanded. He jerked his head at the isolation room. "Get in there with them!"
"I can fight." He had to force the words through chattering teeth. He was terrified, but no way in hell was he leaving Sheppard out here undefended, especially with this lunatic in charge.
"The hell you can! Don't make me drag your ass in there!"
Rodney bristled, his spine straightening, his fear fading in the face of anger. "You trust me to back you up offworld!" he yelled, forgetting momentarily that it wasn't "his" Sheppard that he was talking to.
"I never trusted you!" There was a ragged dark edge to alt-Sheppard's voice, a terrible pain --
-- and then the door exploded inward with another of those blasts, and Dorandan soldiers swarmed into the room.
Everything disintegrated into chaos. Rodney couldn't follow it. Most of the soldiers were armed with energy weapons, but one of them had something different -- big, high-powered, like a shotgun on steroids. That weapon caught the Marine, and there was blood and screaming -- but some of the screaming was coming from the Dorandans, as alt-Sheppard coolly picked off one after another with his P90. Rodney got somebody with his energy gun; the Dorandan went down, writhing, and Rodney realized that it was a woman, a woman in the same bulky jacket that everyone else wore. And that froze him, because he'd just shot a woman, and it shouldn't have mattered but it did -- because in his own reality, the real reality, this woman was dead. He'd killed her. Twice.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the alien shotgun destroy most of the cabinet that was hiding alt-Sheppard, flushing the soldier into the open even as alt-Sheppard swept his P90 across the cluster of Dorandans and managed to take out the shooter. And then Rodney's world dissolved in white fire, when someone shot him.
He'd had no idea what the energy weapons did, but apparently, what they did was they hurt. They hurt like ohfuckmakeitstop. Every muscle in his body seized up, and the floor came up to smack him in the face. He was vaguely aware that he was thrashing uncontrollably, his consciousness fading in and out. His jaw was locked tight; he couldn't even scream.
Dimly he was aware that the shooting had stopped. Someone nearby was speaking, an unfamiliar male voice. "You understand how these guns work, right, Colonel? The first shot will incapacitate. Another shot in close succession to the first will kill him. I suggest you drop your gun. Oh, so that's how it's going to be?"
And that was the last thing he heard before he seized again and the world went away, in white noise and pain.
----
TBC