Chapter 29 – Rescue?
The man who was now, temporarily, in charge of Atlantis walked briskly towards the Atlantis mess hall. Cadman, with her brow permanently furrowed into a worry line, and a small armed security detail shadowed him. He'd tried joking to her that her face was going to stick that way and he hadn't even gotten a punch out of it.
Come to think of it, Lorne could feel his own worry lines threatening to stick. Running a city was definitely not fun. Between directing security details around the city and coordinating with Dr. Beckett's team to ensure nobody else was infected, he'd been breaking up 'professional' disputes within the science teams, dealing with constant questions from the civilians about whether they were safe, if he knew what was happening with the rescue mission, if the Daedalus was repaired yet, and to top it all off he had just been asked why the entire combined engineering crews of the Daedalus and Atlantis, with one Dr. Zelenka, were on an extended coffee break in the commissary.
To settle the disputes he'd closed the labs and sent the scientists to their rooms on threat of placing an armed guard at their doors. It was late anyway. Sleep would be good for them. Though he had a feeling he was going to pay for that later.
The answer to question of whether they were safe was yes, for now. Zelenka and his team had found no other tampering. Dr. Parker had been returned to earth to be freed from the Goa'uld mind control. Dr. Beckett had seemed to think that repeatedly shooting the woman with a Wraith stunner, modifying it, then shooting her again and hoping for the best, was not ideal. The good news was that all of the other blood tests on the crew of the Daedalus and Atlantis had come up negative for the Goa'uld mind control agent or a Goa'uld host. For the latter he'd thrown in some neck and brain scans just to be on the safe side.
The Mothership was still at the edge of the galaxy and Weir was doing a good job of stalling. All the jumpers and jumper pilots they could spare were on stand-by to assist.
The Daedalus was not repaired yet.
As for why the work on the Daedalus had apparently stopped, he didn't have an answer for that last question, but he was on his way to get one.
He wasn't sure he believed it. Either this was someone's idea of an ill-timed practical joke and he'd find the commissary empty, or something weird was going on. The only report he'd had from the officer who had seen them was that they looked like they were in a miserable mood. Lorne wondered if maybe the ship was irreparable and nobody had bothered to inform him. Either way, tact that couldn't be accomplished over a radio might be in order. He almost wished they would all turn out to be infected with some Goa'uld drug or something. That would be a security situation, later to be handed over to medical. That he could handle. Diplomacy, on the other hand, was just not his thing.
Lorne was particularly surprised that anything could have dragged Dr.Zelenka away from the repairs. But, there had been a lot of surprises lately, especially today. When Lorne woke up this morning he never would have guessed in a million years that he'd be left in charge of a city that had been infiltrated by the Goa'uld while the city's Leader and Military Commander went to rescue the Leader of the Science Department from said Goa'uld. Teyla would be left in charge before he would. But she was also on the rescue mission.
He hoped today wouldn't have anymore surprises. Honestly, he didn't see how anything else could possibly be surprising today. If anything, he was expecting the unexpected.
When the doors to the commissary slid open Lorne was surprised to see that the report had been true. The room full of lounging engineers chatted normally, though they did seem somewhat annoyed and upset, none appeared out of the ordinary other than that they were here rather than doing their jobs. Zelenka was leaning over a cup of coffee. Lorne felt a surge of annoyance as he made a line straight for Zelenka's table, "What's going on here? Aren't you all supposed to be getting the Daedalus ready to go?" Again, diplomacy wasn't his thing.
The Daedalus' nervous Head of Engineering, who was also at Zelenka's table, hiccupped and looked up at Major Lorne with perpetually surprised blue eyes, then quickly stood to attention, "I hic appolog hic ize sir! The Asgard kicked us out."
Lorne furrowed his brows and tried to smile in a way that would put the woman at ease, though he felt like it probably came across as more of a grimace. So he lifted a hand in the universal gesture of 'calm down'. "It's ok." He turned to anyone else in the room, "Why don't you tell me what happened."
An unfamiliar engineer responded, "They said the work would go faster without us."
At that there erupted the familiar sound of a sulky, Czech, grumble from Dr Zelenka, followed by an elaboration. "What they actually say is that we have but minds of children; undeveloped in comparison to them, ignorant. And that guiding us through repair process would only waste valuable time."
"That's… harsh," was all Lorne could think to say in response. From what he'd heard, it was also pretty typical of the Asgard.
Dr. Novak only nodded her agreement as she was holding her breath and swallowing.
"They are like tyrant army of little McKays", Radek elaborated fittingly. The already low mood in the room plummeted at the reminder of their missing comrade.
"They also said they were going to use tools we weren't allowed to see yet to help the repairs go faster," Novak supplied. She seemed to have gotten the hiccups under control.
Well, that seemed reasonable to Lorne. But one look at the dark cloud hanging around Dr. Zelenka told him that was not the diplomatic response for this situation.
"So uh," Lorne ventured as tactfully as he could, "Not that I'm blaming you for getting kicked off your ship or anything," several glares turned his way, "but I'd appreciate it if you kept me in the loop next time."
"Of course," Zelenka answered apologetically, "we had not realized that the Asgard had not informed you first, but we should have checked anyway."
"Hey, it's ok," Lorne shrugged magnanimously, "It's late, we're all tired, and it's been a weird day."
Zelenka pulled his coffee mug closer and rubbed his temple tiredly, "It certainly has."
The relief in the room was palpable when an Asgard finally appeared in the room and announced, "The Daedalus is ready."
888888888888888
The glint of mischief in Ba'al's eyes as he 'negotiated' with Dr. Elizabeth Weir had been dulled by boredom some hours ago. It was more than a little obvious that they were stalling.
Ba'al smiled, and quickly replayed the last few sentences in his head, when the human paused in her argument and was unfortunately awaiting a response, "I'm just continuing what your people already did. Wasn't it your government that first imprisoned and experimented upon your Dr.McKay? I ask, is it fair to expect more of me than you expect of yourselves?"
Ba'al tuned out, again, from whatever counter-argument the human female was making as she continued to stall for whatever her people had planned.
As it turned out, stalling worked in Ba'al's favour. He was more than willing to accept as much time as they were willing to give him to learn all he could of this Dr. McKay and the experiments his people had performed on him. So he played along, tedious as it had become. He glanced at the holographic monitor holding the cloning chamber. He would be visiting Dr. McKay shortly to move onto the next phase of the experiment, if time allowed. So, tedious as these false negotiations were, Ba'al was willing to make the sacrifice for himself.
"Be that as it may," Ba'al interrupted whatever nonsense the human had been spouting about earth law and it being wrong whether it was broken by humans Goa'uld, "Dr. Weir. You've accused me of crimes against your entire race. How is it that you presume to speak for your entire race when the vast majority of your people know nothing of the Stargates, any of the intergalactic wars a small fraction of your people have taken part in, or of what another, equally secretive, part of one of your worlds many, many governments created in Dr. McKay?"
Ba'al glanced at the monitor again. Finally, a small cluster of Ba'al's entered the room containing the cloning chambers. They bustled around, outside of the humans range of sight, quietly gathering together all the research and samples they'd attained thus far.
Overconfidence was one common shortfall of his kind that Ba'al liked to think he'd outgrown. He didn't know what sort of rescue operation the humans and Asgard had in mind, or how many ships were on his way, so he intended to secure his investment. The most important data had been gathered. There would be no need to stall much longer.
The human scientist was now disposable. So he would move onto the more dangerous portion of the study, which he also took what he had learned thus far to a safe location.
Being able to be in multiple locations at once certainly had advantages.
888888888888888888888888
Ronon had taken to leaning against the Puddle Jumper wall and rhythmically hitting his head against it. If he hadn't been here to see it first hand, he never would have believed they'd spent all this time sitting in a Puddle Jumper, listening to Weir and that Goa'uld thing 'negotiate' over McKay's life.
"Ronon. "Would you sit down and stop that? Please?" Sheppard pleaded tiredly.
Ronon paused and looked at his commander, "Is that an order?"
"If it has to be," Sheppard commanded in an overly patient tone. "I don't want blood on my jumper wall, and I don't want you coming down with a headache before the rescue."
"What rescue?" Ronon asked blandly.
"This… rescue." Sheppard informed lamely before gritting his teeth with determination. "Look. We're going to rescue him."
"When?" Ronon asked in the same tone.
"Soon," Sheppard assured.
"This is the worst rescue ever." Ronon announced and flopped back into his seat.
Teyla frowned at her two team mates. "I too fear that this is taking too long. But", she turned pointedly to Ronon, "There is nothing more we can do for the time being except wait for an opportunity to present itself."
"That's right," Sheppard nodded appreciatively at his diplomatic team member. "So as soon as an opportunity presents itself, we'll take it."
Just then, the bay doors leading into the Goa'uld ship slid open. The three team mates leaned forward in their seats disbelievingly.
"That looks like an opportunity." Ronon grinned menacingly.
Teyla continued to stare at the opening doors, "But why?"
But Sheppard wasn't wasting any time questioning the apparent stroke of luck, "We'll worry about why later."
The cloaked jumper slid silently into the Mothership, with no way of knowing how close they came to colliding with the cloaked Goa'uld scout-ship exiting.
8888888888888
By Rodney's estimations, he had about three quarters of an hour, tops, before the overload he'd set up went critical. The feedback building up in one chamber was too small to draw attention. But once it went critical he would be the first to go. Then it would set off a chain reaction with the other chambers. And if memory served him, which it always did, they were situated in a prime position to hit the ships core power system and progress from there to the rest of the ship.
He swallowed hard and struggled to keep his breathing steady, given the situation. It would be quick and painless. At least preferable to a lot of the other probable ways he could have died in the Pegasus Galaxy. It was definitely better than death by Wraith, death by ejection into space, death by asphyxiation. This line of thought was doing nothing for his hyperventilation, so he tried to think of something else.
The only thing that came to mind was regrets. More than anything, Rodney regretted isolating himself the way he had. All the precautions he'd taken had ultimately been for nothing. Just look at where he was now.
Whenever Teyla had questioned him about earth culture, he'd answered her questions until she started asking about his own experiences. Then he steered the conversation in another direction, made excuses to be somewhere else, or lied. Lying was the worst. He knew he'd alienated both her and Ronon. Rodney had liked Ronon ever since the total stranger had saved his life. It was a good first impression. Ronon had a way of standing back and observing people for a ling tome before deciding what to think of them, whether to trust them. If anyone could have understood where Rodney was coming from, it probably would have been Ronon. Rodney regretted not taking advantage of that.
He wished he could watch that football game with Sheppard one more time. He wished he'd asked Radek more about his life before the Stargate Program, maybe even laughed at one or two of those Czech jokes his fellow scientist always told to try and prove that Rodney could understand.
Sheppard probably would have gotten a kick out of his secret hide-out in Disney World, if Rodney had ever gotten around to telling him.
Carson was without a doubt one of the most brilliant medical doctors he'd ever known. More than that, he was a good friend. Rodney had immensely enjoyed all the time he spent poking around the med-labs, looking at Carson's work and slipping in suggestions in the form of sarcastic quips or absent rambling. The good natured Scott always welcomed him. A friend like that was rare, virtually non-existent in Rodney's experience. Not asking for Carson's help as soon as he'd recognized something was wrong had been hard. He wished he'd trusted Carson sooner.
Rodney regretted placing Elizabeth in such a difficult position, especially considering how long they'd known each other. She was patient and loyal, and she deserver better.
At least now none of them would be hurt because of him. At approximately thirty minutes to detonation, Rodney closed his eyes and waited.
"Wakey, wakey!" The far too cheerful voice of one of his Goa'uld captives broke through Rodney's final thoughts.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Rodney bit out sarcastically, "Will sleeping ruin your scans too?"
The Ba'al just smiled, "Not at all. But it's time to come out. I'm waiting down the hall for the final phase, and I hate to keep myself waiting."
"Quite," agreed another Ba'al standing outside of Rodney's line of sight. "One mustn't be rude to oneself."
One thing that Rodney decided he wouldn't miss was the messed up sense of identity these clones had. He swallowed and forced himself to look his captor in the eye. "What are you going to do next?"
"All will be explained," the Goa'uld replied as he opened the door and pulled Rodney out of the chamber. Rodney dug his heels in, having gotten used to the idea of a quick, painless death by vaporization.
He was quickly flanked by the two Ba'al's. "Come now. You've been so co-operative so far. Must you make things difficult now?"
Rodney searched for a way to stall them, "W-what about supper? I thought you were going to feed me regularly. Y'know, to be humanitarian and all."
The two Goa'uld exchanged a laboured look before one answered. "Doctor, I'm sure you know as well as anyone that the cloning chamber will have supplied and maintained all your body's needs during your stay within it."
"Uh," Rodney stammered, "Would you believe that I like your cooking?"
Both Goa'uld smiled broadly with amusement, "Come along now Doctor."
They ignored any further protests as they lifted Rodney off the floor by his arms and carried him down the halls.
The room they took him too was enormous. It had to be the largest single room on the ship, and it had been cleared of everything but a single reclining chair and a small cluster of diagnostic equipment. One Ba'al stood beside the chair. He smiled warmly at his two doubles and at Rodney as they came through the door. "Welcome, Dr. McKay. We thought you might prefer being in a nice spacious room after your time in the chamber."
The smile faltered when the two Ba'al's flanking Rodney set him down and Rodney continued with struggling to pull back as they dragged him towards the chair. "Dr. McKay! Really!"
The Goa'uld half scolded and half cooed, "I thought we were past this. There's no way you can over power us and no means of escape. Your most logical course of action is to relax and allow whatever will be to be."
"Yes. You're only succeeding in causing yourself further distress and possibly bruising," one of the other Goa'uld added in and, as if to prove the point, pushed Rodney into the chair forcible and held him there while the other pushed up his sleeves and strapped him in.
Once he was secured the Ba'al that had been waiting with the chair proceeded to fill a needle with a strange, clear, liquid from a long row of vials.
"What's that?" Rodney asked, with his eyes glued to the needle.
"This," Ba'al answered as he approached the hopelessly restrained human, "Is an improved ATA therapy."
Rodney tried to pull back into the chair and ineffectually pulled his wrists against the restraints. Twenty-five minutes, give or take. If he could just stall for that long his death might still be relatively painless. "What about those other vials?"
Ba'al motioned to the other two Ba'als and Rodney's arm was soon being gripped and held steady, while the other held his shoulders against the chair.
"Those are just variations on the treatment. We will be boosting the effects of the ATA therapy incrementally. This is the first treatment." Ba'al explained as he forced the needle into Rodney's arm, through tensed muscles and tightened tendons.
Rodney hissed at the painful intrusion, "How much? What do you expect to happen?"
Ba'al smiled serenely and disposed of the used needle, "We'll find that out when it takes effect in a few hours."
"A few hours," Rodney repeated, mildly relieved. Maybe that was the end of it. "So, I guess we'll just wait and see."
"Not at all," Ba'al popped the bubble of hope and moved to a tray holding some alien devices. "We may as well use the time constructively."
8888888888888
Ba'al averted his gaze from the projection of Dr. Weir, to holographic security monitors. They had just switched from displaying the corridors of the ship, to a view of the space surrounding his ship. So he didn't see the three humans skulking down his corridors with weapons drawn, one of them holding a life-signs detector. What he did see was the Daedalus, with F-302's and puddle jumpers taking strategic positions around the Mothership.
"Dr.Weir," Ba'al said in a tone of false surprise as he turned his attention back to Dr. Weir, "I thought these were to be peaceful negotiations. We were getting along so well."
The human narrowed her eyes "While I would like it very much if you returned Dr.McKay to us peacefully I want to be clear that, one way or another, we're getting him back."
8888888888888
Ba'al turned back to Rodney, holding a small, round, black device with a flat side and an equally small rectangular device, of similar construction. He attached the round one to Rodney's temple, and the rectangle to his forehead, then picked up what must have been remote controls.
Rodney gulped and waited for the explanation he knew would be coming.
He didn't have to wait for long. "We acquired these from an interesting race. They were quite keen on the science of torture."
Rodney stared at him in horror.
"Of course", Ba'al was quick to add, "that's not what we'll be using them for."
"You're insane!" Rodney hated how his voice cracked.
"This device," Ba'al picked up a remote and motioned to Rodney's forehead, "has the remarkable ability to block specified higher and lower brain functions. We will be using it to specifically block your senses of sight, sound, taste, and touch. I think you'll agree that it's far more sophisticated than locking you in a little box. Don't you think?"
Rodney responded at the speed of lightning, "N-no-no-no-no." He looked desperately between the three Ba'al's. He didn't want to die this way. "Look, I know you probably won't believe me but I'm telling you, it doesn't work the way you think it will. It can't! The Ancients mental capacity and understanding evolved alongside their power. You might be able to artificially stimulate the relevant parts of my brain but I won't be able to control it. It's impossib…"
Ba'al activated something on the remote and Rodney suddenly found he had no voice. He glared at the Ba'al holding the remote and struggled all the harder against his restraints while continuing to mouth his message. IT WON'T WORK!
But Ba'al's eyes were on a second remote. "This remote controls the device I've attached to your left temple. It works to stimulate specified area's of your brain. Thanks to your Dr. Beckett's work, we know precisely which area's of your brain to stimulate." He motioned to a larger device that hung over the chair, with a monitor, which looked like a cross between Asgard and Goa'uld construction, "This will record your brain functions and vital signs. Now, let's not waste anymore time, shall we?"
888888888888
They had quietly sped down four corridors now, without running into any guards, and no sign of life appearing on the detector. It sort of put a damper on Sheppard's impromptu plan of 'capture a guard and question him to find out where McKay was.'
"This ship is large, we are unlikely to find Rodney this way." Teyla observed. "Perhaps if we can contact the Asgard ship they can detect where there is life on this ship."
That gave Sheppard an idea. He wished for the life sign detector to expand its range to cover the entire Mothership, and it obeyed. If Rodney were here he probably would have suggested that sooner. Rodney was the one who usually handled the detector and was the expert on its range and capabilities. "Six life signs," Sheppard announced. "Two near the centre of the ship, that's probably the throne room."
"Throne room?" Ronon questioned.
Sheppard shrugged, "They have this god complex and like to be worshipped."
Teyla leaned around Sheppard and peered at the detector. "Then it is most likely the two in the throne room who are speaking with Dr. Weir. We should seek the other four."
"Sounds like a plan," Sheppard agreed.
888888888888
Rodney opened his mouth to scream, in a vain attempt to overpower the device that had stolen his voice, desperate to make Ba'al understand. He wasn't some sort of superhero like the Trust, the Military, and now the Goa'uld seemed to hope. He was just a pathetic lab experiment gone wrong. He was a mistake. Oh please oh please. Don't do this.
The Goa'uld's expression almost held regret as he looked into the frightened humans wide, pleading eyes. "Try to remain calm, Doctor. And remember, this is for the ultimate good of two Galaxies. With your help the Goa'uld will become powerful enough to defeat the Prior's. When we're done, you have my word we'll come after the Wraith."
Ba'al looked at the human's unchanged expression and sighed. "Let's begin."
The human's struggles became more sporadic and confused as his sense of touch was removed. He licked his lips and his breathing became faster as the sense of taste was removed as well. Ba'al realized that it must now be impossible for the human to tell if there was even air in the room. He keyed in the commands that would regulate the humans breathing before proceeding. The human's eyes darted around frantically when his hearing was removed, before finally locking into an unseeing gaze.
The total darkness was nothing like he'd ever experienced before. The silence should have throbbed in his ears. But he couldn't even feel his own heart and the blood that must have been pumping through his veins was silent. The complete lack of sensation flooded over him, surrounding him, drowning him. Then he felt the pull; a flicker at the back of his mind.
"It's working," Ba'al reported to his-selves. His eyes were glued to the readings and an easy grin spread across his face. There was nothing like the thrill of discovery, and this one would change the future of his entire race.
Starved of stimulation his mind began to reach of it's own accord, as it had so many times before. Robbed of his voice he searched for something else to fight with. He still had his mind. He just had to think about something else. Just for a while. He frantically searched for something else to think about, to take his focus, and grasped at the first thing that came to mind. Caffeine. Medical name. Trimethylxanthine. Molecular formula. C8H10N4O2. Mass, 194.19 g·mol−1, International Chemical Identifier, 1/C8H10N4O2/c1-10-4-9-6-5(10)7(13)12(3)8(14)11(6)2/h4H,1-3H3…
The promising readings levelled and dropped. Ba'al turned his eyes from the monitor to the human captive in annoyance. The human scientist's lips were moving, reciting the equations of simple earth sciences. "Why must humans always be so difficult? We kindly advise that there's no use in struggling and what does he waste all of our time doing?"
The two Ba'al's still flanking the human mirrored his dismay.
He picked up the remote which controlled the device that would forcefully stimulate the relevant area's of the humans mind, and keyed in the relevant commands. The readings on the monitor immediately spiked back up. "Ah. Much better."
Glucose, 6-(hydroxymethyl)oxane-2,3,4,5-tetrol, C6H12O6, Molecular Mass, 180.16 g mol−1… A searing pain shattered the perfectly decent cup of coffee he'd been forming and his fragile control shattered with it. His mind drew inward sharply, searching for perception, the pain intensified as perception was found. It was almost a relief as he became aware of his beating heart, the air moving in and out of his lungs, he could 'see' every molecule more clearly than ever before. All at once, his surroundings snapped into focus.
The moment the second device had been activated the human had gone limp. One of the Ba'al's was now focussed entirely on checking the humans life signs. "He's stable. Let's take it up a notch."
The searing pain turned into a full fledged fire. His mind stretched outward to escape the flames. The minds of the three Ba'al's surrounding him, and their suppressed host consciousness, melded confusingly as his awareness of them overlapped. It still burned, and his mind stretched farther to find Ba'al, Ba'al, Ba'al, another Ba'al, Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon, Elizabeth. No! They couldn't be here. They'd die in the explosion. He had to warn them.
"His temperature and heart rate are increasing rapidly." Ba'al advised himself. He watched beads of sweat forming on the humans suddenly pale skin. The feint lines of blood vessels were becoming almost visible through the ghostly pallor. "Interesting."
Prior blue eyes, pale as ice, flashed open and looked straight through Ba'al.
Ba'al straightened and took a step back, "Very interesting."
The other two Ba'al's joined him to observe the human, just in time to see the straps holding the human into place burst into flame and disintegrate.
"Time to terminate the experiment, I think," one of the Ba'al's suggested as the human struggle to stand. Heat radiated off of him.
Ba'al lunged for the two remotes but he was too slow. They flew across the room and crashed against the far wall of the great chamber. So he reached instead into his jacket pocket, for the button that would set off the nano-bombs.
"Wait!" another Ba'al shouted after the button had been pressed.
Ba'al turned to see a silver cloud, that had been shooting towards him from the human, explode. He dived just in time to avoid the explosion.
This was not part of the plan. Ba'al saw himself running for the remotes that had been thrown to the far wall, but he was afraid the experiment might already be too far out of control.
His other self had moved to help him up. "It might be time for a strategic retreat."
Ba'al took another look at the human before making his decision, "No. Look."
Whatever strength the human seemed to have summoned to accomplish that much was failing him. Dr. McKay stumbled forward.
His mind buzzed and burned with over-expenditure. His mental strength was spent. Rodney knew he wouldn't be able to do that again, much less save his friends. Despair overwhelmed him as his legs gave way. John, Elizabeth, Teyla, Ronon. They would die and it would be his fault. He had killed them. Without seeing, he was aware of the two Goa'uld approaching him, to restrain him again. What would Sheppard do? Sheppard would go down fighting.
88888888888
"Triplets?" Sheppard tilted his head and stared at the unexpected sight. The three men who had been skulking towards Rodney turned to look at the source of the question. Behind the three spooky look-a-likes a ghostly pale Rodney showed no signs of recognition as he collapsed to his knees.
Rodney was hurt.
The three team-mates raised their weapons and fired at Rodney's abductors, and three targets dropped to the ground.
Teyla and Ronon took up guard positions while Sheppard ran for McKay.
"McKay!?" Sheppard breathed in shock when he was close enough to get a good look at Rodney. The kneeling man was beyond pale, and his eyes were definitely not their normal colour. Sweat drenched his hair. Two black things with blinking lights were stuck to his head. What the hell had they done to him? "Don't worry McKay. Beckett will have you as good as new in no time."
He knelt to help McKay up, and was thanked by a fist across his jaw. "Ow! McKay!"
McKay gave no sign of hearing the cry of pain.
"I'm trying to help! Snap out of it McKay." Sheppard commanded as he stood upright. "We've got to get you out of here."
He was rewarded by a punch to the gut, and a knee to the chin as he doubled over, and second punch to the chest that sent him sprawling. Damn, he'd taught McKay that move. Why did the scientist have to choose now, of all times, to put it into practice?
By the time Sheppard regained his senses and stood, Ronon had both of McKay's arms held behind him in an unbreakable hold.
"Thought you could use a hand," The Satedan explained why he had left his post guarding the door with Teyla. "I think he's got a fever. He's almost too hot to hold, and he's getting hotter."
Sheppard reached for the black devices attached to Rodney's head and tugged. He received a sharp zap in return. "Gah!"
Another look at how messed up Rodney looked drove Sheppard to try again. He gritted his teeth through the shocks and pulled hard, to no effect. "They won't come off. Let's get him to the jumper."
It was then that a loud, distant, bang echoed through the ship and shook the floor.
"Now what?!" A bruised and battered Sheppard griped.
8888888888888888888
"Now what?" Elizabeth asked Hermiod when the Goa'uld ship shook and Ba'al cut off communications.
"We are detecting a series of escalating explosions, leading towards the ships primary power core. Your smaller ships should move to a safer distance." Another Asgard answered.
Elizabeth instinctually put her hand to ear piece, "Daedalus, did you hear that?"
"We did," Caldwell's voice answered. "All ships, return to the Daedalus. Jumpers too. Is Jumper One still inside the Mothership shields?"
Elizabeth couldn't help the uncomfortable knot that formed at hearing Caldwell's voice. "It is."
"You may also wish to know that the number of life signs within the Asgard ship has changed a number of times; reducing by two, increasing by three, then prior to the initial explosion, reducing again by three." Hermiod announced, as he narrowed his eyes at the Asgard who had been manning those sensors. "The doors to the Mothership also opened once."
"Informing you of activities with which the Asgard are not involved in served no purpose to our pledge of mediation at this time," the subject of Hermiod's glare defended.
Elizabeth nodded her thanks to Hermiod and switched to the secure channel that Sheppard and his team were on, "Colonel Sheppard, are you on the Mothership?"
"Elizabeth, yes," came the unsurprising response, "we've got Rodney and are headed back to the jumper."
"That's good news John," Elizabeth congratulated but quickly moved on, "But do you think you could pick up the pace? The Mothership is exploding."
"Oh!" Sheppard's voice cracked, "Is that what that is?!"
"Hermiod?" Weir followed Hermiod to what seemed to be another sensor panel, and asked with urgency, "Can you beam them out of there?"
"I cannot," Hermiod answered without turning from the sensor display, "The Mothership's shields are preventing such a course of action at this time, but I believe the explosions will cause them to fail shortly before the ship is destroyed."
"All fighters and jumpers are on board, we're moving to a safer distance." Caldwell informed.
Weir didn't have time to respond. She kept her attention on Hermiod, "How shortly?"
"Very," was the Asgard's dire answer.
All Elizabeth could do was watch as the bursts of flame erupting from the Mothership grew. Burning air rushed out of breached corridors and rooms, any one of which could have been holding her people. Then the ship broke apart in a ball of flame that was quickly snuffed out by the cold vacuum of space.
Elizabeth was almost afraid to ask. "Did you get them?"
"They, and your jumper, are on board." Hermiod affirmed.
But Elizabeth's relief was short lived. When two Asgard approached Hermiod and started speaking with him in their native language, and some others turned to listen while several simply vanished in a familiar flash of light, Elizabeth knew something was wrong. When it didn't look like they were going to let her into the loop of their own accord, Elizabeth interrupted them, "What is it?"
"Come," Hermiod answered, and in a flash she was standing with him in another room, bathed in a soft green glow.
Small green globes of light floated around a human form suspended in a beam of light. A small gathering of Asgard were clustered around him, muttering quietly and looking at hand-held equipment. One Asgard stood at a podium-like console. Teyla, Ronon, and Sheppard stood in the shadows, to one side of the Asgard, looking helpless.
Elizabeth's breath caught in her throat as she approached the circle. Rodney hanging there, suspended in the air. His skin was so pale she didn't see how he could be alive. But the proof was the watery sound each time he took a small breath. Bleached blue eyes stared unblinkingly at nothing. Worst of all was the single tear of blood that lay frozen, on his cheek. He must have been in such pain.
Elizabeth swallowed and found her voice. "What have they done to him?"
"That is what we are trying to ascertain," an alien voice answered.
Another Asgard seemed to sense that more elaboration was expected, "The subject is damaged. The overlying condition appears to be connected to the foreign objects which are attached to the subjects cranium. We are attempting to remove these objects safely. We will know more once we have succeeded, but we must hurry."
An annoyed mutter from the shadows reminded Elizabeth that the rest of Rodney's team was here. "I wish they'd stop calling him 'the subject'," was Ronon's complaint.
The Asgard continued to mutter among themselves in their strange sounding language. Then one reached up and removed the round object from Rodney's temple. Rodney's eyes returned to their normal shade of ocean-blue almost immediately.
"Rodney?" Elizabeth asked, hoping for some sign of recognition.
"He cannot hear you," an Asgard advised.
Rodney's eyes drifted closed as the second device dropped from his forehead, and the Asgard returned to muttering amongst themselves.
Elizibeth turned to Hermiod, who had wandered over to stand with Sheppard and his team.
The alien engineer shrugged.
After a few more minutes of listening to the strange alien race mutter, Teyla approached the cluster and asked, "Can you help him?"
A few of the Asgard heaved a great sigh before one of them turned to answer her,
"We believe that the subject," the Asgard paused and amended "your Dr. McKay, is repairable. It will take time. Perhaps you should wait in the comforts of your earth ship, Daedalus."
"We'd like to wait here." Sheppard was quick to answer.
The Asgard narrowed black eyes, "As you wish."
There was a flash, and the small group of humans found themselves in another sparse room.
"I guess this is the waiting room." Ronon suggested after a brief look around him.
Another flash signalled the arrival of some comfortable looking chairs of earth design.
"Guess so," Elizabeth agreed, and prepared herself to wait with the worried team-mates and friends. They should probably try to think about something else. "What happened to your face."
Sheppard grimaced ruefully and rubbed his sorely bruised jaw, "It's a long story."
"McKay decked him," Ronon supplied eagerly, ignoring the glare Sheppard threw his way.
"Decked?" Elizabeth repeated in surprise. Let alone wondering why Rodney would do that, the science member of the team hadn't exactly been doing well in hand-to-hand practices the last she saw. "As in just landed a punch? Or floored?"
"Floored," Ronon answered, with mixed prize and amusement.
"Rodney?!" it hardly sounded like something the physicist was capable of. She wouldn't call him gentle, exactly. But his most violent weapon was his mouth. "In one hit?"
"In three," Ronon supplied with a smug grin.
"I taught him that move." Sheppard defended sullenly.
Teyla seemed to think it only fair to turn the tables on Ronon, "and how are your ribs feeling, Ronon?"
From the sounds of it, and the sullen look Ronon through Teyla before gingerly taking one of the seats, Rodney had gotten at least one good hit on the Satedan as well.
"He was not himself," Teyla explained to Elizabeth, feeling the need to defend their team mates actions. "He was… delirious."
"And scared," Ronon added. There had been a lot of adrenaline behind those punches.
They fell into sombre science. Perhaps finally, for the first time, beginning to understand what it was that Dr. McKay had been running from.
88888888888888