A/N: Pay attention now, as a lot's going to be answered in this chapter.
Ch. 7
John found the X-ray LSD more amusing to watch. He could almost make out the faint outlines of skin and organs, even see motion in the chest region that had to be the heart pumping. There was a lot of advantage to this kind of LSD. Physical weaknesses were betrayed, making John's skeleton the one to stand out with its gimping gate and a bow to the shoulders that John hadn't even realized he was doing. Carson had said he'd be a little hunched back for the duration of his ribs healing.
They heard Rodney before brand new X-rayed bodies inched down from the top of the screen. John looked up and signaled for a halt. He strained his hearing toward the constant muttering until he managed to pick out bits of techno-babble and an irate tone. No smack of skin on skin followed by pleading whimpers, which was all that mattered at the extreme moment. If Rodney was working rather than being interrogated then his guards were probably standing off to the side, hopefully bored out of their skulls to distraction.
The latter was just a hope and one John wasn't going to hold to. He signaled, and the small team spread out, creeping in a crouch tight against the walls to take up position on either side of the entrance. It was Baxter and John once again hanging back to take point.
The small security vid-screen above the door panel that should have been showing them the interior of the room was blank. The whole point of the blasted screen was for the very situation they were in right now. Below it, the access panel was a charred mess. The only way that door was going to open was from the inside. John – always big on back up plans from B to Z – gave Sherbet a little nudge in the hip with his casted hand.
"Go get Rodney, Sherbet, go get him." Sherbet yeeped and bounded forward to begin pawing and yipping at the door. "Ronon, pull him back when the door opens."
Ronon grabbed hold of the leash. Sherbet clawed at the door, yeeping, yelping, and making a high-pitched whine. He stopped for a moment to stare up at the gutted control panel, tilting and twitching his head from side to side until it finally registered that the panel was useless. So he returned to pawing, scratching, and even proceeding into long, drawn out, high-pitched yowling.
"It's just an animal!" John heard Rodney yell. "Just let it in and it'll shut up. Shoot it and I'll be forced to take my sweet time with the repairs, and you'll only have yourselves to blame." There had to be a record for the amount of vociferous volume Rodney was emitting for him to be heard so clearly through the thick door.
The door slid open. The pirate stopped just within the threshold where he was blind to the men huddled on either side of the door, and looked down at Sherbet. Sherbet sat back on his haunches, stared up at the thug, and yipped. The thug rolled his eyes and whipped out his rifle. Just as he was about to aim, Ronon pulled on the leash sending Sherbet sliding out of sight.
"What the..." the pirate stepped out and wasn't even given the opportunity to look shocked when Ronon's blaster enveloped him in electric red. The man convulsed and went down in a heap, right in the doorway preventing it from shutting. Ronon led the charge into the room, bellowing, "Drop your weapon and put your hands up."
John grinned. Ronon did love them cop flicks – maybe a little too much at times.
It was Moor who stepped back out giving the all clear then dragging the stunned thug back into the room. John and Baxter hurried in after to see Anderson binding thug two by the wrists and ankles with plastic restraints. Sherbet bounded in happily after, yeeping like a squeak toy and taking one giant leap into Rodney's arms. It had become second nature to catch Sherbet when he leaped toward one's arms. Rodney didn't even seem to realize he was holding the mir'ka, being more preoccupied with looking smug.
"So I see I was correct in assuming there'd been a jail break after all?"
The nearly perfect round blot of blood about the size of a person's big toe staining the bandage around Rodney's head threw John for a moment. If Rodney could look that self-satisfied, then he was fine for now, but John made a mental note to watch for the signs of incoming vomiting.
John tucked the X-ray LSD under his arm so he could take Sherbet, setting the Mir'ka on his shoulder in order to free up his hand and thrust the alien LSD into Rodney's hands. He then dug into his pocket for the two coms he'd pulled from their last confrontation with the pirates, and set them on top of the green glowing screen. "Are you saying you were thinking positive for once, Rodney?" John said. He gave a light slap to Rodney's shoulder. "Good for you. Now start playing with those toys because we need some answers."
"Isn't that why you kept him conscious?" Rodney asked, gesturing with his unoccupied hand at the fully alert and trussed up pirate. The man was starting straight ahead, his expression a mix of stoicism, slight annoyance, and wounded pride. John knew that look as he'd worn it himself a few times, although he was pretty sure there'd been more anger involved with him. Getting captured wasn't an annoyance; it pissed him off.
But that was getting technical. Whatever emotions involved in the look, what was registered was always the same – close up and shut up, this guy wasn't talking anytime soon.
"Given time, maybe," John said. "But like I once told Ronon – I'm naturally lazy. We'll probably get more info out of those devices sooner than we will from that guy."
Ronon leaned against the wall with arms folded and smiled down at their prisoner. "Give me ten minutes and some privacy, and I'll get him talking."
John considered it; honest to goodness, so deep it hurt, gave it careful, careful thought that almost had him saying yes. These SOBs had shot an unarmed civilian, an injured unarmed civilian, in cold blood without batting an eye. Torturing one of them would be peanuts compared to their monstrosity of an act. And hey, they weren't even in the Milky way Galaxy, let alone near earth, so technically it wasn't as though they had to worry about the Geneva Convention getting in the way. But John had discovered a long time ago – and the hard way – that there was a fine line between being considered the good guy or the bad guy, a line very nearly crossed on more than one occasion, and crossed on rarer occasions.
For the most part, the good-guys set limits, limits that put them above the bad guys in terms of who was more humane. Torture brought them too close for comfort to the edge of that line. Though, technically, they wouldn't be crossing that line since the guy wouldn't be killed – not in cold blood.
Personal issues John tried not to factor in, but couldn't help it. He'd been on the wrong end of physically painful interrogations enough to make him think twice before out and out using it himself to get answers. There was a good chance he would end up sympathizing with the one being tortured.
John pressed his lips in a straight line. This wasn't the time to play nice, but neither did he want to cross any lines if he didn't have to. Besides, sometimes the threat of torture was just as effective as torture itself.
"Let's hold that thought for now and come to it if nothing else pans out," he finally replied.
There was a momentary glitter of blatant fear in the pirate's eyes before settling back into annoyed apathy. Ronon shifted, getting more comfortable towering over the prisoner, maintaining his cold smile of anticipation.
John moved to the nearest chair, pulled it away from a console, and dropped himself into it. The banishment of pressure on his feet was heaven, and seemed to pull the aches that had crawled up his legs all the way to his lower spine with it. He flexed his toes working out the cramps that would eventually lead to several nasty Charlie horses. Muscles pulled and blood throbbed as though the skin of his feet were too tight. He shoved back the desire to wince, and tapped his com.
"Caldwell, it's Sheppard."
The com crackled. "Go ahead."
"We have McKay and two prisoners on our end."
"Good to hear. Stay where you are, we're still clearing the decks. So far two more teams have reported a capture and one a kill."
John arched his back trying to pop out a kink that had formed. The change in position disrupted Sherbet causing the mir'ka to stir and the brush hairs of the tail tickle John's neck. "What about Elizabeth and the others? Anyone check on them yet?"
"Sgt. Evans was leading a team there but were ambushed. One man was wounded. Dr. Beckett has him stabilized. Right now they're waiting for word on the safety of the infirmary before having him transported there, then plan to continue on. So far most of the hostiles seem to be staying ahead of us. Our hope is to drive them into a tighter area, but most of the teams are having a hard time keeping them in sight."
John nearly nodded when he realized the futility of it. "Yeah, we kind of noticed that ourselves. Have the teams who made a capture had a chance to talk to the prisoners yet?"
"No, the prisoners refuse to talk."
John flicked his eyes in his own prisoner's direction. "Surprise, surprise," he muttered. "Any suggestions?"
"Figure out a way to get them to talk. Right now I could go for an exact number of how many hostiles we're dealing with here."
John gnawed his bottom lip. He still wasn't up to resorting to torture. Threats, definitely, but not torture. "I'll get back to you on that if I manage to get anything."
"Same on my end. Caldwell out."
John sighed and massaged his forehead one-handed. Caldwell was right, knowing enemy numbers was an advantage they could really use right now, especially the way these pirates kept pulling a ghost act.
"What did Caldwell say?" Ronon asked.
John swiveled the chair around to face him. "To stay put." He looked at the prisoner staring dully at a blank spot of floor. John decided to let the man stew for a little longer, just until he started to sweat. With a grimace, John pushed himself stiffly to his feet and gimped over to Rodney. The physicist had the X-ray LSD on Hermiod's station and the com in his other ear, tapping it.
"I already tried that before we got here," John said.
Rodney gave him a heavy-lidded look. "Well I'm not you. You were probably doing it wrong."
John responded with a tight smile. "How's the head, Rodney?"
"It hurts and I could do with a nap. But I'm probably concussed, which means no sleep for how many awful hours Beckett decides to keep me awake when he gets his hands on me. But, on the plus side, at least I'm not hallucinating." He looked down, only to snap his wide-eyed and unnerved gaze back up at John. "I'm not hallucinating, am I?"
"If you are, you could have at least done me the decency of taking away the limp."
Rodney snorted. "I could have done myself the decency of hallucinating Carter. She was actually helpful." He finally removed the com – nothing more than a black ear bud – and held it between his finger and thumb as he studied it. "This thing is weird. It isn't making any noise, not even static. And this thing..." He held up the green LSD in his other hand, "kind of gross but rather cool. For a bunch of Mad Max extras, these so-called 'space pirates' are starting to look more advanced than us."
"Well doesn't that suck," John said, snagging the X-ray LSD for a covetous once over. He really liked the thing. It was cool, like the Arcturus project weapon before it had tried to blow them all to hell. Also like the Arcturus Project it was scary; that is, the implications were scary. Rodney was right – weapons that incapacitate rather than destroy, X-ray LSDs, devices that render an entire ship's crew unconscious at the same time (John had been wondering why the pirates hadn't used the same device twice, but decided not to dwell on it since there was really nothing to be done about it if they did) and for safety purposes John was going to assume there was something advanced behind the way these pirates kept popping in and out like spooks. It was all adding up to a group of people who should be dressed in unisuits brandishing tricorders and phasers set on stun, not wearing rags and relying on projectile weaponry.
But these people were pirates, and what were pirates best known for? All that booty they buried wasn't from an honest day's work. John set the LSD back on the console. That brought about another question. The only way a bunch of ragged, rifle slinging space pirates were going to get their hands on this kind of advanced tech was if it was within grabbing range – a planet with a bypassable defense system, or a ship slipping happily through hyperspace. In the three years since coming to Pegasus, the expedition had yet to encounter a society with X-ray LSDs and blasters that crippled ships without leaving a scorch mark. Any advanced culture they encountered was either blasted – literally – back to the middle ages by the wraith, was about to be blasted if they didn't keep placating the wraith with sacrifices, or was too well hidden to find a second time. This wasn't a galaxy with a broad pickings choice.
John tapped his finger on the green screen. "Okay..." He turned away to begin pacing, but stopped when pain raced up his leg all the way to his lower back. He returned to the chair and gingerly sat. "I don't like this."
"Is there honestly anything to like about any of this?" Rodney retorted.
John closed his eyes wearily. "Can it, McKay. You know what I mean." He opened his eyes and swiveled in Rodney's direction. "These guys had us in one shot, have the means to take us again, and yet we're the ones who seem to be winning. That's what I don't like. It's too damn easy." He swiveled again, facing forward, and gripped the console rim to pull himself up enough to see their prisoner. "Hey, you, on the floor."
The man looked up. John was observant enough to notice the cocky little smile tugging at the man's lips. The threat of torture hadn't quite sunk in. A little incentive was needed.
"Ronon," John said without looking away.
In one fluid motion, Ronon crouched while whipping out his largest knife and placing it a hair's width from the man's throat. The man's grin finally broke free. John narrowed his eyes and reared his head back.
"You know a knife isn't just handy for cutting a neck. In some cultures, it's used to make a man's voice a little higher pitched."
Ronon repositioned the knife too close for comfort between the man's legs. The man stiffened, and the grin was dropped. John finally saw the beads of sweat he'd been waiting for shimmer along the man's brow.
"Now that you're paying attention, just answer me one question. How do your coms work?"
The man looked up at John in honest confusion. John pointed at his ear. "The little black thing that goes in here and let's you talk to your buddies. How does it work?"
"You touch it," he said.
"We did that. What else?"
The man shrugged. "That's it. But it won't work for you. Whoever touches it, that's who it works for. If someone else needs to use it, we put it in a machine that reprograms it."
McKay's fingers flew in rapid, staccato snapping. "DNA," he said. "I bet it's DNA activated, like a personal shield."
John didn't care how the device worked, he was more out to prove a point; that these were pirates, and not local pirates to boot. "All right, then," he said. "Since you answered my question, I'm done. Ronon, however, has something to ask."
The man winced when the knife was pushed a little closer.
"How many of you are there?" the Satedan said. Being the well trained soldier that he was, John knew Dex would ask what needed to be known.
"Many," the man said, and his lips curled in a withering grin. "More than you can all handle."
"If that was the case," John said, "then why are you the one tied up on the floor?"
Ronon's knife hand twitched, and the man yelped. "I don't know your counting system!"
That was a new one. McKay had once told John that because the Milky Way Galaxy and the Pegasus Galaxy had the Ancients in common, it only stood to reason that was why everyone in the Pegasus Galaxy spoke English or other various Earth like languages. That also included numbers. Five might have looked different when written in Athosian script, but it was still called a five, which was why it had been so easy teaching Teyla to tell time on Earth clocks.
The man could have been lying, but John's gut told him he wasn't, sticking with the theory that these pirates weren't from around this galaxy.
"Forget numbers, then, we'll deal with that later. What is it you want from us?"
The man, pale, panting, and sweating bullets, tilted his head to one side. "Your ship."
"I know that already. I'm talking about us, the crew. You guys could have just killed us and taken off already."
It was Rodney who ended up answering it. "They want us to repair it, and to hold as hostages and bargaining chips to force the repairs."
The man jerked his chin at Rodney. "What he said."
John drummed his fingers on the console. "Where are you from?"
"We've no world..."
"I'm not talking about a world. Think bigger. Think galaxy. You know, big freakin' cluster of stars where the planets hang out?"
The man knew exactly what John was talking about. The pirate's mouth remained shut, but he wasn't the least bit perplexed. Ronon shifted the knife and the man yelped again, but John held up his hand before the knife finally pricked flesh.
"Wait, not yet," he said, and leaned forward, gravity pushing Sherbet's warm, plush-like body against his neck. He didn't care how odd it must have looked having the furball on his shoulders. Alien creatures freaked people out, no matter how cute that creature was. "Look, I don't care what galaxy you're from or whether or not you have a planet. You already pretty much answered my question that you're not from around here. Just answer me this, strictly for the sake of satisfying curiosity. What the hell are you doing light years away from a galaxy that obviously offers better technology. Because the pickings are kind of slim around these parts if you haven't noticed."
The man stared at Sheppard hard, mulling the question over so carefully John thought he could hear the wheels of thought grinding away. The man's blue-gray eyes narrowed, more out of defiance than consideration. A short lived defiance that cracked, slowly, until very annoyed and very reluctant shame was exposed.
"We were chased to the edge of our territory, so kept going. We've been living on the edge of survival, running out of supplies. Your's was the first ship we tracked that wasn't built by the life-suckers, and had similar engine power to ours. So we set the ambush, and here you are."
John rapped his fingernails hard on the console's surface. Life-suckers; wraith – John wondered what technology the pirates might have snagged from them, if any. "Yep, here we are." He narrowed his eyes. "Because we have intergalactic hyperdrive capabilities, which you need to get home."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up," Rodney said, moving forward. It was a sudden motion that got him swaying a little, nearly dropping until he reached out snagging Carlyle's proffered arm. "Okay, that wasn't smart," he groaned, then composed himself by clearing his throat. "Since you chased us down in hyperspace I can assume your engines still work but are probably decreasing in power. You drained the power from our ship but your boss said you had a way of returning it. Why not just use that method on your own ship?"
"Our engines were taken from a Cuardy vessel. The Veelant generator doesn't work on them. Veelants are enemy of the Cuardy."
Rodney's face pinched in both confusion and pain. "Okay, that made no freakin' sense."
John rolled his eyes and pushed away from his perch to limp over to Rodney, snag his sleeve, and drag him to the chair, pushing him into it. "Square peg, round hole, Rodney. They've got an engine made by one race, some kind of generator made by another, and they don't get along... on purpose."
"Oh."
John turned back to the pirate. "All right then, since you've been so polite in cooperating, you get to keep your nether regions. Ronon?"
Ronon twisted the knife away, tucking it back into his sleeve. He then stood and resumed leaning in a threatening manner against the wall.
"I've got a question," Rodney said. He tried to stand. Sheppard placed his hand on his shoulder and pushed him back into the chair. "Why's your boss so keen on getting the shields up before anything else?"
The man opted for remaining tight-lipped on that one, so Ronon pulled out his knife.
Then something happened so fast it took its sweet time to register. The unconscious pirate who'd been dragged over to the wall, trussed, and was being watched by Moor, sprung to life in a flurry of action. He kicked out with his legs, knocking Moor to the floor, then rolled on top of the marine. Just as Moor was about to shove the hostile off, a bubble of transparent white light expanded, enveloping them, before snapping back out of existence, taking Moor and the pirate with it.
"Ronon!" John barked, pushing away from the console. Too late when another bubble snapped in and out leaving a bare spot where the conscious pirate had been sitting. Ronon stood there with knife out, bewildered and slightly spooked.
"Ah crap," Rodney said, shooting up out of the chair. "Ah crap, ah crap, ah crap... They have transporter technology!"
John tapped his com. "Caldwell, it's Sheppard, do you read?" He was met with static. He tried again. "Colonel Caldwell, do you copy?" More static. "Damn it!" John pushed away from the console and headed for the door at his fastest limp. "We need to get back to Elizabeth and the others, now!" Pain hammered throbbing up his leg to his spine. Harsh reality time; he was officially useless at this juncture. He stopped and turned to the others following close behind. "Screw me trying to keep up. Ronon, take Anderson and run. If you come across any of these bastards, don't get too close. Try another route if you have to. Now go!"
Ronon nodded once, and he and Anderson took off down the corridor. John turned back around, stumbling trying to not run into Rodney. He pointed a finger over Rodney's shoulder. "Get back in there and open a com to where Elizabeth is if you can. She doesn't have a personal radio with her."
Rodney was already moving. "Said and done." He went behind Hermiod's station and did a quick manipulation of a few switches and buttons to connect to the rec room.
"Elizabeth, it's Rodney? You there?"
There was no reason for her not to respond. The whole ship was a spider web of communication, with a com on every level and just about every wall, making personal coms and radios virtually unnecessary.
Elizabeth didn't respond.
SGA
This wasn't Elizabeth's scene, and she wasn't exactly up to it, but that wasn't going to stop her from doing what needed to be done to keep everyone safe. It was the weapon in her hand that was disconcerting. It might have been just a zat, perfectly harmless unless fired one too many times at a single target, but there in lay the trepidation – it could be potentially deadly. Elizabeth preferred verbal battles. Weapons – well – much of her career had been spent pouring a great deal of energy into convincing other nations to avoid solutions involving weaponry of any kind. So, in a rather inappropriately comical way, she felt rather hypocritical holding a weapon now, even one as harmless as harmless could get like a zat.
Elizabeth paced a short circuit across the room, arms folded with the folded zat in one hand. Everyone was spread out either draped bonelessly in chairs or standing. Cpl. Stiles had been laid out on the room's only couch with a blanket pulled over him and a nurse wiping his face with a wet paper towel. Elizabeth twisted her wrist enough for a look at her watch. Only fifteen minutes had passed since John had left.
Sheppard was going to start giving her gray hairs if he didn't check in soon. She was frightened for everyone, and longed to see everyone just to know that they were okay. Yet whether Sheppard liked it or not, he was the most vulnerable – unless someone else had been wounded they didn't know about. Barring that, John wasn't supposed to be out there, and she hoped to high heaven that when they did find the others, Beckett would pull medical rank and force John to sit this one out.
John would be a little irked about it, but he'd made a promise, and was a stickler about being a man of honor. He would come back, like he said. Elizabeth trusted that. It was the situation she didn't trust. Things changed in the blink of an eye, forcing promises to be broken against wills.
She checked her watch again. Seventeen minutes. She put her hand to her mouth resting her elbow on her folded arm, and rubbed her lips. She wished someone would check in, anyone. Minutes were turning into hours that were pricking at each individual nerve ending. Her eyes strayed to the intercom on the wall, pretty much useless unless she knew which room to contact. She wished they'd taken the time to grab personal coms, but time was on no one's side in a crisis. John hadn't wanted them lingering in the open for too long.
Elizabeth finally altered her course bringing her to the couch where Stile's lay unconscious.
"How is he?" she asked the nurse.
The brown haired nurse – Maggie, her name-tag read – looked up and smiled. "Doing better. He doesn't feel as warm."
Elizabeth nodded. "If anyone starts trying to force their way in, cover his face with the blanket and pretend he's dead." It sounded cold enough to make Elizabeth shiver imperceptibly. The nurse just nodded, her mouth set in a firm line.
Elizabeth turned to move away. She glance over at the poker table where Hermiod sat impassive with Novak next to him trying to stifle the hiccups. Elizabeth grimaced in sympathy, and headed over to the small fridge hooked to the wall to see if there were any drinks for the poor woman.
There was a flash, like from a camera. Elizabeth turned to see the moron who thought it would be a good idea to capture this moment on film, and jumped back before colliding with a broad body in a ragged coat. The man wearing a skull-cap and goggles grabbed the zat before Elizabeth had a chance to unfold it, tucking it into his belt, then grabbed her wrist.
"We wish to make you a guest," he dead-panned cooly. There were more flashes, more men in layers of rags grabbing as many people as they could. Elizabeth saw the nurse pull the blanket over Stile's head, then get yanked to her feet when a man appeared from a vanishing bubble of light. Novak had Hermiod duck under the table just as a man appeared behind her, hauling her up by the arm to her feet.
Elizabeth could only gape.
Transporter technology.
It was her last thought before white light surrounded her silver and cold, and the rec room vanished.
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TBC...
A/N: Avast ye! Those scurvy cliffhangers are right sneaky they are. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me...