Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the Stargate franchise or its storylines. My intention is not infringe upon those rights, so please don't sue me.
The Young Weapon
Chapter 4: Interrogation Confusion
The young female lay motionless on the infirmary bed at the center of the isolation room. Her eyelashes fluttered as she regained consciousness. Her black-rimmed hazel eyes were adjusting to the garish lights of the round room when she felt a sudden choking along the length of her throat.
In her blinding panic, she reached up to find both her wrists and legs strapped to the cold steel bars of the bed. Her eyes darted around and saw a petite Asian doctor with a stethoscope around her neck. To the doctor's objection, the woman struggled against her restraints before she bent her head down to forcibly pull out the tube with her blood-stained bandaged hand.
"Please hold still, miss," pleaded the silk-haired doctor, "stay still or your IV will rip out." Finding herself stripped of her armor and hidden knives, the patient grunted to free herself from her restraints without much success. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw the automatic entrance slide open. Her body relaxed when she recognized John Sheppard strolling through the door.
She closed her eyes, muttered an explicative, and angrily hit the back of her head against her pillow. "Fine, Sheppard, you got me. I guess you took my advice sooner than I thought."
"Do I know you?" Sheppard snapped.
"Ha, you better," scoffed the woman, "I remember branding some reminders on your musclemen." She scanned Sheppard up and down, "but there isn't a scar on you. Did you pump yourself up with more Wraith enzyme than usual?" Sheppard simply stared at the woman with his arms crossed. Her eyes wandered to Sheppard's splinted forearm. "How's the wrist?" she smirked.
Dr. Saitama's rubber-gloved hands reached out to the woman's face. "Miss? Do you know your name? What is your name, miss?" But the patient just stayed silent. "Are you feeling any tightness in your muscles or chest?" the doctor continued. "any flashing lights or black spots?"
"I always feel like that, lady," she harshly replied. "It's nothing new…what's your point?"
Saitama attempted to reason with the young woman. "Our intention isn't to harm you, miss. We're trying to help you so that you can help us."
She stared at the clueless doctor and spoke to Sheppard, "Who is this?" She turned to the doctor, "Are you new or something?" She flashed a glance to Sheppard, "did you not clue her in, General? Because you people should know by now that I hate repeating myself."
"We don't know you!" Sheppard snapped. "Let me clue you in on something, little girl. I'm a Colonel. You don't ask the questions, we do. First of all: who the hell are you, and why did you attack my men?"
The woman ignored Sheppard's interrogation. "Why are you downplaying yourself? Is this some kind of new mind game, cuz it's aggravating." She was met with an unfamiliar mixture of anger and confusion on the Colonel's face.
"You're aggravated?" he whispered. "Two of my men are in a coma up in the infirmary because of whatever is in those stupid light bulbs on P5X-434! We know about your little disappearing act and all the tricks up your sleeve. You're not getting out of here any time soon, so you better answer some questions right now, starting with your name…"
Her eyes drifted away from Sheppard's intense gaze as she put the pieces of the puzzling situation together in her head. She shook her head and chuckled at her amazing luck.
Everything clicked together and she refocused on Sheppard. "My name is Naima…Colonel…I'm Satedan, and you're wrong: I'll be getting out of here sooner than you think." She tugged upward on her restrained hands.
A sharp intake of breath later, she swiftly fell through the bed and the floor of the isolation room, leaving Sheppard and Dr. Saitama alone with the empty bed and medical machinery.
"Sheppard to Control Room: the prisoner is loose!" he yelled through his radio and he sprinted out the sliding door. He was met by Ronon and Teyla who had been watching through the glass windows of the observation room. "SG-1 is in pursuit. Can you lock on her current position?!" Sheppard and Teyla split at the fork of the hallway while Ronon set his gun to "kill" and ran ahead towards the base of the central control tower…
Naima phased through the off-white ceiling of the wide hallway and landed on her feet next to a ceramic water fountain. The scientists and armed soldiers in the corridor stood wide-eyed with surprise before the security officers began to pursue her. In a swift blur of motion, she punched and dropkicked every one of the pursuing officers in her path before taking a single soldier and throwing him up against the glass window. Leaving the battered men on the floor of the corridor, she stood in shock at the view of the ocean's rolling waves.
Her moment of panic was interrupted by a speeding burst of energy across her shoulders. She flattened herself against the wall and saw Lieutenant Sullivan of SG-7 firing his anti-Replicator weapon in her direction. After grabbing a Wraith stunner from one of the unconscious officers and firing back, she ran aimlessly in the other direction, looking for another means of escape.
Using her powers once again, Naima phased through the floor into the hallway below and continued running until she saw a huge, muscular figure pouncing out from her peripheral vision. She pointed the Wraith stunner at him, but then stood frozen in the sunlit hallway.
With widely horrified eyes, she looked into the eerily familiar eyes of her opponent. She shook with fear as she processed the image of the fearless armed man in her mind. This can't be the same person, she thought to herself. This man died long ago, but he lived on in her memories. But this couldn't be the same person - he was younger, his hair was longer, and furthermore, he stood there pointing his gun at her.
"Papa?!" she whispered. Her words barely escaped the lips of her now arid throat.
Ronon stared at the strange young woman for a few moments. He glared into her pleading eyes and attempted to make sense of her words. Neither of them saw the automatic doors of the transport elevators slide open revealing Captain Lorne and SG-8 carrying ARW's. The captain fired another burst from his weapon which engulfed Naima in the debilitating field of energy. She convulsed violently while still staring at Ronon and fell on her knees then laid on the cold floor.
Ronon still had his weapon pointed at her with the evident look of confusion on his face. Before she went completely limp, her bandaged hand reached out for Ronon's ankle. He quickly moved it away from her reach, and strained to hear her repeat her previous words: "Papa…"
He payed no attention to SG-8 as they swooped in to lift the motionless body off the floor. Teyla ran in from the end of the hallway and joined Sheppard who had also just entered the scene. The colonel issued orders to the present officers while Teyla stood next to Ronon, who had now lowered his weapon but was still staring at the young Satedan. He studied her strained face as she was carried down the hall towards the southern isolation chamber.
"Ronon, are you alright?" Teyla asked, breaking his confused trance.
"Yeah," he replied. His body began dizzily walking towards the transporter while his mind lingered on the features of the young Satedan.
No way - that can't be the same girl, he wondered. Not my girl…not my Naima...
*****
Dr. Keller sat in a swiveling chair squinting at the computer monitors in her office. Clicking the letters on the keypad, the computer shifted to different views of the enzyme ravaging the bodies of Lieutenants Gibbs and Simon of SG-7.
McKay had entered the room just as Keller rubbed her tired eyes and glared at the screen with apparent frustration. He walked up next to the woman and kissed her on the head as he handed her a mug of coffee.
"You look exhausted, Jennifer" McKay said. "It's 3 am. You've been staring at these screens since before lunch. You should really get some sleep."
"You're right, I should," Keller reasoned, "but I need to figure out how to neutralize this enzyme, Rodney. If I don't, they could be in that vegetative state for the rest of their lives. I've been staring at Murphy's tests all day and all I could extradite from the information was that there were ADP-like proteins resembling adrenaline left in his system. But other than that he experienced the same circumstances as Gibbs and Simon, but something was different. What was it?" She took a sip of the coffee and continued. "What was I even thinking - asking them to bring her back here? I may have just put this base in danger for nothing, because she's clearly not willing to help us."
"If there's anything that I know about Sheppard, it's that he made the decision to bring her back to base, even after she beat the crap out of us and broke his wrist," McKay mused. "He wouldn't have brought her here if he didn't think you could convince her to help us."
His light expression faded when he saw Jennifer's defeated expression. "You're not going to find the answer like this. After working with Carson for a few years, he showed me that the answer didn't come to me until I had a few hours of sleep. Although admittedly, you're not as cheery as I am, but a little bit of rest couldn't hurt."
She finally gave in and turned off the monitors. After rising from her chair, she took the mug of coffee in one hand and intertwined her fingers into McKay's hand with the other…
*****
In the defused blue lights of the isolation chamber, Naima felt the familiar cold slab of floor under her cheek. She muttered an explicative to herself and slammed her fist to raise herself from the floor. She sprung up in front of the energy-lined wall of the cell and saw a uniformed officer with an anti-Replicator weapon in each corner of the room.
She spun toward the beeping sound of the chamber doors. Once again, the doors opened as Sheppard and a blond doctor entered the room. Immediately recognizing the doctor, the tension in her body momentarily melted away.
"Dr. Keller," she timidly greeted.
"You seem to know a lot about us," Jennifer timidly smiled in response. The doctor's gaze was drawn to Naima's bandaged hand, now a mahogany color from her dried blood. "Do you want me to look at that? Are you bleeding anywhere else?"
"I'm fine," Naima hissed. A few tense moments went by until she spoke up again. "You people are sick, you know… Whatever you did with my father's body after I escaped, that was a new low."
"Whoever your father was," Jennifer pleaded, "please know that we would never murder any Satedan. They're our allies now."
"Then who was that man in the corridor?!" Naima yelled. "The one who was looking at me like he'd never met me before?"
Sheppard and Keller came to the same conclusion and turned to each other. "Who…Ronon?" Sheppard asked. "Ronon Dex is your father?" Naima crossed her arms in response.
Before confirming any of their assumptions, Sheppard and Keller turned to see Mr. Woolsey enter through the sliding door.
"Forgive my tardiness," Woolsey announced, "any updates, Dr. Keller?" When they refocused on Naima, they were startled to see her glaring at Woolsey with furious intensity.
"We brought you here because we need your help, Naima," Keller digressed. "I have a feeling you know extensively about the human anatomy, seeing as you incapacitated SG-7 so swiftly." Though she still hadn't shifted Naima's intense gaze, she continued with her proposal. "Two of our men are lying in the infirmary because they were attacked by an enzyme which paralyzed their bodies. Do you know anything about this enzyme or how to destroy it?"
"You can forget it, Keller…and you" she hissed as she pointed at a slightly rattled Mr. Woolsey, "you can go to hell, cuz that's exactly where you're going when I get out of this cage."
Woolsey attempted to defend himself. "Excuse me, miss, but I don't believe we have ever met!"
Fueled by pure rage, Naima ran herself against the energy-laced isolation chamber. She bounced off the shield and slammed onto the floor. Surprised by her reaction, Sheppard, Keller, and Woolsey reacted by leaping away from the chamber's edge while the surrounding officers raised their weapons.
"That's it, we're outta here," Sheppard muttered as he nudged Keller and Woolsey towards the exit. "She's not gonna help us…"
*****
The next afternoon, McKay sat in the mess hall next to Keller chomping away at his lunch and explaining his latest research discovery:
"…it might seem strange, but the crustaceans on the ocean's surface form a thin layer of scum which actually reacts to moonlight! Yeah, moonlight! Using the deluded form of sunlight reflected off the moons, they catalyze a more complex form of photosynthesis to produce oxygen and steam which neutralize the poisons from crustacean feces. It's remarkable, it-it" he finally looked over to see Keller picking at her tray, having not listened to a word McKay just said.
"Jennifer? Are you alright?" McKay asked with half of a bread loaf in his mouth. He swallowed and chuckled a bit. "Sorry, I know this isn't very interesting to you. I guess I just had to tell someone besides Radek."
"I'm sorry, Rodney," Keller put down her fork and ran her fingers through her blond hair. "I just can't get my mind off Naima. She's so hostile, y'know? Where does all that anger come from?"
"She's been stuck in a vacant facility alone for who-knows-how-long," McKay smirked, "I'd go nuts too."
"There are just so many unanswered questions around this girl," Jennifer's thoughts wondered. "It's just - I have this gut feeling like she knows how to cure those men. If only I could get to her somehow…"
Walking between the tables of the mess hall, McKay saw Ronon walking towards them before he stopped in front of their table. "Sorry, Keller. McKay I need to ask you something science-related." McKay wasn't used to any inquiries like this from Ronon, but nodded his head accordingly.
"At any time when the Replicators were messing with our heads, could they have gotten to something…deep?" Ronon asked. "A memory buried so far back in my head I never think about it?"
McKay and Keller glanced at each other before he spoke to Ronon again. "Is it a painful memory?" McKay suddenly gasped. "Is this about Naima? Cuz I heard from Sheppard that she thinks you're her father. Honestly, that wouldn't be much of a stretch. The apple doesn't fall far from--''
"Just answer the question, McKay!" Ronon snapped.
"Okay - uh, maybe," McKay straightened up, "maybe the Replicators could've obtained some sensitive information and transferred it to Naima, but I think it's highly unlikely. She's not showing any indication that she can merge with the other Replicators, probably because of her partial human physiology. And anyway we're nowhere near--'' but before he could finish sharing his theory, Ronon was gone.
Rodney finally finished his lunch and threw a dirty napkin onto his tray. "Well, all I know is that whatever she thinks we did to her convinced her enough that she's never gonna wanna help us."
"Yeah…" Keller softly agreed. "Still can't figure out how Captain Murphy managed to--'' And at that moment, an epiphany struck Jennifer Keller like a bolt of lightning. "Oh my God…oh my - Rodney, what were you saying earlier?"
"That she's an insanely hostile Satedan who would never wanna help us?" McKay guessed.
"No! About the crustaceans in the ocean outside…" Keller tried to recall the discovery Rodney was so enthusiastic about earlier. "You said that they use the deluded form of sunlight bounced off the moons to create something that neutralizes the poisons in the water?" McKay simply nodded again. "Oh Rodney! Thank you!" she quickly pecked a kiss on McKay's cheek and picked up her tray to exit the mess hall.
Despite the fact that McKay was now alone at the large table, Rodney slowly picked up his tray and walked out of the lunch hall with a slight swagger…