Author's Note: Hi Everyone. Sorry that this has taken so long to update. Between chasing cats away from the Christmas tree and all of the holiday madness, I wasn't able to sit down and write until this week. But my shopping is over, the cats have been tamed, and I am managing my time well enough to be able to post regular updates from now on (plus, winter recess is coming up next week! Yea! Extra writing time!). I hope that you all enjoy this second chapter.
Oh, and a WARNING: Shep's not happy right now, so his language gets a bit…shall we say colorful…in this chapter. Also, just a reminder, there are spoilers for "Poisoning the Well," "Trinity," and "Aurora" scattered throughout.
Enjoy!
Emrys
The Weight of an Oath - Part 2
John woke to the blurry sight of a highly polished, white marbleized ceiling, and he groaned as the soft glow of ethereal lights penetrated his sensitized eyes. He squinted against the offensive illumination and waited for his eyes to adjust before making an attempt to survey his surroundings.
Unfortunately, an invisible restraint limited his efforts to determine more about his situation, and he cursed at the exertion required just to lift his head high enough to peer over the edges of what seemed to be an exam table. Breathing heavily with the effort it took him to inspect the room, he could only ascertain that he was in some sort of medical office that was certainly not the readily familiar stomping grounds of Doctor Beckett. Strange, heavy equipment lined the one wall that John had a clear view of, but he managed to determine that the other walls were littered with shelves holding smaller, but just as strange medical instruments. John was struggling with his overactive imagination and the ideas of what each ominous device was meant for when he heard a door open somewhere behind him.
He allowed his head to fall back onto the table and waited with growing fury for the confrontation that would inevitably come. He was not disappointed when Sandrina's face hovered in his line of vision.
"How are you feeling, Colonel Sheppard?" she asked in a tone that was absent of concern and laced only with mild, scientific curiosity.
"Where is my team?" Sheppard asked back, ignoring her question. He allowed his anger to seethe from the words, but the woman only smiled haughtily at him as she appeared to consider answering.
"They are fine," she said in a way that offered him no guarantees. "Now tell me how you are feeling, Colonel Sheppard."
"You've separated me from my team, and you're holding me in a medical facility where I'm sure you're planning to do disreputable things. So I'm really not inclined towards telling you anything right now, " John replied angrily.
"You insult me, Colonel Sheppard," Sandrina said in a way that made John feel uneasy. "I have no intention of doing anything immoral or dishonorable. Now, tell me how you are feeling or I may have to make things uncomfortable for you."
John stared incredulously at the woman whose thought processes were obviously warped and realized that his circumstances were much worse than he had initially thought. It was his experience that scientists could prove more dangerous than the Wraith. Even the ones he considered friends had devastated entire worlds. Hell, Rodney had knocked off three quarters of a solar system. But since Sandrina was obviously both adversarial and mad, he really was in deep shit.
Swallowing his fear and wishing desperately for some assurance that his team was safe, John forced himself to smile.
"Oh, I get it," he said disingenuously. "You're a nut case. Now it all makes sense!"
Sandrina's face hardened with anger, and her hand lashed out and slapped his face solidly. "Tell me how you are feeling!" she shouted.
"Go to hell!" John immediately responded, ignoring the stinging in his cheek where she had hit him with the palm of her hand.
The Netharian scientist's face flushed further with fury, but then John saw a scheming look briefly flit across her features. She softened her expression and gently caressed the cheek that she had just slapped.
"It is important for my people that you answer my questions. If you wish to continue trade negotiations you must explain to me how you are currently feeling."
John wanted to laugh at her clumsy attentions, and he felt a pang of sympathy for McKay. Rodney really was a sucker for the wackos if Sandrina was any indication of the physicist's typical taste in woman. He considered his options briefly while the Netharian continued to stroke his cheek and knew that his only true choice in strategy was to coerce answers to his own questions out of the deranged woman.
"Why is my health suddenly so important to you anyway?"
Appearing surprised by the question, Sandrina pulled her hand away from John's face. She considered him carefully with an expression that John could not decipher, before she nodded abruptly with only a hint of resignation.
"I suppose it is a fair question that you are posing," she remarked, reasonably.
Despite the fact that he could not keep track of the woman's leaps between rational and irrational thought, Sheppard was glad of this delving back into sane thought. Even if she supplied no logical explanation for her actions, at least he might have time to come up with another possible course of action while Sandrina talked.
"We Netharians are explorers, Colonel, much like your people are. Late last year, we entered the Stargate and found ourselves on a world that had been devastated by the Wraith. On the planet were the remains of what was, at one time, a moderately advanced civilization. However at the time that we visited, all sentient life on the planet had been taken by the Wraith. Although at first we could not determine why the Wraith would want to decimate one of its seemingly rich culling fields, our supposition that the Wraith had suitable cause to completely devastate the people who once so successfully lived on this remarkable world drove us to further explore the planet. It was not until we entered one of the major cities and found vast documentation of the society that had inhabited the planet that we were able to determine what had occurred to this civilization. The records were quite extensive, and it was easy to decipher the name of this once extraordinary people. In fact, I believe you have heard of them. They were known as the Hoffans."
Sandrina smiled brightly as John took time to overcome his confusion. The Hoffans? What did anything she wanted with him have to do with the Hoffan people?
His confusion was momentary; however, when the niggling of an awful suspicion began to tap unkindly onto the door of his thoughts.
"What did you do to me?" he asked, icily.
Sandrina blithely ignored Sheppard's question and wandered about the room as she continued her explanation. "We were also able to establish that in the recent past of the Hoffan people, individuals from the mythic home of our Ancestors had aided them in their endeavors to create a serum that would, for all intensive purposes, vaccinate subjects against the Wraith," the Netharian scientist said as she suddenly turned to observe John cheerfully. "Your Doctor Beckett, by the way, must be a remarkable individual. I would so like to meet him to discuss the work he did on the Hoffan serum. Absolutely ingenuous, really. Although he didn't quite get it right now, did he?"
"What did you do?" John asked, now beginning to struggle against the invisible bonds that restricted his movement. He was feeling entirely too vulnerable laying on the table where he was well within reach of her insane movements.
"We only improved upon your own scientist's work, Colonel Sheppard. As you know, administration of the serum, although undoubtedly effective against the Wraith, had some…shall we say unfortunate…side effects in a significant portion of the population? We made strides to remedy the errors that caused eventual respiratory complications, and now we believe that we have a serum that will actually succeed where the original one failed. We need only now to test the serum on a final level before we can begin administration of this drug to our people."
"Final level?" Sheppard echoed the words and the niggling thought had begun pounding unhappily in his head. He had not liked the implication of her explanation.
"Yes. We needed a test subject who possessed strong genetic and physical similarities to the typical Netharian. Until you and your team came to our world, we could not test the serum due to ethical considerations. You; however, make the perfect test subject. Your physiology and genomic components are closely aligned with our own, and yet you are not a Netharian citizen," Sandrina spoke the words as if John should be pleased with her news. John stepped up his struggles as he began to realize that her insanity was not isolated, and that the entire Netharian race was mentally polluted.
"Please stop fighting against the restraint, Colonel Sheppard. You cannot release yourself, and you will only do yourself harm if you continue."
"Did you inject that crap into me!" Sheppard snarled as he ignored her cold advice and ineffectively threw himself against the bindings that he could not see.
"Why yes we did, Colonel. Which is why it is important that you tell me exactly how you are feeling at this moment. I must document all of your physical and emotional symptoms accurately if we are to learn anything of value from this test."
The intense pressure of fear twisted inside of him, and John found himself physically weakened by her casual words. He ceased fighting the bindings and lay still beneath their awkward weight.
"Let me get this straight," he said shakily. "I've been injected with the Hoffan serum?"
"An improved version of the Hoffan serum, yes," Sandrina acknowledged. Her voice held a tinge of irritation as if she had become weary of explaining herself to John. "And may I remind you that it is extremely important that you tell me how you are feeling."
"I'll tell you how I'm feeling!" John roared, angrily. "Fucking pissed off, is how I feel! How can you claim to have 'no intention of doing anything immoral or dishonorable' when you've done this thing to me! Your moral code must be seriously warped if you think that testing a dangerous serum on an unwilling subject is moral and honorable!"
Through his anger, John noticed that dawning realization was affecting Sandrina. She stopped her pacing and placed a hand over her mouth before answering his question with grave seriousness.
"I apologize, Colonel Sheppard. It is difficult at times to remember that you cannot possibly understand the noble principles to which I am bound, and I see that I must explain."
John could only stare at the woman with disbelief as she calmly, and almost caringly attempted to justify her absolutely senseless point of view.
"When they come of age, all Netharians take a sacrosanct oath to protect our society regardless of the cost of that protection. It is how we have survived the Wraith cullings and have attained our great level of advancement in doing so. It is the moral obligation of all Netharians to defend our civilization, in any way that we can using whatever means we can. The Oath weighs heavily on my heart at times, but it is the ethical binding that has kept my rich culture alive for so many centuries. It is the reason why a Netharian is unsuitable as a test subject, for performing a procedure that could possibly do harm to one of our own is detestable and immoral. However, you are not Netharian, and the information we gain by using this serum on you will be incalculable to my people. You should feel honored that you are being given the privilege of aiding my great society."
"Honored? Honored! Lady, you are nuts! I suppose next you're going to tell me that you have a Wraith stashed away somewhere and that you're going to have it attempt to feed off of me!" John's words were shouted, and Sandrina closed her eyes against their harshness.
"Really, Colonel, you do need to calm down. This behavior is unsightly. And yes, in fact, we have several imprisoned Wraith that will be exposed to the serum in your blood through the feeding process. I believe this procedure is scheduled to take place tomorrow."
"All right! Enough is enough! Get me the hell out of here, and take me to the Stargate!" In his growing panic, John figured it couldn't hurt to make a few demands. And maybe Beckett would be able to fix the mess he was in if he could just find a way to land himself in the infirmary.
"Colonel, I must insist that you calm down."
"Hell no! You just told me that a Wraith is going to feed on me tomorrow! I think that gives me the right to yell at the top of my lungs for as long as I want to, thank you very much!"
"Colonel Sheppard, please…."
But John was far past the point where he could bear to listen to her calm and scientifically distanced voice prattle on any further. He ignored her and fought against the restraints as the storm of his outrage, powered by fear, thundered strongly through him.
After a time, he felt the same pinprick of pain in his neck that had knocked him out before.
He knew nothing more for a long time.