"I knew this was a bad idea…" Rodney grumbled, flexing his shoulders in discomfort.
John sighed. Right after their last contact with Carter, Vala and Teyla, they had attempted to slip into the dome along with a small group of aliens and had gotten themselves captured.
He was sure they would have been able to take them, but they disabled their weapons somehow.
Now, the three of them were kneeling on the dais of a Stargate, their hands bound to a long horizontal rod that passed through their arms behind their backs. Any time now, the aliens would activate the Stargate and they would be killed in the blast. They would not kill them immediately though, thinking they would suffer more if they had to wait for their inevitable death.
But what these aliens didn't know was that by keeping them alive, they were giving the girls an opportunity to come and rescue them.
John smiled at the thought. Any time now…
"John!"
As if on cue, a harsh whisper came from behind them, and John's eyes widened, but he didn't turn his head for fear of exposing them.
"Teyla!?!" Rodney hissed back. His mouth dropped open and he twisted around, trying to look, but the rod and his inflexibility were preventing him from doing so.
"How'd you guys find us?" John asked out of the corner of his mouth, watching closely for on-looking aliens.
"Trust me, finding you was the easy part," he heard Sam say and sighed, relieved to hear her voice in addition to Teyla's.
Sam, Teyla, and Vala were concealing themselves on the opposite side of the dais, hidden from the aliens that were flocking around the central dome.
"You guys ok?" John asked, trying to make the conversation move along.
"We're fine," Sam assured. "What happened?"
"We got captured going into the dome," John explained. "They disabled our weapons somehow."
"Yeah, I know. Same thing happened to us."
"Can we get out of here now?" Ronon said after a short silence. Teyla grinned in amusement.
"Oh, no, no," Rodney quickly interjected. "We can't leave yet!"
"Why not?" Ronon retorted.
"Well, 'cause!" Rodney shot back, seemingly offended. As he continued, he lowered his voice. "There is definitely something in that dome, alright? We were able to see the inside of it just before we got captured, and there's some very advanced technology in there that's giving off enormous amounts of power!"
Sam considered it. "Well, that sounds like our power source. How tights' the security?"
It was John who answered this time. "There's no one in there. The security around the dome is what we're going to have problems with."
Sam raised both eyebrows, pleased with the answer. She exchanged looks with the other two women. "Well, I think we can handle that."
"Yeah, good luck with that," Rodney said in disbelief.
"What do you have in mind?" John asked, ignoring his friend's lack of confidence.
"I'll go in with McKay and check it out," Sam volunteered. "If the rest of you can act as a diversion and head for the puddle jumper, it should be able to clear most of them out. Once we turn the machine off, you can come back and get us."
"Oh, well that's a terrible id-"
"Fine," John cut Rodney off. "Tell us what to do."
Sam smiled appreciatively before going over the plan.
V
The coast was clear. No eyes were on them; the aliens were too distracted by their tasks to pay their captives any mind. They expected the troop they sent out earlier had taken care of the others.
John gave the hand signal behind his back, and Teyla subtly rose up and cut the men's bonds. They still remained unseen, so they silently slunk over the edge of the dais to join their friends.
Now they wasted no time. The men plus Teyla and Vala gave their last nods of encouragement to Carter and McKay and then darted towards the hill, staying as low as possible.
As they expected, the aliens were quick to notice that their captives had escaped and some began to let out howls of rage. Sam and Rodney, who stayed crouched behind the dais, covered their ears to drown out the painful noise.
Just as quickly, some aliens spotted the small group racing over the hill and informed their fellow creatures by letting out a shrill cry and pointing. Immediately, the chase began.
Nearly all the creatures that had been gathered there stampeded after them, leaving just a few behind to guard the dome. The rest ran in a separate direction, probably going for back up or something.
For telepathic aliens with such advanced technology, they sure didn't seem too bright when it came to common sense. It was actually just that they had such little experience with humans, they didn't understand their tactics. Their limited understanding of them was that they operated around a will to survive, which was what they expected them to be doing. They never expected them to even try to get into the dome, knowing what was in there.
Although they ran faster now then before, the aliens were still far slower than the four humans. And though it was a far ways, it seemed to go much more quickly now they knew exactly where they were going and they were running for their lives. It was rather unexpected when energy beams began flying past them from behind.
"Oh crap!" John cursed, narrowly ducking a shot. He didn't realize the aliens actually had weapons.
They ran faster through the woods, weaving around trees in attempts to avoid being hit. Teyla and Vala, the only ones left armed, shot blindly backwards from their P-90s, only to discover they still didn't work.
Suddenly, one of them let out a pained cry and the team spun around briefly to see who it was. Vala had been hit, and Teyla ran back the short distance to her. Heaving her up by the arm, she realized she was only stunned, but would not be able to keep running as she was now unconscious.
Ronon met Teyla and quickly relieved her, throwing Vala over his shoulder effortlessly yelling: "Go! Go! Go!" and urging her to keep running.
V
Meanwhile, Sam and Rodney slowly snuck around the 'gate as the area emptied out, having thus far avoided being seen.
As the last ran for the hills, Sam slunk from behind the Stargate and began to run towards the dome, staying low and keeping her eyes on their retreating enemy. Rodney cursed at her recklessness and hurried after her.
They made it to the dome and pinned their backs against it, breathing hard in apprehension. Their entrance was around the corner, where two guards, (holding weapons this time) were posted. Rodney swallowed as Sam withdrew her black blood-stained knife and began to edge along the wall.
When she was so close that they would be discovered if she so much as flinched, she rushed forward and hooked her arm around her first victim's neck too fast for him to react and slit his throat.
The creature began to collapse, but Sam held it up, using it for a shield as the other alien fired its stun weapon at her. After about three shots, she peeked her head out from behind it and launched her knife at it. It struck the creature through the face and killed it instantly.
She sighed in relief and released the dead alien. Rodney arrived behind her, shaking in fear and brandishing his own knife. Sam tried not to giggle at the sight when she turned to face him.
"Did we get them all?" Rodney asked.
"Yeah, we got them Rodney," Sam replied, walking over to the dead alien with the knife in its face. She bent down and yanked it out, wiping the blood off on the alien's suit.
"Oh, that's just repulsive," Rodney commented, wrinkling his nose at the squishing sound the knife had made when she pulled it out.
Sam ignored him and returned her knife to her belt. She relieved the aliens of their weapons and tossed one to Rodney, which he caught clumsily. "Let's go," she advised, and slunk into the dome with the gun raised.
Inside, the dome was huge and filled with dark, murky water. In the very center was a large, bud-shaped mechanism of some sort. Sam frowned and wandered into the room, glancing down into the water. Under the surface, she could see a huge network of pipes of different shapes and sizes all leading out to the central device.
"Great…" she said as Rodney appeared beside her and looked down into the water. "Now what?"
There was a long silence before Rodney realized Sam was staring at him expectantly. "What!?! Don't look at me!"
Sam laughed sarcastically. "I kind of hoped after you proposed coming in here that you might have some sort of plan?"
"You see, always relying on the genius," Rodney said smugly, crossing his arms.
"Just what I was thinking," Sam muttered, but Rodney had already pushed past her and was examining the central machine. Now he was glad for the tiny devices in his ears that were drowning out the hypnosis waves.
"Alright there must be some kind of off-switch…" he said, thinking aloud.
"That's wishful thinking, don't you think?"
Rodney glared at her. "What idiot would design a universal brainwashing machine without an off-switch?"
"So, 'look for the big red button' is the most ingenious plan you can come up with?"
Rodney was looking out at the device and his face split into an egotistical grin. "Not necessarily ingenious, but…" he pointed out at a control panel concealed under the large machine. It had several levers, and one of them was rather prominent and red.
Sam frowned, squinting at the thing Rodney was pointing to. "Well, that's convenient…" she commented.
"What, you expected we could just walk in, push a button on the side of the door and go home?"
Sam was tiring of this bickering very quickly. It seemed everything that came out of her mouth had to be dissected and replied to with an arrogant, offensive statement to challenge her intelligence. She sighed.
"Alright, fine. You go out there and push your ever convenient little 'off-switch,' and then we can pack up and go home," she shot back sarcastically.
Rodney didn't look as smug anymore and he frowned at the idea. "What? Well… why can't you do it?" he stammered.
"What's wrong McKay? Afraid of sea monsters?" she asked with a humored grin.
"N-no!" he shouted back. "I just don't think it's such a good idea is all."
"Oh, but its fine for me to do it…" she said, sitting down and beginning to unstrap her boots.
"W-what are you doing?" he asked, concerned.
"I'm getting this over with so we can go home you moron," she explained, having removed her boots and now rolling up her pant legs and standing up.
"You sure you don't want to take off your shirt or anything? I mean, in case you slip or something?" Rodney asked awkwardly. Sam frowned and thrust her boots and gun at his chest so he was forced to hold them.
She looked down into the dark abyss again and located one of the larger pipes. She dipped her foot in and tested its strength. Satisfied, she turned back to McKay.
"Wait here," she ordered, then carefully stepped down into the water.
V
The team made it to the jumper and it opened for them as they approached. They were racing into it before it had even opened all the way and John had started it up and taken off before it got the chance to close.
As they shot off into the sky, the herd that had been chasing them continued to fire at them. They were caught off guard when some much larger energy blasts impacted the back of the jumper and two tiny vessels began closing in behind them. He tried to fire at them, but the jumper's weapons had been disabled.
"Ah!" John exclaimed, dodging out of their way as another two ships crossed their path in front of them. "I am not having a good day!"
V
As Sam walked across the pipe, she was surprised at how unslippery it was. She was submerged up to her knees and was walking across as cautiously as possible. She gulped as she stared down at her own reflection in the dark waters, for that was all she could see. Sam hated open water. It was one of her biggest fears because she could never see beneath it. Pushing the thought from her mind, she forced herself to look up and continued.
Finally, she reached the middle and held on tightly to the side of the machine for support. Rodney watched the scene anxiously, his palms becoming sweaty.
She stepped down onto a lower, skinnier pipe in order to get closer to the control panel. She was now submerged up to her mid-thighs, and continued to cautiously round the contraption.
When she reached the control panel, she hesitated while she looked over all the levers and switches. For once, she felt like the poor stupid person having no idea what they were doing, and simply hoping for luck. She swallowed, resting her hand on the lever.
With one last wish, she squeezed her eyes shut and pulled it down. The mechanism, which had previously been humming and glowing a light shade of pink, shut off and brought the room into darkness, illuminated only by the light coming from the open door.
Sam smiled and looked over at McKay, who smiled back.
"That's it! We did it!" he exclaimed. "Well done, Sam!"
Sam smiled more widely at the praise.
"Now come on! Let's get out of here!"
"Just give me a sec! We still need to remove the power source!"
Sam turned back to the device and scanned it for some kind of opening. She located a panel and, with a light push, it opened. She pulled out what looked like some kind of large hard drive with glowing blue and green lines on it. She observed it for a moment, then stuck it into her vest pocket.
As she began to round the machine again, something in the water caught her eye and she stopped dead in her tracks. She gazed down into the water, and swore she could see movement.
"Sam!" Rodney called, wondering why she had stopped. "What's wrong?"
"I think I see something!" she called back, holding onto the machine for her life.
Rodney frowned for a moment, but then his mouth broke into a grin. "Ah-hah… I get it. Very funny Sam…" he said, remembering her little sea monster joke.
"I'm serious, Rodney! There's something down there!"
"Forget it! I'm not buying it!"
Sam could see the movement more clearly now, telling her that whatever it was had gotten closer to the surface. She was waist deep in the water, and frozen to the spot. She was too terrified to move.
Rodney kept on talking though, completely oblivious to his friend's state of panic. "…Now come on Sam! We need to head…" but before he could finish his sentence, a slight whimper sounded and Sam had disappeared beneath the surface.
Rodney frowned, becoming concerned. He walked to the water's edge and looked down into it. "Umm, Sam!" he called into it, nervously. He could feel his palms becoming sweaty again. "Ok, jokes over. You can come up now!"
Sam struggled but the weed-like tentacles were snaking further and further up her body and she was beginning to lose movement in her legs. She could feel herself being pulled down and when she opened her mouth, trying to scream, she got a mouthful of water instead.
As the tentacles wound themselves around her torso, she struggled to get at her knife but another tentacle snagged her wrist and immobilized it.
She couldn't breathe. She was being suffocated and she couldn't breathe… This was it, she thought. She was going to drown and get eaten by some god-forsaken alien sea monster and that would be the way her life ends.
Rodney splashed his hand through the water, as if it might encourage her to come up. He was beginning to grow terrified.
He stood up, backing away from the edge and beginning to pace.
"Think Rodney, think!" he ordered himself. "No!" he said, smacking himself in the head. "You can't go down there! Let's face it, she's already dead; there's nothing you can do for her."
He whimpered. For the first time in his life he was under pressure and had no idea what to do.
Finally, he turned and began walking back towards the water's edge. "Aww, screw it!" he said, pulling off his boots as he walked and diving into the water.
He swam downward as fast as he could, scanning the waters as far as he could see. Coincidentally, by swimming straight down he ran right into the creature. He paused, free-floating while he observed the scene from a distance for a moment
He couldn't see the creature's head or body but its long tentacles reached out of the darkness and wound themselves around Sam. She was floating in its tight grasp, unconscious… or dead, he thought.
His face contorted in rage and he swam quickly to her. He pulled his knife from his belt and drove it deeply into one of the larger tentacles.
He could hear the creature screaming in pain and all its tentacles slackened immediately so Sam was floating freely. Wasting no time, he grabbed her around the waist and began to paddle as fast as he could towards the surface.
The creature was only disabled for a short amount of time, and quickly recovered. Its tentacles shot like arrows through the water after its prey.
But Rodney was swimming extremely fast, and just barely escaped as he weaved in between some pipes that the tentacles couldn't.
He emerged on the surface, coughing and sputtering and waded towards the edge where he had dove in.
He pulled himself ashore and then pulled Sam's unconscious form up after him and dragged her to safety. Kneeling down beside her, water pouring off his nose, he patted her cheek in concern.
"Come on, Sam!" he urged, but she did not respond.
"Come on!" he tried again. "I did not dive into sea-monster infested waters and risk my life fighting some freak alien squid so you could die on me!" he raised his fist, prepared to pound it into her chest. "Now, BREATHE!"
Before he could bring his fist down, she began to sputter and sat halfway up, coughing water up over the edge. Rodney let out a huge sigh of relief and lowered his arm.
"Oh, thank god!" he exclaimed as Sam collapsed back onto her back, breathing hard. "You nearly gave me a heart attack!" he accused.
Sam smiled, and apologized weakly. "Sorry…"
Rodney looked over her in concern again. "You sure you're ok? I mean… you don't need me to give you mouth-to-mouth or anything?"
Sam smiled again. "I'm breathing, Rodney. Thank you."
Rodney nodded, looking slightly disappointed and took her offered hand, helping her to her feet.
"Thank you," she said thoughtfully.
"You ok?"
"Yeah, I think so."
Suddenly, the entire platform shook beneath them and Sam had to hold onto Rodney for balance, who tried not to comment on it.
"What was that?" he asked, holding onto the wall with his other hand.
Before Sam could answer, a loud roar came from beneath the water and shook the dome, sound waves echoing off the walls. Sam and Rodney had to cover their ears again as giant tentacles shot out of the water and crashed down on the platform several feet in front of them.
The platform shook and began to slant into the water, causing Sam to stumble and slide towards it. Rodney caught her and pulled her backwards as the waves lapped up at them.
Breathing hard, the pair cursed as they realized that the squid-thing had broken off a large strip of the platform, and cut off their access to the door. Now they couldn't get out.
"Great! What do we do now!?!" Rodney demanded, back to his normal self again.
Sam didn't answer, just stared wide-eyed as the creature made its way through the water. They could now see its head, and it looked like an eel. 'The snake…' Sam thought, realizing it closely resembled the image Rodney had shown her back on Atlantis. Somehow she had expected it to bee smaller.
It leapt from the water again, this time head-first, and dove in an ark towards Sam and Rodney, its fangs bared.
"MOVE!" Sam ordered, pulling Rodney out of the way just as it took a chunk out of the wall they had just been standing in front of. They ran along the side of the wall on the ring-shaped platform, dodging the creature's tentacles as they shot out of the water.
"This was NOT the plan I had in mind!!!"
V
Vala stirred on the bench while the John steered the jumper through obstacles. She sat up, groggily asking, "What'd I miss?"
An energy blast struck the side of the jumper and the team stumbled, grabbing onto the walls to balance themselves.
"Sheppard! How's it coming?"
John clasped his hand to his radio.
"Great," he lied as another energy blast hit them. "How 'bout you guys? Have you disabled the device yet?"
"Yeah," Sam responded. She was standing beside Rodney, back against the wall as the snake took strikes at them. They rolled out of the way just barely each time it sent rubble crashing into the water. "Think you could give us a lift?"
"Umm… we're actually a little busy at the moment… Do you think you could hold off for a few minutes?"
Sam winced as Rodney narrowly dodged a tentacle. "A couple seconds would be good…"
She lifted her alien weapon and began firing at the creature.
Weapon blasts and crashing rock sounded over the static of the radio and John winced. He turned the jumper around and headed back towards the dome, bringing the alien ships with him.
As the dome came into view, the jumper dodged a few blasts that struck the dome instead and created a gaping hole in the roof that alloed sunlight to seep through. John took his opportunity and flew through the gap that the other ships were too large to fit through.
The door opened as they came to hover above the water and the snake dove under. Sam and Rodney, who were cowering on what was left of the platform, quickly jumped into the back of the jumper as it took off.
They flew through the hole again, narrowly avoiding blasts from the alien's ships, and headed for the Stargate in orbit around the planet. As they exited the atmosphere, they lost the alien ships. John guessed they were not meant to be space ships.
All sighed in relief and John slowed the jumper. "Everyone all right?" he asked, eyeing Sam and Rodney's still soaking wet bodies.
"I believe so," Teyla responded, looking around at the occupants of the jumper in relief.
Rodney turned to Sam, beaming with joy. "We did it!" he yelled. "We're alive!"
He spread his arms, prepared to welcome a hug, but before Sam could refuse, her eyes fluttered shut and she collapsed. Rodney frowned. This had been the least of his expectations.
"Sam!" Vala exclaimed, and rushed to her side where the Athosian was already kneeling, taking her pulse.
"She's gone into shock," Teyla told them, all relief wiped from her face.
"What happened?" Ronon demanded.
Rodney crouched down, moving Sam's wet hair out of the way. That's when he saw it: two bloody teeth mark in the side of her neck.
To Be Continued
Author's Note: Aahh! The suspense! Sorry, guys. I said this would only be a two part story, but I'm going to continue it in my next fic: Saving Pegasus, so look out for it! Thanks for the comments on Part one, and please leave more!
