Carson did not return for several hours. As the sun went down and the evening chill invaded the cage, Shani paced. Five steps, turn, five steps, ignore the guard's glances, turn, five more steps. The monotony grated on her nerves, and she almost wished they would give her a lab and demand she do something. At least she would be able to mix a tea that would make them sleep, giving her and Carson a chance to escape.
As the night wore on, more men flooded the area. Their glances toward Shani made her skin crawl, and she lifted her chin. Trying to look as unaffected as possible, she continued pacing. But it was hard to ignore the comments. You're sure the boss said not to touch her? She's strong and proud. It would be fun to break that one. They went on, becoming more and more crude as the evening progressed. Thankful for the cover of darkness that hid how her cheeks burned, Shani kept her head high and her feet moving. When Evan and Javan eventually found this place, she would have her revenge. The Ataliyan way of war seemed barbaric to some, but it was Evan's reaction that made her smile the most. He was calm, methodical, and patient. Men like Evan exacted revenge in ways that shamed hotheads.
Thinking of Evan and his inevitable reaction helped pass the time. Shani was halfway across the cage for a countless time when a commotion rose across the village. Two men dragged a form toward her, and she gasped as she recognized Carson's hair. He was unconscious and, as the men tossed him onto the ground inside the cage, he groaned. Shani rushed to his side, drawing laughter from those around them. She ignored them and strained her eyes through the darkness to assess his injuries. His head bled, his nose bled, and more blood covered his clothing. He didn't stir at her touch, and Shani pulled his head onto her lap and ran a hand over his hair.
"Evan will come," she whispered, more to herself than to Carson. "Just hang in there. They will find us."
She just hoped it happened before Carson wound up dead.
oOo
Back on Sateda, McKay went right to work on the gate addresses he'd mined from the Tower DHD. While he fussed about not getting anything done so long as he had Sheppard and Lorne hovering over his shoulder, he couldn't tell the two men to go away. Sheppard looked better than he had in weeks, and Lorne looked worse. Oh, both men had cuts, bruises, and any number of injuries from a fistfight the night before, but there was something in their eyes. Sheppard was focused for the first time since coming to Sateda, and McKay didn't need Carson to tell him that it was a good sign.
Thinking of his friend, McKay turned back to his computer. He also didn't need Carson to tell him that the cold rage and almost uncontrollable panic in Lorne's face was a bad sign. In recent weeks, Carson had dragged himself out of that clinic, and he and Rodney had spent hours talking and arguing about everything. Most of the time, Carson wanted to pull Rodney away from his utterly vital work in establishing Sateda's power grid and protecting the Stargate and getting them home. But, every now and then, the annoying Scot would open up about something or the other that happened in the clinic. One of those topics tended to be Lorne's relationship with Shani and how Carson struggled to let a man date a woman he saw as a kid sister. That was something McKay could understand given how his sister had chosen a man over her career.
For now, though, he kept his thoughts and opinions to himself. Part of it was self-preservation. If he didn't keep his mouth shut, Lorne might throttle him for delaying. If Lorne didn't, then Ronon certainly would. The newly-married Satedan—Rodney shuddered at the thought of what that decision had entailed—had just arrived to add another layer of annoyance to the two military officers already pacing the overcrowded lab.
"What?" He wasn't able to keep the impatient tone out of his voice.
Ronon shrugged, but Sheppard spoke. "Oh, nothing." The colonel gave him a falsely-patient look. "Just wondering when you're going to get those gate addresses for us to check out."
"You know, this does take time. And concentration. I can't just look at the screen and divine the answers without deciphering the data." McKay met Sheppard's eyes and snapped his fingers. "There! It's done!"
"McKay!" Sheppard growled.
Lorne moved to the table. "How long?"
"How—I don't know!" Rodney took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He'd never been in Lorne's situation before and hoped he'd never have to be. "Listen, Major, you and Sheppard and Ronon hovering aren't going to help me get the answers any faster. If anything, they'll come slower because I'm distracted. Now, why don't you go question your Satedan prisoners and find out where Carson and Shani were taken, leaving me to do my very important work in peace? With any luck, I'll have an answer before you get finished staring them down."
Ronon continued to stare at McKay, but Lorne and Sheppard took his request to heart. The three men finally vacated Rodney's lab, leaving him in merciful silence. "Okay. . . ." He rubbed his hands together and went back to work, aware that the temporary charge on his laptop battery wouldn't last much longer. He'd hesitated to run the generators for something like this but now chose to fire them up just to keep working. He wasn't just accessing data on his laptop—he was looking for his best friend.
The door to his lab opened again, and he turned in annoyance. "I thought I told you three. . . ." His voice trailed off at the sight of the woman standing there. She wore an old Daedalus jumpsuit that had seen better days and carried a tray of food. Dark hair flopped into her face, an out-of-shape haircut not helping her appearance any. She was petite, and, from what he could see of her face, relatively pretty in a military sort of way. "What do you want?"
She shrugged. "The doc asked me to check in on you while he was gone." She carried the tray to an empty work-bench and set it down. "I figured I'd bring something for you to eat while you worked." Without lingering, she turned to go.
"Wait." McKay frowned at her. "Who are you?"
"Lieutenant Karina Morales." She gave him a cocky grin. "Good luck finding them, Dr. McKay." And she left him alone.
Rodney blinked at the door as it closed behind her. Why, oh why couldn't his friends be like that? Morales had clearly realized she was interrupting and took herself off to beat up someone or whatever it was that female Marines did with their time. The smell of the food intruded on his shocked mind, and he carefully carried the stew and bread over to where he was working. Shoving a hunk of bread into his mouth, he chewed and started tapping away at his laptop.
oOo
Visiting the Satedans he'd arrested just the night before did nothing for Lorne. He walked away from the temporary jail ready to punch one or more of them. Of course, they weren't really thrilled about how Kavanagh had killed Orsic, but that was their loss. He intended to find Shani and Carson and bring them home.
With his fists clenched, he headed for McKay's lab. If the physicist was just sitting there, doing nothing, he planned to pound some sense into him. On some level, Evan knew this rage wasn't healthy. He needed an outlet, and nothing would help until Shani made it back home. But he couldn't stop the emotions any more than he could stop this planet from spinning around the sun. He'd told her everything about himself and his past, and she had accepted him. In fact, she'd even proven herself to him, that she could be trusted. He hated that he hadn't told her that before she'd been. . . .What? Kidnapped? Lost? Culled? None of those options appealed any more than the others. Then, Evan shrugged. If she were kidnapped or lost, there was a chance of recovering her. If she was culled. . . .
Shaking away the morbid thought, he swallowed the bile in the back of his throat and ignored his stiff muscles. He hadn't slept the night before, his head pounded from the concussion Orsic had given him, his body screamed every time he moved, and he wanted nothing more than to have an excuse to beat some poor soul into oblivion. Right now, however, they had nothing.
"Colonel Sheppard, Major Lorne, we've got gate activity!"
The call from Coughlin galvanized Evan, and he broke into a run. With two of their people missing, the Gate Guard had gone on high alert, letting their commanding officers know of any travelers through the gate, whether coming or going. Evan arrived just as the wormhole established, and he saw that Coughlin had doubled up on the number of men around the gate. Right now, they sported a mix of P90s and Wraith stunners mixed with a few Genii weapons. Evan grinned. Anyone coming through that gate who wasn't friendly would get the shock of their life. Literally, in the case of the stunners.
His radio came to life, startling everyone. "This is Ondre of the New Satedan Liberation Front. To whom am I speaking?"
Evan blinked at the greeting that sounded in stereo from all the radios in pockets. Sheppard joined him at that moment, and the two men shared a shrug.
John keyed his mic. "This is Colonel John Sheppard of Sateda."
"Ahh. . . .Colonel Sheppard. I've heard of you."
"You have?" Sheppard shrugged again, this time in response to Evan's unspoken question.
"Yes. But that is beside the point." The man on the other side of the wormhole—Ondre—seemed to wave off the questions as well. "What matters is that I have two of your people. Now, as you can tell, I already have the gate address for Sateda. But I know that coming through the gate will result in death for me and my people. So, I am about to give you a choice. Release Orsic and the rest of my people that you've arrested, and we'll let Shani of Ataliya return to you unharmed."
Sheppard's hand shot out to stop Evan from growling anything into the radio. He adopted a nonchalant tone. "Now, why would you think I'm holding your people hostage?"
Ondre laughed over the radio. "Do you take me for a fool? I knew when Orsic first brought that whelp to our base that we were in trouble. For that matter, so did he. Your man, Kavanagh, played right into our hand. Now, you've heard my terms."
"You haven't mentioned Dr. Beckett."
"I have need of Dr. Beckett. He won't be rejoining you." There was a pause. "You have one hour."
A moment later, the wormhole shut down.
Evan turned to Sheppard. "Sir."
"Easy, Lorne." Sheppard ran a hand over his face, his own physical condition not much better than Evan's. "First, we contact Ataliya and let Javan know what's happening. Then, we wait for McKay."
Evan nodded, knowing that Sheppard was right. They couldn't go off half-cocked on this. If they did, then someone wound up dead. "And Beckett?"
"We're not coming home without him." Sheppard turned and walked away, leaving Evan at loose ends. He followed, not surprised that Sheppard called for Kavanagh to meet them in Solen's Tavern. It was time for all that intelligence that Kavanagh had collected to pay off. If it didn't. . . .Evan refused to consider anything else.
oOo
The sunrise revealed the full extent of Carson's injuries. Shani had dozed throughout the remaining hours of the night, leaning against the bars of their cage while cradling Carson's head and upper body in her lap. Every time he moved, she woke and readjusted him, smoothed his hair from his face, or made shushing noises. The men of the camp had given up taunting her and now made speculations on her relationship with Carson. Shani kept the grin from her face, wondering how they'd react when they found out exactly how loyal her people were. The Ataliyans would leave none alive if it meant getting her out alive, and she was torn between hoping who got there first: Evan or Javan.
Carson's painful moan woke her from another light sleep, and she blinked in the bright sunlight. The morning had fully arrived, though it wasn't as warm as she'd like. Still, Carson's body produced an overabundance of heat. As he stirred and turned his face toward the sun, Shani touched his forehead and tried to gauge whether the heat was normal or if he had a fever. Since he tended to run hot anyway, she could not tell.
He finally cracked one eye—the other was swollen shut—and blinked up at her. "Hey."
Shani grinned, preferring that over crying. "Lie still. I will try to get some water for your injuries."
His eye closed, and he let out a deep breath. "How long. . .?"
"All night." She stood and moved toward the edge of their cage, looking for someone—anyone—who might be sympathetic enough to give them some water. Instead, she saw a few careless guards who never looked her way. Desperation had her calling out to them, and they merely glanced at her before chuckling and moving out of earshot.
Behind her, Carson coughed and groaned again. Shani turned and saw him trying to sit up. She rushed to his side. "Stay still!"
He dropped back onto the ground. "Aye, I think you're right."
"You know I'm right." She looked around. "Carson, I don't know what to do!"
His eye opened again, and he moved to grasp her wrist. "Listen to me, love. When the opportunity comes, get out o' here."
"I am not leaving you behind!"
He would have pressed his lips together in exasperation, but it hurt too badly. Instead, he settled for a one-eyed glare. "Our people don't leave men behind. They'll come for me."
"But. . . ." She stopped speaking suddenly, not wanting to ask the question in her mind. Will you be alive when they do?
"Aye, I will," he answered, knowing her well enough to realize what she'd been about to ask. "Shani, ye need to trust Colonel Sheppard and Major Lorne now more than ever."
"I am trying." She hated the tears that welled up in her eyes and took a few deep breaths. "When I first spoke with Javan about joining you, he told me that it was not as sheltered in the galaxy as I had been on Ataliya. I knew that, and I thought that my time on Sateda had proven that to me. Now. . . ."
Carson's hand moved, and he touched the side of her face. "You're doin' just fine, love." His voice, while soft, was filled with certainty. "Just keep rememberin' that Evan's not gonna leave ye here. He'll come. Just remember that."
A new voice interrupted their conversation. "Yes, just remember that," Ondre sneered.
Shani whirled and stood, taking a protective stance in front of Carson. "What do you want?"
Ondre laughed again. "To check on the state of my guests."
"Your prisoners would be doing much better if they were afforded food and water!" Shani shot back.
"Keep that feisty attitude," Ondre advised her. "While I won't do anything to you, I can't speak for what you might hear or see. That attitude will keep you going."
His words sparked another emotion in her, and she stalked toward the edge of the cage as she struggled to control the rage. "This man is a good man!" she hissed as she pointed at Carson. "He did not deserve to be captured in such a manner or tortured for no reason! Now, if you wish to stay on Sateda's good side, you will provide us with food, water, and the means for me to treat his injuries!"
Ondre's eyes narrowed, looking remarkably similar to his brother's. "I will give you food and water. What you do with it will be up to you. However, medications for his injuries will come after he and his people agree to my terms. Not before." He turned and stalked away, leaving Shani to stare after him in shock. A few moments later, a guard walked toward them with a bowl of gruel and canteen of water to be shared between them. He set it on the outside of the cage, just inside of Shani's reach. She was forced to kneel on the ground, reaching like a desperate woman just to snag the edge of the bowl and the strap on the canteen. With both of them finally, firmly, in her grasp, she spared the guard one more glare before turning to carry the items to Carson's side.
Something stopped her, though. In the last twenty-four hours, she had not seen another woman among her captors. Now, she blinked and stared at the pretty blond woman who stood just outside of one of the few homes that had not been destroyed. The woman glared at Shani, her animosity obvious even from this distance. Shani held the gaze, wondering what had happened to cause such anger, and the woman whirled and disappeared.
Shaking the unsettling encounter from her mind, Shani moved to Carson's side. He wasn't happy with their circumstances, but he allowed her to feed him and give him some water before drifting off into another restless sleep. By noon, he was able to sit up. That evening, Ondre came for him again. Shani watched the men drag him away and hoped he was strong enough to survive until help arrived.
oOo
As predicted, Javan did not take the news that his sister had been captured by rogue Satedans with grace. As soon as Sheppard explained the situation, he'd risen to pace his office. Evan stood next to the door, his anger firmly under control for the moment. He hated all of these restrictions keeping him from going after Shani, but he knew that his chances of recovering her and Beckett rose with every ally they procured. And, right now, they needed the military power that Javan's people brought to the playing field.
Javan whirled and faced Evan. "You say you know where Dr. Beckett and Shani are being held?"
"We believe we do," Evan answered after a quick glance at Sheppard. He stepped forward, splitting his attention between Javan, Elizabeth, and Demir—Shani's stepson and the commander of Ataliya's army. It was obvious by the kid's youth that he worked closely with Javan, but the maturity in his eyes helped Evan greatly. Demir cared about Shani every bit as much as Javan or Evan and would not let them down. Evan refocused his attention on Javan. "We managed to get one of our men inside the organization—they're calling themselves the New Satedan Liberation Front—and he's drawn us a detailed map of the facility."
"And you trust your man?" Demir asked.
"He hasn't been wrong yet," Evan returned immediately. And, while he still didn't like Kavanagh, he'd learned to trust Kavanagh in situations like this.
Javan nodded and turned to his nephew. "Demir, gather your men. We will leave within the hour."
Demir nodded. "My brothers will wish to join us for the rescue."
Javan eyed Evan again. "How long as she been missing?"
Evan did the math in his head. "Nearly twenty-four hours."
Javan met Demir's eyes. "I understand. And I agree that they should be involved. Send runners to their villages, but we must leave within the hour."
Demir wasn't happy with his instructions, but he left the room with a single focus. Moments later, Evan heard him giving quiet instructions to the men who had gathered when the Satedan contingent came through the gate. He drew in a deep breath and let it out, wandering to the map on the wall. He'd once been told about the Ancient ruins the map led to, and he wished those ruins might hold the answer to his current dilemma. Behind him, Javan spoke softly with Elizabeth, asking her to keep things on an even keel on Ataliya while he freed both his sister and her close friend. Elizabeth wasn't happy with staying behind, but she understood.
Within the hour, Demir had gathered a sizable strike force to accompany Sheppard and Evan back through the gate. Javan also joined them, taking his place beside Demir as their leader. He wore traditional Ataliyan armor, something that made Evan think of pictures he'd seen of the Saracen armies in Earth's history. The fierce determination on the faces of both Javan and Demir made him grin evilly. He hoped those two left him a piece of Orsic's organization when they were done.
On the Sateda side of the Stargate, Kavanagh and McKay met the contingent. Both men blinked at the large group coming through, surprised when Demir firmly informed them that more would arrive as soon as his brothers heard of Shani's capture. For the first time since all of this began, the cold knot of panic and anger in Evan's stomach settled into something much more dangerous. He would recover Shani and Carson. And, after they were safe, he would be able to gain his revenge.
Ondre dialed in just before they left for the facility. He was not happy to hear that Sateda would not release his people. His threat curdled the anger in all of them, however. Defy me again, and you can have your doctor back—without his hands. Oh, and Shani will lose her protected status among my men. I wonder how much you'll want her after that. Evan clenched his fist around his weapon as he headed through the Stargate. Ondre had given them eight hours, supposedly to allow Carson the chance to rest. Evan just prayed they figured out where the two missing people were being held before that eight hours was up.
The facility Kavanagh led them to looked like an old psychiatric hospital that had been let go and now creeped out most of the people from Earth. Sheppard and Evan shared an uneasy glance as they moved through the plain white corridors and came across empty room after empty room. They met back up with Javan and Demir, who had searched the opposite wing and now had Kavanagh backed into a wall.
"You said they were here!" Javan snarled. His voice echoed in the large room.
"They were!" Kavanagh panicked as Sheppard and Evan moved to his side. "Don't just stand there, Sheppard! Get this man off of me!"
Evan gave Kavanagh a bland look. "That man is Shani's brother. And Elizabeth's fiance. And the leader of one of our allies. He has every right to be angry. For that matter, so do I. Now, where are they?"
"I don't know!" Kavanagh seemed sincere, and Javan clearly recognized that. He let go of the scientist and backed away as Kavanagh drew in a few deep breaths. "This is where Orsic took me. It couldn't have been a set-up because there were too many people here!"
Rather than arguing, Sheppard turned to look at McKay. The physicist didn't even complain. He just pulled his tablet from his pack and went to work mining the DHD for more gate addresses.
Javan stopped next to Evan. "What is he doing?"
"Ah. . .working a bit of magic." Evan grinned at Javan's skeptical look. "He can take the last fifty or so gate addressed dialed from this DHD and narrow it down to figure out which one might be where Shani and Beckett are being kept. However, it could balloon out of control."
Javan nodded and turned to Sheppard. "Colonel, I would like to send Demir back to Sateda. He can await the arrival of the rest of our troops. That will give us enough people to search multiple planets at one time."
McKay held up a finger. "No need!" He disengaged his tablet. "I'm getting used to this. The whole they're-here-no-they're-not thing has really helped me figure out these crystals. Not that I needed to figure them out anyway, but it's made for a much faster method of extracting the data. Now, I just need to get back to my lab and. . . ." His voice trailed off as he looked up and saw five pointed glares being aimed in his direction. "I'll shut up and get to work," he said meekly.
On any other day, the reaction would have been amusing. Today, not so much. As Sheppard dialed Sateda, Evan gave the facility one final glance. He would find Shani and Beckett. And, when he did, he had a thing or two to say to the man who took them.
Grinning in anticipation, he walked back through the gate to Sateda.
~TBC