Chapter 22: Just think at me and I'll try to pick you up.
"What should we do?" I looked to John for some kind of guidance ... some plan to get us out of this.
"We find a place for you to hide," John announced, jumping up and moving into the back of the Jumper. "These seats are hollow – if we rip out all the supplies you should be able to fit."
"I saw that movie too," I protested. "But this isn't the Millennium Falcon and we're not smugglers!"
"They don't know there are two of us on board," John retorted insistently, rapidly shifting the Jumper's food supplies from the in seat storage container and stacking them on top of the other seat. "We let them capture me, leaving you still free to hopefully fix communications in here and get a message back to Atlantis."
"I'm not going to fit inside that," I looked at the small space, now empty, distastefully. "Plus I don't want to leave you to the mercies of these people when we don't even know what they want with us! What if they hurt you before I get a chance to do anything?"
"They won't hurt me," John insisted. "If they wanted to kill us they wouldn't have bothered to bring the Jumper into their hangar bay."
"There's a lot of distance between not killing you and not harming you at all," I replied grimly. "I really don't – "
"No time to argue," John grabbed my arm and pulled me urgently towards my hiding spot. "Get in."
"And what if I don't want to?" I asked somewhat petulantly, digging my heels in stubbornly.
"This is one of those times when we're not husband and wife," John looked at me sternly, his eyes dark and his expression commanding. "This is one of those 'I'm in charge and you will follow my orders' times. Now get in the storage box Sabina – and make it quick because they'll be here any minute and I still need to rearrange some of this gear."
"Fine," I grumbled, turning towards the now empty seat reluctantly. John put a hand on my upper arm, urging me along. "I'm going," I protested.
"Go faster!" John ordered, helping me step over the edge and watching impatiently as I folded myself into the tight space.
"This isn't as easy as it looks!" I snipped, struggling to get my legs completely inside the available space.
John knelt next to me, helping me position myself so he could close the seat lid over me. "I don't know how good the seal on this is, but there should be more than enough air for what we need. As soon as things quiet down, get out and see what you can do with the systems. Don't leave the Jumper until you hear from me."
"I'm not sure I can live up to that last part," I admitted. "What if it's been hours or worse days and you haven't made contact? How long do you think I can hang around in here not knowing what's happening to you?"
A loud clank from outside the ship announced that we were about to have company.
"Use your judgement," John relented. "But no stupid risks." Leaning down he pressed a hard almost frantic kiss on my lips.
"John - be careful!" I said urgently, as he closed the lid of the seat down over me.
It was pitch black inside the storage container. I really did feel like I imagine you would if you were locked inside a casket - except there'd be a lot more leg room than I currently had. I'd already previously discovered I didn't like being in enclosed spaces ... or restrained ... so this rather unpleasant reminder of that was less than welcome.
The seal on the seat lid was just bad enough that I could still hear everything going on inside the Jumper. The sounds of John throwing things around was muffled but obvious. There was silence for a few moments before a loud intercom system kicked in.
"Lower the rear hatch and prepare to be boarded," a stern voice commanded.
"And what if I don't want to?" John's voice sounded casual and unconcerned as he echoed my own words.
"Then we will blow the door instead, damaging your ship and perhaps yourself in the process," came the responding threat.
"Well when you put it that way," the sounds of John lowering the rear hatch were followed by the sounds of footsteps marching inside. "Hey – there's no need for the three of you to be so rough!" John's voice was protesting, but not in a way that suggested they were actually hurting him. He'd wanted me to start getting a count on the number of enemies on board.
There was scuffling, things dropping to the floor and then John's voice again, this time sounding like he was being taken from the Jumper.
"What's that guy doing with my ship – I need that for when you guys release me!"
Damn! One of the guys had been left behind. Now what was I going to do?
Footsteps retreated from the Jumper ... luckily John had found a way to tell me about the guard otherwise I would have exited my hiding spot none the wiser.
oOo
I had more luck coming my way – the guard left behind turned out not to be a guard at all, just someone to search the ship. He did a crappy job of it, shifting stuff around and making a huge racket but thankfully leaving the seats alone. His footsteps retreated audibly and after a few moments of worrying about my air running out I decided to take the risk and get out from my hiding spot. Pushing the seat up I almost fell out, scrambling quickly to my feet and taking the chance on using the manual release as John had, this time to close the rear hatch.
And then I slumped into the pilots seat, looking out the front view screen into a very large hangar bay. From what I could tell our Puddle Jumper was the only thing inside it. Sighing dejectedly, I settled in for a long wait.
The Jumper had ended up close to the internal doors ... when I realised an hour or so later that they were opening I quickly ducked below the control console. I couldn't take the risk of peeking either because the slope of the front window meant anyone looking my way would catch sight of me.
"Hey!," John's protest was just audible from inside the jumper. I so wanted to see him, make sure he was okay, but I couldn't risk it, assuming he wasn't alone.
"Sheppard, can you hear me?" A woman's voice, louder over the communications system called out.
"D'you mind telling me what you're doing?" John replied.
"Offering you a deal," the woman said in a faintly amused voice.
I felt the ship shake slightly followed quickly by more protests from John.
"This is just not right!" he shouted, his voice tinged with real dismay.
I couldn't help myself ... before I'd even thought about it I was poking my head up over the front console and looking out into the hangar bay. The sight that greeted me had me stunned ... however had captured us had John literally standing on the hanger bay force shield, the doors fully retracted from under both him and the Puddle Jumper I was sitting in. The black of space glared up at me, stars twinkling weirdly behind the shield's fluctuations.
John caught a glimpse of me watching and made a discrete motion with his hand - a clear signal for me to get back out of sight. Reluctantly I did, forced to fill in the visual with the conversation I could still hear.
"Don't worry," the woman told John lightly. "You're safe as long as the force shield doesn't malfunction, and that almost never happens."
"Why are you doing this?" John demanded.
"You wanted to know what this is all about," Larrin returned. "Look beneath you. I'm assuming you recognise the technology? It's a Lantean battleship. It's been dormant for thousands of years, and you're gonna help me get it operational again."
A Lantean ship? These people had an Ancient ship ... the reason for John's capture all to clear now. They needed a gene holder to operate it and us being at that space gate with our Ancient Puddle Jumper fully functional had been an advert that said 'ancient gene holder here!'
"I am?" John quipped in response to the womans statement. "Forgive me for saying this but your abandoned ship isn't looking it's best. Just having the Ancient gene isn't gonna be enough to make her fly."
"You better hope it is Sheppard," the woman said grimly, the threat implied. If John didn't help she was fully prepared to punish him ... or worse. "First up, you're going to fly us over there."
The ship shook again, this time with the closing of the hangar bay doors. Realising I only had moments to get back into my hiding spot, I scrambled quickly into the back of the Jumper, throwing myself into the storage unit and carefully lowering the seat back down just before the rear hatch opened.
"Even if I can power up the ship what makes you think I'm gonna fly you over there willingly?" John was asking as he and our captors walked into the back section.
"Because I'll have this gun to your head the whole time," a woman's voice answered.
"Yeah but if you shoot me this ship will be dead in the water," John pointed out smugly. "Plus you won't have my help with your little Ancient warship project."
"I never said I'd shoot you ... nowhere that counts anyway," the woman laughed mockingly. "Plus you've already had a taste of how persuasive Nevik and Silas can be. I assure you they'll be able to gain your cooperation while still leaving those valuable genes of yours in full working order."
"Then I guess I'll have to cooperate ... for now," John replied.
"Nevik, help Colonel Sheppard return power," the woman ordered. "Silas and I will be right here ... just to make sure he doesn't try anything stupid." I felt the weight settle on the seat above me ... crap! Suddenly being stuck in there rather than hiding voluntarily raised a whole host of additional fears and phobias.
Trying to distract myself I thought about our current situation. If I had the numbers right there were three people on board along with John and I. We didn't know the situation on the Ancient ship but for right now the odds weren't looking that bad.
It took a while – enough that the atmosphere inside my hiding space got hot and thick – not literally but that's how it felt as I tried to take in deep breaths and found only shallow ones were possible. I was starting to drift a little when the unmistakable motion of the Jumper lifting off finally registered. Minutes later we'd reached our destination. John slammed the Jumper down on the Jumper Bay floor much harder than usual, probably making sure I was aware we'd arrived.
"Sorry," he quipped unapologetically, the sounds of scuffling making me smile when I realised he'd jostled his passengers too.
"Open the door," the woman commanded angrily. The rear hatch opened and footsteps stomped from the ship. "Silas, Nevik – bring him!"
"Is it just gonna be us or do you have buddies here?" John asked. He didn't get a response of course but this time I knew I was alone and it would be safe to come out straight away.
I waited a few more moments before pushing up on the seat lid, crawling out of the space and falling weakly onto the floor. Breathing deeply for some time I felt my muscles shaking and my extremities tingling as full feeling returned. Dragging myself up onto all fours I crawled into the front section and looked cautiously up over the console into the hangar bay. John had parked the Jumper near the edge of the Bay, close to a set of stairs leading up one level to a door. There was no one around to observe my movements so I pulled myself into the pilots chair and slouched back in relief.
John still needed help though so once I was feeling semi normal again I tried to initialise the Jumper communication systems. They didn't work – no surprises there since the last hit we'd taken had shorted something before the power cut out. I wasn't Rodney or Radek to start accessing the systems directly but I might be able to pinpoint the problem with a bit of help from my laptop which luckily had more than just the standard stuff loaded.
Hooking it up I called Rodney's diagnostic program and set it to work. Five minutes later I had my answer and it wasn't a good one. One of the main control crystals had been fried beyond repair and because it was a main control I couldn't just rip something from somewhere else and swap it in. I needed a new one.
Sitting in the pilots chair I gazed sightlessly out the front window thinking about my options. And that's when it hit me. The answer was literally staring me in the face. I was on an Ancient ship ... one brimming with probably dozens of exactly the crystals I needed. All I had to do was sneak out, find one, sneak back and install it. Then I could contact Atlantis and get a rescue crew on its way.
John had said use my judgement – we needed help and we couldn't get it without contacting Atlantis. And to do that we needed an operational communications system. My judgement said leave the Jumper and go find spare parts. So I did, armed with a 9mm plus ammo, a flashlight, and my laptop.
oOo
Getting out of the Jumper Bay had been easy, as had sneaking my way closer to Engineering. The ships layout was familiar from my time on the Aurora and the Orion as well as my subsequent study of their systems. The crystal I needed was most likely to be available in one of the engineering systems ... only trouble was if John was helping them then that'd be one of the places he might be doing it from.
Stopping at the edge of Engineering I peeked quickly around the corner to see if the coast was clear before rushing inside. The ship felt deserted ... from all appearances it was although I knew John and his captors were somewhere on board. Had that woman brought John over here with just two guards for company? The odds were starting to swing more our way, especially since she didn't know John had back up.
Kneeling in front of the main console I pulled off the access panel and checked the inside. Lots of crystal components but none the one I wanted. Moving on to the next console I repeated the process. I was on to panel five when the ship lurched suddenly forward throwing me into the hard metal console ... painfully.
"Ow!" I put a hand to my head, pulling it back and finding a smear of blood. The ship felt like it was in motion. Pulling myself back to standing I called up the HUD and confirmed that yes we'd entered hyperspace. That put a crimp in my plan because I wouldn't be able to use the Jumper communication systems while we were in hyperspace. I really needed to talk to John but at the same time I didn't want to alert the others to my presence. And that's when I had a flash of inspiration.
I was on an Ancient ship ... one with systems much like those on Atlantis, just on a smaller scale. Caritas had shown me how to use the internal communications on Atlantis for direct person to person mental communication and I'd even done a successful test with General O'Neill. Surely I'd be able to do at least as well trying to communicate with John?
Making the mental connection to the systems was easy - they were exactly the same as Atlantis. Finding John was easy too - his familiar 'feel' jumping out at me as if to say 'here I am!'.
"John?" I thought, focussing tight on getting through to him. "Can you hear me?"
There was mental silence – apart from all my own thoughts whizzing through my head of course! Then I realised even if he could hear me he might not be able to get me to hear him in return.
"Ah ... you need to make a mental connection to the ships systems like you would on the Jumper," I explained. "Just think at me and I'll try to pick you up."
"Sabina?" the mental response was faint but I did receive it, my face breaking into a huge smile when I recognised John's voice - even his mental one.
"Hey! I am so glad to hear you," I thought back happily. "I can just barely make out what you're thinking though so you might want to yell next time. Ah ... what's your status?"
"I'm in control of the ship," John announced, his mental voice brimming with satisfaction. "For the moment anyway. The person in charge - Larrin - is bad tempered and not above using any means to get what she wants."
"Are you hurt?" I asked quickly.
"A few bruises," John replied, admitting to only a small set of what I suspected were his full injuries. "Where are you?"
"I'm in engineering looking for replacement parts for the Jumper," I thought back. "But now that we're in hyperspace I didn't know whether to continue with fixing the communication systems or focus on something else."
"You need to minimise your movements just to the key areas," John said urgently. "It's no accident this ship has been drifting for 10,000 years – we've got a serious radiation problem and they've only set up shield emitters to protect certain parts of ship."
"Engineering should be one of them," I assured him.
"Larrin is gonna do something to take this ship back," John told me. "I've tried to anticipate what but ... grab the parts you need and head back to the Jumper as soon as you can."
"Can't I come help you instead?" I pleaded.
"You're still the ace up my sleeve," John announced. "Larrin doesn't even suspect I wasn't alone. Can this communication thing work even if I'm not sitting in the captain's chair?"
"It'll be harder for you to make a deliberate connection," I explained. "But now that you know how to do it, and you know what my signal feels like inside the system you might be able to make it work. At the very least if you think something hard enough and I'm listening I should be able to pick you up."
"Okay," John was silent for a minute, clearly thinking about our options. "Fix Jumper communications first because we might need that to create an escape route," he decided. "Then listen for my orders ... I'm not sure what's gonna happen next and I might need you to act quickly."
"All right," I turned back to the consoles, continuing with my search for the right parts. "Who are these people anyway?"
"Travellers," John replied. "They live on spaceships - only go to planets when they need supplies. I'm guessing they need this ship to expand their population."
"And they need you to operate it and initiate the systems because they don't have the gene," I concluded.
"Yeah which is why ... hang on a minute," John cut off his thoughts abruptly. I looked inside the next panel, breathing out a sigh of relief when I finally found what I was looking for. Quickly rerouting the connections around the parts I wanted I pulled and pocketed them, standing as I waited to hear back from John.
"I've gotta hand back control," John's voice was angry and frustrated. "She's flooding the Bridge with that lethal radiation - I have no idea whether that includes any other sections of the ship."
"I've got the parts and I'm on my way back to the Jumper," I reported, finally moving again. "Are you okay?"
"Larrin just turned up," John's voice held a wince of pain. "She's revived her goons. Ah crap - can't talk now."
And then there was silence and I knew they were punishing John for his attempts to take over the ship. Enough that he couldn't maintain his concentration sufficiently to talk to me.
I was still cautious but I practically ran all the way back to the Jumper, tense and driven to get it fixed so I could help John. It didn't take long because it was a simple matter of replacing the burnt out crystals – hardly the most complex task on Ancient tech I'd ever done. I brought the systems on line just long enough to confirm the Jumper communications were working again before powering it all down.
"John?" I thought. "I hope to God you're okay. Listen the Jumper's fixed so we can call for help or even just fly out of here ... as soon as you come up with a plan."
There was no response so I just kept thinking at him, hoping he was conscious and getting some of it.
"I don't want to put the pressure all on you but since you've met our hosts and I haven't you're in the hot seat."
Still no response and I was starting to get anxious and worried ... please don't let him be hurt because then it really would be all up to me to get us out of this. I'd never been in that position before and I really, really didn't want to go there ... ever.
"John?" Still nothing. "Okay I don't want to worry you here but I'm really starting to panic now. Enough that I'm thinking up plans of my own and you know how that usually works out ... get that impressive brain of yours into gear and think me something ... anything ... or I swear it's Sabina Plan time!"
"You think my brain's impressive?" John's thought was faint and messy but I was concentrating really hard on picking him up so I did get it.
"Oh thank God!" I thought back happily. "Are you ... you know, okay?"
"They weren't very happy with my flying skills," John quipped, seeming to gain strength as he adapted to using the systems to talk to me. "I'm in the Brig right now expecting another visit from our scary host lady."
"Have you got a plan?" I asked hesitantly.
"Already in place," John thought confidently. "I shut down navigation and propulsion and ah ... tweaked the subspace communications systems. They thought those were broken but there was just enough there for a Morse code signal. We're currently broadcasting SOS through subspace."
"And Atlantis will pick that up?" I frowned. "Even if they're not actively listening to this part of space?"
"They should," John agreed. "The long range sensors actively look for artificial patterns - this should qualify."
"Smart," I complimented. "And there I was just joking with that impressive brain comment."
"Nice," John's mental voice held amusement before he got serious again. "Someone's coming - stand by."
Author's Note:
Next Up? Fortunate Journey Season 4 Chapter 23