Stargate Atlantis: Sleep Before I Do

By: Shadow Chaser

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 & Stargate Atlantis and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions, AcmeShark Productions, and Scifi Channel. This story is for amusement only and I didn't get any money for it. No copyright infringement is intended.

Category: Action Adventure, Drama, H/C

Pairing: Hints of Shep/Weir, Shep/McKay friendship, hints of Ronon/Teyla, hints of Shep/Teyla.

Notes: I might end up changing the rating back down to a PG-13 but it mostly depends on how much violence I use in this fic. The R rating is mostly for later chapters… The italics on certain words used between the Atlantis expedition and the aliens are mixed up in this one – it's a term of pronunciation. When the aliens use it on their own, they pronounce it correctly, hence no italics. When the others use it, if they get it right, no italics, if they get it wrong, they get italics.

Story:

Chapter 4 – Unexpected

Elizabeth refused to let the torrent of emotions swirling in her show on her face and instead kept her mouth in a firm grim line. Even though the cat-like creatures had told her that they weren't coming through the stargate at this time, they did activate the MALP by the gate and showed the bloodied and dead forms of the four Black Ops Marines that she had sent with Colonel Sheppard before telling her that they were going to send the bodies through.

The gate guards had immediately readied their weapons as soon as she gave the order for the shield to be lowered and true to their word, four bodies tumbled out of the event horizon. Even before Carson was up the ramp to the main area to take care of the bodies of the soldiers, the shield was back up and the connection closed.

Now, she sat at her desk, her left hand acting as a pedestal to her head that felt like lead. Just what were those creatures after? Why were they respectful enough to return the bodies and make the promise not to come through when they could have easily done so?

She tapped a few buttons on the screen of her computer with her pen. Like Stargate Command, they kept recordings of every audio or video file that was transmitted through the stargate. She brought up the most recent file. Fast-forwarding to a point near the end, she played it and sat back, rubbing her temples to ease a headache that had been growing for a while now.

"…last attempt to assault our base failed. If you do not cease your activities, we will consider the life of your teams forfeit and will not hesitate to start killing them. Starting with the one you call Colonel Sheppard," it was the voice of the creature who called himself Taethos, the supposed leader that John and the others met a few days ago and had treated them hospitably.

"All we offered was the hand of friendship and you attack us?" she heard herself reply, echoing the sentiments of all those on the base and aboard the Daedalus who was patched in to listen.

"We have our reasons. You were defiling our sacred Sanctuary, the Wra'ithgul as well as attempting to destroy it," Taethos said in a calm, yet angry voice, "such acts will not be let go so easily."

"It was just a misunderstanding-"

"No. You misunderstand us. We are Klisa'nthus. We do not forgive," Taethos said with a hint of finality before he cut off the transmission.

The recording stopped and Elizabeth stared out of her office's window, lost in thought. At least they knew what the cat-like creatures were. How they were undetected by John and his team in their initial met and greet of the people, she did not know. Now, he was captured along with Ronon and she had four more dead members of her expedition.

The Klisa'nthus had demonstrated no remorse in killing her people, yet were sadistically reverent when returning them. Just what the hell were they playing at? She rubbed her head in frustration. She had ordered Caldwell not to send anymore men in, nor attack the planet from orbit and he had reluctantly obeyed. She didn't know what kinds of weapons capabilities these creatures had, but obviously, they were on par at least with probably goa'uld technology, especially after what Carson and Dr. Biro concluded after examining one of the Marines. Death by a close range blast that looked like it came from a staff weapon.

Lowering the shield was not an option as it was U.S. policy to never negotiate with terrorists, but letting her people die, was also not an option. She had wanted Caldwell to try to beam John and the others up to the Daedalus, but he had reported that as soon as they entered the village, they lost all signs of them, as if a shield was preventing them from accessing the Asgard beaming technology.

Even Hermiod was a bit puzzled and sounded shocked.

There was a gentle knock on her door and she looked up to see Radek poking his head in, a hesitant expression on his face. She smiled tiredly at him and gestured for him to come in.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked in his Czech-accented English.

"No," she shook her head, too weary to get up to greet him as he nodded and sat down in front of her, "what do you have for me?"

"I've been running over the initial notes that Rodney gave me before he went on the return trip," Radek explained.

"Yes, I've been trying to also translate the text on the device, but it doesn't seem to amount to anything," she replied. Truth was, she didn't really get a good chunk of time to look over the text, having to deal with the crisis going on.

"I know," he replied before handing over his tablet PC, "there's something you should know."

Elizabeth stared at him puzzled. She didn't like how ominous his voice had gotten. Taking the tablet PC into her hands, she looked down at it, seeing numbers, graphs and a bunch of other things she didn't quite understand. "What is this?" she asked, looking up at Radek as he sat down in one of the two chairs in front of her desk.

"My knowledge of Ancient text isn't as well as yours or Rodney's, but from what I could piece together, it seems to be the instruction manual of sorts for the device," Radek said calmly, "it's not a Wraith weapon as we had first thought…"

He pointed to two of the symbols that Elizabeth recognized as a negative and the symbol for Wraith. "The Wraith symbol appears all over the text, but this is the only spot that it shows up. From what I can gather, it seems to rely on the idea that this weapon will prevent the Wraith from ever appearing again."

"That's the symbol for Atlantis," Elizabeth noticed a few symbols over from the Wraith one, "no wait—the symbol for Lanteans…and…that says Tau'ri."

Radek nodded silently, his face grim. It was then that it hit her what the true nature of the device was. It was a weapon. A weapon designed to destroy the Lanteans and even humans like the Athosians or even them. It would eliminate the Wraith's main food source and thus turn them into cannibals and eventually it would kill them.

"But what race would build such a thing? The Ancients?" she asked mostly to herself as she stared at the text, part of her still trying to deny what it really was.

"Maybe it was built during the war?" Radek suggested.

Elizabeth nodded, her mind racing of different possibilities before she looked up at the Czech scientist, "Keep your team working on this. Grab Dr. Wetherby and Matsumoto and his team of linguists if you have to. I want to know the full statistics of this weapon and what the device actually says. Maybe the Klisan'thus don't really know what they have and hopefully we can barter with them to get the others back."

Radek nodded and left just as she touched her ear where her radio ear-set was sitting on. "I need to patch a call through to Colonel Caldwell…" she spoke into it. Perhaps Hermiod would know something about the Klisan'thus, after all the Asgard were one of the oldest races in the known galaxies.

The sharp searing pain in his stomach startled John from the darkness that was unconsciousness. He opened his eyes with a wince and blinked owlishly a few times to let them adjust to the light that was pouring from windows in the room he was in. It was barren and seemingly covered in reddish hues. He was definitely lying on a chilly, hard floor as the back of his head and his finger tips were cold.

"Do you feel any pain?" a voice to his right suddenly made him turn his head sharply, shooting pain throughout his whole body as his stomach twisted in protest. But the pain was forgotten for a second as he stared into the face of what looked like a very large cat…its slit-like eyes unblinking and staring back at him.

"Yeah..." he slowly propped himself up with his hands and leaned against the wall of what looked like his cell. "Slight pain on the back of my head…you know a bump of sorts…"

"You project sarcasm…you are awake, good," the cat-like creature, on John's second glance, was at least a foot shorter than him, stepped back before picking up his vest from the floor.

He noticed that the lower half was a bit frayed and burnt…a sign that they had stripped it from his body when he had been shot by the staff blast. Glancing down at himself, he was mildly surprised to see that his black tee-shirt, while having a gaping hole where his stomach was, bandages covered his stomach and it looked like blood hadn't seeped through.

"You've sustained severe injuries following the za'kutus' blast at close range. Had you not been healed right away, you would be dead right now," the cat-like creature said bluntly and he stared up at alien, his eyes wary.

"Thanks…I think," he still didn't know if this creature was a friend or foe. Right now he was banking on foe since the creature did look like one of those things that had attacked them once they had landed on the planet.

"I was ordered to heal you," the cat replied shortly, "According to our leader, you will prove useful during negotiations."

"Negotiations?"

"With the people of your planet and with our allies…"

"You guys wouldn't happen to have a name for your…people…?"

"Klisan'thus," the alien ran a scanner like object over his wound, "we are Klisan'thus."

"Oh…" John nodded, a smiling grimace on his face before he caught the vest that had been suddenly thrown at him, the alien still holding the square-wand-like object.

"Put that on. You must look presentable," the diminutive Klisan'thus ordered.

"We're going somewhere?" John eased himself into his vest, noticing that while he had been woken up by the initial sharp shooting pain, it was easing minute by minute. He had to have been unconscious for at least a few hours, but no medicine no matter what was in this galaxy or in the Milky Way save for a goa'uld sarcophagus was capable of healing wounds so fast. What did the alien do to have him heal in such a rapid fashion?

"Our allies told us that you had unleashed the Wraith upon us all. They told us that if we captured you and your soldiers they would be able to demand the weapon to put the Wraith back to sleep."

"Yeah…well your allies are wrong-"

"You deny you woke the Wraith from their hibernation?!"

"No-"

"Then you put forth such lies on your mouth. And to say, you came to claim the Wra'ithgul…your kind are more foolish than we had ever thought," the alien stared at him with narrowed slit eyes.

"Listen…Taethos, the leader of the village who was closest to that device told us that we can study it. That's all we were doing…we weren't going to activate it or anything," John slowly stood up, using the wall as a prop as he blinked rapidly to alleviate the dizziness from his body.

"I was told your kind had activated the device," the alien said stiffly, "and since your scientists were inclined to examine the device, it would have devastating consequences."

"Like what? Like it's going to kill-" John abruptly stopped as he heard the sound of marching feet coming towards them and eased himself away from the wall, standing as best as he could. He still felt twinges of pain from his stomach and he felt like his head was spinning, but he stood as straight as he could, ignoring his discomforts.

"You…" John was surprised to see Taethos surrounded by at least a contingent of four of the Klisan'thus, all of them armed to the teeth with the shorter versions of what looked like staff weapons, za'kutus, and a few sharp looking blades.

"Colonel Sheppard…good to see you again, though I wish it was better circumstances," Taethos said congenially as they stopped in front of the cell that he was in.

"You sold us out, you son of a bitch!" John wanted to lunge at the man, but all he could do in his weakened condition was managing a half-step forward. Even that made Taethos' guards hiss in anger and point their weapons at him.

"Do not try to fight, Colonel Sheppard…I have healed you, yes, but you are as weak as a kitten at the moment and these guards will not hesitate to kill you as you had killed so many of our brethren," the alien who was still holding the scanner device said, approaching him and putting a clawed hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah, well your kind killed a lot of my men and women who are under my command. We don't really like that," out of the corner of his eyes, he could see the wickedly sharp looking claws dig into his shoulder in a warning gesture.

"Take him," Taethos gestured for two of his guards to open the door to his cell while the other two stepped in and approached him.

The last thing John saw before darkness claimed his vision again was the fist of one of the creatures slamming into his face.

Akiesios frowned slightly as the human known as Lt. Colonel John Sheppard collapsed to the ground. He was saved from a particularly painful landing by only his claws gripping the vest he had told the human to wear. Gently setting him on the ground he watched as Taethos' guards picked Sheppard up unceremoniously and carried him out, on their way to the interrogation chamber.

"You needn't be so harsh," he commented with a raised eyebrow at Taethos who had transformed into his true form.

"Sympathizing with the enemy Akiesios?" Taethos asked.

"Just considering the fact that I don't want to patch him up again; he takes up too much of my time," the diminutive Klisan'thus shot back.

"You have your orders Akiesios. Remember, I am in charge of the mission here," Taethos replied, "cross me and you will pay ten-fold."

"You'd think I'd be stupid enough to cross you?"

"Check up on the other prisoners. See how much they know about the Wra'ithgul," Taethos ordered before walking away, leaving him alone. Akiesios stared at the taller Klisan'thus' back, his eyes unreadable his claws flexing in slight anger. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly he spun on his heel and walked the maze of corridors to the other prisoner area where the rest of Colonel Sheppard's team were held.

He noticed to some degree of irony in his opinion that they had all stiffened up from their relaxed positions when he walked into their field of vision. He could smell their concern and even hints of fear even before they could hear his footsteps. A quick glance over the others told him that the female Athosian of the group had did as he had asked and healed the others who weren't looking too healthy with the white healing paste he had given to her. He also noticed that treatment had begun on the Satedan warrior while still lying on the floor of their cell, but was completely awake and staring at him with narrowed eyes.

He had to wonder why an Athosian and a Satedan would join these humans? As far as he knew, they were all independently governed people and all had high morale standards. According to the reports he had read and what he had observed, these…humans weren't to be trusted. Yet, both the Athosian and Satedan had joined them. He had his doubts on the veracity of truth the leader of this motley band had spoken of only moments before, but still, he knew he had to dig deeper. Too many things were at stake…

He realized he had just been staring at them when the nervous scientist, the one Taethos had called Dr. McKay spoke up, still leaning against the wall, his head now wrapped up in white gauze. "What are you staring at?! Do I have something on me?!"

Akiesios blinked in surprise at the man's blunt words. He would have thought the humans were more tactful, like the Colonel or even some of his other men, but this was…refreshing to say the least and at most, a bit annoying.

"I don't think its wise to antagonize the one holding us, Doc," the man who had been identified as one of the Colonel's men and the ranking military officer on the return trip, Major Lorne, said quietly. Akiesios turned to see the Major hide something and tilted his head, wondering if he should demand that the Major hand over whatever he was hiding. He had made sure, before the prisoners were dumped into their cell, that all of their vests and pockets were emptied of things that could potentially be cobbled together into weapons or a means of escape.

He had left foodstuffs within their pockets, so that he didn't have to worry about them getting hungry until probably days later, but still…if the Major was hiding something, maybe he had missed something during his search?

Deciding to ignore what he had seen, he turned back to Dr. McKay, "Your commanding officer is right, Doctor. Any unpleasant words towards me, will not bode you well."

"What's worst than being caught by a bunch of cats?"

Akiesios couldn't help but let loose a hiss of anger at the derogatory term which made the Doctor immediately shut up and look worried. "We have begun negotiations with your leader. If you do wish the negotiations to be successful, I suggest you keep your thoughts to yourself."

"Where's Sheppard?" the Satedan suddenly croaked from his position on the ground, still staring at him with narrowed eyes.

Akiesios wondered if he should tell them that their ranking officer was alive. The Satedan must have already told the others that he came with the Colonel and four courage, though now quite dead, men to rescue them. But he also knew that Taethos wanted to keep the secret of the Colonel's existence from the others, to bury their hope so to speak. He hadn't witnessed who Taethos was talking to negotiate with the humans' leader, but he figured that if they were able to penetrate that deeply into the confines of their base with gunpowder based projectile weapons, then their leader must be someone strong. It also meant that these humans were far more advanced than they had realized before. It also meant that the Wraith probably knew about the advance humans since a majority of human technology he had seen so far was nearly of Genii level.

He had never seen such advancement past the Genii's level of technology. It was a wonder why these people wanted to activate the Wraith'gul. Power of that advancement drew towards more power…

However, the thing that puzzled Akiesios ever since they had caught these humans trying to access the Wraith'gul, was that how they were able to do so… As far as he knew, only those who were the Alin'thus were able to do so. Taethos didn't say anything about it and he wondered if their leader knew of it.

"How did you arrive here? We had the Chapp'ai heavily guarded," he decided to ignore the Satedan's question.

The Satedan fell silent, closing his eyes and ignoring him. He stared at the burly man for a few more seconds before he noticed a peculiar expression on Dr. McKay's face.

"Do you wish to tell me how this Satedan and five of you humans arrived here without going through the Chapp'ai?"

"You said Chapp'ai…" the doctor snapped his fingers a couple of times, the peculiar expression widening further, "no one here says Chapp'ai…"

Akiesios raised a furred eyebrow. The way the doctor said 'here'… "You are not of this galaxy?"

"McKay…" the senior military officer of the group, a dark-haired man whom Akiesios knew as Major Lorne, no first name given, said, his tone a warning.

"What's the harm? It's like these guys probably never heard of the Goa'uld," the doctor said, waving a hand absently in his direction.

Akiesios felt his breath hitch and a pit of dread filled him. These humans knew of the Goa'uld! They knew about the foul creatures…the failure…the… "What," he tried to keep his voice composed, but was dismayed to find that his own voice was that of a guttural growl, "do you know of the Goa'uld."

As much as it would have amused him on another level, he saw the surprised and shocked expressions of all of the people within the cell save for the Athosian and Satedan, before the doctor opened and closed his mouth several times. "You…know of the Goa'uld?" he squeaked out.

"Speak!" Akiesios wrapped a clawed hand around one of the bars and shook it, disappointment and anger filling him.

"Um…um," the doctor blabbered slightly before snapping his fingers, "parasitic possessing lifeforms that first tried to inhabit the Unas then made the jump to possess humans like us?"

The words that came tumbling out of the Dr. McKay's mouth tore through Akiesios like a za'kutus blast and an unbidden howl of anger and despair emerged from his mouth. He released his death grip on the bar and paced around, his thoughts a storm. The Goa'uld were still alive! And they had become the thing that they had feared for so long…what had happened? Another failure on their part...

He glanced back at the humans in the cell, and saw that a majority of them had shrank back, afraid from his howling and he stepped back towards them. "You are not from this galaxy…"

"No," Major Lorne stepped forward, his posture confident, his tone no nonsense, "we aren't."

"The Goa'uld are only confined to a single galaxy and that is of where the Alin'thus reside. For them to have spread so far," he narrowed his eyes slightly, "that is your home galaxy is it not?"

"Perhaps," the Major replied evasively and Akiesios held up the scanner he had used on Colonel Sheppard. Tapping a few buttons he adjusted the frequency of the scanner and quickly pointed it at each person within the cell, including the Athosian and Satedan. If it was true…he didn't trust any of them not to be possessed by the Goa'uld. His scanner beeped a soft negative on any traces of Goa'uld possession and he blinked, puzzled. How could this be? If what the doctor had said was true…

"You are all not possessed by the Goa'uld," he whispered.

"You can tell with that thing?" the doctor slowly stood up and approached him, staring at the scanner he had in his hand, "hmm…looks like one of those Ancient devices too."

"Ancients?!" one of Akiesios' eyebrows shot up in surprise. That was what the Tau'ri called-

"McKay, shut up," Lorne pushed the doctor back and he noticed that an expression of chagrin appeared on the doctor's face as he realized he had said too much.

A thought occurred to Akiesios…just how did Colonel Sheppard and his men get onto the planet? Did these humans with their projectile weaponry have such a ship? And where did they get the knowledge of Ancients and Goa'uld? How were they able to activate the Wraith'gul?

Perhaps Taethos knew more than he was letting on, and if so, maybe the people they were negotiating with to placate the Wraith were wrong. He had to find out for himself… Spinning on his heel, he quickly walked out of the cell, leaving the bewildered prisoners behind, his thoughts dark. From the start, he knew that this whole mission was wrong…

He should have known that the word routine was usually a sign that their mission was going to go downhill and roll into a giant pile of shit, but no, did he ever listen to that voice whispering in his head? John Sheppard grunted in pain as a meaty fist dug into his already broken lower ribs one more time and blearily tried to keep his eyes open. He saw vague shapes of people surrounding him, but he knew who they were ever since his team's capture on M3R-154.

Every fiber of his being was in pain and while some others were more acute, it still hurt each time pressure was put on. His hands and arms were already numb with both pain and loss of circulation, being held up behind him in a spread-eagle style. His feet, thankfully, were still firmly on the ground and thus, he didn't have to wrench his shoulders anymore than they were already.

One, he knew was already dislocated and his efforts in popping that joint back into its socket was rewarded by him passing out as soon as he felt it pop back in. He had only awakened to the rough shaking of guards hauling him up from his cell and to this torture chamber.

Well, at least the one bright spot in all of this was that there was no Wraith to feed on him this time around.

A damp trickle of sour tasting water touched his lips and startled him from his dazed thoughts as he jerked involuntarily against his chains. He gritted his teeth and suppressed the hiss of pain that coursed throughout his whole body as it reacted to his jerk. Glancing through one good eye, albeit a bit blurry at times he saw the grinning face of his captor and the tiniest tremor of fear shot through him.

He recognized the man in front of him.

The face that he had sworn to kill the next time they met…Acastus Kolya.

"Colonel Sheppard," Kolya smirked at him and John Sheppard knew that he was in deep trouble. He knew that it had been hours since he had awakened to the lovely face of a giant cat who told him that he had healed him, to sitting back in a dark cell to being brought back here again. Oddly, there were no questions asked of him during his initial torture session by the Klisan'thus, but now…with Kolya here…

"Kolya…" John mustered a crooked smile as best as he could, "I see you're working with these slimeballs…"

There was a low growl of anger before another meaty fist dug into his stomach, making him hiss slightly in pain.

"The Klisan'thus are a bit, how do you say, testy, when it comes to allies. I only asked them to provide me with the resources needed so I can remove Laden Radim," Kolya gave him a nasty smile; "it's not personal."

"Yeah," John snorted, "sure it's not personal."

"You and your men are just the bargaining tools to prevent your Dr. Weir from sending men to aide the Genii," the older man shrugged before poking him painfully on his bruised shoulder, the same shoulder that had been wrenched out of its socket and placed back in. John winced, suppressing the urge to hiss in pain at the slightest touch to it. In the quiet moments of talking with Kolya, he felt as if every fiber of nerves within his body was hyper-sensitive to pain. Any movement or any motion he made, shot currents of agony throughout his body.

"What did you promise them? Your men? Just a handful of what, two dozen, going up against a whole fucking planet?" he usually didn't swear, but John felt as if he was at the end of his line.

"No, no," Kolya shook his head, "you misunderstand me, Colonel. They will help me," he gestured to the shadowy figures beyond the torture chamber, glowing eyes watching him hang from his bonds.

"What the hell are you gonna do then? You've got a measly planet, you got your power," John asked sarcastically, "I'm sure you've figured out that we're not exactly supportive allies when it comes to the Genii."

"We will storm Atlantis and your friends like Dr. McKay, will provide me with the codes," Kolya gave him one last smile full of teeth before his fist connected with the side of his head, sending John into the black oblivion of unconsciousness.