When McKay heard the muffled explosion outside, his first thought was that he had somehow accidentally set something off on the ship with his fiddling at the control panel. He snapped his head around to look at Teyla, and her round, hopeful eyes told him something else.
"Sheppard," McKay grinned to himself.
Kolya had raced to the window, searching the darkness outside for the source of the blast and cursed. The soldiers with him in the room shifted uneasily as they listened to the faint pop pop pop of gunfire.
Now McKay knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sheppard had found them. After years of working with the Stargate program, he knew the sound of a P90. Atlantis wouldn't have had the time to already send a ship. Sheppard was alive.
With Kolya distracted at the window, McKay turned from his chair, crouching at Teyla's side.
"It's Sheppard," he whispered fiercely. "I know it."
She nodded, unable to answer with the gag in her mouth but her eyes filled with determination and hope.
"Set up defensive positions outside the bridge," Kolya ordered. "Don't let anyone past that door."
Six of the men filed out, closing the door behind them. Kolya stalked over to McKay, ripping him away from Teyla and forcing him back into the chair.
"Get back to work," he growled. "Sheppard will never get past these men. And if he does," he gestured to Teyla with his gun, "she dies first."
Sheppard stealthily made his way towards the bridge, willing the ship to stay quiet and the lights dim. It was getting harder to hear with the pounding in his head that was beginning to rear its ugly face once again.
Peering around the next corner and finding no one, he tore into another packet of painkillers, chewing them down and making a face at the bitter taste. Hopefully they would kick in quickly.
Ahead, he could hear the sound of rustling, like clothing brushing against something, so he froze then melted back to hide behind a bulkhead, finger on the trigger of the P90.
But this time, these soldiers were good. He didn't hear the Genii who snuck up behind him until it was almost too late.
Whirling at the sound of a soft boot on metal, the muzzle of the P90 was wrenched down by a muscular hand and a man who matched Sheppard in height but outweighed him by a good 30 pounds in muscle alone. They grappled silently over the gun for a moment before Sheppard's injured shoulder failed him and the gun was pulled from his grasp before he could find his target to fire.
Sheppard threw himself at his attacker, not giving the man time to deal with turning the gun around, and slammed them both against the side of the corridor. The man grunted at the impact and Sheppard ignored the stabbing pain in his shoulder. He leveraged himself against his assailant while reaching back for his knife in one smooth move.
Stabbing upwards with the knife, Sheppard was stopped as the man caught his wrists in a butterfly hold. His grip wasn't quite good enough, though, as Sheppard slammed his full weight upwards, the blade catching the man under the chin and blood spraying everywhere as Sheppard pushed the point home.
The man gurgled silently and collapsed, dead before he hit the floor. The entire encounter had lasted mere seconds.
Sheppard pulled the knife and turned to find another man running from the darkness at full speed towards him. Waiting until the last second, he dodged left, grabbed the man by the shoulders and pushed down in one move as he turned, pulling his Beretta from the holster and flicking the safety off.
The man tripped, the momentum from his run throwing him violently to the side. Sheppard fired, knowing his cover was blown. The man went down, twitched, and then didn't move.
Swiping his P90 from the floor and clipping it back to his vest, Sheppard knew there had to be more, but these guys were much better trained than the soldiers outside. That meant that Kolya was keeping his more elite soldiers closer to him — or rather, whatever it was that he was working on with McKay.
Crouching down by the bulkhead again, he tried to catch his breath and listen. Waiting a few minutes, he heard nothing, so he went back over the two soldier's bodies and shoved their guns in his belt.
The radios he had strapped to his wrist suddenly flared to life, and a man's voice said, "Tov, check in."
Sheppard tapped the radio. The game was up. "Tov won't be checking in again," he replied wryly.
The radios went dead.
Pressing himself up against the wall and listening for more footsteps, Sheppard could feel his right shoulder grinding even more painfully. He was exhausted but needed to get the bullet out. His shoulder wasn't going to take much more and he could feel his fingers starting to tingle. Hopefully the bullet hadn't permanently damaged any nerves, but he was worried it was working its way in deeper.
Retreating back a few corridors, he found an empty room and asked the ship to keep the door open so he could keep an eye on the corridor outside. Sitting on the floor in the darkest corner he could find, he pulled out his med kit, removing the liquid sanitizer. Loosening his vest and pulling the sleeve of his jacket and t-shirt down, he peeled off the bandage that was now soaked in blood. Gritting his teeth and pulling out his knife, he wiped it on his pants to get it as clean as he could, then dribbled sanitizer over the blade. He used the remaining sanitizer on his blood-soaked hands and the wound, grinding his teeth at the burning sensation.
This was going to hurt.
Finding a loose strap on his vest, he bit down on the material, touched the point of the blade against the wound, and started digging.
The pain was excruciating, and he fought the darkness that started edging in on his vision, probing until the tip of the blade met metal. He clenched his right fist hard in a bid for consciousness as his vision tunneled. He had learned the trick from an old CO, and although it wasn't foolproof, it often helped to keep him present if unconsciousness was creeping in.
Pressing in a little further, he nudged the bullet as close to the surface as he dared, then dropped the knife and dug in with one of his fingers. After a moment, the smooth bullet popped out and fell to the floor with a satisfying clunk, accompanied by a hot gush of blood. He bit down on the strap so hard he was sure he might have cracked molars, but it was the only way to keep from screaming and give his position away.
For a second he was sure he had passed out as he could not see anything through the waves of pain emanating from his shoulder. Panting and gnawing at the strap from his vest, he finally managed to heave enough oxygen into his lungs to get his vision back — at least in the working eye.
And then the nausea he'd been holding back caught up with him again. He doubled over, heaving, his ribs protesting in sharp waves of pain that left him sobbing for breath. There really wasn't anything left to throw up after the first episode, and he hadn't eaten since waking up on the cliffside several hours ago. That left painful dry heaving with nothing to show for it but a throbbing head and splitting ribs.
It took him a few moments of just focusing on breathing to recover. He could feel warmth beginning to soak through the right side of his jacket and hoped he wasn't losing too much blood. Shoulder wounds were hard to bind so he was just going to have to hope that the patch job he could do would be enough.
Opening another bandage packet, he pressed it to his shoulder and used the remaining tape to hold it in place before gingerly pulling his t-shirt and jacket back up and zipping his vest. It was going to have to do.
He wiped sticky fingers on his pants, knowing that he probably looked like a bloody mess but not caring in the least. He was so tired. Maybe if he just rested his head against the wall for a moment …
Sheppard jerked, realizing he'd been asleep. Cursing silently he automatically checked his watch, forgetting it was broken. He had no idea how long he'd been out. Precious time had been lost.
Pushing himself stiffly to his feet, he shoved his knife back into his belt and checked the Genii guns to see if they were in working order. Pausing before he looked outside the room, he listened carefully. The corridors were utterly silent, but the ship still whispered to him about the skies.
Moving slowly, he exited the room, P90 unclipped and safety off. Retracing his steps, he went back to the corridor where he was ambushed and listened at the junction for a long moment before swinging the muzzle of the gun around the corner.
Nothing moved. The ship stayed silent.
He moved down the corridor slowly, keeping his feet silent, and listened. In the distance, he thought he could hear talking behind a closed door. He kept moving until he found the door where the voices spoke. The murmur of men's voices sounded muffled, and he couldn't make out exact words, but he knew that this room was not the bridge. It was a side room, much like the one he had retreated to in order to remove the bullet.
Scouting the area around the room he walked the corridor up and down to both junctions, saw no one, and figured it was probably best to take out as many of Kolya's men as he could before getting to the bridge.
Kneeling down on the right side of the doorframe, he braced his injured shoulder against the cool metal, tucked the P90 into his left shoulder, and thought the door open. The ship happily complied.
Taking in the scene before him in a split second, Sheppard saw four Genii and a prisoner who was tied to a chair. He fired before the soldiers had a chance to draw their weapons, checked the empty corridor behind him, then somersaulted into the room, thinking the door closed and brightening the dim lights as he came to his feet.
There were no more Genii hiding in the recesses of the room to take out, but Sheppard felt relief as the prisoner grinned at him.
"Hey, Ronon."