Author's Note: I am sooo sorry for the long delay between posting! I thought I would be able to update chapters more regularly but between editing and traveling I am embarrassingly slow. My apologies and I hope you enjoy this next installment.
Sheppard hated passing out. The disorientation as he floundered to the surface of consciousness was never something he got used to, and this time was no different. There were voices swimming around him, and pounding pain through his skull, shoulder, and ribs. He tried to focus on the voices and picked one very familiar one out of the din.
"… and because of that we won't be able to lift off. You see? Nothing I can do. Might as well shoot me in the head now!"
The room felt unbearably stuffy, and he could feel his lungs straining for air but he wasn't quite able to get enough in with each gasp. A muffled pain deep in his ribs threatened to drag him back under if he came fully back to consciousness. And the nausea. The never ending nausea as the voice of the ship tickled painfully in his mind. It wanted to fly so badly, but it didn't know it was hurting him to do so.
Someone must have sensed he was coming to as he felt hands on his upper arms, holding him fast to whatever he was lying on. The hands gripping his right bicep were the ones that ultimately brought him fully to consciousness as the movement tore at the injuries in his right side and shoulder, pulling him roughly up towards the light and McKay's voice saying sharply, "— and if he dies then we're stuck on this ship forever."
He blinked rapidly, pulling in oxygen in short, sharp gasps, and painfully aware of his cracked ribs. His vision slowly started to clear and he saw Kolya looming over a McKay who did not look cowed at all as he sat at a console at the foot of Sheppard's bed.
Wait. He wasn't in a bed. The chair. The ship's chair.
Feebly, Sheppard struggled to get off the chair, but the hands holding him bore down and he found he was too weak to protest. He fought desperately to remember what had happened.
"I see you are finally with us, Colonel," Kolya said. "I need you to help Doctor McKay get this ship off the ground. Apparently it only listens to its pilot."
"Can't," Sheppard gasped. "Missing parts in the engine room, remember?"
"Of course," Kolya replied, cooly. "How silly of me. I need you to track them down for me first." He leaned forward, a hand on Sheppard's bloody shoulder as a malicious smile crossed his face. Sheppard gasped at the pain and ground his teeth together to keep from screaming as Kolya dug his fingers into the bandage. Sheppard could feel his vision greying again and he struggled to stay conscious.
"How …" Sheppard gasped, "do you … expect me … to find them?"
"Doctor McKay has programmed a way for you to find the energy signals of any crystals throughout the ship," Kolya answered.
Sheppard shot a glance towards McKay and saw the man raise an eyebrow slightly. Maybe there was a catch. Good. Anything to give Kolya a hard time.
Kolya turned and pulled Teyla to her feet where she had been just outside of Sheppard's vision. Her arms were still bound behind her, and Kolya wrapped one meaty hand around her throat as the other stroked the knife at his belt. Teyla glared fiercely at Sheppard.
"Pull up the blueprint of the ship," Kolya ordered, "or I start hurting her."
Sheppard coughed. He was angry, but McKay had to have done something. All he needed was to delay as much as he could until Ronon, Nika and Helo could rescue them all.
Closing his eyes, he let the wobbly little voice of the ship in. It burrowed through his skull like a streak of burning lightning, and he twitched, an unbidden whimper of pain building in his throat as the voice of the ship grew to a roar. He felt his broken body begin to seize as he fought for some semblance of control over the ship. More hands joined the first, holding him down into the chair. He was painfully aware of every feeling on and in his body but could not open his eyes.
There was only one thing the ship wanted, and it would go through him to get it.
McKay knew there was something wrong with the ship, but he didn't know that it would affect Sheppard the way that it did. When Sheppard started convulsing in the chair he immediately started slamming in commands into the console in front of him to shut everything down.
But the ship didn't want to shut down.
"What is happening?" Kolya demanded.
"I don't know!" McKay snapped. "It isn't supposed to do that. We need to get him out of the chair — now!"
When the Genii soldiers holding Sheppard's flailing body down stared at him, McKay stormed from behind the console to clutch at Sheppard's shirt, trying to drag him off of the chair. One of the soldiers immediately grabbed him and held him back, but Kolya, who was beginning to understand the concern McKay had, ordered quickly, "Get him off the chair."
Letting go of Teyla, the Genii commander helped the soldiers and McKay manhandle Sheppard off of the chair and onto the floor, but the seizure did not stop. McKay could see the whites of Sheppard's eyes, his hands curled and muscles in his body taut and strained.
"Why isn't it stopping?" Kolya demanded.
"I don't know!" McKay replied, panic starting to set in. "Maybe — let's get him out of the room. He might be too close to the chair."
The soldiers quickly dragged the Colonel out of the room into the corridor where he continued to convulse. McKay dropped to his knees next to Sheppard, grabbing his head to keep him from banging it on the floor.
And at that moment, an explosion rocked the ship. Black smoke and flames started billowing down the corridor towards them. McKay didn't stop to think, grabbing Sheppard under the shoulders and lugging him back into the chair room. Kolya and the soldiers were right behind him. McKay slammed the door shut, panting heavily as flames lit up the corridor outside. Sheppard's body continued to convulse, and the soldiers held his limbs as Kolya hissed at McKay, "Do something!"
McKay scrambled back to the console. There was only one thing left to do. He ripped open a panel at the bottom and started stripping it of wires and crystals. The room went dark, and all McKay could hear was heavy breathing. Then the emergency lights flicked on, low and dim. He could see Sheppard, finally still on the floor, surrounded by the Genii soldiers, Kolya standing over them.
Kolya turned, surveying the room, his eyes narrowing. As McKay's eyes adjusted to the dim light, he realized who the Genii commander was looking for.
Teyla Emmagan was missing.