As much as it pained her to abandon McKay and Sheppard, Teyla knew that their chances of survival were greater if she were provided the opportunity to escape. Now Kolya only had one of her team to use against Sheppard, and he would be reluctant to kill McKay knowing that his death would make Sheppard even more stubborn.
When Sheppard's convulsions caused a brief episode of chaos in the room, she cut her bonds with her hidden knife and slowly moved to the back of the room away from the action. No one seemed to notice her, and her plan was cemented when she saw one of the panels in the wall crack open and a hand wave her over.
Discretely, she slid down the wall next to the panel as Sheppard was carried out of the room.
The man inside the wall was one she had never seen before, but he had one of Ronon's knives which he handed to her with a finger pressed to his lips, disappearing in the darkness of the tunnel beyond.
She had a decision to make. Trust someone who had either stolen Ronon's knife or been given it, or forge her own escape.
At this point she had nothing to lose. She slipped inside the dark tunnel with the man, closing the panel behind her as the room shook with a dull boom.
Never one to lose the opportunity of a distraction, she flipped Ronon's knife around and found the man in the dark. A quick twist of her leg around his knee and he was down with the knife to his throat.
As they panted in the silence, she could see through a small slit in the panel into the room which had suddenly gone dim. Kolya and his soldiers, along with McKay and Sheppard, were back in the room, and it seemed that Sheppard had finally gone still. Kolya and the soldiers started moving through the room and she knew her presence had been missed. Relieved to see Sheppard's seizure had stopped, she returned her attention back to the man underneath her.
"Who are you?" she hissed softly.
The man didn't fight her, lifting his hands in surrender. "Helo. Ronon sent me. We're sabotaging the ship and thought we might be able to get you and the others away from Kolya with the distraction."
Teyla didn't lower her guard but backed off from the man, keeping the knife between them. Her hopes raised knowing Ronon was indeed alive and actively trying to free his teammates.
"We need to go back," she said. "Colonel Sheppard and Doctor McKay are in grave danger."
"We will," Helo responded. "But right now we need to regroup. If that explosion worked then this ship isn't getting off the ground anytime soon."
"If Kolya does not hold the ship then he will find no use for Doctor McKay and Colonel Sheppard," Teyla argued.
"We have a plan," Helo said. "You have to trust me. Let me take you to the others."
Teyla hesitated for only a moment, then nodded. She was running out of options.
This time when Sheppard awoke it was a bit more abruptly. He had the distinct feeling of being carried and then dumped onto a surface. He felt the surge of the ship once again burrowing through his mind.
Fly. Fly. Fly.
And just as suddenly, the voice stopped. It was replaced by a familiar muttering off to his right. Around him he could feel movement. People were walking around him, clothing brushing his arm. The faint click of weapons, creaking of leather.
He cracked his eyes opened and remembered he couldn't see out of one eye. He knew McKay well enough to know that the mutter and clacking by his right side was the man tinkering with something. His blind eye didn't let him see McKay unless he turned his head.
His body throbbed with pain. Moving hurt. Breathing hurt. Hell, even blinking hurt.
Kolya suddenly loomed over him, and Sheppard tried to move — to do anything — and found himself too weak. His hands scrabbled at the surface of the bed-table-chair — ahh, he was in the chair. He saw McKay looking at him, worriedly, from the side. He tried to give the man a wink and ended up having to turn it into a half-smile of reassurance.
Kolya grinned at Sheppard's weakness. "You've lost quite a lot of blood, Colonel," he said. "I imagine sitting up would be difficult."
He reached out a hand and grabbed Sheppard's shirt, hauling him up. Sheppard barely managed to get his hands on Kolya's arm, shocked at his own weakness. Kolya grinned more broadly. Sheppard's vision started to grey and he knew the Genii was right. Staying upright was an issue if one didn't have enough blood flowing to one's brain.
"I want this ship airborne, Colonel," Kolya hissed.
Sheppard swallowed, his throat dry. He couldn't even come up with a good "screw you" retort. From the corner of his eye he could see McKay hovering, his face full of concern that was rare for the man. That's when Sheppard knew it was bad. He had to pull himself together. McKay and Teyla had to know they were getting out of this. He just wasn't the one to rescue them this time.
It was all up to Ronon.
When Helo brought Teyla back to the bridge, she was relieved to find Ronon and Nika waiting there.
"We thought Kolya had killed you," she said as she gave the Satedan a brief hug.
"I thought Sheppard was dead, too," he replied.
"Looks like you are all in better shape than originally thought," Nika grinned. "Now we just need to get Kolya and his team and take over this ship."
"Easier said than done," Helo said, standing at one of the consoles. They crowded in over his shoulder to see a video monitor of the chair room. Sheppard was in the chair with Kolya looming over him. McKay was sitting at one of the consoles and eight Genii soldiers lined the room.
"Four against nine," Nika shrugged. "That's manageable."
"And there are at least two ways into the room," Teyla pointed out. "The main door and the air duct I escaped through. I do not believe that Kolya and his men know how I escaped."
"And they have hostages," Ronon added.
"Right." Helo nodded. "So we need to get Sheppard and McKay out of harm's way first."
"They aren't going to fall for the same trick twice," Nika said. "We blew the main door using some of the gunpowder and C-4 Ronon had so I'm not sure if Kolya knows the ship's been breached. He has nowhere to go unless that chair can do more than make the ship fly."
"It can do everything," Teyla responded. "I have seen this chair launch weapons and do multiple tasks. It would be best if we acted quickly, before Kolya realizes this."
Nika rubbed his hands together. "Alright then, where's some more of that glorious C-4 you were talking about, friend Ronon?"
Ronon grinned.
This was bad. This was so bad. This was worse than bad.
McKay was only able to keep his mouth shut from expelling vocal words of doom when he saw Sheppard's bruised and bloody face trying so desperately hard to cling to consciousness and give McKay a reassuring look.
Sheppard. Reassuring. As he lay half-dead under the Genii commander's hand. As if he had a plan.
But Sheppard always had a plan. He always had Plan B, C, D. Hell, he would go to Z and beyond if that was what it took. And that was what McKay grudgingly admired about the man. That despite all odds he seemed like he knew what was going on and what was going to happen.
"I want this ship airborne, Colonel," Kolya demanded, shaking Sheppard. The man flopped like a rag doll in the Genii's grip.
"It's hard enough to fly these things when you're perfectly healthy, let alone half dead," McKay snapped.
Kolya shot him a withering look. "It is just too bad that you can't seem to get the chair to work yourself, Doctor McKay, or you could take his place."
"I would be perfectly happy to fly this ship if it'd let me," McKay retorted.
He knew why the ship wouldn't let him fly it. It was a top-of-the-line fighter ship, smaller, faster, and deadlier than any Ancient ship he had seen. And it had a very particular AI program that McKay had also never seen before. That AI program wanted a pilot — a real pilot.
When Kolya had forced him in the chair two days ago the ship had lit up briefly and then immediately shut down. Although he was pleased Kolya couldn't use him to fly the ship, McKay was also baffled. Only after digging into the archives did he realize what the Ancients had done.
Whoever sat in the chair was subjected to a brief mental probe by the AI, which in turn would decide whether the pilot had enough experience to fly the ship or not. Sheppard obviously fit the bill, but McKay knew that the ship was also so damaged that the AI might not be functioning properly, which proved his theory when Sheppard was sent into a seizure. Something must have happened to it in the crash, but McKay didn't have the time to figure it out, and he especially didn't have the mental capacity to figure it out after being threatened, beat up, and had his teammates endangered for the past two days. In addition to very little sleep and almost no food he was feeling slightly crazy with no sense of focus to get anything done.
"This ship only seems to respond to you, Colonel," Kolya growled, his hand still fisted in Sheppard's shirt and his face inches from Sheppard's face.
"Lucky me," Sheppard responded faintly.
"Turn it on —" Kolya forced Sheppard back into the chair and turned menacingly on McKay "— or I will be forced to do some very unpleasant things to Doctor McKay."
McKay swallowed. Before he could offer another distraction, Sheppard said, "The ship's broken, Kolya. It can't fly. It wants to, but it can't."
For a brief moment, an image flickered in the air above the chair, and McKay saw a schematic of the ship, covered in red light, clearly showing it was not space-worthy. Beneath the image, McKay saw Sheppard stiffen and his eyes roll back, another seizure imminent. Kolya cursed and fisted his hand in Sheppard's shirt, pulling him off the chair and to the floor. The image above the chair vanished as the man slumped on the floor, breathing heavily.
"If you can't fly it then you are lucky I have a backup, Colonel," Kolya said. He looked at his soldiers, seething. "Head back to the 'gate," he ordered. The four guarding the door slipped out, while two stayed with McKay and two with Sheppard.
"Let's go," Kolya ordered.
Sheppard was roughly pulled from the floor, unable to find his feet. McKay was forced from the console and through the door after Kolya, throwing a worried glance back at Sheppard. Behind him, the man was not resisting, and the guards with him had to drag him along the darkened corridors as he weakly scrabbled for a foothold. McKay pulled back, slowing down as he tried to fall into step with the soldiers behind.
Frogmarched down the corridor and down a flight of stairs, they emerged in the doorway of the entrance to the ship, but it wasn't how McKay remembered it when Kolya had forced he and Teyla inside only a few days ago. The door was twisted and scarred with black streaks, torn from its frame by a blast that must have been caused by C-4 or something similar. As they neared the door, McKay could feel heat emanating from its surface along with the smell of burnt metal. Maybe this was the distraction that helped Teyla escape earlier.
Even if this ship had been able to fly before, it surely was not flying now, and as McKay glanced at Kolya's rigid face he knew that the Genii finally knew it as fact. Full of rage, Kolya strode from the ship, flanked by the four men who had preceded them. He turned as McKay was pulled outside by his guards, followed by Sheppard and his guards. The Genii lifted a hand and the soldiers with McKay and Sheppard paused.
"I have no use for him anymore," he said, looking at Sheppard. "Kill him. Bring the doctor."
McKay felt as though he was moving through quicksand. His heart dropped and all he could hear was blood pounding in his ears as everything seemed to slow. The soldiers with him grabbed him by the arms, hauling him after Kolya into the trees. He only caught a glimpse of Sheppard as the man was forced to his knees in the doorway of the ship, fierce dark eyes flashing in the dying light of the forest beyond as a pistol was leveled at his temple.
McKay screamed as the soldiers tore him away, dragging him through the trees as a single gunshot echoed through the forest.
Author's Note: Apologies for the extremely evil cliffhanger and many thanks to all for the kind reviews and patience. The next chapter will be coming along shortly!