Latest Update: 10/12/06 - back to Section I; onward to Section III
Among the Stars - SECTION II
By NotTasha...

PART 7: GAMES

Rodney tottered, staggering through the doorway and into the hall outside.  He dropped the laptop to slap a hand against the control panel, shutting the door.  Almost without conscious thought, he grabbed at the panel, pulling loose its covering and yanking one of the crystals from within.

What the hell was that?  What was that woman doing?

He fell on his butt, his back to the wall and stared at the crystal in his hand.  For a moment, he just panted, looking in disbelief at the way his bloodied fingers left prints on the transparent surface.

So strange, he thought, so very strange.

God, his side hurt.  He sucked in a breath.  Oh God…  He closed his eyes tightly, trying to overcome the horrible ache as he pressed one hand to the wound.  Crap!  Crap crap crappy crap!

Without looking, he dropped the crystal to the floor and activated his radio.  “Colonel Sheppard?  Teyla! Ronon!”   He opened his eyes and gazed longingly down the hallway, expecting to see Sheppard and Teyla and Ronon.  He wanted to see them running toward him – but no one came.  The hallway remained empty and quiet.  No one returned his call.

“Colonel?” he tried again.

Oh God, this hurts.  What sort of twisted game is she playing? What the hell is she doing in that … treasure room?

A collision on the other side of the door broke him from his reverie.  He picked up the laptop one-handedly, almost surprised that he still had it.  His other hand stayed clutching at his side, as if it could take away the pain that burned there.

Please…

He blinked, trying to sort things out.  She’s not going to get through that door, Rodney reasoned.  She’s not!  But he could hear her, fiddling with the controls on the other side, and he felt a coldness fill him.  He shuddered, honestly chilled.  If she knew what she was doing, she’d figure out a way to get that door open – only a matter of time.

“Come on, guys,” he whined into the radio.  “I need help… I need someone…”

And nothing.

The radio wasn’t working, so he shouted, “Teyla! ”

She was so close – so close -- just one floor beneath him.

Oh God, he was bleeding… bleeding a lot.  He looked down at his side in disbelief.

The woman from the room continued to work at the door.  He could hear her efforts, listened to her voice, thick with a stream of curses.

McKay pushed himself onto one knee.  Oh God… oh God, his side was on fire.  He grasped at fabric and flesh with one hand, feeling the pain only increase as he wobbled to his feet.  Staggering, he started forward, pressing one shoulder to the wall to keep his balance.  He felt lightheaded and strange as he moved.

Glancing down to his side, he scolded himself, “Haven’t lost that much blood.  You’re being a big baby.  Beckett takes more blood from you when he’s running his damn tests.”

No… no… this is a lot of blood.  Oh God, this is bad.

He tried to ignore that he was painting a stripe along the wall.

He kept staggering, trying to keep upright as his side screamed at him.  He’d go to Teyla, he figured.

Teyla would help him.

Teyla would help.  Oh God…

Stumbling and staggering, he finally caught sight of the doorway to the central core.

I’m not going to make it.

You will, you will make it!  Think of it as a game.  Just one step. Keep going.

Okay, one step… and one step… and one step… yes… yes… made it.

He smiled in triumph, leaning heavily on the wall, as he fussed at the door panel.  After a few hastily entered commands, he opened it.  The door whooshed open, and he furrowed his brow at the red smudges he left behind on the control pad.  He forced himself to the opening and grimaced at the sight – a one-story drop to the next level.  There was nothing to do, except step out onto the ladder.

Great… just great.

He had no choice.  He had to find Teyla.  He had to get help.  She was so close.  He only had to go down one floor, right?

He eased his way out, putting one foot onto the nearest rung, jamming his laptop under the arm that clung to the wound.  Grasping hold of a rung with his free arm, he brought his other leg out and he was on the ladder.   This’d be easy, right?

He looked downward at the distance he had to descend.

Easy.  Easy as pie.

Pie’s not easy to make though.  Someone makes it wrong once and ruins it forever for others.  And there was always some wiseacre who thought lemon meringue was a good idea.  Pi is easy too, but not for everyone.  He tried not to let his mind drift and recall that Pi rhymed with a certain word.

He gulped uncertainly and closed his eyes a moment.

No time for this, he reminded himself.  He had to ensure that that shrew couldn’t follow him.  He had to get help!  Leaning into the ladder, he worked on the control panel one handedly.  So stupid that he wasn’t wearing his pack.  There was no convenient place to store the computer and the ladder rungs weren’t wide enough to support it if he were to jam it in there.

He shut the door with a quick clattering of keystrokes, and then pried open the panel.  Just have to rewire this, reprogram, figure out a way to lock her on that side of the door.

He panted as he worked, easing out one crystal.  His hand felt sticky and strange, and he fumbled the piece as it came clear.  It fell, and landed with a melodic little clink below.

The airlock above him started to open.  Surprised, McKay looked up, his mouth open in disbelief.  Another segment of the inner core yawned above him as the doubled doors fully opened.

That wasn’t supposed to happen.   He turned his head and looked downward despondently at the crystal he’d removed.  Damn… damn, damn.  In his attempt to disable the hallway door, he’d managed to trigger open the airlock to the next section.

He tried to shut the hatch, but the unit was already disabled.  The crystal was one floor beneath him.  Great!

He could climb down, retrieve the dropped crystal, put it back in place so that he could shut the airlock above him – disable the control panel again (without opening the airlock above) and climb back down.

He was so screwed.

He pecked at the keypad, trying to get it to accept the command to close the airlock above.  “Come on,” he muttered.  “Come on already.  Don’t do this to me. You really don’t need to do this to me!”

Pie... stupid pie.  Nothing is easy.

The keypad made discontented little oinks and the doors remained in their positions.

“Great!  Just great!” McKay groused, resting his head against the rail.

Now what?

He was in no state for climbing up and down stupid ladders!  He took assessment of himself, releasing his hold on his side for a moment, gasping at the blood that oozed.

Damn it! He cringed as if he could get away from it.  God, it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch!  He really didn’t think he could get down the ladder without losing the laptop.  Why didn’t he bring his pack?!

With a groan, he leaned against the ladder, touched his radio and tried again.  “Colonel?  Ronon? Teyla?  Respond.  Please respond.  Man down.  Please,” he called.  He waited a moment, thinking that maybe they were just taking their time.  “I could really use some help here.  No kidding, okay?”

But only the sizzling sound of a jammed signal was returned.

“TEYLA!”  His voice echoed back at him in the space.  Pressing his head against the cool ladder he waited, listening, hoping he’d hear her return his cry from below.  “TEYLA!”

And nothing.  Nothing.  He grimaced, straining his ears and wondering if his heartbeat really was audible.

“Teyla,” he whispered.  “Please…” He held onto the ladder with one hand as the other pressed against the wound, while his elbow trapped the computer.  His waited, hoping to hear Teyla’s voice.

And he was answered, but by a clatter just beside his head.  In a panic, he stared at the door at his level.  Someone was right outside.  The dark-haired woman had made it through the first door!

With a groan, he looked upward.  It was his only choice really.  He could close the airlock once he was above it, he knew that much.

But how could he be expected to climb?

He stepped up one rung, and then another, going as far as he could on his ladder, keeping one arm close to his side, in an attempt to keep hold of his laptop and his blood.

Damn, Damn.  This sucks.  This really sucks!

There was a gap in the ladders where the airlocks closed.  He gazed up at the breach, knowing that he’d have to stretch to reach the next bit, and pull himself up a little.  He gulped.  This would not be easy.

“When have McKays chosen the easy route?” he whispered to himself.  “Okay then, just move to the next level.  It’s like a video game, right?  Not so hard.”

He tried, he honestly tried, reaching his free arm, as he held the other tightly to him.  His fingers grabbed the rung, but now he needed to pull himself up.  Releasing his side, took hold of the laptop, and reached, lifting the computer over his head as he tried to also grab hold of the next ladder.

He was pathetic.

He couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t hold onto the laptop and get to the next ladder.

Damn.

If Ronon hadn’t hit him in the arm with the football, MAYBE he would be able to do this.

He glanced down to the doorway where the dark-haired woman was still fiddling about.  If she got through the first door…

Damn.  Oh damn…

With a sigh, he held the bloodied computer to his chest, thinking of the wealth of data currently stored on it. This was the stuff of dreams!

He hugged the laptop, for a moment longer, wondering exactly how shock resistant the thing was.  He was a full story off the ground – that was a long drop.

With a morose sigh, he pulled the laptop from the protection of his chest, and grasping it with one hand, let the arm fall to his side. So much data was collected here.  People – people like him -- would pay any price to get their hands on it.

He had to climb.  He had to keep going.  He had to let loose of his deadweight.  He couldn’t let her win this one.

He let the computer slide, slowly, through his fingers as he stifled a sob.    

It was a dream to have this data...  but he'd had to let go of so many dreams in his life.

One moment he had hold of it, his fingers tacky and trying to stick to the surface, and the next moment – he’d let it go.

The laptop landed beneath him with a heartrending BANG and a clatter.

He couldn’t look down at it.  He couldn’t bear to see if the construction held tight or if the circuits were now spread across the lower airlock.

He reached upward, grabbing the rung and pulling himself up, gasping in pain as the muscles at his torso pulled.

“Oh!  Oh!  Oh God… oh God!  This is so unfair!  This is so unfair!” he yelled as he scrambled, pulling himself up and settling his feet onto the upper rungs as quickly as possible.  "Injured parties should NOT be forced to... ugh!"

He reached the next control panel and he entered the command to shut the airlock behind him. It sighed closed just beneath his feet.

For a moment, he rested.  Tears and sweat ran down his face, and he swiped at them, awkwardly, with the back of his hand.  He regarded the panel, wondering what to do next, how to lock out the woman who seemed bent on killing him.

How do I lock it so that no one can get through?

But then Sheppard and the rest won’t be able to come after me if I lock down this door, he reasoned. Because they will come.  I need their help – I need them.

But that harpy will only be able to follow me all the sooner if the door isn’t disabled!  She got through the first door...and once I close this one...

He contemplated a moment, pressing a hand to the hole in his side, grimacing against the pain and the puzzle.  Finally, with a frown, pulling the cover off the keypad, and moving one crystal out of the way – holding it in his teeth as he fiddled with another.  It only took a few seconds, but he was already weary of the work.  He replaced the first crystal in its new position and slapped the panel back in place – the airlock beneath him would slow her down, no doubt, but it would open for her – eventually.

That was the genius of his plan.  The airlock would open, once, and then shut -- never to open again – not without his help -- and not for Sheppard and the others.

It felt a little like losing, a little like giving up on his friends.  He was essentially trapping himself along with the woman, but he had to keep ahead of her -- he had to keep her from getting any further – and he had to restrict her from going downward too – because for her to go down through the central core where she’d meet up with Teyla – or Sheppard and Ronon.

He couldn’t stand the fact that she’d surprise them and it’d be all his fault if anything happened.

He had to go up, and he strained forward, grasping his side with one hand.  Using his elbow for leverage, he climbed.

----------------------------------

Teyla stood and walked around in the confined space of the Ironspot.  Rix still dozed on the bench, and Teyla hoped that McKay would return shortly.  She didn’t like this.

Something felt strange – something wasn’t right, and now she worried about her decision to remain here to watch Rix while Rodney went off by himself.

But everything would be fine.   Sheppard and Ronon had their eyes on Zeno.  She was watching Rix.  What trouble could McKay get into?

And she grimaced at that thought.

She should have gone with him.  She should have awakened Rix and dragged him along, even though the man would have slowed their progress, asked questions, demanded answers regarding the work on the Ironspot.  They should have gone together.

She blew out a breath.  With any luck, Rodney would be back before Mills even knew he had gone.  All things considered, it would probably be for the best if the residents of this space station didn’t know that one of their guests was now wandering alone through the facility.  It would allow McKay to complete his task and return quickly.

She stretched and waited.  If everything went well, they’d be able to leave in a matter of a few moments.  The Ironspot was repaired -- she had no doubts about Dr. McKay's work.  If the download was complete and the buffer charged, then they could go.

Realizing that the others would like to know their status, she tried her radio again, hoping for the interference to be resolved.  “Colonel Sheppard.  Ronon.”  She frowned at the feedback that was returned to her.  No luck.  It unnerved her, and she glanced upward, realizing that Rodney was alone.

She felt something – a strange unsettled feeling.  Something was wrong.  Something was very wrong.

A frown creased her forehead as she realized she might have made a mistake.

A sudden beeping filled the air – only audible because there was no other sound to hamper it.  She spun around, seeing Rix shoot upright.

He grasped at something in his collar and looked about wildly.  He caught Teyla’s eyes and kept scanning.  He frowned as he realized that she was the only person with him.

“Where is Rodney?” he questioned.

Teyla watched him, guardedly.  “He has gone to check on the status of the download,” she responded truthfully.

With a groan, Rix scrambled to his feet.  “Alone?  He went there alone?”

Teyla felt her heart sink.  “What has happened?” she asked, trying to not let her thoughts run to the thousand different troubles McKay might have found.

“Zeno went with him?” Rix cried. “Right?  Zeno escorted him?”  He jumped to his feet. “No, no, because then those other two would be here.  Crackers!  You weren’t supposed to go up there alone!  He was just supposed to fix the ship and you could get the stuff you wanted.  Why didn’t you stick to that?”

The wiry man rushed out of the Ironspot.  He came to a sudden stop, looking about as if hoping to find McKay still in the room.  Looking more sad than upset, Rix asked, “You don’t think he’d touch anything, do you?  He wouldn’t try to open things that… that weren’t supposed to be opened?”

Teyla said nothing, but her expression explained it all.  Rix keyed open the door and rushed from the room with Teyla right behind him.

------------------------------------------

The three men relaxed in the mess hall, easily hefting the football, one to another.   There was little to say.  Sheppard at times tried to open a conversation, but neither Zeno nor Ronon seemed open to speaking.  So the football went around, and around again.

The colonel wasn’t sure if he should be relaxed by the quiet, or put on edge by it.  Ronon kept his steely gaze on Zeno, as Zeno watched them both.  With some sense of jealousy, Sheppard noted that the big man paid more attention to Ronon, offering Sheppard only a momentary examination from time to time.

Hell, Sheppard thought, I'm not harmless.

They tossed the ball, getting a solid SMACK with each reception.  Gone was the laidback feeling that had existed while they had Rodney for a target.  They threw the ball like they meant it.

WHACK, it was in John’s hands again.  Sheppard nodded to Ronon as he passed it off to Zeno.  The big man caught it without any effort and shot it at Ronon, who caught it with equal ease, and jetted it back to Zeno.

Zeno rocketed the pigskin back to Ronon, hitting him hard in the numbers.  Ronon deployed it with enough force to flatten most men.

WHAP and BANG, the ball went back and forth between the two until Sheppard cleared his throat, and Ronon, almost reluctantly, sent the ball in his direction.

“Thanks,” Sheppard offered, and without looking at him, flung the ball toward Zeno.

Zeno needed to reach to catch it, giving Sheppard a disgusted grunt as he made contact with the ball, and without much of a pause, sent it back to Ronon hard enough to down a gorilla.

Of course, Ronon caught the ball without much trouble and propelled back to Zeno with the same power used by a grenade launcher.

Sheppard had to admit that he was rather glad that he hadn’t revealed to Zeno the whole ‘tackling’ and ‘blocking’ and ‘sacking’ possibilities that came with the game.  Ronon, undoubtedly, was contemplating it.

The ball came back to Ronon, as Little Boy might have been delivered to Hiroshima.  The Satedan, just narrowed his gaze at Zeno.  As Dex drew back to deliver his own Fat Man, Zeno suddenly stiffened, and touched a button at his collar.  A quiet but insistent alarm was silenced.

Zeno turned stiffly and made his way through the door without a word.

Sheppard paused a moment to look to Ronon, but the Satedan was already on Zeno’s tail and the three men wordlessly hurried out of the room, heading toward the central core.

PART 8: AIRLOCK

“What the hell?” McKay gasped as he climbed.  “What the hell was that all about?”  He groaned, using his elbow to leverage him upward. "OW!"

“Why’d she have to shoot me?” he squabbled to the walls around him.  “Why?  Because I discovered their stash, their cache, their … booty?” he spat out the word.

“Booty?” he repeated, as if he couldn’t believe he’d thought of that particular word.  “What’s this supposed to mean?  They’re pirates, and they stashed her in that room as soon as they saw us coming.  Stuck her in there to guard the loot while Frick and Frack distracted us?  Oh, don’t tell me we dealing with pirates!”

He closed his eyes a moment, leaning heavily on the ladder.  Hadn’t Teyla told them about pirates once, long gone?  Damn it, what had she called them?  Boca Grandes or something like that?

Yes, back during that horrible time when he’d been trapped on the planet of a thousand mosses, the others had discovered a cache of gold, jewels, crystals and bits of Ancient tech – just like the concoction he’d glimpsed in that room.  Boca Ratons? Bog people?

“Great!  Just great!  I’m in another GALAXY for Christ’s sake and now I’m being chased by PIRATES?”

The Fates laughed at him, he had no doubts about that.  They laughed and ate popcorn and threw footballs at him as they played with his life.

“A woman, in a closet, jumps out and shoots me.  How unfair is that?” He glared downward in the direction he’d come.  “Who is she?  Bonny Anne Bonny?  Does that make the others Blackbeard and Jean Lafitte?”

“Gah, dammit!”  His foot slipped, the step slick with his blood, and he missed the rung. He made a little whimper as he placed his foot again, more carefully, and climbed further.

Unhappy as hell, and in a world of hurt, he kept moving upward, one rung at a time, pulling himself onward.  He’d seen the schematics of the space station.  He knew where he was going.  He had to make it to the Observation level before the Pirate Queen made it much further.

He climbed, shaking, pulling himself upward, stepping to the next rung as he reached again.

Ow!  Oh God… OW!  Damn it!  Damn it!

One hand remained clamped at his side, trying to keep pressure against the wound.  His elbow had to work as a limb to lean against the ladder.

Suck it up, McKay! Keep going!

This bites.  This really bites!

And he kept climbing, as quickly as he could manage, dreading the moment the woman would figure out how to get through the next two doors, and the airlock would open beneath him.

Not going to happen, he promised himself.  Because you’re almost to the next door! And you will solve this problem like you always do.

Just a few more steps – a few more.  Anyone can do this, right?

“I’m going to die,” he muttered.  “I’m not going to make it, and I’m going to die!”

Another step, and another.

“Just watch!  I’m going to pass out and fall, and strike my head on the way down on this stupid ladder.  DEAD!  I’ll be dead! If not from blood loss and the inevitable concussion, then it’ll be internal injuries from the fall.  I’d probably land on the laptop and die from the shards jamming into my most necessary organs.”

He reached and stepped once more, and he reached the top of the section.  He smiled at that accomplishment, breathing hard.  “Knew I could do it,” he told himself and reached the panel, keyed in the command and opened the airlock above him.

Another cylindrical space, just like the one he was in, yawned above him.  Another ladder.

He sighed at the sight and held still for a moment, breathing in gasps from his exertion and the pain.

How am I supposed to climb another one of these?

What the hell’s expected of me?

Pirates!  Why’d there have to be pirates?

Pulling himself up past the gap in the ladders was murder.  He groaned with the effort, screwing up his face and moving as quickly as possible to the next control panel and he shut the airlock behind him.  HA!

Good, another door between himself and the mad marauding pirate wench.  Excellent!

He paused, a hand spidery above the keypad as he thought.   There was a sound beneath his feet, and he froze.  A muted the sound of an airlock opening farther down.  Then it closed a moment later.

CRAP!  Oh crap crappy crap!  She’s just one level down!  Crap! Shit!  Dammit!

Great.

He started punching in commands, overwriting the previously stored passwords with a few keystrokes.  Almost immediately, he could hear her, beneath him.

How’d she climb the ladder so fast?  What am I dealing with? Super Pirate Monkey Girl?

So unfair!

“You can’t have it!” he heard her voice rasp from the other side of the thick door.  “You’re not taking what we’ve waited so long for!”

“What?  The ZPM?”  He kept working at the keypad.

“Our riches!”

“Riches?  Oh yeah, that’s fine.  Keep them!  We already have our own box of booty.”

“What?” her voice was furious.  “You have stolen from the Bogachiel!?”

Bogachiel!  That was it.  What kind of lame ass pirate name was that?

“I’ll skin you alive for that!” her muffled voice hissed.

Great -- way to piss off a pirate, McKay, he said to himself.  First she shoots me, then she wants to skin me alive?  “Come on!  Give me a break.  I’m havin’ a pretty bad day right now!”

 Her voice was hard to hear through the heavy door,  “I will cut out your heart when I get get you!”

Rodney clung to the ladder, holding his side as he pressed his head to the ladder.  “I was only trying to help you fix your ship," he whined softly.  "Is this how you thank people?  Why the hell should I care if you got a chest full of doubloons?  Go on, have fun.  Go keelhaulin’ with your buddies and shiver your timbers.  Drink your rum, say, ‘Avast, me hearties,’ and sing ‘Yo-ho-ho’ and all that.  Swab the poop deck!”  And he hissed as he finished his dissertation, feeling empty and spent.  His whole body tingled.  His side throbbed with pain.

From the other side of the door, she let off what must have been a string of colorful curses.

He punched at the keypad as he listened to her muffled voice.  She was caterwauling, getting even angrier by the sound of it, as she attempted to open the airlock that separated them.  He made out her saying, “You’re a dead man as soon as I get through this door!”

McKay sighed, as he pressed a hand to his bleeding wound.  Probably be a dead man no matter what you do, he thought.  But, you’re not getting through this door.

He didn’t care how well she knew this space station, she was up against the brightest mind in the galaxy.

He concentrated on his work, entering data that would bewilder the system, canceling out their codes, denying access, finding his way to access the other doors.  With a few keystrokes, he had not only locked the airlock between them, but also ensured that nothing else above the ZPM level would open -- unless by his command.  With any luck, she would be truly trapped now – unable to go up or down.  He grinned, biting his bottom lip.  This would work, wouldn’t it? There!  Done.  That would do it.

But now he’d ensured that the others would be unable to rescue him.  Great…

The woman kept up her hullabaloo.

“Try all you want!” Rodney called down.  “Don’t give up.  Just keep punching away at the keypad.”

He closed his eyes a moment as a shudder ran through him, and rested his head again.   Below him, the pirate queen continued to bitch and wail, accomplishing nothing.

He smiled softly, realizing that he’d managed to imprison her. She would not be able to attack him again – or going after the others.

He stared at the little keypad that he’d just abused.  If he’d had his laptop still, he’d be able to break into some of the main systems.  If he'd just thought to break into the system while he still had it in his hands...

He touched his radio again, listening to the static.  If he hadn’t been so incapable, so unable to hang onto his laptop, he would have been able to rig in his laptop at this juncture, and deactivate the jamming system, warn the Colonel and Teyla and Ronon.  His next best bet was the observation deck above.

Rix and Zeno knew about this woman on the space station.  How could they not?  The others were in danger of a similar attack from those two.

Teyla… he stiffened, remembering how he’d left her alone with Rix.  What sort of trouble was she in?  Sorry, Teyla.  So damn sorry.   If he could only warn her and…

But, crap, he was as trapped as pirate girl.

He was on his own now – and this upward ladder led to nothing except the Observation Deck.

“I am so screwed,” he muttered again, and commenced climbing once again.

PART 9: CRACKERS

Teyla followed Rix as the lanky man ran toward the doorway to the central core. He keyed in a code and seemed frustrated when the door didn’t part immediately.  It hesitated and then it whooshed open.  The man almost charged forward, but came to a complete halt as he stared within.

“Oh, crackers!” he gasped, going a little pale.

Teyla forced her way forward, coming to a stop at the verge of the opening, and just stared at the horrible sight that met her -- blood.  It was spattered across one side of the floor, dripped down the ladder.  An abandoned Ancient’s crystal, marked in red, lay in the center of the floor, but Teyla’s eyes were drawn to the laptop that rested not far from it.

She focused on it for hardly more than an instant – the familiar form fouled with blood.  “Rodney,” she voiced softly.  And for a moment, her breath seemed to be taken from her, replaced a second later by a dark anger.

In a flash, she grabbed hold of Rix, yanking him away from the opening and slamming him against the hallway wall.  He gasped in surprise at her attack, eyes wild.

“Where is Dr. McKay!?  What have you done?”  Her voice was dark and she pressed her arm against his throat.  “You KNOW something happened!  Tell me!”

“Wortley!” Rix gasped out.  “It had to be Wortley!  Rodney must've opened the storeroom.  I swear, I swear we didn’t want this to happen!  We just wanted the ship fixed, that’s all. Just wanted the ship fixed so we could get out of here with the treasure before the others got back.  But he must have opened the door and Wortley got upset! She was the guard.  The last defense if someone went looking!”

Teyla kept her arm tight to his neck, the vision of the bloodied room filling her with dread.  “You are Bogachiel?” Her question came out as an accusation, and her mind clouded with stories of days long past, of the marauders, the Bogachiel that had no home planet, that raided the settlements of others.

They took baubles, gold, crystals, anything portable and useless.  They took pretty things that could be used in trade for technology, for ‘fast ships’, for luxuries.

And they killed people who stood in their way – murdered them.  There was blood dripping down the walls of that room.  She pressed harder against the man’s throat.

“They left us here!” Rix howled back at her, struggling to draw in a breath.  “The others marooned us with no way to get out!  Left us to watch it!  We’ve watched it!  We can’t stand it here anymore.  All we wanted was to get out with what was due us!”

But Teyla wasn’t listening, her mind filled with the stories of bloodthirsty pirates and images of the room.   She shoved herself off of Rix and plunged into the opening of the central core.  Her hand flew to her radio.  “Dr. McKay!” she called.  “Rodney!  Doctor McKay!  Answer me!  Please, answer me!”

But only the crackle of static was returned.  “Colonel Sheppard, Ronon!” Her eyes focused on the stained laptop.  She could make out the handprints in the blood  -- there was no doubt to whom they belonged.  For a moment she could envision Rodney, holding onto that device, and chatting away happily about the latest find he had cataloged there.  He’d been so happy about retrieving the data in this space station.

He’d been so happy.

Rodney was the type of person who couldn’t hide his joy when he found something new.  She could imagine his face, and the way his eyes became so bright with curiosity.  She could envision how overjoyed he’d be to parse through the supernova data he’d been collecting – the data that was on this laptop.

The handprints.  The laptop was smeared with blood.

“Rodney,” she called again.  He’d gone up.  She carefully examined the blood and how it marked the ladders.

He’d come out on the floor above, and had gone further up – beyond the airlock.

She spun, fixing Rix with a unyielding look.  “If he is hurt…” and she paused, because obviously the scientist was injured, seriously hurt.

Rix backed away, trying to get away, but Teyla grabbed him fiercely by the collar.  Shoved him at the ladder, she demanded, “You will go up!  And you will open the doorway above!  You will help me find him!”

She pushed him with enough force that Rix lost his balance for a moment and his face collided with the ladder.  He came back, a smear of blood across his face.  He wiped at it with his sleeve.  “Wait,” he cried, and pointed at the crystal.  “We might need that.

Teyla snatched up the transparent piece and was beside Mills again, shoving at him, and Rix  had no choice but to go up.

--------------------------------------

Zeno moved fast.  Sheppard and Ronon were right behind him, but the big guy was a couple of steps ahead.

Damn, Sheppard groused to himself as he put more speed behind his pace and attempted to close the gap.

Zeno disappeared for a moment, moving around the curve of the hall.  Sheppard put on the steam, and then came to an abrupt halt as Zeno came into sight again.  Ronon might have run smack into the colonel if his own reflexes weren’t so quick.

Zeno faced them, his arm in motion as he reached for something tucked into his belt.

CRAP!  OH CRAP!  Sheppard went for his berretta.

Zeno’s weapon was already leveled at them, but instead of firing, a projectile came out of nowhere, and smashed into his arm.  The weapon went off. The shot impacted into the wall not far from Sheppard’s head.  The football wobbled away.

Bringing his own weapon to bear, Sheppard heard the inspiring whine of Ronon’s weapon powering up right beside his ear.

Zeno brought the weapon forward again, his face filled with hatred.

He didn’t manage to aim.  He didn’t even manage to fully lift the weapon.  The force of Ronon’s blast sent him reeling.  Zeno slammed into the far wall, and slid, collapsing into a heap against one side of the hallway.

Limbs jerked for a moment, and then went completely still.

For a moment, Sheppard and Ronon stood in the hallway, over the body of Zeno as the football skittered on the floor.  

This was crazy, Sheppard quickly decided.  This was insane.

Sheppard kept his weapon trained on the downed man, as he asked, “It was on stun, wasn’t it?”

Ronon, at his shoulder, muttered, “His wasn’t.”

“You killed him?”

Ronon shrugged, looking offended by his CO’s reaction.  “He was going to kill you.”

“You could have stunned him,” Sheppard responded, unable to keep a slight whine from his voice.  “We might need some information from him.  Like, why did he go all weird ass crazy on us?”

Ronon replied evenly, “Didn’t have time to reset the weapon.  I suppose you wanted to wait while I changed the setting?”

“Put that way… I’m okay with it,” Sheppard responded.  He turned to face Ronon, asking, “So, what the HELL’s going on?”

Ronon shrugged, and leaned over Zeno to see if any sign of life remained.

“Damn it!”  Sheppard reached for his radio as Ronon did his examination.  “Teyla!  McKay, respond. Respond immediately.  No screwing around.”  He waited a moment.  “I mean it, McKay.  I don’t care if you’re up to your elbows in the guts of that ship.  Answer the goddamn radio!”

Ronon kicked at the dead man as Sheppard waited for a response.  When the Colonel frowned, Ronon tried his radio as well.  “Teyla?” he called.  When she didn’t reply, he told Sheppard.  “Radio’s still out.”

“Great,” Sheppard said with a groan.

“Still jammed,” Ronon surmised.

Sheppard sighed.  “Damn it, Rodney.”  He frowned, not knowing why he figured McKay was at the root of this latest development, but it seemed to be a good bet.  “We got to find them – now.  And we’re getting off this station.”

Ronon confirmed, “I’m ready to go.  Been ready.”  He looked at Zeno’s body with a sneer, and then lifted his chin a fraction as he thought of something.  “What was that alarm for?”

“I got a bad feeling about that,” Sheppard sighed.  He ran a hand through his hair as he gazed unhappily at the body in the hallway, and hoped that things weren’t going to get any worse.

Somehow, he feared that they would.

“Let’s go,” the colonel declared.  He waited a moment as Ronon went back for the gear they’d left in the other room.  He picked up the football in the hallway and lobbed it at the Satedan as they came back.  Ronon caught it easily and crammed it into his pack.

-------------------------------------------------

He kept moving upward, wrapping an arm around the rung, using his knees as much as his feet to get a purchase.  He felt so strange – so very strange, almost as if he was floating – as if he could let go and float his way to the top of the column.

He laughed at that image.  “Ridiculous,” he muttered, forcing himself up another step, another rung, as quickly as he could go.  If he could just reach the top, he’d reach the Observation Deck, which had access to the rest of the systems on the station.  Maybe there was even a first aid kit, or something, and again he mourned his missing vest and pack.

He hurt.  God he hurt.  He'd never hurt this bad before.  He hung for a moment, pressing his hand to his bleeding side, wondering if he was accomplishing anything.  His leg was red with blood and his fingers were covered with it.  Staying on the ladder wasn’t helping anything.  He went up – and up.  One foot and then another.  Each step tore new pain through him.

He slipped, and held on, gritting his teeth as he found a purchase for his foot again.

Damning his horrible luck, he gasped, “Space pirates…  This sucks so many ways.”

The next control panel was just above his head.  Another step – don’t slip!  And he was there -- at the last airlock.  Finally… finally…

Breathing harshly, he held tightly to the rung with one hand as he entered the code and the double-airlock opened above him.

He gave a little gasp of surprise as he stared upward – not at another tube like the one he’d just left, but a panorama of stars.

He stared upward, sucking in oxygen, saying nothing, doing nothing beyond hanging on and letting his mind fill with the sight.  It was… beautiful.

Another shock of pain ran through him and he moved -- he moved because a chance to rest was almost at hand -- he was nearly there.

Wearily, he pulled himself up and out, flopping onto the floor of the deck like a beached walrus.  As he rolled away, the airlock to the central core shut, and he was left in the quiet canopy of stars.

He breathed slowly, holding his side.  He’d made it.  He’d made it all the way to the top, with a gaping hole in his side, dropping blood by the pint!  Imagine that?  Not only that, he’d manage to trap a Pirate Princess in the progress.

He truly was amazing.

Utterly amazing.

Someone should sing songs about him. Ballads.  Long ballads.

Something good.  Not that Barry Manilow crap.

Maybe something closer to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, but with a happier ending.

Maybe that wasn’t such a good example.

No, not very.

He licked his lips as he tried to pull himself together.  A quick assessment of his injury told him that the bleeding seemed to have slowed now that he’d stopped moving.  He had to do something.  Yes, now he had a chance to take care of himself.  With a painful gasp, he tried to see if he had an exit wound at his back.  He turned, hissing through his teeth and felt about.   oh God!  Oh…oh… hurts like hell.  That’s probably an exit wound. Ow!  Ow!   He flopped back.

What did that accomplish?

Damn, damn, I have nothing with me to bandage it up. My shirt?  I could use my shirt?

But that would mean sitting up.  Okay, try sitting up…

Oh God… Oh God…. No… no… maybe not… Damn.

I should just lay here a minute, catch my breath…. Catch my breath.  Fine.

With any luck, he wouldn’t bleed to death immediately.  It would take some time.

He had plenty of time now.  He was safe from the wench, and the others had no way of getting to him.

He blinked at the stars, watching them blur.

Now that he’d reached this level, he’d be able to access the station’s systems – to alert the others.  Yes, he needed to do that right away.

Immediately.

Now.

But that would mean sitting up, and it was so much easier to do nothing, to just lay here and look at the stars – the beautiful, perfect stars.  He loved them, he truly did.  Stars were so easy – predictable – unless of course they went supernova.

The others – they need to be warned.

He rolled onto his knees and forced himself upright, staggering as he grabbed the control counsel for the room, a podium-like structure.  His head swam and he held tight, feeling himself shake.

He had to tell the others about the crazy woman he’d managed to lock in the central core.  He might have captured her, but Zim and Reno were both on the loose.

Zim?  Reno?  Was that right?

He shook his head, wishing he could concentrate.

And if the super pirate monkey girl was as bloodthirsty as she seemed, that meant that those two clowns could be bad business for his friends.

Pawing at the controls, he managed to access the main systems.  A few more keystrokes and he was into communications.  He cocked his head, feeling as if the stars were swirling around his head as he made his way through the pathways left by the Ancients, poking and prodding, discovering the jamming system.  After a moment’s consideration, he turned it off.

There, easy.

He was on his back again.  He didn’t know how he ended up in that position.  But after a short panic, he decided it was a good place to be.  But damn, he should have taken off his shirt before this happened.

Why did he need to take off his shirt?  He couldn’t remember.  The idea was crazy!  He started to shiver, feeling a chill.

He stared up at the stars, seeing them in all their beauty, even as he tried to blink them into focus.  A turn of his head and he could see Muskingum, the big ringed planet that had greeted them at their arrival.  Marxworld – Sheppardonia—whatever -- it was beautiful.

Slowly he turned his head in the other direction, to where the supernova colored the sky with its strange cloudlike structure.  He felt a tear build in his eye as he gazed at it.  He wanted to blink it away, but it escaped him and ran down his cheek as he looked into the depths of the supernova.

He wished… he wished he understood more about it.  He wanted to know more.

But he had something to do.  Something… he needed to tell the others… warn them…

A hand moved from his side, feeling like lead, and he brought it to his ear and tried the radio.  “Teyla?” he called softly, finding little strength left in his voice.  “Colonel?  Ronon?”

Almost immediately, voices assaulted him.  Funny, he could identify them, but couldn’t quite make out what they said.  They were all chattering at the same time, their voices demanding answers.  He wanted to reply to them, but couldn’t quite understand their words.

Someone was frantic, but he couldn’t make out why.  He heard the word ' blood.'

“What?  Rodney! Where are you?” the colonel’s voice pierced through his consciousness.  “Rodney!  Answer me!”

“Observation Deck,” he responded, his voice light and dreamy.  “A woman… … Tried to kill me.  I… trapped her… be careful.  I…”  But he couldn’t form a coherent thought.

He continued to focus on the supernova, so magnificent and violent, so simple-looking and filled with great power.  Their voices continued to ring in his ears, but he couldn’t even tell them apart anymore, and his mind was drifting, getting further from the confines of the deck and falling into the deceptive clouds of the supernova.

He was surrounded by stars -- enclosed by incredible beauty.  He smiled numbly.  It wasn’t such a bad place to die.

PART 10: THE CENTRAL CORE

“McKay!”  Sheppard called.  “McKay!  Goddamn it, McKay, answer me!  Teyla?  What did you find?”

“John!” she shouted over the radio, her voice electric with rage and worry. “Rodney is badly hurt.  There is blood -- a great deal of blood!  We must get to him.”

Outside of the central core, Sheppard closed his eyes for a moment and uttered a soft, “No…”

He tried another series of numbers at the door.  The keypad blatted at him.  He scowled and tried again.  “Damn it!  Damn it!” he growled, slamming an open palm against the door.  He spoke over the radio.  “Get to him, Teyla!”

“We are attempting to access the next level,” Teyla replied, frustrated.

“We?” Sheppard responded.  “Mills is with you?”

“Rix is attempting to key open the airlock above us, and is facing difficulty.  The keypad to the upper hall has been disassembled.  He has replaced a missing crystal, but he’s not sure if this is affecting the airlock.”

Over the connection, they could hear Rix whine about codes being changed, his access not working any longer – and then a stifled gasp as if he was met with a sudden pain.  Teyla had undoubtedly given him a shove.

“Teyla, don’t trust him,” Sheppard warned, his voice like steel.

“I do not,” Teyla told him.  “He is Bogachiel. They are all Bogachiel.”

At the mention of that name, Ronon let out a frustrated sound.

“Bogachiel?” Sheppard repeated, familiar with the name.  It took him a moment, but it came to him.  “Space Pirates?”  His voice was incredulous.

“Yes,” Teyla responded.

“Damn it,” Sheppard muttered, shaking his head.  “Space pirates… This can’t be happening.”

“Don’t let him out of your sight,” Ronon ordered the Athosian.

“I do not know the codes to get through to the next level,” Teyla told him.

Another voice came over the comm., speaking in a quiet slur, “Can’t… locked it…”

Sheppard froze at the sound – the usually impatient and energetic scientist sounded so tired, so weak.  “Rodney, hang in there.  We’re coming.”  Beside him, Ronon shifted back and forth, obviously itching to get moving.

“How do we get past this airlock?” Teyla came on.  “Rodney, tell me how to open it!”

Sheppard glanced to Dex as Rodney spoke again. “Can’t unlock it.  She’s… dangerous.  Had to… had to trap her in.”

“Who the hell is ‘She’?” Sheppard spat over the airwaves.

“Her name is Wortley,” Teyla replied.  There was a pause as Rix must have said something.  “Rix believes she shot Rodney when he discovered her guarding their treasure.”

Sheppard groaned, finding it hard to believe that he’d again come across a treasure chest in the Pegasus Galaxy.

Another slight pause and Teyla went on, “We can hear her.  She is in the section directly above us.  She is not happy.”

“McKay!” Sheppard growled.  “Unlock the damn doors!”  He poked viciously at the keypad, and the thing just bleeped flippantly at him.  “Ronon and me are stuck down in the lower levels!  Let us get in!  We’ll take care of her.”

“Lower levels… weren’t affected,” Rodney returned.  “I … I just shut down… airlocks above the… control center.”

“Then why can’t I open this goddamn door!?” Sheppard growled.

“Are you entering… the correct code?” Rodney asked, a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

Sheppard scowled. “What’s the right code, Rodney?” 

A quiet moment, and then Rodney said, “Let me think… having trouble…”

“Colonel, Rix will let you in,” Teyla’s voice came on.

Within the column, Sheppard heard something moved, and the muffled sound of an airlock opening, and then closing above them, and after a moment, the door to the central core slid open.  Rix stood at the doorway.  He smiled for a moment, but the expression dropped immediately as he took in Sheppard and Ronon.  He backed away.

Teyla dropped down beside Mills.  She said nothing.  Her eyes bleak, she held up the laptop for Sheppard to see it. 

“Son of a bitch,” John muttered, his eyes wide at the amount of blood that coated the device.  He looked up to Teyla, whose face was set like stone.

There was a shove from behind him.  Ronon pushed his way through the narrow door and in a flash the Satedan was on Rix.  For the second time the scrawny redhead was slammed against a wall.

“I didn’t do it!” Rix cried.  “It wasn’t me…”

Ronon just growled, shoving the man off the ground as he pressed him into the wall.

“I’m trying to help!” Rix insisted.

Sheppard took the laptop from Teyla with one hand, and met her eyes, seeing the fear.  Sheppard touched his radio again.  “Rodney?” he called.

“Rodney?” he tried again when silence was returned.

“Present…” Rodney finally replied, softly.

We’re coming to get you,” Sheppard promised.

“He’s locked it up tight,” Rix insisted, and then let out an OOF as Ronon pushed him further against the wall.  “I tried!  I can’t go any further.  He’s done something to the airlocks. Honest!”

“Keep trying!” Ronon demanded.  Grasping hold of Rix’s shirt, he flung him toward the keypad at the door.  “Get that airlock open, or end up like your friend.”

Rix gasped, coming to a stop and turning toward them.  “Zeno?” he asked.  “What happened to Zeno?”

“He’s dead,” Ronon explained tersely.

The man stared at Ronon a moment, then Sheppard.  “You killed Zeno?”  He looked lost.  “Why?”

“He was about to shoot me,” Sheppard responded.

“It was us or him,” Ronon completed.

Rix shook his head mournfully.  “This is so checkered up!” he whispered.  He looked beseechingly at Teyla.  “We weren’t going to do you any harm.  You’d fix our ship and then you’d go.  We’d load up the Ironspot full of riches and go.”  He stopped short.  “Wortley knew places.  Knew lots of places where we could hide out and they’d never find us – the others.  They’d come after us, you know.  They’d come looking.  We just wanted to go!”

He looked from one of them to the other.  “Rodney must have opened the stronghold.  And… you killed Zeno?”  He looked aghast as he asked, “And me?  You’re just gonna kill me, too?”

Sheppard paused a moment, then declared, “Get us to McKay and we’ll let you go.”

Rix scuttled to the keypad.  He closed the door that led to the hallway, and flew up the ladder, climbing like a monkey.  Teyla was right behind him when he reached the airlock above them.

When the ceiling slid open, revealing the next section of the central core, Ronon let out a low growl.  He jammed one of their packs at Sheppard, and set off after the others.

Rix and Teyla climbed.  Sheppard stared upward into the next section, not sure about what he was looking at.  For the love of God, it looked like paint had dripped down the wall and around the ladder.

Sheppard took a moment to secure the smeared laptop into his pack, and then slung the rucksack over his shoulders and started up after Ronon.

He topped the open airlock.  Rix hung to one side of the ladder, waiting until the others climbed past him before he shut the aperture after them.

It wasn’t until the shut airlock formed a floor beneath them that Sheppard saw the true extent of what had happened to Rodney, the blood that had collected on the ‘floor’.

Oh God…

Ronon, just above him on the ladder, seemed thick with rage.

“It’s the airlock above that’s jammed,” Rix explained unnecessarily as he climbed along the side of the ladder, easily passing the others.

Sheppard’s hand flew to his radio, activating it.  “Rodney,” he called.  “Rodney, talk to me, buddy.  How’re you doing?”

He dropped from the ladder to the ‘floor’.  “Rodney,” he called again.  “You’re going to have to unlock the doors.”

“Can’t…” was the response.  “Not from here.”

“From where then?  We’re in-between the jumper bay level and the control level right now.”

“Two floors down.”

“Okay, we’ll go down there.”

“From where… I am!” was the snappish reply.  “I locked it… two floors below the observation deck….”

Sheppard looked mournfully upward, realizing how far McKay had to climb, and in pain.  “Rodney, where’re you hurt?”

“Shot… right above my hip.  God, it hurts.  It hurts… She shot me!”

“You get it bound up with anything?” Ronon asked.

“I… I… I got nothing. Oh yeah… shirt… was going to use that.  Forgot. Damn, I forgot…”

“Rodney?” Sheppard called, looking upward as if it would help him see his friend.  He had to get to him… had to see for sure.

“Not so bad now.  Bleeding is slowed down a lot.  Not so bad… God it hurts.”

Ronon growled again, his hands clenching the rungs tightly.

Rix was above them, prodding away at the keypad.  Sheppard frowned as a woman's muffled and enraged voice resounded from beyond the airlock.

“I’m trying!” Rix whined in answer to her.  “I’m trying to open it!  It won’t go!”

Thumping was heard, with stifled curses.

Ronon, further down the ladder, had his weapon out and ready in case either Rix or Wortley were successful.

“Colonel,” Rodney’s voice came through the radio again, sounding almost timid.

Sheppard swallowed, and then answered, “Yeah?”   He kept watching the ceiling, wanting to get through it, wanting to be able to see his way around it.

“You need to get the ZPM,” McKay said softly.  “Don’t leave it…”

“We’re kinda busy trying to get past your work right now.”

“Don’t leave the ZPM..”

“We’ll get it,” Sheppard snapped, “After we reach you.”

“Took out a crystal to … disabled the hallway door in the core, and another… into the room.  Need to put them back.”

“We’re working on something else right now.”

“Find my laptop.  I dropped it … valuable… don’t leave it.  Someone can fix it… get the data.”

“McKay!  Listen to me!  We’re going to get through whatever you did to the airlocks and we’ll…”

“Can’t…”  A short laugh followed.  “Oh God, I really screwed myself.  Stupid… so stupid.”  And then a pained cough followed, the sound of struggled breathing.

“Rodney, we’re going to figure this out!  Rodney?”  Sheppard waited, listening to Rodney breathe over the comm.

Above him, Rix still poked ineffectually at the keypad while the woman named Wortley raged.  John couldn’t quite make out what she was yelling, but the tone let him understand exactly why Rodney had locked her in.

And Rodney was alone, and hurt.  How much time did he have?

If I could just see him, John thought, see if he was going to be okay…

“Rix!  Get this door open!” Sheppard demanded.

“I’m trying!” Rix insisted.

“This one!”  Sheppard jabbed a finger at the door at his side.  “Let me into the jumper level!”

“Huh?”  Rix looked over his shoulder, past Teyla who was halfway on top of him, and Ronon who trained his gun somewhere near his head.  He noted where Sheppard was pointing.  “Oh.  The gateships!”  And Rix maneuvered around until he was clinging to the side of the ladder again, and sort of slid down it, neatly avoiding both of the people beneath him.

He landed with a thunk beside Sheppard, and looked at his hands in disgust.  He took a moment to wipe Rodney’s blood off on his trousers before he worked the keypad to open the door to the lower hallway.

“Keep an eye on him!” Sheppard ordered Ronon.  Turning to Teyla, he demanded, “Get the goddamn ZPM.  His power buffer should be loaded.”  It would give them an hour, right?  It wasn't as if Rodney had any time left, anyway.

“Where’re you going?” Ronon asked Sheppard, keeping his gaze on the squirrelly pirate.

“I’m taking the jumper out.  Going to see if there’s any other way to get around this.” Sheppard nodded up at the secured airlock, and then added, “Need to check on him.”  He gave Rix a shove toward the ladder.  “Get back up there and let Teyla into the power level, then you’re back to work on getting that airlock open.  You got that?”

“Yeah, sure,” Rix responded and clambered up the ladder once again.

Sheppard slipped through the door, and into gateship level of the space station, the door snicking shut behind him.

His feet pounded as he made his way around the central core and back to the dock where their jumper awaited.  He was within the ship almost immediately.  God, it felt good to be back in a real jumper, to find Jumper 5 all clean and reasonably neat, without cancerous growths attached everywhere.

Quickly, John detached from the station and floated free  “Rodney?  You still with us.  Rodney?”

“Yeah,” was the quiet return.

“Good, keep it that way.  Teyla?”

“Rix has regained access to the control level.  I am replacing the crystal for the door to the ZPM unit,” Teyla replied. There was a ‘whoosh’ and then she said, “I am in.”

“Careful…” Rodney warned.  “Be very… careful.”

“I understand how to handle a ZPM device.  I have a good teacher,” Teyla replied over the radio.  “Colonel, I will bring the device down to the dock for when you return with the jumper.” 

“Good, yeah, perfect,” Sheppard responded as he redirected the jumper, bringing it up and around, to the ‘flower’ of the potted plant space station.

He examined the bottom of the observation deck, grimacing as he saw no sign of another entryway.  Nothing.  Unable to do any good there, he brought the jumper up and over the deck, to stare into the dome.  “Rodney?”

Through the transparent material, he could make out the scientist, prone beside the control console.  He was staring upward and clutched his side, unaware that the jumper had appeared. 

“Rodney?” Sheppard called again.

“‘m still here,” Rodney replied weakly.  It was strange to see his lips moving in that clear dome, and have his soft voice come over the radio.

“I’m here.  To your left.”

Rodney looked momentarily in the wrong direction and then turned his head correctly.  For a moment he just blinked at the jumper outside the window, and then smiled at the strangeness of it.  “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Sheppard returned, watching the languid movements of the scientist.  Rodney's whole side, from his waist down was dark with blood.  “Looks like you sprung a leak,” John said conversationally.

“Yeah,” Rodney responded, keeping his hand clamped to the hole above his hip.  “I’m not doing so good here,” he confessed.  “It’s better than it was,” he admitted quietly.  “Think the bleeding’s almost stopped.”  He released his hand for a moment and groaned.  With a pained look he gazed toward the blood that coated him.  “This isn’t good,” he commented.

“How do we get in there, Rodney?” Sheppard asked, not able to keep the pleading tone from his voice.  “There’s another entrance, isn’t there?”

“‘Fraid not,” Rodney responded, and laughed a little giddily.  “A string walks into a bar…”

“Rodney!  We need a way to get through the airlocks.”

“Bonny Anne Bonny is in there.”

“Ronon will deal with Wortley.  Listen to me, Rodney, if there’s any way to undo whatever you did…”

“Not from here,” Rodney said sadly.  “Messed up… messed up big.”

“There’s got to be another docking station or something in this deck!” Sheppard yelled.  “There has to be a way to get in there!”

“Only one way in and out,” Rodney responded.  He blinked at John, and said, “It’s good to see you, colonel.”

“Figure it out!  Rodney!  How do I get in there?  I’m getting in one way or another.”

“Only one way in…” Rodney gulped and closed his eyes.  He seemed to shudder as he said, “Sorry…”

Sheppard groaned, pressing a hand to his head as he stared at the stalk-like central core and tried to figure out a way around it.

PART 11: RUN!

Teyla ran to the power room, trying not to look at the trail of blood that led her.  She found the place where Rodney had been shot – the floor just inside the room showed the evidence.  She fixed the crystal that Rodney had removed, and entered the room.

It only took a moment for her to release the ZPM from its containment after she verified that the buffer had been fully charged -- buying them enough time, she hoped, to get them all out safely.  She knew they'd be leaving this place the moment they put their hands on Rodney.  Now, it was just a matter of managing that.

She’d paid attention when Rodney was around these devices, just as she’d watched whenever he fiddled with the crystals near doorways.  She would not have been able to figure out which crystal needed to be removed in order to lock a door – but she could suss out where to replace a removed crystal.

Once the ZPM lifted from the system, she pulled it carefully from its mooring, holding it and wondering if she should be able to feel the power that flowed in it.  It felt like nothing special to her.  Still, aware of its force, she placed it into her pack, and lifted it over her arm.  She paused momentarily to peer into the ‘treasure room.’

It was much like the room they’d discovered on PX1-H0H, that watery wet world of moss and trees, that planet where Rodney had been left behind.  The memory of that moment put her into action and she turned her back on the riches and ran from the room.

She darted back to the central core and rapped on the shut door.  After a pause, it opened.  Rix motioned for her to get in quickly.

Wortley’s voice was evident, but muffled by the double airlocks between them. Teyla had to struggle to hear.  “Get me out of here!”

“I’m working on it!  I am!”

Teyla moved to the ladder, carefully handing the ZPM to Ronon.

“That shit!  He did this to me!” the woman screamed.

“I’ll getcha out, Wortley,” Rix promised.  “Just hang on a minute.”

Ronon looked reluctant to move from his place, guarding Rix, but when Teyla drew her weapon on the pirate, he relinquished the responsibility, and accepted the package containing the ZPM and climbing down to the ‘floor’.

“He should be dead!  I had a clean shot at him.”  There was a thump.  “He locked me up in my own home!  I’ll suffocate in here!”

Once Teyla was clear of the hallway door, Rix shut it, and recommenced trying to undo Rodney’s work with the airlock. “He was only trying to save himself,” Rix reminded.

“You!  You’re on their side?” Wortley accused.

“No!  No, that’s not right!  I’m not!  Well, I guess if you take things literally, I am -- right now… but… I’m trying to get you out.  I really am.”

“What did they promise you?”

“Nothing.  Well, that’s not true.  They promised to let me go if I helped.”

“Traitor!”

“No, no, it’s not like that at all,” Rix said, glancing down as Teyla who kept her weapon trained on him.  “I’m trying to get you out!  They’ll take us all with them.  Well, not Zeno, but…”

“Zeno?”

“Well, he’s… they killed him.”

From beneath him, Teyla gave Rix a jab, trying to quiet him down.

“You are on their side!” Wortley barked.  “Zeno’s dead and I will be next!  You’re taking the treasure!”

“No, Wortley…”

“You’re leaving me and taking the Ironspot!”

Rix turned to Teyla,  “Did Rodney fix the Ironspot?  Is it fixed?”  The look Teyla leveled at him told the pirate what he wanted to know.  “Even if the ship is fixed, Wortley, I wouldn’t leave you.”

“You’re right.  Nobody leaves.”

“What do you mean?”

“This ends here.”

Rix paused in his frittering at the keypad.  He froze for a moment and looked upward to the airlock.  “You don’t mean it,” he cried.

“Oh Rixy, I do. I always knew this would come in handy someday.”

“No!”  Rix shot back.  “NO!” He twisted about on the ladder, his eyes wide as saucers.  “Run!” his voice came out in a strangled gasp.  “RUN!”

He dropped off the ladder, landing beside Ronon.  He keyed in the command and the door opened to the hallway.  “The Ironspot?  Rodney fixed it?”  Rix asked again.

Teyla was beside him.  “Yes,” she responded.  And before she could say any more, Rix darted into the hallway at the gateship level.

He ran the short distance to the bay, opening the door and dashed within, Ronon and Teyla at his heels.  He was in the pilot’s seat before Ronon could catch him.

“What’s going on?!”  Ronon bellowed.

“She’s … she’s going to blow it up.” Rix squeaked, his hands playing over the controls.  “She always said she would… if things went wrong.  She always said she’d kill herself before she let the treasure go.”  He smiled gratefully as the ship came online, lights glowed, the mismatched circuits hummed.  “Rodney did it… he did it…”

“Blow it up?”  Teyla repeated the phrase as the rear hatch shut.  It sealed the Ironspot with a sigh.

“She’s got Wraith armor,” he explained, quickly decompressing the bay, and throwing open the bay doors, exposing the ship to space.  A spray of debris was ejected into space as he fired up the ship.  “She’s going to set off her selfdestruct.”

Ronon grumbled like a thunder’s roll.

“She doesn’t keep it powered up.  Too dangerous, but she always wears it.  Always threatens us.  Should take a few more seconds before it goes.  Crackers, we’re going to be close!  Strap yourselves in!”

And the Ironspot shot forward, screaming out of the jumper bay as Teyla radioed Sheppard.

--------------------------------

“We’ll figure it out,” Sheppard promised the figure on the deck.  “Just hang on a bit more.  We’ll find a way to get around this.”  He watched McKay, flat on his back and looking upward, as if it was easier than keeping his head turned.

Instead of Rodney responding, Teyla’s voice spoke urgently over the system, “Colonel, you must get away – immediately!  Wortley is in possession of a Wraith self-destruct system.  She is about to use it to destroy the station.”

“I’m not leaving…”

Rodney blinked, and then turned toward him. “Go…” he pleaded.  Even from the distance and the dome that separated them, his eyes looked sharp and blue.  “Go!”

“Mills is wrong!” Sheppard insisted.

“He is adamant,” Teyla replied.  “And terrified.”

Flotsam and jetsam floated near the gateship bay, and Sheppard watched as the Ironspot jetted away.  He felt his heart constrict, and uttered a strangled, “No…”

“We must go!”  Teyla continued, there was a hitch in her voice as she stated, “There is nothing else we can do.  Colonel…I’m sorry…”

“Please…” Rodney’s voice was so quiet, it was barely heard.  “You must,” he insisted, watching the jumper that hovered just outside his great domed window.  “Don’t be stupid.”

Stupid!  So goddamn stupid!  Everything about this was stupid!  Rodney was so close! So damn close!  John wasn’t going to give up.  He wasn’t going to leave his friend.  He wasn't the type to run, leaving a man behind.

“Now!!” Teyla implored, as the Ironspot flashed away in the opposite direction.  “There are only seconds remaining.  John…”

The hopelessness of the situation tore at him – so close – but impossible to reach.  What could he do? What could he possibly do?

“Go…” Rodney insisted.  “There’s nothing you can do.  Please!”

John knew it… he knew it.

Sheppard gave Rodney one last look.  He wanted to tell him that he’d be back.  He wanted to tell Rodney not to worry, that everything would be fine.

But Rodney was a genius after all.

He wanted to tell Rodney that he was sorry.  He wanted to thank him for…

“So long, Colonel,” Rodney said quietly.

What else could he do?

With a shout of frustration and rage, Sheppard brought the jumper about and put full power behind it.  He still shouted as the ship sped away, not wanting to look, but knowing as the HUD came up, that the central core had burst in bright colors, splitting and rending, splintering the space station into pieces.

As the flowerpot blew apart behind him, somehow, in spite of McKay’s insistence to the contrary, Sheppard expected noise.

PART 12: SHIPWRECKED

He floated among the stars. 

Weightless, he reached out toward them.  Fingers spread, the stars seemed to flow right through them, like grains of sand.  His feet aimed toward the great ringed planet, as if he might be able to shove off from it, and propel himself into the soft clouds of the supernova.

It was like a dream.  He was gliding through space.  And he smiled at his simplistic thinking.  He should know better.  He should be classifying the stars, considering a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.  He should divide the stars into white dwarfs and neutron stars, blue giants, red supergiants, red dwarfs –

It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere.

He should be thinking about the myriad solar systems.   He should be envisioning elliptical orbits, or the dance of binary systems.

Which of the distant suns harbored viable planets?  Where were the stargates?  Which of these suns had he seen already, standing with his team on one of the sun’s orbiting worlds?

I'm all alone, more or less.

He should know.  He should be able to pinpoint every world he’d ever visited in the galaxy.  He should be able to look here and remember where Hoff orbited.  And over there is the Genii homeworld.  And that’s Lucius's muddle-minded home.

Let me fly far away from here.

And there is Atlantis.

Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun

Instead, he floated, looking to the mystic spectacle, and thought the stars were pretty -- their beauty, so intense, it brought tears to his eyes.

Blinking, he looked into the remnants of the supernova, wishing he could’ve had time to read the data he collected, to understand it.

There was so much more to know.

And he’d dropped it. He had the laptop in his hands and had let it go… stupid.

Everything was blurring, and he realized how impossible it was to float through space, without an environmental suit, all alone.  Was he dead?

I want to lie, shipwrecked and comatose, 

And yet he glided, and tried not to think about it too much, because the view was so exquisite, so breathtakingly gorgeous.

It was so damn beautiful.

drinking fresh mango juice

He reached out his hands toward the stars as if he might grasp hold of them, as if they might hold onto him, and he floated onward.

His fingers felt numb and as he clasped worthlessly at the stars, he felt cold – cold and alone.

He was lost, surrounded by the things of his dreams.  Peaceful… it should be peaceful.

Goldfish shoals nibbling at my toes

But something dreadful pulled at him.  There had been a blast.  Something terrible had happened.

His head felt leaden, in spite of the weightlessness.  His side burned, and he turned slowly, looking and wondering what had become of Sheppard and the jumper.

What had happened to Sheppard?  To Teyla? To Ronon?  He swallowed thickly, as he looked to the spot where he’d last seen the colonel.  Had the colonel survived?  Did Sheppard wait too long to leave?  He released a sobering sigh, realizing that the colonel’s dawdling probably spelled his end.,

Sorry, he thought, floating among the stars, as all around, little balls of red accompanied him -- tiny little crimson beads that floated near him like confetti.

Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun

-------------------------------------

Sheppard turned the jumper about the moment that the HUD announced the concussion of the silent explosion had past him.  He’d been thrown for a moment, but had easily brought the jumper back into control.  It seemed a little annoyed with him.

Heading back, the jumper dove and spun, avoiding the slabs of debris that came at him… part of the central core seemed to roll through space, and there was a chair… and there a tabletop.  Some sort of silvery packet skated past.  He didn’t regard it too closely, but he was fairly sure that it was the abandoned Country Captain Chicken.  Sheppard hoped it eventually burned up in the gas giant’s atmosphere.

And strafing him, glittering as it passed, came the gold and silver -- the booty of the pirates.  He swore, neatly avoiding what looked like a bejeweled cup.

His eyes darted through the debris, searching and hoping he didn’t find the thing he sought… not like this.  His chest felt tight.  He could hardly breathe as he stared into the destruction, as he hoped, beyond hope.

“Rodney!” he called over the radio.  “Ronon!  Teyla!”

No one responded, and he felt his heart chill as he steered the jumper back the way he’d come.  His eyes took in the sight.  Nothing remained of the space station – nothing!

Goddamn… goddamn….  No… no..!

“Teyla…Ronon…?”

And then Teyla’s voice sounded in his ear.  “John!” she called, her voice plain with relief.  “You escaped?  Are you all right?”  He found the Ironspot, making out the weird looking ship with its odd fitting engines and the ‘space crane’ on its roof.

“I’m fine!  I’m fine!  You?”

“I am well.  Ronon…” a pause as she ascertained an answer.  “He is unharmed.  We are well.”

“Rodney?” Sheppard called again, hoping against hope.  There was nothing here.  How could he have survived?  Nothing left…  A horrible loneliness tugged at him as he tried to take it all in, a vacuum, and he tried to understand that Rodney was gone -- it felt so wrong.

“Rodney?” he tried hailing again.  He couldn't be gone!  Then, he called, “Teyla, you got any sign of him?”

“No, colonel,” was the solemn response.

Sheppard grimaced.  Damn it!  Damn it!  The dome… was it completely obliterated?

And the HUD lit up, impossibly displaying the shape of the observation deck.  He stared at it, wondering what it meant, and then realized with a quick intake of breath, the dome was intact, heading away at a steady clip.

For a moment he was still, watching the display.  Oh, thank God!

Hadn’t Rix said that the station was made in pieces?  Perhaps it could come apart just as easily.  The deck, had it shot off like a champagne cork?

“Is he still alive?” he whispered, and a little dot lit up on the HUD.  Sheppard felt something unknot inside him.  Thank God…

“Teyla!” he shouted.  “The dome!  The observation deck, it’s intact!”

“It is?” she replied, a response so simple and so hopeful that it almost broke Sheppard’s heart.

“I’m getting a life sign.  I’m going after it!  Follow me!”

Another pause, and Teyla came back.  “We have a problem,” she stated, her voice stilted with distress.  “Rix is not responding.  We had a rough time in the explosion.  He hit his head…” And her voice trailed.

Sheppard bit his lip.  “Great.  Okay, you stay put.  I’m going after Rodney.”

----------------------------

Ronon helped Teyla move the stunned pilot out of his seat.  They said nothing to each other, as if mentioning their hopes aloud might dispel them.

Rix blinked at them stupidly, seeming unable to figure out exactly what was going on.

“Hey,” he said softly, as they settled him in the seat behind the copilot’s chair.  “What… What happened?”

“You hit your head, Rix,” Teyla told him.

The man seemed to look beyond her.  He held a hand to his forehead, bringing it back in surprise to find blood.  He stared at his reddened fingers for a long moment as if he couldn’t quite remember how the blood got there.  “Oh,” he said softly.

Rix had activated the shields, but a glancing blow from a chunk of the station had rocked the ship, sending it spinning.  The inertial dampners had helped, but obviously their quality had degraded.  Rix had been sent crashing into the control panel, shutting down the systems.

Apparently he didn’t take his own advice about getting strapped in.  The necessity of the seat straps was evident now. 

Once Rix was settled, Teyla held his face in her hands.  His eyes were unfocused, his pupils too big.  She hadn’t noticed before, but Rix had eyes the color of a green sea.  He blinked, seeming unable to clear his vision, hardly even noticing her proximity.   One eye seemed to stare in the wrong direction.

“Rix?” Teyla called his name.

Rix’s expression was lost and a little afraid.  “What happened?” he asked again, softly.  And then, “Who are you?”

“I am Teyla,” she explained softly.  “There was an explosion.”

Rix didn’t seem to comprehend her.  He squinted a moment and commented, “You’re lovely.”

Teyla allowed herself a smile at that comment.

“My head hurts,” Rix went on, touching his head again, and seeming to be surprised once more by the sight of blood.

“Teyla,” Ronon called as he stood, tense, beside the control console.  “We’re not letting Sheppard go after McKay on his own.”

With a nod to Ronon, she stood and stated, “I will fly the Ironspot.”

Ronon looked as if he wanted to argue the point, but acquiesced to her pronouncement, and he moved out of her way.

She moved into the pilot seat, and stared at the controls for a moment, not exactly sure what to do.  It didn’t look like the jumper’s control panel – basically, it was the same, but there were coarse-looking toggles added, a clunky bank of switches, and some dials installed in a ham-handed manner.  The cool colors she usually saw in the Ancients’ equipment was overridden with dark brasses, coppery coils, and – here and there – splashes of caustic color from the added gauges.

She’d seen Sheppard and McKay and others fly the jumpers, but she lacked the ATA gene.  But she had listened during the lessons Sheppard had offered the scientist, and had heard McKay’s iteration of what the controls were actually for – correcting Sheppard’s terminology when the colonel started ‘making things up’.

And Dr. McKay had helped her in guiding the Wraith ship.  He seemed to know intuitively what needed to be done, able to explain how to get the Hive Ship in motion, even though he’d never done anything like it before.

She stared at the controls as she remembered -- already missing Rodney’s brilliance, his sometimes caustic, often intense, but always honest demeanor.

We will find him, she reminded herself.  We will get him back.

This ship would be different than either the Hive or jumper.  There was no mental component.  This would be all physical.  She had no real experience with this, but she’d watched Rix.

She reached out her hands, grasping hold of the controls as Sheppard might have done.  Paused a hand over a gauge, examining what it told her, as McKay would.  She flipped one of the switches Rix had fiddled with earlier, and the Ironspot started to move forward.  “Strap yourself in,” she reminded Ronon.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as Ronon secured Rix.  Even the seating area was different than the jumper.  Someone had replaced the seats with chairs more plush than they had in their ships.  The command chair was downright comfortable.

Maybe the Ancestors weren’t right about everything, the Athosian considered. The Bogachiel might have had them on comfort.

The pirate seemed confused by the straps as Ronon fitted him in, and startled.  He tried to press himself into his chair, away from the big man.  “Who?”  the pirate asked, gazing up at him.  “Zeno?”

“No,” Ronon responded. “Ronon.”

“Oh,” Rix said softly, looking as if he didn’t know what else to say.

Teyla continued her quick exploration of the controls, its mix-mash of technologies, figuring it out as best she could as the ship inched along.  She’d get it, she realized, she’d figure it out well enough to follow the colonel.  And she looked in the direction he’d headed, remembering what John had said.

The Observation Deck was still intact – Rodney.

She put more power behind the Ironspot and it leapt at her command.  She guided the ship forward, increasing the speed as Ronon sat and strapped himself in.

“You think McKay’s all right?” Ronon asked, his voice surprisingly soft.

Teyla inclined her head, watching the controls, trying to make sense of the series of strange gauges amid the more familiar Ancient devices.  “I believe,” she stated, “that if anyone survived the explosion of a space station, it would be Dr. Rodney McKay.”

Ronon nodded and settled into his seat as the Ironspot chased down Jumper 5.

PART 13: SNOWGLOBE

The Observation Level of the space station glided away from the explosion.  With no friction or gravity to stop it, the dome kept moving.  Sheppard pressed the jumper to a faster speed to catch up to it.

He squinted at the bottom of the structure as he approached.  The exploded remnants of the inner core looked very much like tentacles, trailing behind an escaping jellyfish.  It was a strangely beautiful sight, and the broken off central core gave Sheppard an idea.

“Rodney!” he called.  “McKay!” but there was no response on the radio.

He pulled the jumper around the dome, as he had before.  Rodney was gone.  The space beside the control console was empty.  “Rodney,” he whispered.  “No…”

It made no sense… the life sign detector told that someone was still alive there.  Sheppard’s eyes tracked ‘upward’ and he almost jerked back in his seat as he found what he was looking for.  He sighed.  There – there was Rodney -- floating freely in dome.

“Thank you,” Sheppard whispered. “Thank you.”

Environmental controls were offline – the dome no longer had gravity – or any other life support for that matter.

Rodney seemed to be awake, looking off toward the supernova.

“McKay,” Sheppard called through the radio.  “Rodney, I’m back.  Hey, look over here.  I’m on your right.”  But the physicist didn’t change his gaze; he continued to stare in the other direction.

Well, hell, Sheppard wouldn’t put up with that.  If Rodney wouldn’t look toward him, he’d just have to make it impossible NOT to see him.

John easily guided the jumper about, bringing it into McKay’s line of vision. For a moment, Rodney seemed to look beyond him, but then his eyes blinked and he focused, his expression bewildered.

“Hey, answer man,” Sheppard called over the radio.  “How are we getting out of this one?”

“Colonel?” McKay answered softly, his voice full of wonder.  Apparently he hadn’t lost his radio.

“Getting you out of there -- how do we do it?”

“What happened?”

“Pirate chick blew herself up.  Space station exploded.”

“I KNOW that,” was the irritated response.  “You don’t think I remember a space station blowing up?”

“Kinda hard to forget, huh?”

Rodney took a moment to draw his strength.  “The others?  Did they…”

“They’re fine, Rodney.  Look, you’re heading toward Atlantis.  Probably will make it there in a few millennia.”

“Not toward Atlantis,” McKay mumbled.  “Deep space probably…”

“Fine,” Sheppard responded.  “Deep space.   But we should probably get you out of there before you get much further.  I got an idea.  You got a hunk of the central core still attached to the bottom of the dome.  If I got it loose, could the jumper dock at the airlock?”

McKay floated, his arms out in front of him, leaving Sheppard with the impression of Superman stalled in place.  Rodney blinked again, slowly.  “Life support's shut down,” McKay stated, his voice soft.

“Yeah, but you got plenty of air in there, Rodney.  The dome is freaking huge.”

“Going to get cold,” he commented, a bit of a shudder in his voice.  “Matter of time.”

“Fine, it’s going to get cold, so you have to tell me what to do before your teeth start chattering.  How do I detach that wrecked piece of the central core?  Once it’s off, can I hook up the jumper?”  He tried to keep the tension from his voice, to keep his manner easy, meanwhile, his heart raced and he strained forward, needing to get this accomplished, needing to get to McKay now.

He looked so lost and alone, floating through that big empty space.

McKay blinked slowly and said, “Should work.  It’s designed to be serviced by gateships.”

“Gateships!  Fine!  How do I get off the broken bit?”

“There’s… a coupling…” McKay stated.

For the first time since he’d seen all that blood, Sheppard started to feel as if he might actually be able to get Rodney out of this.  He felt his muscles tense in anticipation of finally getting into motion – finally being able to do something to help his friend.  He had to do something!  “So, I get the coupling undone.  How?”

“Ah, there’s a release … where the sections come together, between the double doors on the airlocks.”  Rodney moved his hands, trying to illustrate the instructions.  His gestures were awkward, as if he had no strength for even zero gravity.

“Yeah, go on…” Sheppard encouraged, watching Rodney carefully.

“At the junction… at four locations…there are levers.  Have to pull them manually.”

“And by manually… you mean…?”

Rodney scowled.  “Use your hands!”

“Great…” Sheppard grumbled.  “How the hell am I supposed to do that?  I don't got a big floaty oxygen-filled dome like you do.”

McKay thought for much longer than his genius brain should have taken over this predicament.  “You’ll have to take a space walk,” he finally decided.

“Great…” Sheppard said again, wondering how he was supposed to manage that AND fly the jumper at the same time.  He closed his eyes and groaned.  Make this easier, he thought.  Let me get into that thing.  Let me get him out.

“There’re levers… flush with the…exterior.   Get those flipped.  Damaged section should float free as long as nothing… hinders it.” Rodney’s breathing was coming shallower as he spoke.  “Might need to … release a … restraining cuff…”

“And I’ll be able to dock the jumper at the airlock?” Sheppard repeated.  “Once I do that, I’ll be able to get in there?”

“Maybe…” McKay replied, closing his eyes.

Sheppard watched Rodney, aware of the blobs of blood that floated around him.  It was so weird!  Apparently Rodney had been right and had managed to reduce the worst of the bleeding, but he still bled, and was hurt and floating in a goddamn snowglobe!

“We’ll get you out,” Sheppard promised.

“You keep… saying that,” Rodney heaved out.  His eyes stayed closed.

“Want to make sure you know it,” John told him.  “You got that, Rodney?  I’m not leaving without you.”

“I’m cold…”

“Give us a minute and I’ll turn the heat up to ‘toasty’ in the jumper.  How’s that sound?”

Rodney didn’t reply.  He just continued to float in the gravity-free dome.

“Rodney?”  Sheppard called again – and nothing.

The jumper chirped and the HUD coming up to show an approaching ship.  He turned the jumper, and the Ironspot came toward him.  The freakish little craft was rather quick once it was under way.

“You got it moving!” Sheppard exclaimed.  “Is Rix up and around?”

“No,” was Teyla’s quick response.  “I am flying it.”  There was a hint of pride in her declaration.

It really didn’t surprise Sheppard.  “Good to see you.  I can use the help,” he told them.  “I got a plan.”

“McKay?” Ronon came over the radio.  “We heard him talking.  He okay?”

“He’s still with us,” Sheppard responded, checking the life sign detector to be sure.  Under his breath, he muttered, “Stay that way.”

-------------------------------------------

“Look,” Sheppard said, his voice coming over the Ironspot’s radio.  “We got to figure out how to get out there and release the clamps.  I could get into the spacesuit, but I gotta keep control of the jumper, too.”

“Spacesuit?” Rix said from his seat.  “It’s in the back…”

Teyla gave Rix a strange look, and then stated over the radio, “We may have a spacesuit in the Ironspot.”

“Great,” was Sheppard’s response.  “Does it work?”

Rix tried to nod, but stopped abruptly, swallowed and rubbed his aching head.  “Yeah,” he responded.  “Use it all the time.”

“We believe it is functional,” Teyla told Sheppard.  “One of us will do this.”  And she looked expectantly at Ronon.

The former runner crossed his arms at his chest, not at all happy.  A glance to the addled Rix told him that the pirate wouldn’t be the one taking the chance in the spacesuit.  Mills was currently covering one eye and releasing it with a perplexed expression. Teyla sat at the pilot’s seat, the one in charge of getting the Ironspot into place.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Teyla was proposing a specific someone to leave the ‘relative’ safely of their hybrid ship.

“Yeah,” Ronon replied thickly.  “One of us.” Then he smiled, adding, “Whoever fits in the suit.”

“Rix,” Teyla caught the attention of the Bogachiel.  “Where is the suit?”

“Suit?” he repeated, one hand over his eye.

“The spacesuit,” Ronon growled.  “Where is it?”

“Why you want…?” Rix started, trailing off.  He blinked at the hand he held in front of his face, baffled.  A trickle of blood ran down from his hairline.

“Where is the spacesuit, Rix?” Teyla asked the concussed man, urgently.

The pirate looked at Teyla and seemed to come to his senses.  He pointed to the rear compartments.  Ronon went where the man directed.

“No!” Rix cried when Ronon tried one compartment.  “The next one -- the cabinet with the tall door, at the back.  Zeno’ll be mad if he finds out you used it.”  And he squinted his eyes shut again, blinked and went back to covering his right eye and uncovering it again.  “He doesn’t like people touching his stuff.”

“You sure it’s safe?” Sheppard’s voice came back over the radio.

“Safe as history,” Rix muttered.

Ronon pulled out the suit from the cabinet.  It looked rather like the units he’d seen around Atlantis – but bigger and bulkier.  He sighed when he saw the size of the suit.  There was no doubt that it had belonged to Zeno.  Teyla would never fit into the thing.

“It’ll do,” Ronon responded unhappily, knowing that there was no way around it.  He took a breath, steeling himself. 

McKay’s life depended on him.

Ronon Dex had lived through trials and torment.  A spacewalk would be easy.

“Mills,” Ronon called as he turned to the pirate.  “You know how this goes on?”

Rix just stared at his hands, and replied with a breathless, “I don’t think I can see out of this eye.”  He gestured to his right eye.  “That’s bad, isn’t it?”

Ronon grumbled, but Teyla went back to help Ronon – together they could figure it out.

Teyla helped him undo quickly seals and closures, figuring out how to close others once Ronon had pulled the suit around him.  They worked quickly and efficiently as possible, with occasional comments from Rix, who managed to give them important details regarding ensuring that the suit was completely sealed and that the oxygen was feeding correctly.

Within a matter of seconds, Ronon was ready, standing at the back of the Ironspot in the clunky suit, looking like spaceman.  Now, it was just a matter of having Teyla bring the ship to the Observation Deck, getting it as close as possible to the releases that McKay had described on the central core.

Ronon looked dubious as Teyla finessed the ship.  It was difficult work, and she realized she was grossly out of her element -- the controls were touchy, the maneuvering was flakey.  She had to get Ronon as close as possible to the site.   If she were to deposit him too far from the couplings, he might never reach them.  Get in too close, and the Ironspot would collide into the deck or the central core, damaging both vessels.

She bit her lip as she shuffled the ship in, while Ronon stood in the back, clutching one side of the interior, in his big white spacesuit.  His face, framed in the transparent shield of the helmet, displayed all the misery of a man who was grossly out of place.

Sheppard’s voice came over the radio, sometimes asking how they were doing, offering such helpful quips as, “See, Teyla, it’s as easy as parallel parking.” Mostly, he spoke to Rodney.

The physicist had given no response to John, but Sheppard persisted in his cajoling, and that was enough to keep Teyla trying.  John’s monologue meant that Rodney was still alive, that they still had a chance to save him.  She wasn’t going to give up as long as there was hope.

Just as she got the Ironspot’s hull close to the deck, she felt a presence beside her.  Too intent on her own responsibility, she hardly noticed Rix as he leaned heavily on the control panel to throw a lever.

And suddenly, the Ironspot clamped onto the underside of the deck, as if magnetized.  Rix grinned at her as he settled into the copilot’s seat.  “Automatic mooring,” he said softly.

She let out a long breath, aware that she’d been shaking.  “Thank you, Rix,” she said softly, and looked back to Ronon.  The Satedan was hunched in his bulky suit, a suspicious expression evident through the mask of his helmet.  She had no doubt that Dex would have clunked through the Ironspot to rip off Rix’s head if he’d attempted anything ‘funny.’

Finding that Rix wasn’t sabotaging, but helping, Dex uttered a sound that might have been a ‘thanks’, but Teyla couldn’t be sure.

The whole process had taken only minutes, but Teyla felt the weight of her responsibility, hoping that she hadn’t taken too long.

“Hey!”  Sheppard’s voice came over the comm.  “Teyla! How’d you do that?”

Teyla glanced at Sheppard’s jumper, pulled back just far enough to see her.  “Rix turned on a automatic mooring system,” she explained.

Handy,” Sheppard proclaimed.  “We could use that.”

“Suit’s got it, too,” Rix stated, closing his eyes again.  “Controls are at his right hip.  Glueboots.  Glue you … to the floor.”

“Ronon?” Teyla called, checking to see that the Satedan had heard.

“Yeah,” Ronon’s voice came over the radio.  He fiddled with the toggles that Rix had suggested, flipping one and finding his right foot cemented to the floor.  He flipped it in the other direction and the foot came loose.  “Got it,” he stated.

But Teyla couldn’t help but hear the trepidation in his voice.  “You will be fine,” she stated emphatically.

“I’m ready,” Ronon told her, his voice even.  “Got to get to McKay.  Can’t waste any more time.”

Teyla nodded and stated, “I am closing the forward compartment.” And she brought down the blast door, securing the cockpit from the rest of the ship, sealing herself and Rix in with the oxygen.

“You sure that the shield will hold?”  Sheppard asked.

“Sure… sure…”  Rix slurred.  “Works like old socks.”

Teyla regarded the comment and wasn’t sure if this was either an idiom that she’d never heard before, or a symptom of the poor Bogachiel’s scattered brains. “Are you ready, Ronon?”  she called.

“Yeah,” came the response, and again Teyla heard the hesitation.

“I am decompressing the rear compartment,” Teyla announced, and with a hiss, the air was vented. 

Ronon hunched his shoulders and tried not to be alarmed.

Next, Teyla proclaimed,  “I am opening the rear hatch,” and pulled on the release.  The hatch lifted – exposing Ronon to space.

CONTINUE

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