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SGA - Betrayal (Left Behind Series)
So I was going to work on the crossover fic I was telling ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
threnodyjones about, but decided it was about time to finish this one instead. Not the end of the series (by far); this is the first one. It was going to be much longer, but the next section works too well as a stand alone to be tacked on.
Title: Betrayal (Left Behind Series)
Genre: AU, OT4 (eventually), Team
Rating: R for language.
Length: ~3,450 words
Synopsis: The beginning: In the middle of a battle, their rescue becomes their abandonment.
Author’s Notes: Part of the Left Behind series.
Disclaimer: I don’t own them, people with a lot of money do. I’m just borrowing the play and making no profit from this. I’d love to claim rights to this particular universe, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Previous Sections (order posted, not timeline):
Changes Roughly three and a half years after this one.
Sacrifice Roughly eight months after this one.
~~~~~~~~~~
“What the hell?” Sheppard demanded for what felt like the hundredth time. He pulled a hard left and tried again.
“They must have found a way to disable the cloak,” Rodney reasoned, typing furiously away at his data pad. “No, wait, we’re venting plasma. It’s a miniscule amount, but enough to track if you know what you’re looking for.”
“Which apparently the Wraith do,” Sheppard muttered, veering right and trying to out-maneuver the latest Dart on their tail. He punched a couple controls, disabling the cloak and upping the power to the shields. If they could track them anyway, might as well not waste the energy that could be used elsewhere.
Another three Darts pulled along side the first one and started a run towards the Jumper. “Shit,” he muttered, gunning the ship towards the gate. “I’m going to try another pass. As soon as we’re within range, start dialing,” he ordered.
Rodney nodded, but it was Teyla who took position, allowing the scientist to concentrate on maintaining the failing systems. At his signal, she typed in the designation, breathing a sigh of relief as the gate rushed to life, shimmering blue against the blackness of space.
“Atlantis, this is Jumper One,” John called. “We’re coming in hot. You might want to clear the control room and get ready to raise the shield as soon as we’re through.” He swung around again, beginning the flight path to lead them home.
“Negative, Jumper One,” a familiar voice came across the static. “The shield is up. Repeat: The shield is up. Do not approach at this time, sir.”
John swore profusely, hearing the sentiment echoed across his team. “Major, we have half a dozen Darts on our tail right now and really need to get the hell out of here,” he ground out with the last of his stores of patience. “Get that shield down and get it down now!”
“We’re trying, sir,” Lorne calmly assured him. “Doctor Z’s working on it...”
“That’s what you said two hours ago!” Sheppard exploded, dodging another run. He watched as a Dart headed through the wormhole, taking small comfort that it was being crushed like a bug on the other side.
“Sir,” Lorne began, just as McKay demanded, “Put Zelenka on!”
“I am here, Rodney,” a heavily accented voice answered.
“Why is the shield still up? It’s a simple command, put it down,” he directed with a calmness that made John’s teeth hurt. If McKay was calm in a situation like this, it meant he was well passed pissed and headed for apocalyptic.
“I am trying!” Radek insisted. “There is code, cross between virus and command-line, I cannot break it. I have not seen this language before, all attempts have failed.”
A shot rocked the ship, nearly tossing Rodney’s tablet from his hands. “Then we’re dead, Radek! Can you live with that? Because, hey, it doesn’t look like I’m about to!” he snarked.
“Rodney,” Teyla tried.
“Two hours,” he countered. “Actually, sixty-eight minutes. Radek knows the coding like the back of his hand; he should have been able to do this in less than five. At the very least he should have been able to figure out a way to get us backup by now.”
“I am trying!” Zelenka repeated. “This code, I am telling you, there is no sense to it. Nothing in, nothing out, whole city is locking down.”
John jumped in before Rodney could set off again. “Are you saying we’re stranded out here?” He fired a drone, destroying another one of the Darts, only to see two more take its place.
It was Lorne who answered. “The Daedalus was able to leave before the virus hit the rest of the city. They are en route now and should be there shortly,” he assured them.
“Define shortly,” Sheppard demanded, trying to avoid both the Wraith and their shots.
Rodney was studying his data pad again, hitting several controls on the Jumper before shouting, “There! I have them on sensors! They just jumped out of hyperspace.”
“Oh, thank God,” they heard Radek sigh before a burst of static seemed to cut the line completely.
“Rodney?” John asked. He dared to look over to him, watching as the other man’s face drained white.
“They got the gate,” he whispered.
John swung around again to get a visual, eyes widening as one of the gate stabilizers exploded, sending the ring into an uncontrolled flip around the planet. The blue puddle in the middle sputtered once, twice, and then went out for good.
“Can we still use it?” Ronon asked from behind. “They didn’t blow it completely,” he pointed out.
Rodney shook his head. “If they had blown it completely, we’d all be dead from the naquada-enhanced explosion. Still, without suits, tools, and the destruction of all these fucking Darts, not even Han Solo here could get the Jumper through a spinning gate,” he said dejectedly.
“But with the Daedalus’ arrival...” Teyla prompted hopefully.
“We’ll see,” John told her with a sigh. The people of the planet would hardly notice the absence of the space gate, but trading with them for the ore, not to mention the foodstuffs, they needed would definitely get a whole lot harder without it. There was the chance the gate could be repaired, but there were more pressing concerns at the moment, like trying to stay alive.
Keying the mic, he called, “Daedalus, this is Jumper One. Good to see you, sir. Looks like you’re just in time.”
He paused, waiting for a response, but all he received was another Wraith blast impacting against the shields.
“Daedalus, this is Jumper One,” he repeated. “We are in need of assistance. Request permission to land.”
Rodney pulled up several screens, scrolling through the information faster than Sheppard could keep track of. “That’s weird,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
“Are communications down?” John tried, looking for the obvious, and not quite as dire, answer to what was going on.
Rodney shook his head. “Not on our end, and sensors don’t indicate any damage over there either,” he confirmed. They watched as one of the Darts veered off and made a run at the larger ship.
“Then what the hell is going on?” John asked, tightening his hands on the control in an effort to keep his voice steady.
The screen before them chose that moment to light up, showing the bridge of the Daedalus bathed in calming blue light, Colonel Carter sitting at the helm with a steely gaze while Colonel Caldwell stood intimidatingly behind her. The image flickered, settling into a mixture that was equal parts static and salvation.
“Sam!” Rodney exclaimed, delight evident in his tone. “Oh, thank god! Please say you’re here to blow the shit out of these guys...”
Sheppard cleared his throat and tried a bit more formal approach. “Colonels, it’s good to see you. Request permission dock.”
“Permission denied,” Caldwell answered, and he swore he saw a sneer on his lips.
John blinked and looked over to see a wide-eyed Rodney dropping his jaw in disbelief. “I don’t think you understand, Colonel,” he tried. “We have taken heavy fire and our ship is severely damaged. We can’t take much more. Permission to dock.”
“I understand perfectly,” Caldwell responded with an eerie calm. “Permission is still denied.”
“But...” he started, only to be cut off by Carter.
“You were out of contact for several hours and presumed to be in enemy hands,” she told him. “I’m sorry, but we cannot allow you to land until we are certain of who you really are,” she added, sounding anything but apologetic.
John grit his teeth, dodging another Dart as he heard Rodney muttering about what bullshit this all was. “Then can you at least help us get rid of some of these Darts so we can survive long enough to prove who we are?”
Carter nodded and gestured towards the weapons station, which was currently manned by someone John did not recognize. “Fire,” she ordered.
Sheppard sighed in relief, feeling the tenseness in his shoulders lessen for the briefest of moments. That was, until control panel before him exploded into a shower of sparks and the entire Jumper rocked from an impact on the port side. “What the hell?” he swore.
“We’ve just been hit,” Rodney explained, stating the obvious. He started typing at his data pad once more and John could feel the inertial dampeners righting themselves.
“What is it, Rodney,” Teyla asked when the scientist fell silent.
McKay glanced up, a look of ultimate betrayal in his eyes. “It wasn’t the Darts.”
John looked to the screen, finding the image had shorted out completely. “Daedalus, what just happened?” he demanded. He waited a five count before trying, “Daedalus, come in! This is Jumper One! Why have you fired upon us! Daedalus!”
“They stopped transmitting,” Rodney confirmed, bringing an at least temporary halt to his cries.
John turned to face him, trying to reign in the emotion rushing through him, knowing it made him sound icy cold as he quietly asked, “What the fuck just happened?”
Rodney’s hands shook as they stilled above the computer. “I don’t know, but we just got a data burst from the Daedalus... text only... Asgaard encryption,” he said in disbelief. He looked over to his teammates, growing impossibly paler before their eyes. “One word: Run.”
“Shit!” Sheppard swore, the full implications sinking in. He avoided another Dart, but could not completely avoid the beam coming from the Daedalus, the weapon tearing through their depleting shields and ripping open one of the drive pods.
Even though he knew it was useless, he tried hailing them again. “Daedalus, this is Sheppard. Repeat: This is Sheppard. We are friendlies. Please respond.”
Another beam sliced towards them and forced the now sluggish controls into a complicated maneuver, narrowly avoiding both the weapon and the Darts that had now figured out they were free prey.
“Colonel, please, what are you doing?” he tried, rolling away from another attack. A Dart drifted too close and took the hit for them, spinning into another and exploding in a ball of fire before the vacuum of space extinguished them both. He hit another control, wincing as he both heard and felt tiny pieces of shrapnel collide with the hull.
“What are you doing?” Rodney demanded.
“Cloaking us, can you keep it up?”
“But...”
“Whatever or whoever is on that ship just tried to destroy us, we can use the debris as cover until we can get the hell out of here,” he explained.
Rodney nodded and focused on the task at hand.
John used every trick he had to try to stay within the debris field, knowing each tiny piece of shrapnel was another tiny depletion of the little shields they had remaining. The plasma vent from earlier should either be disguised, or written off as further proof of their demise.
It was apparently not enough as the Daedalus fired another volley of shots directly into the field, narrowly missing them and setting a large hunk of Wraith Dart into an explosion that blinded him for a moment and left him seeing afterimages for long, horrifying minutes.
“That could have been us,” Rodney gulped, still typing furiously. “Every shot the Daedalus took just barely winged a Dart, but could have blown us up. Are their sensors off, or were they aiming for us?
John didn’t answer. He didn’t want to. The Colonel’s excuse was weak at best; something else had to be going on. Had they been attacked? Feared the team had been as well? It would explain why they did not want to risk it if they thought they had been compromised, but something just didn’t ring true to him.
“They’re leaving,” Ronon announced, pointing to viewscreen. Sure enough, the Daedalus was starting to pull away, the majority of the Wraith ships following after them. A shining blue window of hyperspace appeared for the briefest of moments, and then the large ship was gone, tiny little blinks disappearing with them before the window winked out of existence.
“It’s now or never,” Rodney announced.
John shook his head. “There’s still Darts in the area. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think this ship’s in any shape to deal with them.
“That’s exactly the problem,” McKay warned, finally looking up from his readings. “We’re not in shape, we have no shape left. We stay here and the cloak fails completely, not to mention the shields. We’ll be one giant, flashing neon target for the Wraith.”
“They’ll pick up the plasma leak,” John warned, but his hands were already in motion, setting the systems to where they needed to be.
“Probably,” Rodney agreed.
“Not to mention the impact on the atmosphere while we approach to land,” he added, slowly maneuvering out of the field and hoping “land” was an apt word for what he was about to do.
“Again, probably,” Rodney sighed. “Look, we’re pretty much dead any way you slice it, but at least this way limits the chance of exploding in the vacuum of space because a piece of Wraith TV dinner hit the windscreen.”
“Where are we going?” Ronon asked, still leaning heavily against both their seats.
“The planet, it’s the only option,” Sheppard replied, gunning the engines in an attempt to give the Wraith the least chance to find them.
Teyla pushed in beside him. “There are still drones on the planet; we will be no safer there than here,” she pointed out.
John could here the grin in Ronon’s voice as clearly as the hum of his pistol powering up. “Yeah, but at least there we can shoot things,” he countered. John bit his lip, holding back voicing his agreement as to just how good that would feel right about now.
“If we survive the impact,” Rodney groused, grabbing at the Ancient equivalent of a seatbelt with one hand while still typing with the other. “Shields are falling as fast as we are and I don’t think the inertial dampeners can compensate, at least not fully.”
“What’s he saying?” Ronon asked, jolting forward in the turbulence they were now encountering.
“Sit down and buckle in, we’re coming in hard,” John clarified. He focused on simply reaching the planet at this point, trying to ignore the two Darts on his tail as they had not started firing yet. More than likely, they were trying to figure out just what the hell was streaking through the sky and if it was worth their time and effort.
Hard was an understatement. It was felt like only seconds between the time they cleared the atmosphere and when they were slamming through the tops of trees. He was pulling back as much as he dared, eking out as much as he could from the reverse thrusters, but he knew it wasn’t going to be enough. “Rodney, when I give the signal, drop the cloak and give everything we have to the shields. Once we hit, we can try to get the cloak up again and hope they don’t find us in the meantime.”
“Kind of figured that’s where this was headed,” McKay grumbled with a wince.
Sheppard did not watch him, simply counted on him to have things ready when he needed them. That need was fast approaching, and he waited until the very last moment to shout, “Now!”
He swore he felt it the moment the cloak dropped, the moment the shields surged to what little strength they had left. He saw the flash of energy and barely had time to even blink it away, hoping it was solely an afterimage of whatever McKay had rigged together, before the Jumper collided with the planet, the bone-jarring impact sending him into sweet unconsciousness.
He came to some indeterminable time later, the lights of the controls flickering around him and the smell of smoke still strong in the air. It hurt to move and hurt to think and he knew he needed to do both sooner rather than later. He coughed, the action sending jolts of pain through his ribcage and spine, managing a weak, “Ow,” before feeling hands guide him carefully upright in his chair.
“Colonel, are you injured?” Teyla was asking from miles away. He blinked red warmth from his eyes and saw her hovering near, traced her hands to the ones still resting on his arms.
“Of course he’s injured,” Rodney groused from somewhere behind her. “We were shot at, the ship nearly destroyed, and that was before we crash landed on a planet in the middle of nowhere. Plus, unlike us, he wasn’t belted in.”
“Wasn’t time,” he managed, lolling his head against something soft. He accepted the canteen Teyla offered, wincing at the pull on his arm as he tried to raise it to his lips.
She sighed and took it from him, doing it herself. “Let me,” she insisted, and he decided he was not going to argue with the person holding the wonderful bliss dripping down his throat.
“Cloak?” he asked, feeling a bit like himself again.
“Up and running, but just barely,” Rodney replied. The scientist swiped at a thin line of blood drizzling down his forehead before adding, “Not that it does us much good considering the giant impact crater we’re currently sitting in.”
“Drones?” he suggested.
“We don’t have the power to fire any of our kind, not to mention that would confirm we’re here, and the Wraith kind are already on the ground trying to find us,” came the report.
“Ronon is watching for them,” Teyla told him. “From what we can tell, only a half dozen, perhaps one or two more, have been sent. They are approaching, but have not yet found us or attempted to fire upon us.”
“Probably guessing we’re already dead,” he sighed, feeling as though it was not far from the truth. His mind felt sluggish, and he was fairly certain he had a concussion along with whatever other injuries he had racked up on this little jaunt. “Go help him spot them. Try to taken them out before they can report back. Maybe we can rig a secondary explosion and make it seem like they got taken out in the blast.”
“On it,” Rodney called even as Teyla nodded and grabbed her weapon.
John leaned back in his seat and tried not to move, the slightest twitch setting off more injuries than he was willing to admit quite yet. It didn’t feel like anything internal, just bruising. Lots and lots of bruising.
He mentally called up several systems, trying to get a situation report for himself, rather appreciative of the nearly mind-controlled Ancient tech. The displays flickered, spiking pain through his already aching head. What he could see was not good, but he needed more information. He cranked his head to the side where he could just barely see Rodney rummaging through a box of supplies. “How bad?” he asked.
“You or the Jumper?” McKay countered. He apparently wasn’t willing to wait for an answer, immediately continuing, “You look like shit and the Jumper’s not much better. It will take a couple days before we can even get this thing off the ground again, let alone space worthy. That’s of course assuming the Wraith don’t find us and kill us all. Then again, the way things are going, it could be our own people this time for new and interesting levels of fucked upness.”
“We’ll get out of here and find out what happened,” Sheppard promised.
Rodne paused in what he was doing and his shadow hung his head. “They tried to kill us, John. Our own people.”
There were a million ways he could answer that, most of them denials or pointing out that they simply did not have enough information yet. His gut told him otherwise, made him doubt the denials and reach for the obvious truth. “I know,” he replied, trying to wrap his mind around the whole concept. He did not like the connections he had made so far.
“They shot us down and left us to die,” Rodney continued, an anguish in his voice that hurt as much as his pounding head.
“I know,” he repeated, closing his eyes.
There was a sigh, and the sound of someone sitting heavily on the hard metal floor. He did not have to guess who that was. “They left us behind,” Rodney whispered.
The harsh words were everything he had been denying, and everything he knew he had to accept. He answered the only way he knew how. “I know.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback is always welcomed.
threnodyjones about, but decided it was about time to finish this one instead. Not the end of the series (by far); this is the first one. It was going to be much longer, but the next section works too well as a stand alone to be tacked on.Title: Betrayal (Left Behind Series)
Genre: AU, OT4 (eventually), Team
Rating: R for language.
Length: ~3,450 words
Synopsis: The beginning: In the middle of a battle, their rescue becomes their abandonment.
Author’s Notes: Part of the Left Behind series.
Disclaimer: I don’t own them, people with a lot of money do. I’m just borrowing the play and making no profit from this. I’d love to claim rights to this particular universe, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Previous Sections (order posted, not timeline):
Changes Roughly three and a half years after this one.
Sacrifice Roughly eight months after this one.
~~~~~~~~~~
“What the hell?” Sheppard demanded for what felt like the hundredth time. He pulled a hard left and tried again.
“They must have found a way to disable the cloak,” Rodney reasoned, typing furiously away at his data pad. “No, wait, we’re venting plasma. It’s a miniscule amount, but enough to track if you know what you’re looking for.”
“Which apparently the Wraith do,” Sheppard muttered, veering right and trying to out-maneuver the latest Dart on their tail. He punched a couple controls, disabling the cloak and upping the power to the shields. If they could track them anyway, might as well not waste the energy that could be used elsewhere.
Another three Darts pulled along side the first one and started a run towards the Jumper. “Shit,” he muttered, gunning the ship towards the gate. “I’m going to try another pass. As soon as we’re within range, start dialing,” he ordered.
Rodney nodded, but it was Teyla who took position, allowing the scientist to concentrate on maintaining the failing systems. At his signal, she typed in the designation, breathing a sigh of relief as the gate rushed to life, shimmering blue against the blackness of space.
“Atlantis, this is Jumper One,” John called. “We’re coming in hot. You might want to clear the control room and get ready to raise the shield as soon as we’re through.” He swung around again, beginning the flight path to lead them home.
“Negative, Jumper One,” a familiar voice came across the static. “The shield is up. Repeat: The shield is up. Do not approach at this time, sir.”
John swore profusely, hearing the sentiment echoed across his team. “Major, we have half a dozen Darts on our tail right now and really need to get the hell out of here,” he ground out with the last of his stores of patience. “Get that shield down and get it down now!”
“We’re trying, sir,” Lorne calmly assured him. “Doctor Z’s working on it...”
“That’s what you said two hours ago!” Sheppard exploded, dodging another run. He watched as a Dart headed through the wormhole, taking small comfort that it was being crushed like a bug on the other side.
“Sir,” Lorne began, just as McKay demanded, “Put Zelenka on!”
“I am here, Rodney,” a heavily accented voice answered.
“Why is the shield still up? It’s a simple command, put it down,” he directed with a calmness that made John’s teeth hurt. If McKay was calm in a situation like this, it meant he was well passed pissed and headed for apocalyptic.
“I am trying!” Radek insisted. “There is code, cross between virus and command-line, I cannot break it. I have not seen this language before, all attempts have failed.”
A shot rocked the ship, nearly tossing Rodney’s tablet from his hands. “Then we’re dead, Radek! Can you live with that? Because, hey, it doesn’t look like I’m about to!” he snarked.
“Rodney,” Teyla tried.
“Two hours,” he countered. “Actually, sixty-eight minutes. Radek knows the coding like the back of his hand; he should have been able to do this in less than five. At the very least he should have been able to figure out a way to get us backup by now.”
“I am trying!” Zelenka repeated. “This code, I am telling you, there is no sense to it. Nothing in, nothing out, whole city is locking down.”
John jumped in before Rodney could set off again. “Are you saying we’re stranded out here?” He fired a drone, destroying another one of the Darts, only to see two more take its place.
It was Lorne who answered. “The Daedalus was able to leave before the virus hit the rest of the city. They are en route now and should be there shortly,” he assured them.
“Define shortly,” Sheppard demanded, trying to avoid both the Wraith and their shots.
Rodney was studying his data pad again, hitting several controls on the Jumper before shouting, “There! I have them on sensors! They just jumped out of hyperspace.”
“Oh, thank God,” they heard Radek sigh before a burst of static seemed to cut the line completely.
“Rodney?” John asked. He dared to look over to him, watching as the other man’s face drained white.
“They got the gate,” he whispered.
John swung around again to get a visual, eyes widening as one of the gate stabilizers exploded, sending the ring into an uncontrolled flip around the planet. The blue puddle in the middle sputtered once, twice, and then went out for good.
“Can we still use it?” Ronon asked from behind. “They didn’t blow it completely,” he pointed out.
Rodney shook his head. “If they had blown it completely, we’d all be dead from the naquada-enhanced explosion. Still, without suits, tools, and the destruction of all these fucking Darts, not even Han Solo here could get the Jumper through a spinning gate,” he said dejectedly.
“But with the Daedalus’ arrival...” Teyla prompted hopefully.
“We’ll see,” John told her with a sigh. The people of the planet would hardly notice the absence of the space gate, but trading with them for the ore, not to mention the foodstuffs, they needed would definitely get a whole lot harder without it. There was the chance the gate could be repaired, but there were more pressing concerns at the moment, like trying to stay alive.
Keying the mic, he called, “Daedalus, this is Jumper One. Good to see you, sir. Looks like you’re just in time.”
He paused, waiting for a response, but all he received was another Wraith blast impacting against the shields.
“Daedalus, this is Jumper One,” he repeated. “We are in need of assistance. Request permission to land.”
Rodney pulled up several screens, scrolling through the information faster than Sheppard could keep track of. “That’s weird,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
“Are communications down?” John tried, looking for the obvious, and not quite as dire, answer to what was going on.
Rodney shook his head. “Not on our end, and sensors don’t indicate any damage over there either,” he confirmed. They watched as one of the Darts veered off and made a run at the larger ship.
“Then what the hell is going on?” John asked, tightening his hands on the control in an effort to keep his voice steady.
The screen before them chose that moment to light up, showing the bridge of the Daedalus bathed in calming blue light, Colonel Carter sitting at the helm with a steely gaze while Colonel Caldwell stood intimidatingly behind her. The image flickered, settling into a mixture that was equal parts static and salvation.
“Sam!” Rodney exclaimed, delight evident in his tone. “Oh, thank god! Please say you’re here to blow the shit out of these guys...”
Sheppard cleared his throat and tried a bit more formal approach. “Colonels, it’s good to see you. Request permission dock.”
“Permission denied,” Caldwell answered, and he swore he saw a sneer on his lips.
John blinked and looked over to see a wide-eyed Rodney dropping his jaw in disbelief. “I don’t think you understand, Colonel,” he tried. “We have taken heavy fire and our ship is severely damaged. We can’t take much more. Permission to dock.”
“I understand perfectly,” Caldwell responded with an eerie calm. “Permission is still denied.”
“But...” he started, only to be cut off by Carter.
“You were out of contact for several hours and presumed to be in enemy hands,” she told him. “I’m sorry, but we cannot allow you to land until we are certain of who you really are,” she added, sounding anything but apologetic.
John grit his teeth, dodging another Dart as he heard Rodney muttering about what bullshit this all was. “Then can you at least help us get rid of some of these Darts so we can survive long enough to prove who we are?”
Carter nodded and gestured towards the weapons station, which was currently manned by someone John did not recognize. “Fire,” she ordered.
Sheppard sighed in relief, feeling the tenseness in his shoulders lessen for the briefest of moments. That was, until control panel before him exploded into a shower of sparks and the entire Jumper rocked from an impact on the port side. “What the hell?” he swore.
“We’ve just been hit,” Rodney explained, stating the obvious. He started typing at his data pad once more and John could feel the inertial dampeners righting themselves.
“What is it, Rodney,” Teyla asked when the scientist fell silent.
McKay glanced up, a look of ultimate betrayal in his eyes. “It wasn’t the Darts.”
John looked to the screen, finding the image had shorted out completely. “Daedalus, what just happened?” he demanded. He waited a five count before trying, “Daedalus, come in! This is Jumper One! Why have you fired upon us! Daedalus!”
“They stopped transmitting,” Rodney confirmed, bringing an at least temporary halt to his cries.
John turned to face him, trying to reign in the emotion rushing through him, knowing it made him sound icy cold as he quietly asked, “What the fuck just happened?”
Rodney’s hands shook as they stilled above the computer. “I don’t know, but we just got a data burst from the Daedalus... text only... Asgaard encryption,” he said in disbelief. He looked over to his teammates, growing impossibly paler before their eyes. “One word: Run.”
“Shit!” Sheppard swore, the full implications sinking in. He avoided another Dart, but could not completely avoid the beam coming from the Daedalus, the weapon tearing through their depleting shields and ripping open one of the drive pods.
Even though he knew it was useless, he tried hailing them again. “Daedalus, this is Sheppard. Repeat: This is Sheppard. We are friendlies. Please respond.”
Another beam sliced towards them and forced the now sluggish controls into a complicated maneuver, narrowly avoiding both the weapon and the Darts that had now figured out they were free prey.
“Colonel, please, what are you doing?” he tried, rolling away from another attack. A Dart drifted too close and took the hit for them, spinning into another and exploding in a ball of fire before the vacuum of space extinguished them both. He hit another control, wincing as he both heard and felt tiny pieces of shrapnel collide with the hull.
“What are you doing?” Rodney demanded.
“Cloaking us, can you keep it up?”
“But...”
“Whatever or whoever is on that ship just tried to destroy us, we can use the debris as cover until we can get the hell out of here,” he explained.
Rodney nodded and focused on the task at hand.
John used every trick he had to try to stay within the debris field, knowing each tiny piece of shrapnel was another tiny depletion of the little shields they had remaining. The plasma vent from earlier should either be disguised, or written off as further proof of their demise.
It was apparently not enough as the Daedalus fired another volley of shots directly into the field, narrowly missing them and setting a large hunk of Wraith Dart into an explosion that blinded him for a moment and left him seeing afterimages for long, horrifying minutes.
“That could have been us,” Rodney gulped, still typing furiously. “Every shot the Daedalus took just barely winged a Dart, but could have blown us up. Are their sensors off, or were they aiming for us?
John didn’t answer. He didn’t want to. The Colonel’s excuse was weak at best; something else had to be going on. Had they been attacked? Feared the team had been as well? It would explain why they did not want to risk it if they thought they had been compromised, but something just didn’t ring true to him.
“They’re leaving,” Ronon announced, pointing to viewscreen. Sure enough, the Daedalus was starting to pull away, the majority of the Wraith ships following after them. A shining blue window of hyperspace appeared for the briefest of moments, and then the large ship was gone, tiny little blinks disappearing with them before the window winked out of existence.
“It’s now or never,” Rodney announced.
John shook his head. “There’s still Darts in the area. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think this ship’s in any shape to deal with them.
“That’s exactly the problem,” McKay warned, finally looking up from his readings. “We’re not in shape, we have no shape left. We stay here and the cloak fails completely, not to mention the shields. We’ll be one giant, flashing neon target for the Wraith.”
“They’ll pick up the plasma leak,” John warned, but his hands were already in motion, setting the systems to where they needed to be.
“Probably,” Rodney agreed.
“Not to mention the impact on the atmosphere while we approach to land,” he added, slowly maneuvering out of the field and hoping “land” was an apt word for what he was about to do.
“Again, probably,” Rodney sighed. “Look, we’re pretty much dead any way you slice it, but at least this way limits the chance of exploding in the vacuum of space because a piece of Wraith TV dinner hit the windscreen.”
“Where are we going?” Ronon asked, still leaning heavily against both their seats.
“The planet, it’s the only option,” Sheppard replied, gunning the engines in an attempt to give the Wraith the least chance to find them.
Teyla pushed in beside him. “There are still drones on the planet; we will be no safer there than here,” she pointed out.
John could here the grin in Ronon’s voice as clearly as the hum of his pistol powering up. “Yeah, but at least there we can shoot things,” he countered. John bit his lip, holding back voicing his agreement as to just how good that would feel right about now.
“If we survive the impact,” Rodney groused, grabbing at the Ancient equivalent of a seatbelt with one hand while still typing with the other. “Shields are falling as fast as we are and I don’t think the inertial dampeners can compensate, at least not fully.”
“What’s he saying?” Ronon asked, jolting forward in the turbulence they were now encountering.
“Sit down and buckle in, we’re coming in hard,” John clarified. He focused on simply reaching the planet at this point, trying to ignore the two Darts on his tail as they had not started firing yet. More than likely, they were trying to figure out just what the hell was streaking through the sky and if it was worth their time and effort.
Hard was an understatement. It was felt like only seconds between the time they cleared the atmosphere and when they were slamming through the tops of trees. He was pulling back as much as he dared, eking out as much as he could from the reverse thrusters, but he knew it wasn’t going to be enough. “Rodney, when I give the signal, drop the cloak and give everything we have to the shields. Once we hit, we can try to get the cloak up again and hope they don’t find us in the meantime.”
“Kind of figured that’s where this was headed,” McKay grumbled with a wince.
Sheppard did not watch him, simply counted on him to have things ready when he needed them. That need was fast approaching, and he waited until the very last moment to shout, “Now!”
He swore he felt it the moment the cloak dropped, the moment the shields surged to what little strength they had left. He saw the flash of energy and barely had time to even blink it away, hoping it was solely an afterimage of whatever McKay had rigged together, before the Jumper collided with the planet, the bone-jarring impact sending him into sweet unconsciousness.
He came to some indeterminable time later, the lights of the controls flickering around him and the smell of smoke still strong in the air. It hurt to move and hurt to think and he knew he needed to do both sooner rather than later. He coughed, the action sending jolts of pain through his ribcage and spine, managing a weak, “Ow,” before feeling hands guide him carefully upright in his chair.
“Colonel, are you injured?” Teyla was asking from miles away. He blinked red warmth from his eyes and saw her hovering near, traced her hands to the ones still resting on his arms.
“Of course he’s injured,” Rodney groused from somewhere behind her. “We were shot at, the ship nearly destroyed, and that was before we crash landed on a planet in the middle of nowhere. Plus, unlike us, he wasn’t belted in.”
“Wasn’t time,” he managed, lolling his head against something soft. He accepted the canteen Teyla offered, wincing at the pull on his arm as he tried to raise it to his lips.
She sighed and took it from him, doing it herself. “Let me,” she insisted, and he decided he was not going to argue with the person holding the wonderful bliss dripping down his throat.
“Cloak?” he asked, feeling a bit like himself again.
“Up and running, but just barely,” Rodney replied. The scientist swiped at a thin line of blood drizzling down his forehead before adding, “Not that it does us much good considering the giant impact crater we’re currently sitting in.”
“Drones?” he suggested.
“We don’t have the power to fire any of our kind, not to mention that would confirm we’re here, and the Wraith kind are already on the ground trying to find us,” came the report.
“Ronon is watching for them,” Teyla told him. “From what we can tell, only a half dozen, perhaps one or two more, have been sent. They are approaching, but have not yet found us or attempted to fire upon us.”
“Probably guessing we’re already dead,” he sighed, feeling as though it was not far from the truth. His mind felt sluggish, and he was fairly certain he had a concussion along with whatever other injuries he had racked up on this little jaunt. “Go help him spot them. Try to taken them out before they can report back. Maybe we can rig a secondary explosion and make it seem like they got taken out in the blast.”
“On it,” Rodney called even as Teyla nodded and grabbed her weapon.
John leaned back in his seat and tried not to move, the slightest twitch setting off more injuries than he was willing to admit quite yet. It didn’t feel like anything internal, just bruising. Lots and lots of bruising.
He mentally called up several systems, trying to get a situation report for himself, rather appreciative of the nearly mind-controlled Ancient tech. The displays flickered, spiking pain through his already aching head. What he could see was not good, but he needed more information. He cranked his head to the side where he could just barely see Rodney rummaging through a box of supplies. “How bad?” he asked.
“You or the Jumper?” McKay countered. He apparently wasn’t willing to wait for an answer, immediately continuing, “You look like shit and the Jumper’s not much better. It will take a couple days before we can even get this thing off the ground again, let alone space worthy. That’s of course assuming the Wraith don’t find us and kill us all. Then again, the way things are going, it could be our own people this time for new and interesting levels of fucked upness.”
“We’ll get out of here and find out what happened,” Sheppard promised.
Rodne paused in what he was doing and his shadow hung his head. “They tried to kill us, John. Our own people.”
There were a million ways he could answer that, most of them denials or pointing out that they simply did not have enough information yet. His gut told him otherwise, made him doubt the denials and reach for the obvious truth. “I know,” he replied, trying to wrap his mind around the whole concept. He did not like the connections he had made so far.
“They shot us down and left us to die,” Rodney continued, an anguish in his voice that hurt as much as his pounding head.
“I know,” he repeated, closing his eyes.
There was a sigh, and the sound of someone sitting heavily on the hard metal floor. He did not have to guess who that was. “They left us behind,” Rodney whispered.
The harsh words were everything he had been denying, and everything he knew he had to accept. He answered the only way he knew how. “I know.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback is always welcomed.
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Very happy you like it so far!
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Next up: happy sweet kidfic, right? *g*
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Please, by all means, continue this series when you have the time and inclination.
So curious as to what's possessing Carter and Caldwell... all I can think of is 'How the hell did the Goa'uld infiltrate the SGC again? Or is it Replicators?'
-----}-@
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"Changes" hints at what went down from the other side, but it's also only what they are telling Sheppard, so he has no way of knowing for certain if they are telling the truth or not. There is definitely more to this series, it's just a matter of getting around to getting it done.
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