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“Rodney, run!”
Easier said than done. Rodney ran through open air like it was water, or Play-Doh. If he moved any slower, he'd be going backwards. Bullets ricocheted off the sand like stones bouncing over a lake.
Rodney made the mistake of looking over his shoulder at Sheppard. He knew, Rodney knew, he shouldn't have looked. Every time he knew, but his brain was the director and wasn't about to have him veering from the script.
Sheppard yelled. “ Run!”
Then Sheppard's back arched and his body splayed as it pitched forward into the sand. Rodney stopped as the script demanded. He turned, opened his mouth, and fell forward when a larger body slammed into his smaller. The air left his lungs on impact, so he sucked it back in and released it as he had intended all along.
He felt the scream rip from his throat, long, endless, but without sound.
Rodney jackknifed upright on his little pallet of a bed, the coarse blanket dropping from his bare chest.
“Sheppard!”
Rodney sat there, sucking in air that rubbed his throat raw. Sheppard's body arched and fell, arched and fell, over and over like a skipping record in Rodney's brain. Rodney brought up his knees, planting his elbows on the caps, and rested his face in his hands.
“Aw hell,” he moaned.
Just another day in purgatory.
-----------------------------
McKay fervently gouged the table with the metal quill as though the soft wood were the cause of his current predicament. The real cause was that pliable lump of an organ floating between his ears, but banging his head on the table only added insult to injury. Or was it injury to insult? Yeah, that sounded right. Or maybe more injury to injury. Rodney pressed the quill-tip deep into the wood like a knife penetrating flesh. He pulled down, bit by bit, stabbing and pulling, forming a jagged line like a scar.
Rodney stabbed again, scratching a line through the four other lines already created. He tallied the lines, then tossed in his calculations that determined the length of this planet's days. All together, it came to three months and two days. He'd been on this blistering oven of a planet for three months and two days.
Rodney slammed the quill on the table, and with a sharp sigh rested his forehead in his hand.
“Damn it!” he hissed. He drummed his finger on the fragile pages of the book he'd lost interest in two days before, considering he'd never had interest in it to begin with. In the safety of his current solitude, Rodney quit drumming and slammed the book shut. The resounding thud made him cringe and his eyes dart around frantically.
Rodney cringed again at the rumbling thud of the library door being slammed shut. He yanked the book back open with one hand and covered his table carvings with his notes. The book, like all the books, was useless, the writers as knowledgeable in chemicals and science as preschoolers. Rodney's old high school had better lab equipment than this place, and if he'd told these people their planet was flat, they'd probably believe him.
It was laughable how many planets in this galaxy were stuck in a perpetual Renaissance faire, with smatterings of Lawrence of Arabia just to make things interesting. Throw in a flying carpet, and Rodney's current residence could have been a cheesy crossover of Camelot and the Arabian Nights. Deserts, castles, curved swords, an intergalactic portal way, way, way out of reach: the whole shebang.
Except for the magic carpet.
“Report, servant.”
Rodney looked up from his pretend reading at the severely tall, narrow, sharp-faced old man who insisted on being called Master Dorose. The man's head was completely clean of any hair, like an overly tan egg. Rodney surmised it had all gone into making that waist-long white beard. Dorose snapped his fingers, and two attendees in white robes removed his robe of alien maroon silk. Underneath, Dorose wore a knee-length tunic of wine red embroidered with violet, and billowy pants of amber silk tucked into calf-high black boots. Dorose was the pet alchemist for Jyra, the resident “Szar,” and didn't let anyone forget it.
Being the good boy in order to avoid punishment, Rodney rose, clutching at the hem of his gold-trimmed white robes, and bowed.
Sheppard would have dropped dead at Rodney's perfect show of obeisance, had Sheppard not already dropped dead by other means to become food for scavengers.
“I have isolated the key components, and need only to wait for them to be gathered.” Rodney kept all winces internal. He sounded like a frickin' tool. Well, he was a frickin' tool. The real brains behind the operation that was supposed to be Dorose's domain. The man was a charlatan, and without his plethora of genius servants, would have been a headless charlatan. Unfortunately for Rodney, Dorose knew enough science never to get duped by his lackeys, so the charlatan was also a smart ass. A clever, streetwise, scrounging-along-by-the-skin-of-his-teeth smart-ass. Rodney despised him more than his situation.
Dorose flicked his hand in a dismissive gesture, signaling that Rodney could sit. Rodney dropped into his seat, keeping his eyes down like the good little servant he was. He really did disgust himself sometimes.
Dorose moved around the table to peer over Rodney's shoulder at the current notes. The thin man pursed his thin lips and nodded sagely. Rodney doubted he understood a lick of what was written. It was a formula for nitroglycerin, bargaining chip number two for keeping Rodney alive. Bargaining chip number one had been flares, because they were brighter than torches and a lot scarier to the poor saps Jyra's brute squad liked to rough up. Maybe nitro was pushing it, but the people of this world already had their own brand of gun powder. Liquid explosives weren't going to make a difference.
Rodney doubted they had the chemicals needed to make the stuff, anyway.
“And this fire-water, as you called it?” Dorose said. “It is more potent than our black powder?”
Only when you handle it wrong, you pompous jackass. Oh, please handle it wrong. Pretty
please? Rodney inclined his head. “ Very.”
Dorose gathered the sheaths of cream-colored parchment and flipped through them. Thank goodness for high school chemistry and a photographic memory. Rodney wasn't too keen on chemicals, but as a kid – like most male youth – he'd nursed a secret fascination with concoctions that went boom. Sheppard's influence hadn't so much reawakened the fascination as made remembering the volatile stuff a necessity. So jotting down the formula had been a practical no-brainer. Converting the chemicals into simple terms for the simpletons had taken nearly two weeks.
Dorose sniffed and smiled smugly. “ I believe most of these components can be obtained. Excellent work, servant. Jyra will be most pleased.”
Goody, goody.
“Now that you are finished for today,” Dorose continued. “ You can assist Culose in studying that odd device we found in the ruins.”
Double goody. Rodney almost made the mistake of scowling. He wanted to shriek to the heavens for all to hear that nothing Ancient/Ancestor-related worked in this oversized litter-box of a planet. It was why McKay was stuck here, Sheppard was dead, and Ronon and Teyla were who knew where, because some unnamed, unknown element on this world rendered most technology useless, especially Puddle Jumpers. Although laptops and GDOs managed fine. Score one for Earth products.
Rodney bowed his head. “Yes, Master Dorose.”
Dorose beamed like a proud parent. “It is good to see you more cooperative, servant. I was beginning to worry that you would not be worth the trouble of procuring you.”
Rodney's throat tried to close off. Worth the trouble? Worth the trouble! Oh, I'm so sorry killing Sheppard was such a hassle. You frickin' bastard!
“Yes...” Rodney's voice caught, so he cleared it. “ Yes, Master Dorose.”
The double-crossing, pissing around without finalizing a deal, biding time to let Jyra know which of these 'Lanteans was worth a raid, deceitful, lying, backstabbing...
Sheppard arching, going down in a scream of agony. Ronon and Teyla... Where are they?
John had said this world was too good to be true. He'd been kidding at the time, although the little voice aptly named Paranoia had been tugging at each of them. Because of the unknown element, the Wraith never came to this world, leaving its inhabitants free to be the threat. The team hadn't been naïve enough to think otherwise, but neither had they been prepared for just how much of a threat these backwater rifle-slingers could be, even without hidden bunkers and half-finished nukes.
They'd wanted Rodney, only Rodney, and had had the patience to wait for the right moment to take him, when the team was separated. Sheppard had been browsing a bazaar and arrived with very crappy timing, attempting to save the day and failing miserably.
Rodney hoped, more than once, that Teyla and Ronon had found him. Images of Sheppard's bleached skeleton half-buried in sand were getting rather nauseating.
“You are dismissed to assist Culose,” Dorose said as he flipped through the parchment. Rodney bowed and shuffled humbly to the door. The moment he was in the moldy stone-block corridor, he straightened and flipped a one-finger salute to the closed entrance.
“Handle without care, you stupid son of a...” Rodney muttered curses and epithets as he made his short trek to Lab Two next door.
On the other side of the door was a nice rendition of Merlin's lab with its primitive lab kits of glass baubles and prismatic array of bubbling liquids. Rodney maneuvered around wood tables toward the back, where the shiny Ancient toys sat as useless paper weights. The short, balding, pudgy and severely near-sighted Culose was turning a personal shield over and over in his fat fingers.
Rodney leaned his hip against the table edge and sighed loud enough for Culose to hear. Culose lifted his head, brown eyes magnified by Coke-bottle specs. He squinted as he leaned in toward Rodney, adjusting the wire-rim glasses.
“ Servant McKay?” he asked. His voice was small, timid, but that was only because he wasn't sure whom he was speaking to.
Rodney held up his hands. “ The one and only, Culose. Relax, his High and Mighty Frop is in the other lab slobbering all over my latest...” Rodney made quote signs in the air, “...creation.”
Culose eased out of his slight cringe. “Oh.” He tossed the shield in Rodney's direction. “Then he'll probably be well-occupied translating your work into his handwriting. Giving you time to make up another useless purpose for that trinket.”
Rodney held the shield up. Torchlight glittered within the green crystal. A pang of pain that wasn't physical expanded in Rodney's chest, and memories shot into his mind without permission. Once upon a time, he'd loved this bit of tech, then loathed it, then loved it again when it had made him the hero. Now, he loathed it for what it made him remember. Rodney tossed it carelessly onto the table.
“Used to scare off rodents. Makes an annoying high-pitched squeal. We had a hard time shutting it off.”
Culose grinned, and his magnified eyes gleamed. Give the man a bowler and he could have been the Riddler, or a top hat to be the Mad Hatter. The mousy-looking man had a streak of cat in him, as attested to by his creepy smile. But Heaven help Rodney, he liked the little weirdo. The guy was like an alternate Zelenka, smart even though Rodney wouldn't admit it and able to put up with McKay's multifaceted forms of irritation.
Culose turned back to the gutted device he'd been working on. The little man wasn't stupid; he knew the toys were pretty much broken. He just liked to see what made them tick. So other than being a pseudo-Radek, he was also a Biro, dissecting machines because the insides were more fascinating than the outside.
Very creepy. Rodney had been relieved more than once that the little man wasn't an alternate Beckett.
“What will this new formula provide to Master Jyra?” Culose asked as he hunched over the mechanical entrails.
Rodney crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged. “ Depends. It'll mean squat if they can't find the chemicals. And if they do, chances are they'll all get themselves blown up. I'm kind of crossing my fingers for the latter. Kind of messy but thoroughly entertaining.”
Rodney was getting violent, but what disturbed him more was that he didn't care. Most of these people were like cattle to him. Let them be butchered... Culose and a few exceptions aside.
Culose chuckled dryly.
The rest of the day drifted by on the back of amiable chatter. Rodney talked, Culose gutted. When Dorose dropped by asking what certain items did, both men spouted their lies with ease. There was a time when the subterfuge had been a matter of survival. Then it became a game when life had officially sunk to the bottom of the cesspool, and survival became so secondary that nobody cared if it was achieved or not. Clinging to life became less important when all one had to look forward to was beatings over minor mishaps.
A bell rang, signaling the midday meal. Rodney and Culose kept talking until they were out the door, where they adopted their masks of humble servitude. They shuffled down the dank corridor with its guttering torches, soot stains, and moss, to the winding stair case leading up into the common grounds. There, they melded with their fellow servants in robes of white, shuffling into a line extending across the sandy courtyard, starting from the kitchens and ending at the door to the underground chambers. Servants entered the kitchen empty-handed and exited carrying a bowl of thin stew, a crust of bread on the bowl's wide rim, and a tin cup of water. They ate out in the courtyard on the dusty ground.
Rodney and Culose arrived in time to be in the middle of the line, and were able to grab a spot by the fountain. They sat with the old woman who washed the clothes and her husband who tended the animals. Neither was very talkative, they simply enjoyed having the company. On occasion, the old man would break in with a story about what some silly animal did. Culose found it genuinely amusing. McKay simply phased out until the story was over.
There was an upside to the robes when it came to being outside. By midday the sun beat down on the courtyard, but the robes were white enough and light enough to deflect most of the heat. McKay was hot, but he wasn't sweating every molecule of water from his body.
A half hour later, the bell sounded again. Finished or not, another line formed to deposit the dishes, most servants scraping and licking in a last-ditch effort to get every bite. Rodney didn't wallow in the shame of being one of them. When the dishes were discarded in the massive wooden wash basin in the kitchens, Rodney and Culose hurried across the courtyard to the door leading to the underground chambers.
The rest of the day was wasted with more idle chatter. Rodney told Culose of the technological wonders of Atlantis, while always making sure to squeeze in a little remorse those wonders no longer existed now that the city was destroyed. Culose talked of the inventions he'd never had a chance to finish since he'd been taken from his caravan by Jyra. One invention sounded remarkably like the light bulb. It was no wonder this Wraith-free culture couldn't advance.
Evening came with the sound of the bells, and Rodney and Culose headed back out into the blessedly cool dusk for the evening meal. More stew and bread. They sat with the washerwoman and animal caretaker again, this time along the far wall, the courtyard fountain already taken. When the meal was complete, the drudges scurried off to finish their duties before the bell tolled for bedtime. Rodney and Culose moved to the opposite wall with the other genius vassals to wait for Dorose. He arrived dressed in his finest azure cloak about an hour later, a little tipsy from too much drink. He looked at each man lined up against the wall before landing his gaze on Rodney and pointing at him.
“You... Yes, you. You are the one with the fire-water, correct?”
Rodney bowed his head. “Yes, Master dorose.”
Dorose belched and nodded. “Good, Tomorrow, you are to start making it. I have told Lord Jyra of it, and he was most pleased. So... make it... yes. You are to make it, non-stop, tomorrow. Meals will be brought to you.” He belched again, then huccuped.
Rodney bit his bottom lip and bowed. “ Yes, Master Dorose.”
Dorose had stopped looking at him. The man's gaze was distant, his eyes gleaming, his lips twitching toward a smile. He was probably daydreaming of advancement in pay again. Rodney waited until the man left with his personal servants biting his heels, before heading to the servants' quarters located on the north western side of the complex. Being in the science division, he had the luck of sharing a single room with the rest of the department on the second floor of the small building. He climbed the stairs along the outside wall to the small door, and entered the already darkened room. Roney picked his way through the occupied pallets to his in the far corner.
There were only two small windows in the room, and Rodney glanced out the first one when he passed it. He heard the clank of a gate; the dungeons were being emptied again. Rodney stopped and leaned on the stone sill to stare out at the horizon.
To the right, flecking the darkness like immobile fireflies, were torches. Jyra's position was safe as long as no one came along to challenge it, but there was always a group or two willing to test his power. Those torches had been dotting the darkness for days now. There would come an attack, and chances were good it wouldn't even reach the outer walls. Jyra never let things go that far.
Rodney turned his attention back to the horizon. If the dungeons were being emptied, then the grave robbers were probably on their way. Rodney thought he could see them if he squinted, always darker than the darkness, like living shadows. Maybe he was imagining it, but he thought he saw one standing right on the horizon, cloak layers flapping like wings, staring back as Rodney stared at him. Maybe it was paranoia but Rodney could feel eyes on him from somewhere beyond this place of stone, mold, idiots, and creeps.
Maybe Rodney wanted to think someone was watching him, seeing him, even recognizing him.
Fat chance there, buddy.
No one had come for him. No one was coming for him. Rodney hadn't given up hope, he just wasn't keeping a firm grip on it. It hurt too much to hold on that tight for so long.
-------------------------------
Sheppard arched, splayed, fell.
Rodney screamed, making no sound.
He shot upright on his pallet, shivering from the cold air of early morning soaking into his sweat-drenched skin. The rest of the little science team was stirring, but Rodney was the only one undeniably awake. He brought his knees up to rest his forehead on, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth.
At least the dream ended with good timing. Normally, he'd awaken gasping when it was still dark. It was dark, just not ink-dark. More like bottom of the ocean dark, a dark Rodney was uncomfortably familiar with. He tossed aside the blanket and rose with a grunt. Stretching until his stiff muscles loosened, he then grabbed his robe next to his pallet and yanked it on. He already knew what he needed to do and where he needed to be, so he didn't wait around for his cohorts to get through the morning routine. He headed outside, across the common grounds to the kitchen, tenth in line to get his breakfast of thin cream of wheat the color of wood and a yellow liquid that was supposed to be milk but tasted like sour cheese. He didn't bother using the spoon. He choked down the porridge and the milk, circled around to dump his dishes, and headed to the labs.
Rodney's hand was extending to the handle of the door leading to the underground chambers when the bell clanged, making him flinch. He cringed against the wall when men armed with swords and arrows charged past like a human Running of the Bulls. They clamored up the steps shouting orders, while a larger contingent made for the doors leading to the outer court.
Foresk – Jyra's general, dressed in clothes of dark violet and red, a cloak of violet, and tarnished armor - strode quickly to the doors with twenty more armored men following. Rodney gulped and pressed tighter into the wall. Trembling was inevitable, and Foresk noticed when he glanced at Rodney. The general smiled, flashing dirty teeth. The muscles of Rodney's back tightened, pulling the slowly healing scabs that always caught on his clothes and itched.
Foresk handled servant discipline personally, with whips, knives, and steel-toed boots. Rumor had it he became even more creative when it came to forcing information from prisoners – chains in place of whips.
Rodney straightened when Foresk passed, and breathed out in relief. He saw Culose hurrying across the courtyard to him in his hunch-shouldered, cowering way. The two slipped into the safety of the winding stairwell spiraling into the moist subterranean corridors.
“Who is it this time?” Rodney asked. “ Do you know?”
Culose adjusted his thick-lensed glasses and sniffed. “ I've heard talk that it is Meraffa's band from the north.”
“Never heard of him.”
They entered the dusky halls, moving four doors in before coming to the fifth where the chemicals were stored. The large chamber was a chemist's toy store, with bookcases and shelves carrying a rainbow collection of liquids, rocks, and powders in glass containers or sacks.
“Of course you haven't,” Culose said. “ This is the first Meraffa has ever made a move against Jyra. I can't tell you much about the man myself except for what I heard on the rumor line.” Culose took a woven basket from the stack by the door and held it as Rodney gathered the needed items. “Meraffa is said to be as powerful as Jyra, and ruthless in battle.”
Rodney took bottles and bags, opening some to sniff, setting some back, and putting others in the basket. “So, there's actually a chance Foresk might end up with his head on a stick. Not that I've been down on my knees praying to be someone else's slave, but it would be worth it if it meant Foresk being drawn and quartered.”
Culose chuckled softly. “I second that.”
At the immediate moment, Rodney's only hope was that the items sitting in the basket were the ones he needed. Chances were good Jyra would be wanting to use the nitroglycerin in the near future. Rodney doubted he'd be able to concoct real nitro, but he could whip something up that would make one hell of a fire show if used right.
Rodney led the way to the neighboring lab with the glassware equipment. With Culose's help, he measured and mixed, going for something that, if not explosive, was at least highly volatile around fire. Food was brought to them by a fellow lackey, and Durose dropped by sporadically to check on the progress. By the end of the day, Rodney didn't have nitroglycerin, but something akin to a Molotov cocktail but with a way bigger kick.
Durose came to collect, and Rodney and Culose were hustled out of the lab to the servants' quarters. The little science department was gathered on the floor, all ready for bed but sitting up rigid as trees as they muttered about the conflict outside. Rodney went to the window to watch the show. He saw pinpricks of flickering yellow light flit through the air. Some fizzled out into the darkness between the two armies; a few flashed in an explosion that had Rodney seeing stars: his cocktail of destruction. Rodney felt a small spring of pride for his little creation buying him another month of escape from Foresk's sadism.
He missed the tsunami of accomplishment that used to have him grinning in a way that pissed off everyone else. He missed massive leaps-and-bounds discoveries of an advanced technological nature that got his heart pounding and adrenaline surging. Sheppard had had his bad-ass weapons, Rodney his bad-ass discoveries. Innocent drugs of choice with plenty of rush and no regrets... well, no regret as long as the discovery didn't accidentally kill anyone. Rodney missed a lot of things but tended to be more specific on certain days, depending on what the day brought.
He was a little surprised to be missing Ronon. The Satedan would have loved this, probably arming himself to rush out to join in the carnage. Sheppard would be saying something asinine about the effectiveness of C-4 over Molotov cocktails, and how if he'd just had his gun... Then Rodney would tell him to shut up about his gun, that it was a lost cause, and he should be happy there were still ways of making things go boom in a flash of blinding light.
If Ronon and Sheppard would have been there, all three of them would have ditched this place a month before.
Where is Ronon, anyway? And Teyla? Rodney wondered that in general. On this massive planet that could reach temperatures beyond one hundred degrees, where advanced technology refused to work and lesser tech was useless, Rodney had come to accept that the gang wasn't going to find him any time soon. Maybe in the far-flung future, months or years from now. Tomorrow and weeks to come were out of the question.
Are they looking for me, or have they stopped caring? Rodney couldn't deny that Teyla probably cared. Ronon would keep looking just out of spite. Atlantis – Elizabeth - Rodney wasn't so sure about. She would want to keep looking, while the SGC nagged at her to quit. Two months was a long time and the higher ups didn't like resources wasted on what they saw as a lost cause.
Ronon and Teyla would definitely keep looking. Maybe not on a continual basis, but enough to jump on whatever they might hear or see that would lead them to their lost team mate.
Rodney grinned. There was a time when he would have been shocked by his own lack of cynicism. The thing was, he'd had a lot of time to think, and he did come to the undeniable conclusion that there were people out there who really did care about him one way or another. If they weren't searching for his sake, they were searching for Sheppard's, because it was what he would have wanted them to do.
Rodney had to hand it to the colonel. Even when dead, the man was still reliable.
Except, Rodney was still here, still not found. So he'd also come to the conclusion he wasn't optimistic; he was delirious. Not that he minded, as it gave him something to look forward to, to push for, to exist for, pretending that lights at the end of dark tunnels really did exist.
Reality officially sucked enough to owe him a fantasy or two to cling to. He'd earned that right.
-------------------------
Reality didn't play fair. The bell woke Rodney before the nightmare could. He sat up glancing wildly around like a spooked gopher. The others in the puny science department were doing the same, tossing in a few incoherent mumbles of panic. The bells never rang this early unless there was an emergency.
Five rings, then the bell stopped, then rang again five more times.
The call to arms.
Rodney flipped aside the rough woven blanket and rolled from his pallet, scrambling to the window. He gripped the sill and used it to pull himself up. The world was practically solid black except for the globs of lights, no longer little yellow pinpricks in the distance.
“ Damn it!” Rodney growled. This had only happened once during Rodney's stay at Hotel De Purgatory. The skirmish beyond the gates had become an all-out siege. That meant no one going out, no one coming in, and potential food shortages as the opposing army waited Jyra and his men out.
Rodney's hypoglycemia was going to have a field day.
Dorose himself barged into the servant's quarters, out of breath, pale, and still dressed in his night robe.
“We need more exploding liquid!”
Rodney jolted, scrabbling toward the door while simultaneously grabbing his robe. Dorose led the way at a run to the labs, dumping McKay there while the others who trickled in gathered the needed chemicals listed on the formula sheets. They dumped all the necessary ingredients on McKay's table and formed an assembly line, passing bottles down the row for each person to add what was needed.
They worked non-stop through the day, faster and faster as the need for the cocktails rose to a frenzy. Rodney's hands began to shake when his hypoglycemia reared its ugly head. But he didn't stop, not even to beg for food. He had his own hide to consider, Jyra and his plight be damned.
The bell rang four times, the call for servants to be armed. Durose snapped at the scientists to ignore it and keep working. Rodney's hands shook harder, spilling half the ingredients.
The bell tolled, twice. Everyone froze, straining their ears to the sound.
The bell tolled twice more.
For whom the bell tolls? Us, because we are so screwed!
Twice had never been heard. That didn't mean the occupants of this castle were naïve about it. The outer walls had been breached, and the inner walls were going to follow soon.
Rodney looked over at Culose, who had been around long enough to know all the planet's nuances. Rather than seeing fear on the mousy man's face, Rodney saw rapture, and a rather psychotic gleam in the magnified eyes.
“You know what this means?” Culose breathed, and turned his manic gaze on Rodney.
Rodney recoiled. “Uh... N-no. W-w-what?”
Culose adjusted his glasses and grinned. “ Chaos breeds distraction. Time to go.” He then took off at a run from the lab.
Rodney had gotten Culose's meaning immediately. Escape. And yet he found himself unable to move.
Not all the genius lackeys. Others had caught Culose's succinct speech, understood it, smirked, and fled. The rest eventually ambled after, more confused than giddy, following like sheep in desperate need of a shepherd, leaving Rodney completely alone.
Rodney's shoulders slumped, and he emitted a tiny whimper. He only had two choices in the matter; cower in a corner or make a break for it.
Thankfully, his survival instincts made the decision for him. But he didn't take off like Culose and the rest. Instead, he crept to the door peering timidly out. Certain that it was empty, he slipped from the lab and made his way down the hall to the stairs, then out into the empty courtyard echoing with the dissonance of battle. Rodney's heart pounded harder and faster.
Where was everyone?
A thunderous thud had Rodney nearly jumping out of his skin. He yelped, and whirled around in time to hear the second thud and see the massive doors of the inner court shudder. Rodney's heart shot into his throat, and all coherent thought left him. He ran, heading toward the servants' quarters, not knowing why. He was acting on a simple instinct: doors about to break, doors bad, get away from doors. Or, more appropriately, get away from the open.
Just get away.
Rodney tore across the common ground toward the quarters at a speed that had the air burning his lungs and each footfall jarring his legs up to his hips. He whipped around the building, almost slipping on the gritty ground.
A hand shot out of the darkness, grabbing Rodney by the collar and yanking him back.
Another hand slapped over his mouth before he could even let loose a startled yelp. Both hands pulled Rodney back, pressing him against something solid and warm.
His collar was released, and an arm wrapped around his chest while the other hand continued to cover his mouth. The faceless figure began dragging him backward, away from the servants' quarters and toward the stables.
The stables nearly suffocated Rodney with its stench of manure and animal musk. The edaakas – dinosaur-like beasts with equine forms – snorted, pawed, and trilled in agitation.
Rodney's captor swung him around to face an already saddled and bridled edaaka, the big black one Rodney had dubbed the James Dean of edaakas a while back. The creature had an attitude that made teenagers seem manageable. The edaaka snorted and shook its spiked and webbed mane.
“Get on,” Rodney's captor whispered. “If you want to live.”
Good enough incentive. Rodney was released enough to allow him to slip his sandeled foot into the stirrup and hoist himself into the saddle with a little shove. His captor climbed on behind, grabbing up the leather reins. The stranger gave a small kick to the edaaka's leathery flanks and steered the creature out of the stables and into the open court, pointing it right at the shuddering, splintering doors.
“Hang on,” the man breathed.
Rodney's heart beat hard enough to explode. Even through the layers of cloth and skin, he could feel the other man's heart pounding just as fast against Rodney's shoulder blade.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the hell do you think you're doing?” Rodney squeaked. “ An Attila the Hun-type army's going to bust through there at any moment, and you're going to ride right into them!”
The stranger didn't reply except to tighten his thin fingers on the reins. The edaaka made a gutteral trumpeting sound and pawed the earth with its fore claw. Rodney flinched when the thing's agile tail lashed in the corner of his eye.
“Oh, this is bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad...”
Another thud, and the doors splintered, flying open the same instant the stranger slammed his heels into the edaaka.
“Baaaaad!” Rodney shrieked. As the army poured in like a flood of bodies and sharp steel, the edaaka charged out, carrying Rodney and the stranger with it.
The number one rule when it came to an edaaka was to never be in one's way when it was charging. For all their horse-like appearance, the creatures were predators with sharp claws and vicious fangs. You got out of an edaaka's way, not the other way around, and that's exactly what the men did, practically diving to the ground in order to avoid the teeth.
The stranger kept the edaaka on a straight course, cutting a nice swathe through both armies like Moses parting the Red Sea. Out of the inner courtyard, then the outer, through the splintered gates and into the endless desert. Men continued to clear a path, although a few took a shot at the escapees. Rodney flinched and ducked with each shot, felt the heat of bullets score past his face, and heard his captor grunt with pain. The edaaka's hide was too thick to penetrate, so the bullets were nothing more than mosquitoes to it.
The charging animal broke through the two armies, racing toward the horizon. Its heavy, thick-toed feet pounded the sand as though it were solid turf, kicking up spray in its wake like a dolphin cutting through water. The roaring wind, the speed, and the lack of walls filled Rodney with a surge of adrenaline that had him shaking. Whatever his new plight and whoever his captor, at that moment it didn't matter. He was out, away, and moving farther and farther from purgatory.
He was free, even should that freedom end the moment the ride did. Rodney continued to feel his captor's heart tapping his shoulder, and the man's panting breath puff warm on the back of his neck. The edaaka's flanks heaved like a rapid bellows every time its feet hit the ground. The beast carried them over the sand, cresting rises like waves, then racing down into small valleys. They were running to the horizon, and Rodney had the impression that once that horizon was reached, they would take off into the sky.
Delirium of a new kind, and Rodney was loving it.
Then came good old reality like a brick wall when, on the next crest, Rodney saw, like ink-stains against the blue-black, eight figures lining the top of the next dune. His heart faltered in his chest, and euphoria beat a hasty retreat.
“Oh, no.”
His captor steered the edaaka straight at the people. When they were only feet away with the figures showing no signs of moving, did the stranger yank hard on the reins, tugging the edaaka to an abrupt halt that had it rearing, snorting, and bellowing.
Rodney's heart stuttered again. These figures weren't men. They were creatures, beasts in ragged layers of dark skin flapping in the wind like capes, and skinless heads with empty eye-sockets, long snouts, and serrated fangs. They surrounded the edaaka and its riders, saying nothing and doing nothing except forming a wide circle.
Rodney felt his captor dismount. He looked down, and the breath caught in his throat. The figure standing beside him was one of them, a beast with a skull head and ragged skin.
No, not skin; it had been cloth. Rodney remembered feeling cloth, and a heartbeat.
Terror constricted his chest, pushing into his mind to take it for a spin that had the world whirling around him. His body reacted without his brain, both trying to scramble away and grabbing the reins. He slid from the saddle falling hard to the ground. The world spun faster, too fast. The figures surrounded him, his captor kneeling beside him. Claw-like hands lifted to the skull-head and pulled upward. The head detached. Rodney would have screamed if his throat hadn't closed off.
The head was tossed aside, revealing another head, a human head.
A very, very familiar human head, topped by dark hair that spited gravity. Moonlight outlined a long face with vividly angular bone structure. The face moved in close, close enough for Rodney's dark-adjusted eyes to see more, including wide hazel eyes.
Rodney was pretty certain his heart had stopped working. He was dead, he knew it, he had to be.
“Sheppard?” he croaked.
John blinked, flinching minutely. Then darkness spilled in over Rodney's vision, making Sheppard's face the last thing he saw before his own personal night closed in.
TBC...
Ch. 3
Easier said than done. Rodney ran through open air like it was water, or Play-Doh. If he moved any slower, he'd be going backwards. Bullets ricocheted off the sand like stones bouncing over a lake.
Rodney made the mistake of looking over his shoulder at Sheppard. He knew, Rodney knew, he shouldn't have looked. Every time he knew, but his brain was the director and wasn't about to have him veering from the script.
Sheppard yelled. “ Run!”
Then Sheppard's back arched and his body splayed as it pitched forward into the sand. Rodney stopped as the script demanded. He turned, opened his mouth, and fell forward when a larger body slammed into his smaller. The air left his lungs on impact, so he sucked it back in and released it as he had intended all along.
He felt the scream rip from his throat, long, endless, but without sound.
Rodney jackknifed upright on his little pallet of a bed, the coarse blanket dropping from his bare chest.
“Sheppard!”
Rodney sat there, sucking in air that rubbed his throat raw. Sheppard's body arched and fell, arched and fell, over and over like a skipping record in Rodney's brain. Rodney brought up his knees, planting his elbows on the caps, and rested his face in his hands.
“Aw hell,” he moaned.
Just another day in purgatory.
-----------------------------
McKay fervently gouged the table with the metal quill as though the soft wood were the cause of his current predicament. The real cause was that pliable lump of an organ floating between his ears, but banging his head on the table only added insult to injury. Or was it injury to insult? Yeah, that sounded right. Or maybe more injury to injury. Rodney pressed the quill-tip deep into the wood like a knife penetrating flesh. He pulled down, bit by bit, stabbing and pulling, forming a jagged line like a scar.
Rodney stabbed again, scratching a line through the four other lines already created. He tallied the lines, then tossed in his calculations that determined the length of this planet's days. All together, it came to three months and two days. He'd been on this blistering oven of a planet for three months and two days.
Rodney slammed the quill on the table, and with a sharp sigh rested his forehead in his hand.
“Damn it!” he hissed. He drummed his finger on the fragile pages of the book he'd lost interest in two days before, considering he'd never had interest in it to begin with. In the safety of his current solitude, Rodney quit drumming and slammed the book shut. The resounding thud made him cringe and his eyes dart around frantically.
Rodney cringed again at the rumbling thud of the library door being slammed shut. He yanked the book back open with one hand and covered his table carvings with his notes. The book, like all the books, was useless, the writers as knowledgeable in chemicals and science as preschoolers. Rodney's old high school had better lab equipment than this place, and if he'd told these people their planet was flat, they'd probably believe him.
It was laughable how many planets in this galaxy were stuck in a perpetual Renaissance faire, with smatterings of Lawrence of Arabia just to make things interesting. Throw in a flying carpet, and Rodney's current residence could have been a cheesy crossover of Camelot and the Arabian Nights. Deserts, castles, curved swords, an intergalactic portal way, way, way out of reach: the whole shebang.
Except for the magic carpet.
“Report, servant.”
Rodney looked up from his pretend reading at the severely tall, narrow, sharp-faced old man who insisted on being called Master Dorose. The man's head was completely clean of any hair, like an overly tan egg. Rodney surmised it had all gone into making that waist-long white beard. Dorose snapped his fingers, and two attendees in white robes removed his robe of alien maroon silk. Underneath, Dorose wore a knee-length tunic of wine red embroidered with violet, and billowy pants of amber silk tucked into calf-high black boots. Dorose was the pet alchemist for Jyra, the resident “Szar,” and didn't let anyone forget it.
Being the good boy in order to avoid punishment, Rodney rose, clutching at the hem of his gold-trimmed white robes, and bowed.
Sheppard would have dropped dead at Rodney's perfect show of obeisance, had Sheppard not already dropped dead by other means to become food for scavengers.
“I have isolated the key components, and need only to wait for them to be gathered.” Rodney kept all winces internal. He sounded like a frickin' tool. Well, he was a frickin' tool. The real brains behind the operation that was supposed to be Dorose's domain. The man was a charlatan, and without his plethora of genius servants, would have been a headless charlatan. Unfortunately for Rodney, Dorose knew enough science never to get duped by his lackeys, so the charlatan was also a smart ass. A clever, streetwise, scrounging-along-by-the-skin-of-his-teeth smart-ass. Rodney despised him more than his situation.
Dorose flicked his hand in a dismissive gesture, signaling that Rodney could sit. Rodney dropped into his seat, keeping his eyes down like the good little servant he was. He really did disgust himself sometimes.
Dorose moved around the table to peer over Rodney's shoulder at the current notes. The thin man pursed his thin lips and nodded sagely. Rodney doubted he understood a lick of what was written. It was a formula for nitroglycerin, bargaining chip number two for keeping Rodney alive. Bargaining chip number one had been flares, because they were brighter than torches and a lot scarier to the poor saps Jyra's brute squad liked to rough up. Maybe nitro was pushing it, but the people of this world already had their own brand of gun powder. Liquid explosives weren't going to make a difference.
Rodney doubted they had the chemicals needed to make the stuff, anyway.
“And this fire-water, as you called it?” Dorose said. “It is more potent than our black powder?”
Only when you handle it wrong, you pompous jackass. Oh, please handle it wrong. Pretty
please? Rodney inclined his head. “ Very.”
Dorose gathered the sheaths of cream-colored parchment and flipped through them. Thank goodness for high school chemistry and a photographic memory. Rodney wasn't too keen on chemicals, but as a kid – like most male youth – he'd nursed a secret fascination with concoctions that went boom. Sheppard's influence hadn't so much reawakened the fascination as made remembering the volatile stuff a necessity. So jotting down the formula had been a practical no-brainer. Converting the chemicals into simple terms for the simpletons had taken nearly two weeks.
Dorose sniffed and smiled smugly. “ I believe most of these components can be obtained. Excellent work, servant. Jyra will be most pleased.”
Goody, goody.
“Now that you are finished for today,” Dorose continued. “ You can assist Culose in studying that odd device we found in the ruins.”
Double goody. Rodney almost made the mistake of scowling. He wanted to shriek to the heavens for all to hear that nothing Ancient/Ancestor-related worked in this oversized litter-box of a planet. It was why McKay was stuck here, Sheppard was dead, and Ronon and Teyla were who knew where, because some unnamed, unknown element on this world rendered most technology useless, especially Puddle Jumpers. Although laptops and GDOs managed fine. Score one for Earth products.
Rodney bowed his head. “Yes, Master Dorose.”
Dorose beamed like a proud parent. “It is good to see you more cooperative, servant. I was beginning to worry that you would not be worth the trouble of procuring you.”
Rodney's throat tried to close off. Worth the trouble? Worth the trouble! Oh, I'm so sorry killing Sheppard was such a hassle. You frickin' bastard!
“Yes...” Rodney's voice caught, so he cleared it. “ Yes, Master Dorose.”
The double-crossing, pissing around without finalizing a deal, biding time to let Jyra know which of these 'Lanteans was worth a raid, deceitful, lying, backstabbing...
Sheppard arching, going down in a scream of agony. Ronon and Teyla... Where are they?
John had said this world was too good to be true. He'd been kidding at the time, although the little voice aptly named Paranoia had been tugging at each of them. Because of the unknown element, the Wraith never came to this world, leaving its inhabitants free to be the threat. The team hadn't been naïve enough to think otherwise, but neither had they been prepared for just how much of a threat these backwater rifle-slingers could be, even without hidden bunkers and half-finished nukes.
They'd wanted Rodney, only Rodney, and had had the patience to wait for the right moment to take him, when the team was separated. Sheppard had been browsing a bazaar and arrived with very crappy timing, attempting to save the day and failing miserably.
Rodney hoped, more than once, that Teyla and Ronon had found him. Images of Sheppard's bleached skeleton half-buried in sand were getting rather nauseating.
“You are dismissed to assist Culose,” Dorose said as he flipped through the parchment. Rodney bowed and shuffled humbly to the door. The moment he was in the moldy stone-block corridor, he straightened and flipped a one-finger salute to the closed entrance.
“Handle without care, you stupid son of a...” Rodney muttered curses and epithets as he made his short trek to Lab Two next door.
On the other side of the door was a nice rendition of Merlin's lab with its primitive lab kits of glass baubles and prismatic array of bubbling liquids. Rodney maneuvered around wood tables toward the back, where the shiny Ancient toys sat as useless paper weights. The short, balding, pudgy and severely near-sighted Culose was turning a personal shield over and over in his fat fingers.
Rodney leaned his hip against the table edge and sighed loud enough for Culose to hear. Culose lifted his head, brown eyes magnified by Coke-bottle specs. He squinted as he leaned in toward Rodney, adjusting the wire-rim glasses.
“ Servant McKay?” he asked. His voice was small, timid, but that was only because he wasn't sure whom he was speaking to.
Rodney held up his hands. “ The one and only, Culose. Relax, his High and Mighty Frop is in the other lab slobbering all over my latest...” Rodney made quote signs in the air, “...creation.”
Culose eased out of his slight cringe. “Oh.” He tossed the shield in Rodney's direction. “Then he'll probably be well-occupied translating your work into his handwriting. Giving you time to make up another useless purpose for that trinket.”
Rodney held the shield up. Torchlight glittered within the green crystal. A pang of pain that wasn't physical expanded in Rodney's chest, and memories shot into his mind without permission. Once upon a time, he'd loved this bit of tech, then loathed it, then loved it again when it had made him the hero. Now, he loathed it for what it made him remember. Rodney tossed it carelessly onto the table.
“Used to scare off rodents. Makes an annoying high-pitched squeal. We had a hard time shutting it off.”
Culose grinned, and his magnified eyes gleamed. Give the man a bowler and he could have been the Riddler, or a top hat to be the Mad Hatter. The mousy-looking man had a streak of cat in him, as attested to by his creepy smile. But Heaven help Rodney, he liked the little weirdo. The guy was like an alternate Zelenka, smart even though Rodney wouldn't admit it and able to put up with McKay's multifaceted forms of irritation.
Culose turned back to the gutted device he'd been working on. The little man wasn't stupid; he knew the toys were pretty much broken. He just liked to see what made them tick. So other than being a pseudo-Radek, he was also a Biro, dissecting machines because the insides were more fascinating than the outside.
Very creepy. Rodney had been relieved more than once that the little man wasn't an alternate Beckett.
“What will this new formula provide to Master Jyra?” Culose asked as he hunched over the mechanical entrails.
Rodney crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged. “ Depends. It'll mean squat if they can't find the chemicals. And if they do, chances are they'll all get themselves blown up. I'm kind of crossing my fingers for the latter. Kind of messy but thoroughly entertaining.”
Rodney was getting violent, but what disturbed him more was that he didn't care. Most of these people were like cattle to him. Let them be butchered... Culose and a few exceptions aside.
Culose chuckled dryly.
The rest of the day drifted by on the back of amiable chatter. Rodney talked, Culose gutted. When Dorose dropped by asking what certain items did, both men spouted their lies with ease. There was a time when the subterfuge had been a matter of survival. Then it became a game when life had officially sunk to the bottom of the cesspool, and survival became so secondary that nobody cared if it was achieved or not. Clinging to life became less important when all one had to look forward to was beatings over minor mishaps.
A bell rang, signaling the midday meal. Rodney and Culose kept talking until they were out the door, where they adopted their masks of humble servitude. They shuffled down the dank corridor with its guttering torches, soot stains, and moss, to the winding stair case leading up into the common grounds. There, they melded with their fellow servants in robes of white, shuffling into a line extending across the sandy courtyard, starting from the kitchens and ending at the door to the underground chambers. Servants entered the kitchen empty-handed and exited carrying a bowl of thin stew, a crust of bread on the bowl's wide rim, and a tin cup of water. They ate out in the courtyard on the dusty ground.
Rodney and Culose arrived in time to be in the middle of the line, and were able to grab a spot by the fountain. They sat with the old woman who washed the clothes and her husband who tended the animals. Neither was very talkative, they simply enjoyed having the company. On occasion, the old man would break in with a story about what some silly animal did. Culose found it genuinely amusing. McKay simply phased out until the story was over.
There was an upside to the robes when it came to being outside. By midday the sun beat down on the courtyard, but the robes were white enough and light enough to deflect most of the heat. McKay was hot, but he wasn't sweating every molecule of water from his body.
A half hour later, the bell sounded again. Finished or not, another line formed to deposit the dishes, most servants scraping and licking in a last-ditch effort to get every bite. Rodney didn't wallow in the shame of being one of them. When the dishes were discarded in the massive wooden wash basin in the kitchens, Rodney and Culose hurried across the courtyard to the door leading to the underground chambers.
The rest of the day was wasted with more idle chatter. Rodney told Culose of the technological wonders of Atlantis, while always making sure to squeeze in a little remorse those wonders no longer existed now that the city was destroyed. Culose talked of the inventions he'd never had a chance to finish since he'd been taken from his caravan by Jyra. One invention sounded remarkably like the light bulb. It was no wonder this Wraith-free culture couldn't advance.
Evening came with the sound of the bells, and Rodney and Culose headed back out into the blessedly cool dusk for the evening meal. More stew and bread. They sat with the washerwoman and animal caretaker again, this time along the far wall, the courtyard fountain already taken. When the meal was complete, the drudges scurried off to finish their duties before the bell tolled for bedtime. Rodney and Culose moved to the opposite wall with the other genius vassals to wait for Dorose. He arrived dressed in his finest azure cloak about an hour later, a little tipsy from too much drink. He looked at each man lined up against the wall before landing his gaze on Rodney and pointing at him.
“You... Yes, you. You are the one with the fire-water, correct?”
Rodney bowed his head. “Yes, Master dorose.”
Dorose belched and nodded. “Good, Tomorrow, you are to start making it. I have told Lord Jyra of it, and he was most pleased. So... make it... yes. You are to make it, non-stop, tomorrow. Meals will be brought to you.” He belched again, then huccuped.
Rodney bit his bottom lip and bowed. “ Yes, Master Dorose.”
Dorose had stopped looking at him. The man's gaze was distant, his eyes gleaming, his lips twitching toward a smile. He was probably daydreaming of advancement in pay again. Rodney waited until the man left with his personal servants biting his heels, before heading to the servants' quarters located on the north western side of the complex. Being in the science division, he had the luck of sharing a single room with the rest of the department on the second floor of the small building. He climbed the stairs along the outside wall to the small door, and entered the already darkened room. Roney picked his way through the occupied pallets to his in the far corner.
There were only two small windows in the room, and Rodney glanced out the first one when he passed it. He heard the clank of a gate; the dungeons were being emptied again. Rodney stopped and leaned on the stone sill to stare out at the horizon.
To the right, flecking the darkness like immobile fireflies, were torches. Jyra's position was safe as long as no one came along to challenge it, but there was always a group or two willing to test his power. Those torches had been dotting the darkness for days now. There would come an attack, and chances were good it wouldn't even reach the outer walls. Jyra never let things go that far.
Rodney turned his attention back to the horizon. If the dungeons were being emptied, then the grave robbers were probably on their way. Rodney thought he could see them if he squinted, always darker than the darkness, like living shadows. Maybe he was imagining it, but he thought he saw one standing right on the horizon, cloak layers flapping like wings, staring back as Rodney stared at him. Maybe it was paranoia but Rodney could feel eyes on him from somewhere beyond this place of stone, mold, idiots, and creeps.
Maybe Rodney wanted to think someone was watching him, seeing him, even recognizing him.
Fat chance there, buddy.
No one had come for him. No one was coming for him. Rodney hadn't given up hope, he just wasn't keeping a firm grip on it. It hurt too much to hold on that tight for so long.
-------------------------------
Sheppard arched, splayed, fell.
Rodney screamed, making no sound.
He shot upright on his pallet, shivering from the cold air of early morning soaking into his sweat-drenched skin. The rest of the little science team was stirring, but Rodney was the only one undeniably awake. He brought his knees up to rest his forehead on, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth.
At least the dream ended with good timing. Normally, he'd awaken gasping when it was still dark. It was dark, just not ink-dark. More like bottom of the ocean dark, a dark Rodney was uncomfortably familiar with. He tossed aside the blanket and rose with a grunt. Stretching until his stiff muscles loosened, he then grabbed his robe next to his pallet and yanked it on. He already knew what he needed to do and where he needed to be, so he didn't wait around for his cohorts to get through the morning routine. He headed outside, across the common grounds to the kitchen, tenth in line to get his breakfast of thin cream of wheat the color of wood and a yellow liquid that was supposed to be milk but tasted like sour cheese. He didn't bother using the spoon. He choked down the porridge and the milk, circled around to dump his dishes, and headed to the labs.
Rodney's hand was extending to the handle of the door leading to the underground chambers when the bell clanged, making him flinch. He cringed against the wall when men armed with swords and arrows charged past like a human Running of the Bulls. They clamored up the steps shouting orders, while a larger contingent made for the doors leading to the outer court.
Foresk – Jyra's general, dressed in clothes of dark violet and red, a cloak of violet, and tarnished armor - strode quickly to the doors with twenty more armored men following. Rodney gulped and pressed tighter into the wall. Trembling was inevitable, and Foresk noticed when he glanced at Rodney. The general smiled, flashing dirty teeth. The muscles of Rodney's back tightened, pulling the slowly healing scabs that always caught on his clothes and itched.
Foresk handled servant discipline personally, with whips, knives, and steel-toed boots. Rumor had it he became even more creative when it came to forcing information from prisoners – chains in place of whips.
Rodney straightened when Foresk passed, and breathed out in relief. He saw Culose hurrying across the courtyard to him in his hunch-shouldered, cowering way. The two slipped into the safety of the winding stairwell spiraling into the moist subterranean corridors.
“Who is it this time?” Rodney asked. “ Do you know?”
Culose adjusted his thick-lensed glasses and sniffed. “ I've heard talk that it is Meraffa's band from the north.”
“Never heard of him.”
They entered the dusky halls, moving four doors in before coming to the fifth where the chemicals were stored. The large chamber was a chemist's toy store, with bookcases and shelves carrying a rainbow collection of liquids, rocks, and powders in glass containers or sacks.
“Of course you haven't,” Culose said. “ This is the first Meraffa has ever made a move against Jyra. I can't tell you much about the man myself except for what I heard on the rumor line.” Culose took a woven basket from the stack by the door and held it as Rodney gathered the needed items. “Meraffa is said to be as powerful as Jyra, and ruthless in battle.”
Rodney took bottles and bags, opening some to sniff, setting some back, and putting others in the basket. “So, there's actually a chance Foresk might end up with his head on a stick. Not that I've been down on my knees praying to be someone else's slave, but it would be worth it if it meant Foresk being drawn and quartered.”
Culose chuckled softly. “I second that.”
At the immediate moment, Rodney's only hope was that the items sitting in the basket were the ones he needed. Chances were good Jyra would be wanting to use the nitroglycerin in the near future. Rodney doubted he'd be able to concoct real nitro, but he could whip something up that would make one hell of a fire show if used right.
Rodney led the way to the neighboring lab with the glassware equipment. With Culose's help, he measured and mixed, going for something that, if not explosive, was at least highly volatile around fire. Food was brought to them by a fellow lackey, and Durose dropped by sporadically to check on the progress. By the end of the day, Rodney didn't have nitroglycerin, but something akin to a Molotov cocktail but with a way bigger kick.
Durose came to collect, and Rodney and Culose were hustled out of the lab to the servants' quarters. The little science department was gathered on the floor, all ready for bed but sitting up rigid as trees as they muttered about the conflict outside. Rodney went to the window to watch the show. He saw pinpricks of flickering yellow light flit through the air. Some fizzled out into the darkness between the two armies; a few flashed in an explosion that had Rodney seeing stars: his cocktail of destruction. Rodney felt a small spring of pride for his little creation buying him another month of escape from Foresk's sadism.
He missed the tsunami of accomplishment that used to have him grinning in a way that pissed off everyone else. He missed massive leaps-and-bounds discoveries of an advanced technological nature that got his heart pounding and adrenaline surging. Sheppard had had his bad-ass weapons, Rodney his bad-ass discoveries. Innocent drugs of choice with plenty of rush and no regrets... well, no regret as long as the discovery didn't accidentally kill anyone. Rodney missed a lot of things but tended to be more specific on certain days, depending on what the day brought.
He was a little surprised to be missing Ronon. The Satedan would have loved this, probably arming himself to rush out to join in the carnage. Sheppard would be saying something asinine about the effectiveness of C-4 over Molotov cocktails, and how if he'd just had his gun... Then Rodney would tell him to shut up about his gun, that it was a lost cause, and he should be happy there were still ways of making things go boom in a flash of blinding light.
If Ronon and Sheppard would have been there, all three of them would have ditched this place a month before.
Where is Ronon, anyway? And Teyla? Rodney wondered that in general. On this massive planet that could reach temperatures beyond one hundred degrees, where advanced technology refused to work and lesser tech was useless, Rodney had come to accept that the gang wasn't going to find him any time soon. Maybe in the far-flung future, months or years from now. Tomorrow and weeks to come were out of the question.
Are they looking for me, or have they stopped caring? Rodney couldn't deny that Teyla probably cared. Ronon would keep looking just out of spite. Atlantis – Elizabeth - Rodney wasn't so sure about. She would want to keep looking, while the SGC nagged at her to quit. Two months was a long time and the higher ups didn't like resources wasted on what they saw as a lost cause.
Ronon and Teyla would definitely keep looking. Maybe not on a continual basis, but enough to jump on whatever they might hear or see that would lead them to their lost team mate.
Rodney grinned. There was a time when he would have been shocked by his own lack of cynicism. The thing was, he'd had a lot of time to think, and he did come to the undeniable conclusion that there were people out there who really did care about him one way or another. If they weren't searching for his sake, they were searching for Sheppard's, because it was what he would have wanted them to do.
Rodney had to hand it to the colonel. Even when dead, the man was still reliable.
Except, Rodney was still here, still not found. So he'd also come to the conclusion he wasn't optimistic; he was delirious. Not that he minded, as it gave him something to look forward to, to push for, to exist for, pretending that lights at the end of dark tunnels really did exist.
Reality officially sucked enough to owe him a fantasy or two to cling to. He'd earned that right.
-------------------------
Reality didn't play fair. The bell woke Rodney before the nightmare could. He sat up glancing wildly around like a spooked gopher. The others in the puny science department were doing the same, tossing in a few incoherent mumbles of panic. The bells never rang this early unless there was an emergency.
Five rings, then the bell stopped, then rang again five more times.
The call to arms.
Rodney flipped aside the rough woven blanket and rolled from his pallet, scrambling to the window. He gripped the sill and used it to pull himself up. The world was practically solid black except for the globs of lights, no longer little yellow pinpricks in the distance.
“ Damn it!” Rodney growled. This had only happened once during Rodney's stay at Hotel De Purgatory. The skirmish beyond the gates had become an all-out siege. That meant no one going out, no one coming in, and potential food shortages as the opposing army waited Jyra and his men out.
Rodney's hypoglycemia was going to have a field day.
Dorose himself barged into the servant's quarters, out of breath, pale, and still dressed in his night robe.
“We need more exploding liquid!”
Rodney jolted, scrabbling toward the door while simultaneously grabbing his robe. Dorose led the way at a run to the labs, dumping McKay there while the others who trickled in gathered the needed chemicals listed on the formula sheets. They dumped all the necessary ingredients on McKay's table and formed an assembly line, passing bottles down the row for each person to add what was needed.
They worked non-stop through the day, faster and faster as the need for the cocktails rose to a frenzy. Rodney's hands began to shake when his hypoglycemia reared its ugly head. But he didn't stop, not even to beg for food. He had his own hide to consider, Jyra and his plight be damned.
The bell rang four times, the call for servants to be armed. Durose snapped at the scientists to ignore it and keep working. Rodney's hands shook harder, spilling half the ingredients.
The bell tolled, twice. Everyone froze, straining their ears to the sound.
The bell tolled twice more.
For whom the bell tolls? Us, because we are so screwed!
Twice had never been heard. That didn't mean the occupants of this castle were naïve about it. The outer walls had been breached, and the inner walls were going to follow soon.
Rodney looked over at Culose, who had been around long enough to know all the planet's nuances. Rather than seeing fear on the mousy man's face, Rodney saw rapture, and a rather psychotic gleam in the magnified eyes.
“You know what this means?” Culose breathed, and turned his manic gaze on Rodney.
Rodney recoiled. “Uh... N-no. W-w-what?”
Culose adjusted his glasses and grinned. “ Chaos breeds distraction. Time to go.” He then took off at a run from the lab.
Rodney had gotten Culose's meaning immediately. Escape. And yet he found himself unable to move.
Not all the genius lackeys. Others had caught Culose's succinct speech, understood it, smirked, and fled. The rest eventually ambled after, more confused than giddy, following like sheep in desperate need of a shepherd, leaving Rodney completely alone.
Rodney's shoulders slumped, and he emitted a tiny whimper. He only had two choices in the matter; cower in a corner or make a break for it.
Thankfully, his survival instincts made the decision for him. But he didn't take off like Culose and the rest. Instead, he crept to the door peering timidly out. Certain that it was empty, he slipped from the lab and made his way down the hall to the stairs, then out into the empty courtyard echoing with the dissonance of battle. Rodney's heart pounded harder and faster.
Where was everyone?
A thunderous thud had Rodney nearly jumping out of his skin. He yelped, and whirled around in time to hear the second thud and see the massive doors of the inner court shudder. Rodney's heart shot into his throat, and all coherent thought left him. He ran, heading toward the servants' quarters, not knowing why. He was acting on a simple instinct: doors about to break, doors bad, get away from doors. Or, more appropriately, get away from the open.
Just get away.
Rodney tore across the common ground toward the quarters at a speed that had the air burning his lungs and each footfall jarring his legs up to his hips. He whipped around the building, almost slipping on the gritty ground.
A hand shot out of the darkness, grabbing Rodney by the collar and yanking him back.
Another hand slapped over his mouth before he could even let loose a startled yelp. Both hands pulled Rodney back, pressing him against something solid and warm.
His collar was released, and an arm wrapped around his chest while the other hand continued to cover his mouth. The faceless figure began dragging him backward, away from the servants' quarters and toward the stables.
The stables nearly suffocated Rodney with its stench of manure and animal musk. The edaakas – dinosaur-like beasts with equine forms – snorted, pawed, and trilled in agitation.
Rodney's captor swung him around to face an already saddled and bridled edaaka, the big black one Rodney had dubbed the James Dean of edaakas a while back. The creature had an attitude that made teenagers seem manageable. The edaaka snorted and shook its spiked and webbed mane.
“Get on,” Rodney's captor whispered. “If you want to live.”
Good enough incentive. Rodney was released enough to allow him to slip his sandeled foot into the stirrup and hoist himself into the saddle with a little shove. His captor climbed on behind, grabbing up the leather reins. The stranger gave a small kick to the edaaka's leathery flanks and steered the creature out of the stables and into the open court, pointing it right at the shuddering, splintering doors.
“Hang on,” the man breathed.
Rodney's heart beat hard enough to explode. Even through the layers of cloth and skin, he could feel the other man's heart pounding just as fast against Rodney's shoulder blade.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the hell do you think you're doing?” Rodney squeaked. “ An Attila the Hun-type army's going to bust through there at any moment, and you're going to ride right into them!”
The stranger didn't reply except to tighten his thin fingers on the reins. The edaaka made a gutteral trumpeting sound and pawed the earth with its fore claw. Rodney flinched when the thing's agile tail lashed in the corner of his eye.
“Oh, this is bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad...”
Another thud, and the doors splintered, flying open the same instant the stranger slammed his heels into the edaaka.
“Baaaaad!” Rodney shrieked. As the army poured in like a flood of bodies and sharp steel, the edaaka charged out, carrying Rodney and the stranger with it.
The number one rule when it came to an edaaka was to never be in one's way when it was charging. For all their horse-like appearance, the creatures were predators with sharp claws and vicious fangs. You got out of an edaaka's way, not the other way around, and that's exactly what the men did, practically diving to the ground in order to avoid the teeth.
The stranger kept the edaaka on a straight course, cutting a nice swathe through both armies like Moses parting the Red Sea. Out of the inner courtyard, then the outer, through the splintered gates and into the endless desert. Men continued to clear a path, although a few took a shot at the escapees. Rodney flinched and ducked with each shot, felt the heat of bullets score past his face, and heard his captor grunt with pain. The edaaka's hide was too thick to penetrate, so the bullets were nothing more than mosquitoes to it.
The charging animal broke through the two armies, racing toward the horizon. Its heavy, thick-toed feet pounded the sand as though it were solid turf, kicking up spray in its wake like a dolphin cutting through water. The roaring wind, the speed, and the lack of walls filled Rodney with a surge of adrenaline that had him shaking. Whatever his new plight and whoever his captor, at that moment it didn't matter. He was out, away, and moving farther and farther from purgatory.
He was free, even should that freedom end the moment the ride did. Rodney continued to feel his captor's heart tapping his shoulder, and the man's panting breath puff warm on the back of his neck. The edaaka's flanks heaved like a rapid bellows every time its feet hit the ground. The beast carried them over the sand, cresting rises like waves, then racing down into small valleys. They were running to the horizon, and Rodney had the impression that once that horizon was reached, they would take off into the sky.
Delirium of a new kind, and Rodney was loving it.
Then came good old reality like a brick wall when, on the next crest, Rodney saw, like ink-stains against the blue-black, eight figures lining the top of the next dune. His heart faltered in his chest, and euphoria beat a hasty retreat.
“Oh, no.”
His captor steered the edaaka straight at the people. When they were only feet away with the figures showing no signs of moving, did the stranger yank hard on the reins, tugging the edaaka to an abrupt halt that had it rearing, snorting, and bellowing.
Rodney's heart stuttered again. These figures weren't men. They were creatures, beasts in ragged layers of dark skin flapping in the wind like capes, and skinless heads with empty eye-sockets, long snouts, and serrated fangs. They surrounded the edaaka and its riders, saying nothing and doing nothing except forming a wide circle.
Rodney felt his captor dismount. He looked down, and the breath caught in his throat. The figure standing beside him was one of them, a beast with a skull head and ragged skin.
No, not skin; it had been cloth. Rodney remembered feeling cloth, and a heartbeat.
Terror constricted his chest, pushing into his mind to take it for a spin that had the world whirling around him. His body reacted without his brain, both trying to scramble away and grabbing the reins. He slid from the saddle falling hard to the ground. The world spun faster, too fast. The figures surrounded him, his captor kneeling beside him. Claw-like hands lifted to the skull-head and pulled upward. The head detached. Rodney would have screamed if his throat hadn't closed off.
The head was tossed aside, revealing another head, a human head.
A very, very familiar human head, topped by dark hair that spited gravity. Moonlight outlined a long face with vividly angular bone structure. The face moved in close, close enough for Rodney's dark-adjusted eyes to see more, including wide hazel eyes.
Rodney was pretty certain his heart had stopped working. He was dead, he knew it, he had to be.
“Sheppard?” he croaked.
John blinked, flinching minutely. Then darkness spilled in over Rodney's vision, making Sheppard's face the last thing he saw before his own personal night closed in.
TBC...
Ch. 3
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 09:13 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 09:24 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 11:00 pm (UTC)From:*wakes up and lifts head to croak out*
Can't wait for the next part!
How many chapters are you going to post per day?
And how many? *evil grin*
Just...It's too awesome to leave it like that!
no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 11:33 pm (UTC)From:I plan on posting a chapter a say. As for how many chapters there are... I have no idea. The entire story was written on a single document without chapters, and I don't know what parts will make up the next chapter until it's time to post.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 11:36 pm (UTC)From:(you know, It's scary when people say that!)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 11:54 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 11:55 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 06:52 am (UTC)From:Maybe chunks mights be easier on you and your readers. :-P
no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 08:42 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 08:43 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 11:04 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 11:34 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 01:10 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 12:51 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 02:46 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 12:53 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 03:13 am (UTC)From:Still loving this story! Can't wait for the next part!
no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 12:53 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 06:33 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 12:54 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 01:02 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 07:07 am (UTC)From:Yay they're back together again! Ooooooops Rodney fai... *passed out* from his hypoglycamia!
Can't wait for more....
no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 12:55 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 10:41 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 12:59 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 02:54 pm (UTC)From:no subject
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Date: 2008-11-05 10:16 pm (UTC)From:no subject
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Date: 2008-11-06 04:31 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 07:44 pm (UTC)From: