John followed Ronon from the armoury to the control room at a run. There was nothing stopping their path and for a few corners he wondered if the call to places had been ‘just in case’. That was, until he rounded the final bend and took the two steps up to the main gate room and found himself face to face with a very tall ice statue. He halted sharply and blinked up at the face. It stared back unmoving, unblinking, as though it were made of pure ice waiting to melt in the natural temperature of the room.
His eyes darted to the side, where three more of them stood, and then up to the control room. Every civilian who had to stay in the main areas of the city had been given a weapon, something John now found himself thankful for as he caught sight of Chuck standing a step ahead of Elizabeth with his gun drawn. He could see it shake slightly as the tech tried desperately to look as though he would do anything to protect himself and his leader. John knew that Chuck liked firing a weapon about as much as Elizabeth liked seeing them.
For some reason his brain decided now was a good time to start wondering why Elizabeth would even flirt with him, let alone let him share her bed and hopefully more one day. She didn’t like weapons or military, yet here she was on a front line base showing everyone that it was possible to get along.
John’s eyes drifted to the Alien facing Elizabeth and his brow creased. The Xe-ne’s eyes were fixed on Elizabeth and he seemed very aware of the man standing just off to the left of him, another gun pointed his way. If you could call the Xe-ne ‘him’. John took another look at the one in front of him, the alien’s brow quirked and the horns on his forehead wrinkled along one side. It reminded him of the little crease Elizabeth got above her brow when she made the same move and quickly banished the thought that it was cute before looking back up at the control room.
His eyes drifted across the room. Elizabeth, just at the end of the bridge standing inside the control room. Chuck ready to protect her. It was another technician who stood to the Xe-ne’s left and two airmen behind him. Ronon shifted up the stairs without interruption. The two other aliens standing in the gate room seemed to see right through him or not consider him a threat, which John found somewhat amusing.
Ronon passed right in front of one and stopped to lean in and take a close look at the detail on its blue skin before he moved to the top of the stairs. He shifted through the room easily, the airmen moving just slightly to let him slip through and again he passed extremely close to the Xe-ne before stepping around to approach Elizabeth. There was a small exchange between them that John couldn’t hear before a slight move caught his attention.
John shifted his eyes back to the aliens’ left to see the technician who shifted uncomfortably. The Xe-ne had caught this action and turned sharply towards her. Before John could even take in what was going on, a piercing cry sounded from the Xe-ne as he took a step back, a glow of white running up his body like a ripple before a white substance like smoke shifted out through his face and passed through the tech. It lifted up over Penny’s head and shot sickeningly fast back at the alien as though his soul had briefly left his body and sharply returned. The tech was stunned, frozen solid for a moment before she crumpled to the ground.
“No!” Elizabeth cried out and she tried to move towards the woman before Ronon seized her arm to stop her.
The Xe-ne turned back to face her and moved forwards as though he neither saw nor cared that Chuck was there. He halted when the gun shot rang out and John saw the bullet pass cleanly through the monster’s shoulder from Chuck’s gun. He watched the recognition on the alien’s face as he turned to study the sudden wound. John swallowed as the alien’s eyes flicked to him before he turned slowly back to Elizabeth and took another step.
“Get down!” one of the airmen shouted and John had the brief sight of Ronon forcing Elizabeth down before the gunfire rang out.
Movement from his left turned him back to his alien friend and he turned just in time to see him step back and the shrill piecing sound start to vibrate through his head. Not wanting to know if this thing killed this way or not, John dived to the side, rolled along the floor and pushed up at the edge of the stairs and darted out of the room.
He turned the corner and headed for the stairs up to the control room and found another alien standing at the bottom. He instantly raised his gun and fired several rounds into the Xe-ne’s chest just as he heard Ronon’s sharp ‘move’ from above. The alien he had shot turned back to him. His chest was still littered with the shots of John’s gun but he still moved on. John spared a brief thought on the possibility that their anatomy was different before he fired again. This time, he didn’t aim for one place, his eyes vigilant on which bullets hurt most. There seemed to be no places more sensitive than the others and he was thankful when Elizabeth and Chuck made it to the bottom of the stairs and passed him. Ronon followed a few seconds later firing quickly at a slowly following Xe-ne.
“They don’t die,” he growled at John.
“I can see that,” he said, emptying his clip into the one ahead of him. It faltered and John paused to watch as it took a steadying breath to compose itself. A stunner blast passed close by and struck the alien and John watched it freeze in place. His heart was beating loudly for a few moments and there was almost deafening silence around him before another stunner shot rang slowly through the air. John didn’t look to see who was firing or even at whom. He stared in shock at the still frozen alien in front of him. It didn’t last though. The white glow that killed the tech woman rose over his body but this time, instead of seeing the expected smoke, the Xe-ne came back to life and took a step forward. Another stunner blast put him back to his frozen place and John finally returned to reality as Lorne grabbed his arm.
“Come on!” Evan yelled and darted around the corner.
He led John into one of the small meeting rooms and closed the door before ripping one of the crystals from the panel. John noted he shoved it into his pocket before he turned and realised Elizabeth and Chuck were already in the room along with Miller, Cole and Teyla.
****
All non-essential personnel had been ordered to designated areas, but Rodney McKay was still in the infirmary waiting for muscle relaxants. He had been treading water for a long time and his muscles were starting to cramp. Which was why when he washed back the two large pills with water and Chuck’s nervous voice came on the radio he felt a sudden sense of dread.
“Doctor McKay?”
Rodney rolled his eyes a little and pressed the button to respond.
“Yes?”
“Doctor Weir suggests that you hurry to assemble the machine. Doctor Zelenka is on his way to the –”
“Radek can handle it.”
“Rodney,” Elizabeth’s voice cut in. It was stern and filled with urgency. “They’re in the city. Hurry.”
Rodney stammered out an affirmative and pushed off of the bed he had been sitting on. He left the infirmary against the protest of the nurse who was saying something about side effects.
The infirmary was on the other side of the city from where the console was. He turned the corner and was met by a walking statue of ice. His eyes lit up like a deer in headlights. “Oh boy…” He scurried backwards, turning the corner, and went on a full-on run down the hall. Glancing back, he saw that the creature was chasing him. Why me?
Rodney was panicking. His eyes were wide and darted back and forth from room to room looking for some way to escape. It was only when he rounded the corner and his eyes set on a transporter did his heart flip-flop and he felt a brief moment of hope. Scrambling into the tiny room, Rodney pressed the appropriate button and turned in time to see the creature reach out and almost touch the door.
When the doors opened, he was met with a gun barrel to his forehead. His hands went up wildly in the air as he cowered backwards.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I surrender!” his eyes were shut tight and he’d never admit it, but his teeth were chattering a little. He felt the metallic barrel leave his forehead, but he didn’t open his eyes until he heard a human voice.
“Doctor McKay?”
Rodney opened his eyes and stared at a stern-faced Marine whose name he didn’t know. The Marine stood back and lowered his gun. Behind the Marine were three ice statues of a scientist and two soldiers Rodney vaguely recognised. The Marine held out his hand in order to snap McKay out of his daze.
“I’m Captain Lambert,” he said gesturing at the gun. “Sorry about that. Those things are everywhere.”
“You’ve seen them too?” Rodney’s eyes were open now and wide with alert. The tall, blonde-haired Marine nodded.
“They took out the rest of your escort team.”
“What?” Rodney looked at the icicles and then back at the man with an incredulous look. A beat passed before his hands flew up. “Great! The city’s being invaded and I have one person to help me to get a heavy piece of delicate equipment half way across the city! Perfect!”
“Lambert, you there?” the radio crackled and a male voice was on the radio.
Lambert pressed the radio talk button. “Yeah, Tipson. What is it?”
“We located Doctor Zelenka. We’re three levels above the console room.”
Lambert seemed to take in the information before he responded. “We’re three levels below it. We’ll rendezvous in the target room.”
“Affirmative. Tipson out.”
“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Doctor McKay was out of the transporter now and pacing a little. “If those things did this to them why aren’t you a human Popsicle too?”
Lambert’s only reply was a gesture with his P-90 towards a translucent blue gel puddle that seemed to be solidifying slowly over time. He then began to make his way down the hallway. Rodney looked at the puddle with a stunned expression.
“That was one of those things?” he glanced up to where Lambert was a moment ago and noticed him down the hall. “Captain!” he started after the Marine. Rodney wasn’t going to get left behind. “How did you kill that thing?”
Lambert glanced over to the doctor as they neared the stairs. “I got lucky.”
“What?”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t actually see it, but everyone else seemed to be able to. They were shouting and shooting.”
“Wait. You killed it and you didn’t even know where it was?”
That earned another shrug out of the Marine as they started up the stairs. “Just shot in the same direction. I hit it between the eyes and I saw it appear. Fell onto the ground and just sort of...” he paused as if to think of the right verb, “melted.”
Rodney opened his mouth to retort, but ducked down a few steps so he was hidden from the next level. “Hey!” He whispered harshly. “What are you doing? Hide!”
The Marine glanced down at the cowering man. “From what?”
Doctor McKay gave him an incredulous expression. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” his whisper was straining into a yell. “Can’t you see them? There are three of them! Standing in the middle of the hallway!”
The military man peered out into the hallway and seemed to think about shooting. After a moment of standing there, he started spraying the hallway blindly with bullets. He paused after a few bursts and waited. Nothing appeared. Suddenly something pointed and jagged appeared out of thin air and flew passed the Marine and into the wall, shattering into glass-like pieces. Once the pieces hit the floor, they began to melt like the body had.
“What are they doing now?” The Marine whispered to McKay who had his hands over his head.
McKay grumbled a protest about having to be the one to look as he slowly crept forward and inched his eyes over the lip of the last step. It only took him a moment to take in the situation before he ducked back down.
“Great!” He rasped. “Their friends have arrived!”
“How many?”
“Four.”
Lambert did the math. That made seven. Seven was a hard number to evade. “They still can’t see me, right?”
Rodney shrugged a bit dramatically. “I don’t know! They look like they’re still trying to figure out what the hell is going on.”
Lambert pressed his lips together and nodded after a moment. “Alright. Doctor McKay, the lab is two more flights up this way. I’m going to draw their fire and I want you to run.”
“What?” It was a phrase Rodney had become accustomed to saying recently. “You can’t be serious,” he said. But from the look on the Captain’s face, it was easy to tell that he was. “But you’ll get shot at or something.”
“The priority is your safety, Doctor.”
Lambert didn’t give Rodney any time to protest. He was already making his way down the hallway cautiously with his gun up and ready. Once he was on the other side of the hall, he began to strafe. McKay counted to five in his head before he scrambled up onto his unsteady feet and began barrelling up the stairs. His chest was tight, his heart was beating and the last thing he heard was Lambert cry out. A similar pointed object had hit him in the middle of his chest, piercing it as if it were sharp. Slowly the man began to crystallize from the entry wound outward until all his outer extremities were affected as well.
****
Elizabeth sat at one of the small tables in the room, her head in her hands and her eyes closed. She couldn’t believe this was happening and she couldn’t believe they had quickly resorted to hiding. She had already brushed off the idea that they simply wanted her out of the way. If that had been the case they wouldn’t have locked them all inside, some of them would have left. It had however, only been a matter of minutes since they’d stepped into the room and she knew there were these rooms positioned all over the city that people could duck into to take a breather. That had been one of Lorne’s best ideas.
“So,” John said and she looked up to see him watching her. “Do we know if they have a goal in mind or just general terror?”
“They want Doctor Weir,” Chuck said his hand still clutching tight to the gun he’d fired earlier. “That’s what they said. She’d go with them and everyone else would be killed if they got in the way of the city being destroyed.”
“Lovely,” Lorne said sarcastically.
“Wait,” John said, “you can see them?”
“No,” Chuck replied. “I was just aiming where everyone else was, and I had to ask what was going on.”
“So you can’t hear them either?”
Chuck shook his head. “Doctor Weir replied that she wouldn’t go anywhere with them and there was no way anyone would let them destroy the city.”
Silence fell for a moment. Elizabeth lifted her head and looked around her team. They were thinking hard, looking for anything they could use to win this war.
“We need an advantage,” Cole said.
“Stunners,” Lorne said. “Pulled mine by accident when I ran out of bullets and discovered it shocks them for a second before they glow and then carry on.”
“That is an escape route at best,” Teyla pointed out.
“They didn’t see me,” Ronon said, dropping down into the seat opposite Elizabeth.
“How’s that gonna help us?” Miller asked.
“Why couldn’t they see you?” Elizabeth asked and Ronon shrugged.
“I think a better question is how can you see them?” John put in and Elizabeth’s brows rose.
Silence fell again and Elizabeth’s brain ran wildly through all the information she’d accumulated over the past week. Every conversation with Rodney and Radek, every medical test Carson had put her through. And then she found it, the possible reason Ronon couldn’t be seen but could see the Xe-ne.
“Your genes,” she said and looked up at him. “Carson said you have a specific gene that stops you being fed on by the Wraith. I have a similar gene or at least one in the same marker location. It must be the key to seeing these... things.”
“Does this help us in some way?” Cole asked.
“Means I can shoot them without being attacked,” Ronon said dryly.
“We need to get to that weapon,” John said and opened his mouth to continue before Elizabeth cut him off.
“No,” she said, “I won’t resort to using a weapon like that until we have to.”
“It’s not gonna kill them,” John said, getting angrier with her. “Mara said...”
“Mara’s a five year old girl, John. What are the chances she was even born when they had to use it? She’s telling you what they tell her, which for all we know could be a lie.”
“We can’t fight these things,” he spat back. “I unloaded a whole clip of bullets into one and it barely stumbled. Ronon’s gun has no effect at all and a stunner freezes them for a few seconds. What other options do we have?”
She didn’t have an answer for him, just a stern look as she tried to ignore all the other eyes in the room on them. She had so many questions right now it was scaring her. Why were these people here? What had the Ancients done to annoy them so much? Why couldn’t they see that her team were not the same people they once fought? Nothing made sense and chances were they would have to put their evacuation plan into effect before the day was done.
That was something she didn’t want to contemplate. They didn’t have enough power in the ZPM to open the gate to Earth, not while running the shield to stop an orbital attack. That meant they’d have to take refuge on another planet, on their alpha site with no way of telling the SGC where they’d gone. It made it twice as bad that they had been forced to reselect their alpha site in the last two weeks and the report back to Earth was still waiting to be sent.
Atlantis was her home. She suspected others felt this way too, but it was her home. She found comfort in its gentle hum and flowing ocean and despite the horrible memories that occasionally woke her in the night, this is where her relationship with John had started.
She wanted nothing more right now than to go back in time and change a few things she did wrong. Her dealings with the Genii for a start. She should have pulled John and his team back from the Genii Homeworld the minute things started to get crazy and they offered up too much. She should never have let the Hoffans use “Steve” for their experiments. And above all, she should have told John how she felt about him earlier. Much earlier. That way she wouldn’t have felt so unnatural in her own skin for so long. She would have told him she loved him, would have made love to him and possibly could have had more by now.
“Let’s just get to the weapon room Radek found,” Lorne said. “We can work things out from there at the very least.”
Elizabeth nodded and got up from the desk to follow them to the door.
“Wait,” Miller said, stopping them. “We could do this trip better; Ronon, Teyla and Chuck can’t be seen. They can walk around corners ahead of us and see what’s there.”
“Sometimes,” Cole said, patting him on the shoulder, “your brain works.”
“Like me thinking we should split up instead of all protecting Doctor Weir. No offence,” Miller said quickly and Elizabeth smiled at him. “If we split up, we can make them think she’s been taken somewhere else.”
“Good idea,” John said. “Ronon, you and Cole head west side, Lorne, you, Miller and Teyla to the south. We’re heading for the weapon. Tell everyone you meet to stun them and try locking them in a room.”
“Problem,” Chuck said, a hand raised slightly. “I can’t see them.”
“We’ll figure something out,” John offered.
****
By the time Rodney was up the last flight of stairs, his chest was burning from the exercise. It was the adrenaline that pushed him across the hallway and into the room, only to be met with the barrel of a gun again. This time, however, it was quickly withdrawn at Rodney’s shout of surprise.
“Sorry, Doctor McKay,” the dark haired Marine took a step back. “You caught us a bit by surprise.”
McKay took a few moments to breathe deeply and muttered something about Marines and their reflexes as he glanced into the room and was stunned into silence for a moment. “Katie?” he blurted out.
Katie Brown was standing with two cords in her hand around the console helping Doctor Zelenka prep the machine for transport. She turned her head and offered a weak smile at him.
“We picked up an extra passenger on the way here,” the Marine, whose uniform read ‘Tipson’ on the chest, said and gave a small smile before he started towards the doorway.
Rodney shook his head. “No, no, no, no, no. You’re supposed to be in one of the civilian designated zones.”
Katie gave him a bit of a sad look. “I was on my way there when the transport got sealed off and then Lieutenant Tipson and his team found me and said there were enemy behind them,” she had just gotten swept up in the action that had followed.
Radek stood up from under the console. “You should have seen it. Icicles coming out of thin air. Only Lieutenant Tipson and Sergeant Houghton seemed to be able to see them,” he explained, ducking back behind the console as another soldier in the room moved to help him with something.
Rodney continued to look stunned. “How did you guys escape?”
“I was able to initiate a lockdown procedure behind us. I sealed them in.”
Rodney opened his mouth to protest further when Tipson came back into the room. “Where’s Lambert?”
The colour in Rodney’s face drained. “He was hit. He’s dead.”
Tipson went quiet, his eyes frowning for a moment before he nodded. “Alright. Well, let’s get this console to where it needs to be.”
****
Teyla stepped around the corner of the seemingly empty corridor and positioned the mirror for Lorne and Miller to see down the hallway. A moment later they moved around and started quietly down the hall to the next turning.
“Does anyone else find this extremely spooky?” Lorne asked in a low whisper.
“We have not seen a single Xe-ne for almost half an hour,” Teyla confirmed. “Perhaps they are gathering their forces.”
“Or maybe they found out where the weapon is,” Miller suggested, making Lorne stop and give him a look. Again Teyla turned the corner and positioned herself for her friends to see. They quickly motioned her back. “Spoke too soon.”
“How many were there?” Teyla asked, moving with them back the way they had come.
“About ten,” Lorne said. They looked the other way down the corridor and found more positioned there. “Its times like this that I wish Atlantis had air ducts.”
“Would they be of use?” Teyla asked.
“Sure,” Miller said, a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “For creating bad knees and back problems or for giving you the sensation of being less than a year old and not being able to stand on your own two feet.”
Teyla’s brow rose and she brushed the comment off as another Earth device she would never find out about. Unless of course she spared a moment later to ask John or Elizabeth. For now though she would have to be content with ignoring the conversation.
“Teyla,” Lorne said and she watched him swallow as though he was about to ask something difficult. “Can you go down the corridor,” he said digging into his vest for something and finally pulling out a camera, “and take a picture of the next one.”
“Of course,” she said, accepting the device and taking a second to familiarise herself with it. She powered it up and took a deep breath before moving off around the corner.
She walked confidently to the end and turned and took a photo of the hallway before she turned back and paused. Her mind ran through the layout of the city. She’d lived here for two and a half years now and knew the layout pretty well. Where they stood right now was close to the lab Radek had been working in that morning. It wouldn’t take her a minute to go see if he was still there.
Teyla turned back to the corridor and walked easily down it to the next junction. She snapped another picture before walking down to the lab door. It was open and she looked into the empty room with a quirked brow. Radek had been there since finding the weapon, the console she had seen earlier that day was gone. She photographed the room and headed back to Lorne and Miller.
“What took you so long?” Lorne asked as she turned back the final corner and handed him the camera.
“We are near Radek’s latest lab,” she offered. “The console he has been working on has been moved.”
“And replaced by twenty something Xe-ne,” Miller said, looking at the picture over Lorne’s shoulder.
“One of us needs to go find Weir and Sheppard,” Lorne said. “These guys are looking for the weapon.”
****
John’s hands were on her waist again as they watched Chuck very tentatively approach the corner of the corridor. Every corner they had come to he’d done the same thing: tell Chuck he could do this, watch the man take a few steps and turn back for her nod before stepping forwards and placing his hands on her hips or waist. Despite their tentative situation, he had become daring each time. It started with just the hands, then he would rest his chin on her shoulder, his chest against her back and the last time they’d stopped, he’d placed a quick kiss on her neck as well.
He was about to do the same again. She felt him press against her and his chin rest on her shoulder when one of the Xe-ne stepped up to the corner right next to Chuck. The alien was looking straight down the corridor behind the tech who continued to take photos of the corridor.
John detached himself from Elizabeth without a sound and slowly pulled her several steps back to the nearest door. Ahead of her, Chuck turned and headed back their way and she watched his brow crease as he watched John indicate for her to open the door. She turned to the panel as the Xe-ne turned and looked right at them. John’s reaction was much faster than hers and he slapped the panel, catching her hand in the process. He shoved her against the door as the alien started towards them and Elizabeth caught sight of a terrified Chuck and three more Xe-ne before she was shoved inside the room. John pulled the crystal to stop the door being opened from the outside and turned to face her.
“What good will that do?”
“It will stop them from getting in.”
“It will stop Chuck from getting in and they won’t leave while they know we’re in here.”
“Chuck’s safe,” John said. “They don’t know he’s there, and they can’t touch him.”
“We don’t know that. They could still hurt him.”
Silence fell for a moment and Elizabeth watched him as the cogs in his brain worked over what she had said and what he needed to do. She knew as well as he did that his priority was to protect her. If the Xe-ne wanted her before they destroyed the city, then keeping her safe and in Atlantis was top of his to do list.
“My concern is you,” he said and she swallowed back how horrible that sounded in her head. For some reason that sounded far too over protective and she pushed away thoughts of what their relationship was doing for their command. She wanted to protest, wanted to complain, to tell him that she didn’t need protecting. But she knew she did.
“I can’t just run and hide,” she said in a low voice. “There are 87 civilians in this city that are currently hidden and locked in a room at the bottom of the city. Right now,” she said, feeling her hands start to shake, “I have no idea if the route to the Stargate is free for them to be evacuated.”
“That’s why we need to use that weapon,” he pointed out. “Mara said it doesn’t kill them. And don’t tell me that’s just what they told her to say. For all we know, it’s the rebel faction of the Ancients who are helping us.”
If she didn’t love him so much, she’d hate him right now. Once again he was right and a bastard for it. Though she’d never admit he was right, at least not until they were safe and alone and she could pop that big head of his with a snarky comment.
“How do we get out of here?”
“Well,” John said and licked his lips. “That’s a good question.”
****
Ronon rounded the corner and fired his stunner in quick succession. He easily stunned three very confused Xe-ne without blinking and then opened the door somewhere in the middle of them. Cole followed him around with a quirked brow. No matter how many times he saw the man make the move, it would still be impressive.
“When do I get to shoot?” he asked, straining to pull the closest alien into the room.
“When you learn to be faster than me,” Ronon said, shoving one easily into the room and turning to find the other starting to glow. He shot the alien quickly and then dragged him down the corridor and into the room.
“Ah,” Cole said. “Never, then.”
Ronon grinned at him and they moved to the next corner. This time, Cole was only a step behind him and he turned the corner in time to shoot one of the aliens before rushing ahead and dragging his stunned alien into a room.
“Thirty three,” Ronon said as he disabled another door.
“Is that rooms or aliens?”
“Aliens,” Ronon confirmed and turned as another rounded the corner. Cole beat Ronon by raising his gun and stunning the beast before it could react.
“Well, that’s five for me,” he told the Satedan with a grin. “I guess I have some catching up to do.”
****
“Why are you carrying a stunner if you refuse to use it?”
“Lorne.”
It was the only explanation Elizabeth had to offer. It was the only one that made sense anyway, especially to him. Elizabeth hated all kinds of weapons and yet she wore the stunner anyway. A spark of jealousy flittered through John’s heart as he realised there was no way in hell she’d actually strap the thing to her own thigh, which meant Lorne did that himself. He shook the thought away and narrowed his eyes at her.
“You need to use it.”
“No way.”
“You need to shoot them, Elizabeth. We need to get out of here.”
“Chuck can help you.”
“How exactly do I tell Chuck to shoot? We’re in radio silence.”
He saw her jaw clench. There was also the unvoiced point that Chuck couldn’t see the aliens to shoot them. His previous shot back in the control room had been extremely lucky and if it had missed, would have struck the Marine directly opposite him. The poor man had muttered several times that he hadn’t meant to fire, that it had been an accident and for a while John wondered what freaked him out so much. That was until they passed another military officer who told them it was very weird seeing bullets stop in mid air and move around on their own. Then he understood.
“You just have to fire a few shots, stick the stunner back in the holster and run. We’re only a few corridors from the place Radek and Lorne were heading.”
He moved closer, his voice low and his hand back on her waist as he forced her to meet his eye. He just had to get her out of the room; he would be right behind her, after that he could shoot any others they found and get her into the confines of what they hoped was the weapon room. He moved in closer to her, feeling her hands slide up his arms and licked his lips as though he wanted to kiss her. Well he did, but now wasn’t the time.
At least he thought not.
Elizabeth moved in first, her lips brushing against his before he finally relented and kissed her. What was a guy to do when he was trapped in a room pressed close to a beautiful woman?
“Give me your gun,” he said, another idea striking him before he could pull back.
“You’re gonna fire both?” she asked, licking him off her lips.
“I’ve done it before,” he said with a coy grin.
“Really?” she asked and he nodded. “I should not be turned on by this,” she muttered.
John quirked a brow before wrapping his arms quickly around her and pinning her body to his. He purposely ran his hand down her back, over her buttock and down her thigh to the holster strapped in place.
“This is definitely not the best time,” she pointed out with a slight groan to her voice.
“You started it,” he said, quickly kissing her before separating.
He gave her a small push to the door and waited for her to step up beside the panel with the removed crystal before getting ready to take on whatever was outside. He spared a horrible thought of Rodney in a dress to cool his body before he nodded to her. Elizabeth replaced the crystal and opened the door and John squeezed the triggers slightly before stopping. There was nothing there, not a thing or person outside the door. He took a step to one side as Elizabeth pulled slightly back from the wall she’d flattened herself against.
“Where are they?” she asked in a whisper.
“Not a clue,” he said.
“Where’s Chuck?”
John shook his head and stepped out into the corridor and looked both ways down it, his guns still clenched in his hands and ready to fire. Elizabeth slipped around the door jamb and edged along the wall behind him as he side stepped down the hallway. John stopped her before he reached the end and poked his head out to look either way down the next passage. Nothing.
“This is very freaky,” he said.
“Colonel.”
John swung around quickly, his heart beating wildly, gun raised and right in Chuck’s face. He barely managed to resist pulling the trigger and silently thanked someone for the fact that he only had stunners in his hands.
“Do not ever sneak up on a man carrying two guns,” he said sharply before lowing the stunner.
“Yes sir,” Chuck said, sounding tense and as though he’d just wet himself.
“Chuck, where were you?” Elizabeth asked as John checked back down the corridor and then back the way they’d come.
“When you vanished into the room and I couldn’t get in, I figured the Xe-ne had you trapped and started looking for help. I found a couple of Marines a few corridors away and they distracted them so you could leave. I was just looking for a spare crystal I could use to rig the door open.”
“Lovely, a new genius in the making,” John said sarcastically, his heart still beating a mile a minute.
“There shouldn’t be any Xe-ne between here and the weapon room,” Chuck offered, giving John a stern look.
“Good,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s get there before they come back for us.”
His eyes darted to the side, where three more of them stood, and then up to the control room. Every civilian who had to stay in the main areas of the city had been given a weapon, something John now found himself thankful for as he caught sight of Chuck standing a step ahead of Elizabeth with his gun drawn. He could see it shake slightly as the tech tried desperately to look as though he would do anything to protect himself and his leader. John knew that Chuck liked firing a weapon about as much as Elizabeth liked seeing them.
For some reason his brain decided now was a good time to start wondering why Elizabeth would even flirt with him, let alone let him share her bed and hopefully more one day. She didn’t like weapons or military, yet here she was on a front line base showing everyone that it was possible to get along.
John’s eyes drifted to the Alien facing Elizabeth and his brow creased. The Xe-ne’s eyes were fixed on Elizabeth and he seemed very aware of the man standing just off to the left of him, another gun pointed his way. If you could call the Xe-ne ‘him’. John took another look at the one in front of him, the alien’s brow quirked and the horns on his forehead wrinkled along one side. It reminded him of the little crease Elizabeth got above her brow when she made the same move and quickly banished the thought that it was cute before looking back up at the control room.
His eyes drifted across the room. Elizabeth, just at the end of the bridge standing inside the control room. Chuck ready to protect her. It was another technician who stood to the Xe-ne’s left and two airmen behind him. Ronon shifted up the stairs without interruption. The two other aliens standing in the gate room seemed to see right through him or not consider him a threat, which John found somewhat amusing.
Ronon passed right in front of one and stopped to lean in and take a close look at the detail on its blue skin before he moved to the top of the stairs. He shifted through the room easily, the airmen moving just slightly to let him slip through and again he passed extremely close to the Xe-ne before stepping around to approach Elizabeth. There was a small exchange between them that John couldn’t hear before a slight move caught his attention.
John shifted his eyes back to the aliens’ left to see the technician who shifted uncomfortably. The Xe-ne had caught this action and turned sharply towards her. Before John could even take in what was going on, a piercing cry sounded from the Xe-ne as he took a step back, a glow of white running up his body like a ripple before a white substance like smoke shifted out through his face and passed through the tech. It lifted up over Penny’s head and shot sickeningly fast back at the alien as though his soul had briefly left his body and sharply returned. The tech was stunned, frozen solid for a moment before she crumpled to the ground.
“No!” Elizabeth cried out and she tried to move towards the woman before Ronon seized her arm to stop her.
The Xe-ne turned back to face her and moved forwards as though he neither saw nor cared that Chuck was there. He halted when the gun shot rang out and John saw the bullet pass cleanly through the monster’s shoulder from Chuck’s gun. He watched the recognition on the alien’s face as he turned to study the sudden wound. John swallowed as the alien’s eyes flicked to him before he turned slowly back to Elizabeth and took another step.
“Get down!” one of the airmen shouted and John had the brief sight of Ronon forcing Elizabeth down before the gunfire rang out.
Movement from his left turned him back to his alien friend and he turned just in time to see him step back and the shrill piecing sound start to vibrate through his head. Not wanting to know if this thing killed this way or not, John dived to the side, rolled along the floor and pushed up at the edge of the stairs and darted out of the room.
He turned the corner and headed for the stairs up to the control room and found another alien standing at the bottom. He instantly raised his gun and fired several rounds into the Xe-ne’s chest just as he heard Ronon’s sharp ‘move’ from above. The alien he had shot turned back to him. His chest was still littered with the shots of John’s gun but he still moved on. John spared a brief thought on the possibility that their anatomy was different before he fired again. This time, he didn’t aim for one place, his eyes vigilant on which bullets hurt most. There seemed to be no places more sensitive than the others and he was thankful when Elizabeth and Chuck made it to the bottom of the stairs and passed him. Ronon followed a few seconds later firing quickly at a slowly following Xe-ne.
“They don’t die,” he growled at John.
“I can see that,” he said, emptying his clip into the one ahead of him. It faltered and John paused to watch as it took a steadying breath to compose itself. A stunner blast passed close by and struck the alien and John watched it freeze in place. His heart was beating loudly for a few moments and there was almost deafening silence around him before another stunner shot rang slowly through the air. John didn’t look to see who was firing or even at whom. He stared in shock at the still frozen alien in front of him. It didn’t last though. The white glow that killed the tech woman rose over his body but this time, instead of seeing the expected smoke, the Xe-ne came back to life and took a step forward. Another stunner blast put him back to his frozen place and John finally returned to reality as Lorne grabbed his arm.
“Come on!” Evan yelled and darted around the corner.
He led John into one of the small meeting rooms and closed the door before ripping one of the crystals from the panel. John noted he shoved it into his pocket before he turned and realised Elizabeth and Chuck were already in the room along with Miller, Cole and Teyla.
****
All non-essential personnel had been ordered to designated areas, but Rodney McKay was still in the infirmary waiting for muscle relaxants. He had been treading water for a long time and his muscles were starting to cramp. Which was why when he washed back the two large pills with water and Chuck’s nervous voice came on the radio he felt a sudden sense of dread.
“Doctor McKay?”
Rodney rolled his eyes a little and pressed the button to respond.
“Yes?”
“Doctor Weir suggests that you hurry to assemble the machine. Doctor Zelenka is on his way to the –”
“Radek can handle it.”
“Rodney,” Elizabeth’s voice cut in. It was stern and filled with urgency. “They’re in the city. Hurry.”
Rodney stammered out an affirmative and pushed off of the bed he had been sitting on. He left the infirmary against the protest of the nurse who was saying something about side effects.
The infirmary was on the other side of the city from where the console was. He turned the corner and was met by a walking statue of ice. His eyes lit up like a deer in headlights. “Oh boy…” He scurried backwards, turning the corner, and went on a full-on run down the hall. Glancing back, he saw that the creature was chasing him. Why me?
Rodney was panicking. His eyes were wide and darted back and forth from room to room looking for some way to escape. It was only when he rounded the corner and his eyes set on a transporter did his heart flip-flop and he felt a brief moment of hope. Scrambling into the tiny room, Rodney pressed the appropriate button and turned in time to see the creature reach out and almost touch the door.
When the doors opened, he was met with a gun barrel to his forehead. His hands went up wildly in the air as he cowered backwards.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I surrender!” his eyes were shut tight and he’d never admit it, but his teeth were chattering a little. He felt the metallic barrel leave his forehead, but he didn’t open his eyes until he heard a human voice.
“Doctor McKay?”
Rodney opened his eyes and stared at a stern-faced Marine whose name he didn’t know. The Marine stood back and lowered his gun. Behind the Marine were three ice statues of a scientist and two soldiers Rodney vaguely recognised. The Marine held out his hand in order to snap McKay out of his daze.
“I’m Captain Lambert,” he said gesturing at the gun. “Sorry about that. Those things are everywhere.”
“You’ve seen them too?” Rodney’s eyes were open now and wide with alert. The tall, blonde-haired Marine nodded.
“They took out the rest of your escort team.”
“What?” Rodney looked at the icicles and then back at the man with an incredulous look. A beat passed before his hands flew up. “Great! The city’s being invaded and I have one person to help me to get a heavy piece of delicate equipment half way across the city! Perfect!”
“Lambert, you there?” the radio crackled and a male voice was on the radio.
Lambert pressed the radio talk button. “Yeah, Tipson. What is it?”
“We located Doctor Zelenka. We’re three levels above the console room.”
Lambert seemed to take in the information before he responded. “We’re three levels below it. We’ll rendezvous in the target room.”
“Affirmative. Tipson out.”
“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Doctor McKay was out of the transporter now and pacing a little. “If those things did this to them why aren’t you a human Popsicle too?”
Lambert’s only reply was a gesture with his P-90 towards a translucent blue gel puddle that seemed to be solidifying slowly over time. He then began to make his way down the hallway. Rodney looked at the puddle with a stunned expression.
“That was one of those things?” he glanced up to where Lambert was a moment ago and noticed him down the hall. “Captain!” he started after the Marine. Rodney wasn’t going to get left behind. “How did you kill that thing?”
Lambert glanced over to the doctor as they neared the stairs. “I got lucky.”
“What?”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t actually see it, but everyone else seemed to be able to. They were shouting and shooting.”
“Wait. You killed it and you didn’t even know where it was?”
That earned another shrug out of the Marine as they started up the stairs. “Just shot in the same direction. I hit it between the eyes and I saw it appear. Fell onto the ground and just sort of...” he paused as if to think of the right verb, “melted.”
Rodney opened his mouth to retort, but ducked down a few steps so he was hidden from the next level. “Hey!” He whispered harshly. “What are you doing? Hide!”
The Marine glanced down at the cowering man. “From what?”
Doctor McKay gave him an incredulous expression. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” his whisper was straining into a yell. “Can’t you see them? There are three of them! Standing in the middle of the hallway!”
The military man peered out into the hallway and seemed to think about shooting. After a moment of standing there, he started spraying the hallway blindly with bullets. He paused after a few bursts and waited. Nothing appeared. Suddenly something pointed and jagged appeared out of thin air and flew passed the Marine and into the wall, shattering into glass-like pieces. Once the pieces hit the floor, they began to melt like the body had.
“What are they doing now?” The Marine whispered to McKay who had his hands over his head.
McKay grumbled a protest about having to be the one to look as he slowly crept forward and inched his eyes over the lip of the last step. It only took him a moment to take in the situation before he ducked back down.
“Great!” He rasped. “Their friends have arrived!”
“How many?”
“Four.”
Lambert did the math. That made seven. Seven was a hard number to evade. “They still can’t see me, right?”
Rodney shrugged a bit dramatically. “I don’t know! They look like they’re still trying to figure out what the hell is going on.”
Lambert pressed his lips together and nodded after a moment. “Alright. Doctor McKay, the lab is two more flights up this way. I’m going to draw their fire and I want you to run.”
“What?” It was a phrase Rodney had become accustomed to saying recently. “You can’t be serious,” he said. But from the look on the Captain’s face, it was easy to tell that he was. “But you’ll get shot at or something.”
“The priority is your safety, Doctor.”
Lambert didn’t give Rodney any time to protest. He was already making his way down the hallway cautiously with his gun up and ready. Once he was on the other side of the hall, he began to strafe. McKay counted to five in his head before he scrambled up onto his unsteady feet and began barrelling up the stairs. His chest was tight, his heart was beating and the last thing he heard was Lambert cry out. A similar pointed object had hit him in the middle of his chest, piercing it as if it were sharp. Slowly the man began to crystallize from the entry wound outward until all his outer extremities were affected as well.
****
Elizabeth sat at one of the small tables in the room, her head in her hands and her eyes closed. She couldn’t believe this was happening and she couldn’t believe they had quickly resorted to hiding. She had already brushed off the idea that they simply wanted her out of the way. If that had been the case they wouldn’t have locked them all inside, some of them would have left. It had however, only been a matter of minutes since they’d stepped into the room and she knew there were these rooms positioned all over the city that people could duck into to take a breather. That had been one of Lorne’s best ideas.
“So,” John said and she looked up to see him watching her. “Do we know if they have a goal in mind or just general terror?”
“They want Doctor Weir,” Chuck said his hand still clutching tight to the gun he’d fired earlier. “That’s what they said. She’d go with them and everyone else would be killed if they got in the way of the city being destroyed.”
“Lovely,” Lorne said sarcastically.
“Wait,” John said, “you can see them?”
“No,” Chuck replied. “I was just aiming where everyone else was, and I had to ask what was going on.”
“So you can’t hear them either?”
Chuck shook his head. “Doctor Weir replied that she wouldn’t go anywhere with them and there was no way anyone would let them destroy the city.”
Silence fell for a moment. Elizabeth lifted her head and looked around her team. They were thinking hard, looking for anything they could use to win this war.
“We need an advantage,” Cole said.
“Stunners,” Lorne said. “Pulled mine by accident when I ran out of bullets and discovered it shocks them for a second before they glow and then carry on.”
“That is an escape route at best,” Teyla pointed out.
“They didn’t see me,” Ronon said, dropping down into the seat opposite Elizabeth.
“How’s that gonna help us?” Miller asked.
“Why couldn’t they see you?” Elizabeth asked and Ronon shrugged.
“I think a better question is how can you see them?” John put in and Elizabeth’s brows rose.
Silence fell again and Elizabeth’s brain ran wildly through all the information she’d accumulated over the past week. Every conversation with Rodney and Radek, every medical test Carson had put her through. And then she found it, the possible reason Ronon couldn’t be seen but could see the Xe-ne.
“Your genes,” she said and looked up at him. “Carson said you have a specific gene that stops you being fed on by the Wraith. I have a similar gene or at least one in the same marker location. It must be the key to seeing these... things.”
“Does this help us in some way?” Cole asked.
“Means I can shoot them without being attacked,” Ronon said dryly.
“We need to get to that weapon,” John said and opened his mouth to continue before Elizabeth cut him off.
“No,” she said, “I won’t resort to using a weapon like that until we have to.”
“It’s not gonna kill them,” John said, getting angrier with her. “Mara said...”
“Mara’s a five year old girl, John. What are the chances she was even born when they had to use it? She’s telling you what they tell her, which for all we know could be a lie.”
“We can’t fight these things,” he spat back. “I unloaded a whole clip of bullets into one and it barely stumbled. Ronon’s gun has no effect at all and a stunner freezes them for a few seconds. What other options do we have?”
She didn’t have an answer for him, just a stern look as she tried to ignore all the other eyes in the room on them. She had so many questions right now it was scaring her. Why were these people here? What had the Ancients done to annoy them so much? Why couldn’t they see that her team were not the same people they once fought? Nothing made sense and chances were they would have to put their evacuation plan into effect before the day was done.
That was something she didn’t want to contemplate. They didn’t have enough power in the ZPM to open the gate to Earth, not while running the shield to stop an orbital attack. That meant they’d have to take refuge on another planet, on their alpha site with no way of telling the SGC where they’d gone. It made it twice as bad that they had been forced to reselect their alpha site in the last two weeks and the report back to Earth was still waiting to be sent.
Atlantis was her home. She suspected others felt this way too, but it was her home. She found comfort in its gentle hum and flowing ocean and despite the horrible memories that occasionally woke her in the night, this is where her relationship with John had started.
She wanted nothing more right now than to go back in time and change a few things she did wrong. Her dealings with the Genii for a start. She should have pulled John and his team back from the Genii Homeworld the minute things started to get crazy and they offered up too much. She should never have let the Hoffans use “Steve” for their experiments. And above all, she should have told John how she felt about him earlier. Much earlier. That way she wouldn’t have felt so unnatural in her own skin for so long. She would have told him she loved him, would have made love to him and possibly could have had more by now.
“Let’s just get to the weapon room Radek found,” Lorne said. “We can work things out from there at the very least.”
Elizabeth nodded and got up from the desk to follow them to the door.
“Wait,” Miller said, stopping them. “We could do this trip better; Ronon, Teyla and Chuck can’t be seen. They can walk around corners ahead of us and see what’s there.”
“Sometimes,” Cole said, patting him on the shoulder, “your brain works.”
“Like me thinking we should split up instead of all protecting Doctor Weir. No offence,” Miller said quickly and Elizabeth smiled at him. “If we split up, we can make them think she’s been taken somewhere else.”
“Good idea,” John said. “Ronon, you and Cole head west side, Lorne, you, Miller and Teyla to the south. We’re heading for the weapon. Tell everyone you meet to stun them and try locking them in a room.”
“Problem,” Chuck said, a hand raised slightly. “I can’t see them.”
“We’ll figure something out,” John offered.
****
By the time Rodney was up the last flight of stairs, his chest was burning from the exercise. It was the adrenaline that pushed him across the hallway and into the room, only to be met with the barrel of a gun again. This time, however, it was quickly withdrawn at Rodney’s shout of surprise.
“Sorry, Doctor McKay,” the dark haired Marine took a step back. “You caught us a bit by surprise.”
McKay took a few moments to breathe deeply and muttered something about Marines and their reflexes as he glanced into the room and was stunned into silence for a moment. “Katie?” he blurted out.
Katie Brown was standing with two cords in her hand around the console helping Doctor Zelenka prep the machine for transport. She turned her head and offered a weak smile at him.
“We picked up an extra passenger on the way here,” the Marine, whose uniform read ‘Tipson’ on the chest, said and gave a small smile before he started towards the doorway.
Rodney shook his head. “No, no, no, no, no. You’re supposed to be in one of the civilian designated zones.”
Katie gave him a bit of a sad look. “I was on my way there when the transport got sealed off and then Lieutenant Tipson and his team found me and said there were enemy behind them,” she had just gotten swept up in the action that had followed.
Radek stood up from under the console. “You should have seen it. Icicles coming out of thin air. Only Lieutenant Tipson and Sergeant Houghton seemed to be able to see them,” he explained, ducking back behind the console as another soldier in the room moved to help him with something.
Rodney continued to look stunned. “How did you guys escape?”
“I was able to initiate a lockdown procedure behind us. I sealed them in.”
Rodney opened his mouth to protest further when Tipson came back into the room. “Where’s Lambert?”
The colour in Rodney’s face drained. “He was hit. He’s dead.”
Tipson went quiet, his eyes frowning for a moment before he nodded. “Alright. Well, let’s get this console to where it needs to be.”
****
Teyla stepped around the corner of the seemingly empty corridor and positioned the mirror for Lorne and Miller to see down the hallway. A moment later they moved around and started quietly down the hall to the next turning.
“Does anyone else find this extremely spooky?” Lorne asked in a low whisper.
“We have not seen a single Xe-ne for almost half an hour,” Teyla confirmed. “Perhaps they are gathering their forces.”
“Or maybe they found out where the weapon is,” Miller suggested, making Lorne stop and give him a look. Again Teyla turned the corner and positioned herself for her friends to see. They quickly motioned her back. “Spoke too soon.”
“How many were there?” Teyla asked, moving with them back the way they had come.
“About ten,” Lorne said. They looked the other way down the corridor and found more positioned there. “Its times like this that I wish Atlantis had air ducts.”
“Would they be of use?” Teyla asked.
“Sure,” Miller said, a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “For creating bad knees and back problems or for giving you the sensation of being less than a year old and not being able to stand on your own two feet.”
Teyla’s brow rose and she brushed the comment off as another Earth device she would never find out about. Unless of course she spared a moment later to ask John or Elizabeth. For now though she would have to be content with ignoring the conversation.
“Teyla,” Lorne said and she watched him swallow as though he was about to ask something difficult. “Can you go down the corridor,” he said digging into his vest for something and finally pulling out a camera, “and take a picture of the next one.”
“Of course,” she said, accepting the device and taking a second to familiarise herself with it. She powered it up and took a deep breath before moving off around the corner.
She walked confidently to the end and turned and took a photo of the hallway before she turned back and paused. Her mind ran through the layout of the city. She’d lived here for two and a half years now and knew the layout pretty well. Where they stood right now was close to the lab Radek had been working in that morning. It wouldn’t take her a minute to go see if he was still there.
Teyla turned back to the corridor and walked easily down it to the next junction. She snapped another picture before walking down to the lab door. It was open and she looked into the empty room with a quirked brow. Radek had been there since finding the weapon, the console she had seen earlier that day was gone. She photographed the room and headed back to Lorne and Miller.
“What took you so long?” Lorne asked as she turned back the final corner and handed him the camera.
“We are near Radek’s latest lab,” she offered. “The console he has been working on has been moved.”
“And replaced by twenty something Xe-ne,” Miller said, looking at the picture over Lorne’s shoulder.
“One of us needs to go find Weir and Sheppard,” Lorne said. “These guys are looking for the weapon.”
****
John’s hands were on her waist again as they watched Chuck very tentatively approach the corner of the corridor. Every corner they had come to he’d done the same thing: tell Chuck he could do this, watch the man take a few steps and turn back for her nod before stepping forwards and placing his hands on her hips or waist. Despite their tentative situation, he had become daring each time. It started with just the hands, then he would rest his chin on her shoulder, his chest against her back and the last time they’d stopped, he’d placed a quick kiss on her neck as well.
He was about to do the same again. She felt him press against her and his chin rest on her shoulder when one of the Xe-ne stepped up to the corner right next to Chuck. The alien was looking straight down the corridor behind the tech who continued to take photos of the corridor.
John detached himself from Elizabeth without a sound and slowly pulled her several steps back to the nearest door. Ahead of her, Chuck turned and headed back their way and she watched his brow crease as he watched John indicate for her to open the door. She turned to the panel as the Xe-ne turned and looked right at them. John’s reaction was much faster than hers and he slapped the panel, catching her hand in the process. He shoved her against the door as the alien started towards them and Elizabeth caught sight of a terrified Chuck and three more Xe-ne before she was shoved inside the room. John pulled the crystal to stop the door being opened from the outside and turned to face her.
“What good will that do?”
“It will stop them from getting in.”
“It will stop Chuck from getting in and they won’t leave while they know we’re in here.”
“Chuck’s safe,” John said. “They don’t know he’s there, and they can’t touch him.”
“We don’t know that. They could still hurt him.”
Silence fell for a moment and Elizabeth watched him as the cogs in his brain worked over what she had said and what he needed to do. She knew as well as he did that his priority was to protect her. If the Xe-ne wanted her before they destroyed the city, then keeping her safe and in Atlantis was top of his to do list.
“My concern is you,” he said and she swallowed back how horrible that sounded in her head. For some reason that sounded far too over protective and she pushed away thoughts of what their relationship was doing for their command. She wanted to protest, wanted to complain, to tell him that she didn’t need protecting. But she knew she did.
“I can’t just run and hide,” she said in a low voice. “There are 87 civilians in this city that are currently hidden and locked in a room at the bottom of the city. Right now,” she said, feeling her hands start to shake, “I have no idea if the route to the Stargate is free for them to be evacuated.”
“That’s why we need to use that weapon,” he pointed out. “Mara said it doesn’t kill them. And don’t tell me that’s just what they told her to say. For all we know, it’s the rebel faction of the Ancients who are helping us.”
If she didn’t love him so much, she’d hate him right now. Once again he was right and a bastard for it. Though she’d never admit he was right, at least not until they were safe and alone and she could pop that big head of his with a snarky comment.
“How do we get out of here?”
“Well,” John said and licked his lips. “That’s a good question.”
****
Ronon rounded the corner and fired his stunner in quick succession. He easily stunned three very confused Xe-ne without blinking and then opened the door somewhere in the middle of them. Cole followed him around with a quirked brow. No matter how many times he saw the man make the move, it would still be impressive.
“When do I get to shoot?” he asked, straining to pull the closest alien into the room.
“When you learn to be faster than me,” Ronon said, shoving one easily into the room and turning to find the other starting to glow. He shot the alien quickly and then dragged him down the corridor and into the room.
“Ah,” Cole said. “Never, then.”
Ronon grinned at him and they moved to the next corner. This time, Cole was only a step behind him and he turned the corner in time to shoot one of the aliens before rushing ahead and dragging his stunned alien into a room.
“Thirty three,” Ronon said as he disabled another door.
“Is that rooms or aliens?”
“Aliens,” Ronon confirmed and turned as another rounded the corner. Cole beat Ronon by raising his gun and stunning the beast before it could react.
“Well, that’s five for me,” he told the Satedan with a grin. “I guess I have some catching up to do.”
****
“Why are you carrying a stunner if you refuse to use it?”
“Lorne.”
It was the only explanation Elizabeth had to offer. It was the only one that made sense anyway, especially to him. Elizabeth hated all kinds of weapons and yet she wore the stunner anyway. A spark of jealousy flittered through John’s heart as he realised there was no way in hell she’d actually strap the thing to her own thigh, which meant Lorne did that himself. He shook the thought away and narrowed his eyes at her.
“You need to use it.”
“No way.”
“You need to shoot them, Elizabeth. We need to get out of here.”
“Chuck can help you.”
“How exactly do I tell Chuck to shoot? We’re in radio silence.”
He saw her jaw clench. There was also the unvoiced point that Chuck couldn’t see the aliens to shoot them. His previous shot back in the control room had been extremely lucky and if it had missed, would have struck the Marine directly opposite him. The poor man had muttered several times that he hadn’t meant to fire, that it had been an accident and for a while John wondered what freaked him out so much. That was until they passed another military officer who told them it was very weird seeing bullets stop in mid air and move around on their own. Then he understood.
“You just have to fire a few shots, stick the stunner back in the holster and run. We’re only a few corridors from the place Radek and Lorne were heading.”
He moved closer, his voice low and his hand back on her waist as he forced her to meet his eye. He just had to get her out of the room; he would be right behind her, after that he could shoot any others they found and get her into the confines of what they hoped was the weapon room. He moved in closer to her, feeling her hands slide up his arms and licked his lips as though he wanted to kiss her. Well he did, but now wasn’t the time.
At least he thought not.
Elizabeth moved in first, her lips brushing against his before he finally relented and kissed her. What was a guy to do when he was trapped in a room pressed close to a beautiful woman?
“Give me your gun,” he said, another idea striking him before he could pull back.
“You’re gonna fire both?” she asked, licking him off her lips.
“I’ve done it before,” he said with a coy grin.
“Really?” she asked and he nodded. “I should not be turned on by this,” she muttered.
John quirked a brow before wrapping his arms quickly around her and pinning her body to his. He purposely ran his hand down her back, over her buttock and down her thigh to the holster strapped in place.
“This is definitely not the best time,” she pointed out with a slight groan to her voice.
“You started it,” he said, quickly kissing her before separating.
He gave her a small push to the door and waited for her to step up beside the panel with the removed crystal before getting ready to take on whatever was outside. He spared a horrible thought of Rodney in a dress to cool his body before he nodded to her. Elizabeth replaced the crystal and opened the door and John squeezed the triggers slightly before stopping. There was nothing there, not a thing or person outside the door. He took a step to one side as Elizabeth pulled slightly back from the wall she’d flattened herself against.
“Where are they?” she asked in a whisper.
“Not a clue,” he said.
“Where’s Chuck?”
John shook his head and stepped out into the corridor and looked both ways down it, his guns still clenched in his hands and ready to fire. Elizabeth slipped around the door jamb and edged along the wall behind him as he side stepped down the hallway. John stopped her before he reached the end and poked his head out to look either way down the next passage. Nothing.
“This is very freaky,” he said.
“Colonel.”
John swung around quickly, his heart beating wildly, gun raised and right in Chuck’s face. He barely managed to resist pulling the trigger and silently thanked someone for the fact that he only had stunners in his hands.
“Do not ever sneak up on a man carrying two guns,” he said sharply before lowing the stunner.
“Yes sir,” Chuck said, sounding tense and as though he’d just wet himself.
“Chuck, where were you?” Elizabeth asked as John checked back down the corridor and then back the way they’d come.
“When you vanished into the room and I couldn’t get in, I figured the Xe-ne had you trapped and started looking for help. I found a couple of Marines a few corridors away and they distracted them so you could leave. I was just looking for a spare crystal I could use to rig the door open.”
“Lovely, a new genius in the making,” John said sarcastically, his heart still beating a mile a minute.
“There shouldn’t be any Xe-ne between here and the weapon room,” Chuck offered, giving John a stern look.
“Good,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s get there before they come back for us.”