kristen999 | Fic "End Game" (2/2)

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Tremors racked his calves and a slow burn worked over his thighs. Running was an art, a fine balance between mind and body. Finding rhythm and limits. John exceeded his half an hour ago, bending then breaking those barriers, pushing further, funneling exertion and raw pain into energy. Navigating unlit corridors with part of his senses muted and blurry made balance an issue. Shadows leaped out of blind corners, sending him into the sides of the mine.

Go, go, go!

The moment he caught his breath or wiped the perspiration dripping down his face--- Gene was there, a rapid relentless dog, waiting for the right time to go for the jugular.

Bursts of blue lit up the area, and the ceiling above John exploded, showering rock and dust on top of his head. And still he ran.

His forearms sported fresh red blisters and he was missing a patch of hair on the back of his skull somewhere. A few mild burns couldn’t slow him down and John kicked it up a notch.

The next set of doors didn’t open fast enough and he turned his shoulder, his scapula clipping them. If he stopped, if his momentum slowed at all, it’d be the moment Gene played for real and lasered a hole right through his spine.

He tumbled into a huge room with wide open space, artificial walls, and lots of once-shiny things. This had been an important spot, a hub for tech people geeking out over their controls. John’s body took the rare opportunity to stumble, his boot catching on some metal box on the floor, the rest of him bouncing onto his wrists and knees, the useless P-90 digging into his chest. John stayed sprawled all over the floor, limbs mashed into liquid. Gene. Where was Gene?

John’d been running full force for two hours straight, playing lab rat in Gene’s maze, forced into directions he didn’t want to go. Now he lay there gasping like a carp on a dry dock. Breathe, damn it! But his chest felt too tight and too heavy. He coughed, sought more air, and coughed again. He fumbled for an oxygen mask that wasn’t there, mind blanking on where and when he was…this too similar to a certain damaged cockpit over unfriendly skies. The whole room spun, and low humming equipment static popped in his eardrums.

Slowly the present chased away the past. Run, you have to run, John. Your team will die if you don’t. He fumbled for the LSD and stared at the red dot in the adjacent room.

What are you up to, Gene?

Sweat stung his eyes, poured down his cheeks, scalding blistered flesh. God, his throat was parched, the inside rubbed raw, but if he had a cup of water, he’d splash it over the flash burns on his face.

Studying the life sign’s detector, John mapped out the fastest route to the main control room and plotted the long way there, taking the eastern sectors and circling around. Gene was on the move again too, and John didn’t want to know what had distracted the soldier.

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Gene had changed the rules to the game, anticipating every one of John’s moves. Gene moved faster than before, the red dot blinking two sectors away, only to reappear in the next room of ahead of John. The perfect soldier was bored using him as a moving target and decided to block all his routes instead.

John skidded to a halt, hands on his knees, panting for air that never reached his lungs. A migraine had taken up residence a little while ago, a vise digging into his temples. He fought the impulse to confront Gene full on, screw this cloak and dagger crap. John wasn’t suicidal despite certain decisions of the past. His P-90 was as useful as an aluminum baseball bat and no match against Jason Bourne.

No, he’d outwit Gene in this game. There were ten miles to go and he still had a few plays left in his book. Walking away from the door, John went the opposite direction, double-backing, and would find a way to use Gene’s new tactics against him.

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The best strategy sometimes was to have none, to use randomness to screw with your enemy. It worked in chess matches, opponents baffled by nonexistent patterns, throwing them off-kilter and forcing them to make stupid mistakes. John simply waited to turn the tables.

Gene was six sectors away, having gone the wrong direction several times. It was satisfying to witness the ‘perfect soldier’ giving chase where John hadn’t been.

The next room held a few surprises, a narrow corridor with a creaky, rusty old catwalk suspended over a gaping chasm. There was no visible ground and John tossed a random shard of rock over the edge. With his hearing spotty, he used the time it took for it to vanish out of sight and estimated that it was at least thirty meters down.

His steps were shaky, having switched to slow and careful, after three hours of fight or flight. John gripped the railing, leaning heavily for support as his legs turned to rubber. Gene must’ve tampered with life-support; it was the only explanation for how thin the air felt and why goose bumps broke across his skin. And maybe an explanation about Gene’s whereabouts earlier.

After he took three steps, the scaffolding beneath his feet groaned its unhappiness then snapped completely. John curled his arms around the railing just as the section of metal buckled and fell away. His legs dangled in empty air before his boots scrambled for purchase on the side of the framework and he hauled himself up.

Holding onto the railing with a death grip, he carefully leaned over, studying the four-meter section that had broken apart. Serrated, uneven stone made up the ceiling above, but it was too high for him to reach, and a quick glance at the LSD had Gene closing in.

“I scaled the city tower; this should be a piece of cake.”

John clambered on top of the bar, arms spread out to right his balance. Crossing over the opening via the railing wasn’t his brightest idea considering the catwalk had been unstable. Luckily the banister didn’t crumple, and he made it across, pushing his luck even further by hopping down and praying the rest of the catwalk held his weight.

The scaffolding creaked with each step and he sagged in relief when he made it safely to the other side and sized up the golden opportunity staring at him in the face. Splitting your focus got you killed. The catwalk was defendable. Gene would have to slow down to walk across the railing, making him susceptible to attack, or he’d run across---giving John an idea.

This was the perfect place for an ambush. He was out of C-4 and his P-90 was still jammed, but men had waged war before guns.

He was surrounded by rocks, might as well use them. John quickly unzipped his vest, popping a few buttons, to remove his outer shirt, and slit the fabric into sections with his knife. Gene was two rooms away and John grabbed a couple of large rocks, stuffed them into the material, rolling and twisting the shirt around them. He couldn’t throw the rock with enough strength to do any real damage, but if he took an inanimate object plus a few swinging motions, it multiplied the force and created a lethal weapon.

Putting his vest back over his t-shirt, John froze when his hand brushed an MRE in one of the bottom pockets. Wouldn’t his plan be easier if a certain rail was slippery as hell? He ripped it open, stomach growling, and tossed aside the meat sauce, noodles, crackers, and candy bar…oh, cool – matches. He stuffed the matchbook inside a vest pocket and kept searching. There.

John peeled open a container of fruit cocktail and grabbed the cheese spread, thanking all that was holy for the military’s desire to give them a variety to eat. He went over and smeared both all over the railing toward the gap in the catwalk and scurried back as Gene entered.

It’s all over if he gets a bead on you.

Gene pointed his ray gun and John stood his ground. “A good shot doesn’t make you a superior soldier, just means you can hit an unmoving target.”

“And are you a good soldier?” Gene asked, shouldering the laser-rifle.

“I’ve been keeping ahead of you, haven’t I?” John mocked, knowing damn well the truth.

Gene peered down the gorge, eyes scanning the railing, then hopped on top of the banister as planned…except when he jumped again it was much higher than John‘s ability, fingers hitching impossibly around pieces of rock from the ceiling and miraculously monkey-barring his way over.

Damn it!

Time to seize a brand new opportunity.

Gene was the moving target, his hands preoccupied.

John grabbed his knife and threw it with all his might, the blade striking Gene dead on with a sickening smack. The K-bar protruded grotesquely out of Gene’s chest, blood wetting the front of his shirt. John grabbed his makeshift sling, swung it twice just as Gene lunged, sending three hundred pounds of force right into his enemy’s face.

Blood poured out of Gene’s nose in rivulets. He wiped his hand over his features; fingers smeared crimson and the bastard actually chuckled, spitting several teeth onto the ground.

John stood stunned in place. “You don’t feel pain at all?”

“All my nerve endings have been modified,” Gene replied. He cocked his head curiously at the knife stuck inside his body, unconcerned by the massive wound or the blood pooling at his feet. “I feel something at first, then nothing at all.”

Gene went from complete stillness to motion before John’s brain registered the change. A fist of steel clobbered him in the chin and he managed to dodge the one aimed at his head.

John jammed an elbow into Gene’s mangled face to no effect, and then he planted a shoulder into Gene’s midsection, only to be shoved hard against the wall, knocking the air from his lungs. Gene slid an arm across John’s sternum, effectively pinning him in place.

“Pain is a weak spot to be exploited,” Gene explained, grabbing the back of John’s neck in some Vulcan nerve thing that sent spasms of agony down his spine and simultaneously paralyzed his ability to move.

“I see…acupuncture…in your future,” John grunted.

“Pain is useful in extracting information.” Most of Gene’s facial bones were broken, his cheeks puffy and swollen, and blood flowed freely from his nostrils and mouth. “Where are you in the chain of command?”

“I don‘t understand the question.”

“What is your name and rank?”

John’s vision grayed at the edges between the lack of oxygen and the constriction to his chest. “Captain America.”

Gene kept John immobilized by his neck, releasing the arm across his sternum as he began probing John’s side. “It takes a lot of force to break the first three ring bones because they protect vital organs. When my bones break, they do not hinder my ability to fight. But when yours do…”

There was no time to brace himself when Gene slammed his fist just below John’s breastbone. John couldn’t hold back the cry of pain and his legs almost gave out from under him.

“What is your rank?”

“Cobra…Commander.”

“The middle ring bones break the easiest.”

The next blow was near his navel, and John howled, tears pricking his eyes. He choo-chooed for air as the bones snapped. “You fucking asshole!” John took shallower breaths, waiting out the desire to pass out. “It’s Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. But you already knew that…didn’t you? How else did you know to ask for my name and rank? Why else did you come after me?”

Gene’s normal expression clouded with confusion. Blinking, he shook his head as if to clear, his normal confidence returning seconds later. “Many of your unit did not give away intelligence. Just name, rank, and their ID number. The weak ones answered all my questions. They gave me the operating procedures of your teams and the description of their military leader.”

“The…the transporter…how did you...”

“You are the only true blood of my creators according to sensors and I used them to track your movements outside. If you had not entered the transporter, I would have simply opened the main doors and eliminated the rest.”

“You’re the one who released the docking mechanism.”

Gene lessened his grip slightly, his body swaying. The blood puddle glistened larger by their boots, the entire front of Gene’s shirt soaked in red fluid. “The rest of the targets are of no consequence, although your reaction to their impending destruction gives me data regarding your future movements and strategic goals.”

Anger competed with the pain in his side and John held onto to it. “You were created as the ultimate soldier yet you have no comprehension of duty.”

“Duty?” Gene’s hand fell away, releasing its death grip on John’s neck. “My primary function is the elimination of the enemy.”

“Defeating an enemy has another purpose. To protect others and safeguard your team and those unable to defend themselves. You forgot the most important thing. A soldier is supposed to save lives.” John drew himself up with a grimace, gathering his strength. “You also forgot the most important lesson about pain.”

Gene breathed heavily, his speech lisping with all his missing teeth. “Wwhat’s tthat?”

“Pain is your body’s warning signs about injury,” John explained.

He grabbed the K-bar knife, twisting it ninety degrees and yanked it out, blood spurting out in a river.

Gene stared dumbly at the massive hole in his chest, his super-fast arms limp by his sides.

“Hypovolemic shock is a bitch.” John grabbed Gene by the shoulder, holding him still and slit his throat, dissecting the carotid artery. “Guess you didn‘t feel that.”

Gene sputtered, severed vocal cords unable to produce sound. He stumbled, most of his blood volume outside his body before he dropped like a rock, gurgling and flailing about.

It didn’t take long, maybe sixty seconds before Gene went lifeless.

John pulled out his LSD and watched the blinking red dot begin to fade, then disappear, leaving John as the only life sign.

“Enjoy your death,” he snapped, planting an elbow against his ribs, and started the long jog to the control room to save his team.

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Error Code 8622

Unable to perform desired action.

Access denied.

Catastrophic failure. System must shutdown.

“Are you alright, Rodney?”

“What?”

“You were growling,” Teyla pointed out.

“I was?” Tuning the world out was an ingrained habit of his. Rodney gave himself a mental shake, gesturing at the laptop in disgust. “A toaster oven is more useful than this. Even the back doors of back doors are shut tight.”

“I am sure you will find a way to connect.”

Rodney scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing he had a fraction of the confidence in his abilities that Teyla had in him at the moment. Speaking of teammates. “Where’s Ronon?”

With a troubled sigh, Teyla sat down cross-legged next to him. “He is searching for another way in. I know you’ve told him that there are none,” she said, beating Rodney to the punch. “He has it in his head that there might be a hidden entrance. It keeps him busy and from doing anything too…reckless.”

“You mean like pulling some type of Sheppard-insane act like scaling down the ravine to try to reach the jumper?’

“I believe he understands that is a lost cause.” Nodding at the LSD perched on his knee, she inquired, “How is John doing?”

The life sign’s detector was angled at his peripheral vision, so he could keep an eye on their team leader, while battling artificial intelligence failures. “He’s imitating a drunken blind man.” Knowing he wasn’t being fair, Rodney conceded, “Sheppard’s been double-backing and circling and doing everything besides dancing a jig, but I think he threw the Terminator off his trail.”

“Arnold Schwarzenegger?”

It was difficult not to smile at such a comment. “If only he was up against Arnold’s I.Q.” His eyes strayed to the ticking clock to their impeding doom.

“We still have a few hours before we are in immediate danger?”

“Yes. Although considering the amount of radiation we’ve been exposed to in the last few years…let’s just say I’m glad that any future heritage has been preserved at this lab where…well…” Clearing his throat, Rodney went for a change of subject. “We have three more hours before we reach the maximum amount of exposure without permanent damage. Of course even at lethal levels, we wouldn’t exhibit symptoms until many hours later, when we could look forward to internal bleeding, headaches, vomiting. Then our insides will slowly liquefy then--”

“But it will not come to that,” Teyla stated with the full brunt of that endless well of confidence.

“Of course,” Rodney lied. If Leprechauns hung around rainbows and Unicorns pranced around magical forests, then they might skid by with a slight acute exposure.

Just your average day in Pegasus.

A sound in the distance sent him scrambling for his weapon. Teyla tensed, scanning for the source.

“Just me,” Ronon grunted, coming out of nowhere.

“Thanks for adding a coronary to my day!” Rodney snapped, any further tirade cut short by the LSD. “Oh, no. Our terminator’s caught up to Sheppard.”

The cascade of voices were both distracting and irritating and it wasn’t until one of the red dots blinked weakly that Rodney became undone. “Don’t you dare, you sonofabitch!”

His team screamed at him and Rodney filtered them out, eyes transfixed by the fading dot of life.

Then only one remained.

It was rare a thing to feel yourself fall apart. Rodney thought he’d be used to it by now, but it didn’t take away from the pain, like scolding hot water. “Sheppard,” he whispered.

Should he break radio silence?

Something gripped his shoulder hard and he peered into Teyla’s forceful eyes, Ronon ominous beside her. “Rodney, tell us what is happening,” she demanded.

Only one person could clarify things and Rodney tapped his com. “Sheppard, come in.” Static coursed through his ears. “Sheppard, answer or I swear you’ll be taking cold showers for--”

“I’m…here, McKay.”

“Thank God.” A knot inside his gut loosened just a little bit. Or it was the first physical reaction to…no, no, he wasn’t going there. They had plenty of time. “Are you okay?”

“I…I’ll be fine.” Sheppard sounded awful. “What happened to…radio silence?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe we were wondering if you were alive or dead!” Rodney snapped.

“Did you kill him?” Ronon’s voice rumbled.

“Yeah… Yeah, I did.”

Ronon grinned in satisfaction, but Teyla was less than enthused. “John, are you sure…”

“Look, guys…I…I can’t talk right now…I think Gene did something to…”

“Gene?”

“Yeah, his name.”

Rodney glanced at his computer screen.

Genetically ENhanced Experiment.

“Oh, you have to be kidding me. Well, Gene, sabotaged life support. You’re running around at a…” Rodney’s eyes widened. “At an 84% oxygen level and dropping.” Breathless wheezes greeted him in response. “Look, don’t talk. He’s messed with the environmental controls by cutting off the heat. If you keep a nice steady pace without overdoing, then you’ll make the control room in plenty of time.”

“Copy that.”

Ronon began pacing. “So, now what?”

Rodney didn’t like his answer any more than any of them. “We wait.”

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John knew something about hypoxia. Enough drills inside an avionics’ lab simulator and a malfunction at fifty thousand feet at eight Gs taught his body well. His lungs were plastic straws trying to draw air out of the mine’s atmosphere, the deeper the breath, the deeper the invisible blade twisted inside his chest. Even from the grave, Gene found a way to screw him, breaking one of his lower and upper ribs, creating a tug of war between them.

Breathing shallowly inside a slowly leaking balloon was out of the question and without a brace to stabilize the bones, jogging sent a jolt of agony with every step. High pain threshold or not, this was torture.

Three miles. He had three hours to haul his ass down less than half of his daily morning run, but it might as well be four hundred miles. Lactic acid coursed and burned overtaxed muscles from the earlier fun and games. Hours under a steaming hot shower might actually clean away all the blood in his hair and under his fingernails, but it’d take a soak in therapy whirlpool to alleviate all the aches to his body.

Another set of doors were ahead and he stood there, waiting for them to activate. His breath swirled in wispy tendrils around his face, condensing on the metal barrier. His forehead rested against the smooth surface, tempting him to stay there longer, just for a minute. His right eyelid fluttered closed, the icy chill in his bones mingling with his numbing limbs.

No sleeping on the job.

John stared at the door; his gaze alone wouldn’t open it, so he searched for a control panel, prying it apart and recalling which crystals did what. Switching the order of the fourth and sixth ones triggered the door.

Great, another catwalk.

This particular bridge proved to be more stable than the previous one and John left the catwalk behind. He went down one endless tunnel connecting another endless tunnel. Room after room, door after door. Intersections bypassing intersections.

One mile in fifty minutes and his momentum dropped to a pitiful walk-stop-shuffle into the next room. “This is different.”

Rows of burned out lights hung over thick layers of black dirt that were evenly divided up into perfect squares across the ground. Lines of PVC pipe poked through the soil and ran the lengths of each section. He’d been to the botany lab enough times to recognize an indoor greenhouse unused for thousands of years. An irrigation system provided water; fluorescent bulbs produced UV rays, and walls covered by a film of plastic held in the heat. Wires and cord wrapped around wooden stakes where he imagined crops might have grown.

Guess they didn’t get many food shipments.

John battled the need to breathe with the need to keep moving. Don’t stop. Don’t think. Just go.

There were two additional corpses in the next corridor, two more of their people left to rot like garbage. The temperature preserved the bodies, capturing faces stretched in horror. He walked around puddles of condensing blood, telling himself that his increased shivering was from the cold only.

The next room spun around dizzyingly and he wrapped both arms around his middle for warmth and to keep the jackhammer riveting up and down his side to a minimum. It was difficult to read the LSD with one eye, the schematics fuzzy and blurring at the edges. At least the biting air had numbed up his face. Small favors and all that.

“John?”

Teyla’s voice was a tiny echo of a tin-can phone.

“Yeah?” he rasped, the floor beckoning him to lie down and get off his feet.

“John, we are worried about you.”

“I’m…” It took too much energy to speak; a drum started pounding inside his skull.

“Sheppard, you have to keep going. If you don’t, we’ll all be glowing green or you’ll suffocate. Or both.”

“Such…the optimist, McKay.”

There was more talking and badgering, but John was drawn toward a card table surrounded by several folding chairs and an emergency lamp. His eyes scanned around, taking in cots, a clothes line drawn between two poles with linens pinned in place. Walking over, he spotted stacks of empty MRE’s, crates of equipment, and a network of laptops.

“Bingo,” he mumbled.

“What?”

John flipped on the light to his P-90, illuminating more random shell casings (that he snagged), tons of ransacked military boxes, and stained field dressings littering the floor.

“Look, Sheppard! Listen to me. There’s another red dot...I mean I think it’s the same red dot! It just reappeared.”

John grabbed his LSD and stared unbelieving at the screen. “What the hell?”

Gene was alive and moving.

No, he wasn’t doing this again.

It took nearly two hours to get this far and Gene would reach him in half an hour or more. There was no outrunning the bastard, no allowing him to catch up, because John wouldn’t last another encounter, sentencing his team to death.

No, change tactics. Turn the tables. Slow Gene down or kill him.

Again.

“Sheppard?”

“I’ll get back to you,” he said, and turned his radio off.

This room appeared to be a common area, which would have been set up near the sleeping quarters. Sometimes a few of the Marines liked to bunk near a patrol vicinity to stay combat ready.

A research post with a rotating military unit required a certain number of supplies. Arm fixed to his side, John jogged to the far wall where stacks of black containers had been tossed around. Bending was a big no-no, rotating his body even a bigger one. There was a soft ‘popping’ sound as bone ripped from cartilage, nearly sending him to tears. John grunted and cursed, pushing over empty cases for leftover crumbs.

Plush styrofoam stared at him where stun and smoke grenades used to be and the storage cases for the unit’s P-90s were bare. Ditto for the M-16s and MP-5 sub machine guns. “Give me something, guys,” John mumbled, but all weapons were gone.

Who knew if Gene destroyed them or kept the guns for study? John started in on the first crate, finding dust and packing pellets for his troubles, then moved to another corner, discovering a spilled-over toolbox and he grabbed a screwdriver and a box of nails. Nothing else, no power drills, or even a heavy wrench. The research team had grabbed anything that could be used as a weapon.

Because of the mine, most of the military unit was made up of combat engineers. Where were the explosives?

The heavy equipment was elsewhere, and the mother lode of C-4 and TNT was missing or used up. Pulling out a small cardboard box, John found a set of fuses, and he stuffed them into his vest. But what he really wanted was the back-up generator for when all the Ancient shit stopped working. Because it always did; things at research posts failed all the time. It was located in the far corner, of course; the gasoline can normally attached to the side was on the ground, dented and empty.

The generator must’ve been used recently, because the tank was a quarter full. He swore his broken ribs gnashed together when he transferred every last drop into the container. A voice in his head that sounded a lot like Keller warned him how excessive strain or movement could cause the jagged edges to puncture a lung.

He took a precious moment to catch his breath, eyes straying to the cots and the small trunks at the end of them. He battled lightheadedness and went over, opening the lid to a treasure-trove of clothes.

It appalled him to take the clothes of one his fallen comrades, but he was freezing and the long-sleeved black shirt would add a needed layer. Lifting up his arms to remove his vest was agony personified, and he quickly slipped the shirt on, buttoned it up, and gingerly slipped back on his vest. He riffled through the trunk for a sign of whom it belonged to, hand bumping against a metal box. Curious, John’s heart stuttered with adrenaline as he opened the small ammo case and found four M67 grenades.

These had Lieutenant Parker written all over them; the man had a fondness for good old-fashioned things that went boom. It killed John knowing he’d been the one to assign Parker to this duty, hoping the cakewalk mission would give him enough time to rebound from an off-world accident.

Cupcake missions were a myth. He should have learned that lesson by now and it’d been John’s order to scale back the number of Marines. This entire thing was on his head. He buried the guilt along with the anger, to be dealt with another time. There was a small backpack on the floor and he snagged it, putting his bounty inside, and threw it over his left shoulder.

A check of the LSD had Gene still on the move, albeit slower than his super-charged speed. Maybe dying then regenerating took a lot out of a guy. Good.

Mind racing, John went in search for what passed for the mess hall. His instincts were correct, and the communal area was near the living quarters, which were tiny rooms with beds only. One of the bedrooms had been turned into the kitchen with a refrigerator, freezer, and a small oven.

Skipping the appliances, John went for more storage containers like a burglar, trashing everything until he found the cooking supplies. Perfect. He snatched a roll of cellophane, aluminum foil, two jars of peanut butter…hmmm styrofoam cups, and slid them into the backpack.

All the silverware was gone, including the knives. Gene had either cleaned up shop, or John’s men had given the asshole hell.

He nearly tripped over his own two feet, an adrenaline high skirting with exhaustion. The contest of wills produced a weird sort of high, that or the O2 levels were severely lower than he’d thought. No matter what, it was time to turn the tables on this cat and mouse game.

John checked Gene’s position and hoofed it back the way he came.

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Boldness only got you so far, and John split the distance between him and Gene. He started pulling out control crystals from the other side of each door, buying himself a few minutes per entryway. Irritating the enemy, creating patterns for him to follow, shaped a desired behavior. There was no telling if Gene would follow the direct route, but once he passed the catwalk, there was only one direction to go.

Sabotaging the metal bridge required C-4, so he focused on the next entrance. Once he jacked the control crystals he took out the jars of peanut butter and scooped out the contents with his fingers, wiping the rest on the ground out of sight. Taking one of the grenades, he squeezed the safety lever and stuffed it inside the jar, the plastic container keeping the lever from releasing.

With a roll of duck tape, he secured the jar to the wall at ankle level, the opening facing sideways. Using twine he’d snatched from the greenhouse he tied a knot around the ring and taped one end to the right-hand door. He repeated the same thing to the other side, setting both bombs in place. Drawing the deepest breath tolerable, John pulled out both safety pins.

When Gene forced up the doors, it would yank the grenades out, blowing off his legs.

Or in this case, injure the man enough to slow him down.

He went through five more doors, threw aside five more sets of control crystals.

On the sixth entrance he taped the next pair of grenades to the wall, wrapping the adhesive around the safety levers to activate them, and tied knots around the release pins themselves. Odds were Gene would check every door for traps, which would help slow him down, or he’d grow careless and fall for another trap.

Either way was a win-win in John’s book.

John entered the greenhouse, eying the soil and wondering about the nitrogen content. If he brought down half the mine on top of Gene’s head, it wouldn’t matter if he stayed dead, but he lacked aluminum nitrate and didn’t have time to mix up some flash powder to ignite a large level charge.

Perhaps the greenhouse could be utilized some other way.

Anticipate the enemy’s behavior.

John regarded the wooden stakes and pulled one out. It was brittle with age and he sliced away a long piece with his knife. Using a rock, he pounded in six nails three inches apart from each other into the strip. Cartridge traps were an old trick used by the Viet Cong, but he’d seen them in Afghanistan. He retrieved several empty shotgun shell casings from one of his stuffed vest pockets and used his K-bar to cut off the bottoms of the shells, creating several cylindrical tubes.

Time was ticking down and he swiftly dug a hole in the ground with his knife, stuck the strip of wood with the nails into the soil and inserted the empty shotgun shells around each nail. Sliding out the P-90 clip, he took six live ammo rounds and placed them into the shells so they settled directly on top of the nails. He quickly covered the strip of wood with dirt, spreading the soil over the tips of the bullets.

Beneath Gene’s sociopathic exterior was a cold lust for knowledge and morbid curiosity. The jumper remote would be the perfect bait. It was shiny and had buttons and it wouldn’t do them a lick of good now and he laid it a few feet away from the booby trap. If Gene wanted to inspect it, maybe he’d lose a few toes stepping on something nasty on his way there.

Checking Gene’s position, John studied the dot’s progress, noting the increased speed.

Wolverine might have finally healed up. Hopefully some of John’s tricks would buy him the time he and his team desperately needed.

----------

It was ironic that two red dots represented life and death, but not all together surprising. How many times had a blip of light been a Hive ship, Replicator, or a gazillion other enemies hell-bent on destroying them? And don’t get him started on countdowns of doom At least this time, Rodney wouldn’t be badgered every twenty seconds for a report, or given a second arbitrary number to worry about.

No, he was faced with just another all-too-familiar scenario, one so ingrained into the fiber of his being that he dreamed about it at night sometimes. And that was unraveling computer code.

Despite all his efforts to pry open the lock to their collective prison cell, Rodney couldn’t defeat probability. Encryption codes were a math problem dependant on time and that was something that none of them had in abundance. He’d been handcuffed, unable to have control over his fate, forced into the spectator role, and totally transfixed by two little dots.

“Maybe I should--”

“Don’t. Talking is a distraction and that’s something Sheppard doesn’t need to deal with,” Ronon said, before Rodney could active his com.

It wasn’t fair. Ronon fumed and paced and ’searched’ for imaginary entrances that didn’t exist. Teyla watched over Zelenka, and although he wouldn’t wish such a chore on his worst enemy, at least it gave her something to do--even if that something wasn’t what she wanted. Like fight or shoot or do anything else worthwhile.

Sure, Rodney had algorithms scrolling down his screen, but they were pointless, and they didn’t hold his attention, not as much as the seconds and minutes piling up. Time and distance were the only two factors that could impact their exposure, and that was two more things outside his domain of influence.

Which left two blinking dots.

Two very slow blinking dots.

As in one had stopped moving and the other might as well be standing still.

“Come on, Sheppard, you’re so close.”

-----------

Which way was he going?

Forward, keep moving forward.

John’s speed was wavering between a hobble and leaning against the nearest wall. He stumbled, got turned around, and fought through his fog of confusion. He had a flight path and that was straight ahead, always straight ahead. Based on Gene’s earlier speed, he would have caught John dead-bang half an hour ago; that was until he encountered the first obstacle.

That fucking red dot had flickered and faded, but never quite went out. It stopped for ten minutes, then resumed its pursuit at an erratic, bumbling speed.

“Good luck running on stumps, asshole.”

But Gene kept coming and John kept struggling.

It bothered him that he couldn’t feel his toes, his legs masses of wiggling jelly, then nothing but numbness from cold and strain.

Half a freaking mile. Five more sectors.

The urge to check in with his team was maddening; his arms were too heavy, his focus scattered. Not that he’d have the breath to form words or be able to hear over his thundering heartbeat.

His forehead struck something hard and it took way too long to realize it was an unmoving door.

Control crystal, switch the control crystals, right. Which ones again?

“Hey, Mc’ky...which control crystals do I change?”

“Sheppard?”

“Which ones?”

“What control crystals?’’

“The ones in the door,” Sheppard snapped like it was obvious.

“They don’t open?”

“No, why else would I ask?”

“Oh, God, is your brain that oxygen starved? Are you going to be able to follow my instructions when you reach the control room? If you can find the control room?”

“Door crystals,” John growled.

McKay babbled in his ear and John had to have the sequence repeated three times. “Got it.”

“Sheppard, your buddy’s on the move again…and he’s wasting no time.”

Damn. Gene was in the greenhouse. When had he gotten past the second set of traps? Had John been that out of it?

The jumper remote might have been too temping as the red dot lingered for too long inside.

John forced himself through the next entrance, unable to convince his body to go faster than a snail’s pace with his side threatening to rip him apart. He had no more stalling techniques or obstacles to buy him extra time.

Gene’s life sign was on the move.

A quarter of a mile left.

“John, I know you want to rest, but you need to keep moving,” Teyla’s voice floated about inside his head.

“I…am…moving,” he said. It felt like he was moving.

“Sheppard, just take one foot in front of the other,” Ronon encouraged.

“Hurry!” Mckay’s voice followed, frantic and bombastic inside John’s head. “You only have two more rooms!”

“Sheppard’s, he’s three room’s behind you,” Ronon boomed, his voice the same sharpness of the knife in John’s side.

Getting to the controls meant nothing if he didn‘t have time to activate them. Fear was a hot, all-encompassing thing, a flight or fight zap to his mind. He unshouldered the backpack and instinct took over. Hands automatically assembled the needed items as he poured an inch or two of gas into a number of styrofoam cups and quickly wrapped saran wrap over each opening.

“Sheppard!”

John flinched at the intrusion. “I’m a little preoccupied right now.”

“With what? Gene’s like seconds behind you and you’re only a few feet away from the--”

“In the middle of making Napalm,” John explained with more calm than he felt.

“Napalm? Are you nuts? You couldn’t override a door without my help. What makes you think you can--”

John turned off the com and wrapped tape around the lids. Then he swirled the cups so the gas soaked up the insides and flipped them upside down, sticking a fuse in the bottom of each one.

Gene, or what was left of Gene, stumbled through the doors. John hid the bomb behind his back, a single match firmly in his left hand and readied against the ground.

“Lose your boots?” John joked.

Gene’s legs were shredded, it was hard to tell if he had any feet left, his pants were soaked with blood and he left red puddles where he walked.

“I will not allow you to retreat.” Gene’s voice had this old man wheeze of damaged vocal cords.

“Escape? Where? You’re the one who sabotaged our jumper. Where would I go?” John stalled. Waiting for the right moment, hoping the room stopped dancing around.

“Will more of you come?” Gene demanded.

John didn’t respond, refused to give a living, breathing war machine more intel.

“Will your commander come next time? Will he deploy other tactics? Like the ones you used?”

That’s what Gene wanted, wasn’t it? To engage and apply all his encounters to kill more efficiently.

“No,” John ground out.

“You came for the other units and more will come for you. Who? What type of soldiers?”

“If anything, my people will arrive and blow up this base from orbit without stepping foot here. And all that you protect, all that you defend, will be turned into rubble,” John snarled.

Gene‘s battered and blood-stained face twisted into a mask of confusion. As if what John said had not computed with his one-track mind. “I have a hundred percent engagement rate. I will not allow your retreat to the neutral area,” Gene vowed, ignoring John’s previous statement, stepping closer in a limping stagger, his uniform in tatters.

“Why should I retreat when my team’s already here?” John asked, gesturing behind Gene’s back.

Gene turned and John struck the match, lit the fuse, and flung the cup. Gene turned back around in time to catch a chest full of fire, the resulting viscosity, rubbery bits of burning styrofoam. Gene tried smothering the flames with his unfeeling arms and John lit the next fuse and threw the next bomb.

The thing about napalm, even homemade crap, was that it burned for several seconds and the second bomb added to the first one. Gene’s clothes were fuel to the fire and he flailed about in a growing ball of flames and confusion. Most people burning alive would have screamed or yelled, made any type of noise.

Gene’s silence was worse. His inability to douse the fire and panic only fanned the flames.

There was no taking a chance. John fumbled with the next cup, igniting the fuse and volleyed it over to finish the job. This time it bounced off Gene’s pin-wheeling arms, landing harmlessly to the ground, the fuse knocked out.

Crap.

John scrambled for more gasoline in the growing chaos, the battered can resting near his discarded backpack.

“Always have a back-up weapon.”

John whirled at the voice, saw his own .45 pointed at him among the lapping orange and yellow blaze. He lunged for the gas can as a pain ripped through the back of his shoulder and out his chest, the report of the gun sounding a split-second later.

He clutched the gas can and spun around with the last of his strength, splashing the rest into Gene’s face. The soldier’s head literally burst into flames, bringing him to his knees, the .45 clattering to the ground. John crawled the pitiful inches toward the weapon and curled his hands around the familiar handle.

Then put a bullet in Gene’s skull.

From the splatter of brain and tissue, this was one injury that genetics couldn’t heal.

Shock seized his trembling body, his right arm immobilized by searing pain, the epicenter an untraceable throb in his shoulder. John staggered to his feet, the world a rush of fading color and buzzing sounds. He placed one foot in front of the other, listing to one side, but finding the control room regardless.

The doors whooshed open and he nearly fell on his face right then and there, but pressed on toward a massive set of control consoles. Blearily, he searched for the proper one, mind blanking out, the buzzing doubling into a thrum of white noise.

Blood trailed down his arm, dripping onto the floor. “Rod’ney,” he breathed into the com.

“Damn it, Sheppard! Stop shutting off the radio on me!”

“You have a minute…two tops, to guide me to the correct light switch to this whole place,” he panted, leaning heavily on the equipment.

“Right, right. You just killed Gene, again, so you’re probably dying on us now…I mean, you’re not really dying are you? Because…”

“Now, McKay!”

John used his left hand since his right one didn’t work very well, hanging on to every syllable, praying his hearing didn’t choose that moment to fade. He thought he hit the right controls, but things were dimming and his sense of time went with it.

It was possible he’d taken the base off-lock down, opening the doors so his team could find shelter for the poison outside. He found himself staring up at the ceiling, his body slumped to the floor, and unable to fight the darkness that finally pressed its icy fingers against his eyelids, he closed them in promise of a long slumber.

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

Ronon beat Rodney to the sensor, nearly pulling it off instead of using a simple wave. The bulky doors groaned in old age; six-inch thick metal alloy clanked along the tracks, the Satedan ready to push them the rest of the way open.

“You could give us a hand with Zelenka,” Rodney growled, helping Teyla get the semi-conscious physicist mobile.

“I…I can stand,” Zelenka rasped, but he’d swayed unsteadily.

Rodney hooked an arm over the man’s shoulder to hurry the process along. At this point, minutes could mean months or years off their lives. He kept telling himself his fear had nothing to do with Sheppard not replying to their pleas and threats to answer the com. Not that the colonel hadn’t had any qualms in turning the damn thing off, but this time was different. The radio was still transmitting; the problem was the pall of silence over the airwaves.

Despite charging in, Ronon paused just inside the entryway, weapon pointed ahead, scanning around the darkened area. “Which way?”

“The life sign’s detector indicates that this Gene is dead, but we should proceed with caution,” Teyla warned.

Somehow Rodney got stuck carrying Radek while Teyla stepped ahead of Ronon in three quick strides, contradicting her own words of vigilance. The layout was ingrained in his head from hours of burning it into his retinas. “Go north for thirty meters, then the first left, and we should be at the control room.”

Rodney’s breath clouded in front of his face, and the tip of his nose was a rosy red after only minutes inside. His shivering sent vibrations into his charge, causing Zelenka to groan. “Sorry, sorry, just don’t throw up on my shoes,” Rodney warned.

Walking fast inside the complex was more like running a treadmill up Mount Everest. Three minutes and he wanted an electric blanket and lots of wonderful oxygen. To think Sheppard had been trapped inside for hours in these conditions, going head to head with some genetically superior human weapon.

Environmentals would be a priority after life support, then communications then--

“McKay, hurry up,” Ronon growled.

“You’re not the one carrying--” Zelenka nearly toppled into him, cutting Rodney’s tirade.

“I’m sorry, maybe you should--”

“Shut up, Radek. We were not going to leave you outside to be ionized and we’re not going to dump your bony-assed body before we regroup with the rest of our team.”

“But…that’s what happened…last..”

“I said be quiet,” Rodney snapped. They all knew one of the Marines probably got Zelenka out of that hell hole before going back for the others and never returning.

We will regroup. All of us, and we’ll all go home alive to eat pudding cups and warm apple pie.

“McKay!”

Rodney hobbled with Zelenka in tow; Ronon and Teyla were all kinds of pissed and frantic in front of a door that refused to open. “On it.” For once there was a functional panel on this hellhole and he popped it open as Zelenka sat on the ground. “There. It should work now!”

As soon as the words left his lips, the doors opened and his team stormed through. Zelenka waved him inside. “Go!”

Rodney charged, gasping for oxygen, feet impossibly loud. The control room reeked of fuel and charred flesh and death. He froze, heart lodged inside his throat, choking him with too thin air. “Is he? I mean…”

“He is alive; he is going to be fine,” Teyla said, furious hands contradictory to her words.

Ronon bent over Sheppard, expression a thundercloud, hand on his team leader’s shoulder before he rose with a fury. “I’ll secure the area.”

Rodney met Teyla’s eyes, breaking his paralysis, and he was there instantly, kneeling in his friend‘s blood. He’d seen Sheppard battered and broken, but never like this. “Where do we start?”

“With the wound in his shoulder.”

“Yes, of course.” The one leaking like a sieve. Rodney took a pressure bandage in numbing fingers and pressed it into the injury while Teyla carefully moved Sheppard forward, applying another field dressing to the smaller hole in his back. “He was shot from behind?”

“Does this surprise you?” Teyla asked, her fury held at a razor’s edge. “Does perfection negate cowardliness and cruelty?”

“No,” he mumbled, hideously transfixed by the damage. One side of Sheppard’s face was blazed pink and red from powder burns, the other side was swollen and covered with purple and dark blue bruises.

“He is cold as ice.” Teyla broke his brooding observations as she pressed her fingers to Sheppard’s pulse in his neck.

“Right, temperature controls,” he replied, standing. Rodney searched the screen, fingers tap-dancing over the console.

“The base is secure.”

Rodney nearly jumped out of skin and turned to glare at Ronon. “That’s the second time you’ve done that!”

“You…doin’ something about the air?” Ronon snapped, breathing like he’d run around the whole complex.

Rodney swallowed, staring at the fresh red stains all over Ronon’s hands as he wiped a sharp knife across his pants and slipped it back in place. “Sheppard got Gene good, but I made sure the guy wouldn’t ever heal again.”

“Do I want to know?”

“I chopped his--”

“Never mind. Oh, crap! Radek. I left Zelenka outside the entrance!” Rodney panicked.

Ronon balled his fists, not wanting to leave again, but barreled out and returned with the only survivor from the doomed research post before Rodney could finish locating life support. “I’ve reset the oxygen levels and restored the heat, but it’ll be hours before they reach normal status. I’m sending a coded message to Atlantis since most of communications are still offline. They’ve more than likely already sent a jumper to investigate, but we’re still looking at two more hours before a rescue arrives.”

Slumping down in a peaked-adrenaline fit of exhaustion, Rodney leaned his back against the equipment, his skin crawling with gooseflesh. He stared at Sheppard, at the slow rise and fall of his chest, and a missing patch of hair above his left ear.

Pulling out one of the emergency foil blankets, he started draping it over his friend. “He should stay warm.”

“We all should,” Teyla repeated, pulling out her own blanket and wrapping the crinkling material around herself and over Zelenka who was leaning on her opposite shoulder. “Ronon,” she ordered, holding it open.

“McKay,” Ronon gestured.

Rodney took the spot between Teyla and Sheppard, Ronon book-ending the colonel. They all settled in to conserve heat. Rodney shivered even more when Sheppard soaked all his heat away like a sponge. But Rodney settled his friend’s head against his chest wordlessly, and Ronon adjusted Sheppard’s lanky legs across his lap, the two of them bunching the silver blanket over them.

Collective trembling turned into a drowsy mass of limbs. Rodney and Ronon took turns checking Sheppard’s pulse and squeezing a hand or an arm. Teyla rested her head on Rodney’s shoulder, occasionally stroking Sheppard’s hair.

There were bandage changes in between quiet murmuring and whispers, the five of them embracing the growing heat. It wasn’t surprising when the colonel interrupted the peaceful huddle with a wild shout and lunge at nothing. Three of them calmed and settled a very alive yet weak Sheppard back to the cozy place between them.

“Are…are we…”

“We’re good, Sheppard. Help’s on the way, so you hang on,” Ronon told him.

Rodney swore he heard “fuck the Bourne Identity“, but he could’ve been wrong.

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

A pack of wolves chased John through the Hive ship; acidic saliva dripped down metal teeth, jaws chomping at his heels. Webbed corridors turned and twisted in every direction, but all he was doing was running in circles. He glanced back and instead of mangy furred animals, there was a ten-foot tall Wraith with a feeding hand of rusty nails. John tripped and was sent sprawling across the ground, skidding to a stop in front of Gene’s bloody feet. John earned a boot to the jaw, and then a second boot stomped on his chest, pinning him to the floor. Gene ground his heel into John’s sternum, cracking the bones and crushing his lungs, the smell of burnt leather and skin assaulting his senses.

He jerked awake to a blur of whites and light grays. Something beeped near his ear, a soft, floating type of sound, blending into white noise. Hard plastic dug into his nose, delivering fresh oxygen, and a heavy lethargy seeped away what little awareness he’d managed. Perhaps this was good, because behind the syrupy feel to his world was a muted throb to his entire body. He desperately needed a drink of water to wash away the foul taste in his mouth, but his eyes drooped closed before he could give it any more thought.

When he woke a second time, it was to a numbness from heavy painkillers and a panic that breached through the cotton layer over his brain. Breathing too fast was strange, because for the first time in what felt like a while, he could breathe, but it caused his chest to twinge in funny ways. But he needed to clear his head and figure out what had triggered an increased sense of paranoia and desire to find his gun.

A nurse, Linda he thought, came to his bedside. “Colonel Sheppard?”

He searched the room and his fear skyrocketed. “Where?”

“You’re in the infirmary, Colonel. You were…”

“No,” he rasped, closing only his right eye? “Where’s my team?” He blinked, trying to figure out what was wrong. Warm fingers closed over his hand when he reached out to examine his left eye.

“Please, don’t try to touch the dressings on your face,” Linda said gently. “I’ll get Doctor Keller.”

She didn’t respond to his question and now he really needed answers. Wanting to move and actually getting his body to respond to his commands were two separate things. His right shoulder was immobilized and he stared dumbly at the blue fabric, vision blurring at all the wire leads attached to his chest.

“When you’re pumped up on enough painkillers to bring down an elephant, it reduces your attention span to a gnat,” came a familiar voice.

John glanced up, his head acting much like a bobble-head. “Rod’ney.”

“Very astute. Do you think you could recite your ABCs next?”

Despite the sarcastic edge, John honed in on his friend’s voice.

“If you grin any further you’ll start drooling on yourself.”

“Are you all right?” John asked, smile disappearing when he noticed Rodney’s scrubs and the IV stand he was hooked up to.

“No. This is the first three hour period where I wasn’t puking my guts out. And despite what Jennifer says, I know I’ve lost more hair,” Rodney growled, then eyed the chair at John’s bedside and lowered himself gingerly into it. “Not to mention the fact that walking from one side of the room leaves me exhausted and I have to roll this stupid thing all over the place.”

“That’s because you’re still suffering from fatigue and you shouldn’t be out of bed. And I’ve already told you that you were not exposed to enough roentgens to lose any hair.” Keller’s voice came from the other side of John’s gurney. “Hello, Colonel. It is good to see you awake.”

“How’s everyone else?” John asked, battling heavy eyelids.

“Teyla and Ronon are obeying orders to rest while I keep them under observation. Zelenka is being treated for exhaustion and a moderate concussion. I promise everyone is going to be fine; you‘re the one who needs to sleep,” Keller told him.

There were other questions, but the most pressing ones had been answered and John lost the battle to narcotics before getting the chance to ask any more.

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

John woke up many more times only gleaming to the tiniest bits of consciousness before dunking back into the sea of fog and haze. It was hard to tell if hours or days had gone by, but his next bout of wakefulness lasted enough time to hold a conversation. Teyla was sitting in the chair next to him, reading a book that he couldn’t see the title of.

“Working…on your English?”

Teyla closed the novel with a tired smile. “It is nice after several years not to have to look up so many words in the translation program Rodney set up on my laptop. How are you feeling?”

John had to think about his state for a moment. “Pretty numb. I imagine I’m not going to like it when Keller cuts off the morphine.”

“No. You had surgery to repair the bullet wound to your shoulder, but Jennifer said you will feel the effects from your encounters with Gene for a while.”

“Guess I won’t be on the cover of GQ.”

“That magazine is for shubas,” Ronon proclaimed from nowhere, snagging another chair. “You look like you grappled with a Wraith and forgot to duck.”

“Don’t think ducking would have worked. Gene had a right hook of lead,” Sheppard said, touching his chin. He didn’t need a mirror to know he looked like the loser of a boxing match. “And my eye?”

“It is swollen shut by the flash burns, but Jennifer says they will heal without scarring,” Teyla reassured him. “You also have several cracked ribs that in time will also mend.”

“Guess all the kings horses put me back together again,” John mumbled to the confused expressions of his teammates. He closed his eye, the room spinning briefly, a sure sign of the entire pharmacy in his system. “You guys…sure you’re okay?” he asked waiting for it to pass.

“They took our clothes and we were…um…thoroughly sanitized,” Teyla explained. “We were on IV medications for the first three days but that ended this morning. We must take several pills for the next two months.”

“We can’t be near sick people.” Ronon shrugged.

“And don’t forget the headaches,” an all too familiar voice complained. “And the antibiotics they have me on gives me a rash,” Rodney said, in a way of greeting.

All three voices lulled John back under the blanket of sedatives and medication.

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

The next time John dreamed, Gene hunted him down a hallway from The Shining, the one that went on forever. This time when his legs crumbled underneath him from exhaustion, Gene cut John’s throat so they had matching Columbian neckties.

He gasped awake and was instantly rewarded with simultaneous pain in his side and shoulder. Trapped by bedrails and tubes, all he could do was ride it out and wait for the throb to dull.

“You know pain medication is administered for a reason,” Rodney said over the clicking sounds of his keyboard.

“I’ve been doped to the gills for five days.” John took a semi-deep breath. “I requested a lower dose so I don’t become addicted.”

“Sure.”

It was the truth, but John didn’t want to argue; he lacked the energy. The burns to his face were healing and now they itched, only adding to his discomfort level. “Did Lorne’s team finish the sweep of the base?”

“You asked me that last time.” Rodney looked up from his screen. “Did they check you for brain damage?”

Had he fallen asleep again? John rolled his head, since moving caused too many problems. Getting out of bed for his five minute shuffle around later on was going to be hell. He always took the pain med booster ten minutes before the required physical therapy. “Do you mind repeating their findings?”

“They discovered a stasis capsule which contributed to the depleted shield and why the cloak finally gave out. It was in a hidden room that of course our teams missed after four weeks of exploring. We think Gene‘s ability to heal kept him from aging in there and believe me the SCG is very interested in the research we found. ” Sighing, Rodney put his laptop aside. “We’re still not sure what triggered the end to the Terminator’s beauty sleep. Maybe turning on a certain sector, or a monitor was tripped. After tearing the place apart there is no evidence of another one. Gene was the only prototype which backs up my findings on the weapon’s program.”

“He killed them all,” John said. “The people who created him.”

“It looks like it. Gene kept a mission log of sorts. He turned on those who helped create him. Perceived them as a threat to the base. Then there was a bunch of notes on what skills he utilized, but he learned very few new ones. Guess he forgot it took people with brains to launch the program with very few actual military advisors on the premises.”

“He didn’t want me to retreat to neutral territory,” John spoke up. “I don’t think his scope went past the defense of the base.” Grimacing, he looked up at Rodney. “Guess he wasn’t the perfect soldier after all.”

“Try psychotic, but you already knew that. You tamper with the same set of genes and regenerate model after model, it’s going to lead to--”

“Inbreeding,” John interrupted.

“Funny.”

John wasn’t laughing. Nineteen people were dead.

“Lorne’s team found all the supplies and weapons. Most of them had been used by our people, but Gene stored the rest. I guess he didn’t count on encountering urban terrorism.”

Shrugging hurt, so John just lay there.

“I didn’t think your status as a living legend could have ballooned any more. The Marines will probably use your mission report as a study manual and I think Ronon is re-watching Rambo as we speak.”

John didn’t take pride in the things he had to do to protect others. “I just did what I had to.”

Please leave it at that, was the silent request.

Rodney was a good friend because he picked up his laptop again. “I brought a game to play. If you’re up to it.”

No, not really, but his next round of meds weren’t due for an hour and the computer promised a distraction. “Not sure if I want to play that RPG.”

Rodney fidgeted. “Oh, that. Think I’m done with that game. Custom-building the perfect character lost its appeal.”

“What game are we talking about then? Kind of only have the use of one hand here.”

If anything Rodney’s cheeks blushed. “Well, it was this game my niece sent me. About um…farming.”

“Farming?”

“Yeah, you plant crops and raise animals and--”

“Sounds like our first year here,” John said with a frown.

“No, no. It’s cool. See, there’s this girl you’re supposed to woo and um, well, you don’t have to do anything but lie in bed and help me choose the field and what to spend money on.”

No shooting bad guys or being chased by one.

“Sounds perfect,” John said. “But I get to name the farm.”

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

The prompt. I think I got it all except the setting was outside.

Sheppard is off-world (any natural environment is fine) and fighting
against a single opponent in a one-on-one battle for survival. (Like
the SG-1 season 7 episode, “Death Knell,” where the alpha site was
attacked by one of Anubis’s drones and Carter was on her own and being
hunted down.)
- John is on his own and must use his resourcefulness and intelligence
to overcome a stronger opponent
- A realistic portrayal of cracked or bruised ribs, and any other
injury that comes up, as well as increasing exhaustion as the
cat-and-mouse hunt drags on
- The team can show up at the end, once John’s beat his opponent by
himself, and help him get back to Atlantis
- A good dose of comfort in the infirmary!
- Gen only; can be dark and have as serious whump as needed, but no
permanent injury or main character deaths.

Page 1 of 2 << [1] [2] >>

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dernhelm62.livejournal.com

Once again you have outdone yourself. If only people like you were writing the show, this would have made a great 2 part arc. I loved the banter at the begining with the team. All of them were so in character. I also loved that the story was centered around Sheppard. His character is truly one the most underused of the entire series and you are the keeper of the flame. Sheppard is always being underestimated but I guess that is one of his many talents. I loved the whump but then, I can never get enough. I repeat, please write more stories, you keep SGA alive for me and I'm sure countless others. Happy New Year! Let's hope for a great year with news regarding the new SGA movie.

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Fic "End Game" (2/2)

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