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Fic: You can run with us 9/?
Author: Flaim aka Darkfalconheart
Story: You can run with us. (9/?)
Pairing: nothing as of yet, maybe John/Ronon later on
Summary: A formal meeting offworld goes awry and John Sheppard finds himself captured.
Rating: for this chapter: M
Warnings: some violence
Status: WIP
Spoilers: Up to ‘The lost tribe’.
Wordcount: ca. 6500
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, names or other various parts of the SG/SGA universe and all rights are with their respective owners. This is a work of non-profit fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Big Author’s note: The events depicted in this chapter, as well as all characters are entirely fictional. The nightmares especially were not written to recreate, reflect or otherwise portrait any realistic or historical situation. The author tried very hard to give them the not always logical structure of dreams, and those dream scenes were not written for the fun of writing such scenes but to portrait the state John’s mind is in after the Nocturnals fed on him.
Chapter 9: In the nightmares of the dark
Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attempt to rise.
Three times, ‘tis said, a sinking man
Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
To that abhorred abode,
Where hope and he part company –
Ronon bit his lip, trying to hide his agitation. Not that he had any doubts in his decision, this was the only acceptable way, but contrary to physical discomforts he was still nervous about all things that mess with his mind. Had it been himself, fallen into the Nocturnal nest, he’d preferred any solution that kept things on a physical level, he knew he could handle that. Determined not to hesitate any longer, he shoved aside his whispering fears and focused on the here and now. “Is there any thing I can do?” ,he asked Jircanor, who was kneeling beside sleeping John Sheppard, exactly opposite of Ronon.
“Did Cayelan teach you the meditation of pain?” Jircanor asked, his focus never shifting from Sheppard.
“He tried, but as one of the best teachers said: I am hopeless.” Ronon repeated Teyla’s words, well remembering the failed lessons of meditating. She had tried to teach him things far different from his earlier lessons, but the outcome had been the same. “I guess I was lacking focus,” he added.
“Seven years on the run should be enough for anyone to meditate on pain.” Jircanor looked up. “Just try to focusing on John, on your wish to help him, on reaching out to him,” he instructed Ronon. “Once the bond springs alive you will feel a strong compulsion to sleep, don’t fight it. Thus your subconscious mind connects to John’s subconscious. You will start witnessing his dreams, during the first you will hardly be able to do anything. If you can focus on your friend, focus on the emotions the dreams wake in you. The stronger you project, the better. By the moment you break through to him, he will start seeing your dreams. Like him you have no control over what he sees, but the stronger the emotions you project, the greater his chances to make it. Focus on your compassion, your rage, all that Satedan fire inside you and you will be fine.” Jircanor sounded far more optimistic than he felt. Ronon’s mind lacked any kind of training, to enable him to handle something as complex as the mindlink. He was relying on his emotions, his inner strength alone, and while Jircanor knew that Ronon was strong, he wondered if this would be enough.
Focusing on John, Ronon settled in a cross-legged sitting position and tried to ignore anything else. Without knowing it he started breathing deeply and slowly as Teyla had taught him. From far away he heard Jircanor’s voice: “Your road is your own – though far from it you travel – the night that beckons on the horizon cannot be escaped – do not fear the road into the darkness for there will be a light.” Ronon was about to tell him to stop quoting whacked poetry, but he found himself unable to speak, his mind was adrift, slowly falling into the darkness.
If the darkness had seemed impenetrable, then the heavy snow made it even worse. John had to shake his compass, it seemed frozen. He knew this was unlikely, yet the small needle seemed to be moving slower than before. John was afraid they might have walked into the wrong direction but the small needle confirmed what his sense of direction still tried to tell him: they were on right way. If there was something like the right path in the middle of another storm rising in the dark of the polar night. He turned to his companion, who was leaning against an iced rock. He older man looked as exhausted as John felt and he had every right to be. “Captain, we need to go on, the emergency depot should be some more miles east of us.” John could not help it, the worry crept into his voice. Captain Ryman had been injured when their helicopter malfunctioned and crashed on a glacier with a name John was unable to pronounce.
“Let’s go on, Lieutenant.” Ryman’s voice echoed exhaustion. “If we reach the depot, we should be able to contact the base.”
Walking through the polar night, the snow closing in on the them, they trudged along. John focused on keeping them on course. Ryman kept up with the pace he set, but time and again John checked his pace for his wounded comrade to keep on. He could see that the Captain got weaker. John wanted to curse that damned storm, the darkness, himself volunteering to test that damned helicopter under arctic conditions, but no curse would save them. They had to find a way out of this, alone. Around them was nothing but ice, and rocks and falling snow. Again John checked the compass. He had to be sharp, alert or they might miss their destination and end up walking all the way down to Upernavik. “Captain, we need to go on. It can’t be far any more.”
“Good, Lieutenant.” Ryman struggled to his feet again. But John had already seen his face and he suddenly wondered if this emergency depot existed at all. Or were they just walking to their deaths? Keeping on and on until the dark and the cold won out in the end? Until they would lie down and die in the cold, covered by a white blanked like everything around them? John wasn’t even afraid of the thought, giving up would be easy…
***
The drone chose a very inappropriate time to stop and look around carefully. Jack grimaced, those drones were a pain in the ass and this one over there seemed intend to grow roots in the spot. Carefully he lifted a stone, tossing it full strength downhill into some bushes. The effect was a thumb and a whistling of leaves, as well as the bush shaking. The drone turned around and hastened into that direction. Jack smirked. Stupid. In the back of the drone he made his way uphill, hiding behind a rock, when the other patrol came close. They never cared or wondered why the other patrol had diverted from it’s original course. They just marched on. The moment the coast was clear Jack went on speedily. He had not much time left. He could already hear the shots being fired on the other side of the rock. Once they had lured the Wraith close enough they would trigger the explosion, collapsing all the rock down on the drones. Dumb as the drones were they would probably fall for it. But Jack still needed to hurry.
Undeterred he reached the rocks. The crack he had seen from down below was actually about three feet above ground embedded in the rough rock face. Jack could see the a small face up there. “Hey, Kiddo it’s time to go.”
“Father said – wait for me,” a small voice replied and a curious face came closer to the brink of the crack.
Jack checked the area around, the drones patrols were far away right now, but there was no one else here. It seemed logical that the father had hidden the child here before….before what? Jack looked up to the small face. It was a boy, not older than three years he guessed. “Your father asked me to get you, kiddo. Now c’me on.”
“Why?” A frown rose on the small face as the boy eyed Jack quizzically.
Jack tried not to get impatient. It would not take long before the patrols turned around and came back, but impatience would not get him anywhere. Kids could be stubborn, he knew. “Look, your father – your father could not make it back, because of the patrols. So he asked me to go.” It was not true, but Jack hoped it would convince the boy.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Jack. And now kiddo – we have to run.”
Much to his relief Jack saw the boy nod. “Good.” And the kid actually came as close as possible to the opening of the crack. Jack reached up and lifted him out of the hiding place. Jack’s radio woke to crackling life. “All teams: the torch is falling!”
Jack cursed, holding the boy he began racing downhill. Patrols be damned. They were out of time. Ten seconds… twenty…. Thirty… there was not enough ground to cover. Holding the boy close, Jack turned his back to the rocks, shielding the little one. A deep rumble grew into a rolling blast, rocks crack, splintered, came crashing downhill, trees splintered like dry wood. Jack stumbled, nearly fell, something hard hit him, throwing him down. He barely managed to shield the boy, then his world went black.
***
“What have found here? Another rat?” The voice was dripping with malice. John Sheppard tried to hold himself up straight, as far as this was possible when forced to be kneeling on the ground. He still managed to catch a glance at the other prisoner. Like John he had not uniform any more, except tall, dark blonde and grey eyes, nothing registered with John. This for sure was not the man he had been sent to extract.
“You know, your country denies having any soldiers on our ground as of this time.” The speaker stepped closer, studying John’s bruised face. “And do you know what this means?”
“No, but you sure will tell me.” John replied in English. He would not have been able to understand the different dialects of this place. What the hell had gone wrong? He had been creeping through these blasted mountains for hours, to get to the pickup point. But he had walked into an ambush.
“It means that you DO NOT EXIST. Very much like your friend over there. And men who do not exist – do not have rights.”
“As if this would make a difference to you.” John spat. He had learned what their ideas of POW were shortly after being taken. Another hit, deliberately aimed in the face silenced him.
“But I will give you another chance, Lieutenant – I am gracious today. Tell me about our friend here. Where he comes from, his name and what he was doing AT MY BASE and I let you go.”
John did not look directly at their interrogator. Honestly he had no idea who the other prisoner was, he had seen him for the first time in his life. “I have no idea.” He would not have told anyway, but the bitter irony was, that he was telling the truth.
“Really? I am very sorry, that makes you useless for me, Lieutenant.” The older man shook his head. “And if you are useless…” his eyes wandered to the other prisoner. “Still no answers?” The man spat a sentence at the interrogator that John did not understand. The language sounded vaguely reminiscent of the Russian John had heard on the lesson tapes of his father as a kid. But the intonation was different.
The interrogator shrugged. “I guessed as much. You both are of no further use to me, as you do not exist. So we will bring you to a place for folks like you.”
The guards dragged them through the building. It looked a little like an abandoned hospital to John, broken and in a gross state of disrepair. Eventually they reached an old elevator shaft. The interrogator gestured the soldiers to stop. He turned again to John. “You know – there were always people like you. Believing to keep silent and in the end to win out. Dissidents, Antisocial elements, you name them. But there was always was a place were they stopped existing – here. They were sent here to be healed, you know. This was… what do you call it – an asylum?”
John looked around, if this place had once been an asylum it was long ago, or the conditions must have been less than desirable. “Calling someone mad won’t silence the truth he might speak.” He wouldn’t give that guy the satisfaction of agreeing with him on anything. And this story, of people who would not agree being thrown into loony bins, sounded like the stuff his father had told him, a long time back.
The smile of the interrogator grew unpleasant. “And there were always those who would not be healed. They had to be dealt with, you see that, don’t you? So they the ceased to exist, and went down there.” He pointed down the elevator shaft. “Down there, in the dark, where they would creep around. You see that I must send you down there, if you don’t do something to warrant EXISTING?”
John knew that the interrogator was playing with them. Whatever answer they would give, the game would go on, no matter what. Thus he shrugged. “If you pretend that we are not here – who is then hallucinating?”
He was backhanded again. “Throw them down there.” The interrogator said coldly. “Let those who live down there take care of them.”
John struggled against the guards, but to no avail, the pushed him to the brink and on a grate hanging from some dismal chains, the moment he landed on it, it began rattling down. He could see the guards pushing the other man to the brink too. He too struggled, fought back, but not to free himself. With a ferocious will he got hold of one of the guards and took him down, both of them landing hard on the rattling grate. John heard a hard snap, as the guard’s neck broke.
Darkness enveloped them, they were still going down. And they went fast. “What did you just do?” John wasn’t sure if the man would understand him, or if he really had snapped the guard’s neck. The man might have been killed by the fall after all.
“Getting us some equipment. Where ever comrade colonel sends us, it won’t be health spa.” Was the curt answer, moments later John found a flashlight and a sidearm tossed at him.
“You don’t believe the story, about people being thrown down here?” he asked his foreign comrade.
“In fact – I do. It’s either that or something else. Probably both.”
John nodded. “Ok. We need to get out of here.” He could not see much in the darkness and activated the flashlight. He could see that his companion was still searching the dead guard.
“This clown had not much useful stuff on him.”
John nodded. They had already more than they could expect to have, given their situation. His comrade – hell he needed a name for the man, even as this wasn’t the place to ask questions. “Ok. Ted, if this is the basement of an asylum, it should have some other places where it goes up to the surface?”
“Ted?” The scowl was one with a passion.
“Just a name. You can call me Jerry.”
The glance John saw, reminded him that they might not share the same humour. “You can call me Illo, for the time being. This place must have some kind of air vents, water systems and other stuff leading back up. We just need to find them.”
Their descend stopped. John raised the flashlight to see what was ahead. The light illuminated a dismal room, a kind of cellar, some shambles and some rubbish littered the ground. A shriek rose from the darkness, and John saw a movement. He was hit and fell down, fists hit him, he felt hands clawing, trying to fight his attacker off, but the pressure lifted in moments, when his attacker was gripped by Illo and tossed against the wall. John came up again. In the focus of his flashlight he saw a mangled human figure, half naked, lying still in front of the wall. He had to try hard not to vomit. “This…this was a human being…”
“Emphasis on WAS.” Illo laid a hand on John’s shoulder. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”
The journey through the bowels of this place was a nightmare. They were attacked time and again. John could not bring himself to kill those wretched beings pre-emptively, he tried to scare them away, or to just render them unconscious. They were people, people tortured, people mistreated, but still people. Illo left many of them unconscious but others were dead. It was him who shot the two that managed to creep in John’s back. John felt sick, when he saw the two mangled corpses he had wanted to tell Illo off, but in the pale focus of his flashlight, he had seen a pair of eyes as pained and as haunted as his own. Thus they had journeyed on, into a maze of tunnels that sometime connected to an old sewer system.
Eventually they reached a ledge and saw below them the entrance of the sewers. There was a heavy grate blocking the entrance. They did not see daylight, but they felt the cool air of the night from outside. “There’s three or four of those wretches down there.” Illo whispered. “You stay here – I take care of them. When I am done come down and we get this valve over there, to move. That should open the gate.”
John shook his head. “There are more than five, six or seven more likely. You won’t be able to subdue them quickly.” Which meant they would have to revert to killing again.
“I know.” Illo’s voice was cold, calm and determined. “It should not take too long.” He saw John’s protest and silenced it with a curt gesture. “Listen … Jerry – what will happen down there is dirty, brutal and inhuman. You are a good man, that much have I seen these last hours. It would break you. Don’t do it to yourself.”
“And it won’t do the same to you?” John didn’t believe the calm, cold demeanour of Illo. The man had been as horrified as he himself was, even if he made a better job of hiding it.
“No. I can handle it.” Without further discussions Illo dropped down the ledge. The sounds from down there did not need any explanation. John did not need to see what happened.
“Lieutenant, wake up.” John’s breath went raggedly when he woke up. “Illo, where’s Illo?” he murmured.
“Lieutenant, you need to calm down. You are safe. You understand me? You are safe.” The doctor was speaking slowly and calmly.
From what John could see, he was in a hospital, or an infirmary. He was back home, with his people. “what happened? Where is Illo?”
“Calm down, Lieutenant. You were taken POW when the extraction went awry.” The doctor said, while checking John’s vitals. “You escaped and were found, wounded, feverish, wandering the mountains. When the chopper brought you here, you were still raving about your comrade, a guy named Illo and about an asylum.”
“where is he? Did he escape too?” John tried to remember, but everything was so dizzy. They were pumping him with some heavy painkillers.
“Lieutenant, you got a hit to your head, you were hallucinating.” The doctor said softly. “You were alone, you escaped alone.”
“No, no – I remember it. Illo got us out of there, he killed those poor bastards…”
The doctor sat down beside the bed and studied John thoughtfully. “When you did not stop raving about this other soldier – Illo, the major assumed there was somebody else in need of help. He sent and inquiry to all other Nato troops down here, asking for someone named Illo. There was nothing.”
John shook his head. “it was an alias, not his real name.”
A friendly smile from the doctor silenced him. “A French Colonel actually knew the name, John. When we asked him if he could tell us, if there was a guy calling himself Illo with one of the contingents he got all amused and then asked: “Aren’t you some centuries too late, to find him?”” The Doctor managed a good imitation of the French accent. “Illo was General of the Croats, several centuries back and quite a ruthless man for sure.”
John tried to rise and make them understand – Illo had been an alias, there had been an other soldier. But the doctor gently made him lie down again. “Lieutenant, you were injured pretty badly and probably suffered some nasty things during your imprisonment. While you escaped you had to do some things, that do not always sit well with the human mind. You were wounded, alone and in a dire situation and your mind created a comrade for you, someone who did the worst things, who was harder and more ruthless than you. That’s why you named him Illo. He was an hallucination, nothing else.”
John fell back and closed his eyes. Had nothing of it been real? The asylum? Those wretched people down there? The interrogator? When he slowly opened his eyes again, he saw the doctor and a nurse exchange worried glances.
***
It had taken a week or so for him to register that he was not the only one who came to sit by the river for hours. Tamarlaine came here too. Everybody knew Tamarlaine, he lived in a hut close to the waterworks station and was the only one able to repair the engine that powered the station. He lived apart form others and people respectfully left him alone. He was a hero, had been the hero of all Sateda years ago. People would still whisper about twelve hive ships taken out by sheer ingenuity and daring. But something had happened to Tamarlaine, something dreadful, mist people took it for a fact that he wasn’t right there any more. He hardly ever talked and people left him alone, showing their respect by not trying to come close. Ronon knew better. He knew Tamarlaine could still talk, last winter he had scolded Ronon fiercely, after rescuing the boy from drowning in the river. And sometimes when he was sitting on the rocks above the river, he would sing. Always the same song, the long mournful ballad of Lost Sateda, of the Sateda that had ceased to exist the day the rings awoke again. Ronon knew the song by heart and loved the slow, mournful tune. Somehow it seemed to reflect he pain he felt since his grandfather had died.
One day, the sun was already becoming stronger and the endless rolling hills on both sides of the river were green with crops, Tamarlaine had awaited Ronon at the river. Silently he handed Ronon a practice sword. It was made of metal, with a dulled edge and heavier than Ronon expected. It didn’t need any words, or explanations, he understood what Tamarlaine was telling him, that it was time to get on with the lessons his grandfather started.
That evening Ronon was hardly able to walk home, but luckily his older sister Tigan did not see it. Their mother was working another night shift at the waterworks. Before the morning came Ronon crept out of the house and went back to the river. His body hurt all over, but it was a good hurt, it relieved the pain that was eating away his heart.
The summer went and the river ran dry, the ground became all hot and rough. Ronon learned to use the blade, to run and dodge and attack, to spin and whirl and hack away. His body got all wiry, and he was grateful, his meagre faire at home barely able to sustain the heavy exercise. Without words Tamarlaine began to bring food to their practice place and see to it that Ronon ate it all. At first Ronon was hesitant to accept the offer, one of the first rules his mother had instilled in him, was never to accept food from others, because it meant depriving them of what little they had themselves. But Tamarlaine was persistent and eventually Ronon’s hunger won out. When the heavy autumn rains set in Ronon’s mother became wind of Ronon’s new friend. Deeply embarrassed that one of her children had hassled the warrior she went to see Tamarlaine. Ronon never learned what had been said that day, but the next morning his sister woke him up, to send him over to Tamarlaine’s house for training. Ronon went gladly. He went to Tamarlaine’s house as long as the winter rains lasted, and back to the river once another spring came. Tamarlaine taught him to fight with the blade, to throw knives, to fight hand to hand, and to shoot. When mood struck him, or he had a talkative day, he would tell Ronon about the history of Sateda, of battles, wars and fighting the Wraith. Wide-eyed Ronon listened, he treasured any one of these stories in his heart, would repeat them to himself, until he knew them by heart and would sometimes tell them to Zycar and Bryn, his small brothers.
The next summer was the longest and hottest in decades, the river dried up, the water works had a hard time to pump up enough water for the fields and those who did not get water rations were hard off. Tamarlaine taught Ronon how to deal with hardships, taught him tricks how to get on in dire times and still send him home sore from a day of training. He encouraged Ronon not cut his hair any more. “You are no field worker, you’ll be a fighter, don’t try to hide it.” He told Ronon on a day when the heat was sitting heavy on the dry river valley. “Never try to blend in with others – it’s dishonest.” The day in late autumn when the heat finally broke and a thunderstorm rolled over the valley, they both stood high above the river, watching how the dry riverbed filled up again. “That’s how nature teaches us to be persistent, no matter how hard and dry a summer, the rain will come back eventually and things will look up again.” Tamarlaine told him. “No matter how dark the moment looks, let no one tell you that the night is perpetual.”
Had it been for Ronon alone to decide he would have lived gladly for ever in that valley beside the dying river. He had no wish to leave the hot vale and the endless hills covered by fields. But the choice was not his. The culling came three years later in the winter. While Ronon managed to get Zycar and Bryn away from the Wraith, they took his mother, his sisters and Tamarlaine. For days Ronon could not let go of the rage and the burning grief. Again he had lost a father, and this time he had become an orphan.
Tamarlaine’s legacy consistent of three things: a Kymar dagger, a double edged sword and a contact. Three days after the culling, a man sought Ronon out. “How old are you, Ronon? He asked the startled boy.
Raging as he might be, Ronon was still on his toes. That one might be looking for a workhand, and he had two brothers to look after. “Thirteen.” ,he lied. At thirteen it was legal to work, and to earn money.
The man smiled. “Good. Tamarlaine told me about you, that you had the markings of a fine warrior. What do you think, Ronon – are you up to real soldier training?”
“What about my brothers?” Ronon asked back. He wanted to go, the chance to become a warrior wasn’t easily offered to someone who grew up in the fields or factories, but he had a responsibility now, he had to take care of them.
His guest studied the sleeping figures of the small boys for a moment. “You have no other relations? Aunts or Uncles?”
Ronon sighed. “An Uncle but he doesn’t approve of us, and he would treat them badly.” He explained. “I have to take care of them. They are my brothers.” And their Uncle was an old, mean man who did not like his “bastard nephews”.
Years later Ronon would realise that the question had been a test, and that he had passed. “If you agree to do some voluntary work in defence construction – that’s very hard work – we could sign you up a little prematurely, and as orphans from a military family, they would be placed in a good home and be sent to a good school.” And Ronon agreed.
***
O’Neill groaned, he hated pains in his back. He hated pains in his knees even more, but right now his back was aching. He tried to move, and to his surprise found himself able to do so. Some small rubble fell but he was not buried under heavy stuff. At once he checked how his small companion was. The boy seemed unscathed. “You okay, kiddo?”
The boy nodded. “Yes. What was that?” His eyes pointed uphill.
O’Neill turned around and saw that the rock face was gone for good, the whole hillside looked slightly devastated and there were no Wraith in near vicinity. “A case of really bad timing, kiddo.” O’Neill got up fully. “Remember – never let anyone talk you into doing such stunts for a living, will you?”
The boy looked up at Jack quizzically, but said with the seriousness only a child could have. “Yes, Jack.”
Jack lifted the boy from the ground, his back protested loudly against carrying the child, but thus he would be much faster. “Okay. Let’s see we get out of here.”
The direct way back to the jumper was blocked by some heavy boulders that had come loose during the initial explosion. Jack silently prayed thanks that those boulders had missed them, buried under one of them, would have meant certain death for both of them. Having memorized the map of this place Jack had next to no problems to find an alternate route. Walking briskly, he realised that the fighting had ceased much in this area. There were no more shrieking darts in the air. So perhaps the worst was over.
All his thoughts went out of the window, when he heard the distinctive noise of a single pistol shot, in the woods left of him. Turning around he saw a Wraith drone going down and Rodney McKay, the gun still levelled, ready to shoot again. “McKay, I may be greying – but I am not white yet. See?” Jack called out.
McKay put down his gun. “General, it’s good to see you.” Behind Rodney two kids and a teen came up. The kids hid behind Rodney, while the teen deprived the drone of something that looked like a pair of ulaks.
“The jumper is east of here.” Jack said, taking up pace again. “Are there more with you?”
“No. We know where the jumper is. Sergeant Myers told us where to go. There was another group in need of help, and I told him, we’d make it on our own.”
For the first time Jack took the time and really looked at Rodney McKay. The man was dirty, exhausted and wet from hiding in some kind of nasty mud. He had just shot a Wraith drone and was hunted by more. The Rodney McKay Jack had known would have whined and complained and never left the protection of an armed escort. “Who are you and what have you done to McKay?” Jack asked.
Rodney sighed. “That’s a long story, could we discuss this later please? Preferably somewhere warm and dry?”
Jack grinned. “That’s more like it.”
The sheer relief on Lieutenant Indriedent’s face when he saw Jack approaching the clearing, spoke for itself. “Sir, it’s good to have you back. We just had another jumper out. A group lead by Myers and Hawkins is to arrive here shortly, they will fill up the next one. Most enemy troops are retreating.”
Jack nodded. “What about the Captain and his team?” he had not heard from them over the radio long before he had taken off for the woods.
“Malmstroem and Black, who went with him are leading another group back to the second landing point. They radioed us ten minutes ago, that they found a whole group hiding in some caves.”
Jack understood very well what the Lieutenant didn’t say, that he had no idea where Captain Schmiedeberg was. And the Lieutenant was nobody who would not have tried to contact the man, that much was sure. Jack tapped his radio. “Schmiedeberg, come in.” Silence was the only answer he got. “Schmiedeberg, this is O’Neill, what’s your status?” Jack had the distinct feeling that his first message had been heard, and gone unanswered.
“Schmiedeberg here,” the voice he heard was only just above a hush. “I am trailing a group of prisoners. Direction of the gate, number of enemies: six. Requesting immediate radio silence, Sir.” Jack bit down a curse. He had no position of the man, and another radio signal might give the man away.
“John!” the shout broke through O’Neill’s musings. The group of survivors had arrived and a woman hurried to the small boy beside him. It took Jack a moment to recognise a distraught and wounded Teyla.
“Don’t worry, the boy’s alright. He just got to witness a big bang.” He said, making light of the situation.
The bronze haired woman looked up from hugging her child. “He was with Kanaan.” She said, her voice shaking.
***
The pain broke through John’s unconscious mind bringing him back to the waking world. He did not need to open his eyes to know he was still in that cave. They had another go at him, he had lost count, how often they had come back for him. If they did not go for the other prisoners. Last time John had tried to count in the darkness, they had been four. Three others and himself. None of them were American, as much he had already learned. But when they did not come for him, they came for one of the others. This never changed. John forbid himself to dwell on it any longer, or he would give in to the dread. How long was he already here? Too long, but he had lost count of the days too.
They came again, to drag him out this time. But he wasn’t alone, they had taken one of the others too. The harsh sunlight blinded John, he was blinking hard. The forced him down to his knees, shouts and laughter in a language he did not understand. He tried to straighten up, but a punch made this effort worthless. The other prisoner was in the same situation opposite of him. A man strolled in the space in between them. John’s stomach clenched, the leader. That could not be good, it had been worse before… he tried not to show any fear. He would not give in to them. Not just now. The man raised a blade – a damned scimitar – and rested the sharp blade against John’s throat. John raised his head, searching the man’s eyes. They were cold, dark, emotionless.
Suddenly the blade was gone and the man walked over to the other prisoner. Two of his cronies hold the man’s arm straight, while the leader measured the man’s wrist with the blade. John shuddered, they were going to… no they could not… but they would. For the first time he sought the other man’s gaze, trying to give him whatever silent support he could lend him. His gaze met grey eyes, cold and dispassionately.
John froze, it could not be… it was impossible… the doctor’s had agreed it had been just a hallucination… but he knew these eyes, had seen them before. As he had seen that face beneath that ragged dark blonde hair. Illo.
High up in the air, John could hear the planes flying. The high frequency was enough to tell him what machines where up there. They were taken and tossed back into the cave in haste. John managed to crawl over to the other prisoner. Right now, their guards had other worries and no time to keep them separate. “Illo?” He did hardly dare to ask. If he was hallucinating again, then things were worse than he imagined.
“Jerry, long time no see.” The voice was hoarse, and echoed a state that was far from good.
“If I am hallucinating again, then it took an inconvenient time.” John wondered what was real, right now. Had his mind conjured up an old surreal acquaintance to help him again?
“Hallucinating? Did you get a hit to the head?” Illo’s breath came raggedly, painfully and far two slow.
John waved it off. He listened to the noises outside, something was going on. It might be there chance. The only chance they might get. “It’s time to get out of this hell-hole.”
Illo nodded. “Couldn’t agree with you more. Take the other two and run.”
John had already managed to get to his feet. Offering a hand to Illo, to help him up. “You are coming with us.”
“No. Would slow you down.”
John shook his head. “I don’t leave anyone behind here.”