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Fic: You can run with us 10/?
Author: Flaim aka Darkfalconheart
Story: You can run with us. (1/?)
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: 13 , may be higher in later chapters
Warnings: some violence
Status: WIP
Spoilers: Up to ‘The lost tribe’.
Wordcount: ca.4000
10. Between fire and darkness.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
(Dylan Thomas)
John knelt behind a dark rock boulder , that gave him a fair to excellent cover and peered down the long pass. Nothing moved down there, at least not by now. The Taliban troops had been retreating behind the ledge again, taking along their fallen comrades as far as possible. Which had been prevented quite well by the defenders of the lonely pass, for they needed the ammo and weapons of the dead enemies. In his mind John could hear the voice of the Taliban leader down there quite well. “There are no ten men in this damned pass, what prevents you from chasing them downhill again?”
Nothing, despite the rocky uneven grounds, the fact the defenders did neither run out of ammo nor guns, and their supplies were still not at an end. John answered in his mind the question.
A movement from beyond the ledge caught his eye. Really, one of their attackers attempted to sneak up to their position behind the rocks. John, who knew every shade and form of the rocks by now, having stared at them for five long hours, calmly raised his gun. The Taliban fighter had to resurface behind the mushroom shaped rock again, this he knew… and there the enemy came. John let go of his breath and fired a single shot. The echo of the shot rang between the rock faces, echoing all down the long pass.. The Taliban fighter fell and did not rise again. Silently John studied the ragged, exhausted troop of his. They all were on the verge of a collapse and only the impending danger of being caught again, kept them going. Ramirez and Javier manned the other side of the marrow gap. Javier just retrieved another gun and ammo from the fallen. Illo and John shared the other side of the gap. John knew well that Illo was hardly able to stand. But lying behind the rocks he still did well with those Kalashnikov John had liberated from that old depot on their way up here.
Illo looked up, only shortly. “This is a dead end, and you know it.” He said, before direction his attention back downhill, where their pursuers were probably thinking about a new plan. For a hallucination he was a rather good marksman and a trifle too talkative.
John sighed. “Our options are limited. We need to wait for night, then we can sneak out of here and win ground, before they can catch up.”
“One man with enough ammo could give them still enough trouble.” Illo observed. “I could hold them off for another one or two hours. A good headstart.”
John gripped Illo’s shoulder hard. “No. I won’t leave you behind. We will get out of here together.”
***
The puddlejumper could hardly take half of the people assembled at the clearing by the time it landed. O’Neill ordered wounded people, old ones and kids to be brought of here first. And even so, the jumper could not take all of them. Teyla stayed back with her children. She had given up her place for a pregnant woman with two small children. Jack also saw that Rodney’s three companions were still there. The scientist had sat down under a thick fir tree and held the two smaller ones of them close. The older boy stood a few steps away, his eyes out into the dark, focused on the danger that might still lurk there. Jack still wondered what happened to Rodney, he had neither whined, nor complained, not otherwise bitched the whole time, and this was a worrisome anomaly with him. What had happened to the man?
Two more teams reported in. The evac was nearly done. Who had escaped the culling was safe or at one of the landing points. The Wraith were retreating already. Jack did not know how many people the culling had taken, but if it was enough for the Wraith to back off, the final toll would be too high already. “General, may I ask where you found Torren John?”
Teyla asked in subdued tones. “Hidden by his father under some rocks.” Jack replied. He could well imagine what she was going through. Should the father of this small child be among those taken by the Wraith? “Hey, the area ahead of this wood had three extraction teams, there is a good chance he got out.”
Teyla shook her head. “General, if Kanaan left Torren John behind, hid him away, then he was sure he could not evade capture.” He voice was low, barely a whisper at these words.
Jack could hear the stoic resignation in her voice, he had seen some such before. Usually when Teal’c was dealing with something and was unwilling to admit it. It came with all those cultures that had been fighting for far too long. “Teyla listen,” Jack focused on the woman, she was a strong fighter and the helplessness was getting to her, more than anything. “we still have teams out there. Some of them are trying to get your people out of the drone’s claws before they can be brought off-world. Don’t give up before there is no chance left.”
Another jumper flew in. They could ship out most of the remaining survivors this time. O’Neill saw to it, that Rodney, the kids got into that jumper, along with those of the Athosians less likely to last through a fight. When the jumper took off, Indriedents turned to O’Neill. “The other jumper is under way too, Sir. Malmstroem and Black have arrived there, bringing in about thirty survivors from the northern settlement. Everybody is back on the way to the landing points and accounted for….except for Captain Schmiedeberg.”
“Lieutenant, the next jumper will take back our own wounded men and half of the teams. We leave this landing point active and protected, while clearing out on the other.” O’Neill decided. The rest of them would stay, ready to push through to the gate if necessary. Somewhere from afar he heard the light sharp sound of a sniper rifle. Things would happen soon, or they would not happen at all.
***
“Charges are set! We’re on the clock!” Avila’s shout wasn’t exactly necessary, Ronon knew exactly how much time his partner needed to set up seven charges. But even that call was part of their team-work. The rushing, fierce reminder that they had condemned another Wraith installation to a fiery death. They both picked up pace, racing through the long-winded corridors, constant fire on anything that moved. Their movements were a blur, exactly adjusted to each other. Ronon turned left, Avila followed the opposite direction, covering Ronon’s back. Every shot a precise hit. They never stopped running, they knew the time they had, they did not need to check. The end of the tunnel came closer, Ronon tossed a grenade into the control station, the explosion was as efficient a door opener, as the key code, Avila took from the dead guard leader. Ronon grinned. “I win.” Avila laughed as they raced outside, zigzagging through the dense forest, behind them rose a painful thunder, the explosion rocked the ground and a fiery blast wrecked the trees. The team did not stop, Specialists never needed to turn around and check on their work, they knew the devastation they brought. Ronon took on the Wraith guarding the ring, while Avila dialled them home. Ronon’s last shot evened out their head-count for this mission.
“I win.” Ronon was grinning broadly as they stepped out of the ring of Sateda. Avila grinned back, he never begrudged Ronon his victories in their game. As a matter of fact Ronon won two out three rounds usually. Together they led the head count of all specialist teams.
“Specialists, report.” Master Specialist Brin Shalukar had expected them. He always was there when his teams were out hunting.
Avila and Ronon saluted Satedan fashion, fist over their hearts. “The installation was completely destroyed.” Avila replied. Technically he was the leader of the duo, but that was a formality that bothered no one inside there walls. “It was a sleeper den, from the looks of the place.” The most polite way to say ‘Scratch another bunch of sleeping Wraith.’
Brin Shalukar nodded satisfied. “Well done, both of you. Healer Palis is expecting you. Enjoy your rest.”
“I told you you’d be back for your boy to be born.” Avila sat sitting down on the healer’s bench. “And you’ll have even enough time off, to have a proper naming ceremony.”
Ronon leaned against the wall. Of course Avila would think of things like a proper ceremony. It was very much like him. When they had been teamed up, everybody among the specialists had been betting when Ronon would kill Avila or when Avila would demand transfer. They had cited all the reasons they could imagine: different personality, different background, different class, different education – simply incompatible. It was true in a way. Avila was the son of one of Sateda’s last noble families. Nobility might not be the ruling class any more, but they still held a lot of influence in society. Avila’s education easily rivalled that of nearly anybody else in the camp and he could be arrogant as hell. Ronon was amused time and again when some poor wrench managed to get on Avila’s bad side and got the ‘raised eyebrow’ treatment. They had been fast friends, and a team for the better part of four years. Still there were moments that were complicated. Avila had always pretended not to realise that Ronon and Melena were not bonded. He knew of course but decided to overlook the fact. Ronon knew that it was a simple act of friendship. Avila generally disapproved unbonded matches, but was willing to accept Ronon’s choice of life because they were friends. But naming was a most important ceremony, one of the most important at all.
“Ronon? Already anxious? You will unnerve Melena that way.” Avila teased him. “Or are you planning the ceremony already?”
“No.” Ronon replied. “Melena and me had decided to keep things informal. It is not like we asked the respective persons if we are allowed to pass on their name to our son. And Melena still feels a little like trespassing on to many grounds with the thought of Kell Avila.” He clapped his mouth, he had not intended to tell Avila this. It was a gross impoliteness to name a child after someone, without asking first.
Avila laughed gently. “I am honoured Ronon. And ceremony or no – I’ll consider little Kell Avila partegeé.”
Partegeé, under my protection, the formal acceptance of a child of the same name. A warm feeling erupted inside Ronon. His son would have somebody looking out for him, in case Ronon did not come back from the deadly hunt with the Wraith.
***
The silence was worse than the shrieking of the darts, the empty area around them made Jack more nervous than the patrols of the drones. He couldn’t help it, now as the woods fell deadly silent he felt uneasy. Was this how people generally felt after a culling? Listening to the silence, waiting for the next attack that would not come?
What made Jack more nervous was that Schmiedeberg had not checked in. Sure he had been the farthest out, but Jack did not like the situation one bit. Another thirty minutes he decided and they would go and search for the man. The man had not gate experience whatsoever, Jack reminded himself, he was new to all this. Everything could have gone wrong. Jack felt responsible, he had talked Schmiedeberg into this, and whatever meagre preparation the three weeks on the Daedalus offered were nothing compared to being thrown into a mission like this. He had talked the young man into this, like he had talked Sheppard into accepting the invitation to join the Atlantis mission. Sheppard, of whom they had no trace whatsoever, who had been abandoned in the middle of a foreign galaxy. Sometimes O’Neill wondered if he had done the right thing, when he had convinced Major Sheppard to sign up for Atlantis. For Jack himself the Stargate program had been a salvation, a complete start over and a discovery on a scale unimaginable. Even after ten years the thrill of discovery had not ceased, and Jack knew very well that he’d never be able to withstand it’s siren song time and again. But who said that Sheppard, or Schmiedeberg for that matter, had the same priorities? Not everyone would wander the galaxy for the rest of his natural life if allowed to do so.
Jack’s radio crackled. “Octavio ruft Oberst Buttler, kommen.” The words sounded strained, painfully strained. Jack had understood them, and nearly jumped. If Schmiedeberg was reverting to his mothertongue and to something that sounded like old callsigns, then he must be down under deep.
“O’Neill here, come in. Schmiedeberg what’s your status?” Jack hoped the young man was still free and able to hide until help could reach him.
“With twentytwo – scratch that twentyfour people on the way to landing point. Some injured badly.” The voice was still strained, but he was back on English. O’Neill didn’t need to guess that Schmiedeberg himself was injured. “What’s your position? Assistance is on the way.”
“The brook north of the gate. We are crossing it below the threefold bent.”
O’Neill didn’t need any more descriptions. He knew the map of the area by heart. “Assistance is on the way. Keep it slow, the Wraith are retreating.” He turned to Indriedents. “The landing site is all yours.” He did not wait for another protest by the Lieutenant, Jack set off with about half the team they had here to bring assistance to the last survivors of New Athos.
***
“We have another VIP Taxi job to do.” Lieutenant Colonel Jamil Khalee, CO of McMurdo base in Antarctica was in a fairly good mood. Which was rare when he had to give any of his choppers for some VIP visitor to fly around here. Which meant the visitor was either prone to flight disease and would be laughed off the base or he was among the rare individuals showing up here, that the Colonel actually respected.
John Sheppard knew these individuals were rare. After arriving here in Antarctica he had been known as washout, as someone who had fucked up so badly, that his career was irreparable. He had known for himself, that it was over. He had been lucky not be court- martialed. He could still hear the voice of Colonel Delaurier. “Were it not the case that two our more important allies in this endeavour see you as hero, who saved their people, I’d have you dishonourably discharged before you could say ‘Aye, Sir’ twice. Things being as they are you will be send to face new challenges on a base, that is in dire need of a major, and of some long-term staff.” When John had arrived here, he had expected another superior officer bent on hammering him into shape, just to meet… Jamil Khalee. In his first weeks on the base he had never known what his duties today would be. Khalee had sent him to deal with nearly every aspect of the base at some time. John had at first believed this to be some expression of frustration from his new boss, but soon learned that Khalee studied his officers carefully, finding out their strengths and weaknesses this way. “Whom are we to fly around?” John asked. “Am I allowed to give him a good shakeup?” technical term for a flight that got everybody who wasn’t a pilot puking.
Khalee grinned. “No, John. You’ll fly General O’Neill to the ‘Site’. And I need you on your very best behaviour. Rumour has it, that the General is building up a whole force for a new project, something big and that he’s still looking for people.”
“You want out of here?” John would understand that. Khalee didn’t like the cold and darkness of Antarctica. If it needed some showing off to the General to help him out, John would gladly oblige.
“Hell no.” Khalee shook his had. “But you do. You can’t stay here forever. So you’ll be at your very best behaviour. Yes Sir, No, Sir, Three bags full, Sir. No wise cracks this time, John. No disagreeing. If he says he likes Antarctica, so do you. Show your very best flying too.”
John turned up his eyes. Khalee seemed serious about this. “It won’t help. And I kinda like it here.” It was true, he had come to like Antarctica. Perhaps because the base took it’s tone from the Colonel and as such did treated John better than he had expected when arriving here.
Jamil eyed him with his ‘no further nonsense’ gaze. “John, this is not open for discussion. You will fly the General, you will try to behave your best and ah yes, should those scientists on the base try to hold the General up for longer than 90 minutes, you will interrupt the conference, telling him, that I was radioing in because of some situation we have over here. The General hates to sit in science conferences for longer than necessary, so saving him will score some bonus too.”
John obliged, as far as possible, but he did not slime his way to the General’s good graces, he did not see the point anyway. But he got a chance to show his best flying, certainly. The accident with the chair was something from a nightmare, another hallucination of a mad kind. Only it wasn’t. And before he was back in McMurdo Sheppard had agreed to join an expedition to another galaxy.
Things were like a very odd dream until the last day. The others went to say goodbye to their families and loved ones. John even tried to ring his father, to tell him that he got his career back on track. Not because he cared for his career any more, but because his father cared. Mr. Cold-war-colonel John Eric Sheppard had been sorely disappointed in the failure of his son. He had tried to ring him, to talk to him but his father had hung up before John could say much more than “Hallo.”
So John had just sat outside, on a beautiful spot and tried to say goodbye in his heart. He had even wished Illo were still a phantom, and he could try to conjure him up to have someone to talk. But the man whom he had seen last unconscious in a field hospital, was very much real. In those hours, while John sat there and watched the sun go down, he wished he had somebody, anybody to talk to, but there was no one. So John’s goodbye to Earth was a silent one.
***
The people O’Neill found making a desperate trek through the woods were in a bad shape. Some of the men were injured, barely able to walk, many of them suffered from minor injuries too and some had clearly been a little bit too close to the blast when the rocks went up. Counting the group silently with his eyes he recognised Kanaan, who was supporting a badly injured old man. “Your wife will be overjoyed to see you.” The marines were already helping the people worst off. “Where did you leave the Captain?”
“He is here, Sir!” Schmiedeberg had clearly been covering the retreat of the small caravan. He limped towards O’Neill. A bloody gash across his face made him look like freshly escaped from hell. “The next time you think you can pull a dumb-assed one man stunt…” O’Neill said sharply. He was glad the man had survived the stunt he pulled. If this was his usual level than he might even be the right material for SG work.
“Aye, Sir! Understood, Sir.”
The way through the woods back to the jumper was slow but as there were no more Wraith around, they did not need to hurry. Eventually they reached the waiting jumper and guided the exhausted people in. The jumper took off and headed towards the gate. O’Neill had left his seat to an injured young woman and opted for a place on the ground, like the other soldiers did. He eyes Schmiedberg, who cleaned his face of the blood. “So, ‘Octavio’ – that was your call-sign? ‘Oberst Buttler is General von Aue, I take it?”
“No, Sir. Oberst Buttler is someone else, and ‘Octavio’ is the call sign for anybody in need of immediate assistance.” Schmiedeberg replied. “I am sorry, Sir. It will not happen again.”
Jack grinned. “You know, while I was stationed over there, we were close to one of your people’s bases. And one particular General was bent of showing me and some other some European culture, dragging us to the theatre now and then. Most of it was… somewhat old-fashioned, very much old-fashioned. What I mean is – I know the play you stole the names from. If you are not Octavio – I hope you are not Max.”
Schmiedeberg couldn’t help but chuckle. “Certainly not, Sir. But you are right the bulk of our code names came from that play.”
“So – what was yours?”
Dietmar looked up. “Codename is Illo, Sir.”
The jumper docked in the jumper bay and a medical team stood already there to take care of the wounded. The next level was used to take care of the Athosians right now. Searching for those whose families had survived, eagerly they expected every other batch of people coming up. Nurses were there, tending to minor injuries. O’Neill saw Teyla embracing Kanaan. A family saved from being ripped apart. If something made sense in all this madness, than it was this. That’s why they had gone out there, sneaking around the Wraith.
While walking through this level, O’Neill heard the first report about how many they had saved, how many people injured and other things. Assigning Quarters was already being done, the medical team had the worst cases already treated. Things were winding down fast and efficiently. The personnel of the base was used to handle such situations.
A small sniffle made O’Neill stopped. At a corner, a little separate from the other Athosians he saw the kids he had seen with Rodney. The older boy – teen more likely – was holding the two smaller kids, both of them were crying. “Just let it go, Vali. It helps. I know.” The teen spoke softly to the crying girl. “will… will they come back?”
O’Neill closed his eyes, the teary question of the little girl, told him all he needed to know. Those children’s parents had not made it.
“No, they went on a long, long journey and you can’t wait for them to return. One day you’ll meet again, but in a place and time beyond what you know now.”
“Are they….are they like your father….Athalwyn?” The little boy tried hard not to cry, but he had not much success.
Athalwyn’s voice went hoarse. “Sure. They will watch over you, just like me father did for me.”
Jack looked around. Rodney was probably still in the infirmary, or maybe elsewhere. Jack walked over to the three. They would need a place to sleep, to calm down at first and then someone to take care of them, later on. “Athalwyn?” Jack hoped he had gotten that name right, he probably did. Years around Daniel did this to a man. “We have some quarters ready, where you can get some rest.”
Athalwyn rose, lifting up his little sister. Jack helped with the second kid. Seeing those kids, their family taken, frightened and distraught, Jack wondered if it was possible to hate the Wraith more than the Goa’uld.
***
There is a movement in the darkness now, John can see it clearly. Not like the wings swishing around in the blackness. The movement is somehow familiar to John, there is something he knows, or knew a long time ago. And then he hears it, words echoing from the darkness. “When you fall into the tunnel, follow the light.” And John sees it, it is a light, burning bright, blazing in a rage that he forgotten existed. He stumbles, falls the darkness shatters, as John falls down, to the fires of burning Sateda.