Brimstone

Chapter Twenty-five

Sheppard spun on Saul, grabbed him before he could back away, and shoved him against the wall. “You did this! Her blood is on your hands!”

The door opened and a guard stepped through, his weapon raised. Saul waved him away. Sheppard glanced at the guard, as if daring him to try something, and then released Saul with a shove that smacked his head soundly on the wall before he turned and strode to the window. Both hands pressed to the cool glass, he stared down at the arena. All around it, people were on their feet, cheering and throwing things at the battlefield. Preparations were being made to move the dead Woard but Sheppard couldn’t watch. He didn’t want to see Teyla’s crushed body when they moved the beast, so he turned away, eyes and fists clamping tightly and his body shaking.

“I don’t know what sort of sick pleasure you got out of making me stand here and watch that,” Sheppard growled from between gritted teeth. “Did you just do it so you could tell me I’m next, or am I free to go?”

“By all means,” Saul answered, sweeping one hand in the general direction of the door. “It will take awhile to clean up the mess and ready the next combatant. I assume the two of you will want to see how it turns out…”

Sheppard risked a glance at Saul, noted the self-satisfied grin and the hungry gleam in his eye. More than anything in the world, he wanted to kill the man where he stood. He thought briefly of taking a shot — seeing if he could slam Saul’s body through the glass and send it crashing to the arena below. Maybe he could work the weapons.

Instead, he grabbed Mara’s arm roughly and pulled her toward the door. “Come on…before I do something Saul might regret.”

Saul laughed at this, and Sheppard hurried his steps, trying not to see the huge body of the Woard toppling onto Teyla’s prone form. Trying not to think about the fact he’d lost a team member, and a friend, in this crazy pit of lunatics. Trying not to snap when the rest of the team needed him most.

Mara stumbled after him, trying to keep up. As the door slid shut on Saul, they heard him chuckle.

“Slow down, please,” Mara begged, still struggling to keep up. “Where are we going?”

“I need to have a look at your computer system.”

“You can’t. Saul will know if we log on — it isn’t allowed.”

He turned on her, stopping her with a twist of her arm. She cried out.

“Look,” he said, thinking on his feet, “if I have any hope of stopping this insanity and keeping my friends alive, I have to know the weapons. I have to know what they are, how they can be used, and exactly what their powers are. To do that, I have to study them. Now, take me to a computer console. If Saul finds out, he finds out. We’re flying into a sun — what difference could it possibly make? We don’t have much time.”

Mara stood motionless, breathing heavily and mulling over his request. “You’re right. It’s the least I can do. There isn’t anything else you could access that would matter…”

Sheppard shook his head and sighed. “Rodney’s the computer jockey, not me. I’m not familiar with your system and I wouldn’t have any idea how to access anything else.”

“There are consoles in the medical clinic that are unmonitored. I can sign in and you’ll find what you need there.” She pulled her arm free and rubbed the reddened spot where Sheppard had been gripping it. “This way.”

They wound through hallway after hallway, taking a lift at one point to access the lower levels. Apparently a number of extra labs had been converted to medical facilities. Considering their chief form of entertainment, and the genetic research necessary to create the adversaries, it was no real surprise. Sheppard briefly wondered how many people were hauled off to be cremated, or buried, or whatever they did with the fallen, and how many actually survived to fight again.

They finally reached a set of double doors on one of the lower levels. The lights in the hallway were dim and, for the moment at least, they appeared to be alone. Mara stopped in front of the doors and turned to face him.

“I’m sorry about this but I really have no other choice.”

“What are you…?”

Without warning she punched him hard in the face, landing a solid blow to his jaw. She had wrapped her fist in her metal belt and it left an imprint on her knuckles when she hit him. Sheppard’s lip was cut and bleeding, and his jaw was already swollen.

“What did you do that for?” He winced from the pain and touched one thumb to his lower lip. It came back bloody.

“I need an excuse to take you in there. I’m not exactly a regular visitor in the medical wards. I can’t just go in there, sit you down in front of a console, and log in. But if you need medical attention…”

“I guess not,” Sheppard said. He spit into his hand, wiped it on his pants leg, and frowned. “That hurt! Maybe you should have been in the entertainment instead of those gladiators.”

Mara smiled, shook her head, and pulled open the doors to the medical ward. She stepped inside, holding onto Sheppard’s arm as she went. She leaned in close and whispered to him. “You should, as you say, sell it.”

Sheppard moaned and reeled a bit, closing one eye for effect.

A young man of about thirty stepped into the room to greet them. His face fell immediately and he shook his head. “Woard?”

“Heavens no!” Mara laughed. “A Woard would have just killed him. This was done by a Valhund.”

“Take him into one of the exam rooms. I’m finishing up a cast, but I can see him in a few minutes.”

“Thank you.”

Mara turned quickly and dragged Sheppard down the hall to one of the examining rooms. She shut the door behind them and turned the lock, then moved quickly to the computer monitor.

“We won’t have much time, but I can hold him off for awhile.” She said. “He probably wishes he was up with the rest, watching the Entertainment. I’m frankly surprised to see anyone down here at all.”

A few keystrokes and she was logged in.

“Won’t Saul know it’s you?”

“I didn’t log in as myself,” she explained. “I’ve spent time with my share of others here over the years. I’m very observant, and I’m not without secrets of my own. Here. You will find what you need in this file. I’ll listen for the doctor.”

Sheppard sat down and began reading through the file as quickly as possible. It contained diagrams, graphic images, and even demonstration videos for each of the Ancient weapons. The information was fascinating, and any other time he’d have loved to spend some time studying it, but time was something he was just about out of.

He checked to make sure that Mara was still distracted at the door, and then he quickly scanned the system files for the shield controls. Rodney might be the computer jock, but Sheppard was no slouch — he just didn’t advertise it so loudly. As it turned out, the code Mara had provided gave him high level access. Higher, perhaps, than she knew — there were advantages, he guessed, in sleeping with the enemy. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

As he worked, he glanced at Mara now and then and smiled. She wouldn’t be happy if she knew what he was really doing and she might be inclined to stop him. He wasn’t sure how far to trust her, and decided this wasn’t the time to test his limits. Luckily, she was distracted by the various sounds emanating from the hallway.

She kept her ear pressed to the door. “Are you finding what you need?”

“Yes. Almost done.”

The shield controls weren’t encrypted, and he supposed there’d be no reason for that kind of security — who would want to covertly take them down from inside a city that had spent millennia hiding from the galaxy? However, he did notice a set of alarm protocols set to alert Saul when the shield had been deactivated — in case, he supposed, he was having too much fun to notice. It only took a couple of keystrokes to toggle the alarms off and silently drop the shield. It was a risk, but calculated and minimal. With the surface temperature rising and the Entertainment in full swing, he doubted anyone was topside to notice the shield drop. Or, frankly, to care.

Satisfied, he logged out of the shield controls and returned to the weapons page. He went over them once more, so he’d know enough to make it seem as if he’d studied them, and then logged off the terminal. He rose and crossed to the door. The shield was down, the message had been sent to Atlantis; all he had to do now was bust his team out of jail and get the hell out of Dodge before the moon’s surface started to cook. Piece of cake.

“I have everything I need,” he whispered, tapping Mara on the shoulder.

She started a bit, and then smiled. “Good. Let’s get out of here before the doctor comes back.” She turned the lock on the door and nearly pulled it open before thinking better of it. “Wait!”

She hurried to a nearby cabinet and flung the door open, studying the contents for good measure. On the top shelf was a small box and she grabbed it, pulling from it a rather large bandage. She peeled the backing from it and slapped it onto Sheppard’s jaw with a smile.

“Ow! Hey!” He recoiled from the blow. “What’d you do that for?”

“Effect. Come on! Let’s get out of here.” She pulled open the door and stood aside.

“I think you just like hurting me.” He stepped through the door and turned toward the hallway.

They were nearly to the outer door of the medical facility when the doctor stepped into the room. “I thought your friend needed medical attention.”

“Oh, he did,” Mara chirped. “I took care of it.” She spun Sheppard around and pointed to the bandage. “See? Good as new.”

The doctor frowned and nodded. “I see,” he said. Then he glanced around the room almost dejectedly. “I supposed, at this point, it really doesn’t matter.”

“You should go to the arena and watch,” Mara said. “The First Woard was killed. This is no place to meet the grand finale, and really, who is going to come here for medical aid this night? Or ever?”

“You’re right,” the man said. He dropped the clipboard he was carrying and turned to the door, hurrying away.

Sheppard smiled weakly and shrugged, then stepped into the hall after him.

“Good thinking,” he said.

“I meant what I said,” Mara shrugged. “No one should reach the end of their life alone, and there’s no reason for him to be here. Let’s get moving.”

They hurried back up toward the main levels, taking a series of side passages on the off chance that Saul was paying attention to them and planned to stop them. They encountered no one. With the exception of the arena, Admah was silent.