Death Game

Chapter Ten

Rodney looked at the assembled rescue team in horror. Major Lorne, of course. Lorne was ok. He was kind of growing on him, despite Rodney’s general distaste for career military. Dr. Beckett, naturally. It seemed more than likely there had been some kind of emergency, so Carson was all kitted out in field uniform and flak vest rather than his usual lab coat. Six Marines, to provide some firepower. And Lt. Cadman.

Entirely logically, there was a perfectly good reason for Cadman to be there. She was, after all, a Marine. She was one of the Marines assigned to off world backup teams, which was how he had met disaster with her in the first place. Rodney had successfully dodged having to exchange more than a word with Laura Cadman the last few weeks, since Carson and Radek had succeeded in disentangling their brains, but the few days he had spent sharing a body with Cadman were seared into his consciousness forever. He put that up there with being captured by the Genii commander Kolya as possibly the worst experience of his life, one that he would never want to repeat. To be so completely, involuntarily, rawly intimate with someone, much less this cheerful, uninhibited woman of twenty three… It was just horrible.

And now she gave him a friendly smile, like they were cozy old friends. “Hi, Rodney.”

“Cadman,” he barked, glaring at Lorne, who looked oblivious.

“Are we ready?” Lorne asked.

“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Carson said, settling into the pilot’s seat. With his ATA gene he was one of the pilots the jumpers responded to best, and after more than a year was actually getting comfortable with flying. Not that he was anywhere near as good as Sheppard, but Carson was becoming quite serviceable, in Rodney’s opinion.

He threw himself into the copilot’s seat. From that vantage point he wouldn’t have to look at Cadman in the back. Maybe he could just pretend she wasn’t here. Why couldn’t Lorne have picked one of the other lieutenants for the team? Kroger or Kruger or whatever his name was? It’s not like Cadman was the only Marine around. Ok, maybe she was better than Kroger, who as far as Rodney could tell had one setting — shoot it now. Cadman had a brain somewhere under that beret. Unfortunately he was too closely acquainted with Cadman’s brain.

“Let’s go,” Lorne said, and Carson dialed the gate precisely, watching the event horizon open before them.

Elizabeth didn’t say anything on the radio. There was a time not long ago when she’d have said something like “be careful” or “come back safe” but now that went without saying. Carson and Lorne wouldn’t go looking for trouble. Trouble was more likely to find them.

Carson eased the indicators forward, and the puddle jumper leaped through the gate.

The seas were boiling. Not literally, of course. They were actually quite a comfortable temperature, neither cold enough to be hypothermic, or hot either. Radek thought he should know, since he had been continually soaked for the last hour. It was most unpleasant, but not nearly as unpleasant as it would be to be unceremoniously deposited in the sea. Which began to seem increasingly likely.

The little fishing boat ran before the wind. Or rather, the little fishing boat limped laboriously up waves that seemed entirely too large, while above the heavens split with lightning and the downpour soaked him to the skin. The bottom of the boat was awash, though Radek was not sure whether that was from the rain pouring down or the seawater sloshing over the sides. In either event, he was fairly sure it was not supposed to be there. Filling up with water was a bad sign in a boat.

Ronon was holding onto the sail, apparently keeping it attached to the mast by sheer physical strength, while Radek attempted to bail with a rusty bucket. A few liters of water went out, and a dozen came in. This was a battle he was losing. Still, this was a thunderstorm, not a hurricane. Perhaps they could last it out, stay ahead of the water long enough to gain a respite.

Which was more or less their entire strategy in the Pegasus Galaxy for the last year and a bit. Bail, and hope it stops raining.

Ronon bellowed something, but the wind tore away his words. Radek saw him silhouetted against sky and sea, braided hair slicked back now, holding onto the mast like some sort of pre-war engraving of Ulysses. He saw for a moment what Ronon must have been yelling about, a green dark wave rising behind them, no larger than ten or twelve feet tall, but enormous from the perspective of a small fishing boat wallowing low and half swamped.

“Shit,” Radek said, and had time to take a deep breath.

And then the wave broke over them.

He struggled up through troubled water, kicking one shoe loose in the process, white foam coating the surface. He couldn’t see. By some miracle, or perhaps because of the strap, he still had his glasses on but they were so streaked with sea water that he couldn’t see anything but a vague impression of green sea, foam, and lowering sky.

“Ronon!” he yelled, and then took a breath as another wave climbed above him.

Relax, he thought. Remember, this is not the first time you have been in the sea. Ride the wave up to the crest and over, or dive through the crest before it breaks. Do not fight it. Do not waste your strength. Relax and go with it.

Radek stopped clawing at the water in an adrenaline fueled haze. Up and over. Try to get a look from the top. “Ronon!”

“Over here!”

He heard the shout back, but as he could not tell from which direction it came it was not as useful as that. Between his glasses and the perspective of being inches above the water, he had no idea where he was relative to Ronon.

Something brushed past his leg like a snake, and he recoiled. Surely not sharks, or hungry Pegasus Galaxy sea snakes?

It was a rope. It was a rope attached to a sail. Radek grabbed onto it, a spatter of rain hitting him full in the face. Up one wave and down the back side. Up and down. He kicked his other shoe off. Up and down, not fighting it. The rope was attached to a sail which dragged on the surface of the water, billowing out as though in unseen winds beneath the surface. Possibly the sail had torn away, or possibly it was still attached to the mast. Which was a big wooden thing that would float. That would be a useful thing to reach.

Radek followed the rope, only once getting a mouthful of water when he didn’t see a wave breaking through his streaked glasses. Coughing, he let the water pull him along with the rope, along with the sail.

Yes, perfect. There was the dark smudge ahead, and he heard Ronon shout, though he could not make out the words.

“I am here!” Radek yelled back.

The sail was attached to the mast, which was underwater. The little fishing boat had capsized and floated hull up on the waves, buoyed no doubt by a pocket of air trapped beneath it. Radek let go and swam the last few meters, grabbing onto the rough wood of the hull gratefully.

“You ok?” Ronon was on the opposite side, holding on near the other end, but he made his way closer hand over hand along the hull. Radek was incredibly glad to see him.

“I’m fine,” Radek said. He more or less was. No bruises, no cuts, the water too warm for hypothermia. Other than drowning, his prospects were not bad. And finding the hull of the boat greatly increased his chances of staying afloat. He had read once that most people drown at sea when their strength simply gives out, after hours or days. With the boat to hold onto, things were better. They were less likely to drown immediately. And who knew what opportunities might arise?

“Good,” Ronon said. He looked younger with his hair soaked, less certain and impervious than usual.

“We will just hold on,” Radek said. “And surely they are already on the way with a puddle jumper.” A thought occurred to him and he swore volubly. “The boat is capsized. We have lost my laptop.” All his data. All his personal files. All sinking to the bottom of an alien sea.

“And our supplies,” Ronon said grimly. Of course the backpacks were lost as well. Their food, their water…

There was a worse thought, but he could not put off voicing it. “And our radios,” Radek said. Without the radios, how would the rescue team find them? They were two men adrift in a big sea, and the pilot would not even know where to look.

Night came, and the storm abated. It was no longer raining. That was a small mercy. The upended hull floated on calmer seas. Radek had managed to climb onto it, sitting on the hull rather than clinging to it, which required less energy.

Ronon held the side, despite all invitations to climb on too. “I’m too heavy,” he said. “I’ll tip it over.”

Now, with the waves less jagged, Radek tried again. “It will not tip if you balance,” he said. “You should save your strength. We will need it.” He thought perhaps Ronon was abashed that strength had not been enough. It was all very well to be powerfully built, but that did not compensate actually for not knowing how to sail.

Gingerly, Ronon climbed on top, inching his way forward to lie on the hull on his belly, just breathing for a long moment. Resting.

Radek tried once again to dry his glasses on his sopping wet shirt. It did make them less streaky. He looked up. The clouds were thinning somewhat. Through a break he could see stars. Not a bad storm, then. Just an afternoon thunderstorm of the sort that sent tourists running for the awnings of cafes, that made ship passengers cut short their jogs around promenade decks. If it had been a bad storm they would be dead. Rather than just adrift on an overturned hull, somewhere in the middle of an alien sea, with no supplies and no radios.

Still, this was an archipelago. There were other islands, and indications from the air had suggested they were populated. When the weather cleared and day came there might be other ships, or perhaps the currents would carry them close enough to another island to risk swimming.

He looked at Ronon, who rolled over on his back. He wondered if he looked that tired. Probably worse.

“It is your turn,” he said.

“My turn for what?” Ronon looked up at the scudding clouds, the stars beyond.

“We must stay alert,” Radek said. “It is your turn to tell me a story. I told you one.”

Ronon snorted, and he thought he would not say anything. Radek drew his knees up, getting his feet out of the water. He was surprised when Ronon spoke.

My dad drowned. He was a soldier, an Immortal like me. It was the spring after I turned five. There were late snows in the mountains and then a hard spring rain. Everything flooded. Streams turned into rivers, carrying away houses and trees. The rail lines were cut above Euta when the bed washed out. Lots of people left homeless, lots of bad stuff.

The Chieftain declared an emergency and sent the army in to help. My dad — he crawled out on a bridge. They were trying to do white water rescue, getting people out of this stream that was a hundred times bigger than usual, a family swept away in the current. The bridge washed out and collapsed.

They found his body the next day down at Hougma along with the people he was trying to save. They all died except one kid and the dog. Guess they were the lucky ones. Somebody always is, right?

I lived with my mom and my Nan in the city. There was a pool that people used in the summer time, but I didn’t like it much. I wasn’t really into swimming. I learned because you have to know how to swim to be an Immortal, and that’s what I was going to do. Same thing with school. The Immortals only take the best. If you don’t get good marks you don’t get in. So I worked really hard. My mom wanted me to be a chemist or something instead, somebody who works in a lab or a hospital, not a soldier. But I would have had to find a lot of money for that, and I didn’t really want to anyway.

When I was seventeen I became an Immortal. It was good. It was the thing I wanted, you know? Sometimes there’s something you’re just right for and it all flows along, like water rolling down hill. When you’re on and you’re golden and you’ve got the right thing. That’s what it was like.

That’s what I was. That’s what we were.

My Nan used to say that we live as long as we endure in the memory of our Kindred. If that’s so, they’re all here. Right here, in my chest. Sateda’s here. We’ll rise again. We have before. We know we’ve been laid low before, been plowed under like corpses in a field. But we come back. That’s who we are. Sateda’s strong. The Kindred are strong. It may not be in my lifetime. But it will happen. I’m sure. One day you’ll see what we can do.

“We’ve got a problem!” Carson yelled just as the jumper jolted abruptly in the night sky. They had passed through the Stargate without incident, climbing away from the desert cliffs around the DHD that Rodney could do without ever seeing again, high into the night sky. It was perfectly clear, the stars bright on a calm evening.

The puddle jumper shook, inertial dampers failing to compensate completely for some shock, and Rodney held onto his seat. “Why?” he yelled, pulling up the long range scanners. Surely somebody wasn’t shooting at them.

Carson swore, and the jumper jolted again, a shower of sparks in the back arcing as something blew.

The scan was negative. They were alone in an empty sky.

Alone, except for…

“This planet has an energy shield!” Rodney shouted. “We’ve got to stay below it! If we get too close we’re going to set off a feedback loop and it will start pulling power from us. Carson! We’ve got to get lower!”

“I can bloody well tell that!” Carson yelled back, struggling to control the jumper’s dive. “I don’t have much choice. Main power is offline!”

“Crap!” Rodney flung himself out of his chair, nearly bowling Lorne over in his beeline for the sparking control panels behind.

Secondary power, yes. That could be rerouted. They still had backup… Rodney popped the panel and started pulling crystals. The third one on the left needed to move and then…

The jumper jolted again, but it was a different kind of motion, less as though the ship had struck something and more as though it had jinked in the air, Carson struggling for control without main power. The puddle jumpers were by no means aerodynamic. They weren’t meant for unpowered flight, even for a few seconds.

The crystals were hot, but he could move them with his finger tips… This. And this. Reroute the cloak’s power into the main engines, and…

He seated the crystal and the jumper’s inertial dampeners returned, the flight seeming completely level though he could see through the forward window that they were still plummeting. The engines came to life a second later. Rodney always found it disconcerting how you couldn’t hear them, even when you knew they were only a few feet away on the other side of the hull. He could see the look of strain on Carson’s face as the jumper pulled up, screaming by a scant few hundred feet above the desert.

“Bloody hell,” Carson muttered. He leveled off, circling around. “Everybody all right back there?”

“We’re good!” Cadman replied cheerfully. “Just a few bruises!”

“I’m going to land,” Carson said. “I’ve got instrument fluctuations everywhere.”

“Yes, and these patches are temporary,” Rodney snapped, his eyes on the panel before him. He’d slapped together a reroute, but it wasn’t going to hold for extended flight.

“Coming around then,” Carson said.

The jumper made a wide, low turn, Carson steering clear of the cliffs and opting instead for a wide expanse of sand gleaming pale in the moonlight. The jumper settled down gracefully, only a few sparks jumping from the open panel. Not good, Rodney thought. Something else was shorted out and he was going to have to fix it.

Carson let out a huge sigh as the jumper touched down, sinking a few inches into the firm packed sand. “We’re down,” he said, and turned to Rodney, his face a mask of indignation. “What was that about? I’ve never seen anything like that. It was like hitting a wall in thin air.”

“There’s an energy shield,” Rodney said. “Like the one we encountered on M32-3375. It protects the planet from the Wraith by basically interdicting any traffic in or out. When a ship tries to ascend or descend past a certain altitude it shorts out everything. It is like hitting a wall in the air. You’d better just be glad that you didn’t run into it full on. It would have torn the ship apart. As long as we stay under it we should be fine, but the minute we got too close…”

“Could that be what happened to Colonel Sheppard?” Lorne asked from behind Rodney’s seat.

“It very probably is,” Rodney said testily. He should have thought of that earlier. “If he got too high he would have blown the main power in the jumper. Knowing Sheppard, he probably landed more or less in one piece. But unlike you, he does not have me aboard.” Rodney stood up. “I have to run a full diagnostic and fix whatever it is that’s smoking back there. Until that happens, this ship isn’t flying anywhere.”

Carson and Lorne exchanged a worried glance. “Fine with me, doc,” Lorne said. “Let’s make sure we’re good before we get airborne again.”

“But Colonel Sheppard had Dr. Zelenka with him,” Carson said, ever the optimist. “He could fix the other jumper.”

“Please,” Rodney said. “It might have happened after he dropped Ronon and Zelenka off, and even if it didn’t…” He stopped just short of pointing out how much more fortunate they were to have him than Zelenka, who admittedly wasn’t bad, but was also not even in Rodney’s league. “I’ve got work to do.”

“Ok,” Lorne said, walking into the back of the jumper. “We’re grounded for now, people. Let’s establish a perimeter and keep watch. We don’t want any unexpected visitors while Dr. McKay fixes the jumper. We’re all in one piece, thanks to the super flying of Dr. Beckett, so let’s get out of the way and let them work.”

Rodney heard them letting the back gate down, the voice of Lt. Cadman saying something as they went outside. He was all for establishing a perimeter. None of those jackals or whatever they were. He opened the panel behind, where there was still a thin trickle of smoke. He’d have to get the power to these circuits off before he started playing with them, and then see if any of the crystals were cracked from the heat. Once again everything was on him.