Death Game

Chapter Thirty

The puddlejumper came to rest on the roof of the palace, Carson carefully letting it come down easy, just in case the roof wasn’t strong enough to hold it. At the first sign of buckling or damage he could lift again. But the stone pillars seemed sturdy, possibly stronger in terms of loadbearing than most modern architecture on Earth allowed, and the jumper settled without problems at all.

“Still cloaked?” Major Lorne asked.

“Still cloaked,” Carson confirmed. “They shouldn’t be able to see us or otherwise detect an EM signature.” He eyed the radio in Lorne’s hand. “Unless you start using that radio. The cloak isn’t going to hide an outgoing signal.”

“I know,” Lorne said. “But my team needs radios to keep in contact. You stay with the jumper, doc.” He looked around. “Dr. McKay? This is your call. If you’d like to stay with Dr. Beckett…”

“I’m going,” Rodney said. He swallowed hard. “You’ll probably need me.”

“Yeah, probably,” Lorne agreed. “Ok, we’re on then.” He hit the release on the rear door and led the way out.

The maze looked different with the lights on. Nevin and Jitrine came just behind John up the passages, showing him how they had gotten there. Overhead lights in the ceiling rendered them about as spooky as any hallway anywhere, which was to say not so much. At one point they passed through a gallery high above what had been the waterfall room. Now, lit by bright fluorescent lights dangling from the ceiling, with the waterfall silenced, it was just a big room with a very shallow pool at the bottom, three feet or so below the level of the drain. Anybody could wade across it.

“Not so impressive now,” John said.

Jitrine nodded. “It was beautiful and eerie both. I do not know why the waterfall glowed as it did.”

John pointed down, showing her. “See those blue and green things just below the water? They’re spotlights and they shine up the sheet of the falls. It was a pretty impressive effect, but they’re just lights with colored covers on them.”

“Like silk screens placed before lamps in the theater,” Jitrine said. She shook her head. “Nothing but theatrical effects.”

“Pretty much,” John said.

Radek had fallen back beside Teyla. “What is the matter with your arm?”

“I dislocated my shoulder in the jumper crash,” Teyla said quietly. “When Colonel Sheppard hit his head.”

“You crashed the jumper?” Radek sounded incredulous. “Again?”

“The Wraith cruiser attacked us,” Teyla said. “They outgunned us considerably. The Colonel lost them, but we had taken such damage that he could not keep it in the air. We crashed in the desert. Fortunately, we were not more seriously injured.”

Radek blew out a breath. “That is bad news,” he said. “That the jumper is gone. I had hoped you might have it, or have supplies. We lost all of ours two nights ago, radios, food, everything.”

“You have not had food since?” Teyla sounded concerned.

Radek shrugged. “We had some bread. And a hardboiled egg.”

“John? Hold up for a moment,” Teyla called out.

He stopped immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“Radek and Ronon have had almost nothing to eat in two days,” Teyla said. “Give me a moment to get out what I have left of the emergency supplies.”

There wasn’t much left. They’d eaten the fruit leather and some of the crackers for breakfast, washing it down with the two juice packets. There was a granola bar and a bag of salted corn kernels, and two rather mashed packets of peanut butter crackers.

Radek looked at the small spread hungrily. “Might I have the granola bar?” he asked hesitantly, as though he did not wish to be greedy.

Teyla handed it over. “Of course.”

“I’m good with the corn kernels,” Ronon said, popping the bag open. “Save the rest for later.”

Radek glanced at him in surprise. “Don’t you want more?”

“Shouldn’t eat too much right before I fight,” Ronon said. “Just a little bit to give me energy. I’m set.”

Teyla offered the crackers to Jitrine. “Are you hungry?”

Jitrine looked at Suua, Nevin and Ailan. “We had breakfast,” she said firmly. “The contestants all were offered reasonable food at daybreak in the palace. We will not take anything from your meager stores.”

Suua looked like he wanted some crackers, but he shrugged. “We’re fine.”

John thought it wasn’t such a great sacrifice, as at least he’d had breakfast. That couldn’t have been more than five or six hours ago. Of course, they could have had breakfast too, if John’s escape attempt hadn’t landed them in solitary.

“Time to go, people,” he said.

They turned a corner and ascended another flight of stairs. There were voices ahead, a woman’s voice raised in anger. In the room above four other contestants stood about arguing, three women and a man who had lagged behind or been left by others intent on victory. Seeing the strong and well armed party, they didn’t wait. With a scream, one fled down the entrance corridor, followed by the others.

“Wait!” John yelled.

“We mean you no harm!” Teyla called after.

They were talking to their backs.

Jitrine shook her head. “They think we are one of the parties that has been killing people in the maze. I cannot blame them for running.”

“Yeah.” John looked around in frustration. “We’d help them get out of here too, if they’d give us a chance.”

“They are too frightened to do that,” Jitrine said sadly.

“I know.”

It wasn’t long until they came to the hazard that had given them so much trouble the first time, the swift flowing stream with the broken bridge. Five people were sitting against the wall on the other side, knees drawn up. The water was off, and had long since drained down from this part of the labyrinth. There were overhead lights on, and the stream bed was dry.

It was still dangerous, though. The bridge was missing, and to get over they’d have to climb down the loose stones of one side and back up the other. This was much easier without the cold, fast running current, but John knew it was still going to be tough for Jitrine, and for Teyla with her bad shoulder and Nevin with his broken wrist.

“I’ve still got this,” Suua said, holding out the rope ladder he’d made from the bridge ropes. It looked…pretty good.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” John asked, testing the knots, though he’d already put his weight on it, getting up from the ledge at the waterfall pool.

“I’m a fisherman,” Suua said patiently. “I make nets. Out of rope.”

“Well, great.”

One of the women on the other side stood up and called across, “Who are you and what do you want?”

Before John could think of an answer better than ‘I’m a guy from outer space here to kill the gods,’ or ‘I’m an immortal hero here to slay the minotaur’ Jitrine forestalled him.

“I am a Pelagian physician,” she said. “We are returning to the entrance. We do not wish to harm anyone.”

“Why are you going to the entrance?”

Jitrine glanced at John. “We think we may be able to get out that way. Will you let us cross without hindering us?’

They consulted together. John saw some gestures at the kids, at Jitrine, at Teyla with her injured arm and Nevin with his taped wrist. “I guess we don’t look too scary,” John said quietly to Teyla.

Her mouth quirked in a smile. “You look very scary. You look like an unkempt madman.”

“I do not.”

“You do too.” Her smile broadened. “You look like a thug. Try looking friendly.”

John smiled weakly, and she burst out laughing.

“The Smile of Wrongness!” Teyla said. “I did not know you could do it on purpose!”

“The Smile of Wrongness?” he asked, laughing. “What’s that?”

Teyla shook her head. “It is an expression you get when you feel that you must smile, but you do not in the least want to. When someone is threatening you, or when you have to deal with Colonel Caldwell. You did it when you first came to Athos. ‘Yes, let us talk about ferris wheels and drink tea while stranded in a galaxy far from home with the city about to flood while I am on my very first alien world and Colonel Sumner is gunning for my ass!’ That smile!”

John ducked his head ruefully. “Was it that obvious?”

“Not then.” Teyla’s eyes danced with mischief. “Then, I just thought that you were disturbed.”

“Disturbed?”

“Insane,” Teyla clarified. “Perhaps in a good way, but more than a little unbalanced.”

“Maybe I am,” John said. “Maybe I’ve just gotten better at covering it up.”

Her smile faded, but not the warmth in her eyes. “Maybe you are,” she said quietly. “But we all have our scars. What defines us in life is not what happens to us, but how we bear it.”

There was something in her face, in the tilt of her chin, that made him want to ask, want to know what she carried beneath her usually serene and unruffled surface. “Teyla…”

“You may come across!” the woman on the other side of the dry stream bed shouted. “If you leave us alone, we will not harm you or hinder you!”

John snapped around. “Ok, we’re in business! Suua, can you hold the ladder on this side and let me down? Then I’ll go up the other side, you get everybody down this side, throw me the ladder, I’ll get everybody up that side, and then you climb down this side and then up the ladder.”

Suua blinked. “You lost me.”

“Let me down this side,” John said patiently. “And then I’ll climb up the other side. Let’s start with that.”

“And hope that no one turns the water back on,” Teyla said darkly, looking at the dry stream bed where he had been swept away before.

“That is not possible,” Radek said patiently. “I told you. I have turned off the pump.”

“Might they not reach a manual override in the pump room?” Teyla asked.

John looked around at her, hoping he didn’t look alarmed. “We didn’t see one when we were down there, did we? If we had, we would have turned the water off.”

“I am sure that there is one somewhere,” Radek said sensibly. “But they will have to get to it, which will take them some amount of time.”

“No,” Teyla agreed. “We did not see one, so perhaps it is even deeper within the maze.”

“Or in a pump control room somewhere we have not discovered,” Radek said. “It is possible. I did not have time to examine all the systems from the central control room.”

“Great,” John said, and started to climb down. He was absolutely not thinking about a wave of cold water rushing down the dry stream bed. Absolutely not.

Besides, it wouldn’t start like that, would it? It would be more of a trickle as the pumps came back online. It was a long way down to the pump room. It would take a while to get going. Surely even if they turned it back on, it would take a long time for the water to recirculate. They’d have some warning.

John scrambled across the bottom of the stream bed. Ok. Now back up the other side. He’d climbed it soaking wet, with the stones slippery and shifting and the current dragging at him. It was, in fact, a lot easier to get up it dry. The side had a definite slope, so it was much easier than the wall yesterday.

John stood up on the other side. “Ok. Everybody down.”

With a glance back at the others to encourage them, Jitrine began descending the ladder. When she got to the bottom Ailan started down, and then her twin, Nevin, cautiously descending one handed. His broken wrist couldn’t take any weight at all.

That would be the bad, John thought. Not him down in the middle, but everybody else, while he watched safe above the water. That would be the really, really bad. His hands were sweating and he swung his arms, pacing back and forth. Got to breathe through this.

Across the stream bed, Teyla caught his eye, and he figured he wasn’t fooling her.

“I am ready,” Teyla said confidently, and she started down the ladder, holding on with her left hand, the Wraith stunner stuck in the back of her waistband.

Ronon waited above, his eyes on Suua. That was good. Ronon would keep an eye out. Ronon always did. He’d be the last one down, usually Teyla’s place, but with her bad shoulder she needed the ladder.

Ronon saw him watching and nodded. He’d be nervous too, if everyone were down in the middle except him. He probably was nervous.

Teyla. Then Zelenka. Then Suua. Ronon last, climbing down without the ladder.

“Catch, Sheppard!” He tossed it up and John caught it, tying it to the pillar the rope bridge had originally hung from. “Everybody up,” Ronon said. He boosted Ailan onto the ladder surprisingly gently.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, almost the first thing John had heard her say.

Ailan. Then Teyla. Nevin. Jitrine. Zelenka. Suua.

And then Ronon last, watching everybody’s backs, his eyes on John as he climbed. He knew how to do this, John thought. He was completely patient with the civilians. And then they all stood on the right side together.

“Piece of cake,” Radek said to Ronon.

“Yeah.” Ronon glanced at Radek in a way that seemed almost friendly. “It’s all good.” Which was a little baffling, since Radek was likely to be scared of climbing in and out of things, while Ronon didn’t seem like he was scared of anything, much less climbing through watercourses that might turn into raging streams at any moment.

“Let’s head for the surface,” John said. “Ronon, come up here with me. We need to check out what’s ahead of us.”

It wasn’t far to the surface. At the first chamber below, where John and Teyla had checked for traps a few hours earlier, they paused. It looked little different with the lights on, a boring ten by ten room.

“This is it,” John said. “Everybody, you stay with Teyla while Ronon and I check things out. Just stay here.”

Carefully, with Ronon on his heels, he slipped down the corridor toward the stairs. Everything was well lit. The stairs to the surface went steeply up, ending in the sliding doors set in the ceiling. There was a door panel on this side, but it was dark. Probably because Radek had cut the power.

“We’re going to need Zelenka up here,” John said quietly to Ronon. “He’s going to have to hotwire the panel.”

“Yeah.” Ronon crept up the stairs to the very top, and John knew better than to interrupt him while he had his ear to the door. After a few minutes he came back down. “There’s a couple of people up there. I hear two sets of footsteps. Can’t tell if they’re Wraith or Wraith worshippers. No big crowd or anything though. It’s quiet.”

“There was a big crowd this morning,” John said. “But they’ve probably gone down to the exit to catch people coming out. If this door is locked, they won’t see any reason for more than a couple of guards.”

“So we get Zelenka to open the door and we rush them?”

“That’s the plan,” John said. “And then head for the cruiser. If we take their ship, they can’t exactly follow.”

“Makes sense,” Ronon said. He looked at John skeptically. “You really think you can fly that thing?”

John was saved from answering. “Go ahead and zip her up, doc.” A voice crackled behind him, and it took John an incredulous moment to realize it was his radio, hooked on his belt on standby, useless for days.

“Closing the back then.”

“That’s Carson!” John grabbed for the radio. “What the hell?”

“Underground,” Ronon said. “We’ve been too far underground to pick up a radio signal for hours.”

John flipped the radio out of standby. “Beckett? This is Colonel Sheppard.”

“Bloody hell! Lorne, did you hear that?” Oh yeah. It was Carson all right.

“Colonel Sheppard?” Major Lorne’s voice was loud and clear. “What is your position, sir?”

“Give me that!” Rodney said. “Sheppard? Where are you? I want you to know that I’ve been looking all over this godforsaken planet for three days for you. You don’t even want to know what I’ve endured!”

“You’re right. I don’t.” John felt a huge grin plaster itself to his face. “Rodney, what’s going on?”

“I’m here with Carson and Major Lorne,” Rodney replied. “We came to rescue you, you dumbass.”

“Good to talk to you too,” Ronon said.

“Is that Ronon? How is that Ronon? Wasn’t he on the island with Zelenka?”

“Yes, but…” John began.

There was the sound of a scuffle at the other end, and Lorne’s voice returned. “Let me do this. You can complain about your sunburn later. Colonel, where are you? We are on the roof of the palace overlooking the main courtyard. Dr. Beckett has a cloaked jumper parked just behind me.”

“You’re right above us,” John said. “You see a pair of double doors set flush in the pavement? We’re in the chamber right below them. I’ve got Teyla and Ronon and Zelenka, and a bunch of civilians we’ve rescued from the Wraith.”

“I see the doors,” Lorne said steadily. “There are two Wraith guards almost over your heads. Sir, do you know there’s a Wraith cruiser here?”

“That’s what shot me down,” John said. “I’m aware of it.”

“The Cruiser has powered up,” Carson said, presumably from the jumper’s sensors. “But hasn’t started lifting off.”

“Probably because Radek tore up their power grid,” John said. “They’ve got quite a complex down here, but Radek already turned off everything below ground level. If I were them, I’d power up the ship too.” He glanced at Ronon. “So much for taking the ship. We can’t do it if they’ve got their shields operative.” An idea was beginning to form. “Go back and get Zelenka. I’ve got a better plan.”