fic (What Color is Your Parachute?) SG Atlantis/Andromeda #3 prompt #12 orange
Title: What Color is Your Parachute?
Fandoms: Andromeda/Stargate Atlantis
Author: karrenia_rune
Rating: PG-13
Words:3,046
Prompt: #12 orange
41/100
Disclaimer" Stargate Atlantis belongs to MGM, Glasner/Wright Productions as do all of the characters who appear here or are mentioned; they are not mine. Andromeda belongs to Tribune Entertainment and Fireworks Productions; again it is not mine. Note: the story picks up shortly after where “Far Away Suns “ left off.
“What Color is Your Parachute?” by Karen
Dr. Elizabeth Weir had been reluctant to grant access to the small craft they called puddle jumpers. In a city surrounded entirely by water on all sides Tyr could not at first understand why they would designate them as such.
For the small craft no matter how well-designed and engineered did not appear capable of conveying anyone any distance with collapsing underneath the strain of thousands of kilos of water.
He was still puzzling over this seeming inconsistency all the while until Sheppard's
small team with him in tow arrived at what they called puddle jumper bay.
"Whatever happened to my slip fighter?” asked Tyr.
"Do you really what to know?" was Rodney McKay's rather waspish response.
Tyr shrugged. “Not really, but I must admit to being a little curious.”
Ronon Dex glanced over the head of the much shorter man and winked. "He is just irritated that it exploded into into thousands of tiny fragments that even the most sensitive of his molecular scanners could not read. All of which means.."
"That we're wasting time."
Ronon smiled, unperturbed and continued on with the remainder of of his rejoinder. "All of which means that McKay does not wish to be reminded of the time he had an arrow lodged in his backside."
Tyr attempted to restrain himself but despite everything he burst out laughing. With one last chuckle he turned from the furiously blushing and fuming Rodney McKay to attend to Lt. Colonel John Sheppard.
"Colonel," he began. "I have been wondering, why is it that you call these," Tyr waved a hand at the array of craft stacked up one upon another in banks stretching along either side of the long narrow room.
"I can't properly answer that question, Mr. Anazasi, but since Dr. Weir decided to grant you limited to information. We can't very well leave you ignorance can we?"
"I would be most perturbed if you did."
"Well, the Ancients, the race responsible for the construction of the city and everything in it, and we've been here almost two years and still haven't figured out how everything works. However, we can reach other worlds and systems through a device known as the t Star Gate."
"I have seen the diagrams and I grateful to Dr. Weir for allowing to examine them. I suspect the reality is much more complicated and much more, moving."
“Got it it one." Sheppard grinned.
“Are going on this mission or aren’t we?” McKay sighed dramatically. “I don’t know why we have to drag this big lug around with us, anyway. I hate babysitting assignments.”
“McKay,” Teyla quietly whispered.
“She’s right you know, Rodney.” Sheppard grinned and shrugged. “He easily could pick you up and break you in half.” Turning to face Tyr once more. “Not that you actually would. The brass frowns on that sort of thing, you know?”
Tyr shrugged again. “Of course. In fact, he reminds of another annoying but extremely brilliant young man of my previous acquaintance. And let me tell you, there were times that I wished nothing more than to pick up him and break him in half.”
“And did you,” asked Ronon curious in spite of himself.
“No.” Tyr smiled.
“No offense,” muttered Rodney.
“None taken,” Tyr replied.
“Hey, was that a compliment?” asked McKay.
“In a sort of left-handed manner, yes,” Sheppard replied. “If that’s settled, Let’s be on our way.”
*******
Tyr had anticipated that going through the Gate would much akin to the experience of traveling through slipstream; and while there were definite similarities; the actual experience was nothing like anything he had ever experienced.
Tyr could not have explained in so many words what it felt like than it seemed as if the ship with its passengers were entering a circular vortex that appeared barely large enough to hold them one moment and then massively vast enough to swallow them up in one bite.
Emerging on the other side Tyr allowed his carefully controlled and stoic expression to slip just a little in one massive exhale.
“Are you all right?” Teyla asked.
“I am fine,” replied Tyr.
“What’s with the protruding bones in your forearms?” Rodney asked.
“It’s a trait common to my people,” Tyr replied evenly as he pinned the shorter man with his best level gaze. “I would advise you to leave it at that.”
Rodney shook his head and mopped his sweating forehead with his free hand and then spread his hands held out in front of him in the universal gesture that meant ‘no harm, no foul, and then added: “Geez, I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just curious.”
Tyr shrugged. “Of course.”
McKay shook his head. “I never thought it would possible but I think we’ve at least found someone even more closely guarded than Ronon when we first discovered him on that planetoid being hunted by the Wraith.”
“What are Wraith? Tyr shouted over his shoulder as he continued to walk with the others along the overgrown trail in the thickly wooded forest.
“There’s no way you could have heard that?” Rodney remarked as he nearly stumbled over a patch of uneven ground.
“I have very good hearing,” said Tyr.
“They are the scum of the Pegasus Galaxy. Opportunistic, numerous, and go around attacking planets and their inhabitants for both conquest and for ‘well,” Sheppard shrugged. “Food.”
“Then they are cannibals.” Tyr said. There was so much about that needed to know and patience and probing would only get him so far, sooner or later it might well be that circumstances would force him to try other methods. In the meantime, he would work with what he had at hand.
“Not exactly,” Teyla replied hard put to suppress a tiny shiver that rocked her delicate frame, however the determined look in her dark eyes told a far different story.
Tyr came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the trail which meant that Rodney caught off guard collided into him forcing an ‘oomph’ out of him. “If Elizabeth wants him to come along on our missions, and for what, I don’t know, but he’s got to know about the Wraith sooner or later. So, it might as well be now, am I right? And I know I’m right. So here goes. They attack and hunt people for their plasma or bone marrow or whatever because they use it as means of gaining sustenance to prolong their own existence.”
“You know, something Rodney said just made an impression on me,” Sheppard remarked as set the pace of the march.
“In a good way or a bad way,” Rodney asked.
“Difficult to say at this time, but we’ll know for sure when we put it to the test.”
“Damn it, Sheppard. Don’t keep me in suspense. Out with it already!” McKay demanded.
“All right, all right. Geez, Rodney, you might to consider taking a chill pill.” Sheppard shook his head and then halting in mid-stride he turned around to take a look at each member of his team. Teyla appeared calm and attentive, Rodney apprehensive but eager; which for him was quite normal; Ronon composed and stoic.
The newest addition, Tyr Anazasi on the other hand was more difficult to read. Sheppard’s apprising gaze went from the man’s darkly closed countenance to the heavily muscled arms that he had folded across his barrel chest. And more importantly to the bone spurs that jutted out from just above where his hands connected to his wrists.
“Look, I don’t mean to pry, and I guess you might be a bit touchy about those,” Sheppard waved a hand in the general direction of Tyr’s bone spurs.
“Sheppard,” said Teyla quietly, “What are you driving at?”
“Look, I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but right now you’re here on my team on a probationary basis. That means you do what I say, when I say it, and how I say to do it.”
“Seems clear enough,” Tyr replied.
“Ah, Sheppard,” interrupted McKay, “look maybe if you’re wondering about his ah, bone spurs this might not be the best time to inquire about them. We should Carson look into them.”
“It’s just that when you brought it up just now, it struck me that you’re either gonna make a wonderful fighter or a wonderful target.”
“Either way the Wraith might be drawn to us the way the proverbial moth is drawn to the flame,” answered Tyr after a moment’s consideration. “The other matter that goes without saying, Colonel, is that you do not trust me. Nor should you until both sides have merited that trust. It’s a two-edged sword.”
“Seems clear as ditch-water to me, too,” Sheppard replied after a moment’s time to weight the pros and cons and then stuck on his hand waiting for the big man to reciprocate the gesture.
For his part Tyr was reluctant to do so but after a moment to consider whether he should cut his losses and strike out his own on a planet in an universe he knew very little about instead his own interests might be better served by staying with Sheppard and his allies. He unfolded his arms and took the hand of the other man in his own and they shook on it.
Scene 3 Encounter
They had only gone approximately two hundred years from the site of the Gate on this side and thus far had run into no signs of life.
The landscape spread out before them in a rumpled quilt of grassy terrain and slowly rising hills. The sky overhead was a leaden grey blue in color occasionally broken by a few scudding clouds.
“We’ve been at this for hours,” Rodney complained.. “How certain can we be that intel we got from the Genini snitch was accurate?”
“We must investigate every lead, Rodney,” sighed Teyla, even if turns out to be a false one. After all the Wraith must be defeated once and for all.”
“It’s getting dark. Maybe we should stop and make camp,” Sheppard replied.
From the direction from which they had come a silvery elongated shadow streaked overhead leaving a trail of smoke, flame and an energy con-trail in its wake.
“What was that?” asked Tyr.
“A Wraith Dart Ship,” Sheppard replied as he pivoted around on one boot-heel and levered his energy rifle into position.
“You don’t really expect to hit a moving target in the air from an open position on the ground, do you?” Tyr asked with the air of someone discussing a battle simulation.
“I am really, really tired of the Wraith’s seemingly unpredictable ability to locate us no matter where and when we go. It’s not just uncanny, it’s down right aggravating,” Rodney griped.
The ship made several more passes over head seemingly either oblivious of their presence or looking for something else entirely. Until it assumed a hovering position a then a brilliant, blindingly white light shot down from its underbelly and when they could see once more Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard was gone.
****
The interior of the Wraith ship was akin to being enclosed in dark underground cavern.
The dim lighting, dark, somber metallic color that seemed to sheen with a corpse-pale light of its that was not reflected from any apparent light source matched the corpse-pale skin of its crew.
The spaces, angles and intersecting corridors appeared to have been designed to utterly confuse anyone who mistakenly stumbled in here and slowly, painfully drive them mad.
Tyr, in his years as both a career solider and mercenary, as if they were a difference between the two; had seem a lot of alien space craft in his time: from the sleek lines deadly lines of his the Nietzchenan’ battle cruisers to the elegant silvery, angled lines of the Andromeda Ascendant and the half-hazard, massive and randomly assembled connecting behemoths that had been the Magog World-Ship; however he never seen anything quite like the Wraith mother-ship.
“Are you certain Sheppard’s com-signal is coming from this direction, Teyla?” he asked.
“As certain as I can be of anything at this point.”
“We need to find him quickly. The commander of this vessel has a long standing grudge against Sheppard,” said Ronon as he dodged several bolts of criss-crossing laser fire that had barely missed him and would have connected had he not moved out of the way in time. Another barrage forced Ronon and the boarding party to slam up bodily against the cold metallic walls.
“This plan will never suceed! For all we knew they might have taken his com-badge when he was captured! We might very well be walking right into a trap!” Tyr shouted to be heard over the whine of laser weapons discharging and the harsh breathing of his companions.
Ronon glanced over at him. “Do you think we haven’t already thought of that!”
Teyla sighed and flashed a small, tired but equally determined smile. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. Anazasi, and trap or not we have no choice but to try and rescue Colonel Sheppard. He would do no less for any one of us.”
“And besides,” Ronon shrugged. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned by now: We do not leave any of our own behind.”
McKay looking as uncomfortable and annoyed angled his neck upward at an angle, thinking as he did so that he was uncertain in his own mind if he was angrier at the situation, at Sheppard for getting captured in the first place, or at this big lug who due to his sheer size seemed to be taking up all the available space and oxygen in the narrow alcove that was barely the size of a supply closet. “Could you be more positive,” Rodney finally exclaimed.
Tyr shook his head and restrained his own harsh rejoinder. “You just may be correct in that assertion, Dr. McKay. After all, where there is life, there is hope.”
At that moment a piercing shrill whistle cut through the air. Although it would be very n difficult for anyone who did not possess the refined hearing of a Nietzchean could not have distinguished between that sound and that of laser fire, but it sounded much like a recall signal. Tyr put a hand one Rodney’s signal and said. “Don’t fire. We seem to have been given a momentary reprieve. I suggest we make the most of it.”
McKay appeared startled as much as by the big man’s hand on his shoulder as by what had happened. “Yeah. I mean, good idea.”
“You know something,” Rodney added as they pulled away from the alcove and back into the main corridors of the ship, on the alert for any further sign of renewed hostilities, “I might have had you figured all wrong., Mr. Anazasi. Don’t do anything to make my change my opinion again.”
“Agreed and call me Tyr.”
“Call me Rodney,”
“It’s wonderful that we’re getting along, but we need to keep moving,” Ronon remarked over his shoulder, come on, get the lead out. Teyla says we’re getting closer to finding Sheppard.”
**
Finding Sheppard was one thing getting him out appeared to be considerably more difficult. The Wraith had locked him up in a cell that looked like nothing more than a cell that had been completely overgrown with a massive spider web.
Seeing that, and having seen the slack, cruel, and pale faces of the Wraith, even Tyr’s studied and intense aplomb slipped just a little. On the heels of that thought, Tyr was suddenly reminded of Sheppard’s remarks on how the Wraith’s relied on and even required the bone marrow or whatever of other living beings to sustain their entire rice. The idea of that suddenly hit him and he suddenly felt a visceral chill in his bone marrow.
Tyr realized that if any of them were going to make it out of here alive and more importantly in one piece it was too late to back out now. Tyr was many things, but a coward was not one of them. He darted one quick glance back at Rodney and the others. “Cover me, I will attempt to cut him out of there.”
So saying Tyr propped his borrowed laser weapon up against the wall flush with the bars of the cell that held Sheppard captive and using the cutting edge of his bone spurs began to sever one link of the strange organic and sticky-looking webbing one strand after another.
As he worked Tyr could not risk a look back at his Sheppard’s team but he could catch bits and pieces of a muffled conversation between Teyla and apparently the commander of the ship. He hoped they could continued to stall for time because he as fast as the strands of webbing fell away the more it seemed to cling to the soles of his boots and the fabric of his pants’ legs.
With a suddenness that startled him more than a should Sheppard’s body feel into his arms.
He was conscious, barely. Tyr recovered his composure sufficiently to drag the man out of the cell and a few paces away to a clear patch of flooring. Sheppard continued to stir and muttered incompressible under his breath.
Sheppard was groggy, and angry and his mutterings may not have made much sense to anyone else, but they could be surmised to one very simple thing. He wanted to shoot, hit and or blow up something, and if that something just so happened to be the Wraith commander, all the better.
Figuring that Sheppard would not be of much use should they need to fight their way out, Tyr shrugged and heaved the smaller man over his shoulder. That done he stood up and turned around to discover what else would happen now.
Continued in chapter 4: To the Moon and Back #45 moon
Fandoms: Andromeda/Stargate Atlantis
Author: karrenia_rune
Rating: PG-13
Words:3,046
Prompt: #12 orange
41/100
Disclaimer" Stargate Atlantis belongs to MGM, Glasner/Wright Productions as do all of the characters who appear here or are mentioned; they are not mine. Andromeda belongs to Tribune Entertainment and Fireworks Productions; again it is not mine. Note: the story picks up shortly after where “Far Away Suns “ left off.
“What Color is Your Parachute?” by Karen
Dr. Elizabeth Weir had been reluctant to grant access to the small craft they called puddle jumpers. In a city surrounded entirely by water on all sides Tyr could not at first understand why they would designate them as such.
For the small craft no matter how well-designed and engineered did not appear capable of conveying anyone any distance with collapsing underneath the strain of thousands of kilos of water.
He was still puzzling over this seeming inconsistency all the while until Sheppard's
small team with him in tow arrived at what they called puddle jumper bay.
"Whatever happened to my slip fighter?” asked Tyr.
"Do you really what to know?" was Rodney McKay's rather waspish response.
Tyr shrugged. “Not really, but I must admit to being a little curious.”
Ronon Dex glanced over the head of the much shorter man and winked. "He is just irritated that it exploded into into thousands of tiny fragments that even the most sensitive of his molecular scanners could not read. All of which means.."
"That we're wasting time."
Ronon smiled, unperturbed and continued on with the remainder of of his rejoinder. "All of which means that McKay does not wish to be reminded of the time he had an arrow lodged in his backside."
Tyr attempted to restrain himself but despite everything he burst out laughing. With one last chuckle he turned from the furiously blushing and fuming Rodney McKay to attend to Lt. Colonel John Sheppard.
"Colonel," he began. "I have been wondering, why is it that you call these," Tyr waved a hand at the array of craft stacked up one upon another in banks stretching along either side of the long narrow room.
"I can't properly answer that question, Mr. Anazasi, but since Dr. Weir decided to grant you limited to information. We can't very well leave you ignorance can we?"
"I would be most perturbed if you did."
"Well, the Ancients, the race responsible for the construction of the city and everything in it, and we've been here almost two years and still haven't figured out how everything works. However, we can reach other worlds and systems through a device known as the t Star Gate."
"I have seen the diagrams and I grateful to Dr. Weir for allowing to examine them. I suspect the reality is much more complicated and much more, moving."
“Got it it one." Sheppard grinned.
“Are going on this mission or aren’t we?” McKay sighed dramatically. “I don’t know why we have to drag this big lug around with us, anyway. I hate babysitting assignments.”
“McKay,” Teyla quietly whispered.
“She’s right you know, Rodney.” Sheppard grinned and shrugged. “He easily could pick you up and break you in half.” Turning to face Tyr once more. “Not that you actually would. The brass frowns on that sort of thing, you know?”
Tyr shrugged again. “Of course. In fact, he reminds of another annoying but extremely brilliant young man of my previous acquaintance. And let me tell you, there were times that I wished nothing more than to pick up him and break him in half.”
“And did you,” asked Ronon curious in spite of himself.
“No.” Tyr smiled.
“No offense,” muttered Rodney.
“None taken,” Tyr replied.
“Hey, was that a compliment?” asked McKay.
“In a sort of left-handed manner, yes,” Sheppard replied. “If that’s settled, Let’s be on our way.”
*******
Tyr had anticipated that going through the Gate would much akin to the experience of traveling through slipstream; and while there were definite similarities; the actual experience was nothing like anything he had ever experienced.
Tyr could not have explained in so many words what it felt like than it seemed as if the ship with its passengers were entering a circular vortex that appeared barely large enough to hold them one moment and then massively vast enough to swallow them up in one bite.
Emerging on the other side Tyr allowed his carefully controlled and stoic expression to slip just a little in one massive exhale.
“Are you all right?” Teyla asked.
“I am fine,” replied Tyr.
“What’s with the protruding bones in your forearms?” Rodney asked.
“It’s a trait common to my people,” Tyr replied evenly as he pinned the shorter man with his best level gaze. “I would advise you to leave it at that.”
Rodney shook his head and mopped his sweating forehead with his free hand and then spread his hands held out in front of him in the universal gesture that meant ‘no harm, no foul, and then added: “Geez, I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just curious.”
Tyr shrugged. “Of course.”
McKay shook his head. “I never thought it would possible but I think we’ve at least found someone even more closely guarded than Ronon when we first discovered him on that planetoid being hunted by the Wraith.”
“What are Wraith? Tyr shouted over his shoulder as he continued to walk with the others along the overgrown trail in the thickly wooded forest.
“There’s no way you could have heard that?” Rodney remarked as he nearly stumbled over a patch of uneven ground.
“I have very good hearing,” said Tyr.
“They are the scum of the Pegasus Galaxy. Opportunistic, numerous, and go around attacking planets and their inhabitants for both conquest and for ‘well,” Sheppard shrugged. “Food.”
“Then they are cannibals.” Tyr said. There was so much about that needed to know and patience and probing would only get him so far, sooner or later it might well be that circumstances would force him to try other methods. In the meantime, he would work with what he had at hand.
“Not exactly,” Teyla replied hard put to suppress a tiny shiver that rocked her delicate frame, however the determined look in her dark eyes told a far different story.
Tyr came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the trail which meant that Rodney caught off guard collided into him forcing an ‘oomph’ out of him. “If Elizabeth wants him to come along on our missions, and for what, I don’t know, but he’s got to know about the Wraith sooner or later. So, it might as well be now, am I right? And I know I’m right. So here goes. They attack and hunt people for their plasma or bone marrow or whatever because they use it as means of gaining sustenance to prolong their own existence.”
“You know, something Rodney said just made an impression on me,” Sheppard remarked as set the pace of the march.
“In a good way or a bad way,” Rodney asked.
“Difficult to say at this time, but we’ll know for sure when we put it to the test.”
“Damn it, Sheppard. Don’t keep me in suspense. Out with it already!” McKay demanded.
“All right, all right. Geez, Rodney, you might to consider taking a chill pill.” Sheppard shook his head and then halting in mid-stride he turned around to take a look at each member of his team. Teyla appeared calm and attentive, Rodney apprehensive but eager; which for him was quite normal; Ronon composed and stoic.
The newest addition, Tyr Anazasi on the other hand was more difficult to read. Sheppard’s apprising gaze went from the man’s darkly closed countenance to the heavily muscled arms that he had folded across his barrel chest. And more importantly to the bone spurs that jutted out from just above where his hands connected to his wrists.
“Look, I don’t mean to pry, and I guess you might be a bit touchy about those,” Sheppard waved a hand in the general direction of Tyr’s bone spurs.
“Sheppard,” said Teyla quietly, “What are you driving at?”
“Look, I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but right now you’re here on my team on a probationary basis. That means you do what I say, when I say it, and how I say to do it.”
“Seems clear enough,” Tyr replied.
“Ah, Sheppard,” interrupted McKay, “look maybe if you’re wondering about his ah, bone spurs this might not be the best time to inquire about them. We should Carson look into them.”
“It’s just that when you brought it up just now, it struck me that you’re either gonna make a wonderful fighter or a wonderful target.”
“Either way the Wraith might be drawn to us the way the proverbial moth is drawn to the flame,” answered Tyr after a moment’s consideration. “The other matter that goes without saying, Colonel, is that you do not trust me. Nor should you until both sides have merited that trust. It’s a two-edged sword.”
“Seems clear as ditch-water to me, too,” Sheppard replied after a moment’s time to weight the pros and cons and then stuck on his hand waiting for the big man to reciprocate the gesture.
For his part Tyr was reluctant to do so but after a moment to consider whether he should cut his losses and strike out his own on a planet in an universe he knew very little about instead his own interests might be better served by staying with Sheppard and his allies. He unfolded his arms and took the hand of the other man in his own and they shook on it.
Scene 3 Encounter
They had only gone approximately two hundred years from the site of the Gate on this side and thus far had run into no signs of life.
The landscape spread out before them in a rumpled quilt of grassy terrain and slowly rising hills. The sky overhead was a leaden grey blue in color occasionally broken by a few scudding clouds.
“We’ve been at this for hours,” Rodney complained.. “How certain can we be that intel we got from the Genini snitch was accurate?”
“We must investigate every lead, Rodney,” sighed Teyla, even if turns out to be a false one. After all the Wraith must be defeated once and for all.”
“It’s getting dark. Maybe we should stop and make camp,” Sheppard replied.
From the direction from which they had come a silvery elongated shadow streaked overhead leaving a trail of smoke, flame and an energy con-trail in its wake.
“What was that?” asked Tyr.
“A Wraith Dart Ship,” Sheppard replied as he pivoted around on one boot-heel and levered his energy rifle into position.
“You don’t really expect to hit a moving target in the air from an open position on the ground, do you?” Tyr asked with the air of someone discussing a battle simulation.
“I am really, really tired of the Wraith’s seemingly unpredictable ability to locate us no matter where and when we go. It’s not just uncanny, it’s down right aggravating,” Rodney griped.
The ship made several more passes over head seemingly either oblivious of their presence or looking for something else entirely. Until it assumed a hovering position a then a brilliant, blindingly white light shot down from its underbelly and when they could see once more Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard was gone.
****
The interior of the Wraith ship was akin to being enclosed in dark underground cavern.
The dim lighting, dark, somber metallic color that seemed to sheen with a corpse-pale light of its that was not reflected from any apparent light source matched the corpse-pale skin of its crew.
The spaces, angles and intersecting corridors appeared to have been designed to utterly confuse anyone who mistakenly stumbled in here and slowly, painfully drive them mad.
Tyr, in his years as both a career solider and mercenary, as if they were a difference between the two; had seem a lot of alien space craft in his time: from the sleek lines deadly lines of his the Nietzchenan’ battle cruisers to the elegant silvery, angled lines of the Andromeda Ascendant and the half-hazard, massive and randomly assembled connecting behemoths that had been the Magog World-Ship; however he never seen anything quite like the Wraith mother-ship.
“Are you certain Sheppard’s com-signal is coming from this direction, Teyla?” he asked.
“As certain as I can be of anything at this point.”
“We need to find him quickly. The commander of this vessel has a long standing grudge against Sheppard,” said Ronon as he dodged several bolts of criss-crossing laser fire that had barely missed him and would have connected had he not moved out of the way in time. Another barrage forced Ronon and the boarding party to slam up bodily against the cold metallic walls.
“This plan will never suceed! For all we knew they might have taken his com-badge when he was captured! We might very well be walking right into a trap!” Tyr shouted to be heard over the whine of laser weapons discharging and the harsh breathing of his companions.
Ronon glanced over at him. “Do you think we haven’t already thought of that!”
Teyla sighed and flashed a small, tired but equally determined smile. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. Anazasi, and trap or not we have no choice but to try and rescue Colonel Sheppard. He would do no less for any one of us.”
“And besides,” Ronon shrugged. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned by now: We do not leave any of our own behind.”
McKay looking as uncomfortable and annoyed angled his neck upward at an angle, thinking as he did so that he was uncertain in his own mind if he was angrier at the situation, at Sheppard for getting captured in the first place, or at this big lug who due to his sheer size seemed to be taking up all the available space and oxygen in the narrow alcove that was barely the size of a supply closet. “Could you be more positive,” Rodney finally exclaimed.
Tyr shook his head and restrained his own harsh rejoinder. “You just may be correct in that assertion, Dr. McKay. After all, where there is life, there is hope.”
At that moment a piercing shrill whistle cut through the air. Although it would be very n difficult for anyone who did not possess the refined hearing of a Nietzchean could not have distinguished between that sound and that of laser fire, but it sounded much like a recall signal. Tyr put a hand one Rodney’s signal and said. “Don’t fire. We seem to have been given a momentary reprieve. I suggest we make the most of it.”
McKay appeared startled as much as by the big man’s hand on his shoulder as by what had happened. “Yeah. I mean, good idea.”
“You know something,” Rodney added as they pulled away from the alcove and back into the main corridors of the ship, on the alert for any further sign of renewed hostilities, “I might have had you figured all wrong., Mr. Anazasi. Don’t do anything to make my change my opinion again.”
“Agreed and call me Tyr.”
“Call me Rodney,”
“It’s wonderful that we’re getting along, but we need to keep moving,” Ronon remarked over his shoulder, come on, get the lead out. Teyla says we’re getting closer to finding Sheppard.”
**
Finding Sheppard was one thing getting him out appeared to be considerably more difficult. The Wraith had locked him up in a cell that looked like nothing more than a cell that had been completely overgrown with a massive spider web.
Seeing that, and having seen the slack, cruel, and pale faces of the Wraith, even Tyr’s studied and intense aplomb slipped just a little. On the heels of that thought, Tyr was suddenly reminded of Sheppard’s remarks on how the Wraith’s relied on and even required the bone marrow or whatever of other living beings to sustain their entire rice. The idea of that suddenly hit him and he suddenly felt a visceral chill in his bone marrow.
Tyr realized that if any of them were going to make it out of here alive and more importantly in one piece it was too late to back out now. Tyr was many things, but a coward was not one of them. He darted one quick glance back at Rodney and the others. “Cover me, I will attempt to cut him out of there.”
So saying Tyr propped his borrowed laser weapon up against the wall flush with the bars of the cell that held Sheppard captive and using the cutting edge of his bone spurs began to sever one link of the strange organic and sticky-looking webbing one strand after another.
As he worked Tyr could not risk a look back at his Sheppard’s team but he could catch bits and pieces of a muffled conversation between Teyla and apparently the commander of the ship. He hoped they could continued to stall for time because he as fast as the strands of webbing fell away the more it seemed to cling to the soles of his boots and the fabric of his pants’ legs.
With a suddenness that startled him more than a should Sheppard’s body feel into his arms.
He was conscious, barely. Tyr recovered his composure sufficiently to drag the man out of the cell and a few paces away to a clear patch of flooring. Sheppard continued to stir and muttered incompressible under his breath.
Sheppard was groggy, and angry and his mutterings may not have made much sense to anyone else, but they could be surmised to one very simple thing. He wanted to shoot, hit and or blow up something, and if that something just so happened to be the Wraith commander, all the better.
Figuring that Sheppard would not be of much use should they need to fight their way out, Tyr shrugged and heaved the smaller man over his shoulder. That done he stood up and turned around to discover what else would happen now.
Continued in chapter 4: To the Moon and Back #45 moon