Delusions, Elizabeth Weir, PG13
Title: Delusions
Author: Tanaqui (tanaquilotr/tanaquisga)
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Rating: PG13
Warnings: non-graphic torture, spoilers up to 4x11 (Be All My Sins Remember'd)
Prompt: #139 Never give up; and never, under any circumstances, no matter what -- never face the facts. -- Ruth Gordon.
Summary: Left behind on the Replicator homeworld, being as good as dead wasn't the issue for Elizabeth Weir. The issue was: how much more damage would she do?
Thank you to my betas: sgafan, scribblesinink and elena_tiriel.
“Go!”
Her last order. And, like so many other times she'd given him an order, John had hesitated, wanting to follow his own instincts. And then obeyed.
Pacing the cell, waiting for the Replicators to return and do whatever they were going to do next, Elizabeth hoped he'd remember the very first time they'd butted heads. What she'd said back then held just as true today: she didn't want more good people sent to their deaths. After all, without Rodney reactivating the nanites, she'd already be dead. So being as good as dead wasn't the issue.
The issue was: how much more damage would she do?
Measuring another circuit around the cell, she tried to work out why they hadn't already just reprogrammed her nanites to make her into one of them. Maybe Rodney had messed up the code too much to roll back the changes, and they were worried they'd wipe out her memories completely if they overwrote the code with a clean copy. Or they thought the nanites would start working on her again, sending her back into that other reality. Either way, they'd lose whatever intelligence they could force out of her about Atlantis.
The whine of the forcefield shutting down alerted her that she had company again, and she turned to face her captors. Once more, Oberoth remained outside, lurking in the shadows, and she counted it a victory that, still fearing to match his strength with hers, he sent others to test themselves against her.
The first time, her interrogator had sought news of where Atlantis had landed, trying to resurrect her memories of tactical discussions before they'd jumped to hyperspace. She'd been able to hold him off for a while: making him watch a chess match between Rodney and Radek - the limited number of possible moves by the pieces seemed to amuse him - and recalling the time John tried to teach her to drive a golf ball. She sensed her captors were even more mystified than she had been at the time as to why anyone would want to hit a plastic globe into the water. After that, she'd tried to move on to showing Teyla and Ronon sparring, but she was growing tired. Soon they'd been able to break through her attempts at a smokescreen and dredge up the debate about M12-578.
At least she'd bought her people some time - and she trusted John had the sense to pick another planet to land on, so there'd be nothing for the Replicators to find.
Waiting for her inquisitors to come back. she thought about trying to send them round every planet ever considered as an Alpha site. If they were busy chasing the City across the galaxy, they might continue to treat her team's incursion into the core as lightly as they seemed to be doing: she could still "see" the City around her, and she knew they'd searched for signs of sabotage, but either they hadn't found whatever Rodney had done to the code - he'd said it was deeply buried - or they hadn't understood its significance.
But maybe keeping them away from investigating the core further by sending them out on one wild goose chase after another wouldn't be such a good idea either. There were only so many habitable planets. Atlantis might have been forced down someplace she knew the address to, and the Replicators might luck out.
What she needed was to tie them up some other way.
Two of the Replicators who now entered the cell - the two who pushed her down onto her knees and held her in place - were the same as last time, but they'd sent someone new to carry out the mind probe. Did they have whole squads of trained interrogators? What had happened to the one who'd tried to rifle through her thoughts last time? Reprogrammed? Demoted to mopping floors and emptying trash cans? Imagining a Replicator reduced to such ignominy raised a chuckle inside that helped steel her against the coming ordeal.
The Replicator's fingertips touched her forehead, cold against her skin, a moment before she felt the now-familiar force in her mind. Closing her eyes, she pushed back, concentrating instead on the pain in her knees pressed against the hard floor of the cell, the harsh grip of the Replicators who held her down, the-.
And, just as abruptly, the pressure on her mind and the grip on her shoulders was gone. A shower of something tinkled around her. Opening her eyes, she saw falling Replicator dust and, beyond that, John lowering an ARG.
"Come on!" He held out his hand to pull her to her feet, and his touch was warm against her skin.
"How did you...? "She allowed him to tow her along the corridor.
"McKay fixed up the Apollo's shields with a jumper cloak." He halted a moment to check the next corridor was empty, before looking back at her and flashing her a grin. "Dropped us just outside the solar system and we snuck in...."
Just as suddenly the pain was back, and her knees were aching, and instead of John's supporting hand under her elbow, cold fingers gripped her shoulders. She opened her eyes and looked up at the angry expression on her interrogator's face.
Oberoth stepped forward so she could see him through the bars of the cage. "Your Colonel Sheppard did not rescue you, and you will not trick us into believing he did."
"But he might." Elizabeth made her tone as triumphant as she could. She closed her eyes, and John was back in front of her.
"Nah. Wasn't the shields. Rodney souped up the weapons array so the Apollo could blast the city with an anti-Replicator pulse. Then we beamed down here...."
They turned another corner and nearly crashed into Rodney punching at the touch screen of a datapad. "That wasn't it at all." Rodney glared at John. "Mr Oh-So-Subtle here insisted we gate in and blow up ops. Aha!" He triumphantly turned the computer around so she could see a wireframe graphic of the city with something rippling down across it. "And then I sent Ronon and Teyla to modify the city shields."
Rodney morphed into Radek, and the graphic on the touchpad flickered and changed. "Ne, was not so. We-."
"Enough!" Oberoth's voice snapped Elizabeth back to the holding cell and the world of pain in her head. Dimly, she was aware of him giving orders, of Replicators fanning out across the city, busy with the defenses. Now she concentrated on the pain to hide her jubilation.
The Replicator with his hand buried in her forehead tried to push her towards memories of other discussions about where they might go if they needed to abandon Lantea. She fought with him, showing him glorious sunsets from the Deck outside ops, Atlantis's lights glittering against the dark ocean at night, the moon rising outside the window to her quarters. Recalling Atlantis's beauty helped fuel her resolve, even as she knew deep down it was only a matter of time before she cracked.
Unexpectedly, the pain lifted again, this time for real. Her interrogator had stepped back and was looking at Oberoth. Some kind of communication was going on, not just between those two but with the whole Replicator colony, so rapid and dense that her frazzled brain couldn't make sense of it.
Just as abruptly, the Replicators either side of her released their grip and followed her interrogator out of the cell and out of the room without a backward glance. Oberoth took a moment to raise the forcefield again, before he too swept outside, leaving her alone.
***
Elizabeth lay curled in a corner of the cell, past caring how hard the floor was. For two days, when she'd still had the strength to reach out with her mind, she'd watched the flurry of activity throughout the Replicator city as they'd prepared ships, run battle simulations of their fleet against flotillas of Wraith Hive ships and cruisers and darts, and selected targets. Even after their armada made the jump into hyperspace, those remaining behind in the city were still busy with building more ships, finding more targets, finding other ways to defeat the Wraith.
Rodney's plan had worked.
Although her parched mouth and aching stomach would have welcomed a little water and food, she rejoiced that she seemed to have been forgotten about entirely. That meant Atlantis was safe from the Replicators - for now, at least. Safe from the Wraith, too, if they were occupied with responding to the new Replicator threat.
She wondered what Atlantis's new home was like, and whether it was as beautiful as the planet they'd left - but she could feel no regret she'd never see it. Atlantis was safe. She repeated the words over and over like a mantra, slipping in and out of consciousness as she waited contentedly for death to claim her.
She scarcely noticed the silence as the hum of the forcefield cut out, and gentle hands turned her over.
"Humans need water...," a voice murmured. Liquid splashed onto her lips, and her tongue automatically sought it out.
"Will she live? Can she teach us?" the voices whispered as she was lifted and carried away.
Author: Tanaqui (tanaquilotr/tanaquisga)
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Rating: PG13
Warnings: non-graphic torture, spoilers up to 4x11 (Be All My Sins Remember'd)
Prompt: #139 Never give up; and never, under any circumstances, no matter what -- never face the facts. -- Ruth Gordon.
Summary: Left behind on the Replicator homeworld, being as good as dead wasn't the issue for Elizabeth Weir. The issue was: how much more damage would she do?
Thank you to my betas: sgafan, scribblesinink and elena_tiriel.
“Go!”
Her last order. And, like so many other times she'd given him an order, John had hesitated, wanting to follow his own instincts. And then obeyed.
Pacing the cell, waiting for the Replicators to return and do whatever they were going to do next, Elizabeth hoped he'd remember the very first time they'd butted heads. What she'd said back then held just as true today: she didn't want more good people sent to their deaths. After all, without Rodney reactivating the nanites, she'd already be dead. So being as good as dead wasn't the issue.
The issue was: how much more damage would she do?
Measuring another circuit around the cell, she tried to work out why they hadn't already just reprogrammed her nanites to make her into one of them. Maybe Rodney had messed up the code too much to roll back the changes, and they were worried they'd wipe out her memories completely if they overwrote the code with a clean copy. Or they thought the nanites would start working on her again, sending her back into that other reality. Either way, they'd lose whatever intelligence they could force out of her about Atlantis.
The whine of the forcefield shutting down alerted her that she had company again, and she turned to face her captors. Once more, Oberoth remained outside, lurking in the shadows, and she counted it a victory that, still fearing to match his strength with hers, he sent others to test themselves against her.
The first time, her interrogator had sought news of where Atlantis had landed, trying to resurrect her memories of tactical discussions before they'd jumped to hyperspace. She'd been able to hold him off for a while: making him watch a chess match between Rodney and Radek - the limited number of possible moves by the pieces seemed to amuse him - and recalling the time John tried to teach her to drive a golf ball. She sensed her captors were even more mystified than she had been at the time as to why anyone would want to hit a plastic globe into the water. After that, she'd tried to move on to showing Teyla and Ronon sparring, but she was growing tired. Soon they'd been able to break through her attempts at a smokescreen and dredge up the debate about M12-578.
At least she'd bought her people some time - and she trusted John had the sense to pick another planet to land on, so there'd be nothing for the Replicators to find.
Waiting for her inquisitors to come back. she thought about trying to send them round every planet ever considered as an Alpha site. If they were busy chasing the City across the galaxy, they might continue to treat her team's incursion into the core as lightly as they seemed to be doing: she could still "see" the City around her, and she knew they'd searched for signs of sabotage, but either they hadn't found whatever Rodney had done to the code - he'd said it was deeply buried - or they hadn't understood its significance.
But maybe keeping them away from investigating the core further by sending them out on one wild goose chase after another wouldn't be such a good idea either. There were only so many habitable planets. Atlantis might have been forced down someplace she knew the address to, and the Replicators might luck out.
What she needed was to tie them up some other way.
Two of the Replicators who now entered the cell - the two who pushed her down onto her knees and held her in place - were the same as last time, but they'd sent someone new to carry out the mind probe. Did they have whole squads of trained interrogators? What had happened to the one who'd tried to rifle through her thoughts last time? Reprogrammed? Demoted to mopping floors and emptying trash cans? Imagining a Replicator reduced to such ignominy raised a chuckle inside that helped steel her against the coming ordeal.
The Replicator's fingertips touched her forehead, cold against her skin, a moment before she felt the now-familiar force in her mind. Closing her eyes, she pushed back, concentrating instead on the pain in her knees pressed against the hard floor of the cell, the harsh grip of the Replicators who held her down, the-.
And, just as abruptly, the pressure on her mind and the grip on her shoulders was gone. A shower of something tinkled around her. Opening her eyes, she saw falling Replicator dust and, beyond that, John lowering an ARG.
"Come on!" He held out his hand to pull her to her feet, and his touch was warm against her skin.
"How did you...? "She allowed him to tow her along the corridor.
"McKay fixed up the Apollo's shields with a jumper cloak." He halted a moment to check the next corridor was empty, before looking back at her and flashing her a grin. "Dropped us just outside the solar system and we snuck in...."
Just as suddenly the pain was back, and her knees were aching, and instead of John's supporting hand under her elbow, cold fingers gripped her shoulders. She opened her eyes and looked up at the angry expression on her interrogator's face.
Oberoth stepped forward so she could see him through the bars of the cage. "Your Colonel Sheppard did not rescue you, and you will not trick us into believing he did."
"But he might." Elizabeth made her tone as triumphant as she could. She closed her eyes, and John was back in front of her.
"Nah. Wasn't the shields. Rodney souped up the weapons array so the Apollo could blast the city with an anti-Replicator pulse. Then we beamed down here...."
They turned another corner and nearly crashed into Rodney punching at the touch screen of a datapad. "That wasn't it at all." Rodney glared at John. "Mr Oh-So-Subtle here insisted we gate in and blow up ops. Aha!" He triumphantly turned the computer around so she could see a wireframe graphic of the city with something rippling down across it. "And then I sent Ronon and Teyla to modify the city shields."
Rodney morphed into Radek, and the graphic on the touchpad flickered and changed. "Ne, was not so. We-."
"Enough!" Oberoth's voice snapped Elizabeth back to the holding cell and the world of pain in her head. Dimly, she was aware of him giving orders, of Replicators fanning out across the city, busy with the defenses. Now she concentrated on the pain to hide her jubilation.
The Replicator with his hand buried in her forehead tried to push her towards memories of other discussions about where they might go if they needed to abandon Lantea. She fought with him, showing him glorious sunsets from the Deck outside ops, Atlantis's lights glittering against the dark ocean at night, the moon rising outside the window to her quarters. Recalling Atlantis's beauty helped fuel her resolve, even as she knew deep down it was only a matter of time before she cracked.
Unexpectedly, the pain lifted again, this time for real. Her interrogator had stepped back and was looking at Oberoth. Some kind of communication was going on, not just between those two but with the whole Replicator colony, so rapid and dense that her frazzled brain couldn't make sense of it.
Just as abruptly, the Replicators either side of her released their grip and followed her interrogator out of the cell and out of the room without a backward glance. Oberoth took a moment to raise the forcefield again, before he too swept outside, leaving her alone.
***
Elizabeth lay curled in a corner of the cell, past caring how hard the floor was. For two days, when she'd still had the strength to reach out with her mind, she'd watched the flurry of activity throughout the Replicator city as they'd prepared ships, run battle simulations of their fleet against flotillas of Wraith Hive ships and cruisers and darts, and selected targets. Even after their armada made the jump into hyperspace, those remaining behind in the city were still busy with building more ships, finding more targets, finding other ways to defeat the Wraith.
Rodney's plan had worked.
Although her parched mouth and aching stomach would have welcomed a little water and food, she rejoiced that she seemed to have been forgotten about entirely. That meant Atlantis was safe from the Replicators - for now, at least. Safe from the Wraith, too, if they were occupied with responding to the new Replicator threat.
She wondered what Atlantis's new home was like, and whether it was as beautiful as the planet they'd left - but she could feel no regret she'd never see it. Atlantis was safe. She repeated the words over and over like a mantra, slipping in and out of consciousness as she waited contentedly for death to claim her.
She scarcely noticed the silence as the hum of the forcefield cut out, and gentle hands turned her over.
"Humans need water...," a voice murmured. Liquid splashed onto her lips, and her tongue automatically sought it out.
"Will she live? Can she teach us?" the voices whispered as she was lifted and carried away.