Title - Cold Comfort (3/6)
“What can you see?”
“We’ve got a central pillar. Around that, panels with a serious lack of blinking lights.”
“They’re dead?”
“Looks that way.”
“Can you see what the power source is?”
“It’s not a ZPM. Doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before. There seems to be a liquid around a central metal rod.”
“Conductive electricity, maybe?”
“Who knows?”
“Can you get into it?”
“There‘s a few loose panels. Hang on.” He listened as Sheppard grunted and groaned. “Bunch of wires. Nothing looks frayed. No control crystals.”
“Have you tried-“
“This isn’t ancient tech. My genes not touching this stuff.”
“Great.”
“It doesn’t look like there’s much I can do up here. Maybe you can figure it out. I’ll see how far I can get with the C4 and make my way towards you.”
“Ronon’s onto his third door.”
“Rodney?”
“Oh no. What?”
“Checked this place out. We got a bunch of pod people up here. They look contained for now but I don’t know how much longer.”
“Pod people? You couldn’t just stumble across a perfectly innocuous room.”
“With our luck?”
“When you say pod people-“
“They’re not human. I can’t get a good look through the glass.”
“There’s probably a reason why they’re in the pod in the first place. I’m guessing they’re not going to be friendly.”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re…nice.”
“With our luck?”
“Point taken. I’ll monitor them-“
Somebody shouted in the distance and then there was the sound of a gunshot. Sheppard said something unintelligible over the noise, but then McKay heard him say, “Oh Crap!”
“Sheppard?!”
0000
He pushed Solan towards the exit and turned to fire a volley of bullets at the pod people. His first indication that one of them had opened was when the doctor fired off a shot and seconds after the rest expelled their occupants. Sheppard hadn’t got a visual until one of them had speared the doctor through the chest with dagger like talons. They definitely weren’t human. They were entirely grey. Their skin was stretched over their bones. And their eyes were just the whites.
The one that was chasing Sheppard made a clicking noise, not unlike a dolphin, as it skittered after him. Yeah, they skittered. Moving on all fours, they jerked their angular bodies forward, their talons clipping the floor as they went.
Solan reached the door and stumbled down the stairs. Sheppard continued to fire at the creatures, catching one in the chest, as he went. It stopped and turned back to where the doctor was lying prone on the floor. It started ripping him to shreds along with the others.
“Go!” Sheppard snapped, pushing Solan forward.
They followed the warren like corridors, but nothing appeared to be following them. Finally, Solan ground to a halt and sagged to the floor where he vomited and only just missed Sheppard’s boot.
“They were eating him!” he said. “They were pulling him apart like… like animals.”
Sheppard kept his eyes trained on the corridor behind him. They needed to put more distance between those creatures before they finished…whatever was left of the doctor. He grimaced.
Solan suddenly grabbed him by the arm and jerked his flashlight and his aim away.
“Don’t let them take me. Don’t let them do that to me. Please. Colonel!”
Sheppard freed his arm and kept the light steady. Without looking at him, Sheppard said, “You need to stay quiet. I’m not going to let them get you. Okay?”
“But there were so many!”
“Yeah,” Sheppard said.
“What were they?”
“I don’t know.”
“I have never seen anything like that before. The sound’s they make.” Solan retched.
For the first time since stopping Sheppard acknowledged the frantic radio calls from his team. “We’re okay,” he said, checking on Solan. “Kind of.”
Ronon spoke over both McKay and Teyla. “What are you dealing with?”
“I don’t even know how to describe them. Let’s just say they’re hostile. They-“ he moved away from Solan. “They ate the doctor.”
“Ate him?” McKay said. “Oh god! That’s horrible.”
“McKay, you’ve got a few doors between them and you.”
“Not for long,” Ronon said.
“How far away are you?”
Teyla said, “We have encountered several more blockades, but we are making steady progress.”
“Just be as quick as you can. I’ll try and hold them back.”
“They’re not after you?”
“I think they’re digesting.”
Solan vomited again. Sheppard could feel his gag reflex kicking in. Disturbingly, his wasn’t out of fear. It was just because he was feeling so crappy with the super flu.
“Just hurry up.”
0000
Sheppard had taken to walking backwards and relying on Solan to guide him back to the wards. He’d seen how fast those things could move, despite their awkward appearance, and he didn’t want to take the chance that they could scale walls and pass straight over them. Solan was inconsolable and his babbling was beginning to take its toll. Sheppard was having a hard enough time staying focused as it was. His nose wouldn’t stop running, sweat was stinging his eyes and he was fighting hard to suppress an irritating, tickly cough and the urge to throw up.
“Solan,” he whispered.
Solan’s fingers dug into his shoulder.
“I know that this is hard, but those kids don’t need to be scared any more than they already are. When you see them, you get it together.”
“How? They were eating him!”
“I know.”
“I don’t think I can do it.”
“You need to.”
“What about you? Why aren’t you scared?”
Sheppard sighed. It wasn’t going to help if he told him that there were worst things going on in the galaxy than this.
“Just try. Okay?”
Solan replied, but Sheppard had seen something flit through the light. The low level lighting that had lit the way before had all but gone as the power drained. Only now, knowing that something was hidden in front of him, did he realise just how dark it had become.
“Col-“
Sheppard backed up, pushing Solan to move forward in the process.
“Can you hear that?” Solan asked.
He could. He just couldn’t see where it was coming from.
“Oh god. They’re coming. It’s one of them.”
“Be quiet.”
“They’re coming. They’re going to eat us!”
It passed through the beam of his flashlight again, but he still couldn’t get a fix on it.
Sheppard depressed the trigger on his p-90 and fired down the corridor. There was a wailing sound, followed by the click of those talons. “Move!”
They sprinted to an intersection and turned right. Had Sheppard known the layout of the facility better he would have drawn them the other way, but there was no guarantee that they would all follow him in the first place and it wouldn’t help the others if he ended up getting lost.
He turned and fired again into the darkness, hoping it was warning enough for those things to stay back.
Solan clipped his shoulder on a half opened door and Sheppard pin wheeled to a stop.
“Solan!”
The young man turned back. “You said move!”
“This door hasn’t closed shut. Help me. We might be able to push it across and block the way.”
“Or they’ll catch us and kill us!”
“We need to buy us some time.”
Solan looked towards escape and then back to him.
“I need your help!”
He groaned and took up position next to Sheppard so that they could force the door. For a second, Sheppard thought it wasn’t going to work. Then finally it moved. They started to gain momentum just as Sheppard saw the pod people skittering towards them. And yeah, they could climb walls.
“Push!” Sheppard snapped, realising that Solan had taken a step back. “Dammit!”
One of the creature’s talons swiped through the door. Sheppard managed to avoid it, but Solan was too close and got slashed across the leg. He clamped his hands over the wound and cried out.
Sheppard gave the door one last push and he heard a metallic clang as the offending weapon snapped off to the floor.
They were hitting the door. There was a sound, like nails on a blackboard as they attempted to swipe at the barricade. Sheppard reached down for the talon. As soon as it touched his fingers, he dropped it and sucked in a breath. Blood was seeping out of deep cuts. They had razor blades for fingernails.
“Come on,” he said, reaching under Solan’s armpit. He dragged him into a standing position, but Solan collapsed again, shrieking in pain. Sheppard pushed his hand away from the wound. Blood spurted out and struck him on the cheek.
Gushing blood usually meant that an artery had been hit. Sheppard had seen men bleed out in a matter of minutes from similar wounds in the field and unless you acted fast they were as good as dead. Solan was already pale and his eyelids fluttered. Sheppard dug his fingers into the wound and tried to find the artery to tie it off, but the tacky floor already spoke of massive blood loss. Solan’s head lolled forward.
Sheppard looked towards the door. There were already fine scratch marks in the metal. As he watched, a long thin razor nail, slashed through like the tip of a circular saw. If anything, Solan’s death would slow the creatures down when they got through that door. He just hoped they were still hungry.
“Ronon? Where are you?”
“McKay thinks we’re nearly there. What’s wrong?”
“Someone else got killed,” he said, rubbing the blood off his face as he walked. “I’m down to three clips. Got my knife, handgun, bit of C4. I think it’s going to take a lot more than that to bring these things down. We got lucky. Managed to trap them behind a blast door, but they’re nearly through it already. I figure they’ll be on top of me in around twenty.”
“We’ll be there in fifteen.”
Sheppard signed off and picked up his pace. He turned a corner and suddenly dizzy, shouldered the wall. He pushed off and kept going. It wasn’t much further to the kid’s ward. He just had to keep going. He grabbed for support and emptied his stomach contents against the wall. When his stomach had stopped cramping he risked a glance behind him.
He could hear something.
Bringing up his flashlight, it caught the whites of one of the creature’s eyes. They couldn’t have got through that door yet. It must have slipped passed them earlier.
It screeched and backed up, blinded momentarily by the light. Sheppard took the shot and aimed between its eyes. It dropped onto the floor, but continued to writhe. He took another shot.
0000
Sheppard ran a hand through his hair, wiped his face with the hem of his t-shirt and plastered on a smile before pushing the doors open.
The kids reacted at once. They were all talking over one another and asking what was going on.
“Hey,” he said. “Everything’s fine.” When they all just stared at him, he tried again. “See, I’m okay.”
Sheppard steered Nia away from the ravel as they started talking between them.
“What’s going on?” she asked, looking over his shoulder. “Where’s the doctor? Solan?” Her eyes widened. “Your bleeding!”
He swiped at his face.
“Here,” she said, retrieving a strip of gauze and passing it to him. “What happened?”
“We found something upstairs.”
“They’re dead?” she said, suddenly understanding what he was saying.
“I need you to stay calm,” he said, reaching for hands and stilling them.
She raised her voice. “But they’re dead?”
Sheppard waved at the kids. “We’re just going to go outside for a minute. We’ll be right back.”
When they were outside, she sagged against the wall. Her eyes were welling up and she was breathing in short sharp pants.
“I haven’t come across them before. They’ve got out, but-“ He tried to get her attention. “But I’m going to keep them away from you. You just need to stay in there and make sure they don’t find out.”
“What?” she said, spittle flying from her lips. “You want me to be calm. We’re trapped here! What are they? What do they look like? Did Solan, the doctor, did they suffer?”
“They didn’t suffer,” he said. “And you don’t need to know what they look like. You won’t have to see them.”
She straightened suddenly. “I need to see Solan.”
“No.”
“He was my brother,” she screamed.
Sheppard pulled her away from the ward. He felt a stab of guilt. “I’m sorry. But you can’t see him.”
She wrenched her arm away and started walking. “I need to go.”
He gripped her hand and twisted her to face him. He knew he was being heavy handed and that he was scaring her, but he didn’t want her to see what remained of her brother. “You go down there and you’ll die. I can’t protect you.”
“But you said-“
“If you stay here with me then I can.”
“But… my brother. Maybe… maybe he’s not dead. You shouldn’t have left him!”
“Nia-“
She hammered against his chest and he took it. “He’s dead and it’s your fault. You should have gone alone. You should have died.”
She was right. He shouldn’t have taken either of them with him. His judgment had been off. But he couldn’t change that now.
“I will look after you.”
“How?”
“This is the only route in. My weapons work on them. I can take them out before they get close enough to reach us.” He pointed to the ward. “You need to stay in there.”
“And stay calm.”
“And stay perfectly calm. Can you do that?”
0000
“Where’s the Colonel?” one of the kids asked as soon as Nia entered the ward.
They were all staring at her. She couldn’t do this. How could she reassure them when she was so uncertain herself? This stranger from another world was telling her that he would protect them. What if he couldn’t? What if he had already gone and left them to die? He had no reason to be loyal to them; risk his life for theirs. He hadn’t protected the doctor or her brother. What made them any different? He hadn’t wanted to tell her about what attacked them. That made it worse.
Nev pulled on her skirt. “Where is he?”
“He’s just outside,” she said, attempting a smile.
“Why doesn’t he want to be in here?”
She turned away and wiped at her eyes. Tears were still threatening to spill down her cheeks. She forced composure. “He is a grown man. And you are children.”
“But what’s going on? What happened to the lights?”
“Where’s the doctor?”
“Solan was going to read me a story!”
“Has he left us here?”
“Enough!” she shouted. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she felt shame. They all stared back at her with matching hurt expressions. “I am sorry. I’m just tired.”
“What’s going on?” Yan cried.
The doors opened. “Everything okay in here?”
Colonel Sheppard met her eyes. He had honest, kind eyes. She believed that he would protect them. Or at least try. She nodded. “We’re fine.”
“I was thinking,” he said, glancing behind him and then entering the room. “that we could play a game.”
The children started to get excited. Nia had a difficult time regarding them as sick. Despite their symptoms, they seemed to have endless energy. She envied them and their innocence.
“What game?” Meera asked.
The colonel bobbed up and down on his heels. She didn’t understand how he could remain so composed. Soon he would be out there up against those things. All alone.
“How about we build a fort?”
“What’s a fort?” one of them asked.
“You’ve never built a fort?,” he asked. “Well, I’m going to have to show you.”
“Colonel?” she asked, watching him push the beds towards the far side of the room.
He ignored her and tipped three over in a row. After that he started to place mattresses across the top. It was a barrier, not a…what had he said, fort?
She pulled him away as the children continued to add extra padding and push more beds towards it. He went to stand straight, winced and leaned into her. For a brief second, she was taking all of his weight.
“Are you okay?”
“Just this damn headache,” he said.
“I have some painkillers.”
“I need to keep a level head. But thanks.”
“Are you going to be able to look after us?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
She swept her hand towards the barricade. “Then why this?”
“It can’t help,” he said. “I need to check outside. Help them build it up. When it’s done, hide behind it; tell them it’s a game.”
“A game?”
“.Get them to cover their ears and make as much noise as they can.”
“Surely that will draw the creatures to us?”
“We don’t have long before they’re on us anyway and there’s gonna be a lot of weapons fire. I don’t want them to freak out.” He realised he will still leaning on her and stepped away. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take for my team to get here. But unless I say otherwise, don’t let them stop making that noise.”
part 4 http://obsessed1o1.livejournal.com/102653.html#cutid1