The Trek Manuever
Title: The Trek Manuever
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Ronon, Jennifer, Sheppard, Stackhouse, Rinka, OC
Rating: Gen
Orientation: Het
Word Count: 1,853
Prompt: Dark Bingo Fill: “Injury”
Love Bingo Fill: “Tenderness”
Hurt Comfort Bingo: “Forced to Hurt Somebody”
For Stargatecountry Challenge: Your Stargate Persona
Notes: for
caitriona_3 because she prompted me to it.
I didn’t usually go offworld, my job is in stores, I count things and control inventory. I’m a bookkeeper, damn it, not an explorer. But everyone is required to cross train on Atlantis, and stand guard duty occasionally. So that’s how I ended up on the team that was going with Doctor Keller, as a guard. I made sure the t-shirt I had on under my uniform shirt was not red. Just in case. Being a superstitious geekette, I wasn’t taking any chances.
The locals made us surrender our weapons. We were led to the village by a woman in a flowing green dress that met us at the Gate. I stuck close to Stackhouse, watching him for cues so I could stay out of trouble. We got to the village and were taken to a hut on the outskirts. Inside, Ronon was on a pallet on the floor, and he was in pretty bad shape. Doctor Keller went to him immediately, kneeling on the floor at his side and checking over his injuries.
“Where are Colonel Sheppard and Teyla?” Lieutenant Drake, our team leader, asked the native woman.
“In the circle. They have not yet appeased the gods. This one failed to do so.”
That sounded kinda bad. I knew Doctor McKay had been released and had been the one to return to Atlantis to get help for the rest of his team. He was in the infirmary being treated for a broken arm and busted nose, according to Stackhouse. If Lorne and the rest of AG-2 hadn’t been laid up with the flu, they would have been here, instead of us. Rescue duty was their team’s specialty.
“Take us to them.” The Lieutenant said to the woman He turned to Sergeant Meara, “Stay with Doctor Keller. Stackhouse, Tur, you’re with me.”
We were shown to a pit, Colonel Sheppard was down there, bare-chested, clad only his boots and uniform pants, which were torn and filthy. He was bruised and cut up, his face was swollen, it looked like he had been punched repeatedly in the eye. “What is going on here!?!” Lieutenant Drake demanded when he saw our CO.
“The gods are not yet appeased for the effrontery offered by the loud one.”
That’s when I noticed that Teyla was also in the pit, stalking the Colonel. She had a stick. I saw the remnants of other sticks on the ground, shattered and broken. This had been going on for a while. “They’re making them fight each other?” I said out loud. This was barbaric!
“It is our way.”
I was outraged. Lieutenant Drake must have realized I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about it. He glared at me and said, “Tur, go see if you can help Doctor Keller. Send Meara back. Now.”
I had been dismissed. I turned on my heel and stomped back to the hut. I tapped Dusty on the arm and said, “Switch. Lieutenant Drake wants you with him.” Without an escort, Meara would have a chance to scout around the village as she went to the pit.
Doctor Keller was speaking very softly to Ronon as she tended his wounds. That didn’t surprise me, she was inherently sweet. What surprised me was Ronon’s response to her. He spoke just as softly and stroked his knuckles over her cheek as she leaned over his chest stitching his wound closed. The expression on his face was one I had never seen on him before when he walked around the city. He looked… nice.
I’d heard rumors that after he broke up with Amelia, he had started up with Doctor Keller. The tender regard I was witnessing lent a lot of weight to that rumor. His hand drifted down to rest on her waist.
“How did you get this banged up?” Jennifer asked, reaching for her kit and digging in it.
“McKay landed a few hits. Then Teyla did the rest.”
Doctor Keller’s jaw dropped open. “Your own teammates?”
“Yeah, we had to. They made us or they were going to kill McKay. They gave us some kind of drug,” Ronon grunted. He looked at me. “Where is Sheppard?”
“In the pit with Teyla.”
“She’ll kill him,” Ronon said, pursing his lips angrily.
Based on what I had seen in the brief time I had been there by the pit, I agreed with Ronon’s assessment. The Colonel had looked dead on his feet as he faced Teyla.
My radio crackled, Lieutenant Drake calling me. “Tur,” I answered.
“See if the doc has anything that can bolster Sheppard up a little,” Lieutenant Drake said. “Turns out this is a fight to the death. Please tell me you remember that time Spock had to fight Kirk? We need a solution just like that.”
Luckily, I am a total geek. I got his message. “I remember, sir. I’ll check with the doctor for a vitamin shot.”
I went to the doctor’s side and because the guard at the door might be listening, I whispered, “Do you have something in your kit that will knock Colonel Sheppard down and make him seem dead? We have to get the Colonel out of that ring; it’s a fight to the death.”
“I do.” She opened a second bag and pulled out a vial and a syringe. She filled the syringe, capped it and handed it to me, along with an alcohol prep pad. “This needs to be injected under his arm, here.” She touched the spot on Ronon’s side in illustration. Ronon twitched as if it tickled. “It will put him down for about twenty minutes. It takes about three or four to work on a man of the Colonel’s height and weight.
“Be ready to go, Doctor Keller, I’m sure the Lieutenant will want to leave quickly once it all happens.” She nodded and began to gather her things. As I left the hut, I heard Ronon speaking softly to her and saw him stroke a hand over her hair. Yeah, there was something going on there.
I jogged to the pit. I could see that Colonel Sheppard was teetering on his feet. I held up the syringe. “Lieutenant, Doctor Keller sent a vitamin shot for Colonel Sheppard. This heat is too much for him with his condition.”
Lieutenant Drake turned to speak to the important looking native guys that were near him. “Our Colonel has an illness. It is not fair to let this continue without making the fight equal. Surely it will not appease your gods? Let us give him medicine to keep him from falling over and disgracing himself.”
They huddled and spoke to each other. Then one of them stepped forward. “We will allow this. You may give him the medicine.”
“Do you know what to do?” Lieutenant Drake asked me. I nodded. “Go, hurry.”
The fight was stopped and I was led to the gate that opened into the pit. Teyla was leaning against the wall, catching her breath. Her eyes looked a little wild, probably from a combination of the drug, the heat and the adrenaline from the fight. Colonel Sheppard was sitting in the dirt, his knees up and his head dropped down between them. I went to his left side and knelt down.
“Colonel, I have a shot for you.” He looked up at me, his eyes were glassy and blood shot. “You just have to hold on another three or four minutes, then take a dive. We’ll get you out of here.”
He nodded and his voice was rough and raspy when he spoke. “Are we pulling a Trek move here?”
I smiled. “Yes sir, we are.”
“’Bout time. Okay, hit me, Sarge.”
I wiped the pad over his skin in the spot where Doctor Keller had told me to and injected the serum into him. “Good luck, sir.” I stood up and started walking towards the gate.
The fight resumed as soon as they had closed the gate. I grimaced as I heard Teyla’s stick land another hit on the Colonel’s already bruised body. Joining the team, I waited anxiously. “I don’t think the Colonel is going to last long, even with the medicine,” I said loudly enough for the natives to hear. “He’s in a bad way. I think we were too late.”
“Damn.” Stackhouse said.
On cue, Colonel Sheppard went to his knees after Teyla circled around him and hit him across the shoulders. He toppled forward into the dirt. Teyla jumped on his back, wrapping her arm around his throat and pulled him up, apparently intent on choking him, but his head flopped forward. She looked around the pit in confusion and let the Colonel’s body drop down. She climbed off him and backed away, shaking her head.
One of the guards ran in and checked Sheppard’s pulse. “He’s dead.” He called up to the waiting crowd. There was a low cheer. Their damned gods had apparently been appeased at last.
“Meara, Tur, go help the doctor get Ronon to the Gate. Stackhouse, you’re with me, we’ll get Teyla and Colonel Sheppard’s body,” Lieutenant Drake ordered.
Surprisingly, Ronon was on his feet when we got to the hut. Doctor Keller had an arm around his waist and was moving slowly towards the door with him. Meara ran to get under his other arm and I grabbed the doctor’s bags.
The others were at the Gate by the time we got there. Teyla looked wrecked; she had tears running down her face and was huddling in on herself. Colonel Sheppard was on a litter that Stackhouse and the Lieutenant were carrying between them. Lieutenant Drake caught my eye and tossed his head towards the DHD. I ran over and hit the address for Atlantis. There were still natives around, so no one had been able to tell Teyla about the ruse yet.
We didn’t bother waving goodbye. This address would certainly be erased from the database; surely we didn’t want to come back here and work with these people. When we got to the city, Doctor Keller started shouting orders in the Gate Room.
Poor Teyla stood there in the center of the chaos. Everyone else that was in on the plan was busy, so I walked over to Teyla and touched her arm to get her attention. “It was a ruse, Teyla. Colonel Sheppard is not dead. It was a drug to make him appear to be dead.”
Her eyes were very hopeful as she looked at me then over at the men carrying the Colonel off to the infirmary. “Truly?”
“Yes. He should recover as soon as the drug wears off. Sorry we couldn’t tell you, it had to look real to fool those people.”
She nodded and reached over to squeeze my arm, and then she followed the group heading to the infirmary.
I was quite relieved to be taken off guard duty for a few months. I had not enjoyed the offworld experience very much. I prefer numbers. Numbers don’t talk back or make demands on you or make you try to kill your friends.
The End Originally posted at http://rinkafic.dreamwidth.org/
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Ronon, Jennifer, Sheppard, Stackhouse, Rinka, OC
Rating: Gen
Orientation: Het
Word Count: 1,853
Prompt: Dark Bingo Fill: “Injury”
Love Bingo Fill: “Tenderness”
Hurt Comfort Bingo: “Forced to Hurt Somebody”
For Stargatecountry Challenge: Your Stargate Persona
Notes: for
caitriona_3 because she prompted me to it.
I didn’t usually go offworld, my job is in stores, I count things and control inventory. I’m a bookkeeper, damn it, not an explorer. But everyone is required to cross train on Atlantis, and stand guard duty occasionally. So that’s how I ended up on the team that was going with Doctor Keller, as a guard. I made sure the t-shirt I had on under my uniform shirt was not red. Just in case. Being a superstitious geekette, I wasn’t taking any chances.
The locals made us surrender our weapons. We were led to the village by a woman in a flowing green dress that met us at the Gate. I stuck close to Stackhouse, watching him for cues so I could stay out of trouble. We got to the village and were taken to a hut on the outskirts. Inside, Ronon was on a pallet on the floor, and he was in pretty bad shape. Doctor Keller went to him immediately, kneeling on the floor at his side and checking over his injuries.
“Where are Colonel Sheppard and Teyla?” Lieutenant Drake, our team leader, asked the native woman.
“In the circle. They have not yet appeased the gods. This one failed to do so.”
That sounded kinda bad. I knew Doctor McKay had been released and had been the one to return to Atlantis to get help for the rest of his team. He was in the infirmary being treated for a broken arm and busted nose, according to Stackhouse. If Lorne and the rest of AG-2 hadn’t been laid up with the flu, they would have been here, instead of us. Rescue duty was their team’s specialty.
“Take us to them.” The Lieutenant said to the woman He turned to Sergeant Meara, “Stay with Doctor Keller. Stackhouse, Tur, you’re with me.”
We were shown to a pit, Colonel Sheppard was down there, bare-chested, clad only his boots and uniform pants, which were torn and filthy. He was bruised and cut up, his face was swollen, it looked like he had been punched repeatedly in the eye. “What is going on here!?!” Lieutenant Drake demanded when he saw our CO.
“The gods are not yet appeased for the effrontery offered by the loud one.”
That’s when I noticed that Teyla was also in the pit, stalking the Colonel. She had a stick. I saw the remnants of other sticks on the ground, shattered and broken. This had been going on for a while. “They’re making them fight each other?” I said out loud. This was barbaric!
“It is our way.”
I was outraged. Lieutenant Drake must have realized I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about it. He glared at me and said, “Tur, go see if you can help Doctor Keller. Send Meara back. Now.”
I had been dismissed. I turned on my heel and stomped back to the hut. I tapped Dusty on the arm and said, “Switch. Lieutenant Drake wants you with him.” Without an escort, Meara would have a chance to scout around the village as she went to the pit.
Doctor Keller was speaking very softly to Ronon as she tended his wounds. That didn’t surprise me, she was inherently sweet. What surprised me was Ronon’s response to her. He spoke just as softly and stroked his knuckles over her cheek as she leaned over his chest stitching his wound closed. The expression on his face was one I had never seen on him before when he walked around the city. He looked… nice.
I’d heard rumors that after he broke up with Amelia, he had started up with Doctor Keller. The tender regard I was witnessing lent a lot of weight to that rumor. His hand drifted down to rest on her waist.
“How did you get this banged up?” Jennifer asked, reaching for her kit and digging in it.
“McKay landed a few hits. Then Teyla did the rest.”
Doctor Keller’s jaw dropped open. “Your own teammates?”
“Yeah, we had to. They made us or they were going to kill McKay. They gave us some kind of drug,” Ronon grunted. He looked at me. “Where is Sheppard?”
“In the pit with Teyla.”
“She’ll kill him,” Ronon said, pursing his lips angrily.
Based on what I had seen in the brief time I had been there by the pit, I agreed with Ronon’s assessment. The Colonel had looked dead on his feet as he faced Teyla.
My radio crackled, Lieutenant Drake calling me. “Tur,” I answered.
“See if the doc has anything that can bolster Sheppard up a little,” Lieutenant Drake said. “Turns out this is a fight to the death. Please tell me you remember that time Spock had to fight Kirk? We need a solution just like that.”
Luckily, I am a total geek. I got his message. “I remember, sir. I’ll check with the doctor for a vitamin shot.”
I went to the doctor’s side and because the guard at the door might be listening, I whispered, “Do you have something in your kit that will knock Colonel Sheppard down and make him seem dead? We have to get the Colonel out of that ring; it’s a fight to the death.”
“I do.” She opened a second bag and pulled out a vial and a syringe. She filled the syringe, capped it and handed it to me, along with an alcohol prep pad. “This needs to be injected under his arm, here.” She touched the spot on Ronon’s side in illustration. Ronon twitched as if it tickled. “It will put him down for about twenty minutes. It takes about three or four to work on a man of the Colonel’s height and weight.
“Be ready to go, Doctor Keller, I’m sure the Lieutenant will want to leave quickly once it all happens.” She nodded and began to gather her things. As I left the hut, I heard Ronon speaking softly to her and saw him stroke a hand over her hair. Yeah, there was something going on there.
I jogged to the pit. I could see that Colonel Sheppard was teetering on his feet. I held up the syringe. “Lieutenant, Doctor Keller sent a vitamin shot for Colonel Sheppard. This heat is too much for him with his condition.”
Lieutenant Drake turned to speak to the important looking native guys that were near him. “Our Colonel has an illness. It is not fair to let this continue without making the fight equal. Surely it will not appease your gods? Let us give him medicine to keep him from falling over and disgracing himself.”
They huddled and spoke to each other. Then one of them stepped forward. “We will allow this. You may give him the medicine.”
“Do you know what to do?” Lieutenant Drake asked me. I nodded. “Go, hurry.”
The fight was stopped and I was led to the gate that opened into the pit. Teyla was leaning against the wall, catching her breath. Her eyes looked a little wild, probably from a combination of the drug, the heat and the adrenaline from the fight. Colonel Sheppard was sitting in the dirt, his knees up and his head dropped down between them. I went to his left side and knelt down.
“Colonel, I have a shot for you.” He looked up at me, his eyes were glassy and blood shot. “You just have to hold on another three or four minutes, then take a dive. We’ll get you out of here.”
He nodded and his voice was rough and raspy when he spoke. “Are we pulling a Trek move here?”
I smiled. “Yes sir, we are.”
“’Bout time. Okay, hit me, Sarge.”
I wiped the pad over his skin in the spot where Doctor Keller had told me to and injected the serum into him. “Good luck, sir.” I stood up and started walking towards the gate.
The fight resumed as soon as they had closed the gate. I grimaced as I heard Teyla’s stick land another hit on the Colonel’s already bruised body. Joining the team, I waited anxiously. “I don’t think the Colonel is going to last long, even with the medicine,” I said loudly enough for the natives to hear. “He’s in a bad way. I think we were too late.”
“Damn.” Stackhouse said.
On cue, Colonel Sheppard went to his knees after Teyla circled around him and hit him across the shoulders. He toppled forward into the dirt. Teyla jumped on his back, wrapping her arm around his throat and pulled him up, apparently intent on choking him, but his head flopped forward. She looked around the pit in confusion and let the Colonel’s body drop down. She climbed off him and backed away, shaking her head.
One of the guards ran in and checked Sheppard’s pulse. “He’s dead.” He called up to the waiting crowd. There was a low cheer. Their damned gods had apparently been appeased at last.
“Meara, Tur, go help the doctor get Ronon to the Gate. Stackhouse, you’re with me, we’ll get Teyla and Colonel Sheppard’s body,” Lieutenant Drake ordered.
Surprisingly, Ronon was on his feet when we got to the hut. Doctor Keller had an arm around his waist and was moving slowly towards the door with him. Meara ran to get under his other arm and I grabbed the doctor’s bags.
The others were at the Gate by the time we got there. Teyla looked wrecked; she had tears running down her face and was huddling in on herself. Colonel Sheppard was on a litter that Stackhouse and the Lieutenant were carrying between them. Lieutenant Drake caught my eye and tossed his head towards the DHD. I ran over and hit the address for Atlantis. There were still natives around, so no one had been able to tell Teyla about the ruse yet.
We didn’t bother waving goodbye. This address would certainly be erased from the database; surely we didn’t want to come back here and work with these people. When we got to the city, Doctor Keller started shouting orders in the Gate Room.
Poor Teyla stood there in the center of the chaos. Everyone else that was in on the plan was busy, so I walked over to Teyla and touched her arm to get her attention. “It was a ruse, Teyla. Colonel Sheppard is not dead. It was a drug to make him appear to be dead.”
Her eyes were very hopeful as she looked at me then over at the men carrying the Colonel off to the infirmary. “Truly?”
“Yes. He should recover as soon as the drug wears off. Sorry we couldn’t tell you, it had to look real to fool those people.”
She nodded and reached over to squeeze my arm, and then she followed the group heading to the infirmary.
I was quite relieved to be taken off guard duty for a few months. I had not enjoyed the offworld experience very much. I prefer numbers. Numbers don’t talk back or make demands on you or make you try to kill your friends.
The End Originally posted at http://rinkafic.dreamwidth.org/