The Other Sheppard von T L Kay
Kate’s first thought was of the pain that she was in; the second was of the room she was in. She managed to haul herself into a sitting position and look around. She and Rodney were lying on the cold hard ground in a chamber that was filled with an eerie light, and no visible way of generating it. She shifted so that she was closer to Rodney and rolled him onto his back. She couldn’t tell where they had come in from, but judging from the pain she was in, and the fact that Rodney was still unconscious, she was fairly certain they had fallen quite a ways.
“McKay,” she said, shaking him a little. “Rodney, come on, wake up.” She shook him a little harder and he grunted.
“Where are we?” he mumbled.
“Still trying to figure that one out,” she said, helping him sit up.
“I remember falling through a cave wall, did that actually happen?”
She smiled. “Yeah, we fell through the wall; the question now is how do we get back out?”
She slowly stood up, then reached out her hand to help Rodney. She was just pulling him to his feet when her radio went off.
“McKay, Katie, come in,” said John’s voice.
She tapped her radio on. “John?”
“Oh thank God,” he said. “We’ve been trying to get a hold of you for about 20 minutes.”
She and Rodney exchanged a look. “I didn’t realize we’d been out for that long.”
“What happened?”
“Your sister decided it would be fun to see if she could break her neck on her first mission, not to mention mine,” said Rodney.
Kate let go of Rodney and he stumbled. “Fine, be that way,” she said to him. To her brother she said, “We found an entrance in the wall that we weren’t expecting. It’s right in the back of the cave.”
There was a pause and then a rock came plummeting down from somewhere above them, nearly hitting them.
“Hey! What are you trying to do, kill us?” McKay said.
“Just checking.”
“For what? We already know things can go through the wall.”
“But can they go back?” Kate mumbled. She looked around on the ground for the stone that had landed near her feet. She found it and threw it up at the area she guessed they had come from. Some twenty feet or so above them the rock disappeared into the wall.
“Ow!” came John’s voice over the radio.
Kate laughed. “That’s what you get for chucking it at us in the first place.”
“So,” he said, a little irritated, “things can pass both ways, why don’t you just step through?”
“Ah, if only it were that easy,” said Rodney. “But when are our lives ever easy?”
“What Rodney is trying to say,” she said exasperatedly, “is that the entrance is about twenty feet above us, there’s no way we can get up there.”
There was a pause.
“Ok, hang tight. We’ll figure something out.”
“Will do,” said Kate, then tapped her radio off. “Well, what now?” she asked Rodney.
“What were you going to say before we fell through solid rock?”
“Hmm?”
“You were going to say where you had seen that writing before. Something that wasn’t possible?” Rodney asked with a groan as he stood up straighter.
“Ah yes. Well, I think that the writing was a hybrid language.”
“A hybrid? Of what?”
“Ancient…and Goa’uld.”
Rodney looked dumbstruck. “You’re kidding, right?”
She shook her head.
“But that’s not possible, is it? There can’t possibly be Goa’uld in Pegasus; we don’t need any more enemies.”
“I don’t know what to tell you McKay, it just is.”
She glanced around the chamber again and realized that the walls were covered with the same writing.
“Well, while we’re down here I can at least try to figure out what some of this says.” She moved over to an area of the wall that was beneath the entrance. “Maybe there’s something here that can help us get out.”
“I’m sorry; I’m still back on Goa’uld in this galaxy. How would they even have found it? And why would this writing be a mix of their language and Ancient?”
“I don’t know, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. Maybe you should be trying to find the source of the energy readings.”
He looked at her confusedly.
She sighed. “You know, for a genius you’re kinda dumb. You said the readings were the strongest behind the wall, well look around, we’re behind the wall.”
“Well excuse me for being a little preoccupied with the imminent threat of death,” Rodney said shooting her a dirty look. When she didn’t respond he sighed, bending down to pick up his amazingly undamaged tablet and marching off in search of the power source. They searched for their respective quarries for several minutes before either of them found anything. Rodney was just starting to make frustrated noises when Kate found what she had been looking for.
“McKay, come here.”
He grumbled about being ordered around but he came. “What?”
“I found a way out.”
“Really, how?”
“This part here,” she indicated a patch of writing on the wall, “is like a lock. If you press the symbols in the right order I believe a way out will open up.”
“Huh.” Rodney looked down at his screen. “There are some readings coming from here, whatever it is obviously requires some energy output. Well, shall we give it a try?”
Kate nodded and reached out. “Here’s hoping we don’t fall through the wall this time.”
Rodney gave her a dirty look, but she ignored him and concentrated on the symbols. She pressed them and then stepped back, but nothing happened.
“Nothing happened,” said Rodney.
“I noticed,” she retorted.
He opened his mouth to say something scathing when the ground began to rumble.
“Ok, something’s happening now.”
“You think?” she said, stepping away from the wall.
A staircase folded out of the wall leading up to the place where they had come through, which was now open. But that wasn’t the only thing happening. Walls were going up all around the chamber, opening up more chambers and rooms, full of what was clearly Ancient technology.
“I guess we found the source of the readings,” shouted Rodney over the rumbling, but Kate wasn’t listening. A wall had come up opposite the staircase that revealed an interesting find.
“McKay,” she said, poking his arm. “You might want to take a look at this.”
He turned around and gasped.
“Hey!” came John’s voice from up above. “You guys ok down there?”
“You should come down here Sheppard,” said McKay.
“Way ahead of you.” His voice was closer and they turned to see him descending the stairs, with Ronon and Teyla close behind. He stopped as his eyes fell on the chamber across from the stairs. “Is that what I think it is?”
“If you think it’s an Ancient stasis chamber, then yes, that’s what it is.”
They moved closer to it, so that they could clearly see the man inside.
“So that’s…”
“Most likely an Ancient,” Rodney finished.
“Not necessarily,” Kate said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” John asked.
But she didn’t get a chance to answer before the question answered itself. The cover of the chamber slid open and the man opened his eyes, his yellow glowing eyes.
Sheppard didn’t even flinch, in one fluid movement he pushed his sister away from the Goa’uld and raised his gun.
“John no!” she shouted.
The man in the chamber looked around at them and then his eyes rolled up and he fell forward. Kate ducked past her brother and caught him, easing him to the ground. She checked for a pulse before turning to look at John, who still had his weapon raised.
“John please, put your weapon down; he’s not going to hurt us.”
“He’s a Goa’uld Katie; of course he’ll hurt us.”
She stood up, blocking the man from John. “First of all, he’s unconscious.” She reached out and pushed John’s gun down. “Second of all, he has no means to hurt us. He has no hand device, no weapons, and he’s probably thousands of thousands of years old. Don’t you want to know why he’s here? I know I do. I didn’t think the Ancients and the Goa’uld coexisted.”
“Fine,” John conceded. “But I don’t want anyone alone with him.”
“Fine.” She looked around and saw a shelf that looked like it could be used as a bed. “Could someone help me move him?”
They all looked at her.
“He’s unconscious, it’ll be ok.”
John shrugged uncomfortably. “Fine, Ronon?”
The two of them picked up the unconscious Goa’uld and lifted him onto the shelf.
“All right, good. Now, I’m gonna have a look around at these machines, Dr. McKay will you assist me so that I know what I’m looking at?”
“What makes you think I’ll know what they are?”
She shot him a look.
“Fine, I’m coming,” he mumbled. “She’s just like you,” he shot at Sheppard. “And not in a good way.”
John smiled in spite of himself as McKay trudged after Kate, but his humor was cut off when he looked back at the man next to him. This was going to end badly, he could just feel it. He had only ever dealt with a Goa’uld once, and it had almost destroyed Atlantis. He wasn’t looking forward to what this one had up his sleeve, but he trusted his sister, so he was willing to wait and see.
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