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Jo Graham

StarGate: Atlantis

Death Game

Chapter One

Lt. Colonel John Sheppard was sure he’d had better days. That he couldn’t remember any of them right now was just one disturbing thing. Another one was the great big crack in the puddle jumper’s front window. He was pretty sure that shouldn’t be there. He was almost sure that the view out the window shouldn’t be mostly dirt, with what looked like the trunks of several big trees in it. Also, the board of instruments under his chest shouldn’t be sputtering and smoking.

The latter seemed like a really bad thing, so he cautiously pulled himself off the panel and sat back in his seat. Moving hurt, but not as much as it would have if he’d broken ribs, which was something, but there was a long wet smear of blood across the docking indicators and the tactical controls, which couldn’t be good. Several droplets splashed against the board as he watched, and he put his hand to his head. It came away drenched in blood. Great. Holding his left hand to the general vicinity as tightly as possible, John looked around the jumper. What was he doing? Who was with him? He remembered the jumper descending into the gate room, the bright blue fire of the gate kindling. And after that… Nothing.

He took a deep breath and made himself let it out slowly. Some short term memory loss was normal with a head wound. He knew who he was and what he was doing, Lt. Colonel John Sheppard, with a gate team mission to M32-3R1 to check out an anomalous energy reading. He had punched the gate and…

John heard a moan behind him and scrambled backward out of the pilot’s seat as quickly as possible. “Teyla?”

She seemed to have been thrown clear of the copilot’s seat, lying crumpled between the pair of rear seats, her left arm twisted at an odd angle that couldn’t possibly be right. He heard the swift hiss of her breath as she moved, her fingers opening and closing against the floor.

“Hang on,” John said, kneeling beside her. “Careful.

Teyla pushed herself up with her right arm, half rolling into a sitting position, her left arm clutched tight against her side. When she saw him her eyes widened. “John? You are bleeding badly. ”

“I know,” he said. “I think I hit my head on the board. ” He took his hand away. Yeah, it was bleeding hard.

Teyla reached up to get a look at it, wincing as she moved. Not good.

“Can you move your fingers?” he asked, reaching across to her left arm. She was wearing a jacket, and he couldn’t tell if the shape of her arm looked right or not.

“Yes,” she said, wiggling them. “But I cannot move my arm as it should or put any weight on it. ” She leaned back against one of the rear seats, fumbling in her pants pockets with her right hand and producing a dressing. “But you are bleeding. Here, now. ”

“Got it,” John said, unrolling it and putting it to his head, holding it in place as tightly as he could stand. Not good. There was a world of not good here. Teyla’s shoulder was probably broken or at least dislocated, and his head was bleeding hard — in addition to not being able to remember anything since he’d dialed the gate… A thought struck him and he glanced wildly around the jumper. “Where are Rodney and Ronon and Zelenka?”