Jo Graham - Death Game

Teyla reversed direction, coming around in a long kick that barely missed John and connected with the man’s knee, dropping his leg out from under him. “We had the better ground,” she said serenely.

“So what?” John hit the man in the back of the head, knocking him sprawling. He didn’t seem inclined to get up.

He heard rather than felt the blow coming, in the rush of air preceding it. The third man’s torch butt connected with his left side, full force and momentum behind it, right on the sore ribs from the crash. John staggered backwards, unfortunately completely fouling Teyla in the process. It was about all she could do not to hit him with the attack she had half completed.

The man’s second blow hit Teyla as she backpedaled, catching her in the upper left arm. The cry that escaped her lips was unexpected. He’d never heard her cry out, no matter how hard she was hit. This blow hand landed on her bad shoulder.

John lowered his head and butted the man in the stomach, which did in fact distract him from Teyla. Unfortunately, it also brought the man’s club down on his back again. John staggered, the world spinning around him momentarily. Bad plan, hitting something with his head, he thought belatedly. Very bad plan.

He raised his head in time to see Suua catch the man around the throat, shaking him like a terrier with a rat.

John took a deep breath, straightening up. Oh yeah. Bad plan. The dizziness made the room seem to swoop around him. Teyla had stepped back, her lips white, her arm once again at an odd angle. The blow had popped her shoulder out again.

“Stay back!” The fourth thug had retreated to the edge of the steam pits, and he held Ailan before him, a stick against her throat forcing her head up. “Don’t come any closer!”

He could break her neck that way, John thought, without very much effort at all. It would be a stupid thing to do, because then he wouldn’t have a hostage, but the wild look on the man’s face suggested that maybe he wasn’t thinking that clearly. He could kill the girl in a panic, even if it doomed him with her.

“Stay back! I mean it!” Inch by inch, he backed out onto the narrow path, dragging Ailan with him.

“John,” Teyla said warningly, probably some prelude to something about asking him if his head were bothering him or did he need his sunglasses.

“These things always seem like a good idea at time,” he said. “I’ll get her.” Suua was still holding on to the third man, the best fighter, and Teyla’s shoulder was out again. “I’m fine. It’s no problem.” He advanced onto the edge of the path.

Yeah, that was real steam. He could feel the sticky heat on his arms, condensing on his forehead and hair. The vent screens were backlit with eerie red and yellow and orange lights, as though he walked on a narrow path over a pit of flames. The flames weren’t real, but the steam could scald and burn. And the vents turned on and off.

John jumped back as one opened to his right, sending a jet of steam taller than his head. If he’d been standing over that, he’d be very sorry right now.

“You get back!” the thug yelled, dragging Ailan with him. He was awfully close to a vent, the girl twisting as she tried to get away from the heat she could surely feel.

John held out his hands, the stick in his right. “I just want the girl,” he said. “You can go. Run. Sure. I don’t care. I’m not trying to win.”

“Course you’re trying to win!” The guy’s eyes were slitted against the steam. “You want to take me down, is what.”

“Just give me the girl and you can go,” John said. “Nobody’s going to win, don’t you see? We’re all going to be food for the Wraith.”

“The gods said the winner goes free a rich man!” Back and back, into the heart of the maze. One of the vents opened behind him, just missing him and Ailan, John creeping cautiously after.

“They’re not gods,” John said. “They’re Wraith. They’re parasites who live on you people, feeding on you when they want to. This is just an excuse to get some suckers in here and harvest them.”

He didn’t buy it. John could see that in his face. So much for talking. “Look, just give me the girl.”

Ailan squeaked as he grabbed her tighter, her feet almost off the ground.

“Take her then!” The guy shoved Ailan at him hard, and they both went over, falling among the sharp stones and steam vents. Fortunately, they didn’t land on a live one, but the hot grate was enough to burn his hand where he’d flung it out to catch himself, the rocks digging bruisingly into his side.

Ailan screamed, which pretty much covered up any other noise. Like the noise of the guy rushing him with his stick.

John caught the blow on his left forearm. It missed Ailan’s head, but he felt the shock all the way to the tips of his fingers. The momentum shoved him back on to the vents.

John rolled to the side, orange and red lights playing as he rolled over them. If the vents opened right that second, he’d be steamed like dry cleaning.

He hooked the guy’s feet with his, trying to trip him while evading the blows from the stick. Not good. There was a rock to his left. He couldn’t roll any further.

Heat blasted just behind him, a vent opening.

So not good. He had to get up. He was never going to win this way.

Grabbing the big rock, John staggered to his feet, blows raining down on his back. This guy didn’t hit as hard as Teyla, but he hit pretty hard. He was barehanded, his stick lost in the scuffle on the floor. Beneath his feet the vent hissed, the panels starting to turn.

And suddenly the lights came on. The entire cave was flooded in light of bright fluorescents. The red and orange lights died, the steam switching off at the same moment.

The guy blinked owlishly in the sudden brightness, and John clipped him in the jaw with a roundhouse. He went down like a sack of grain. Got to go ahead and win.

In the bright lights the room was transformed. It no longer looked like a chamber from hell, but instead a kind of cheesy stage set, with big boulders concealing what was no more than a bunch of lights and effects.

Their party seemed as confused as the thugs, looking around incredulously. Only Teyla seemed to have taken it in stride, half way out on the path toward him, her left shoulder clutched in her right hand. “John? Are you all right?”

“Great,” John said, aware that he was rolling like he was drunk. “It’s all good here.”

She clearly didn’t believe him, but Teyla bent down and helped Ailan to her feet instead. “Are you hurt?”

The girl shook her head, her eyes wide, a long mark down the side of her face where one of them had hit her.

Nevin ran out, Jitrine following him as quickly as she could, her robes caught up in her hand.

“Ailan! It’s all right!” Nevin called. “You’re safe! These are my friends! We came to rescue you!” He threw his arms around his sister, and she buried her face against him.

Jitrine stopped beside John, looking up at him, an expression of concern on her face. “What did you do? Why did it stop?”

John shook his head, drops of condensed steam and sweat falling from his hair. “I don’t know,” he said. “It didn’t look good for a minute there. I don’t know what happened.”

In the control room, Radek slumped forward over the key panel, his eyes on the monitor. “That was almost not in time,” he said.

“You’ve got them, right?” Ronon asked.

Radek’s fingers flew over the symbols on the unfamiliar touchscreen. “I’ve turned the steam off and the overhead lights on. I haven’t turned the cameras off for that room yet. It seemed less of a priority.”