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The Storm Cont
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Kai crept back down hall away from the gate room. If the Genii had control of the gate room there was no way to know if their comms were being monitored. She needed to find Major Sheppard. He was the only one who had also been able to avoid capture.

As soon as she was clear she ran down the hall, intent on putting as much distance between her and the Genii force as possible. She needed to regroup, find supplies and locate the Major. The Major could be anywhere between the north pier and the tower. Knowing what she did about the Major, she was sure he was heading somewhere to get weapons. When they had left the lab he had only his sidearm on his hip. They would have only a small window of opportunity to access the armory before the Genii secured it. She picked up her pace.

She was halfway to the armory when her comm activated and McKay's voice came through. "...if he needs the C4, the medical supplies and the wraith data device then just give it to him. None of that is worth dying for," it sounded like McKay was talking to someone else and his voice had the echo that usually came from when the techs used the communication terminal in the control room.

"Step away from that console," someone's voice snapped over the comm and the connection went dead immediately. She was both surprised and impressed McKay had risked his neck to get that information to her and Sheppard. She might not personally like the man, but she was beginning to understand why Sheppard kept him on AR-1.

Kai hesitated for a moment at the next junction. She needed weapons, but knowing what they were after changed everything. Sheppard would no doubt go to the armory after the C-4. She wanted to go there. Every instinct she had made her want to arm herself to the teeth and start hunting the men who had invaded their home. However, the most useful thing she could do was secure the data drive. She turned towards the science lab.

There was no reason McKay and Weir wouldn't tell them exactly where the drive was. She and Zelenka had already pulled all the data off of it. The drive itself was of no further value to them and had been sitting in storage for weeks. If the Genii wanted it however, she could use it to slow them down and keep their attention on a specific area of the city.

She ran down the hallway and took the stairs two at a time. She wished she had thought to store more knives or even a gun in the lab. She had been working to earn Sheppard and Weir's trust however and so she had gotten rid of all of her hidden weapons. Now she only wore her single blade in the sheath along her spine and had three smaller knives back in her quarters. She cursed herself up and down for being such a fool. Her trainer back at the academy would have killed her himself for allowing herself to become so complacent.

The lab door slid open and she ran inside. She pulled a messenger bag from under one of the work stations. She dumped the contents on the table and filled it instead with her tool kit. It wasn't as good as a gun or more knives, but they were the only weapons she had. She was going to have to think her way out of this one instead of fight. She moved over to their storage wall. She pulled the Wraith data device out of a drawer, adding it to her bag, and snatched up one of the tablets the team had left behind.

She ran out the door less than two minutes after entering. She plugged the tablet into the door's control panel. She wasn't sure how long she had, but she would do as much damage as she possibly could before they got to the lab. Her fingers flew over the tablet as she implemented a lock down protocol on the lab. They would need her personal access code to open the doors. It would hopefully slow them down if they thought the drive was still inside. The code was seventeen digits long and it would take even McKay a while to crack it. She hoped it would buy her and Sheppard time.

She could hear the Genii coming down the hall. She disconnected the tablet and slid it into the bag. She turned and disappeared down the next hallway. If they had already made it to the lab then she needed to avoid the armory and the infirmary which were both closer to the gate room.

The only other place that she knew to have stashed weapons was the jumper bay. Each jumper had a sidearm in the emergency supplies. It would be tricky getting up there, but if she moved fast she could work her way around using secondary corridors avoiding the hallways they would likely be using and she could escape detection.

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John was jogging down one of the catwalks down in the maintenance level of the tower. He had just finished hiding the last of the C-4. He didn't know how McKay had managed to get over the comm, but he hoped his friend hadn't gotten himself into too much trouble getting the information to him. It had been quick thinking on McKay's part. John continued to be impressed by how quickly McKay was learning to adapt to these types of situations.

John had geared up in the jumper bay and was carrying as much as he could in the backpack he had found there. There was no telling how long this could go on, but he had been well trained to evade capture as long as possible. He hadn't finished at the last grounding station which made this invasion of theirs finite if the shield wasn't activated. It couldn't be a coincidence that they had come through when Atlantis was operating on a skeleton crew. Bates was going to have a field day with this when he told him he thought they had a Genii spy in their midst.

John's comm activated and he stopped. There was a moment of hesitation while the person on the other end tried to work the radio John had mockingly left in the empty C-4 crate.

"This is Commander Kolya," the commander had a low, gruff voice and he already sounded annoyed with Sheppard.

John smiled. His ability to annoy commanding officers in as little time possible had always been a point of pride for him. It seemed it didn't matter what galaxy they were from.

"Kolya, that's a hard name to pronounce. That a first name?" The military had spent a long time trying to suppress John's natural inclination to be a smart ass. What they had first deemed a weakness of character had grown into a useful tactic when dealing with enemy commanders. Nothing made a strict commander lose his shit faster than someone who seemed disrespectful and cavalier about the chain of command. The banter was useful in both throwing an enemy off their game and buying himself time.

John's voice hardened as he became more serious. "My name is Major John Sheppard, and I have hidden the C-4 where you will never, I repeat never find it. When I get confirmation that the prisoners have been safely released and allowed to gate off Atlantis I will help you find it."

There was another lengthy pause and John waited, knowing the other commander was trying to get a measure of him. First contact was always important. It would set the stage for how smoothly this would all go down. "Your offer is very generous Major," Kolya's tone was measured and carefully controlled.

"Yes it is," Sheppard agreed brightly. There was no reason for this situation to become even more hostile than it already was. If none of his people had been lost when the Genii took the gate Kolya potentially had up to five hostages; McKay, Weir, two marines and Kai. It didn't leave John much power for bargaining. He bet Kai was seriously regretting being so speedy now.

"However," Kolya continued, and John could hear how smug he was in that one word. He cringed as he waited for the other shoe to drop.

"Doctor McKay recently shared with me there is a plan in action to save the city," Kolya informed him.

"He did, did he?" Sheppard asked in surprise. He took back every good thing he had thought about how McKay was handling the situation up in the control room.

He took off jogging again. He needed to stay on the move. If Kolya and his men had convinced McKay to tell them of their plan there was no way of knowing if they had also persuaded him to access the cities internal sensors. If they had, it was going to make his job a whole hell of a lot harder.

"He did," Kolya confirmed, sounding unperturbed. "My understanding is there is one final grounding station that needs to be deactivated. Uncouple the grounding rods at station 3, assist with the reactivation of the shield, and you and your friends can leave here unharmed."

John scowled. "Wait a minute, I thought all you wanted was C4 and a jumper."

"Why raid a city when you can seize it major?" Kolya growled, his resolve burning in his voice. "Atlantis will be ours or the ocean."

John slowed. A raid he could handle, but if they were planning on taking the city he wasn't going to play Into their hand. His mind began racing through all the possibilities but there were just too many variables. He needed more information. He didn't know how many men they had or their locations. He had a life signs detector but it's range was limited. He would have to get uncomfortably close to the control room to find out more and there was no way of distinguishing Genii from his own people.

"You choose," Kolya growled and the comm clicked silent.

John had no intention of playing ball with these bastards, but he did need to take care of the grounding station. Without the shield none of what they did here would matter. The Storm would see to that.

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Kai stopped jogging as she listened to Major Sheppard and Commander Kolya's exchange. She didn't know if the Major had done it on purpose to send a message to her, but he had set the radio so their conversation went over all the comms. The Major was headed to the grounding station next. If she were Kolya, despite his assurances, she would send men to capture him. Allowing a man as dangerous as the Major to roam freely during this type of operation was reckless.

She stepped back into a shadowed doorway, pulled the tablet out of the bag and quickly began working. She couldn't access the primary systems from it, but Zelenka managed all of the power and generators on Atlantis. She couldn't cause as much havoc as she would like, but every little bit helped. Any changes she made wouldn't affect the control room, but she could give the Major much needed cover. She turned the city to night mode and turned off the motion activation protocol for the lights. The Major knew the city better than anyone and the dark would give him an advantage.

Her next move was a risk, but she was fairly certain she had heard Kolya shut off his radio. She hoped if she timed it with the lights the Genii, unfamiliar with Atlantis's power systems, would assume it was part of the power loss. She reached down to her radio and clicked it three times for grounding station three. Her fingers itched to do it again, but she couldn't risk it. She wanted the Major to know she was out there too, but she couldn't risk sending a bigger message.

All military groups had a non-verbal communication they could use on radios. She only wished she had taken the time to learn theirs. It was complacent and sloppy of her to assume because she was on a science team she didn't need to know. If she survived this mistake, she would rectify it immediately.

She tucked the tablet back into her bag and pulled her Blade as she ran for grounding station 3. She wasn't sure if she could get there in time to help. She doubted the Major would need it. From what she had seen Sheppard was more than capable of taking care of himself, but it was her best chance at regrouping with him so they could work together.

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John was halfway to the grounding station when the lights dimmed to night mode and stopped turning on every time he entered a room. He wasn't complaining, but it was an odd. At first he thought the Storm was taking out the power, but that would have knocked out the lights completely. Then his radio clicked three times and went silent. He hesitated. It wasn't something he had ever heard it do on its own. There was someone helping him and they were trying to send him a message.

He somehow doubted it was McKay. After he had been discovered using the terminal he was sure he was being closely watched. Weir didn't have enough military training to know protocol to maintain radio silence. Which left his marines and Kai. Nothing against his own men, but he hoped for the latter. This was exactly the type of operation her training would be perfect for.

John looked down at his life signs detector as he stepped into the grounding station. There was a team of two coming up slowly behind him from the main hallway. He could easily handle two men, especially if they thought they had the element of surprise. He was about to put the detector down when another single dot appeared on his screen. It was coming from the opposite direction of the others down one of the service hallways not often used even by the expedition.

John squinted down at the tiny, blinking dot, a smirk stretching his lips. There was a good chance Kai hadn't been caught after all.

The first man rushed the door firing his gun towards John. John charged forward, firing a burst from his P-90 straight into the man's heart. The man dropped. The second one stepped out into the doorway and sent a spray of gunfire arching across the room. John threw himself over the control panel, rolling across the rain slick ground to avoid being hit. The control panel took the brunt of the spray.

In the next second the gunfire stopped. He peaked out, looking down the barrel of his P-90 to see the Genii's body drop to the ground. Kai knelt over it and jerked her knife from the corpse. She wiped the bloody blade on his uniform to clean it.

John looked down at the body and then back at her. "I thought that was you," he said waving the life signs detector towards her.

"It's a small Genii strike force. Maybe a dozen men. They have control of the gate room, and they have McKay and Weir hostage," she reported succinctly.

"My marines?" John asked tightly.

Kai looked up at him, his face was completely shut down. He was one hundred percent The Major; assessing the situation and making a plan. He was allowing no room for emotion. Her respect for him doubled as did her belief that the Genii didn't stand a chance against the two of them.

Kai shook her head. "No," she reported. "They were both killed."

John narrowed his eyes in frustration and his lips flattened into a grim line. More of his men senselessly killed so far from home, their families never able to know what they had died for. His movements were jerky and rough as he strode over to the bodies.

Part of him noted how efficiently Kai had killed the soldier. A single knife strike up under his ear into the brain. It was a quick and silent death. The strike was one that took supreme skill.

He stooped down and ripped the Genii communicator off the dead man's wrist. He had to yell to be heard over the rising storm. "Let me tell you what you did wrong here Kolya. A.) You lost two of your men. B.) They damaged the switch before I could separate the grounding rods, which I'm sure you're going to get an earful from McKay for. And C.) You lost all of what little credibility you had with me."

"You killed two of my men?" Kolya's voice was tight with anger.

John went very, very still. "Well I guess we're even," he growled back, no longer bothering to hide his anger over his lost marines.

"I don't like even," Kolya shot back.

"Oh, I'm not finished yet," Sheppard promised him menacingly.

"Neither am I," came Kolya's quick retort. "Say goodbye to Doctor Weir," Kolya's voice was perfectly calm as he spoke.

John stiffened. It was a threat. Tactically, killing Weir made no sense. She was the most valuable hostage he had. "This city has a self destruct button," John growled. "You hurt her and I'll activate it. Nobody will get Atlantis!" he yelled into the communicator.

"Even if it exists, Major, you need at least two senior personnel to activate it and I'm about to take one of them out of the equation."

Kai's eyes widened as she heard a gun cock over the comm.

"Kolya!" John yelled when Kolya didn't respond. "Kolya! I'll give you a ship," Sheppard offered. "I'll fly it out of here for you myself. Kolya!" he yelled when there was no answer, a hint of desperation coloring his voice. The lightning and thunder cracked across the sky behind him.

He stood out on the observation deck, his shoulders heaving in the face of the storm as he waited. If Weir was dead it was his fault. The waves pounded against the walls of the city as the rain soaked him.

The communicator crackled to life. "Major Sheppard, how's this for credibility. Weir is dead."

Instead, of drooping or losing resolve John's shoulders tightened and his muscles contracted like he was going to attack something. He slowly lifted the radio to his mouth. "I'm going to kill you," he promised in a dangerously low voice.

"Maybe...stay out of my way or McKay will join her," Kolya's radio clicked off.

Sheppard stood with his head hung for a moment as he gathered himself. The rain ran down his face and flattened his hair to his head.

"Major!" Kai called impatiently.

He looked up. She stood only a few feet away, the rain soaking her as well. She had slid her knife away and stood with her arms wrapped around herself against the buffeting winds. He nodded and jerked his chin towards the door. The two of them stepped back into the hall, both breathless from the severity of the storm.

John's shoulders were heaving with stress and bottled up anger. He needed to get control of himself, but all he could think of was killing Kolya.  The bastard thought he could come to his city and hurt his people and get away with it. John was about to show the man the error of his ways. Kolya would pay the price, John would make sure of it.

He turned back to Kai, she seemed strangely calm, but then he supposed this would have been just another day at the office for her. "You saw them?" John asked.

Kai unzipped her science team jacket. It was soaked through and now that the lights were down the long sleeve, fitted black shirt she wore beneath it would conceal her better. She nodded once briskly. "Almost walked right into them."

"Glad you didn't," he jerked his chin towards the soldiers. "Thanks for the assist. Was that you on the radio and the lights?"

Kai nodded again as she unknotted her scarf from around her neck.

"Look..." John hesitated as he looked down at Kai. "I know I made you a promise..." he dragged off.

Kai frowned up at him. Water beaded on his skin and dripped down the sides of his face. She could see the pain in his hazel eyes over losing Doctor Weir. He blamed himself, but he wasn't the type to wallow. Instead, she could see his resolve to punish those responsible. She respected that.

"When you decided to stay," he clarified as he swung his back pack onto the floor in front of him. "I made you a promise that I wouldn't ask you to fight." He pulled an extra handgun out of the bag and looked down at it thoughtfully. Part of him wanted to order Kai to the far side of the city to hide. He had already gotten Weir killed and Kai had made it clear she wasn't here for that.

"Isn't that against the rules?" Kai asked. When the Major looked confused she jerked her chin towards the gun.

He made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat but he still hadn't offered it to her. Kai could read the indecision on his face, she just didn't know if it was because he didn't trust her, or if he was trying to protect her.

She snorted impatiently and reached down, taking the gun from him gently. "You don't have to ask Major," she assured him sincerely. Then, because things suddenly felt too serious between them she cleared her throat. "I volunteer," she said with a teasing smile.

He grunted in annoyance.

"Jokes aside Major, I won't sit by while they try and take our home," she said and she checked to make sure there was one in the chamber and in the safety was on. She tucked the gun into the back of her waist band. Then she wrapped her scarf around her head, looping it down so it would conceal the lower part of her face, leaving only her eyes visible.

John would never admit it, but he was glad. Kai was more than capable and he was happy to have her at his back. Also, considering the determined gleam in her eyes he very much doubted she would have listened had he tried to order her to go hide anyway.

"If they're in the control room chances are good they're monitoring our radios and have gotten the sensors up and running. We need to get moving," John said. The two of them jogged away from the pier back into the dark city.

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Weir was still alive. She and McKay had been moved into her office. In a move that surprised him possibly even more than her, Rodney had stepped in front of the gun Kolya had pointed at her. Rodney had managed to convince Kolya he would need the both of them to get the shield active.

"Sir," Kolya's science officer, Ladon, called from out in the control room. "I found something."

The science officer had been working at the main control panel since they first arrived. Weir turned to McKay lifting her brows questioningly, but Kolya stepped around to the control panel, looking down at the screen Ladon indicated. He watched for only a moment before he marched back into Weir's office and leveled his gun back in her face.

"Who is with Sheppard?" he snarled.

"What?" Weir asked in shock.

"My men got the internal sensors working and there is someone with Sheppard," Kolya said stabbing his finger back towards the control room. "I'm not going to ask again," Kolya warned cocking the gun menacingly.

"It's-it's no one," McKay stammered. "It's probably just K-"

"Kari," Weir interrupted, shooting McKay a meaningful look. John had noted in his mission report that the Genii recognized Kai as a Mortii and had been extremely interested in her. Weir didn't want to make her vulnerable to them again by advertising who she was.

"Yes Kari, she's just an assistant on the science team," McKay snorted condescendingly. "She's not even my assistant, she's Doctor Zelenka's assistant...a nobody."

"If she's a nobody why is she still here?" Kolya asked keenly. "When everyone else was gated off to safety?"

"She's the only one on the science team other than me who possesses the ancient gene. The control panel required the gene to activate it. Major Sheppard and Ka-Kari were sent out to the grounding station. I thought she had made it through the gate before your people came in. I guess I was wrong," McKay flinched as Kolya shoved his gun into his face scowling at him. "L-look I don't see why you're so concerned. She'll probably just slow him down."

"And yet she's managed to evade capture," he growled.

"More than likely by hiding," Doctor Weir filled in quickly.

"Do you have something to add?" Kolya asked Doctor Weir menacingly.

Weir shook her head. "She's on the science team, McKay is the Chief Science Officer. She reports to him. I don't know much about her," Weir said honestly.

Kolya grunted and moved back out to the control panel. "I want this girl brought here," he ordered his men.

"Look, we know exactly where they are," Ladon said excitedly. He turned to the three men standing over his shoulder. "We're here, take two men, head there. Four levels down. That's Sheppard. There's a girl with him, bring her back, we might need her."

"Yes sir," the soldier snapped off and jogged away to follow orders.

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Kai followed behind the Major. He moved silently, from one point of cover to the next. Every time he paused he checked his life-signs detector and moved on to the next. The detector was the only source of light aside from the flashes of lightning. She was both surprised and impressed by how quietly the Major could move give how tall he was. She was also surprised by how well they seemed to move together.

The Major was well trained and he knew Atlantis well, and it showed. He crept around another corner and looked down at the detector. Then glanced back at Kai. He motioned forward, mimicked walking with his two fingers and then raised his finger to his lips. She didn't know exactly what he meant, but she got the gist of it.

They were operating under the assumption that the Genii had the internal sensors working and their movements were being monitored. Also that Weir and McKay would have only fessed up to what they had to about her. That she was a member of the science team. So far the Genii's actions had hinted at just that. If they knew there was a Mortii with the Major they would have sent more men.

There was a quiet, but insistent beeping from the life signs detector and John held up his hand to warn her to stop. Then he held up three fingers. There were three soldiers this time.

He gestured above them towards the rafters and touched his chest. Then he pulled three smoke grenades out of his bag and handed them to her. He motioned down the hallway away from them with two sharp hand signs, indicating speed.

Kai stared at him for a beat. He wanted her to lay the smoke bombs and then run away. He was sending her away from the other soldiers, trying to protect her. The urge to argue and insist on staying and fighting was almost overwhelming. it was stupid to have only one of them face the soldiers. She was not helpless.

She opened her mouth to argue, but stopped, snapping it shut. Sheppard smirked at her like he knew exactly what was going on in her head. It made her want to punch him.

She narrowed her eyes at him as she snatched the smoke grenades from his hands and his smile got wider.

Arguing in the middle of a combat situation was a great way to get people killed. The detector beeped again, this time more insistently and the Major looked down. When he looked up all playfulness was gone from his face. He motioned thirty seconds.

She nodded. It was time to set the trap.

The Major turned away from her and agilely climbed up the exposed pipes. He pulled himself up into the rafters, so he was hanging with his gun pointed directly below him. Kai pulled the pin on the first smoke grenade and set it next to the door. Then she backed across the room. She pulled pin on the second and left it in the middle of the room directly below the Major. Then another as she left, leaving the room in thick cover.

She turned and began jogging away down the hall.

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"Okay," Ladon's voice came through the comm to his recon team. "It looks like he's left her in one of the maintenance rooms. Go down another level and turn right. You'll be able to find her." The single dot moving away from the other one was moving fast enough Ladon assumed the Major was jogging. If his men moved fast they could get the girl without ever having to face the Major.

As much as Kolya thought the men should attack, Ladon was convinced the men should do their best to avoid facing the military commander of Atlantis. The man had killed all of their men he had come across so far and Kolya had pushed the man by lying about killing Doctor Weir.

"Are you sure you got those sensor things working right?" One of the men asked nervously.

"Look," Ladon said reassuringly "Whatever he's doing he left her unguarded. Hurry and you'll be able to take her without any problems from him," his voice was soothing, but inside he was grimacing. This strike force was not ready for an operation of this level. Both he and Kolya knew it, but Cowen wouldn't listen.

"We can see the room," One of the men reported. "Doors open, dead ahead."

"Okay," Ladon supplied. "You're clear. He's moving away from her. Go now!" he said, his eyes locked on the screen. The other dot had moved far enough way it disappeared from the main screen. He was entirely focused on the stationary dot in the maintenance room by itself. "She's only twenty feet away, still hiding," he waited, watching his screens. "Five feet," he reported as the team closed in on her.

"There's so much smoke," one of the younger soldiers complained.

"Smoke?" Sora asked in confusion beside him. Ladon waved at her to be quiet. They were almost done.

"You're right on top of her," Ladon told them his voice rising in anticipation.

"Yeah?" the soldier shot back defensively. "I think I would see her if I was."

"Stand by," Ladon said, moving the curser over to another part of the screen. The dot that had been moving away was now headed back towards the group. "Be advised Sheppard is on the move. He's coming back towards you. Do you copy?" He asked and there was an explosion of gun fire through the radio.

Ladon turned to look at Sora, his eyes wide. "Do you see him? Did you find her?" he called loudly, but as he watched the three dots that had represented his people disappeared from the screen.

A moment later the two dots reunited and started moving down the corridor together. Sheppard had tricked them.

Sora turned to Ladon, her dark eyes wide with worry. "Commander," she said activating her radio on her wrist.

"Yes, Sora," Kolya responded, his voice muffled by the ferocity of the Storm.

Sora took a deep breath and delivered the bad news to their commander. "Ladon led three of our men on a reconnaissance mission. It seems Major Sheppard has killed three more of our strike team."

There was a long pause.

"Understood," Kolya's voice was rough with anger. "Radio Chief Cowen. Tell him to send reinforcements. A full company."

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I hope you enjoyed the update!!