Hope is a Waking Dream

Chapter 10

His limbs throbbed, every inch of him feeling like it was on pins and needles, like his whole body had somehow fallen asleep with the circulation cut off. There was a snapping sound in front of his face and he jerked his head up with a gasp, sight returning in a strange blur of colours and movement.

Sheppard blinked rapidly, trying to clear the haze from his eyes, and saw his captors crouched in front of him. Trying to move, he found that he was propped up against a tree, his arms tied behind him and his ankles bound in front of him.

"You awake?" the blond man asked, snapping his fingers in front of Sheppard's face again.

"Let me go," Sheppard growled, tugging at his bonds.

"I'm Helo," the man said. "This is Nika." He jerked a thumb back towards the smaller man who held a strange looking gun trained on the pilot. "We want to talk to you."

"Hell, of a way to get a guy to listen," Sheppard snapped.

"You know you weren't going to sit there and wait for us to talk to you," Nika fired back.

"You don't trust us," Helo said. "We know that. We don't exactly trust you either, but we need you to listen. Jenar is going to be pretty mad at us, but we're hoping he doesn't find out."

Sheppard could feel the pins and needles subsiding, and with it, his head started to clear. What were these guys talking about?

"How much do you know about the Genii?" Helo asked.

"Enough to know that I avoid them like the plague when I see them," Sheppard growled.

"We know about you, Sheppard," Helo continued. "We know you killed a whole bunch of Koyla's men on Atlantis. Maybe they didn't deserve it, maybe they did. The important thing is, you're dangerous. Jenar knows it. He knows Koyla would do anything to get his hands on you. What you might not know is that Jenar and Koyla are supposed to be working together. Jenar doesn't like Koyla. He'd rather do things his own way. That's why he didn't tell Koyla about you."

"So, what are you going to do about it?" Sheppard shifted, uneasy.

"Something else you might not know about is that we have an underground resistance. The Genii are unhappy with their leadership. There are several factions which would be happy to see our military commanders replaced." Helo glanced up at Nika. "I hope you understand this. We don't like you, but we need you to get to that Stargate, Sheppard. We need you to pass a message on for us."

"What kind of a message?"

"The resistance is alive and well in Jenar's army," Nika said. "We have an address. You don't have to go there yourself. We just need others to know. That's all."

Nika quickly scratched a gate address into the dirt near to Sheppard, let him study it, then quickly rubbed it out.

Sheppard looked at the hunters, suspicious. "Are there any more of you here?"

Helo shook his head. "Just Nika and me."

He pulled a knife from his boot and reached forward to cut the rope around Sheppard's ankles, tucking the spare length into his belt. "We're on your side. We want you to get through that gate. Jenar is a sadistic killer. He does not suffer fools or failures lightly. If you cross him or disappoint him in any way, he kills you himself. These training grounds have seen a lot of deaths, and not just of those we've hunted. The people of this planet are terrified of us. Most of the villagers would give you up in a heartbeat if it means their sons won't be taken."

"Some of these guys have had their entire family killed." Nika added.

As Helo reached for the ropes at Sheppard's wrists, there was a crackle of leaves crunching underfoot in the forest around them. Around a dozen men materialized from the underbrush, with Jenar striding forward in front of them.