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“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.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

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.”

“So they know,” Ronon said. “The Wraith know somebody spoiled their party. They know we’ve got the control room. Which means they’re on their way down here.”

“There is that,” Radek said. He didn’t take his eyes off the monitor. “Shutting down the water, that is it there. Main pump off. Backup pump off. I am leaving the special lights on and bringing up the general safety lighting throughout the complex.” He stroked the board with satisfaction. “Locking the movable floors in the safety position. All traps turned off, in the maintenance mode.”

“Right.” Ronon hauled him out of his chair by the back of his shirt. “Time to go.”

“I think you are correct,” Radek said, grabbing onto his glasses as Ronon let forth a salvo with his energy pistol into the servers and monitors. They exploded most satisfactorily in clouds of sparks and smoke, and he flung up his hands to shield his eyes from the glare.

“Here.” Ronon thrust the two Wraith stun pistols taken from the dead controllers into Radek’s hands. “Let’s get out of here. Do you know how to shoot one of these?”

“Um…” Truthfulness was probably the better part of valor. “No.”

“Then stay behind me.” Ronon plunged into the hallway, pistol at the ready.

“Where are we going?” Radek demanded, following after.

“To find Sheppard and Teyla,” Ronon replied. “Where else?”

Radek shrugged. “Where else indeed?”

They dashed through the halls, not bothering to dodge cameras now, though some of them were no doubt active. Even if the cameras were still operative, without the control systems the Wraith would not be able to use them to spy on what happened within the maze. They might not know where the Wraith were, but the Wraith were also now essentially blind. They could not track them, or the contestants. Radek thought with satisfaction that many of the traps, like the steam room, could not be reactivated without the controls that were now destroyed. Presumably the water hazards would all empty swiftly, the water flowing downhill to the storage cisterns without the pump to bring it to the upper levels. In a few minutes the maze would be oddly silent, the flowing water stilled. Perhaps this would save more than a few lives, those of contestants still trapped within the maze. Whether they might have a chance of escape, or would simply be hunted down by the Wraith later, he could not guess.