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This story is completed
He sighs. Time for a break anyhow. He stretches his aching hands, unfolding the top flaps so he can blow warm heat over his fingertips. Ten years ago, if you'd have asked him where he saw his future, he'd say a big physics program somewhere, a nuclear accelerator, maybe a Nobel (when he was at his daydreaming best) not on some icy rock on the outer rings of a far off galaxy, mining some meaningless shiny rocks for a civilization so backwards that it doesn't recognize that not even the prettiest of things will save them from the Wraith, when they come.
Radek is lucky, though. On the first day he showed them that he could repair their machines, and it's been his job ever since. The guards don't understand it any better than the stones themselves probably do, so they leave him pretty much alone. They're not afraid he'll escape – there's nothing but sub-zero wilderness for miles and miles, and yet it's somehow completely different than Antarctica. In Antarctica he had polar fleece. And vodka.
The silence of the caverns is confining back here where most of the machinery is nestled. It keeps him from too much contact with the rest of the prisoners. It'd almost be relaxing, if it weren't twenty below and he weren't a prisoner here. Vodka would be nice too.
That's why Radek is so surprised when Rekesta, his burly chimp-brained personal guard comes barreling around the corner, a perverted smirk on his face as he drags a woman behind him.
"Dr. Heightmeyer?" Radek asks, unsure. Kate is wearing even less than he is, hands bound in rags, chapped so much she's bleeding beneath. She's not wearing her uniform like all of the other expedition members he's seen, but rather a white animal pelt wrapped around her upper body, legs bare and shivering.
"Radek," she says, eyes level and commanding him to meet her gaze. She steps right up to him and embraces him, pulling his face to hers for a kiss on the lips.
Rekesta laughs in the background.
"Just play along," Kate whispers into his lips, kissing down his lips and dropping the pelt to reveal what he suspected – that she's naked beneath.
Radek is too stunned to really play along, but Kate's good, because she stops and looks over her shoulder. "Would you mind?"
Rekesta shakes his head dumbly, but waddles off. That's one thing Radek will give him credit for – he's a stupid bastard, but he's not particularly cruel – not like the guards down in the mines. Last time he saw Carson, half the man's face was obscured by black bruising.
The second Rekesta's out of sight, Kate wraps the fur back around herself, letting Radek enfold her in his own long coat.
"Not that I don't appreciate the . . . er . . . visit, Dr. Heightmeyer, but why are you here?"
Kate looks both ways before whispering. "You need to disrupt the machines."
"I . . . you know I can't do that." They wouldn't notice him making the adjustments, but if they're off for too long, then they'll freeze and there will be no way to get them started again.
"You have to do it, Radek. It's the only way."
"Well, it's time for a Plan B. Or maybe one of Colonel Sheppard's famous Plan Fs?"
Kate sighs, shaking her head. "No, this is it. We have everything organized. Corrigan and Kusanagi have things in line down in the labor blocks and I have the Prisonmaster's . . . um . . . harem, ready." It's the first time he's heard her fumble like that. But he doesn't wonder why. He's seen the prisonmaster – he wonders if those appendages on top of his head are used for things other than decoration.
"I'm so sorry, Doctor . . . Kate. I didn't know you had . . . are you all right?"
Kate nods, almost absently. "He hasn't hurt me." It's a non-answer and they both know it – Kate probably more than anyone.
"And the others?"
Kate gulps. "Teyla is a strong woman. And Dr. Roberts. Even Dr. Brown is holding up." They don't speak of Elizabeth and how the guards slit her throat on the very first day after they took the Alpha site.
"And Colonel Sheppard?"
Kate is sure to meet his gaze. "He had some trouble adjusting, yes. But, that's not what's important, Radek. The Prisonmaster has allowed me to spend the night with you, ‘my husband,' as a reward for the work you've done. He won't trust you any more than he does now. We have to act."
"But, Kate, you must understand that the machines are only source of heat in this place. You went to med school, you know not all prisoners can survive those temperatures."
Kate nods, looking down at her raw knees and her chapped hands. "We understand."
Radek frowns. He's not used to these kinds of plans. Sheppard and McKay will risk their own lives, but they have yet to suggest a plan that's likely to kill a large percentage of the population. "Sheppard okayed this?"
Kate meets his eyes seamlessly. "Yes. He did."
Radek gulps. There really must be no other choice.
"Okay. I'll make the adjustments now. We will not see the effects until the boiler is fired up again in the morning."
When Radek wakes the next morning, Kate snuggled up against him, curled tightly beneath the snow-white pelt he'd been provided for his pallet. The ground beneath them is shaking, the lights flickering. This is it.
Kate is awake in a second, barely stopping to stretch as she vaults out of bed. He wonders what she must have done in the past for reflexes like that. "Come on, Radek," she prompts, reaching into her fur and pulling out a small pointed object, before tossing Radek his own wrench. "We have to make it up to the communications center. Ronon and Lorne are securing it, but they might need someone to make sure that we keep of the normal schedule of transmissions until we're ready to take down a transport."
"Wait," Radek splutters, trying to get his glasses on straight. "Isn't Rodney going to be doing that?"
Kate sighs and grabs his hand. "We have to go."
Two days later when he's carrying Kate over his shoulder through the snow, Ronon standing guard beside him, he sees them. The blizzard is strong, blowing a shiver straight down to his bones, but a body is still a splash of color in the endless field of white.
"Don't," Ronon warns. He's limping, smelling of soot and the charred flesh of all the dead they were forced to burn with motor oil. Radek doesn't think of Fernandez or Lorne or Kusangi, bloody and frozen and almost peaceful floating there behind his eyes. He's not sure he can add two more faces to that.
"When?" Radek asks.
"Three days before the revolt. They were exiled to the surface."
Radek nods, looking at the two bodies, a Canadian flag patch and a mop of dark hair just visible in the banks of soft powdery snow.
If Kate were still consciousness, he might berate her for lying. He might ask her why she did it. But then again, he might not. He's just so tired.