Stargate Atlantis: Halcyon

by James Swallow

  The Athosian woman spat out acidic bile and shot him a murderous stare. "You used me! You left me there to distract them! You made me your bait!"

  "Give it to me," he said, ignoring her fury.

  Teyla knew instantly that if she did not give him something, Scar would take it by force, perhaps even break a limb or draw off a few years of her life as punishment. In the same moment, she hated herself for falling into the trap of thinking like a slave, letting fear of the Wraith's reprimand rule her before he had even committed it. She held tight to herself, hands in the folds of her torn and dirty jacket, shivering with anger and near panic.

  "Tey-lah," Scar warned, reaching for her.

  She thrust out her hand and showed him the object there. The Wraith allowed himself a smile and took it, turning it over in his grip. Teyla looked away, and slowly drew herself back up.

  "A transmitter unit." Scar weighed the Atlantis-issue radio in his hand, studying it. With a long-nailed thumb he toyed with the dials. "You were attempting to call your friends for help, yes?" He absently pocketed the compact walkie-talkie. "How quickly you forget, my little Hound. Remember what I told you; only my wishes will be answered today."

  Teyla did her best to look contrite and afraid of him. It wasn't difficult to do, the leering face with its maw of jagged fangs there before her and a dozen others all the same around it, all ready to rip her to shreds; but she had the knife now, hidden and ready. Her fingers curved around it, the metal hilt solid in her grip. There would be a moment, very soon, when she would use it exactly as the dead soldier had intended to.

  Sheppard emerged from a low tunnel on to a catwalk several meters up, running parallel to a long corridor overlooking a dozen clawed cradles, each one grasping a dormant Dart fighter and heavy with webs from a million generations of spiders. Observation gallery, he decided. When the Hive Ship was fully active, anyone standing down there would be able to direct the launches of multiple Dart flights, something akin to the catapult officer on a naval aircraft carrier. Right now though, the corridor was alight with pulses of deadly energy as a group of armored Wraith enforcers traded fire with a single figure at the far end of the gallery. From his high vantage point, the colonel saw their target moving and firing, and recognized the tall warrior instantly. He went through a bunch of emotions in quick succession; pleased to see that Ronon Dex was still alive; confused about how it was the Satedan had got on board the Hive Ship; and then worried by the overwhelming enemy opposition that Dex was trying to hold off.

  Sheppard sighted down the barrel of his P90 and looked for a good angle to give Ronon some covering fire. He had to make it count. The moment he squeezed the trigger, he'd lose the element of surprise. The colonel had to get as many of those Wraiths in the kill zone as possible. "If I had a SAW, I'd be able to take them all in one burst," he said under his breath; but they had left the heavy M249 support weapons back on Atlantis. Sheppard waited, the seconds ticking by, anticipating the moment for the perfect shot. From up here, the whole confrontation was visible, and he had his choice of targets.

  There was a noise behind him. The same noise as before, the same click of Wraith feet on Wraith decks, the faintest rasp of a hungry predator's breath as it closed in for the kill. One of the aliens had clearly had the same idea as Sheppard, slipping away from the firefight to clamber up here and take out Ronon from the catwalk. This time, however, John didn't have a shouted call over the radio to warn him. The Wraith slammed into him with all the force of a linebacker, the impact making the bone gantry clatter and rock from side to side. The alien's body check knocked Sheppard's gun from his grip and it swung away from him like a pendulum, still connected to his gear vest by a lanyard, although at this moment it might as well have been on Mars. They traded hard and rapid blows, Wraith and human punching at places where nerve bundles and soft tissues could be damaged. The colonel fell into the combat training he'd learnt from Teyla, remembering the Athosian two-strike combo that always hurt like hell whenever the woman used it on him.

  The Wraith lashed out at him with its claws, screeching at him from a frenzied face framed by a storm of stringy white hair. The razor-tipped nails raked over his vest, ripping open pockets and spilling their contents, tearing a rent in his blue jacket. That's two of them I've ruined on this mission. He feinted and threw another punch, but the Wraith anticipated and hit him hard in the head. John stumbled and fell among the mess of ration packs, field dressings and other gear on the catwalk. By now the two fighters were attracting fire from the other Wraith down in the gallery, streaks of white lightning spitting past them.

  By sheer reflex, he grabbed at a black plastic cylinder near his hand and smashed it into the face of the alien as it came down to feed on him. The ferocity of the blow staggered the Wraith back a step and Sheppard hit him again, suddenly aware of what he was holding in his grip. The colonel jammed the object into the folds of the Wraith's body armor and snatched back his hand, clutching a metal pull-ring. He brought his palms up to his face and spun away just as the flash-bang grenade went off.

  An ululating scream tore from the lips of the Wraith as the burning phosphorus elements and explosive charge burnt into its chest. Flash-bangs were supposed to be an indirect, nonlethal weapon; but stuffed down a guy's shirt it would still do a horrific amount of burn damage. Dazzled by the glare from the grenade, the Wraith staggered over the lip of the catwalk and fell into the midst of its comrades.

  Sheppard shook off the ringing in his ears to see Ronon race out from behind his cover, taking advantage of the mayhem. John grabbed his dangling P90 and after a moment of applied lethality, the two men had the gallery to themselves. Ronon blew out a breath and saluted Sheppard with his short sword. "Messy," he called out, with a hint of gallows humor, nodding at the Wraiths.

  John hauled himself over the edge of the catwalk and halfclimbed, half-slid down one of the bone support stanchions. "I prefer to think of it as improvised." Sheppard tried to force his usual smile to the surface but it was hard to find. This day had turned into one long and painful ordeal, and he still couldn't be sure if there was an end in sight. He glanced at Dex and for the first time Sheppard saw that the Satedan was streaked with dark blood. "Whoa, Ronon! You're hit, you're bleeding, man!"

  The ex-soldier shrugged. "It's not mine."

  "Then whose blood is it?"

  He nodded at the walls. "The ship's. I cut my way in. It got a little..."

  "Messy?" offered Sheppard.

  "Yeah. You find Teyla or McKay?"

  John shook his head. "Not yet. But they gotta be on board. There's nowhere else on this planet they could be." He quickly reloaded the P90. "I'm thinking we need to find the control center for this tub and bring it to heel, if Lord Daus's boys haven't already snafu'ed the whole damn thing."

  Dex nodded. "Scar will do the same. I was on my way there when I got pinned down."

  "You know where to go?"

  He pointed. "Wraith held me on board one of these ships for weeks after Sateda fell. I got away from them a couple of times. I have an idea about the layout."

  Sheppard gestured with his gun. "Great, you can play tour guide - "

  A rasping crackle of static from his radio cut him off in mid-speech. "Colonel Sheppard? Ronon? I hope you can hear this..."

  "Beckett?" John toggled the mike. "Carson, we read you, what's your situation, over?"

  "My situation?" Beckett repeated into his headset. "Never mind me, what about you? We thought you were dead in there!"

  "Doctor," Sheppard said firmly, "are you all right? Is the medical team safe?"

  Carson glanced up at Erony's worried expression in the seat across from his inside the flyer cabin. She was gripping another walkie-talkie, listening in, her knuckles white around the radio. "Aye, I think so. Corporal Clarke's back in the city. I'm here with Mason and Lady Erony."

  "Where the hell is `here', Carson? You were told to stay in the capital!"

  "Ah, well. We came out looking for you in th
e lass's flyer. We found Ronon... Although he's since got another lift... We're going to head back and pick up the Jumper where you left it."

  Beckett heard the exasperation in the colonel's tone. "Listen to me, if you're anywhere near this Hive Ship, you have to back off right now! We don't know who's in charge of this thing, and you could get your asses shot out of the sky"

  The doctor craned his neck to peer through the flyer's porthole. "That's just it, John, we can't keep up with it!" The Wraith craft was now the size of a dollar coin, the beetle-like shape no different from a garden insect clinging to the outside of the window. With every passing moment it grew smaller as it gained altitude. "The Hive Ship is picking up speed and climbing. It's heading for orbit."

  In the nexus chamber, Daus's rifleman stared at the radio in his hand in stunned silence as Sheppard and Beckett's conversation went back and forth. McKay made a sour face. "Thank you, Carson," he said to the air, knowing full well that the doctor wouldn't be able to hear him, "thank you for confirming the completely obvious level of trouble we are now in." Before him, the control center's eye-like view ports showed nothing but blue sky, the color deepening toward dark magenta with every passing second. Consoles all across the chamber that had been dark and dormant were now alive with color, alien displays casting strange light over the fearful faces of the Halcyon scientists.

  "The Lieutenant Colonel and the Runner," said Vekken, "they are on board this vessel."

  "It matters not!" snapped the Magnate, jabbing a finger at the air. "The Wraith will kill them. Our survival is the issue here. Without me, Halcyon will be lost, rudderless!" He glared at Rodney, the light of mad fury in his watery eyes. "I order you to stop this ship! Do it now!"

  McKay threw up his hands. "Make up your mind! The hibernation systems or the flight brain, I can't work on both at the same time!"

  "Who is controlling this craft?" roared Daus. "Is this your doing? Have you made this happen, outworlder?" He advanced menacingly.

  Rodney blanched, the memory of Kelfer's murder still very fresh in his mind. "As far as I can ascertain, these ships are autonomic," he managed, "they're like trained animals. Give them a command, they execute it. Only a Wraith can make a Hive Ship obey."

  "Scar!" Daus spat out the word like a curse. "He did this."

  And like the secret name of a demon conjuring the very beast it described, the next voice they heard was the rasping purr of the Wraith commander.

  The Wraith played with the radio, caressing it and examining the device at eye level, in the way that an artisan might appraise a gemstone for flaws. Scar had quickly deduced the functioning of the communicator. "Human," he husked, a vein of anger audible under the words. "You prove more resilient than I expected."

  Teyla smiled coldly at the sneer in Sheppard's reply, inwardly elated that her friends were still alive. "You know, for a superior kinda Wraith, you're not as smart as you like folks to think."

  "I killed you," growled the alien.

  "Beg to differ with you, eyeball. That's what happens when you mess with weapons you don't understand," the colonel retorted. "Why don't you tell us where you are? We'd be happy to swing by and show you how they're supposed to work."

  With an expression of loathing on his face, Scar reached into his tunic and removed the Beretta pistol he had taken from Teyla, holding it as if the gun filled him with disgust, as if it had somehow betrayed him. With an angry flick of his wrist he tossed it away, over the edge of the walkway where they stood. It clattered away into the darkness below. "I will not make that mistake again,"

  "Too late for that. We've got explosive charges planted all over this ship. One command from me and ka-boom. Game over. You're finished."

  A cruel smile appeared on Scar's face. "A lie. If you had the power to destroy this vessel, you would have done so before now. You are not like the natives, you have no desire to keep it intact, like some wretched breedery." He threw a wicked glance at Teyla and kept speaking. "Let me tell you how this will end, prey. Once we achieve orbital parity, my ship's guns will carve Halcyon's settlements into rubble. I will sow panic and fear in the prey that swarm on this world. Calls have already been sent, Hive Fleets are already on their way. My kindred are coming to Halcyon, of that you may be certain. When they arrive here, I will lead them in a culling so brutal, so total, that it will become legendary in the annals of the Wraith. We will harvest everything that lives on this world, spare nothing but one single survivor..." He chuckled, and the sound was chilling. "Yes. I will spare the woman Tey-lah, so that when your species see her broken by the horrors she has witnessed, they will know that the dominion of the Wraith is total."

  When Sheppard replied, his words were curt and clipped. "Atlantis team, switch to alternate channel delta. Scarface can talk to himself for a while."

  The Wraith commander gave a guttural laugh and turned back to face the Athosian; he was quite unprepared for her to spring at him and bury a curved dagger in his chest.

  "Delta!" Rodney shouted. "I know that one!" Without thinking, he snatched at the radio in the rifleman's hands and twisted the frequency dial to the right setting. "Sheppard!" he called. "It's me, I'm alive! I'm here, on the control deck! I think we can-

  The sudden impact came from nowhere and without any apparent intervening movement McKay found himself sprawled on the floor, clutching at his shoulder. The radio spun away, out of his reach.

  "Do not dare to speak without my permission!" Daus raged, towering over him with his fists balled. His face was flushed with color. "I warned you!"

  He could hear Sheppard calling out to him, but the thudding of his pulse in his ears made McKay giddy. "They can help us! I can't do this alone!"

  "Are you as much a liar as you are a coward?" thundered the Magnate.

  "I'm not a coward!" Rodney retorted. "I just have a heightened level of self-preservation!"

  "You told my daughter you were the font of knowledge regarding the Wraith," he continued, "but you are not! You pathetic weakling! I would have killed you out of hand had I known how useless you are, instead of bringing you here!"

  McKay felt sick inside. "You brought me here... Because of Erony?"

  The rifleman's knife went into Scar's torso, through the ragged leather jerkin he wore, into corpse-colored flesh to the jeweled hilt. Oily blood flowed as the Wraith howled and beat at Teyla. Scar had released the control leash for her collar, and was clawing at her face with both hands, frantic as he tried to force her away.

  The Athosian woman had her grip on the blade and she worked, trying to turn it. Wraith were incredibly resilient, their cellular structure and monstrous physiology capable of repairing wounds that would be instantly fatal to a human. A cut like this one would be only a memory in a day or so, unless she could render so much damage that Scar's body would not be able to save him. Blaster fire, decapitation, a salvo of hollow point bullets-all these things would have finished Scar off in an instant, but Teyla Emmagan had only the tools at hand to work with.

  She tried to let herself slip into a cool, steady battle-mind state, a point of focus without anger or fury; but her years of training failed her. She had too much rage for this creature, a towering hate built from his cruelty to her and the brutality he had shown to those riflemen, to John and Ronon, to poor Bishop. Teyla realized that she did not just want Scar to die. She wanted to make him suffer first.

  That chink in her psyche was enough, and Scar fought back with rage of his own, striking her mentally even as he clawed at her flesh.

  Other hands grabbed at her, tore her away from him. Teyla went wild, turning and grabbing the neck of one Wraith under her arm, twisting it until it broke. She let the corpse fall and flew at the next pale-faced alien, her hands finding flesh to gouge. The thick spike of a stunner came at her and Teyla sank her fist into the owner's sternum, hearing ribs snap. She disarmed him with a crippling kick to the knee and spun the Wraith rifle about, using the spike to impale the alien to the deck.

  Fingers
flicked at Teyla's auburn hair and she felt a wave of pain as an unseen attacker dragged her backward with a savage jerk. She stumbled and her footing fled, the deck rising up to meet her. The woman cried out with the impact, the metal tore of the choke collar vibrating where it hit the ground.

  Teyla spat out blood and tried to right herself. A heavy boot pressed into her chest and held her down there. Through a haze of agony she saw Scar hunched over her, the dagger still in his chest, his tunic dark with alien fluids.

  "Bad little Hound," he said thickly, pain rattling his words. "I... I am disappointed in you. I thought we had.... An under standing."

  Scar gurgled with distress as he used one hand to ease the curved knife out of his chest. He let it drop to the floor with a clatter. Teyla bared her teeth in a fierce grin. She had injured the Wraith severely, if not enough to kill him.

  "You are no more use to me. Your purpose is served." Scar threw a nod to one of the other Wraiths, and the alien disconnected the steel leash from the choke collar. Without a controller to govern it, the collar's mechanism slowly began to tighten, the cogs and cables inside it ticking like clockwork.

  Once again, Teyla felt the pain biting into her, the bruised flesh of her throat giving under the implacable metal device. She forced air into her lungs, filling them before the collar grew too tight.

  The Wraith left her there to die. Scar glanced over his shoulder as he walked away. "It will not be quick," he smiled, his teeth discolored with blood.

  Rodney gaped, for once almost lost for words. Erony... He had thought that they had, well, something. The beginnings of a friendship, maybe, a moment or two of shared interest in things bigger than Halcyon's petty wars and games of empire. He felt foolish. You're just some guy from another planet, McKay, said a voice in his head, did you think you were going to bowl over some alien princess with your rapier wit and brilliant intellect? Of course she was going to be loyal to her homeworld first. Of course she would!

  "Erony told you about me?"