STARGATE ATLANTIS: Secrets (Book 5 in the Legacy series)

by Scott, Melissa

  She giggled. “Do you really want people to see what we’re about to do?”

  Osprey’s door slid open, the third one after Cloud and Night. *What is happening?* she demanded.

  *We must go,* Night said. *There is no time. Soon their automated systems will alert them that something is wrong.*

  *Not without Wind and the others,* Osprey said, and her bare feet were cold on the stone floor.

  Cloud’s face was strained, the guard standing beside her with blank eyes. *I can’t hold more than one at a time! We have to go now!*

  *Not without the others!* Osprey whirled around. *I can distract them. I can keep them busy. You go ahead and open the other doors.* They hesitated. *Trust me!* she said.

  And then she closed her eyes.

  Fire. She remembered fire. She remembered dancing around the flames, bright pipes lifting and playing, soaring like the sparks. Smoke drifted in great clouds, choking and billowing. Smoke was filling the rooms, cutting off breath. Smoke. There was smoke everywhere. It seeped from the ventilation ducts, crawled under doors. The halls were filling with smoke, and everywhere could be heard the lapping of flames, devouring oxygen and life…

  She was smoke. She passed like a ghost, and they started around, leaping to their feet, scientists and doctors, rushing for water to drench cloths for their faces. They did not see her, and above it all was the high scream of the alarms, turned on manually. The halls were filled with running guards, but they did not see her. She was smoke. They retched, turning away from vents, trying to close them by hand.

  The laboratory. Gryphon was not fooled. She turned her head on the white pillow. She was alone. The doctors had fled.

  *Gryphon.*

  *I can’t walk,* she said. Her face was pinched, her skin stretched tight over her bones. *Osprey…* She raised her shaking hand. Her fingers trembled, the slit in her palm opened. Her hand spasmed. “Osprey…”

  She only meant to take her hand. She only meant to help her up, to put her arm about Gryphon’s waist and get her to her feet. But the hand rose inexorably, shaking. And then Gryphon’s nails dug into her chest, tearing through shift and skin, biting like fire into her flesh.

  Dragging at her soul. Life pouring from her, strength pouring from her into Gryphon. Mind to mind and soul to soul, her heart and Gryphon’s beating in unison.

  *Take my strength,* Osprey whispered. *Take my strength. Take it, sister.*

  And it was life. It was rich, dark and sweet as all the food they could not digest, life and life and life. To lose it was pain, sweet ecstasy to drink. Minds entwined it was both. Life and death, death and life, swirling together like fireflies above the lake…

  And it stopped.

  Gryphon sat before her whole, her face full and round again, her blooded hand lifted. *Osprey…* Her mouth worked as though she resisted with her full strength. *No more. No more, or you will die in my stead.*

  Osprey breathed. It came in her mouth and parched her tongue. And yet she lived. The claw marks on her skin faded, punctures healing. She was dizzy, reeling, and yet she lived.

  *Life shared,* she whispered.

  Gryphon hauled her to her feet. *Come,* she said. *We must go.*

  *Ashes!*

  He was there in the corridor, where soldiers ran blindly past them, fire equipment in hand. His eyes were wide, but they knew her. *Osprey, you must help me!*

  *We will help you,* Gryphon said. *We are going to the Ring. Come with us.*

  *No!* He dragged at her arm, his eyes on Osprey’s face. *We must do something first.*

  There was a sudden rattle at the end of the corridor, and then one of the guards was borne backwards, thrown against the wall where he fell like a broken doll. Wind came around the corner, two other men behind him, his white hair streaming like a banner, one of the Ancestors’ weapons in his hand. *They have fallen back to the control room,* he said. *The one beside the hangar. There are ten men or so in good order, but the rest are panicked by the smoke.* He smiled grimly. *Your doing, Osprey?*

  *Yes,* she said.

  Ashes dragged at her arm again. *Osprey, help me!*

  Wind’s expression shifted. *Come, good fellow,* he said. *We’ll do our best to get you away.*

  *There is a weapon!* Ashes straightened up. *I am trying to tell you. They have created a weapon that kills only us, that reacts somehow with the new chemistry of our brains. Hyperion, the Chief Scientist, created it. It was supposed to work on something else all together. I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. But we can’t leave it. If we do they’ll come after us with it.*

  *Cannot Hyperion just build another?* Gryphon asked.

  *Hyperion is dead,* Wind said. He flexed his hand, and Osprey saw the blood on his nails, crusted between his fingers.

  Her eyes widened. *You…*

  *I drank his blood,* Wind said, raising his chin. *It seemed a waste to only shoot him.*

  *We have to take it with us,* Ashes said.

  There was a sudden alarm, and from ducts along the ceiling fire suppression foam began to spray.

  *They have found the overrides,* Wind said. *They believe that the fire suppression equipment has malfunctioned and they have turned it on manually.*

  *Go!* Osprey said, shoving Gryphon in the direction of the men with Wind. *Go to the Ring with them. I will help Ashes bring this thing.*

  Gryphon hesitated.

  *I’ll go with them,* Wind said. *Go on. Dial out if you can, and don’t wait for us.* He shifted his weapon to his off hand. *Let’s get this thing.*

  The lab was silent except for the distant alarms. Wind fell back to cover the door.

  *Here,* Ashes said, and he seized a buffed steel box from one of the work tables, flipping it open. Within, a scepter surrounded by crystals glowed faintly. *This is it.*

  *Bring it then,* Osprey said. There was a pedestal at the center of the room, lights shining on terminals around it. A thought came to her. *Would it not be a good idea to disable this somehow?*

  Ashes had pulled out one of the drawers from the workstation and was grinding crystals beneath his heel, smashing months of work. *I have a better idea.* He entered a series of commands on the terminal, and from the pedestal rose a long red cylinder, faceted like stained glass, glowing brightly. The glow faded as Ashes pulled it from its holder. *Take the power source.* He shoved it into her hands.

  The lights died. The alarms ceased. Here and there an emergency light flickered to life, but for the most part the underground corridors were plunged into night.

  *Can we get out of here now?* Wind demanded. *The smoke isn’t going to fool them forever.*

  *Yes,* Osprey said, dragging Ashes away from the console. Wind fired into it, sparks flying.

  She tucked the power source under her arm and manhandled Ashes along with him still clutching the case. The corridors were pitch black, slick with fire suppression foam. Here and there they came upon bodies, many of them withered and dry, like corpses buried for months in deep caves, chests caved in around the puncture holes.

  Life for death and death for life.

  Gryphon was waiting at the hangar doors, five men with her. *Two groups have already dialed out,* she said. Beyond her, the bay doors were open to the night, swirling snow obscuring anything beyond them, even the Ring of the Ancestors and the podium before it. *You are the only ones left. We waited for you.*

  Wind shifted his weapon. *They have a clear field of fire,* he said. There were guards in the docking control room. The glass windows had been blown out, and they covered the wide expanse of the bay to the open doors, a long distance of nothing but concrete. Osprey could see the barrels of their weapons, one, two, three… There was nothing to hide behind at all. *Can you distract them?* Wind asked.

  *Maybe?* She was so tired. Her feet were leaden. She had held the illusion of smoke for so long, and Gryphon had fed so deep. *I will try,* she said. *It may only last a moment. So we must run.*

  Smoke wreathing around them. Smo
ke filling the bay, obscuring their shots, clouding their sight. The entire bay was filled with smoke…

  *Run!*

  Gryphon in her white shift and bare feet, Ashes clutching the silver case, the dialing symbols burning in his mind…

  *Run!*

  The men sprinted into the fog ahead of her, smoke curling…

  And the weapons opened up. Someone in the control room had sense. They could not see their targets, but they could shoot in the right direction.

  Osprey ran, Wind at her heels, the power source clutched to her chest. Across the endless space of the landing bay, toward the snow.

  Shots touched her, once, twice, but miraculously she was still running, still running through the pain, and outside the whirling whiteness lit with unbearable blue light. The Ring kindled to life under Ashes’ hands.

  She heard Wind grunt, felt him stagger, but he was still running too, at her back.

  Snow surrounded her, the cold wind hitting her like a blow, snow beneath her bare feet. Gryphon was through, and Ashes. One of the men disappeared into the pool of light.

  Another shot, and she stumbled on the shallow steps. And then the light enveloped her.

  Night again, but warm and still, the soft chirping of insects in the grain. Wind almost plowed into her from behind as the Ring deactivated.

  *Dial out!* he shouted, pushing her away from the Ring. *Dial out so that they cannot follow!*

  The stars above were the stars of home.

  Osprey stood before the Ring gasping, the power source in her arms.

  Beneath the stars of Athos.

  In the City of the Ancestors, Teyla Emmagan woke.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hidden Things

  Teyla stood by the window, her hair still wet from the shower, watching the dawn come over the sea. She had thought the warm falling water would soothe her, but it had not. In the next room Torren slept on peacefully.

  The skies were streaked with thin, high clouds, turning pinkish in herald of the sun. Her body felt strange to her, and not only because she was lately out of the infirmary. The dream had been so vivid that she had expected to wake as Osprey. It was strange indeed to see these skies instead of the ones of Athos, these skies that had held Osprey imprisoned.

  There was a step behind her, John’s hands on her shoulders. “You ok?” He sounded muzzy with sleep, though his hands were warm enough, and she leaned back against him.

  “I dreamed,” Teyla said. “I dreamed I was a Wraith queen.”

  “Well.” His arms went around her waist, her hands tightening over his. “That’s probably because of all this stuff with Todd, right?”

  “I do not think so,” she said slowly. “I believe what I dreamed was real.” She turned around, seeing his stubbled face and worried hazel eyes. There was more gray at his temples than there had been even six months ago, a few strands threading through on top as well. Harsh morning light was unkind. Almost his face seemed that of a stranger. Of a god, the part of her that was Osprey whispered, and Teyla shuddered.

  “Hey.” John frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  Son of the Ancients, heir of their power, heir of their crimes and their arrogance…

  I am not you, she thought, pushing the thought away. I am not Osprey. I am Teyla Emmagan of Athos, Teyla Who Walks Through Gates, and I choose for myself.

  “I dreamed of the First Mothers,” she said. “And I think I dreamed true. Guide told me…” She paused, knowing how it would sound, but John had always believed her, always from the beginning. “He told me that Wraith queens may retain some of the genetic memories of their mothers, of the lineage that they come from back to the First Mothers. I dreamed of Osprey.”

  John swallowed but his eyes didn’t leave her face. “Ok,” he said evenly. “That’s disturbing.”

  “I am disturbed,” she said, turning once again toward the cold sea. It was hundreds of miles across icy ocean to the island where Osprey had been imprisoned, but the view was the same. “The Wraith were created here, John. Here on this world. I do not know why. But the Ancients made them. I do not know what they intended to do, taking humans from the worlds of this galaxy and twisting them so, but they made them. I remember.” Osprey’s sadness closed her throat, feelings both new minted and eleven thousand years old.

  He did not disbelieve her. “The installation on the island,” he said. “Dr. Lynn’s prison break.”

  “She was a teenage girl,” Teyla said, and her voice did not shake. “A girl of seventeen, one of nine women who survived the experiments. I do not know why Osprey survived. But she did.”

  “Somebody always does,” John said, and he stepped forward to put his arms about her again.

  She would not flinch. This was John, not some prison guard dead nearly a thousand years before the Ancestors walked through the Stargate to Earth, before the ATA gene found its way into John’s lineage. I am not you, she said to Osprey within her, and I will not avenge you.

  “Elizabeth told me the secret was in my blood,” Teyla said softly. “I think perhaps she meant it literally. I carry Osprey’s memories, every wrong done to her and every cruelty, everything she did to survive.”

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” John asked quietly.

  “I think that I do,” Teyla said. “Yes, I do.” She closed her eyes, seeing again the flight through the Ring of the Ancestors, the others running through the snow ahead of her, Wind at her back, while against her Osprey cradled… “John,” she said. “They had a ZPM. And it was almost new.”

  Ladon Radim flipped through the latest batch of telegraphed reports, not really seeing the faded print. Most of it was either old news or long expected: a disturbance at the northern nuclear facility after a rumor of a containment breach; shifting alliances within the Council of Twelve, marked by two marriages and a divorce; crop failure in the west, hailstorms flattening a summer’s growth of grain. That, at least, could be offset by better harvests elsewhere, maybe even without tapping the emergency surplus. He made a note, even though he suspected Ambrus had already dealt with the matter. He could hear the hum of the cameras in the antechamber, warming for the scheduled contact with the Lanteans, and he allowed himself a sigh. Someday — someday they would synthesize the Ancient gene, but until then, they were desperately dependent on the Lanteans. Though if he could just get his hands on a few more tissue samples…

  “Commander.”

  He straightened, putting aside that thought. “Yes.”

  “Mr. Woolsey is available.”

  “Excellent.” Ladon straightened his jacket, cast a quick glance to the mirror above the sideboard to be sure that he looked both businesslike and calm. Then he slid back the door and stepped into the lights and warmth of the improvised transmission chamber.

  “Chief Ladon.” As always, there was the faintest hint of irony in Woolsey’s voice.

  Ladon nodded to the image on the monitor, knowing the cameras were positioned to make it seem as though they met face to face. Behind the monitor, he could see the young operator frowning at his screen, face uplit by the reflection as he worked to keep the transmission steady. “Mr. Woolsey.”

  “I understand from our Satedan contacts that the trade agreement is going well,” Woolsey said.

  “For all our peoples,” Ladon said. As if Woolsey wasn’t perfectly aware of everything the Genii were doing publicly on Sateda, and probably most of their theoretically secret dealings. He had no illusions about where the so-called governor’s loyalties lay. “Governor Cai has been very cooperative.”

  “We’ve found him to be an excellent trade partner,” Woolsey said. “And we’ve been impressed by the progress they’ve made with rebuilding.”

  In other words, don’t expect to walk in and take over, Ladon thought. Woolsey would be wise to heed his own advice. He said, “Yes, it’s most impressive. And we are glad to have been of help in that regard.” He saw Woolsey’s gaze flicker at that, and knew the shot had gone home. The Genii had
food and raw materials to spare, both from their homeworld and from the worlds of their many allies; the Lanteans’ new home was barren and, in the end, they had so much less to give. “However, we’ve reached a point where we could use help from our older ally.”

  “Of course we’d be glad to offer any possible assistance.”

  “As you know, our people do not possess the ATA gene,” Ladon said. “When he helped us recover the Pride of the Genii, Colonel Sheppard was able to initialize most of the ship’s systems. However, as we’ve continued to make repairs, we discovered that one of the key control crystals in the navigation systems needed to be replaced. We were able to locate what seems to be the required device in Sateda’s museum basement — along with a number of other interesting artifacts — but the crystal needs to be initialized before it can be installed. We were hoping that you could spare a technician to handle that for us.” He paused, giving Woolsey a chance to offer out of pure charity. The other man remained silent, and Ladon went on. “We would of course also be more than happy for your scientists to examine the other items in the collection, and to take some for further study.”

  Woolsey did smile at that, the faintest movement of his thin lips. “We’re always happy to help out an ally,” he said. “Let me consult my chief of sciences, and I’m sure we can settle on a suitable date and time. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I have some options for you.”

  “Thank you,” Ladon said, and motioned for the technician to cut the transmission. He hated having to grovel to the Lanteans, but the Pride was worthless without her weapons systems. One way or another, they had to have the initialized crystal.

  “Need a hand, Major?” Lorne looked around in the mess line to see Lt. Colonel Hocken coming up behind him, her red hair just growing out enough to curl over the tops of her ears. She shifted her tray to one hand and reached for his with the other.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it,” Lorne said. It was hard to manage the tray and a cane, though he’d done it. But he wasn’t too proud to accept help; a little backup was just good teamwork.