by Martha Wells
Watching Rodney intently, Teyla asked, "Can we use the jumper's weapons?"
"The shielding!" Zelenka was saying in the headset. "The shielding may prevent-!"
Rodney waved at them all to shut up, even though Zelenka couldn't see him. "Yes, and no. We need to disable the pulse generator, but taking the jumper up into a firing position above the roof may just trigger another violent discharge; we could be smashed into the building before we have a chance to fire. And the shielding on the installation's inner ring and the roof must be designed to deflect the full force of the energy spikes that the Mirror can generate; the jumper's energy drones may not be able to penetrate it." He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "But the good news is, the pulse array stretches along the entire circumference of the roof, and we should be able to disrupt it at any point."
Sheppard was watching Rodney as if he didn't have a clue what Rodney was saying, as if he wasn't even sure Rodney was speaking English, but Rodney had learned long ago that was just as deceptive as the involuntary sarcasm. Proving it, Sheppard said, "So we need to get up there and disable one section so the whole thing will shut down. And the Mirror will do what?"
"The Mirror is going to-" Rodney hesitated uneasily, thinking it over. The singularity would take time to collapse, but the discharges would become more violent immediately. "We're going to have to get back inside the installation as quickly as possible. The instability should cause the singularity to begin a collapse, but it'll take some time. Hours, probably days. After the initial reaction, we should be able to lift off in the jumper and get away." Remembering all his practical experience was with a Quantum Mirror the size of a bathtub rather than an Olympic stadium, he added, "Theoretically."
"Right." Sheppard looked at Teyla and got a grim nod in response. In Rodney's headset he could hear Zelenka and Kusanagi unhelpfully debating the possibility of the collapsing singularity punching a hole straight through the moon and taking all matter in the area with it. Sheppard asked, "What about the jumper? Are they going to be safe out there during this?"
"In a word, no." Rodney touched his headset. "Radek, does your life signs screen show the Wraith anywhere near that big freight corridor?"
Zelenka answered, "No, they are not there. We can not see their positions exactly-there is still much interference-but we saw them move into the center section."
Rodney nodded briskly. "Good. I need you to move the jumper, still cloaked, into that passage. That's what it was designed for; there's plenty of room. Look for a stable bay along the side and take the jumper into it. That should shield you from the initial reaction discharge and cut down the chances of the Wraith stumbling into you if they come back down that way."
Teyla lifted her brows doubtfully and looked at Sheppard. Sheppard got that expression he always got when someone other than him wanted to do something crazy with a puddlejumper. There was a static-laden silence from the radio. Then Zelenka said, "Ali... Colonel, is that good idea?"
Rodney mentally rewrote Zelenka's next performance evaluation to include the term "mutinous."
But Sheppard just said, "Affirmative, Zelenka, take the jumper inside."
The comm was chiming for attention, but Trishen hesitated, leaning on her control console. Unlike her drive, her sensors had survived the abrupt unplanned trip through the Quantum Mirror, and her holo display showed the newly arrived ship in orbit. She had seen the energy signatures when it had used a transport beam to send a landing party to the installation, and the effect that had had on the dangerously unstable Mirror.
She should answer the comm. Except... something's wrong, she told herself, grimly eyeing the screen. She hadn't been able to sense the humans' presence. But these newcomers were not humans, and she could taste the matrix of their minds, just on the edge of her awareness.
It felt wrong. There was nothing she could articulate, no one element that seemed to warn of danger. But deep inside her, a buried instinct said, fear this.
The humans had spoken of Wraith, of the danger of revealing her presence in this place. Of course, then they went mad and threatened to kill you, she told herself ruefully.
Their fear she had been able to understand; she was too different from them, perhaps they had never seen an alien being before. It was the hate that baffled her.
When she had first glimpsed them on the security camera she hadn't known what she was looking at. They were so alien, so unlike Eidolon, all different sizes and colors. Then one had looked directly at the camera, and she had had a sudden clear view of his face. It had been like looking at one of the ancient holo recordings of the Creators.
She had gripped the cold metal of the console, staring in shock. If the Creators were alive in this reality... This is incredible; all our questions could be answered! But surely Creators would know how to override their own security measures. She had turned the damn system on accidentally when trying to power up the complex and it had taken her hours to figure out how to keep it from locking her in constantly. If she hadn't had the Creators' gene, it would have been impossible.
That was when she had realized that they must be humans. The Eidolon knew that the first human colonies had died out even before the Creators, the first victims of the plague that had eventually destroyed the Creators' civilization. She had been desperate to speak to them, and not only for the value to Eidolon science. She wasn't accustomed to being alone, to being separated from her own kind; she was desperate to speak to anyone.
The comm chimed again and she grimaced at it. The humans could have been lying about the danger... Why? They weren't afraid until they saw your face, until they saw you weren't one of them. Before that, she thought they had honestly meant to help her. She knotted her fists. She still needed that help. You should be able to deal with this. You're not a child, you're an adult, skilled in your calling, an expert in the Creators' lost technology. She was also alone, trapped away from her world, away from the protection of her mother and her male lineage, and it frightened her in a way that struck her to the core.
She had to find out who was on that newly arrived ship. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She carefully stretched out toward that tenuous mental connection, toward the alien ship in orbit.
It came almost immediately.
Hunger They had traveled far from the hive, chasing the elusive energy traces that might indicate Lantian technology, and there had been little to feed on along their route. There were tantalizing hints from other hives that a new feeding ground existed, rich beyond measure, that Lantian technology might lead to it.
Trishen retreated, startled. She didn't think they were aware of her; there was something primitive about most of the minds in the matrix, and she could tell there was no female onboard. That can't be a good sign. She pushed harder, slipping past the higher levels of awareness, choosing an individual mind at random.
She saw with his eyes.
He was walking through the ship. It was primitive too, at least this section of it. She caught sight of another crew member, and was baffled by the heavy mask of what looked like bone concealing his-its?-face. Another passed by, but this one looked like an Eidolon male. That doesn't make sense. The humans had acted as if they had never seen an Eidolon before. Trishen opened her senses further, trying to understand. Then she gagged, her throat nearly closing at the stench of death; the sweetness of rotting flesh was thick in the air. There's been an accident, she thought, bewildered, a hull breach. But she could see the crew, Eidolon and the masked beings, passing in the corridor as if nothing was wrong. And the stink; had they just left the bodies where they lay? And there was web everywhere, thick bundles of it. What in the name of the Creators are they doing? she wondered incredulously.
Then the being she was riding stopped in front of a small chamber, in front of a mass of web, and she saw a body trapped in it. A human female, naked except for a few rags, slumped over with only the web holding her upright. Dead, surely she was dead. He reached toward her, his hand
on her chest, and Trishen's thoughts dissolved in horror. No. It can't be. This can 't be.
The human jerked and screamed.
Trishen fled, snatching her awareness away. Back in her own body she shoved away from the console, staggered blindly to the wall. Bile rose in her throat as her body tried to revolt. Wraith. Not Eidolon. Wraith. The species that had destroyed the Creators.
This... explained a great deal.
Ignoring the chiming of the comm unit, she leaned on the wall, breathing in the clean air of her own ship. Squeezing her eyes shut didn't help; the human female's horrific death was burned into her brain. Now you know why the humans ran from you, she told herself.
Now she understood the hate, too.
They found the roof access on the uppermost level, a lift platform that took them up into a circular structure with one section open to the outside. The elevator doors opened and John stepped out cautiously, Teyla beside him, warily surveying the scene. The flat roof stretched away, an empty expanse of dust-streaked blue stone, under a sky that was starting to dim as the moon's orbit took it into eclipse again. John said, "This the right place?"
"No, the elevator took us to another dimension." Rodney was already checking his various screens.
John exchanged a startled look with Teyla, then he rolled his eyes in annoyance and they both glared at Rodney. "McKay."
"What?" Rodney demanded, not looking up.
Brows lowered and sounding distinctly testy, Teyla began, "Considering where we are-"
John finished in a flat voice, "That wasn't funny."
On the headset, John heard Zelenka confide in an undertone to either Kusanagi or Ronon, "Rodney thinks he is hilarious."
"I can hear you, Zelenka, and all right, fine, yes, this is the right part of the roof." Rodney checked his tablet again. "The array is straight ahead, on the inside edge."
John waited while Rodney did a last check through of all his equipment. Mirror: probably not about to discharge and kill them. Life signs: currently clear except for the three of them. Wraith darts: none close enough to detect. Scout ship: at the far end of its polar orbit, out of range for at least the next half hour. Then John stepped out into the open, trying to ignore the sensation of being fully exposed to the view of every Wraith in the entire system.
As they started across the open expanse of the roof, Radek reported that they had reached the freight entrance and that Miko was maneuvering the cloaked jumper down the corridor. A moment later John heard a yelp and a faint metallic crunch. Miko snapped, "Shimatta!"
John winced in genuine pain. It was his favorite jumper. "What happened?"
"Nothing," Radek replied hurriedly. "It's a small scratch, I'll fix it when we get home."
Rodney snorted in exasperation. "It's `The Bobbsey Twins Try to Park a Puddlejumper.
"Just be careful," John told Radek.
As they neared the edge of the roof, John saw a wide square trench, close to thirty feet across and about five feet deep, apparently running the full circumference of the building, just as Rodney had predicted. The far side curved up into a blue-green metallic housing that he hoped was for the pulse generator, forming a square block that extended out over the edge of the installation like a porch roof. Okay, this is what I saw from the window bubble in that monitoring room. There were a scatter of low stone platforms of different heights along the trench, probably bases for equipment that had been long removed.
John jumped down into the trench and Rodney and Teyla used the little set of steps. After a little searching, they found the nearly invisible seams of a large square access port. Rodney set his tablet down and unslung his pack, taking out his toolkit. He tapped his radio. "Radek, we've found it. Pull up the database on Ancient conductivity and energy control-"
"I have it, Rodney," Radek replied. "And we have found a nice bay to sit in."
Studying the sky uneasily, John asked, "How long is this going to take?"
Still holding the toolkit, Rodney rolled his eyes. "A long long time, if someone interrupts me every ten seconds to ask-"
Then Teyla shouted, "Colonel!"
John turned, saw the white flash. Wraith were beaming down on the inside edge of the trench, between them and the lift platform. He yelled, "Wraith!"
He opened fire with Teyla as the Wraith materialized. A high-flying dart must have picked them up on its sensors, beamed down this search group. There were at least seven of them, males and drones, and that was too many. One drone dropped, then another. The others were lifting stunners. In his peripheral vision, John saw Rodney turn, aim his pistol at his tablet where it sat on the pavement, squeeze off two shots. Good, John thought, right before the stun blast hit him in the chest.
John saw the ground rushing toward him, and slammed into it.
Dazed, Rodney opened his eyes when something tugged at his SCBA. No, no, what the hell? I need that. He fumbled for the chest strap with numb fingers, trying to hold on to it. The next tug was violent, ripping the mask away, taking the tank and his tac vest with it. It yanked him around so that he was sprawled on his side; Rodney choked on a breath, the thin air laden with dust, and stared upward.
There was a Wraith drone standing over him, faceless in the bone mask it wore. He choked on an outcry, his throat closing. He tried to scramble away but his muscles were limp, his body like an unstrung puppet.
The drone stepped back and Rodney saw Sheppard lying on his side a few feet away. His jacket, vest, and SCBA had been pulled off and tossed aside. Teyla lay in a crumpled heap not far beyond Sheppard, another drone just now dragging off her vest and breathing unit, ignor ing her startled outcry and her weak attempt to punch it. Rodney gasped, "No, we need those," the words came out in a weak wheeze and Rodney felt the first pressure on his lungs. The Wraith had taken their weapons, the headsets. And their air.
Hypoxia. Ten or twelve percent oxygen, just enough to die slowly. It meant gasping for breath, muddled thinking and inability to make decisions, fatigue, and other things that weren't going to matter because they were going to be fed on, they were going to die, very, very painfully and very, very soon.
He saw Sheppard shove at the pavement, trying to push himself up and falling back helplessly. He looked feral and desperate and furious, like a trapped predator. He met Rodney's gaze, and for a moment there was nothing there but wide-eyed despair, before Sheppard looked away. It's not fair, Rodney thought, feeling the odd detachment of incipient hysteria. It should have been quick, an explosion; Rodney had been mentally prepared for them all to die in an explosion, eventually. Not this, they didn't deserve this.
At least he had destroyed his tablet, with its information on the Mirror. Small consolation, he told himself bitterly.
A male Wraith stepped into Rodney's view, its long white hair and dead pale skin almost glowing against the dark stone. It had at least a dozen bullet holes in the dull silver armor on its chest, but it must have fully regenerated already. It wore something around its neck, a gray bulbous device with nodes clamped over the slits on its face. Some sort of breather unit, Rodney thought. It nudged the shattered tablet with a foot and hissed with displeasure. Then it paced toward them, standing over them, barring its teeth in a sneer. It said, "How did you get to this moon?"
Right, there's no Stargate here. Rodney groaned under his breath. There was just no good answer to that question.
Teyla tried to push herself up, shaking the hair out of her eyes, her face set in a snarl nearly as intimidating as the Wraith's. Sheppard looked up at it with narrowed eyes, sneering back. "We walked."
The Wraith hissed and leaned down toward him, lifting a hand. Rodney choked out, "No! Stop, God-" But the Wraith only slapped Sheppard, the open-handed blow slamming him back into the pavement. Rodney winced away.
Teyla made a strangled noise of rage, nearly shoving herself upright. Rodney didn't see the drone, not until it stepped in, swinging the butt of its stunner, striking her across the face. It knocked her flat; she twitched once and
lay unmoving. Rodney shouted, "Dammit, we're stunned already, you didn't have to-" He ran out of air at that point and slumped, gasping.
Ignoring him, the male Wraith grabbed Sheppard by the shirt, dragging him up as if he weighed no more than a rag doll. It turned, slamming him down on his back on the nearest platform. Sheppard was moving slowly, dazed and weak, but he clawed at its hand, tried to kick it in the chest. "There is no Stargate on this moon," the Wraith said, apparently thinking that it had to spell out the problem. "You came here in a Lantian ship."
"What ship?" Sheppard managed to wheeze. The Wraith hit him again, snapping his head back against the stone.
It's going to kill him, Rodney thought, sick with the certainty. It's going to kill all of us. He found himself saying, "We were brought here-" He had to pause to gasp in another breath, wheezing out, "By Wraith. Other Wraith, not you, of course-We escaped, we were trapped here-"
The Wraith let go of Sheppard and he rolled off the platform, collapsing into a limp heap on the dusty stone. It stalked toward Rodney, saying, "You have Lantian devices. How did you get them?"
"We stole them. When we escaped." It was an incredibly ludicrous lie. Rodney didn't know if he was stalling, trying to put off the inevitable, or just trying to get the Wraith to take him first so he wouldn't have to watch it happen to Sheppard and Teyla. He wheezed, "I suppose they're holding out on you, maybe you'd better check into that."
The Wraith canted its head to stare down at him, as if it was seriously considering this. "The alien ship is Lantian. Where did it come from?"
Rodney said, "What alien ship?" In retrospect, not the best response.
It snarled, drew its hand stunner, and before Rodney could even flinch it shot him again.
Rodney fell back against the pavement, his body suddenly an inert slab of meat. Bastard, Rodney thought in outrage, barely managing to drag in another breath. Wait, what just happened? By alien ship, it must have meant Trishen's ship. Then these Wraith hadn't known about it before they arrived here, they weren't allied with her. And. ..that wasn't going to help because they were going to kill them all anyway.
