SGA-16 Homecoming - Book 1 of the Legacy Series

by Graham, Jo

  “Culpepper’s down, sir. This is Morgan.” A pause. “Falling back.”

  “Roger that,” Sheppard said.

  “We can hold them here,” a Genii voice protested, from Ronon’s radio, and Sheppard grabbed the microphone from the Satedan’s hand.

  “That was not the plan. We’re not trying to hold the gate. Fall back!”

  “Sir—”

  “Fall back,” Sheppard said again, and put the mic aside. “Ronon, make sure they do it.”

  He leaned back against the wall as the first of the Marines tumbled in, lifted his P90 to provide cover if they needed it. So far, it was all going according to plan—

  “Colonel Sheppard,” Teyla said. “The Wraith have decided the balloons are not a threat. They are trying to cut them loose.”

  “Damn it,” Sheppard said, under his breath, added, more loudly, “Roger that.” He stepped to the window again just in time to see a Dart sweep past, the rags of a balloon shredding from nose and wing. Even as he recognized it, the fabric fell free, and the Dart wheeled upward, scrambling for height. Sheppard fired at it, saw a tracer round ping home against the underbelly, but the Dart was gone again before he could get a decent aim.

  He touched his earpiece again, adjusting channels. “General Valless! We’re losing air cover.”

  “We see it.” Valless’s voice was surprisingly calm. “Colonel, I believe—yes, they are dropping drones behind our position. I’m sending Laecat’s men to meet them. Be ready.”

  Where there was one, there would be more. Sheppard caught his lower lip in his teeth, wishing he knew the city better—but then, the Wraith didn’t know it, either. Nobody had that advantage here except the Levannans. He hit his own command frequency again. “We are commencing plan B. I repeat, we are now in Plan B.”

  Ronon grinned at him over the radio, across a room suddenly full of noise and Marines. One of the older sergeants had things in hand, doling out ammunition with one hand, pointing for a corpsman to deal with wounded with the other, and Sheppard took a breath. The Wraith would be dropping more drones, trying to take them from both sides; Valless and the Satedans were waiting for that, and his job was to get his own people and the Genii to the hot spots, where their superior firepower would have the greatest effect—

  “Landing in grid A5,” Ronon reported. His voice carried easily over the noise. “And grid J7, grid C6, and C5.”

  “Ignore J7.” That was Valless’ voice, sharp and strong even in the unfamiliar medium. “That’s a decoy, they’re trying to draw us out. Colonel Sheppard, General Kolbyr has grid C5, please move up in support. Colonel Faber, please support General Chacier in grid A5.”

  “Roger that,” Sheppard said. The Science Institute was in grid C3, and he was guiltily glad they’d been assigned that direction. “Diaz, Cul—Morgan, each of you take a squad. Third squad’s with me. Ronon, you have the reserve.”

  He’d expected at least a token protest at that, but the Satedan just nodded.

  “Right,” Sheppard said. “Move out.”

  They left in staggered waves, first Diaz, then Morgan, and finally Sheppard, dodging through the narrow streets. It was easy to figure out where the Wraith were to start with: follow the sound of the Levannan muskets, a roll of fire punctuated by deeper booms that Sheppard guessed were the pepper pots. The Darts screamed overhead, forcing them to stay close to the walls and out of sight. There were a few balloons still flying, and Sheppard caught a glimpse of one tower crew trying to drag a replacement onto its rings, but they were swept away in a Culling beam, and the balloon sagged lop-sided against the tower’s edge, held by a tangle of lines.

  And then they rounded a corner into a sudden sparkle of air, and Sheppard brought up his P90 just as a squad of Wraith materialized. The rest of the Marines fired with him, and the Wraith were held upright for a moment by the volume of fire. And then they collapsed, a dozen drones and a white-haired male, and Sheppard caught his breath.

  “Nice work. Keep moving.”

  After that, it was a confusion of house-to-house fighting, dodging from shelter to shelter, hoping to spot the Wraith before the Wraith spotted them. One of the Marines, a kid maybe nineteen, fell behind and was fed upon, shriveling to ninety in a second before the kid’s squadmate brought down the drone. Sheppard didn’t look back to see whether the kid was still alive; it was too late, regardless, and he waved the others forward. A while later he saw the squadmate back in the lead, streaks of sweat like tears on his dirty face.

  They cleared the area around the Institute building, but the Darts kept coming, and the radio reported still more Wraith moving through the gate. The Genii were falling back, selling the ground dear, but they were almost back to the city wall, and if they got trapped there… Valless sent the Satedans in support, and Sheppard leaned against the arch of a doorway, trying to make sense of what was going on. There were too many Wraith in the city; they were spending too much time, too many men, to keep them under control. Somebody handed him a water bottle and he drank without thinking, handed it back half empty. The balloons had been a good idea, but the tethering points were too exposed, you couldn’t replace them under fire. Missiles would have been a great idea, but they didn’t have any—

  He blinked hard, touched his radio. “Rodney. Are you there?”

  “Of course I’m here. Where else would I be? Oh, and we’ve been attacked by the Wraith, too, and a very nice lady scientist got fed on—”

  “Rodney,” Sheppard said, and there was silence. “Do you have any flares, fireworks, anything like that?”

  “Why would we—” Rodney stopped. “They make the signal flares here. Why—”

  “Can you shoot them at the Wraith?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  In spite of everything, Sheppard grinned. He could hear the indignation, could almost see Rodney’s glare.

  “One, we can’t exactly aim them, they’re not like guns or missiles or even fireworks, they don’t have stabilizers. And, two, even if we could aim them, they’re not exactly going to damage a Dart—”

  “I just want to scare them,” Sheppard said. “Clear the air over the city even temporarily. Can you get together a bunch of flares—”

  “A ‘bunch’?”

  “As many as possible. As many as you can shoot off at once. And keep shooting them until you run out.”

  “Wait. Wait, wait, wait. I think—yes. I see what you want. Yes, we can do it. Give me, give me fifteen minutes—”

  “Make it ten,” Sheppard said. He thumbed the radio to Valless’s channel. “Sheppard here. I’ve got an idea.”

  There was a little silence when he had finished, and then he could have sworn Valless laughed softly. “The Wraith are concentrating on the Genii positions. It seems they believe if they can overrun them, they’ll have the city at their mercy. And they may be right.” He paused. “I’ll send Kolbyr’s men and Chacier’s to their support, but not until you set off your—distraction. If we time it right—” He didn’t bother finishing the sentence. “When will you be ready?”

  “Ten minutes,” Sheppard said, and suppressed the urge to cross his fingers.

  “I will order my men to move when they see the flares,” Valless said. “Not before.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sheppard said, and leaned out of the sheltering doorway. “Diaz! Morgan! Change of plan.”

  They huddled in the archway together, Diaz dabbing gingerly at a shallow cut on his jaw, Morgan methodically fitting a fresh clip into his P90.

  “OK,” Sheppard said. “The Wraith have got the Genii pinned against the city wall. General Valless is sending men to get them out, and with any luck drive the Wraith back to the gate. Morgan, you’re going to join them.”

  “What about the Wraith in the city?” Diaz asked.

  “Dr. McKay and the other scientists are arranging a distraction,” Sheppard said, “that should keep the Darts from dropping any more drones. I want you to wait for the signal, and then take out any Darts you can
. After that, mop up any Wraith still behind the main lines. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Morgan said, and Diaz echoed him a heartbeat later.

  “What kind of distraction, sir?”

  Sheppard smiled. “You won’t be able to miss it.” He stood. “Give me five men, then head out. Don’t attack until the flares go off. Anything else?”

  Morgan shook his head, and Diaz said, “No, sir.” He pointed, telling off men. “Smith, Alvarez, Rey, Nguyen, Jeleniewsi. You’re with Colonel Sheppard. The rest of you, follow me.”

  Sheppard watched them jog off, touched his earpiece. “Teyla. You want to let us in?”

  The Institute was quiet and dim, and smelled of the lamp oil that was the only light. All the windows were shuttered close, fastened with heavy iron bars, and the main door was sealed with a similar wedge that took two Marines to hoist back into place.

  “I take it the Wraith didn’t get in that way?” Sheppard asked, and she shook her head.

  “They came from the roof.” Teyla nodded to the young man who had accompanied her, one of the Satedan Guard. “Tarl spotted them, or we would have lost more people.”

  Sheppard grimaced, but there was nothing to say to that. He followed her to the second floor workrooms, where McKay was stalking back and forth among bags of what looked like badly-made firecrackers. Sheppard winced at the sight—a spark, any spark, was clearly a very bad idea—and McKay glared at him.

  “Well, this may work. Maybe. If we’re lucky. And this is the place they make the flares, not the flare guns—”

  “Can you do it?” Sheppard asked.

  “We can,” Teyla said, firmly.

  “Then let’s go.” Sheppard reached for the closest bag, and McKay slapped his hand.

  “We’ll do that. You need to make sure the roof is clear.”

  “Don’t hit me,” Sheppard said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He looked at the Marines. “Follow me.”

  They took the stairs two at a time, pausing in cover to check for Wraith, but the stairwell and the upper floors were empty. The roof was clear as well, and Sheppard touched his radio. “Teyla. You can bring Rodney up.”

  “We are on our way,” she answered, and Sheppard gestured for the Marines to find what cover they could on the crowded rooftop. It had been used as an observatory, or at least that was what Sheppard assumed went in the odd turret by the edge of the stone rail, but at least the various projections offered some shelter. A Dart wheeled in the distance, but it didn’t seem to have spotted them yet.

  The door opened again, and McKay dodged out, two bags of flares in his hands, shoulders hunched as he began jamming sticks and metal rods into the cracked stonework.

  “Hey,” Sheppard began, and Rodney shook his head.

  “You wanted fireworks, Sheppard, you’re going to get fireworks.”

  “I wanted flares,” Sheppard said, under his breath. Several of the scientists had followed McKay, were fitting flares into weird, wide-barrelled pistols. “Actually, I wanted missiles…”

  “You got flares,” McKay said. He finished fastening the last flare to a stick, took a spool of cord from one of the scientists. “This is quick-match, right?”

  “Yes.” The man didn’t look up from his own work, tying together the strands of cord that ran from each of the flares.

  “All right,” McKay said. In the waning afternoon light, he looked unexpectedly pale. “If you want them all to go off at once, you’re going to have to shoot some of them, too.”

  Sheppard nodded to the Marines, who accepted flare pistols from the scientists. “OK.”

  “We’re ready,” McKay said simply, and Sheppard nodded again.

  “Do it.”

  McKay put a lighter to the trailing fuse. The spark leaped along the lines of cords, faster than anything Sheppard had seen before, and the flares ignited in a ragged fusillade. A second later, Marines and scientists fired the flare pistols as well, and the sky above them boiled with multi-colored light. A Dart swooped toward them, obviously blinded, and Sheppard flung aside the flare pistol and brought up his P90. Beside him, a Marine and Teyla did the same. The Dart staggered and fell off sideways, smoke trailing from a wing. The pilot tried to correct, but the machine nosed over, went down in a crump of flame behind a nearby building. A second Dart wheeled toward them, and Sheppard fired again, saw it swirl away, heading for the gate. Another followed, and then another.

  “They’re running,” he said.

  “From this?” McKay had a singed spot on his jacket, and a smudge of smoke on his nose. “These are flares, they can’t do any damage—”

  “They don’t know that,” Sheppard said. He reached for his binoculars, tried to find the Genii, but there were too many buildings in the way.

  “You mean to tell me this was a complete bluff—” McKay began, and Ronon’s voice cut through.

  “Sheppard. The Genii held. The Wraith are heading for the gate.”

  Sheppard took a deep breath, let it out again.

  “Let them go,” General Valless said. “We’ve won.”

  “You were bluffing,” McKay said again. “You never bluff. It’s why you’re so lousy at poker.”

  Behind him, Teyla was smiling. It was the same smile, relief and guilty release, that Sheppard could feel on his own face, and he met her eyes deliberately. She dipped her head, and Sheppard felt his smile widen. The team was all right, that was the first thing, the main thing; the team was all right and they’d actually won.

  * * *

  It took most of the rest of the day to sweep the city, digging out the last few Wraith drones who had been left behind, retrieving their own wounded and bringing them to the aid stations. Most of the Levannan women worked there, sure-handed from long practice, while another group brought out kettles and began to cook, the smoke of their fires sharp in the cooling air. Sheppard counted his own casualties—five dead, another handful wounded, mostly by flying chips of stone, no one missing—and began sending them back through the gate. A squad of Levannan infantry trotted past, axes on their shoulders, and he looked after them with a frown.

  “For the dead Wraith,” Teyla said. He hadn’t seen her appear, but he was suddenly very glad of her presence. “They take the heads to be sure they will not regenerate.”

  Sheppard winced, but nodded. It was a logical precaution, particularly on a world where medical science wasn’t that advanced. “Beckett’s here, he’s helping with the rest of the wounded. All ours are back in Atlantis.”

  “Bad?” Teyla asked, and Sheppard shrugged. He didn’t want to think about the letters he would have to write, that would come later, wanted to rest secure in his own survival if only for an hour or two.

  “Could be worse.”

  Teyla gave her lopsided smile. “Very true.” She paused. “General Valless would like to speak with you, when you have a moment.”

  Sheppard sighed. He knew what that statement meant from a superior officer. “No time like the present, I suppose.”

  “There is coffee in the aid tent,” Teyla said. “Let us begin there.”

  There was coffee, not good coffee by any standard, but hot and strong, with enough sugar to kill the lingering taste of cordite. Sheppard filled his mug a second time, watching the edge of Levanna’s larger moon creep above the horizon, and turned toward the city. He felt his stomach rumble, wondered if there would be food at headquarters.

  “There is also soup,” Teyla said, but Sheppard shook his head.

  “Let’s get this over with.”

  The city gates were open wide, and the heliograph on the tower was clattering, black and white vanes flickering in a pattern almost too fast to follow. As he looked up, curious, the motion stopped, and a boy appeared, lantern in hand, to light the lamps at the end of each rod.

  “They will be signalling the victory,” Teyla said, “and summoning the people home.”

  “Yeah.” Sheppard looked over his shoulder as they moved on, seeing the lamps blur to streaks against the
darkening sky.

  There was not as much damage in the city as he had expected—oh, there were bullet marks in the stone, spalled divots brighter than the rest of the rock, and shattered windows and hanging shutters, but only once the scar where a wrecked Dart had started a fire. It had burned itself out, by the look of it, but Sheppard could just see the crumpled shell buried beneath the fallen beams. A little further on, they passed a pile of Wraith bodies—all drones, as far as Sheppard could see, and all headless. The heads had been carefully stacked on the opposite side of the road, and he looked away, grimacing. A cart trundled past, drawn by something like a short and shaggy pony; the bed was filled with Levannan bodies, laid carefully side by side, and Sheppard saw a withered female corpse among the uniformed men. One of the companions? Rodney’s lady scientist? There was no way to know. The man leading the cart spat as he passed the dead Wraith, but made no other gesture.

  At the next square, there was lantern light and a confusion of voices, a gang of soldiers dismantling an improvised barrier, and General Kolbyr on one knee beside a stretcher. He looked up at their approach, and Sheppard was shocked to see his face streaked with tears.

  “Goddamned idiot,” Kolbyr said. “Pompous, vainglorious, overdressed fool…”

  The body on the stretcher still had curly black hair, but the rest of it was a gape-mouthed mummy in a gaudy gold-trimmed uniform. Sheppard winced again, not knowing where to look, and Kolbyr pushed himself to his feet, shaking his head. “Brave as they come—braver than brave—and not a brain in his pomaded head.” He wiped his hand across his mouth. “He couldn’t have waited a quarter hour. We’d have relieved them, and none of this would have happened.” He shook himself, hard, thumbed away a last tear. “Colonel Sheppard. You’re for the general?”

  Sheppard looked down, embarrassed, and Teyla said, “He asked to see Colonel Sheppard, yes.”