STARGATE ATLANTIS: Allegiance(Book three in the Legacy series)
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Allegiance
Book three of the Legacy series
By Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold
An original publication of Fandemonium Ltd, produced under license from MGM Consumer Products.
Fandemonium Books
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Visit our website: www.stargatenovels.com
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Presents
STARGATE ATLANTIS™
JOE FLANIGAN RACHEL LUTTRELL JASON MOMOA JEWEL STAITE
ROBERT PICARDO and DAVID HEWLETT as Dr. McKay
Executive Producers BRAD WRIGHT & ROBERT C. COOPER
Created by BRAD WRIGHT & ROBERT C. COOPER
STARGATE ATLANTIS is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. © 2004-2011 MGM Global Holdings Inc. All Rights Reserved.
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Lion Corp. © 2011 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.
©2011 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. All Rights Reserved. Photography and cover art: ©2004-2011 MGM Global Holdings Inc. All Rights Reserved.
WWW.MGM.COM
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written consent of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
We’d like to thank the early readers — especially Mary Day, Katerina Niklova, Anna Kiwiel, Rachel Barenblat, Gretchen Brinckerhoff, Anna Lindstrom, Jennifer Roberson, Lina Sheng, Lena Strid and Gabrielle Lyons — whose comments, questions, translations and support helped us enormously. If errors or infelicities remain, it’s because we didn’t take their advice.
Contents
Prologue: Previously, in Legacy…
Chapter 1: Moving On
Chapter 2: Aboard the Hive
Chapter 3: Back Doors
Chapter 4: New Arrivals
Chapter 5: Recall
Chapter 6: Meetings
Chapter 7: Invasion
Chapter 8: Quicksilver in Atlantis
Chapter 9: Aftermath
Chapter 10: Necessary Measures
Chapter 11: Down Time
Chapter 12: Sateda
Chapter 13: The City Museum
Chapter 14: Michael
Chapter 15: Waiting By The Phone
Chapter 16: Discoveries
Chapter 17: Negotiations
Chapter 18: Diplomatic Mission
Chapter 19: Diplomacy
Chapter 20: ZPM
Chapter 21: Obstacles
Chapter 22: Allegiance
Chapter 23: Divided Loyalties
Chapter 24: Quicksilver’s Test
Chapter 25: Out of Time
Chapter 26: Daedalus and Hammond
Chapter 27: Over Atlantis
Chapter 28: Last Chance
Prologue
Previously, in Legacy…
The Wraith invasion of Earth has been defeated, and the city of Atlantis has settled to the surface of the Pacific just off San Francisco. The team assumes that this is a temporary respite before the city returns to Pegasus, but it becomes clear that the IOA and its member governments would like to keep the city on Earth. Woolsey recruits Teyla to be “the face” for the people of Pegasus, and she and the rest of the team throw themselves into the unfamiliar political arena. Despite their best efforts, the IOA’s decision goes against them: Atlantis is to remain on Earth, to be slowly dismantled for its technology.
This hits the team hard, but there seems to be nothing left that they can do about it. Rodney McKay resigns in a temper, and takes a job at Area 51; Jennifer Keller goes with him, and they begin to build their new life together. Colonel Carter, now in command of the George Hammond, begins siphoning off the cream of Atlantis’s military personnel for her new ship; she also invites both Ronan and Teyla to join her team, as advisors. John Sheppard is left in limbo. There’s no place for him on the Hammond, and neither Woolsey nor Jack O’Neill will accept his resignation. The only good thing about still being on the city is that he is able to thwart the IOA’s attempt to take Guide, the captive Wraith known as Todd, for medical experimentation. Instead, John and Carson Beckett succeed in putting him into stasis, but that is only a temporary solution.
O’Neill, however, has one last card to play. As Atlantis has landed in US territorial waters, he claims the city for the United States, and in the ensuing uproar, the IOA agrees to send Atlantis back rather than see it fall into the sole possession of any one country. Woolsey resumes command, and the team reassembles to prepare the city for departure before the IOA can change its mind.
Atlantis lifts from Earth, and begins the long trip to Pegasus. Despite the shortened preparations, everything seems to be going well — until a hyperdrive emitter fails, throwing them out of hyperspace and using up nearly all of the power in their ZPM. There is a single planet close enough to reach at slower-than-light speeds. It’s a cold world without a Stargate, but it’s their only choice. After a difficult flight, John successfully lands the city, but there’s not enough power left in the ZPM to move the city or gate back to Earth.
The crew reestablishes contact with their old allies in Pegasus, only to discover that things have not been going well in their absence. The Wraith have united under a new queen who calls herself Death, and they have destroyed a number of human worlds. As the team investigates the devastation on one such planet, Todd manages to escape, only to discover that he has lost control of his alliance and has only a single hive under his command. In a bid to weaken Queen Death and regain his former power, Todd informs Atlantis of the location of the queen’s next great attack.
Trusting Todd is always a gamble, but John sees this as a chance to stop Queen Death in her tracks. The team travels to the planet Levanna, where they join with the local ruler and a detachment of Genii to wait for Queen Death’s attack. The Wraith arrive in force, Darts and drone infantry backed by a hiveship in orbit. The battle is close and hard fought, but at last the Wraith retreat. For the first time, Queen Death has been defeated, and even it if it’s only temporary, it’s a boost for humans throughout Pegasus.
However, Queen Death’s response is rapid and devastating. Atlantis receives a distress call from New Athos, warning of a Culling. John leads the team through, only to find — nothing. There has been no attack; everything is perfectly normal in the settlement. As they try to figure out what happened, the Wraith attack in truth — and the Darts target Rodney. Before the others realize what’s going on, the attackers have snatched up Rodney and have vanished back through the gate.
Their first desperate searches turn up nothing, and the team splits up to pursue two sets of leads with two sets of reluctant allies.
John, Teyla and Carson Beckett meet with the Genii leader Ladon Radim, who promises them the aid of his spies all over the galaxy if they will help him with a project of his own. The Genii have found an Ancient warship that had crashed on a remote planet. Genii salvage teams have been repairing it but they need someone with the ATA gene to fly it back to the Genii homeworld. John agrees that they will accompany Radim’s sister Dahlia and bring the warship back to the Genii in exchange for their help. Unfortunately, the Wraith ambush them, forcing them to make a long hike across a hostile desert to reach the warship. An attack by carnivorous lizards leaves Teyla and Carson injured, and Joh
n questioning his own judgment about his rash decision to do this without consulting Atlantis or getting additional personnel — this is too much like the mission in Afghanistan that cost the life of his friend Holland many years ago.
Meanwhile, Ronon and Jennifer have been sent to meet with Todd on a world controlled by Wraith Worshippers. Despite Todd’s assurances that the Wraith consider this world neutral ground, all bets are off when Queen Death’s people arrive and Ronon and Jennifer are forced to hide in a tomb. One of the Wraith Worshippers double crosses Todd and tries to kill them, thwarted only by Jennifer’s quick thinking. Ronon blames Todd, but he assures them he is no fonder of Queen Death than they are, and says that he will let them know if he finds out anything about Rodney’s fate. They must be satisfied with that, desperate as they are to save Rodney.
At the same time, Rodney is in a situation that’s far more horrific than his friends have imagined. Queen Death’s men have reverse engineered the retrovirus created by Dr. Beckett that turned a Wraith into the human the Atlantis expedition called Michael, and Rodney is now a Wraith! Known as Quicksilver, and believing himself to be fully part of Queen Death’s court, he is now bending all his attention to helping the Wraith conquer Atlantis.
After a dangerous flight home, John returns to Atlantis with his team and the badly damaged Ancient warship. Shortly thereafter Sam Carter arrives in Atlantis with the George Hammond. When Todd contacts Atlantis and tells them where Queen Death’s ship will be powered down briefly for repairs, it seems like a good time to attack and retrieve Rodney. However, the mission goes wrong when Rodney, believing he’s a Wraith, resists the attempts of the team to rescue him. He stuns John and as the hive ship powers up, Sam beams off John and the rest of the team before they can be captured. But Rodney is still in the hands of the Wraith, and now Atlantis faces a more dangerous foe than ever before — their own man, turned against them.
Chapter One
Moving On
“Let’s take stock,” Dick Woolsey said, looking across the conference table at the weary team. No one looked very happy, but then they didn’t have much reason to. He wasn’t expecting much good news.
Everyone at the table had believed that the raid to recapture Dr. McKay from the Wraith would succeed. Instead, not only had the mission failed, with the Hammond sustaining serious damage in the process, but Colonel Sheppard’s team had come face to face with McKay, and made the grim discovery that he had somehow been transformed beyond recognition.
“What’s our present situation?” he prompted when no one seemed eager to speak up.
Dr. Zelenka, Colonel Sheppard, and Colonel Carter exchanged glances. He didn’t think any of them were dying for the chance to report first.
“Not great,” Sheppard said finally. He looked like he’d recovered fully from the series of stun blasts that had left him confined to the infirmary the day before, although he hadn’t apparently managed to shave. “Rodney’s still in the hands of the enemy. We’re not sure what they did to him, but he looks like a Wraith, and he wasn’t acting like he remembered he was on our side.”
“We have some theories,” Dr. Keller said, glancing at Dr. Beckett beside her. If so, they’d been up early developing them. Dick had called the meeting as early in the morning as he’d thought was reasonable, given that people did need to eat and sleep.
He wasn’t sure Dr. Beckett had taken the opportunity to do either. “Aye,” he said without enthusiasm. “Go on and tell them all about it.”
“We’ve been working for some time on a retrovirus we originally hoped could physically transform Wraith into humans,” Dr. Keller said. “That didn’t exactly work out as well as we hoped. We’ve since moved on to trying to find a way to give the Wraith a more human-like metabolism that would allow adult Wraith to survive on normal food rather than feeding on humans.”
“We know that,” Teyla said, with a smile that was encouraging but not particularly patient.
“Sorry,” Dr. Keller said. “Just trying to get everyone up to speed, here.”
“Which those of us who haven’t been here for a while appreciate,” Carter said.
Jennifer nodded and went on quickly. “It seems pretty likely that the Wraith have found a way to reverse engineer one of the versions of the retrovirus that we tested on live subjects. They’ve created a way to transform humans into Wraith.”
“As Michael did with his hybrids,” Teyla said.
“Something like that,” Jennifer said. “But he was trying to create an intermediate form between humans and Wraith. Here…” She looked across the table at Sheppard and his team. “From everything everyone’s said, Rodney didn’t look much like any of the hybrids.”
“He was Wraith,” Teyla said. “If I had not known his face, I would not have believed he was anything else.”
“He had a Wraith feeding hand,” Ronon said.
“That would be necessary for a complete transformation,” Dr. Keller said. “Of course, it could be cosmetic. We’ve faked that ourselves. It would be nice if it is.”
Dick frowned. “And if it’s not?”
“Then he probably has the ability to feed on humans. And he may not remember why that would be bad.”
Sheppard broke the silence that settled around the table. “But that’s not going to happen, because we’re going to get him back. Right?”
“That’s the idea,” Dick said. He was on his third cup of coffee, but it wasn’t making up for not having had much sleep. “The problem is, he doesn’t remember that we’re trying to rescue him.”
“That could be a side effect of whatever process they used on him,” Dr. Keller said. “Our first version of the retrovirus produced complete amnesia as long as the dose was kept at a high enough level. Which, when you think about it, may actually be a good thing for us.”
Ronon gave her a look. “How is that good?”
Dr. Keller shrugged. “If he was afraid of you when you tried to rescue him because he didn’t remember who you were, then he might not remember his access codes for the computer.”
“Or where this planet is located,” Sheppard said. “Or the location of Earth. Or how ships using Ancient technology can penetrate our shields. Or — ”
“I get the picture,” Dick said.
“We are already working on securing the computer system,” Zelenka said. “There are many ways Rodney could access the system officially, and we have already found numerous back doors. We will keep working.”
“I’d be happy to help if you could use another pair of eyes,” Carter said. “We dealt with a lot of security problems when I was at the SGC.”
“Yes, please,” Zelenka said before Dick could say that they were grateful for the offer and would take it under consideration. It probably didn’t matter at this point. Any tension between himself and Carter over her help being needed in Atlantis would be beside the point if McKay effectively handed Atlantis over to the Wraith.
“Sure,” Carter said. “After the meeting, why don’t you show me what you’ve been doing?”
Zelenka nodded. “It would help if you could also read Rodney’s mind.”
“I don’t know about that,” Carter said. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
“As we are speaking of reading Rodney’s mind,” Teyla said, a little reluctantly. “Things happened very quickly, but I believe I was able to sense Rodney’s presence as if he were a Wraith. I might be able to make contact with him if I were close enough.”
“Something to keep in mind when we’re at a point where another rescue attempt is practical,” Dick said. “At the moment, though, we have no idea where Death’s hive ship went after the Hammond entered hyperspace.”
“We have no clue,” Carter said. “I don’t expect they’re still sitting around at the repair facility waiting for us to come back, though.”
“I think that’s a little much to hope for,” Sheppard said. “We can check back with the Genii, see if they’ve come up with anything.”
; “I’ll get in contact with Radim,” Dick said. “In the meantime, I want our first priority to be securing the computer system. If the Wraith can lower our shields, or lower the iris, there’s nothing to keep them from dropping a nuclear bomb on us at any time.”
Carter and Sheppard exchanged glances.
“They probably won’t do that,” Carter said.
“We’ve got a ZPM,” Sheppard said, in answer to Dick’s questioning look. “And lots of tasty people for them to snack on. Blowing us up is probably plan B.”
“I don’t think I like plan A any better,” he said. “Assuming it’s invading Atlantis and taking us all prisoner to feed on later.”
Radek shifted restlessly in his seat. “You know, the longer we are sitting here talking, the longer we are not working on computer security.”
“Go,” Dick said. “Colonel Carter, any assistance you can provide would be appreciated.”
“It’s my pleasure,” she said. “I’ve got time right now while we’re repairing the damage to the Hammond’s shield emitters. By the time that’s done and I can take the Hammond back out, Jeannie Miller will be here to assist Dr. Zelenka.”
“She is coming out aboard Daedalus,” Zelenka said. “I wish she could have come through the Stargate, but apparently that was not possible to arrange.”
As Dick was the one who hadn’t been able to arrange it, he felt it was worth pointing out why. “Since the Wraith destroyed the ZPM installed in the weapons chair at Area 51, Earth’s only ZPM is aboard Odyssey,” Dick said. “The Odyssey is on a deep-space mission, and even if it had been possible to recall it, it would take nearly as long to reach Earth as Daedalus will to reach Atlantis.”
“You can’t ever get a cab when you need one,” Sheppard said.
“Well, let us hope that the delay is not critical to preventing Atlantis from being invaded,” Zelenka said. “That would be nice to think.”