“You killed my wife,” he ground out.
“Your wife was already gone, sir. She was mindless. God knows what they did to her on Earth, but I knew how they’d try to use her to control you. I couldn’t afford for you to be emotionally compromised.”
“What is it you want, Yuma?” Bailey came to stand by the president, her own gun trained on the agent. “I won’t allow you to escape through the gate.”
Yuma gave an incredulous laugh. “Escape? You think, after all I’ve done for this planet, that I would run? Consider this a coup, General. Our Commander-in-Chief has been compromised and I’m taking control.” She turned her weapon back on Jones, just as Teal’c grabbed his staff weapon. But he was a fraction too slow and a gunshot rang out through the night, a cry of shock going up through the assembled troops.
Jones was on the ground, Bailey crouched over him, but it was Yuma who staggered back, a bright bloom of red across her button-down shirt. She looked down at the gunshot wound in her chest with an expression that was almost angry, as if enraged that a bullet would dare to pierce her. She staggered back. Teal’c darted forward, across the bridge, as her foot went over the edge of the cliff in a shower of red rubble. He landed on his belly as she fell, his hand closing on thin air. He could only watch as she grew smaller, until the red Arbellan earth stopped her descent. She hadn’t even screamed.
Two feet appeared next to him and he looked up into the furious face of President Jones. For a moment, Teal’c thought that the man might spit over the edge. But instead he just said, “Let’s go. We have a battle to win.”
Earth — 2098
Though outwardly Shadow turned the face of friendship toward her, Earthborn knew it was mere pretense.
And she was glad of it; killing her mother’s sister would not be easy, but to do so in the face of an offer of peace would be harder still. Shadow’s seething mistrust, her envy that Earthborn had brought the Lantean to the Ancestor’s city, made everything easier. As did the fact that Shadow continued to underestimate her—a thought Shadow did little to hide.
In the secret part of her mind, the space not even Shadow could reach, Earthborn thought her mother’s sister foolish. Shadow could not conceive of defeat.
That would be her undoing.
Shadow led the way into her inner court, the zenana where only her most trusted blades and clevermen held audience. They watched Earthborn with closed minds and narrowed eyes, but she recognized some of their faces from her mother’s hive. It surprised her that Shadow trusted them enough to admit them to this sanctum, but perhaps her pride was such that she did not believe their former ties could be rekindled.
Into each mind she recognized, Earthborn projected a sensation of forgiveness, of hope. Serve me, and I will love you. She saw three blades shift with discomfort, turn away, their minds unsettled.
That was enough. Unease was all she would need—the ruin Shadow had brought to her people, the corruption, would undo the rest. If she was lucky.
At her side she felt the nervous presence of Hearten and Edge and reached out to calm them. All will be well, my brave ones.
Once at the heart of her zenana, Shadow turned. Her dress, elaborate and rich in a style Earthborn had long ago eschewed in favor of practicality, rustled across the floor. She was magnificent to behold, but within she was as dark and cold as her name. This close, Earthborn could feel the corruption at her very core.
Shadow turned her head and spoke, mind-to-mind, with one of her blades. He bowed, and a moment later the wall of her zenana lit up. It was a device of the Ancestor’s, a screen which showed the battle taking place above the planet as if they stood upon the cruiser’s bridge. The cruiser was firing on the parasite’s ship—Earthborn was surprised at how large it was—but so far, she could see no damage. Its shielding appeared impressive.
Earthborn stepped closer, careful to conceal her concern for Sting. That he was aboard the parasite’s ship—that his life may be forfeit—was like a needle beneath her skin that she could not ignore. Neither could she let it keep her from doing what must be done to protect, not just her own people, but all Wraith.
“The ship’s trajectory is changing,” said a voice from the screen, speaking from the cruiser. “It’s maneuvering for attack.”
Another voice added, “Its launching fighters.”
Shadow hissed, teeth bared in triumph. “Launch darts. Fire all weapons—target their shielding. And witness the fate of any who challenge the might of Shadow.”
And just like that, Earthborn could wait no longer; she could not permit Shadow this victory if she ever hoped to take her place. With a savage cry, her feeding hand outstretched, Earthborn plunged it into the chest of her mother’s sister.
“Child!” Shadow snarled, ripping Earthborn’s hand away, fingers curling around her wrist and not letting go. “Dare you lift your hand against me?”
Earthborn hissed, undaunted even as Shadow drove her to her knees. “I dare because I must! You have brought ruin to all Wraith—and you will spread it further if you are not stopped.”
“Ruin? I bring glory!” Her head swung toward one of the blades standing by the view screen. “Why have they not fired?”
He looked down at Earthborn then back to Shadow, but did not answer. Earthborn felt a flare of hope; he had not answered his queen.
“Your blades see what you are!” Earthborn said. Shadow still had her arm in her grip, bent at a painful angle, but she would not be cowed. And she would speak the truth.
Teeth bared, Shadow twisted hard on Earthborn’s arm. “You will die for your treason, sister-daughter, though you are a queen.”
Feeding hand raised, she slammed it down hard but Earthborn caught it before she could reach her chest. Shadow was strong; her mind was powerful, drilling into Earthborn’s thoughts.
You will fail and I will feed on you and all your kind!
Earthborn’s hand began to cramp where she gripped Shadow’s wrist. Her arm shook with the strain.
No blade of Shadow’s moved to intervene; all knew that whoever triumphed in this death match would become queen. And anyone who had opposed the victor would soon be dead.
No blade of Shadow’s moved, but not all blades within the zenana were Shadow’s…
* * *
The sensation was intense.
The power Jack was channeling was almost incomprehensible: the scale of the city, the brilliance of the star drive as he brought it to life with a thought, the complexity of the display filling the air above his head.
He didn’t need the HUD because he could see it all inside his head. Which was freaky on a whole different level, but this wasn’t the first time he’d had Ancient technology crawling around inside his skull and he figured it wouldn’t do any permanent damage. Not much, anyway.
He could see—it felt like seeing—the outside of the city: all the piers and towers soaring above the water, the deep struts and tanks that sank below to provide ballast, and the shield that hummed almost as if it were under his skin, impenetrable as it wrapped itself around the city.
Through the chair, he could feel the reverberation of the star drive as it warmed up, ticking through a thousand self-diagnostic checks in the back of his awareness. All good so far.
And he could sense something else too, something the Wraith couldn’t—he could sense the way the city was starting to cleanse itself under his orders, starting to the repair the systems the Wraith had bypassed in order to make their incursion. Starting with the holding cells, he could feel it attacking the hive-flesh. It wouldn’t be long, he knew, before the Wraith in other parts of the city realized there was something wrong. But by then, he hoped, it would be too late.
“Are we moving?” Daniel said.
Jack sank deeper into the city, let his consciousness spread out and down into the star drive. Taking a deep breath, he sent out the command, Lift.
The city responded immediately, the drive firing with a slow but accelerating thrust. He felt syste
ms shut down, shift into flight mode, life support and gravity starting to compensate as the city rose. And he could see it too. Somehow both outside and within Atlantis at once, he could see the water cascading from the underside of the city as it rose up and out of the ocean. Impossibly graceful for something so enormous, it pushed through the cloud layer, making a fool of even the deepest air turbulence until the atmosphere began to thin.
And then they were beyond Earth’s pull, with nothing but the black of space above and the once-blue planet turning slowly below.
Perhaps it was the strange beauty of Earth below him that distracted him, that kept him oblivious to the Wraith stirring where it lay on the floor. Perhaps that’s why the next thing he knew was that Daniel was flying across the room, dropping boneless to the floor, and the Wraith had its taloned hand curled into Jack’s shirt.
“Now,” it said, hissed the words into Jack’s face, “you will destroy the parasite’s ship.”
* * *
“For Brightstar!” Hearten launched himself at Shadow, grabbing hold of her and barreling them both to the deck. Shadow kicked free of his grasp, pushing him onto his back with her hand raised to feed.
That was when Earthborn drew the knife from her boot. A lifetime on Earth had taught her to fight like a blade, not a queen, and she slashed it across Shadow’s throat.
Hearten flung up his hands against the spray of black blood as Shadow twisted away from him, one hand clutching her neck. Her hiss gurgled as she lurched toward Earthborn.
“Your time is over, Shadow!” she said, the bloody knife held loose and ready in her hand.
“I will peel the skin from your bones,” Shadow howled into her mind, her ruined throat making it impossible to talk. “I will burn your flesh, all your issue! Your consort, your people…”
“You are weak!” Earthborn hissed. “You are—”
Her words cut off as, beneath her feet, she felt the city of the Ancestors come to life. It shook enough that she stumbled a fraction. And then she bared her teeth in victory. “Atlantis rises!”
On the view screen, from the cruiser’s perspective, she could see it lift from Earth, clouds spilling from its shield as it left the atmosphere behind and rose into the cool of space.
Shadow hissed, or tried to, the air sucking wetly through the slash in her throat as she fell to her knees. She reached a hand toward the view screen.
Earthborn shook her head, chin lifting. “O’Neill will not do your bidding,” she said. “This is not your victory, Shadow. It is mine.” With that, she stepped forward, grasping hold of Shadow’s hair, tipping back her head to expose her neck. Shadow’s eyes flared, her hands grasping at Earthborn’s arm, but she was weakening. She was dying.
All around them, her blades stood still.
Earthborn knew what she must do, though now it came to the moment there was regret as she brought her blade beneath Shadow’s chin, her hand almost tender in her hair. “I never knew my mother,” she said. “She died in the battle with the parasite-gods. Sting says you were night to her day, shadow to her light. But we were kin, mother-sister, and we could have been allies, served our people together, if you had walked a different path.”
“Your mother,” Shadow hissed, the words hard to make out through her wrecked throat, “was… weak… foolish… As are you.”
“Foolish, perhaps,” Earthborn said. “But I am not weak.” And with that, she jammed her blade up under Shadow’s chin and watched as she jerked, fell back and lay still.
Earthborn lifted her hand and the bloody knife it held.
“Blades of Shadow,” she said, looking around at the Wraith of Shadow’s zenana who watched her with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “Your queen has deceived you, unmanned you, and led you along a dark path. But her reign is over and, though I may be earth born, I intend to lead us home to Pegasus. There we can once more live as Wraith: hunt our prey and hone our skills against each other and against nature. Here, we have become weak but in the place of our origin we will become great.” She looked around at them all. “Atlantis has risen once more and, under my command, the city of the Ancestors will take us home.”
For a long, slow moment nothing happened. Then Hearten stepped forward and went to his knee. “My Queen,” he said, head bowed.
Edge, at his side, followed. “Queen Earthborn.”
She felt her heart give five slow beats before the next blade bowed, stiff kneed. Earthborn knew him—Eldritch, a cleverman of Brightstar’s hive. “My Queen,” he said.
And then the others followed, some of them reluctant, but all of them eventually bending their knee to their new queen. Earthborn felt their fear, their uncertainty, and their fragile hope as if it were her own.
“Do not be afraid,” she said, throwing the knife aside. “Today, we free ourselves of this debasing world. Today, we start our journey home.”
Her eyes moved to the view screen, to the parasite’s ship—to Sting.
“But first, we must destroy the parasite before she destroys us. No matter the cost.”
Hecate’s Ha’tak — 2098
Sam had the bomb mostly assembled when Sting found her.
He looked terrible, holding one arm cradled against his chest, with a gash across his forehead. The dried blood smeared across his face gave him a more ghoulish appearance than usual as he made his way into the engine room on unsteady legs.
“I told you to get off the ship,” Sam said, glancing up but not stopping work on the explosive. “We haven’t left orbit so I guess you succeeded?”
“I did.” Breathing hard, Sting sank down to the deck next to her. “But I did not wish to leave without you,” he said, voice tight as though his teeth were gritted.
“I told you—”
“You do not give me orders, human.”
She looked up at him again, caught the grim humor in his expression. “Guess not,” she said. It occurred to her then that it was quite something for a Wraith to care about the life of any human enough to risk his own. “Thanks,” she said, more generously. “I appreciate it, Sting.”
He made an equivocal noise, somewhere between a grunt of pain and a grunt of irritation. “I do not think O’Neill would have been forgiving had I left you behind.”
“The colonel,” she said, returning to the final adjustments on her makeshift bomb, “knows I can take care of myself.”
“I have no doubt of that, however he would still be concerned for your safety. As I am concerned for that of my queen, though I know her to be formidable. The two feelings do not exclude each other.”
“Yeah,” she said, shortly, because she knew it was true. But it didn’t negate her whole career in the Air Force, having to prove over and over that she didn’t need protecting or rescuing. Not that Sting would have any idea about that, of course. He came from a society that venerated all females as queens. It was hardly comparable.
After a silence, Sting said, “How long will we have to escape the ship before this device detonates?”
Not long was the real answer. “Long enough, if we’re quick,” she said.
Sting hissed, shifted where he sat. He didn’t sound like he’d bought her lie. “I will not slow you down.”
“I know,” she said, and flung him a quick smile. It didn’t last long. “Listen,” she said, because she had to know even if she didn’t want to. “What happened to you? Was it—?” She cleared her throat and asked the question she really wanted to ask. “What happened to Hecate?”
Hecate, not Janet. It wasn’t Janet.
Sting’s gaze left hers, focused somewhere on the far wall of the engine room. “Boneshard—But, no, it is no longer him. The parasite that controls him, Sobek, was already challenging Hecate for control of the ship when I reached the bridge. The…” He paused over the alien word, “the ‘Jaffa’ did not take his usurpation well. To their credit, they fought well for their queen but her death—and theirs—was inevitable.”
Sam’s heart thumped hard in unexpected grief.
“Hecate’s dead?”
“Yes, but Sobek’s victory was dearly bought. It allowed me the opportunity to sabotage the controls to the hyperdrive. Sobek was angered, but wounded, and I managed to escape with my life, though I would have laid it down to see that thing dead by my hand.”
Sam nodded, but all she could think about was Janet. “But Hecate,” she said. “You’re sure she’s dead?”
Sting turned his eyes on her, his expression one of disgust. “I saw it die with my own eyes, Major Carter. I saw the parasite leave its host. I saw Sobek crush it beneath his boot. Such is the loyalty of their kind.”
Sam froze, her hands stilling on the weapon. “The Goa’uld left the host?”
“Yes. The body was wounded.”
“Fatally?”
His eyes narrowed. “I do not know.”
Sam squeezed shut her eyes, took a breath. It was impossible that Janet could still be alive, that anything of her could have survived a hundred years of possession by a Goa’uld. She knew that. She knew it. And yet it was equally impossible not to find out for sure; she couldn’t leave Janet behind. Even if it was just her body, she couldn’t leave her here alone.
When she opened her eyes again, she turned them on Sting and said, “Get off the ship. I’m gonna—The woman who Hecate took as a host was my friend. I can’t leave her here.”
“It is likely that she is dead,” Sting said. “Or soon will be. I am sorry, but—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “No one gets left behind. That’s just how we do things.” She set her hands on her makeshift bomb, settling the decision in her mind. It was the right one, she knew it was. “I’m gonna find Janet, get her to the surface, and then detonate the bomb.”
“But what of you?” Sting said. “Will you have time to make your escape?”
“You betcha.” And she would. It would be tight, but she could make it. She’d have a few minutes, so long as nothing went wrong. She cleared her throat. “Listen, uh, if I don’t… Tell Colonel O’Neill why I stayed, okay? He’ll understand.”
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