With some effort, Sting pushed himself to his feet, still cradling his injured arm. “Your loyalty and honor is worthy of a blade, Major Carter.” He took a breath. “I wish I found that less disturbing.”
Sam didn’t have an answer to that; they were each what they were and there was nothing to be done about it. Strange bedfellows indeed.
Climbing to her feet, she offered him her hand. “Good luck, Sting,” she said. “As we say on Earth, God speed.”
After a pause he took her hand in his own, huge clawed fingers wrapping around hers. “Then ‘God speed’ to you too, Major Carter.”
She had a feeling she was going to need it.
Atlantis — 2098
“I said, destroy the parasite’s ship,” the Wraith hissed.
Jack could feel the tips of its claws digging through the fabric of his shirt.
“Just wait a minute,” he snapped, pulling up a better visual on the inside of his eyelids but keeping it off the HUD so the Wraith couldn’t see it.
Something had happened on the Ha’tak—it had gone from trying to make a break for it to turning and attacking. He didn’t know how to interpret that, didn’t dare make assumptions.
But the fact that Shadow’s cruiser wasn’t responding, was just sitting there taking the assault, implied that things had gone wrong for the Wraith. It was no surprise; the ship was seriously outgunned by the Ha’tak.
A sharp pain in his chest made him gasp, eyes flashing open. The Wraith’s face was very close to his own now, its breath feculent as it snarled, “Destroy the parasite’s ship.”
Carter was on that ship, trying to destroy it.
Jack licked his lips. “I’m working on it,” he said. “Can’t rush these things…”
Abruptly, the Wraith jerked its head up as if hearing something Jack couldn’t. Its feeding hand lifted from Jack’s chest and he breathed out in relief. Small mercies.
Cocking its head, the Wraith closed its eyes. And then it slumped forward and reached out a hand to brace itself against the chair. “No… My queen.”
Jack felt a shiver of unease. Had Earthborn done her job? He tried to breathe quiet, to draw as little attention as possible.
“We must go to the aid of the cruiser,” the Wraith decided. Its head swiveled to Jack, its expression hard with anger and repressed fear. “You will open fire on the parasite’s ship.”
Jack swallowed, firmed his fingers into the gel pads on the chair. He had to give Carter more time. “Not gonna happen.”
With a sudden flare of rage, the Wraith swung back toward him and plunged its fingers into Jack’s chest. He gasped, arched his back at the horrific pain. “Do it!” the Wraith hissed. “Destroy it or be destroyed.”
“Can’t,” Jack hissed through the pain. Won’t.
“You will,” the Wraith hissed.
Jack shook his head. “Not yet.”
The Wraith bared its teeth. “Then I will make you.”
And suddenly he felt a dreadful ebbing of energy, like he was in freefall, his head spinning light away from the rest of his body. When it stopped, leaving him breathless and disoriented, he peered at the Wraith through blurry eyes. He shook his head, tried to clear it, but it was no good. And when he lifted his hands from the gel pads he saw them gnarled and leathery through his dim vision. “Sonofa…” His voice whispered like dead leaves.
The Wraith hissed at him, its braided hair falling forward to brush across Jack’s face. “Do as you are instructed, human,” he said. “The child-queen is not here to speak for you now. You are mine to command.”
“If you kill me,” Jack said, in his reedy old-man’s voice, “we’ll all die. There’ll be no one to fly the damn ship.”
Lips peeled back from its needle-like teeth, the Wraith said, “That is of no import; without Queen Shadow, there is no life for any of us. All that is left is vengeance.”
Chapter 18
Earth — 2098
Teal’c, Rya’c and Bailey led the vanguard, darting through the gate as soon as it opened so as to retain the element of surprise. They took out four Wraith drones by the gate as soon as the wormhole spat them out. Bailey’s face was a picture of schooled impassivity, though Teal’c guessed she was just as horrified as he and SG-1 had been when they’d first set eyes on these creatures.
Behind them, more troops came barreling out of the wormhole, the dizzying effects of gate travel exacerbated by the skewed angle at which it sat. But they recovered admirably, rolling into a crouch to fire at the oncoming enemy. The plan was for them to clear the area, before the others joined them. Bailey had been happy to defer to Teal’c in a temporary chain of command, given his knowledge of both the terrain and their adversary.
The energy blasts from Wraith stunners pounded into the soil next to them and Teal’c recalled the warnings from Major Carter about the level of radiation here. Not only that, but they had no cover. They needed to get to higher ground. With a called command, he gestured for Bailey and Rya’c to head for the skeletal trees on the hillside on which they’d made camp so long ago. As a cover, it was woefully inadequate, but they would have to make do and hope that they did not get pinned down.
As more troops made it through the gate, Teal’c couldn’t help but be impressed by the tight formation of the CMF troops; Bailey had trained them well. But there were many Wraith and they did not fall easily to either Goa’uld or Arbellan weapons. If O’Neill and Earthborn were unable to call off the attack from Atlantis, the people of Arbella would not survive long and the Wraith would escape through the Stargate.
So far, at least, the sky had remained clear of darts and Teal’c hoped that was a sign that O’Neill and Daniel Jackson’s mission had been successful. He cast a glance upward, wishing he could see through this unremitting cloud cover to where Major Carter was waging her own battle in orbit. Much was at stake on all battlefronts, but mostly Teal’c worried about his friends.
On the ground around the gate, gunfire rattled and Wraith stunners took down too many of the Arbellan troops before they could make it to safer ground. And Teal’c heard screams that told him some were not so fortunate to be only on the receiving end of a stunner; the Wraith drones fed as they fought. He fired at the oncoming onslaught, his and Rya’c’s staff weapons finding their mark more often than not. But the Wraith were many and strong and he could see the CMF troops tire under the relentless onslaught. He was sure that the horror in which they’d found themselves was causing as much damage as the Wraith and their feeding hands.
“We’re outnumbered,” yelled Bailey. “We have to get back through the gate!”
“We cannot,” he called back. “We must hold it!”
“This is killing my people, Teal’c.”
Frustration beat at him as he cast his eye around, looking for a means of retreat. And then, from over the brow of the opposite hill, came a sight that gave him hope.
“Who the hell is that?” said Bailey.
“They are the people of Earth, General Bailey,” he said and he watched as Aedan Trask commanded his people down the slope to engage their enemy.
With a yelled command, Teal’c charged forward and began the fight back in earnest.
Hecate’s Ha’tak — 2098
The closer Sam got to the pel’tak, the more eerily quiet it became. It was the opposite of what Sam was expecting, especially with the ship in battle.
Or, formerly, in battle. Although the distant hoots of alarms were still sounding she hadn’t heard or felt any weapons fire for quite some time. And the Ha’tak was starting to look reminiscent of the Mary Celeste. Sam hoped it meant that Rya’c’s Jaffa were winning the argument, but didn’t want to take it for granted. There were a dozen worse possibilities.
The pel’tak itself looked like a war zone as Sam peered around the doorway, her staff weapon held at the ready. There were bodies everywhere, and evident signs of damage to the control systems. Deliberately, she didn’t look for Janet, made herself assess the situation fu
lly first. On the view screen she could see Earth, but, between it and the Ha’tak, she saw the crippled remains of Shadow’s cruiser. It looked like it was in a bad way, spinning in a lazy pivot that spoke of a total loss of engines and thrusters. The odds weren’t good for any of the Wraith stranded there, but Sam couldn’t bring herself to care. A few darts wove around it like bees returning to a poisoned hive.
But, more interestingly, at the bottom of the screen she could see the tips of Atlantis’s spires and that gave her a jolt of relief. The colonel had done it—he was flying an Ancient city-ship. She just hoped he wasn’t doing it under duress…
From the view screen she turned her attention to the room. There were bodies—she counted six Jaffa, two of whom were dried out corpses—and more, she thought, at the back of the bridge, hidden behind the command chair and the flickering braziers that stood to each side.
Keeping low, Sam crept into the room. She stepped over one of the desiccated Jaffa, moving to the back of the room, but then stopped and looked more closely at the corpse. Her heart sank, stomach turning sickly; she recognized the body. It belonged to Rya’c’s friend, Zuri. “Damnit,” Sam murmured. This was where loyalty to Hecate had gotten her.
A sudden movement startled her, and she brought up her weapon, dropping into a defensive crouch. Someone was alive behind the command chair. “Who’s there?” Sam called.
“Major Carter?”
She knew that voice. “Hunter?”
He peered out from behind the throne, looking ruined. His face was blood streaked from a nasty gash on his forehead, and Sam could easily see tear tracks running through the gore. “Didn’t think to see you again,” he said. “Told you to go. Ain’t nothing here but death.”
“You’re hurt,” Sam said.
“Don’t matter.” He sniffed and limped out from behind the chair, his right arm hanging bloody and useless at his side. “It’s all gone now. That thing killed the goddess and we ain’t got no more hope.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I saw Zuri’s body.”
Hunter nodded, licked at his lips like he was thirsty. Sam didn’t even have water to offer. “She died trying to protect the Lady Hecate. I should’a done the same.” He touched the wound on his head. “But I just got smacked down and when I woke up they was all gone.” He turned and looked behind him. “So I figured I’d just stay with her. ’Til the end.”
Sam’s gaze darted past him to the shadows beyond. “With Hecate?”
“I seen what come outa her,” Hunter said, nodding to a dark smear on the deck. “But that ain’t my goddess.”
Sam couldn’t get the next words out of her mouth, past the knot that was thickening there. “Is she—?” She cleared her throat. “Is she still alive?”
Hunter shrugged. “She’s still breathing but—”
That was enough. Sam moved past him, shoving the staff weapon into Hunter’s good hand. Janet—it was Janet again, now—lay on her back in the shadow of the command chair, eyes closed and her hands folded over the bloody wound in her chest. Hunter must have arranged her that way. She looked corpse-like and Sam hated it. So she took one of Janet’s hands in her own, squeezed. Her fingers were cool, but not cold. “Janet?”
She leaned down, put her cheek close to Janet’s lips and—like a miracle—felt breath there. Weak, but breath nonetheless. There was blood around her lips and Sam knew why; that’s how the symbiote would have left the body of its dying host.
“Janet?” she said again, tapping her cheek. “Janet, it’s Sam. Can you hear me?”
There was no response. Tears tightened the back of Sam’s throat, welled up in her eyes. She blinked them away; this wasn’t the time. She looked over her shoulder to Hunter. “We have to get her out of here.”
“There’s no time.”
“What do you mean?”
Hunter nodded to the view screen. The image had changed—the Ha’tak was moving fast, Sam realized, orbiting Earth. It was a pretty low orbit too, certainly inside the lunar orbit. “Her ship will be her chariot to the heavens,” Hunter said. “It’ll kill the Snatchers too. So I figure, least Faith an’ my little’un might live free.”
For a beat, Sam just stared. Then she understood with an uncoiling sense of dread. “The ship’s going to crash? Hecate deliberately chose to crash her ship into the planet?”
“Weren’t her,” Hunter said, his eyes going back to Janet. “Lady Hecate loved her people. The other one done it.”
“Sobek.” And of course that made sense. “He’s going to crash the ship to release the poison.”
“Kill the Snatchers,” Hunter said. “All except him and his kind.”
“But he’ll have lost his ship…”
Hunter shook his head. “This ain’t his and he don’t want it.” He gestured to the view screen again. “He wants that.”
“Atlantis, of course.” That had been Hecate’s plan all along, and now Sobek had double-crossed Hecate to take it for himself. Kill the Wraith, take Atlantis, rule the galaxy. “We have to stop it,” she said, scrambling to her feet and heading to one of the control consoles.
“Why?” Hunter said. “It’ll kill the Snatchers. I been fighting for that my whole life.”
“Because there’s a better way,” Sam said, studying the alien screen. “Because those Snatchers… Look, if they die there’ll be no one left to fight Sobek. And what he wants for Earth is a whole lot worse, believe me.”
“Ain’t nothing worse’n Snatchers.”
“That hybrid is,” she said, but she was too distracted to say more. The console wasn’t responding to her commands; the helm had been disabled, the ship locked into its decaying orbit. Like an hourglass, each orbit ticked down to the ship’s destruction and there wasn’t a damn thing Sam could do to stop it.
Except that there was. “We have to destroy the ship before it reaches Earth,” she said. “If we destroy the poison before we enter the atmosphere, it can’t hurt the Wraith.”
Hunter gave a grim snort. “And how do we do that?”
“Ha’taks come with a failsafe self-destruct. If I can—” But, no, that was locked too. Sobek wasn’t taking any chances. “Damnit.” There was still her makeshift bomb in the engineering room, but…
She looked again at Janet, at the subtle rise and fall of her chest. By her calculation, at their current rate of descent, they had no more than thirty minutes before the ship entered Earth’s atmosphere. That meant there was no time to get Janet off the ship and then go back to the engine room to detonate the bomb before it was too late. And carrying Janet would slow her down—Hunter was in no shape to help—so even if they hit the engine room first they’d never be able to escape the ship before the bomb detonated. It was hopeless and she slammed her fist down hard on the console, staring out bitterly at the planet below, at the crippled Wraith cruiser, at Atlantis and—
She stopped dead, her fist half raised for another frustrated blow. Maybe there was a way? A dangerous one, but wasn’t that how they always did things? Sam licked her lips, wiped suddenly sweaty palms on the legs of her pants. “Okay,” she said, “I’ve got an idea.”
Atlantis — 2098
“We are under attack.”
Jack didn’t need the Wraith to tell him, or even the subtle shiver from the bones of the city. He could see it in glorious technicolor. The Ha’tak had crippled the Wraith cruiser all too easily, and now Hecate’s ship had turned its weapons on Atlantis. There was only one reason Jack could think of for that—Carter and Sting had failed in their attempt to depose Hecate and the snake was getting her revenge on her treacherous ally. Which probably meant Carter was dead. Or soon would be.
And that—Sitting there in his old-man’s body, plugged into this enormously powerful piece of technology, and yet powerless to help her, Jack felt despair. Carter had failed. Daniel was down. And Teal’c and Rya’c were in the wind… Who knew if they’d even made it back from Arbella?
There was only him, alone at the end of the wo
rld.
He supposed he might as well take Hecate out too—a small vengeance for the loss of his friends, his family, his world. But even as he powered up the weapons, felt the Wraith’s fingers lighten on his chest, he knew that this vengeance would taste of nothing but ashes. Just like the world revolving below them.
At his request, Atlantis summoned its weapons—the same little missiles he’d used on the gate-ship. It seemed to think four would suffice to take out the Ha’tak. Jack had no reason to doubt it.
He sent them into their launch tubes, each one glowing bright with more power than a nuke. And then, just as he was about to let his mind release them, he saw a small alert blink in his peripheral vision. When he looked closely, it showed him that the Ha’tak was in a decaying orbit with twenty-three minutes left until it entered Earth’s atmosphere.
That, he thought, was strange. The ship wasn’t damaged, which meant someone had deliberately aimed it at Earth. They wanted it to crash. So why open fire and invite Atlantis to destroy it before it hit the ground?
Unless…
His heart gave a little jump, hope finding its way to the surface despite the odds. It was just the kind of crazy plan Carter might come up with if she was desperate—if she knew he was flying Atlantis and wanted him to destroy the Ha’tak before it entered Earth’s orbit.
Question was, why?
“Jack?” The voice, taut with pain, was Daniel’s. Jack spared him a glance, his newly blurred vision turning Daniel into a shadowy shape. He was climbing to his feet, took a couple of unsteady steps toward the chair and then froze, failing to hide his horror at the sight Jack presented. “Oh my God,” he said. “What…?”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve looked better.”
“You—” Daniel broke off, and despite his poor eyesight Jack could see the way Daniel’s eyebrows rose over the tops of his glasses. He was looking past Jack now, toward the door. “Uh,” he said, taking a step closer to the command chair, “Jack? You might want to lower the force shield.”
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