In all her life, Teyla had never seen a man act with more bravery or dignity and it shamed her that she had once thought ill of him. She watched until he had disappeared into the shadows and flung out a prayer for the protection of his soul.
Chapter Eight
John Sheppard brought the ship – the Puddle Jumper – down in a small clearing among sparse trees. It didn’t seem a whole lot different from Teyla’s planet, and he considered briefly why a world in a completely differently galaxy might look so much like home. Perhaps the Ancients were keen gardeners and had spent their time sowing seeds as well as humanity? Or maybe he had better things to think about. Dismissing the thought, he removed his hands from the controls, and the cockpit powered down.
Nodding at Ford, he slipped from his seat and gave the order to move out. With a quiet hiss the back door opened and a scent of damp leaves and pine drifted into the ship. Picking up his P90, Sheppard let Stackhouse lead the way out, himself, Ford, and the other SOs following.
The air was cool and damp, the forest silent as his boots thumped down onto soft dirt. He did a slow three-sixty, weapon raised, listening hard. Nothing. So far so good… “Teams of two,” he told Stackhouse. “Learn what you can and lay down defenses as you see fit. I want to be able to light this place up if we have to. Two clicks on the radio means you’re clear to talk.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do not engage the enemy,” he added, preparing to move out. “Ford, with me.”
The kid fell in beside him, barely concealing his enthusiasm. It made Sheppard feel older and more seasoned than his years suggested, and he wondered if this was what desk-jockeys like O’Neill called the ‘burden of command’. He knew, just as Dr. Weir did, that some or all of them might not make it back. And as much as she had given them the go, it had been at his urging. This was his plan, and the lives of these seven men lay firmly in his hands.
It was enough to make anyone grow up fast.
The thing about fear was that you couldn’t just ignore it. You couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there, jut out your chin and keep going, because one day, right at the worst possible moment, you’d slip and fall, and that fear would come bursting out and leave you shaking and helpless. Colonel Sumner had seen it happen. No, the thing with fear was that you had to embrace it. You had to know it like the enemy, you had to understand how it made you think and feel, and how much it twisted your mind and your reason. Once you knew all that it couldn’t surprise you. It couldn’t control you, you controlled it. And as he was led through endless echoing corridors, never far from the stench of death, Sumner needed all the control he could muster.
Truth was, he was terrified.
These things – these creatures – were like nothing he’d ever encountered. If he’d believed in Good and Evil he’d have called them devils. Their dead eyes were like mirror-glass, their skin that of a corpse. Their demon mouths, stinking of death and corruption, made him want to vomit. These were no snakeheads, no Goa’uld – they at least had all the human failings of vanity, greed and egotism. But these Wraith… They were closer to the beasts than humanity, cunning beasts that hungered only for hunting and—
His thoughts were derailed when he found himself being led into a giant room. Its edges were lost in shadows that looked like cloisters, its cone-shaped ceiling soaring up almost too high for him to see and its honeycombed surface glowing a soft gold. And all around, at the periphery of his vision, he could glimpse whispers of movement. Dark shapes flitting around the edges of the room, shadows within shadows.
Sumner’s heart thundered fast and ragged as he followed the Wraith to a long table at the center of the room, a banqueting table laden with an exotic feast. But no one was eating. A solitary man sat in one of the high-backed gothic chairs, and he seemed long dead. His face was withered, his limbs and hands nothing but skin slumped over bone. Dead two years, Sumner thought, until he saw the man’s clothing. His pulse stuttered in shock; the husk of a corpse was Toran. Over the man’s heart five small puncture wounds still oozed blood; they were the only visible marks on his body.
Adrenaline tasted bitter in his mouth and he spun in a nervous circle, watching the whispering shadows. He wanted to yell out, to demand that they stop hiding in the dark, stop drifting just outside his vision, but his throat felt dry and—
A phantom dropped from the ceiling, right behind him. He spun, hand reaching for a weapon that was long gone, and found himself face-to-face with a nightmare. Another Wraith, female and dressed in white – a parody of allure, her lithe figure snaking towards him and her hellish mouth reeking of slaughter.
Her voice, a mere hiss, cut the silence. “You must feel hunger by now.”
Sumner just stared, tried to swallow and find his voice, but he’d never felt such stomach-churning horror. It took all his effort not to back off as she glided like a ghost toward him, her pallid face and lifeless eyes turning him as cold as death.
I’m already dead. I’m already dead…
They’d found it almost immediately. The Wraith fortress – for want of a better word – was built into the side of the mountain and the scramble up the rubble below had been easy. He was tempted to say too easy, but aside from the cliché Sheppard was pretty sure things would be getting tough real soon. They were crouched now in the dank catacombs of the fortress, the air thick and musty and very, very old. It didn’t feel like anyone had been down here in years.
Except for the footsteps. He paused in setting the detonator on the C4 and held up a hand to still Ford. The kid quit moving and they both listened as the footsteps drew closer. Much closer. He held his breath, eyes fixed on Ford. The lieutenant’s eyes were wide, and he was breathing slowly through his mouth to make no noise.
The footsteps were accompanied by a stench, like decomposing flesh, and Sheppard’s nostrils flared in disgust. Glancing up from his hiding place, he watched the creature stalk past. It was huge, taller than a man and broad. Damn thing looked hard to take down. Its lank hair was long, its face distorted by a mouthful of teeth – or fangs. Images of werewolves and vampires sprung to mind. Damn it, where was Buffy when you needed her…
The Wraith paused, sniffed at the air, and Sheppard’s fingers tightened on his weapon. But after a moment it moved on, its footsteps echoing back down the corridor as it paced away and disappeared into the shadows.
Ford shifted. “I thought getting in was gonna be the hard part,” he whispered. “That’s the first one we’ve seen.”
“Long as he didn’t see us.” Sheppard pulled the PDA he’d taken from the Puddle Jumper out of his vest. Its flat screen showed a white dot at the center, with a second moving away. He studied it for a moment and said, “The moving dot is him.” Then, glancing at Ford, he said, “Step back.”
The kid just frowned.
“Go over there.”
With a shrug, Ford obeyed, and Sheppard smiled as the dot at the centre of the screen split into two. “Yep, that’s you.”
Ford grinned. “So we’ve got ourselves a life signs detector.”
“We’ll name it later,” Sheppard decided. He was thinking more along the lines of ‘Tracker’… “Looks like they’re just up ahead, c’mon.”
Keeping low and keeping quiet, Sheppard led them through the silent, empty tunnels. It was like Halloween or a horror movie; if Freddie Kruger had jumped out at him he wouldn’t have been surprised. But at last they rounded a corner, and he slipped the PDA back into his vest. Didn’t need it anymore. Up ahead he could see a cell, and inside people were moving. Real people. As they crept along the corridor he saw someone approach the bars, her dark eyes glittering in the dim light. It was Teyla, and Sheppard felt a surge of relief at the sight of her.
With Ford hanging back, Sheppard stepped out of the shadows and darted over to the cell. Teyla stared at him in out-and-out amazement, eyes wide as saucers. “Major…?”
He was whisper-quiet. “You all right?”
“How did you find us?”
/> Before he could answer Halling pressed forward, his face crumpled with dread. “Is my son alive?”
“And well and waiting for you,” Sheppard said with a small smile. “Where is Colonel Sumner?”
There was an uncomfortable pause. Oh no. Oh, no, no, no…
In the end it was one of Sumner’s security team who spoke from where he lay injured on the floor. His voice was strained and angry. “He’s been taken by the Wraith.”
Teyla’s face told him Sumner was already dead, but all she said was, “We don’t know where.”
Exchanging a glance with Ford, he said, “How ’bout when?”
“Not long.”
He sighed. “Well, something had to go wrong.” He reached over, clicked twice on his radio and waited.
“This is Stackhouse,” a voice crackled through the static. “Go ahead sir.”
“We’re going to need a diversion in a little bit,” Sheppard whispered. “You ready to make some noise out there?”
“Yes, sir.”
Okay. So they were going to have to do this the hard way. “Ford, rig up enough C4 to make a hole and get these folks out of here on my command.” He studied the tracker for a moment. “I can find the Colonel with this thing. There’s not all that many Wraith around here.” He looked up, right at Ford. “I should be able to do this, but if you don’t hear from me in…twenty minutes, blow the cells and get out.”
Ford frowned, shifting uncomfortably. The requisite ‘yes, sir’ was not forthcoming. Instead he said, “You’re the only one who can fly these people out of here—”
“And I’ll fly all of us out. Including the Colonel.”
“I’m sayin’ I should be the one to go, sir—”
There was no time to argue, so instead Sheppard simply slapped the tracker device into Ford’s hands. It died immediately and he snatched it back with a look; Ford didn’t have the Ancient gene. “All right, you have your orders,” Sheppard said. “Twenty minutes, I’ll find him.”
With a tight, concerned frown Ford just nodded. There was no more to say, and Sheppard headed out, back into the shadows. Sumner was gonna be surprised as hell to see him, and the Major was looking forward to the guy owing him one. It was gonna make life a helluva lot easier…
Colonel Sumner stood parade-ground straight, shoulders back and eyes fixed on the dark edges of the room. If he didn’t look right at her, he’d discovered, it was easier. Not much, but enough. She was circling him now, her clawed fingers trailing occasionally across his uniform. But her hair, blood red and shocking against her corpse skin, gleamed in the flickering light of the room and kept drawing his attention, kept making him look at her.
“Word of all new things finds its way to us,” she hissed. “What do you call yourself?”
“Colonel Marshall Sumner, United States Marines.” The words rolled easily from his dry tongue.
She paused in her circling, head cocked. “So little fear,” she breathed. Her breath stank like carrion. “Is it valor? Or ignorance?”
Repressing the urge to gag, Sumner fixed his eyes on the shadows again and said, “We travel through the Stargate as peaceful explorers—”
“You must eat,” she whispered, heedless of his words, “yet you resist your hunger. Why?”
Sumner looked at her then, right into her eyes. It was like looking into the abyss. “Why have my people been taken prisoner?”
A grimace stretched across her lethal teeth. A smile? He couldn’t tell. “You trespassed upon our feeding ground.”
“Feeding ground?” He was amazed he still had the capacity to feel horror.
“One of a thousand such worlds,” she hissed again, dismissing his shock with a wave of her talons. “All living things must eat, in this I’m sure we are similar.”
As similar as a man to a shark.
She drew closer, her fetid breath washing over him and making him want to retch. “You feel hunger even now. I can sense it. Yet you resist. Why?”
“Why do you care?”
“Hunger is distasteful.” She moved away, circling him again.
Sumner let his eyes slide back to Toran’s body, slumped in a chair at the table. Had they made the man eat before they killed him? “It looks like the food didn’t agree with him.”
The Wraith stared at the corpse, then her dead eyes returned to him and her lips stretched into that parody of a smile again. “There we are quite dissimilar, Colonel Sumner,” she whispered. “We do not require our food to agree with us.”
Holy Mary Mother of God, had she eaten the man?
A soft noise from far above drifted down, distracting him. He glanced up but saw nothing, and when he looked at the Wraith again she had stepped back. Behind her he saw two others, significantly larger. Warriors. Her tone had changed, and she regarded him with more disdain than previously. “What do you call your world?”
Like he’d ever tell— “Earth.” The word slipped out as if he’d dropped it.
“It is not among our stars.”
“No.”
She drew closer again. Hungry, Sumner thought. She was hungry. “Tell me of Earth.” Her nostrils flared, as if she were breathing in his scent. “How many more are there of your kind?”
I won’t say.
“Thousands, millions?”
More. The word rang in his head, fought to get to his lips. But he wouldn’t speak it. He would not speak it!
“More?” Her eyes flashed with unspeakable desire. “How many?”
She was in his head. Billions. No, no, I won’t say it. I won’t say it! She was in his head, making him say the word. Making him speak. Sweat trickled through the short hairs at the back of his neck, down the sides of his face. I won’t say it…
The Wraith just smiled. “Our feeding ground has not been so rich in ten thousand years.”
His knees were beginning to shake, his whole body crumpling under the force of her mind in his head. “Your will is strong,” she hissed, nodding toward the husk that had been Toran. “This one begged for its life.”
“Is that…” It was an effort to form a word, to make his rigid jaw work. “Is that the treatment I should expect for myself and for my people?”
Her gaze slid to the warriors at her back. “As I said, all things must eat.”
“Then we’re done talking.”
Closer now, he could feel her inside his head like a dark fist clamped around his mind. “I think not…” she murmured, and his fingers clenched, aching to strike at that demon face, to see her broken and bleeding on the ground. But he couldn’t move, he couldn’t move a damn finger. He could barely breathe. “Kneel.”
I won’t I won’t I won’t I— His knees collapsed as if cut, and he fell to the floor at her feet. She reached out, her clawed fingers touching his face and head. They felt cold, clammy and revolting. He tried to jerk away, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t damn well move. Her hand was on his chest now, caressing him like a lover. He wanted to vomit, he wanted to scream, he wanted to kill the bitch.
“I have not tasted such strength in so long…” Her fingers knotted in his shirt, and she ripped it from his chest.
“Go to hell!” he spat, with all the strength he could muster.
Her face moved closer, so close he could see the saliva dripping from her fanged teeth as she peeled back her lips and whispered, “Earth first.”
And then her fingers stabbed deep into his chest and all he could feel was pain and fear and horror, stretching on for an eternity as his body began to crumble away from him…
Not like this. His head flung back, a scream ripped from his throat. Not like this!
“How many years must I take from you,” the Wraith hissed into his face, “before you tell us what I wish to know?”
He felt weak, faint, a blaze of agony coursing through his limbs as she sucked the life out of him. He could feel it, like blood pooling on the floor. He’d seen men die like this, bleeding out where they lay in the dirt.
“Or shall
I take them all?”
Her fingers bit deeper, the agony tripling and tearing another scream from his throat. But he wouldn’t give in, not while he lived. Not ever.
“Where is this new feeding ground?” she demanded, and he could sense her frustration. Sense her fear.
He was seeing everything through a grey haze now, faded and distant. Death was coming, it hovered above, waiting to take him. But not yet. Forcing his eyes open, he croaked his defiance. “I won’t…”
It was all he had left.
The scream echoed through the corridors, bouncing off damp walls and filling Sheppard with cold fear. It was a man’s scream, and that man could only be Sumner. He didn’t want to know what could make someone like the Colonel scream, but he damn well wanted to make it stop.
Bolting toward the sound, Sheppard suddenly found himself on a balcony overlooking a huge room. Above him the ceiling stretched up into a honeycombed point, but what captured his attention was the scene playing out below.
Sumner was on his knees, and one of the Wraith had her hand on – or in? – his chest. His head was flung back and he was screaming in obvious agony, while her face contorted in pleasure. Freaking monster… Sheppard swung his weapon up without hesitation, switched it to single-shot, and sent three bullets right into the creature’s back. Bam, bam, bam.
She went down and lay still, her body shielding Sumner. Satisfied, Sheppard moved onto the big guys behind her in the room and took out one in a hail of automatic gun fire, while the other—
A hideous, alien screech sliced the air and the Wraith – the female – reared up and seemed to dig her fingers right into Sumner’s chest. He screamed again and again, the sound inhuman and tortured. It turned Sheppard’s blood to ice.
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