“O’Neill!” It was Ai’s voice, high and nervous. “You are visible — the energy bleeding from the gate is showing your position.”
“Crap,” Jack said. “Sam! Any ideas?”
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it,” she called back. “That’s how we’re holding the Stargate. And I’m kind of afraid to try to damp the visual spectrum —”
More lights flared, and this time there was an audible alarm as well, a blare of sound that made Jack flinch in his seat. “Now what?” he demanded, but he could already see new lights in the tac screen. Ra had launched his gliders. “Damn it. Sam! Forget the cloak, put all the power we’ve got into the shield.”
“On it.”
He glanced back again, saw her swapping wires, sparks showering around her.
“O’Neill,” Ai said again. “You have lost the cloak. And the mothership has launched gliders.”
“Yeah, I see them,” Jack answered. “See if you and Mitchell can hold them off—” He stopped, staring at the tac screen as the lead glider rolled and arrowed toward them, spitting fire. “Brace yourself, Sam.”
The first shots struck home, rocking the jumper. The shields held, that was the good news, but there was a snap and more sparks and smoke from the back. In the tac screen, Ai’s jumper made a quick turn, launching drones, and an instant later Mitchell’s did the same. A glider exploded, and then another; a third rolled away, smoking, its pilot fighting for control, but the next came on, firing steadily.
“Damn it,” Jack said softly, braced himself as the jumper rocked again. “Sam?”
“How’s the shield?” she called back.
“Holding.”
“That’s good.”
The air smelled of smoke again, and the heavy, electric feeling was stronger than ever. Jack tightened his hands on the controls, willing the ship to hold firm. “How about the beam?”
“Holding for how,” Sam answered. “But — if we get knocked around much more, I’m going to lose it.”
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Jack grimaced as another shot struck home, steadying the jumper in the roiling air. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t hide, he couldn’t fight back — wait a minute. “Sam! Can I fire the drones?”
“I don’t know. It could overload everything.”
Overhead, the air was filled with drones and gliders, explosions and the bright flare of beam weapons. And still the gliders came on, diving through the hail of drones to make hit after hit. The shield was holding, but weakening visibly, and the warning lights were flashing again, more steadily and seriously this time. “I’m going to try it,” Jack said, and launched three drones.
The jumper bucked and shimmied, and there was a sudden flash of heat in the cabin, as though a hot wind had passed over them. In the tac screen, two gliders exploded, debris raining down around them, and the third swung away, damaged and trailing flame. The Stargate seemed to shiver, and then steadied.
“Don’t do that again!” Sam yelled. “It takes too much power. Ra almost got a grip on the gate.”
“Damn it,” Jack said again. “I don’t know how much longer we can just sit here and take it.”
“We have to,” Sam answered.
Hold on, Jack told the ship. Just — hold on.
Chapter Thirty-three
“My God,” Carolyn said. “How many gliders has he got in that thing?”
Her hands were still steady on the controls, nursing the jumper up and away from a knot of gliders so that she could send a drone after them without betraying her position entirely. Cam scanned the tac displays, trying to spot a pattern that wasn’t there.
“Pick off that ones that are going after O’Neill,” he said, and the jumper heeled and shuddered as she released more drones. There had to be eight or ten of them; for a moment they seemed to fill the display, and then broke apart like blossoming fireworks. The gliders jinked frantically, spinning away, but the drones homed in relentlessly. Off to the left, Ai did the same, her jumper flashing into view for an instant before she got it cloaked again,.
“Oh, come on,” Carolyn said, and gave Cam a wild glance. “It says it’s running low on drones.”
“How low?” Cam looked at the screen again, trying to prioritize targets.
”I can’t tell,” Carolyn said. She brought the jumper around for another pass. “It won’t be specific. I think it doesn’t want to upset me.”
“Think soothing thoughts,” Cam said. “Keep it calm.” And her, too, but he didn’t need to say that. He saw her shoulders move as she took a deep breath. “Can you get a better answer?”
“Twenty-five? Thirty?” Carolyn deliberately uncloaked for an instant as she rose across the nose of a stooping glider. The Jaffa pilot flinched, and the glider clipped wings with the next ship in the flight, sent them both spinning out of control.
“Nice,” Cam said, and Carolyn grimaced.
“I don’t think it’ll work a second time.”
“No,” Cam agreed. If they were low on drones, there wasn’t much they could do to help O’Neill — they weren’t making that much difference anyway, there were just too many gliders, and O’Neill’s jumper was a sitting duck. “Go for the pel’tac,” he said. “Fire one big salvo, see if you can’t damage the command center.”
“It’s shielded,” Carolyn said, but she brought the jumper up and around again. For the first time, Cam could feel something ragged in its flight, as though they’d taken more damage than he’d realized.
“See if we can break through,” he said, and Carolyn nodded.
“OK. I’m giving it everything we’ve got.”
“Go,” Cam said, and hoped it would work.
Teal’c stood at attention, one pace behind Egeria and to her right, hoping she knew what she was doing. He did not look at Danyel, still on his knees on the far side of the pel’tac, still worrying at the bonds that held his wrists. Instead, he focused on Ra, still at the controls, his hands spread wide against the planes of light. The jumpers were fighting well, but sheer numbers were overwhelming them; soon O’Neill would have to release the Stargate or be destroyed, and O’Neill would die before he gave in. There had to be something, some way he could help, but he could see nothing yet.
“My lord!” The Jaffa at the weapons station lifted his head. “My lord, they are attacking the pel’tac.”
“The shield will hold,” Ra answered.
There was no sign of the jumper in the viewscreen, but drones seemed to materialize from nothing, a dozen of them, perhaps more, homing in on the command center. He could see them coming quite clearly, glowing gold and white against the sky’s brilliant blue, and Egeria reached back to grab his arm.
“Now,” she said, and lifted her weaponed hand. Light shot from it, caught Ra in the small of the back, folding him over the controls. Teal’c charged his staff weapon, shot the second pilot and the Jaffa at the weapon station, and the drones exploded against the shield. The mothership moaned, the floorplates shifting as the shield absorbed the energies, and Teal’c turned, cut down the Jaffa left to guard Danyel. The ship staggered underfoot, and Egeria swept forward, seized a zat from one of the bodies. Alarms sounded, the deep hooting that warned of weakened shields, potential hull breach, and Egeria turned to him.
“Quickly! You must free Danyel.”
Teal’c shook himself, found a knife on the dead guard, and sliced the ties that held Danyel’s wrists.
“That was —” Danyel grabbed for the guard’s zat and unfolded it, not quite pointing it at Egeria. “This is really interesting, but —”
“You must go now,” Egeria said. “To the rings. Somehow, I don’t know how, you overpowered your guard, and shot Ra —”
“You hit him with a hand device,” Danyel said.
“That can be remedied,” Teal’c said. He was beginning to see the shape of it at last, nodded in approval.
“Exactly.” Egeria was already working the door controls, surveyed the c
orridor. “More alarms, Teal’c, tell them there are fires, anything. And destroy the controls for the tractor beams.”
“Yes,” Teal’c said, and aimed his staff weapon at the panel. It exploded in a satisfying shower of spark and flame. He hauled Ra’s unconscious body off the platform, and touched the secondary controls. More alarms sounded, different tones, and he looked at Danyel.
“Aset is right, you must go now. We will handle things from here.”
Danyel hesitated for an instant longer, then nodded. “You had me worried,” he said. There was an expression on his face that suggested he wanted to say much more, but there was no time. “Good luck,” he said, and ducked into the corridor.
“We must give him a little time,” Egeria said. “And then — you must shoot Ra, and damage the door, while I call Nean’tac.”
“Indeed.” Teal’c allowed himself a smile, in spite of everything. “You could have told me the plan, Aset.”
She gave him a rueful glance. “But I had no plan. Ra came before I expected him, I saw no other choice.”
“Then you are even cleverer than I thought,” Teal’c said, and took aim at the door mechanism.
Danyel raced down the empty corridor. There was a ring platform not far from the pel’tac, for Ra’s convenience, probably, but at this point, he was hardly sure which way to turn. He made himself slow down long enough to read the wall symbols, oriented himself, and took off again.
There was a single Jaffa on guard at the door of the ring chamber. Danyel didn’t pause, fired once as he came around the corner and the man collapsed in a heap of armor. Danyel closed the door behind him, scanning the controls. It looked as though everything was working, and he punched in the coordinates, hoping the pyramid was clear. But anything would be better than being trapped on the mothership, and he stepped up onto the platform. The system hummed, the rings gathering above him, and the door slid back, revealing a startled-looking Jaffa.
Danyel fired at him, missed, and ducked low himself as the Jaffa brought up his staff weapon. And then the rings slammed down, and he was suddenly in the pyramid’s dim light. He rolled hastily away from the platform, and a woman’s voice called softly, “Over here!”
It was Vala, and his other self, crouched in the mouth of a corridor. Danyel picked himself up and trotted toward them.
“Good to see you.”
“Maybe,” his other self said. “We’re not exactly out of the woods.”
“There are Jaffa between us and the main entrance,” Vala said. “And another group near the Stargate entrance.”
“In fact,” Daniel said, with a certain perverse satisfaction, “we’re kind of trapped between them.”
“It’s better than being on the ha’tak,” Danyel answered, and hoped it was true.
Teal’c dragged Ra’s body back to the controls, draped him over the panels as though he’d fallen there when Danyel shot him.
“In the side,” Egeria said. “We must keep him confined to the sarcophagus until we can leave the ship.”
Teal’c nodded, lined up the shot, and fired. The blast seared skin and flesh, blistered the casing of the control platform, and Egeria gave a nod of satisfaction.
“Nean’tac! Nean’tac, where are you?”
Armored feet sounded in the corridor, and Teal’c lifted his hands, his staff weapon carefully uncharged. Nean’tac shouldered past his men, took in the scene at a glance. “My lord! What happened here?”
“He needs the sarcophagus,” Egeria said sharply. “At once.”
Nean’tac gestured to the nearest men, who moved to obey. “It shall be done. But — how did this happen?”
“The Tau’ri,” Egeria said. “Somehow he must have freed himself, and overcome the others. They are sly and tricksters, the Tau’ri, especially when the Ancients aid them.”
“But you are not harmed, my Lady,” Nean’tac said.
“I was not here,” Egeria answered. “Nor Teal’c. We heard shots fired, and then the alarms, and found this.” She took a breath. “And I order this, as a goddess and loyal subject of your god. Our first duty is to our lord! Recall the gliders! We must bring him safe to Abydos.”
There was a moment of hesitation, and Teal’c braced himself. If there was a fight, somehow he must win. And then Nean’tac relaxed, bowing, and motioned for his men to take up stations.
“At once, my Lady. It shall be done.”
Egeria turned, took her place beside Ra’s throne, one hand resting on its arm. A clever claim, Teal’c thought, and delicately done. “Abandon this filthy world to its fate, Nean’tac. They will pay in due time.”
“Yes, my Lady,” Nean’tac answered. The ha’tak rose, lights flaring as stressed systems fought to compensate, and more warnings sounded as the gliders came on board. In the screen, the sky darkened from blue to indigo to black, and the stars blazed around them. They had done it, Teal’c thought. Somehow they had done it. He slanted a glance at Aset and saw the same surprise in her eyes. And then it was gone, hidden behind Egeria’s mask, but he had seen, and knew they had all three survived.
The tractor beams cut out, and the jumper rocked wildly. Jack swore, grappling with the controls, static nipping at his fingers. “Sam!”
There was another yelp from the back, and the fat snap of a bigger spark, but then the jumper steadied. “What happened?” she called.
“The tractor shut down.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Yeah.” Jack knew he sounded doubtful. He felt doubtful, as though he knew Ra was going to try something different, something worse. But the ha’tak was moving, its shadow retreating — the ha’tak was lifting away into the sky, the gliders scrambling to catch up. “Ai! Do you see that?”
“He is running, O’Neill.” Ai’s voice sounded caught between laughter and tears. “He is gone.”
“Shut this down, Sam.” The jumper was starting to tremble under his hands. No, the trembling was becoming a full-scale shaking, rattling his teeth in his head. “Shut it down!”
“I’m working on it! You can’t just turn it off like flipping a switch —”
But even as she spoke, the shaking eased, the thick blue light fading. The thread that had tied them to the wormhole thinned and vanished, and the Stargate stood untouched, the event horizon rippling blue within its circle. Jack brought the jumper gently down onto the beaten ground, and Sam came forward to join him. Her hands were covered with tiny red flecks where sparks had stung her, and her hair was matted to her head. He certainly didn’t look any better, Jack thought, but he couldn’t help smiling at her.
“We made it,” he said, and she leaned against his shoulder.
“We made it,” she agreed. In the gate, the wormhole winked out. He could hear distant shouts, Basa and Teal’c moving in to mop up what was left of the Jaffa, and on the tac screen the other jumpers were circling, decloaking as they came in to land. He would deal with that, get everything organized and taken care of, but just for the moment he rested, his head against Sam’s ribs. Someday his luck would run out, but it wasn’t today.
Chapter Thirty-four
“You hanging in there, Carter?” Cam asked, crouching down beside the low bed. Carter’s pants leg had been cut to just above the knee, and Daniel was checking the dressing.
“I’m good,” Carter said, trying to force a smile, though it hurt like hell. It wasn’t the first time she’d been hit with a staff weapon, and it wasn’t the worst by a long shot.
Ai, the fourth person in the room, frowned. “Is there nothing you can give her to ease the pain?”
“I don’t want to be out cold,” Carter demurred. She looked up at Cam. “And besides, we’re leaving soon. Right, Cam?”
“Yeah.” Cam patted her shoulder. “One last round up, and then we’re gone. We’re going to take the stolen puddle jumper back where it belongs. Home.”
“And will you also let me go home?” Ai asked, her brows rising.
“Yes,” Daniel said firmly, looking
at Cam.
“It might change the timeline if she doesn’t,” Carter said. “Imagine what would happen if everything she does for the rest of her life didn’t happen. We have no idea what that would change! And what about her descendants just winking out of existence? I mean, what if someone like Miko Kusinagi didn’t exist? The whole Atlantis expedition might have been lost four years ago.”
Cam nodded. “OK, that makes sense.” He stood up. “Let’s get this show on the road then. What do we need to do before we close up?”
“A bunch of things,” Daniel said. “O’Neill’s bringing Marik, for one, and says he wants him gone —“
“So let’s do them.” Cam looked down at her. “You hang in there. We’ll make it as fast as possible.”
“I’m OK,” Carter said, and watched them head out the door.
Ai shook her head. “I don’t understand. Who is this person you speak of?” She sat down on the other side of the bed.
“Dr. Miko Kusinagi,” Carter said. “She’s a scientist, a fine engineer like you. And like you she has the ATA gene. She comes from Hokkaido, from Mishihase. Who knows? Maybe she’s your great a thousand times granddaughter. But she’s on the Atlantis Expedition.”
“She’s been to the City?” Ai’s voice was hushed.
Carter nodded. “She lives there now. I saw her there a few months ago.”
“You’ve been to the City?”
Carter nodded, closing her eyes and seeing again the soaring ceiling of the gateroom, the spires of Atlantis against the morning over a soft tropical sea. “I’ve been to Atlantis. I was there for a year.”
Ai’s voice hitched. “My grandmother did not remember it,” she said quietly. “She was a baby, an orphan from one of the colonies that fell. She was not yet two years old when she was carried through the gate in the final evacuation, carried by a stranger to a new world and a new home. She didn’t remember the City at all. She could tell me no stories.”
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