by Graham, Jo
* * *
Into the middle of a flight of Wraith Darts.
“Crap!” John said, pulling up wildly and rolling like a fish in shallow water as blue fire erupted all around them. Dahlia screamed. Teyla clutched the seat arms and managed to make no sound at all.
Four Darts. No, five. They swarmed around them in a pinwheel as the jumper jinked, John looking for an opening as the ground swam beneath them, wheeling with his spins. With the inertial dampeners on full, Teyla could not have said which way was down, or how far. Not far, surely. They had just come out of the gate. There was no altitude to play with.
There was a bang and a pop, one of the displays behind Dahlia shorting out in a cascade of sparks.
“Bloody effing hell!” Carson said, grappling for the fire extinguisher behind his seat.
The jumper jinked again, and John found an opening, pulling ninety degrees straight up, a full power climb into the indigo sky. The atmosphere was so thin that even at midday the sky had a purplish tinge, a few bright stars showing through. Teyla kept her eyes on one as they climbed, growing brighter with altitude. Another shot rocked them, and then John leveled abruptly, rolled left, and began a power dive back toward the ground. He spun past a Dart so closely that Teyla could see the pilot, his silver hair held back in a dark chain, and then they were past, skimming over the red brown dirt.
“What happened?” Carson shouted, spraying foam liberally in the smoke-filled cockpit.
“We have engaged the cloak,” Teyla said. On the display she could see the Darts hunting behind them, still gaining altitude along the jumper’s last known course. “I think we have lost them.”
“That’s not all we’ve lost,” John said grimly, his fingers white on the controls. “We’ve lost main propulsion and the vertical stabilizers. Carson, can you lock it down?”
Carson looked around wildly. “How do I do that?”
“Maybe I can,” Dahlia said, coming out of her seat. “Where are the control panels?”
“I don’t know!” Carson said.
“You’d better figure it out,” John said. “Fast. Because we’re losing altitude and I’m going to have to land this bird on the auxiliary steering thrusters.”
“Not again,” Teyla said quietly.
John spared her a sideways glance, the ghost of a smile quirking his mouth. “Been through too many jumper crashes with me?”
“The only time it is too many is the last time,” Teyla said, and held on tight.
The ground came up with dizzying speed, reds and browns blurring together. The jumper pulled up, the horizon stabilizing in front of them. They skimmed over the ground heavily, like an injured bird, reds and browns and tans dissolving into canyons and peaks, plateaus and gorges carved by dry rivers.
The jumper shook and John’s left hand flew over the board, a look of intense concentration on his face.
With a bone-jarring thud the jumper sunk into one of the canyons, rock scraping along one side, and came to a stop.
Dahlia and Carson were coughing, foam from the fire extinguisher around them.
John came out of his seat them moment the jumper settled, pistol in hand, pointed straight at the middle of Dahlia Radim’s chest. “I want some answers,” he said.
“It wasn’t me!” Dahlia’s blue eyes were wide, soot streaked across her face. “I swear by everything I hold holy that it wasn’t me!”
“You’re going to tell me that we just happened to run into a flight of Darts the moment we came through the Stargate because of pure dumb luck?” John demanded, his jaw set. “This had nothing to do with the Genii?”
“Why would I do that?” Dahlia yelled back. “Why would I set myself up to get myself killed? If the Darts had blown us to bits I would be as dead as you were! Why would Ladon do that?”
“They weren’t pulling any shots,” Carson said.
“Maybe Ladon didn’t know about it,” John said. “I don’t know. But this was a set up.” He didn’t drop the muzzle of the .45 four feet from her heart.
“Maybe it was,” Dahlia said. “Maybe my brother has a traitor on his staff! But this was not me! This was not Ladon! I had nothing to do with this!”
“John,” Teyla said quietly, but he had already lowered the pistol.
Smoke swam around him in the cockpit, though the fire was out. “Nothing to do with it,” he said skeptically.
“Why would I commit suicide this way?” Dahlia demanded. “There are easier ways to kill you people, you know. We get nothing out of this. Nothing!”
“Is there really an Ancient warship?”
“Yes!” Dahlia’s eyes were wide. “Everything I told you is true!”
“Then why were those Darts waiting for us?” John asked.
“I don’t know!”
“And why haven’t they found us?” Carson asked.
“The cloak is still working,” John said. “And it’s about the only thing that is. We’ve lost the main engines and the DHD.”
“Aw, crap,” Carson said, his face falling. “You mean we’ll have to walk back to the Stargate and dial manually?”
“With a bunch of Darts hanging around waiting for us,” John said. “Oh, and we’re about sixty miles from the Stargate, just to add to the fun.”
Carson brushed past John and leaned over the board. “We’ve still got passive sensors. There’s a hive ship in orbit.”
“Oh yeah,” John said, not taking his eyes of Dahlia. “There sure is.”
“Perhaps they saw the wormhole open and came to investigate,” Teyla said.
“And started shooting the minute we cleared the event horizon? That’s coincidental,” John said.
“I’m not saying it wasn’t a trap,” Dahlia said. “I’m just saying that Ladon and I weren’t part of it. Look, he has a lot of enemies. They’d love to kill me and destroy his alliance with Atlantis. It’s possible that someone tipped off the Wraith. But it wasn’t us.”
Teyla shook her head. “That is true. I do not see what Ladon Radim would gain from killing his sister and destroying his own alliance. He does not gain Atlantis merely by killing us, and he is wise enough to know that any agreement with the Wraith to leave the Genii alone will last only as long as is convenient for them.”
John let out a long breath. “Ok. Teyla, search her. And then Carson, I want you to run a scan for a subcutaneous transmitter.”
“Fine.” A blush rose on Dahlia’s face, but she lifted her chin.
Knowing how the Genii were about personal modesty, Teyla picked up Dahlia’s pack and handed it to John. “Why don’t you and Carson stay in the cockpit and check this while we go in the back and I search her?” John’s eyes met hers and she answered his unspoken question. “Yes, it will be fine. I will call you if I need anything.”
Dahlia’s face was flaming as Teyla closed the bulkhead door. “I take it you expect me to disrobe completely.”
“Yes,” Teyla said, and her voice was cold. “It is the only way we can be certain.”
“Better you than the others,” Dahlia said, unzipping her jumpsuit.
“I thought you would agree,” Teyla said. “I did not think you would prefer to have Colonel Sheppard search you.” Her hands were quick and methodical, but still Dahlia shuddered.
“He is a hard man,” Dahlia said.
“Yes.” Teyla did not let awkwardness make her hurry. “He is a soldier. It makes one cruel.” Dahlia would know that. The Genii were no different, Ladon Radim included.
Dahlia nodded, turning and raising her arms with only a little wince. “And you?”
“I am that which is worse,” Teyla said. Let her make of that what she would.
There was a word in the language of the Genii for such as her — Bloodtainted, whose Gift of Wraith DNA had made tainted, made to glory in the mastery of others. They meant it as a mental disorder now, a name for those whose pleasure came from domination. It had been several generations since they had killed the last of those with the Gift among them.
Most of those who, like her ancestors, had been the subject of those Wraith experiments had been slaughtered by the humans who came in contact with them. Only on worlds like Athos had any survived.
“You may dress,” Teyla said, and opened the communicator to the cockpit. “She is clean.”
“Her bag is fine too,” Carson said. “When Miss Radim is dressed I’ll come in and do the scan. There’s nothing she needs to take off for that.”
“Understood,” Teyla said. She turned and gave Dahlia a reassuring smile. “It seems your pack is clean as well.”
“I have told you that I was not in on this,” Dahlia said indignantly, still putting her arms in the sleeves of the jumpsuit.
“Do you think we could afford to believe you?” Teyla asked.
Dahlia’s eyes met hers, swimming with humiliation, but level all the same. “Of course not.” Her voice was stark. “That’s not the way it works.”
In a moment, when Dahlia was fully dressed, Teyla opened the doors and she and Carson traded places. She heard him chatting in his best bedside manner while she slid into the copilot’s seat next to John. Outside the front window there was nothing to see except the rocky side of the canyon.
“Ok?” John looked at her sideways.
“Yes.” Teyla leaned forward, her elbows on the edge of the console. “What is the situation?”
“We still have the cloak,” John said. “Which is why we aren’t dead. There have been four or five flyovers, but they haven’t spotted us. I got us down in a canyon, so there isn’t a lot of surface torn up that they could see even if they couldn’t see the jumper.” His hands slid over the board. “But the engines are dead. We’ve got power, but I’m not getting anything to the main drive or the vertical stabilizers. All I’ve got are the steering thrusters. That might, and that’s a big might, be enough to take off with but it won’t get us back to the gate. It wouldn’t get us a mile.”
“And the gate is sixty miles away?” Teyla rested her head on her hands. “What is that thing you say when you have done something before?”
“Déjà vu,” John said. “Maybe Carson can fix the engines.”
Teyla looked at him sharply. “Maybe Dahlia can. You know that Carson knows absolutely nothing about fixing a puddle jumper’s engines. You might as well ask me to fix them, or do it yourself.”
John’s mouth tightened. “Go on. Say it.”
“If you had listened to me about going to get Radek we would not be in this situation.”
“There. You said it.” John winced. “Need to say it again? Let me help. John, you are stupid as a stupid, stupid thing.”
“I only needed to say it once,” Teyla said. “I am certain that you will flog yourself more thoroughly than I would flog you.”
“And it will be much less fun,” he said darkly.
Surprised, she couldn’t help but laugh. “I hope you do not mean that! All this time I thought you were simply terrible at stick fighting!”
He had a sheepish expression on his face. “I didn’t mean that! Not that way.”
“You do not mean that you are throwing the fights so I will hit you?”
“Not usually.” The corner of his mouth twitched and she could not be sure whether he were teasing or not.
For a moment their eyes locked, the tension in the air between them live as electricity.
The back door slid open. “She’s good as gold,” Carson said, Dahlia behind him. Her blush had faded, and she seemed to have regained her self-possession.
Which made one of them, Teyla thought. John looked as though he had just swallowed a frog, and she imagined she looked no better.
“Great,” John said.
Teyla turned to Dahlia, her professional trader’s smile plastered to her face. “I regret that we could not take your word,” she said. “But as we are now all in this together, we must work together to solve our problems.”
Nodding, Dahlia sat down once again in her seat, Carson almost protective at her elbow.
“Let’s hear the bad news then,” Carson said. “Colonel?”
Chapter Seven: Quicksilver
Quicksilver sat before the datascreen in his laboratory, watching numbers scroll top to bottom in a blur. Once, he thought, he should have had sense from them. But now they made no sense, going so fast, telling of things he did not remember. This the Lanteans had taken from him.
Quicksilver lifted his hands to his eyes and rubbed them with his wrists.
“You are unwell?” his brother, Dust, asked, forever attentive to his mood.
“No,” he replied. “Just…” He could hardly find the words for the frustration he felt, that what should be so simple was rendered so difficult.
“It is hard, I know,” Dust said sympathetically. “But perhaps your memory will return in time. You remember nothing of Atlantis?”
Quicksilver shook his head. “Nothing.” Only a few tantalizing images, rooms, unfamiliar faces, as though seen through a sheen of water. “Tell me of Atlantis,” he said to Dust swiftly, and when his brother began to demur he pressed. “Tell me what you know. Perhaps it will help me remember.”
At that Dust nodded reluctantly and came to sit opposite him on the other bench, lifting the tails of his coat fastidiously so that they would not wrinkle. “We do not know so very much, so it is not a very good story.”
“Tell me anyway,” Quicksilver said.
Dust sighed and began. “They came some time ago — we do not know exactly how long — from a world of humans in another galaxy. They came to the City of the Lanteans and held it as by birthright under the control of a very great Queen, She Who Is A Strong Place. We do not know why she came, with her clevermen and blades. Perhaps she had the losing end of a struggle in her own place, or perhaps she desired greater dominion than she could wrest from the queens there. We do not know. But we do know that she was of full years and at the height of her powers, and that her blades and clevermen were skilled. And she was worthy of her name. When a rival hive of humans captured her own Consort, the one they call Guide, she watched him tortured in front of her and betrayed nothing. That is the act of a Queen, Quicksilver! Only a great Queen would have such courage and such dignity.”
Quicksilver swallowed. For some reason it left a hollow pit in his stomach, imagining the helpless man bound and gagged before the cameras. But perhaps it was only that he was a cleverman, and admiration for such dignity was the province of blades. They always said clevermen were soft.
Dust cleared his throat. “But the Asurans rose up, as they did to the detriment of many hives, and many of our lives were lost in fighting them, the enemies of all life, for they killed humans as they did us, and their ire was directed toward the Lanteans as toward us in equal measure. And they did kill She Who is A Strong Place, as they did so many of our queens, leaving the Lanteans queenless.” He paused to let the horror of that sink in. “As in so many of our hives, there was no heir at hand, for the Young Queen was untried and too young yet, and was also carrying her firstborn. So the Consort, Guide, sent back to their place and made an alliance with one of the mightiest Queens of Earth, one who is called She Who Carries Many Things. And She Who Carries Many Things came to the City of the Lanteans and there she confirmed Guide as her Consort.” Dust shrugged. “No doubt it was for form’s sake alone, as these things often are. We have heard that she has a Consort in her own place, an older blade named Trickster, as is to be expected. She Who Carries Many Things is a warrior Queen, and in little time had pressed the Asurans to the bone and destroyed them, to the glory of us all and to the rejoicing of every hive that is — for surely all of us, Wraith and Kine alike, would be dead if not.”
Quicksilver nodded, and for a moment he could almost imagine this Queen, the gleam of shiplight off pale hair over luminous eyes. “She is beautiful,” he said.
Dust looked at him quickly. “You saw her?”
“I don’t know,” Quicksilver said quietly. “Maybe? I just know she’s beautiful.”
“I don’t know,” Quicksilver said, but again he saw her turn toward him, her face sharp with disapproval, beautiful and forever out of reach. Yes, that must be what Dust meant.
“But She Who Carries Many Things had a greater realm and much to do in other places, so after the Asurans were defeated she went away, leaving in her stead one of her blades, called Hairy.” Dust snorted. “We think it is a joke, as he is an ugly man with little hair. And so Hairy and the Consort Guide rule over the Lanteans while the Young Queen grows.” He shrugged. “We do not know what assurance the Young Queen has given She Who Carries Many Things that she and her son should be let to live, but perhaps they are kin through their mothers, and She Who Carries Many Things is content to let her be her proxy. We do not know. But that is where things stand. It is this Consort, Guide, who is the power among the Lanteans, unless She Who Carries Many Things returns.”
Quicksilver nodded slowly. It was disturbing. All of it. Maybe they’d tortured him. Maybe this Queen had… Something. He could not get out of his mind that he knew her, that he had desired her fruitlessly. He could almost remember, the image was so strong… “Thank you,” he said to his brother. “I will try to remember. And when I do, I will tell you all I know.”
Chapter Eight: Trapped
“Right now our life signs are masked by the cloak,” John said. “But the minute we step outside the Darts will know exactly where we are.”
“And how long can we maintain the cloak?” Carson asked, leaning forward in his chair, his brow furrowed.
“With our present power consumption, a couple of weeks longer than we have food and water for,” John said. “That’s not the problem.”
“And how long is that?” Carson said, looking even more worried.
“We have ten days emergency rations,” Teyla said. “Carson, at worst Mr. Woolsey is not going to wait ten days before sending a rescue party. We told him the gate address where we were going.”
