The Stars My Destination (SGA, ensemble) 15/17
Title: The Stars My Destination (15/17)
Author:
mad_maudlin
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis/Star Trek 2009 (mashup)
Length: 91,750 (total); 6,071 (this part)
Characters: All of them!
PairingS: Canonical levels of Elizabeth/Simon, Teyla/Kanaan
warnings: Graphic violence
Summary: When a terror from out of time threatens the heart of the Federation, the crew of the USS Atlantis must band together in order to stop it. But can they overcome their own demons to stop the greatest threat they'll ever face?
Fifteen
Elizabeth found Sheppard and Ford in Science Lab Six, sitting on boxes of supplies facing one another, while McKay was sleeping face-down on the lab bench. "Shhh," Sheppard said in a stage whisper as soon as she entered. "He'd been out for the last forty-five minutes."
"Understood," she said. She could cling to the faint hope that some proper sleep would improve McKay's behavior, at least. "What did you want to show me, exactly?"
He passed her a padd. "For one thing, we think we worked out where Michael's headed. We think."
"It's an unmarked system on all the Pegasus charts," Ford added. "No inhabitants, no nothing. But it's the only thing he's gonna hit on this bearing."
Elizabeth looked at the profile of the only rocky planets in the system: one mostly ocean, the other only tenuously habitable. "Any theories on what he wants here?"
Sheppard gave her one of those quick, searching glances, the same one he'd been giving her since he appeared on Delta Vega. "I kind of have a theory," he said.
"Let me guess," she said: "A little bird told you?"
He flashed a quick, self-deprecating smile. "Something like that. I think there's something on that planet, something game-changing for him-not just a depot or a drydock, something bigger."
"A weapon?" she asked. As he needed more of those...
"Or maybe more Wraith," Sheppard said. "I mean, if they do hibernate..."
Elizabeth fought down a shudder. "If he's planning on waking up friends, we'll never stand against him."
"Exactly," Sheppard said. "So we've been working with Sleeping Beauty over there to come up with some tactics that might actually work this time."
Elizabeth passed the padd back, leaning closer. "I'm all ears."
Ford brought up a sensor composite of Michael's ship-a hive, Sheppard had called it, which seemed an appropriate-enough metaphor for the swarm of fighters it held. "So we had plenty of time to get a good long look at him, over Vulcan, and I think we've got it painted-torpedo launchers, port and starboard hangar doors, main sensor array. If we can get a jump on him before his shields come up, we might be able to get off a few lucky shots."
"And how do you propose doing that?" she asked.
"Well, I'm gonna have to talk to Miller about this," Sheppard said. "But a precision warp-hop right into his face should do the trick. Hear me out," he added, because Elizabeth couldn't quite keep her opinion of that off her face. "We're gonna catch up to him on the edge of the system, right? But if he spots us first, we're toast. So we overshoot him, park ourselves in the upper atmosphere of the system's gas giant, and let him pass us. Once we know which planet he's headed for, we can hop right into the same orbital plane and blitz him."
"You're suggesting a 'hop' at warp nine?" she asked. "That'll take, what, a tenth of a second? From one gravity well to another?"
"I know, I know," Sheppard said. "Trust me, McKay already did the ranting part. But we need every edge we can get."
"That's not the only plan," Ford added. "We figured out at Vulcan that this ship is using a Holtzmann process force shield, not a deflector. That means it's god vulnerabilities."
"He's talking about landmines," Sheppard said. "Modify a couple of photon torpedos to run slow and silent, we can deploy them as soon as we hit orbit. It'll take a few minutes for them to hit, but if he's not looking for them-boom."
"The other option is a plasma bomb," Ford added. "It'll detonate on impact and bleed through the shield, and if we deploy 'em right, they should be big enough to deter those darts."
"Any chance of strengthening our own shields?" Elizabeth asked. "All these plans aren't good for much if can't survive long enough to implement them."
"Rodney's gonna work on that in..." Sheppard checked his watch. "An hour and eight minutes. After coffee."
"Anything else?" she asked.
Sheppard hesitated again, eyes flickering downward. "You're not gonna like this," he admitted.
"I don't like anything about this," Elizabeth said. "What is it?"
They locked eyes for a moment, and she wished she knew what he was looking for in her, what he apparently saw. "The other thing that'll penetrate a Holztmann-process shield is a transporter beam," he said.
He didn't have to say anything else. Absolutely not was her gut reaction-barging into an unknown enemy's territory with no guarantee of a way out? Sheppard might be eager to throw his life away for a glorious cause, but she wasn't about to help him along if she could help it. Still...this is what you asked him to do. She took a deep breath. "What exactly would you be trying to accomplish?" she asked.
He looked startled and a little pleased that she was hearing him out. "Two strike teams," he said. "First one heads for the main engines-we've got a pretty good idea of where that is-and plants a kilogram of dilithium tetrakaranate on whatever surface has the most caution stickers."
She blinked. "Do we have any dilithium tetrakaranate on board?"
"No, but Rodney used to built nuclear bombs as a hobby," Sheppard said.
She glanced at the man who was quietly drooling on the table. "All right," she said. "You said the first strike team. What's the task of the second?"
He hesitated again, and then said, "Search and rescue."
"What makes you think that's feasible?" she asked.
"Nothing," he admitted. "But as far as we know, Captain Sumner is still on that ship, along with at least a hundred and fifty officers and crew who evacuated the task force ships, and who knows how many Vulcans. If there's even the slightest chance we can rescue some of them, we should take it."
"They've already been held by the enemy for a day and a half," she pointed out reluctantly. "If any of them are still alive, they're already compromised."
"We can't leave our people behind," Sheppard said.
"I will not risk losing more of my crew than I have to," Elizabeth insisted.
"This is the right thing to do!"
They both paused, while on the table McKay snuffled quietly in his sleep. Waiting for him to go still again helped Elizabeth rein in her temper again. "Intelligence-gathering," she proposed. "And if the second team happens to find anyone able to be rescued, they will have permission to evacuate them. But I don't want anyone taking unnecessary risks."
"Deal," he said eagerly. "We'll be waiting in the transporter room and beam over as soon as we come out of the warp hop."
"'We?'" she asked warily.
"That a problem?" he asked archly.
Sending a man with a self-destructive streak a mile wide on a dangerous away mission? No, no problem at all, she thought, but again held her tongue. "Who else are you planning to take?"
He hesitated. "That's the other thing you're not gonna like."
-\-\-\-\-\-\-
Teyla rose out of an uneasy dream, Wraith-like malice still clawing at the edges of her mind. According to the chronometer at her bedside, she had slept for nearly five hours; it still felt like no time at all. After they departed Delta Vega, she had delved deep into the ship's database, or what portions of it had been fully uploaded, in search of references to the Wraith from across the Pegasus quadrant-desperately trying to tie together some thread of fact from conflicting variations, to find something they could use against Michael and his ship. But she was no anthropologist, and soon enough she had begun to nod over her console; at that point, she was forced to admit temporary defeat.
The noise that had awakened her was the chiming of her door. She quickly rose from bed and wrapped herself in a dressing gown. "Come in," she called, wondering what was urgent enough to wake her but not so urgent as to merit a communicator call.
Jonn Sheppard crept into the darkened anteroom of her quarters, and grimaced a little when he saw her sleepwear. "Sorry. I didn't mean-I guess I should've called ahead."
"None of us can afford much sleep," she said, by way of forgiveness. "What brings you here...sir?"
They both paused to consider how strange it was, that he should be above her in the chain of command. Sheppard cleared his throat first. "I have to ask you about something," he said, perching awkwardly on the other end of the short couch. "And I wanted to do it in person. Commander Weir and I already went ten rounds on this one, but ultimately it's your decision."
"What is it that you require?" she asked.
"She's authorized me to take a strike team onto Michael's ship, when we engage him," he explained. "We'll be attempting to sabotage it from the inside and search for any of the captives taken from Vulcan, if we have time. Given that you can read Wraith minds-"
"-You would like me to come with you," Teyla said, completing the sentence almost in unison with him.
Sheppard nodded. "It might give us an edge, knowing what they're thinking. But you're the only one who can evaluate the risks, so if you're not comfortable with it, it's off the table."
Teyla shut her eyes for a moment. To walk on that ship, to breathe the same air as the things she had only sensed from afar...! But Sheppard was right, it would be an advantage to a strike team-provided she was not overwhelmed by them, possessed like the wretches of lore and forced to do their bidding. Did she have the strength to stand up to ancient demons?
Could she bear it if they were not so demonic after all?
We must separate the eternal truths of the Ancestors from the ways those truths are interpreted, her father had written once, in a moderately famous essay. The Ancestors are eternal; it is we who are fractious, biased, blind. It may be that all the tales on all the worlds are true; or it may be than none of them are; but the truth is more valuable than any tale of human devising. And what is true should be embraced, and never feared, no matter how great the lie it sweeps away.
"I will go," she said, opening her eyes again. Sheppard looked surprised and pleased. "I cannot promise how useful I will be, but if there is a chance that you may need me, I will go."
And the Ancestors would go with her, if she sought them. That, she would always hold true.
-\-\-\-\-\-
"You are putting too much extraction load on the sensor."
"I am putting exactly as much load on the sensor as it needs."
"It is a land mine, not a bouncing ball!"
"Finish your own bomb, this one's mine!"
Rodney was just slapping Radek's hands away from the perfectly normal detonator when Commander Weir walked into the torpedo bay-cum-workshop. She had this way of staring at him like she wasn't entirely sure which of them was crazy-it was annoying. "Gentlemen," she asked, slightly wary.
"Commander," Radek said.
"Please don't step on the explosive devices," Rodney added.
She picked her way very, very careful over to where they were rigging up the gag torpedoes for Jonn's master plan. "How much longer before these are ready?" she asked, looking curiously at the homebrew detonators.
"Not as long as if you don't stop talking," Rodney told her.
Radek smacked him on the arm, and then looked at Weir with earnest attention. "Was there something you needed from us, Commander?"
"I have a few misgivings about Lieutenant Sheppard's strategy," she said. "In particular, I'm concerned that the strike team isn't going to be able effectively deploy the explosives without a thorough understanding of the technology they're looking at. All the dilithium tetrakaranate in tthe world won't be very effective if they just accidentally stick it in a janitorial closet."
"Yes, well, there's not much we're going to be able to do about that from here, is there?" Rodney asked. Weir just raised an eyebrow at him. Then he got it. "Oh. Oh."
"I'm not going to order anyone to join the strike team," she said quickly. "This would be a strictly volunteer position. But if there's anyone in Engineering that you can recommend with a strong background in xenotechnology, preferably with some personal combat training as well-"
"You're completely serious about this?" Rodney asked as his higher faculties caught up with the conversation. "Sending an engineer behind enemy lines or whatever, as part of a tactical strike team to follow Sheppard around and stick bombs to things?"
Weir scowled a little. "As I said, Mr. McKay, it's an option. I understand that it's unlikely we've got anyone qualified for the job on board, which is why I'm asking you for a recommendation."
Except there wasn't anybody to recommend, not if Rodney had any say in it-oh, sure, there were a few people who made adequate technicians, if that was what you needed, but they didn't have any combat skills and they were just as likely to pee their pants as accomplish anything if they were faced with genuinely exotic technology. If fact, he couldn't think of any engineers on board with more than the basic personal combat requirements under their belt, and that was for a reason, because engineers and scientists were not supposed to be going into personal combat situations in the first place. Line officers did that kind of thing, pilots did that kind of thing, Jonn did that kind thing-
For a moment, Rodney's thoughts ground to an absolute halt as he fully explored all the implications of that one. Jonn is actually going to do this thing.
"I'll go," he announced, causing Radek to drop a spanner.
Weir was giving him that look again, the one that said someone in the room was crazy and it might not be her. "Are you certain?" she asked.
"Of course not," he snapped, and grabbed onto the casing of the torpedo with hands that were abruptly not steady enough to be doing fine soldering. "But I'm brilliant, and that will hopefully compensate for the rest."
"I just want to be certain that you know what you're getting into," she said.
"Death, most likely," he muttered, but if Jonn was going...after he'd dragged Jonn on board this ship and started the whole mess in the first place...
"I think McKay merely wants to keep his old friend in shouting-at range," Radek said suddenly. "It will be much more difficult to tell Sheppard he is stupid over comm lines."
"That is...a little too close to the truth, actually," Rodney admitted. Radek gave him a bland smile and dove back into the torpedo he was working on. Rodney looked back to Weir. "Yes, yes, it's a terrible excuse and I'm a tremendous coward and possibly co-dependent."
"That wasn't what I was thinking, Mr. McKay," she said, so earnestly that he honestly didn't know how to respond to it. She straighted up and started picking her way back across the parts they'd spread out on the floor. "I'll let him know to expect you in the briefing room at 1030 hours."
"Great. Awesome." Rodney looked down at the torpedo. "We are not going to have these finished by then."
"Only if you keep fiddle with the extraction load," Radek insisted.
"Will you shut up about the extraction load-?"
-\-\-\-\-\-
The strike teams assembled scant minutes before the projected intercept; the whirling lights of the red alert gave the corridors an eerie appearance, though they were more muted inside the transporter room. Teyla prayed, before they gathered-slipped into an empty room and held her pendent between herwere fingers, following the familiar grooves with her fingers. Ancestors protect me, she thought, and protect this ship and crew. There was no time to say more, and in truth, nothing more that she was ready to say. Ancestors, protect us.
When she reported to the transporter room, Sheppard handed her a pair of photon grenades to hang from her belt, and eyed the bantos rods she had holstered opposite her phaser. "You think hand to hand's going to work against these guys?"
"I believe in being prepared for any eventuality," she said simply.
The doors opened a second time, and Rodney McKay marched in, carrying a phaser rifle as if it might at any moment wrest itself from his grip and attack him. "Just so you know, I want bodyguards with me the entire time," he declared. "Big ones." His eyes fell on Ensign Tarkiff. "That one."
"Behave," Jonn said sharply. He climbed up on the edge of the transporter pad, which served to give him some elevation over the rest of the room. "Okay, listen up. We're dividing into two groups as soon as we touch ground inside the ship. Ensign Ford will take McKay, Tarkiff, Loyola and Ee towards the engine area to plant the charges. Emmagen, Koizumi and myself will be conducting reconnaissance inside the ship and trying to locate any surviving captives, whether they're Federation citizens or not. Remember, these Wraith are tough sons of bitches-don't assume they're down until they're down."
He stepped down, and crossed to the wall-mounted communicator. "Sheppard to bridge. Teams one and two in position."
"Bridge here," Elizabeth answered. "Estimating thirty seconds to engagement. Be careful."
Teyla expected him to say something flip, but to her surprise, Sheppard said, "Good luck, Bridge. We'll call you for evacuation when we're ready. Sheppard out."
Teyla stepped up onto the pad of the transporter, and counted down the seconds in her head. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen...
-\-\-\-\-\-\-
Elizabeth forced herself to stay in her chair instead of pacing the bridge; there was a subtle turbulence, a vibration that she felt in her teeth and her inner ear, as they eked out a few more tenths of a warp factor. The superstructure of the ship couldn't handle it for long, not in its current condition, but if gave them even the slightest edge-
"Passing the Wraith ship now," Zelenka announced, and Elizabeth's fingers curled into the armrests of her chair. "Preparing to exit warp-"
There was a burst of real turbulence, the kind that rattled more than just bones, as they fell back into normal space; the gas giant's thick clouds of methane roiled with the shockwave and recoiled back into the hull. "How are we looking?" she asked Zelenka.
He nodded, after a moment's thought. "Good. Better than expected, in fact. Preparing for the hop in five, four, three-"
The next few parts were very nearly automated-had to be, to get the kind of precision timing they needed. She couldn't see Michael's ship flit past at warp, not from within the smothering layers of cloud, but she knew the moment it did they had only a second and a half to execute the leapfrog.
The moment it did, the ship really lurched, shuddering in an unstable warp field-there were reasons why these sorts of split-second hops weren't recommended. It felt for a moment like Atlantis was literally shaking itself apart.
The forward screen flickered from blue-green clouds to the Wraith ship, the whole impossible bulk of it, less than a kilometer from the claw-tip of its sensor array. The phasers automatically fired, tracing an arc across the other ship's hull, until its shield flicked up and cut them off. "Modified torpedoes are away," Chief Campbell reported from the weapons station. "Away teams one and two are on board the enemy ship. Launching shuttles two and three now."
At the other end of the ship, Elizabeth saw the darts begin to emerge from their hangars. "What's their weapons status?" she asked anxiously, waiting for the first barrage of the hive's projectiles.
Zelenka let out a strange noise, almost like a choked-off laugh. "The Wraith ship's main weapons appear to be offline," he said.
Elizabeth's heart rose. It wasn't enough, wasn't nearly enough, of course, but it one big step in the direction of a fair fight. She rose to her feet, watching the cloud of darts bear down on them. "Fire at will, Chief," she announced.
-\-\-\-\-\-
When Jonn's vision cleared, he found himself somewhere cool, damp and dim, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. The first thing he did was scan for any Wraith in the area, but as luck would have it, they seemed to have gotten down in a relatively empty stretch of ship.
The second thing he did was check Emmagen. Her eyes were screwed shut, and she held her body rigidly, fists clenched and neck cording. For a minute he didn't know whether to try to shake her out of it or avoid distracting her; in the next, she started to relax, letting out an explosive sigh. "Oh, that is-unpleasant," she said, grimacing.
"You all right?" he asked, not that they could do anything if she wasn't-the Atlantis' shields would be up now.
"I think so," she said, glancing around the shadowy corridor. "They have not noticed our presence yet."
"Good. Great." He looked up at the others. "Quick as you can, guys. Let's move out."
-\-\-\-\-\-
"Shields at sixty percent," Campbell warned, as darts exploded all around them. Elizabeth could feel the inertial dampeners struggling to keep up with their evasive maneuvers; the Atlantis wasn't exactly built for dogfighting, even without the structural damage, and evading the darts was simply impossible.
Below them, over the Wraith shields, the first of the plasma bombs detonated against the shields: it blossomed in a blinding cloud, incinerating a handful of darts and bathing the hull in a brilliant white light. Around its edges, Elizabeth could actually see the shield flicker and pop, struggling to keep out the burning gas. A second bomb detonated meters away from the first.
"Shields at fifty percent," Campbell called out. No matter how many darts they destroyed, more seemed to keep coming. How much longer could this hold out?
A third plasma bomb burst over the Wraith hull. "Are those even bruising it?" she asked aloud.
Zelenka nearly tumbled out of his chair as the ship rolled again, but he said, "It appears so-their hull is degrading, but much more slowly than expected."
Elizabeth settled back in the chair and forced her hands to unclench. "Tell the shuttle pilots to keep them coming, then." Anything that would do a little more damage, buy a little more time-
-\-\-\-\-\-
"This way," Emmagen said, with a toss of her head, and Jonn had no reason not to follow. It seemed strange that the ship was so empty, but maybe most of the crew were dart pilots-pilots currently attacking the Atlantis. All he knew was that they hadn't passed a Wraith yet, but they also hadn't passed any sign of hostages-nor any corpses. Just miles of weird, fleshy corridors, cold enough to form a ground fog in places, and very rarely showing signs of recent damage.
They came to an intersection, and Emmagen threw herself around a corner and flat against a wall; Jonn managed to follow suit an instant later, with Koizumi still behind him. Two hulking Wraith passed them by without a glance; of course, given that their face masks lacked eyeholes...talk about flying on instruments. They stayed crouched for another few seconds, but when Emmagen rose again, Jonn followed suit.
"Any idea how the fight is going?" Jonn asked. The Atlantis could probably slice off one end of the ship and they wouldn't notice, not when it was this size.
Emmagen just shook her head. "I cannot tell the specific thoughts, not yet. There is-something, though. Ahead."
"Detention cells?" Jonn hazarded. She didn't respond to that.
The corridors rose and fell, until he was no longer sure what deck they were on, if this thing even had decks. They were passed by one more set of Wraith guards, but after that Emmagen picked up speed, walking with a definite purpose. "You wanna keep me informed?" he asked her, lengthening his stride to catch up.
"This way," was all she said. "I sense-there is something here, something important."
The next membranous doorway they passed through lead into a large, rounded room, the walls shrouded in something like cobwebs-if cobwebs came in the same gauge as guy wire. On the floor, Jonn registered the first spot of real color on the whole ship-the gold tunic of a Starfleet officer. After a quick sweep of the room, he ran to the man on the floor, rolling him onto his back to check for a pulse.
"Sheppard," Emmagen called in a strange, high voice.
"I think he's still alive," Jonn said. The man on the floor was old, though-ancient, really, with snow-white hair and sunken, spotted cheeks. He's never heard of any active-duty officers that old, much less ones who would've been sent to fight at Vulcan-
Then he glanced down that the cuffs. Captain's stripes.
A single weapon fired directly over his head.
Jonn scrambled back, getting his rifle up, and found himself looking at the only Wraith he'd ever seen without the face masks. Michael was holding something that resembled a Starfleet-issue phaser, only smaller and infinitely more menacing. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that Koizumi was dead, with a steaming hold in the center of his chest. "Sheppard. Teyla. So good of you to join Captain Sumner and I for dinner," Michael said, and grinned with all those extra teeth.
-\-\-\-\-\-
"Shields at twenty percent," Campbell warned, straining to be heard over the sound of the wailing alarms. Elizabeth glanced back at the engineering station, which showed another new hull breach where the hasty repairs had failed. If this kept up, the darts wouldn't even have to breach the shield-they could just chase the Atlantis around the sky until it disintegrated around them.
The entire dorsal surface of the hive was aglow with plasma fire now, hanging over the shield like a malevolent aurora borealis; some of the first charges were starting to sputter out. She no longer knew if the torpedoes were even in the air, or if the darts had picked them all off while she wasn't looking. "What's the status of the shuttles?" she called.
The officer at communications replied, "Atlantis-Two has shields at fifty percent and has discharged its whole payload. They can't get through the darts to get back to the landing bay. Atlantis-Three still has two bombs on board but shields are only at ten percent."
"We are losing antimatter containment," Zelenka warned. "Engineering is reporting fires on decks fourteen and fifteen."
Elizabeth swallowed. "Start evacuating personnel from the secondary hull," she said. If they had to, they could blow the explosive bolts connecting the saucer to the pylon; they'd be stranded without warp, true, but they'd be alive.
A moment after she spoke, a blinding flash flared from under the hive's belly. "Direct hit by the first torpedo!" Campbell called.
"Damages?" Elizabeth demanded.
He looked up directly at her. "Commander-the Wraith shields are down."
This might be the best chance they'd have to do any damage. "Concentrate all fire on the hive ship," she ordered. The darts would just have to take care of themselves...
-\-\-\-\-\-
"What have you done to Captain Sumner?" Emmagen asked, voice shaking, though her hands didn't.
Michael kept smiling. "Would you like a demonstration?" He transferred the phaser to his left hand, keeping it steady, and dropped into a crouch over Sumner's ruined body. When he pressed his right hand to the bloody rip in Sumner's uniform, Sumner groaned out loud, and started to writhe as if in pain; but the sagging skin of his face smoothed and tightened, the color flowed back into his hair, and his eyes opened and gaped directly into Jonn's. Agonized. Pleading.
And just as quickly, it all faded; if anything, Sumner looked even older, obviously too weak to rise off the misty floor. "Marshall and I have been having some nice little chats," Michael said, as if he hadn't just done something that ought to be impossible. "Getting my bearings in this timeline. I have made a mess of things, haven't I?"
"You led me to this room," Emmagen accused. "Why?"
"Ah, Teyla, you were always so easy to deceive," Michael said, a parody of affection. From far away, a low, deep concussion rolled through the ship. "I wanted to make sure you knew why you were about to die."
"Because you're a monster?" Jonn asked coolly, trying to shift to his left. If he and Emmagen could get some separation-
"Stop right there, Sheppard," Michael said coldly, and reached out that hand at Sumner again. "He still has a few years left in him. I won't hesitate to take them all."
"Why are you doing this?" Emmagen asked. "What have we done to you?"
Michael's eyes narrowed. "Jonn Sheppard over there talks of monsters, Teyla. Would you like to hear about real monsters? The people who kidnapped me, tortured me, performed medical experiments on me that destroyed my mind and tried turn me against me own people? Tried to make me grateful for it?"
Jonn's stomach roiled. "You're saying the Federation did that?"
"You did it." Michael took another deep breath through his nose and...nose-pits. "You and your little pet-a pity he isn't here yet-you held me down for the first injection personally. You even gave me a name."
"Only that hasn't happened yet," Jonn pointed out.
Michael snorted. "Only because I came out of hibernation a decade too soon."
"No," Emmagen said firmly. "It never happened, and it never will."
Michael rounded on her again. "Oh, yes, so confident-always sure you'll be on the side of angels and Ancestors," he sneered. "You cannot change your basic natures."
"Yet you have already changed us," she countered relentlessly. "The moment you fired on a Federation ship in Athosian space, you changed our fates."
"Fate," he spat. "Who taught you to believe in fate? The distant Ancestors who permit you to revere them as gods, but never lift a finger to save you? The Atlantean god-slayers?"
That seemed to faze her for a moment; Jonn jumped on it. "Just own up to it already, Mike: you blew this one. Whatever you think the Atlantis did you you, it doesn't matter anymore-we're not the same people and we don't make the same mistakes. So where does that leave you?"
He snarled, and reached into the front of his dark, ornate robe. "It leaves me in possession of the one thing my kind have wanted for ten thousand years," he said. The small, white remote control in his hand didn't fit with the rest of the ship-in fact, it looked more like the one Ambassador Weir had used to decloak her puddle jumper. He pressed a single button. "In a few minutes, when your starship is just a burning hunk of metal in a forgotten star system, I will have the key to ultimate power in this galaxy. And there was never anything you could about it, because this time I got here first."
A high, shrieking alarm began to echo through the hive ship, and the floor vibrated again, more violently than before. "Sorry to mess with your big plan," Jonn said, edging to the side again."But if we're going down, we're sure as hell taking you with us."
Michael snarled again, and then his whole body jerked with a start; on the floor, Sumner had thrown one withered arm around Michael's legs. He didn't have the strength to topple him, but all it took was a moment, the briefest distraction.
Jonn shouldered his phaser rifle and hit Michael with a sustained beam. But just as Weir had warned, it didn't immediately take him down-Jonn could smell flesh burning under the assault, but Michael still managed to throw himself forward with a snarl. Emmagen hit him in the chest with another shot, but his momentum carried him into her, and they went down in a tangle that Jonn didn't dare aim into. For one terrible minute Jonn saw Michael's right hand raised in the air, the vertical mouth open wide and dangerous, and then he struck-
And Emmagen caught his hand between her fightin sticks. A complicated twist of wood, and Jonn heard bones cracking. Michael's scream blurred into the sound of the rising alarm.
He lined up another shot and fired, directly at the head, and this time Michael thrashed and went still. Jonn helped Emmagen to her feet, and then raced over to where Sumner was still laying on the ground. This time there was no pulse, no signs of life, and Jonn drove his fist into the squishy floor in frustration. They'd been so damned close-!
"Emmagen to Ford." She had pulled out her communicator and was again sweeping the perimeter of the room. "What is your status?"
"We're setting the charges now. What about you?"
"Michael is dead," she said. "As is Captain Sumner."
"Any word from the Atlantis yet?" Jonn asked, rising to his feet.
"Negative, sir-maybe no news is good news?"
Jonn wasn't counting on it. He pulled out his own communicator. "Atlantis, this is Sheppard, please come in."
Static burst across the channel, but then Weir's voice came though. "Good to hear your voice, Lieutenant. What's your status?"
"We found Michael and we killed him," Jonn said bluntly. "Charges are almost ready."
"It would be helpful if you could beam us directly from this location," Emmagen added tensely. Shit.
"Getting a lock on you now. We'll give you a ten-count."
"You get that, Ford?" Jonn asked.
"Aye, sir. Charges set."
The deck was shaking almost continuously now, but Jonn could make out pounding footsteps over the roar. He shoved his open communicator into his belt and raised his rifle again, backing up until he and Emmagen were braced back to back over Sumner's withered body.
A moment later, Wraith came storming in through every door-dozens of them, like they'd come out of a goddamned clown car, raising long, deadly-looking weapons to their shoulders. "Atlantis, cancel that ten-count and get us out of here!" he called, but he had no idea if the line was even still open.
The last thing he saw was a forest of weapons charging to fire. Then his world was curtained in brilliant white.
-\-\-\-\-\-
"The away team is aboard," Zelenka said. "Hull integrity is at sixty percent."
"Get us clear of the hive," Elizabeth said, watching the last of the plasma bombs fade out. The explosion would have to be enough to destroy it-simply had to be, or they would be lost.
The Atlantis was already shaking so badly it was hard to distinguish one vibration from another; still, Elizabeth could've sworn she felt something new and ominous rattle through the ship a moment before Zelenka said, "Warp core containment is failing. Thirty seconds to breach."
"Eject it," Elizabeth said immediately. They'd be able to survive without warp drive. They'd figure something out.
Zelenka looked over his shoulder at her with wide eyes. "Commander, the core housing was damaged when the hull was breached. I cannot eject."
Elizabeth swallowed. This was it, then. "Mr. Zelenka, initiate emergency saucer separation. Mr. Miller, get us out of here at full impulse."
The explosive bolts fired, ringing through the ship like claps of thunder. Elizabeth switched the forward screen to display the rear-facing cameras, and watched in reverse as the secondary hull-now looking strangely lopsided without the saucer-floated free. The Wraith didn't seem to realize that the saucer had separated for a reason; the darts continued to swarm around the secondary hull, probably because it remained so close to their hive. Only a few pursued the saucer, and Chief Campbell picked those off easily.
"Warp core breach in ten, nine, eight..."
Elizabeth found herself holding her breath.
"...two...one..."
Twin sunbursts whited out the screen for a moment. When she was able to raise her eyes, there was nothing left of the massive hive or the secondary hull, just an expanding cloud of gas and debris. "We did it," she sighed, hardly able to believe her eyes.
"Brace for impact!" Zelenka called, and that was when the shockwave hit.
Chapter One
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Sixteen
Author:
mad_maudlin
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis/Star Trek 2009 (mashup)
Length: 91,750 (total); 6,071 (this part)
Characters: All of them!
PairingS: Canonical levels of Elizabeth/Simon, Teyla/Kanaan
warnings: Graphic violence
Summary: When a terror from out of time threatens the heart of the Federation, the crew of the USS Atlantis must band together in order to stop it. But can they overcome their own demons to stop the greatest threat they'll ever face?
Fifteen
Elizabeth found Sheppard and Ford in Science Lab Six, sitting on boxes of supplies facing one another, while McKay was sleeping face-down on the lab bench. "Shhh," Sheppard said in a stage whisper as soon as she entered. "He'd been out for the last forty-five minutes."
"Understood," she said. She could cling to the faint hope that some proper sleep would improve McKay's behavior, at least. "What did you want to show me, exactly?"
He passed her a padd. "For one thing, we think we worked out where Michael's headed. We think."
"It's an unmarked system on all the Pegasus charts," Ford added. "No inhabitants, no nothing. But it's the only thing he's gonna hit on this bearing."
Elizabeth looked at the profile of the only rocky planets in the system: one mostly ocean, the other only tenuously habitable. "Any theories on what he wants here?"
Sheppard gave her one of those quick, searching glances, the same one he'd been giving her since he appeared on Delta Vega. "I kind of have a theory," he said.
"Let me guess," she said: "A little bird told you?"
He flashed a quick, self-deprecating smile. "Something like that. I think there's something on that planet, something game-changing for him-not just a depot or a drydock, something bigger."
"A weapon?" she asked. As he needed more of those...
"Or maybe more Wraith," Sheppard said. "I mean, if they do hibernate..."
Elizabeth fought down a shudder. "If he's planning on waking up friends, we'll never stand against him."
"Exactly," Sheppard said. "So we've been working with Sleeping Beauty over there to come up with some tactics that might actually work this time."
Elizabeth passed the padd back, leaning closer. "I'm all ears."
Ford brought up a sensor composite of Michael's ship-a hive, Sheppard had called it, which seemed an appropriate-enough metaphor for the swarm of fighters it held. "So we had plenty of time to get a good long look at him, over Vulcan, and I think we've got it painted-torpedo launchers, port and starboard hangar doors, main sensor array. If we can get a jump on him before his shields come up, we might be able to get off a few lucky shots."
"And how do you propose doing that?" she asked.
"Well, I'm gonna have to talk to Miller about this," Sheppard said. "But a precision warp-hop right into his face should do the trick. Hear me out," he added, because Elizabeth couldn't quite keep her opinion of that off her face. "We're gonna catch up to him on the edge of the system, right? But if he spots us first, we're toast. So we overshoot him, park ourselves in the upper atmosphere of the system's gas giant, and let him pass us. Once we know which planet he's headed for, we can hop right into the same orbital plane and blitz him."
"You're suggesting a 'hop' at warp nine?" she asked. "That'll take, what, a tenth of a second? From one gravity well to another?"
"I know, I know," Sheppard said. "Trust me, McKay already did the ranting part. But we need every edge we can get."
"That's not the only plan," Ford added. "We figured out at Vulcan that this ship is using a Holtzmann process force shield, not a deflector. That means it's god vulnerabilities."
"He's talking about landmines," Sheppard said. "Modify a couple of photon torpedos to run slow and silent, we can deploy them as soon as we hit orbit. It'll take a few minutes for them to hit, but if he's not looking for them-boom."
"The other option is a plasma bomb," Ford added. "It'll detonate on impact and bleed through the shield, and if we deploy 'em right, they should be big enough to deter those darts."
"Any chance of strengthening our own shields?" Elizabeth asked. "All these plans aren't good for much if can't survive long enough to implement them."
"Rodney's gonna work on that in..." Sheppard checked his watch. "An hour and eight minutes. After coffee."
"Anything else?" she asked.
Sheppard hesitated again, eyes flickering downward. "You're not gonna like this," he admitted.
"I don't like anything about this," Elizabeth said. "What is it?"
They locked eyes for a moment, and she wished she knew what he was looking for in her, what he apparently saw. "The other thing that'll penetrate a Holztmann-process shield is a transporter beam," he said.
He didn't have to say anything else. Absolutely not was her gut reaction-barging into an unknown enemy's territory with no guarantee of a way out? Sheppard might be eager to throw his life away for a glorious cause, but she wasn't about to help him along if she could help it. Still...this is what you asked him to do. She took a deep breath. "What exactly would you be trying to accomplish?" she asked.
He looked startled and a little pleased that she was hearing him out. "Two strike teams," he said. "First one heads for the main engines-we've got a pretty good idea of where that is-and plants a kilogram of dilithium tetrakaranate on whatever surface has the most caution stickers."
She blinked. "Do we have any dilithium tetrakaranate on board?"
"No, but Rodney used to built nuclear bombs as a hobby," Sheppard said.
She glanced at the man who was quietly drooling on the table. "All right," she said. "You said the first strike team. What's the task of the second?"
He hesitated again, and then said, "Search and rescue."
"What makes you think that's feasible?" she asked.
"Nothing," he admitted. "But as far as we know, Captain Sumner is still on that ship, along with at least a hundred and fifty officers and crew who evacuated the task force ships, and who knows how many Vulcans. If there's even the slightest chance we can rescue some of them, we should take it."
"They've already been held by the enemy for a day and a half," she pointed out reluctantly. "If any of them are still alive, they're already compromised."
"We can't leave our people behind," Sheppard said.
"I will not risk losing more of my crew than I have to," Elizabeth insisted.
"This is the right thing to do!"
They both paused, while on the table McKay snuffled quietly in his sleep. Waiting for him to go still again helped Elizabeth rein in her temper again. "Intelligence-gathering," she proposed. "And if the second team happens to find anyone able to be rescued, they will have permission to evacuate them. But I don't want anyone taking unnecessary risks."
"Deal," he said eagerly. "We'll be waiting in the transporter room and beam over as soon as we come out of the warp hop."
"'We?'" she asked warily.
"That a problem?" he asked archly.
Sending a man with a self-destructive streak a mile wide on a dangerous away mission? No, no problem at all, she thought, but again held her tongue. "Who else are you planning to take?"
He hesitated. "That's the other thing you're not gonna like."
-\-\-\-\-\-\-
Teyla rose out of an uneasy dream, Wraith-like malice still clawing at the edges of her mind. According to the chronometer at her bedside, she had slept for nearly five hours; it still felt like no time at all. After they departed Delta Vega, she had delved deep into the ship's database, or what portions of it had been fully uploaded, in search of references to the Wraith from across the Pegasus quadrant-desperately trying to tie together some thread of fact from conflicting variations, to find something they could use against Michael and his ship. But she was no anthropologist, and soon enough she had begun to nod over her console; at that point, she was forced to admit temporary defeat.
The noise that had awakened her was the chiming of her door. She quickly rose from bed and wrapped herself in a dressing gown. "Come in," she called, wondering what was urgent enough to wake her but not so urgent as to merit a communicator call.
Jonn Sheppard crept into the darkened anteroom of her quarters, and grimaced a little when he saw her sleepwear. "Sorry. I didn't mean-I guess I should've called ahead."
"None of us can afford much sleep," she said, by way of forgiveness. "What brings you here...sir?"
They both paused to consider how strange it was, that he should be above her in the chain of command. Sheppard cleared his throat first. "I have to ask you about something," he said, perching awkwardly on the other end of the short couch. "And I wanted to do it in person. Commander Weir and I already went ten rounds on this one, but ultimately it's your decision."
"What is it that you require?" she asked.
"She's authorized me to take a strike team onto Michael's ship, when we engage him," he explained. "We'll be attempting to sabotage it from the inside and search for any of the captives taken from Vulcan, if we have time. Given that you can read Wraith minds-"
"-You would like me to come with you," Teyla said, completing the sentence almost in unison with him.
Sheppard nodded. "It might give us an edge, knowing what they're thinking. But you're the only one who can evaluate the risks, so if you're not comfortable with it, it's off the table."
Teyla shut her eyes for a moment. To walk on that ship, to breathe the same air as the things she had only sensed from afar...! But Sheppard was right, it would be an advantage to a strike team-provided she was not overwhelmed by them, possessed like the wretches of lore and forced to do their bidding. Did she have the strength to stand up to ancient demons?
Could she bear it if they were not so demonic after all?
We must separate the eternal truths of the Ancestors from the ways those truths are interpreted, her father had written once, in a moderately famous essay. The Ancestors are eternal; it is we who are fractious, biased, blind. It may be that all the tales on all the worlds are true; or it may be than none of them are; but the truth is more valuable than any tale of human devising. And what is true should be embraced, and never feared, no matter how great the lie it sweeps away.
"I will go," she said, opening her eyes again. Sheppard looked surprised and pleased. "I cannot promise how useful I will be, but if there is a chance that you may need me, I will go."
And the Ancestors would go with her, if she sought them. That, she would always hold true.
-\-\-\-\-\-
"You are putting too much extraction load on the sensor."
"I am putting exactly as much load on the sensor as it needs."
"It is a land mine, not a bouncing ball!"
"Finish your own bomb, this one's mine!"
Rodney was just slapping Radek's hands away from the perfectly normal detonator when Commander Weir walked into the torpedo bay-cum-workshop. She had this way of staring at him like she wasn't entirely sure which of them was crazy-it was annoying. "Gentlemen," she asked, slightly wary.
"Commander," Radek said.
"Please don't step on the explosive devices," Rodney added.
She picked her way very, very careful over to where they were rigging up the gag torpedoes for Jonn's master plan. "How much longer before these are ready?" she asked, looking curiously at the homebrew detonators.
"Not as long as if you don't stop talking," Rodney told her.
Radek smacked him on the arm, and then looked at Weir with earnest attention. "Was there something you needed from us, Commander?"
"I have a few misgivings about Lieutenant Sheppard's strategy," she said. "In particular, I'm concerned that the strike team isn't going to be able effectively deploy the explosives without a thorough understanding of the technology they're looking at. All the dilithium tetrakaranate in tthe world won't be very effective if they just accidentally stick it in a janitorial closet."
"Yes, well, there's not much we're going to be able to do about that from here, is there?" Rodney asked. Weir just raised an eyebrow at him. Then he got it. "Oh. Oh."
"I'm not going to order anyone to join the strike team," she said quickly. "This would be a strictly volunteer position. But if there's anyone in Engineering that you can recommend with a strong background in xenotechnology, preferably with some personal combat training as well-"
"You're completely serious about this?" Rodney asked as his higher faculties caught up with the conversation. "Sending an engineer behind enemy lines or whatever, as part of a tactical strike team to follow Sheppard around and stick bombs to things?"
Weir scowled a little. "As I said, Mr. McKay, it's an option. I understand that it's unlikely we've got anyone qualified for the job on board, which is why I'm asking you for a recommendation."
Except there wasn't anybody to recommend, not if Rodney had any say in it-oh, sure, there were a few people who made adequate technicians, if that was what you needed, but they didn't have any combat skills and they were just as likely to pee their pants as accomplish anything if they were faced with genuinely exotic technology. If fact, he couldn't think of any engineers on board with more than the basic personal combat requirements under their belt, and that was for a reason, because engineers and scientists were not supposed to be going into personal combat situations in the first place. Line officers did that kind of thing, pilots did that kind of thing, Jonn did that kind thing-
For a moment, Rodney's thoughts ground to an absolute halt as he fully explored all the implications of that one. Jonn is actually going to do this thing.
"I'll go," he announced, causing Radek to drop a spanner.
Weir was giving him that look again, the one that said someone in the room was crazy and it might not be her. "Are you certain?" she asked.
"Of course not," he snapped, and grabbed onto the casing of the torpedo with hands that were abruptly not steady enough to be doing fine soldering. "But I'm brilliant, and that will hopefully compensate for the rest."
"I just want to be certain that you know what you're getting into," she said.
"Death, most likely," he muttered, but if Jonn was going...after he'd dragged Jonn on board this ship and started the whole mess in the first place...
"I think McKay merely wants to keep his old friend in shouting-at range," Radek said suddenly. "It will be much more difficult to tell Sheppard he is stupid over comm lines."
"That is...a little too close to the truth, actually," Rodney admitted. Radek gave him a bland smile and dove back into the torpedo he was working on. Rodney looked back to Weir. "Yes, yes, it's a terrible excuse and I'm a tremendous coward and possibly co-dependent."
"That wasn't what I was thinking, Mr. McKay," she said, so earnestly that he honestly didn't know how to respond to it. She straighted up and started picking her way back across the parts they'd spread out on the floor. "I'll let him know to expect you in the briefing room at 1030 hours."
"Great. Awesome." Rodney looked down at the torpedo. "We are not going to have these finished by then."
"Only if you keep fiddle with the extraction load," Radek insisted.
"Will you shut up about the extraction load-?"
-\-\-\-\-\-
The strike teams assembled scant minutes before the projected intercept; the whirling lights of the red alert gave the corridors an eerie appearance, though they were more muted inside the transporter room. Teyla prayed, before they gathered-slipped into an empty room and held her pendent between herwere fingers, following the familiar grooves with her fingers. Ancestors protect me, she thought, and protect this ship and crew. There was no time to say more, and in truth, nothing more that she was ready to say. Ancestors, protect us.
When she reported to the transporter room, Sheppard handed her a pair of photon grenades to hang from her belt, and eyed the bantos rods she had holstered opposite her phaser. "You think hand to hand's going to work against these guys?"
"I believe in being prepared for any eventuality," she said simply.
The doors opened a second time, and Rodney McKay marched in, carrying a phaser rifle as if it might at any moment wrest itself from his grip and attack him. "Just so you know, I want bodyguards with me the entire time," he declared. "Big ones." His eyes fell on Ensign Tarkiff. "That one."
"Behave," Jonn said sharply. He climbed up on the edge of the transporter pad, which served to give him some elevation over the rest of the room. "Okay, listen up. We're dividing into two groups as soon as we touch ground inside the ship. Ensign Ford will take McKay, Tarkiff, Loyola and Ee towards the engine area to plant the charges. Emmagen, Koizumi and myself will be conducting reconnaissance inside the ship and trying to locate any surviving captives, whether they're Federation citizens or not. Remember, these Wraith are tough sons of bitches-don't assume they're down until they're down."
He stepped down, and crossed to the wall-mounted communicator. "Sheppard to bridge. Teams one and two in position."
"Bridge here," Elizabeth answered. "Estimating thirty seconds to engagement. Be careful."
Teyla expected him to say something flip, but to her surprise, Sheppard said, "Good luck, Bridge. We'll call you for evacuation when we're ready. Sheppard out."
Teyla stepped up onto the pad of the transporter, and counted down the seconds in her head. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen...
-\-\-\-\-\-\-
Elizabeth forced herself to stay in her chair instead of pacing the bridge; there was a subtle turbulence, a vibration that she felt in her teeth and her inner ear, as they eked out a few more tenths of a warp factor. The superstructure of the ship couldn't handle it for long, not in its current condition, but if gave them even the slightest edge-
"Passing the Wraith ship now," Zelenka announced, and Elizabeth's fingers curled into the armrests of her chair. "Preparing to exit warp-"
There was a burst of real turbulence, the kind that rattled more than just bones, as they fell back into normal space; the gas giant's thick clouds of methane roiled with the shockwave and recoiled back into the hull. "How are we looking?" she asked Zelenka.
He nodded, after a moment's thought. "Good. Better than expected, in fact. Preparing for the hop in five, four, three-"
The next few parts were very nearly automated-had to be, to get the kind of precision timing they needed. She couldn't see Michael's ship flit past at warp, not from within the smothering layers of cloud, but she knew the moment it did they had only a second and a half to execute the leapfrog.
The moment it did, the ship really lurched, shuddering in an unstable warp field-there were reasons why these sorts of split-second hops weren't recommended. It felt for a moment like Atlantis was literally shaking itself apart.
The forward screen flickered from blue-green clouds to the Wraith ship, the whole impossible bulk of it, less than a kilometer from the claw-tip of its sensor array. The phasers automatically fired, tracing an arc across the other ship's hull, until its shield flicked up and cut them off. "Modified torpedoes are away," Chief Campbell reported from the weapons station. "Away teams one and two are on board the enemy ship. Launching shuttles two and three now."
At the other end of the ship, Elizabeth saw the darts begin to emerge from their hangars. "What's their weapons status?" she asked anxiously, waiting for the first barrage of the hive's projectiles.
Zelenka let out a strange noise, almost like a choked-off laugh. "The Wraith ship's main weapons appear to be offline," he said.
Elizabeth's heart rose. It wasn't enough, wasn't nearly enough, of course, but it one big step in the direction of a fair fight. She rose to her feet, watching the cloud of darts bear down on them. "Fire at will, Chief," she announced.
-\-\-\-\-\-
When Jonn's vision cleared, he found himself somewhere cool, damp and dim, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. The first thing he did was scan for any Wraith in the area, but as luck would have it, they seemed to have gotten down in a relatively empty stretch of ship.
The second thing he did was check Emmagen. Her eyes were screwed shut, and she held her body rigidly, fists clenched and neck cording. For a minute he didn't know whether to try to shake her out of it or avoid distracting her; in the next, she started to relax, letting out an explosive sigh. "Oh, that is-unpleasant," she said, grimacing.
"You all right?" he asked, not that they could do anything if she wasn't-the Atlantis' shields would be up now.
"I think so," she said, glancing around the shadowy corridor. "They have not noticed our presence yet."
"Good. Great." He looked up at the others. "Quick as you can, guys. Let's move out."
-\-\-\-\-\-
"Shields at sixty percent," Campbell warned, as darts exploded all around them. Elizabeth could feel the inertial dampeners struggling to keep up with their evasive maneuvers; the Atlantis wasn't exactly built for dogfighting, even without the structural damage, and evading the darts was simply impossible.
Below them, over the Wraith shields, the first of the plasma bombs detonated against the shields: it blossomed in a blinding cloud, incinerating a handful of darts and bathing the hull in a brilliant white light. Around its edges, Elizabeth could actually see the shield flicker and pop, struggling to keep out the burning gas. A second bomb detonated meters away from the first.
"Shields at fifty percent," Campbell called out. No matter how many darts they destroyed, more seemed to keep coming. How much longer could this hold out?
A third plasma bomb burst over the Wraith hull. "Are those even bruising it?" she asked aloud.
Zelenka nearly tumbled out of his chair as the ship rolled again, but he said, "It appears so-their hull is degrading, but much more slowly than expected."
Elizabeth settled back in the chair and forced her hands to unclench. "Tell the shuttle pilots to keep them coming, then." Anything that would do a little more damage, buy a little more time-
-\-\-\-\-\-
"This way," Emmagen said, with a toss of her head, and Jonn had no reason not to follow. It seemed strange that the ship was so empty, but maybe most of the crew were dart pilots-pilots currently attacking the Atlantis. All he knew was that they hadn't passed a Wraith yet, but they also hadn't passed any sign of hostages-nor any corpses. Just miles of weird, fleshy corridors, cold enough to form a ground fog in places, and very rarely showing signs of recent damage.
They came to an intersection, and Emmagen threw herself around a corner and flat against a wall; Jonn managed to follow suit an instant later, with Koizumi still behind him. Two hulking Wraith passed them by without a glance; of course, given that their face masks lacked eyeholes...talk about flying on instruments. They stayed crouched for another few seconds, but when Emmagen rose again, Jonn followed suit.
"Any idea how the fight is going?" Jonn asked. The Atlantis could probably slice off one end of the ship and they wouldn't notice, not when it was this size.
Emmagen just shook her head. "I cannot tell the specific thoughts, not yet. There is-something, though. Ahead."
"Detention cells?" Jonn hazarded. She didn't respond to that.
The corridors rose and fell, until he was no longer sure what deck they were on, if this thing even had decks. They were passed by one more set of Wraith guards, but after that Emmagen picked up speed, walking with a definite purpose. "You wanna keep me informed?" he asked her, lengthening his stride to catch up.
"This way," was all she said. "I sense-there is something here, something important."
The next membranous doorway they passed through lead into a large, rounded room, the walls shrouded in something like cobwebs-if cobwebs came in the same gauge as guy wire. On the floor, Jonn registered the first spot of real color on the whole ship-the gold tunic of a Starfleet officer. After a quick sweep of the room, he ran to the man on the floor, rolling him onto his back to check for a pulse.
"Sheppard," Emmagen called in a strange, high voice.
"I think he's still alive," Jonn said. The man on the floor was old, though-ancient, really, with snow-white hair and sunken, spotted cheeks. He's never heard of any active-duty officers that old, much less ones who would've been sent to fight at Vulcan-
Then he glanced down that the cuffs. Captain's stripes.
A single weapon fired directly over his head.
Jonn scrambled back, getting his rifle up, and found himself looking at the only Wraith he'd ever seen without the face masks. Michael was holding something that resembled a Starfleet-issue phaser, only smaller and infinitely more menacing. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that Koizumi was dead, with a steaming hold in the center of his chest. "Sheppard. Teyla. So good of you to join Captain Sumner and I for dinner," Michael said, and grinned with all those extra teeth.
-\-\-\-\-\-
"Shields at twenty percent," Campbell warned, straining to be heard over the sound of the wailing alarms. Elizabeth glanced back at the engineering station, which showed another new hull breach where the hasty repairs had failed. If this kept up, the darts wouldn't even have to breach the shield-they could just chase the Atlantis around the sky until it disintegrated around them.
The entire dorsal surface of the hive was aglow with plasma fire now, hanging over the shield like a malevolent aurora borealis; some of the first charges were starting to sputter out. She no longer knew if the torpedoes were even in the air, or if the darts had picked them all off while she wasn't looking. "What's the status of the shuttles?" she called.
The officer at communications replied, "Atlantis-Two has shields at fifty percent and has discharged its whole payload. They can't get through the darts to get back to the landing bay. Atlantis-Three still has two bombs on board but shields are only at ten percent."
"We are losing antimatter containment," Zelenka warned. "Engineering is reporting fires on decks fourteen and fifteen."
Elizabeth swallowed. "Start evacuating personnel from the secondary hull," she said. If they had to, they could blow the explosive bolts connecting the saucer to the pylon; they'd be stranded without warp, true, but they'd be alive.
A moment after she spoke, a blinding flash flared from under the hive's belly. "Direct hit by the first torpedo!" Campbell called.
"Damages?" Elizabeth demanded.
He looked up directly at her. "Commander-the Wraith shields are down."
This might be the best chance they'd have to do any damage. "Concentrate all fire on the hive ship," she ordered. The darts would just have to take care of themselves...
-\-\-\-\-\-
"What have you done to Captain Sumner?" Emmagen asked, voice shaking, though her hands didn't.
Michael kept smiling. "Would you like a demonstration?" He transferred the phaser to his left hand, keeping it steady, and dropped into a crouch over Sumner's ruined body. When he pressed his right hand to the bloody rip in Sumner's uniform, Sumner groaned out loud, and started to writhe as if in pain; but the sagging skin of his face smoothed and tightened, the color flowed back into his hair, and his eyes opened and gaped directly into Jonn's. Agonized. Pleading.
And just as quickly, it all faded; if anything, Sumner looked even older, obviously too weak to rise off the misty floor. "Marshall and I have been having some nice little chats," Michael said, as if he hadn't just done something that ought to be impossible. "Getting my bearings in this timeline. I have made a mess of things, haven't I?"
"You led me to this room," Emmagen accused. "Why?"
"Ah, Teyla, you were always so easy to deceive," Michael said, a parody of affection. From far away, a low, deep concussion rolled through the ship. "I wanted to make sure you knew why you were about to die."
"Because you're a monster?" Jonn asked coolly, trying to shift to his left. If he and Emmagen could get some separation-
"Stop right there, Sheppard," Michael said coldly, and reached out that hand at Sumner again. "He still has a few years left in him. I won't hesitate to take them all."
"Why are you doing this?" Emmagen asked. "What have we done to you?"
Michael's eyes narrowed. "Jonn Sheppard over there talks of monsters, Teyla. Would you like to hear about real monsters? The people who kidnapped me, tortured me, performed medical experiments on me that destroyed my mind and tried turn me against me own people? Tried to make me grateful for it?"
Jonn's stomach roiled. "You're saying the Federation did that?"
"You did it." Michael took another deep breath through his nose and...nose-pits. "You and your little pet-a pity he isn't here yet-you held me down for the first injection personally. You even gave me a name."
"Only that hasn't happened yet," Jonn pointed out.
Michael snorted. "Only because I came out of hibernation a decade too soon."
"No," Emmagen said firmly. "It never happened, and it never will."
Michael rounded on her again. "Oh, yes, so confident-always sure you'll be on the side of angels and Ancestors," he sneered. "You cannot change your basic natures."
"Yet you have already changed us," she countered relentlessly. "The moment you fired on a Federation ship in Athosian space, you changed our fates."
"Fate," he spat. "Who taught you to believe in fate? The distant Ancestors who permit you to revere them as gods, but never lift a finger to save you? The Atlantean god-slayers?"
That seemed to faze her for a moment; Jonn jumped on it. "Just own up to it already, Mike: you blew this one. Whatever you think the Atlantis did you you, it doesn't matter anymore-we're not the same people and we don't make the same mistakes. So where does that leave you?"
He snarled, and reached into the front of his dark, ornate robe. "It leaves me in possession of the one thing my kind have wanted for ten thousand years," he said. The small, white remote control in his hand didn't fit with the rest of the ship-in fact, it looked more like the one Ambassador Weir had used to decloak her puddle jumper. He pressed a single button. "In a few minutes, when your starship is just a burning hunk of metal in a forgotten star system, I will have the key to ultimate power in this galaxy. And there was never anything you could about it, because this time I got here first."
A high, shrieking alarm began to echo through the hive ship, and the floor vibrated again, more violently than before. "Sorry to mess with your big plan," Jonn said, edging to the side again."But if we're going down, we're sure as hell taking you with us."
Michael snarled again, and then his whole body jerked with a start; on the floor, Sumner had thrown one withered arm around Michael's legs. He didn't have the strength to topple him, but all it took was a moment, the briefest distraction.
Jonn shouldered his phaser rifle and hit Michael with a sustained beam. But just as Weir had warned, it didn't immediately take him down-Jonn could smell flesh burning under the assault, but Michael still managed to throw himself forward with a snarl. Emmagen hit him in the chest with another shot, but his momentum carried him into her, and they went down in a tangle that Jonn didn't dare aim into. For one terrible minute Jonn saw Michael's right hand raised in the air, the vertical mouth open wide and dangerous, and then he struck-
And Emmagen caught his hand between her fightin sticks. A complicated twist of wood, and Jonn heard bones cracking. Michael's scream blurred into the sound of the rising alarm.
He lined up another shot and fired, directly at the head, and this time Michael thrashed and went still. Jonn helped Emmagen to her feet, and then raced over to where Sumner was still laying on the ground. This time there was no pulse, no signs of life, and Jonn drove his fist into the squishy floor in frustration. They'd been so damned close-!
"Emmagen to Ford." She had pulled out her communicator and was again sweeping the perimeter of the room. "What is your status?"
"We're setting the charges now. What about you?"
"Michael is dead," she said. "As is Captain Sumner."
"Any word from the Atlantis yet?" Jonn asked, rising to his feet.
"Negative, sir-maybe no news is good news?"
Jonn wasn't counting on it. He pulled out his own communicator. "Atlantis, this is Sheppard, please come in."
Static burst across the channel, but then Weir's voice came though. "Good to hear your voice, Lieutenant. What's your status?"
"We found Michael and we killed him," Jonn said bluntly. "Charges are almost ready."
"It would be helpful if you could beam us directly from this location," Emmagen added tensely. Shit.
"Getting a lock on you now. We'll give you a ten-count."
"You get that, Ford?" Jonn asked.
"Aye, sir. Charges set."
The deck was shaking almost continuously now, but Jonn could make out pounding footsteps over the roar. He shoved his open communicator into his belt and raised his rifle again, backing up until he and Emmagen were braced back to back over Sumner's withered body.
A moment later, Wraith came storming in through every door-dozens of them, like they'd come out of a goddamned clown car, raising long, deadly-looking weapons to their shoulders. "Atlantis, cancel that ten-count and get us out of here!" he called, but he had no idea if the line was even still open.
The last thing he saw was a forest of weapons charging to fire. Then his world was curtained in brilliant white.
-\-\-\-\-\-
"The away team is aboard," Zelenka said. "Hull integrity is at sixty percent."
"Get us clear of the hive," Elizabeth said, watching the last of the plasma bombs fade out. The explosion would have to be enough to destroy it-simply had to be, or they would be lost.
The Atlantis was already shaking so badly it was hard to distinguish one vibration from another; still, Elizabeth could've sworn she felt something new and ominous rattle through the ship a moment before Zelenka said, "Warp core containment is failing. Thirty seconds to breach."
"Eject it," Elizabeth said immediately. They'd be able to survive without warp drive. They'd figure something out.
Zelenka looked over his shoulder at her with wide eyes. "Commander, the core housing was damaged when the hull was breached. I cannot eject."
Elizabeth swallowed. This was it, then. "Mr. Zelenka, initiate emergency saucer separation. Mr. Miller, get us out of here at full impulse."
The explosive bolts fired, ringing through the ship like claps of thunder. Elizabeth switched the forward screen to display the rear-facing cameras, and watched in reverse as the secondary hull-now looking strangely lopsided without the saucer-floated free. The Wraith didn't seem to realize that the saucer had separated for a reason; the darts continued to swarm around the secondary hull, probably because it remained so close to their hive. Only a few pursued the saucer, and Chief Campbell picked those off easily.
"Warp core breach in ten, nine, eight..."
Elizabeth found herself holding her breath.
"...two...one..."
Twin sunbursts whited out the screen for a moment. When she was able to raise her eyes, there was nothing left of the massive hive or the secondary hull, just an expanding cloud of gas and debris. "We did it," she sighed, hardly able to believe her eyes.
"Brace for impact!" Zelenka called, and that was when the shockwave hit.
Chapter One
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Sixteen