Ardhanarishvara Part Twenty-Two
Previously:
The big file with Parts 1-20 (Big file, we'll start a new file for the second half after this, but there will be a link between them. When I remember to put it in the file. - Auburn)
Part Twenty-One
warning: violence and other upsetting matters herein - aka Auburn took over again for a while
~*~
Working with Rodney is jarring now, but Sheppard grits her teeth and lives with it. She has no one to blame but herself.
Rodney isn't talking to her. His not talking to you pout would be okay, really, but this silence of nothing to say beyond mission-related exchanges isn't. No more banter, no more snark, no simple conversations about meaningless stuff from Earth. No more inexplicably missed touches, either. It hadn't been so noticeable on Hermea, when Ronon and Teyla were with them to fill the empty spaces. It is now.
Alone with Rodney in Jumper Three, preparing for the next fire mission to Heka, Sheppard can't help but notice. They're awkward with each other now. The worst part, though? Rodney doesn't seem as affected as she is. He doesn't look unhappy or lonely.
They run through the pre-flight together without an extra word. Jumper Three hums for her like always, despite whatever worries Zelenka has expressed to Rodney. Not that the worries are unfounded. The Ancient equipment is actually...ancient, and the add-ons have never been subjected to the stress of repeated missions. If these were Earth aircraft, they'd be due for the hundred hours check. Sheppard pats the console without thinking about it. She freezes, waits for it...but Rodney doesn't make a sarcastic remark about naming the car.
It's a little depressing. Sheppard leaves Rodney in the co-pilot's seat, checking sensor calibration, and does an extra exterior check, nodding to Zelenka who is fussing at the marines bringing in the pallets of shells to load. The clatter and voices may echo off metal alloy walls and alien spacecraft, but Sheppard is reminded of every flight line she's ever stood on.
Minus the stink of avgas. Funny how you can miss something you didn't even like. Funny how you can miss something you didn't realize you did like, too. Someone, next to you.
~*~
They cloak immediately on exiting the stargate, taking their places in the formation. She calls up the grid coordinates for their target fields. Three different villages are on the agenda for this mission, two of them far enough away it will take up to twenty minutes to reach them, even in the jumpers. They've been bombing the fields farthest out from the stargate first, steadily working their way back toward it with each mission. The villages are usually centered in their fields and built on rivers and streams. Each jumper will fly a half circle around, adjusting for terrain as they drop their shells. "McKay, can you bring up thermal images from the cameras?"
Rodney's already tapping the commands into the laptop synced into the jumper's systems. An HUD pops up in front of him. Sheppard glances at it before accelerating the jumper toward the target. "Thanks." She keys the radio. "Everyone double-check your target zones for life signs." She has confidence in her people, but the recordings from each jumper will be audited by the SGC and the IOA. There is no room to screw up. Affirmatives from the other five jumpers follow.
The seasons must be turning on Heka. The first fire mission they flew, the sun was still up at this hour. This time it's a last bright line slipping under the horizon, despite their altitude. Sheppard squints against the afterimage, then slips off her sunglasses. Jumpers aren't affected by weather the way helos are, but she'd give her favorite Die Hard DVD and two bags of hoarded Doritos for a good met report. She has nightmares about the fires catching on a good wind and running beyond the skour fields, taking out the nearest village, burning thousands of acres out of control. The Hekans don't have any way to put down a big wildfire.
Rodney's bent over his laptop, ignoring her, taking energy readings that don't exist since they destroyed the Holy Citadel.
"Cleo Three Alpha, this is Cleo Four," Douglas reports in. Her voice is crisp and clear and a little more gung-ho than Sheppard would like. The Boston accent reminds Sheppard of when her father was stationed at Hanscom Field, working on something classified - not that he ever talked about anything with the family. "Target clear, beginning deployment approach. Over."
"Cleo Four, this is Cleo Three Alpha. Check your life sign detector, Captain. Over."
First on target. Sheppard tasked Douglas with a village closer to the stargate than the rest of them will target, but she still must have pushed the jumper to maximum speed to have arrived already. She's well ahead of her wingman. Too damn eager, just the way Caldwell warned Sheppard she would be.
"This is Cleo Four, target area is free and clear. Deploying incendiary shells now. Over."
Definitely a little too gung-ho for Sheppard's tastes. Douglas will probably settle down soon. Normally, Sheppard wouldn't be flying missions with a pilot just off the Daedalus, but she prefers to leave Lorne in Atlantis with Jumper One and Two when they deploy, just in case. In the meantime, she makes a note to talk to Alison Douglas later. At least being female will be handy this time; Douglas probably won't think Sheppard's singling her out for being a woman.
She angles Jumper Three over, the little clock in her head meshing with the thought responsive technology and telling her she's one minute away from her own target zone. Crown's on station with Douglas, ready to make his own run momentarily. On the HUD before her, the carets indicating Miller, Palecki, and Reyes are all approaching their stations. Miller and Reyes are still three minutes out. They're overflying the village now.
"See if you can find the Athosians' locators," she says.
"Yes, yes, that shouldn't be a prob-" Rodney's voice trails away then returns with a squeak. "-lem. Colonel?"
She whips her head toward him as the radio activates.
"Sir? I mean, ma'am, Colonel Sheppard?" Palecki sounds panicky.
"Cleo Six, repeat your status. Over," Sheppard says, voice tight.
"Cleo Three Alpha, this is Cleo Six. I've got readings coming from the center of the grid coordinates for my target zone."
"So do I," Rodney says. The HUDs are flickering, changing and zooming in, clusters of glowing dots appearing. The life signs flip to thermal imagery and Sheppard frowns. There's something not right about them.
"Too small," she blurts out.
Rodney looks at her then back at the HUDs. His eyes widen. "Fuck."
"What?" Sheppard demands, just knowing Rodney's about to tell her something horrible.
"Kids. It's kids," Rodney says.
Sheppard stares at the thermal images. They're getting clearer as the jumper closes in, and she can make out torsos and limbs, white centers and orange-red margins gone green at the edges. All she can think is those fucking bastards. And Douglas....
"Cleo Four abort!" she yells. "Abort, abort, abort! All jumpers abort!"
Miller, then Crown, Palecki and Reyes all reply. Douglas' voice is rough when she answers. "Cleo Three Alpha, this is Cleo Four, copy." Sheppard hears her cough. "Incendiaries already deployed. Scans for life signs were clear. Further orders? Over."
Sheppard thunks her head back against the headrest. "Cleo Six, check your thermal imagery. Over." Then she brings the jumper around and hovers over the skour field. The viewport lets her see the distant flames from Cleo Four's payload. She turns her eyes away. Rodney's face isn't much better: he looks stricken. "All of you...." She swallows. "All of you check your thermals."
"Cleo Five, all clear. Over"
"Cleo Eight, I'm not picking up anything. Over."
Reyes' measured words follow, calm even in the face of potential horror. "Cleo Seven. Sensors and thermal imagery aren't registering anything in my target zone. Over."
Sheppard looks at her own HUD. Palecki's jumper is doing circles over the next grid coordinate to hers. Douglas had the fields farthest from this village, despite being nearest the stargate.
"Cleo Six. I've got a reading of twenty-three life signs on the ground in my target zone," Palecki reports.
"Rodney?"
"Twenty-five." He's intent on his laptop, typing and reading, and Sheppard takes a second to breathe, because she can't call back the shells Douglas dropped; everything else can wait until Rodney pulls up all the information he can. "Okay, okay, this is - this isn't the worst case scenario," Rodney says finally.
Sheppard lets out a sigh.
"I've analyzed the pattern of the target zones and the two incidences of life signs and I don't think there were any people in the fields Captain Douglas targeted. She did check her life signs sensor. Grids one and two, yours and Lt. Palecki's, are the central, largest fields in the area."
Rodney stops and looks at Sheppard, who nods at him to go on.
"I may be making assumptions, in fact I know I am, but with limited information, there's no other choice - I think the Hekans must have put these people out there to try and stop the fire bombing. Naturally, they'd try to protect the best fields."
"This is Cleo Eight, I have the Athosians' transmitters on sensor," Reyes radios.
"Location?" Sheppard is hovering the jumper, trying to think out her next move. They'll need to dump the napalm some place because she doesn't want to bring the armed shells back into Atlantis.
"Right smack in the middle of the village, Colonel. Over."
"Try contacting them on the radio."
"Copy."
She directs the jumper to begin descending. "We need to take a look on the ground."
"This is a bad idea," Rodney mutters.
"Yeah, probably," Sheppard agrees.
~*~
Sheppard has the cameras on the kids. She and Rodney are staring at the feed showing them. Twenty-five children, little girls it looks like, all tied up and left on the ground, in the middle of a field of thorny, half-poisonous skour. Left out for the night; waiting, she suspects, for them. For whatever has been razing every other village's skour fields with fire. Maybe they've been out here every night. Maybe the Hekans are bright enough to figure out the schedule the missions have been following. It doesn't really matter. There's kids in the target zone.
"Cleo Three Alpha, this is Six." Reyes sounds as calm as ever.
"Go ahead, Sergeant."
"I've got radio contact with Terim and Fillad. They're locked up in the local hoosegow."
"And they've still got their radios?" Rodney mutters. "Like we didn't know these Neanderthals were all brain-damaged."
Sheppard makes a hushing gesture with her hand. "Sitrep?"
"Locals don't know a radio from a rock, but they've figured out their village is next in line for a Time of Fire." Reyes' voice is matter of fact. Sheppard feels a spike of worry, though, because it's fading in and out. "Terim says they're really freaked, think it's the wrath of the Ancestors. Folks are split whether the Ancestors are pissed because some tainted woman destroyed the Holy Citadel or because they've been following false prophets. Either way, the Ancestors destroyed the Citadel. They've got folks here from some of the other villages, refugees I guess, and things got pretty hot. They decided that the offerings the other villages made - the bodies of those women? That wasn't good enough."
"Oh fuck," Sheppard breathes.
"Yes ma'am, that about says it." Reyes' voice fades again. Sheppard really doesn't like that.
"Simpson!" Rodney snarls. "What the hell is happening with your communications?"
"Jumper's acting up a little," Reyes replies.
"Yes, obviously, which is why I'm talking to Simpson."
"Rodney," Sheppard says calmingly. It's an act. She's trying to figure out their next move and a malfunctioning jumper - Christ, Zelenka warned them - is the last thing they need. "Cleo Eight. I want you to pick up the Athosians. Rendezvous south of the village, out of sight, if possible. Can they get out?"
"Little problem with that, ma'am."
"How little?"
"The local priest slash headman has them locked up. Fillad says the keys are in the front room. They're stuck."
"Why the hell did they get locked up anyway?" A tiny part of her is reflecting that it's nice to know her team isn't the only one to get thrown in jail on missions. Apparently, even Athosians can stumble and bumble. A bigger part of her is worried about them, because they came to Heka at Atlantis' request. They're her responsibility just as much as the marines and scientists in the jumpers and back home.
All the pieces slot together. She comes to a decision without waiting for Reyes' response.
"Cleo Four, head for the gate, dial Atlantis, and pick up the marine ready platoon. Tell Captain Harper I want Lieutenant Cadman, in case we need to use explosives on the jail." She cuts the radio feed. "I'll send the ground pounders in after Fillad and Terim," she tells Rodney. "We're getting these kids."
"Oh, wonderful, kids," Rodney snaps, but doesn't protest beyond that.
"Kids love you, McKay."
Rodney snorts. "I hope you have some idea what we're going to do with them," he adds.
Sheppard shrugs. "We'll think of something. Later."
"That's your plan - of course, that's your plan. It's a Sheppard special."
She activates the radio again. "You got that, Douglas?"
"Acknowledged, Cleo Alpha Three. Cleo Four proceeding to the stargate now. Bringing back brawn. Over," Douglas replies.
"Cleo Seven, join Cleo Six, remain cloaked. Cleo Six get down to the ground and pick up those kids. Cleo Five, you're with me. Cleo Eight, remain cloaked and hold in place until we get the marines. Tell the Athosians we're preparing an extraction. Over."
"Extraction? Cadman?" Rodney mutters. "Don't you mean explosion?"
"Get over it, McKay," Sheppard says.
She brings the jumper down and, after a moment's indecision, decloaks it. Activates the radio. "Alpha going to headset channel." Drops the hatch. The smell of smoke fills the jumper immediately. She and Rodney share a glance, then they're up and heading out. She has her P90 in hand, targeting light on, and Rodney is fumbling his Beretta out of its holster. Just in case.
The kids are screaming.
The skour vines catch and tear at their BDUs as they cut through them to the cluster of sacrifices. Above them a hum tells Sheppard Crown's on station above them. She recognizes the feel of air displacement even if the jumper is invisible. As cool as they are, experience has revealed that cloaks aren't magic (excluding the Hermean's mysterious tech) and won't really conceal anything if you know it's there.
Jesus fuck, she thinks when she gets to them. They're just little girls. The wind is whipping smoke from one of the burning fields, tearing at her hair, and she curses the lack of a met report all over again, while she jerks out her combat knife and starts to cut the first kid loose. "Hey, kid, everything's going to be okay - " The girl just screams and writhes, making the job harder. "Calm down, you're going to be fine." Nothing she says helps and as soon as she's freed her, the girl is sprinting away, wailing to the heavens.
"Rodney!" she yells. "Catch her!"
"What, me?" Rodney shouts, but he bolts after the kid and catches her by tackling her into the skour. Sheppard winces. The shrieks might come from the girl. The cursing is all Rodney. "What do I do with her?" he yells as he comes up onto his knees, clutching his captive to his chest.
"Throw her in the jumper and tell her to stay!" Sheppard snaps back. She's already at the next kid. This time, she's just cutting her loose from the stake. The rest of the ties can stay on until all of the kids are on the jumper. The rest of the girls are wailing because to the west, the fire is running before the wind. It won't be long before it's in this field.
She slips and loses her knife in the dark. "Shit!"
Groping in the dirt finds the knife, but also slices her finger open. She hits the radio toggle. "Crown. Get me a spotlight. Fuck covert. Over."
"Copy, Cleo Alpha. Over."
The jumper above them appears and a circle of light illuminates the cluster of stakes and the children tied to them. It sparks wilder shrieks of terror too and Sheppard realizes they think it's a culling beam.
"Perfect," she mutters, cutting another kid loose and handing her to Rodney to ferry back to the jumper.
~*~
The jumper lurches. Jumpers aren't supposed to lurch. That's what inertial dampeners are meant to keep from happening. The only time Reyes has been in a jumper that jigged or jolted or juddered, it's been after taking a hit, one that knocked out either the shield or the dampeners. He's never been in a jumper that lurched while he was flying it.
He babies the control stick, because Eight &ndash he calls her Nina because she's as fussy as his first daughter was - needs a lighter touch than some of the other jumpers. The jumper steadies for the moment. He sneaks a glance at the thermal images of the village they're hovering over. Typical Hekan village, winding goat tracks and mud daub shacks, every path twisting to eventually end in the central space with the temple/town hall/headman's building. Those are usually built of some kind of local brick or adobe. Reyes is always reminded a little of an octopus. This village looks a little larger and more prosperous than usual, with several substantial buildings grouped around the plaza.
"Ah, doc?" he says to Simpson.
She's bent over the laptop slaved into the jumper's systems, absently chewing on her hair as she reads something that makes no sense to him at all.
"Did you feel that?"
Eight drops for a second then recovers. Like a car not getting gas.
"Yes," she replies without looking up. She wipes the hair away from her face, then begins typing rapidly."It's a cascade failure between the - I'm working on it."
Eight hiccups again.
Reyes checks the power consumption curve. It's going to red-line any minute and they're doing nothing but hovering with the cloak. Not good, not good. He kind of wishes McKay were in the jumper with him. Simpson is better looking and a lot easier to get along with over any period in excess of three minutes, but McKay's the guy who can pull a miracle out of his ass and beat any hopeless situation into whimpering surrender with it.
"Ah, you might want to work faster," is all he says.
"You might want to shut up and let me do that," she snaps back and he grins until Eight lurches again and Simpson almost falls out of the co-pilot's seat.
"Damn."
"Cleo Eight, what's the problem? Come back." Miller sounds amused, the bastard.
"Glitch in the system, I guess, Cleo Seven," Reyes tells him. No use letting Miller know he's got a queasy feeling going. He'd hear about until the end of his tour if it turns out to be nothing. "You know how fussy Eight is. Over."
"Yeah, but she likes you."
Reyes concentrates on keeping Eight in a steady hover. Normally he doesn't need to think about flying the jumpers much. Like Miller says, they like him. Not as much as they like Colonel Sheppard - everyone knows the jumpers will all sit up and beg to have Sheppard at the controls - but more than anybody else except Major Lorne.
"I'm going to radio the Athosians again," he tells Simpson.
She's chewing on her lip and frowning. The words don't even register, he'd bet.
He switches to the Athosians' channel and doesn't bother with call signs. It just baffles them. It's not like they're in a big enough theater of operations they don't all know each other. "Fillad, this is Reyes. Everything still cool with you guys? We've got marines on the way soon and I promise we will get you guys out of there."
"We are well, Sergeant. We remain concerned for the fate of the children in the skour fields."
"Don't worry about that, man. The Colonel's picking them all up. I guess we'll be taking them back to Atlantis with us." Eight shudders again and he tightens his hand on the stick. He never had any ambitions of piloting. Flying jumpers isn't much like flying Earth aircraft; he's always felt pretty confident in them, but suddenly he's reminded why he joined the Marine Corps and not the Air Force. Every time Eight jerks and dips, his stomach is going with her. "So, hey, you never told me how you guys got locked up?"
"We became too vocal in our opposition to the Hekans intention to sacrifice their children," Fillad tells him.
"Well, tell you what, if you're going to have a record, that ain't too bad," Reyes says.
"They are a very unfortunate and misguided people."
He snorts.
Palecki's voice interrupts on the headset channel. "What am I supposed to do!?" He sounds somewhere between panicky and pissed. "It's darker than shit and every time I untie one of these kids she takes off - "
"Screw it, Lieutenant," Sheppard's voice interrupts. "Just cut 'em loose from the poles and stick 'em in the jumper still tied up. The wind's picking up and the fire will be in these fields soon. We'll sort out the rest of it back in Atlantis."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"And don't call me ma'am!"
That makes Reyes smile, for a second or so.
Something fizzles. That's the only way he could describe it, not exactly up to scientific standard, but he can feel it fizzling. The HUD flashes red. "Aw, crap."
"Sergeant, we just lost the cloak," Simpson tells him and immediately after starts yelling into the radio. "McKay! Catastophic drive failure in forty-four seconds! What the hell do I do?"
"No shit?" Reyes replies, but he's a little busy because Eight is shaking like - as his buddy Bobby from basic training would've said - a dog shitting peach seeds. Power is fluctuating from the drive pods to the the drone system. He has to think No, no, no, STOP at it to keep it from firing.
"Pull the secondary backup crystal in the fourth nexus, Simpson!" McKay's panting and Reyes knows the man is on the ground, in the dark, and still trying to parse what's going on in Eight. "You have to open the access panel in the rear overhead next to the emergency hatch release!"
Simpson scrambles out of the co-pilot's chair and heads into the back of the jumper. Reyes catches a glimpse of spaghetti-tangled connectors, then forgets what she's doing. "Cleo Eight, declaring an emergency," he says as calmly as he can. The drive pods are still losing power and in a minute the jumper's going to be a big old brick. "Cloak is off. I'm going for a controlled landing while I still can. Over."
"Simpson, did you stop to do your nails!?" McKay screams over the radio. Or maybe it's the kids. Someone is wailing near the radio mic. Probably not McKay; Reyes can hear him panting and cursing in between, "Try bridging the life support into the drive pod power grid - Bite me and I'm going to leave you here, you little monster - it should give you enough time to get out of there - bridge the third crystal between the sixth and seventh, Simpson!"
Sheppard's voice is breathless too, but smooth and calm. "Cleo Eight, get out of there if you can. Cleo Seven, keep an eye on them."
"I've almost got it," Simpson yells. "Sergeant -"
Eight decides she's had enough. Reyes is still trying to plot a least power expended course to a set down point when it becomes moot. Every light in the jumper dies, Simpson screams, and they're falling from approximately four stories up.
Reyes slams the control console with his face when they hit the ground. His nose breaks. Everything else seems in working order, until he gets out of the pilot's seat. Something's bad in his ribcage or maybe his gut, he can't quite tell through the eye-watering pain in his face. He hawks blood all over the floor, trying to clear his throat since he can't breathe through his nose, and heads for the back of the jumper.
Simpson's on the floor, hands and knees, trying to shake off the shock and make it to her feet. "You okay, Doc?" comes out as an almost indepherable gurgle and gag when Reyes asks, but she peers up at him and her mouth twitches.
It percolates through Reyes' brain that he can see Simpson, which means the jumper isn't blacker than a coffin inside, but not even an emergency light is flickering on. He blinks and looks past Simpson. The rear hatch is down. Simpson follows his gaze. "Failsafe," she mutters. "Total loss of power could trap someone inside otherwise. Eventually, you could suffocate."
Reyes braces one hand against the wall and frowns. "What about - uh, if you're -" he gestures up, meaning in space.
"Vacuum?" Simpson says.
He starts to nod, stops because his whole head hurts, and grunts an affirmative.
"Pressure detector. Lack of pressure, I mean. Not that being sealed in a dead jumper would be better than explosive decompression. Just slower," she tells him. He gives her a hand to pull herself to her feet and she pats his arm absently. "Could you aim the light on your...gun at the overheard, Sergeant? I need to finish this bridge so we can have power again."
A flicker of orange-red light catches his eye, though and he looks out of the hatch. Torches. A pretty big crowd is coming around the corner and into the square where the jumper hit. He tightens his grip on the P90. This doesn't look good.
Crackle of radio static in his earpiece. Miller on Cleo Seven.
"Cleo Eight is down. Repeat, Cleo Eight is down. Over." Then, over the personal channel: "Cleo Eight, respond. This is Cleo Seven. Cleo Eight respond on channel four. Reyes? Come on. Over."
Reyes coughs, a nasty shock of pain accompanying it from his chest. "This is Cleo Eight, over."
"Hey, Reyes, heads up. You've got company coming and they don't look happy. Over."
"I see them."
Simpson sees them too. Her voice is quiet, though. "We're in trouble, aren't we?"
He can't believe how fast his life has gone to shit. He's never getting back to L.A., never seeing his kids again, and it sucks. He knew he might die in the service, but he figured it would at least be fighting snakes or space vampires, not assholes that would fit right into the KKK. "You really need to get that hatch closed, ma'am," he says and steps forward, taking a place on the ramp, raising his P90. "Flashlight in Bin Three."
"I've got it," she tells him.
"You folks just back off," Reyes yells at the crowd. They're milling just close enough their torches are illuminating him, but not Simpson inside the jumper. A couple of them have spears and he catches a glimpse of a crossbow. The rest have rocks and clubs and their fists. What they've really got is numbers and no fear of a gun. They don't flinch when he aims the P90 toward them. This is fucking bad.
"Demon!"
Really bad.
A rock arcs up and hits the hull of the jumper with a startling clang. Reyes flinches and they see. That gives them confidence. More rocks and one - then two - hit him. That hurts and makes him tighten his finger on the trigger for a second. He fires a warning group into the dirt between the mob and the jumper. They jump at the rattattat clatter but don't even register the puffs of dirt thrown up by the bullets. The muttering and curses are getting louder, turning into a roar, and behind it he can hear wind, flushing the scent of smoke through the village, the night sky blushed with fire. They keep inching forward. The shifting torchlight turns their faces into monster masks. Someone in the crowd throws another rock and Reyes knows in a breath they'll have nerved themselves up enough to attack.
"Doc," he whispers without moving his lips much. Everytime he shifts his balance, he can feel something scraping in his ribcage. He isn't going to be doing any fast moves, that's for sure.
"I've almost got it, Sergeant," Simpson says. Her voice is strained and just as low.
The emergency lights flicker on, throwing a faint, cool glow out from the open hatch. It doesn't reach the crowd, but a harsh sound runs through them. They can see Simpson illuminated behind him now. "Her! Her! A woman! A woman! It's a woman! Unclean!" It grows into a chant, a howl of fury, "Unclean, unclean, unclean, uncleanuncleanuncleanUNCLEAN!"
"We're fucked," Reyes states. He sounds calmer than he feels. What he feels is his heart ready to pound right out of his chest, pumping adrenaline through his veins until his muscles shake. Another rock hits his shoulder, heavy enough to make him stumble back.
"Kill it! Kill the unclean! KILL THEM, KILL THEM, KILL THEM!"
He fires into the crowd this time and there are screams, but it isn't stopping them. They're coming like some tidal wave of fury. Running across the open ground to the jumper. A torch trailing flame tumbles by his head and hits inside the jumper. The flame whooshes out over the bench seats, a wave of searing heat against his back, separating him from the bulkhead hatch and safety. Simpson screams. Another torch hits, catching the tangle of crystal connectors hanging loose and tearing them. Sparks spit brilliantly above the burning benches. No way he's getting through that. Looks like he's making his last stand right here.
It seems like he has forever to say, "Doc, get behind the cockpit bulkhead and don't open it for anything. You hear me?" while firing aimed bursts, trying to take out the leaders, but the bodies go down and more scramble over them.
The first attacker hits the ramp with a clang and the vibration runs up Reyes' boot soles. He pulls the trigger, but the next man is already past the body of the first. He ducks a blow and fires again. There's a breath as the rest of them hesitate and he slaps another clip into the P90. Last one.
Sheppard's voice comes over the radio push with Miller's running over it. "Miller, give me a sitrep!" garbled together with, "Jesus, Reyes, pull back, pull back!" The bulkhead slams shut behind him. He closes his finger on the trigger, firing, screaming back at them - a hand grabs at his leg, another clutches at his elbow, clip's empty and he smashes it into a face as a club comes down across his arm and then a flaming torch arcs toward his face -
~*~
"Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me," Miller whispers. The cameras are getting it all and he can't do anything as the mob pours over Reyes.
"Sitrep! Miller, report!" Sheppard shouts.
They're dragging Reyes out into the square. He hopes to the God that he stopped believing in years ago that the sergeant's already dead, because no one deserves what they're doing to the body down there. There's nothing he can do; he's only been this helpless once before in his life, sitting in a jumper then too, only with McKay next to him, stinking of sweat and plastic from the EVA suit, watching while the Wraith took out the defense satellite, listening for Peter Grodin's last words.
"Reyes is down. He's down," he says. "He's dead. Over."
The radio is silent.There's just the barely perceptible hum of the jumper's ventilation system. Miller's more aware of it than ever before. He's looking down at proof the jumpers aren't always reliable. Of course jumpers have crashed, McKay even had to be fished out of the ocean that time, but it was in the jumper that had been fixed up after being shot down. It was an outside problem in Miller's head: not the jumper's fault. This is different. He'll never feel as safe, as oblivious, in a jumper again. Maybe this is what it's like a for a real pilot and not just someone who has the gene and can fly one of these things.
Dr. Kim hasn't said a word since this began. Miller wishes he would, but that's Kim, never one word when none will do.
Then McKay asks quietly, "Simpson?"
"I don't see her. Maybe she got into the cockpit in time." He shifts the jumper toward the center of the square, trying for a better camera angle, maybe a glimpse through the front viewport of the one on the ground. Christ, the Hekans are beating against its hull, using axes and picks and their bare hands. If she's in there, it's probably like being trapped inside a metal drum.
"Give me a status check on the Athosians," Sheppard demands, all business. "Over."
"Still locked up, Colonel," Miller tells her promptly, glad to have something to think about beyond Reyes's stripped bare body down there and the things the Hekans were doing to it. "We've got to get them and Simpson out of there, though. It's - it's really bad. I don't think we can wait for the marines."
"Miller, unless you've got a platoon of marines in your back pocket, you stay inside that jumper," Sheppard says in a tight voice. "As soon as we get these kids loaded, we are on our way. Do not, I repeat, do not exit your jumper. Over."
The Hekans are actually rocking the jumper down there. Miller grimaces.They're going to flip it over. Christ, they've still got napalm shells underneath and if they haven't gone up already, they still could at any minute.
"Cleo Seven acknowledge!" Sheppard shouts. "Maintain hover overhead. Over."
"Copy, Alpha," Miller grits out. "Over."
"Crown's on the way to join you. Just sit tight. Douglas will be back with the marines ASAP. Over."
"Yeah, great, got an ETA on that, Colonel? Over."
"I wish, Cleo Seven. Over."
Kim taps his arm and points to the camera-eye picture on the slaved laptop. "Aw, fuck."
"Cleo Seven, repeat? Over."
"Colonel, it looks like at least twenty, twenty-five people are heading for the jail where they've got the Athosians. Over."
He can't just hover here and watch Terim and Fillad get the same treatment Reyes had.
"Colonel, I've got an idea. I'm not getting out of the jumper, but I'm going to put her down between the door into the jail and the mob," he radios, matching words and intention, taking Seven down. "I'm leaving the cloak on." It should work, he thinks. He hopes it works.
"Miller. - Shit, ungrateful brat - Crown's one minute out."
"No time, Colonel."
He thinks Sheppard is about to order him to stay in the air. Seven is about a half meter above the ground and sweeping forward between the building and the approaching Hekans. The torches in their hands flare and stream in the bow wave of air displayed by Seven's invisible presence.
"You're the one on site. It's your call, but you better know what the hell you're doing. Over."
It's like using a bulldozer to topple the Hekans. An invisible bulldozer. This close to the ground, throttled so far back that the belly of the jumper scrapes the ground sometimes, it's more like driving than flying, and the only real problem is keeping the jumper slow enough that he isn't hitting people at forty or fifty kilometers per hour. Not that he gives much of a damn right this minute, but he will later. He hopes. Right now, it's hard to summon much compassion or care for the Hekans.
They're starting to scatter, running from the unseen force smacking into them and pushing relentlessly.
"Kim, can you take over hovering?"
Kim gives him a dark, unhappy look but nods.
"Good, because I'm going push the jumper right through the outside wall of the jail, back her up, drop the hatch and get Fillad and Terim out of there. I'll need you at the controls when I drop the hatch." Sheppard isn't going to be happy when she finds out he's disobeyed her orders to stay in the jumper, but the marines just aren't going to show up in time to do any good and Miller can't stand by and watch anyone else buy it. He'll worry about reprimands when they're back in Atlantis.
Kim rolls his eyes but nods, which is good enough for Miller.
"Come on, baby," he whispers to the jumper as he turns her so the hatch faces the jail. Then he begins back her up. He switches the radio back to the Athosians' channel. "Hey, guys? You may want to get under the bunks or whatever, 'cause things may get shaky."
The jumper groans and shimmies as it hits the building's wall and Miller feeds more power into the reverse thrust. Inertial dampeners or not, he can feel the push and the resistance Seven's encountering. It doesn't feel good. Seven is a flier, not a tank. But the Hekans didn't build with any idea they'd be up against anything powered and the wall gives away with an explosive crack they can hear inside the cockpit, pieces of timber and some kind of brick snapping apart in cloud of furious dust.
"All yours, Kim," Miller says, shifting control to the co-pilot's console and jumping up. "Drop the hatch!"
He's got his P90 in hand as he charges down the ramp into the dust-choked interior of the jail.
"Here!" Fillad shouts.
Right, and there's the cage. The Hekans must trade for more than a few tools and food stuffs in exchange for the skour. None of their villages have even had a smithy and the survey flights didn't show up any mines or quarries. They don't bother obtaining quality, though: the bars look like cheap iron and the lock would make Deputy Dog laugh, but there's no sign of a key.
"Okay, better step back," he yells, hoping he isn't going to send a ricochet right through his own face or something equally appalling. When Fillad and Terim are huddled as far from the cage door as the cell will allow, he shoots the lock. It makes a lot of noise, a shower of sparks, and low and behold, tears the weak metal open enough that he can kick it loose. Eat your heart out, Butch Cassidy. "Come on, come on!"
Fillad and Terim look white around the eyes, but follow him back into the jumper.
Miller drops back into the pilot's seat grinning like a maniac.
The radio is half static and kids still screaming, with Sheppard's voice laid over the top. "Miller, you sonovabitch, come in! Over."
"Right here, ma'am, and I've got Fillad and Terim with me now," Miller sings out, carefully feeding forward thrust into Seven's drivepods. There's a dangerous collection of bricks and timbers laying over the top of her, enough to make a structural integrity warning light flare amber. Then the jumper is sliding out from under the debris and into the square again.
"We're going to have a long talk when we get back to Atlantis," Sheppard says, but Miller's not too worried. Sheppard cares a lot more about results than regs and rules. The colonel is always ready to toss the rule book out the window if it stops working.
"Yes, ma'am," he says.
"Colonel," Sheppard replies repressively.
"What ever you say, Colonel."
He may be a trifle too happy, considering Reyes is still out there, but it feels so damn good to do something and not just watch. He's getting better at this super-low altitude hovering too. Good enough that he's going for the trifecta and taking Seven right up to Eight, bulldozing the people still hammering at Eight away.
"Outa the way, clear the decks, hit the bricks," he chants and he swings Seven like a broom, using the right drivepod like a pivot and powering from the left.
"Didn't know you could even do that with a jumper," Crown comments on the radio. "I've got you on camera, Cleo Eight. You want to resume position?"
"Not yet."
He taps the radio toggle and switches channels.
"Hey," he says quietly, gently, "Dr. Simpson? You on the radio? Can you hear me?"
Static.
Either she isn't on the channel or she's not answering. First option means his half-assed plan won't work. So he may as well act like it's the second.
"Dr. Simpson, come on. Just sit tight, we're going to get you out of there, okay. I know it's bad, but no one gets left behind. But I could really use a little help from you. You want to answer me, let me know you're in there?"
The rush of static might be someone breathing hard. There's a hitching sound Miller thinks might be her. He sweeps the jumper around the front of Eight, tries to see in the view port. The lights are too low and the angle's bad, so that all he can really tell is the bulkhead door between the cockpit and the rest of the jumper is still closed. He doesn't see Simpson.
She's got to be there, though, because he didn't see the Hekans drag her out. So, onward with the plan.
"Dr. Simpson? This is Miller in Cleo Seven. I'm going to back my jumper right up to yours and drop the hatch. You'll probably hear that. Then Terim and Fillad are going to come in. You'll need to open the bulkhead door and then it's just a quick couple of steps back into my jumper, before we all get out of here. How's that sound?"
Static.
All the Hekans have run from the crashed jumper, even the ones who were inside, distracted by the invisible force that just destroyed their jail house. That makes things easier.
He's maneuvering Seven around and then inching back until the proximity alarm starts blaring. Kim kills it. Miller watches him from the corner of his eye as he snuggles Seven right up to Eight. When they get back Atlantis, he's going to hear some bad jokes about that, he's sure. Kim makes a kill it gesture with his hands and he stops Seven.
"The sergeant told me not to open the door for anything."
"That's right," he says. Now he knows how a cop trying to talk to a kid who's been instructed not to talk to strangers feels. Frustrated, but kind of approving too. At least Simpson listened to Reyes. What happened wasn't for nothing, because Simpson is still alive in there and they will get her out. "But you know he didn't mean you to stay there forever. Just until it was safe."
"Is it safe?"
McKay's acerbic voice interrupts before he can answer. "Safe!? Simpson, what galaxy have you been visiting, because it obviously hasn't been Pegasus. When have we ever been safe here? Just do what the nice grunt tells you and get in that jumper. And be thankful you aren't stuck here in mine with twenty screaming, puking, kicking brats!"
Oddly enough, that works.
"Okay," Simpson radios.
He hits the hatch release and hears it hit Eight's hatch with a bone-shaking clang.
"Terim, Fillad -"
The two Athosians are already scrambling into Eight's badly ripped up rear compartment. Miller really wants to go with them, but knows leaving the pilot's seat would be taking the hotdogging way, way too far. Sheppard would have him up on charges for that, because they don't need to lose another jumper, along with Kim.
Kim has his seat turned around and is watching, while Miller monitors the cameras. The Hekans are starting to inch back toward the downed jumper, unable to see Seven hovering right in front of it, thanks to the cloak.
"We have her!" Fillad shouts and Kim gives a sharp nod. One of them has already activated the hatch closure according to the console in front of him. When it's sealed, Miller sends Seven straight up as fast as he can. There's sweat running down his sides.
"Hey, watch where you're going!" Crown squawks on the radio.
He risks a quick glance to the back of the jumper. Simpson is on the deck, curled into a fetal ball, with one hand jammed over her mouth. From where he is, Miller can't tell, but he'd bet her eyes are glazed. Watching it on camera was hell, being right there, hearing Reyes' death, had to have been worse. Fillad and Terim are flanking her, talking to her quietly, one of them wrapping his jacket around her shoulders. He switches his attention back to flying and not hitting Crown's jumper or the other two &nash; Colonel Sheppard and Lt. Palecki's - arrowing toward them at max military thrust. There isn't anything he can do for Simpson now except get her back to Atlantis as fast as possible.
"Cleo Three Alpha, this is Cleo Seven. Have retrieved Athosian personnel and Dr. Simpson from ground. Over."
There's a pause.
"Head for the gate, Cleo Seven," Sheppard says. The second jumper changes course to a more direct line back to the gate. Sheppard's stays on course for the village. "All Cleo units, withdraw to the stargate and prepare to return to base after dumping your ordnance. Copy? Over."
"Roger that, Colonel," Crown replies.
"Where do you want us to drop the shells?" Palecki asks.
"Drop them on the crater where the Ancient Outpost was," McKay says. "You can't miss it and there shouldn't be anything left there."
"Check your lifesign detectors first. Over," Sheppard adds.
Miller sets his course for the gate. Once there, the crater will be visible. It's a good target, impossible to mistake for anything else.
~*~
Rodney closes the bulkhead door and shuts out the wailing kids jammed everywhere in the rear compartment. Not even yelling shut up at the top of his lungs has worked and they pay even less attention to Sheppard. Not that Sheppard's wasting time trying to calm them down. She's barreling the jumper straight for the village of the damned - excuse him - the latest Hekan hellhole at top speed.
He's rarely seen her expression any grimmer. In the aftermath of the nanovirus thing, when he came down to the makeshift morgue to pay some kind of respects to Dumais and Wagner and the rest of the casualties, Sheppard was pulling the sheet back over Peterson's face and looked like this.
"You couldn't anticipate this," he says.
"It's my job to anticipate just this." The flat tone doesn't invite commiseration.
"Sheppard - "
"Shut up, Rodney, okay?" she snaps. "This isn't the time or the place."
"Fine."
They arc over the village and spot the jumper in the square. Reyes body is there too, splayed out, pale and limp in the dirt, abandoned. The entire square appears abandoned. Maybe the entire village. Rodney pulls up a lifesigns reading on the co-pilot's display. The dots representing the Hekans are streaming away from the village. There's no one left there.
Sheppard's hands are white on the control stick, which is rarer than the grim look. Rodney opens the bulkhead and is hit with a miasma of puke and urine and smoke that has him clamping his hand over his nose. He picks his way over the kids, most of them still tied up - and that's just as well, who knows what they'd wreck with their sticky fingers if they were loose? - and opens Bin Ten. He'd found out what Bin Ten held years ago.
The bodybags.
He lays one out of the deck, unzips it, all ready. Sheppard isn't going to want to waste any time. But they don't leave anyone behind. They don't leave their dead if they can help it.
They circle twice, just to be sure, then land next to Reyes' body.
Rodney has his nine millimeter in his hand and is out the jumper before Sheppard has it completely settled on the ground. Sheppard is behind him only a moment later, P90 swiveling, eyes sharp. The flashlight makes solid-looking beams in the smoke-laden air. The only thing moving is one of those dog-creatures. It squeals at them then runs.
They reach reach the body and Rodney holsters his pistol so that he can use both arms to lift beneath Reyes' shoulders. Sheppard gets an arm around both ankles and lifts awkwardly, keep her other hand on the P90. They heft and stumble back into the jumper. They drop Reyes once, but Rodney knows it doesn't matter now. Any marks left will be lost in the damage the Hekans did.
The kids inside go mostly silent, except for some hiccuping, snotty sobs from the littlest, when they see the body.
"I'm going to check the other jumper," he tells Sheppard as she's zipping the bodybag up, mercifully hiding Reyes's ruined head.
"No," Sheppard snaps.
"I need to evaluate it."
"You need someone to watch your back."
"Then come on, because I'm not any happier staying here than you are," he snarls back.
Sheppard glares up at him through a fringe of dark hair, but says nothing, pressing her lips together and rising instead. She gestures with the P90, a wordless let's go.
Jumper Eight is a dead loss. Crystals smashed, circuitry jerked out and strewn over the deck. Everything inside is torn to pieces or burnt. Simpson didn't close the bulkhead door behind her and the Hekans have been in the cockpit too. It smells like they pissed in there.
"McKay?" Sheppard's right there at his shoulder, looking like seeing this magnificent piece of machinery broken and vandalized hurts her as much as it does Rodney. "How bad is it?" Like she can't see how bad it is, but she's letting him say it, giving him that much control.
"It doesn't get any worse, Colonel."
She scans the cockpit and winces over the smashed and still sparking control panels. "Okay. Fixable?"
"Not even by the Ancients," Rodney admits.
"You sure? You and Zelenka - "
"The last time we tried to repair a jumper that had even a quarter of this damage I ended up under an ocean, if you'll remember. We're writing this one off."
Sheppard's mouth quirks into an almost smile for an instant. "I'd hate to be the agent who wrote the policies for Atlantis."
Rodney can't help the snort of laughter. It's inappropriate and stupid and he's helplessly reminded of the life insurance policy he made out before the expedition left Earth. He left the obscene death benefits to Jeanie , with the caveat she find and take care of his cat for the rest of its life.
"Time to go," Sheppard declares.
"Do we just leave it here?" Rodney asks as soon as they're back in their jumper.
Sheppard drops into the pilot's seat, displays flaring to life before she even touches anything.
"No. On the off chance someone could salvage something from the wreckage - which we don't want because they might figure out better ways to shoot our other jumpers down - we blow it up."
Rodney settles into his own seat.
"Oh, I should have known."
"Lorne should have drones loaded in Jumper One. When he gets here, he can do it," Sheppard adds. She lifts the jumper and sets it on course for the stargate.
As if conjured by his name, Lorne's voice comes over the radio. "Cleo Three Alpha, this is Jumper One. I have the marine reaction team onboard. Where do you want us? Over."
~*~
Part 23
The big file with Parts 1-20 (Big file, we'll start a new file for the second half after this, but there will be a link between them. When I remember to put it in the file. - Auburn)
Part Twenty-One
warning: violence and other upsetting matters herein - aka Auburn took over again for a while
~*~
Working with Rodney is jarring now, but Sheppard grits her teeth and lives with it. She has no one to blame but herself.
Rodney isn't talking to her. His not talking to you pout would be okay, really, but this silence of nothing to say beyond mission-related exchanges isn't. No more banter, no more snark, no simple conversations about meaningless stuff from Earth. No more inexplicably missed touches, either. It hadn't been so noticeable on Hermea, when Ronon and Teyla were with them to fill the empty spaces. It is now.
Alone with Rodney in Jumper Three, preparing for the next fire mission to Heka, Sheppard can't help but notice. They're awkward with each other now. The worst part, though? Rodney doesn't seem as affected as she is. He doesn't look unhappy or lonely.
They run through the pre-flight together without an extra word. Jumper Three hums for her like always, despite whatever worries Zelenka has expressed to Rodney. Not that the worries are unfounded. The Ancient equipment is actually...ancient, and the add-ons have never been subjected to the stress of repeated missions. If these were Earth aircraft, they'd be due for the hundred hours check. Sheppard pats the console without thinking about it. She freezes, waits for it...but Rodney doesn't make a sarcastic remark about naming the car.
It's a little depressing. Sheppard leaves Rodney in the co-pilot's seat, checking sensor calibration, and does an extra exterior check, nodding to Zelenka who is fussing at the marines bringing in the pallets of shells to load. The clatter and voices may echo off metal alloy walls and alien spacecraft, but Sheppard is reminded of every flight line she's ever stood on.
Minus the stink of avgas. Funny how you can miss something you didn't even like. Funny how you can miss something you didn't realize you did like, too. Someone, next to you.
~*~
They cloak immediately on exiting the stargate, taking their places in the formation. She calls up the grid coordinates for their target fields. Three different villages are on the agenda for this mission, two of them far enough away it will take up to twenty minutes to reach them, even in the jumpers. They've been bombing the fields farthest out from the stargate first, steadily working their way back toward it with each mission. The villages are usually centered in their fields and built on rivers and streams. Each jumper will fly a half circle around, adjusting for terrain as they drop their shells. "McKay, can you bring up thermal images from the cameras?"
Rodney's already tapping the commands into the laptop synced into the jumper's systems. An HUD pops up in front of him. Sheppard glances at it before accelerating the jumper toward the target. "Thanks." She keys the radio. "Everyone double-check your target zones for life signs." She has confidence in her people, but the recordings from each jumper will be audited by the SGC and the IOA. There is no room to screw up. Affirmatives from the other five jumpers follow.
The seasons must be turning on Heka. The first fire mission they flew, the sun was still up at this hour. This time it's a last bright line slipping under the horizon, despite their altitude. Sheppard squints against the afterimage, then slips off her sunglasses. Jumpers aren't affected by weather the way helos are, but she'd give her favorite Die Hard DVD and two bags of hoarded Doritos for a good met report. She has nightmares about the fires catching on a good wind and running beyond the skour fields, taking out the nearest village, burning thousands of acres out of control. The Hekans don't have any way to put down a big wildfire.
Rodney's bent over his laptop, ignoring her, taking energy readings that don't exist since they destroyed the Holy Citadel.
"Cleo Three Alpha, this is Cleo Four," Douglas reports in. Her voice is crisp and clear and a little more gung-ho than Sheppard would like. The Boston accent reminds Sheppard of when her father was stationed at Hanscom Field, working on something classified - not that he ever talked about anything with the family. "Target clear, beginning deployment approach. Over."
"Cleo Four, this is Cleo Three Alpha. Check your life sign detector, Captain. Over."
First on target. Sheppard tasked Douglas with a village closer to the stargate than the rest of them will target, but she still must have pushed the jumper to maximum speed to have arrived already. She's well ahead of her wingman. Too damn eager, just the way Caldwell warned Sheppard she would be.
"This is Cleo Four, target area is free and clear. Deploying incendiary shells now. Over."
Definitely a little too gung-ho for Sheppard's tastes. Douglas will probably settle down soon. Normally, Sheppard wouldn't be flying missions with a pilot just off the Daedalus, but she prefers to leave Lorne in Atlantis with Jumper One and Two when they deploy, just in case. In the meantime, she makes a note to talk to Alison Douglas later. At least being female will be handy this time; Douglas probably won't think Sheppard's singling her out for being a woman.
She angles Jumper Three over, the little clock in her head meshing with the thought responsive technology and telling her she's one minute away from her own target zone. Crown's on station with Douglas, ready to make his own run momentarily. On the HUD before her, the carets indicating Miller, Palecki, and Reyes are all approaching their stations. Miller and Reyes are still three minutes out. They're overflying the village now.
"See if you can find the Athosians' locators," she says.
"Yes, yes, that shouldn't be a prob-" Rodney's voice trails away then returns with a squeak. "-lem. Colonel?"
She whips her head toward him as the radio activates.
"Sir? I mean, ma'am, Colonel Sheppard?" Palecki sounds panicky.
"Cleo Six, repeat your status. Over," Sheppard says, voice tight.
"Cleo Three Alpha, this is Cleo Six. I've got readings coming from the center of the grid coordinates for my target zone."
"So do I," Rodney says. The HUDs are flickering, changing and zooming in, clusters of glowing dots appearing. The life signs flip to thermal imagery and Sheppard frowns. There's something not right about them.
"Too small," she blurts out.
Rodney looks at her then back at the HUDs. His eyes widen. "Fuck."
"What?" Sheppard demands, just knowing Rodney's about to tell her something horrible.
"Kids. It's kids," Rodney says.
Sheppard stares at the thermal images. They're getting clearer as the jumper closes in, and she can make out torsos and limbs, white centers and orange-red margins gone green at the edges. All she can think is those fucking bastards. And Douglas....
"Cleo Four abort!" she yells. "Abort, abort, abort! All jumpers abort!"
Miller, then Crown, Palecki and Reyes all reply. Douglas' voice is rough when she answers. "Cleo Three Alpha, this is Cleo Four, copy." Sheppard hears her cough. "Incendiaries already deployed. Scans for life signs were clear. Further orders? Over."
Sheppard thunks her head back against the headrest. "Cleo Six, check your thermal imagery. Over." Then she brings the jumper around and hovers over the skour field. The viewport lets her see the distant flames from Cleo Four's payload. She turns her eyes away. Rodney's face isn't much better: he looks stricken. "All of you...." She swallows. "All of you check your thermals."
"Cleo Five, all clear. Over"
"Cleo Eight, I'm not picking up anything. Over."
Reyes' measured words follow, calm even in the face of potential horror. "Cleo Seven. Sensors and thermal imagery aren't registering anything in my target zone. Over."
Sheppard looks at her own HUD. Palecki's jumper is doing circles over the next grid coordinate to hers. Douglas had the fields farthest from this village, despite being nearest the stargate.
"Cleo Six. I've got a reading of twenty-three life signs on the ground in my target zone," Palecki reports.
"Rodney?"
"Twenty-five." He's intent on his laptop, typing and reading, and Sheppard takes a second to breathe, because she can't call back the shells Douglas dropped; everything else can wait until Rodney pulls up all the information he can. "Okay, okay, this is - this isn't the worst case scenario," Rodney says finally.
Sheppard lets out a sigh.
"I've analyzed the pattern of the target zones and the two incidences of life signs and I don't think there were any people in the fields Captain Douglas targeted. She did check her life signs sensor. Grids one and two, yours and Lt. Palecki's, are the central, largest fields in the area."
Rodney stops and looks at Sheppard, who nods at him to go on.
"I may be making assumptions, in fact I know I am, but with limited information, there's no other choice - I think the Hekans must have put these people out there to try and stop the fire bombing. Naturally, they'd try to protect the best fields."
"This is Cleo Eight, I have the Athosians' transmitters on sensor," Reyes radios.
"Location?" Sheppard is hovering the jumper, trying to think out her next move. They'll need to dump the napalm some place because she doesn't want to bring the armed shells back into Atlantis.
"Right smack in the middle of the village, Colonel. Over."
"Try contacting them on the radio."
"Copy."
She directs the jumper to begin descending. "We need to take a look on the ground."
"This is a bad idea," Rodney mutters.
"Yeah, probably," Sheppard agrees.
~*~
Sheppard has the cameras on the kids. She and Rodney are staring at the feed showing them. Twenty-five children, little girls it looks like, all tied up and left on the ground, in the middle of a field of thorny, half-poisonous skour. Left out for the night; waiting, she suspects, for them. For whatever has been razing every other village's skour fields with fire. Maybe they've been out here every night. Maybe the Hekans are bright enough to figure out the schedule the missions have been following. It doesn't really matter. There's kids in the target zone.
"Cleo Three Alpha, this is Six." Reyes sounds as calm as ever.
"Go ahead, Sergeant."
"I've got radio contact with Terim and Fillad. They're locked up in the local hoosegow."
"And they've still got their radios?" Rodney mutters. "Like we didn't know these Neanderthals were all brain-damaged."
Sheppard makes a hushing gesture with her hand. "Sitrep?"
"Locals don't know a radio from a rock, but they've figured out their village is next in line for a Time of Fire." Reyes' voice is matter of fact. Sheppard feels a spike of worry, though, because it's fading in and out. "Terim says they're really freaked, think it's the wrath of the Ancestors. Folks are split whether the Ancestors are pissed because some tainted woman destroyed the Holy Citadel or because they've been following false prophets. Either way, the Ancestors destroyed the Citadel. They've got folks here from some of the other villages, refugees I guess, and things got pretty hot. They decided that the offerings the other villages made - the bodies of those women? That wasn't good enough."
"Oh fuck," Sheppard breathes.
"Yes ma'am, that about says it." Reyes' voice fades again. Sheppard really doesn't like that.
"Simpson!" Rodney snarls. "What the hell is happening with your communications?"
"Jumper's acting up a little," Reyes replies.
"Yes, obviously, which is why I'm talking to Simpson."
"Rodney," Sheppard says calmingly. It's an act. She's trying to figure out their next move and a malfunctioning jumper - Christ, Zelenka warned them - is the last thing they need. "Cleo Eight. I want you to pick up the Athosians. Rendezvous south of the village, out of sight, if possible. Can they get out?"
"Little problem with that, ma'am."
"How little?"
"The local priest slash headman has them locked up. Fillad says the keys are in the front room. They're stuck."
"Why the hell did they get locked up anyway?" A tiny part of her is reflecting that it's nice to know her team isn't the only one to get thrown in jail on missions. Apparently, even Athosians can stumble and bumble. A bigger part of her is worried about them, because they came to Heka at Atlantis' request. They're her responsibility just as much as the marines and scientists in the jumpers and back home.
All the pieces slot together. She comes to a decision without waiting for Reyes' response.
"Cleo Four, head for the gate, dial Atlantis, and pick up the marine ready platoon. Tell Captain Harper I want Lieutenant Cadman, in case we need to use explosives on the jail." She cuts the radio feed. "I'll send the ground pounders in after Fillad and Terim," she tells Rodney. "We're getting these kids."
"Oh, wonderful, kids," Rodney snaps, but doesn't protest beyond that.
"Kids love you, McKay."
Rodney snorts. "I hope you have some idea what we're going to do with them," he adds.
Sheppard shrugs. "We'll think of something. Later."
"That's your plan - of course, that's your plan. It's a Sheppard special."
She activates the radio again. "You got that, Douglas?"
"Acknowledged, Cleo Alpha Three. Cleo Four proceeding to the stargate now. Bringing back brawn. Over," Douglas replies.
"Cleo Seven, join Cleo Six, remain cloaked. Cleo Six get down to the ground and pick up those kids. Cleo Five, you're with me. Cleo Eight, remain cloaked and hold in place until we get the marines. Tell the Athosians we're preparing an extraction. Over."
"Extraction? Cadman?" Rodney mutters. "Don't you mean explosion?"
"Get over it, McKay," Sheppard says.
She brings the jumper down and, after a moment's indecision, decloaks it. Activates the radio. "Alpha going to headset channel." Drops the hatch. The smell of smoke fills the jumper immediately. She and Rodney share a glance, then they're up and heading out. She has her P90 in hand, targeting light on, and Rodney is fumbling his Beretta out of its holster. Just in case.
The kids are screaming.
The skour vines catch and tear at their BDUs as they cut through them to the cluster of sacrifices. Above them a hum tells Sheppard Crown's on station above them. She recognizes the feel of air displacement even if the jumper is invisible. As cool as they are, experience has revealed that cloaks aren't magic (excluding the Hermean's mysterious tech) and won't really conceal anything if you know it's there.
Jesus fuck, she thinks when she gets to them. They're just little girls. The wind is whipping smoke from one of the burning fields, tearing at her hair, and she curses the lack of a met report all over again, while she jerks out her combat knife and starts to cut the first kid loose. "Hey, kid, everything's going to be okay - " The girl just screams and writhes, making the job harder. "Calm down, you're going to be fine." Nothing she says helps and as soon as she's freed her, the girl is sprinting away, wailing to the heavens.
"Rodney!" she yells. "Catch her!"
"What, me?" Rodney shouts, but he bolts after the kid and catches her by tackling her into the skour. Sheppard winces. The shrieks might come from the girl. The cursing is all Rodney. "What do I do with her?" he yells as he comes up onto his knees, clutching his captive to his chest.
"Throw her in the jumper and tell her to stay!" Sheppard snaps back. She's already at the next kid. This time, she's just cutting her loose from the stake. The rest of the ties can stay on until all of the kids are on the jumper. The rest of the girls are wailing because to the west, the fire is running before the wind. It won't be long before it's in this field.
She slips and loses her knife in the dark. "Shit!"
Groping in the dirt finds the knife, but also slices her finger open. She hits the radio toggle. "Crown. Get me a spotlight. Fuck covert. Over."
"Copy, Cleo Alpha. Over."
The jumper above them appears and a circle of light illuminates the cluster of stakes and the children tied to them. It sparks wilder shrieks of terror too and Sheppard realizes they think it's a culling beam.
"Perfect," she mutters, cutting another kid loose and handing her to Rodney to ferry back to the jumper.
~*~
The jumper lurches. Jumpers aren't supposed to lurch. That's what inertial dampeners are meant to keep from happening. The only time Reyes has been in a jumper that jigged or jolted or juddered, it's been after taking a hit, one that knocked out either the shield or the dampeners. He's never been in a jumper that lurched while he was flying it.
He babies the control stick, because Eight &ndash he calls her Nina because she's as fussy as his first daughter was - needs a lighter touch than some of the other jumpers. The jumper steadies for the moment. He sneaks a glance at the thermal images of the village they're hovering over. Typical Hekan village, winding goat tracks and mud daub shacks, every path twisting to eventually end in the central space with the temple/town hall/headman's building. Those are usually built of some kind of local brick or adobe. Reyes is always reminded a little of an octopus. This village looks a little larger and more prosperous than usual, with several substantial buildings grouped around the plaza.
"Ah, doc?" he says to Simpson.
She's bent over the laptop slaved into the jumper's systems, absently chewing on her hair as she reads something that makes no sense to him at all.
"Did you feel that?"
Eight drops for a second then recovers. Like a car not getting gas.
"Yes," she replies without looking up. She wipes the hair away from her face, then begins typing rapidly."It's a cascade failure between the - I'm working on it."
Eight hiccups again.
Reyes checks the power consumption curve. It's going to red-line any minute and they're doing nothing but hovering with the cloak. Not good, not good. He kind of wishes McKay were in the jumper with him. Simpson is better looking and a lot easier to get along with over any period in excess of three minutes, but McKay's the guy who can pull a miracle out of his ass and beat any hopeless situation into whimpering surrender with it.
"Ah, you might want to work faster," is all he says.
"You might want to shut up and let me do that," she snaps back and he grins until Eight lurches again and Simpson almost falls out of the co-pilot's seat.
"Damn."
"Cleo Eight, what's the problem? Come back." Miller sounds amused, the bastard.
"Glitch in the system, I guess, Cleo Seven," Reyes tells him. No use letting Miller know he's got a queasy feeling going. He'd hear about until the end of his tour if it turns out to be nothing. "You know how fussy Eight is. Over."
"Yeah, but she likes you."
Reyes concentrates on keeping Eight in a steady hover. Normally he doesn't need to think about flying the jumpers much. Like Miller says, they like him. Not as much as they like Colonel Sheppard - everyone knows the jumpers will all sit up and beg to have Sheppard at the controls - but more than anybody else except Major Lorne.
"I'm going to radio the Athosians again," he tells Simpson.
She's chewing on her lip and frowning. The words don't even register, he'd bet.
He switches to the Athosians' channel and doesn't bother with call signs. It just baffles them. It's not like they're in a big enough theater of operations they don't all know each other. "Fillad, this is Reyes. Everything still cool with you guys? We've got marines on the way soon and I promise we will get you guys out of there."
"We are well, Sergeant. We remain concerned for the fate of the children in the skour fields."
"Don't worry about that, man. The Colonel's picking them all up. I guess we'll be taking them back to Atlantis with us." Eight shudders again and he tightens his hand on the stick. He never had any ambitions of piloting. Flying jumpers isn't much like flying Earth aircraft; he's always felt pretty confident in them, but suddenly he's reminded why he joined the Marine Corps and not the Air Force. Every time Eight jerks and dips, his stomach is going with her. "So, hey, you never told me how you guys got locked up?"
"We became too vocal in our opposition to the Hekans intention to sacrifice their children," Fillad tells him.
"Well, tell you what, if you're going to have a record, that ain't too bad," Reyes says.
"They are a very unfortunate and misguided people."
He snorts.
Palecki's voice interrupts on the headset channel. "What am I supposed to do!?" He sounds somewhere between panicky and pissed. "It's darker than shit and every time I untie one of these kids she takes off - "
"Screw it, Lieutenant," Sheppard's voice interrupts. "Just cut 'em loose from the poles and stick 'em in the jumper still tied up. The wind's picking up and the fire will be in these fields soon. We'll sort out the rest of it back in Atlantis."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"And don't call me ma'am!"
That makes Reyes smile, for a second or so.
Something fizzles. That's the only way he could describe it, not exactly up to scientific standard, but he can feel it fizzling. The HUD flashes red. "Aw, crap."
"Sergeant, we just lost the cloak," Simpson tells him and immediately after starts yelling into the radio. "McKay! Catastophic drive failure in forty-four seconds! What the hell do I do?"
"No shit?" Reyes replies, but he's a little busy because Eight is shaking like - as his buddy Bobby from basic training would've said - a dog shitting peach seeds. Power is fluctuating from the drive pods to the the drone system. He has to think No, no, no, STOP at it to keep it from firing.
"Pull the secondary backup crystal in the fourth nexus, Simpson!" McKay's panting and Reyes knows the man is on the ground, in the dark, and still trying to parse what's going on in Eight. "You have to open the access panel in the rear overhead next to the emergency hatch release!"
Simpson scrambles out of the co-pilot's chair and heads into the back of the jumper. Reyes catches a glimpse of spaghetti-tangled connectors, then forgets what she's doing. "Cleo Eight, declaring an emergency," he says as calmly as he can. The drive pods are still losing power and in a minute the jumper's going to be a big old brick. "Cloak is off. I'm going for a controlled landing while I still can. Over."
"Simpson, did you stop to do your nails!?" McKay screams over the radio. Or maybe it's the kids. Someone is wailing near the radio mic. Probably not McKay; Reyes can hear him panting and cursing in between, "Try bridging the life support into the drive pod power grid - Bite me and I'm going to leave you here, you little monster - it should give you enough time to get out of there - bridge the third crystal between the sixth and seventh, Simpson!"
Sheppard's voice is breathless too, but smooth and calm. "Cleo Eight, get out of there if you can. Cleo Seven, keep an eye on them."
"I've almost got it," Simpson yells. "Sergeant -"
Eight decides she's had enough. Reyes is still trying to plot a least power expended course to a set down point when it becomes moot. Every light in the jumper dies, Simpson screams, and they're falling from approximately four stories up.
Reyes slams the control console with his face when they hit the ground. His nose breaks. Everything else seems in working order, until he gets out of the pilot's seat. Something's bad in his ribcage or maybe his gut, he can't quite tell through the eye-watering pain in his face. He hawks blood all over the floor, trying to clear his throat since he can't breathe through his nose, and heads for the back of the jumper.
Simpson's on the floor, hands and knees, trying to shake off the shock and make it to her feet. "You okay, Doc?" comes out as an almost indepherable gurgle and gag when Reyes asks, but she peers up at him and her mouth twitches.
It percolates through Reyes' brain that he can see Simpson, which means the jumper isn't blacker than a coffin inside, but not even an emergency light is flickering on. He blinks and looks past Simpson. The rear hatch is down. Simpson follows his gaze. "Failsafe," she mutters. "Total loss of power could trap someone inside otherwise. Eventually, you could suffocate."
Reyes braces one hand against the wall and frowns. "What about - uh, if you're -" he gestures up, meaning in space.
"Vacuum?" Simpson says.
He starts to nod, stops because his whole head hurts, and grunts an affirmative.
"Pressure detector. Lack of pressure, I mean. Not that being sealed in a dead jumper would be better than explosive decompression. Just slower," she tells him. He gives her a hand to pull herself to her feet and she pats his arm absently. "Could you aim the light on your...gun at the overheard, Sergeant? I need to finish this bridge so we can have power again."
A flicker of orange-red light catches his eye, though and he looks out of the hatch. Torches. A pretty big crowd is coming around the corner and into the square where the jumper hit. He tightens his grip on the P90. This doesn't look good.
Crackle of radio static in his earpiece. Miller on Cleo Seven.
"Cleo Eight is down. Repeat, Cleo Eight is down. Over." Then, over the personal channel: "Cleo Eight, respond. This is Cleo Seven. Cleo Eight respond on channel four. Reyes? Come on. Over."
Reyes coughs, a nasty shock of pain accompanying it from his chest. "This is Cleo Eight, over."
"Hey, Reyes, heads up. You've got company coming and they don't look happy. Over."
"I see them."
Simpson sees them too. Her voice is quiet, though. "We're in trouble, aren't we?"
He can't believe how fast his life has gone to shit. He's never getting back to L.A., never seeing his kids again, and it sucks. He knew he might die in the service, but he figured it would at least be fighting snakes or space vampires, not assholes that would fit right into the KKK. "You really need to get that hatch closed, ma'am," he says and steps forward, taking a place on the ramp, raising his P90. "Flashlight in Bin Three."
"I've got it," she tells him.
"You folks just back off," Reyes yells at the crowd. They're milling just close enough their torches are illuminating him, but not Simpson inside the jumper. A couple of them have spears and he catches a glimpse of a crossbow. The rest have rocks and clubs and their fists. What they've really got is numbers and no fear of a gun. They don't flinch when he aims the P90 toward them. This is fucking bad.
"Demon!"
Really bad.
A rock arcs up and hits the hull of the jumper with a startling clang. Reyes flinches and they see. That gives them confidence. More rocks and one - then two - hit him. That hurts and makes him tighten his finger on the trigger for a second. He fires a warning group into the dirt between the mob and the jumper. They jump at the rattattat clatter but don't even register the puffs of dirt thrown up by the bullets. The muttering and curses are getting louder, turning into a roar, and behind it he can hear wind, flushing the scent of smoke through the village, the night sky blushed with fire. They keep inching forward. The shifting torchlight turns their faces into monster masks. Someone in the crowd throws another rock and Reyes knows in a breath they'll have nerved themselves up enough to attack.
"Doc," he whispers without moving his lips much. Everytime he shifts his balance, he can feel something scraping in his ribcage. He isn't going to be doing any fast moves, that's for sure.
"I've almost got it, Sergeant," Simpson says. Her voice is strained and just as low.
The emergency lights flicker on, throwing a faint, cool glow out from the open hatch. It doesn't reach the crowd, but a harsh sound runs through them. They can see Simpson illuminated behind him now. "Her! Her! A woman! A woman! It's a woman! Unclean!" It grows into a chant, a howl of fury, "Unclean, unclean, unclean, uncleanuncleanuncleanUNCLEAN!"
"We're fucked," Reyes states. He sounds calmer than he feels. What he feels is his heart ready to pound right out of his chest, pumping adrenaline through his veins until his muscles shake. Another rock hits his shoulder, heavy enough to make him stumble back.
"Kill it! Kill the unclean! KILL THEM, KILL THEM, KILL THEM!"
He fires into the crowd this time and there are screams, but it isn't stopping them. They're coming like some tidal wave of fury. Running across the open ground to the jumper. A torch trailing flame tumbles by his head and hits inside the jumper. The flame whooshes out over the bench seats, a wave of searing heat against his back, separating him from the bulkhead hatch and safety. Simpson screams. Another torch hits, catching the tangle of crystal connectors hanging loose and tearing them. Sparks spit brilliantly above the burning benches. No way he's getting through that. Looks like he's making his last stand right here.
It seems like he has forever to say, "Doc, get behind the cockpit bulkhead and don't open it for anything. You hear me?" while firing aimed bursts, trying to take out the leaders, but the bodies go down and more scramble over them.
The first attacker hits the ramp with a clang and the vibration runs up Reyes' boot soles. He pulls the trigger, but the next man is already past the body of the first. He ducks a blow and fires again. There's a breath as the rest of them hesitate and he slaps another clip into the P90. Last one.
Sheppard's voice comes over the radio push with Miller's running over it. "Miller, give me a sitrep!" garbled together with, "Jesus, Reyes, pull back, pull back!" The bulkhead slams shut behind him. He closes his finger on the trigger, firing, screaming back at them - a hand grabs at his leg, another clutches at his elbow, clip's empty and he smashes it into a face as a club comes down across his arm and then a flaming torch arcs toward his face -
~*~
"Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me," Miller whispers. The cameras are getting it all and he can't do anything as the mob pours over Reyes.
"Sitrep! Miller, report!" Sheppard shouts.
They're dragging Reyes out into the square. He hopes to the God that he stopped believing in years ago that the sergeant's already dead, because no one deserves what they're doing to the body down there. There's nothing he can do; he's only been this helpless once before in his life, sitting in a jumper then too, only with McKay next to him, stinking of sweat and plastic from the EVA suit, watching while the Wraith took out the defense satellite, listening for Peter Grodin's last words.
"Reyes is down. He's down," he says. "He's dead. Over."
The radio is silent.There's just the barely perceptible hum of the jumper's ventilation system. Miller's more aware of it than ever before. He's looking down at proof the jumpers aren't always reliable. Of course jumpers have crashed, McKay even had to be fished out of the ocean that time, but it was in the jumper that had been fixed up after being shot down. It was an outside problem in Miller's head: not the jumper's fault. This is different. He'll never feel as safe, as oblivious, in a jumper again. Maybe this is what it's like a for a real pilot and not just someone who has the gene and can fly one of these things.
Dr. Kim hasn't said a word since this began. Miller wishes he would, but that's Kim, never one word when none will do.
Then McKay asks quietly, "Simpson?"
"I don't see her. Maybe she got into the cockpit in time." He shifts the jumper toward the center of the square, trying for a better camera angle, maybe a glimpse through the front viewport of the one on the ground. Christ, the Hekans are beating against its hull, using axes and picks and their bare hands. If she's in there, it's probably like being trapped inside a metal drum.
"Give me a status check on the Athosians," Sheppard demands, all business. "Over."
"Still locked up, Colonel," Miller tells her promptly, glad to have something to think about beyond Reyes's stripped bare body down there and the things the Hekans were doing to it. "We've got to get them and Simpson out of there, though. It's - it's really bad. I don't think we can wait for the marines."
"Miller, unless you've got a platoon of marines in your back pocket, you stay inside that jumper," Sheppard says in a tight voice. "As soon as we get these kids loaded, we are on our way. Do not, I repeat, do not exit your jumper. Over."
The Hekans are actually rocking the jumper down there. Miller grimaces.They're going to flip it over. Christ, they've still got napalm shells underneath and if they haven't gone up already, they still could at any minute.
"Cleo Seven acknowledge!" Sheppard shouts. "Maintain hover overhead. Over."
"Copy, Alpha," Miller grits out. "Over."
"Crown's on the way to join you. Just sit tight. Douglas will be back with the marines ASAP. Over."
"Yeah, great, got an ETA on that, Colonel? Over."
"I wish, Cleo Seven. Over."
Kim taps his arm and points to the camera-eye picture on the slaved laptop. "Aw, fuck."
"Cleo Seven, repeat? Over."
"Colonel, it looks like at least twenty, twenty-five people are heading for the jail where they've got the Athosians. Over."
He can't just hover here and watch Terim and Fillad get the same treatment Reyes had.
"Colonel, I've got an idea. I'm not getting out of the jumper, but I'm going to put her down between the door into the jail and the mob," he radios, matching words and intention, taking Seven down. "I'm leaving the cloak on." It should work, he thinks. He hopes it works.
"Miller. - Shit, ungrateful brat - Crown's one minute out."
"No time, Colonel."
He thinks Sheppard is about to order him to stay in the air. Seven is about a half meter above the ground and sweeping forward between the building and the approaching Hekans. The torches in their hands flare and stream in the bow wave of air displayed by Seven's invisible presence.
"You're the one on site. It's your call, but you better know what the hell you're doing. Over."
It's like using a bulldozer to topple the Hekans. An invisible bulldozer. This close to the ground, throttled so far back that the belly of the jumper scrapes the ground sometimes, it's more like driving than flying, and the only real problem is keeping the jumper slow enough that he isn't hitting people at forty or fifty kilometers per hour. Not that he gives much of a damn right this minute, but he will later. He hopes. Right now, it's hard to summon much compassion or care for the Hekans.
They're starting to scatter, running from the unseen force smacking into them and pushing relentlessly.
"Kim, can you take over hovering?"
Kim gives him a dark, unhappy look but nods.
"Good, because I'm going push the jumper right through the outside wall of the jail, back her up, drop the hatch and get Fillad and Terim out of there. I'll need you at the controls when I drop the hatch." Sheppard isn't going to be happy when she finds out he's disobeyed her orders to stay in the jumper, but the marines just aren't going to show up in time to do any good and Miller can't stand by and watch anyone else buy it. He'll worry about reprimands when they're back in Atlantis.
Kim rolls his eyes but nods, which is good enough for Miller.
"Come on, baby," he whispers to the jumper as he turns her so the hatch faces the jail. Then he begins back her up. He switches the radio back to the Athosians' channel. "Hey, guys? You may want to get under the bunks or whatever, 'cause things may get shaky."
The jumper groans and shimmies as it hits the building's wall and Miller feeds more power into the reverse thrust. Inertial dampeners or not, he can feel the push and the resistance Seven's encountering. It doesn't feel good. Seven is a flier, not a tank. But the Hekans didn't build with any idea they'd be up against anything powered and the wall gives away with an explosive crack they can hear inside the cockpit, pieces of timber and some kind of brick snapping apart in cloud of furious dust.
"All yours, Kim," Miller says, shifting control to the co-pilot's console and jumping up. "Drop the hatch!"
He's got his P90 in hand as he charges down the ramp into the dust-choked interior of the jail.
"Here!" Fillad shouts.
Right, and there's the cage. The Hekans must trade for more than a few tools and food stuffs in exchange for the skour. None of their villages have even had a smithy and the survey flights didn't show up any mines or quarries. They don't bother obtaining quality, though: the bars look like cheap iron and the lock would make Deputy Dog laugh, but there's no sign of a key.
"Okay, better step back," he yells, hoping he isn't going to send a ricochet right through his own face or something equally appalling. When Fillad and Terim are huddled as far from the cage door as the cell will allow, he shoots the lock. It makes a lot of noise, a shower of sparks, and low and behold, tears the weak metal open enough that he can kick it loose. Eat your heart out, Butch Cassidy. "Come on, come on!"
Fillad and Terim look white around the eyes, but follow him back into the jumper.
Miller drops back into the pilot's seat grinning like a maniac.
The radio is half static and kids still screaming, with Sheppard's voice laid over the top. "Miller, you sonovabitch, come in! Over."
"Right here, ma'am, and I've got Fillad and Terim with me now," Miller sings out, carefully feeding forward thrust into Seven's drivepods. There's a dangerous collection of bricks and timbers laying over the top of her, enough to make a structural integrity warning light flare amber. Then the jumper is sliding out from under the debris and into the square again.
"We're going to have a long talk when we get back to Atlantis," Sheppard says, but Miller's not too worried. Sheppard cares a lot more about results than regs and rules. The colonel is always ready to toss the rule book out the window if it stops working.
"Yes, ma'am," he says.
"Colonel," Sheppard replies repressively.
"What ever you say, Colonel."
He may be a trifle too happy, considering Reyes is still out there, but it feels so damn good to do something and not just watch. He's getting better at this super-low altitude hovering too. Good enough that he's going for the trifecta and taking Seven right up to Eight, bulldozing the people still hammering at Eight away.
"Outa the way, clear the decks, hit the bricks," he chants and he swings Seven like a broom, using the right drivepod like a pivot and powering from the left.
"Didn't know you could even do that with a jumper," Crown comments on the radio. "I've got you on camera, Cleo Eight. You want to resume position?"
"Not yet."
He taps the radio toggle and switches channels.
"Hey," he says quietly, gently, "Dr. Simpson? You on the radio? Can you hear me?"
Static.
Either she isn't on the channel or she's not answering. First option means his half-assed plan won't work. So he may as well act like it's the second.
"Dr. Simpson, come on. Just sit tight, we're going to get you out of there, okay. I know it's bad, but no one gets left behind. But I could really use a little help from you. You want to answer me, let me know you're in there?"
The rush of static might be someone breathing hard. There's a hitching sound Miller thinks might be her. He sweeps the jumper around the front of Eight, tries to see in the view port. The lights are too low and the angle's bad, so that all he can really tell is the bulkhead door between the cockpit and the rest of the jumper is still closed. He doesn't see Simpson.
She's got to be there, though, because he didn't see the Hekans drag her out. So, onward with the plan.
"Dr. Simpson? This is Miller in Cleo Seven. I'm going to back my jumper right up to yours and drop the hatch. You'll probably hear that. Then Terim and Fillad are going to come in. You'll need to open the bulkhead door and then it's just a quick couple of steps back into my jumper, before we all get out of here. How's that sound?"
Static.
All the Hekans have run from the crashed jumper, even the ones who were inside, distracted by the invisible force that just destroyed their jail house. That makes things easier.
He's maneuvering Seven around and then inching back until the proximity alarm starts blaring. Kim kills it. Miller watches him from the corner of his eye as he snuggles Seven right up to Eight. When they get back Atlantis, he's going to hear some bad jokes about that, he's sure. Kim makes a kill it gesture with his hands and he stops Seven.
"The sergeant told me not to open the door for anything."
"That's right," he says. Now he knows how a cop trying to talk to a kid who's been instructed not to talk to strangers feels. Frustrated, but kind of approving too. At least Simpson listened to Reyes. What happened wasn't for nothing, because Simpson is still alive in there and they will get her out. "But you know he didn't mean you to stay there forever. Just until it was safe."
"Is it safe?"
McKay's acerbic voice interrupts before he can answer. "Safe!? Simpson, what galaxy have you been visiting, because it obviously hasn't been Pegasus. When have we ever been safe here? Just do what the nice grunt tells you and get in that jumper. And be thankful you aren't stuck here in mine with twenty screaming, puking, kicking brats!"
Oddly enough, that works.
"Okay," Simpson radios.
He hits the hatch release and hears it hit Eight's hatch with a bone-shaking clang.
"Terim, Fillad -"
The two Athosians are already scrambling into Eight's badly ripped up rear compartment. Miller really wants to go with them, but knows leaving the pilot's seat would be taking the hotdogging way, way too far. Sheppard would have him up on charges for that, because they don't need to lose another jumper, along with Kim.
Kim has his seat turned around and is watching, while Miller monitors the cameras. The Hekans are starting to inch back toward the downed jumper, unable to see Seven hovering right in front of it, thanks to the cloak.
"We have her!" Fillad shouts and Kim gives a sharp nod. One of them has already activated the hatch closure according to the console in front of him. When it's sealed, Miller sends Seven straight up as fast as he can. There's sweat running down his sides.
"Hey, watch where you're going!" Crown squawks on the radio.
He risks a quick glance to the back of the jumper. Simpson is on the deck, curled into a fetal ball, with one hand jammed over her mouth. From where he is, Miller can't tell, but he'd bet her eyes are glazed. Watching it on camera was hell, being right there, hearing Reyes' death, had to have been worse. Fillad and Terim are flanking her, talking to her quietly, one of them wrapping his jacket around her shoulders. He switches his attention back to flying and not hitting Crown's jumper or the other two &nash; Colonel Sheppard and Lt. Palecki's - arrowing toward them at max military thrust. There isn't anything he can do for Simpson now except get her back to Atlantis as fast as possible.
"Cleo Three Alpha, this is Cleo Seven. Have retrieved Athosian personnel and Dr. Simpson from ground. Over."
There's a pause.
"Head for the gate, Cleo Seven," Sheppard says. The second jumper changes course to a more direct line back to the gate. Sheppard's stays on course for the village. "All Cleo units, withdraw to the stargate and prepare to return to base after dumping your ordnance. Copy? Over."
"Roger that, Colonel," Crown replies.
"Where do you want us to drop the shells?" Palecki asks.
"Drop them on the crater where the Ancient Outpost was," McKay says. "You can't miss it and there shouldn't be anything left there."
"Check your lifesign detectors first. Over," Sheppard adds.
Miller sets his course for the gate. Once there, the crater will be visible. It's a good target, impossible to mistake for anything else.
~*~
Rodney closes the bulkhead door and shuts out the wailing kids jammed everywhere in the rear compartment. Not even yelling shut up at the top of his lungs has worked and they pay even less attention to Sheppard. Not that Sheppard's wasting time trying to calm them down. She's barreling the jumper straight for the village of the damned - excuse him - the latest Hekan hellhole at top speed.
He's rarely seen her expression any grimmer. In the aftermath of the nanovirus thing, when he came down to the makeshift morgue to pay some kind of respects to Dumais and Wagner and the rest of the casualties, Sheppard was pulling the sheet back over Peterson's face and looked like this.
"You couldn't anticipate this," he says.
"It's my job to anticipate just this." The flat tone doesn't invite commiseration.
"Sheppard - "
"Shut up, Rodney, okay?" she snaps. "This isn't the time or the place."
"Fine."
They arc over the village and spot the jumper in the square. Reyes body is there too, splayed out, pale and limp in the dirt, abandoned. The entire square appears abandoned. Maybe the entire village. Rodney pulls up a lifesigns reading on the co-pilot's display. The dots representing the Hekans are streaming away from the village. There's no one left there.
Sheppard's hands are white on the control stick, which is rarer than the grim look. Rodney opens the bulkhead and is hit with a miasma of puke and urine and smoke that has him clamping his hand over his nose. He picks his way over the kids, most of them still tied up - and that's just as well, who knows what they'd wreck with their sticky fingers if they were loose? - and opens Bin Ten. He'd found out what Bin Ten held years ago.
The bodybags.
He lays one out of the deck, unzips it, all ready. Sheppard isn't going to want to waste any time. But they don't leave anyone behind. They don't leave their dead if they can help it.
They circle twice, just to be sure, then land next to Reyes' body.
Rodney has his nine millimeter in his hand and is out the jumper before Sheppard has it completely settled on the ground. Sheppard is behind him only a moment later, P90 swiveling, eyes sharp. The flashlight makes solid-looking beams in the smoke-laden air. The only thing moving is one of those dog-creatures. It squeals at them then runs.
They reach reach the body and Rodney holsters his pistol so that he can use both arms to lift beneath Reyes' shoulders. Sheppard gets an arm around both ankles and lifts awkwardly, keep her other hand on the P90. They heft and stumble back into the jumper. They drop Reyes once, but Rodney knows it doesn't matter now. Any marks left will be lost in the damage the Hekans did.
The kids inside go mostly silent, except for some hiccuping, snotty sobs from the littlest, when they see the body.
"I'm going to check the other jumper," he tells Sheppard as she's zipping the bodybag up, mercifully hiding Reyes's ruined head.
"No," Sheppard snaps.
"I need to evaluate it."
"You need someone to watch your back."
"Then come on, because I'm not any happier staying here than you are," he snarls back.
Sheppard glares up at him through a fringe of dark hair, but says nothing, pressing her lips together and rising instead. She gestures with the P90, a wordless let's go.
Jumper Eight is a dead loss. Crystals smashed, circuitry jerked out and strewn over the deck. Everything inside is torn to pieces or burnt. Simpson didn't close the bulkhead door behind her and the Hekans have been in the cockpit too. It smells like they pissed in there.
"McKay?" Sheppard's right there at his shoulder, looking like seeing this magnificent piece of machinery broken and vandalized hurts her as much as it does Rodney. "How bad is it?" Like she can't see how bad it is, but she's letting him say it, giving him that much control.
"It doesn't get any worse, Colonel."
She scans the cockpit and winces over the smashed and still sparking control panels. "Okay. Fixable?"
"Not even by the Ancients," Rodney admits.
"You sure? You and Zelenka - "
"The last time we tried to repair a jumper that had even a quarter of this damage I ended up under an ocean, if you'll remember. We're writing this one off."
Sheppard's mouth quirks into an almost smile for an instant. "I'd hate to be the agent who wrote the policies for Atlantis."
Rodney can't help the snort of laughter. It's inappropriate and stupid and he's helplessly reminded of the life insurance policy he made out before the expedition left Earth. He left the obscene death benefits to Jeanie , with the caveat she find and take care of his cat for the rest of its life.
"Time to go," Sheppard declares.
"Do we just leave it here?" Rodney asks as soon as they're back in their jumper.
Sheppard drops into the pilot's seat, displays flaring to life before she even touches anything.
"No. On the off chance someone could salvage something from the wreckage - which we don't want because they might figure out better ways to shoot our other jumpers down - we blow it up."
Rodney settles into his own seat.
"Oh, I should have known."
"Lorne should have drones loaded in Jumper One. When he gets here, he can do it," Sheppard adds. She lifts the jumper and sets it on course for the stargate.
As if conjured by his name, Lorne's voice comes over the radio. "Cleo Three Alpha, this is Jumper One. I have the marine reaction team onboard. Where do you want us? Over."
~*~
Part 23