Truce or Treachery - August 4th
Twisted Shorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge - Day 4
Title: Truce or Treachery
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/SG:A
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Stargate people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Atlantis must trust an enemy or face a bigger threat.
Notes: Part 35 of Faith Sheppard - Links Page
Seasons: Post-series/Season 2
Word Count: 2530
Faith guided the Jumper into the bay and set it down. Ronon jumped up as soon as the door opened and started guiding Athosians out. Teyla exited the second Jumper and did the same.
They expected a Wraith Hive ship to arrive within a few hours. The Daedalus and Orion were out of sensor range, preparing. They weren’t sure the Orion would be up to the task, it had been the duty of Rodney and nearly a dozen specialists to work on her - sublight was working, hyperdrive was possible, but weapons were unlikely and shields were questionable.
Ronon ran back in and slid into the seat. “Ready.”
Faith shot the Jumper back into the air and took off for the Mainland. They were on a timer and there were still a few more trips. Two Jumpers followed her out.
“You like to fly,” Ronon noted as she grinned.
“It’s a Sheppard trait,” she replied as she looked at him. She smiled. “Great hair, flying, stupid stunts…”
“Haly was with Halling.”
“Yeah, hopefully she’ll stay there.”
“You don’t think she will?”
“Stupid stunts,” she reminded him. “Haly is a Sheppard through and through.”
88888888
Faith and Elizabeth held their breath as the Wraith Hive ship entered a geosynchronous orbit of Lantea’s atmosphere.
“You could be a little more chatty, Elizabeth,” John said over the radio where he was acting as pilot for the Orion.
“I’m sorry,” Weir said softly, “we’re just waiting for them to make the next move.”
“Transmitting a signal,” Chuck reported suddenly, “audio only.”
“Put it on speaker.”
A male voice, raspy, came through the speaker, “We know you are there. We mean you no harm. Please respond.”
“It’s repeating again,” Chuck said.
“We mean you no harm. There is no point in hiding, Doctor Weir. We know you are there. We mean you no harm. Please respond.”
“Is that who I think it is?” John asked.
“He’s addressing me by name,” Elizabeth said. “I think we can assume its Michael.”
Faith straightened, her gaze going to Teyla.
She nodded. “I believe that is his voice.”
“You don’t actually intend to respond,” Caldwell said.
“Why not?” Elizabeth said.
“Where d’you want me to start?”
“I think we can safely say our cover is blown.”
“I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion.”
“The message is from Michael, Colonel.”
“They know we’re here,” Ronon pointed out.
“But they don’t know exactly where.”
“He right,” John agreed. “Answer them and we guarantee the first shot won’t miss.”
“Teyla?” Elizabeth asked.
“Any attempt on my part to connect with Michael will confirm our location as surely as if you answered by radio,” Teyla replied regretfully.
88888888
The conference room was full as all of John’s team, Faith, Elizabeth, Radek, Carson, and Caldwell discussed the situation. Michael’s Hive wanted the retrovirus. Blackmailing Atlantis, threatening to reveal their not-so-destroyed status.
“Well,” Caldwell said, “I think it’s safe to say that if they were going to attack us, they would have done it by now. They let Daedalus land without incident.”
“And you’re sure they don’t know about the Orion?” Elizabeth asked.
“I ordered Lorne to park her just outside of sensor range,” John assured.
“This - this is incredible,” Rodney said where he was on his laptop. “I can’t believe they actually sent this over so freely. I mean, if I can figure out how to break through this program - which is, you know, pretty likely - we could nuke any Hive ship we came across.”
“Including Michael’s?” Elizabeth asked.
“Well, it might take a couple of extra tries the first time.”
“Long enough to tell the rest of the Wraith we’re still around,” John pointed out.
“If they really are willing to let me run tests on their ship… I mean, this is a - it’s an amazing opportunity, Elizabeth!”
“Well, think about it. This is essentially our idea. We created the retrovirus in order to do exactly what they’re proposing we do. What’s the down side? I mean other than the fact that we’d be working with the Wraith?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Caldwell suggested.
“It would mean at least something good came of our experiment with Michael,” Carson said, a note of regret in his voice.
“I’m not sure we have a choice,” Teyla said. “It appears they have kept our existence a secret, but if we do not help…”
“There is that,” Elizabeth agreed. “Carson, I know you’ve been working on the weaponizing the retrovirus. How close are you?”
“We’re close. It still needs work, but we’re close.”
Elizabeth looked at Ronon and Faith.
“What?” Ronon asked, shifting.
“What do you think?”
“Let’s do it.” Her eyebrows rose but she regarded Faith. “And you?”
Faith nodded but when everyone left she remained seated until it was just her and Elizabeth.
“You aren’t saying something,” Elizabeth noted.
“I have a feeling.”
“Like just before the Siege?”
She shook her head. “Different. Like that feeling when you are trying to balance on a seesaw. Too far one way and you’ll go tumbling down. But too far the other and…”
“Same result, different direction.”
“Exactly.”
88888888
Haly appreciated being short from time to time. This was one of the times. She was able to elbow between the scientists and see what was happening. The Wraith Darts were well known by her people, but it was rare to see an actual Wraith. So she was startled to see a tall woman with dark hair, dressed in all white.
“A queen,” she whispered. Then there was a Wraith with short white hair and a dark coat. “Michael!” she said in surprise.
His head tilted and his gaze met hers. But he did not pause or directly address that he had heard her. The military contingent keeping civilians off to the side and the escorts with the Queen, Michael, and the other Wraith were keeping a deliberately fast pace.
A hand clamped down on her shoulder.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Radek said. “Go back, Haly.”
She nodded and pushed back through the crowd.
88888888
“Are you sure?” Faith asked.
Teyla nodded. “Yes.”
Faith rubbed a hand over her face. “I’m glad I convinced Ronon to guard Carson and Radek in the lab.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Let’s admit, this is more personal for him than me.”
They entered the infirmary, passing the security and escort guards. The Wraith known as Michael stood looking at the isolation room bed.
“Hello, Michael,” Teyla said serenely, projecting calm and peace.
“It seemed right to come back here,” Michael said, “and to see you. Thank you for coming. You didn’t need to bring an escort.”
“Faith is a friend.”
“You are Haly’s mother,” Michael said.
“I am,” Faith claimed without hesitation.
The corner of his mouth tipped up. His gaze returned to Teyla and his face took a strange expression. “The last time I saw you, I really was going to feed on you, but it was not a matter of choice. It was…instinct.”
“That is what you have come here to say?” Teyla said blankly.
Michael sighed. “You have given me a very rare perspective among the Wraith. Few of us have ever come to know the humans we are going to feed on as anything more than a means to survive - and still, I would do what I had to do. But what you did to me…”
“We did the same,” Teyla pointed out. “To survive.”
“I thought you were trying to help me.”
“You did?” Faith asked.
“We’re not as different as you think,” Michael said hotly.
“We are nothing like you,” Teyla retorted angrily.
Michael laughed. “You are a lot more like us than you allow yourselves to believe.”
“I will not argue with you, Michael. It is pointless.”
“If we are to make this alliance work, we must both overcome the instincts that define us.” He considered Teyla. “We will not meet again.
“Goodbye,” Teyla said emotionlessly.
He bowed his head in deference to her.
Teyla turned and left the isolation room. Faith remained behind her gaze on Michael. She tilted her head, taking him in.
“Something on your mind?” he asked, his voice not quite as even as he intended.
She slowly moved closer, regarding him.
“Faith,” someone snapped behind her.
She recognized the voice. “I know what I’m doing, Stevens,” she replied.
She heard his grip change on his weapon.
“You were not here when they used the retrovirus on me,” Michael said.
“I was a guest of another reoccurring enemy,” she replied.
“Did you come to threaten me?”
“No. I’ll leave that to John and Ronon.” She shifted as she considered him.
“Do you approve of what they did?”
“We had to test the retrovirus. That doesn’t mean that they handled everything perfectly.” She blinked. “Instincts are a bitch.”
“I assume that is a human saying.”
“It means I understand what they won’t admit to.”
“And what is that?”
“We’re all ruled by instinct.” She paced slowly as she talked, keeping the bed between them. “Both of our ancestors were cave-dwelling, fearing the steps of larger more dangerous predators.”
“From what I understand of our history - Atlantis believes that we are descended of the same ancestors.”
“True. Which would make us distant cousins.” She sighed. “The question is, how human are the Wraith?”
“Not as much as you would hope - they would not negotiate if they did not need a food source.”
“They,” she said as she came to a stop and turned to him, “not ‘we.’”
The slip was apparently disturbing for she saw Michael’s hackles rise.
“You suggested that the retrovirus was an attempt to save you.” She took in his yellow eyes. “Do you want to be saved?”
His face angrily closed off.
“That’s the thing, isn’t it, Michael. You don’t know what you want.”
He hissed at her and walked out the far door with his two escorts.
Stevens sighed. “Really, Faith?”
“Wraith don’t read as demons,” she told him. “At least not all of them.”
“Not all of them?”
“Actually, only the Queen sets off my demon sensor.”
“Think it means something?”
“I don’t know. But I recognize Michael.”
“You do?” he asked in surprise. “From where?”
“The basement, the mansion, the mirror,” she replied softly, puzzling her teammate.
88888888
“Don’t you need to go?” Haly asked.
“No. Either it will work and they’ll report back or it won’t and they’ll report back,” Faith replied as she opened up the schematics.
“Michael looks strange as a Wraith.”
Faith turned to look at her. “You saw him?”
Haly nodded. “When he and the Queen were meeting Doctor Weir.”
“You still see the human that he was?”
“Sure, he didn’t look completely different.”
Faith nodded.
The door opened and she looked up to see Carson enter. “Oh, lassies, what did we do?”
Faith crossed to him and set a hand on his shoulder.
His voice was guilt-laced and rough. “The retrovirus is going to be used to kill thousands.” He took a deep breath. “Elizabeth said it depends on your definition of ‘human.’”
She chuckled. “Yeah, she would say that.”
He pulled back to look at her.
“Carson, I’m the Slayer and despite what anyone wants to argue, I’m not human. The idea that to be human is the end all be all of existence is pretty narrow for scientists and explorers.” She gave him a tilted smile. “But we have to accept the necessary evil, Wraith need to feed - the fact that they are all awake, that’s on us. We can scramble to save a handful of worlds. Or…we can let the Wraith destroy their own.”
“But once the retrovirus is used, they aren’t Wraith!”
“No, and they’re not humans. They are causalities of war. If that means they die at the hands of their conquerors, it’d be no different than if we taught them to use a knockout gas and blew up their ships.”
He shook his head. “That is a twisted way to see it.”
“Yes, it is. Atlantis made its choice when it created Michael, having regrets and seeing the big picture now, doesn’t mean we can stop the train barreling towards us.” She sighed. “You can’t have it both ways, Carson. Either we destroy the Wraith or we are destroyed. Waffling about how that victory is obtained is…missing the entire point of the war.”
It was obvious this was not the response he expected, he turned and left.
Faith closed her eyes and shook her head.
“He was mad,” Haly said.
“Guilty, he felt guilty. Anger directed at his involvement in the situation.”
88888888
Faith paced Elizabeth’s office. She paused as Elizabeth, Radek, Teyla, and Caldwell entered.
“I’ve got a broken ship and serious casualties,” he said. “I don’t know what sort of response you have in mind, bu-”
“I want you to redeploy,” Elizabeth said, “immediately.”
Caldwell came up short. “Excuse me?”
“As long as they’re still in striking distance, we have to at least try.”
“You know we can’t intercept them in hyperspace.”
Faith concentrated on the information she had. The first attempt to transform a Hive had been detected immediately and damaged the Queen’s vessel. The second attempt seems to have been a double cross as the friend Wraith had turned on them with the help of the target Hive.
“Rodney, Ronon, John?” she finally asked, breaking through Caldwell’s words.
“Last we know McKay and Ronon were on the friendly Hive.” He looked at her square in the eye. “Sheppard is assumed lost.”
Faith jerked her chin down. “Then I’ll be with your ship with we redeploy.”
“You will?” three voices said at once.
“Lorne has the Orion in hand. But if something happens, I can’t risk losing concentration beaming from one ship to the other.”
“Carson has told you that it is dangerous,” Teyla said.
“Protecting Earth is the mandate, right? This has to be done.”
Caldwell looked at her a moment before nodding. “There are repairs that need to be made.”
“Do what you have to do,” Elizabeth told them.
“Teyla,” Faith said. “Haly…I don’t want to tell her until this all over, until we know the outcomes for sure.”
They shared a long look of understanding, of grim reality.
Teyla nodded. “We will wait for the final reports to tell her.”
“Thank you.”
88888888
Faith watched the hyperspace corridor as the Daedalus raced to the coordinates to intercept the Hives.
“Miss,” someone said.
Faith turned and looked at a young man who had approached her. “Major Lorne is looking for you on comms.”
Faith reached into her pocket and removed the earwig. “Sorry.”
The man smiled.
“Go for Faith,” she said as soon as she was alone again.
“How you doing?” Evan’s voice asked.
“Worried about me, Evan?”
“Easier to focus on you than the repairs being done by Zelenka in hyperspace as we head for a battle where the only goal is destruction to prevent the Hives from reaching Earth.”
“Be too easy if the ships were prepared and we didn’t have people aboard the places we’re going to destroy.”
“So, I ask again,” he said, his voice a whisper. “How are you doing?”
Faith considered. Despite what she had told Teyla…“I have hope, Evan. Not a lot, but enough.”
Title: Truce or Treachery
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/SG:A
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Stargate people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Atlantis must trust an enemy or face a bigger threat.
Notes: Part 35 of Faith Sheppard - Links Page
Seasons: Post-series/Season 2
Word Count: 2530
Faith guided the Jumper into the bay and set it down. Ronon jumped up as soon as the door opened and started guiding Athosians out. Teyla exited the second Jumper and did the same.
They expected a Wraith Hive ship to arrive within a few hours. The Daedalus and Orion were out of sensor range, preparing. They weren’t sure the Orion would be up to the task, it had been the duty of Rodney and nearly a dozen specialists to work on her - sublight was working, hyperdrive was possible, but weapons were unlikely and shields were questionable.
Ronon ran back in and slid into the seat. “Ready.”
Faith shot the Jumper back into the air and took off for the Mainland. They were on a timer and there were still a few more trips. Two Jumpers followed her out.
“You like to fly,” Ronon noted as she grinned.
“It’s a Sheppard trait,” she replied as she looked at him. She smiled. “Great hair, flying, stupid stunts…”
“Haly was with Halling.”
“Yeah, hopefully she’ll stay there.”
“You don’t think she will?”
“Stupid stunts,” she reminded him. “Haly is a Sheppard through and through.”
88888888
Faith and Elizabeth held their breath as the Wraith Hive ship entered a geosynchronous orbit of Lantea’s atmosphere.
“You could be a little more chatty, Elizabeth,” John said over the radio where he was acting as pilot for the Orion.
“I’m sorry,” Weir said softly, “we’re just waiting for them to make the next move.”
“Transmitting a signal,” Chuck reported suddenly, “audio only.”
“Put it on speaker.”
A male voice, raspy, came through the speaker, “We know you are there. We mean you no harm. Please respond.”
“It’s repeating again,” Chuck said.
“We mean you no harm. There is no point in hiding, Doctor Weir. We know you are there. We mean you no harm. Please respond.”
“Is that who I think it is?” John asked.
“He’s addressing me by name,” Elizabeth said. “I think we can assume its Michael.”
Faith straightened, her gaze going to Teyla.
She nodded. “I believe that is his voice.”
“You don’t actually intend to respond,” Caldwell said.
“Why not?” Elizabeth said.
“Where d’you want me to start?”
“I think we can safely say our cover is blown.”
“I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion.”
“The message is from Michael, Colonel.”
“They know we’re here,” Ronon pointed out.
“But they don’t know exactly where.”
“He right,” John agreed. “Answer them and we guarantee the first shot won’t miss.”
“Teyla?” Elizabeth asked.
“Any attempt on my part to connect with Michael will confirm our location as surely as if you answered by radio,” Teyla replied regretfully.
88888888
The conference room was full as all of John’s team, Faith, Elizabeth, Radek, Carson, and Caldwell discussed the situation. Michael’s Hive wanted the retrovirus. Blackmailing Atlantis, threatening to reveal their not-so-destroyed status.
“Well,” Caldwell said, “I think it’s safe to say that if they were going to attack us, they would have done it by now. They let Daedalus land without incident.”
“And you’re sure they don’t know about the Orion?” Elizabeth asked.
“I ordered Lorne to park her just outside of sensor range,” John assured.
“This - this is incredible,” Rodney said where he was on his laptop. “I can’t believe they actually sent this over so freely. I mean, if I can figure out how to break through this program - which is, you know, pretty likely - we could nuke any Hive ship we came across.”
“Including Michael’s?” Elizabeth asked.
“Well, it might take a couple of extra tries the first time.”
“Long enough to tell the rest of the Wraith we’re still around,” John pointed out.
“If they really are willing to let me run tests on their ship… I mean, this is a - it’s an amazing opportunity, Elizabeth!”
“Well, think about it. This is essentially our idea. We created the retrovirus in order to do exactly what they’re proposing we do. What’s the down side? I mean other than the fact that we’d be working with the Wraith?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Caldwell suggested.
“It would mean at least something good came of our experiment with Michael,” Carson said, a note of regret in his voice.
“I’m not sure we have a choice,” Teyla said. “It appears they have kept our existence a secret, but if we do not help…”
“There is that,” Elizabeth agreed. “Carson, I know you’ve been working on the weaponizing the retrovirus. How close are you?”
“We’re close. It still needs work, but we’re close.”
Elizabeth looked at Ronon and Faith.
“What?” Ronon asked, shifting.
“What do you think?”
“Let’s do it.” Her eyebrows rose but she regarded Faith. “And you?”
Faith nodded but when everyone left she remained seated until it was just her and Elizabeth.
“You aren’t saying something,” Elizabeth noted.
“I have a feeling.”
“Like just before the Siege?”
She shook her head. “Different. Like that feeling when you are trying to balance on a seesaw. Too far one way and you’ll go tumbling down. But too far the other and…”
“Same result, different direction.”
“Exactly.”
88888888
Haly appreciated being short from time to time. This was one of the times. She was able to elbow between the scientists and see what was happening. The Wraith Darts were well known by her people, but it was rare to see an actual Wraith. So she was startled to see a tall woman with dark hair, dressed in all white.
“A queen,” she whispered. Then there was a Wraith with short white hair and a dark coat. “Michael!” she said in surprise.
His head tilted and his gaze met hers. But he did not pause or directly address that he had heard her. The military contingent keeping civilians off to the side and the escorts with the Queen, Michael, and the other Wraith were keeping a deliberately fast pace.
A hand clamped down on her shoulder.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Radek said. “Go back, Haly.”
She nodded and pushed back through the crowd.
88888888
“Are you sure?” Faith asked.
Teyla nodded. “Yes.”
Faith rubbed a hand over her face. “I’m glad I convinced Ronon to guard Carson and Radek in the lab.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Let’s admit, this is more personal for him than me.”
They entered the infirmary, passing the security and escort guards. The Wraith known as Michael stood looking at the isolation room bed.
“Hello, Michael,” Teyla said serenely, projecting calm and peace.
“It seemed right to come back here,” Michael said, “and to see you. Thank you for coming. You didn’t need to bring an escort.”
“Faith is a friend.”
“You are Haly’s mother,” Michael said.
“I am,” Faith claimed without hesitation.
The corner of his mouth tipped up. His gaze returned to Teyla and his face took a strange expression. “The last time I saw you, I really was going to feed on you, but it was not a matter of choice. It was…instinct.”
“That is what you have come here to say?” Teyla said blankly.
Michael sighed. “You have given me a very rare perspective among the Wraith. Few of us have ever come to know the humans we are going to feed on as anything more than a means to survive - and still, I would do what I had to do. But what you did to me…”
“We did the same,” Teyla pointed out. “To survive.”
“I thought you were trying to help me.”
“You did?” Faith asked.
“We’re not as different as you think,” Michael said hotly.
“We are nothing like you,” Teyla retorted angrily.
Michael laughed. “You are a lot more like us than you allow yourselves to believe.”
“I will not argue with you, Michael. It is pointless.”
“If we are to make this alliance work, we must both overcome the instincts that define us.” He considered Teyla. “We will not meet again.
“Goodbye,” Teyla said emotionlessly.
He bowed his head in deference to her.
Teyla turned and left the isolation room. Faith remained behind her gaze on Michael. She tilted her head, taking him in.
“Something on your mind?” he asked, his voice not quite as even as he intended.
She slowly moved closer, regarding him.
“Faith,” someone snapped behind her.
She recognized the voice. “I know what I’m doing, Stevens,” she replied.
She heard his grip change on his weapon.
“You were not here when they used the retrovirus on me,” Michael said.
“I was a guest of another reoccurring enemy,” she replied.
“Did you come to threaten me?”
“No. I’ll leave that to John and Ronon.” She shifted as she considered him.
“Do you approve of what they did?”
“We had to test the retrovirus. That doesn’t mean that they handled everything perfectly.” She blinked. “Instincts are a bitch.”
“I assume that is a human saying.”
“It means I understand what they won’t admit to.”
“And what is that?”
“We’re all ruled by instinct.” She paced slowly as she talked, keeping the bed between them. “Both of our ancestors were cave-dwelling, fearing the steps of larger more dangerous predators.”
“From what I understand of our history - Atlantis believes that we are descended of the same ancestors.”
“True. Which would make us distant cousins.” She sighed. “The question is, how human are the Wraith?”
“Not as much as you would hope - they would not negotiate if they did not need a food source.”
“They,” she said as she came to a stop and turned to him, “not ‘we.’”
The slip was apparently disturbing for she saw Michael’s hackles rise.
“You suggested that the retrovirus was an attempt to save you.” She took in his yellow eyes. “Do you want to be saved?”
His face angrily closed off.
“That’s the thing, isn’t it, Michael. You don’t know what you want.”
He hissed at her and walked out the far door with his two escorts.
Stevens sighed. “Really, Faith?”
“Wraith don’t read as demons,” she told him. “At least not all of them.”
“Not all of them?”
“Actually, only the Queen sets off my demon sensor.”
“Think it means something?”
“I don’t know. But I recognize Michael.”
“You do?” he asked in surprise. “From where?”
“The basement, the mansion, the mirror,” she replied softly, puzzling her teammate.
88888888
“Don’t you need to go?” Haly asked.
“No. Either it will work and they’ll report back or it won’t and they’ll report back,” Faith replied as she opened up the schematics.
“Michael looks strange as a Wraith.”
Faith turned to look at her. “You saw him?”
Haly nodded. “When he and the Queen were meeting Doctor Weir.”
“You still see the human that he was?”
“Sure, he didn’t look completely different.”
Faith nodded.
The door opened and she looked up to see Carson enter. “Oh, lassies, what did we do?”
Faith crossed to him and set a hand on his shoulder.
His voice was guilt-laced and rough. “The retrovirus is going to be used to kill thousands.” He took a deep breath. “Elizabeth said it depends on your definition of ‘human.’”
She chuckled. “Yeah, she would say that.”
He pulled back to look at her.
“Carson, I’m the Slayer and despite what anyone wants to argue, I’m not human. The idea that to be human is the end all be all of existence is pretty narrow for scientists and explorers.” She gave him a tilted smile. “But we have to accept the necessary evil, Wraith need to feed - the fact that they are all awake, that’s on us. We can scramble to save a handful of worlds. Or…we can let the Wraith destroy their own.”
“But once the retrovirus is used, they aren’t Wraith!”
“No, and they’re not humans. They are causalities of war. If that means they die at the hands of their conquerors, it’d be no different than if we taught them to use a knockout gas and blew up their ships.”
He shook his head. “That is a twisted way to see it.”
“Yes, it is. Atlantis made its choice when it created Michael, having regrets and seeing the big picture now, doesn’t mean we can stop the train barreling towards us.” She sighed. “You can’t have it both ways, Carson. Either we destroy the Wraith or we are destroyed. Waffling about how that victory is obtained is…missing the entire point of the war.”
It was obvious this was not the response he expected, he turned and left.
Faith closed her eyes and shook her head.
“He was mad,” Haly said.
“Guilty, he felt guilty. Anger directed at his involvement in the situation.”
88888888
Faith paced Elizabeth’s office. She paused as Elizabeth, Radek, Teyla, and Caldwell entered.
“I’ve got a broken ship and serious casualties,” he said. “I don’t know what sort of response you have in mind, bu-”
“I want you to redeploy,” Elizabeth said, “immediately.”
Caldwell came up short. “Excuse me?”
“As long as they’re still in striking distance, we have to at least try.”
“You know we can’t intercept them in hyperspace.”
Faith concentrated on the information she had. The first attempt to transform a Hive had been detected immediately and damaged the Queen’s vessel. The second attempt seems to have been a double cross as the friend Wraith had turned on them with the help of the target Hive.
“Rodney, Ronon, John?” she finally asked, breaking through Caldwell’s words.
“Last we know McKay and Ronon were on the friendly Hive.” He looked at her square in the eye. “Sheppard is assumed lost.”
Faith jerked her chin down. “Then I’ll be with your ship with we redeploy.”
“You will?” three voices said at once.
“Lorne has the Orion in hand. But if something happens, I can’t risk losing concentration beaming from one ship to the other.”
“Carson has told you that it is dangerous,” Teyla said.
“Protecting Earth is the mandate, right? This has to be done.”
Caldwell looked at her a moment before nodding. “There are repairs that need to be made.”
“Do what you have to do,” Elizabeth told them.
“Teyla,” Faith said. “Haly…I don’t want to tell her until this all over, until we know the outcomes for sure.”
They shared a long look of understanding, of grim reality.
Teyla nodded. “We will wait for the final reports to tell her.”
“Thank you.”
88888888
Faith watched the hyperspace corridor as the Daedalus raced to the coordinates to intercept the Hives.
“Miss,” someone said.
Faith turned and looked at a young man who had approached her. “Major Lorne is looking for you on comms.”
Faith reached into her pocket and removed the earwig. “Sorry.”
The man smiled.
“Go for Faith,” she said as soon as she was alone again.
“How you doing?” Evan’s voice asked.
“Worried about me, Evan?”
“Easier to focus on you than the repairs being done by Zelenka in hyperspace as we head for a battle where the only goal is destruction to prevent the Hives from reaching Earth.”
“Be too easy if the ships were prepared and we didn’t have people aboard the places we’re going to destroy.”
“So, I ask again,” he said, his voice a whisper. “How are you doing?”
Faith considered. Despite what she had told Teyla…“I have hope, Evan. Not a lot, but enough.”