"I'll look for somewhere to put us down." He slowed the Jumper, searching for a clearing.
Behind him, Bishop was peering at the hand-held scanner. "Red dots mean Wraiths, right?"
"Yup,"
"That's not good, sir. This thing looks like it's got the measles." The soldier held up the device; the small screen was speckled with shifting red symbols spread out over the entire area.
Ronon stroked his chin. "We could hit them from the air with the drones. That might thin them out a little."
Sheppard nodded. "Nice idea, but we have to bring this creep back intact, remember? Somehow I'm guessing Daus won't accept a bunch of Wraith cold cuts instead." A clearing appeared to port and he put the ship into a hover. "Here we go. I want a quick dispersal when we hit the dirt. Two fire teams; Ronon's with me, Teyla goes with Bishop."
He heard the noise and it brought him up short. The nerves in limbs went tight with anticipation, a reaction so ingrained in his physiology that it happened without conscious thought. The others with him snarled and yowled at one another, spooked by their pack leader's sudden change in manner. He turned his face to them and showed a mouth full of fangs, hissing sibilantly. They quieted, retreating, cowed into submission like the animals that they had become.
He looked up; yes, his senses had not deceived him. The sound that reached through the forest canopy was not the rhyth mic thrum of a propeller, not the noise from the human air vessels that came and went, dropping off fresh prey. This sound touched a chord inside him, it flashed on a memory from before. From the war. Before the long sleep.
Movement above. It appeared and disappeared through a gap in the trees, just the quickest flash of dark green metal, antigravity drives whining like insects to keep it up in the sky. Feral hate ran hot through him in a wave of recognition. An enemy ship. It was one of their craft, undoubtedly. A machine that belonged to the old adversary, the prey-race that had dared to defy the mastery of his species. So long ago.
Thoughts wheeled and turned in his mind, base desires to kill and feed warring with higher questions of how and why. He dismissed them all with a wave of his clawed hand, as if he were swatting at a nagging insect. Focus. He had to have focus.
His iron hard self-control flexed but did not break; on days such as these it was difficult to drive the haze from his mind, to concentrate on keeping his thoughts whole and alert. It would be easy to slip into the madness of the beast, just like these pitiful wretches around him. Not all of his kindred had the strength of will to fight off the static in their psyche for hour after hour, every single day. Many fell quickly, subsumed by their own animal natures, some too crazed even to recognize him for what he was, as their superior. Those they fed upon, as they were fit for nothing else. They kept his pack alive when the human prey was thin on the ground.
The ache of hunger came upon him. This was the hardest call to resist, the most basic desire of his species. He felt the tremble of the need in his arm, the fleshy gray petals of the feeding maw in his palm opening on their own.
The others backed away, whimpering. They were afraid that he would take one of them to sate himself. Instead he cocked his head, letting the white tails of his mane fall forward.
The Wraith blinked his one good eye and ran a casual finger over the ruined socket of the other, tracing a broad line of ruined tissue down his cheek. His kind healed fast, but the sword cut that had left that mark upon him had been deep and nearly fatal. He sometimes imagined that it was only his hate that had allowed him to survive such an injury; and now the same emotion propelled him forward, into the trees and after the noise of the aerial vessel.
His pack snarled and spat, loping after their scar-faced leader, picking up on his eagerness for a new kill.
The Jumper sealed behind them, the two teams split off from the landing site and made their way into the trees. Ronon's last glimpse of Teyla Emmagan was a curt nod of her head before she followed Private Bishop into the foliage. Dex gripped his particle magnum firmly in one hand, the hilt of his short sword in the other. Ahead of him, Sheppard made himself a compact silhouette, moving quickly but carefully with his P90 at his shoulder.
"Is there some kind of plan I should know about?" asked the Satedan. "Or are we just going to wander around aimlessly until we trip over some Wraith?"
"That is the plan," said the colonel, "although without the `aimless' part. We find the mark, we bag him. Simple."
"Simple," repeated Ronon, in a tone that make it clear he thought this was anything but. "I don't like following that fat aristo's orders."
"Oh, and I do?" Sheppard shook his head. "Believe me, this wasn't my first choice for getting McKay rescued either. Putting more people in harm's way..."
"Say we do this thing. What if Daus doesn't turn McKay over to us? What do we do then?"
The other man halted. "If that happens, I might revise my opinion on that airlock suggestion of yours. Until then, though, we play the hand we got."
Dex dropped into a crouch and fingered a broken plant stem protruding from the forest floor. He moved windblown leaves to uncover prints in the earth. "Wraith. These are recent. Less than a day old." Ronon pointed with his pistol. "Four of them, moving that way."
Sheppard toggled his radio. "Teyla, Bishop. We got tracks here. Four Wraith, heading in a northerly direction."
The Athosian woman halted in the shade of a tree. "I hear you, Colonel. Private Bishop has also discovered traces of Wraith activity. There are human bones here." She glanced at the ditch where the SAS soldier was standing. "It appears to be a midden."
"Copy that," came the reply. "Are you, uh, sensing anything?"
Teyla gave a slight shudder. "Yes," she said, at length. In truth, the buzz of Wraith telepathy had been slowly strengthening in her mind as they approached the enclosure, and now they were here on the ground, her preternatural sense of the predatory creatures was a constant companion. "I... I think he's watching us. There are several of them out there, but one... Just one..." She shook the thoughts away. "Be on your guard, Colonel. Scar must be close."
"Same goes for you. Shoot first if you make contact. Remember, we don't need this creep alive. Sheppard out."
Bishop moved forward. "You all right, miss?"
She nodded and set off again. "I will be."
The soldier gave her a wary look. "Can you, like, turn that off?" He tapped a finger on his temple. "I'm just thinking that if you can hear the bozos, they maybe they can hear you too."
Teyla shook her head. "I control it as best I can. Believe me, it is a `gift' I wish I was not forced to endure." She threw him a questioning look. "What is the meaning of that word you use for the Wraith?"
"What, you mean Bozo?" Teyla nodded and Bishop smirked. "Well, y'know, it's `cos of their faces. They're all pasty and white, aren't they? Like clowns." The smirk faded. "Never liked clowns, even when I was a nipper."
She was none the wiser. "The men in your cadre seem to have their own names for many things."
Bishop shrugged. "Well, it's tradition, isn't it? Psychological, yeah? Helps you to keep detached, eyes on the ball, that sorta thing. We got slang for lots of stuff."
Teyla eyed him. "Do you have names for people from Athos or Sateda? For Ronon and myself?"
"Uh." The way the soldier blinked told Teyla that the answer was yes. "It, uh. It's a gesture of respect, miss. We all got nicknames."
"What do you call us?"
Bishop looked sheepish. "Tina. And, uh, Bob. On account of how you look a bit like the singers, see." He gave a weak smile. "I'm not a big fan of the reggae bloke, but I do like that song she does, the one about the dancer-" He broke off.
Teyla heard it too; something moving in the undergrowth.
"Target," growled the soldier, all humor forgotten, bringing his L85 up to sight down the barrel. A gray shape detached itself from the shadow of a fallen tree trunk and threw itself at them. Bishop's rifle snarled and his shots caught the Wraith at the start of a leap, slamming it b
ack down into the dirt.
"More!" snapped the woman, as other aliens burst from cover and came at them. Teyla had her P90 set in burst-fire mode and she unleashed ripping discharges of bullets into the Wraiths that raced at them. Glancing hits twisted one about and she was forced to hit him again just to put the creature out for good. She sensed Bishop draw closer to her, bringing their corridors of fire together.
Almost as quickly as they attacked, the Wraith were either dead or retreating.
"What the hell was that all about?" said the Private.
Teyla's brow furrowed as the sense of the feral minds brushed against her psyche. "He's out there... Watching. He's testing us. Measuring our skills."
"Contact!" cried Sheppard, as the first three Wraiths dropped from the trees overhead. On full automatic, he tore a fist-sized wound in the killer that went for his chest, blasting the alien around into a lethal pirouette.
The crackling howl of Ronon's energy pistol sounded through the air, two shots in as many heartbeats killing a second Wraith attacker before the beast's corpse could strike the forest floor.
The third was already sweeping in and went at the colonel with a massive club cut from a rough-hewn section of tree branch. Sheppard ducked and dodged a blow that could have caved in his skull, but the strike caught his P90 and the submachinegun spun from his grip and away. John went low as the alien reversed his attack and threw out two quick kicks to the knee, hard and accurate blows that would have shattered the bones of a normal human being. The Wraith gave a cursory grunt and threw itself at him, striking the colonel with a bodycheck that slammed the wind from his lungs. Sheppard cried out as the creature flattened him into the ground. Its face was just inches away from his, and the monstrous aspect of the Wraith was mad with wild hunger, strings of drool looping from its wicked snaggle teeth.
He fought back with the only weapon he could reach. Sheppard's combat knife came up in a blur and he buried the black carbon steel blade in the Wraith's eye socket, down to the hilt. The alien screamed and rolled away, clawing at its face. Dex threw him his P90 and John caught it, delivering the coup de grace to the howling creature with a single squeeze of the trigger.
Sheppard rocked back on his haunches. "Dang. That was a close one."
Ronon bent to recover the colonel's knife just as the staccato rattle of gunfire filtered through the trees. "Teyla!" snapped Dex.
"More of them, six o'clock!" shouted Bishop, pivoting on one knee to unleash another burst of fire at the advancing foe. His assault rifle's breech snapped open on an empty chamber and he tore out the ammunition clip. "Reloading!"
Teyla heard the call and turned to cover the soldier as the next wave of Wraiths ran at them. She lay down an arc of punishing fire, killing another and knocking back two more; but they were being hard pressed now, the pale-skinned creatures shifting to get behind them, blocking the route back to the clearing and the parked Puddle Jumper. Bishop slammed a new magazine into his weapon and continued shooting.
The Athosian felt her own gun run dry and quickly swapped out a fresh magazine of transparent plastic, the bullets inside rattling against one another. If these Wraiths had been armed with energy weapons, then this fight would have already been over, she realized. All they had were primitive clubs and axes with flint heads; but even those would be deadly if the aliens got close enough.
"What the hell?" She heard a note of panic in the soldier's voice and to her alarm, Bishop aimed away into the trees and fired shots at nothing. "Shadows!" he shouted. "Bloody shadows!"
"Private!" she shouted, "it's the Wraith, they're trying to deceive you! Playing tricks on your mind!" Teyla pulled him to his feet. "Concentrate!"
"Y-yeah," Bishop blinked, like he was waking from a doze. "I got it."
"Teyla! What's your situation?"
She grimaced at the voice from the radio, firing again. "Heavy Wraith contact, Colonel! We're cut off from the Jumper!"
"Find cover and dig in," replied Sheppard, "we'll come get you once we deal with our own pest problem."
Bishop jabbed a finger. "That way! Trees are thicker, it'll slow the buggers down!"
She let the soldier lead the way, sending out pulses of gunfire as the Wraiths came running after them, clambering along the branches of trees over their heads, shrieking and throwing stones. Teyla had never seen such behavior from the aliens before; the orderly and coldly vicious manner they usually displayed in combat was gone, replaced with wild and brutish attacks that bordered on frenzy.
The Athosian woman dispatched another Wraith, sending it wailing to the earth from a perch above; and then she felt it again. The pressure of one mind, hard and invasive inside her skull. Teyla could taste the raw need, and through the alien's senses it was almost as if she could hear the rapid hammering of her own heart. The Wraith the Halcyons called Scar was in her head, taunting her, and with abrupt shock she realized that he was laughing.
Alarm flooded her with adrenaline. "Bishop, no!" she cried, too late to stop him. The soldier took one step too far and stumbled. Beneath them the leaf-strewn ground gave way and disintegrated, a false trapdoor of weak wood and woven grasses yawing open. Teyla and Bishop fell into the concealed pit, tumbling against one another to land hard in the black, choking mud. She struck a half-buried stone and the light behind her eyes dimmed. Teyla's vision went to gray haze, then to blackness and silence.
"Back!" snapped Ronon, sending red streaks of energy past Sheppard and into the advancing rank of feral Wraith. Most of these creatures were barely equipped, their usual armor of chain mail and nacreous hides missing or stripped. That meant that logically they'd go down easier; the reverse seemed to be true, however. Sheppard gritted his teeth and fired on another. These untamed creatures were uncontrollable, moving without the first thought toward their personal safety, driven only by an insane hunger. Already, the colonel had seen some of the Wraith dropping back from their chase in order to savage their own fallen comrades, fighting amongst themselves to feed on their dead. John took the opportunity to introduce them to a couple of fragmentation grenades that he lobbed into the middle of the squabbling pack.
The diversion was enough to get them away, and back toward the safe ground of the Jumper. Without energy weapons, there was no way the marauding wild Wraith would be able to inflict damage on the Ancient ship. He sprinted into the clearing as Ronon cracked off shot after shot at the enemy. The Satedan's pistol was glowing hot at the muzzle. Sheppard tore the handheld from his pocket and stabbed at a pre-set code key string. In return, the Puddle Jumper's rear hatch dropped open to admit them.
"Teyla!" he shouted into his radio. "Teyla, Bishop, do you read me? We're at the Jumper!" Nothing but dead air answered him. He swore under his breath as Dex rounded the back of the shuttlecraft.
"Nothing else is moving out there," said Ronon, "at least not for the moment."
"Get in," snapped Sheppard. "I need to re-arm. Those creeps will be back."
Dex followed him inside as the hatch closed again. He stopped dead as he realized they were alone in the ship. "Where are the others?"
Grim-faced, the colonel threw a nod at the dense tree line.
The sudden silver-white flash of the wormhole's formation made Carson flinch back a little in surprise. The strange cloud of energy the Stargates emitted on activation reminded him of a plume of water, a geyser-like spring of light and color that seemed to unfold from the very air itself. Beckett had heard veterans of the SGC refer to the effect as a `kawoosh', as a nod to the sound it made as it crashed through molecules of stressed oxygen; try as he might, though, the doctor couldn't hang such a playful name on a discharge of exotic radiation that could engulf anything it came into contact with.
He fingered the combat walkie-talkie in his hand, switching the device to the pre-arranged channel for the mission, and in return he heard the hiss of static in his wireless earpiece that told him it was working. Nearby, Staff Sergeant Mason, his face impassive, approached the event horizon of the Gat
e as close as he dared. With each footstep, the mechanical turrets surrounding the Stargate whined and moved, steadily tracking Mason, ready to open fire if he flaunted Daus's commands and ran for the wormhole. The doctor counted at least a half-dozen cannons trained on them. Mason recovered a radio from his belt and weighed it in his grip. At last, he met Beckett's gaze.
"Go ahead," said Carson.
The soldier raised the radio to his lips. "Atlantis, are you receiving, over?"
Beckett half-turned as Lady Erony stepped up to the Gate Hangar's stone dais, her adjutant Linnian trailing two steps behind.
She gave a shallow nod. "I engaged the cipher on the podium personally. No record of this opening will be kept, as you requested."
From the corner of his eye, the doctor saw Mason give Erony the slightest of looks at her words. The SAS trooper's distrust of her statement could not have been plainer. In truth, Carson didn't like it any more than he did, dialing direct to Atlantis from Halcyon, but circumstances now meant that they had no other choice; and on the other side of that glimmering disc, Elizabeth Weir was waiting to hear from them.
He sighed and returned the nod. "Thank you, miss. Your discretion is appreciated."
"I have done this in defiance of my father's standing orders. He would be sorely displeased to learn of it." Erony studied him. "But then trust is a very rare commodity on Halcyon, Dr. Beckett, and I do not wish to lose what little I have already accrued with your people." She bowed a little and moved away. "Attend me when your communications are concluded."
Mason gave a small sniff of disdain. He had already made it clear to Carson that he laid the blame for McKay's abduction at Erony's feet, convinced that the girl was working for her father's ends. The doctor wanted the reverse to be true, but as she had said herself, trust was hard to find on this planet. He took a deep breath. By now, the duty officers in Atlantis's Gate Room would have alerted Elizabeth of Mason's signal, so at any second-
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