SGA-16 Homecoming - Book 1 of the Legacy Series

by Graham, Jo

  “The Manarians tried to fight back,” the older woman said. “I was here, in Trade Square. I saw them form line behind the barricades, and I knew—” She broke off, shaking her head. “They were slaughtered. The Wraith didn’t even bother to feed on them all.”

  “We think—we’re sure the same thing happened in Farrin, and Majoul,” Rou said. “And in Carnes. We couldn’t raise anyone by radio, and when we tried to get back into the city, we found the bombs. There may be more people alive, but I don’t know where. We’ve tried to look, but—nothing. It’s been seven days…” His shoulders sagged, and a younger man set a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  “We have kin on Natalplein,” he said. “Partners in trade and blood. If the gate is repaired—they’ll take us in.”

  That had the sound of an argument that had been going on for a while, Sheppard thought. There were, what, six of them, two of them kids under ten: the young guy was right, leaving was the smart thing. “How’re you doing on the gate, Rodney?”

  “Oh, it’s done.” Rodney looked briefly smug. “Where do you want me to dial first, their world, or Atlantis?”

  Sheppard hesitated—he trusted Rodney’s repairs, but if there was going to be a problem with the gate, he wanted to contact the city first—and Rou looked up sharply.

  “You’re from Atlantis? We heard the city had been destroyed.”

  “Reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated,” Sheppard said. He’d always wanted to use that line.

  “That would be good news,” the younger woman said softly. “Good news indeed.”

  “We’re here,” Ronon said.

  Teyla said, “We are back, and we are in search of allies against the Wraith, as we have always been. And also those who are willing to trade, for food and other things. When you step through the gate, I ask you remember that.”

  Rou nodded once, almost a bow. “We will certainly do so. And we will pass the word along to our own partners, as well.”

  This was better left to Teyla, Sheppard thought, and moved to join Rodney. “Are you sure you’ve got this fixed?”

  “Of course. Well, mostly.”

  Sheppard sighed. “Mostly?”

  “I’m sure.” Rodney glanced down at the DHD, still scarred by the explosion. “Yes. I’m sure.”

  “All right. Dial up this—where was it, Natalplein?” Sheppard looked over his shoulder as he spoke, and Teyla nodded.

  “Yes. Dalmas will show you the address.”

  “Right,” Sheppard answered, and a look of alarm flickered across Rodney’s face.

  “Look, maybe we should test it, dial Atlantis first—”

  “Rodney,” Sheppard said.

  “All right! All right.” Rodney moved back, and the Manarian stepped warily up to the DHD. Sheppard saw him take a deep breath, then punch the symbols quickly, as though speed might avoid another trap. The symbols flared, locked, and the wormhole opened with a whoosh of blue.

  “Go,” Rou said, and his people stumbled forward, the youngest child bundled against the young man’s chest. He followed more slowly, looked back from the edge of the gate. “Thank you, Colonel Sheppard. We won’t forget this.”

  I wish it had been more. You couldn’t say that, though, and Sheppard forced a smile. “You’re welcome.”

  Rou lifted a hand, and vanished into the event horizon. A moment later, the gate shut down. Sheppard took a breath. “Dial Atlantis,” he said.

  Rodney punched the buttons, and the gate lit again. Sheppard touched his earpiece. “Atlantis, this is Sheppard.”

  “Colonel.” That was Woolsey’s voice, sounding relieved. “We tried to dial your gate earlier and got no response. Is everything all right?”

  “Manaria’s been attacked,” Sheppard said. He couldn’t bring himself to say Culled, told himself it was because it was more than a Culling. “We’re all fine, it happened a week ago, but the DHD was booby-trapped and it took us a little while to get it back on line.”

  “Attacked by who?” Woolsey asked.

  “Looks like the Wraith,” Sheppard answered. He glanced over his shoulder at the wrecked buildings, the shadows stretching toward him as the day waned. “But it’s not a routine Culling. We spoke to some survivors. It looks as though the Wraith were out to destroy the planet.”

  “Queen Death?” Even in the attenuated broadcast, Sheppard could hear how Woolsey’s voice sharpened.

  “They didn’t say.” Sheppard made a face, annoyed that he hadn’t asked. “But it’s consistent with what we’ve seen elsewhere. Only worse.” There was a little sound that might have been a sigh or a curse. Sheppard plowed on. “We were trying to reach the customs house, but the ruins are full of booby traps. I’d like Lorne to put together a team of combat engineers to clear a path for us.”

  “To what end?” Woolsey asked.

  Before Sheppard could answer, Rodney had touched his own earpiece. “The Manarians had a computer center there, there may be data on the attack.”

  “I thought the Manarians hadn’t reached that level of technology,” Woolsey said.

  “It’s Genii technology,” Rodney answered. His tone was faintly sour, and Sheppard gave a crooked grin, remembering the same betrayal. They had come to Manaria for refuge when a massive storm threatened Atlantis, and the Manarians had promptly informed the Genii of the emptied city. The computers had been a reward for that, Sheppard was sure, though they’d never proved anything.

  “I think it’s worth trying,” he said aloud.

  “Tell me about these booby traps,” Woolsey said.

  Sheppard sighed. He could feel himself losing the initiative, Woolsey deciding to cut their losses. “There are a lot of them—”

  “How many?”

  How should I know? Sheppard bit back that first response, said, as mildly as he knew how, “We saw at least four. Plus the one on the DHD. I can’t figure out why they’d go to this much trouble if there wasn’t something worthwhile in the customs house.”

  “Unless that’s exactly what they want us to think,” Woolsey said.

  “If it’s Queen Death, we need to know,” Sheppard said.

  There was a little silence, and then a faint sound that might have been a sigh. “All right. You can have Lorne and the engineers,” Woolsey said, “and eight hours to assess the situation. Atlantis out.”

  “Eight hours,” Sheppard said, into the dead mic, and swore under his breath when he realized the connection had been broken.

  To his right, Ronon shrugged. “Hell, I didn’t think he’d give you that much.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Queen Death

  The combat engineers arrived promptly, the team fanning out into the wreckage under the command of a captain who looked too baby-faced to be as experienced as Sheppard knew she was. They began the careful search, rigging lights as the afternoon waned into night, but progress was slow. Six hours in, the captain retreated to the DHD, sweating in her heavy armor, and shook her head at Sheppard’s question.

  “Sorry, sir. We’re not going to make it. Not in the time we’ve been given.”

  “Damn it!” Sheppard closed his mouth tight over any further complaint. “What’s the problem?”

  “We’re having trouble spotting the traps until we’re right on top of them. The only reliable tool is the short-range detector, and that just takes too much time.”

  Sheppard bit back another curse. “Rodney!”

  The scientist was sitting on a block of stone, eating an MRE as though it actually tasted like something. “What?”

  “Can you rig up a better way to find the booby traps?”

  “No.” Rodney set aside the package—emptied of all the good stuff, Sheppard noticed—and came to join them. “I mean, maybe, given enough time, but Woolsey said eight hours, right? I can’t do it in the time we’ve got left.”

  “If you want whatever information is in those computers,” Sheppard said, “you’re going to have to try.”

  “Weren’t yo
u listening to me?” Rodney glared at both of them. “I can’t. Besides, there’s somebody on Atlantis who could do it in his sleep.”

  The engineer captain frowned, puzzled, and Sheppard shook his head. “Oh, no. That’s a very bad idea.”

  “Why?” Rodney swallowed the last bite of his candy bar, and stuffed the wrapper into his pocket. “Look, Todd’s bound to know the best way to find these things—he probably knows exactly how they were laid out, what their standard operating procedure is, and he certainly knows what they’re made of so we can look for them better. Why don’t we just ask him?”

  Sheppard stared at him for a long moment, trying to think of an argument other than ‘because he’s a Wraith.’ Because, after all, that was why they’d ask him in the first place… “OK,” he said at last. “But you talk to Woolsey.”

  As Sheppard had expected, no one was particularly happy with the idea, and no one could come up with anything better. It took the better part of three hours just to argue that out, and then more time for the medical staff to decide that Todd could safely be revived and returned to stasis. At some point during the discussion, Sheppard retreated to the back of the engineers’ tent to snatch a few hours’ sleep, and emerged into the cool pre-dawn light to find Ronon standing by the gate looking mulish, and Teyla looking as though she’d slept even less than Sheppard had himself.

  “Problems?” he said quietly, coming up beside, and she turned with a smile.

  “Ronon does not like this plan. He does not trust the Wraith.”

  “I’m shocked.” Sheppard allowed himself a smirk, and was pleased when Teyla’s smile widened in response.

  “He has a point, John. We should allow for treachery. But—”

  Sheppard nodded. “If we want what’s on those computers, this is the best option.”

  “Oh, good, you’re awake.” That was Rodney, striding through the last wisps of ground fog, a metal mug in his hand. “Lorne is ready to bring Todd through.”

  “Where did you get that coffee?” Teyla asked, with a sweetness that even Rodney recognized as dangerous, and he stopped, blinking.

  “Oh. Over there. The engineers had it sent—”

  “Thank you,” Teyla said, and turned away.

  Sheppard looked longingly after her—coffee would be wonderful—but shook himself back to the business at hand. The young Marine captain who’d been standing by the DHD saw him then, and came up with a crisp salute.

  “We’re ready here, sir. We’ll deploy on your order.”

  “Excellent.” Sheppard moved to join Ronon, who was twirling his blaster. “You OK with this, buddy?”

  “Not really.” Ronon grinned. “But, hey, you’re the one he likes.”

  Sheppard gave him a sour look and touched his earpiece. “Atlantis, this is Sheppard. Are we ready to go?”

  “Ready when you are, Colonel,” Woolsey answered.

  “OK, Captain,” Sheppard said, and the Marine came to attention. “Let’s go.”

  “Sir!” The young man moved away, calling orders, and the Marine detail came to the ready, P90s cocked and leveled.

  “Atlantis,” Sheppard said. “This is Sheppard. You can bring him through.”

  The gate lit and opened, and a moment later the first of Lorne’s men backed through, his own weapon trained on something behind him. And then Todd appeared, flanked by more soldiers. They’d left the restraints on him, Sheppard was glad to see, but the Wraith still moved as though he was master of the situation. The Marines formed up around him as he moved away from the gate, but he ignored them.

  “So, John Sheppard.” The rasping voice was almost amused. “You have need of me after all.”

  “You could make our lives a little easier,” Sheppard said. “We’ve got a—situation.”

  “So I was told.” Todd looked past him toward the ruined city, and Sheppard was sure he saw the Wraith frown. “This was not a Culling.”

  “It seems to be a new style,” Sheppard said. “We’ve seen things like it on other worlds.”

  “Indeed? You must regret the loss of my alliance.” Todd’s tone was less tart than usual, his attention still on the wreckage.

  “Not that much,” Ronon said.

  Sheppard said, “It seems like you’ve been superseded. There’s a new queen in charge of things now.”

  “Really.” There was a faint crease between the Wraith’s brow ridges, as though he frowned. “She is careless, then.”

  “She’s a Wraith.” Ronon showed teeth in a fair approximation of a Wraith’s smile.

  Todd ignored him. “And you want me to help you find traps that were left behind? Very well. Though it would help if you loosed my hands.”

  “Sorry,” Sheppard said, without sincerity. “This way.”

  The engineer captain was waiting, laptop open on a slab of stone, cables snaking across the dirt toward the various servers that fed the sensors. She looked warily at the Wraith, and stepped back out of arm’s reach to let him study the screen. He cocked his head to one side, considering, then looked at her.

  “You are searching for organics?”

  “Yeah. Carbon out-gassing and also temperature variation—”

  And that, Sheppard thought, is my cue to back off. He looked around, wondering if there was still coffee in the engineers’ tent, and Teyla came over, holding out a second mug.

  “You were looking—in need.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t say desperate.” Sheppard took a careful swallow. It was typical engineers’ coffee, so strong that not even extra sugar and milk could cut the faint taste of machine oil, but it warmed him all the way to the pit of his stomach. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She gave him a demure smile over the edge of her mug, both hands wrapped around the metal. “Do you think this will succeed?”

  “I think it’s the best chance,” Sheppard answered. “And I’d like to see what’s on those computers.”

  Teyla nodded gravely, and they stood for a while in silence. The sun was up at last, rising behind the gate, and their shadows stretched together into the wreck of the city. The last wisps of the ground fog were fading away, and the first of the engineer teams began to move carefully into the city. It looked as though they were moving faster, Sheppard thought, though it was hard to tell if they were just going through territory they’d already covered.

  “Colonel Sheppard.”

  Sheppard straightened, turned to face the engineer captain. “Yeah?”

  “We’re making better progress, sir, but we’d go quicker if we let him use the computer himself.”

  “Let him loose, you mean?”

  The captain nodded, though she didn’t look completely happy with the idea. “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s on the computers?” Sheppard asked.

  “It’s a standard field system. They’re a stand-alone, no links back to Atlantis,” the captain answered. “And nothing on it that would indicate our location. Just the programs that run the sensors.”

  Sheppard hesitated. He was pretty sure Todd was playing them, that if he wanted to, he could direct the engineers perfectly well with his hands tied, but Sheppard was also pretty sure he couldn’t make the Wraith do it. And they were in a hurry. “Are you comfortable with that, Captain?”

  She gave a rueful smile. “Not entirely, sir. But I do think it’s the best choice.”

  “Go ahead, then.”

  It did seem to make a difference, though Sheppard couldn’t quite shake the conviction that the Wraith had been faking. Still, it was less than two hours before the engineer captain reappeared, snapping a quick salute. “We’ve cleared a path into the customs house, Colonel.”

  “Good work.” Sheppard raised his voice. “All right, people, move out!”

  It was safer, Sheppard had decided, to bring Todd with them, particularly with Ronon assigned to watch him and half the Marine unit surrounding him. Even so, Sheppard kept an eye on him as they moved along the cleared corridor, the engineers’ red
plastic flags fluttering here and there to mark uncleared bombs. The Wraith was frowning again, staring at the bodies that remained intact in the wreckage, and Sheppard saw his feeding hand close into a tight fist.

  “Seems a little wasteful, huh,” he said aloud, and Todd gave him an unreadable look.

  “This is not a—practical—choice.”

  “Sateda,” Ronon said.

  Todd fixed him with a slit-eyed stare. “We were not so hungry then. Most of us were still hibernating, we could make an example of a world like yours. And even then we Culled well and deeply first. This—this is poor husbandry, and we cannot afford it.”

  “Really,” Sheppard said.

  “You are food, Sheppard. Do you slaughter your herds indiscriminately, the breeding females along with their young? When you are hungry, do you harvest them all at once, and leave what you cannot consume to rot?” Todd checked himself abruptly, lengthened his stride to catch up with the Marine escort.

  “I think I hit a nerve,” Sheppard said, to no one in particular, and followed.

  The engineers had cleared a way into the ruined building, shoring up a weakened ceiling, and bracing a stairwell that looked on the verge of collapse. It led directly into the computer room, its plain concrete walls and floor a stark contrast to the colored stones and wood of the halls above. Two of the big display screens were cracked, and another was missing its glass entirely so that wires spilled like entrails; the fourth was intact above the largest console. The engineers had rigged lights, and the dust of the destruction drifted in the air like smoke. Rodney fanned at it, coughing, and moved toward the main console.

  “You’ll be interested in this, Sheppard,” he called over his shoulder. “There was another bomb rigged to go off if anyone tried to investigate, but first the system was going to play this.”

  He touched a key before Sheppard could think of a protest, and the intact screen lit, fizzing. The picture wavered, but the image was clear: a Wraith queen stared down at them, head lifted, slit-pupiled eyes sweeping the room as though she could see the humans waiting there. One of the Marines lifted his P90 in instinctive response, and Sheppard felt his fingers tighten on the stock of his own weapon. She was pale, her skin blue-toned, the veins dark on her face and the curves of her half-bared breasts, cupped and framed in a black bodice trimmed in silver; black hair fell straight as rain to frame her high-boned cheeks. Sheppard heard Todd’s breath catch softly, but kept his own eyes on the screen.