by Graham, Jo
“Yes,” Henner said, and Illona caught up her skirts to step over a pile of discarded scrap.
“As if we were distilling alcohol,” she said. “Yes, of course!”
“Well, not of course, if it had been ‘of course’ you wouldn’t have been asking me—” Rodney swallowed the rest of his words, remembering the look Teyla had given him earlier, and said, “Exactly.”
It took them only a little more than an hour to find the materials, and then another hour or so to fix them in place, Illona dripping the rubber-like gum over all the joints to seal them. The gas flowed as expected, and Rodney straightened, feeling rather pleased with himself. This wasn’t exactly his kind of science, was closer to engineering, and working with these primitive tools wasn’t precisely something he’d planned on. But he had coped, as of course he generally did, and all in all he thought it was going fairly well—
“Voisen?” The door of the shed slammed open, and Kolbyr strode in, followed by a wary looking aide. “Voisen, you’d better have it ready this time, or I’ll shove that hose up—” He stopped, blinking, as he saw Illona. “Your servant, ma’am.”
“We’re ready,” Voisen said, but his voice was higher than usual.
Kolbyr made a distinctly dubious noise. Under the low roof, he looked even bigger than he had in the general’s conference room, and in spite of himself Rodney took a step toward the door.
“I’ll just—”
“Oh, are you involved in this, Lantean?” Kolbyr clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “You’re the scientist—McKay, right?”
“Yes—”
“Stay,” Kolbyr said, with ferocious good humor, and nodded to Voisen. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
“Right away, General.” Voisen beckoned to a trio of assistants, who had been busy checking the first balloon for flaws, and they hauled it forward, unfolding it as they went. One fastened the nozzle while the other two hauled the fabric into shape, and Illona tugged the lever that allowed the gas to flow. For a long moment, McKay thought nothing was going to happen, and then the bag began to move, shivering a little as the gas lifted the upper layer. It rose, slowly but definitely taking on shape, and Voisen breathed a sigh of relief.
“You see, General, it works.”
“It flies,” Kolbyr said, but nodded. “Not bad.”
Rodney looked at him—a big man in a lace-trimmed coat, who still carried a sword as well as a short-barreled Genii pistol—and then back at the balloon. “Do you really think this is going to work?”
He regretted the words as soon as they were spoken, but Kolbyr grinned. “No idea. But I don’t think it will hurt.” He looked back at Voisen. “All right, then. You’ve got a company at your disposal. Get the balloons to the towers.”
* * *
It was dark by the time Sheppard had seen the Marine companies into their temporary quarters and conferred with their captains and with the Genii colonel, Faber, who had seemed stiff but willing to cooperate. The senior Marine captain, Diaz, seemed to have struck up a kind of friendship with his Genii opposites, and Sheppard was willing to let him handle the liaison for the time being. Right now, he was tired and hungry and really wanted the kind of hot shower he was sure he wasn’t going to get… He could have groaned aloud when he heard Rodney’s voice through the door of their suite of rooms. The Levannan guard came to strict attention as he approached, but he thought he saw a flicker of sympathy in the man’s eyes as he pushed open the door.
“—Can’t hurt, he says. They weren’t even sure they’d carry the cables!”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Ronon said. >From his expression, he was getting to the stage where he’d contradict Rodney just for the sake of argument, and Teyla was looking distinctly frayed.
“Well, no, it’s not a bad idea, but it’s completely untested. And my calculations show they can lift about 9 kilograms. That’s not a lot of rope or chain or wire, and we don’t know if any of that would actually do any damage to a Dart—” Rodney turned at Sheppard’s entrance. “You’d know. Would a barrage balloon do anything to stop a Dart?”
“You already asked me that,” Sheppard said. “I said maybe.”
“I would not think they would want to fly into obstacles,” Teyla said. “John, there is food here—”
“Thanks.” Sheppard was rapidly divesting himself of weapons and flak jacket, and eyed the table with approval. There was some kind of pie, savory by the smells, and something that looked enough like a roast chicken for him to feel fairly comfortable eating it. The others had already made inroads into it, but for once there was plenty left. Ronon handed him a glass of something; he took it, sniffing, and discovered it was a better than decent wine. “Wow. I don’t suppose there’s a bathtub, too?”
Ronon snorted, and Teyla gave him an apologetic smile. “It’s—rather small.” She nodded to a copper object, about the size of a half barrel, that stood by the fireplace. “That’s all there is.”
“Never mind,” Sheppard said.
“But the food’s good,” Ronon said.
Sheppard found a clean plate, carved himself some chicken and helped himself to the pie, which smelled of cheese and onions and tava beans. There was some kind of orange casserole that looked a lot like something the Athosians cooked, and he grabbed some of that, too. “So where do we stand?” he asked, through a mouthful of chicken, and Rodney rolled his eyes.
“Well, we’re waiting for the Wraith to attack. Assuming Todd for some reason told the truth—”
“The city is mostly evacuated,” Teyla said. “It was well planned, I watched the carts leaving. I think the civilians, at least, will be safe.”
“The Levannans are as ready as they’re going to be,” Ronon said. He tugged the last leg off the second chicken, took a bite. “I talked to Daileass, she says the Guard’s been training them to use Genii weapons—they’ve got a repeating rifle, that should help.”
It was volume of fire that put the Wraith down, overwhelmed their ability to regenerate. You needed a machine gun, or a lot of men trained to put their shots into the same target. Sheppard nodded.
“This Science Institute came up with something clever,” Rodney said. “Besides the balloons, I mean. And the heliograph, which I’m surprised more people haven’t invented.”
“They did,” Ronon said. He put the bone aside, wiped his fingers on a napkin, reached for a little tart that looked like it was topped with a fried egg.
Rodney ignored him. “They call it ‘Wraith-killer’—it’s sort of like a cross between a pistol and a shotgun, fires a whole lot of slugs all at once. It looks like it will be effective.”
“The troops call it the pepper pot,” Ronon said. “And it blows up sometimes.”
“Great,” Sheppard said. “I’m glad we’re not relying on them.”
Ronon nodded. “I saw Diaz had a squad at the gate?”
“Yeah. The Genii colonel put a unit there, too.” Sheppard bit his lip, still not sure about Faber—he’d seemed competent, and willing to work with the Lanteans, but there’d been a reserve there that he couldn’t interpret. The food was suddenly less appealing, but he made himself take another bite, and another. He needed the fuel, and there was no telling when he’d get to eat again.
“Tomorrow is the third day,” Teyla said.
“Yeah.” Sheppard saw her take a deep breath, and gave her a sympathetic smile. “Any time now.”
“Great,” Rodney said. He had wandered back to the food table, was picking at the platter of odd-looking vegetables. “So we’re just going to sit around and wait for them—oh, and have a lovely last meal while we’re doing it?”
“Not funny, McKay.” Sheppard winced—he didn’t think of himself as superstitious, but there were times when Rodney had no sense at all.
“So we should go hungry while we wait?” Ronon asked. There was an odd, rueful smile on his face, and it occurred to Sheppard that the Satedan had done this before. That hadn’t gone very well, either, but he shov
ed the thought away.
“We’re as ready as we can be, right, Sheppard?” Ronon went on. “So we might as well be comfortable.”
“Yeah,” Sheppard said, and looked down at his empty plate. He didn’t remember what anything had tasted like, except the wine. “Might as well.”
* * *
The next morning came and went, the sun rising steadily to the zenith, warming the air and striking unexpected color from the balloons tethered to towers and rooftops. There weren’t really enough of them to make a difference, Sheppard thought. They might slow the Darts down a bit, but the sharp little fighters were agile enough to avoid some of them, and strong enough to plow through them once they realized what they were dealing with. Still, it was a good idea, and he said as much to General Kolbyr when he met him in the gate field.
Kolbyr gave him a lop-sided smile. “I won’t pretend I enjoy dealing with scientists, but if this works—” He shrugged. “We’ll see.”
Sheppard squinted into the pale sky, picking out patches of red and blue among the overall drab tan. “What are they made of, anyway?”
Kolbyr scowled at a soldier who had put down his repeater to haul water, and the man scurried to retrieve his weapon, slung it awkwardly, and picked up his buckets again. “Silk. With some fancy coating.”
That sparked a vague memory. “Don’t tell me that this is one of those things where the ladies of the court donated their dresses to the cause.”
Kolbyr laughed. “Not likely. Have you seen what the women are wearing these days? There’s not enough fabric to make a pair of handkerchiefs. But I think there are some curtains and such from the palace.”
Sheppard nodded, scanning the ground again. Valless was good, had been quick to grasp the possibilities of rapid fire; the bulk of his men were concealed in the city buildings, ready to support the machine gun nests set up by the Genii. The Marines would act as shock troops, try to prevent the Wraith from massing… It was a good plan. It wouldn’t survive contact with the enemy, and he saw the same knowledge in Kolbyr’s face as well.
Somewhere, a tower clock struck the half hour: half past noon on a warm and cloudy day, when the breeze smelled of wood smoke and horses. An ordinary day, except that it wasn’t. Sheppard mumbled an excuse, and turned away.
Diaz and Culpepper were feeding their men in shifts, and a handful of Levannan women had brought buckets of soup to supplement the MREs. Teyla had come with them, looking just about as tense as Sheppard felt, and they each took a mug of the thick broth into the shade of a doorway.
“I thought all the civilians had been evacuated,” Sheppard said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to talk about while the soup cooled enough to drink.
“They have,” Teyla answered. “Or so I believe. These women belong to the regiment—they are wives, I think, and companions. They volunteered to stay.”
Sheppard sipped at the broth again, tasting some kind of grain—the size and texture of barley, he thought, and wondered if the Ancients had brought it to Pegasus from Earth, or if the transfer had gone the other way. Or if it was barley at all. “Where’s Rodney?”
“With the scientists from the Institute. Ronon has set some of the Satedans to guard them.” Teyla gave a lopsided smile. “I fear it will be a long day, John.”
Sheppard nodded. The cup was nearly empty; he dashed out the dregs, gave it back to one of the Levannans, and turned back toward the city walls. The balloons swayed gently in the heavy air, and the flags on the towers fluttered slowly, plain dark blue with a wreath of golden stars.
Valless had moved his headquarters from the palace to a more protected building, a stone tower with walls that had to be a meter thick at the base. Several of the staff were busy in the ground floor room, making notes and studying a map of the city, but Valless, they said, was on the roof. Sheppard climbed the stairs to join him, returning the salutes of the general’s personal guard.
“Colonel Sheppard.” Valless turned away from the parapet, closing his brass telescope with a decisive snap. “Everything’s ready on your end?”
“As ready as we can be,” Sheppard answered, and Valless smiled.
“I’m grateful for the use of these—radios.” He lingered over the word, as though it were something new. Which it probably was, Sheppard thought. The Levannans were hauling themselves forward by main force, making huge technical leaps, but there were still plenty of gaps in their technologies. “When this is over, I’d like to talk to your Mr. Woolsey about trading for some of these.” Valless smiled. “We are a thriving agricultural world.”
“I’m sure Mr. Woolsey would be delighted to discuss it,” Sheppard said. The conversation felt unreal—but then, nothing felt real today. He’d felt this before, the sense of distance, time stretching, thickening, so that everything was at one remove, cut off by an invisible veil. It would be fine once the fighting started, but you couldn’t wish for that, either, and he forced a smile that he knew slid wrong.
“Colonel Sheppard!” Culpepper’s voice crackled in his earpiece. “Unscheduled gate activation!”
Chapter Twenty-six
The Battle for Levanna
In the same instant, a red flare blossomed above the gate field. Valless’s mouth tightened, and he nodded to an aide, who lifted a brass flare gun from the litter of objects on the table below the parapet. He pointed it at the sky and pulled the trigger. A trail of smoke rose into the air, burst into a double ball of red light.
“Colonel Sheppard,” Teyla said, her voice very even. “I believe there is at least one cruiser in orbit.”
“We confirm that,” Diaz said. “One cruiser in stationary orbit.”
“Darts!” That was Culpepper, at the gate, and Valless opened his telescope again, trained it on the gate field.
“Plan A,” Sheppard said. “Ronon, you copy?”
“I copy,” Ronon answered. “We’re in position.”
His words were swallowed by the first shriek of the Darts. Sheppard ducked in spite of himself, saw the aides do the same, but Valless didn’t move, just lowered the telescope and looked up, shading his eyes. The balloons were working, Sheppard realized, at least on this first pass. Not for the first time, he wished they had SAMs to spare, but O’Neill hadn’t managed to get them that many to start with. He could hear the rattle of machine gun fire from the gate field, and then a short, heavier sound that had to be the Genii squadron.
“General, I need to get down there,” Sheppard said, and Valless nodded.
“Go.”
Sheppard took the stairs two at a time, swung his P90 to the ready as he hit the street. The balloons were still working, the Darts sliding around them or coming in too high to use the Culling beams with any accuracy, but he kept close to the buildings as he worked his way toward the gate field. The machine gun fire was almost steady, and a Dart shrieked overhead, trailing smoke. Sheppard ducked, more out of reflex than because it would do any good, and heard the ship crash somewhere to the west. Fire, he thought, we didn’t make any plans for fires. Valless must have done, he told himself, and hoped that the evacuation wasn’t supposed to cover that.
He skidded into the shelter of the Marine command post, tucked just at the edge of the built-up area outside the wall, to find Ronon crouching over a Genii radio, and Diaz staring intently into a periscope. Ronon gave him a nod, and Diaz glanced quickly over his shoulder.
“So far, so good, Colonel. Like you said, it looks like they were planning to Cull first, then attack. They weren’t expecting us to fight back.”
“We’ve taken out two Darts, and the Genii hit another couple,” Ronon reported. “Satedan Guard claims one.”
Out of a wave of thirty or forty, Sheppard thought, but nodded as though it was better news than it was. “They’re not risking the balloons yet,” he said. “They’re going to figure out that they can’t Cull pretty quickly and switch to landing troops, but until then, take out as many Darts as you can.”
“Yes, sir,” Diaz said, and
a corporal repeated the order on the unit’s combat frequency.
“Do we still control the gate field?”
“Not really. We’re holding our positions, but—we had to pull back into cover, and we can’t get to the DHD.” Diaz peeked through the periscope again, and Sheppard moved to join him, peering carefully through the empty window frame. The binoculars gave him a skewed view of the gate field, the gate itself shimmering blue—the Wraith were holding the connection, standard practice, and even as he watched another string of Darts shot from the gate like bullets from a gun. Three of them pulled straight up, wheeling to make a pass at the field, and Diaz gave him an anguished glance.
“Permission to join them, Colonel?”
“Go.” Sheppard bit his lip, wanting to go with him, wanting to shoot back, and tightened his hands on the binoculars instead. There was another burst of fire, this from the the Genii, and a Dart pitched over, tumbling past the gate to land in the woods beyond the field. He took a deep breath, trying to get the picture straight in his mind—the Wraith here, at the gate, Marines and Genii and Levannans each in their positions, ready to spring Valless’s trap—and ducked again at an explosion close at hand.
“Dart down in the city,” Ronon said.
Sheppard touched his earpiece. “Teyla. Report.”
“I am at the Institute with Rodney.” Her answer was instantaneous, and in spite of everything Sheppard gave a sigh of relief. “We have seen two Darts crash in the city, but there are no fires yet. They are still avoiding the balloons.”
“Good.” Sheppard leveled the binoculars again. Not much longer, he thought. The Wraith weren’t going to keep sending Darts to Cull—
The gate shimmered again, releasing another flight of Darts, and behind them rolled four, no, five metal spheres that crackled with blue lightning.
“Diaz!”
The radio was filled with shouts of warning, and the spheres blew with a rippling crack, a force field sheeting like a hammer across the open space. Behind them came the drones, weapons lowered, energy already crackling from the staffs, and Sheppard touched his earpiece again. “Diaz, Culpepper, fall back. Fall back to position B.”