He had to focus, that’s what.
Palms slippery with sweat, his hands clamped around the armrests of the chair in white-knuckled frustration.
Relax.
He had to relax, that’s what.
Relax and focus.
How the devil were you supposed to do that?
Carson scrunched his eyes shut and concentrated hard on picturing a drone. A glowy, flying octopus. There. He almost had it. Just a little—
“He looks kinda constipated, doesn’t he?” remarked a vaguely familiar voice.
“You’d look constipated, too, sitting in this contraption, wee man!” Carson’s eyes snapped open for what, he hoped, was a murderous glare. How was anyone supposed to concentrate under these— “General!”
Head cocked, hands leisurely draped across his gun, Jack O’Neill was flanking Dr. Weir, and he sure as hell looked like the answer to Beckett’s prayers. Out of the precious few people able to operate the chair, he had the most experience and by far the best hit rate. In other words, he was at the opposite end of the spectrum from Dr. Carson Beckett.
“What did I tell you about playing with drones, Doc?” O’Neill drawled, handing his gun to Dr. Weir who accepted it with stiff-fingered reluctance. “Step away from that chair, will ya?”
Carson all but leaped from it, feeling like the condemned man who’d just been granted a last minute reprieve. “All yours, General. Believe me, I didn’t exactly volunteer.”
“So I hear.” O’Neill climbed onto the low dais that held the chair and gently ran his fingers over an armrest. A soft shimmer flooded the jewel-like panels as he touched them. Oh, aye. He was good.
“General?” Elizabeth set down the gun on the dais and took off her headset. “Put this on. I’d like to be able to reach you if necessary.”
“Good idea.” He obliged, then slipped into the chair, his gaze drifting back to Beckett. “You still here, Doc? You might want to head back to the infirmary. Got a surprise waiting for you.” With that O’Neill closed his eyes, leaned back, and the chair lit up like a Christmas tree, just as if it had been waiting for him.
“Surprise?” Carson asked, frowning. “What surprise?”
Elizabeth smiled. “A couple more hands on deck, and both General O’Neill and Colonel Carter carry antibodies against the disease.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
He headed for the door before Elizabeth could reply. Talk about second wind! For the first time since this whole nightmare had started, Carson was feeling something akin to hope.
Beside him, Cassie sucked in a sharp breath. Daniel had a pretty good idea of how she felt. His first impulse on entering the infirmary had been to shut his eyes and hope that it would somehow be different when he looked again. He didn’t, and of course it wouldn’t.
Sam had been whisked away by a nurse to have her blood taken, and he and Cassie and Amara were left stranded amid the chaos. He wasn’t quite sure where to turn.
Looking at the haggard-faced, dog-tired people who shuttled from one critical patient to the next, driven by the beeping of heart monitors and the shrilling of alarms, he figured you stood an above-average chance of getting decked if you interrupted this macabre choreography.
Even Amara seemed shaken. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she breathed.
“What on Earth did you expect would happen if you deploy a biological weapon?” Daniel hissed back, then softened his tone. While he absolutely disagreed with the means she and her cohorts had used, he understood only too well where she was coming from. “If I were you, I wouldn’t mention it to anyone here. They’re liable to get really annoyed with you.”
“And rightly so.” She grimaced and, for a moment, shrank into herself, weighed down with guilt. Then she shook it off, visibly forcing her focus on the infirmary and its occupants. The first thing to draw her attention were the small tents of clear plastic that surrounded far too many beds. “What are those?”
“Isolation units,” Daniel replied. “So that the virus can be contained.”
Amara muttered something, and he was pretty sure that it had been an unflattering comment on the state of human medical science. Easy to scoff if you could heal by simply touching the patient… though it probably wasn’t all that simple, either.
Daniel took at a step toward the nearest tent. The patient was a man, obviously unconscious. The head was shaven, the gaunt face as white as the bed sheets. He looked dead, and in fact, if Daniel read those bedside monitors correctly, the poor devil was about as close to death as you could get while still breathing.
“Lord have mercy,” Daniel whispered, turning away, searching for someone who might have a second to spare.
From the corner of his eye, he caught a wisp of motion. Amara had flitted from his side and toward the airlock that sealed off the tent.
He snatched her arm. “What are you doing?”
“How does one get in there?” she asked. “He needs help! Now.”
“We should wait for Dr. Beckett. He’ll probably be here any moment.”
“This one doesn’t have a moment.”
As if to confirm Amara’s grim diagnosis, the man started seizing. The monitors went berserk, so did the alarms, and so did staff. Whoever this guy was, they cared about him. Daniel and Amara got shoved out of the way, so that a couple of nurses could enter the airlock. It was designed to hold one, and they were squished in there like a pair of sardines. Then they popped out the other side, began to buzz around the bed, frantically doing stuff that, as far as Daniel could tell, was palliative and nothing more. Damn.
“They’re not helping.” With that dry observation, Amara shouldered her way into the airlock, dragging Cassie along behind her. “I’ll need you.”
“Hey!” bellowed a distinctly Scottish sounding voice over the general mayhem of alarms and babble. “What the devil do you two think you’re doing? Keep away from Colonel Sheppard!”
Sheppard?
A cold fist of dismay drove Daniel back a step or two. He hadn’t even recognized him. A couple of years ago, he’d briefly met the guy, liked him. Sheppard had that kind of irresistible, unflappable energy that got things done. It had reminded Daniel of a certain general.
Pushing his way through the small crowd, Beckett brushed past him, and Daniel grabbed his arm. “Dr. Beckett!”
“Not now! Let go of me!”
“Dr. Beckett, listen to me!” He didn’t let go. Inside the isolation unit, Sheppard’s seizure was working its way up to a grand mal. “That woman there”— Daniel pointed at Amara— “is an Ancient. They know all about this virus. She can help. You can’t, and that’s no reflection on your skills as a physician.”
Beckett squinted at him and finally stopped struggling. “You’re Dr. Jackson, right? I remember you.”
“Good to see you again, Doc.” Daniel went for a smile, wasn’t sure he actually got there. “Despite the circumstances.”
“Aye,” Beckett murmured distractedly, watching what was going on inside the unit. “What are they doing? And who’s the lass? Another Ancient?”
“That’s Cassie, Dr. Fraiser’s adoptive daughter.”
“What’s she doing in there?”
“Ah,” Daniel said. “Long story. I’ll fill you in when this is over.”
The nurses who’d rushed into the tent backed off and hovered behind the two women like gargoyles. Cassie was holding Sheppard’s right hand, doing God knew what, God knew how, while Amara had taken his left. Her free hand pressed to the colonel’s forehead, the Ancient woman closed her eyes. Her features tightened, as though she were under massive strain, and she paled visibly. But the violent bucking of Sheppard’s body stopped almost at once. Muscles relaxed, became slack. He heavily sank back against the pillow and remained motionless— looking more dead than alive again.
Next to Daniel, Beckett tensed. “This isn’t good. I’ve got to—”
“Wait! She knows what she’s doing, I promise. If it weren’t
for her, General O’Neill would be dead.”
For one interminable minute, nothing happened. Suddenly, one of the nurses gasped, pointed at a monitor. Outwardly things hadn’t changed much, except that Sheppard’s breathing seemed to have become easier. But the monitor showed that his temperature was coming down, steadily and unstoppably. At the same time, his heart rate slowed from a shallow, rapid quiver to a normal rhythm. Blood pressure climbed back to normal. Color improved. Then Sheppard’s eyelids began to flutter.
“He’s waking up. It’s a bloody miracle,” Beckett breathed, just before the euphoria was punctured by a sudden thought. “Oh God, don’t let him go anywhere near a mirror. He’ll kill me!”
“I’m guessing that’ll be the last thing on his mind,” Daniel grinned.
“You don’t know him! I… uh, I need to go in there… but General O’Neill tells me some of you’ve got antibodies to this virus?”
“Yeah. Sam does. She’s left a sample with one of your staff. Should be enough to work with. Until you’ve got the cure synthesized, Amara and Cassie will help get the worst under control here. Once you’ve got the vaccine, there shouldn’t be any more problems. Now, if you could point me in the direction of the mess?” Daniel asked. “I’m told there’s a guy looking for people who know how to use a gun.”
Beckett blinked a couple of times, looking bewildered enough for Daniel to wonder if he’d accidentally lapsed into Danish or some other, lesser known language. Then again, after what these folks had been through in the last few days, any silver lining would take some time to sink in.
“The mess?” Beckett finally stuttered.
“Yep.”
The directions Daniel was given were a little confusing, probably because the good doctor was in a rush to get into the tent and check up on Colonel Sheppard. But they’d do, he figured. “Thanks, Doc.”
“Be careful.”
“I will,” Daniel threw him a grin and headed for the door. Maybe he’d find a city map somewhere…
It was the obstacle course from hell, and Sam Carter and Teal’c were running for their lives. Simply getting out of the east tower had been an experience, the exit to the pier being half blocked by bits of building and spacecraft. In the sky above, lead gray and sodden with rain, Wraith Darts danced a screeching ballet, disappearing in the low-hanging clouds and reappearing moments later in places where you least expected or wanted them.
The distance to the Daedalus, which for now sat unharmed in the protection of her own shield, was three hundred yards, less than that to the shield perimeter. Easy to make out that one; there was an invisible line behind which the ground was dry and free of rubble.
“Colonel!” Laval’s voice popped into Sam’s headset. “We’ve punched you a door through the shield. From your current position, head straight for the outer maintenance hatch of the portside glider bay. We’ll be watching over the monitors and slam the door shut as soon as you’re in.”
“Got it. Thanks, Major.”
She peered out from under the wing of a downed Dart that was sheltering them right now. Some corner of her mind registered that the earlier impact, the one they’d ridden out in the command center, hadn’t been caused by a blast from the hive-ship. Dr. Beckett must have gotten lucky, scored a hit. The Dart had had its wing clipped, struck the east tower head-on, and gone up in flames.
Craning her neck a little further, she could see the glider bay and the tiny dark square of the maintenance hatch that was their goalpost. Two hundred and fifty yards. It seemed like a mile, and their presence was attracting Darts like a cowpat the flies. Not surprising, really, seeing as nobody else was nuts enough to prance around in the open.
Right now there were four Darts zipping back and forth over that strip of pier between the east tower and Daedalus and, unlike your garden variety Goa’uld death glider, they were less than impressed by staff blasts. Teal’c had already ascertained as much.
Yeah, well. Too damn bad.
About a hundred yards along the pier lay the tail section of the downed Dart; the nearest half-decent cover. She pointed at it. “Next stop, Teal’c.”
The only reply was a nod, but suddenly his eyes narrowed. “Not yet, Colonel Carter.”
He readied his staff weapon and aimed, not at a Wraith, as Sam had expected, but at a yellow lump that looked deceptively like some sort of canister. The staff blast struck, ripped the canister apart in a small explosion. A puddle of flame licked over the smooth flagstones, and seconds later a thick, black vane of smoke started billowing from the small conflagration and shrouded the pier in greasy haze.
“Gasoline,” she gasped. “How the hell did that get here?”
“I do not know, Colonel Carter. We should go. I am unsure of how long the cover will last.”
Barely long enough to make it. They ran flat-out, eyes streaming from the smoke, and dived under the chunk of fuselage. Just behind it, the pier dropped off into the sea, and Sam found herself staring down at an inflatable moored almost directly below. It had an outboard engine. Which probably explained the canister. Go figure.
The ocean breeze dispelled the smoke, and the Darts zoomed back, watching and waiting like giant predatory insects. Air support would be real nice, but the Daedalus couldn’t risk lowering her shield, and as long as that was up, the F302s were grounded.
She’d barely finished thinking it, when she saw a tiny dot of light launch skyward amid the towers of Atlantis. It looped into a steep turn, swept down to skim a hair’s breadth above the buildings, and whizzed closer, growing rapidly.
“O’Neill.” Deep satisfaction swung in Teal’c’s voice, and he permitted himself a brief smile.
As well he might. The Darts realized far too late what was happening, tried to scramble into a climb.
Much as Sam would have enjoyed watching the show, now was their chance. “Teal’c! Let’s go!”
She broke cover and into a headlong dash for that invisible opening in Daedalus’s shield, hunching her shoulders and ducking her head when at least one of the Darts exploded. The shock wave slammed her forward in a roar of noise and shrapnel, and she would have fallen if Teal’c hadn’t caught a fistful of her jacket and pulled her back to her feet. He never let go, hauling her along beside him, and together they flew through the gap in the shield and into the shelter of Daedalus’s broad flanks.
Only now could she risk a glance back. The drone had taken out one Dart, which had collided with its wingman, bringing both craft down in a smoking heap on the pier.
“Two for the price of one.” She grinned. “Nice shooting, sir.”
Even as she said it, more drones climbed into the sky. Then a sonorous rumble made her spin around. A wide loading ramp was lowering from the belly of the Daedalus. Sam and Teal’c were running up the ramp before it had fully touched the ground, their path lit by a sizzling lightshow as Dart blasts scattered on Daedalus’s force shield.
Laval stood at the top of the ramp, all but quivering with impatience. “Colonel. Teal’c. Nice of you to drop in. Hope you don’t mind if we skip the welcome reception. Dr. Weir tells me you’re looking for a glider, Teal’c.”
“Indeed, Major Laval.”
“Glad to hear it. I’ll show you the way. We can use all the help we can get, and if General O’Neill manages to keep those drones coming, we should be able to lower the shield long enough to scramble the F302s. Colonel, you know where to go?”
“Sure do, Major.”
“Appreciate it if you sped things up, ma’am. Getting Daedalus off the ground is something of a priority now… so’s getting McKay out of everyone’s hair, to be honest.”
“I’ll see what I can do for you, Laval.” Sam flicked him a quick grin. “On both counts. Good luck, Teal’c.”
Chapter 33
Rodney McKay cast a baleful eye over the mountain of equipment that rose on the antigrav sled. The sled was the problem, of course. He didn’t trust the things, largely because, as yet, he hadn’t had a chance to take one
of them apart and put it back together again in reverse order.
Well, how the hell else was a guy going to figure out how a gadget worked? Besides, he felt sure that he could have added an improvement or two.
“I still think we should use a FRED,” he muttered. Not for the first time, either, but Carter was her usual stubborn self.
“We don’t have time to reload, Rodney,” she replied and continued to check the straps that held the mountain in place. Quite calmly, actually. The woman’s patience was infuriating. “And trust me, you don’t want to try and take a FRED across the pier. Rough going doesn’t begin to describe it. This’ll be much faster.” With a quick glance at him, she added, “Safer. Less exposure out there.”
That point was extremely valid.
Maybe she was right. Not that he’d admit it. Not voluntarily, at any rate.
To add insult to injury, he’d successfully managed to relegate the exposure part to the back of his mind. Now it had popped to the fore, thank you very much, and was waving its ugly little arms.
“Right,” she said, tightening one last strap. “Good to go.”
Laval came cantering into the engine room, as he had done at regular intervals throughout this entire exercise. Why the man couldn’t find himself anything useful to do on the bridge was beyond Rodney. The guy was supposed to be in command of this bucket, wasn’t he?
“Don’t say it!” McKay snapped. “We’re on our way out.”
“Great. Miracles do happen!” exclaimed Laval, his enthusiasm as fake as a three dollar bill. Then he caught sight of that largish hole in the floor where the transporter console normally sat and groaned. “Jeez! Caldwell’s gonna kill me. Just don’t make me regret this…”
“That’s our main objective, of course.”
“Uhuh.” Laval shook his head, as though that would make the hole go away. Then he looked up. “Right this moment the Wraith seem to be finding the south pier interesting enough to put troops on the ground. Can’t say how long it’ll last, but it gives you a good window to get over into the city. Plus, we’ve been able to drop the shield long enough to get a couple F302s up, so you’ve got air cover.”
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