Sting felt the life flowing back into his body slowly, sluggish. He fed thrice more, for the dying Jaffa provided scant sustenance. It was enough to heal him, but not enough to make him whole. Yet it would have to suffice for now.
Major Carter stood with her back turned. She had appropriated one of the Jaffa staff weapons and held it at the ready as she watched the empty corridor. Perhaps responding to his footsteps she said, without turning around, “Are you done?”
He allowed a moment to pass before answering, aware of the disgust—even horror—emanating from the woman. “I thank you for your assistance,” he said stiffly. “I am recovered enough.”
With a nod, she turned her head slightly, not enough to really look behind her, and said, “I need to get to the engine room—our best chance to destroy Hecate and the hybrid is to take out the whole ship.”
“I would rather that Boneshard—what was once Boneshard—die at my own hands.”
“He almost killed you,” Major Carter said, moving away from him and stooping to retrieve a second staff weapon. “You’d be dead now if—” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, there’s no way you can take that thing down. You’ve tried twice.” This time she did turn to him, her expression tight. “Help me,” she said, holding out one of the weapons. “Take this—take as many as you can carry.”
Sting eyed the weapon with some doubt. “I’m unfamiliar with these weapons…”
“I’m not asking you to fire it,” she said, and threw the staff toward him. He caught it in one hand, turned it over to feel the balance. “I’m going to use the liquid naquadah in the power cells to build a bomb.”
Sting was no cleverman and unfamiliar with naquadah, however Major Carter’s certainty was compelling. “You are ingenious,” he said and bent to collect another of the weapons. He thought again of Stormfire’s assistant, the human called O’Kane. “Your species is more inventive than I had realized.” It was an increasingly difficult insight.
“Really?” She collected a third weapon, hefting them in her arms. “Six should be enough,” she said. “And we should get out of here.”
Sting slung his three weapons over one shoulder and said, “I will take the lead, Major Carter.” He owed her his life—again—and it was incumbent on him to protect her. “But you must show me the way, if you know it.”
“Well, this isn’t the first Ha’tak I’ve blown up,” she said, and he thought he saw a hint of a smile on her face. “Fastest way would be to find a ring transporter, but they’re gonna be too heavily guarded—especially with the Jaffa still scrapping.”
He assumed she referred to the distant sounds of fighting, to the faction of Jaffa who remained loyal to the parasite and those others loyal to their commander. It was not unlike the internecine squabbling in a hive when the succession of a new queen was in doubt. And, again, the parallel disturbed him.
“Sting?” Major Carter touched his arm. “This way.”
Leaving the corridor that had been the site of the battle, they made their way deeper into the parasite’s ship. It was a cold place, dead—a thing only of moving parts, without soul, without flesh. Like the technology of the Ancestors, it was just a thing. It made him grateful for the biological technology of his own people. To live aboard such a thing as this, protected from the void of space by nothing more than sheets of metal, was a terrifying prospect which he dared not consider too closely.
To distract himself from the thought, he said, “How long will it take you to construct your weapon?”
Carter gave a small noise of consideration from where she walked at his shoulder. “It depends,” she said. “I need a detonator. That’s going to be the biggest challenge. Possibly, I can engineer one of the cells to overload. It’ll be a couple hours.”
Much could happen in such an amount of time—both here and elsewhere. His thoughts, of course, went to Earthborn. Major Carter’s, too, apparently, because she said, “I hope the others are doing okay. I hope Teal’c got Rya’c off the ship.”
“They must fend for themselves,” Sting reminded her. As must Earthborn, he reminded himself. “We can only complete our element of the plan.”
“Yeah,” she said shortly. “I just hope—”
The ship jarred suddenly, knocking Sting to his knees. Carter dropped into a crouch at his side. Another jolt jarred them further and Carter lost her grip on the staff weapons. They clattered to the deck, rolling away. “That was weapons fire,” she said, her gaze fixed on the ceiling.
He agreed, but the question was: “From within, or without?”
A third detonation followed and the air began to fill with the acrid stench of burning. Major Carter said, “Outside. We’re under attack.”
“Shadow’s cruiser,” Sting guessed. “There is no one else it could be.”
“If you’re right,” Carter said, “then it means she knows Hecate’s planning to move against her.”
Her words made him stiffen with disquiet. “Which means…”
“Not necessarily,” Carter said. “She could have a spy here—an informant. It doesn’t mean the colonel and Earthborn have failed.” But from her face, Sting could see that she spoke more bravely than she felt.
“Earthborn would not order the cruiser to fire upon this ship, knowing that we are aboard,” he said. “This means Shadow has not been defeated.”
“Yet,” Carter insisted. “C’mon, let’s keep a little optimism here, okay?”
Another shudder rippled through the deck and then there was another sensation—one familiar to Sting. The ship was moving.
Startled, Carter said, “She’s breaking orbit.”
“No doubt to engage with the cruiser more effectively.”
“Or she’s just gonna run.” Pushing herself to her feet, Carter grabbed hold of her fallen weapons, bracing herself against the hull with one shoulder as the ship lurched under another assault. “If we leave Earth, we’re in trouble. The only way off the ship would be through the Stargate and there’s zero chance of reaching it before the bomb detonates.” She paused. “There’s zero chance of reaching the gate, period.”
Sting bared his teeth, part in anger and part in pride. “I am willing to give my life to see this creature dead.”
“Yeah,” Carter agreed. “But I’d rather not. So we need to keep Hecate from going anywhere until I can rig the bomb and get to one of the ring transporters.” She looked at the staff weapons he carried and said, “Give them to me. I’ll get to the engine room and start working on the bomb, you head to the bridge. Do what you can to keep us close enough to Earth so that I can ring down to the surface—and then get the hell off the ship.”
“And you?”
There was a slight hesitation before she said, “I’ll be right behind you.”
She said no more and he pressed no further. Major Carter was a warrior, as were all of O’Neill’s people—she would do what was necessary to fulfill her mission.
As would he.
Earth — 2098
Jack found himself bracketed by Wraith as he and Daniel were led to the tower where the captain’s chair was located.
Unlike Sting, and Earthborn’s other ragged followers, Shadow’s people were slick and well groomed. Some of them looked like they spent hours braiding their fancy long hair and polishing their boots. Courtiers was definitely the word for them, and Jack recalled the disdain Sting had expressed for them—the way he’d talked about Earth and it’s plentiful food supply corrupting his people.
They walked swiftly along the corridor, Daniel pale but stoic at his side. He’d convinced the Wraith that he needed Daniel to translate the Ancient language, but they both knew that things could change at any moment; they were swimming in a shark tank and all it would take was a drop of blood for the feeding frenzy to begin.
“So,” he said, as much to keep up the pretense of Daniel’s expertise as anything else, “what should I expect when I get there?”
“Um…” Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose because, for once, he
knew as little as Jack about any of this. “I guess it’ll be similar to the systems on the gate-ship only—maybe more immersive?”
“Immersive?” He didn’t like the idea of that; he needed to be fully aware of his surroundings in case the Wraith decided he wasn’t playing ball. Which he, most definitely, wouldn’t be.
“The Ancient device we found on P3R-272 certainly interfaced directly with your mind,” Daniel reminded him. “And given all the systems a city this size would need in order to run, I doubt there’s a way for one person to control them that isn’t immersive…”
Jack let that idea filter deeper. They were in an area of the city unoccupied by the Wraith—the corridor blank, cool gray lines defining doors and windows. Sunlight streamed in, reminding him that they were still on Earth. And that this was a city, not just a weapon. The climb to the top of the tower, up a sweeping spiral staircase, offered startling glimpses of Atlantis through tall, narrow windows. It reminded him of a cathedral, or some other sacred place, and the fact that it had been despoiled by the Wraith only made their presence here more obscene.
It didn’t help that Jack’s knees were beginning to seriously protest the number of stairs. But the Wraith barely broke a sweat—if they ever sweated—marching on until, at last, they turned away from the stairs and led Jack and Daniel through a doorway.
The room beyond was dark, although a few lights flickered on as Jack stepped inside—responding, he supposed, to his genetic on-switch. But there were no windows, no natural light.
“This is it,” Daniel said, somewhat redundantly. It’s not like you could miss the enormous chair that sat elevated on a hexagonal platform in the center of the room.
Two Wraith took position outside the door, and the third followed Jack and Daniel into the room. Jack felt a hand grip his shoulder, talons curling into his muscle. “If you can do what you claim, human,” the Wraith hissed, “do it now. Or I will feed; it has been some time since I ate anything as vigorous as you.”
And if that wasn’t the creepiest thing he’d ever heard….
Ducking his shoulder out from under the Wraith’s grip, Jack took a step toward the chair. “Daniel,” he said, “you, uh, wanna help me out here?”
Slowly, they circled the platform. Jack could feel the eyes of the Wraith on him, but he wasn’t going to let them rush him. He needed to do this right; he couldn’t fumble the ball on this one. There was too much at stake.
But at last Daniel said, “I think you’ll just have to sit down and see what happens.”
“No instruction manual, huh?”
“When did you ever read the instruction manual?”
It was a fair point.
Taking a breath, Jack nodded. Daniel was right, of course, there was only one way to do this and that was head first. He stepped up onto the platform, then stopped and turned to the Wraith at his shoulder. “Just out of curiosity,” he said, “what happened to the last guy who did this job?”
The Wraith’s only answer was a snarl.
“Right,” Jack said. “I figured.” He took a final moment to ready himself, and then sat down carefully. Immediately the chair moved, reclining and tilting his feet up. “Hey, you didn’t tell me it was a La-Z-Boy…”
Nobody laughed.
“Jack,” Daniel said tensely, coming to stand next to the chair. “You need to put your hands on these pads.”
Jack glanced down to see that the arms ended two glowing circular pads. He touched one with a tentative finger—it was cool, gel-like. A little gross. Making a face, he put his whole hand on the pad, then his other hand on the other one. At first nothing happened, and then… everything.
It was like his mind had expanded to encompass the entire city, as if he could see and hear it all—the vastness of it, the emptiness, the wrongness of the Wraith incursion. Every beating heart in the city was his to hear: Wraith and human. And, yes, there were humans here, cocooned and waiting to be fed upon. His mind recoiled from them, from the sense of their suffering, from the damage the Wraith had done. System upon system he saw truncated, rerouted, and the city trying to heal itself like a wound scabbing over an infection. And questions, a thousand questions bombarded him from all directions, peppering his mind: alerts, warnings, rerouting suggestions, and aborted protocols. It was like the whole city, left leaderless for years, was asking for help, for instructions.
And Jack realized Daniel was right—he’d felt something like this mental overload before, when his brain had been overwritten by the Ancient database on P3R-272. Atlantis might not be biological, but there was no doubt in Jack’s mind that it was somehow alive and that it recognized him as its master. It’s savior, even. And what it was asking to do was get rid of the Wraith, to clean itself of the violent incursion. Because the Wraith hadn’t just come in and set up house, they’d dug deep into the city’s systems to circumvent whatever protocols the Ancients had left behind to defend it from the Wraith. And the city was hurting.
“Is it working, human?”
Although Jack’s eyes were closed he could sense the looming presence of the Wraith close to his shoulder. He smiled and opened his eyes. To his surprise, the space above his head was swimming with light, a graphic representation of the images with which the city had filled his mind. “Yes,” he said, watching the surround-sound HUD with fascination. “It’s working real well.”
“Then launch,” the Wraith said. “Make the city fly.”
“Just give me a minute. It’s complex.”
And then he looked up at Daniel and caught his eye. He tried to convey, Get ready. Daniel’s subtle nod, the way he backed away from the chair, told him he understood.
Sinking down to embrace the city, he closed his eyes and began to reroute containment and purification systems toward the room in which he sat. He knew he was clumsy, still finding his way, but there was no time for subtlety; in some peripheral corner of his mind, he could already see the Wraith cruiser engaging Hecate’s ship. He had to take control of Atlantis and he had to do it now.
Seal the door, he said and felt something shiver under his skin. As if from far away he heard a static hum, a startled exclamation as the force shield closed over the doorway into the room.
“What have you done?” the Wraith snarled.
Jack’s eyes flew open and his fist jammed up as the Wraith lunged for him. His blow caught it in the eye and the Wraith reeled back, hand to its face and its stunner skittering across the floor.
Daniel dived for it, rolled to his feet and fired. The Wraith staggered and Daniel fired again, and again, until it folded to its knees and went down. He fired, once more, into its back as the thing lay still.
Through the force shield, the other Wraith stared at them, impotent and full of rage. Reinforcements were probably already on the way and Jack didn’t know how long that force shield would hold against a concerted Wraith assault.
Breathless, Daniel turned to him. His eyes were wide behind his glasses. “Now what?”
Sinking back into the chair, Jack closed his eyes and said, “Now we see what this thing can do.”
Chapter 17
Arbella — 2098
As a call to arms, it was not the rousing speech that Teal’c had seen in the movies of the Tau’ri. It was not met with rapturous applause or unanimous support. Some of the crowd catcalled and heckled as the president addressed them from the steps that led down from his residence, but all of them listened. And it was with his closing statement that Gunnison Jones secured the loyalty of his people.
“We must rally and, yes, we must fight. Because too much has been taken from us. Too much has already been lost, and we cannot stand by and watch as the blood of our people is spilled indiscriminately. This is a fight, not for Arbella, not for Earth. But for humanity. And if it is to survive, humanity must reclaim its home.”
In the end, they were pledged five-hundred troops made up mainly of CMF personnel, though it was heartening to see the members of the security force step up to volun
teer. But they were too green and untrained. Even with General Bailey’s robust training of her CMF forces, their lack of battle experience was concerning. But it was what they had and it would be enough to achieve their goal—securing the Earth’s Stargate.
With a sense of trepidation, in the early morning light, Teal’c and Rya’c led their warriors up to the Stargate complex, ready to join the battle for Earth. Teal’c knew that his hurried briefing in Laketown could not possibly prepare these people for the awful reality of the Wraith—nor the awful reality of war. They would learn in the heat of battle and he knew that many of those who followed him to this world that was foreign to them would bleed their life blood into its soil.
But as it turned out, it was not the Wraith who posed the most immediate threat.
It was Rya’c who spotted the body first, sprawled on the red-dirt in front of the narrow bridge that led to the plateau on which the Stargate complex stood. He turned. “Father?”
“I see it.” Teal’c gestured for the others to halt behind him. The body had not there when they left the complex less than two hours ago. Bailey, looking over his shoulder, drew her weapon and stepped in front of President Jones. Teal’c approached the body, taking note of the bullet wounds in its back—this man had been shot while running away. Two fingers to the neck confirmed what was already obvious and, gently, Teal’c set down his staff weapon to roll the corpse over. It was the man they’d encountered earlier—David Frey—who had thought he was safer hiding in the empty base.
“Step back, Jaffa,” came a voice from the darkness of the complex’s doorway.
“You have no hope of escaping here, Agent Yuma,” he replied, without looking up. As slowly as he could, he began inching his hand toward his staff weapon.
“Karin, what are you doing?” Jones pushed forward, ignoring Bailey’s protests and shrugging off her attempts to pull him back.
Yuma swung to face him, taking in the troops who stood at his back. There were more than enough people to overpower her, but the narrow walkway meant a bottleneck, and she could easily do much damage before she was restrained. “I see you’ve lost your mind, Mr. President. Pandering to the whim of a vocal minority.”
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