“Yes. But it is only now that I understand his reply, that we must all return to the ways of Dalera. I thought he was giving his blessing for such actions. In fact, he was stating the only truth that matters.”
This Station was becoming a makeshift hospital as well. The lady they’d met in the markets, the one Lisera called an apothecary, had taken refuge there when the warriors kicked everyone out of Sanctuary Hall to make room for incoming evacuees. Aiden had left Lisera with most of the supplies they’d recovered, to help the apothecary treat the injured as best she could. Apparently the local equivalent of doctors were hard to come by, although word had gone out for any healers to make their way there.
“I don’t think it was wise to leave Lisera to be cared for only by warriors and merchants,” Yann said as they walked. “I should have stayed with her.”
Great. Aiden felt so much better. Not that he would have been all that comfortable with Yann staying behind, either. Lousy choices all around. “Yeah, well, we need you to round up the rest of your rebel pals and make sure they’re protected.”
Yann spun around to face him. “Less than twenty of those that I knew partook of the potion before Balzar’s men wrested it from them.”
That made Aiden pause. “I thought Ushat took care of Balzar?”
“Ushat and his warriors killed only to defend themselves and the Chosen. Gat and many of the chiefs were killed, but Balzar is a coward. He would have run and hidden in the sewers.”
“So the dozen Genes we found hiding inside the transports near the bridges are probably all we’re going to find.” The men had thrown away their recently acquired Shields, and it had taken some convincing to get eight of them to go with the warriors to the Stations that the Major had identified, and for the others to accept new Shields and help in the evacuation of villages. They’d become a little more cooperative once it was apparent that the panic in the streets was beginning to settle down. Word was spreading that the Atlanteans had a plan that could save everyone. Instead of killing each other, the mobs patrolling the streets began to focus their aggression on making sure that the pilots of downed Darts didn’t live long enough to become a problem.
Being with Yann, who carried a Shield, meant that Aiden wasn’t getting spooked out by the usual Wraith tactics. Still, while moving around the Citadel between the transports and the Stations, they’d stumbled across several desiccated bodies. Not every Wraith was being dispatched. Just as troubling, not everyone in the Citadel was setting aside their differences. There was a lot of deep-seated animosity in this place, generations’ worth of resentment that, having been ignited, weren’t about to be extinguished by a common cause. Teyla was right. When people lost everything and everyone they’d ever cared for, long-term planning didn’t enter into the picture. For many, the short-term goal wasn’t survival but reprisal.
Aiden thought about the de facto government that had developed in this place, and wondered what would replace it if the society survived. Political leadership, in any of its forms, had never really wowed him. He’d found the military’s clear and unequivocal chain of command an easier structure to accept. You did as you were told, and you expected those under you to do as you told them. That was the underlying code that made everything work and guaranteed that others would be watching your six just as you watched theirs.
“Look out!” Ushat shouted, knocking Aiden out of the path of an airborne axe flying from the shadows of an alleyway.
The axe’s owner was a guy who smelled like the cell that Aiden and Teyla had recently inhabited. Suddenly, he, Yann, Ushat, and the two warriors with them were surrounded by a mob of about fifteen Daleran men. Surrounding them was a bunch of women who looked like refugees from the Salem witch trials, egging them on. “Kill the Chosen for failing to protect us! Butcher their warriors. Behead them all!”
Rodney cursed as he slipped over yet one more jagged piece of prehistoric shale. According to Artos or Amos or whatever his name was, a multitude of tiny animals lay trapped within the layers of the ancient marine bed. Fossils. He was talking about fossils to Viking engineers. “You do realize that blackwater—oil—is composed entirely of countless billions of small animals that perished here several million years ago?”
“You mean, even before the time of the Ancestors?”
Before he snapped an ‘of course’, Rodney realized that it was not inconceivable that the Ancients had actually inhabited the planet for millions of years. He settled on a curt “Probably,” and concentrated on finding a path through the rock while trying not to slice his ankles open any more than he already had.
The point where the river divided came into view, and Artos paused. “There.”
There indeed. What the man meant to convey with that word, Rodney surmised, was that they were once again screwed.
The wreckage of two Darts, probably the ones they’d heard earlier, had plowed into the cliff overlooking the entrance to the North Channel. The impact and ensuing self-destruct sequence had collapsed most of the cliff face into the waterway. And wasn’t that just one more reason to hate those soulless creatures with the heat of a supernova?
Artos’s gaze flitted back and forth between Rodney and the North Channel. “It is not completely impassable,” he said, hesitant. “Perhaps the blackwater will still light.”
“Now is a singularly bad time to try relying on optimism.” There was some water getting past, true, but it was mostly at depth. Only a thin layer of oil trickled over the top. “The blackwater layer needs to be several millimeters thick to even ignite, let alone give us the sustained burn that we’ll need.” Recognizing belatedly that a millimeter was a foreign concept to these people, Rodney held up his thumb and forefinger at an approximate distance to explain.
The group of engineers traded despondent glances. It was evident to all that they couldn’t possibly clear enough of the wreckage from the channel in time to do any good. Even if they could, the momentum of the river was firmly on the southern side now, and it wouldn’t be easily or rapidly diverted. Time to shift gears once again. Trouble was, Rodney was running out of gears.
“This is getting a little old,” Aiden muttered. The first few times they’d been confronted by mobs, he’d managed to scatter them by taking a page from the Major’s book and firing a short round from his P-90 into the ground or over their heads. But this gang wasn’t backing down.
Behind him, Ushat blew a couple of short notes on his horn. While Aiden would have given a lot for a working radio, the horns had proved to be surprisingly efficient, using a set of calls that the Major had described as a simplified Morse Code.
The present signal was one Aiden now recognized as ‘under attack’. The response was immediate. They were only half a block from what had become their adopted Command Center, the City Hall-type place with all the maps. About twenty warriors appeared at one end of the alley. A batch of Teyla’s new ‘recruits’, mostly fishermen, builders and blacksmiths whom she was helping prepare for the ambush, appeared from the other end. Before the attackers had a chance to vanish back into the sewers, Teyla signaled the rookies to pounce on them with well-placed nets. Two who tried to escape down a narrow alley were brought down by bolas.
“Wow.” Aiden grinned, lowered his weapon and smiled approvingly at Teyla and the recruits. “Nice work.”
“They have learned to wait until given the order to strike.” Ushat looked impressed as well. “That is strong work for untrained warriors.”
Yann leveled a hard stare on him. “Unlike the ‘trained’ warriors, those of us who live outside the Citadel have been fighting the Wraith for weeks now.”
Well, there went that team-spirit moment. Aiden opened his mouth to head off the coming argument, but was interrupted by another warning call from the nearby Station. The sound abruptly halted.
Yann’s expression darkened. “Lisera!”
Wordlessly, they charged toward the building.
Arriving only minutes after the aborted signal, they
found the place had been plunged even deeper into chaos than before. The bodies of the apothecary and the three warriors were strewn across the floor, hacked into pieces. Lisera’s terrified screams sounded from above, and Aiden felt a momentary surge of relief. The screams told him that she was still alive.
With surprising agility given the amount of armor he’d taken to wearing, Yann bounded up the stairs. Teyla was right on his heels. Ushat turned to his men with a grim command. “Search the building for those who have done this.” Receiving a chest-thumping salute in acknowledgement, he followed Aiden up the steps.
When they neared the top, Yann showed no sign of slowing down. “Hold it!” Aiden hissed. The merchant’s eyes dropped to Aiden’s weapon, which he’d already brought to bear. For once, Yann actually listened and came to a halt, his features conflicted as Lisera’s hysterical screams continued. Those weren’t screams of pain, though, but rather—
Teyla must have recognized it at the same moment, because she ran ahead of Aiden. Rounding the corner into the apartment, he saw Balzar and a trio of seriously ugly brutes. They’d pinned Lisera to the bed, leaving no question as to their intent.
Before Aiden could stop him, Yann went for Balzar at full speed and laid him out with an NFL-caliber tackle. The other three dropped Lisera and spun toward their new adversaries. “Stop!” Aiden yelled, not surprised when they ignored him and picked up their axes. A warning round from his P-90 went into the ceiling, but that only served to incite them further. The Marine didn’t hesitate before putting two bullets in each man’s chest, felling them almost like dominoes.
He hated having to do that, but there wasn’t time to reflect on how bad the situation was, because Balzar was clearly getting the better of Yann. Ushat took care of it with the blunt end of his halberd, stepping into the motion with enough force to cripple the chief. Literally. Aiden knew the sound of breaking bones.
Scrambling to cover herself, Lisera’s breaths were coming in short, frantic gasps. Teyla gathered the tattered clothes and knelt beside the distraught girl, handing over her own jacket as well.
From the floor, Balzar jabbed a meaty finger at Yann’s Shield and spewed a string of words at him that could only have been curses. Yann glanced at Lisera to confirm that she was all right, then kicked at Balzar’s ribs, eliciting a howl.
“What have you done with the rest of the Gene potion?” demanded the merchant.
“You lied!” Balzar roared, spitting blood. “The potion does not work. I threw it to the rats.”
The loss hit Aiden with a gut-wrenching sense of despair. As he watched Lisera tremble in Teyla’s soothing embrace, he had to clamp down hard on the temptation to put a bullet in Balzar’s head. Twelve Genes. That was all he and Yann had been able to find. The Major had talked a good story in front of the engineers, but Aiden had seen the look in his eyes. They’d barely have enough Genes to protect the Citadel. And unless McKay’s half-assed plan worked, the Wraith would be climbing over the eastern wall in a matter of hours.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“There’s got to be a way to divert it.” Rodney stood with his hands on his hips, watching the oil slurp uselessly at the protrusions of rock and bits of Wraith Dart, before it veered off down the South Channel. “We don’t need to force the entire volume of water north, just the oil on the surface.”
The engineers nodded agreeably, which, while a pleasant change to some of his fellow scientists on Atlantis, wasn’t exactly contributing to a solution. He racked his brain. What they needed was a boom, some kind of floating barrier. More than one, preferably. If they could haul something like that across the entrance to the South Channel, it would force the oil to flow north while allowing the majority of the water to continue south.
This was an industrial town. There had to be something lying around that they could co-opt. A series of boats or barges would be ideal, but he’d be willing to settle for anything that floated while staying partially submerged, was rigid but flexible, and could extend across the width of the channel. Oh, and something that was at least as thick as, say, his thigh.
How could that possibly be too much to ask?
He started scanning the area for a suitable item. Artos frowned. “What do you seek?”
Good question. Vindication? Some kind of payment on his karmic debt? Not that he believed in that sort of thing. “We need to stretch something across the river that’ll divert the blackwater. Are there barges on the river anywhere?”
Comprehension was swift, but the engineer’s shoulders slumped. “There were once wooden rafts used in cleaning the bridges and weirs of blackwater, but they have fallen into disrepair.”
Another sign of the times. Still, it gave Rodney an idea. “What about wooden poles?” He drummed his fingers against one of the nearby pine-looking trees. “Didn’t I see a stack of these near the foundry? All we have to do is fasten them together end to end. Short metal hooks and eyes would do. The current will force the whole structure to curve, which will close up the gaps between the logs.”
“There are logs here.” One of the Nemst engineers pointed to what looked like a long, open work shed. “Cut and being readied for the building of houses.”
A warrior growled in contempt. “You people of Nemst. You know it violates Dalera’s laws to cut trees from this place.”
“And is it not also Dalera’s law that the warriors are to patrol outside the Citadel?”
“Whoa, whoa!” Mediator was one of the few roles in which Rodney did not excel. “You want to stand here and argue or help me save your enchanting little civilization? Generations of your kind haven’t been terribly successful in resolving that dispute, but if you think you can pull it off in a couple of hours, then by all means, go for it.”
The practical-minded engineer broke the tension. “We will need to take one end of such a contraption to the far side of the South Channel, to the shores of the Citadel. How can this be done?”
No boats, apparently. Directing a tight but tolerant smile at the belligerent warrior, Rodney replied. “Someone will have to swim it across.”
“Who among you can swim?” demanded the warrior.
Every man there shook his head. Oh, crap. Rodney’s smile faltered, and he stared across the oil-covered waterway. Didn’t that just figure. Swallowing back a new rush of apprehension, he reluctantly raised his hand.
“I swear on Dalera’s name that I had no knowledge of this.” Ushat stood stoically at attention before John.
“You mean you were close to Kesun all these years and you never once touched his Shield?” There was something a little weird about the way he’d worded that. Maybe that was why the warrior frowned in confusion. “Not even tempted? Y’know, just a little tap, just to see?”
Ushat responded with a look that plainly questioned John’s sanity. “It is against our laws.”
“The Shields were sacred, Major,” Teyla explained. At least he supposed Teyla thought she was explaining, but it seemed kind of hard to believe. Still, at this point none of them needed to be reminded of the power of faith.
“The only reason he caught it, sir,” Ford added, “was because Balzar was going psycho, shouting and screaming at Yann that we were all dead anyway, so why not have a little…” The Lieutenant’s voice trailed off.
John got the picture. He was just relieved to know that Lisera was okay. Positioning her in the Station had seemed like a good idea, and it still was, but maybe it was time they moved their entire Command Center into the same building. Protected from the Darts, it would offer them their best vantage point during the coming assault, and it could, with well-placed warriors, be readily defended from roaming mobs.
“Balzar withdrew the inactive Shield from his pocket,” Teyla continued, “and threw it at Yann.”
“Who ducked,” Ford finished with a broad grin. “It was just a natural reflex that Ushat caught it. And that’s when it started glowing.”
Looking at the warrior, John could sympathize. He remembered e
xactly how he’d felt when he’d sat in that screwball chair in Antarctica. Except he’d understood that it was a random gene. Ushat’s entire belief structure had already undergone a severe pounding in the last few days, but this latest incident took a left turn into the bizarre.
For once, the bizarre was a good thing. Every minute John spent playing General was another minute that he couldn’t be operating the transport. Currently they had only six people, himself included, to help evacuate villages. It was also fast becoming obvious that they needed a lot more than eight Genes in the Stations to deter the Darts from all sections of the Citadel. The damned Wraith seemed to almost enjoy playing aerial dodgem in order to make their culling runs across the city. Come morning, or when the Wraith attacks took a sharp upturn, presumably signaling the arrival of the hive ship, he’d have to order the villages abandoned and all Genes to man the Stations and perimeter of the Citadel. That would force the Wraith to cull only the outlying villages, or to attack the fortified walls on foot. Or both. Either way, an awful lot of people were going to die.
“This could explain why some Darts were crashing in the Citadel even after Yann’s rebel Genes ditched their Shields,” ventured Ford.
“People were ransacking the supplies of Shields when the Enclave was destroyed,” Teyla added. “Then many people do indeed possess the gene.”
That was when the penny dropped. John took a good look at Ushat. He could have been Lisera’s big brother. The familial connection to Kesun, who probably had been in his fifties, was now obvious. It seemed Kesun had been doing a little gene therapy of his own. He must have realized years earlier that the Chosen were a dying breed. Caught between an entrenched set of religious laws and a genuine desire to help his people, Kesun had depended on his absolute faith in Dalera, and taken the same path that the Ancient had forged ten thousand years earlier. He’d no doubt been waiting for the elderly Chosen to die off before reintroducing the ritual of touching the Shields. Then Ushat, Lisera, and who knew how many others could be revealed as long-lost descendants. It must have sorely tested Kesun’s faith when the Wraith turned up fifty years ahead of schedule.
Stargate Atlantis: The Chosen (Stargate Atlantis) Page 21