Stargate Atlantis: The Chosen (Stargate Atlantis)

by Whitelaw, Sonny

  The rebirth of Atlantis had kindled that hope until it had become something more. Now, it was a belief. True, the people of Earth were not the Ancestors. Her confidence had been tarnished by moments of disillusionment, even anger, at the newcomers’ arrogance. Nevertheless, that arrogance also gave them something that had been driven from her people when the Ancestors had departed—the will to stand and fight, and not to run and hide in the face of overwhelming odds.

  Now, on Dalera, the Wraith had been brought to ground. Now, she too would stand and fight.

  Gasps of fear quickly turned into shrill cries to abandon their position.

  “No!” Teyla shouted. “Alone, you cannot hope to flee the scourge of the Wraith. Do not let their numbers daunt you. This plan will work, but only if we stand together!”

  “And if the blackwater fails to burn as you say?” shouted one.

  “Then the Wraith will not come our way. You may choose to tremble among the leaves while I will return to the Citadel to fight for the lives of your loved ones.”

  On the ground, people paused in their preparations of the nets, and began to climb the trees to better see for themselves. “You have but a few hours to complete the traps,” she called down to them. “And you will see more when they approach closer.”

  There was little response. Teyla grabbed the thick rope attached to the branch and swiftly lowered herself to the forest floor. “Here.” She grasped one end of a large net. “I will take this.” Several tense seconds passed until a boy of about thirteen clasped the other end and began hauling it up a nearby tree. His movements galvanized everyone back into action.

  Climbing to a low branch, Teyla loosely fastened her corner of the net with a slipknot, then looked around. Throughout the forest, large nets were being lifted to the lower boughs, while others were buried beneath fallen leaves, and spring-loaded traps set in place.

  Movement and a glint of steel told her that Ushat and his men were returning from checking the ambush line. Good. The warrior had been gone for some time and the only other Gene was some distance away. The sight of the glowing Shield around Ushat’s neck brought more mutters of relief from those working on the ground.

  Teyla swung down from the branch to land lightly on her feet. “You have seen?”

  Ushat smiled grimly. “Many hundreds of our people are returning to the villages on the far side of Quickweed Lake. When the Genes with them hand their Shields to those who are not Genes, the Wraith will see a great feast awaiting them.” He looked around and nodded his approval. “Once the Wraith learn that their passage through this forest is fraught with danger, crossing the Lake will appear their best course.”

  “That is what we hope,” Teyla replied.

  From above them, a cry went up. “It burns. The river burns—and the Wraith with them!”

  This time, Teyla made no move to stop the Dalerans climbing the trees to witness for themselves. Indeed, she immediately pulled herself aloft and stared across the eastern fields. The sight was mesmerizing and more than satisfying. The entire eastern portion of South Channel was a blazing inferno. Lines of fiery serpents began to appear through the far fields, where the oil had flowed along irrigation channels. From this distance it was not possible to make out individuals, but she could see many smaller flames moving about, like the wicks of a hundred candles. Having stumbled into the oil, some of the Wraith had been set ablaze. The gruesome creatures had extraordinary regenerative properties, but it was doubtful if those caught in the fields of oil could survive such a sustained conflagration. The three vast columns of Wraith began to fall back.

  Cries of joy traveled across the treetops, and Teyla felt a measure of relief. The battle to come would not be easy, but the people of Dalera were now empowered by the sight before them.

  Ushat touched her arm. She took his Shield from him, and he signaled the warrior below to blow the trumpet. Reply calls from the Citadel told them that the EM fields close to North Bridge and the western end of the wall had also been disabled. Just before the roiling black smoke obscured her vision, she noticed the nearest column of Wraith headed in their direction.

  “They come!” cried a lookout. At the speed the Wraith were moving, the first waves would soon be upon them—far sooner than Teyla had planned.

  Awareness came in the form of a pounding headache, and hands grabbing at his shoulder, dragging him along. Then someone else was lifting his legs. A low moan sounded, and it took him a moment to realize that it had originated from him. He wasn’t sure what felt worse: the throbbing pain behind his eyes, or the gelatinous sensation of nausea. The explosive noise of a P-90 was like a dagger through his brain. Before he could stop himself, he threw up.

  Someone, or more specifically someone who sounded like Ford, cursed and unceremoniously dropped him. Another report from the P-90, and then everything abruptly went quiet.

  “Damn it, Rodney, rise and shine.”

  “Careful, sir. He’s probably gonna throw up again.”

  “Only if you keep making such blindingly astute observations, Lieutenant.” Rodney slowly sat up, but Sheppard wasted no time in dragging him further into the inn. “Whoa, whoa! Could I have half a second to get oriented here?”

  “Not until I’m sure that Wraith is dead,” Sheppard replied with a distinct absence of sympathy.

  Rodney looked around. What were they doing inside the inn? The last thing he remembered was being shoved off the path and headfirst into the outside wall by—“Artos?”

  The two officers exchanged a glance. Ford explained. “All we saw was you on the ground outside the entrance of the inn, and a Wraith heading straight for you. There was nobody else around.”

  A sharp pang of remorse caught Rodney unprepared. He wasn’t even completely sure of the man’s name, but he knew with wrenching clarity that Artos had saved his life—again.

  The events of this unending night and of the days that had come before it crashed down on him in full force, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He’d had occasions to fear for his life before, but coming to Atlantis had forced him to contemplate his own mortality in a way that he’d never even considered back on Earth. Out here they’d faced death head-on and repeatedly. By now he should have become habituated to it, but he hadn’t. He doubted that he ever would.

  When he opened his eyes again, Sheppard was watching him with something that Rodney was surprised to see involved a measure of concern. “Take it easy,” warned the Major. “If hitting the wall of the inn was what knocked you out, you might have a concussion.” He crouched and activated the light on his P-90 to examine Rodney’s pupils.

  With a hiss of pain, Rodney batted away the torch. “The nausea’s more likely related to my having ingested several barrels of not-so light crude oil than a concussion,” he informed them snappishly. “Quit hovering. I’ll be fine.” May be if he repeated it it a few more times, he’d start to believe it himself. I’ll be fine. No problems here. Certainly not traumatized in the slightest.

  The door to the inn banged open and two of Ushat’s warriors walked in. Rodney winced when he noticed their dripping axes. “The creature is dead—of that we made certain,” announced one of the men.

  Standing up hadn’t been the most intelligent move, but it was a far cry from being dragged around the place. “What’s happening?” Rodney demanded.

  “I think he was the pilot of a Dart that crashed when we turned up,” Ford supplied. “He didn’t look too good even before we shot him.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. I meant the situation with the oil.” Now that he was on his feet, he actually felt considerably better. Squinting against the daylight filtering in through the windows, Rodney stared at Sheppard, waiting for a reply.

  The Major changed the clip of his weapon and then slapped his hand against the panel by the transport doors. “Worked just fine. Ford, take McKay back to the Command Center.”

  “Hey! Hang on a minute. What’s the big hurry?”

  The doors opened, and the Maj
or stepped in, turned around and smiled at him. “I have an ambush to attend. Ford will bring you up to speed.”

  “Wait!” Rodney took a step toward him. “What about the oil? Has anyone checked it now that it’s daylight? If the rate of flow diminishes significantly, we may have to consider blowing out the lower section of the cliff face.”

  “Take Ford, the bugler, and warriors with you.” Sheppard pulled a spare Shield out of his pack and tossed it to Rodney. “I understand you lost the last one.”

  “Sir?” Ford called, moving to stop him. “Wouldn’t it be better if I—”

  Reaching to the panel on the inside of the transport, Sheppard replied, “What is it with this place? Can’t anyone accept orders without a philosophical debate?”

  “After your good influence, can you possibly be surprised?” Rodney quipped, but the doors had already closed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Stay here,” John ordered.

  “We wish to fight!” declared Peryn. He led a contingent of around two dozen kids, mostly blacksmith’s apprentices but some as young as nine or ten who’d arrived in the transport just ahead of John. Between them, they’d cobbled together an eclectic collection of old axes, broken swords and chest armor made from battered metal plates.

  “I need you here to help protect the village,” John replied, running to the entrance of the inn. When the kids followed him outside, he turned to face the oldest. “Okay, Peryn, here’s the deal. I don’t know for sure if we’ll be able to force all of the Wraith into Quickweed Lake. If it turns out that we can’t, we’re only going to be able to hold them off for so long before we have to fall back here. When that happens, we’ll need you to help operate the transport to the Citadel.”

  Fingering the Shield around his neck, Peryn’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded. “I understand.”

  John wasn’t entirely convinced that he did, but there was no time for a discussion. He needed to catch up with Teyla, Ushat and Yann’s group in the forest.

  Adjusting his stride to a long, easy gait, he decided that at least it made a nice change from jogging around the piers on Atlantis—until he heard the sounds of distant fighting. What the hell? The Wraith shouldn’t have arrived that fast, unless… He swallowed a rush of dread and increased his pace. Unless the western flank of the Wraith forces double-timed it. Once again—crap.

  A rocky outcrop blocked his direct path. On the far side, he could hear what sounded like heavy hand-to-hand combat. Turning north, he ran for several hundred yards toward a large clearing. The path veered east again just as he reached it. Good thing, too. Partially obscured by smoke, Quickweed Lake really did look like an open meadow.

  Reaching the scene of the battle, John paused. The forest was a mass of clanking steel and bodies engaged in a form of combat not seen on Earth for half a millennium—unless he counted Middle Earth and battles against Sauron. Even with a trained eye, it was hard to get a handle on exactly what was happening. Sunlight glinted off steel pikes and axes as the Dalerans hacked into the writhing nets suspended from the trees. All around, as far as John could see, nets were descending from the branches onto the advancing Wraith. But considerably more Wraith were getting through and attacking the Dalerans without mercy. They weren’t taking captives; they were feeding.

  John raised his weapon when he sighted a masked Wraith leaning over someone. The guy’s breastplate had been torn off, and the Wraith lifted a hand to bury it in his victim’s chest. Carefully taking aim, John sent a short burst into the stringyhaired head.

  Something abruptly pushed him aside, simultaneously wrenching the P-90 from his grasp. He was slammed back into a tree, but recovered in time to parry the incoming elbow, knocking the mask from a super-size Wraith with tangled gray dreadlocks. Its lips parted to display an orthodontist’s nightmare. Barely dodging a second punch to his head and a third to his hip, it came as no surprise to John that the thing was employing the same fighting technique as Teyla.

  Acting on instinct, he lunged out to recover his weapon. Blow after blow came swift and heavy, and he was reminded of Teyla’s warning. He had to conserve his strength. There were a dozen more Wraith where this one came from, all anxious to literally take his life.

  Without warning, he was yanked backward by his vest and thrown to the ground, where the stock of his P-90 dug into his ribs. A hand descending toward his chest was interrupted when a nearby explosion knocked his attacker off its feet. A rain of Wraith chunks and armor followed. Mortally wounded, the things were blowing themselves—and their Daleran attackers —to pieces. Which meant that winning the fight against them could prove to be just as fatal as losing.

  John barely had time to look up before another Wraith was on him. He ducked the armor-covered hand swinging toward his head and brought the gun up to block the next set of flashing claws. If they got out of this, he owed Teyla an apology and a promise never to avoid a sparring session again, masculine pride be damned.

  The business end of an axe head suddenly appeared from inside the chest of his opponent, damaging the self-destruct mechanism. More enraged than shocked, the Wraith twisted around to face its new adversary. John caught a brief flash of Yann’s determined face before a second blade swung from a new direction, taking the Wraith’s head clean off.

  Behind the collapsing Wraith, John saw Ushat. He opened his mouth to say thanks, but somewhere to his left, another small explosion was followed by a third, and then a fourth. Shifting his grip on his P-90, John reached for the knife strapped to his belt. The force of the next explosion hit him in the back, and sent him flying—directly into the path of a snarling Wraith.

  “I’m just saying that we’ll need to make the holes bigger.”

  Rodney tossed a haughty look in Ford’s direction. “I’m well aware that altering the shape of C-4 will somewhat reduce its explosive potential, Lieutenant. I’ve forgotten more about blowing things up than you’ll ever know. And since I don’t normally forget anything of crucial importance—”

  “Okay, okay!” Ford replied in exasperation.

  It still struck Rodney as remarkable how linear most members of the military were in their thinking. Slap a block of C-4 on something, shove a J-2 cap in it, and bang. Yet, placed properly, even with the slightly reduced explosive potential that came as a result of flattening out the C-4, the damage effected could be significantly greater when using the explosive in exactly the right location—like the deep fractures of the shale cliff. “My entire reasoning for placing it here,” Rodney explained with what he thought was an undue degree of patience, “is to avoid igniting the oil.”

  “I thought you had no idea how long the oil would flow?”

  “Precisely. Which is why I want a radio controlled detonation. The lookouts on West Bridge can observe Black Hill. If the oil flow declines significantly, it will be impossible for the fire to sustain itself. The lookouts can signal us. We come back here, I hand you my Shield, we wait for our Wraith friends to notice, and…kaboom.”

  A blur of motion caught Teyla’s eye, and she swung around with her fighting staves. This time, she was fortunate, for the attacking Wraith was badly burned and did not appear to be regenerating as it should. And yet that very fact seemed to feed its desperation.

  Teyla had been pacing herself, accepting each blow that she could not deflect, and retaliating in moves that were as familiar to her as breathing. Still, the battle was not going well. There were simply too many Wraith entering the forest. Either she had underestimated their numbers, or the villages across Quickweed Lake were not providing sufficient enticement for the remainder of their adversary’s forces to head in that direction.

  All of the nets had now been used, and while countless Wraith lay dead, many Dalerans had also fallen. The increasing number of nearby explosions left the defenders with no choice. They would have to fall back to the transport village, escape into the Citadel and ignite the remainder of North Channel—but not until she vanquished the creature before her.


  Eyes blazing, a foul stench coming from the burned flesh across its mouth, her opponent abruptly changed tactics and lunged at her—only to be jerked off balance by Major Sheppard, who had been thrown against it by the force of a nearby explosion. He recovered in time to grasp a fistful of the Wraith’s remaining locks of hair and dispatch the creature with a knife.

  “Fall back!” Sheppard yelled. “Fall back to the transport!”

  The horn blew. The answering call did not respond for several seconds. When it came, it was weak, as if the bugler were injured. As well he might be. The defending Daleran forces were stretched thinly across the ground between Quickweed Lake and North Bridge. There was no way to say for certain how many had succumbed.

  A gust of wind through the trees brushed away the smoke, and it seemed to Teyla that the forest moved with a seething carpet of Wraith. Behind her, Major Sheppard uttered a low curse. She glanced around. The fight had somehow driven the defenders back to where the edges of the lake curved south. Their path to the village was now cut off.

  “Give the signal,” Ushat told the bugler. “Order the Genes at the transport not to wait for us.”

  “What?” Yann demanded, looking around at the exhausted and bloodied combatants with them. “You would sacrifice us?”

  “No,” Major Sheppard replied even as he ran along the edge of the lake. “He’s trying not to sacrifice everyone else. Besides, we’re not done for yet.”

  “And you shall not be,” came a voice from behind a stand of trees. A tall boy with fair hair and cheeks still bearing the pink flush of youth led a group of children out to meet them.

  “Peryn!” Sheppard’s voice was filled with surprise, and frustration. “I’m pretty sure I told you to wait in the village.”